From the Q & A at her website:
Read the full interview.
Q: How did a nice pediatrician like you turn to writing crime fiction?
CJ: When I was younger I wrote science fiction and fantasy. But then came my internship. The hardest year of any doctor’s life. Except for the twelve interns in my class, things were about to get a whole lot tougher than your usual no sleep, stress filled year.
One of us was murdered. Murdered in a way that shows that real life is much, much worse than anything a writer can dream up in the safety of their imagination. And his death changed everything.
One of the ways I coped was by writing. I wrote my first suspense novel. But I realized when I compared it to my previous work that I really had just found another way to say the same thing.
All of my writing is about ordinary people caught up in events, about unsung heroes, and most importantly about finding the courage to get involved and make a difference.
I realized that I write for the same reason I went into pediatrics and then peds ER medicine: I wanted to change the world, to protect the little guys from the bullies and unfairness and bad things that life throws our way. Which is why, in my fictional world, no one is immune to danger.
But the nice thing about writing, unlike real life, is that I can give the good guys a chance to win.
The Page 99 Test: Lifelines.
--Marshal Zeringue