Mary Ann Artrip enjoys a mystery story now and then. In fact, she is a bit of a mystery herself. The mystery writer has been living in Elizabethton for some time, but is a well-kept secret.
Artrip has published four novels and a volume of her short stories, “Parsnips and Princes.” Her latest novel is Rooney Boone, which was released last year.
Her first novel, Remember Me With Love, was published in 1994 and won the publisher’s Golden Book Award for mystery and suspense. She has since re-issued it.
Her second, Moon Shadows, was published in mid-2005, and her Ippy award-winning third novel, Surrey Square, was published the following year.
A member of the Elizabethton Book Club, Artip will present the program for the group’s November meeting, which will be held at the Elizabethton Public Library at 2 p.m. Nov. 21.
Initially, writing did not come easy for Artrip. “I always wanted to write, but I just couldn’t seem to find the right words. I would create actors and plots, and I then would just let them die,” she said.
At the time she was raising two sons and was working fulltime as a clerk with the town of Abingdon, Va., which took up a lot of her writing time.
“Abingdon is a wonderful town, and I met all kinds of people while living and working there. In fact, a customer to town hall inspired my first book,” Artrip mused. “Even though it took me 10 years to write it, I could always see the beginning and ending of it.”
Not feeling confident about the book, her thoughts were “this could be really good, or really, really bad.”
“I was glad I had a good critic, because you can’t really judge your own work,” Artrip said. It turned out the book was better than she thought and it became the inspiration for more writing.
Upon retirement from her Abingdon job, Artrip, a native of Johnson City, moved to Elizabethton, where she has two sisters living. “Elizabethton is not too big or too little. It’s a great little town,” she said.
Artrip did all of her writing in Abingdon, except for her last book. “Rooney Boone is a cozy,” she said. “It has no bad words, no sex.”
Artrip described her writings as “mysteries with a twist.”
“I like surprise endings, and I thought Surrey Square was my best work,” Artrip said. “Books are something you live with 24-7 until you finish them. You live with it during the day, take it to bed with you. Writing books requires research. It is hard work,” she added.
She recalled that when she did Moon Shadows, she had a friend take her to Shot Tower off Interstate 77 just south of Fort Chiswell, Va., where at one time in the 1800s ammunition was made. It was in a remote area and the perfect place for a murder. My imagination just went wild on that trip,” Artrip said.
In describing her method of writing, Artrip said she usually gets an idea, and just starts weaving a story and placing characters in it. “I’m not a morning person. I like to write in the afternoon and evening. I did my first book on an electric typewriter. As time went on, I purchased a word processer and did my writing at the kitchen table. Now, that I have a computer, it is more helpful as I have spell check and punctuation check,” she said with a smile.
She added that writing fiction is much easier than writing the truth. “It’s much easier to conjure things up in your mind than to research the truth about something,” Artrip said. “You get to make these characters up, and you can do bizarre things with them, things you would never do.”
“Often, while lying awake at night, I would think of stuff and I would get up and write it down. When you begin a book, your mind is going all the time. It really takes over your life,” she shared.
In addition to her novels, Artrip has also written poetry and short stories. She published her first poem in 1989. Since then, she has read from her work on Blue Ridge Public Broadcasting and has been featured in national and regional publications.
Being a devotee of O. Henry and Alfred Hitchcock, Artrip’s writing trends toward the unexpected.
Her short story collection, Parsnips and Princes, was released in 2010.
“I didn’t start writing seriously until later in life,” Artrip said. “I wasn’t ready in my tender years. But I am terribly envious of those who could, who had the talent and the enormous energy good writing requires. For me, I had to remember the works of Solomon: ‘To everything there is a season.’ Even though I had longed to write since I was young, I had to be patient and allow myself to mellow, to be warmed by the sun of passing summers, to ripen slowly.
“The trick was to strike a balance between ripe and rotten. No easy thing for a writer to do,” she added.
She describes herself as a “writer of dark whisperings, of saints and sinners, and redemption.”
Artrip is a member of several writers’ groups, including the Lost State Writers, the Appalachian Authors Guild, the Abingdon Arts Depot Writers, and the Elizabethton Book Club
“I benefit from the friendships of other writers and their feedback. It’s something I value, because you can learn from bad writers as well as from good writers. One thing, you learn what not to do, such as not to bore the reader,” she said. Artrip noted that there are a lot of good writers in the area.
Artrip also says she enjoys being alone. “When I’m not writing, I like to lose myself in a good book,” she said.
Unlike many authors, Artrip says she writes for satisfaction and enjoyment, not for money. “I never sold a bunch of books, but I think I have done well for someone who didn’t start writing until late in life and with no formal training,” she said.
Her books are available from Amazon and other online bookstores as well as her own website.
Also, her books are available at the Elizabethton Carter County Public Library and for digital download from Amazon.
In addition to her published books, several of Mary Ann’s short mystery stories have been published in the widely circulated Woman’s World magazine.