1) So -- you write professional fiction?  Will you tell me your publishing name so I can find your books?

Simple answer: no. :-)   I chose to write anonymously in fanfic, so I write anonymously.  Nothing personal.  The most I'll say is that I write literary mainstream, and of the fanfic stories I've done, "A Motel Six on Highway Five, After the Forty-Nines" comes closest to what I write in "real life."
 

2) I have a fanfic story that I've been working on.  Will you beta read it for me?

No.  Again, nothing personal.  It's simply a matter of time.  I have too many irons in the fire, and too many stories to write.  Therefore, I have a limited number of people for whom I'll edit and it's maxed out.

3) Just what IS "frybread" anyway?

It's a form of flatbread that's deep-fat fried, very popular in native kitchens (and at pow-wows).  One can eat it as a side to Indian chili or corn soup, one can use it as a base for Indian tacos, or one can sprinkle it with powdered sugar to make a sweet treat, etc. -- use your imagination.  The basic recipe is very simple: 3 c. flour, 1.25 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp. dried milk + 1 1/3 c. warm water.  Mix well, separate into 8 balls, flatten with hands and pop in hot oil.  (Do not use olive oil.  You'll have very funny-tasting frybread!  Simple, cheap corn or veggie oil is best.  And the oil needs to be very hot or you'll wind up with half-cooked, greasy, inedible bread.)  You may add spices to the mix if you like.  There are other variations on the recipe, but that's more or less it.  This is not a low-fat food. (g)  As for what it should look like when you're done?  Here's a picture of Min's (sweet) frybread.

4) Is Minisinoo your real name (and how do you pronounce it)?

"Minisinoo" is a word in my native language that translates (roughly) "tried and proved."  It's not even properly a noun, but an adjective.  It's not my real native name, no.  When I first decided to write fanfic, I needed a pseudonym, and came up with that one as a bit of an inside joke (which probably amuses no one but me).  As a professional author, I suppose you could say I'm 'tried and proved.'  As for how to say it, the accent goes on the second syllable, so it's "mi-NI-si-noo" -- the /i/s are short, and the last syllable rhymes with 'few.'

5) Will you please write a story about James Marsden and Famke Janssen?

Absolutely not.  RPS -- real person stories -- squick me in a major way.  Jimmy Marsden and Famke Janssen are real people with real lives.  Their privacy should be respected.  I don't know a great deal about them, but I do know that Jimmy, at least, is married and has a son.  I write about CHARACTERS named Scott Summers and Jean Grey; they just happen to wear the faces of Marsden and Janssen.   Please don't confuse them with the actors.

6) In your fiction, Scott can sing and play bass.  In real life, James Marsden sings and plays guitar.  Did you do that on purpose?

No -- it was purely by accident!  I knew next to nothing about Marsden when I began writing Heyoka (where I first introduced Scott as a musician).  Serendipity.  It took a reader who was also a Marsden fan to tell me he was a musician, too.  I later heard Jimmy sing several times on Ally McBeal and he has a lovely voice, so NOW, yes, I have his voice in mind when I write Scott singing.  But not originally.  Incidentally, in comic canon, Dazzler tells Scott at one point that he has a good singing voice; he's suitably embarrassed.

Jimmy Singing "Glow" (from Gossip), for the curious.  (Be aware: this is a sizable MP3 file.)

7) You're an American Indian woman and so is Grace Kills-his-Horse.  Is Gracie your avatar?

No.  MOVIEVERSE JEAN is my "avatar," insofar as I have one.  Grace is based on a pair of Sioux sisters whom I know.  She's also a "type" of character whom I've used before in stories and novels.  But Gracie is quite different from me in several important aspects (not least, her temper).  It's easy to see a character's ethnicity, then the author's ethnicity, and assume a link.  That's a bad assumption.  Sometimes yes, Grace will verbalize Indian attitudes that I share.  But then, so do Victor Kills-his-Horse, Dani Elk River, and John Proudstar.  That's simply a matter of shared culture and experience.  "Write what you know."  But the character to whom I feel closest is probably movieverse Jean.
 

8) Have you ever considered writing for Marvel?

Not seriously.  I'd probably be a very BAD comicbook author because that's not the medium I'm used to.  Every genre and every medium has its own conventions and writing tricks.  I write literary mainstream.  Comic fiction is quite different.  I suspect, were I to write comic books, readers would find me "wordy." :-)  Moreoever, I'm used to writing adult fiction.  I'm not sure I'd deal well with the strictures of even PG writing.  Not every story I tell is suitable only for adults, of course, but I don't like being locked down that way.
 

9) What's your favorite of your own stories?

An actor friend of mine was once asked something similar (what film was his favorite), and he replied, "The one I'm working on next."  I'd have to say something similar.  You have to be invested in a story as you write it, or it's no good.  So I'm usually the most invested in whatever I'm working on currently, or the one I just finished.  Of those I've done previously, I used to say I didn't really have a favorite, but I can't say that anymore.  I think Special: the Genesis of Cyclops has become my own personal favorite.