1--What is the title of your latest release?
My debut novel is THE GOLDILOCKS GENOME.
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
The Goldilocks Genome is a medical thriller introducing the reader to the Goldilocks effect in prescription medicine and the importance of personalized medicine. Everyone needs to know if their medicine is “just right”, “too little” or “too much” for them based on their DNA.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Simple! I chose the places I where I live and which I know best…the San Francisco Bay Area. I was able to incorporate neighborhoods and restaurants that I know into the book to give the reader a tour of some of the area’s treats.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely because she’s a lot like me. My friends who have read the book say they can hear me talking. My husband says that as well—so my protagonist, Carrie Hediger, whose name combines the first and last names of my friends from graduate school, is definitely someone I hang out with!
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Smart, tenacious, reckless
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I had no idea that about the differences between tap water and bottled water. Tap water is regulated by the FDA and, when they started to regulate the amount of chlorine many public utilities started to use chloramide which isn’t regulated. Tap water is also associated with much more mortality and morbidity than is bottled water. Bottled water, in contrast, is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and, in terms of water quality, has less associated morbidity. Who knew? I didn’t!
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit while I draft because the plot keeps changing as I write. I have to go back and adjust characters and circumstances while the changes are still fresh. I also edit when I think I am “totally done” which only happens once it is in print.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Ice cream! Who doesn’t love a hot fudge sundae made with coffee ice cream?
9--Describe your writing space/office!
My office has always been my bed. I stack the pillows behind my back, put my laptop where it belongs on my lap and write.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Michael Crichton pioneered medical and science-based thrillers for me. When I was a professor, I used to have my students read The Andromeda Strain. Their assignment was to read a chapter, make observations and formulate hypotheses to test in the following chapter where they would continue to make new observations. It was one way that I taught scientific method.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Burnet & White’s Natural History of Disease
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I had two ‘calls” – the first with Spark Press which was followed acceptance of The Goldilocks Genome by a “traditional publisher”. My agent had placed offered the book Touchpoint Press, so I decided to go with them. When they did not fulfill their contractual obligations, I crawled back to Spark Press and begged for forgiveness. When they agreed to an accelerated publication date, I was thrilled with that “call!
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I love learning through reading fiction. For me, a good medical thriller or historical fiction both enlightens and entertains.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a favorite because it combines elements of historical fiction and let’s me channel the fun and dramatic parts of archaeology’s “golden age”. Many of my anthropology friends from graduate school became archaeologists and it let me experience the fun of their digs without the tedium of sifting for artifacts.
15--What is your favorite season?
Spring is when everything is fresh. Flowers bloom, leaves emerge, fawns follow their mothers as they learn how to nibble their way through our urban garden.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
A birthday is a great excuse to gather family and friends for a party. There are two types of parties: if we’re celebrating at home, we always begin with champagne followed by more food than we can eat (the goal is to have great leftovers); if we’re celebrating out, we often go to Trader Vic’s in Emeryville and begin the evening with an “old fashioned mai tai with a floater”—one drink is sufficient to float home after the meal.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I found Before Prozac a compelling history of the pharmacology, politics and regulations that created the foundation for treatment of psychiatric disorders. I’ve recommended and given the book to friends who want to learn more about treatment options and how these options evolved. For example, the book details why prescriptions for benzodiazepines, like Valium, are restricted.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I like many different cuisines. If I had to choose, it would be French. It is hard to get a bad meal in France and I love the Normandy butter. Studying French in Tours was two weeks of gastronomic heaven.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I love to explore new places and experience new things. I’ll look at a map or google asking about local activities or sites and view the Images and see if I want to go there. In Spain, I discovered a two-thousand-year-old aqueduct in a remote location that you could walk across and explore. It has become a secret place that we share with friends.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
My next book is a memoir, HEPATITIS Beach. It plunges readers into the adventures of a naïve young woman who follows what she thinks is a career path of least resistance—one that maximizes fun and quality of life. Her summer “vacation” of beaches and baguettes morphs into reefs, yams, and cannibals. She maneuvers and meanders her way through a career shaped by deadly viruses, revolution, Berkeley, Basel, pharma, biotech, and cigars.
When San Francisco–based FDA epidemiologist Dr. Carrie Hediger uncovers a rash of unexplained deaths while investigating the suspiciously convenient death of her best friend, she becomes determined to find answers—even if it leads her to a murderer, and even if confronting authority, using her wiles, and bending the rules to get justice risks her future in the FDA.
To unravel the puzzle, Carrie assembles a team: some talented post-doctoral fellows, a quirky pharmacologist, an unctuous chemist, and a skeptical FBI agent that she can’t help her attraction for. Together, they follow the data through the twists and turns, eventually uncovering that the Goldilocks effect in prescription drugs—the premise that people are inclined to seek “just the right amount” of something—is central to understanding these mysterious deaths. Through the twists and turns, Carrie and her team enter a race to uncover the truth . . . and catch a killer.
Grounded in real data analysis techniques, real science and pharmacology, and actual current psychiatric practices, The Goldilocks Genome is simultaneously a taut, race-against-time thriller and a condemnation of the psychiatric industry’s failure to implement genetic-based “personalized medicine”—a problem that persists to this day.
Thriller Medical [Spark Press, On Sale: May 21, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781684632541 / ]
Elizabeth, "Betsy" lives in Berkeley, California and successfully leveraged her doctorate in biomedical anthropology into a career in pharmaceuticals and biotech. She is the author of the forthcoming medical thriller The Goldilocks Genome and is working on a book examining the impact of her fieldwork in Melanesia on her life and career. Eunice Mays Boyd was her godmother. She recently discovered Eunice’s unpublished novels and is publishing her new and republishing the out-of-print mysteries.
Betsy is also bi-continental and lives part of the year in lovely, historic Valencia, Spain where she enjoys exploring the history and prehistory of the country. She love exploring the different beaches and swimming.
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