QUEEN OF THE WEEK CELEBRITY AUTHOR MARY DEAL

"Queen of the Week"
Celebrity Author

MARY DEAL

NANCY JILL: Welcome! Let me pour you a nice cup of tea and we'll get started. Please help yourself to a deviled ham sandwich and a cranberry orange scone. We have Godiva Cheesecake for dessert today.
NANCY JILL: Where do you live? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
MARY: For the past 17 years, I’ve been carrying out a lifelong dream of living on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. It truly is paradise, but has one down-side in that everything for daily living is not available here, as with any island, I suppose. I’m thankful for being able to shop on the Net.
NANCY JILL: Are you a traditionally published or Indie author?
MARY: I am an indie author. I’ve had two agents who really didn’t do anything for my books, even sent them to publishers in the wrong genres, etc. I’m not putting down agents, but after 3-4 years of waiting for something to happen, I decided to publish on my own.
NANCY JILL: What are your hobbies?
MARY: Oil Painting and photography are my two top favorites. I maintain an online gallery at marydealfineart.com where any of art product can be produced from my images. The images are not only from Hawaii but from anywhere I happen to travel.
NANCY JILL: Tell us about your current book. What was your inspiration?

http://www.amazon.com/Howling-Cliffs-Mason-Mystery-ebook/dp/qid

MARY: The Howling Cliffs – A Sara Mason Mystery was released on February 29, 2012. Also a thriller, it is the first sequel to my award-winning River Bones. In River Bones we find Sara Mason solving a serial killer case in my hometown area of California’s Sacramento River Delta. Her love interest, Huxley Keane, is involved in MIA searches in Vietnam where he looks for his brother’s remains. In the sequel, The Howling Cliffs, we find both Sara and Huxley with the veteran search team in the Vietnam jungle. The story progresses to Kauai where Sara becomes involved in a cold case of a missing child. The Logline is: After participating in a search for MIA remains in Vietnam, Sara nearly loses her life investigating a missing child case in Hawaii. Someone means to keep the cold case cold.

NANCY JILL: How did you become a writer? How did it start?

MARY: Writing has been a love all my life. It was, first, a way to say things in secret diaries that children cannot talk about. That graduated to writing stories in school, various writing in business, and finally deciding I loved conjuring fiction. However, I have lots of nonfiction in the works at present.
NANCY JILL: How long did it take you to finish your first book?
MARY: My first book was 134,000 words and has not been published. When I decided to write my first novel, the story poured out – in two and one half months! Though cathartic, the story was too revealing about my private life and I decided not to publish it until I could rewrite and shorten it. However, since it takes place in my hometown areas, I have used some of the scenes in River Bones. This first story will be rewritten and published because I really love it, but it will need major editing.
NANCY JILL: Where do you like to write?
MARY: The best place for me is at my desk on my desktop PC right here in my home office. I tried using my laptop but the keyboards are not the same and I had to make copies of what I wrote on the laptop and transfer to my desktop. That was too much tedious extra work.
NANCY JILL: Favorite author(s)?
MARY: I actually have no favorite authors. The one that made an impression on me in my earlier years was Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath was a near perfect depiction of my mother’s life as her family of 13 lived in an old school bus coming across country during the Great Depression. As for modern writers, I read quite a bit but once learning a writer’s style, usually look for new material. I read a lot of books from friends I meet on the social sites I frequent.
NANCY JILL: How many books have you written, so far? Do you plan to write more?
MARY: I have eight books published; six mystery/thrillers: The Tropics, The Ka, River Bones, Down to the Needle, Legacy of the Tropics, and The Howling Cliffs. Write it Right – Tips for Authors, Vol. I is a nonfiction reference for writers. Off Center n the Attic – Over the Top Stories is a collection of zany short stories. In the works for 2012 is a second volume for both the writers’ reference and the short story collection. I’m also beginning to outline the next sequel after The Howling Cliffs. Maybe someday I’ll publish my poetry. Also in the works are three nonfiction titles. I’m a non-active but still licensed Clinical Hypnotherapist and have a manuscript almost completed in that category, along with other self-help books. Then there’s one about my mother’s life and sage advice. I have projects to last the rest of my lifetime, so I keep smiling and plugging away.
NANCY JILL: Would you like to share a link where we can purchase your books?
MARY: This is the link to my Author Page on amazon.com. It’s from an author’s page that you can see all the books an author has available without having to search through the lists. Click through from the author page.  http://tinyurl.com/3z8pm3f
NANCY JILL: What about a link to your website?
MARY: My writing site is http://www.writeanygenre.com .  I have nearly 100 pages of information that is free to anyone to reading. It’s been called a “valuable resource for writers.” I’ll be upgrading and adding new information and removing some old, thought the information given is generally always useable. I also show video trailers for my books. Business writing is included too. My Author Page on amazon.com with a list of my books is http://tinyurl.com/3z8pm3f .
NANCY JILL: Mary, it's been lovely having you today and I wish you all the best with your writing career.