#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with Mary Dutta

I’d like to welcome the amazing Mary Dutta to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday.

Things you never want to run out of: coffee and half-and-half

Things you wish you’d never bought: The air fryer collecting dust in the closet

Hardest thing about being a writer: Getting plot twists right

Easiest thing about being a writer: Brainstorming the start of a new story

A few of your favorite things: Mechanical pencils, yellow legal pads

Things you need to throw out: All the annual planners I never used

Favorite foods: Any variation on pork and potatoes

Things that make you want to gag: oysters

Something you’re really good at: Teaching

Something you’re really bad at: Directions

Favorite music or song: Anything I can sing along to

Music that drives you crazy: Anything electronic

Favorite smell: Lilacs

Something that makes you hold your nose: Roses

Things you always put in your books: Humor

Things you never put in your books: intense violence

Favorite books (or genre): Nowadays, mysteries. Back in the day, Victorian novels

Books you wouldn’t buy: Horror or anything graphically violent

Favorite things to do: Reading, cooking, hanging out with the people I love

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Camping (which I imagine includes running through a fire and eating bugs)

Best thing you’ve ever done: Having my kids

Biggest mistake: Waiting too long to start writing fiction

Besides writing, what’s the most creative thing you’ve done: Designed classes so I get to teach on cool things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe

A project that didn’t quite turn out the way you planned it: The novel that lives in a drawer

About Mary:

Mary Dutta is the winner of the New England Crime Bake Al Blanchard Award for her short story “The Wonderworker,” which appears in Masthead: Best New England Crime Stories. Her work can also be found in numerous anthologies including the Anthony-nominated Land of 10,000 Thrills: Bouchercon Anthology 2022. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She lives outside of Birmingham, Alabama (the Magic City) and teaches at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Visit her at marydutta.com and enjoy her blog at Writers Who Kill.

#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with Mary Dutta

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I’d like to welcome author, Mary Dutta, to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

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A few of your favorite things: Dark chocolate, Victorian novels, New York City

Things you need to throw out: All the organizers, bullet journals, color-coded pens, and calendars that I keep thinking will change my writing process and don’t.

Things you need for your writing sessions: Yellow legal pads

Things that hamper your writing: Internet access

Things you love about writing: Endless possibilities

Things you hate about writing: Plots that resist revealing themselves

Hardest thing about being a writer: Rejections
Easiest thing about being a writer: Jumping into a new story

Favorite foods: Anything pork, anything chocolate

Things that make you want to gag:  Stinky tofu

Favorite beverage:  Gin & tonic
Something that gives you a sour face: Kombucha

Something you’re really good at: Baking
Something you’re really bad at: Skiing

Last best thing you ate: Pepper & egg grinder
Last thing you regret eating: Octopus. I keep trying it and never like it.

Things you always put in your books: Humor
Things you never put in your books: Graphic violence

Things to say to an author: I loved your book!
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I could write a great book if I just took the time.

Favorite places you’ve been: Petra, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Bronte parsonage
Places you never want to go to again: Any gas station in New Jersey, where you’re not allowed to pump your own gas.

Favorite books (or genre): Wuthering Heights, Mysteries
Books you wouldn’t buy: Sci Fi

About Mary:

Mary Dutta traded New England and a career as an English professor for a new life as a college admissions reader in the South. Her short story "Festival Finale” appears in The Best Laid Plans: 21 Stories of Mystery & Suspense.