It seems as if the New York Times has been raiding my old file of research--so many articles tangentially related to The Book of Dead Birds have been appearing lately. The latest is this article on the "sea women" of South Korea (my character Helen's mother could have been one of the women profiled; I half expected to see her there on the page, even though the only pages she exists on are my own.) If I was really smart, I would find a way to create a marketing opportunity out of this, but I find myself just smiling as I read the article, and thinking "Cool. This is a world I know."