Crime fiction can be pretty neatly divided into two categories: soft and hard. I can think of a few other things that can also be so divided, but let's stick with crime fiction for the moment. I write soft, soft and funny. And dude, if you think genre fiction gets no respect, try writing genre fiction where your hero gets cotton candy stuck to her crotch.

Hard - or noir (they had to go and be all French-y about it) - gets most of the reviews, most of the awards and most of the respect. They're angsty and dark and very emo. It's all serial killers and pedophilia up in there.

There's also a stereotype about the people who write the soft stuff, so while we're on the subject, a list of things I am not:

I could not knit you a scarf if your life depended on it.

I do not own a cat.

I do not qualify for the senior discount at Denny's.

I have never taken a scrapbooking class.

I do not live in Iowa, make Jell-o salads or belong to a booster club of any sort.

This is not to say the softies and the hardies don't socialize. Some of my dearest friends are dark and twisted. It's just that when the lights come on, polite society expects us to jump apart and disentangle our braces like a bunch of horny teenagers caught at a make-out party.

So imagine my joy when one of the biggest hardies and one of the biggest softies came out of the genre closet as pals and interviewed each other.

Behold, Janet Evanovich and Michael Connelly play spin the bottle.