Earlene Fowler: As with all authors, my personal beliefs definitely affect what I write, though I work hard at not being preachy. I am a Christian who believes sex ideally belongs in a married relationship. I say ideally because I'm also realistic. Not every person who has sex in my books is going to be married because that just doesn't reflect reality. But for my main characters, I wanted to show an ideal, though their relationship, both sexual and emotional, is often very rocky which is another reality of life.

Benni and Gabe's physical love life is a reflection of who they are, who they were and who they are going to be. I don't put love scenes in just for the heck of it. They must have some integral part to the story, which is why their love scenes aren't always pretty or cute. A good example is the love scene in Goose in the Pond. Sex is an incredibly complex issue that I don't feel should be trivialized as it is in a lot of fiction.

Crescent Blues: Do you feel you direct the actions of your characters or are your characters driving you?

Earlene Fowler: At the beginning of the series, I definitely felt more in control, which still surprises me. The more books I write about Benni and Gabe, the less control I seem to have over what they say and do. Maybe it's because they have become fuller characters, more "real" with each book. So now I really have to pay attention to what they are telling me. And with each book, circumstances happen to my characters that would change them if they were real people, so I try to allow that show in their actions.

Crescent Blues: Have you experienced any unusual challenges as a result of attempting a fictional blended family composed of such disparate elements of California culture? How much do you feel Benni and Gabe's relationship reflects today's California?

Earlene Fowler: I think blended families of all kinds are a permanent part of our society in a way they've never been before in American history. And California is one of the states in the forefront of that change with the blending of not only step-families but step-families consisting of more than one culture. It's not easy (and often impossible) getting along with people who share your background and culture, so trying to see another culture's point of view is a real challenge.

Since I grew up in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood, I am comfortable with that culture, but I'm always aware that it is a different culture. I tried to reflect some of Benni's difficulty in understanding another culture in Mariner's Compass when she thought her problems with Gabe had only to do with him being a police officer (which is another culture in and of itself). Her Hispanic neighbor, Rich, gently pointed out how Gabe's Mexican background affected how he treated her as much as his police background.

I'm trying to be sensitive in how I portray cultures other than my own, to portray them realistically, but also change some of the falsehoods that have been perpetuated about them. I've been told by many of my female Hispanic fans (and also by police officer's wives) that I've gotten [Gabe's] character down perfectly. Since my husband is neither Hispanic nor a police officer, I consider their approval a wonderful compliment. I have a great deal of respect and love for the Hispanic culture, as well as for police officers, and it's important to me to reflect that in my writing.

Crescent Blues: Are Gabriel, Gramma Dove or any of your other major characters based on real people? If so, could you tell us something about their models and what prompted you to weave them into the series?

Earlene Fowler: Gabe's part Hispanic, part Anglo background was created because two of my nieces are bi-cultural. Their mother was a friend of mine when I worked in Los Angeles when I was 18. I introduced her to my husband's brother at my wedding and they were married a year later. I take partial credit for those two girls being born! I've been fascinated watching them grow up with a foot in each culture -- their Hispanic mother's in East Los Angeles and their Anglo father's Kansas-born midwestern family. They truly do represent the reality of many of today's families and I think, even with the difficulties of being bicultural, it can only be a good thing for our society. I'm very proud of them and, yes, they are gorgeous, just like Gabe!

Gramma Dove is loosely based on four women -- my Arkansas gramma, my Kansas gramma, my Arkansas mother and my Kansas mother-in-law. All were rural farm women who grew up in extreme poverty. My Arkansas grandma was a sharecropper's wife; my Kansas grandma was a migrant worker for a good part of her early adulthood. Their tenacity and toughness were definitely used in creating Dove. Dove is a gentler, more loving person than any of them though. Poverty, unlike a lot of fiction written by people who've never experienced it, is not often an ennobling thing. It more often causes a great deal of anger and bitterness, which I chose not to show in Dove's character. She is the mother/grandmother I wished I'd had. Writing can often help the writer and also the reader relive things in a different, better way.

Crescent Blues: The setting of your series, San Celina, Calif., seems like paradise, particularly to those of us preparing for a bone-chilling winter. Was San Celina based on a real town, and if so, can you give us directions?

Earlene Fowler: San Celina is loosely based on San Luis Obispo, a semi-rural college town two hours north of Santa Barbara. I fell in love with the town when my sister lived in the area for eight years. It is a beautiful rural part of California that is rapidly being overtaken by corporate America. Its ranching culture is slowly being sold out to tract housing and box stores. It's sad, but inevitable, I'm afraid. It's a Catch-22 situation. People move there to get away from Los Angeles and San Francisco, but by moving up there, they destroy the very thing they moved up there for. I have to say it does have the best weather I've ever seen anywhere, which is probably why so many people want to retire there.

