Welcome the NEW RED!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Hear that? See that? It’s the Triumphal March from Aida. It’s a stadium-full of people cheering. It’s ticker tape billowing from Manhattan skyscrapers.  It’s the Rose Parade, the Mardi Gras, Bastille Day, Oktoberfest and Fashion Week. Okay, we’re happy and we’re celebrating.

Ta DAH! We have a new Red.

Who? Hey. We’re suspense writers. So read her interview and see how soon you can guess!

Title of your autobiography?

NEW RED: You Think I’m Kidding…. But I’m Not. (I asked my husband what it should be and, according to him, I say this a lot. And now—since I told him I’m writing this for the Jungle Reds—he’s launched into a rendition of “Jungle Boogie.” Oh my.

Book you wish you had written?

NEW RED: I Capture the Castle, by Dodee Smith. Or maybe I just want to live there? It’s about an eccentric family that lives in a dilapidated castle in England in the 1930s. Would love to have artist’s model Topaz dye all my clothes green, be best friends with daughters Cassandra and Rose Montmain, swim in the moat and flirt the Cotton boys, and, of course, write in a castle turret.

Movie you would see again and again?

NEW RED: Amélie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tatou. The film is quirky and funny and sad and gorgeous and, most of all, gentle with humans and our many foibles. And the soundtrack is wonderful as well.

Exotic drinks--yes? No?

NEW RED: Yes! But I don’t think cocktails necessarily need to be exotic to be good. Our favorite cocktail bar is Clover Club in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn — it feels like a 1930s lounge, with a stamped tin ceiling, leather furniture and Billie Holiday songs playing. The cocktails are amazing, both classic and newly created. And owner/doyenne Julie Reiner is from Hawaii, so there are some authentic Tiki drinks on the menu as well. 

When in history would you choose to visit? (Reds, this question includes a BIG HINT...)

INEW RED:  know everyone would think the 1940s, given my novels, but I’d really love to visit New York City in the 50s and 60s —see New York City Ballet; go to the Russian Tea Room and maybe catch sight of George Balanchine, Igor Stravinsky and Suzanne Farrell; and, of course, wear adorable hats and gloves

Eeelia or Ellia?  (HUGE CLUE!)

It’s Eeelia. And it’s not even a real name — apparently it was made up by some immigration official at Ellis Island who couldn’t figure out how to write the family’s actual last name, which was Egliotti.

HANK: Okay, now you know!  Welcome to Susan Elia MacNeal!

What you said when you hit the New York Times bestseller list:

 SUSAN:  “Holy cats!” (Except it might not exactly have been “cats”…)

What are you working on now?

SUSAN: Working on the copyedits for The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent (Maggie Hope #4) and delighted to report it’s scheduled to be released in June 2014.  Can’t say much (because my editor will kill me) but it takes place in Scotland, London, and Washington D.C. in the fall of ’41, leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I’m under contract now for Maggie Hope books #5 and #6, so I’m also researching and outlining #5, The First Lady’s Confidante. I’m happy to be able finally to write African-American characters. My mother-in-law just moved in with us (she prefers Black to African-American though, and really doesn’t mind Negro at all) and told me if I have any questions, I should “have my people call her people.” (She lived in New York City during World War II and remembers the blackout, knitting socks for soldiers, and being terrified a German U-boat would attack from the harbor.)

Pizza or chocolate?

SUSAN: Chocolate. Always chocolate.

Kids? Pets? Husband? Garden?

SUSAN: One kid — Matthew Wallace MacNeal, age eight going on forty-two. This year, he’s into reading Harry Potter, watching Monty Python, fencing, and basketball. (For anyone who read the ballet piece, he’s given up ballet, but because he wanted to move on and try other things, not because of social pressures.)

Two cats. One is Xander, a grey tuxedo who’s basically a tiny, grumpy Ed Asner in a fur suit. The other is tabby kitten Lola, who’s a lot like Goldie Hawn from her Laugh In days.

