Look and Listen

Biography

A native of Walnut Grove, California in the Sacramento River Delta, Mary Deal has lived in England, the Caribbean, and now resides in Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii. She has written since childhood and has kept some of those bits of prose, though the ink has bled into the paper and blurred the writing.

Recently she began revising one of the novels started back in the 1960s while she lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, changing the setting to Hawaii.

During the time a car accident limited her mobility for nearly three years in the early 1990s, she decided her brain still worked and began to take her writing seriously. Her first novel, "The Tropics: Child of a Storm - Caught in a Rip - Hurricane Secret," is a suspense trilogy set in both the Caribbean and Hawaiian Islands.

Her second novel, "The Ka," is a paranormal suspense that takes place in Valley of the Queens, Egypt.

"River Bones" is her first thriller, set in her childhood hometown area.

"Down to the Needle," a second thriller, is set along the California coastline.

Learn more about Mary, read novel excerpts, short stories, poetry, and learn how to start writing, on her Web site: Write Any Genre. She maintains a blog and would love to have you participate in conversation about all aspects of writing: Write Any Genre Blog.

Inspiration

Places where Mary Deal has lived infiltrates her stories. She has written since her teens but more seriously since about 1990.

Though not an inclusive list, influences include Ernest Hemingway because his stories reflected his own depression and taught her how writers themselves can be seen between the lines of their prose. Also John Steinbeck for his descriptive style and character development, and Joyce Carol Oates because she understands not only the psychology of a story but particularly the psychology of the minds of the characters she creates.