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An interview with Kari Lee Townsend

by Kris Neri

Today the Femmes welcome new author Kari Lee Townsend. Her first mystery, Tempest in the Tea Leaves, has just been released from Berkley Prime Crime. This mother of four from New York State likes writing stories set in small towns, with mystical elements and quirky characters, and Tempest in the Tea Leaves delivers all that and more. She stopped by today to answer some of our questions about her fun new series.

KLT: Thanks, Kris, and the rest of the Femmes   I am so excited to be here today.

KN: Tempest in the Tea Leaves is subtitled “A Fortune Teller Mystery.” Has the paranormal always interested you?

KLT: I have always been fascinated by the paranormal. Movies, books, real life…there’s just something so intriguing about people who have the ability to tell someone’s future, see into someone’s past, read someone’s mind, talk to ghosts, etc. There’s so much in this world that can’t be explained. I’ve always had an open mind and believe anything is possible.

KN: Do you have psychic abilities?

KLT: LOL, um, no…I wish. It’s like when they say I’m not a doctor; I just play one on TV. In my case I’m not a psychic; I just write about one in my books  To have that sixth sense and learn to control it and use it would be truly amazing. I envy those people. Then again, I imagine it can be quite scary at times.

KN: I enjoyed spending time with your plucky protagonist, Sunshine Meadows. Can you tell us about Sunny?

KLT: I loved writing Sunny’s character. She comes from a father who’s a doctor and a mother who’s a lawyer. They don’t believe in her gift and want her to get on with her life by doing something “real.” So she moves away to do something she considers very real…open her fortune-telling business. Sunny has short blonde hair, wears no make-up, and lives in simple comfy clothes like flowy skirts and save the planet T-shirts. She loves hot cocoa, tea, and an occasional beer, but she’s a total light weight. She doesn’t have a TV, loves to read, and is fun-loving and carefree. But mostly she’s nothing like her stuffy, uptight parents.

KN: While I’m familiar with many things woo-woo, I’ve never had a tea leaf reading, and I found the process fascinating. Would you describe it for our readers? Have you ever had your tea leaves read?

KLT: I’ve had my tea leaves read, my palm read, my tarot cards read, and even a past life reading that was truly fascinating. Too many things have come true that have made me a believer. Like I said, I’m no expert, but I did a lot of research from people who are. There are many different methods, but here’s a short version of reading tea leaves. The person having their tea leaves read puts loose tea in a tea cup and then pours hot water over it, stirring to let it brew. Then they drink the unstrained tea and think about exactly what they wish to know until there is only a teaspoon of liquid left. They hold the cup in their left hand and swish three times in a counterclockwise motion, then tip the cup upside down on the saucer, letting the excess liquid drain out. The person reading the tea leaves then takes the cup and points the handle toward the person they are doing the reading for. Turning the cup in a counterclockwise motion, they read the tea leaves from top to bottom. Images in the white space are positive and good and images in the black tea leaves are negative and bad. Images on the right of the handle represent the future, and images on the left of the handle represent the past. Images at the top represent the immediate future, and images at the bottom represent the distant future. Each shape displayed has a different meaning for the fortune teller to interpret. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s the basic gist.

KN: You’ve populated this town with delightfully quirky characters, but two of the most enjoyable ones aren’t even human. Morty the cat is quite engaging, and Vicky, the house Sunny buys, is an actual character in the book. Would you talk a bit about them?

KLT: When Sunny first buys the ancient Victorian house, she nicknames it Vicky. The townspeople are convinced it’s haunted, so Sunny gets her for a steal, and she comes fully furnished to boot. When Sunny moves in, a cat is already living there. Only, no one in town has ever seen him or taken care of him. As Sunny gets to know him, she realizes she never sees him eat or sleep. He’s big, beautiful, and almost a glowing pristine white, and he has piercing jet black eyes. He’s smart as a whip, finicky beyond belief, and doesn’t like many people. Sunny thinks he might be immortal, so she names him Morty, and she suspects he’s the real culprit who’s doing the haunting. Morty plays a big part in every book.

KN: Every amateur sleuth writer deals with how to involve the protagonist in the crime and how to give her access to what the police know. You got around all that by making your amateur an official sidekick of the professional, Detective Mitch Stone, who’s a pretty hot and hunky professional at that.

KLT: I love wounded, brooding, alpha males so I had a blast writing about Mitch. He’s such a cynic and definitely a non-believer. In fact, he thinks Sunny is a quack and is determined to prove it. He nicknames her Tink because he thinks she looks more like Tinker Bell the pixie than anything else. Meanwhile, Sunny vows to make Detective Grumpy Pants a true believer, if she doesn’t kill him first. He needs her as much as the town of Divinity does, he just doesn’t know it yet. They are so much fun to write together, and their chemistry is yummy.

KN: What’s next for Sunny and you?

