JENN McKINLAY: Ellen and I met at Left Coast Crime in Phoenix several years ago. Honestly, it was love at first snort. Ellen is fresh, funny, and feisty just like her books and I'm so pleased to call her my friend. Here she is to tell us about her latest!
ELLEN BYRON: People often ask authors if they listen to music while they write. My answer? Music is what I dance to. Always has been. Always will be. I think KC and the Sunshine Band’s disco anthem, “Get Down Tonight,” is the best song ever written. Argue all you want but you will never change my mind.
When I was a kid, my mother enrolled me in ballet lessons. The teacher, a Ballet Russe vet, told her I had great potential to be a ballerina. Unfortunately, I also had an undiagnosed case of A.D.D., which limited my ability to focus with the concentration that a professional dancer must have. But I never lost my love of dancing. I studied jazz, tap, African dance, Afro-Caribbean. I even returned to ballet a few times. I never got to go en pointe, which is one of my biggest disappointments. But I kept shaking my groove thing. I’m not joking when I say that getting to dance in this Go-Go cage at a friend’s party umpteen years ago fulfilled one of the top items on my bucket list.
(That’s actor Brad Sherwood of “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” in the role of M.C.)
I know one reason I fell in love with Cajun Country, where my series is set, is that Louisianans are a music and dance-loving people. If an infectious tune comes on, no matter where you are, a stranger may pull you into a two-step. That’s why the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is such a dream come true for me. Stage after stage of toe-tapping, infectious music. I’m nuts about Cajun and Zydeco tunes but when I’m lucky enough to go to Jazz Fest, I dance everywhere. I even kick up my heels in the gospel tent.
(Hey, who’s that in the background holding up a copy of Fatal Cajun Festival? Thanks, Photoshop!)
Much as I knew I’d center a Cajun Country Mystery around Mardi Gras, I knew that Jazz Fest would inspire a plot for the series. And it has. In Fatal Cajun Festival, Pelican, Louisiana, my series’ fictional town, sponsors its own festival to attract visitors on their way down river to NOLA’s. Good things happen — Music! Dancing! Pralines! But it’s a mystery, so of course bad things happen too.
I still bust a move five to seven times a week at the gym, either by doing Zumba or a format called Dance it Out that I love so much I wrote it into A Cajun Christmas Killing as “DanceBod.”
Here's a before and after of me, recovering from a DIO class with master teacher Rae Toledo Latsch, who was in the national tour of “Miss Saigon”.
I’m hoping that someday my two great dance loves will come together, and I’ll be able to “get down tonight” with KC and the Sunshine Band at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Until then, I leave you with this video. And always remember… dance like nobody’s watching.
Readers, what song makes you want to drop everything and dance? Comment to be entered in a giveaway for a copy of FATAL CAJUN FESTIVAL!
Mardi Gras Murder, Ellen Byron’s fourth Cajun Country Mystery, won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. The series has also won multiple Best Humorous Mystery Lefty awards from Left Coast Crime. Writing as Maria DiRico, she’ll debut a second series, The Catering Hall Mysteries, in 2020. TV credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly OddParents. Her award-winning plays, published by Dramatists Play Service, have been performed throughout the world. Fun fact: she worked as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart.
To connect with Ellen:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard
