I’m A Clubwoman

Published Author, Fellow Clubwoman & Gerber Baby Model

by morgan on 08/19/09 at 9:45 am

Ann Cook is a published author, a fellow clubwoman and the model for Gerber products. I got to know Ann one afternoon last week when she graciously accepted my request for a chat. I am interested in writing mystery books myself and wanted to talk to a successful writer. Ann spoke to Temple Terrace Woman’s Club in one of our meetings so I called her. I stopped by University Village, a Senior Living Community in Tampa, Florida. Ann told me she enjoys living there as it is called Masterpiece Living. She takes Yoga classes and does Shape-Up exercises. She is 83 and writes mystery novels occurring in small historic towns in Florida.

An artist named Dorothy Hope Smith drew Ann in 1928. That drawing became the famous baby picture on all of Gerber baby products. Ann has made a lot of appearances for Gerber during 1990’s and calls it a pleasant experience.

She was invited to join Temple Terrace Woman’s Club in 2003. She said that she was in her 70’s by then and in middle of writing her last 2 books so she wasn’t a productive member. However, she enjoys speaking to women groups around Tampa Bay area.

I asked Ann about her background. She has master’s degree in English Education and was an English teacher for 26 years. She was also head of English department for Hillsborough High School. She always wanted to be a writer and a newspaper person. So, she started her career as a writer after retirement. She took creative writing classes for 12 years and attended any and all writes conferences around. She is a member of Tampa Writers Alliance.

I wanted to know how she finds her story lines and what the process of writing a novel is. She told me she gets her inspirations and ideas for her plots from a lot of different sources. On a trip to Charleston, SC she came across a haunted-looking mansion and that made her think about what if murder happened there a long time ago. She does her researches through archives, making trips to small historic town and talking with natives. She told me she actually had a reading with a medium as part of her research for her 4^th book: Micanopy In Shadow. She said it was an interesting experiment. The lady was a certified medium in a town called Cassadaga. She also had her husband’s help in researching police procedures as he was a Major with Hillsborough County Sheriff department.

She told me writing is a hard process. It takes her a little over a year to finish a book. You have to write lists and summaries, write developments you imagine happen. You have to know the ending of the book from the beginning and work toward that goal. Also, there is a structure in literature to follow in writing a book. She is currently not thinking about writing the 5^th Brandy O’Bannon book. She said appearances and marketing is a hard work in her age now. That saddened me a little because I found her books very interesting. I bought her 4^th book and loved it and went back and read the other 3. Brandy is smart, hard-headed and risk taker. I like that about her!

Ann also told me that she is a member of Mystery Writers of America which I think is a big honor. She sold a short story long time ago and submitted it to them and has been a member since 1995. Her favorite mystery writers are: PD James and Tony Hillerman.

As she told me, she is still grieving over losing her second partner in life only lost to her this past May. Her mission right now is to talk to groups of mostly women approaching retirement: Do what you always wanted to do like becoming a mystery writer…..