Nora McFarland

Nora McFarland has worked for CNN and is a former community relations manager for Barnes & Noble. She has an MFA from the University of Southern California's school of cinema and television.

Her debut novel is A Bad Day's Work.

From a Q & A at her website:

How did you come to write this book?

After finishing grad school I planned to write screenplays – after all, I’d invested three years and lots of borrowed money in a film degree. To pay the bills while I worked on scripts, I got a job as a T.V. News Photographer in Bakersfield – just north of L.A. I recognized almost immediately that the job was a perfect set-up for a mystery. Shooters, as they’re called in the industry, work grueling hours at a frantic pace and report on everything from heinous crimes to bizarrely comical feature stories. I also found myself falling in love with Bakersfield and its unique transfer of rural southern culture to Southern California.

But it wasn’t until I began work at the local Barnes & Noble that I truly considered writing a mystery novel. I had no experience or training for such a large project, but being in the presence of so many books, and meeting the many authors who visited our store, inspired me to make the attempt.

Are any of your characters based on real people?

Leanore Drucker is a nod to two special ladies. The first...[read on]

A Bad Day's Work is a funny, fast-paced mystery similar in tone to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. It was a Target Breakout Pick for the month of August.

Learn more about the book and author at Nora McFarland's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Bad Day's Work.

--Marshal Zeringue