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Interviewed by Sandra Parshall
My guest today published four novels in the Lydia Strong series under the name Lisa Miscione before she switched to her married name, Lisa Unger, for publication of the bestselling suspense novels Beautiful Lies and A Sliver of Truth. Her new book, Black Out, will be released May 27 and is already garnering rave reviews and has been named a Booksense Notable Book for June. Lisa was born in Connecticut, but her family moved a lot – as far as Holland and England – during her childhood before settling in New Jersey. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a publicist for a major publisher. She lives in Florida with her husband and young child.
Q. Would you tell us about your upcoming book, Black Out?
A. Black Out is about a woman name Annie Fowler, whose perfect life in a wealthy Florida beach community is little more than a façade.
She’s literally and figuratively left a horrible past behind -- having fled her true identity and forgotten most of the trauma of her childhood and adolescence. But a series of terrifying events start triggering unwanted memories. And she realizes that she has to face the past she’d rather forget to claim her future -- and save her daughter.
Black Out was my most intense writing experience, and Annie is my darkest, most complicated heroine. I see the resolution of a lot of themes that started in my Lydia Strong books and continued through to Ridley Jones -- the lost girl, fractured identity, how we must claim ourselves rather than wait to be rescued. I felt a terrible urgency to resolve these themes in Black Out.
Q. Why did you decide to use the name Unger after writing four Lydia Strong novels as Lisa Miscione?
A. There are a lot of reasons. First, Beautiful Lies represented such a departure, such an evolution in my writing that it didn’t seem like a Lisa Miscione book at all. I was moving on from the Lydia Strong series and from St. Martin’s Minotaur to be published at Shaye Areheart Books/ Crown. Unger is my married name. So it seemed like a normal and even necessary step. So, I just sent an email to the five people who’d read my Lydia Strong books and let them know to look for Lisa Unger in the future. The transition was fairly smooth, thanks to mostly supportive mystery independent stores who did a lot of handselling and the chains that have supported the Lisa Unger books in a big way.
Q. I see Beautiful Lies and A Sliver of Truth as a single story told in two parts, and it’s hard to imagine that you didn’t originally intend to write a second book about Ridley. At what point did you realize there would be a second book?
A. I didn’t know there was a second book until after Beautiful Lies was done and I’d decided that there wouldn’t be a series. I didn’t want to write another Ridley. I knew the ending wasn’t easy. I knew that a lot of things went unanswered. And I knew that in BL Jake had lied to Ridley, and fooled her completely. But that’s life, right? There’s so much that never gets resolved, people go unpunished, some answers are never found. But I thought, Ridley’s okay. She’s on her own. After a while, though, all those unresolved points kept nagging, and I kept hearing Ridley’s voice. So I wrote Sliver of Truth. Now, of course, there are a lot of unresolved issues at the end of that book, too.
So …
Q. Have you decided yet whether you’ll write a third Ridley book? Do you think it would be possible to make a third story as deeply personal for Ridley as the first two are?
A. I do still think about Ridley a lot. I think about Max and Ace, even Jake, still. I also wonder about Grace from time to time. So, never say never. I feel connected to Ridley, so I know if I choose to write about her again, it will be a deeply personal story, about the next level of her journey. I wouldn’t write it by design, under some outside influence to write more about her. All my novels well up from within, each of them had to be written for reasons largely unknown to me at the time. This is especially true with the Lisa Unger books. I feel like I really found my voice with Beautiful Lies. I started writing Angel Fire when I was 19 years old. Lydia was a product of a very young woman’s imagination, of very young issues working in my subconscious. As much as Beautiful Lies and Sliver of Truth are Ridley’s coming of age story, they’re mine, as well. So yes, I’m confident that any evolution of Ridley’s story, should it demand to be written, would be deeply personal for her, and for me.
Q. To me, the most striking quality of your writing is its sheer emotional intensity. Do you have to work at heightening the emotion during the revision process, or does it all come tumbling out of you as you write the first draft?
A. I am a very emotional person, so if anything, I think … god, is this too over-wrought? I don’t know if one can fake -- or heighten, as you say -- emotional intensity. If it is possible, I don’t know how.
Q. How much planning or outlining, if any, do you do before you begin writing? What is the first day of working on a new book like for you? Do you choose a day to begin, or wait until you reach a point where you feel compelled to sit down and get started?
A. When I sit down to write, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I might hear a voice in my head, a phrase, see a news story, a song lyric, an image and I’m off. I don’t know how things are going to end, who is going to turn up on the page. For example, in Black Out, Dax -- one of my favorite characters from the Lydia Strong books -- turned up. How did he get into this new universe? No idea.
My golden writing hours are from 5 AM to noon. That’s generally when I work. Of course, I have a toddler now, so she takes precedence over almost everything, including my writing. So I have to be a bit more flexible. I write again the way I did when I had a full time job -- I make the time, squeeze it in between the other demands on me. Luckily, it’s really harder for me not to write than to find the time, so somehow it all seems to work out.
