Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 2 Volume 9 | Page 24

S POTLIGHT I NTERVIEW
M ICHAEL M ALLORY
As a writer, Michael Mallory leads multiple creative lives. By day he is an
entertainment journalist with more than four-hundred articles to his
credit. By night, he’s a mystery writer.
Michael, you are a very prolific writer.
Where has your journalistic work ap-
peared?
In publications including the Daily Variety,
The Los Angeles Times, Written By, Newsday,
Animation Magazine and Millimeter.
You have also written a variety of books
from fact to fiction, many of them award-
winners.
Yes, I wrote six
books on anima-
tion and popular
culture, including
Marvel: The Ex-
panding Universe
Wall Chart (a Silver
Medal “Book of the
Year” from Fore-
Word
Reviews);
Universal Studios
Monsters: A Legacy of Horror (Honorable
Mention from the Rondo Hatton Classic Hor-
ror Awards) and Hanna-Barbera Cartoons (a
People Magazine holiday “pick”). Along with
the legendary animation artist Iwao
Takamoto, I co-authored a book of memoirs
titled Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thou-
sand Characters.
And now we come to your mystery novels.
You certainly wear many hats. In fact, I al-
ways picture you wearing a hat.
Well, in the dusky hours, I become a fiction
author. One of my novels won the Derringer
Award and I’ve written more than one-
S UMMER 2019
hundred short stories for adults and children,
mostly in the mystery genre.
I’ve used one of your series as an example in
my “Crafting Twists and Dropping Clues”
workshop. Tell my readers about Amelia
Watson. I loved the fact that as a former ac-
tress, Amelia used her
sense of smell and
hearing in the process
of solving mysteries.
I created “Amelia Wat-
son,” the second (and
heretofore unherald-
ed) wife of Dr. John H.
Watson, whose adven-
tures can be found in
the collection The Ex-
ploits of the Second Mrs. Watson, The Adven-
tures of the Second Mrs. Watson, and the
novel Murder in the Bath.
Your short stories have appeared---well,
everywhere.
I’ve been published in everything from “Ellery
Queen’s Mystery Maga-
zine” to “Fox Kids Mag-
azine,” and have been
anthologized in The
Mammoth Book of Le-
gal Thrillers, The Mam-
moth Book of New Jules
Verne Adven tures, and
Sherlock Holmes: The
American Years, among
others. My story “The
P AGE 19
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE