Jordyn Redwood Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
A: I’m the wife of an amazing husband and mother of two awesome teen girls. Currently, I’m working as a nursing supervisor which means you get to deal with all the problems of the hospital for that shift. During the day, I’m writing suspense stories. I am a huge research junkie and absolutely love learning new things.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?A. I think I was always destined to do something in medicine and writing. Even in my elementary school years I was writing stories from animated Disney pictures from my school folders. Anyone else remember those? Like Mickey Mouse panning for gold? I can remember one of my first short stories very clearly. It was about a rabbit that had to go to the hospital. A medical thriller author from the beginning!

Q: Do you find certain themes reoccurring in your books? If so, what are they and why? If not, what is the theme in your current release?
A: If I look at the heart of each of my stories they really deal with God’s sacrificial and redemptive love for each of us.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release Fugitive Spy?
A: Dr. Ashley Drager, an emergency room physician, is about to get off work when a severely beaten, amnestic patient arrives in her ER bearing a photo of her in his pocket and the same type of tattoo that her missing father has. Does Casper English, this mysterious patient, hold the key to solving her father’s disappearance?

Q: Where did the idea for this story come from?
A. Fugitive Spy was inspired by the nonfiction book Biohazard by Ken Alibek. Ken was a high ranking Russian scientist who headed up their illegal biological weapons program. To say the Russians were “tinkering” with virulent pathogens would be an understatement. They were flat out creating, manufacturing, and stockpiling massive amounts of biological weapons of mass destruction. In the book, he outlines how there was a desire to combine two deadly pathogens into one and that fueled Fugitive Spy’s story line. Much of the things people might find farfetched in the story are actually based on history.

Q: Who/what has influenced your writing career the most?
A. I’m a huge fan of James Scott Bell. I think he understands how to make it in this crazy publishing world doing fiction and nonfiction as well as indie and traditional publishing. I’ve loved every class I’ve taken from him at several different writers’ conferences.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?
A. Right now I’m trying to hone in on the next formal proposals I want to write. Heavy in research mode.

Q: Is you were a dessert, what would it be and why?
A. I just was having this conversation with my girls. Really, any combination of cherries and chocolate is a winner for me. Dairy Queen’s Chocolate Cherry Love Blizzard. Starbuck’s new Cherry Mocha (though this might just be around for Valentine’s Day), and chocolate covered cherries. Seriously, don’t stand in my way if any of those things are available.

Q: Is there something about you most people wouldn’t know?
A. I think many people might be surprised at some of the internal battles I’ve been struggling with over the last year. As an ER nurse for most of my life, I’m used to presenting this very calm exterior. Inside, however, has been a different story. Not sure I’m in the space to share much of it publicly yet, but I think there will be that time-if only to help other nurses know they are not alone.

Q: Is there a place you have always wanted to visit? A vacation spot, historical monument, overseas, etc?
A: I literally just got back from a dream vacation to Hawaii in January to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary. We got back the day before the whole false ballistic missile warning. Glad I missed that, but it did start to fuel some story ideas. I actually came to find out there was a big leper colony on a smaller island near Maui that definitely got my writer brain working overtime. Whale watching was my absolute favorite thing to do.