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Boise , Idaho
LAURIE BUCHANAN and her
Alter-Ego ,
Sean McPherson
BY SUE ELLER
y mother was the person I can point to as responsible for my love of books and writing ,” Laurie Buchanan declared . “ She would read to me and do inflections and voices . I thought that if I could write , someone like my mom would read it aloud .”
Buchanan named her favorite authors : David Baldacci , Maeve Binchy , and Louise Penny . Because of them and their influence on her , she set her goal to have her readers as mesmerized by her books as she has been by the books of the writers she relished . “ I love reading ,” Buchanan said , “ and I want to bring my readers out of the trials of life and into the fantasy world of my hero , Sean McPherson .”
She came up with the idea for her protagonist , McPherson , while staying on Whidbey Island . She stepped out of her cabin and saw a man limping as he pushed a wheelbarrow . She only watched him for about 30 seconds . Still , the little seed of an idea planted itself in her brain , where it germinated and grew into the McPherson persona .
Once she breathed life into her character , she needed a setting that could be a place for crime to cross international lines . Enter her experience as a presenter and teacher at the Write on the Sound conference , an annual program established in 1985 by the City of Edmonds Art Commission . Partly because of the forum and its setting , she moved the action in her books to the San Juan Islands and the town of Bellingham , which fit the
28 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE