A Personal Tour Guide

Q: When it comes to creating a sense of place in your work, how do you do it? (Research and real places? Invention and fictional ones?) What’s worked for you, and what hasn’t?

-from Susan

The places that resonate most for me are the ones I can create most successfully. They're places I love, have explored, can see, taste, smell, hear. I may fictionalize them but they're not made up and don't rely on Google Earth or tourist brochures to live in my head. 

My characters demand the right w...