Mary Janice Davidson



Well, I suppose I've put this off long enough. My PR person has been bugging me and bugging me, and I can't ignore her any more...she's got me cornered like a rat. A rat who needs highlights. But finally, I have no choice. No current deadlines. The house is clean. The tree is up. The dog's been fed. I got nothin'.

Actually, I've been resisting this for a very important reason... you're interested in one or more of my books, right? Right. That's probably about it. And that's fine. Hey, it's better than fine...I've got house payments, so read away. But honestly...do you really care that I was an Air Force brat raised all over the country (the highlights include Guam, Mississippi, and North Dakota), with a father who fought fires and a mom who broke the world record for target shooting? Oh, wait, I guess that is kind of cool. I mean, it's nothing *I* actually did, but still. I still remember all the men bitching within my mom's earshot (and mine; I was six) when she broke the record. "Goddamned women should stay home!" Sore losers.

But that's enough about my parents, though I could certainly go on if I wanted to. But back to me. Because, if you didn't get the memo, it's all about me. So, you know, born in a small town in the Midwest, grew up with a dream, Miss Congeniality in high school (hard to believe, isn't it?), blah-blah. Got married, had kids. You'd think moving all over as a kid (seven schools in twelve years) would have gotten it out of my system, but I managed to fall in love with a guy who lived half a country away, so we went out to Boston for a bit, and finally settled in Minnesota, land of ten thousand mosquitoes. (That's a joke. There's actually way, way, way more than ten thousand.) Started writing when I was thirteen, sold my first book when I was twenty-nine. Made the best-seller list when I was thirty-four. Learned how to make gravy without lumps. It was a wonderful decade.

I guess the root of it is, I don't like talking about myself. I don't know about you guys, but *I'd* rather be reading a book than listening to some self-important idiot blathering on about, as Elaine on Seinfeld put it, "the excrutiating minutae of everyday life". Although, I'm kind of proud of this, I remembered to close the flue in the fireplace this week, so I didn't have to brush the ashes out of my eyebrows by the time I got a blaze going. That's interesting and cool, right?

So, maybe not.

People who read my books tell me, "You talk just like your characters." That's because my deep dark secret is this: I have no imagination. I've been a secretary, a model, a waitress, an editor, an office manager, and a medical test subject. So have my characters. I guess my point is...I forget. I'm pretty sure I had one. But, if nothing else, now my PR person will get off my back.