Renaissance woman

Jacklynn Lord is an ordained minister, a composer, and she’s produced a couple of albums. Her husband is a trumpet player with whom she’s performed all over the world—Japan and China to Mexico. She’s also semi-retired from the phone company. But for purposes of the matter at hand, she’s an author, just having published her seventh book.

You’ve written a book.

Of course.

What’s its name?

It’s STC: The Sharpest Weapon.

And you’re not going to tell me what STC stands for?

No. I could. I could tell you, and I could also tell you why I ever came up with those three letters, but it’s kind of … I don’t know … I don’t want to spoil the book for you. I’ll tell you if you want.

No, better not. So tell me a little what the book’s about.

It’s about a group of people who take care of … and defuse—Michelle could I have my computer for just a second, please—I’m going to read it to you right off the jacket.

Oh no, don’t. Just tell me what it’s about.

It’s about a group of people who defuse difficult situations when normal agencies can’t do anything about them.

Ooh. Like the A Team!

Not like that. [Laughs.]

Have you written books before?

I’m working on my seventh book.

You’re working on your seventh book? Do you live in Reno?

I do.

And how long have you lived in Reno?

Since 1974.

How did you come to write books?

I’m a 68-year-old great grandmother, and in 1992, I broke my leg. I was laying in bed, and my daughter was doing some work on my computer, and she said, “Mom, what’s this?” She found the first two chapters of a book that I had written, an action adventure. She said, “Oh, my god, this is the greatest thing. You should finish it.” And I said, “OK.” And so for the few months that I was down, I wrote this book. And it’s been an adventure.

Are you self-published?

No. You’ve probably heard of PublishAmerica. PublishAmerica will publish anything, but they don’t charge you to publish it, so it’s not like a vanity press. You send them the copy, and if they like it, they publish it. And I had a good editor, and I just sent it to them, and they thought it was really good.

What’s a good editor?

It’s the editor who goes through and reads the book and finds any flaws in it and points it out to you and also does quite a bit of checking for typos and that kind of thing.

Where can people buy your books?

They can get it through PublishAmerica.com, or they can go down to Barnes & Noble and order it.

They don’t keep them in stock?

It just went to print. So it’ll be out in a few days or a couple weeks. It’ll be a new release on PublishAmerica.