I’ve always been fascinated by the unusual, even as a child, from the first time I encountered Ripley’s Believe It or Not pages in the comic books I read. I was a devout fan of The Twilight Zone; I devoured fairytales and later books of science fiction. I especially wanted to understand the power of the human mind. Was there such a thing as telekinesis? Could one be so pious as to create stigmata? I wanted to understand how thinking and behavior were affected, manipulated, and even distorted, by the environment, by propaganda, by childhood trauma, and by tragic events. I wanted to know how seemingly normal people’s thinking could be so dark and deviant they became dangerous to themselves or others. So I studied psychology and the science of behavior. I worked in state hospitals for people with emotional, mental, and physical disabilities. I taught in juvenile detention and served in homes and classrooms for children and youth with multiple, severe disabilities. I was the only woman working on a ward for men deemed “criminally insane.” I learned to respect a multitude of diverse realities and very real challenges. I learned that sometimes behavior that is considered deranged is the mind’s only reasonable response to unimaginable circumstances. The fascination never left me, so I began to envision my own scenarios, especially those of a normal person facing extraordinary situations. How would a single mother cope when living in a haunted house? What if a man suddenly discovered he could shapeshift? What if you were forced to look into the eyes of absolute evil? I soon discovered that being an author provides a socially acceptable rationale for daydreaming. And writing allows me to build and extend the connections between unreasonable threats and defensible human reactions, to work out how the average person survives the unbelievable. Welcome to the meanderings of my mind.