Lately... Greg Iles for his varied innovative plots, Lee Childs for his protagonist development, Orson Scott Card for his original ideas.

What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Same as in life — just be persistent, keep plugging, try to get better.

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?

Yep, it's www.monkeytrap.us. It has the first chapter of Monkey Trap, a couple of PowerPoint synopses of the story, and a full-length screenplay (the story was designed from the ground up to be a movie). The first chapter of Hiding Hand also is on the website. No blog as yet, Lee and I currently are trying to figure out the most effective/efficient method.

Do you have another book on the works? Would you like to tell readers about your current or future projects?

Monkey Trap is the first of a trilogy about evolution of a new human species. Book 2 — Hiding Hand — is scheduled for publication in August 2008. Book 3 — Splintered Light — is in draft.

Anything else you’d like to say about yourself or your work?

There’s an incredible amount of good writing out there these days in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, much more than 20 or 30 years ago. So it’s a tougher market to break into... but on the other hand, the creative process has always been its own reward and one that’s worth pursuing.

When you read SF novels today, what are the plots/themes which seem to come up again and again?

Less emphasis on outer space and more on inner space — how the protagonist deals with the challenge, fails, grows, overcomes. Also, I think there’s much more of a (blurry) crossover between sci-fi and fantasy... you see it in mystical/spiritual themes that are either explicit to many stories or serve as their underpinnings.

What is the greatest challenge when writing science fiction?

Deepening characters is by far the toughest nut for me to crack. On the science side, it’s sometimes difficult to judge how much hard science detail to put into a story to get to that suspension-of-disbelief point where you’ve got the readers sucked in — too much tech set up and you lose certain readers, not enough and other readers will get irritated by the lack of plausibility. Lee and I go back and forth on that issue a fair amount.

Thanks for stopping by! It was a pleasure to have you here!