Maryann Miller

My inspiration to start writing came when I was just a kid, reading books like crazy from the little library at the corner of my street. In the summer, my girlfriend and I would ride our bikes to a wooded area about a mile from our houses and sit on an abandoned car seat and read. Keep in mind this was an era when bench seats were the norm in cars. :-)

That reading experience made me love stories, and when I was about ten years old, I decided that I wanted to write stories that would make some other kid fall in love with reading.

Even though it would be years and years before I ever had a story published, I continued to write all through high school and college, and even after I married. In fact, it was my husband who encouraged me to be more serious about the writing and take some classes.

My first professional gig was writing a weekly humorous column for our daily suburban newspaper, and that eventually morphed into a career as a journalist, writing for regional and national publications.

Still, my first love was fiction, and I continued to write short stories and novels. A few of the short stories were published in Ladies Circle Magazine, and that was my first validation that I could write fiction.

Oh, gosh, I have so many favorite authors and books, it's hard to name just a few. In college I was introduced to Steinbeck, and his Of Mice and Men is still one of my favorite stories. His ability to create characters that can connect to a reader on such a deep emotional level, inspired me to try to do the same.

In more modern literature, I've enjoyed the work of Dennis Lehane, especially Mystic River. I'd be remiss in not mentioning Evan Hunter, who introduced me to police procedural mysteries with his 87th Precinct Series written as Ed McBain, as well as Laura Lippman and her Baltimore Blues.

In more mainstream fiction, I like Toni Morrison, James Wade, Ann Patchett, Khaled Hossei, and so many more.

My reading tastes span a number of genres, and lately I've read a lot of historical and women's novels, in addition to the many mysteries I've clocked. Kristy Woodson Harvey is one of the best in Southern Fiction, and Kelly Rimmer is one of the top writers of WWII historicals.

The bottom line for me is give me characters I can relate to and a story that is engaging, and you have me for a fan.

Take chance. You might even like the story. :-)

Seriously, I know it's often hard to buy a book from an author not known to a reader. I struggle with that a lot myself. There are so many new books out almost daily. But what I always do is read the sample chapters to get a sense of style and content and whether that appeals to me. Reviews can be helpful, but sometimes don't say enough, or they criticize something that has nothing to do with the writing or the storyline, which is not helpful in making a decision to buy or not.

So, yes. Give a new-to-you author a chance. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Trying to pick a favorite character is hard. While writing each story, those people in it are my favorites. Still, I must single out Jenny in One Small Victory as slightly more of a favorite than other characters.

Jenny came to me as a full-blown character, name and all, when I decided I had to write about an amazing woman. I'd read a newspaper article about this single mom in a small town in Michigan who infiltrated a drug ring and helped bring down the main supplier in the area. True story.

This woman had five kids and one of her sons was killed in a car accident where drugs were found at the scene. As a mother myself, I couldn't imagine doing what that woman did after losing one of my children. I would be paralyzed with grief, but she channeled her grief into action, much the way parents of kids killed in school shootings are now doing.

The news item I read was brief, but I made such a powerful emotional connection to the woman, that I had little trouble writing her story. My version is highly fictionalized, and I moved the setting to Texas, where I was living at the time. That made doing the needed research for how Jenny would work with a drug task force much easier. I could interview police officers and other law-enforcement personnel in person, as well as scout locations for key places in the story.

The kind of emotional connection between writer and character that I have with Jenny is so important to me, and that then connects to the reader and keeps them coming back. That's certainly what prompts me to pick up a new book by one of my favorite authors, and even prompts me to try a book by an author that is new to me.

Going forward from here, my plan is to keep writing as long as I can, and hopefully, reach new readers along the way.

It has been a boon to my career to be connected to Next Chapter Publishing, and I hope to have a sequel to the popular woman's novel, Evelyn Evolving, finished as soon as I can. I am also working on another short story collection that I hope readers will enjoy as much as Beyond The Crack in the Sidewalk.

After that, we'll see. I have a few new story ideas that have popped up recently, and look forward to writing those.