Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:


THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Michael Keaton is set to direct and star opposite Morgan Freeman in Rode to Ruin, an original Western thriller written by R. Dean McCreary. Keaton will portray retired Marshal Henry Tillman, and Freeman is a wanted outlaw named Joseph Mulberry. The U.S. Marshal searched forty years for his wife’s killer, and the cold trail finally heats up and leads him to an aging outlaw losing his memory – and to a buried truth neither man may survive. Their reunion marks the first time in nearly four decades that the two acclaimed actors have shared the screen (they did Clean and Sober together in 1988).


Florian Zeller’s upcoming psychological thriller, Bunker, starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, is set to world premiere in competition at the Venice International Film Festival on September 8. The film, which Zeller wrote, produced and directed, follows the emotional and moral challenges faced by a couple in an increasingly uncertain world. Bardem plays Miguel, a successful London architect, who considers a prestigious offer to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire. The project causes his wife Sofia (Cruz) to question their relationship of seventeen years as they are drawn deeper into a life of extreme wealth, paranoia, and fear. The intrusion of an unsettling neighbor becomes another source of anxiety.

A first trailer was released for the action-thriller film, Father Joe, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Al Pacino, and teen Ever Anderson, daughter of Milla Jovovich and filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson. Sutherland plays “a man of faith who wages a violent war against Manhattan’s criminal underworld, putting him on a collision course with a powerful mob boss while guiding a young woman caught between danger and redemption.” As with the thriller Bunker, referenced above, the film is premiering this week at the Venice Film Festival.


Principal photography has just completed in and around Norfolk, Virginia, on the dark thriller, America’s Favorite, starring Dane DeHaan (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), Maddie Hasson (Malignant), Paul Roffman (Girl), Greg Kinnear (Black Bird), and Dennis Quaid (Reagan). The film will follow Peter Bale (De Haan), a reporter-turned TV host who tries to revive his career by investigating a series of murders during a live broadcast, only to uncover a deeper conspiracy tied to a powerful media mogul. 


TELEVISION/STREAMING

ABC is developing The Undertaker, a police procedural based on the Swiss series, Der Bestatter, from writer Gabriel Garza (The Winchesters, The Flash), director Hanelle M. Culpepper (Paradise, Star Trek: Picard), 20th Television, and Elevate Entertainment. The Undertaker will follow Luke Conrad, a former police detective who takes over his family’s funeral home business and can’t resist investigating the deaths that come through the door. Garza will serve as writer and executive producer, with Culpepper directing and executive producing.


CBS's Elsbeth is gearing up for its Season 4 premiere on October 8 with the first list of guest stars, including Nicole Scherzinger (The Masked Singer), Nicholas Braun (Succession), New York Knicks star OG Anunoby, and Jemima Kirke (Girls). Carrie Preston returns as Elsbeth Tascioni, the brilliant yet unconventional consent decree attorney working with the NYPD, led by her boss, Captain C.W. Wagner (Wendell Pierce), to track down New York’s most entitled murderers utilizing her unique, intuitive point of view. Scherzinger will appear in the Season 4 premiere as Serena Collyer, a popular and highly paid relationship counselor whose torrid affair with an old love leads to murder.


CBS unveiled the first trailer for Season 2 of the procedural, Marshals, which stars Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton. Marshals returns on October 4, and the show has some new cast members, including Marque Richardson as Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Burns, while Morgan Lindholm’s role as Maddie, the bartender at the local watering hole Bullet ’N Barrel and daughter of Cal, is being expanded.


Paramount+ has officially renewed MobLand for a third season ahead of the crime drama’s Season 2 premiere on Sept. 18. Also confirmed is the return of Tom Hardy as the Harrigan family’s loyal fixer Harry da Souza, alongside Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren as the crime family’s patriarch and matriarch, Conrad and Maeve Harrigan. MobLand was renewed for a second season last year but temporarily derailed by a behind-the-scenes drama involving Hardy, who seemed to be on his way out after friction between him and the series’ writer, executive producer, and showrunner Jez Butterworth. Season 2 also stars Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Teddie Allen, Emmett J. Scanlan, Johnny Flynn, Ophelia Lovibond, Janet McTeer, and Toby Jones.


