Karin Slaughter Definitely Isn't "Broken"

 

Author Karin Slaughter took the standard schooling route, including college at Georgia State University, where she studied Renaissance poetry. Then, things got a little more interesting — in a standing-out-on-a-limb sort of way. She dropped out with just two classes left before graduation to work exclusively on her start-up sign company. But when the urge to write got so intense, she sold the sign company and turned to writing full-time. The result? Since 2001, which is when her first published novel,  Blindsighted, was released (the first title in the Grant County series, shortlisted for the Barry,  Macavity, and Dagger Debut Awards), she has been on several bestseller lists and sold 17 million books in 30 different languages.

The Grant County series is set in the fictional Georgia town of Heartsdale and features Dr. Sara Linton, the town’s pediatrician and part-time medical examiner; her ex-husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, the county’s police chief, (who took a controversial exit from the series in Beyond Reach); and Detective Lena Adams, who has a perennial chip on her shoulder. Slaughter also writes a series with Will Trent and Faith Mitchell, special agents for the George Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta. She merged the two series, first in 2009's Undone and again in her latest novel out this month, Broken.

Broken focuses on Special Agent Will Trent who arrives in Grant County and finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner’s death. He doesn’t understand why Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him or her role in the death of Grant County’s popular police chief. He doesn’t know why the chief's widow, Dr. Sara Linton, needs him now more than ever to help her crack this case.

Karin Slaughter is on a whirlwind tour, both online and "off," and took some time to answer a few questions for In Reference to Murder.

IRTM:  Before you started writing thrillers, you owned a sign company—but then you sold it so you could start writing. You've said it was important for you to cut that safety net of a steady job and paycheck. Most "experts" advise writers to not quit their day jobs. Was this a difficult or smooth transition for you?

KS:  The transition was actually pretty smooth because I had a lot of things going for me: I already had an agent.  I’d already written a book.  I had money saved up so that I wouldn’t starve.  So, it was a calculated risk, but it was still a risk.  I think each writer has to make the decision of when to go it alone, if ever.  I’ve got a risk-taking personality, so it worked for me.  For someone else, it might make them turn to the bottle or hide under the bed, neither of which is conducive to good writing.

IRTM: You've likened book writing to a "short but passionate love affair." So how do you keep the passion alive in that love affair, book after book?

KS: I try to tell something new about the characters in each new book.  I also have a lot of secrets about my characters that I don’t always share with my readers.  In Broken, for instance, we learn some new things about Lena Adams, whom I’ve been writing about for over ten years.  I’ve always felt very strongly that if you don’t have anything interesting to say, you shouldn’t say it, so a lot of times when I’m plotting out the books, I’ll deliberately throw obstacles in the way of characters so that their personalities have to change.  Lena has certainly benefited (if I can use that word) from this over the years.

IRTM: You are proud (and rightly so) of being a southern writer and get annoyed with stereotypes toward southerners. (I'm from Tennessee and when I traveled to New York City once, had a cabbie ask in all seriousness why I was wearing shoes and did I have a moonshine still in my backyard.) Do you feel you're educating those stereotype-holders through your writing in some way?

KS: I hope I am, but let’s face it: New Yorkers tend to have their heads up their butts, as we say Southerners like to say.  If you hired a hundred people to walk around Midtown in red shirts, all the newspapers and all the news shows would have stories the next day about how everybody in America has started wearing red shirts.  They think what they see outside their window translates to the rest of the world, when really, the city is extremely segregated (especially in the publishing business), extremely antiquated and very hard to live in unless you’ve got a lot of money. That’s not the America I know, but that’s who represents us to the world. I’m glad to do my part in disabusing readers of those notions.

IRTM: You killed off a major character in your Grant County series and got hate mail for it. Yet you say while killing off Jeffrey was one of the hardest things you've ever done, you think it was the best thing for the series. (For the record, one review I read of Broken said that, "although the Jeffrey is certainly missed, this book proves the series can move forward without his presence." So there.)  Can you explain a little more about that "best thing for the series" idea?

