I was born in Oakland, California but lived most of my life in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, Georgia. It's the South but not the Deep South. I'd say more than half the people I know are not from here. Even the Southern accent, which so often caricatures where I'm from, has been so diluted that I usually can't tell apart the people born here from the people who have been here for only a few years. 



I love stories about real life and real people, but once you've read enough of those stories, the real-life part starts to feel redundant. You almost always get the main character trying to overcome the burdens of society in all their different forms and worn-out conventions.



That's why I love genre fiction. We have so many changing expectations about genre, which always offers new ways to break those expectations. I feel like the best storytelling can take the craziness of a genre world and make the characters feel like your next-door neighbors.