Ma-Row! Today Chazz and I are interviewing author Molly MacRae!
The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes
“murder with a dose of drollery.” In addition to the Haunted Shell Shop
Mysteries, Molly writes the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn
Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch she
writes books for Annie’s Fiction and Guideposts. Molly’s short stories have
appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the
Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction.
Rocco: Welcome back to the blog, Molly It’s been a while since we last chatted! So
refresh our memory about your background
MMR: It has been a while! Nice to be here, again,
though. Now I can add retried fake librarian (no MLS degree) to my list of
former jobs – former sheltered workshop supervisor, museum director,
independent bookstore manager.
As for the writing – it’s
taken off nicely. There are now six books in my Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries,
five in my Highland Bookshop Mysteries, two stand-alone mysteries, six books
under the name Margaret Welch (four for Annie’s Fiction and two for
Guideposts), and a new series debuting June 25th – the Haunted Shell
Shop Mysteries.
Chazz: Nice to meet you, Molly! Tell us a bit about your latest book/series.
MMR: The Haunted Shell
Shop Mysteries take place on Ocracoke Island, one of the Outer Banks barrier
islands off the coast of North Carolina. The books are about Maureen Nash, a
storyteller specializing in fables and folklore about shells (she’s also a
malacologist – a scientist who studies mollusks), and Emrys Lloyd, the ghost of
an eighteenth-century pirate. At the start of Come Shell or High
Water, book one, Maureen tells the reader, “On the tail of a hurricane,
half-drowned in the chaos of whirlwind, deluge, thunder, and lightning, I
washed up on Ocracoke Island.” She immediately corrects herself. Her arrival
wasn’t that dramatic, the hurricane was fairly mild, and she got ride over in a
friend’s boat. “I was half-drowned,” she says. “But half-drowned by my
assumptions, not the storm.”
ROCCO: How do you construct your plots? Do you
outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?
MMR: I’m a plotter,
because I love a good outline and knowing where I’m going, but my very long and
detailed outline is really a very, very rough first draft with room for
pantsing along the way.
Chazz: What are you working on now and what are your
future writing plans?
MMR: I’m eleven days out from the deadline for
book two in the series – There’ll be Shell to Pay. I’m at the
scream-writing stage. Picture a writer at a keyboard in an old fashioned kiddie
car careening down a hill screaming as she types. It’s an exciting way to live. (Rocco:
Yes, the human often does that as well heh heh heh)
Chazz: What advice do you have to offer to an
aspiring author?
Read, write, revise,
repeat. Network with other writers. Persevere.
Rocco: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
MMR: For some reason, when
I did a program and signing at a very nice arts council in Michigan, I thought
it would be a good idea to do something fun to illustrate the writer’s life. I
said to the audience, mainly senior citizens, “Do you know what the best thing
about being a writer is?” They shook their heads. I said, “I’ll show you.” To
quite a few gasps, I peeled out of the slightly oversized clothes I’d worn,
revealing my pajamas and bathrobe, and said, “I get to work in my pajamas.” They
loved it but I’m not sure I’ll ever do that again.
Rocco: What question do you wish interviewers would
ask? (And what’s the answer?)
MMR: Q: If I give you your
own private writing room that looks like a miniature and very cool library and
has a secret door and a window with a window seat – with no strings attached
except to write - will you accept?
A: Sure.
Thank you for a lovely
interview, Molly!
And we’re not done yet –
now Molly tackles ROCCO and Chazz’s Fast Five:
- What’s something
that’s always in your fridge? Fresh ginger
- If you weren’t a
writer, what would you be? When I was little I wanted to be a rabbit and
then a Canadian Mountie. Are they still options?
- What’s your
favorite part of the day? Meals
- What food do you
wish was calorie free? Chocolate
- Holidays: Party
at home, or go out for a glam dinner? Home with family gathered
