Vol. 2, Issue 1 Jan-Feb 2013
Page 3
Page 1, continued
Do you plan on setting all of your books in Louisiana? At this point, yes. Louisiana is unlike any other state and the bayou culture is different from any other. The swamps are steeped with voodoo lore and legend and filled with creatures that can kill you. Yet, growing up there, it was simply home. I lived in a tiny town called Carlyss that you probably won’t find on a map. It was in the southeast corner of the state about thirty miles from the Gulf Coast. My parents had a camp on a bayou in Cameron that you could only get to by boat. We spent so many weekends and summers at the camp, fishing, crabbing and running shrimping barges. Alligator and nutria sightings were a part of normal living, and I could drive a boat and shoot a rifle before I could drive a car. In addition to the incredible setting that the bayou offers, small towns are the best place to write humor because they’re compact, with residents having a certain degree of familiarity that’s lost in big cities. That familiarity allows everyone to know each other’s psychosis which, in turn, makes for humorous storytelling. Author Bio Jana DeLeon was raised in southwest Louisiana among the bayous and gators. Her hometown is Carlyss, but you probably won't find it on a map. Her family owned a camp located on a bayou just off the Gulf of Mexico that you could only get there by boat. The most important feature was the rope hammock hanging in the shade on a huge deck that stretched out over the water where Jana spent many hours reading books. Jana and her brother spent thousands of hours combing the bayous in a flat-bottom aluminum boat, studying the natural habitat of many birds, nutria and alligators. She would like you to know that no animals were injured during these "studies," but they kept makers of peroxide in business. Jana has never stumbled across a mystery or a ghost like her heroines, but she's still hopeful. She now resides in Dallas, Texas, with the most spoiled Sheltie in the world. Single Title Booklist Rumble on the Bayou, Unlucky, Trouble in Mudbug, Mischief in Mudbug. Showdown in Mudbug, Louisiana Longshot Harlequin Intrigue Booklist The Secret of Cypriere Bayou, Bayou Bodyguard, The Lost Girls of Johnson’s Bayou, The Reckoning, The Vanishing, The Awakening For more information about DeLeon, visit: Killer Fiction Blog http://killerfictionwriters.blogspot.com Website http://janadeleon.com
Reading Spotlight: Tampa Writers Alliance Founded in 1986, the Tampa Writers Alliance is an organization dedicated to writers of many genres and levels of experience, as well as any in the Tampa Bay area who have an interest in the literary world. General meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month - except in December and on major holidays. from 7:00 - 9:00 pm in the back right corner inside the Barnes & Noble-Carrollwood, 11802 N. Dale Mabry, Tampa, FL 33618 (813) 962-6446 http://www.tampawriters.org/