David Zayas is returning to his fan-favorite role of Angel Batista for the second season of Showtime's Dexter: Resurrection. However, it is unknown how Batista will be brought back after his tragic Season 1 demise. In the second season of the series, Dexter is caught between two killers – one notorious and the other terrorizing New York in ways no one ever anticipated – all while battling his greatest enemy yet: a midlife crisis. Meanwhile, Dexter's son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), continues his own pursuit of justice as father and son face their darkest chapter. Brian Cox stars as The New York Ripper; Dan Stevens as The Five Borough Killer; and Gabriel Luna as Ray Ballard, who operates under the name The Sleepy-Eyed Stranger.


Production has officially begun in Prague on the new Netflix TV series adapted from the Dan Brown novel, The Secret of Secrets, featuring Morgan Spector as Robert Langdon. In addition to Spector, the series regular cast includes Rebecca Hall as Katherine Solomon, Cherry Jones as Heide Nagel, Corey Stoll as Everett Finch, Rob Delaney as Jonas Faukman, and Abbey Lee as Sasha Vesna. Additional casting was announced this past week, including Mamadou Athie, who recurs as Michael Harris, and Ben Levi Ross as Alex Conan, also in a recurring role. They will be joined by Anamaria Marinca, who will play Dr. Gessner; Richard Sammel, who will play Karl Muller; and Elena Saurel, who will play Susan Housemore. In Brown’s novel, symbologist Robert Langdon races against ancient forces and time to rescue a missing scientist and her groundbreaking manuscript whose discoveries have the power to forever change humanity’s understanding of the mind.  


Ireland’s RTÉ will explore one of the most talked-about murders of recent Irish history in the drama series, The Murder of Mr. Moonlight, which has been pre-bought by the BBC. Malcolm Campbell (What Richard Did) is adapting Catherine Fegan’s book of the same name, with Meadhbh McHugh and Paul Howard also writing. The series focuses on the disappearance and murder of Bobby Ryan, known locally as "Mr. Moonlight," and the events that would lead to one of Ireland’s longest-ever murder trials. Brendan Coyle (Toxic Town) stars as Bobby Ryan, with Owen McDonnell (Killing Eve) as Patrick Quirke, who was ultimately found guilty of the killing and sentenced to life imprisonment.

USA Network's The Rainmaker is kicking off promotions for Season 2 with first-look photos of Merle Dandridge and Richard Kind, both new additions to the legal drama, which will return with new episodes in October. Based on the John Grisham novel of the same name, The Rainmaker follows Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) who, fresh out of law school, goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Leo Drummond (John Slattery) and his law school girlfriend Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman). In Season 2, Rudy, Deck (P.J. Byrne), and Bruiser face old adversaries and new ones in a case where the lives of hundreds of children hang in the balance, and where winning might be just as dangerous as losing. In addition to Dandridge and Kind, Austin Nichols has been announced as joining the cast in Season 2.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO/SHORT FORMS

Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa will star in UnderGround Zero: 9/11 & The Mob, a podcast series recounting the untold story of how the New York Mafia made millions in the aftermath of the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Two more alums from The Sopranos, Ray Abruzzo and Arthur Nascarella, also star. Stephen Kronish (The Kennedys, 24) is the writer of the drama, which is based on real events. It bowed on iHeartPodcasts and audio platforms this weekend. 


On the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, Barbara Peters was in conversation with Jennifer Hillier about her latest psychological thriller, Heart of Glass, in which a woman must confront her traumatic past after a body washes up on the shores of her seaside town and a serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a string of murders.


Barbara Peters also spoke with Tess Gerritsen and her publisher and editor, Gracie Doyle, about Gerritsen's latest novel, The Shadow Friends, the third installment in the tight-knit band of former spies known as the Martini Club who investigate when a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine.


On the Femmes Detectives podcast, host Sue Hinkin spoke with Nichelle Seeley about her book, A Vision of Violence, featuring former cop-turned private investigator Audrey Lake, who reluctantly teams up with the public defenders’ office and gets drawn into a murder case in Oregon.


The Writers Journey interviewed Dervla McTiernan, author of award-winning novels including What Happened to Nina? and The Murder Rule, both New York Times thrillers of the year, about her latest psychological thriller, Three Reasons for Revenge.