KLT: Well, I just turned in book two, Corpse in the Crystal Ball. It won’t be out until June 2012. This time the victim is Mitch’s ex-girlfriend and he’s the suspect. Now it’s his turn to sit back and let Sunny take the lead to help him clear his name. I had a lot of fun writing book two, bringing back all those great characters, and even introducing a few new ones. And finally I will be starting on book three, Trouble in the Tarot, very soon. That book doesn’t come out until March of 2013, and I have no idea what it will be about yet. Any ideas? Whatever happens, you can expect a little romance, a few laughs, and a whole of mischief.

Thanks so much for having me here today. It’s been a joy. You can find out more about me and all my books at www.karileetownsend.com and my group mystery blog called Mysteries and Margaritas at www.mysteriesandmargaritasblogspot.com.

KN: Thanks for chatting with us!

Cleaning for the cleaners

by Donna Andrews

My house looks fabulous today.  Not as fabulous as it did yesterday, just after my cleaners left.  But still, on the whole, fabulous.

Every time my cleaners come, I vow that this time I will make a fresh start and follow through on oft-made (and just-as-oft-broken) resolution to keep the house in this same fabulously clean and tidy state for the whole time until their next visit.

I think better in a clean, tidy house.  I like to model tidiness to my young nephews.  And keeping the house this way, which would only require a little picking up every day, would be so much better than the mad scramble, every other Monday, to get the house ready for the cleaners.

"What?" I hear some people say. "You clean for your cleaners???"

Of course not. I tidy for the cleaners.  There's a difference.

They dust, vacuum, and scrub.  I clear off the surfaces I want dusted, vacuumed, or scrubbed.  Especially stuff I don't want to have broken or put away where the cleaners think it belongs.  When I first started having cleaners, they broke a few things.  I had a lot more clutter then, and I hadn't yet learned to decorate defensively--putting fragile objects, for example, far away from the edges of tables, and nowhere near big heavy stuff that could be knocked over on top of them.

Quite apart from clearing away the junk from the surfaces I want cleaned, I've learned that the cleaners' fortnightly visits impose a useful discipline on me.  And I don't just mean the discipline of tidying every other Monday and then making my so-far unsuccessful efforts at reform.  Preparing for the cleaners also includes looking at my surroundings afresh--and not with the indulgent eye of friends who know I've been on deadline or my nephews, who aren't really bothered by clutter as long as the area around the Wii is clear and the cookie jar recently filled.  I try to step back and see the house through the eyes of someone who doesn't know and love me--someone for whom I'm just another job in a long, tired day full of similar jobs.  Someone who might just be tempted to lighten her labor by making fun of the deficiencies in my housekeeping. Or someone who might look around and wonder what's the point of cleaning a place that looks so cluttered.

So I try to make the place a little better each time the cleaners come.  Find one small area of disorganization and fix it.  Maybe they don't care or even notice.  But I do.

It's not that different from taking your writing to a critique group.  Most writers labor away in solitude, closeted with their work in progress, hoping they're not piling up words, paragraphs, and pages of utter garbage.  For many of us, the prospect of showing our work to the fellow writers with whom we critique is just as helpful as what our critiquers actually say to us.  Reading our own work with the knowledge that other eyes will soon see it on spurs us to useful new heights of self-editing.  Passages we thought were okay suddenly stick out as horrible eyesores that need immediate revision.  Plot holes loom.  All those promises that "I'll go back later and clean up the timeline" come due at once.

Shortly after I quit my day job, someone said, "Well, I guess now that you're working from home, you won't need cleaners."  I stared at him--and yes, of course it was a him--in astonishment.  I might be working from home, but I was still working, hard.  And now I wouldn't have a nice, tidy office, professionally cleaned at my employer's expense, to retreat to if my own lair grew intolerable.  Of course I was keeping the cleaners.  It made about as much sense as the person who marveled that I, a published author, still bothered with a critique group.  Actually, these days I have several.

Some writers manage just fine without critique groups.  Some people are good at cleaning, and couldn't imagine paying someone else to do it.  Me, I need all the help I could get.

Anyone else have a luxury that you consider a necessity even in these tough times?  For me it's the cleaners and an occasional massage for writer's shoulder.  What about you?

Well behaved women and history

by Kris Neri

I’ve always liked the bumper sticker that reads, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” If I didn’t have an unfortunate past with other shorthand philosophical statements that refused to give up their place on my car, which has put me off bumper stickers until I find a better way to remove them, I’d be proud to proclaim that sentiment. 

Not that I particularly want to be badly behaved, you understand. I’m not rude or anything. Generally. I take “well behaved women” to mean women who behave as society dictates, especially when it goes counter to what their own souls cry out for.

I recently read an autobiography of a strong-willed woman who embodied that belief. I don’t know why  it took so long for me to read it, considering that the perennial favorite has been a strong seller in our bookstore, The Well Red Coyote. I suppose it’s because the flood of poorly written self-published memoirs that have darkened our door for the six years we’ve been in business have put me off biographies and memoirs for good. But while many lives don’t cry out for the immortality offered by print, others do.