KS: When I talk about the “best thing for the series” what I mean is the best thing for me as a writer.  Let’s face it: it would’ve been very easy for me to write the same stories over and over again.  That’s the basis of a lot of crime series, and while I have no problem with that, in my own work I was afraid I would get stale.  One of the things readers (hopefully!) like about my books is that I’m telling fast-paced, emotionally gripping stories.  I think the fact that folks had such an extreme reaction to Jeffrey’s death means that it resonated for them, and that I did a good job of developing him as a character.  But, it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t contrived to sell more books (generally, authors don’t equate hate-mail with increasing sales).  It was organic to the story, and it gave me an opportunity to pull Sara into a new and different world.  Also, in Broken, it gave me the opportunity to show Lena without Jeffrey’s influence, which was very interesting.

IRTM: You write detailed and believable characters, both men and women, and also from both male and female POV's. Do you find it's harder to write men or to write women characters?

KS: Men are actually easier for me because women think in a much more visceral way.  For instance, when I read Lee Child and Reacher comes upon a body, it’s going to be very mechanical in the telling. “Here’s the knife.  Here’s the blood.  Here’s the body.”  If I read something by Tess Gerritsen, it’s going to be, “This is the smell in the air.  This is the taste.  This is how the victim looks.  This is probably what the victim was thinking when he or she died.”  I’m not saying either approach is right or wrong, and thank God they’re different because these are two authors I love reading.  I’m just saying it’s different, and when I’m writing Will I am conscious of that.

IRTM: In that same vein, I like what you once said about the great thing about being a man is if you get mad at someone, you can kick their ass, but women have to spread rumors and give them nasty glances in the hallway. Also, you get complaints about your female characters cussing but not your male characters. How do you deal with and/or get around these gender traits and
biases in writing?

KS: Well, the new thing I’ve been getting is, “you write like a man,” which I suppose is a way of saying that I am a good writer, because women only write chick lit and knitting mysteries where Amish cats solve the crime.  I once heard Carol Shields interviewed wherein she said that anytime a man writes something, it’s considered more valid.  I recall thinking, “crap, and she won the Pulitzer.”  It’s hard out in crimeland if you’re a female author writing about what some view as “male” themes, but here is the interesting dichotomy: over 85% of all books are purchased by women.  One look at the bestseller lists tells you that the majority of books being bought are crime fiction, and not just crime but realistic crime of the sort I write.  Now, what does that tell you about women?  Obviously, we are interested in these stories.  It follows that we would start writing about them.

IRTM:  It's been said that your heroes are extremely flawed and messed up, but still ultimately likable. Do you find yourself putting qualities in characters that are part of you, or rather traits you wish you had, or do you even consciously think about those types of parallels?

KS: I’m sure some of my characteristics show up in the characters without me thinking about it.  I think one thing about most if not all of them—even the bad guys—is that they have very good manners.  Maybe that comes from me being southern, or maybe it’s just because I know that there is no such thing as a 100% bad or 100% good person.  We all have strengths and flaws. But, you know, as a child I always went to church with my grandmother, and after the services she’d introduce me to her friends, and as soon as the friend turned her back, my grandmother would tell me this dark secret about her.  “You know her husband drinks,” or “You know she came home from church last week and found her son trying on her underwear.”  I love that sort of thing.  It’s those little peccadilloes that make us interesting.  Some more than others, of course!

IRTM: You knew for years that Jeffrey was going to die but didn’t give a lot of thought to what would come after. Following that event, you combined the Grant County series with the Will Trent/Atlanta series in Undone and now again in Broken. When did you decide to blend the two series as the next progression in Sara's life after her husband's death?

KS: I couldn’t think about what would come after because I knew I would never be able to write the lead-up to the tragedy.  It was very hard touring for a few years because I am basically an honest person, and I had to lie to folks about Jeffrey and to some degree Sara.  Even though they are fictional characters and I get paid to make things up for a living, I had a hard time with that.  I knew when I wrote Triptych, the first book with Will, that he would end up meeting Sara and Lena.  So, I laid a lot of groundwork into putting together his character and making sure that he wasn’t just a carbon copy of Jeffrey, because what’s the point if I just throw in a guy who is exactly like Jeffrey?  Will lacks the self-confidence and sexual prowess that made Jeffrey who he was.  He’s not the kind of guy who wants to be the center of attention.  He’s a team player and doesn’t want the spotlight.  A lot of this comes from his dyslexia.  When you have a secret that big to hide, you avoid scrutiny at all costs.

IRTM: You feel it's import to be realistic without moving into sensationalism regarding the violence in your novels, something a lot of crime fiction authors deal with. How difficult is it to find such a balance?

