An Interview with Jill McKenzie

Jill McKenzie, the distaff side of McKenzie Investigations, has never granted an interview. She isn't the outspoken type like her husband, Greg. However, with the fifth book featuring the sleuthing pair, A Sporting Murder, popping up all over the place (I hope), she agreed to sit down and share a bit about herself. Here's the interview:

MM: Why is it your best friend, Wilma Gannon, says she was born with chopsticks while you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth?

JMcK: She breaks me up sometimes. We both grew up in Nashville, but she was born in China while her parents were missionaries. I was born out Hillsboro Road, which she calls the ritzy part of town.

MM: Actually, your parents were pretty well off, weren't they?

JMcK: I don't want to sound like a braggart, but my father, Daniel Parsons, was a quite successful life insurance salesman. His clients were mostly businessmen. He handled buy-sell agreements and that sort of thing.

MM: What about your mother?

JMcK: She studied at Juilliard and played violin with the Nashville Symphony.

MM: You didn't follow in her footsteps.

JMcK: Nor my dad's. He wanted me to go to Vanderbilt, where he graduated, but I had idolized Amelia Earhart and Nashville's own Cornelia Fort. Did you know she was in the air over Honolulu flying with a student pilot when the Pearl Harbor attack took place?

MM: I wasn't aware of that. I knew the Cornelia Fort Airpark along the river was named for her.

JMcK: When I found that Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro had an aviation program, I knew I had to go there. I could be as stubborn as my dad, so that's where I went. I've been flying ever since.

MM: Wasn't Middle Tennessee State where you met Greg?

JMcK: It sure was. He was in his first OSI assignment at Sewart Air Force Base located in Smyrna, not far from Murfreesboro. He came over to talk to my Civil Air Patrol unit about security. I gave him a hard time, asking all kinds of questions. I think he made up some of his answers. When he'd finished, I asked if he could get me a tour of the air base. He did, and served as my escort. We were soon dating.

MM: You ran your own air charter service for awhile, didn't you?

JMcK: You've heard of Hemingway's moveable feast. That was my moveable firm. I had to relocate several times to stay near bases where Greg was stationed. I enjoyed it, though. I still have a Cessna at the Nashville airport. We've used it a few times during our investigations.

MM: How did McKenzie Investigations come about? You'd never been involved in Greg's Air Force job, had you?

JMcK: Half the time I didn't know what he was doing. When we went down to Perdido Key to find out how Wilma and Sam Gannon's son died, I helped out with questioning some people who might have been involved. I knew Greg wanted to get back into investigative work, so I suggested we go into business together. It's been a riot.

MM:Didn't you have to do some adjusting in your views on some things?

JMcK: Boy, did I. Firearms was one subject. I never liked the fact that Greg had to carry a weapon all the time during his Air Force career. I knew that's what law enforcement agents did, but I had this naive view about the propriety of such things. It just didn't seem socially acceptable. But I quickly learned in some cases you have only one chance to save your life, or someone else's. Greg taught me how to shoot, and it's proved invaluable. I've learned to be a pretty good shot.

MM: You've been in some hairy situations. Has it changed you in any way?

JMcK: It's made me stay a lot more aware of what's going on around me. I'm not as trusting of people I don't know. My experience as a pilot taught me to keep one jump ahead of what's going on. I've learned to apply that to my job as an investigator.

MM: I'm sure you'll have many more successful ventures ahead. It's been a pleasure talking with you, Jill. Good luck!

JMcK: (Wink) Good luck to you. Thank goodness I don't have to sell books.

Okay, she's right. I have a book to sell, and you can read all about it at this page on my website.

The Anatomy of a Website

By Chester D. Campbell

I'm not a trained graphic designer. Some might say I'm not much of a writer, either, but I'm a tried and true copycat.  Back when I was a magazine editor, I had an art director to put the pages together with a professional look. I also had the help of graphic artists when I worked as an advertising copywriter. Over the years I soaked up a bit of basic design by osmosis.

Shortly before my first novel came out in 2002, I set up a website. It was pretty basic and not all that attractive, but it got out the message of who I was and that I had embarked upon the mystery writing venture. Over the years I visited dozens and dozens of websites, adding to my perception of what looked good and what appeared amateurish. I revised the site after a couple of years to add more content and improve the visual appeal.

With each new book, I added the cover to my home page, along with a description and, when available, some reviews. When my fourth Greg McKenzie mystery came out in 2008, I made a major revision in the website with a heading that featured the Nashville skyline and a new design with white type on a black background. I thought it looked more mysterious but since have learned many readers have difficulty reading the white on black combination.

I started a new series last year and featured The Surest Poison at the top of the page, with the four Greg McKenzie books below. When I recently received the cover art for book number six, A Sporting Murder, the fifth McKenzie mystery, I added it at the top of the page but knew something would have to give. Things looked too cluttered. I decided it was time for another major makeover.

I wanted to keep the heading but give the pages a more open, colorful look. Several author sites I admired used more color in the design. I borrowed a bit here and there and went to work. I have used Microsoft's Front Page program from the start, although they quit updating it after the 2003 edition. It still does everything I want to do in a fairly simple fashion. Over the years I've learned enough HTML to repair glitches in the code when something goes wrong. I decided on a page design featuring a brownish-orange background and color bars (green and blue) on opposite sides of the white center. Navigation links are on the left bar, which remains the same on all but a few ancillary pages.

The first thing I did was set up a page template with the heading, the color bars and the white center. I didn't realize until I got into it that I had thirty-four separate pages to create or re-create. Plus more than two dozen .gif or .jpg graphic files to create or manipulate. It took a couple of weeks to get it all together. I uploaded it late one night and had to do some tweaking after checking it out online.

I have always enjoyed creating stuff, and I suppose that's a trait you need to go all out at creating your own website. If you have a flair for this sort of thing and are a good copycat, you'll probably get a bang out of doing-it-yourself.