The book I read is West With the Night, an autobiography by Beryl Markam. She was one of those fly-girls in the early 1900s living in Colonial Africa, and the first person to fly across the Atlantic solo in the westward direction from England to North America. West With the Night primarily covers Markam’s early years in Africa, and her record-setting career in aviation. Markam’s elegant prose would be reason enough to read it, even without the accounts of her adventures and observations. No less a blurber than Earnest Hemingway wrote: “…she has written so well…that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers.”

There has been a persistent rumor since the book was first published that Markam herself didn’t actually write West With the Night, that it was penned instead by her then-husband. But lacking proof, I don't choose to believe it. I want to think that the elegance and skill she brought to flight simply flowed onto the page.

There was such an intrepid quality about Markam. One of my favorite parts of the book occurred much earlier than her most famous flight, when she was much younger. Her father had lost his money and their family horse-raising plantation, and he decided to move to another African country to start over. Markam could have gone with him, but she chose to remain behind, although it meant she would be homeless, impoverished and with absolutely no support system, to build her own bi-plane delivery business. And she made that gutsy move when she was young, and at a time when women were not expected to make such unconventional choices at all.

It’s harder for women today to be so fearless, and that’s a good thing. That means we’re finally approaching equality, that we women today can accomplish whatever we want.

But women — and men — still have the choice to take the courageous path, or to play it safe, whether those choices represent big, life-changing choices, or small everyday ones.

Even in writing we have choices to make. As a writing instructor, I’ve often thought the difference between a student who writes in a great voice, versus one who writes more generically, often comes down to courage. Some new writers find the strength to put on the page the distinctive, and often irreverent, voice they hear in their heads, while for others, that voice seems too risky, and they make the blander choice, rather than the one that would allow them to stand out from the pack.

I don’t care especially about making history, but I sure hope I make the choices that take me down my own distinctive path.

How about you? What unconventional choices have you made lately?

Two, two, two fabulous guests in one!

HANK:  Well, wow. We're thrilled today to host two fantastic guests..two authors who have captured the public's imagination (and wild approval) with their fast-paced page-turners. They're both--well, charming.  Skilled. Talented. Hard-working. Hilarious. And incredibly generous.

I'm giving away a copy of each of their new books to a lucky commenter--but we're all lucky, right? To listen in as two pros  give us the inside scoop.

 LISA GARDNER WITH ANDREW GROSS
 

Lisa: First, the question I’ve always wanted to ask another author: where do you get your ideas?

Andy: IT'S JUST THAT IF I TOLD YOU I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU LISA, AND YOU'RE SO NICE.... ACTUALLY, AS WE BOTH KNOW, THAT PROCESS VARIES, AND EVERY AUTHOR HAS THEIR OWN PATH. YOU JUST PRAY LIKE HELL THAT THEY COME WHEN YOU NEED THEM!!!!

FOR ME, THIS IS THE HARDEST PART OF WHAT I DO. THE ACTUAL WRITING COMES A LOT EASIER!

IN MY LAST THREE BOOKS I TOOK CONSPIRATORIAL HEADLINES FROM THE NEWS-- IRAQ WAR SCANDALS, PEOPLE WHO USED 9/11 TO DISAPPEAR FROM THEIR PAST LIFE; THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN-- AND WRAPPED THEM AROUND MORE LOCAL AND PERSONAL TRAGEDIES-- A HARROWING HOME INVASION GONE WRONG OR A WIFE WHO WAKES UP ONE DAY TO FIND HER DEAD HUSBAND OF EIGHTEEN YEARS WASN'T AT ALL THE PERSON SHE THOUGHT SHE KNEW-- STORIES THAT I THOUGHT COULD ACHIEVE THE EMOTIONAL RESONANCE I STRIVE FOR IN MY BOOKS.

EYES WIDE OPEN, MY BRAND NEW BOOK, TOOK SHAPE FROM TWO REAL LIFE EVENTS STRAIGHT FROM MY OWN PAST. ONE WAS THE SUICIDE OF MY YOUNG NEPHEW, A VERY TROUBLED KID, WHO WAS FOUND AT THE BOTTOM OF A FAMOUS CLIFF IN CENTRAL CALIFORNIA. AND THEN A CHANCE ENCOUNTER FORTY YEARS AGO WITH NONE OTHER THAN CHARLES MANSON! YOU'LL HAVE TO READ IT TO SEE HOW THESE STORIES LINK.

BLIND CURVE, THE BOOK I'M WORKING ON NOW, SPRANG FROM A CRAZY INCIDENT THAT HAPPENED TO ME LAST YEAR WHILE ON BOOK TOUR-- WHERE I WAS PULLED OUT OF MY CAR FOR A MINOR TRAFFIC INCIDENT, THEN IT ESCALATED AND I WAS THROWN IN CUFFS AND TOLD I WAS GOING TO JAIL. EXCEPT IN MY STORY, THE HERO DOESN'T GET OFF AS EASILY!

SO AS LONG AS THESE EVENTS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME, I'LL BE IN GOOD SHAPE!

Lisa: Your last novel, Reckless, was a “ripped from the headlines” sort of novel, whereas Eyes Wide Open draws from events in your life. What prompted you to pull from your personal experiences this time around, and how hard was that to write?

