I first heard about the "Nobel Sperm Bank" when I was a kid. When I started writing I thought it might be a great basis for a book. I wrote the first few pages about a child who has been raised as a "Nobel Child", not sure where I would be taking the story, and then started to research.

Nobel Genes was written long before The Genius Factory by David Plotz was published, but his wonderful series of articles in The Slate were available online and I was fascinated.

I was somewhat disappointed to find out that "Nobel Sperm Bank" was not exactly that because I had wanted my novel based on fact. I even considered scrapping the book.

But then I started wondering: What if my character reads these articles and finds out a "Nobel Sperm Bank" never quite existed?