INTRODUCING ELLEN KENNEDY!

It's my privilege to introduce the newest member of the Suspense Sisters - Ellen Kennedy! Ellen and I have been friends a long time. We met when we both signed with a small publisher many years ago. Although that situation didn't turn out the way we'd hoped, we both got something much better. (In my opinion, anyway!) We bonded through that experience and kept in touch down through the years. I've been her fan for a long, long time and am thrilled to finally see her wonderful books available for YOU to read. She's the Queen of Cozies, and you will love her writing almost as much as you love her.

Nancy Mehl

Ellen Edwards Kennedy (aka EEK) grew up in Miss Prentice’s region of far northern New York State and lived with her husband and children across the South and West.
Along with the Miss Prentice Mysteries, she is the author of a Christian romance novella, "The Applesauce War," in the anthology, THE FARMER'S BRIDE, from Barbour Books; and ANOTHER THINK COMING, a mystery set in Texas scheduled for future publication by Sheaf House. Book Two in the Miss Prentice series, DEATH DANGLES A PARTICIPLE, follows the further adventures of Amelia, Gil, Vern and Lily in the wintry North Country and book three that introduces us to Amelia and friends as teenagers, MURDER IN THE PAST TENSE, is currently in production. Ellen writes weekly articles at The Wordsmith Journal Magazine. Her column about writing and the Christian life is called "Behind the Mystery."

Ellen is a member of The Suspense Sisters, American Christian Fiction Writers, Christian Author's Network, Light of Carolina Writers, Sisters in Crime and MurderMustAdvertise.
She and her husband live in North Carolina, are born-again Christians, and the happy, blessed grandparents of five little answers to prayer.

INTERVIEW WITH ELLEN KENNEDY

SUSPENSE SISTERS: Hello, Ellen. Welcome to the Suspense Sisters. Here, have a cookie. How do you take your coffee?

E.E. KENNEDY:  Mmpgh. Thank you! Lots of hazelnut creamer, please. I am just so delighted and honored to be here.

SS: We’d love to learn a little more about you. For instance, how did you get into writing mysteries?

EEK: Well, to be honest, I never expected to become a writer. I originally wanted to star in Broadway musicals, but it turns out that I get my feelings hurt too easily, and couldn’t take the rejection involved. So I got into advertising instead. It was as close as I dared to get to show business. And it only required an attention span of :30 to :60 seconds.

SS: And when did you start writing novels?

EEK: Well first, I got married and spent a couple of decades hand-raising our two daughters. They’ve turned out really well, in my opinion. Of course, I may be prejudiced, but they are exceptionally intelligent, lovely girls. They’re both grown up now, with children of their own. We have five grandchildren, adorable babies. I have pictures. Wanna see? Here!

SS: Yes, thank you, they’re very sweet. I can see the resemblance. Um, getting back to writing. How about this: when did you write your first mystery?

EEK: Well, I was reading a paperback mystery and got so disgusted with it, I literally threw it across the kitchen. (I was glad later that I wasn’t in our living room with the picture window.)

“Even I,” I snarled, “could write a better book than that!” That’s what I said, right out loud. It took a while before I actually got a story pulled together, though.

SS: You had a few false starts?

EEK: (laughing) You better believe it! I wrote a few pages about a housewife who decided to moonlight as a detective, but I had no idea where to go from there. Did she need a license? Or didn’t she? Too complicated. And then I wrote quite a lot on a story about a college student whose roommate steals his work and murders him. It was set at my alma mater. But that very same plot turned up on Lifetime Movies, so I dropped it. (Had a nice title, too: The Thing With Feathers, after the Emily Dickensen poem? Ah, well.) Then I remembered Alfred Hitchcock and how his best movies seemed to involve nice, ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. So I created Amelia Prentice, schoolteacher, and had her trip over a body in the safest place I could think of, the public library.

SS: Did the name Amelia have any particular significance for you?

EEK: Nope, none whatsoever.

SS: All right. Um, you set your series in the Adirondack region. Is there significance in that?

EEK: Yes. I grew up there.

SS: I see. Okay, tell me about your titles.

EEK: Oh, we had fun with those! My sister had actually once been an English teacher and we got together and started batting ideas around. Ever since then, my husband and I try to come up with funny titles related to teaching English. I think a title is very important in catching a potential reader’s eye, don’t you?

SS: Definitely. What are some of your upcoming titles?

EEK: Well, you’ve seen the ones I already have: Irregardless of Murder—that’s the first Miss Prentice mystery. Then, there’s number two, Death Dangles a Participle. I just finished the unedited, raw version of number three: Murder in the Past Tense, which isn’t as funny a title, but directly pertains to the story. I had toyed with calling it The Comma Splice of Death, but my publisher liked the other name better. We like to kick around title ideas on long car trips. Here are a few more we came up with that I may or may not use: The Village Idiom; Murder, As It Were; Ending With a Preposition; The Revenge of the Apostrophe Police; Stranger Than Diction; To Viciously Split an Infinitive and Cursive, Foiled Again! I love titles!

SS: I can see that! Perhaps your advertising background helps in this.

EEK: I think so, now that you mention it. You know, all those slogans and things. There’s a downside to having written ads, though. We were required to be concise, and sometimes I’ll tell a story so concisely, it’s not really a full novel. My most recently-written novel, Murder in the Past Tense, is a very complex story, with many intertwining sub-plots, but it still kept coming up short in the number of words department. I will probably have to add a few more scenes to it to give it a satisfying length.  

SS: Well, Ellen, it’s been really pleasant getting to know you a little better. Have you anything you’d like to add to your comments?

EEK: Yes. These are just about the best cookies I ever put in my mouth. Is there any chance I could get the recipe?

E.E. Kennedy’s website is: www.missprenticecozymystery.com

DISCLAIMER FROM THE SUSPENSE SISTERS: (It is important to point out that both the interview questions and the answers were provided by E.E. Kennedy herself. No real human interviewer was harmed or embarrassed in the production of this page.)

 Ellen is giving away a copy of Irregardless of Murder Death Dangles a Participle. For a chance to win, leave a comment, along with your contact information.