Recently Mary and I answered The Dames' Dozen (questions that is) over at Dames of Dialog.

One of the six questions I ventured to respond to was:

Who or what has been the biggest influence in your writing career and why?

My wife Mary. Without her I wouldn't have a writing career. At least not a career that included fiction writing. For years I made sporadic and unsuccesful efforts to sell science fiction short stories, mostly because that was the genre I read growing up. I was familiar with the magazines. Never mind that I stopped reading much sf in my early twenties. After we were married Mary managed, with difficulty, to talk me into collaborating with her to turn a vague idea I'd had for a sort of locked room mystery into an actual story. Ideas, of course, are a dime a dozen. As far as the mechanics of writing a mystery went, presenting suspects, parceling out clues, I didn't have...well...a clue. So it was a learning process for me. Our first co-authored story, An Obo Mystery, set in Mongolia, appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Over the years I've learned more about writing mysteries but Mary remains the puzzle maven.

You can check out the eleven other questions and answers at the site.