KS: I don’t find it difficult to find a balance at all because I have one rule for both the scenes of sex and the scenes of violence in my work: if I can take out that scene and it doesn’t change anything in the book, then it doesn’t belong there.  I think what I get nailed on is that I am writing so frankly about these topics and I am a woman.  Not that I’m complaining too much, because of course it gets me a lot of media attention, but I’ve never written a story where a serial killer inserts a snake into a woman’s private areas, and I’ve never had a victim who was burned alive by a broken steam pipe so that the skin peeled off, but James Patterson and Jeffrey Deaver have, yet you don’t see stories about them mentioning these things.

IRTM:  Your books are described as being quite dark—has writing the novels changed the way you look at the world, made you more pessimistic about the human species (or our chances of surviving into the next century)?

KS: Believe it or not, I’ve got a fairly laid-back outlook on the world.  I think most crime writers do.  We get our angst out on the page, then we go along with our lives in the normal way.  I really don’t think of my books as dark.  There’s a psychological component that makes you feel connected to the characters and stories in a deeper way, but all good books should do that.  And, let’s face it—at the end of the day, the bad guys are caught and our heroes go on to fight another day.  You can’t get a more positive outcome than that!

IRTM:  You're a stickler for research, but have said you still make up a great deal of things since you're not writing textbooks, and that it's important to know the rules so you can break them in a way that keeps it realistic. Are there any rules that aren't made to be broken (or that you won’t break)?

KS: I have learned the hard way that you’ve got to get every single gun detail correct or people will absolutely jump on you with both feet.  They will call you names and accuse you of all types of mental disabilities.  They have no problem believing this one small Georgia town has been the stomping grounds of a serial rapist, a child porn ring, a serial killer and various murderers and bad folks, but get a gun fact wrong and their suspension of disbelief is very unwilling indeed!

IRTM:  I believe your next book (or an upcoming book) is set in the future and titled The Recidivists. Can you tell us more about that?

KS: The Recidivists is a graphic novel project I’ve been working on for a few years now.  It’s not ready for the presses as I have to write my regular books in between, but it’s in the pipeline.  The next book is tentatively titled FALLEN, and it opens with Faith coming home to some bad stuff and having to kick some butt.  I love it!

IRTM:  I'm jealous you had a chance to try out weightlessness in the zero-G Vomit Comet. And you have plans to enter sub-orbital space via Virgin Galactic's space program? Have you already pre-booked a flight? Can I come with?

KS: The Zero-G thing was a fabulously fun time, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know what it’s like to be weightless for a few seconds at a time.  I’m ready to go on Virgin Galactic, but they’ve had some set-backs.  I promised my dad I wouldn’t fly until at least 100 people have gone before me.  The ship carries six people at a time, so that might be sooner than my dad thinks!

IRTM: Is Gimme Goobers going on tour?  

KS: Lookit, send us some plane tickets and we’ll be there.  We are all about the road.

Karin will be appearing at Houston's Murder by the Book store tonight (Tuesday, June 29th) at 6:30 to sign and discuss Broken. MBTB will donate a percentage of the sales to The Women's Home, whose mission is to help women in crisis regain their self-esteem and dignity.

In Broken Places

 

Early in her career, Sandra Parshall had one of the most prescient jobs a future author of crime fiction could have—newspaper obituary columnist. She moved from there to work for newspapers in West Virginia and for The Baltimore Evening Sun, covering a variety of issues that varied from school board meetings to a mining disaster, health care in prisons, poverty in Appalachia, and the experiences of Native Americans.

Parshall's first published novel, Heat of the Moon, won the Agatha Award for best first mystery in 2006. It featured veterinarian Rachel Goddard, who has turned up in all three of Parshall's novels, including the recently-released Broken Places.

In the latest outing with the southwest Virginia veterinarian, Rachel is drawn into a murder when she's an "earwitness" to the murder of Cam Taylor, whose wife Meredith is also found murdered shortly afterward. The number one suspect is a childhood friend of Rachel's, Ben Hern, and Rachel sets out to prove him innocent. The victims' scheming daughter, Lindsay, has other ideas as she pushes for Ben's arrest and initiates a campaign of intimidation against Rachel, her rival for the affections of Deputy Sheriff Tom Bridger. As Rachel digs deep into the past, she uncovers buried secrets that could well make her the next victim.

