Essays & Media

One: After writing and rewriting your manuscript thirty-seven times, you submit your final draft to 150 agents and/or publishers. You finally got a publishing contract, congrats! Now you can relax, scroll the internet looking for new boots, and read a juicy mystery set in Door County. True or false?

Below are the 10 things I love about being a published author of Culinary Mysteries. Don’t forget to check out my recipe for 3 Ingredient Artichoke and Sweet Potato Dip.

In culinary mysteries, which I love reading, someone is murdered, the sleuth tries to figure out who did it, and everyone eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I’ve been going to Chicago bars and restaurants since I was a kid. Some of them still brag about having been speakeasies during the Prohibition era.

I loved playing piano as a child, but when I got to the music school at Indiana University, it seemed like everyone else was a better musician. I still liked playing, but I got nauseated whenever I had to perform. I finished my degree in piano and psychology and stopped playing.

When I write a story or novel, I always try to convey normal conversations with friends, realistic dialogues between my characters, and frustrating but not-too-scary interactions with law enforcement.

Dear Pre-Published Self,

Remember the day you got that email saying that DX Varos Publishing was going to publish your first culinary mystery? You were too excited about the thought of being a published author to realize that six months (launch date 8.6.2019) was cutting it close. Way too close for someone who knew nothing about publishing.

I prefer reading mysteries in which characters live normal lives. They do their jobs, grocery shop, go to the dentist, and order new air purifier filters. When I read a novel, I want to see (or be able to imagine) regular people who sometimes need to find a pen that works, compare airline prices, or scroll through pictures of cute babies.

I’ve either left out something important or written incorrect measurements in nearly every recipe I’ve ever created. I’ve also neglected important information or made huge mistakes in the first draft of every novel I’ve ever written (three so far).

What would you do if the café closest to your home serves great almond croissants, but you usually order a baguette with butter and jam? And they don’t have baguettes with jam. Or the music is cranked up way too loud. And you can’t even hear your friend talking.

Alene Baron is dealing with frustrated employees, closed schools, and a homeless man who harasses customers outside the door of her café. Then, two dead bodies turn up in the burned remains of buildings owned by the husband of Alene’s best friend and pastry chef, Ruthie.

Let’s touch base. Some writers have picked up a lot of clichés over the course of time, and I don’t want you to have to read between the lines here – but it’s starting to push me over the edge.

“One morning I was sitting in a neighborhood coffeehouse, imagining lives for the employees and other patrons, when I suddenly realized that it would make the perfect setting for a murder mystery,” G.P. said.

n 2019, Battered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery, my debut novel, was released into the world. It’s a cozy, culinary mystery, the kind without graphic violence, sex, or anything that would keep a reader up at night.

I love reading literary or historical fiction, biographies, and science, and consumed one or two books a week until I started treatment.