Twist Phelan writes:
I never intended to become a writer. Travel, endurance athletics, and reading were what interested me. But Playboy magazine changed all that.
I was at a ski-training camp in Finland (near the Arctic Circle) for four weeks of intensive coaching. We were housed in a small lodge in a remote area – far from stores, movie theaters, restaurants. No one there besides me and my friend spoke English very well. (I didn't know Finnish, Swedish, or Norwegian, and my Russian was pretty rusty.)
So you can imagine how mad I was when someone made off with the duffle bag of books I had brought to sustain me during nights that were twenty hours long. The only English-language reading material I could find was a stack of vintage Playboy magazines. I read them all in one sitting, surprised to discover the articles really were good, especially the short stories.
With no books to read, I decided my only option was to write one – either that, or start learning Finnish. By the end of training camp I had completed Heir Apparent, the first book in my Pinnacle Peak mystery series. I sold it to a small press and promptly wrote another. Family Claims won a mystery writing contest and was published by Poisoned Pen Press. I wrote the third in the series, again for Poisoned Pen, acquired an agent, and am now working a stand-alone.
Overnight success? Not exactly. More like a little every day.
Twist Phelan is a former trial attorney, commodities trader and endurance athlete. Her second Pinnacle Peak mystery, Family Claims, was published earlier this year.
