#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with Michele Drier

I’d like to welcome author, Michele Drier to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

Favorite thing to do when you have free time: Read, read, read.

The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Cleaning house, primarily vacuuming.

Favorite snacks: Popcorn, nuts, raw veggies, M&Ms

Things that make you want to gag: Organ meats (liver, sweetbreads), kale, escargots (but oh, the garlic butter!)

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: Either a Grand Prix driver or an archeologist.

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Type for a living (writing!). I’m of an age when mostly girls took typing so they could be secretaries. I started college as a chemistry major…no typing there! I took one typing class in college so I didn’t have to pay to have my papers typed. Got a D.

I’ve ended up making a living at typing (reporter, editor, writing grant proposals, annual reports and now, novels…working on the 18th so far). I still type about 45 wpm with errors.

Last best thing you ate: Greek salad
Last thing you regret eating: Ohhhh…brownie with ice cream! Same meal.

Favorite places you’ve been: Europe, almost anywhere but primarily Paris. Based my Kandesky Vampire Chronicles on Hungary because I loved it there.
Places you never want to go to again: North Dakota

People you’d like to invite to dinner (living):Louise Penny, Elizabeth George, Barak Obama
People you’d cancel dinner on: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul

Favorite things to do: Travel, learn new things.
Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Household chores, going to meetings (sigh).

Best thing you’ve ever done: Had my daughters.
Biggest mistake: Getting married, getting married, getting married (yes, three times, the last one ended more than 30 years ago).

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Driven through Greece and Hungary in a rented car. Couldn’t even read the street signs.
Something you chickened out from doing: Climbing to the top of the Duomo in Florence (I chickened out almost at the top and had to fight my way down through all the other tourists coming up the one-sway staircase)

The coolest person you’ve ever met: Vice President Kamela Harris. When I was running a Legal Services organization in Oakland, she was the newly-elected DA in San Francisco and we worked together (mostly I called and left messages) on legal conferences we presented about recognizing and halting Elder Abuse.

The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video: This goes way back, but I saw Shirley Temple shopping several times at Sak’s in a Palo Alto mall. This was when she was Shirley Black and an ambassador and Chief of Protocol for the U.S.

The most exciting thing about your writing life: Telling wonderful stories about women I want to be like.

The one thing you wish you could do over in your writing life: Start earlier and try harder to find an agent.

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Tapestry of Tears

History had always been a strong magnet for Rosalind Duke. She took up the medieval craft of making stained glass and was building a solid international reputation, taking on larger and larger commissions. Her idyllic life with her husband, Winston Duke, an art historian at UCLA, was cut short when he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. After moving to a small town on the Oregon coast, she’s offered a commission to translate the medieval embroidery, The Bayeux Tapestry, into stained glass for a museum at a small Wisconsin university. Roz jumps at the chance. Not only to try to transfer the Tapestry into a new medium, but to spend time in Southern England and Northern France, tracing the path taken by the invading Normans under William the Conqueror. But the 21st century drags her back when she finds a body crumpled against a wall in an ancient stone church in the small town of Lympne, on the southern coast of England. Has she walked into a contemporary murder?

About Michele

Michele Drier is a fifth generation Californian. During her career in journalism at daily newspapers in California, she won awards for investigative series. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, a Sisters in Crime chapter; the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, current vice president of NorCal Sisters in Crime, and co-chaired  Bouchercon 2020.

Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.

Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG. Currently writing Book Eleven, SNAP: Pandemic Games.

Her new series is the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul and Tapestry of Tears, and she’s working on the third, Resurrection of the Roses.

She lives in Sacramento with her cat, Malley.

Let’s Be Social

Visit her webpage www.MicheleDrier.me

Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleDrier

Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G/