Andy: IT'S MUCH, MUCH, MUCH HARDER TO WRITE A STORY FROM YOUR OWN LIFE THAT AFFECTS REAL PEOPLE, AND SOME OF THEM PEOPLE YOU CARE FOR. ESPECIALLY AS WITH MY BROTHER, WHO HAVE GONE THRU A REAL TRAGIC TIME, BLAMING THEMSELVES...

ON THE OTHER HAND, IT'S A MUCH MORE ENRICHING AND REWARDING STORY, AND IT RINGS WITH THE DETAIL AND RESONANCE OF REAL LIFE. I WANTED TO WRITE A POIGNANT, PERSONAL TESTAMENT TO MY NEPHEW THAT WAS ALSO A THRILLER, USING A THEME I SEEM TO CARRY FROM BOOK TO BOOK-- A FAMILY HIDING A SECRET PAST, IN THIS CASE, REVOLVING AROUND TEENAGE SUICIIDE, SONS WHO FIGHT AGAINST THEIR FATHERS, THE LA ROCK SCENE IN THE 60'S, AND AN APPEARANCE WITH THAT MANSON-LIKE FIGURE. HOPEFULLY WHAT CAME OUT IS A CHILLING, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, AND SATISFYING TALE FILLED WITH THE KIND OF RICHNESS AND FAMILY LORE THAT YOU USUALLY FIND IN A MEMOIR.

SO WHILE ITS' TOUGH, AND AWKWARD, AND YOU KNOW YOU MAY NOT PLEASE EVERYONE, TO ME, IT BECAME MORE REWARDING IN THE END.

Lisa: OK, so you mentioned that as a child you had a passing encounter with Charles Manson, which helped inspire Eyes Wide Open. Say what?

Andy: OKAY. IT'S KIND OF A HEADLINE, BECAUSE EYES WIDE OPEN ISN'T A BOOK ABOUT MANSON, BUT IT DOES PLAY A CHILLING BACKDROP IN THE BOOK.

THE STORY IS MY DAD MOVED OUT TO LA IN THE 60'S AND MY OLDER BROTHER, A WAYWARD SPIRIT TRYING TO BECOME A MUSICIAN, WAS OUT THERE TOO, AND TOOK UP RESIDENCE ON THE SPAHN RANCH, WHERE MANSON LIVED. CHARLIE WAS TRYING TO GET HIS MUSIC PRODUCED AS WELL.

SO THE TWO OF THEM CAME UP TO MY FATHER'S PLACE ONE DAY AND TRY AND SELL MY DAD ON ANTEING UP FOR A DEMO. HE WAS GAUNT, QUIET, CREEPY, AND YES, THOSE DARK EYES. THOUGH REMEMBER, CHARLIE MANSON HADN'T BECOME CHARLIE MANSON YET! THE SCENE EVENTUALLY TURNED UGLY-- DESCRIBED IN THE BOOK, AND THEY LEFT ANGRY AND HUMIILIATED.

FOR YEARS MY DAD ALWAYS INSISTED THAT THE CLAN WENT UP INTO THE CANYONS THAT NIGHT LOOKING TO PAY HIM BACK FOR WHAT TOOK PLACE, BUT GOT LOST IN THE LA HILLS AND ENDED UP AT SHARON TATE'S. TRUTH WAS, BY THAT TIME MY BROTHER WAS LONG GONE AND OF COURSE THERE WERE OTHER REASONS THE MANSON CLAN ENDED UP THERE. BUT IT MAKES A CHILLING SCENE!

Lisa: Having followed your novels since The Dark Tide, I’ve noticed that you’re drawn to stories involving complex family dynamics. What is it about this theme that resonates so strongly for you, and how has your own experience as a father influenced your writing?

Andy: I DON'T LIKE WRITING STRAIGHT-UP THRILLERS. I LIKE WRITING ABOUT FAMILIES HURLED INTO CRISIS AND DANGER-- SOCCER MOMS AND REGULAR DADS AND HUSBANDS WHO ARE, SAY, HEDGE FUND MANAGERS AND HAVE ONE FOOT ON THE SIDELINES WATCHING THEIR KIDS AND THE OTHER IN NEFARIOUS COVERUPS AND CONSPIRACIES.

THESE ARE THE "REAL LIFE" STORIES THAT INTRIGUE ME AND PROVIDE THE BASIS FOR THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEXITY I'M LOOKING FOR. AND AS FOR BEING A DAD, IT MAKES YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WOULD DO-- BASICALLY ANTHING-- TO SAVE YOUR OWN FAMILY. AND HOW CREEPY AND EVIL ONE HAS TO BE TO BETRAY THEIRS!

Lisa: One thriller writer to another, what draws you to suspense—and what’s your favorite thing about thrillers?

Andy: YOU KNOW WHAT, LISA, YOU CAN MAKE A STRONG CASE THAT THRILLER WRITING IS THE SINGLE MOST RELEVENT GENRE OF FICTION BEING WRITTEN TODAY, BECAUSE IT REFLECTS THE TRUE CONFLICTS AND CRISES AND STORIES THAT WE READ EVERY DAY IN THE NEWS AND THAT SHAPE OUR WORLD.