Crescent Blues: What happens next for Benni Harper and Gabe Ortiz? When is the next book scheduled to hit the bookstores?

Earlene Fowler: Arkansas Traveler is my next book and it comes out in April 2001 at the same time Seven Sisters comes out in paperback. In Arkansas Traveler most of the regular characters go back to Sugartree, Ark., a small town fifty miles north of Little Rock. They are attending a church homecoming, which is traditionally a week-long celebration where everyone who was ever a member of the church comes back. Benni and her family get involved in a mayoral race between a racist incumbent mayor and Amen Tolliver, an African-American nurse and childhood friend of Benny and her cousin Emory. Racism and intermarriage are big themes in this book. I've always wanted to write a southern novel, and this is my attempt at it.

Crescent Blues: Could you tell us a little bit about the quilt pattern?

Earlene Fowler: Arkansas Traveler was a difficult pattern to find any history on. Some patterns have very distinct, easily-researched histories, while other have stories that have been lost through time.

Not much is known about the Arkansas Traveler pattern. It is a fairly old pattern most likely dated by quilt historians through its name. "Arkansas Traveler" was a popular folk song and skit during the mid-19th century. The pattern is also known as Secret Drawer, Travel Star, Spools and Cowboy Star. I used this pattern in my book Kansas Troubles so this is the second time it's turned up in my fiction.

Crescent Blues: Of all the quilt patterns you've seen through the years, do you have any particular favorite?

Earlene Fowler: Just from a visual aspect, I've always liked the Schoolhouse pattern. I like the way the simple houses line up neatly across the quilt. I also like Crown of Thorns, both for its beautifully pieced complexity and its spiritual connotations. Broken Star has always intrigued me both as a title and a pattern. I also love Jacob's Ladder because the pattern, which is supposed to mimic steps to heaven, is so hopeful and because I loved singing that song when I was a girl.

Crescent Blues: How did you get your start as a published mystery writer?

Earlene Fowler: I wrote short stories for ten years with no publishing success. All the encouragement I received those ten years was one unsigned notation on a rejection letter saying, "Nice moments" and winning third place in a community college poetry contest. When I was 37, I decided to attempt a novel.

I had finished most of the book when I took a novel writing workshop at a local junior college. It was being taught by a sabbatical replacement teacher, a local writer named Jo-Ann Mapson. I turned in my first chapter. She liked it and asked to read the whole manuscript. When she read it she offered to send it to her agent in New York. I sent a short cover letter with my idea for a mystery series with quilt patterns as titles. Her agent accepted me as a client and a couple of weeks later had sold Fool's Puzzle and two unwritten sequels to Putnam-Berkley for one of the lead titles of their new hardback mystery line, Prime Crime.

It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right book. So much of this business depends on luck, fate, God's will...whatever you want to call it. It is very arbitrary. I feel extremely fortunate and blessed. I tell aspiring writers to keep honing their skills and not give up, because you don't know when that moment will present itself. I had no idea when I walked into that junior college classroom that it would change my life.

Crescent Blues: How have your writing habits or goals changed since your first published book? Is it harder or easier to start a new book these days?

Earlene Fowler: They haven't changed very much at all. My best writing days are ones when my husband goes off to work and I sit down at my computer. I treat the physical act of writing just like one of the office jobs I held for so many years. I have not allowed myself to become too self-indulgent either physically or emotionally with this often scary and mysterious career of making up stories for the public to read. I think I sensed from the beginning if I really thought about how volatile this industry is, how arbitrary, how vulnerable a writer is when something is sent out there to be judged by everyone, I would scare myself into a writing block.

I don't find it any harder to start a new book than when I wrote my first one. The biggest difference between writing my first and eighth book is that I understand the process better. I don't panic as quickly when a few weeks go by when the writing isn't going well. I know now that there are times like that with every book so I don't worry quite as much. I actually am excited at the beginning of each book...the possibilities, the hope that this is the one -- whatever that means. It's that thing that all writers strive for, that feeling of discovery that keeps us coming back to the well with our empty buckets.

What I do find harder with each book is the travel, promoting and speaking schedule. It makes it a lot harder to write better books because I seem to have less time each year to actually write. I'm going to work on cutting back on my public schedule because I don't want my writing to suffer.

Crescent Blues: The themes of childlessness, barrenness, abandoned, abused or orphaned children figure into every Benni Harper book. What gives those themes such resonance for you and your character?

Earlene Fowler - Continued