Because my father was attending Centenary College, in Shreveport, Louisiana, when I was born, I was born in the Shreveport hospital. My parents are from Texas and we returned home when I was two weeks old. Not being born on Texas soil was a source of great shame for me as I was growing up (my four sisters and brothers knew this and teased me constantly). We Texans love our state. I have now lived in every part of Texas, actually, in fourteen towns (my dad was a Methodist pastor). I love the mesas which start past Waco, driving west, the Hill Country, with its bluebonnets, the tiny Czech and German towns where you can find the most delicious kolaches, and the Davis Mountains, green rolling hills. Most of all; I love The Big Bend, bordering Mexico with Chihuahuan desert, with the rugged Chisos Mountains crowned with Ponderosa Pine, with the serpentine Rio Grande. I set "Scalp Mountain" and "Saint of the Burning Heart" in the Davis Mountains and The Big Bend. I called them something else, but that's where the heart of the books live, as does mine. Scalp was published in Feb. 2012, Saint in Feb. 2013 and "Del Norte" in Dec. 2013.