Mary Monica Pulver Kuhfeld

(You probably know me as Monica Ferris)

Before I was Monica Ferris, I wrote as Margaret Frazer, Mary Monica Pulver, Mary Kuhfeld, and Margaret of Shaftesbury. I sometimes joke that if I ever get arrested, I’ll be assumed guilty because of all my aliases.

I began writing as Margaret of Shaftesbury, Abbess of Deer Abbey, in the Society for Creative Anachronism. My first professional sale was as Mary Monica Pulver, to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. My husband and I wrote a few stories together as Al and Mary Kuhfeld, most notably a little series of mystery shorts about Jack Hafner and Thor Nygaard, Minnesota police detectives.

Then I sold a novel — Murder at the War — to Saint Martin’s Press. It was nominated for an Anthony as Best First Novel, and I went on to write four more in the Peter Brichter series.

Later a friend (Gail Frazer) and I joined forces as Margaret Frazer, writing the tales of a medieval nun at the priory of Saint Frideswide, in the days of Thomas Chaucer (son of Geoffrey Chaucer). That partnership went the way of most collaborations, and she is now continuing the tales by herself. Gail has her own website which gives up-to-date information on Dame Frevisse’s written adventures.

I was writing and selling short stories for anthologies when my agent was approached by a senior editor at Berkley. “Do you know anyone who might write a new mystery series about a middle-aged woman who lives in a small town and does needlework while solving crimes?” My agent called and asked me the same question. Well, I thought, my mother does counted cross stitch, I have a good friend who does blackwork, and I have done embroidery. “Sure,” I replied. After all, how hard could it be? I even found a local needleworker who designed counted cross stitch patterns so one could be included with each novel.

“You’ll need a new name,” said my editor. “This is unlike anything you’ve done before. We don’t want to confuse readers.” So I took the name Monica – my middle name. And since the City of Excelsior (a real place, where my fictional character lives) once had a big amusement park I took the last name of Ferris, because I spin stories. I invented a heroine named Margot Berglund, a widow who runs a successful needlework shop. But when I started doing the intense research it takes to make a novel “real,” I found I didn’t know nearly enough about needlepoint and counted cross stitch. or about running a small business, to carry her off. She knew too much -- I had to kill her. So I murdered Margot and brought in her sister Betsy, who is as ignorant as I am.