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| Jean Henry Mead |
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Jean Henry Mead was born in Hollywood, California, and grew up two
blocks from Paramount Studios. She later served as editor-in-chief of her
college newspaper and worked as a reporter/photographer and editor for
three daily newspaper, two in California as well as the statewide
newspaper in Wyoming. She later served as editor of In Wyoming magazine
and freelanced for the Denver Post. Her magazine articles have been
published domestically as well as abroad, and she has published 21 books, half
of them novels.
I've asked Jean to answer three questions. Here they are:
When did you know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I wrote my first novel at age nine, a chapter a day to entertain
classmates, which was fortunately never published. I then wrote for my middle
and high school newspapers, deciding that journalism was my forte. I married the
same year I graduated from high school and didn’t attend college until I was
divorced and the mother of four young daughters. I became editor-in-chief of my
college newspaper while working as a “cub” reporter for my local Central
California daily. Four years later I remarried and worked for two additional
newspapers, including the statewide publication in Casper, Wyoming, where I
later served as editor of In Wyoming
Magazine while freelancing for the Denver Post and two foreign magazines. But I really wanted to write a novel.
I spent ten years researching and writing Escape on the Wind, which was
republished twice as Escape, a Wyoming
Historical Novel, my best selling book to date although I’ve published 21,
eight of them mystery novels (The Logan and Cafferty series and Hamilton Kids’
mysteries). Somewhere along the way I decided that writing was what I really
wanted to do, despite other better paying jobs I held over the
years.
If, for some reason, you couldn’t be a writer, what profession
would you choose?
I enjoy interior decorating but I’m also fascinated with ancient
civilizations, so I would have liked to have studied anthropology. I also loved
teaching in the poetry-in-the-schools program, and am a fair to middling artist
and photographer, but I enjoy writing most.
Do you have a bucket list, things you still want to do and/or places
you want to visit?
Not unlike most writers, I’d like to have a breakout novel which would
earn enough money to make writing as profitable as it once was. As for places I’d like to visit, I’ve
traveled to or lived in 45 of our 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, but
have missed the New England states. I’d also love to visit Italy, the British
Isles, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal, to name but a few.
Thank you, Pat, for honoring me as Author of the Month. I’ll be happy to
draw the name of one of our visitors to award a copy of my latest novel, Murder at the
Mansion.
The Logan and Cafferty Mystery/Suspense Series features two feisty sixtyish widows, Dana Logan and
Sarah Cafferty, who take on the role of amateur sleuths in a California
retirement village where their friends and Sew and So club members
are murdered alphabetically. Surviving the serial killer's rampage, they sell
their retirement homes and buy a motorhome together. Traveling through
Colorado, Dana learns that her sister has died and her husband claims it was
suicide. Dana then inherits her mystery writer sister's mansion in
Wyoming, where the two women solve murders on Gray Wolf Mountain
and at the mansion. They also investigate homicides while
traveling in Arizona and an RV resort in Texas. Jean also writes Wyoming
historical novels and has included one in her mystery lineup, No
Escape, the Sweetwater Tragedy.
Mystery Novels
#1 - A Village Shattered
#2 - Diary of Murder
#3 - Murder on the Interstate
#4 - Gray Wolf Mountain
#5 - Murder in RV Paradise
#6 - Murder at the Mansion
#7 - No Escape, the Sweetwater Tragedy
Hamilton Kids' Mysteries:
1. Mystery of Spider Mountain
2. Ghost of Crimson Dawn
She has also written a
number of nonfiction books.
To learn more about Jean and her books, visit her at:
and the sites where she blogs:
Her Amazon page:
Her books are also available at local
bookstores.
The winner of a copy of "Murder at the Mansion" is Connie Arnold. Congratulations, Connie!
