Why do you write the genre you write?
I think it began when I was 5 or 6, playing with those little one-inch animal puzzles that forced me to discover how to dismantle the parts, then make them whole again. I love puzzles. To me, any problem or mystery is a puzzle that must be disassembled to study the details and how they fit into a solution.

Tell us how you got into writing?
Via a circuitous route! As a kid, I loved to read and draw the characters with crayons. So, my dad sent me to art school. I even pursued an art degree in college, finally admitting that fine art wasn’t for me in my senior year. So, I switched majors, and the professor in my first copywriting/layout class advised me to be a writer, not an artist. Of course, I followed his advice, and 5 months later, I was a copywriter at Leo Burnett Advertising in Chicago—the youngest of five women in the print department where I learned that every ad is a story.

Where do you write?
Anywhere there is an electric outlet – to keep my laptop charged. In the spring and summer, I write in my courtyard under an umbrella with bug spray and a portable fan, digitally operated. I work at my desk looking out to a frozen 12th hole on rainy and cold days, or I settle comfortably on a sofa and scatter my notes.

What’s your favorite deadline snack?
Anything with peanut butter.

What’s next for you?
I’ve just begun plotting the 3rd book in my Peter Dumas mystery series—the murder of a nun. And I’m developing a blog for women of a certain age. It’s called Squawk Blog, a kind of follow-up to my recent fictional memoir. Oh, and I’m planning to buy a dog.

What are you reading now?
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes—a collection of Victorian detective tales with works by Poe, Dickins, Chesterton, and a host of British and American rivals. And I just finished An Extravagant Death by Charles Finch. It’s an American author’s take on an English High-Brow’s reaction to America’s gentry and murder, just before the turn of the century. I’m addicted to period mysteries, and Finch turns his into an art form.

Where can we find you?
My website: authorblackwell.com, Twitter: @L_C_Blackwell, Facebook: AuthorBlackwell. At the library, and on any nearby walking path at 8:30 every morning,

Now to have some fun . . .

Vanilla or chocolate
Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate

Pizza or burgers
Pizza, if it’s double cheese and pepperoni
Burger, if it’s turkey, double cheese, avocado, and Grey Poupon on sourdough.

Broccoli or squash
Any variety of squash.

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner
I’m a late lunch lover.

Mountain or beach
At a mountain if it’s near a beach.

Introvert or Extrovert
No question, Introvert.

And even more fun . . .

You are stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
Wi-fi, my kindle, and a great Cabernet Sauvignon.

My bio:
Radio-TV-Print Creative at Chicago Ad Agencies, including Leo Burnett, Grey, Campbell Mithun, and Foote, Cone, and Belding. Independent Writer/Producer: Hispanic radio programming; Arizona ABC-TV special, “The Most Dangerous Sport in the World”; TV pilots. Children’s Fiction: The North Pole For Sale and A Very Special Truck. Adult Fiction: Murder For Sale, Ready Aim Murder and Too Young To Be This Old.