EDITH MAXWELL – Alias MADDIE DAY – Mystery Writer
Maddie Day pens the Country Store Mysteries and Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. As Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell, she writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and short crime fiction. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.
Batter Off Dead, out on February 22, is the tenth Country Store Mystery. After a summer evening’s fireworks end in
South Lick, Indiana, a senior citizen knitter is found dead, a puncture wound in her neck. The woman’s death echoes that of a decades-old unsolved homicide. To help find the killer, Robbie Jordan has to untangle the knotty relationships deep in the victim’s past.
Do you write in more than one genre? I write contemporary cozy mysteries and also have seven books in my historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries. All my books have a female amateur sleuth for the protagonist.
What brought you to writing? I wrote lots of fiction as a child and then had several careers writing different kinds of non-fiction. I didn’t get back to fiction in a serious way until I was laid off from a hi-tech job in the fall of 2008, and I’m so glad I did. I found another job for the next five years, but I was already hooked on writing mysteries. My first book, Speaking of Murder, came out in 2012, and Batter Off Dead is #27!
Where do you write? What, if any, distractions do you allow? I have a lovely second-floor home office in our antique home. It has a door that shuts, and I’m working by seven each morning. I stand at my desk and often take little walks around the room as I think. I also monitor the walkers and delivery vehicles on the quiet street outside the windows. I try for hour-long sprints of writing (or revising) because if I wander onto the internet, it could be a long time before I’m back. I never listen to music while I work, but sometimes the next thing on my daily to-do list distracts me.
Do you outline, or are you a pantser? I’m a write-into-the-headlines type of gal, but I do submit a synopsis of each book to my editor before I start writing. It acts as a kind of road map, albeit a fuzzy one. And it changes as I follow my characters around and write down what they do and think.
Where do you place your settings—real or fictional locations? All of my contemporary mysteries take place in fictional towns. Some are modeled on real places. The town of South Lick, where Robbie Jordan has her country store restaurant Pans ‘N Pancakes, came entirely out of my imagination. That said, it’s nestled in the very real Brown County, Indiana, a lovely hilly place filled with artists and nature.
Looking to the future, what’s in store for you? I’m delighted to share that the Country Store Mysteries have been renewed through book #13. I also write the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. #4, Murder in a Cape Cottage, releases in September. I have a new historical novel out with an editor, and I’m working on a proposal for a new cozy series set in a small town in my home state of California. Never a dull moment!
Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen,
and on social media: Twitter – Facebook – Instagram
Glad to meet you, Edith! Though, my name is Madeline, and have fondly been called Maddie by several friends, like your pen-name a lot(smile). Much success.
Yeah, Edith, those knitting needles can be dangerous weapons, that’s for sure. It sounds like you’ve got a great series going so best of luck to you.