Featured Author ~ Magdalena Scott

Magdalena Scott is one of my four sisterwriters who I've collaborated with to create a number of stories about the town of Legend, TN and its characters. Today let's learn a little bit more about Magdalena.

MJ: Tell us a little about yourself.

M: I’m a newly published author, and even though “the call” arrived last summer, I’m still giddy about it at times. Like many others I’ve read about, I’ve been writing since birth. It took me a very, very long time to get brave enough to send anything to a publisher, though. I mostly write contemporary romance, and for lack of a better term you could call my stories “sweet,” because they’re pretty G-rated.

In my other, “real” life, I’m a wife-mother-daughter-niece-cousin-friend-employee. Again, pretty much like everyone else, I struggle to find a balance between the writing life and daily demands like, say, laundry and preparing meals.

MJ: You have a new book coming out. We’d love to hear about it.

We contracted with Resplendence Publishing for the anthology, LADIES OF LEGEND: FINDING HOME. It’s available January 11, 2008. My novella is called MIDNIGHT IN LEGEND, TN. In case anyone in the world doesn’t already know this, the other three stories were written by my SisterWriters – Janet Eaves, Jan Scarbrough, and -- Maddie James!

My heroine, Midnight Shelby, after an ugly divorce, and then losing her job, shops on the Internet for a town in which she can start over. She finds Legend, Tennessee, by way of the McClain Realty website, and is enchanted with a large brick building on the town’s main street. There’s a virtual tour, but other than that, she buys the building sight unseen and heads out of New York City – away from the big city, big corporate life that she now sees as meaningless for her.

Legend is a neat little town with lots of wonderful people, but the economy is suffering. Midnight opens her shop, The Emporium, which showcases and sells locally created arts and crafts. She enlists the help of tech whiz Daniel McClain to create a stronger web presence for the town of Legend and its unique shops. That’s just the beginning of Market Legend – the revitalization plan she and some other local business women devise. Daniel is the thirteen-year-old son of realtor Martin McClain, whose roots in Legend are important to him. Martin is wary of outsiders’ motivations, and even though he’s attracted to tall, beautiful Midnight, he finds it difficult to trust her.

I’ll leave it at that, but of course you know, since this is a romance, there’s a happy ending. I live for the happy endings!

We’re doing a Legend Launch Party all through December, so anyone who’s even remotely interested in reading the anthology (which is excellent) should pre-order the e-book version at

Resplendence Publishing

Purchasers will automatically be entered in the drawing for one of the four $25 gift certificates to an e-commerce site. Yay! Shopping online for yourself, and potentially, others as well. (But you can’t buy a large brick building in Legend, TN on this e-commerce site. Sorry. Legend is a fictional town.)

MJ: What do you love about your editor?

M: She’s excellent. I’ve read horror stories about editors who didn’t understand grammar or punctuation, wanted to change the author’s voice, or basically strove to re-write the story. Aack! I’m blessed to have an editor who, as far as I can see, does everything well, including the all-important gentle nudging to show me how things can be improved. I went through first round edits gritting my teeth part of the time, but when I looked back Ir realized how much Courtney had helped the flow of the story.

MJ: What is your next project?

M: I recently contracted with Resplendence for my first full-length solo novel, THE BLANK BOOK. The heroine is Alice Williams, a 40-year-old “good girl” widow, who has always lived in a tiny town in Indiana. Robert Diamond is a Harrison Ford-type movie actor whose career has hit the skids. This unlikely pair is brought together by a novel Alice begins to write in the leather blank book she obtains at the local Friends of the Library sale. It should be fun to try fiction instead of the articles she writes and sells to women’s magazines, right? But Alice doesn’t realize she’s literally writing the Story of Her Life. She becomes consumed by the tale, and then Robert is sucked into it -- and into her little town -- as well. Their attraction to each other, both on and off the page, won’t be denied. But their differing backgrounds create sparks between them, and raise eyebrows in this little town where gossip is everybody’s hobby, and “dull” is a compliment. Alice and Robert just want to learn how The Blank Book is controlling them, so they can put an end to it and get back to their regularly scheduled lives. Or do they?

MJ: Now, here is the totally off-writing subject question. What’s the coolest, wackiest, most risk-taking thing you’ve ever done?

M: Becoming a mother. What an incredible roller coaster ride this has been! My son is a teenager now. What, besides parenting a teenager, can make you look at your life and think, “WOW, how great is this?” one moment, and “WOW, I’ve aged ten years in the last three” the next? My hope is that, in a few years when he’s out of college and fabulously successful in his career, he can spring for some Botox treatments for yours truly.

Come visit me at

Magdalena Scott