I’m writing this in the Sierra Nevada foothills, about an hour from my home. I came up here for a few days to escape the chaos in my home: my husband is in the midst of remodeling our master bathroom. I’m hoping he’ll be mostly finished by the time I have to return.

But avoiding construction isn’t my only reason for coming up this way. I love this area. It’s beautiful, the slopes this time of year covered in fresh green, and with lots of wildlife I don’t see back home. Up here there are ravens instead of crows—one of them has been calling outside my windows—and I’ve often encountered deer who enjoy grazing on the nearby golf course. The history of this area fascinates me as well. This is the heart of gold rush country, where old mines and caves honeycomb the earth and where the old stories are endlessly colorful. The town I’m in right now was established as a mining camp in 1858; some of the original buildings still line the main street.

One of the best things about this area is that it inspires my stories. One of my bestselling books, Rattlesnake, is set in a fictional version of this town, and a few other stories are set at least partially around here. It just now occurs to me that two of those tales involve dragons, which I suppose makes sense given the local caves and proximity to gold.

While I enjoy cities, I often find rural areas more inspiring. Mountain towns, tiny desert outposts, little coastal villages… those are some of my favorite settings. I think maybe it’s because the people who live in those areas are interesting. Quirky people tend to settle in quirky places.

And there are so many details around here to amuse my muse. Not far from here, in downtown Sonora, there’s a bookshop/coffee place with the remains of a gold mine in the basement. In Columbia there’s a wonderful cemetery and a hotel where a ghost may or may not have once paid me a visit. A deep cavern near here—the largest in California—contained human remains dating back approximately 12,000 years. Also not far from here is Calaveras Big Trees State Park, a wonderful place with groves of giant sequoias (which I won’t be visiting this week because it’s still pretty snowy).

And of course Mark Twain hung out around here. Just a few miles from where I am now is the site where he spent the winter of 1864, and where he wrote his famous story about a jumping frog. Bret Harte also frequented the area. So I feel as if I’m in excellent literary company.

Are there particular locations that you find especially inspiring?

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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.

After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.

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