Something Ken Hite was writing about here got me thinking.

While I think there's something to be said for grounding a story in an actual location, so you can get the feel of a real place, he referred to the "no-place" of Poe–and that struck a chord with me.

Reason being is that I've always had it as part of my setup that the location the story was taking place was not really something to be considered much. It's obvious that Mystics takes place in the southern United States. Overkill is set in the same community (which fewer people have caught on to that I would have suspected–there's a bunch of links between various stories that people haven't caught yet).

None of my other stories jump out at me about being distinct about their location. This is by design. If you pay attention to the clues I give about the geographical location of Macomber County, it becomes patently clear that if you're looking at a map of the United States, there's no place where Macomber County could be that would match up with all the clues. I think there's three or four specific things, mentioned in passing, and I picked them specifically to make that happen.

The reason it's important to me, I think, that the location remain ambiguous is that I don't want it to be important. While some of the subject matter of Mystics makes it relevant specifically to the southern U.S., I want it to be relevant everywhere as well. So I try to keep it being grounded some place and instead want it to be potentially next door to you, wherever you are.