Interview with Cheryl Hagedorn

MB: Good morning Cheryl. It is great to have an author on my site this morning. I have read your novel Park Ridge: A Senior Center Murder and really enjoyed it. I understand that you also write poetry and short stories. Have you had any of these works published?

Cheryl: When I was in graduate school at DePaul, I took a class called Narrative Shorts. I submitted one of the stories that I had written for class, "The Color of Cowboys," to Threshold, the DePaul literary magazine, and they published it in the 25th anniversary edition.

Moon Journal, a feminist magazine, published a personal essay on my participation in the Danskin Triathlon. "Mudface", a poem, was published in Off the Rocks, another Chicago-area magazine. Just this month Gaper's Block published "Strangers in Transit," a series of vignettes about riding the subway.

MB: There are flashes of humor throughout your mystery, Park Ridge: A Senior Center Murder. Do you do any humor writings?

Cheryl: I had been out of college for almost twenty years when I decided to get my master's degree. I signed on for some writing classes at Oakton Community College to warm up my slack academic muscles.
Professor David Koenig pushed me a bit to try my hand at humor. I sat down and knocked out a poem I thought was pretty funny:

Entertaining Thoughts of God
By Cheryl Hagedorn

God started his career at a carnival
Working with two dummies and a talking snake
Only to be replaced by a flaming sword act

He did six-week stint at a water show
Swore he’d never do that again

His magic act played the Palace (in Egypt)
Had a long gig in the desert (not Vegas)

Did a Top Ten list long before Letterman
Was host to several game shows:
Truth or Consequences, Jeopardy.

Last I heard was down to do a cooking show

When he got out of fortune-telling
Taught everything he knew to Nostradamus

Subject of several unauthorized biographies
Unauthorized because they couldn’t get the copy right.
Eventually became an icon

While I was still at Oakton, I entered the Skyway Writer's Festival and my humorous short story, "Lanita's Cooking," took 2nd place in the Non-Fiction category. I was pretty psyched since Melanie Rigney, who was then the editor of Writer's Digest Magazine, said:

"Lanita's Cooking" illustrates beautifully the power of the time-honored writing
adage, "Show, Don't Tell." Cheryl doesn't simply say her sister-in-law is a poor
cook--or that she forgot to cook part of the Thanksgiving meal. Cheryl describes
just how bad Lanita is, right down to those marshmallows. She doesn't just say
Lanita is southern--she illustrates her speech patterns. As a personality
profile, this piece of work is first-rate.

MB: Of all that you've written, What is your favorite?

Cheryl: Since we were just talking about "The Color of Cowboys," I guess I would choose that one. I remember clearly getting poor marks on the original AND the second draft. I got angry because I felt the professor just wasn't understanding it at all. So I turned it upside down and inside out. She was right, I think. The last version had a lot more power.

MB: You have a dog and a cat, do you think that they will ever contribute to your books?

Cheryl: Lord, no! Mienne is an overweight Australian Cattle Dog who couldn't stop a bad guy unless he tripped over her accidentally. JeSuis's only awake activity is blinking.

MB: I noticed that you have discussion questions posted on your website, and that you discussed some of the answers to these questions on your blog. Has your book been used for a book discussion group?

Cheryl: The Park Ridge Senior Center -- yes, it's a REAL place -- discussed my book in January. That's the only group that I'm sure of. But if anyone is interested, they can check the website.

MB: What review do you feel best caught the spirit of your novel?

Cheryl: The Blind Bookworm, Alicia Verlager a.k.a. Kestrell, did a super job of "getting" my novel. Can I give you a quote?

"Park Ridge is a very different mystery than the one I was expecting. It is a story full of surprises, but the most notable surprise is that the author chose to create a mystery which goes beyond cardboard cutout characters and instead chose to write a mystery which exposes many of our cultural stereotypes about people over the age of sixty. Park Ridge demonstrates one of the lures of mystery fiction: it's ability to show us how mysterious we can be to one another."

MB: Congratulations! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheryl's book is available from BookLocker or any other online bookstore. It may also be ordered from your local brick-and-mortar.