Sunday Music Treat

Mars has been in the news a lot lately, with the movie The Martian based on Andy Weir's book, as well as continued missions such the continuing work of the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. In honor thereof, I think it's fitting we hear the "Mars" section from The Planets by Gustav Holst, always one of my favorite pieces, played here by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Sir Charles Mackerrras:

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Speaking of Murder

We owe many thanks to Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg for the variety of collections and anthologies they've edited through the years. I looked at bibliographies and counted at least 53 edited by Ed Gorman, and one source said Greenberg had edited over a thousand books. Ed is also one of the regular contributors to the Friday's Forgotten Books feature, as well as being an accomplished, award-winning author in his own right.

One of the Gorman/Greenberg collaborations were two books of interviews with well-known crime fiction authors, Speaking of Murder: Interviews with the Masters of Mystery and Suspense, published in July 1998, and Speaking of Murder II, which came out the following year.

I don't have the second volume, but the first is introduced by Ed, who tells the story of how a Chicago talk show producer once told him that writers made dull guests. Ed allowed as how he agreed, since "compared to cross-dressing prostitutes, mothers who sleep with their daughter's boyfriends, and UFO abductees who have mysteriously started to dress like Elvis, I guess most of us writers do lead pretty uneventful lives." He goes on to add that writers are interesting because they're quiet and introspective.

The 21 interviews in volume one include some of the best-known names in the genre, Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, Ed McBain, Elizabeth George, Marcia Muller, Mickey Spillane, Ian Rankin, Tony Hillerman Sue Grafton, Anne Perry, each offering up insights into their inner world as well as their personal take on the writing process.

I'm always particularly fascinated by the early stages of a writer's career before they were successful, because that's the "danger time," the period when a writer is most likely to get discouraged and give up. From Carolyn G. Hart we learn that despite having 13 books published ("nothing exciting happened with any one of them") and teaching journalism, she was depressed and felt like an enormous failure. One agent told her no one was buying mysteries, but after a Mystery Writers of American seminar, she decided she was going to write the mystery she wanted to anyway, the result being her wildly popular Death on Demand series.

Tony Hillerman worked as a journalist for 17 years and taught for 21 years, writing a lot of nonfiction. One day he decided he wanted to write the great American novel and decided to start with a mystery because he didn't know if he could do characters or plotting well. He knew he could do descriptions, though, and chose the most beautiful setting he could think of so the readers would at least enjoy the background. He wrote it off and on, thinking it wasn't good enough to be published, until he finally got tired of it and sent it off to an agent. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Other random tidbits: From Bill Pronzini, "Critical, editorial and/or peer misunderstanding or dismissal of my work only makes me more determined to hang around."

From Mickey Spillane: "If you are a writer and you do a scene ten times, the last one probably will sound like the first one, and you're not going to get any better as you revise. The best stuff you put down comes right off the typewriter, bam! ... I don't have a big garbage problem."

From Ian Rankin: "I remember an early attempt at research (at Leith Police Station)...They asked me what the book was about, I said a child killer. What I hadn't realized was that a child had just been abducted in Leith and a murder room had been set up. So they took down my details and added me to their computer. I became suspect number 350 and spent more time answering their questions than they did mine."

From Sharyn McCrumb: "Storytelling was an art form that I learned early on. When I was a little girl, my father would come in to tell me a bedtime story, which usually began with a phrase like, 'Once there was a prince named Paris, whose father was Priam, the king of Troy . . . .' thus I got the Iliad in nightly installments, geared to the level of a four-year-old's understanding."

From Sue Grafton:  "I love mystery; it is my favorite form. It is sublimely difficult, and for my money, it encompasses everything that is interesting about writing because you need a strong story, strong characters, and mood and atmosphere. It is also the perfect vehicle for social commentary. Mysteries are about the psychology of crime and the psychology of human nature. It is a form so difficult that I know I'll never conquer it. So it's the perfect place to keep throwing myself into the abyss."

Mystery Melange

This weekend, from September 4-6, St. Hilda's Mystery & Crime Conference returns to Oxford, England. The 33rd Crime Fiction Weekend explores "Bad Apples," the dark core of these characters, and discusses why we love them – or love to hate them – so much. The Guest of Honor is Andrew Taylor, winner of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger (for lifelong excellence in the genre), whose works include The American Boy, the Roth Trilogy (filmed for TV as Fallen Angel), and the Lydmouth detective series set in the 1950s. Other speakers scheduled to appear include Jo Callaghan, Ajay Chowdhury, Abigail Dean, Vaseem Khan, Remi Kone, Simon Mason, Ayo Onatade, Hallie Rubenhold, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Sarah Vaughan, and Martyn Waites. The full program is available via this link.


