Carrie Stuart Parks

Q: How long have you been writing and what other careers or jobs have you had?
A: I started writing and illustrating non-fiction, drawing and watercolor books in 2000. My mentor, Frank Peretti, read a short story I wrote in 2003 and offered to help me “learn to fish”—to write fiction. I’m a fine and forensic artist. With my husband, I travel across the US and Canada teaching forensic art courses.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release Portrait of Vengeance?
A: My protagonist, Gwen Marcey, is finally on staff with the Interagency Major Crimes Unit. Her first job is to help out the Nez Perce Tribal Police in north central Idaho on a double homicide and child abduction. In the course of her work, she uncovers her own turbulent past.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for this story?
A: My husband usually comes up with something that interests him—in this case, the Nez Perce tribe.

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?
A: It has a strong theme of forgiveness.

Q: How do you choose your settings for your books?
A. Once my husband gets over, “How about Gwen on an European river cruise . . .” we look at mostly places in the Pacific Northwest—though we are not limited by location. We need to be able to go there for inspiration.

Q: Do you base your characters on people you know or are they totally made up?
A: They are a compilation of people I know with parts of them made up.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?
A. The fifth Gwen Marcey story—this one on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Q: If money were no object what vacation would you like to take and why?
A. I don’t usually take vacations. I love my job, love what I do, and love where I live. I look out my living room window and see deer, elk, moose, bobcats, wild turkeys, bald eagles, coyotes, and a host of other critters.

Q: What is the silliest thing you have ever done?
A. That’s a hard one. I usually do silly things…..
Maybe on an Easter morning flight from New York to Scotland when I wore bunny ears and a bunny face and walked around the airplane….

Q: What is the hardest thing you have ever done?
A. Tell my mom that dad, her husband of 43 years, had died. And two years later, tell my husband that his mom had died.