How long have you been writing? Writing has always been a big part of my life. It was my therapy as a kid. I got sent to my room often, but I didn’t mind. I spent the time writing poems or sketching (badly). I entered one of those poems in a local poetry contest and won. That was super exciting and motivating for me. I also wrote radio commercials for the Catholic Elementary School I attended.
My psychological dependence on writing continued all through high school when I discovered the short story genre and kept a journal. I tried to suppress the writing urge in college, enrolling as a geo-chemistry major (I loved rocks, too). That lasted one semester. I graduated with a dual major in English/Creative Writing and Interpersonal Communications and landed a reporting job at the Syracuse, New York, newspapers. Years later, I earned my master’s degree in creative writing. After more than a decade, I left journalism to pursue my passion for fiction writing.
Who are the authors who most influenced your work? I love so many authors in so many genres, but I will stick with contemporary crime fiction for these purposes. Otherwise, the list would go on forever. So, here they are: William Landay, Emma Donoghue, Tana French, Attica Locke, Gillian Flynn, Joshilyn Jackson, John Grisham and Laura Lippmann … there are tons more, but I had better stop here.
Where do you write, i.e. an office, outdoors, a coffee shop? I like to read outdoors and work on revisions or edits, but I don’t often write outdoors. I need immediate access to boatloads of coffee (a nervous habit) and a restroom (because of all that coffee) when I write. I usually write on a desk my husband made in a corner of our great room (we have a timber frame house), where I am readily accessible to kids and dogs, but I get more done when I leave the house and head for a café. Sometimes, I will book a hotel room or an AirBnB for a weekend, so I can write uninterrupted.
Southern Sisters Book Club 