Tracking Game with Margaret Mizushima - a new K-9 police procedural
Margaret Mizushima's police-procedurals-with-heart mysteries feature K-9 Deputy Mattie Cobb and her very smart partner, a highly trained German Shepherd called Robo.
Hi there. I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Margaret talks about the remarkable real life dog that Robo is based upon, as well as telling the truth of writing what you know, from her experience.
Six things you’ll learn about Margaret in this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
"Tag teamed' into a 'real job'How red tape ended her first careerWhy Robo will never be 'Ole Yeller' Remarkable scent detection skillsThe threat to National Parks and forestsWhy she'd like to have started sooner
Where to find Margaret Mizushima:
Website: https://margaretmizushima.com/ h
Facebook: @AuthorMargaretMizushima
Twitter: @margmizu
Instagram: margmizu
What
follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for
word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.
Jenny: But now, here's Margaret. Hello there Margaret and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.
Margaret: Well, hello, Jenny and thank you so much for inviting me to be your guest today. I really appreciate it.
Margaret Mizushima, mystery author of the Timber Creek K-9 series
Jenny: So we are talking from across the ocean. You are in Wellington, Colorado and I'm in Auckland, New Zealand. And that's the wonder of the the community we live in. It's great, isn't it?
Margaret: It is wonderful. Yes. I hope to visit your country someday.
Jenny: I think you'd very much like the South Island, actually. It's got some beautiful scenery, similar to what Colorado has. Now tell us, was there a Once Upon a Time moment when you felt that you just had to turn your hand to fiction and somehow life would be less if you didn't do that.. And if so, what was the catalyst for that?
The Once Upon A Time moment
Margaret: I think that I started wanting to write fiction when I was in high school, but my guidance counselor and my mother "tag teamed" with each other to convince me that I needed a career where I had guaranteed paychecks. And it's probably a very good thing that they did. So I became a speech pathologist and we'll possibly talk about that more a little later.
But the Once-Upon-a-Time moment came when I was working in my own
clinic. I had established it about ten years earlier and I realized that I was
very tired of that career. It had been very difficult getting the Medicare and
Medicaid certification and dealing with all of the insurance companies.
And so I was a bit burned out, probably more with the management than I was with actually working with my clientele. There was a catalyst and it was a big change in Medicare reimbursement. And I decided all right, it's time to move on and I had always dreamed of being a storyteller.
Red tape was the killer
I had read all of the Sidney Sheldon books back in the 80s and 90s and I
just loved the way he told a story. So I went ahead and put my company up for
sale. After the company sold, I was able
to have just a little bit of a nest egg to go ahead and pay attention to the
educational process of becoming a fiction writer.
Jenny: Fantastic. So you were almost driven out of that first profession by red tape really?
Margaret: I think the red tape is probably what covered me up and tied me down. I just decided "No, enough is enough."
Jenny: So how long ago was that?
Margaret: That was actually clear back in 1998.
Mattie and Robo's story
Jenny: You're now on your fifth book in the police procedurals that have become really good sellers for you. I know that you tried your hand at quite a few other things before you got going with this and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But the series that you're making your name with now feature a K-9 cop called Mattie Cobb and her ...
