Diana Gabaldon

Eclectic. There's music-for-listening-to, which includes everything from Johnny Cash to Beethoven (a little heavier on the classical end ), music-for-driving-to (classic rock n' roll – Sirius Radio is a great invention), and music-for-writing-to (the scores to all three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies are right up there, though I wrote most of VOYAGER to Orff's "Carmina Burana"). Then there are particular favorites that overlap, in that I begin listening to the music strictly to listen, but like it so much that I go on listening, over and over, and gradually segue into writing because of the emotional effect. These would include the ever-haunting Loreena McKennit, Chris Stuart and Backcountry (their latest, "Angels of Mineral Springs" is just great), and Sting's "Songs From the Labyrinth, " which is a collection/interpretation of John Dowland's early 17th century madrigal compositions—strange, but charming.

Oh, you gotta be kidding. I read all the time, and have since I was three years old. Given that I'm now 55 , I have hundreds of favorites, and add more continuously. Some recent ones that come to mind would be Ariana Franklin's MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH (a 12th-century forensic thriller), anything at all by Reginald Hill (though I'm especially fond of his Dalziel and Pascoe series), and Phil Rickman's weird-but-charming supernatural mysteries starring the Reverend Merrily Watkins—Anglican vicar and widowed mother of an obnoxious-but-bright teenaged daughter…and the official Exorcist for the Diocese of Hereford., See above. Though you could add in P.F. Chisholm (aka Patricia Finney), P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy L. Sayers, John D. MacDonald, Sharyn McCrumb, and seventy or eighty others.

I don't watch a lot of movies. Loved all the Pirates of the Caribbean films, though!

Never watch TV. I do watch series on DVD, though: have seen the first two seasons of "House, " which is just brilliant, and (so far) the first season of "Rome, " which is terrific.

Other than what? Oh, reading? Well, I dig in my garden quite a bit, and I knit. Whittle, from time to time. I'm a good cook, but I regard that as survival, not an interest.

I'm a Libertarian, for what that's worth. And yes, I do own a gun. Also a concealed carry permit for it.

Just colleges and universities, though I did used to write free-lance comic book scripts for Walt Disney (and have written freelance for most of the computer-press publications).

Northern Arizona University – B.S., Zoology, 1973, UCSD, Scripps Insitution of Oceanography – M.S., Marine Biology, 1975, NAU - Ph.D., Ecology, 1978, NAU – Doctor of Humane Letters, 2007 (this was an honorary degree; my guess is that they figured it was the best way of getting a free commencement speaker. No, really, it was very nice of them.)