I’ve been tagged by one of my favorite bloggers — Allergic Girl, who pens Please Don’t Pass the Nuts. Who can resist a game of blog tag? Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share seven random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

And so, here are seven random things about me.

1. I bring home a small statuette from wherever I travel. So far the collection includes replicas of an Easter Island moai, the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, one of the statues from Gaudi’s La Pedrera in Barcelona, and a carved stone llama from Pisac in Peru. When no statuette is available (say, in Bermuda or Chile), a fridge magnet will do. You can’t even see my fridge anymore.

2. I write crime fiction that terrifies some of my friends (my other friends refuse to read it anymore). The first short story I published was in Thuglit, which should tell you something. It’s called “Anniversary” and it’s included in the new anthology A Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. Want to read my latest published story? It’s called “Son of So Many Tears” and it’s in the latest Thuglit (click here to read it online). Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

3. I interned at Harper’s Magazine in the fall of 1995, and by some bizarre twist of fate, my face ended up on the cover of the February 1996 issue.

4. I’ve been involved in martial arts since I was eight years old. My training is mostly in karate (chito-ryu style), but lately I’ve been dabbling with krav maga and loving it.

5. My husband laughs at my taste in music, but I refuse to believe that disco is dead. Long live Donna Summer!

6. I once ghostwrote a nonfiction book for a very famous novelist. She was a delight to work with, but the overall experience with the book packager who put the deal together convinced me never to ghostwrite anything again.

7. I’m passionate about travel because it has transformed my life. I met my husband while on vacation in Italy, decided to quit my day job and become a full-time writer while visiting Thailand, and only worked up the nerve to start writing fiction after a trip to Prague.

Now here’s who I’m tagging:

Alison Stein Wellner at A Curious Mind
Claire Walter at Travel Babel
Ginger Warder at Traveling Food
Susan at Simply Gluten-Free
Rob and Diana at Celiac Food Reviews
Ann Douglas at The Mother of All Blogs
MotherSister Brooklyn
Crime writer Greg Bardsley at Chimichangas at Sunset

Yes, I know that’s more than seven, but they’re all good reads…