I had the pleasure of talking with Pamela Ruth Meyer, recipient of MWA-NW’s 2024 Leon Burstein Award. She’s as delightful as her fiction, so fasten your headphones for this casual chat about her life, writing and hopes for the future.
About Pamela Ruth Meyer (PamelaRuthMeyer.com)
Pamela Ruth Meyer writes historical mysteries interwoven with love stories. As a high school forensic science teacher, she discovered inventive ways to solve crimes, which inspired her to write adventurous tales about a crime-fighting duo like no other. Pamela is a member of Mystery Writers of America (MWA), Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Romance Writers of America (RWA), and the Historical Novel Society.
Her debut manuscript, DEATH IN MINIATURE, won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Unpublished Romantic Suspense Award, the MWA-NY 2024 Leon Burstein Award for aspiring writers, the Rudy Award for unpublished romantic suspense, was Runner-Up for the 2024 Unpublished Book Pipeline Award for mystery/thriller, is a finalist for the RWA 2024 Golden Heart Award in the Love Across Genres category, and was a 2022 Page Turner Award Finalist.
I grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, climbing trees and defending the appendages of daddy long-legs spiders from meanies intent on pulling one off simply to watch it wriggle about. Nearing the end of my first decade, my family moved to the suburbs of New York City, where my mother was a financial journalist for the Wall Street Journal, a woman ahead of her time. My father was an engineer/estimator for a top NYC construction company. My little sister was my companion through childhood and beyond, and it is because of her that I learned what it feels like to never be truly alone.
Horses had stolen my heart as a child, so it’s no surprise that my first career was as a horse trainer and riding instructor. But after 20 years of living in the horse world, I hungered for something a bit more cerebral. I returned to graduate school to study biological anthropology and graduated summa cum laude from CUNY’s Hunter College. My credentials opened the door to my teaching career, which I started as an adjunct professor of sociology and anthropology. One morning on the subway headed to St. Joseph’s University in Brooklyn, a sign asking if you remembered the name of your second-grade teacher caught my eye. I did all these years later—it was Miss Pendergrass! She made an impact. The sign called for people to become NYC teachers. Inspired, I did so, coming to serve as high-school science teacher for the next twenty years.
Now I embark on a third career, this time as a writer. My first manuscript is out in the world, taking its baby steps toward becoming published.
“Nothing feels better than getting better.” I loved this line — we writers need to be open to criticism and see ourselves as works in constant progress. Great interview.
This was great–especially to hear about the process of writing….. I loved to hear you interview Pam–,and I hope she gets that publishing contract! –b
Woo-hoo! This interview was so much fun! Thank you, MWA-NY, for offering the Leon Burstein Award for aspiring writers. And a hearty thank you to Mark McNease. Mark, you have a way about you that helped me feel right at home, from our very first email all the way through to the signing off of the podcast. Thank you.
And to any of you who stopped by to learn a little more about me, I hope you enjoyed listening in. I’d love it if you dropped a hello in the Comments to let me know you were here. Thanks for listening.
Pam
Great interview, Pam- Congratulations! What a fascinating, eclectic background you’ve had– so rich with material and ideas for your writing. I know it’s only a matter of time before your multi-award-winning work finds a publishing home.
Very interesting interview. Especially enjoyed the shop talk about each person’s writing process. I hope Pamela’s book gets published soon! I’d love to read it.
Loved the interview and can’t wait to see the book in a store!