E. Writes asked H.L. Burke:

How does your home state influence your writing? I'd love to hear! :-)

H.L. Burke Oregon (and to the extent the Pacific Northwest as a whole) does not (in my experience. There might be pockets of it I have avoided) have the sense of locational identity that a lot of places have (though we will loudly inform you that we are NOT Californians.). To the extent that I kind of look at regional pride with some degree of skepticism. Like, "Oh, cool, you're from 'A PLACE'. EVERYONE is from some place. Get over it." Maybe that has made my locations/cultures I write about comfortable more varied and less static, but that honestly probably has more to do with me being a military spouse than it does with Oregon.
I do think there is a degree of comfort with the weird and quirky in Oregon that you don't get in more homogenized areas. Sure you'll have small communities with a bit of an identity, but overall, you'll have heavy country/rural themed comfortably sitting next to a large sort of "hippie vibes" community then the rugged, sporty, outdoorsy people who are here for the hiking and water sports, a lot of hunters/fisherfolk but also some bridging-on-extreme nature advocates.
That said, the Pacific Northwest is naturally gorgeous. I like mountains, trees, geological formations, and it's not a mountain if there's not snow on top and at least some threat that it will blow up on you in the near future. I tend to write worlds that have those elements.

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