On Thursday, September 10, the Mechanics’ Institute in San Francisco, California, is hosting a panel of historical fiction mystery authors featuring Cara Black (the Aimée Leduc series), Rob Osler (Harriet Morrow series), and Naomi Hiraha (Mas Arai mystery series), moderated by Gigi Pandian (Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries). The event kicks off with a murder mystery themed cocktail hour at 5:30, followed by the panel at 6:30 pm. For registration, follow this link.


Murder & Mayhem is sponsoring a giveaway where three lucky winners will receive a set of all nine of Mick Herron’s novels in his Slough House Series, which inspired the Apple TV series Slow Horses. Enter with email address by September 7, 2026, at 11:59:59 pm ET. (The Sweepstakes is open to all legal residents of the 50 United States and Washington, DC, who are 18 years of age or older.)


When Dolly Parton passed away last week, her family asked for donations to Parton's Imagination Library rather than flowers in her memory. Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995 to encourage a love for reading and learning among the children of Sevier County, Tennessee, where she was raised. But between its founding and her death, it grew into something much bigger, giving away over 330 million books through five different countries. The Dollywood Foundation said in a statement that her legacy will continue "when a child opens a book addressed especially to them; when a parent and child read a favorite story together; and when a young person begins to imagine a future bigger than the circumstances into which they were born." For more information and to donate, you can visit the official website.


Bookshop.org has officially surpassed $50 million in donations to independent bookstores. The site was founded in January 2020 with the goal of bolstering independent bookselling as many stores struggled to stay afloat, and when the pandemic hit two months later it became a lifeline, with 80 percent of its profit margin going to independent bookstores. “We’re so excited to announce that we’ve officially raised $50 million for independent bookstores, supporting their ability to thrive, grow, and keep their doors open for the communities that love them,” the site said in a statement. “We know that bookstores don’t just sell books: They take care of their neighbors, provide a safe space for anyone who needs it, and cultivate a sense of curiosity and a love of reading within their doors. We can’t thank you all enough for supporting bookstores over billionaires.”


This coming Monday is Labor Day in the U.S., and Janet Rudolph has a list of mysteries set on or around that holiday, as well as some crime fiction with a labor union theme.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog featured Pat Remick with an essay on her story, "Screaming Jenny," from the new anthology, Hooked on Urban Legends—And Murder!, edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley.


Kevin Tipple's Thursday Treats blog has news of new short crime fiction via The Yard, Pistol Jim Press, the anthology, Mystery, Crime and Spring Break, and much more.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "The People - The Unnamed Ex-Con" by J.H. Johns.


In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews welcomed Kate Westbury to talk about her new novel, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies; James R. Benn. author of the Billy Boyle World War II spy novels, applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Ninth Circle, the twenty-first installment of the Boyle series; ALLi's Howard Lovy spoke with David Barbur, a former law enforcement officer who now writes wilderness mysteries inspired by his interests in hiking, tracking, survival skills, and the natural world; and Deborah Kalb chatted with Hank Phillippi Ryan about her new psychological thriller, Mother Daughter Sister Stranger.

Author R&R with D. Anton Stelzig

D. Anton Stelzig worked as biochemist, studying—among things—the fungus that caused the 19th century Irish potato famine, before he retired to open an art gallery in Morgantown. That kickstarted his writing hobby into high gear, resulting in his debut novel, Brotherhood, a political thriller set against the backdrop of power, secrecy, and betrayal at the highest levels of government.

Brotherhood follows Joe Angotti, who built a following by exposing the truth on his political blog. But when he announces the existence of a shadowy terrorist cell calling itself Brotherhood, he becomes the story. Kidnapped, tortured to discover how he learned about Brotherhood, and nearly killed by his captors, Joe escapes—only to find himself on the run from ruthless extremists,who want him dead and from a bumbling cop, who wants to send him to prison for crimes he didn't commit.

With his memory shattered, his name smeared, and people he loves in the crosshairs, Joe must piece together the truth before the clock runs out, because Brotherhood thugs aren't just hunting him; they're planning something far more sinister. And the closer Joe gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes.

