Cool. The following interview just appeared in my former employer's employee newsletter! Along with my picture and the book cover. Thanks, Avid!
Avid
Solutions Help Solve the Crime in Speaking of Murder
From
a former Avid technical writer to a successful author, Edith
Maxwell has been making a name for herself in the publishing world
with her recent book, Speaking of Murder. The mystery
novel is about the murder of a student at a small New England
college and follows the plight of the heroine as she strives to
solve the murder with help from Avid solutions.
Maxwell,
who goes by the pen name “Tace Baker” for Speaking of
Murder, worked at Avid from November 1994 to October 2008, and
while she was here, she wrote the Xpress Pro documentation and the
Interplay Assist book, among others.
We
had the opportunity to ask Maxwell a few questions aboutSpeaking
of Murder, why she included Avid solutions in her book and if
she plans to write more books in the future.
What
inspired you to write Speaking
of Murder?
Ever
since I heard about the dTective application by Ocean Systems,
which works with Avid Media Composer, I wanted to use it for crime
solving in a mystery novel or short story. dTective is used by
police departments to clarify surveillance video, add height
markers, and much more in the pursuit of bad guys. Speaking
of Murder also features Lauren Rousseau, a linguistics
professor, as the amateur sleuth, and I earned a PhD in
linguistics in 1981, so I am well acquainted with academia and the
field of linguistics. I put those together in my book and went
from there.
Can you provide examples of how you included Avid’s solutions in your novel and explain why?
I reference Avid several times. Lauren's boyfriend, Zac, is a video forensics expert who uses the dTective application in his work for the local police department. He explains it to Lauren and demonstrates it to her on his laptop in one important scene. Lauren's mother is a retired technical writer who wrote user documentation for Avid and we see her talking to Zac about that. I also show Avid NewsCutter being used in a news truck at the scene of a fire. It's all just part of the story, but I enjoyed working those real-life references in.
Do you plan to write more books and will you reference Avid solutions in future books?
Of course I am writing more books! The sequel to Speaking of Murder is about two-thirds written, but it doesn't feature Avid software. I'm sure I'll get back to it in a future book, though.
To learn more about Speaking of Murder and to see what other books Maxwell is working on, go to:www.edithmaxwell.com and www.tacebaker.com.
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