RHP staff had the pleasure of sitting down with Maryka Biaggio, author of Margery and Me, to talk about her path to publishing as well as her approach to the writing craft. We are delighted to share her answers with you!
When did you start writing?
I started writing in grade school. I found a short-story contest advertised on a matchbook and told my mother I was going to enter. Being busy with cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry for a husband and five children, she said something like, “That’s nice. Now get out of my way.” I submitted a story and anxiously waited to hear back. They never responded, and I hadn’t saved a copy of the story, so who knows what it was about—probably something about the hijinks my siblings and I got into when left on our own. [See photo, right, of my siblings and me making a pyramid.]
Do you ever use your cell phone to compose your work or track your ideas? Are there any author/writing apps you recommend?
I absolutely adore Scrivener, a writing tool that lets me put everything I need in one place—not just the chapters, but character sketches, photos of important places, website addresses for essential information, and even marketing materials. You could say it keeps me from straying too far from the novel in progress because it allows me to put all my resources in one place. And I also have Scrivener loaded on my phone, which is great on those occasions when I’m out and about and have some idea I want to record lest I forget it.
What is the most cringe-worthy thing someone has said when you tell them you’re a novelist?
“I’ve always wanted to write a novel. When I find the time, I’ll bang out a bestseller. How hard can it be?”
There’s a fair bit of interest, scientific and otherwise, in the links between creativity and insanity. How crazy must someone be to be a good author?
A good author has to be a little crazy. How else could they stand to spend endless hours putting words down on a page and hoping that the story they build will actually find its way out into the world? It’s a rough business, and I can encourage only those with thick skin and lots of perseverance to undertake the writing of a novel.
How do you develop your characters?
I find I have to write my way into my characters. I’ve chosen quite an array of real people as subjects—ranging from a nineteenth-century con woman to a model-turned-spy during World War II. I couldn’t be more dissimilar from those two characters, both of whom were gorgeous and wily, so I often spend weeks, sometimes months, trying to find the voice. But when I’m on my morning walk or baking a pie, and the character starts talking in a way that sounds like how I’ve imagined them, I know I’ve found their voice! It’s as if, after a great deal of mulling and research, my subconscious finally comes through for me. That’s the magical part of writing. [See photo of The Model Spy book cover, left.]
Maryka Biaggio is the author of Margery and Me, releasing from Regal House Publishing on April 21, 2026.
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