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| D.E. Ireland: Meg Mims (left) and Sharon Pisacreta (right) |
Let's take some time to get to know D.E. Ireland. D.E. Ireland is a team of award-winning authors, Meg Mims and Sharon Pisacreta. Long time friends, they decided to collaborate on this unique series based on George Bernard Shaw’s wonderfully witty play, Pygmalion. While they admit the lovely film My Fair Lady and its soundtrack proved to be inspiration, they are careful to stick to Shaw’s vision of the beloved characters from Eliza to Higgins to Pickering, Mrs. Pearce, Freddy Eynsford Hill and his family, while adding a slew of new characters they've dreamed up to flesh out their own version of events post-Pygmalion.
I posed a few questions to our talented writing team. Let's see what they had to say:
Q.: How did you settle on the time period and the detective couple (Higgins/Doolittle)?
A.: Inspirational lightning
struck when Meg was driving to Sharon’s house
in west Michigan, something that frequently occurred since we are longtime
friends and critique partners. During the two-hour plus drive, Meg was singing
along to the My Fair Lady soundtrack when the thought occurred: “What if
Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins teamed up to solve mysteries?” Every editor
in New York says they want "something fresh and different.” Well, this idea
was pretty unique. As soon as Meg arrived, she explained her latest brainstorm
and fortunately Sharon also thought the idea of Eliza Doolittle and Henry
Higgins as amateur sleuths was fabulous. Since we had been looking for
something to collaborate on, this seemed perfect. And what fun to bring these
already beloved characters to life once more.
Q.: What did you enjoy most about writing a cozy mystery set in the Edwardian period? (And I'm calling it a cozy mystery because that's what it feels like to me).
A.: It's both a traditional
and a cozy mystery, since all the violence takes place "off stage" -
meaning the murders have already happened or the victim is dying. And ours
wouldn't be considered a "dark" mystery, since we infuse humor into
the characters and situations. We also love that Eliza and Professor Higgins have
joined the genre’s other celebrated male-female detective duos, and hope
readers really love the rivalry and interactions between the two of them. In
addition, we are huge fans of Downton Abbey, Mr. Selfridge,
Upstairs/Downstairs, Edwardian costumes, English teatime, the changes brought on
with World War I, etc. Such an exciting era.
Q.: I understand D.E. Ireland is a collaborative team. Can you explain how a collaboration works?
Sharon and I both have
similar writing styles, and have critiqued each other's writing for over twenty
years. We have also been published separately under our own names: Meg Mims and
Sharon Pisacreta. Sharon wrote four historical romances and one contemporary with
Dorchester (one of them under the pen name ‘Cynthia Kirk’), along with several
mystery and fantasy short stories. Meg has five books as well under her name--two western mysteries and three contemporary romance novellas. For our first
collaborative effort, we came up with the pseudonym D.E. Ireland: D.E. is Eliza
Doolittle backwards, and Ireland is a nod to G.B. Shaw's birthplace in Dublin.
We also had to put together a way to write as a team. We plot the outline in great
depth (from 20 to 30 single-spaced pages!) and then assign chapters to each
other for the first draft. One to two revised drafts follow before undertaking
a complete read-through aloud to each other. This is done over the phone – several
chapters at a time – since we live so far from each other. That way we can hear
any awkward phrases or catch any typos or punctuation problems. Whew. It works
for us.
Q.: What's next?
Thanks so much for visiting us this week, D.E. Ireland. I loved your book. As I mentioned above, I found Wouldn't It Be Deadly a fascinating glimpse into the time period, with its skillfully layered historical detail and it's intriguing plot mixed with characters that are familiar and beloved. Nicely done. I love mysteries in general and cozy mysteries more specifically. This book had the feel of a historical cozy mystery to me. Rich in the tradition of Agatha Christie. Thanks for sharing your time and talent with us.
Readers, be sure to check out Wouldn't It Be Deadly. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by this twisty, fun mystery which springs from George Bernard Shaw's beloved characters in Pygmalion.
Buy Links for Wouldn't It Be Deadly:
