Tuesday 18 October 2011

AUTHOR INTERVIEW - GAIL BAUGNIET





What is your name, where were you born, and where do you live now?
My name is Gail Baugniet, and I was born in a small Wisconsin town located on the shores of Lake Michigan (she said, proudly). In 1992, I moved to Honolulu, the city I now call home.

What is the name of your published book, and if you had to summarize it in less than 20 words, what would you say?
For Every Action There Are Consequences is the name of my published novel, the first in a planned mystery series.
When Insurance Investigator Pepper Bibeau connects a murder and suicide to a child’s drug overdose, the case becomes personal. (19 words)

Do you have plans for a new book? Is this book part of a series?
The first draft of the second book in my Pepper Bibeau mystery series is near completion. Pepper has two new insurance cases to investigate and you know murder will be involved. The setting shifts between a farm area of central Wisconsin and Green Bay’s metropolitan community.

How long have you been writing? Who or what inspired you to write?
When I was about nine years old, I wrote my first mystery novel. The story, sectioned into ten chapters, revolved around a murder and a coal chute that extended into the basement of our family home. We moved to a new house about a year later so I don’t know what became of the “manuscript.”
Writing is a natural process for me. Stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, and Agatha Christie entertained me in my youth and I’m sure they had a strong influence on my choice of genre, mystery - crime fiction.

Do you gift books to readers to do reviews?
Yes, in various forms. Some readers/reviewers prefer a computer copy or an e-Book.

Which format of book do you prefer: e-Book, hardcover, or paperback?
Other than a few Stephen King books and autographed books at signings, I always waited for the paperback editions. Since buying my e-reader, I’ve purchased only two new books in print, both at book signings. My electronic TBR list contains about 70 novels.
  
What is your favourite book and why? Have you read it more than once?
Some years back, I read The Tale of Two Cities numerous times. Madame Defarge, along with her knitting, always impressed me as an eighteenth century Colombo, always quietly gathering information. I still have a trade book copy at the ready as well as a free copy on my e-reader. If I could name two books, the second would be The Sun Also Rises.

What are you currently reading? Are you enjoying it? What format is it?
I usually have two books going at a time. The first eBook I’m reading is The Brit by Matt Cairone, a story set in Las Vegas. I’m always a sucker for a Vegas story, in book or movie format. Mile 81 (Kindle Single) by Stephen King is the second book. I understand it is only available in eBook format. I’ve never read a Stephen King book I didn’t like.
  
Is there a book you know you will never read? Or one you tried to read but just couldn’t finish?
Holding a print copy of a book with a multi-colored cover made it difficult for me to stop reading a novel if the problem was only a matter of slow passages. Now, with easy access to inexpensive and free books, I find it less of an ordeal to abandon a book if it doesn’t hold my interest. To my knowledge, there is no book that I will never read, though there is an author or two that I have quietly left by the wayside.

Are there any New Authors you’re interested in for us to watch out for? And why should we watch out for them?
I still read Stephen King and James Lee Burke, but many of the novels I read now (average two per week) are by Independent/Self-published Authors. Several that I would recommend, all authors whose books I have recently read, enjoyed, and reviewed on Amazon or Smashwords, are Al Boudreau, Susan Schreyer, Ann Charles, Jeff Bennington, Raquel Byrnes, William R. Potter, Michele Drier, Rachel Thompson, and Kenneth Hoss.

What do you think about book trailers?
The publishing industry has changed drastically over the past few years, but experiencing the contents of a novel is still a reading process. I love to watch trailers for movies, the media in which I will ultimately see the full movie. If I plan to listen to the audio of a book, I would want to hear a sampling of the story. I also prefer to read the synopsis of a book to get the feel of the author’s cadence, word choice, and sentence structure.

Where can readers follow you?
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/gailmbaugniet  @GailMBaugniet
Sandra, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to take part in this Author Interview. It is always enjoyable for me to read the interviews presented on your site and I hope the answers to your questions reveal a bit of the writer’s personality in me.

Thank you for taking the time out of your writing schedule to take part in this interview!

2 comments:

  1. Hi, Sandra. I just found you through Gail on Twitter. I do want to read her book; hopefully I can buy it next month! This is a great interview because I think I have some things in common with Gail. I thought I would never want to read most books on the eReader, but now I prefer this. But I have a paperback of Bleak House that I've started reading, and also a hard copy of The Sun Also Rises. I read Hemingway in my twenties (this was 50 years ago) and it's his style I like the most, along with Raymond Carver's.

    Sandra: I also just read about your review policy. I haven't done a guest interview for a while on my memoir, In the Mirror, that was published by a small press in May of 2011. It's still placing on the first page in three categories on Amazon, so this is exciting. I'd love to have you read it and, if you like it, post a review on Amazon and B&N, and also click the like button on Amazon (my publisher says clicking the like button is a good thing).

    We also have something in common, too. For 25 years 9 months I've been full-time caregiver of a disabled daughter; her story is one of the stories in my memoir.

    If you would like to review my book, I can send a PDF file or if you have a Kindle or Nook, I'll gift it to you. I have both readers and have actually figured out that mobi downloads to Nook; I haven't figured out how to do this on Kindle, if it's even possible!

    I'll also do a guest interview for your blog if you'd like. (annbest37 at yahoo dot com)
    Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror, A Memoir of Shattered Secrets

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Sandra, I'll bet it was a delight to interview Gail, she is a wonderful writer. The Pepper Bibeau stories will satisfy mystery fans everywhere.

    ReplyDelete