Today’s Friday Five focus is Mickie Bolling-Burke, author of Horror/Thriller/Suspense short stories and novellas.
Growing up on the east coast, Mickie kept her wrist watch at California time. When she finally made it to the palm trees and Pacific Ocean of the west coast, she knew she’d come home. Working as an actor fed her creative soul, until her beloved Los Angeles grew too big for her. She and her family now live in a small corner of the southwest, where she finds the sky as majestic and blue as she did the ocean. Mickie spends her time writing, reading, hiking and watching The Three Stooges with her very adored rescue cat, Pal.
Her latest book is Blood Mask, two short stories of horror filled with fraud and murder. A woman has accomplished nothing until she writes a book that becomes a bestseller. When she can’t write her second book, she makes a desperate bargain to break her writer’s block. Another woman has run away from her horrible childhood. When ghosts from her past catch up to her, she tries to fight them so they can’t drag her back to hell.
* * * * * * * * * * *
1. Where do your inspiration and ideas for your stories come from?
Everywhere. Anywhere. Something will click and there is a story demanding I write it down.
2. What genre do you currently read most and why?
I read a lot of different genres – literature, general fiction, suspense, mystery, because they are entertaining and compelling, but I do come back, often and always, to horror.
3. What do you want your tombstone to say?
She had love, she had laughter, she had cats, she had books.
4. What literary character are you most like and why?
When my husband wants me to do something, I’m like Bartleby the scrivener – “I prefer not.” When my Russian Blue cat is avoiding me, I’m like Captain Ahab – chasing the ‘great grey kitten’.
5. What’s your current writing project and what are your writing plans for the near future?
I have a novella that I’m doing major edits on now, and writing a short story, and I have seventy-three stories in the queue waiting to be written. We’ll see what’s what after that.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Blood Mask is available now through Amazon.