Let's Do Lunch! Interview with Mary Anna Evans

I first met Mary Anna Evans, author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mystery series from Poisoned Pen Press (Artifacts, Relics, and the latest, Effigies, due out February 2007), at the 2nd Murder in the Magic City conference in Birmingham, Alabama in 2004. I know you'll find her as sweet and delightful as I do.

JB: Tell us a little about Faye Longchamp – where did her character come from? How has her character evolved through the books?

MA: Faye was born because I couldn't get her house out of my mind. Its name was Joyeuse, and it was a plantation house more than 200 years old. In my mind's eye, Joyeuse was a once-beautiful thing, but time hadn't been kind. I wondered who would own this dilapidated relic, and Faye was born.

I've always been fascinated by southern plantation houses and by the history built right into those old homes. They were made by slaves. Does that make them less beautiful? Or more beautiful? I wondered how a person who was descended from those slaves would feel about such a place. When I decided that Faye would be descended both from the slaves who built Joyeuse and their masters, I knew that I had a character with a complexity and an inner conflict to support a whole series of books.

JB: Do you and Faye share any common attributes or characteristics?

MA: Well, she's younger than I am. And shorter and thinner and stronger and braver. And biracial. But other than that, we're just alike. :)

Seriously, Faye and I are alike in one way: we think alike. We're both logical thinkers – natural-born scientists, if you will. Archaeologists like Faye have to sift through tiny, broken bits of trash and look for the clues that will reconstruct ancient lifeways. I'm an engineer by training, and that background helps me in my mystery writing more than you might think. An intuitive feel for cause-and-effect is very helpful in constructing a coherent plot.

JB: Please share the story of Faye's honorary firefighter award.

MA: Since the cover of Relics features a burning house, I'm telling no secrets when I say that a character dies in a house fire. This element of the plot required me to do a lot of research into arson investigation. In the course of that research, I met an Alabama fire chief named William Davis who was very helpful and very enthusiastic about Relics. He said, "Every night, hundreds of thousands of firefighters are up all night, looking for something to read, but nobody writes about us!" He answered my questions, vetted the manuscript, sent me pictures of burning houses ... he even invited me to come to a class where he would be burning down three houses! (I didn't get to go. Darn.)

When the book came out, I toured through his hometown, Montgomery, Alabama. He and his wife took the day off work to drive me around to my appearances, then they took me to a baseball game that night. (The Montgomery Biscuits. They shoot biscuits out of cannons into the stands. They have the coolest stadium you can imagine, in a converted train depot. And they have a song, which includes the immortal lyrics, "The Biscuits are rising." You should go.) His boss, who I guess would be the Chief Fire Chief, went with us. During the game, they looked at me and said, "We have something for Faye."

I'd already told them that it gets kinda weird when people think I'm Faye. I mean, I already told you that she's younger, shorter, thinner, stronger, braver, and biracial. They saw the look on my face, and they said, "We know she's not real." Then they handed me a little black case.

Inside was a firefighter's badge. (In case I ever need to go backstage at a rock concert.) And a card that said: For her relentless pursuit for truth, the City of Montgomery Fire Department hereby awards Faye Longchamp the lifetime honorary rank of Assistant Fire Chief this 16th day of August 2005.

Now how cool is that?

JB: Very cool!

You and your husband David recently wrote the song Land of the Flowers* as part of your submission for the upcoming short story anthology A Merry Band of Murderers, consisting of work by mystery writers who are also musicians (due out in September). In addition to appearing in the anthology, the song took second place in the Best New Florida Song contest sponsored by the Will McLean Foundation (congratulations!). Have you and David written songs together before? Do you incorporate your love for music into Faye's world?

MA: David and I have written a handful of songs together, though we'd like to do more. Music is an important part of our lives. We've played in an acoustic trio for 15 years now, performing at arts festivals and parties and coffeehouses, and we directed our church's youth choir for many years. Maybe as our family grows up will have a little more time to write some more songs of our own.

Faye doesn't seem to be a musician. I have a feeling that her late mother gave her piano lessons, but they didn't take. Maybe there's a musical character bumping around in my psyche, waiting to come out…

JB: How do your kids react to your writing?

MA: They're all three very proud. They've forced my books on their English teachers and their dates. My older daughter goes into every bookstore she sees and looks for my books. If they're not on the shelves, she wants to know why not. My son has been my first reader since he was eleven, and he's a very perceptive editor. My youngest didn't quite know what was going on when the first book sold. (She was seven.) When I got the call from my agent, I couldn't find anybody to tell. My husband was working in the swamps without a cell phone. My mother wasn't home. My friends all seemed to be away from their desks. I was about to burst when I picked the little one up from school.

"Mommy has exciting news!" I said.
"What is it?" she asks, thinking maybe we're going out for ice cream.
"I sold my book!"
She ponders a moment, then says, "Well, that's very exciting for you."

Later, when the review copy of Artifacts came in and she saw a bound book, instead of a stack of pages coming out of mommy's printer, she exclaimed, "Mommy! You wrote a book!" Now, she's as excited as any of the rest of us about Faye's budding career.

JB: And the rest of us are excited, too! Now we'll dive into the "just for fun" questions:

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

MA: Fuchsia. It's a happy color.

JB: What's the most fun you've ever had where you almost got in trouble for it?

MA: I can't think of anything. I am such a goody-two-shoes. Sheesh.

JB: Where is the most interesting place you've ever visited/lived?

MA: Rome. I've been there twice, and I'm going again in June. (Maybe I should send Faye to an archaeological convention there so that I could take these trips off my taxes.) I adore architecture and archaeology (surprise!), and I've been a lot of places where you can get a tourist's view of those things. Athens. The Yucatan. Venice. Poverty Point, Louisiana. All those places are fascinating – go, if you can – but Rome stands out because the ruins aren't segregated into a historical area. They're peppered all over a modern city. I love the feeling of walking down congested sidewalks among people doing business on their cell phones, then just stumbling over a 2000-year-old ruin standing there by the side of the road.

JB: I know exactly what you mean. Thanks so much, Mary Anna, for joining us for Lunch. We'll look for Effigies in February.

Mary Anna Evans has degrees in physics and engineering, but her heart is in the past. Her series character, Faye Longchamp, lives the exciting life of an archaeologist, and Mary Anna envies her a little. The first Faye Longchamp novel, Artifacts, won the Benjamin Franklin award for the best mystery novel published by a small press in 2003. It also won the Florida Historical Society's Patrick D. Smith Florida Literature Award and was recognized by the Voice of Young America as an "Adult Mystery with Young Adult Appeal." Mary Anna is very proud of being recognized for writing a good page-turner for people of all ages while, at the same time, getting the historical facts right. The second Faye Longchamp novel, Relics, was an Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller and has been nominated for the SIBA Book Award, given by the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Association.

*Land of the Flowers