Sandra took time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions for IRTM.

IRTM:  Your protagonist, Rachel Goddard, is a veterinarian. You've mentioned on one occasion that if you had to start over, you wouldn't mind being Jane Goodall. Is that why you chose a veterinarian as a main series character, or do you have a little veterinary school in your background?

 

SP: No, I haven’t been to vet college, but I do love animals, and making my protagonist a veterinarian allows me to have them in every book. I don’t write the kind of mysteries in which pets solve crimes, but I’ve found ways to make them important to the stories. A dog, for example, plays a role in the climax of Broken Places. A poignant scene earlier in the book shows how much Rachel will risk to save an animal she loves.

IRTM: In the second installment of your series, Disturbing the Dead, you included Melungeon culture. They're a fascinating people with a history few know about (it's even been said Elvis had a touch of Melungeon blood). Did this come from research conducted during your newspaper career?

SP: I grew up in upstate South Carolina, within sight of the mountains, and later I lived in West Virginia, so I had heard about the Melungeons and other mixed-race groups in the region. Whatever they were called – Melungeons, Redbones, Brass Ankles, gypsies – I was sure they had a fascinating history I would never learn about in any classroom.

IRTM: Speaking of your newspaper background, it comes into play for your latest novel, Broken Places, which has 1960s activists turn up as the murder victims. Did you get this idea from the War on Poverty you covered as a cub newspaper reporter?

SP: I tried for years to fashion some kind of fictional story around the young antipoverty workers of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, but I couldn’t pull it together. In writing Broken Places, I asked myself what those young people might be like 40 years later. Most went on to ordinary lives. But suppose one or two stayed in the mountains and never let go of their idealism? How would the passing years – decades – have affected them? Like other characters in Broken Places, Cam and Meredith Taylor have been broken by lives that didn’t turn out as they’d hoped.

IRTM: How did you decide to switch from journalism to novels, and did you have any writer role models who inspired you to try your hand at a mystery?

SP: I’ve always wanted to write novels, from the time I was a child. Newspaper jobs were a way to support myself. I wrote fiction for years without selling any of it. The work of Thomas H. Cook and Ruth Rendell inspired me to try writing a psychological suspense novel.

IRTM: Which is easier for you, non-fiction journalism or fiction writing?

SP: Nonfiction is easier because all I have to do is arrange words in a way that is clear and makes sense. It’s not a challenge. Fiction is a constant challenge in every respect, but much more fulfilling.

IRTM: Is there anything from your experiences with writing obituaries that has found its way into your work?

SP: Not really, but doing obits made me wonder about the lives behind those short notices. It seemed sad that an entire existence could be reduced to a few dry sentences. I was always curious about the whole story.

IRTM: You won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, but you've said awards don't make a big difference in sales. (I especially love your anecdote about the woman who asked if the Agatha was for female mystery writers and the Edgar for men.) Do awards still have relevance?

SP: I don’t see any correlation between awards and sales. Many mystery writers who sell well have never even been nominated for awards. Receiving an award is certainly a boost for a writer’s ego, but I don’t think we should attach too much importance to winning. We certainly shouldn’t assume that an award makes us special, better than other writers.

IRTM: Despite the fact Publishers Weekly complimented you on "a suspenseful tale distinguished by its sharp prose," you had a 28-year-old editor at a major publisher describe your writing as "old-fashioned." I found this puzzling since I keep hearing young people are turning away from reading and most mystery fans are middle-aged and older.

SP: If I could explain what’s going on in N.Y. publishing, I’d be very popular at dinner parties! The book business is changing – drastically, by all accounts — and we might see publishers going after particular markets such as younger readers. But they’d be crazy to ignore the older readers who are keeping traditional publishing alive.

IRTM: Many unpublished authors think the Holy Grail is to be published by one of the big houses. What do you think a smaller house like your publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, brings to the experience that larger houses can't?

SP: I can only talk knowledgeably about the one press I’ve worked with, but I think being with a smaller publisher relieves the writer of a lot of pressure. You have to sell enough books for your publisher to make a profit on your work, but no one will expect you to rack up huge sales to justify your place in the catalogue. There’s not so much pressure to write for the commercial market. It’s okay to be a “niche” writer and concentrate on doing what you do best. Some brilliant writers are publishing wonderful books with small presses these days. Many of those writers used to be with bigger publishers but were dropped because they couldn’t make the leap to bestsellerdom.