Husband, yes — Noel MacNeal and we’re just about to celebrate our fourteenth wedding anniversary! He’s a puppeteer who’s worked with Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and works on Sesame Street and with the Muppets. He starred in the shows Eureeka’s Castle, Bear in the Big Blue House, Oobi, and Between the Lions.

His first book is 10-Minute Puppets with Noel MacNeal, and his second book, BOX! Castles, Kitchens, Costumes and other Cardboard Creations is coming out this November 5. 

Mother-in-law Edna MacNeal also currently lives with us. She calls her walker “Precious,” her iPhone “son of Precious,” and her Kindle “Grandson of Precious.” Every day at 6 p.m. we watch Match Game (the one from the 70s with Richard Dawson—I DVR it on the Game Show Network).

No garden, alas — we live in a condo. Do window boxes count? I have portulacas (aka moss roses) in ours, because they are 1) bright and cheerful and 2) impossible to kill.

Do you watch TV? What?

SUSAN: I’m a huge fan of Game of Thrones. Also, Breaking Bad (what an ending!), Girls, Mad Men, Orange is the New Black, Scandal, and Homeland. And everything by Joss Whedon. As a family, we really love Once Upon a Time.

Can you sing?

SUSAN: You know, I studied classical music when I was younger and sang soprano in a first-rate choir and did a lot of Schubert, Mozart, and Vivaldi solo pieces as well. Lots of musical theater in both high school and college, too —classics like Cole Porter and Rogers and Hammerstein, and works by contemporary composers such as Stephen Sondheim. (These days though, it’s mostly jazz standards in the shower….)

Best concert you've ever seen?

SUSAN: One summer during college, a friend of mine and I snuck into Artpark, which is an amazing concert hall right on the Niagara River gorge in Lewiston, New York. It has outdoor seating, so we went into the back, sat on the grass and looked up at the stars as legendary opera diva Leontyne Price sang Gershwin’s “Summertime.” I’ll never forget it.

Secret talent?

SUSAN: Mixing cocktails. I could match martini-making skills with Nick and Nora Charles anytime.

HANK: Two things. No, three. One, I had a cat named Lola.

Two, I had no idea about the singing thing! I just asked because I can’t sing.

Three—let’s welcome Susan Elia MacNeal (her bio is below!) to Jungle Red—and one lucky commenter will win one of her fabulous books!

More about Susan! 

New York Times-bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal is the author of the Maggie Hope Mystery series from Bantam/Random House. She is the winner of the Barry Award, and her books have been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, and Dilys Awards.

The first novel in the series is Mr. Churchill's Secretary. It won the Barry Award and was nominated for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Mystery Readers International's Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel. It was also nominated for the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association's 2013 Dilys Award for "the mystery title of the year that booksellers have most enjoyed hand-selling," Mr. Churchill's Secretary was also declared one of Suspense Magazine's Best Debut of 2012, Deadly Pleasures's Best Paperback Original of 2012, and chosen as one of Target's "Emerging Authors" series.

The sequel, Princess Elizabeth's Spy, was a New York Times bestseller and chosen by Oprah.com as "Mystery of the Week" and one of "7 Compulsively Readable Mysteries (for the Crazy-Smart Reader)," as well as Target's "Emerging Authors" series. It was nominated for the Macavity Award's Sue Feder Historical Memorial Award.

His Majesty's Hope made the New York Times- and USA Today-bestseller lists and was chosen as one of Target's Emerging Author Series.

Book #4, The Prime Minister's Secret Agent, will be published in spring of 2014 and Susan is under contract for books #5 and #6.

Susan graduated cum laude from Wellesley College, with departmental honors in English Literature and credits from cross-registered classes at MIT. She attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Harvard University.

Her first job was as an intern at Random House for then-publisher Harold Evans, before moving her way up the editorial ladder at Viking/Penguin and McGraw-Hill, then becoming an associate editor at Dance Magazine.

Her writing has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Fodor's, Time Out New York, Time Out London, Publishers Weekly, Dance Magazine, and various publications of New York City Ballet. She's also the author of two non-fiction books and a professional editor.

Susan is married and lives with her husband, Noel MacNeal, a television performer, writer and director, and young son in Park Slope, Brooklyn.