I had been a newspaper reporter, I had covered crime, I read a bunch of true crime and I was an avid watcher of Court TV – so I had the chops to do it but it just never occurred to me that that is what I should be doing. I was lamenting about that to a friend and the friend pointed at the stack of books I had sitting in my ‘to be read’ pile and it was almost exclusively true crime, and the friend said “Why are you writing fiction when this is what you’re reading? Have you ever thought about writing true crime?” I hadn’t thought about writing it myself, which seems so ridiculous to me now. I think I could recognize good writing so at least I knew enough to know mine was not there. The writing wasn’t good and it was as though I couldn’t even create good writing. I had these grandiose ideas of it becoming a series and it just didn’t. Link: That’s interesting because I was trying so hard to write a mystery novel. Open Mic: You started in the genre of true crime. I sat down with her recently to talk about her work, movie options and the joys and challenges of crossing genres. She has written one other memoir and is currently working on a new true crime project. But as with many things in her life, Mardi Jo Link isn’t one to do something just because “that’s how it’s done.” Already a successful true crime writer with several books to her credit – including one NYT bestseller – in 2013 she turned away from crime to pen the fascinating memoir “ Bootstrapper: From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm,” the story of her struggles to save her farm and raise her three sons in the wake of a devastating divorce.The book won numerous regional awards and has been optioned by Hollywood superstar and Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz. Successful authors are usually loath to risk alienating the loyal readers they have worked so hard to acquire, so any foray into another genre is usually done under a pen name.

Three little words a memoir