SHORT BIO: Annie Reed’s the award-winning author of more short stories than she can count. She’s also been a radio DJ, an art teacher, played in a rock band, then settled down and went to work for lawyers before retiring to write fulltime. She also writes novels and cuddles cats.
REAL-LIFE THRILLER MOMENT: Other than the time I opened the cabinet over my stove and found a five-foot long snake inside? At first I thought it was a rattlesnake, and didn’t that cause the old heart to beat double time. Turned out to be a bull snake, thank goodness! Pro tip: barbecue tongs work really well for removing unwanted snakes coiled up on top of a five-pound bag of flour. They’re also good for throwing that bag of flour directly into the trash.
WHO I ADMIRE: Just one? That’s kind of impossible. I watched a lot of videos when I was doing research for my story “Bomb Busters,” and I have to tell you—the people who do EOD work? Who risk their own lives removing landmines from former war zones to make the lives of civilians, especially children, safer? I admire the hell out of those people, each and every one of them. They’re heroes in my book, and I hoped I conveyed that with the characters in my story.
FAVORITE MEDIA MOMENT: Again, I can’t name just one, but I can name one I saw recently: Godzilla Minus One. This movie totally surprised me. I’m not an uber fangirl of the giant walking lizard franchise, but this movie totally rocked and for good reason. The characters weren’t cardboard cutouts, they were real people suffering from real PTSD. My fav high-stakes moment (and this isn’t a spoiler because I’m sure everyone’s seen the pictures online) is when Godzilla, who’s definitely not a good guy this time around, is chasing a small fishing boat crewed by people the audience has come to know and love. A monster the size of a small island with an open mouth full of huge, pointy teeth is gaining on that poor boat. That chase is riveting, the tension palpable. They don’t need a bigger boat, they need a faster boat, and you know they’re not going to get it.
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: For those who like a little science fiction with their thrilling action tales, Bob Jeschonek and I published the second novel in our Gray Lady series, Gray Lady’s Revenge, the end of last year. https://books2read.com/u/4XEZa6 We’ll be starting the third book in the series shortly, so watch for that coming later this year!