Joanne McLaughlin is…On the Writing Block!

Sherry Ickes
Aug 4
3 min read

This next author is not just one of my fellow members in Sisters in Crime, but she also happens to have a unique take on a mystery that I’d like to share with you today…

Joanne McLaughlin wrote superhero stories in second grade. By fourth, she turned playwright. Much later, she worked in newspapers and public media editing award-winning coverage of such topics as politics and public health, fashion and financial markets, plus Pulitzer Prize-finalist architecture criticism and a Peabody Award-nominated podcast on COVID vaccine distribution.

Her novels include the mysteries A Poetic Puzzle and Chasing Ashes and the vampire trilogy Never Before Noon, Never Until Now, and Never More Human. Her short fiction appears in Behind the Revolving Door, Vol. 1, and Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, Vol. 1, and on mysterytribune.com.

How much is based on real life versus made up?

Most of what I write comes out of my head (a scary place), but there’s always some bits of real life in there, too. For example, like Mimi Jones in A Poetic Puzzle, I’m not a dog person; even small dogs sort of frighten me. In Chasing Ashes, the main character, Laura Cunningham, is a journalist, as I was for years; also, the yearbook photo described in one chapter is remarkably similar to a picture in my college yearbook. And Jackson Fahey, the leading man in my vampire trilogy, is a business reporter in post-Great Recession Europe. I wrote the vampire books during that period, between 2011 and 2015, while I was one of the business editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Plus, the first book in the trilogy, Never Before Noon, is named for my late husband’s music management company.

Who is your favorite mystery sleuth?

Currently, it’s Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs. I’ve read 11 of the 18 books in the series, mostly out of sequence, and I’m impressed by the subtle evolution of the characters as the story moves through the years between and First and Second World Wars in Britain.

What is your favorite food to eat?

Vanilla gelato. I will eat an entire pint in one sitting.

Do you prefer pen and paper, or computer for writing?

I make notes or sketch chapters to come with pen and paper. I’m always early for appointments, so hair salons and doctor’s waiting rooms are great for this. But I write on the computer at home in my dining room.

Bonus Questions:

What is your ultimate goal as an author?

To tell satisfying stories that entertain readers. What else?

How much research do you conduct for your storylines?

As much as needed to create a plot that’s plausible, if not necessarily probable. I read a lot about ALS and assistive technologies because a character in my mystery Chasing Ashes has the neurodegenerative disease. For A Poetic Puzzle, I researched contemporary (that is, 21^st-century) protest songs. And for my second Mimi Jones cozy mystery, Murder in Act One, coming in the fall, I researched weather patterns in the Philadelphia area for summer and fall 2024 and read Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well four times. For each of my novels, I’ve Googled travel times and flight information. My characters get around.

What is A Poetic Puzzle about?

Celebrity poet Mary Irene Jones has vanished. She’s also mailed a box of her unpublished manuscripts to a lesser-known namesake poet, M. Irene “Mimi” Jones. Are the manuscripts clues? And what about that hunky Philadelphia police detective assigned to the case? He seems as intrigued by Mimi as by the missing celebrity poet. Talk about a person of interest…