3.SR: Was there an event or individual from your childhood that served to inspire or plant a seed for you to become a writer?
KM: No, sorry to say, there wasn't a helpful mentoring adult anywhere on my young horizon. I was a thoroughly neglected, unwanted child. But, apparently with a little homing pigeon DNA, I found the public library and the art museum on my own at about age ten. Each was a vast kingdom of endless treasures and I was stunned that I could come and go as I pleased at both. I haunted them like a relentless little ghost, often just making it out the front door as it was being closed for the night.
4.SR: What were some of your favorite books when you were a child? Young adult?
KM: I loved fairy tales and spent hours devouring the luscious illustrations of Arthur Rackham. Arabian Nights was another great favorite. I was spellbound by biographies, usually of larger-than-life women and their lives within their own cultures, which led to a lifelong love of history. So, as I grew I graduated from fantasy to an obvious search for strong role models. And yes, of course, I loved everything written by Mark Twain, and The Secret Garden, Heidi and The Little Princess. By my teens I had been secretly writing my own small stories for some time and by then was also an addicted, eclectic reader and actually read just about anything, fiction and nonfiction, that crossed my path.
5.SR: "Those ragged memories prowling like bony cats through the back alleys of my mind, were getting harder to hang on to." Who is Memphis Riley? What was the inspiration for "John Riley's Daughter"?
KM: I didn't choose Memphis Riley; she chose me. So many authors say that about their characters, it's almost become a cliche. But it's true for Memphis and me. She simply appeared one day while I was working on something else and took over. I lovingly think of her as my poster child for the thematic content that saturates a lot of my writing--kids trying to cope with the messes adults have made of their young lives.
6.SR: What is your writing day like?
KM: I'm not one of these have to write so many pages or words each day or my sky will fall in. I mull a lot, I read, I do artwork, and I suppose you could say I let my characters wander around through my mind, ad libbing their own scenarios and bios until they seem formed and layered enough to hold together as I begin
