You mention you’re a lifelong book lover — what were the books or authors that first made you want to write?

I can pinpoint the exact moment the spark lit: an airport bookstore in 2001. I picked up Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You and ended up laughing so hard I was given the side eye from some passengers. Before that, I hadn’t realized that ‘funny’ could be a high art form. Hiaasen showed me that you could tackle serious themes like greed, corruption and human nature with a sharp, comedic edge. That book taught me that prose doesn’t have to be “solemn” to be significant.