Like most I suspect, I go through cycles with reading, wearing out genres like my favorite sweater of the season. Right now I'm reading a lot of books on building and gardening, but in general fantasy and literary fiction get most of my time. I am always drawn to magical realism. I'm writing a book about a girl who leaves home disguised as her brother, trains in his place to be an Ambassador in colonizing efforts, encounters a new continent, home to a subset of citizens known for "earth-speaking, " and learns she may have more in common with them than the people who sent her. Obviously it's all more complicated but who wants all the details in a paragraph? I love writing. I love words and stringing them together in unexpected and exciting ways. Writing is the closest I'll get to Hogwarts and Middle Earth and Earthsea and when I write I sometimes think I could work a spell or two if I wanted.