Q1 Could you please start by introducing yourself to our readers?
A1. My name is Sandy Malone and I live on Jekyll Island, just off the coast of Georgia. I’ve written a five-book fiction series about a young wedding planner who loses her job in a storm and has to start over. The Gem of the Golden Isles series is based on my experiences planning more than 500 destination weddings in the Caribbean. It’s a combination of romcom and mystery/suspense. Although the series isn’t autobiographical, it’s based on all the real crazy I saw with brides and grooms and fictionalized it to protect the guilty.
Q2 What would you say is your strength as an author?
A2. I am a fantastic storyteller, and I’ve had lots of interesting life experiences that make me a subject matter-expert in weddings, law enforcement, and politics. There’s a whole lot of you can’t make that up in wedding planning. Also, I worked as a news reporter and editor for years and so I write really quickly. I could write a book every two weeks if I didn’t have to do all the pesky promotion and marketing to sell them, too.
Q3 What is your favorite part from your book ‘Escape to Jekyll Island’?
A3. I giggled through writing all five of the books in the series – my favorite part is telling stories about real weddings we’ve done through the eyes on my main character. You just can’t make up the crazy things that people do. Or the mean and nasty things. I think In Bloom on Jekyll – Gem of the Golden Isles Book Two – is the funniest book in the series. The bride who asked us to hold her wedding date while she found a new groom is a true story.
Q4 How do you handle literary criticism?
A4. Criticism hurts because my books are like my babies, but I value every bit of it that I get and I try to use it constructively to become a better writer. Honestly, it’s a lot easier than the mean tweets I received when I starred in the TLC reality TV show “Wedding Island” about my wedding business.
Q5 What do you like about audiobooks?
A5. Audiobooks let me do my favorite thing (reading!) while I’m doing something else. I’m a multitasker. Reading is a guilty pleasure and I don’t feel badly if I consume books while I’m also cleaning or driving.
Q6 How has the experience of writing and publishing a book influenced your perception of yourself?
A6. It’s helped me re-evaluate a lot of things in my life. It’s made me reconsider how I did things when I was younger. Writing characters that are loosely based on myself has been eye-opening. This is what I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s also the most terrifying kind of writing I’ve ever done – and I wrote the Politics.Net column at the Wall Street Journal when I was 24. But finally seeing my name on the cover of books makes me realize that I can do anything I set my mind to do.
Q7 What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?
A7. My first five books are a series, and I think it’s critically important that a reader could pick up any book in the series and start there, without having read the ones that came before it. I’ve always been a voracious reader and there’s nothing worse than picking up a book and realizing that you missed the first book and don’t know what’s going on.
Q8 What is your work schedule like when you are writing?
A8. I began writing fiction full-time almost two years ago. I prefer to write for hours, uninterrupted, when possible. When I’m working on a book, my husband has to fend for his own meals. I start with an outline but once I get going, I only refer to it to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. Sadly, I have to admit that I spend about 10 percent of my time writing, and 90 percent of my time promoting on social media or trying to get bookstores to carry my series. I wish it were the other way around. Maybe someday it can be!
Q9 What is the significance of the title ‘Escape to Jekyll Island’?
A9. The main character, Tally Davis, lost everything in Hurricane Maria – her house, her boyfriend, and her job. When she’s evacuated off Vieques Island, she goes home to Jekyll Island to lick her wounds and work on her resume. Instead, she ends up launching her own wedding planning company and falling in love.
Q10 What did you want to be when you grew up?
A10. I have always wanted to be a writer. I got my degree in print journalism and won awards writing and editing for my high school and college newspapers. I went into political reporting straight out of school. I’ve been paid to write my entire professional career. The first books I wrote were traditionally published, but they were non-fiction and a few were ghost-writing gigs. This is the first time that I’ve ever gotten to write what I wanted to write instead of something I was hired to do.
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