Dogs Give Us Something Just As We

I Began To Encounter Real-life Stories Of Dogs Protecting Their Wounded Or Dying Or Dead Handler... Or Dogs Refusing To Leave The Bodies Of The People They Were Bonded To, Sitting In Cemeteries For Days Or Sometimes Weeks. You Find These Stories Endlessly.

My Family Was All Police And Hard Hats At The Refineries; They Didn't Know What To Think About Me. So I Became A Closet Writer.

A Dog Could See Your Heart In Your Eyes, Budress Told Him, And Dogs Were Drawn To Our Hearts.

My Fiction Is Almost Always Inspired By A Character's Need Or Desire To Rise Above Him- Or Herself. No One Is Perfect And Some Of Us Have Much Adversity In Our Lives; It Is Those People Who Struggle To Rise Above Their Nature Or Background That I Find The Most Interesting And Heroic.

I Had A Big Akita, Yoshi, Who Was Fabulous. I Loved Him. We Lost Him When He Was 12, And I've Never Been Able To Replace Him. Normally, Most People Lose A Pet And Get Another And Keep Going On. But It Just Felt Wrong To Me; It Felt Disloyal.