Makisor

Q A with D A Keeley! This week, we sat down with D.A. Keeley, author of the Peyton Cote Novels. His most recent, Fallen Sparrow , was released in early June. Midnight Ink: How long have you been writing? D.A. Keeley:  I wrote my first �book� when I was six. I wrote a story one weekend, bound it with string, and told the librarian at Readfield Elementary School I wanted her to put it on the shelf. She did, God bless her. I sold my first novel when I was 29. My first five were under my own name (John R Corrigan), my sixth was under KA Delaney, and now I�m DA Keeley writing about Peyton Cote, a US Border Patrol agent and a single mom. MI: What influence have other authors had on your writing? DAK:  As a dyslexic, reading never came easy. I had a great middle-school teacher who told me to read �something� every day. I read The Hockey News cover to cover every week. In high school, my mother handed me Robert B. Parker�s Ceremony. I remember hitting the passage �It�s a way to live. ...

Q A with Jennifer Harlow This week, we sat down with Jennifer Harlow, whose third Midnight Magic Mystery, Witch Upon a Star , was released earlier this month. Midnight Ink: How long have you been writing? Jennifer Harlow:  I�ve always been a storyteller in some capacity. When I was a child, I barely left my room because I was always playing with my Barbie dolls. I�d even fake sick far more than I should so I could stay home from school and continue their adventures. When I got too old for that, I moved from pen to paper. Once again school suffered as I�d write my stories in class instead of paying attention. I cut my teeth on screenplays, then when I was nineteen I decided to try writing a book. I haven�t stopped since. MI: What influence have other authors had on your writing? JH:  Without question I learned from the masters: Janet Evanovitch, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Stan Lee. From Evanovitch I learned how to incorporate humor, mystery, and sexual tension while keeping a qui...

Q A with M C Grant This week, we sat down with M.C. Grant (also known as Grant McKenzie), author of Beauty with a Bomb . Midnight Ink: How long have you been writing? M.C. Grant:  I can�t recall a time when I wasn�t writing�and even before I knew how to string the words together, I loved to create adventures with my toys. And when I didn�t have toys, I would sit on the sidewalk and create stories using bottle caps and discarded cigarette butts, or twigs, seaweed, stones, cardboard boxes, anything really. I was one of those kids who could play by himself for hours and, actually preferred it. Of course, if you don�t play with others, you�re labeled odd, but I never minded being odd. It came as a shock to me when I first started school and the teacher told my mum that I would need to transfer to �special school� because I was writing some of my words backwards. This was before they understood or even had a word for dyslexia. Fortunately, my mum insisted that despite my quirks, I didn�...

Q A with Colin Campbell This week, Midnight Ink sat down with Colin Campbell, author of the Resurrection Man Novels. His latest, Adobe Flats, was released earlier this month. Midnight Ink: How long have you been writing? Colin Campbell:  I had to think about this because I feel like it�s not been that long but when I look back it�s been quite a while. Darkwater Towers was published in 2000 (Blackie & Co.) and it was the fourth book I�d written. Assume a book a year but 12 months to get it published, then add on the years of practicing with short stories, I reckon about 1994. So, shit. 20 years. MI: What influence have other authors had on your writing? CC: We�re all readers first, so the main influence is they made me love reading. A good story told well.  Words forming rhythms that painted pictures in my head. Then the pictures started moving so it was like watching a film with added emotion. That�s what they did for me. Then I wanted to do that myself, tell stories. MI...