Writing Murder Mysteries

​​When people want to know what I have done with my life since my retirement from the State of Michigan, I tell them I am now a professional liar, and that is the truth. Or is it?

Every fiction story has to be infused with a ring of truth or the story falls flat. In each piece of fiction I write, I pull from my life experiences and do a ton of research to make my lies believable. So that either means I am a good liar or have had a tortured, twisted life. You'll have to be the judge of which is which.

Throughout the entirety of my state career with the Michigan Department of Agriculture, it was my job to discern the truth and only tell the truth.  When I retired from my position of Consumer Protection Section Director and handed in my badge,  I picked up an ink pen and knitting needles and headed off to find creative ways to bring about the demise of one or two people in each novel. I was fortunate to be able to meld together my love of knitting and writing into a quasi-cozy mystery series I dubbed "The Yarn Genie Mysteries." 

​Like any unseasoned author, I rewrote my first novel "Knitting Up a Murder" 15 times before I felt it was ready for publication. Then I proceeded to send out 15 queries at a time to any literary agent I could find the address for, hoping one of my shots in the dark would strike home. One did. I was patient and continued to revise and work with the agent I had found, knowing it takes a couple of years for a new author to be traditionally published. My publishing plans were railroaded when I received a breast cancer diagnosis in 2014. 

Facing the possibility that pursuing a traditional publishing path might not result in my ever see my book in print, I began a quest to expedite the process. My desire to complete my novel and get it out in print gave me the drive I needed to endure surgery and six weeks of daily radiation. With no money for a fancy cover or professional editing, I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but "Knitting Up a Murder" came out in paperback in 2015.

Six years later, I find myself working on completing the fifth book in the series. I love that Yarn Genie Imogene lets me tell the story of her life with humor and a tinge of sexy-FBI-agent romance. Each story can be read independent of the others, but the entire series has several overall sub plots that can be followed by reading the books in order.  

Writing as Seneca Fauls

​While I love writing the lighthearted easy reading of the Yarn Genie Mysteries, real life isn't always so rosy. This darker side to life and love fills me with a desire to write of these things in other generas. When the novel I am writing is dark or may contain sexually explicit material, I publish under the name Seneca Fauls. This is a spelling twist on the Seneca Falls, New York, Women's Rights Convention held in 1848. This was the first such convention in the United States and is credited with launching the women's suffrage movement. The name Seneca Fauls is in honor of that convention and the seven decades of difficult effort needed to secure a woman's right to vote. ​