STORYTELLERS

Maggie Sefton is a fabulous writer, and a thorough professional.  Here she explores what makes us tick.  Thank you so much, Maggie!!


Christy and I actually met this last spring at Malice Domestic mystery conference. We first met online when we joined a cozy mystery writers group. Since we both needed a roommate to make the conference more affordable, we joined forces and shared a hotel room.


What fun! As mystery authors, we were both already storytellers. But as we started talking—immediately, I might add—we found all sorts of other connections. One of them was a lifelong love of STAR TREK. Yep. We’re both Trekkies. The original was the one that hooked us, but most of us Trekkies went on to be faithful fans of all Star Trek productions---The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and the others as well as the myriad movies.

We also discovered that we’ve each written many other types of novels and stories under other names. Some published, some not. When you’re a born storyteller, you simply HAVE to tell the stories that come to you, capture those fascinating characters that show up in your mind and translate them onto the page. Sometimes the novels sell, sometimes they don’t. Whatever happens. . .you keep telling your stories. And, telling other people about them.

I’m in the midst of touring this month with the newest release in my New York Times bestselling Knitting Mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime. The 8th in the series, SKEIN OF THE CRIME, came out June 1st. Personally, I love to travel around and meet readers and other book people. But then, I’m a “people” person and am certainly not shy. You can ask Christy. I love talking about my sleuth, corporate refugee Kelly Flynn, and her friends who gather at that great yarn shop in Colorado. That’s where they kick back and knit and juggle their fast-paced 30-something lives. Of course, a murder always intrudes, and CPA Kelly cannot resist poking her nose into the investigations.

If you’d like to learn more about Kelly and the gang and the other mysteries, you can check out my website at http://www.maggiesefton.com/. I also blog with six other cozy mystery authors on http://www.cozychicksblog.com/. And---Christy and I are letting our characters blog on KILLER CHARACTERS with a bunch of other mystery authors. Please check it out. http://www.killercharacters.com/.

Life Is Full of Mystery

Guest blogger Paty Jager finds a little bit of mystery in everyday life.  As an honest-to-god ranch wife in the modern West, she writes fascinating tales of the Old West, including a forthcoming paranormal series.

Wife, mother, grandmother, and the one who cleans pens and delivers the hay; award winning author Paty Jager has not only brought her husband of thirty years to maturity, but four children and over a hundred head of cattle and swine. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Every day of our lives has a bit of mystery or intrigue in it. The gas light is blinking in your car. Will you make it to the gas station or have to call someone to either pick you up or bring you gas? You're on your way home from work. What's for dinner? Did you put meat out that morning or will it be something leftover from the night before? Or You've been called to the boss' office. Are you getting a raise or are you getting the boot?

For a writer each unique person we see becomes a puzzle or mystery. We wonder about their occupation, their background, their family life. We invent lives for them and eventually use them in a story.

It is these mysteries and our inquiring minds that bring forth books.
My first published book was inspired by thoughts of—what if an accident prone woman pretending to be a young man was made Marshal of a small town? While the story is a historical western romance there is mystery woven throughout the book. Is the Mayor really what he seems; is the hero a hero or an outlaw? What happened in the hero's past? Will the heroine keep her identity a secret when it matters most?
The first contemporary western I wrote started after I heard on the radio about a youngster who ordered items over the internet with their parent's credit cards and the parents didn’t know until the items arrived at their home. A mystery. My book started with a nanny showing up to start a job and the ranch owner not having a clue why she was there because his preteen daughter and a neighbor ordered the nanny over the internet. Mystery- Does he let her stay or send her packing? Why did she pick a remote ranch to be a nanny? Why does he not want anything to do with a woman? Why does he need a nanny? All these mysteries are solved in the book.
I enjoy reading mysteries and I enjoy incorporating mystery into the stories I write. What was a book you read that wasn't categorized as a mystery but it had elements of mystery within the pages?


Paty has four historical western romance novels available through The Wild Rose Press and one contemporary western, which won the 2008 Best Contemporary Romance EPPIE. In June her fifth historical western, Doctor in Petticoats, will be released and her first book of a historical paranormal trilogy, Spirit of the Mountain, will be released in August. To learn more about Paty, her books, and to enter her website contest go to http://www.patyjager.net/ or visit her blog at http://www.patyjager.blogspot.com/



Christy, thank you for having me here today. I enjoy Georgiana Neverall and the interesting characters that keep her company.