I am a lifelong fan of mysteries and, now retired from a career with an academic press, I'm turning my attention to writing mysteries. I read so many of them, I was just sure I could write one—or more. Skeleton in a Dead Space is the first in a projected series, featuring Kelly O'Connell, real estate agent and renovation expert in the historic Fairmount neighborhood on the south side of Fort Worth. A sequel, No Neighborhood for Old Women, is in draft form, and ideas for a third volume are rattling around in my head.

I've been a writer since I was ten or twelve and distinctly remember submitting a story to Seventeen when I was about that age. But my first book, After Pa Was Shot, a young-adult novel, was published in 1978. Since then I've written fiction and nonfiction for young adults, adults, and even second graders. Give me a topic and I'll write about it, but my main focus for years was women of the American West, with novels about Jessie Benton Frémont, Elizabeth Bacon (Mrs. George Armstrong) Custer, Lucille Mulhall, the first woman roper, and Etta Place and the Sundance Kid.