Interview Mary Paine

by

Kay Layton Sisk

1) Mary, welcome to Wings ePress! I see this is your first book. How did you choose Wings?

After completing my first novel, I became involved with my local Romance Writers of America chapter, of which several members are published Wings authors. They enjoy publishing with Wings, so I crossed my fingers and submitted to them. Happily, my book was accepted.

2) I live in Texas, in rodeo country. Can you give us a bit of the history of Grand Prix?

Grand Prix show jumping began in Paris France in the mid nineteenth century as a way for fox-hunting enthusiasts to demonstrate the talents of their horses. Today, Grand Prix events take place all over the United States and internationally, including The National Horse Show, the Olympics, and the World Equestrian Games.

3) With three small children, your free time is scarce. Do you get to work with horses at all?

My schedule doesn’t permit time to ride any longer, unfortunately. Coincidentally, both of my horses were ready for retirement about the time we started a family. My daughter has started riding now, so I’m still involved. I do grooming, chauffeuring and cheering, which is all fun. I’m also in charge of treats for both horse and rider. The first horse my daughter rode was a sweet elderly fellow with no teeth left, so one of my jobs was to grate carrots up for him to enjoy!

4) Would you like for your children to follow with your love of this sport?

I’m torn on this topic, since there is always a risk of injury around horses, but my daughter loves it so I hold my breath and make sure she gets good quality training. I also keep reinforcing the safety rules. One of my two year old twins points to every horse he sees when we’re in the car and says “Me ride pony,” so I think the decision is already out of my hands!

5) You're a nurse, also. Is there a medical mystery in the plans?

I have one novel outlined where my heroine is a nurse, but she leaves nursing and enters veterinary school, so this one is primarily an equestrian novel. Along the way she also becomes involved in activities of the intelligence community, so the novel should be lots of fun to write and hopefully to read as well.

6) Did you write as a child?

I always loved reading and writing. As a child I would take so many books out of the library during summer vacation my mother would drive me over armed with several large grocery bags to tote all my selections home. In high school I was Editor in Chief of the school newspaper and worked on the literary magazine as well, so my family was surprised when I chose health care for a career. I wound up doing medical writing and editing, though, and have now circled all the way back to my first love, writing fiction.

7) Lovely cover of A Dangerous Dream. Wings authors get a great deal of input on cover ideas. Was the horse featured one of yours?

The horse photo on the cover was found by my cover artist, Blaise Kilgallon, but there is a great Christmas photo of my horses Spencer and Topper on The Eclectics Blog at http://www.eclectics.com/authors.html. I also have a photo gallery of Topper and Spencer on my web site at www.marypaine.com.

8) There's a book video on youtube for A Dangerous Dream. What was the hardest thing about making it?

The credit for the book video goes to my Eclectics web designer, Candace McCarthy. She’s a successful romance author and also has an amazing talent for web design and book videos. I gave her some initial ideas and she ran with it to create a wonderful video. She’s amazing!