Writers Tricks of the Trade ISSUE 1, VOLUME 9 | Page 9

learned from him. I wrote a series of news-
paper articles about barter.
L IFE E XPERIENCES I NSPIRED B OOKS
Years later my knowledge of how bar-
ter works was very helpful in writing the
book Bumping Off Fat Vinny, co-authored
with true crime author Dennis N. Griffin. By
the year 2000 I had joined the marketing
firm contracted to the Federal government
to market furniture manufactured in Fed-
eral prisons. During that time I visited
manufacturing facilities in Federal prisons
in California and Florida.
After I left that firm, it was revealed
that some of their practices were quite
shady. In fact they were sued by the gov-
ernment. One of my former fellow market-
ing reps thought we could write a good
book inspired by what we knew about how
that whole scenario worked. We came up
with the plot for the book Ripoff and that
was the beginning of the characters in the
Revenge is Fun series. A blurb by a retired
undercover FBI officer and New York Times
best-selling author said it was a good thing
we weren’t crooks, because our plot could
have worked.
After 20 years in the interior design
and design-related sales fields, I never
thought that someday I’d be writing fiction
full time.
I think you’re beginning to see why the
answer to how I became a writer was fairly
complex. In 1996 my mom suffered mini-
strokes and developed dementia. I wrote an
article called “It’s Just Old Age...or is it?”for
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
Inside, a Philadelphia magazine. After that,
they contacted me to write more articles
for them that were actually interior design
related.
And finally we come to fiction and true
crime. My sister, Phyllice Bradner, a pub-
lished journalist, and I discovered we both
loved funny mysteries. And, so the Silver
Sisters Mysteries was born with the main
characters’ personalities loosely based on
those of Phyllice and me.
The rest is history. I’ve written 16
books with more in progress and have been
writing full time since 2004. This includes
the Silver Sisters Mysteries, the Revenge is
Fun series, two true crime memoirs—Bella
Capo’s No More Crying Angels, and Cheryl
and Rob Cuccio’s Incest, Murder and a Mira-
cle. as well as stand-along books.
Believe in yourself, keep a positive atti-
tude, and KEEP WRITING.
Morgan
Editor
and
Dylan the Dog
A SSOCIATE E DITOR
P AGE 4
S PRING 2019