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.

That book will never see the light of day, but it was the catalyst to an intense program of self-improvement on writing skills, the result of which is Wake Up Dead. I also do a tremendous amount of business writing, including several newsletters. These have developed an almost cult-like following, due mostly to my non-traditional style. I have trouble staying serious for more than two sentences and that results in interoffice memos written in the style of Dr. Seuss, and other bizarre things meant to entertain the reader and boost comprehension and retention. My opinion is that a lot of business writing is completely wasted because it is dry and boring. People either read it without getting its message because it hasn't captured their attention, or they skip it all together. Writing memos that people look forward to reading is a rare art. I'm proud of my accomplishments in that regard, and applied the writing skills developed there to my fiction.

Read more: An Interview with Christopher Bonn Jonnes