Please help me welcome a fellow Authors Guild member to the interview hot seat! Roslyn Reid brings a refreshing new style of storytelling to us. Let’s take a peek at her bio and then dive right in, shall we?
Amazon best-selling and award-winning author Roslyn Reid’s first mystery, A Scandal at Crystalline, debuted to almost a dozen five-star reviews on Amazon. It reveals the sinister side of raku pottery and kicks off a series of quirky mysteries set in Maine, featuring Black private detective James Early and his teenage son Tikki. The Spiricom, the second book in The Early Mysteries series, debuted in September 2021.
Reid lives with her corgi, Great Pyrenees, and husband in Downeast Maine, where she gardens, lifts weights, and hikes. A former model, she contributed to Llewellyn’s annual almanacs for several decades and has written for a few of the local newspapers.
Social media: Facebook * Facebook2
Betty: Breaking news! Roslyn learned not too long ago (as in, around December 16, 2021) that The Spiricom won the 2021 N.N. Light Book of the Year Award in the Paranormal Mystery category! Congratulations, Roz! Now, on with the interview.
Betty: What inspired you to write the story you’re sharing with us today?
Roslyn: It just came out of the ether when I woke up one morning. And the next morning. And the next. Finally, I decided to write it down.
Betty: Which character arrived fully or mostly developed?
Roslyn: I’d say the main character, James Early, and his son Tikki. They even arrived with names.
Betty: Which story element sparked the idea for this story: setting, situation, character, or something else?
Roslyn: It was an episode of the original Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show, where the wife killed her husband with a leg of lamb and then cooked the murder weapon and served it to the cops who were investigating.
Betty: Which character(s) were the hardest to get to know? Why do you think?
Roslyn: Chandler Hammond, because he’s missing for the entire book.
Betty: What kind of research did you need to do to write this story?
Roslyn: Court documents and victims—I based the Ponzi scheme on a real one my BFF got involved in.
Betty: How many drafts of the story did you write before you felt the story was complete?
Roslyn: About 4 or 5.
Betty: How long did it take for you to write the story you’re sharing with us? Is that a typical length of time for you? Why or why not?
Roslyn: A couple of years. I’d say this was typical, depending on how much detail I need.
Betty: What rituals or habits do you have while writing?
Roslyn: I write in bed. Always have.
Betty: Every author has a tendency to overuse certain words or phrases in drafts, such as just, once, smile, nod, etc. What are yours?
Roslyn: According to one of my editors, it’s “so.” So try finding an alternative for that!
Betty: Do you have any role models? If so, why do you look up to them?
Roslyn: My writing role model is Raymond Chandler. He was also a literary critic, so he knew what worked.
Betty: Do you have a special place to write? Revise? Read?
Roslyn: As I said, in bed. I read on the couch, which used to be a bed. J
Betty: Many authors have a day job. Do you? If so, what is it and do you enjoy it?
Roslyn: No, I am happily retired.
Betty: As an author, what do you feel is your greatest achievement?
Roslyn: Getting my first book published. It took 5 years.
Betty: What other author would you like to sit down over dinner and talk to? Why?
Roslyn: Tess Gerritsen, because she lives about an hour away and is practically a neighbor. In fact, she does sit-down dinners with Authors Guild members, but I didn’t have the fee for her latest one. L
Betty: Success looks different to different people. It could be wealth, or fame, or an inner joy at reaching a certain level. How do you define success in terms of your writing career?
Roslyn: If something I’ve written accomplishes what I wanted it to do, that’s success. I can usually tell by the feedback.
She was killed on their wedding day…but he couldn’t let her go.
Tall and handsome Dr. Spencer Py was a well-respected environmental Scientist. But one moment can change everything. When a car crash kills his new bride Melanie and leaves him bound to a wheelchair, he’s left racked with despair over his failure to save her. Grief turns to obsession, and one fateful night he stumbles upon plans for the Spiricom on the internet, Thomas Edison’s device for communicating with the dead. Determined to be united with his beloved, he embarks on a journey to build the device, never imagining the results, and unwittingly drawing Detective James Early into the scariest case of his life.
Purchase links: Amazon
Wishing you all the success with your writing, Roz! Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Holidays and happy reading!
Betty
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