Meet the Author: Wendy McLeod MacKnight

Wendy McLeod MacKnight grew up in a magical small town with a library card as her prized possession. Over the course of her professional life, she’s been responsible for early childhood and child welfare programming, and ended her public service career as head of the Government of New Brunswick’s Department of Education. One day she woke up and decided it was time to pursue her life-long dream of writing books for children.

Wendy’s debut novel, IT’S A MYSTERY, PIG FACE! is a contemporary MG novel. Eleven-year-old Tracy Munroe and her family have just gotten back from vacation—why did no one realize that her little brother, Lester, a.k.a. Pig Face, was allergic to sand, salt air, and the ocean before they decided to go to the beach?—and now she has three big goals to accomplish before she goes back to school:

1. Figure out a fantastic end-of-summer adventure with her best friend, Ralph, budding Michelin-star chef. (And no, Ralph, perfecting a soufflé does not count.)
2. Make sure Pig Face does not tag along.
3. Get the fascinating new boy next door, Zach, to know she even exists.

But when Tracy and Ralph discover a bag stuffed with money in the dugout at the baseball field (and Lester forces them to let him tag along), they have a mystery on their hands. Did someone lose the cash? Or was it stolen? St. Stephen has always seemed like a quiet place to live, but soon the town is brimming with suspects. Can the trio discover the truth before they’re accused of the crime themselves?

Fun facts:

The two or three items she needs to have with her when you sits down to write: Water and Nerve.

The literary character she’d most like to meet: Jo March

Her favorite childhood book: Anne of Green Gables

Her hobbies when she’s not writing/reading: gardening, travelling, walking, daydreaming

Her favorite Muppet and why: Sweetums! He was my Dad’s favorite Muppet and and I found a large Sweetums action figure for him right before he died. I have it now and I love it.

The craziest thing she did when she was 17: Um, renting out a hotel room for a party? It went really well until around midnight and then we were out on the streets…

If she could travel anywhere in the world, she’d go: I NEED to go to Scotland, Concord Massachusetts (I’ve been to Boston dozens of times but never seen the Alcott house!), the Sussex Countryside in England, St. Stephen, New Brunswick in the 1970s and Oxford England around 1870!

I wish you’d asked if I can play the piano. I can’t

Where you’ll find her:

Website/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads Author/Goodreads Book/Instagram/Pinterest