From the Booking Desk:
I first met Joni Langevoort through her role as Publisher Liaison for Malice Domestic. Before I joined the board, seeing Joni at the yearly convention was always a highlight of that event and now I get to see her far more frequently. I am very fortunate that she and I have become friends. We share a love of Harry Potter and RuPaul’s Drag Race, we enjoy many more of the same books and TV shows, and Joni’s dedication to social causes – like the efforts to stop the epidemic of human trafficking – are so commendable and inspiring. I can’t think of an individual more perfect to send us off on our holiday break. I just know you all will enjoy learning more about Joni via our weekly questions.
Name: Joni Langevoort
Location: Vienna, VA(DC suburbs)
This person from my personal life is such an inspiration:
Can I get two? I’d choose my dad, who was a true renaissance man — he would read any book available (but had a particular love for Golden Age mysteries — thanks for the introduction, Dad!), and was an avid and quick learner. He could talk with anyone on any subject, and had the driest sense of humor. I think the Hogwarts sorting hat would have been totally at sea as to which House to put him in, as he would have fit in anywhere. The other person I’d have to choose is my mother in law — all I can say about her is that she was the best person I have ever known, and everyone who ever met her was better for it. I wish the whole world could have known her.
One of the people I admire most in the crime fiction community is:
Ooh, I want two here as well. I’d pick Martin Edwards, because he is just that awesome — brilliant, an easy person to chat with, willing to lend a hand anywhere he’s needed, partly responsible for two excellent adult children, and partner in crime and life with his awesome wife Helena. A complete package. The other is the amazing Bill Fitzhugh, who writes the craziest, most wonderful books and also manages to host a gumbo party every year for a couple of hundred folks in the LA area mystery community. No idea how he does it. And he’s a Mississippi native, like me!
STALKER ALERT! If this fictional character were real, theywould likely need to get a restraining order against me:
It can’t be Armand Gamache, because that might upset Reine-Marie, and I don’t want to do that — so maybe Jimmy Perez from Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series. He’s such a complex and interesting person, and he gets to live and work in one of my favorite places in the world. I could see the peerie ponies and the beautiful puffins every day, tromp through the spongy heather with him, stand just a little too close to the edge of the breathtaking cliffs at Eichaness, looking for bodies… sigh. I’d love it.
People are always surprised that I am a fan of this individual(singer, actor, or artist):
Do they have to be living? I’m going with no, and I’ll choose the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and the abstract expressionist artist Vasily Kandinsky. Their works are so beautiful that they take my breath away; I once horrified my children by sitting in a museum in Munich and weeping in front of a Kandinsky painting. I have not one drop of Russian blood in me, but I feel as though I have a Russian soul in there somewhere. Oh, and I can also rap all of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,”and no, you will never hear me do that.
My personal catch phrase is (or should be):
I have a lot of very cool jewelry, and one necklace is made with plastic dinosaurs. When people comment on it, as they invariably do (because, hey, plastic dinosaurs), I say, “Life is short, wear the dinosaurs.” Seriously, they would tell you, life is short, look what happened to them.
It’s so great to see Joni here! Her talk about human trafficking to the Chessie Chapter of SinC was amazing and disturbing and eyeopening.
I hate that I had to miss that lecture.
Joni is certainly a special person. Proud to serve on the Malice Board with her and to call her a friend. Plus, we’re both Capricorn babies!
LOVE this! And you both are fabulous…xoxoo Happiest of New Years!