In 1994, when she was a young book editor, Laura Anne Gilman took the plunge into murky writing waters, submitting her first story to a professional market. A sale followed almost immediately. She didn't make another fiction sale for more than a year, which taught her humility and patience and the fine art of perseverance. In 2004, she made the move to full-time writer with the publication of her first novel, Staying Dead. Her latest novel is Flesh and Fire: Book One of the Vineart War, to be published by Pocket next Tuesday, October 13. She lives in New York City. Learn more about her at lauraannegilman.net.

On your nightstand now: 

Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen and Cherie Priest's Not Flesh nor Feathers. I like to alternate fiction and nonfiction to keep my brain limber. I admit, though, I tend to take a while reading the books on my nightstand. Usually by the time I fall into bed, my brain wants nothing more challenging than the Late Late Show. As a former history major, popular history (and sometimes UNpopular history) is like catnip.
 
Favorite book when you were a child: 

Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander. I loved the entire series, but I took that one out of the library so many times the librarians must have thought I was fixated or obsessed. I have my own copy now, autographed by Alexander the year before his death. Still love it. There's something so stripped down but still complex about the story. Adult and YA writers alike should be required to read it.

Your top five authors: 

Randomly Peter Beagle, Graham Joyce, Nora Roberts, Dorothy Sayers, Isaac Bashevis Singer. All for totally different reasons, but it comes down to giving me a shiver of physical anticipation while I'm reading. I have a very physical reaction to good writing, so a writer who makes me want to put the book down and move--because I'm so energized by their language and storytelling--that's an author who stays on my shelf.

Book you've faked reading: 

Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I tend not to fake reading many books because life's too short to pretend to have read something you didn't, especially if there was a reason you stopped reading. "It bored me" is a legitimate reason not to keep reading. Life's too short to read/eat/watch something you don't enjoy. But man, Asimov. The Foundation trilogy. It's tough to admit you couldn't make it through that one, when you're working in the SF genre.  I may have to fall on my sword, now.

Book you're an evangelist for: 

A Fine and Private Place by Peter Beagle. I think that anyone and everyone in a relationship should read and reread that book a regular basis, just to remind yourself of how fragile and how precious our own delusions are.

Book you've bought for the cover: 

None. I may pick up a book because the cover intrigues, but I'm sold on the copy/page browse. If I love the cover, I might go looking for the art, though. The SF/F field has some exceptional artists who know how to balance good cover requirements with striking fine art.

Book that changed your life: 

Oh. So many changed my direction at the moment I read them, it's hard to choose . . . but maybe Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers. I was a teenager, recovering from mono, and was given the Sayers omnibus by my aunt, while I was stuck in bed. I don't think I'd ever read a mystery before, other than some Three Detectives/Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys when I was a kid, except to poke my nose into an Agatha Christie, and I hadn't been impressed. But I read these, and I discovered that it wasn't all timetables and lists and "As You Know, Joe" dialogue, but personalities and psychology. It wasn't just about who and when, but why. "Why" hooked me. Still does.

Favorite line from a book:

I'd be lying if I said I could narrow it down to five, much less one. It's probably something from Sayers, though.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Laurie King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice. I was working as an editor when the it came out and still remember the total and astonished joy I got out of discovering that book, the feeling of "oh no she didn't" turning into "oh, she did" and then "wow, she DID." I wanted badly for the company I worked for to pick up the paperback rights, but it didn't happen.