IRTM: What's next with your writing? More in this same series, or perhaps a standalone?

SP: The next book will be another in the series. After that, who knows? I have other ideas I’d like to explore, other characters I’d like to get to know.

Broken Places received a starred review from both Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. It was published recently by Poisoned Pen Press. For links to book information, check out Sandra's author site. You can also catch her postings on the multi-author blog P

An Out of Sight Festival*

 

This November, the first annual Elmore Leonard Literary Arts and Film Festival will be held in Detroit, the city where the author grew up. Featured events include the screening of the pilot episode for the FX network's Justified TV series, based on Leonard's character, U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant); screenings for a short film competition; a short story contest for young writers aged 13-18; and a competition for screenwriters and filmmakers. Submissions for both the film and story competitions start this summer (July for films and August for stories), and must include Michigan or Detroit, depending upon the category, and be in the crime or mystery genre. For his part, Leonard has this to say about the festival:  "My only hope, as the annual festivals continue over the years, that someone doesn't finally say, 'Who's Elmore Leonard?'

(*A little disclaimer:  Decided not to offend anyone with the original title of this posting, "Freaky Deaky Festival"; although it's the title of a famous Leonard novel, it also has some rather explicit connotations, which the festival might not appreciate.)

A Conference with Poisoned Pen(s)

The Poisoned Pen bookstore is hosting a mystery fan event the weekend of June 24-26. Since it's being held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa, it's a great chance to meet your favorite authors and maybe work in a little self-indulgent pampering at the same time. Lisa Brackmann, Jodi Compton, Stefanie Pintoff, Zoe Sharp will get things started off Thursday evening the 24th for "Edgy Characters: Three Dames and a Guy." Friday night is A Mash Up: Cozy and Noir," featuring signings by authors Juliet Blackwell, Rebecca Cantrell, Jennifer Lee Carrell, Vicki Hendricks, Sophie Littlefield, Michael Koryta, Jeanne Matthews and Gary Phillips.

Saturday's events will see "A Walk on the Wild Side" with Sophie Hannah and Michael Koryta together; a PF Chisholm/Diana Gabaldon pairing; and more from Dana Stabenow, Stephanie Barron,  Lauren Willig and Jacqueline Winspear, as well as a couple of discussion groups.  There will be various readings Saturday night and a bonus signing with author Karin Slaughter on Sunday.

Bone Appetit

 

Author Carolyn Haines was raised in the small town of Lucedale, Mississippi, of which she says "I think my generation of small town Southerners may have had the last golden childhood." The daughter of  Roy and Hilda Haines, who met when they were both reporters  for a local newspaper in Lucedale, Haines went on to receive a B.S. in Journalism from University of Southern Mississippi and an M.A. in English from the University of South Alabama.

In all, she's published over 50 books, both nonfiction and fiction, including several under the the pseudonym Caroline Burnes, which she uses for her twenty mysteries with Harlequin Intrigue. Her Mississippi trilogy of suspense novels on themes of hypocrisy and ethics included Touched, a Literary Guild selection, and her standalone historical thriller from 2007, Fever Moon, a Book Sense notable book. Two novels—Hallowed Bones in 2004 and Penumbra in 2006—were named among the top five mysteries of their respective years by Library Journal. And the awards keep coming: this year, she accepted the Harper Lee Award for Alabama's Distinguished Writer of the Year.

Her most popular creation is probably the Bones series featuring her protagonist P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney, who's aided and abetted by best friend and P.I. partner Tinkie Richmond (they're owners of the Delaney Detective Agency), as well as a friendly ghost—Jitty, who haunts Delaney's ancestral home, Dahlia House. The latest installment in that series, Bone Appetit, finds Delaney attending cooking school in an effort to get over a personal tragedy, only to wind up in the middle of a crazed beauty contest filled with more corpses than the cooking school has recipes.

Haines is soon set to begin the book tour for Bone Appetit and agreed to answer some questions as a little pre-tour appetizer.

Q: Having been born and raised in southeast Mississippi (with many of your novels also set there), you credit as influences Southern writers such as Flannery O' Conner, Eudora Welty, James Lee Burke and Harper Lee. It must have been quite a thrill to receive the 2010 Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year. Congratulations!

