Nobody relishes a risk, but Margaret Coel dared to take one.

She spent five years working on a manuscript she didn't know whether she could get published. "And if I did get it published, whether anyone would read it," she says.

But she was obsessed by Arapaho Chief Niwot and the slaughter of his people at the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864.

In her thirties with young children, Margaret already had a successful career as a journalist. She didn't have to take this gamble. But the story wouldn't let her go. So family vacations became trips to forts, battlegrounds, and trading sites.

Margaret published Chief Left Hand in the 80's and later launched into a new career as novelist/historian.

She's continued taking risks as she's written and contributed to more than twenty-five books that combine history and mystery, including her New York Times bestselling Wind River Series. She's won enough writing awards to collapse the wall of her study. And now she's released a novella, Man Found Dead in Park.

I studied Margaret's writing as I worked on my novel, so it was my pleasure to dine with her and meet the woman behind the stories.

What's she like? About the nicest person you could meet. So safe you'd never suspect the intrigues that spring from her mind as she wrestles with how the past intersects with the present.

It all started with a risk that turned into a lifetime adventure. Which makes me wonder whether I'm willing to open the door to whatever is tugging at me.

What about you?