Ask the Author: Janice MacDonald
Answered Questions (9)
Janice MacDonald
No, and I've not heard of this book! Is it a children's title? So far my only book for young readers is my Hallowe'en book, THE GHOULS' NIGHT OUT.
Janice MacDonald
Darla continued to call her folks as she worriedly let herself in the backdoor.
She heard something ringing in the freezer.
She heard something ringing in the freezer.
Janice MacDonald
Thanks for the question! I would travel to Jasper Ffoorde’s actual fictional book world, in the Thursday Next novels, where literature is taken seriously and revered, and the worlds I’ve imagined all my life are real, and jammed up next to each other in a delightful way.
I would like to think I would become one of Miss Haversham’s agents, but I would be more likely hired on to refill the Shakespeare vending machines.
Cheers,
Janice
I would like to think I would become one of Miss Haversham’s agents, but I would be more likely hired on to refill the Shakespeare vending machines.
Cheers,
Janice
Janice MacDonald
Hi Debbie,
I appreciate your question. One of the things I have tried to do with the Randy Craig Mystery series is to allow the character to age realistically so readers can follow her through several stages of her life, from a naive grad student to a mature woman in early middle-age who has still not quite found the footing in academia she had hoped for.
NO SPOILERS HERE, but I know exactly what you mean about the Randy/Steve cliffhanger and am eager to wrap up their story. I have another Randy mystery about halfway completed—and even did research in another country for the first time—but the honest truth is that the series' long-time publisher has not yet offered me a contract for another book. It can be extremely hard to place a new book in an already established series (this would be book #7) with another company, so here’s hoping that the publisher will find a place in its schedule for the next mystery, which is tentatively titled The Day of the Iguana.
Cheers,
Janice
I appreciate your question. One of the things I have tried to do with the Randy Craig Mystery series is to allow the character to age realistically so readers can follow her through several stages of her life, from a naive grad student to a mature woman in early middle-age who has still not quite found the footing in academia she had hoped for.
NO SPOILERS HERE, but I know exactly what you mean about the Randy/Steve cliffhanger and am eager to wrap up their story. I have another Randy mystery about halfway completed—and even did research in another country for the first time—but the honest truth is that the series' long-time publisher has not yet offered me a contract for another book. It can be extremely hard to place a new book in an already established series (this would be book #7) with another company, so here’s hoping that the publisher will find a place in its schedule for the next mystery, which is tentatively titled The Day of the Iguana.
Cheers,
Janice
Janice MacDonald
What a delicious question! I feel all Agatha Christie’s missing five days!
Here you go, the mystery that almost was from my own life.
When I was born (well, slightly before I was born) my father wanted to name me Jac, without a K, because Jac was the name of his best friend. It didn’t materialize because I was a girl.
My mom and dad divorced when I was still very young, and we didn’t see all that much of him throughout my childhood, maybe once every two or three years. Imagine my surprise when a journalist at the Edmonton Journal appeared with the name Jac (without a K) MacDonald. I began to wonder if my father had wandered off and had a whole other family, unknown to us.
I finally got up my courage, at a social event we both were attending, to ask the journalist about his origins and find out that Jac MacDonald had two distinct parents, and neither of them were my dad.
Makes you wonder about who is out there who may be connected to you, doesn’t it? And how far would they go to prevent that from becoming known?
Cheers,
Janice
Here you go, the mystery that almost was from my own life.
When I was born (well, slightly before I was born) my father wanted to name me Jac, without a K, because Jac was the name of his best friend. It didn’t materialize because I was a girl.
My mom and dad divorced when I was still very young, and we didn’t see all that much of him throughout my childhood, maybe once every two or three years. Imagine my surprise when a journalist at the Edmonton Journal appeared with the name Jac (without a K) MacDonald. I began to wonder if my father had wandered off and had a whole other family, unknown to us.
I finally got up my courage, at a social event we both were attending, to ask the journalist about his origins and find out that Jac MacDonald had two distinct parents, and neither of them were my dad.
Makes you wonder about who is out there who may be connected to you, doesn’t it? And how far would they go to prevent that from becoming known?
Cheers,
Janice
Janice MacDonald
Most mystery readers will tell you a large part of why they read a series is for the location…and lucky for me, when I began, no one had written about Edmonton in a mystery series! I really love my hometown, so I have a great time reflecting it to the world -- at least the part of the world that reads detective fiction.
Janice MacDonald
If you study Greek theatre, you find out that all the goriest action happens off stage…Oedipus blinds himself elsewhere and then appears, Medea takes the kids off behind closed doors and blood trickles under the door on to the stage…and that is because if it happened onstage, it really had to happen. That has always tickled at the back of my mind. What if by pretending to die night after night, you really did bring it upon yourself? Just the cheapening of life along with the fuzzing of reality? That's why the latest book is set among the various elements of summer theatre throughout the city.
Janice MacDonald
There is an annual event at the University of Alberta in the fall called Homecoming, a time when various graduating years are honoured and groups can sort their own selves out for reunions. Old secrets are often the best ones when it comes to danger and murder. And perhaps, the older I get, the more interesting looking back gets.
Janice MacDonald
You get to create worlds in which you never have to think, "Oh, I should have said…"
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