Hello, all! I hope everyone has enjoyed a safe and happy Pride! Last weekend was my city’s first in-person Pride celebration in three years. With more than 750,000 people—50K more than was expected—crowding the streets.

It is really starting to feel like life is getting back to normal, though I am keeping an eye out for a Covid spike with so many traveling in.

I was sadly unable to take part in Read Around the Rainbow in May—all the authors talked about their characters as teenagers, and I would have loved to talk about my twins, Christopher and Jonathan—but I hope that you had a chance to check in with the other authors!

This month’s RAtR topic is about whether we authors ever set our books where we live.

Personally, I always set my stories in places I’ve been and have an affection for. And many are set where I live. Not all of them—That Rat, Carter Janson is an art crime story set in the art and antiquities scene of Chicago, Illinois and The Death of Digby Catch is a murder mystery set in Cape Cod, Massachusetts because murder mysteries should always take place in New England—but most of my books take place in Columbus, Ohio.

I am Columbus born and raised, and even though I love to travel, I’m a big fan of my hometown. It helps that it’s very much a college town, home to one of the largest universities in the United States—my alma mater—as well as one of the oldest art and design colleges in the country—my husband’s alma mater—and that makes Columbus a wonderfully diverse city without it losing its small-city vibe.

Columbus is divided up into many little neighborhoods. And they all have their own flavor, which is wonderful for writing. There is the East Town Historic District, Victorian Village, Italian Village, and German Village where Findley Black and the Ghost of Printer’s Devil takes place, just to name a few. But most of my stories are set in the Short North, the city’s arts district.

The Short North is a place I’ve spent countless hours since I was old enough to drive, browsing the vintage clothing stores and music shops, and hitting the monthly Gallery Hop to check out all the artists. An event where, back in the day, it was easy for a bunch of underage kids dressed like vampires to swipe glasses of champagne and feel part of something special.

Um…not that I would ever do something so terrible! LOL

It’s where a twenty-one-year-old me got pierced in the backroom of a sex shop, and where my now husband bought my engagement ring.

It’s a place I love.

The first story I ever wrote—and you can tell!—Watching Elijah Fall takes place there. And, in my second story, Shiny Things—written for an anthology benefiting the Trevor Project—Vincent owns a gallery right on the main drag.

These stories eventually evolved into my Short North trope series that, as of this moment, includes two additional novellas.

Even Christopher from my supernatural series Cold Fingers owns an antique store in the Short North, and my House of Witches series takes place in an alternate reality version of the place where witches, shifters, and vampires rule, and humans are sad, lowly things.

Let’s be honest. We probably deserve it. LOL

So, yeah! I not only write about the place where I live, I write about it constantly! I do take some liberties, of course. Shop names change, parks and bars names too, and shifters own brothels, but needs must.

Make sure to check the other Read Around the Rainbow posts today to see who else writes stories that take place where they live or have lived. I’m curious if any of the other authors do the same as I do, and how those places help shape their fiction, so I’m eager to check them out myself!