Jodi Bowersox has been an actress, seamstress, designer, business owner, home school teacher, kids’ choir director, and artist.
Her romance novels span genres from faith fiction to suspense to time travel to sci-fi with small town and big city settings. In addition, she has children’s picture books to her credit, a book of stage productions, and a non-fiction Bible commentary. As an award winning watercolor artist, Jodi specializes in pet portraits, and as a seamstress, she creates women’s vests out of men’s ties.
She lives in the heart of Colorado Springs with her husband and too many cats.
The following is an interview with author Jodi Bowersox.
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
What inspired you to write this book?
Rhonda Holloway is listed on the cover with me as a co-author (I even gave her top billing!), but she is actually a character in another of my books, “Rocky Mountain Redemption,” where I listed “Mars Madness” and “Beware The Eyes of Mars” as a few of her titles. When I was finishing up a time-travel trilogy and wondering what to write next, I decided it would be fun to write her books. And she agreed.
So I started with a title –”Mars Madness,” and a genre — humorous romantic sci-fi. So…What if it is so far in the future that there is a resort on Mars for the ultra rich? And what if there was a lottery held before every flight to Mars for the average Joes and Janes to win a chance to go for $50/ticket? The Mars Madness Lottery was born and became the impetus to get my characters on a flight to Mars.
Who are your favorite authors and/or characters?
Lois McMaster Bujold. Her character Miles Vorkosigan has to be one of the most interesting characters ever written. Tamara Leigh is one of my favorite historical romance writers.
Why did you choose this excerpt to feature in SunLit?
It shows just a bit of the madness that is getting underway even before the Mars trip begins. Kat’s robotic maid, Minnie, has developed a sudden obsession with her ex-husband Doug, and an entanglement with the robotics repair guy, Blaze, just adds a complication to daughter Frankie’s plan to get her parents back together.
What was the most fun or rewarding part of working on this book?
Because I was attempting to write my character’s book rather than my own (do I sound crazy yet?) I pushed myself into a slightly different writing style. Most of my books have some humor in them, but I wanted to bump this one up on the humor meter even more.
Doing something new and different is always exciting, but in a way, I almost feel as if I’m plowing new ground in the literary world as well. You can find humorous sci-fi; you can find romantic sci-fi; but humorous sci-fi with a strong romantic element is practically non-existent. If you know of any others, let me know!
What was the most difficult section to write in this book? Why?
Not sure I had a difficult “section”… but I needed both of my main characters to have a slow turnaround.
Kat and Doug are split up in the beginning, and they needed to have a believable change of mind and heart to bring them back together.
I describe Kat as a “hyper-organizational, germophobic, scaredy cat, fussy pants” married to Doug, the fearless, adventurous hobby gardener, who Kat considers a complete slob. To get these two on the same page took patience. It was something that couldn’t be rushed.
Also, to create “madness,” one has to open up a lot of crazy doors that all then need to be closed and resolved. That’s the fun of writing — sometimes closing those doors requires a lot of thought. Sometimes the “how” just falls out of the sky, and I’m as surprised as I hope the reader will be.
What was one interesting fact you learned while researching this book?
There is a window of opportunity for traveling to Mars — when it is closest to Earth — and that happens about every 26 months.
What project are you working on next?
I’m working on the third book in this Tripping on Mars series: “The Mars Heir.”
— Buy “Mars Madness” at BookBar
— Interview with author Jodi Bowersox