Interview with Janel Gradowski, Author of Pies & Peril
Pies & Peril, a Culinary Competition Mystery by Janel Gradowski is a fun cozy that will have readers laughing out loud, but this heroine, Amy Ridley, is no dumb blonde. She's got a good head on her shoulders, but she's also focused to win every culinary baking contest she enters. Here's the description from GoodReads:
When Amy Ridley decided to compete in the Kellerton Summer Festival Pie Contest, the last thing she expected was to find the reigning pie queen, Mandy Jo, dead—a raspberry pie smashed on her face! Mandy Jo made fantastic pies, but she accumulated more enemies than baking trophies. But when Amy receives a note threatening her own life, she decides to do some investigating herself.
Today, I've got a great interview from Janel, whom I met through book blogging, and now as an author of full-length and flash fiction, she's here to share with us her writing and publishing experiences. Please give her a warm welcome:
1. What are your first loves as a reader about novels? Do you prefer plot or characterization? Do you love mystery or literary fiction better?
I love characters with interesting backgrounds and traits. Plot is the undercurrent that keeps all good books flowing, but I want to fall in love with the characters first and really care about them. I also love richly detailed books where the author describes the literary world they’ve created with their own, unique lens.
I will read just about anything. Different genres for different moods. I love a cozy mystery when I’m hanging out at our cabin or just want something light to read in the evening. If I really want to sink my teeth into a book I often turn to women’s fiction by authors like Barbara O’Neal and Erica Bauermeister.
2. When deciding to carve out time for your own writing, what was the catalyst for you, especially being a mother and having little time to yourself?
To be honest, my commitment to writing fiction over the last several years was a bit of a midlife crisis. I designed and published beadwork patterns when my kids were little, so I knew I could juggle being a mom and a writer. While I loved seeing my patterns in magazines, I still wanted to be a published author in my first writing love fiction. Over the past four or five years I have transitioned from writing patterns to writing fiction and I couldn’t be happier with the change.
3. What are some tips you'd provide to mothers looking to continue creatively writing if they have young children, school-age children, and older kids?
The younger children are the less time mothers have for themselves. You need to learn to write in bits and pieces in whatever time you can grab. Just make sure to also rest when you have the chance. Exhaustion is never a good thing for moms or writers. I find that it helps to tailor the length of your stories to the time that you have available. When my children were younger I wrote flash fiction, ultrashort stories that usually have less than 1,000 words. As my kids got older I moved up to short stories, novelettes and novellas. Now my kids are pretty independent at 15 and 13 years old. I was easily able to write Pies & Peril, my first novel, last fall.
If you are having problems “turning on” your creativity in the time you do have, I would suggest trying prompts. There are countless books and websites dedicated to writing prompts. Give yourself permission to play and get messy with your writing. Don’t worry about making it perfect, a common creativity killer, and have fun. You may be surprised at what ends up on the page.
4. Pies & Peril is your latest, full-length published work, how long did the process take from the initial idea to finish? And how did this process differ from your previous experience with the Bartonville Series of books?
It took me about a month and a half to write the first draft of Pies & Peril. I started with a 2,000 word short story then expanded it, using subplots, into a novel. I did much more planning with this than any of the stories I’ve written for my Bartonville Series. It’s roughly twice as long as the longest Bartonville story, a novella.
I write using a program called Scrivener. It is made specifically for writers and has a virtual corkboard with wonderful virtual index cards. Each scene can be an index card in the program. For the Bartonville series I just plotted the stories using those virtual index cards. For Pies & Peril I broke out a real corkboard and index cards. I took a few weeks to jot down scene ideas on cards. Then I sat down, colorcoded the cards by subplot and arranged them on the board, filling in gaps as needed. I am definitely what is called a “plotter” in the world of writing. There’s no way I would try writing a novel without plotting it out first, although I have written many flash fiction stories off the top of my head from just a tiny seed of an idea. Longer word counts take more planning. A lot more planning.
5. How happy are you about your publishing career so far, and what do you hope will happen in the future? Any new books in the planning or near completion stages and will they be food-related too?
A year ago I never thought I would have a publisher or be writing a culinary mystery series! I wrote a short story for a contest. It turns out my publisher, Gemma Halliday, was running the contest to look for authors for the boutique publishing company she was starting. I didn’t win the contest, but I did get a publishing contract and I am thrilled! The publishing world is kind of like a gold rush right now. Everybody is scrambling to find readers and fans. Having a publisher and the other authors at Gemma Halliday Publishing help promote the book has made a huge difference in the success of Pies & Peril compared to my other self-published books.
I am currently writing the second book in the Culinary Competition Series. It will definitely be food-related with lots of food described in the book and recipes for some of the treats at the end. I am also working on a short story from the series that will be in a holiday anthology. I plan on adding more volumes to both of my selfpublished series, 6:1 and Bartonville, but those are on the backburner for the moment. There are only so many hours in the day!
Thanks, Janel, for talking with us today, and you know I love your writing and your books. Stay tuned for my review of Pies & Peril tomorrow!
About the Author:
Janel Gradowski lives in a land that looks like a cold weather fashion accessory, the mitten-shaped state of Michigan. She is a wife and mom to two kids and one Golden Retriever. Her journey to becoming an author is littered with odd jobs like renting apartments to college students and programming commercials for an AM radio station. Somewhere along the way she also became a beadwork designer and teacher. She enjoys cooking recipes found in her formidable cookbook and culinary fiction collection. Searching for unique treasures at art fairs, flea markets and thrift stores is also a favorite pastime. Coffee is an essential part of her life. She writes the Culinary Competition Mystery Series, along with The Bartonville Series (women’s fiction) and the 6:1 Series (flash fiction). She has also had many short stories published in both online and print publications. Check her Website, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Check out her books.