I’d like to welcome the fabulous Ellen Byron to the blog for #WriterWednesday. I can’t wait for my copy of BAYOU BOOK THIEF to arrive!

Favorite thing to do when you have free time: needlepoint.

The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Cleaning. Especially weeding through papers, etc., to throw stuff away. But I did just donate seven boxes of books to our library sale, which I’m very proud of myself for doing. Unfortunately, it didn’t make much of a dent in my book stash!

Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: Tea.

Things that distract you from writing: Everything, lol. But especially the internet.

Hardest thing about being a writer: Writing.

Easiest thing about being a writer: Farting around by trading gossip with my writer friends.

Things you will run to the store for at midnight: Nothing, really. Except that when I was pregnant twenty-two years ago, I made my husband go on a run for Abba-Zabba bars. For some reason, I totally craved them. Not before, not since. Weird, huh?

Things you never put on your shopping list: Coffee or cilantro. Blecch.

Favorite snacks: Too many, which is why I’m constantly on a diet. But pretzels, cheese curls, and all things sweet.

Things that make you want to gag: Anything with coffee or cilantro. (See “Things I never put on my shopping list.”) I hate both with a white-hot passion.

Something you’re really good at: Dancing.

Something you’re really bad at: Push-ups.

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: A ballerina.

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Write mystery novels and actually have them published!

Something you wish you could do: Go en pointe. A big regret that I never made it that far in my ballet studies.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Bake. Too many temptations!

Last best thing you ate: sliced turkey with sides of baked potato chips and Trader Joe’s Cheese Crunchies. #whitetrashmeals.

Last thing you regret eating: see above.

Things to say to an author: “I bought copies of your book for everyone in my family! And I have a really big family!”

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “I call cozies ‘cutesies’ because they’re so light-weight.”

Favorite places you’ve been: New Orleans, just about my favorite place, next to my hometown of New York. Plus England and Italy.

Places you never want to go to again: The empty, two-lane Louisiana and Texas roads I traversed in the pitch black of night during our Hurricane Ida evacuation. I had no idea where the hell we were and didn’t see a soul for literally hours. It was terrifying, especially since I knew we were occasionally riding alongside waterways loaded with gators. But during the day, I’m sure the areas we drove through are prettier and less ominous.

Most embarrassing moment: When I was in high school, I played Duke Vincentio in an all-girl production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. I had to do a quick change for the last scene and the costumer forget to put out my pants. So I had to go out in a white suit jacket and no pants. I was wearing black tights, thank God! But still… embarrassing!

Proudest moment: Watching our daughter graduate college a few weeks ago. The pandemic was brutal on kids, so to see her power through the obstacles it presented and proudly walk with her classmates and receive her diploma generated a lot of tears.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: I swore I’d never ride on a motorcycle or in a helicopter. Well, on a European vacation a number of years ago I was supposed to meet my family in Venice but I got trapped in Zermatt, Switzerland by a snowstorm. The only way out was by helicopter. I thought for half a second and then said, “Sign me up!” I’ll never forget flying over the pine trees and snow in the Alps. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.

Something you chickened out from doing: When I was living in New York, I ran into an actor acquaintance on Broadway one day and he told me that he and some friends were flying to Belize later in the week. He invited me to join them, and I said, “Sure!” Then I chickened out. I still regret that. I’m not a spontaneous person. I wish I was.

The coolest person you’ve ever met: I’ve met a lot of famous people due to my work as an entertainment journalist and then a TV writer. But Shirley MacLaine might be the coolest because she gave me a mantra to use whenever I feel my fear of flying rear its head: “I am having a safe, uneventful journey.” I’ve used this mantra in so many ways ever since then. It really helps me tamp down anxiety.

The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video: You know what? Like I said, I’ve met a ton of celebrities. And I can’t think of anyone who didn’t look like he or she did in their pictures or videos. Then again, I always met them under professional circumstances, so they had a vested interest in looking good!

The most exciting thing about your writing life: Winning two Agatha’s and three Lefty Awards!!!

The one thing you wish you could do over in your writing life: During my TV writing heyday, my writing partner and I passed on a development deal we should have taken. It could have put us on a different path. Maybe it wouldn’t have, of course. But if a genie granted me three wishes, one would be to go back and take that deal.

What’s the best thing you ever bought online? I impulse-bought a paper bouquet to send as a gift to my mother from an ad I saw on… Instagram, I think? The company is called freshcutpaper.com. Mom has a thing against fresh flowers because they end up dying and making a mess. I thought sturdy paper bouquet would be a great alternative and I was right. I’ve sent at least half a dozen since then. I call them forever flowers because they can last forever. And they’re also affordable. Here’s one I recently sent to a friend who was in the hospital.

Worst thing I ever bought online: I succumbed to an ad for an adjustable phone stand. It turned out to be pieces of thin, cheap plastic you put together yourself into a stand that was completely useless. A total ripoff that I hated adding to our landfill crisis.

About Ellen:

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won two Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico.

Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart.

An alum of New Orleans’ Tulane University, she blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, serves on the national board for Mystery Writers of America, and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster. Please visit her at https://www.ellenbyron.com/