Featured Interview With Mary Elizabeth Fricke
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a country girl who grew up next door to a dairy farm and married the current landlord of a five generation family farm. I have lived my entire life within five miles of the Missouri River. We’ve had many pets over they years, dogs, cats and even a couple guinea pigs. However I never became partial to cattle or hogs, even though I’ve fed and cared for many of them. I am a wife, mother and grandmother who has ‘worn many caps’ over the years. I continue in partnership with my husband as co-owner/operators of our family farm. However, in the past, I have worked in factories, department stores, offices and as a teacher-aid. I was a 4H Leader and coordinator/teacher of our parish PSR program. I am a certified catechist. And, I was a 4H Leader. I became published more than 20 years ago with a non-fiction article titled, Unpublished Does Not Mean Unwritten’. Today, a framed copy of that article sets on a shelf in my office along with a copy of the check (a grand total of $3.63) that I received when it was published. My autobiography (Dino, Godzilla and the Pigs, Life on our Missouri Hog Farm) was published by SoHo Press in 1993. Since, I’ve published numerous articles through national magazines and on-line publications. I joined the Heartland Writers Guild in 1992 and in 2002 began to edit their newsletter, continuing to do so today. I finally reached my lifelong dream of publishing fiction in May of 2014 with ‘Pigeon in a Snare’ published by AKW ebooks. Number 2 “Roses for the Sparrow’ in this ‘Birds in Peril’ series was published in October, 2014. Now I have ventured into the world of an Indi-publisher with the publication of #3 Plight of the Wren on Aug 15, 2015. ‘Wren’ is currently available for pre-order from Amazon Kindle Books.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My mother taught me to be an avid reader like she was and I have passed that timeless hobby on to my sons. Mom was a published poet but I’m not sure if that ‘urge to write’ was inherited or learned. It’s always been there. In school, I excelled in classes where I could read and/or write. I’ve kept journals since childhood. The urge to tell creative stories developed, I think, before I knew how to write those stories on paper. Writing is as much a part of me as the color of my eyes, the nose on my face. Life does not exist without writing any more than it does without breathing
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Favorite Authors? Like the books I’ve read, they are numerous. I tend to read more in the romance genre but truthfully, my preference in books is down right fickle. I like Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Kerrilynn Kenyon, Heather Graham and Kim Harrison as female fiction writers. Erma Bombeck and Maya Angelou were favorites. As male writers, I like James Patterson, Dan Brown and John Bowers for fiction/science-fiction. But I also read Newt Gingrich’s Revolutionary War series, along with historicals by Robert Vaughan and current non-fiction by Col. Alan West, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. My favorite of all books is ‘Ashes in the Wind’ by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I also find great comfort in reading poems by Robert Frost….and oftentimes the Bible.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
“Plight of the Wren’ is #3 in my ‘Birds in Peril’ series. When I wrote the first story in the series ‘Pigeon in a Snare’ it was just story. Never did I dream one little story would develop into an entire series! The characters just will not let me rest until their stories are told. All characters in the ‘Bird Books’ are friends and/or relatives of the business owners of Hunt Real Estate and Construction, Harvester Law and Cromwell, Inc. based in Mid-Missouri. The stories are linked by the mutual desire of everyone to bring Sheldon Humsler to justice after his numerous crimes, including attempted murder, kidnapping, extorsion, theft, drug manufacturing and selling, have disrupted their quiet mid-west country and small town lives. Sheldon Humsler is one mean, cold-hearted dude. The primary ‘birds’ in the stories are women who marry men instrumental in putting Humsler in prison. Ultimately, all will be recipients of his wrath. ‘Plight of the Wren’ is Susie’s story. Susie Wrener marries Ted Harvester, the attorney who guided the path Humsler’s arrest. Here is the blurb for ‘Plight of the Wren’…
Susie Wrener’s life became front page news when her abusive husband put her in the hospital and sent himself to jail. Three years later, life has returned to mundane, while Susie struggles to maintain a peaceful loving home for her two children as a single mom. Then she meets Ted Harvester and wins the lottery in the same week…
Ted Harvester leaps at the chance to become Hunt R&C’s in-house attorney; thus, rebuilding the business and relationships Sheldon Humsler destroyed. Ted is on a mission to see Humsler incarcerated for life, but his priorities change when he falls in love with Susie Wrener and her children. They embark on life together in a house with an intriguing past all its own.
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