Mystery author Becky Clark’s cozy mysteries tease and

entertain with subtly dropped clues, masterly red herrings and lashings of

humor, much of it poked at the publishing world she loves.

Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Becky talks about the value of networking, her fascination with synaesthesia, and how being number seven in a family of eight influences her writing;

Six

things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Why she jokes she's a 'teenager in a middle aged body'How a son's request got her startedHer No 1 tip for beginning writersWhy she loves an empty calendar The writers she admires mostTalking 'forbidden topics' with other writers

Where to find Becky Clark:

Website: https://beckyclarkbooks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BeckysBookBuddies

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4730815.Becky_Clark

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/becky-clark

What

follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for

word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Becky.  Hello there Becky and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Becky: Hi Jenny. It's so great to be here it's exciting. It's is my very first podcast.

Jenny: Oh that's wonderful. Look I always start with this question that's very predictable but I love the answers that I get from it. Was there a Once Upon a Time moment when you decided that you must write fiction or your life had to keep its purpose. And if so was there a catalyst for it.

Becky Clark mystery author

Becky: [00:00:32] Nothing that I would have felt like I let myself down. But I definitely would have let my son down, because he was the one who challenged me to start writing novels.

Jenny: Was this when he was a child or an adult?

Becky: [00:00:49] He was a kid. He's grown now but he was about like 10ish and we were at the library. He was a voracious reader and we couldn't find any more historical fiction, which is what he was involved in at the time. He'd read everything they had at the library. And so we're walking out of the library and he says 'Well Mom, why don't you just write one?' And because of course I don't deny my children anything. I said 'Well of course, dear, let me just do that.' And you know long story short took a long time. But I did it. That was my first book. It was historical fiction for boys. You'll never find it, so don't try looking for it. But it was a great little book and it was a really good proving ground to see that I could do it and that it was a fun process. And you know I'm glad he challenged me, but it had never really occurred to me to be a writer until then.

Children's books the start

Jenny: 00:01:49] So that raises a couple of very interesting questions, one of them is why did he think you could do it? And secondly I'm so interested that it was historical because you aren't going the historical way at the moment?

Becky: [00:02:09] Yeah. Historical fiction. I don't know, it just seemed interesting to me and that's what he liked to read That's how it all started. This first one was a historical fiction for kids set in the Civil War and . . . . what was the first question?

Jenny: [00:02:27] Why did he think you could write a book?

Becky: [00:02:31] I don't know. I'm not sure he still thinks that! I don't know. I mean we are big readers and I had written some stuff, just not novels. I had written personal essays you know, Erma Bombeck type essays. Yeah. You know funny slice of life type of things. Maybe he was just trying to get me off his back, thinking if I was busy writing a novel 'she won't make me clean my room.'

Jenny: You’ve written four cozy mysteries, the first two co-authored with Ted Hardwick and the last two under you own byline.  Is there a story behind that?

Becky: [00:03:33] Ted and I have been friends since college.