I’m so pleased to have Lois Winston back as a guest on Birds, Books, and Banter. Lois and I talked (interview) about her latest mystery, her delightful protagonist, Anastasia Pollack, and her illustrious writing career. Lois is a USA Today and Amazon bestseller author. Read on!

If your protagonist could change anything in her life, what would it be and why?

Anastasia would definitely not wind up with her communist mother-in-law as a permanent houseguest. Lucille Pollack is the mother-in-law from Hades and has never had a kind word for Anastasia.

What do you and your protagonist have in common?

Anastasia and I are both Jersey girls, and both went to art school. She works as the crafts editor for a women’s magazine. I freelanced for women’s magazines and worked as an editor for two craft book publishers. We both have two sons. Where our lives differ is that my husband didn’t gamble away all our savings before dropping dead at a Las Vegas casino. He’s still very much alive and has never gambled beyond buying the occasional (and, unfortunately, non-winning) lottery ticket. And thankfully, I’ve never stumbled over any dead bodies.

If you had an argument, who would win and why?

She would. If I don’t let Anastasia win, she goes on strike and not only takes the other characters with her but also kidnaps my muse.

How long have you been writing? What was the motivating factor that got you started?

I’ve been writing for nearly thirty years. I started after having a dream that continued for several nights, unfolding like the chapters of a book. That dream eventually became Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, the second book I sold.

What do you want most for your readers to come away with after they read your books?

I want to give them both a good mystery and a few good laughs along the way.

What was the oddest job you ever had?

I sold Fuller Brush door-to-door for about two weeks one summer. When I realized what a Ponzi scheme it was, I quit.

How many books do you read in a typical month? Do you read in your genre while you are writing?

That depends on what else is going on in my life. Usually, I read at least one book a month but often as many as four. I’m a very eclectic reader. I read in my genre, even when writing, but I also enjoy reading historical fiction, both mystery and non-mystery, as well as several other genres.

What themes do you regularly employ in your writing?

The overall theme that runs through all my books, no matter the genre, is a woman overcoming adversity. In my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, the series opens with Anastasia having discovered her recently deceased husband gambled away all their savings, left her in enough debt to rival the GNP of a Third World nation, and stuck her with his communist mother. And that’s before she receives a phone call from his bookie demanding fifty-thousand dollars. As she tries to claw her way out of debt, she continually stumbles across dead bodies.

What motivates you to write?

I’ve always needed to challenge myself creatively. Ever since I began writing, I’ve had to write. I can’t imagine not writing. My characters have become my second family.

How did you develop the idea for your most recent work?

All my plots are inspired by actual events I read about or see on the news. A Crafty Collage of Crime was inspired by the recent collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange, and the arrest of its founder and CEO. In addition, there’s a subplot inspired by the popularity of true crime podcasts.

What was the best writing advice you ever received, and why was it valuable?

Every scene in a book and every piece of dialog must do one of two things—either advance the plot or tell the reader something she needs to know about the point-of-view character AT THAT MOMENT. If the scene or dialog does neither, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in the book. Filler drags down the pacing and pulls the reader from the scene. No writer wants either of those things to occur in her books.

BIO: USA Today and Amazon bestselling author Lois Winston began her award-winning writing career with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water novel about a small-town girl going off to the big city and the mother who had other ideas. That was followed by the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception.

Then Lois’s writing segued into the world of amateur sleuths with her humorous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series now includes twelve novels and three novellas.

To date, Lois has published twenty-one novels, five novellas, several short stories, one children’s chapter book, and one nonfiction book on writing.

Website:http://www.loiswinston.com

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Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/722763.Lois_Winston

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-winston

A Crafty Collage of Crime

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 12

Wherever crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack goes, murder and mayhem follow. Her honeymoon is no exception. She and new husband, photojournalist (and possible spy) Zachary Barnes, are enjoying a walk in the Tennessee woods when they stumble upon a body on the side of a creek. The dead man is the husband of one of the three sisters who own the winery and guest cottages where Anastasia and Zack are vacationing.

When the local sheriff sets his sights on the widow as the prime suspect, her sisters close ranks around her. The three siblings are true-crime junkies, and thanks to a podcaster who has produced an unauthorized series about her, Anastasia’s reputation for solving murders has preceded her to the bucolic hamlet. The sisters plead for her help in finding the real killer. As Anastasia learns more about the women and their business, a host of suspects emerge, including several relatives, a relentless land developer, and even the sisters themselves.

Meanwhile, Anastasia becomes obsessed with discovering the podcaster’s identity. Along with knowing about Anastasia’s life as a reluctant amateur sleuth, the podcaster has divulged details of Anastasia’s personal life. Someone has betrayed Anastasia’s trust, and she’s out to discover the identity of the culprit.

Craft project included.

Buy Links

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3NX6O13

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-crafty-collage-of-crime

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-crafty-collage-of-crime-lois-winston/1143442079?ean=2940161008225

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-crafty-collage-of-crime/id6448801378