Joe's troubles become complicated when the terrorists snatch both his girlfriend and a rookie FBI agent he has befriended, who they vow to kill unless Joe surrenders to them. Innocent citizens have died because of Joe's carelessness. Adding two more to his conscience is not an option, especially when the two are people most dear to him. But he has no idea how to find the terrorists, let alone what to do if he did—and he has less than twenty-four hours to come up with a plan.

D. Anton Stelzig stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the novel:

I don’t particularly enjoy writing.

That may be an odd admission from someone who has just published a novel, but I’ve never been one of those authors who says he writes because he has to. I write because I can. For me, writing is a lot like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. It’s a lot of work, but the finished product can be pleasing. And once in a while, while rewriting my rewrites, I come up with a phrase or a sentence, on a really good day an entire scene, that pleases me.

That’s enough to keep me going.

For most of my professional life, the writing I did was scientific. I was a biochemist at West Virginia University, and much of my research involved plants and plant disease. I wrote papers for scientific journals, and the people reading them didn’t give a damn about my life or the lives of my graduate students. They wanted to know what we did, what happened, and what the evidence showed.

I suspect some of that followed me into fiction.

My chapters tend to be short. I like action. I want the plot to move. I spend time developing characters, of course, but probably less than a lot of writers do. If something happens, I want to know what happens because of it. And then what happens next.

That way of thinking came in handy when I wrote Brotherhood.

The novel begins when a young political blogger, Joe Angotti, gets an anonymous tip about a terrorist organization called Brotherhood operating in Washington, D.C. Joe publishes what he knows. Brotherhood wants his source. Unfortunately for Joe, he doesn’t have one.

They kidnap him anyway.

Joe eventually escapes, but he’s been tortured, shot, and nearly frozen to death. He wakes in a hospital with no idea who he is or what happened to him. Then the police start finding evidence that makes him look less like a victim and more like a criminal.

That’s where the puzzle really begins.

Except when you write a novel, you have to make the puzzle pieces before you can put them together.

A scientist deals with something similar. You collect information. Some of it turns out to be important. Some doesn’t. Sometimes a small detail becomes much more important later. And sometimes what you find tells you that what you thought was happening couldn’t possibly be right.

In Brotherhood, Joe is found shot, handcuffed, barefoot, and almost frozen to death. Then there’s a damaged Mercedes. Blood. A gun. Fingerprints. Stolen license plates. The police draw conclusions from what they find. Some are right. Others aren’t.

I enjoyed putting all that together.

Not the torture, terrorism, and people shooting one another, obviously. The problem solving.

My years in science taught me to pay attention to evidence. If you think something happened one way and the evidence says otherwise, you’d better reconsider what you think happened. You don’t get to change the evidence because it’s inconvenient.

A thriller writer shouldn’t either.

I knew where I wanted Brotherhood to go, but I still had to get everyone there in a way that made sense. If Joe does one thing, there has to be a reasonable consequence. If the police find a piece of evidence, they have to react to what they know at that moment, not what I know as the guy writing the book.

My background helped in some more obvious ways too. Chemistry gave me a foundation for some of the forensic and technical details. And after a tour in the Navy, I know my way around a ship well enough to keep the maritime portions of the story grounded in reality.

But I think the biggest influence of my earlier life is simpler than that.

I spent a lot of years asking questions, looking at results, and trying to figure out what they meant. Now I make up the questions, the results, and usually a few people trying very hard to keep anyone from figuring out what they mean.

I’m not sure that makes writing less tedious.

But it does make for a pretty good puzzle.

And every once in a while, when all the pieces finally fit, I have to admit that I enjoy it.

 
You can learn more about D. Anton Stelzig and his writing via his website and follow him on Facebook and Goodreads. Brotherhood is now available via Amazon.

Author R&R with Lauren Johnson

Lauren Johnson is an American author who believes that life begins at menopause — not conception. Setting out to create a narrative to help women stop judging and start loving themselves, Lauren is releasing the first cozy mystery in The Lizi Cleverly Midlife Badass Detective Series this week. A debut as light and delicious as soufflé, The Soufflé Also Rises follows Lizi Cleverly, an American divorcée d’un certain âge, on her quest to find her inner midlife badass in Paris, amid jewel heists, mob bosses, and lots of pastry. Lauren lives in Oak Park, Illinois with her three kitties: Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page, and Johnny Winter. The Soufflé Also Rises is her first novel.

