Let's meet Emma Kennedy, Together.

by Diana Lee Johnson

Rather than ask a lot of dumb questions right off the bat, why don't you tell me a little about yourself and your new novel, A Dark Wyoming Wind. Then I can ask some "less-dumb" questions.

I live with my husband and two cats in a charming 19th century apartment in Gießen, Germany. I am an American, but I was contracted to teach in the US DoDDS European schools in 1985. For the past five years I have lived in Turkey where I taught adult painting/drawing classes at the Turkish American Association of Izmir. I also taught English at the Polici Akademi in Adana.

A Dark Wyoming Wind is a contemporary romantic thriller set in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It has a very sexy ex-convict hero and a deadly villainess.

Why Wyoming?

I was born in the state of Wyoming and lived in Wyoming, Colorado and Montana, [all states in the Rocky Mountain West.] I had fun researching and sketching the plot one summer when I went home to Wyoming.

Tell me a little more about you book.

Daniel Chase-Meyers II leaves Wyoming State Penitentiary a tormented man who wants only to regain his humanity. In Cheyenne he meets hard-working Jeremi Kruger whose liquid silver eyes offer acceptance and the promise of salvation. He doesn't realize his efforts to rescue her art gallery and frame shop from bankruptcy make Jeremi the target of the woman determined to kill him. Bizarre vandalism plagues Jeremi's business, and a hit-and-run driver bounces Daniel into a tree. The elderly couple who help him are murdered. The frame shop is trashed and ruined. Dead bodies accumulate, all connected to Daniel. Jeremi knows he is innocent, and she knows she is next when a shattering truth is revealed and dark passions explode in the still Wyoming night.

Why do you write romantic suspense?

Several years ago I was stranded in the Frankfurt airport while a nasty blizzard delayed all flights, and another American traveler gave me a handful of novels she no longer wanted. That introduced me to Anne Stuart, Linda Howard, Sandra Brown, Tami Hoag, and a broader view of the talent of romance writers. As for my choice of writing romantic suspense, I can only say it’s fun to write a sexy and murderous novel.

What and when do you read?

I love well-written books. I read in all my spare moments, while soaking in a bath, while cooking dinner, while waiting in line for the bus, at the bank, for the commuter trains. Fortunately, I have intense concentration and read fast. As a measure of popular tastes I read most NY Times and Washington Post best-selling novels. I also make a point to read winners of the Booker Prize, the Edgar, the Golden Dagger, plus books recommended by friends. For years my favorite genre was mystery.

My *favorite* authors are Michael Dibden, Minette Walters, Carol O’Connell, Nevada Barr, Brigitte Aubert and Anne Perry. I also get a kick out of Elizabeth Peters, John Harvey, P.D. James, and Orhan Parmuk. I especially love historical biography and historical mystery.

Do you have a set method by which you write? Are there exceptions to it?

Before I ever write chapters in earnest, I write a rough plotting sketch from the beginning, through the middle, to the end. This is flexible and may change, but I never begin chapter one without a vague idea of how the story might end --could end-- lurking in the back corners of my brain. This also helps me organize my research. But, if a particularly strong scenario, say a dark and twisting street in Istanbul, suggests the climatic end of a story, then I work backwards from the end to write the plotting sketch. If something suggests a middle-ish sort of scenario, then I work at plotting both ways out from the middle, etc. Whenever an idea for a scene or character strikes me, I jot it down in the “idea notebook” I carry in my coat pocket.

Do you have other interests or write in other media?

I began drawing even earlier than I started to write as a child. In early adolescence I sold my first paintings. I have worked for a graphics service, and I’m trained as an illustrator. Since gaining teaching credentials, I’ve taught painting, drawing and photography in high schools and in adult education classes. I still freelance graphic art projects and sell paintings. Art museums are the first places I always visit in any city, especially if the native language is not English and I cannot dig about in their libraries and bookstores. I have published poems, short stories, articles, photographs, editorial cartoons, illustrations, and two other novels.

Well that certainly qualifies as other media and interests!

Would you like to offer a little advice to aspiring authors?

First, learn your craft. Then decide which genre you intend to write and research those requirements. Failing to do that is wasted effort. It’s like entering your prize chocolate cake in the County Fair competition for Key Lime pie. Nobody cares that it’s excellent if it competes in the wrong place. To learn the craft, spend time and money on a good writing program at a reputable university. Emphasis on reputable!

Thank you, Emma, for a glimpse into your world.