#WriterWednesday Interview with Millicent Eidson
/
I’d like to welcome my fellow Guppy, Millicent Eidson, to the blog today for #WriterWednesday!
Favorite things to do when you have free time: Workshop with my fellow authors and take writing classes. Go for walks, take photos, and work out on gym weight machines.
The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Nothing. I’m a fanatic about getting everything done early so it’s not weighing on me.
Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: Music (usually classical without words to avoid interrupting the writing) and diluted cranberry juice.
Things that distract you from writing: Not much, I’m fairly focused.
Hardest thing about being a writer: Marketing.
Easiest thing about being a writer: Editing my drafts. It’s fun to polish the diamonds and see them shine.
The coolest thing you’ve bought online: Dark chocolate in volume—I’m addicted.
Something you’re really good at: Writing the first draft, but the third novel about coronavirus has been tough, recreating what the scientists knew when.
Something you’re really bad at: Taking the plunge to spend money on advertising.
Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: A dancer or an actor.
Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Being a Mom, achieved through adoption of an abandoned infant in China, and creating a fictional heroine in her honor.
Something you wish you could do: I’m counting the days until local COVID rates are low enough to restart volunteer teaching with little kids.
Last best thing you ate: Any cake from Mirabelle’s, a miracle bakery in Vermont.
Things to say to an author: Can we talk about your book?
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: You spent a huge amount of time on the writing workshop edits I requested, but I’m not going to use them—my publisher won’t care about minor things like head-hopping.
Favorite places you’ve been: Growing up in the Southwest was the best—that’s why it dominates the initial novels in my mystery series. But my main character heads off to other locations I’ve enjoyed, including London, Norway, Portugal, Morocco, and China.
People you’d like to invite to dinner (living): Tess Gerritsen, medical thriller and romantic suspense author.
Most embarrassing moment: A panic attack during a guest talk and I lost my voice.
The funniest thing that happened to you on vacation: In an Australian national park, a cockatoo landed on my husband’s shoulder and tried to bite off his mustache.
Proudest moment: Being chosen by my peers for the 2013 American Veterinary Medical Association Public Service Award.
The most exciting thing about your writing life: Bringing public health and mysterious microbes to life through compelling characters.
About Millicent:
Millicent Eidson is the author of the alphabetical Maya Maguire microbial mystery series. The MayaVerse at https://drmayamaguire.com includes prequels, “El Chinche” in Danse Macabre and “What’s Within” in Fiction on the Web, and a side story, “Pérdida” in El Portal Literary Journal. Author awards include Best Play in Synkroniciti and Honorable Mention from the Arizona Mystery Writers.
Dr. Eidson’s work as a public health veterinarian and epidemiologist began with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and continued at the New Mexico and New York state health departments. She is a public health faculty member at the University at Albany and the University of Vermont, and secretary for the Burlington Writers Workshop https://burlingtonwritersworkshop.com/ .
Let’s Be Social:
Amazon.com: Millicent Eidson: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle
Millicent Eidson (Author of Anthracis) | Goodreads
(1) Millicent Eidson (@EidsonMillicent) / Twitter
Millie Eidson (@drmayamaguire) • Instagram photos and videos
Book Links:
Millicent Eidson (books2read.com)
Anthracis: A Microbial Mystery a book by Millicent Eidson (bookshop.org)
Anthracis: A Microbial Mystery by Millicent Eidson, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)
About the Book:
Anthracis is the debut novel in an alphabetical series featuring Maya Maguire, medical detective, in her journey as an Asian American veterinarian solving microbial mysteries.
The spectacular southwestern desert is alive with Bacillus anthracis spores, and the summer is the hottest on record. As a new veterinary epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Maya Maguire confronts the largest, most complex anthrax outbreak in U.S. history.
Infections in persons of color and immigration activists resonate with Maya’s search, as a Chinese American adoptee, for a place in her American home. Younger than her fellow trainees and battling panic disorder from a horrific childhood accident, she struggles to solve an epidemic mystery in a physician-dominated public health world. From her home base in New Mexico, CDC sends her to join a federal team in Arizona, including provocative physician Dr. Manolo Miranda and tightlipped veterinarian Dr. Dave Schwartz.
The epidemic is linked to climate change—that’s the party line. But Homeland Security agents and the FBI are suspicious. Dave’s an anthrax expert and spores match his home Texas Triangle of Death.
An invisible enemy, team secrets, and romantic missteps may derail Maya’s confidence. If she can’t find the source, thousands could perish from anthrax-laced heroin and tainted milk. Anthracis takes us to the front lines with scientists betting their lives and relationships on the investigation outcome.
Praise for the Books of Millicent Eidson
“Dr. Eidson's medical thriller serves up unique and carefully drawn characters, fascinating and chillingly realistic threats, and enough Happily For Now resolutions to satisfy any women's fiction or romantic suspense fan. You won't want to miss this new entrant into the genre. I hope the author is busy writing the next book in this engaging series.” – Barbara Hinskey, USA Today Bestselling Author of Paws & Pastries
“Anthracis is one of those books that come out of left field and grab your attention so fast you've read chapters before reality interrupts. Don't let the scientific title put you off, this is a top-rate thriller with endless twists and even more captivating surprises!” – Ingrid Foster, author of My Father’s Magic: An Esme Bohlin Novel
“This medical thriller takes the stakes to new heights because of the NUMBER of lives affected.” – Donna Van Braswell, author of Daughter of the Ancients
“Synkroniciti is thrilled to award our first ever short play award to Dr. Millicent Eidson for her delightfully quirky and thought-provoking play Monuments . . . By turns funny, poignant and eye-opening, Monuments presents us with nuanced and three-dimensional characters rather than stereotypes.” – Synkroniciti.
