If you’ve ever wondered who killed Bambi’s mother, I know the answer.

It was my dad.

Even worse, her head now hangs in the breezeway that runs between my parents’ house and their garage. And if you think deer heads and breezeways don’t really go together, then clearly you’ve never met my father.

So, here are a few things you need to know about Raymond Ritter:

• He loves his wife, kids and dogs.

• He was as athletic in high school as I was dorky.

• He is the biggest Penn State football fan in existence.

• When he read my first mystery, DEATH NOTICE, in which a serial killer attempts to embalm his victims, his initial, shocked response was, “Where do you come up with stuff like that?”

• He has an unwavering moral compass.

• He’s probably the most decent, hard-working, sensible man I know, and my sister and I are better people because we were raised by him.

Oh, and he loves to kill things, drag them to a basement lair and then stuff them.

Yes, folks, my dad is a taxidermist. Not a full-time one, mind you. It’s more of a hobby, although I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. And while he’s decreased his workload in recent years, he was quite active when I was a kid. We had a freezer in a our basement filled with things he intended to stuff, and it was quite fun to show off to friends. The Freezer of Death, I called it.

Now, I am an animal lover. I’m a semi-vegetarian (seafood, yes; meat, no). The only things I kill are spiders, and that’s because they scare me and deserve to die. Yet taxidermy is something I have always known. It’s as common in Pennsylvania as cornfields and Fourth of July parades. But there’s also something that’s, well, really freaking weird about it. (Exhibit A: The Freezer of Death.) I’m certain all those formative years spent around deer pelts, drawers full of glass eyes and rubber tongues have made me the slightly twisted person I am today.

It also helped my writing. When I first started working on DEATH NOTICE, I wanted the killer to leave a chilling calling card with his victims. I decided to make the calling card be pieces of taxidermy. First, it made doing research unnecessary. It’s easy to write about something when the “research” is basically your childhood. Second, it’s kind of cool and creepy. Third, I knew my dad would get a kick out of it. He did, but still didn’t hesitate to tell me about the things I got wrong. (Curse you, glass eyes!)

There’s also another reason, although not as simple as the others. Growing up, I knew I wasn’t the son my dad had hoped for. He wanted a fellow hunter. He got someone too scared of guns and too fond of animals. He wanted an athlete like himself. He got a kid who couldn’t throw a football or hit a baseball. He wanted someone who liked to watch sports. He got a son who skipped Friday night football games to stay home and read Agatha Christie and Stephen King.

While I wasn’t interested in hunting, playing or watching, I knew I could write. So, when it came time to write my first novel, taxidermy had to be a part of it. For the reasons listed above, of course, but also because it was the only way I knew how to combine my father’s interests with my own. And when it was published, we at last had something in common — a book.

We’re still very different people. We disagree on many things. I know he’d be thrilled if I dove into a juicy steak later today. But I think that book went a long way toward helping both of us come to terms with who we are. And if we ever need reminding, a copy now sits on both of our bookshelves, literally binding us together.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting Mary Higgins Clark. We were at the same author event in Paramus, New Jersey, and I knew my mom would never forgive me if I didn’t get a book signed by her. She was warm, friendly, gracious and wrote the nicest note to my mom.

But as I was approaching her table, my hands started to shake. I got tongue-tied. My brow started to perspire and my glasses began to fog up. (That unfortunately happens a lot. I have bigger eyebrows than Bert from Sesame Street.) In short, I was nervous as hell.

Now, I could chalk it up to being intimidated by a woman who has sold a gazillion copies during her long career. Then there’s the fact that my mother has read every one of her books, which were as common to see in the living room as the TV Guide or my dad’s copies of Sports Illustrated. I grew up knowing her name, so it was a tad surreal to be seeing her in person.

But the truth is, I get nervous meeting any author, especially one I’ve read and admired for years. I know this is silly. I’m an author myself, and I realize that we’re all just people who tell stories for a living and experience the same frustration, writer’s block and sense of relief when we finish a book.

I’ve gotten better at this over the past year. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet an insane number of fellow writers. Many have become acquaintances. Some have even become friends. And I look forward to events like Thrillerfest and Bouchercon because I know it will give me a chance to chat with them.

But there are still those writers who loom large in my mind. I’m talking about authors whose talent (not to mention sales) make me feel tiny and inconsequential in comparison. I’ve had the good fortune to meet some of them. Harlan Coben, for example, couldn’t have been nicer when I told him TELL NO ONE is the book that convinced me I needed to write. Lee Child was funny, friendly and too suave for words. And when Louise Penny hugged me and congratulated me on having my first novel published, I momentarily thought I had died and gone to writer heaven.

Despite those great experiences, there are still writers out there who would turn my legs to jelly and make me act like a tongue-tied fool. So Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Lorrie Moore and Laura Lippman, if we ever meet one day, don’t worry if my palms are sweaty and my glasses are so fogged up that I look like someone who has recently escaped a meat freezer. It’s just nerves.

What authors have you met? And did they make you irrationally nervous? Share your stories in the comments section below.