As for choosing the day or not, it’s kind of some combination between discipline and inspiration. You can’t always make the magic come, but you have to be open and available to it. If you are disciplined about making time to work, then the magic finds you. But, usually, the idea for a new book comes like a lightning bolt. There’s no seeking it and no avoiding it.
Q. Do you revise as you go, or concentrate on getting the whole story down before you rewrite?
A. I tend to do a bit of rewriting and revision as I go along. Going back and reworking this paragraph or that scene helps settle me into the manuscript for the day and often leads to a propulsion forward. I don’t spend too much time on revision during the first draft, though; forward momentum is very important.
Q. How much time do you devote to research, and how do you go about it? For example, when you wrote Twice, how did you learn about the lives of the homeless who live in tunnels beneath Manhattan?
A. I spend quite a bit of time on research. Mainly because I know next to nothing and have to learn about everything! I love the Internet for its immediacy and wealth of information. But there’s nothing like anecdotal research, talking to people, hearing their stories. I have a couple of people who I really rely on for the nuts and bolts of crime and police work. And for Black Out, I conducted a number of interviews -- a clinical psychiatrist, the head honchos at a privatized military company. I also read a lot of non-fiction, and this is in a way a kind of research just because I’m a knowledge and experience junkie, just taking it all in, never knowing what I’ll use later.
With Twice, I’d been fascinated for a long time about the people living in the tunnels beneath Manhattan. A book by Jennifer Toth called The Mole People had really captured my imagination when I was in college. And then I was in a seven-year relationship with a New York City police officer (a whole other kind of research, not for the faint-hearted). And he confirmed that there was an indeed a whole community of homeless living beneath the streets of New York, though no one wanted to admit that. So a lot of what I learned came long before I wrote the book. There have also been a number of great documentary films made on this topic, which served as research and inspiration. I also did a lot of investigating about the system of tunnels beneath the city, unmapped and uncharted, miles and miles of old tracks and abandoned stations. That just always impressed me as enormously cool. For a dark imagination like mine, it’s heaven on earth.
Q. Why do you prefer thrillers to straight mystery? What does the experience of writing a thriller offer you as a writer?
A. Strangely enough, I’m not sure I understand the difference. I get that it’s a pacing and intensity thing.
But, in my heart, I feel as though these are labels created by publishing companies and booksellers to categorize books for sale. I just write what I write, and some people think I’m a thriller writer, others think I’m a mystery writer. I read a review of Beautiful Lies that called it chick-lit. I’ll leave it to others to decide what I am. I’m a writer who tends toward crime and the dark side of things … that’s where my imagination takes me. What other people call me is up to them, I suppose.
Q. Thrillers used to be the domain of male writers. Do you think women have achieved equal status with readers -- or have you encountered male readers who still won’t touch a thriller written by a woman?
A. Hmm … good question. I do have quite a few male readers and am amazed to get mail from them, telling me how much they enjoyed the books. I guess I don’t really expect to have male readers in the first place. So when they take the time to write, I’m really shocked. I had one bookseller in California tell me that the Lydia Strong books were hard-boiled and that male readers in his store who don’t read women, read me. I did take that as a compliment -- sort of.
I do think there’s a bit of a boys club in the genre -- and not just among readers. Maybe it is simply because so many writers and readers of the thriller/mystery genre were forged by noir, which was very much so dominated by men. I definitely feel that a certain type of reader -- uncomfortable with strong female characters, emotional content, sex as told from the feminine perspective - might still shy away from books written by women. But they’re missing out. We have a lot to offer the genre, a new perspective, a fresh voice. Some of the best people writing are writing crime fiction, and quite of few of those writers are women.
Q. What kind of work did you do in publishing? Were you writing throughout that time? When did you decide to go for a full-time career as a novelist?
A. I was a publicist, booking author tours, setting up interviews, appearances, parties, etc. It was a very cool job and I learned everything I ever wanted to know about the industry.
But I have always been a writer and went into publishing as a way to get closer to my dreams without actually committing to it. But, of course, my job got bigger and bigger and I wrote less and less. Finally I had an epiphany -- I realized that I had stopped writing, had never been further away from my dreams and if I didn’t start writing again, I’d have to look back and myself in five years, ten years and say, “You know what? You never even tried to do this.” I couldn’t live with that, so I started writing again, every day, staying up late, getting up early, staying in on weekends, writing at lunch. From that point it took me another year to finish Angel Fire. I started it when I was 19 and finished it when I was 29. Ten years and it’s not a very long book. It’s a little embarrassing, actually.
Q. Do you think finding an agent and selling your first novel was made easier by your experience in publishing?
A. It was easier and harder at the same time. It was easier to find an agent because an editor friend liked the book -- but not enough to buy it. She did, however, suggest a few agents who might like it enough to work on it with me. One of those agents, Elaine Markson, signed me on and helped me rework the manuscript into something publishable.
