Julia Buckley & Simon

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

Back in the summer of 2009 mystery writer and English teacher Julia Buckley and Simon, her half Jack Russell-half Beagle, helped kick off this site.

Part of our exchange:

Is Simon's bark worse than his bite?

Yes. He barks and howls, like Snoopy. But he is a total faker, as we see whenever visitors come over. Those who take the time to pet him find that he falls in love easily.

He only bit anyone once, and it was because I read something on the internet, one of those “how come” sort of philosophical lists people send around, that said “How come dogs love sticking their heads out the windows, but they hate it when people blow in their faces?”

I read this to my sons to make them laugh, but of COURSE my boys decided to immediately go and blow in the dog’s face. My little one was only about three years old, and I think Simon couldn’t decide what he was exactly, and when Graham squatted and blew in Simon’s face, Simon snapped. It was very instinctive, and only one of his teeth caught Graham on the lower lip, but WOW—you wouldn’t believe the blood. And then Graham touched his mouth, and cried and screamed and walked around the house touching the walls, and it was like the set of Macbeth.

Graham recovered quickly and...[read on]

The Dark Backward was Julia Buckley’s first mystery and is available at your local bookseller. Her novel Madeline Mann was called “A bright debut” by Kirkus, and Library Journal has dubbed her “a writer to watch.” Lovely, Dark and Deep, the second Madeline Mann novel, is now available as an e-book.

Visit Julia Buckley's Mysterious Musings blog.

--Marshal Zeringue