#WriterWednesday with Maggie King
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I’m celebrating another author from Crimes in the Old Dominion today. I’d like to welcome, Maggie King back to the blog.
Favorite thing that you always make time for: keeping up with family and friends
The thing you’ll always do just about anything to avoid: hours-long car trips
The thing you like most about being a writer: coming up with ideas and seeing how they develop into a story. I also love when my characters surprise me with their ideas.
The thing you like least about being a writer: marketing and promotion
Things you will run to the store for in the middle of the night: Hmm. Can’t imagine what that would be.
Things you never put on your shopping list: pickled herring (or pickled anything); liver; lima beans; Red Vines Twists
The coolest thing you’ve bought online: silicone freezer bags; very “cool” indeed
Something that didn’t look at all like it did online: a beauty product way past its expiration date.
Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: laptop, pen, paper, thesaurus, cat (not on keyboard), occasionally like classical music for its reputed brain-enhancing effect (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach)
Things that distract you from writing: landscaping activity
The thing that you will most remember about your writing life: the launches for my novels and anthologies. I appreciated the support of readers and writers and loved talking about my “creations.”
Something in your writing life that you wish you could do over: I would be more selective about which book events were worthwhile investments of energy, time, and money.
Something you’re really good at: restoring order from chaos.
Something you never learned how to do: maintaining the order I restored from chaos. This most often pertains to my filing system, digital and paper.
Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: an actor, a nurse, an English teacher. I did none of those things. I was a retail sales manager, a customer service supervisor, a programmer analyst, a computer trainer, a non-profit administrator, and, at last--a writer!
Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: sign up to be an OOE (Officer of Election) at the polls.
Things you always put in your books: my cats make cameo appearances.
Things you never put in your books: violence on the page, or descriptions of blood and gore.
Things to say to an author: “I LOVE your books and have gifted them to all my friends and relatives! When will they be made into movies?”
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “I haven’t read your book yet” (tone suggests that “yet” will never come). “Have you read [name a book]? It’s simply wonderful!”
The one thing you cook/bake that is better than a restaurant dish: Watercress soup. I first had it at Truly Yours in Northridge, California (incidentally, Ron Goldman worked there). It’s not necessarily better than TY’s version, but it’s certainly comparable.
The one thing you cooked/baked that turned out to be an epic disaster: Moussaka. What a mess! The recipe came with my first microwave. While other recipes in the cookbook were great, the moussaka wasn’t one of them.
About Maggie:
Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries. Her short stories appear in various anthologies, including the Virginia is for Mysteries series, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Deadly Southern Charm, Death by Cupcake, Murder by the Glass, First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, and Crime in the Old Dominion.
Maggie graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, James River Writers, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She has worked as a software developer, retail sales manager, customer service supervisor, web designer, and non-profit administrator. She has called New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California home. These days she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband Glen and mischievous cat, Olive. All these jobs, schools, and homes have gifted her with story ideas for years to come.
Let’s Be Social:
Website: http://maggieking.com/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/meking.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggiekingauthor/
