T.M. Baumgartner

Playful and a bit nerdy. My original degree is in electrical engineering, and then 15 years later I went back to school to become a veterinarian, so any time I can sprinkle some of that knowledge in my work, I'll throw a sentence in. (That expensive education needs to be used for something!)

I tend to write characters (especially women) who are older and have a bit of experience under their belts because those are characters I find interesting. The protagonists usually win in the end, though they might get a little banged up along the way. Mostly I write books that you can read if you wake up stressed in the middle of the night.

I was a military brat, but most of my childhood was spent in California. I tend to set my real-world-with-a-few-changes books near California, probably because I'm used to the vegetation and weather and that seeps into my writing.

Like a lot of kids, I read everything I could get my hands on, especially if it had a horse on the cover. This was pre-internet, so I read whatever the library had — The Black Stallion, Nancy Drew and then later all the Andre Norton books, which introduced me to the amazing worlds of science fiction and fantasy. I was the kid who got in trouble in class because I was reading a book instead of paying attention to what we were supposed to be doing.

Either Ann Leckie or Martha Wells. Both of them write such amazing characters with full emotional arcs.

(Random order because I can't pick favorites!)

Ann Leckie, Martha Wells, Steve Miller & Sharon Lee, Minette Walters, Tansy Rayner Roberts

"All Systems Red" by Martha Wells. Murderbot resonates with a lot of people, and I'm always delighted (and a little jealous) when I find someone who hasn't heard of the series yet.

Probably Nessa Cunningham from The Portal Storms series (which starts with All Gremlins Great & Small). She's a veterinarian who is trying to pick up the pieces after the entire world has changed. Nessa gets all my memories of working in vet med and also my tendency to deal with personal problems by ignoring them and focusing on work. (Both of us know that's not really healthy.)

This changes constantly, because each book is my favorite when I release it. Right now, that means "Theoretical Magic" which is urban fantasy. Except I can never follow directions, so the non-magical main character (who has a PhD in magic theory) analyzes evidence for the magical version of the FBI. And the vampires don't actually drink blood. (See, I told you I can't follow directions!)

My office has pink walls. Like... Pepto Bismol pink. It's kind of hideous, really. And that's actually really freeing, because if anyone ever buys my house, the very first thing they're going to do is repaint this room, so I write stuff all over the walls with no guilt.

This includes: the correct tenses of lie & lay (which I finally accepted that I would never successfully memorize), random writing advice ("plant a red herring right after each clue"; "the more space you give an emotional moment on the page, the bigger the emotion is going to feel to the reader"), and my version of inspirational quotes ("Bigger idiots than me have done it!").

Other than that, my office often has an Alaskan husky snoring on his bed behind me, and depending on the time of year, there may be one or more litters of foster kittens in the room as well.

My *ideal* reading nook would be a comfortable chair in a quiet room. But honestly, once I start reading, I stop noticing where I am. That's the joy of reading, right?