In regards to novel writing, I treat every experience as research. My novel inspired by West Indian folklore was very based in the primary research of my going to Trinidad for eight months. I do not think I could embark on this novel without that research. Interviews (formal and informal), coursework at one of the national universities, daily observations and journals all helped me formulate my research as did a concerted effort to explore new parts of the country. I wrote letters to scholars and journalists writing on the topic of my interest. Most of my secondary research was done at the university as most West Indian academic discourse is done at this university. Now that I am back I am still organizing the large amounts of research I undertook while in Trinidad which can be a overwhelming process.

My love for folklore relates to my feelings towards history and research—that storytelling is history and that personal experience is a very important part of research. This is why I began research on the topics of the emphasis of salt in folklore (something I saw a lot of in my time in Trinidad and in reading Trinidadian folktales). Similarly, a large component of magical realism and literature based in folklore takes a lot of research from Shamanism—a religion that I found difficult to research while in Trinidad or even at home in NYC. I was excited to see the vast amount of research at the library here at Virginia Tech as well as journal articles and e-books on Google Scholar, Addison, and Summon. Like both Jess Cohen and Dana, I prefer hard copies of articles to on-line resources. I enjoy physically going to the library and finding older books, speaking to librarians, scholars, or people with different types of expertise in their prospective fields. A decent on-line resource to get an initial feel for folklore is called: http://www.monstropedia.org/. Like Mike Roche, I am also a fan ofhttp://www.google.com/, http://scholar.google.com/, , and Google Books.