Thank you. It was an amazing honor. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a book that impacted me as a young reader, and continues to touch me each time I read it. I am deeply honored to receive an award named for Harper Lee. In 2009, I was named a recipient of the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence—another writer whose courage and passion I greatly admire. I have to say, I am truly loving these moments of stepping into the shadow of these great authors.

Q: You were the daughter of journalists and wrote for Southern newspapers yourself (the George County Times, the Mobile Register, and the Hattiesburg America). Yet, you didn't create a journalist protagonist. This seems to be more common than not—former journalists Laura Lippman and Michael Connelly have a private eye and police detective, respectively, as series characters. Was this a conscious decision on your part to not write something like an investigative journalist series?

I did one book, REVENANT, with a journalist protagonist. I'd intended to make this a series, but it just didn't work out that way. But Carson Lynch is a very troubled journalist on the trail of a serial killer. This book is set on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

And I have a character in the Bones series, Cece, who is a journalist.

You know, I loved journalism back in the days when I worked in it. I lived it 24/7. I'll have to think about another book involving a journalist.

Q: I love your tales about some of your more unusual journalistic adventures, such as covering an armed robbery on horseback and climbing a tree to cover a hostage situation in a graveyard. It sounds like tremendous fodder for your books. How much real-life experience finds its way into your writing?

The emotional impact of those experiences does find its way into the books, though the factual details are quite different. Journalism exposed me to a lot of different things. And people. It is the perfect background for a fiction writer.

Q: You wrote some 40 novels for the Harlequin Intrigue series under the name Caroline Burnes before you turned to your current southern belle P.I. series with Sarah Booth Delaney. What was the catalyst to switch horses, so to speak, and create Delaney?

I've always written in different genres. Before the Bones books, there was SUMMER OF THE REDEEMERS and TOUCHED, both general fiction stories that I wrote while working a full time PR job and writing Intrigues. And my first book (never published) was horror. I just tell stories. I try to honor whatever story gift comes to me.

Q: Around 2005 or so, with Judas Burning, you started writing standalone thrillers, and your novel Penumbra was named one of the top five mysteries of 2006 by Library Journal. What prompted the turn toward darker themes, quite different from the more light-hearted Delaney series?

I've always loved darker. The above mentioned titles, SUMMER and TOUCHED, have a very dark thread through them. I read dark much of the time. It's a nice counter-balance, to write in both veins.

Q: I understand you've been working on a horror screenplay and a TV pilot for the Sarah Both Delaney series. Do you see yourself transitioning over to screenwriting at some point?

I have to view this as sort of my relationship with photography. I love telling stories with pictures, but I don't think I can be the best writer I can be AND the best photographer. There isn't enough time to serve both mediums. I'm a novelist. While I dabble at screenwriting (because it's hard as heck to get someone to adapt work) I understand that this is a format that demands ALL of a writer's attention. So I don't foresee a change to that world. And trust me, as hard as publishing is, screenwriting is even tougher.

Q:  Regarding the horror screenplay, you once said you would probably use your initials to avoid the impression of a female writer because it's an easier sell in the horror genre if the writer is perceived as male. Do you think there's a similar bias in crime fiction?

I think women buy men writers but men won't buy women. It's a fact. And I honestly believe there is a perception that a female isn't as creepy or bloodthirsty or whatever. There are some genres where this applies. I have had very good male friends tell me they've never read one of my books because they aren't interested in "that kind of story." Yet they read Patterson, Deaver, King, etc. (Not that I am saying I write like these guys.) But the perception is that a story written by a woman is going to be light and fluffy and inconsequential. I find that attitude annoying.

Q: You're Fiction Coordinator and teaching the fiction writing classes at the University of Southern Alabama. Are there frustrations as well as rewards in this?

As with any job that invokes passion, there are many highs and lows. Seeing a student excel is incredible. Watching a student self-destruct is hard. Learning when one can affect the situation is an art. I love teaching. I have incredibly talented students, and there is much joy there. But there's no denying there are heartaches.

Q:  You once started your own publishing company. Although it didn't last long, did you find that lessons learned from that experience have helped you since?