AND THAT THE PEOPLE WHO COME TO OUR CRAFT AREN''T JUST GRADUATE STUDENTS, OR MFA CANDIDATES OR TEACHERS, BUT CIA AGENTS AND JOURNALISTS AND DOCTORS AND LAWYERS- AND THEIR EXPERIENCES IN LIFE INFORMS THEIR WORK.

AS FOR SUSPENSE-- I LIKE TO WRITE BOOKS THAT DRAW YOU INTO THE HEROS PLIGHT FROM THE OPENING PAGES, WHERE PEOPLE PUT THEIR LIFE ON THE LINE FOR SOMETHING-- A BELIEF, A FAMILY MEMBER, THE TRUTH. I'M ACTUALLY MORE INTO HEROISM THAN EVIL-- BUT IT'S HARD TO HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER AND WHEN THEIR ARCS MEET--- AND THEY CLASH... WELL, THERE'S SUSPENSE!

Lisa: Without giving too much away, what’s your favorite scene in Eyes Wide Open?

Andy: WELL,THERE ARE MANY, BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS ARE BASED ON PEOPLE I KNOW, BUT WITHOUT DOUBT, MY EVERYMAN HERO, JAY ERLICH, A DOCTOR FROM WESTCHESTER TRYING TO FIND THE TRUTH BEHIND HIS NEPHEW'S SUICIDE, PUTTING HIS SUCCESSFUL LIFE ON THE LINE, GOES TO THE SUPER-MAX PELICAN BAY PRISON TO SEE THE LONG INCARCERTED MANSON-LIKE MURDERER, RUSSELL HOUVNANIAN.

. AND THE THING THAT MAKES IT REALLY CREEPY, AND HARD TO WRITE, WAS THAT TO BE CREDIBLE, THIS CHARACTER, HOUVNANIAN, HAD TO BE SMARTER THAN MY HERO, SMARTER THAN THE VERY SMART DETECTIVE WHO ACCOMPANIES HIM, EVEN SMARTER THAN THE READER!!!! OH YEAH, THE AUTHOR TOO. BUT WHEN IT'S PULLED OFF, AND I HOPE I DID, IT'S A KILLER SCENE.

Lisa: You wrote six New York Times bestsellers with James Patterson. Dish. What was it like to work with Jim, and how much more fun is it to control everything yourself?

Andy: HA! JIM AND I GOT ALONG FINE; HE'S AN AMZING IDEA GUY, HIS INSTINCTS FOR PLOT ARE FINELY HONED, AND I THINK HE MIGHT EVEN SAY HIMSELF THAT HE'S A MORE ADEPT EDITOR THAN A WRITER. I ALWAYS DESCRIBE IT AS A MFA AND MBA IN THRILLER MANAGEMENT ROLLED INTO ONE.

I LEARNED A LOT OF THINGS ABOUT HOW TO CRAFT A THRILLER THAT WOULD HAVE TAKEN YEARS TO LEARN ON MY OWN-- AND HOW TO PUT THEM IN MY OWN STYLE.

I'M HONESTLY PROUD OF THE SIX BOOKS WE DID TOGETHER,ALL WHICH WENT TO NUMBER ONE. BUT YES, I'M KIND OF A CONTROL GUY-- HOW DID YOU KNOW????

TO HIS CREDIT, JIM LET ME HAVE A SUBSTANTIAL SHARE OF CONTROL ON THE BOOKS WE DID-- PROBABLY A LOT MORE THAN I WOULD HAVE. HE'S A MUCH MORE EVOLVED MANAGER THAN ME! AND ALL THESE BOOKS LATER, I STILL KINDA MISS HIM, CALLING HIM UP, RUNNING A PLOT IDEA BY HIM.. I MEAN, IS THERE A BETTER PERSON IN THE WORLD TO BOUNCE AN IDEA OFF OF.... BUT I ALSO LIKE IT WHEN THE CHECKS ARE MADE OUT SOLELY TO ME!

Lisa: Now tell me the truth—least favorite part of writing, and you can only choose one.

Andy: EASY-- THIS IS BECOMING A BIT OF A RUNNING THEME HERE: LOSS OF CONTROL! YOU SHAPE YOUR BABY FROM THE INITIAL BIRTH OF AN IDEA; LIVE WITH IT DAILY, WATCH IT GROW LIKE A CHILD INTO A FULLY- DIMENSIONAL THING AND YOU FEEL YOU KNOW IT BETTER THAN ANYBODY.... THEN YOU TURN IT OVER AND PUT IT OUT INTO THE WORLD AND BETWEEN THE COVER, THE MARKETING, THE RESENTATION AT RETAIL AND THE SALES, IT ALL TAKES PLACE WITHOUT YOU BEING ABLE TO CONTROL ITS DESTINY A SINGLE LICK! AND BY THAT TIME, YOU'RE ALREADY HALFWAY INTO THE NEXT ONE ANYWAY!

