Meet Jessica Dall

1. Of course, January marks the new year. Do you have any resolutions for 2018?
 
I admit I’ve never been much for New Year’s resolutions, most years I don’t do them at all, but since the end of 2017 has proven to have left me with a bad deal of writer’s block, my main resolution for 2018 is to get something properly finished again! Book three of my Order and Chaos series is mostly complete, it just needs for all of the plot lines to finally come together at the end, so that is first up on the docket. With any luck, I’ll follow through on that resolution quickly so I don’t start giving George R. R. Martin a run on how long readers are waiting between books in a series!

2. Reportedly you got to spend a lot of time in Hawaii when you were growing up. Have you had a chance to go back?

I actually spent most of my Christmases in Hawaii when I was a child. The island of Kauai was a favorite vacation destination for my family and so we would get to go once a year when my brother and I were off school for winter break. Of course, since we lived in California at the time, getting to Hawaii was a lot easier than the two layover, fifteen hours of travel trips it takes to get there from Maryland.

I was very lucky, though, to get to celebrate Thanksgiving there this year with a lot of family since November was also my father-in-law’s seventy-fifth birthday, and we decided to make a fully party of it back on the island. It was certainly a great excuse to get some beach time in while we otherwise would have been breaking out the sweaters!

3. Word is you’ve been growing your hair out for a very specific reason. Would you like to tell us about it?
 
One of the great things about having moved to the east coast, at least for a history nerd like myself, is that there seem to be so many more historic sites around than where I lived in California. One nearby, Riversdale Manor, holds an annual Twelfth Night ball in January styled after similar parties in the early nineteenth century (think Jane Austen-style country dancing and the like).

This year, my husband and I have decided to fully embrace our inner nerds this year and dress up in period costume. Of course, to do any sort of period hairstyle, though, I couldn’t keep the shoulder-length haircut I had. Thus, I’ve been growing my hair out (and hoping it gets long enough in time!) After Twelfth Night, we’ll see if I decide to keep it. If not, I’ll be able to donate to Locks of Love once again, so it’s a win-win.

4. I know you’ve said writing and editing takes up a fair deal of your time, but do you have any other hobbies for what free time it leaves you?
 
Over the holidays, I started to do a lot of baking, playing around with some old recipes and trying out some new ones. Some were less than successful (my French bread recipe never seems to rise entirely correctly…) but I was very happy with a good deal of it, which meant that I also had a lot of baked goods I could give out as presents. Probably my most successful were the white chocolate/chocolate chip cookies. There were a good few batches of those that got sent out!

5. So your readers have a book three to look forward to sometime in the not-to-distant future. Anything else they should be looking for?
 
If all goes according to plan and that New Year’s resolution works out, once book three is complete and off to the printer’s, I’ll be working on a historical fiction novel set in Age-of-Enlightenment Portugal. After that, well, maybe I’ll make Twelfth Night a research trip as well and figure out an Early Republic/Regency plot.