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What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?
My father wrote the original A Woman’s World as a thought experiment about gender and power; my mother updated it after his death. After she passed in 2024, I returned to the world they built—but I wanted to ask what happens after the society succeeds. What does it look like seventy years after it “solved” the problem of male violence by eliminating male humanity? That’s where Zara and Fra Hotwell live.
If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of your book, what would they be?
Girls Just Want to Have Fun—played completely straight. That’s the world Zara wakes up in. The book is what happens when she starts to wonder what it costs.
What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?
I like anything having a scientific basis; in fact, the more likely it is to be true, the better. So, just like A Woman’s World, where the power to control people is absolutely plausible. And books addressing political issues like Animal Farm and 1984, published by my grandfather (Fred Warburg) for George Orwell. These are so relevant to our present-day situation that it is like reading our news stream. My Red, White, and Blue Land Series addresses those very issues.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
I have five in progress—including two sequels to the other books in this Humanity Series about the progeny of two cloners (from Cloner – Humanity) and about the next AI/human generation (from Optimized Humanity). The other three books relate to the use of power in society and are part of my Power Series, starting with Parallels—a conversation between a person in the 1930s and one in the 2025 time period. As for other authors, Margaret Atwood and Richard Dawkins—one for the speculative tradition, one for the science. Both for the way they make you question what you thought was settled.
What scene in your book was your favorite to write?
The first meeting between Nora, a junior researcher, and Jace, the unmodified male she’s been assigned to assess in Chapter 9. Writing it was a tightrope — the scene only works if the reader feels the same loss of professional footing that Nora does, but it also has to stay grounded in who these two people actually are rather than becoming pure heat. Keeping their hormones in check was harder than I expected.
Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)
I like to print out a first draft in a full book format so that I can easily see where I am going – usually that book is a total mess when I am finished with it. My first draft almost always needs a total rewrite. Reading on paper is a totally different read from reading on screen.
Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
Tell the truth, even when the cost is high. Especially then.
If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?
That the freedom we grant another person is a choice we make every day — and that comfort is one of the most seductive arguments a society can use to take that choice away. The gender flip is just the lens; the question underneath is the same one Orwell asked.
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