Lisa: Finally, what do you want readers to take away from reading Eyes Wide Open and congrats on another great novel!

Andy: THANKS LISA. WHAT I WOULD HAVE THEM TAKE AWAY IS THAT EYES WIDE OPEN IS NOT ONLY A THRILLING READ, IT'S ALSO AN ENGROSSING, EMOTIONAL FAMILY STORY-- ABOUT A FAMILY WITH A DARK HISTORY AND THE DEPTH IT WILL GO TO PROTECT THAT SECRET.

ITS ALSO ABOUT TWO BROTHERS, ONE WAYWARD, THE OTHER SUCCESSFUL, AND HOW THEY TRY TO BRIDGE THE GAP THAT TORE THEM APART. IT READS LIKE A PERSONAL MEMOIR CHOCKED WITH THRILLS. AND ITS MY FAMILY STORY. SO GREAT TO BE WITH YOU TODAY! I WAS A BIG FAN OF LOVE YOU MORE. IT'S BEEN A LOT OF FUN!!!!

HANK: What a treat! Thanks, you two. For more on Lisa Gardner, click here  And for more on Andrew Gross, click here!  And to be entered to win one of their books--just leave a comment about what question you'd like a favorite author to answer. (Or something you'd just like to ask a certain author. Even--us.) And then tell us: Andrew? Or Lisa? Or Femmes choice?

 

Putting The Pieces Back Together

By Elaine Viets

Blizzards. Fires. Floods. Tornadoes. This year has been one long disaster.

On May 22, a killer tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, the worst twister in sixty years. Here’s a look at some of the damage: 8,000 homes. 18,000 cars. 450 businesses. 158 lives.

For a brief time, the national media spotlighted this southwest Missouri town of 50,000.

Then more disasters erupted and the press moved on to other places.

Joplin is still picking up the pieces. The Missouri Writers’ Guild is helping rebuild the city’s school libraries. The MWG, together with the St. Louis Writers’ Guild, has collected 10,000 books for the city’s school libraries. MWG president Deb Marshall is organizing the book collection from St. Louis, some 300 miles away.

"Providing books to the schools’ libraries is a step toward rebuilding the entire Joplin community," she said. MWG wants to help the schools "reopen on their originally scheduled date of August 17. It's a small way we can help return to normal life after this catastrophe."

Deb sent these photos of the Joplin High School Library. Here’s what it looked like before 5:41 p.m. on May 22:

 
Deb took this shot of the same school last Wednesday, 45 days later.

 
　　"You wouldn't believe the devastation in Joplin," Deb said. "The media is correct; pictures can't begin to tell the story. Although I am a journalist with a ‘need to know,’ I felt like a trespasser on hallowed ground.

"I am receiving books from writers from all over the country. I got an e-mail from a Catholic middle school librarian in Muskegon, Michigan, who's from Missouri and consolidating two libraries due to school closings. Would we like books and library furniture?"

MWG is delivering that.

"Someone in Chicago sent 700 books for the high school." Another company donated $5,000 worth of e-books.

None of MWG’s Joplin members were hurt. One woman, Ann, has a "home in splinters. She’s on the board of the George A. Spiva Arts Center in downtown Joplin. Ann was excited to show me their new gallery. She has visions of readings and cocktail party book launches at the gallery."

Many Joplin residents working to rebuild the school libraries have lost their homes. "Artist-in-residence Sam Lewis, an elementary art teacher, repeatedly expressed his gratitude," Deb said. "He had an extensive library that included some valuable art books. Now they're gone.

"It touches me every time I open a box of books with a note from a writer, librarian or educator, that says ‘thank you for giving me an opportunity to give like this.’ It's touching – and humbling – to have people express their appreciation for ‘allowing’ them to participate in what can only be considered the right thing to do."

Joplin still needs your help. "The Joplin School District libraries still need books," Deb said, "especially since books in an additional elementary school library were unable to be saved due to asbestos contamination. Books are needed for libraries in two elementary schools, a middle school and the high school. The district's Teacher Resource Center was also destroyed. Head Librarian Debbie Heim said DVDs are needed, since that collection was destroyed, too.

"Books and teacher resource materials may be sent directly to:

"Debbie Heim/Library, MWG Joplin Book Drive, Memorial Education Center, 310 West 8th St., Joplin, MO. 64801."

Don’t feel like shipping books?

"Cash donations to the Missouri Writers' Guild Joplin Book Drive or gift cards for books may be mailed to Deb Marshall, President, Missouri Writers' Guild, 1203 Spartina Drive, Florissant, MO 63031. MWG is a 501(c)3 organization. All contributions go directly to the Joplin School District Libraries for books and learning resources."

Even $5 can make a difference.

We all have books that need good homes. Send them to Joplin, where they will be loved and appreciated.

