Interview with Tracy Badua and Alechia Dow, Authors of The Cookie Crumbles
Welcome to Smack Dab, Tracy and Alechia! Please tell us abit about The Cookie Crumbles.
Hi, and thanks for chatting with us! The Cookie Crumbles is amiddle grade whodunnit, featuring two best friends––one a stellar baker, theother a budding journalist––as they navigate a high-stakes cookie competitionand an attempted murder. It’s Knives Out meets Great British Bake-Off.
You both have so many interests–and your professionalbackgrounds go far beyond the world of literature (baking, the law, etc.) Whatbrought each of you to writing?
Alechia: We do have such wild professional backgrounds––isn’tthat wild? To be honest, I always wanted to be a writer, I just never thoughtit was something I could pursue. Growing up, there was this pervasive beliefthat you had to have money to make art, so I never thought it was for me. But Ialways wrote and when I went to pastry school, I decided to concentrate on foodwriting. One thing led to another, and eventually I tried my hand at fiction.It was one of the best choices I've ever made.
Tracy: Similar toAlechia, my upbringing involved some heavy “hey, you should get a steady joband healthcare” influence. Fast forwarding a few decades, I rediscovered mylove of fiction after law school. Fortunately, many of the skills I’d developedin the legal field served me well as I tried to get published: forcing myselfto sit and get my thoughts down on the page, breaking down complex issues intodigestible bites for different audiences, expecting to revise and revise again,dealing with rejection after rejection, and so forth. I love all the differentways I’m able to flex those writing muscles (but writing for kids is much morefun. Shh – don’t tell the other lawyers).
I’m fascinated by writing partnerships. How did you twostart writing together?
Alechia: Tracy and I have been friends and critique partners––weread each other’s books and offer feedback––for eight years. When it came towriting together, it felt really natural.
Tracy: Author Wendy Heard used to do some informal critiquepartner matchmaking and she emailed both Alechia and me with “You two seem likea good match.” Smart cookie, that one.
What was the process like? Do you have similar draftingstyles (plotter, pantser)? How did you stay on track?
Alecia Dow
Alechia: Writing The Cookie Crumbles was such a fun experience!We have very similar styles of drafting and are very goal-oriented plotterswith a pinch of pantsing. We did chapter by chapter summaries, spreadsheets,and stayed in constant communication. At the time of writing, I was in Germany,Tracy was in California, which meant a 9-hour time difference. So one of uswould be writing while the other was asleep. We could get two chapters––andedit the other’s chapter––in a day because of the time difference.
Why MG? Did the two of you start out knowing you wantedto do an MG, or did the idea for the book demand it be written for the MGaudience?
Alechia: We both write middle grade books. Tracy wrote Freddie vs. The Family Curse, The Takeout, and the upcoming Thea and the Mischief Makers (October15, 2024). I wrote Just a Pinch of Magic.However, we weren’t sure what to make of this particular story. I think westarted it as young adult, but then after feedback, we aged down to middlegrade. Honestly though, we both agreed it made a better middle grade anyway. Itlent itself better to the themes annnnd it was finally fulfilling a dream forme. I read a ton of mystery middle grade books growing up, so it’s an honor tobe a part of one now.
Please tell us a bit about your main characters. I can’ttell you how much I love the idea of making one of the MCs a suspect! It reallyties in some strong conventions of the traditional cozy mystery, but it alsobrings in a strong story of friendship, which is probably the most importantrelationship in any MG-reader’s life. How did all of this come about?
Alechia: Tracy and I split the story in half; I wrote Laila, theconfident baker and yet, an insecure friend who is afraid of how people viewher and her relationship with Lucy. Middle grade is such a fantastic age groupthat lets you explore big and new emotions, friendship, and family, which youcan’t always do in young adult anymore as it skews a bit more adult.
Tracy Badua
Tracy: I wrote Lucy, a newscaster-hopeful who really wants toprove her journalism chops. Having friends who believe in you is important, nomatter the stage in life, and I loved seeing how Lucy and Laila served thatrole for each other (spoiler: mostly!) in the book.
The storm hurls what might be the worst catastrophe atthe girls–stealing access to their phones! Again, I love the cozy-mystery feelof taking away access to tech. Any bigger issues here that brought you totaking the girls away from their screens?
Alechia: The best mysteries cut you off from the outside world.With middle grade especially, if we didn’t isolate them, they could have justcalled their parents and left. This way, they’re forced to solve a mystery andconfront their feelings about friendship, family, and the future. There’s nohelp here, they have to prove themselves and hone new skills––which reallyadded to their character growth.
One of the toughest parts of writing for most authors canbe the hook or setup. Those early pages are so important and so tough to nail.But your first line and first page is incredible - “Cookies don’t kill people.”Where’d that come from?
Alechia: I definitely believe in hooking readers right away. Asa cookie lover and chef, I thought the funniest way to start the story was withthis line, and Tracy agreed. It offers a great setup for a baking mystery.Also, generally speaking, cookies really don’t kill people––it’s thecontestants you have to look out for.
Mysteries are probably the hardest genre to write. Anytips? Did you have the answer to the mystery planned out before you startedwriting?
Alechia: Always know the end before you begin. You need to knowthe who in the whodunnit so that you can sow the seeds early on while not beingtoo on the nose. From there, you have to throw in a lot of red herrings.
Tracy: Stay organized! That doesn’t mean you have topainstakingly detail every single action and risk draining that joy ofdiscovery out of writing: you can even create a rough outline after the fact soyou can get a larger idea of how you’d put all the pieces together. I say thisbecause I feel like co-writing a mystery proved even trickier than plotting outa solo book because Alechia and I had to fill each other in on those seeds wemay have too cleverly planted along the way. Our early drafts were full ofhighlighting and comment boxes, and the spreadsheets and constant communicationwe mentioned before was key in staying organized and making sure we didn’t dropany threads or contradict each other.
What’s next? Do the two of you have another book in theworks?
We do! The second in the series, Their Just Desserts, is coming out next year! We can’t say muchabout it yet, but all you need to know is that this time it’s a reality bakingshow mystery, and it’ll keep you guessing till the very end.
Where can we find you?
You can find us online!
Alechia: My website is alechiadow.com, you can find me onfacebook as Alechia Dow, instagram as @alechiadow, and TikTok as––you guessedit––Alechia Dow!
Tracy: I’m at tracybadua.com and most often on Instagram at@tracybaduawrites and on X and TikTok as @tracybwrites.
