The Possibility Of Bringing White-collar Criminals To

Write What You Care About.

I Had Wanted To Write Ghost Country For A Long Time, But It Wouldn't Work.

It's Hard For Me To Believe That Just My Words On The Page Are Enough. I Ought To Be Out Physically Keeping Abortion Safe And Legal, Restoring The Fourth Amendment, Getting Clean Water Back Into Kentucky Since The Bush Administration Has Allowed Strip Miners To Fill It All Up With Slag. The List Is Endless. Bring It Down. Make It Small. Make It One Thing That You Can Do. It's Very Hard For Me To Remember That.

I Was Reading Raymond Chandler Very Much With The Feminist Eye. In Six Of His Seven Novels, It's The Woman Who Presents Herself In A Sexual Way, Who Is The Main Bad Person. And Then You Start Reading More Fiction, Whether Crime Fiction Or Straight Fiction, It's Just Bad Girls Trying To Make Good Boys Do Bad Things, Going All The Way Back To Adam And Eve. The Woman That Thou Gavest Me Made Me Do It, Adam Says To God.

I Began Wanting To Create A Detective Who Really Turned The Tables On That Image Of Women, To Know That You Could Have A Sex Life And Not Be A Bad Person. You Could Have A Sex Life And Still Solve Your Own Problems. It Was Eight Years From When I Started Having The Fantasy That I Was Going To Create Such A Detective To When I Actually Sat Down And Came Up With V. I. Warshawski. It Was A Long, Slow Journey To Come To A Writing Voice And Do That Character.