I’d like to welcome author, Michele Drier to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

Favorite thing to do when you have free time: Read, read, read.

The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Cleaning house, primarily vacuuming.

Favorite snacks: Popcorn, nuts, raw veggies, M&Ms

Things that make you want to gag: Organ meats (liver, sweetbreads), kale, escargots (but oh, the garlic butter!)

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: Either a Grand Prix driver or an archeologist.

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Type for a living (writing!). I’m of an age when mostly girls took typing so they could be secretaries. I started college as a chemistry major…no typing there! I took one typing class in college so I didn’t have to pay to have my papers typed. Got a D.

I’ve ended up making a living at typing (reporter, editor, writing grant proposals, annual reports and now, novels…working on the 18th so far). I still type about 45 wpm with errors.

Last best thing you ate: Greek salad
Last thing you regret eating: Ohhhh…brownie with ice cream! Same meal.

Favorite places you’ve been: Europe, almost anywhere but primarily Paris. Based my Kandesky Vampire Chronicles on Hungary because I loved it there.
Places you never want to go to again: North Dakota

People you’d like to invite to dinner (living):Louise Penny, Elizabeth George, Barak Obama
People you’d cancel dinner on: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul

Favorite things to do: Travel, learn new things.
Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Household chores, going to meetings (sigh).

Best thing you’ve ever done: Had my daughters.
Biggest mistake: Getting married, getting married, getting married (yes, three times, the last one ended more than 30 years ago).

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Driven through Greece and Hungary in a rented car. Couldn’t even read the street signs.
Something you chickened out from doing: Climbing to the top of the Duomo in Florence (I chickened out almost at the top and had to fight my way down through all the other tourists coming up the one-sway staircase)

The coolest person you’ve ever met: Vice President Kamela Harris. When I was running a Legal Services organization in Oakland, she was the newly-elected DA in San Francisco and we worked together (mostly I called and left messages) on legal conferences we presented about recognizing and halting Elder Abuse.

The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video: This goes way back, but I saw Shirley Temple shopping several times at Sak’s in a Palo Alto mall. This was when she was Shirley Black and an ambassador and Chief of Protocol for the U.S.

The most exciting thing about your writing life: Telling wonderful stories about women I want to be like.

The one thing you wish you could do over in your writing life: Start earlier and try harder to find an agent.

Tapestry of Tears

History had always been a strong magnet for Rosalind Duke. She took up the medieval craft of making stained glass and was building a solid international reputation, taking on larger and larger commissions. Her idyllic life with her husband, Winston Duke, an art historian at UCLA, was cut short when he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. After moving to a small town on the Oregon coast, she’s offered a commission to translate the medieval embroidery, The Bayeux Tapestry, into stained glass for a museum at a small Wisconsin university. Roz jumps at the chance. Not only to try to transfer the Tapestry into a new medium, but to spend time in Southern England and Northern France, tracing the path taken by the invading Normans under William the Conqueror. But the 21st century drags her back when she finds a body crumpled against a wall in an ancient stone church in the small town of Lympne, on the southern coast of England. Has she walked into a contemporary murder?

About Michele

Michele Drier is a fifth generation Californian. During her career in journalism at daily newspapers in California, she won awards for investigative series. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, a Sisters in Crime chapter; the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, current vice president of NorCal Sisters in Crime, and co-chaired Bouchercon 2020.

Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.

Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG. Currently writing Book Eleven, SNAP: Pandemic Games.

Her new series is the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul and Tapestry of Tears, and she’s working on the third, Resurrection of the Roses.

She lives in Sacramento with her cat, Malley.

Let’s Be Social

Visit her webpage www.MicheleDrier.me

Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleDrier

Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G/

I’d like to welcome Michele Drier to the blog today for #ThisorThatThursday.

A few of your favorite things: Chocolate, my daughters and grandchildren, books.

Things you need to throw out: My business suits and high heels, clothes older than 20 years, divorce papers from my first husband.

Things you need for your writing sessions: Quiet, atlases from around the world, that Great Card Catalog in the cloud (Google.)

Things that hamper your writing: Meetings, marketing, other things I’ve said yes to (political campaigns, National Women’s Political Caucus).

Things you love about writing: Creating stories, giving characters those strengths I lack (organization!), figuring out the puzzle, righting the wrongs, research (I’m a frustrated historian!).

Things you hate about writing: Finding the best word, going too far down the rabbit hole of description, proofreading.

Hardest thing about being a writer: Consistency, developing a schedule and sticking to it, carving out three-hour time blocks.

Easiest thing about being a writer: Making stuff up! (I spent years as a newspaper editor and everything had to be fully-fact-checked!).

Writing characters who have interesting and quirky habits which wouldn’t go in real life.

Things you never want to run out of: Printer ink, copy paper, butter, chocolate, coffee.

Things you wish you’d never bought: An old printer, a small bedside lamp (too low to read by), a book on knitting.

Favorite foods: Indian, Thai, Mexican, French, salmon, salads, French bread.

Things that make you want to gag: Liver, escargots, okra.

Favorite smell: The air after a rain, cut grass on a summer evening.

Something that makes you hold your nose: Diesel fumes, pulp mills, fermenting grapes (but, afterwards…yum!).

Last best thing you ate: Chicken Caesar salad.

Last thing you regret eating: The brownies I made last night.

Things you always put in your books: Strong women, some true information (my WIP is based on a horde of Medieval stained glass they discovered in the attic of Westminster Abbey in 2017.) My paranormal romances, The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, always have some current political information about the Eastern European bloc.

Things you never put in your books: On the page violence, shootings, stabbings, dismemberment, explicit sex, mass murderers preying on women.

Favorite places you’ve been: Oh God. France, Greece, Italy, England…pretty much anywhere in Europe.

Places you never want to go to again: Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho.

Things that make you happy: Sun, soft rain, cats, my garden, the beach, opera, museums.

Things that drive you crazy: Bad drivers (the ones who buy cars with no turn signals!), people who talk in jargon, people who believe conspiracy theories and never learn to check facts.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: When a cousin and I drive a rented car into Hungary. We only had one map and didn’t speak or read the language. Great adventure!

Something you chickened out from doing: Climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower (and I backed down half-way up to the rotunda of the Florence Cathedral. Got cussed out by all the people going up!).

About Michele:

Michele Drier is a fifth generation Californian. During her career in journalism she won awards for investigative series. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, the Sacramento chapter of Sisters in Crime, the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime and co-chair for Bouchercon 2020.

Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries, set in the California Delta area, are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.

Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG, continues with book ten, SNAP: Red Bear Rising released 2018.

The first book of her new series, Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul, was released in 2019 and she is currently working on the second book in the series, Tapestry of Tears

Let’s Be Social:

Visit her webpage, www.MicheleDrier.me

Or her facebook page, ,http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleDrier

Or find her on her author page at http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G/