Laura Childs, author of Lemon Curd Killer, a Tea Shop mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us about her writing influencers.

Welcome, Laura. I’ll turn the floor over to you –

It seems as if I’ve been writing all my life. At age six, I wrote and illustrated George the Ghost. That inaugural piece was, as you might expect, a self-published book. In grade school I wrote short stories and poetry. But when my seventh grade teacher (a nun who didn’t much like me) told me I could never be a real writer because of my lousy penmanship, I resolved to make my living as a writer who knocked work out via a typewriter. See there? She was my very first influencer. A negative one, but one that propelled me forward.

In high school, a dear English teacher was a whole lot more encouraging. So I wrote plays, speeches, and features for the school newspaper. Another influencer who gave me a few gentle pushes.

In college, the editor of our daily newspaper was tough but highly instructive. I learned to craft spare sentences that packed real punch. God bless that fellow, because that gig spring-boarded me into my first real job as a proofreader in Target’s advertising department. There, the copy chief encouraged my writing and within six months promoted me to full-fledged writer.

That Target experience jumped me into a wild decade of ad agency gigs where I wrote TV and radio for dozens of multi-national companies, flew on private jets, and won tons of awards. Then I struck out by myself to head my own marketing firm. That was during the go-go eighties and the teched-out nineties, but all along the way I nursed the idea of writing a novel.

Working evening and weekends, I finally wrote Old Masters – a thriller about geriatric Nazis and stolen artwork. I was ecstatic about my 400-page masterpiece, but unsure what to do with it. Another influencer in my life, an advertising illustrator, put me in touch with Mary Higgins Clark. (Yes, that Mary Higgins Clark). Mary graciously invited me to the Mystery Writers Symposium in New York and then proceeded to introduce me to a dozen agents and editors. Talk about an influencer! Within six months I signed a three-book contract to write the Tea Shop Mysteries for Penguin-Random House. And now I write three different series (Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbooking Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries) and have more than fifty books in print with stints on the New York Times bestseller list.

I am forever grateful to the many influencers who gave me an abundance of encouragement along the way, and one major influencer who gave me the huge push I needed. So now, whenever I’m at a book signing or library talk, and someone sidles up to me and shyly admits that they’ve just written a book – I smile back, listen carefully, and try to give them the best possible advice that I can.

Thank you so much for reading this. And if you’re at all intrigued, my brand new Tea Shop Mystery, Lemon Curd Killer, has just been released.

Thank you for sharing this with us, Laura, and good luck with Lemon Curd Killer, a Tea Shop mystery.

Readers can learn more about Laura by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook page.

The book is available online at the following retailers:

 Amazon – B&N – Kobo – IndieBound – PenguinRandomHouse

About Laura Childs: Laura is the author of the Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbook Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. All have been on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists. Recently, Book Riot named her mysteries to their list of “25 of the All Time Best Cozy Mystery Series.” In herprevious life Laura was CEO of her own marketing firm, authored several screenplays, and produced a reality TV show. She is married to Dr. Bob, a professor of Chinese art history, and has a Chinese Shar-Pei named Lotus.