Spotlight on Molly MacRae and a #Giveaway!

 

Welcome to our December Spotlight. This month that light is shining on me and I’m answering some of the questions I get asked about my writing. All of the questions are real and so are the answers. At the end I’ll ask you a question. Put your answer (and your email address) in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Crewel and Unusual, book 6 in my Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries.   

Why do you write what you write?

I like the restoration of order that happens in traditional and cozy mysteries. Cozies often include recipes and I like to cook. And also because of what it says in the photo up at the top, there. (My husband painted the picture to illustrate my answer. What a nice guy.)

When was your first fiction published?

In 1990 – a short story called “My Trouble” in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

What was that like?

It was a total thrill. The local paper came and did an article. At the time I was the curator of the history museum in Tennessee’s oldest town. In the picture below, I'm in the museum storage room holding a couple of flax hackles. Vicious! I used one as a weapon in Plagued by Quilt, book 4 in my Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries.

You write a series that takes place in Inversgail on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. Why?

It’s my way of spending more time in a place I love. I lived in Scotland for a year as a student at Edinburgh University where I took classes in British Prehistory – think standing stones, vitrified forts, Mesolithic and neolithic settlements, flint mines. Very cool stuff. I also took classes at the School for Scottish Studies – touching on social history, storytelling, music, and language. Also very cool stuff. Here’s a picture I took when I was there – my friend the Highland cow.

I’m here in Scotland and plan to visit Inversgail, the town in your books, but can’t find it on the map. Can you give me directions?

Sorry, no, the books are fiction. I made the whole thing up. But I’m in the same boat. I’d really like to visit Inversgail, too. I want to spend time in the bookshop, have tea in the tearoom. I want to walk down the high street and see Rab MacGregor sitting on the harbor wall with his dog Ranger. I want to see the statue of Robert Louis Stevenson looking across the harbor at the lighthouse his father built. So, no, sorry. If you want to visit Inversgail, you have to read the books. I’m sneaky that way.

So is Blue Plum in your Haunted Yarn Shop series fake, too?

Yep. But you can go to Jonesborough, Tennessee, and get an idea of what Blue Plum is like.

Do you have a favorite among the books you’ve written?

Not really. I like them all for different reasons. I write about places I’d like to spend time and people I’d like to know. Except for the murderers.

Do you have a favorite among the pets in your books?

That’s another hard question. I like Smirr and Butter, the cats in the Scottish books. And I like Argyle, the cat in the Yarn shop books because he can see Geneva the ghost. I also like Archie, the cat towards the end of Lawn Order. He was named after Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But if I have to choose, my favorite is probably Ranger the Cairn terrier in the Scottish books. He accompanies Rab MacGregor who works part time at the bookshop. Ranger has a tea towel that he arranges on his favorite chair near the fireplace in the shop so he can take naps without leaving too much dog hair behind. Below is a picture of the real Ranger. He lives with one of my brothers-in-law. The real Ranger is a total rascal. But look at that face.

There’s a knitting competition in Argyles and Arsenic, and you wrote a whole series about a yarn shop. What’s your favorite thing to knit?

My first love is writing. I like the process of dreaming up characters and towns and the uncomfortable situations to put them in. But in the end, what does writing produce? Flat rectangular things. And it turns out that’s what I most like knitting, too. That isn’t all I can knit. I’ve made a few hats and I knitted a scarf with cool ruffled edges. But I seem to be drawn to flat rectangles.

Where do you write?

Our house is a small, one-and-a-half story Cape Cod kind of thing, and I write my stories in half of the half-story. My desk is three wood planks laid across a couple of two-drawer filing cabinets. It has stuff on it that my grandsons like to look at. I do, too. When we had cats, one or the other of them always sat on my lap when I wrote. Sometimes I write standing up. The cats liked that, too.

What kind of research do you do?

Writing takes all kinds of research. Below you see me researching how hard it might be to refold an Ordinance Survey map of western Scotland if you were sitting in the front seat of a Ford Fiesta. That was for Heather and Homicide. I could have tried refolding the map in the front seat of our VW Golf but didn’t want to risk damaging the map, so I cheated by using the sofa. I also cheated by not testing the effects of arsenic for Argyles and Arsenic. Probably for the best.

Do you get fan mail?

Yes! And fan pictures. Here’s a picture a fan sent of her hedgehog reading Crewel and Unusual with her.

How many books have you written?

I just finished number twenty! Up until three years ago I was working full-time and writing full-time. By writing full-time I mean writing between one and three books a year. How does it feel to have written all these books? I tend not to think about it. I just . . . write. But when I do think about it, it’s amazing. It’s what I wanted to do and it’s been working out nicely. I wish my parents had lived to see all this happen. I wish they’d seen Plaid and Plagiarism reviewed in the New York Times. Mostly, though, when I finish a book, especially if I barely made my deadline, it feels like I just pulled my brains out of my head with knitting needles. But only for  a while, and then I think, “Time to start the next one.”

What are you writing now?

A new series – back to ghosts – the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. I never expected to be writing books with ghosts but it turns out ghosts are like any other character. They’re people, too, they just happen to be dead. The books take place on Ocracoke Island off the coast of NC. The ghost is a pirate. An accidental pirate, as he says. He only did it once, was dragged into it by his brothers, and it didn’t end well. 

Readers: What's your favorite question to ask an author when you meet them in person or online? Answer in the comments (and include your email). I'll choose one commenter, at random, on Wednesday, 12/27, and send them a copy of Crewel and Unusual. (Sorry, U.S. only.)

Look for Molly’s new series—the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries—coming in July 2024!

Book 1: Come Shell or High Water

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction and Guideposts. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.