An Interview with Christopher Bonn Jonnes

by Cindy Penn
Reprinted from a November 2000 WordWeaving.com interview

I am Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of the new suspense novel, Wake Up Dead. Jonnes is pronounced "Jones." In fact, it used to be spelled that way until my grandfather changed it in the 1920s. Bonn is my mother's maiden name. I'm forty-two years old and live in Minnesota with a lovely wife and three children, ages ten to twenty-four. I'm the Chief Operating Officer, part owner, and twenty-seven-year employee of American Polywater Corp., an industrial chemical manufacturer. I enjoy motorcycles, guitar, softball, volleyball, running, horses, reading, and writing.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Besides WAKE UP DEAD, what else have you written?

I've always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my first book when I was eight. It was entitled, "Chris Jonnes - The First Six Years." I commissioned my little sister (the "artist" of the family) to illustrate it. I was crushed by the failure to publish that, and didn't try writing again until about ten years ago. Then I completed a novel that taught me three things. 1) I liked to write. 2) I had the perseverance required to tie sixty thousand words together on paper. 3) I was really bad at it.

read more...