Anna Hoyt on Cape Cod

I'm trying to imagine Anna Hoyt, my fictional 18th-century tavern keeper, on vacation on Cape Cod.  Take away her period skirts and the responsibility of managing the Queen's Arms and put her into some cargo shorts and a strappy tank—do you see Katherine Heigl, Charlize Theron, or a young Catherine Deneuve?  I'm trying to imagine her going for fried clams or lining up for a whale watch.  I think she'd like the clams (I think deep-fried translates as “good” to the 18th-century palate, as it does to the 21st) but why would anyone want to watch a whale?  I do not see her paying $25 for a lobster roll or going for a swim in the rough, chilly water on the outer Cape.  I see her dealing patiently with the crowds—up to a point.  I see her reaching for her Bible (and the sharp blade concealed therein) when she encounters the traffic on Routes 3 and 6. 

Nonetheless, Anna Hoyt and I will be hitting the Cape next week, touring with editor David Ulin and other authors (including Paul Tremblay and Jedediah Berry) contributing to Cape Cod Noir.  You can see the whole schedule here.  One of the tremendously satisfying things about contributing to an anthology is seeing how different authors tackle the theme, in CCN's case, the geographic location.  I chose to set “Ardent” in the village of Wellfleet, which was part of Eastham until the 1760s.  How could I miss the chance to have Anna visit the (archaeologically significant) Wellfleet Tavern?  I couldn't, even if I took a few fictional liberties with the tavern itself.

In “Ardent,” Anna is reunited with her first love.  Now that she is rich and a widow, the path forward seems clear for the pair, but Anna must chose between her lover's life and her own, which is entangled with the violent affairs of the monstrously criminal Mr. Browne.   

“Ardent” picks up where “Disarming” leaves off, with Anna returning from an unhappy but informative adventure in London.  If you missed “Disarming” in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's June 2011 issue (how could you?), you can now hear me read it in a podcast, here. 

Need a quick vacation this summer?  How visiting the 18th-century Cape through Anna Hoyt's eyes?

Put Trouble Early, Fight For Dog

 

by Mary Saums

 

Carrying on from the previous Femmes blog from Charlaine, I just want to say how happy I am that both she and Sookie braved that scary leap of faith!

Charlaine said something in her blog that really got through to me on this subject:

I had always been afraid to steer my protagonist into waters that might suck her down. I was terrified of giving her a life experience that would leave her permanently altered.

I have this problem too, every time. It IS scary. It's so hard to put heroes/heroines into life-threatening situations. We don't want them to get shot or razored up. If there's any shooting or cutting or smacking the crap out of somebody that needs doing, we naturally want our hero to be the shooting cutting karate-chopping crap-smacker. 

But in crime novels, we have to put them at high risk to make them and the story realistic. Talk about scary. And not just because of the difficulty of writing it.

One of the "rules" writers hear is that, though your character should change in some way by the end of the story, there shouldn't be a drastic change because of readers' expectations. If I read a Miss Marple book, for example, I expect her to still be Miss Marple on the last page, no matter how traumatic the events. If, instead, she's wearing her leathers, revving a big Harley with no mufflers, swearing and giving the finger to the local bobby as she burns rubber, I might get a little upset.

Well, probably not me, but some readers might. I'm partial to weird stuff. I'm just saying it's hard to find the right line for our protagonists to walk in any given story, and hard to know what the after-effects of crimes might do to change our characters.

Another scary thing writers hear is that the story should come completely from the character. That is, don't write a plot and try to fit a character in it but rather allow the plot to spring from who the character is. Just spring up from out of nowhere like magic. That's a toughie. I'm not much of an outliner, but I do need some plot structure in mind. How can I know who the character is or what he's like before I have a plot to put him in?

These two things, putting heroes in life-changing situations or harm's way and writing from character in order to know the plot, come together beautifully in the book I'm reading right now, Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson.

 

Ms. Atkinson wastes no time. She gets at it right away when introducing each character. And she makes it look so easy.

I've just started the book, but here are some thoughts on how she does it: 

- She writes in a close 3rd person, where a narrator tells us the story but does so as if in the character's mind, alternating short sections that highlight several main characters.

- She lets the reader know right away there's a problem or something fishy going on with each character's section. She does this through the characters' thoughts, with descriptions of place, what the characters are doing, how they feel about their past and the uncertainty they feel for the future, what they're thinking about the people around them.

- Each character scene involves a crime of some sort, either done or about to be done. No villains caught.   

- After a few of these, she writes two with crimes in progress where bystanders say something should be done, but none of them do anything.

- And then a hero emerges to take action in each of the two.

- In the first, we already know the faults, insecurities, background and probable unhappy future of the heroine from her previous scene. Atkinson pulls off a beautiful surprise here when her heroine acts both completely in character and out, and then ratchets up suspense with another surprise.

- In the second, we aren't told who the hero is right away, but those familiar with Atkinson's recent books will soon realize it's investigator Jackson Brody. I don't think she withholds that info only for a special treat for readers of the series. I think it was to give us 100% action, movie-style, for a change in pacing. She has let the reader feel a build-up of indignation from all the crimes unsolved, then let's us finally see a villain taken down.

- And a dirty trick for good measure - that villain got beaten up because he was mistreating a dog. It's a low blow, but it always works to get the reader totally engaged.

