Head of technical services at a rural public library, Audrey Jo DeVillier sometimes dreams in MARC code. Destined to become a writer since third grade, she was held back by the idiom “write what you know.” Third graders really don’t know much. She has since driven cars over 140 mph, crashed a motorcycle head-on into a concrete wall, worked in the oilfields of South Louisiana, trained two dogs in three languages, eluded matrimony twice, and views writing about her dysfunctional family as both therapy and retribution. Once rendered homeless by Hurricane Gustav, she is now married to a mortgage and dreams of riding Route 66 on a motorcycle before she turns fifty. Distrustful of vegans, meteorologists and skinny chefs, she balances a low-carb diet with conspicuous consumption of daily caffeine, but indulges in oatmeal-raisin cookies only on rainy days.