It’s 2008 and Lizi Cleverly just can’t catch a break. On the heels of a nasty divorce and a paltry settlement agreement—barely enough to reload her Starbucks card—Lizi is laid off from her job during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Flat broke, Lizi takes a job at Whole Foods where she meets Frankie, a twenty-seven-year-old artist half her age whose overly simplistic worldview is exactly what Lizi needs to get on with her life. 

But after an unfortunate incident involving her ex-husband, his pregnant girlfriend, and a carton of cage-free eggs, Lizi finds herself, once again, out of a job. So what does a fifty-four-year-old woman with no money, no job, and no prospects do? She sells all her possessions and goes to Paris in search of her long-lost dream: to write her first novel. But when the airline loses her luggage and offers her a meal voucher for the famed Hotel Jolie, Lizi pounces on the opportunity while unwittingly setting off a chain of events which land her at the center of the notorious Harry Winston jewel heist. And when her young partner-in-crime joins her in Paris, the two must outrun the Serbian mafia while trying not to trip over the dead bodies left in their wake.

Lauren Johnson stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

Writing What You Know

When I began writing The Soufflé Also Rises, the first of my Lizi Cleverly Midlife Badass Detective Series, I assumed research would be the easiest part. It was lighthearted fiction, after all, written in first-person present, and Lizi and Frankie were inspired by my twenty-seven and fifty-four-year-old selves—hardly two women requiring extensive exploration. Lizi’s just trying to muddle her way through her second act—while Frankie’s still trying to figure out her first.

So, aside from the expected factual research, what more did I need to know? After all, I’d dated assholes like Lizi’s ex, been betrayed by a best friend, been fired, divorced, and generally screwed over. I had a lot of material to work with.

Easy peasy, right?

Emotional Research

But here’s the kicker: I believed I was writing what I knew. Turns out, however, I didn’t know what I thought I knew nearly as well as I thought I did. Yes, I knew my stories. I’ve told them a thousand times. But there’s a difference between remembering and reliving.

I expected the factual research. Every good novelist understands that. What surprised me, though, was how much I had to research myself.

Take Frankie, for example. Now I’m the first to admit that I still have a lot of Frankie left in me, so some of the things that come flying out of her mouth wouldn’t be unusual coming from my own mouth today. Still, I’m not twenty-seven anymore. And that’s where the research comes in. Emotional research.

In order to get myself into Frankie’s head, I had to remember what it was like being twenty-seven, not what it was like to be twenty-seven. I didn’t need to remember the facts. I needed to remember the feeling.

So, I journaled through the eyes of my younger self. Not to recount the stories of my youth, but to remember what was behind them. I started by asking myself: What kinds of things were going on in my life at twenty-seven? Who were my friends? What were my hangups? How did I view the world? By asking myself these questions and taking the time to look beyond the facts, I was able to summon feelings I’d long since forgotten—which ultimately served as the foundation for Frankie’s character.

And while I didn’t have to reach quite so far into the past for Lizi as I did Frankie, I still had to ask questions in order to better understand who Lizi is. Just because we’re both muddling through menopause doesn’t mean I can write about her experiences with emotional authority. For example, if I wanted to turn “Lauren’s hot flash story” into “Lizi’s hot flash story”, I could simply tell the same story I’ve told for years, only from Lizi’s perspective: One sub-zero winter day, after hours of drenching hot flashes, I threw on my winter coat and headed to Walgreens in search of relief: Black Cohosh. I wasn’t in the store more than two minutes before another hot flash nearly took me down. I quickly peeled off my heavy wool coat and, much to my mortification, looked down to find my white tank top plastered to my breasts, summoning long-forgotten memories of spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

While “Lauren’s hot flash story” has always been a reliable party story, simply recounting it from Lizi’s perspective wouldn’t have been enough. I had to understand what was happening beneath the mortification. It wasn’t just about the absurdly cinematic and inconvenient hot flash. It was also about vulnerability, embarrassment, and the powerlessness I felt over my own body. Those are the feelings I want my readers to recognize in themselves.

Mark Twain was right when he said to write what you know. What I didn’t realize was that knowing my own stories wasn’t enough. I had to understand the emotions beneath them. That turned out to be the hardest research of all.

You can learn more about Lauren Johnson via her publisher site. The Soufflé Also Rises is now available via Rising Action Publishing and all major booksellers.