I don't know if she let the characters write the whole thing themselves or not. I do know she's skilled at putting all the elements of good fiction together to make a great read!

 

 

The Cliff

I’d been reading traditional mysteries, commonly called “cozies,” for many years (and I’d been writing them for a few years too), when I noticed something curious; though I enjoyed them immensely and they had a place in my reading life (still do), I craved an occasionally darker thread in both my reading life and in my writing life.

What element was I missing?

Something that couldn’t be fixed. Something that couldn’t be remedied.

I had always been afraid to steer my protagonist into waters that might suck her down. I was terrified of giving her a life experience that would leave her permanently altered.

At the time I was reading a book of Lynn Hightower’s, Flashpoint. (If you’ve never read Hightower’s Sonora Blair books or her standalones, you ought to. Though a quick search indicates these excellent books are out of print, copies can be found.) What impressed me was Hightower’s courage. Though it made for painful reading sometimes, the fact that awful things occasionally happened to her heroines made so much sense. None of these instances was gratuitous; each one was germane to the plot of the book. I realized the courage of Hightower’s storytelling choices, and she taught me a lesson that has been valuable to me ever since.

Though it made my traditional mysteries hard for my agent to sell, putting this lesson into practice made my writing better. I know it may seem a small step to a lot of you, but it was a big step for me. Walking off the edge of a cliff the first time made it easier a second time. When I ready to start writing something completely different (the Sookie books) I leaped off the highest cliff of all -- and landed on a feather bed.

Obviously, many readers like their traditional mysteries without that thread of true evil, and I’m not protesting that at all. Sometimes the puzzle is more fun than anything else. Sometimes I’m simply not in the mood for anything explicit or even terribly upsetting. But for me as a writer, this long-ago decision was an important event. I’m sure all of you who are writing have had similar earthshaking moments; and I’d love to hear about them.

Charlaine Harris

Chasing sunsets

by Donna Andrews

Oooh," I said.  "Look at that! Where's my camera?"

"That" was the sunset, reflected on the all-glass side of one of the office buildings in the Reston Town Center.  I'd been out to a brainstorming dinner at nearby On the Border with Barb Goffman, one of my nearest writing friends and neighbors.   And as we headed back to our neighborhood, we both spotted the incredible sunset.

"If you turn right at this light, you can probably catch it," Barb said.  She knew that I wasn't just marveling at the beautiful light effects.  I was coveting them for my 365 project. 

According to the website 365project.org, where I've been posting my photos, "The 365 project is a photography project where you document a year of your life by taking a daily photo."  Ellen Crosby, another of my writing friends and neighbors, told me about the project, and I was so keen on doing it that I started on November 2 rather than waiting, as she did, for January 1. Hey, the date's arbitrary, right?

Each day's photo can be of anything, although I've set myself the additional barrier of not invading the privacy of my friends and family, so you won't see a lot of people in mine.  I do a lot of plants.  Landscapes.  Bird and animal shots.

I'm particularly fond of sunsets, so a lot of them appear in my project.  And I'd have a lot more if sunsets weren't so elusive.  At least half a dozens times, maybe more, I've spotted a beautiful sunset while driving, tried to find someplace where I could pull over and still see it, and failed miserably.  The sunset Barb tried to help me capture, for example.  When we drove around the block, the beautiful light effect vanished.  We cruised up and down the nearby streets and eventually found that the one and only place in the world where that particular shot could be taken was right in the middle of the four-lane main highway.  Some shots you just have to let go. For now, anyway.  I think I figured out where I can park to stand on the embankment and catch that light effect, assuming I get down there around sundown within the next few days. Keep your fingers crossed.

But my 365 project would be boring if it consisted of nothing but sunsets.  Or roses, another recurring favorite.  So I'm always on the lookout for new and different subjects.

Some days it drives me bonkers, trying to pick which of the day's shots to use.  Other days, bedtime nears and I realize I haven't yet taken a single photo.  It was too cold to go out.  Or too hot.  Or I was sick.  Or busy.  Or having one of those blah days when nothing seemed worth shooting.   Sometimes you can can tell the busy/sick/blah days because that day's photo will be of one of my houseplants, or an unusual detail of some object in my house. Then again, sometimes the houseplant or the detail is what fired me up that day.

I've had fun with the project.  I've taken some beautiful photos that I wouldn't have taken if I wasn't working on the project--it's amazing how looking around for something to photograph every day helps you see beautiful or interesting things that you might otherwise have overlooked.

It's that way with the writing.  Some days I wake up inspired and scramble down to the computer to start writing. Much more often I make myself sit down to the writing because that's what I do. On a good day, I get into the groove and the writing time flies by.  On a bad day--well, I still try to do my quota.  I'm a firm believer in the theory that good books aren't written but rewritten.  In writing not because I'm inspired but until I'm inspired. In applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. 

And sometimes, when the words just won't come, in picking up my camera and walking outside to see if I can knock off today's 365 shot while letting my subconscious work on the words.

Anyone who wants to see the whole 365 project--so far--can check it out here.

And now, back to the book.