I have greater appreciation for good editors and the things big publishers do well—distribution, shelf space, shipping, etc. I learned I don’t like business, or the numerous legal issues of such. I can write or I can fill out tax forms. I much, much prefer the former. But there is a joy in completing the process on a book, from font to embossed cover.

Q: Your ex-husband was a captain in the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.  You met while doing research for a book. It almost sounds like something out of one of your Harlequin Intrigue novels. It must have been nice to have your own in-house reference desk! Did he help critique your procedural details, and if so, what insights have you learned from him?

Steve is one of the best investigators I've ever met. He has thoroughly trained himself in the logical steps of investigation—a weakness for most writers who have unbridled creativity and are short on logic. So yes, he was very helpful.

Q: You served as editor of the recently-released short-story anthology Delta Blues, with proceeds benefiting the Rock River Foundation, an organization helping with education and literacy efforts in the Mississippi Delta (created by actor Morgan Freeman, who also provided an introduction to the anthology). How did this project come about?

I met Ben LeRoy, the publisher, at a writers conference and he’d just published CHICAGO BLUES, a very successful anthology featuring Chicago crime writers. When he asked if I'd edit a Mississippi blues/crime/noir collection, I was onboard from the get-go. From there, we played the "wouldn’t it be wonderful" game. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if...Morgan Freeman did the foreword? John Grisham gave us a story? Charlaine Harris gave us a story." Amazingly, those "wouldn’t it be wonderful" dreams became reality. It has been an amazing experience.

Q: As an active participant in animal rescue and manager of a farm with twenty or so animals, how do you find the time to write? (And what can others do to help with rescue efforts in their own communities?)

I write because I have to. So I find time. And there are several things people can do to help impact the terrible situation of unwanted animals in this country: adopt from a local shelter (buying from a breeder encourages them to breed again and again. They are in this for money. If there's no profit, they won't breed the dogs or cats.) If you can't have a pet or an additional pet, donate a "spay or neuter" to a local shelter or to a local vet clinic that you trust will give it to someone who can't afford to get their pet fixed. And this is becoming more and more importan—raise the issue of animal cruelty and neglect with your local politicians. Attitudes—and laws—will only change when we demand that they do so. Political candidates at all levels need to know this is a priority with their electorate. Speak out. And if you witness cruelty, demand action from your law enforcement and district attorney. Keep the pressure on.

Bone Appetit is set for release on June 22, and Carolyn's tour dates will be posted on her web site soon.

100 Best Thrillers

 

In keeping with the "reference" part of In Reference to Murder, I'm always happy to feature interesting nonfiction books for writers and fans of crime fiction. Oceanview Publishing is releasing Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads on July 5th, and it's already received a starred review from Library Journal.

Edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner, the anthology includes essays by David Baldacci, Steve Berry, Sandra Brown, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, Heather Graham, John Lescroart, Gayle Lynds, Katherine Neville, Michael Palmer, James Rollins, R. L. Stine and more, all members of International Thriller Writers. Some of the suggested titles are considered classic thrillers, e.g. The Bourne Identity and Deliverance, but others may be a little surprising: Beowulf, anyone? Heart of Darkness? Dracula? You'll just have to read the book and find out why the authors of those essays chose them to be included on the list. (Hint: in general, books were chosen for their "significance, impact, and influence.")

New Noir

 

Akashic Books is releasing the latest in their "city noir" series in June, Indian Country Noir, edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez and Moscow Noir, edited by Natalia Smirnova and Julia Goumen.

The first book features a mix of authors with Indian heritage or blood and non-Indian authors, including Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martinez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg and Melissa Yi. The publisher invites readers to "Enter into the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. The protagonists of these stories - whichever side of the law they're on - use their familiarity with Indian cultures to accomplish goals ranging from chilling murder to a satisfying participation in the criminal justice system."

 

The second anthology, Moscow Noir, features stories by a group of authors who certainly sound the part:  Alexander Anuchkin, Igor Zotov, Gleb Shulpyakov, Vladimir Tuchkov, Anna Starobinets, Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Evdokimov, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Maxim Maximov, Irina Denezhkina, Dmitry Kosyrev, Andrei Khusnutdinov and Sergei Kuznetsov. Even though Russia doesn't have a noir literary tradition per se, one could argue that the country's long history of suffering, oppression and conflict is the very definition of noir, with the stories in this anthology "an attempt to show its fetid womb and make sense of the desolation that reigns there."