Hi, guys! V. Joy Palmer here! Since we are all friends here, you guys can call me Joy. ;-) And one of my favorite things to do is talk with my friends at coffee shops then head to the bookstores. Yes, plural. After all, books and yummy drinks are the perfect combination! So consider this our virtual coffee shop. I'll wait a second for you to get your warm drink and a fuzzy blanket before we chat with today's guest. <3
Today we are going to pry into the private life of CHAT with Susan Kimmel Wright!
Susan Kimmel Wright is a child of the
Appalachian Mountains. A former lawyer, Susan has published three children’s
mystery novels and is a prolific contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul
books. Mabel Gets the Ax, Book One in Mysteries of Medicine Spring, her
first cozy mystery series for adult readers, is now available from Mountain
Brook Ink. Susan can generally be found nose deep in a book, out in the woods
with her dogs, or online at links below. Please stop by.
Connect with Susan Kimmel Wright on her Website, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Interview ~
This may be the most important question I ask -- no pressure or anything, LOL!
*drum roll*
What are you drinking in our virtual coffee house? Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate? Something else altogether?
I always start my morning with coffee. Sometimes, when we’re traveling and have to make an early connection, my husband (bless him!) runs out and tries to get me a go-cup for basic survival. (Especially loved the café au lait from the French Market in New Orleans…) In the afternoon, I switch to tea and more tea!
Starting with coffee is a must, LOL! If you could order anything in the world to eat (we can dream, can't we?), what would it be?
If I could order anything in the world to eat right now, it would be an authentic desayuno típico (traditional breakfast). We lived in Honduras for a time in the eighties, and I sometimes get really homesick for the fruit vendors and rickety buses, smells of woodsmoke and vegetation, and the surrounding green mountains.
A típico is easy to make
at home, but it’s never quite the same as the real thing. Basically, you need
an egg or two (cooked to taste), fried bananas or plantains, sliced avocado,
refried beans, queso blanco (soft, mild white cheese) and a side of toast or
coarse corn tortillas (Honduras also add a meat, but I mostly stick to
vegetarian.) Such a variety of tastes and textures all on one plate—buen
provecho!
YUM! Where is your favorite place to write, and why is that your favorite place?
My favorite place to write is my screen porch at home, especially when a storm is brewing, the skies are dark and brooding, and the trees are tossing. We have a full house right now, however, with two of our adult children at home, plus one young grandchild. So in the interest of sanity, I’ve been writing in cafés lately!
Completely understand that! Do you have an odd habit that is only explained by your bookish, writer tendencies?
I always hit the brakes for abandoned houses. I find them both sad and fascinating and can’t help wondering why they were left derelict. It must be the mystery novelist in me that just itches to confront the tangled brush and sagging porches to get inside and explore. Will there be a body? A treasure? Or simply a clue? Usually, I just take pictures from the outside, but in my imagination, I’m creeping up that broken staircase like Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden!
How fun!! What inspired you to write Mabel Gets the Ax?
I was inspired to write Mabel Gets the Ax because of my fascination with old houses, and particularly an abandoned house in my tiny, rural community in western Pennsylvania many years ago, when I was growing up. The house was the site of a gruesome unsolved murder in the early 1900s and said to be haunted. It always grieved my sense of justice that a woman raising two grandchildren on a lonely farm could be murdered in her bed, and nobody ever paid for it. I think it satisfied something in me to let my main character Mabel solve her historic murders.
Love that you were able to provide some resolution and justice through the story! What led you to write in this genre?
I had to write mysteries. They were my absolute favorite reads as a country child, and I constantly scoured the Bookmobile and Scholastic book orders for more mysteries to solve. My mother was also a mystery lover, and eventually I grew into her books, and we often traded. A friend and I formed our own detective agency when we were in junior high. We constantly practiced our skills, but alas, there were very few mysteries to solve in our village! I wrote my first mystery The Mystery of the Sassafras Jungle (longhand on filler paper) when I was about twelve. It ran seventy-five pages after being laboriously pecked out on our manual typewriter. A career had been born!
What a fun journey! What message do you hope to convey to your readers?
I never consciously try to convey a message to readers—I just follow the story. I find it true though that any writer keeps returning to the same themes that want to be expressed through them. I’m a natural encourager, so in my case, I’m never far from the themes of optimism and humor. I want readers to feel uplifted.
I am a big fan of optimism and humor in stories! Can you tell us a little about your next project(s)?
My upcoming book, Mabel Goes to the Dogs is a cozy mystery (of course) that arises out of a day spent volunteering as a training subject for a canine search and rescue team. I had the opportunity to do this a while back, and I was amazed at the dogs’ ability to sort out and follow my scent trail, even though other people and a bazillion animals had covered the same territory. In my book, Mabel goes out on a training exercise like I did and is horrified when the search dog not only locates her, but also a nearby dead body!
Mabel's next mystery sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun! Do you have a favorite Bible verse or story that inspires you on a soul level?
I have so many favorite Bible verses that it’s hard to choose a favorite. One I use as a guiding principle for my life is: “He has showed you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (NIV)
That's so good! What are you currently reading? Inquiring minds -- mine! -- want to know. ;-)
Currently, I’m alternating two books, as is usual for me. My daytime book is The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict, who writes historical fiction about strong women. It’s about Agatha Christie’s famous disappearance in the 1920s. My bedtime read is The Mystery at Deer Hill by Virginia Frances Voight, a lovely vintage (1950s) story that is a sweet combination of mystery and “maltshop”—reading this in bed takes me back to childhood summers!
Those sound great! I'll have to add them to my TBR!
Thank you so much for hanging with us and for answering all of my prying questions, Susan!
Giveaway ~
Susan is giving away a signed copy of Mabel Gets the Ax!
Mabel plans to bring the thrills of volunteering to the
masses—if she doesn’t get the ax first!
After losing her job of twenty-three years, Mabel decides to
launch what will surely be a glamorous new career as an author. Having recently
inherited her late grandmother’s house, she has the freedom to spend time
volunteering and writing about her experiences.
Unfortunately, Mabel’s plans soon go off the rails. Her
inheritance comes with decades of clutter, and overgrown lot, a dog named
Barnacle, and a neighbor with an ax to grind. And her first assignment as a
Medicine Spring Historical Society volunteer is to lead a tour of the Sauer
Mansion, known locally as the “Ax Murder House,” site of a notorious 1930s
double homicide.
As Mabel shepherds her tour group through the house, it appears history’s repeating itself when she stumbles across a body in the parlor. Finding herself on the suspect list, Mabel scrambles to figure out who swung the fatal ax. In the process, she can’t help being drawn into investigating the unsolved historic murders, teamed up with PI John Bigelow, a man she isn’t sure she can trust. With an ax murderer on the loose, will Mabel be next?
1 comment:
Congratulations, Susan! Abandoned houses always stir my imagination too.
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