About Deb
Deb Jordan is a pianist, primary school teacher and pretend athlete. Perth, Western Australia is now home after twenty years abroad spent evading kidnap attempts in Peru, serenading African presidents, escaping a marriage trade in Ghana (her husband was tempted when the price was ten chickens and three goats…) and circling jungle volcanoes in Costa Rica.
She speaks Spanish fluently enough to be competently dangerous and likes to use her piano skills to keep the neighbours at bay. Who are, for the record, all extremely delightful.
With degrees in Japanese and Russian, she dreamt of secret spy missions and international assignments. Or assignations. Semantics.
Observing people, collecting ideas and always looking for the fun and adventure in life is what Deb does best.
And writing. Above all else, she writes.
But wait – there’s more!
Most dear to me: Family. Sounds obvious, and at the risk of sounding gushy, they are my everything. One husband, three children, one grandson and three grand-puppies fill my heart and empty my fridge.
Why I write: Short answer; because I can’t not write.
Slightly longer answer; there are so many cute notebooks out there and I am determined to own and fill as many as I possibly can.
Even longer answer; it’s the best way I know to make sense of the world. Which may be code for refining my justifications of loading books into everyone’s luggage and filling every room in the house with books. I refer to them as my art installations – after all, writing is art, right?
Why write suspense?: I think it stems from wanting to keep family and friends on the edge of their seats. My favourite son (who may not think of me as his favourite mother!) is often the recipient of this. Honestly, watching my six-foot tall teenager do a running high-step through the Colorado mountains and hit a high-C soprano note when I snuck up on him with the sound of a rattle snake on my phone, is one of my proudest moments.
What scares me the most: Running out of books. I’m not kidding. An overnight trip sees me packing a minimum of four books. It has also been said (although I refuse to confirm) that I snuck additional books into my husband and son’s backpacks as we climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. Because I thought reading ten books while climbing to the roof of Africa was entirely feasible.
Something I wish I could do: Fly a plane. When my first piano teacher said she was taking students so she could pay for flying lessons, I thought she was the most fearless and courageous person I had ever met. I may have only been five years old and my points of comparison were characters from Sesame Street, but the impression remains strong.
Favourite fitness routine: Since multiple circuits of the pantry tend to be counter-productive, I try to balance that with some running. Okay, jogging. All right, plodding. Same, same. Either way, my feet are moving. And I occasionally manage to overtake the odd person. Who may (or may not) be using a mobility scooter.
Word for the year: Symphony. The musicality of it appealed to me. It’s the ability to see relationships between unrelated fields; pulling together random pieces to create something cohesive. It all sounded very writerly and creative. Until I realised it also made me sound like a magpie.
Writerly catch-ups: The more the better! I love them. Not only do you get to hang out with like-minded souls and chat all things writerly, but you get to eat snacks. And prepare snacks. And buy cute platters to put the snacks on. And then decorate the platter with fairy lights and flowers. Seriously though, writing buddies are the best. Where else will you find a complete lack of judgement when you whip out your latest haul of notebooks or show them your 97th book on writing craft?