Goodreads asked Mia Smantz:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Mia Smantz I got the idea for my most recent book, The Cardinal Bird, from my husband. We had a long, in-depth discussion about what would be the coolest superpower to have and why. We have the most random conversations! We both thought the coolest superpower would be to speak any language that we wanted. We had traveled recently to Europe, and it must've been on our minds about how much easier life would've been if we'd been able to communicate better.

I was also inspired by my older brother. He was a real-life hacker--getting into trouble with phone companies from the age of 7 up. The FBI would tap our phones because he'd hacked into the local company so many times--just for fun. I'm pretty sure that phone company had our mom's phone on speed-dial. It got to the point where she would recognize the number calling her and go, "Really? Again?" Luckily the director was nice about it and would just say, "I'm afraid so."

Thus Callie Jensen was born--a shy, smart, passionate girl based off of two manly men.

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