Fun Facts from Mystery Author Maggie Toussaint

Maggie Toussaint writes mystery, romantic suspense, and contemporary romance for multiple publishers.

The bio on Maggie's blog says:

"I grew up a tomboy and didn't own anything pink until after I was married and expecting - and then it was a hand-me-down pregnancy top. So I've never been a girly-girl. I'm just me. I thought I would be an astronaut when I grew up. I never considered the fact that I was extremely myopic, prone to motion sickness and vertigo, and a person who needs to pee frequently as a drawback, but apparently I am not prime astronaut material. That's okay too, cuz I learned to fly with words and stories."

I'm pleased to welcome you back to Guest Thursday, Maggie.


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Fun Facts by Maggie Toussaint

I remember watching a program called “What’s my line?” when I was younger. At the end of the show, they asked the real contestant to stand up. Sometimes I guessed right, sometimes wrong. But when I’d guessed right, it felt really good.

You may have a stereotype of female mystery writers in your head. Perhaps you think we all look like Sue Grafton or Charlaine Harris. Perhaps you think we are all rolling in dough. Or maybe you think we spend all our spare time talking guns and poisons. I can’t speak for all mystery writers, only myself, and I hope you enjoy getting to know me better. (By the way, not so much dough for this writer, thumbs up for guns and poison, and as for my look, you be the judge.)

Here are four fun facts about me:

I’m colorful. I like to surround myself with bright primary colors, and my closet resembles a jumbled crayon box with colors gone wild. Color is more than a look for me. It gives me strength on troubling days; conversely, a lack of color helps me to wallow in the blues, a necessary state for writing many scenes. Consequently, I require fashion consultants when stepping out in the real world, and my conservative daughters are a big help.

I wear many hats, literally and figuratively. These days I wear hats to keep the sun off my face. I’ve got derbys, floppy Southern belle hats, cowboy hats, Aussie hats, and more. One of my favs is made of two different colors of ribbons, giving it a striped look. It’s so lightweight, I wore it painting a fence last summer and ruined it for anything but yard work, but that blue paint just makes me love it more. As for my varied roles in life, here are a few current ones: wife, mother, sister, grandmother, reporter, book writer, musician, and vocalist.

The Prince of Tides was more than a book to me. Pat Conroy’s book about a shrimp fisherman’s family captured the push and pull of the tides on my family. Granted, the situations were different, but the small town mentality, the boom and bust feel of shrimping, the hard work and long hours, the unconditional love, the deep love/respect of the sea, the tendency to drink too much, the sense that others were outsiders – those were all things I experienced in my extended family growing up. I am a shrimper’s daughter.

Tickets, get your tickets here. My first job was as a ticket seller at a movie theater on a Georgia barrier island. We didn’t get many patrons, so I doubled as the popcorn and candy person, too. My second real job was working on a golf course under construction during my college summers. I ran the smaller machines. They started me on the sand trap rake, basically a four-wheeler that dragged rake-like plates, and I moved up to a bush hog that mowed the rough. You always had to watch out for deep holes and hornet nests. My second summer there I was allowed to cut the greens (a stinky job because those short clippings reek), but I never made it to the top – the big gang mower for cutting the fairways. I still wish I’d mastered that one.

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Thanks, Maggie. I can imagine you tooling around the golf course on the sand trap rake and the bush hog. That could be very valuable experience if you decide to write a country club mystery series.

Learn more about Maggie and her books at her website and her blog, Mudpies and Magnolias.

Maggie's new release from Five Star, Death, Island Style, is available now from online booksellers.