Eating Authors: Patricia Briggs

All Hallow’s Eve is fast approaching, and though it will see us much closer to a new moon than a full one, it nonetheless seemed like a good time to feature an author who knows a thing or two about werewolves. When that topic comes up, one of the best people in the biz is none other than the #1 New York Times best selling author, Patricia Briggs. Although she’s done stand alone novels as well as short stories, Patty is best known for series of books. Most readers of this blog will instantly recognize her name from the very popular Mercy Thompson series (the first book, Moon Called, came out in 2006; book #8 hits bookstores in March), and spin-off series Alpha and Omega (Cry Wolf, Hunting Ground, and Fair Game), set in the same world. Between these two sets, she’s been a finalist for the Endeavor Award three times.

Other series include Sianim (Masques, Wolfsbane, Shifter’s Wolf, Steal the Dragon, and When Demons Walk), as well as her Hurog (Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood) and Raven (Raven’s Strike and Raven’s Strike) duologies. That’s plenty of tricks and treats to tide you over for at least a week!

LMS: Welcome, Patty. Thanks for joining us. I know there are a lot of people who have been waiting to read what you consider your most memorable meal.

PB: As a kick-off to a book tour, I was scheduled for an interview with our local Good Morning TV program at o’dark-thirty. Since I live a half hour out of town, it meant that I had to get up at o’dark and drive into town. Because my husband loves me, Mike got up with me and came in. Ann, my good friend and assistant, drove in from her house and we shot the live episode so that the four people in the Tri-Cities besides us and the TV crew who were up at that time could tune in and hear me spiel for the latest book. We finished the show around five thirtyish and tottered off to one of the local 24 hour restaurants for a bite of breakfast.

I expected that we’d be alone at that hour, but the waitress led us past ten or twenty very senior citizens who were enjoying their morning coffee before she directed us to a booth with sides so high that we couldn’t see out. She left us—and we began to chat. And that’s when I learned that taking my husband and Ann anywhere when they are punchy is a risky proposition. Normally they (particularly my husband who has very sharp hearing and a strong vein of courtesy) talk in reasonably soft voices. But… my husband is a trained singer and did on-stage drama through his high school years, when he wants to project, he can speak so that folks in the cheap seats can still hear him. Short on sleep and feeling silly, their volume increased steadily, which I didn’t worry too much about until the topic of mock sword fighting came up. The conversation, as I remember it (because I was totally innocent), went like this:

Mike: In one of these reinactment groups who fight with boffer* style weapons there’s a guy who is rising rapidly through the ranks because he has an unusual weapon.

Ann: What’s he fighting with?

Mike (loudly): A giant dildo.

Ann (voice rising): A dildo?

Mike (laughing): It’s this huge, almost three foot long dlido stuck on a mock sword.

Me (whispering urgently): The restaurant just got quiet when you said that word. Do you hear all those people listening to you talk about dildos?

Ann (ignoring me entirely): Three feet long? They have dildos three feet long?

Mike: And when he draws it, and the guys see what he’s got, they’re like–

Ann: Eww!! Don’t touch me with that thing!

Mike (very loudly, just in case someone hasn’t noticed what we’re talking about): Exactly! So he chases them around with this giant floppy dildo and brave men run away. They don’t want to be touched with the giant dildo.

Ann (laughs very loudly)

Me: Hey, guys, it’s really quiet in the restaurant. I think people are listening. Maybe we should change the topic.

Mike: And when he faces someone who fights back, because the dildo is floppy he can go THWAK on the top of the other guy’s shield and it just flops over the top and hits the opponent in the head.

Ann: Ewyew!

Mike: Hey, Patty. Why are you under the table?

Me (muttering to myself): I am never going anywhere with the pair of you again before noon.

We left the waitress a very big tip.

*Note: boffer weapons are usually PVC covered with Styrofoam from pool noodles

Author Photo by Michael Briggs