JP Hansen

Lambeau Field, Green Bay, WI: I can only speculate on how growing up in GB during the 70's affected my writing. Perhaps my clipped, efficient style owes something to the no-nonsense practicality of so many residents. I can't imagine setting a work anywhere but in a climate that goes white and almost dormant for three to four months a year. And the people: a typical GB person exhibits a profound normality in public, but once you scratch beneath the surface you find a quiet, luscious eccentricity. The disparity fascinates me; perhaps my characters come, in part, from growing up around this secret complexity.

From my musings during the summer of 2011 came The Vanilla Lawyer. While tall and devastatingly handsome, he always fails when he tries to flirt, in spite of being good in bed. When first married to his ex-wife, he researched how to please a woman. Now, after the divorce, all single women stand to benefit from his diligence--if he doesn't mess things up.

He works with two beautiful, confident female sidekicks. The first, Dot Fuller--a well-educated, blunt-talking African-American interior decorator--loves to wear unique jewelry fashioned by artists. The second, Jocelyn, is a published author with a sharp tongue and lightning-fast intuition. She works as a nurse who moonlights as a stripper, or vice versa.

I live in Minneapolis, run J.P. Hansen Editing Services (jphansenediting.com), and have two wonderful daughters, Cece and Molly.