Lessons learned with Maggie Toussaint

Maggie Toussaint (maggietoussaint.com) started out as a scientist and technical writer. By a quirk of fate, she discovered early on how people can ignore the obvious and take extraordinary steps to avoid involvement. Toussaint is a believer that justice should always be served and, for this interview, talked about karma, life’s defining moments, and her new release, “Bubba Done It.”

“I believe people should be held accountable for their actions,” said Maggie Toussaint. “Getting away with something doesn’t excuse bad behavior. I also think that even if folks don’t acknowledge their misdoings their conscience knows the score and guilt will lurk in their thoughts no matter what.”

Maggie Toussaint’s writing focuses on the theme of “justice is served.” She said, “Since I have no control over the criminal justice system and since justice isn’t a foregone conclusion in the real world, I make sure the bad guys get their comeuppance in my books.”

[contestad code=Bubba startdate=2015-06-14 enddate=2015-06-21]“Bubba Done It” was inspired by a story from her husband’s golf league. At the end of play, everyone had reported in except for one guy. Toussaint said, “The pro running the weekly tournament groused to someone who came asking for the results that so-and-so hadn’t reported. The golfer said, ‘I know him, and he’s next door with the guys. I’ll call him.’

“The golfer stepped over to the door and yelled, ‘Hey, Bubba!’ About five guys turned around and drawled out of the sides of their mouths, ‘What?’ My husband, who hails from the North, thought this was hysterical. Not only did I find it funny that the bounty of Bubbas cracked him up, I found mistaken identity absolutely riveting as a story idea.”

Toussaint likes writing characters who are out of step with the mainstream. “Not all of them are oddballs, but they all find themselves marching to a different beat. I’m a bit like that too. I came from a place where a ‘village’ had a hand in raising me. I soaked up stories, values, and opinions from everyone I met and tried a few of them on for size.”

Once the internet came along, Maggie Toussaint found life changing. “I’m a shy, introverted person around people I don’t know. Get me in a group of friends, however, and I become more social and spontaneous. With the internet, I can interact with strangers and friends from home and totally skip the anxiety part.”

“Nothing is more life-changing than having a loved one with failing health,” said Toussaint, who had four sisters and one brother. “Though we’d all gone our separate ways for a while, we all ended up back in our home county about ten years ago. I was glad to be home so I could see my sisters and have lunch with my mom, except that Mom’s health had already begun failing.”

“I was thrilled to have a few years with her, but during Mom’s illness, one of my older sisters began displaying odd behavior. My sister had always been eccentric and outspoken so none of us thought anything of it at first. But, you couldn’t spend any length of time with her and not realize something was wrong. Though they finally labelled her illness Alzheimer’s, her memory of the past and present was fine, but she forgot how to move.”

Eventually, the care requirements became more than the sisters could provide, so they hired professionals. Toussaint said her sister passed away in 2012. “The point of mentioning this is that I firmly believe family is precious, and every minute spent with a loved one is golden. My late sister was very much a part of my life as I started my Dreamwalker series, and she was thrilled that I was writing about a woman with extrasensory powers. You see, my sister always said that she could see ghosts.”

Her sister’s death provided Toussaint with the desire to explore the boundaries between life and death in the Dreamwalker series. She said, “There are times when I still feel my sister’s encouragement.”

Toussaint learned a lesson about people when she was somewhere between six and eight months pregnant with her first child and still working full-time. “I had not had any unusual troubles during the pregnancy, so a complication caught me completely unawares late one afternoon. I was ready to copy materials at the National Institutes of Health Library of Medicine, but I had to stand in line to use the copier. It was late in the afternoon, all the research assistants had a stack of materials to copy, and there was only one machine.”

The line was very long and only inching forward with Toussaint stuck at the end. Suddenly, she fainted. “I had no idea what happened at the time, but my eyes popped open and I was gazing up at the ceiling. After a moment I realized where I was, but couldn’t figure out how I came to be on the floor or why no one was in sight. Apparently, I’d passed out and either no one noticed the pregnant woman on the floor or they’d all scratched off so they wouldn’t be involved.”

Fortunately, Maggie Toussaint and the baby were fine, and she was now the only one waiting for the copier. She said, “I picked myself up, copied my stuff, and drove back to the office. As best we can figure out, my blood pressure dropped due to standing for a long time and the baby being carried so low.”

When her boss discovered what had happened, he instructed Toussaint to work from her desk for the rest of the pregnancy. “Nowadays, my book research doesn’t require a lot of library research because so many reference materials are a click away on the internet. However, as a mystery author, I often wonder what sort of databases I’m in from all my online queries about poisons and guns.”