I may not have had that opportunity if I hadn’t worked in the industry. On the other hand, anyone who wants to slave away in publishing for no money for ten years as a way to get her foot in the door, be my guest. We all pay our dues, one way or another, and no one does anybody any favors in this or any money-making industry.
None of the editors I had known, and none of the publishing companies where I’d worked made offers on my manuscript. They all, in fact, turned it down. When Angel Fire went to St. Martin’s, it was to an editor I’d never met.
I think people don’t want you to change. They see you one way, in my case as a book publicist, and they don’t want to see you any other way. So I think that made it harder to sell my first book.
Q. Do you have a pet peeve about the publishing business?
A. I actually love the business. I love everything about it. I think it’s a wonderfully romantic way to make a living -- as a writer, or an editor or even a publicist. Which is not to say that it isn’t as brutal as any other industry -- dreams are made and crushed everyday; talent doesn’t necessarily mean success; numbers matter more than high achievement in craft. The highs are dizzying; the lows are abysmal.
Success is not guaranteed, no matter how auspicious your beginning -- in fact it’s harder to succeed as a published writer than it is to get published in the first place. But I have never wanted to do anything else but write, so I’m profoundly grateful to make a living in this business.
Q. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
A. Write every day. Dig deeper every day. Be true to yourself. Think of publishing as an incidental element to the act of striving to be the best writer you can be, secondary to getting better every day for your experiences and dedication to the craft.
Q. Will you be at any mystery or thriller conferences this year where fans can meet you?
A. I’m planning to make it to Bouchercon this year, schedule permitting. Hope to see you all there!
Visit Lisa’s web sites at www.lisaunger.com and www.lisamiscione.com
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Interview with Lisa Unger
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Bobbies
Sharon Wildwind
Those of you familiar with Canada may know that yesterday we celebrated Victoria Day, also known as “the Auld Queen’s birthday.” Or, as it’s known in our house, the official beginning of summer. We Canadians can’t wait around for June 21 (which is mid-summer anyway, you know mid-summers eve and all that) to declare summer because, by that time, Arctic winds are massing around the North Pole, waiting to sweep through the Canadian prairies. Any time we make it through the first week in August without a killing frost, we consider it a good year.
Back to Queen Victoria, and to the most famous Victorian detective, Sherlock Holmes, who was in business (courtesy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) from 1878 to 1914, allowing for a short interruption where he went over Reichenbach Falls, and took a bit of time to come to his senses and return home after the ordeal.
All in all, Holmes worked with five Scotland Yard law enforcement officers: Inspector Lestrade, Tobias Gregson, Stanley Hopkins, Alec MacDonald, and Athelney (Peter) Jones. Many of us in the mystery community speak with great familiarity about Scotland Yard, “The Met,” bobbies, and other bits of Victorian policing. So, in honor of the Auld Queen, and Mr. Holmes, I thought I might give a big of a guide to policing in London in the nineteenth century.
Dating back to medieval England and firmly rooted in English common law is the practice that any citizen can make an arrest. In fact, every citizen was encouraged to be mindful of what was happening in his community and to take steps to reduce crime, and to apprehend criminals. Into the early 1800, formal law enforcement was handled by private security services, night watchmen, and hired “thief takers,” who were essentially bounty hunters.
Magistrates, also known as Justices of the Peace, often had no formal legal training. They were educated men of some substance, who volunteered their time to hear minor legal proceedings for a certain district. The novelist Henry Fielding was appointed a magistrate in the Liberty of Westminster in 1748. He lived and held his court at #4 Bow Street. His “thief takers” came to be known as the Bow Street Runners. Essentially, their law enforcement consisted of being told by Mr. Fielding, “Go get this person,” and they did. They did not act as detectives, make patrols, collect evidence, or try to prevent crime. Such an arrangement was common throughout the City of London and the surrounding counties. As you can imagine, it didn’t do a lot to make neighborhoods safer.
The Metropolitan Police Act was introduced by the Home Secretary Robert Peel and passed by Parliament in 1829. It created the third urban, non-paramilitary police forces in the world—the previous two were in Glasgow, Scotland, and in Paris, France.
We get police nicknames of “peelers” or “bobbies” from Robert Peel’s name.
Police patrols took to the London streets on September 29, 1829, and they were not popular. The first policeman was killed in the line of duty nine months later. The Coroner’s Inquest ruled his death justifiable homicide. Other officers were beaten, blinded, and attacked.
For ten years, The Metropolitan Police Force covered the City of London, and any place in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex or Kent, as long as these places were within twelve miles of Charing Cross. In 1839, the London Police Force was formed, essentially leaving “The Met’s” enforcement area looking like a doughnut. They were able to police all around the City of London, but not inside the city itself.
Keep in mind that the “city” of London is only about one square mile. It is the very heart of London, so the doughnut hole wasn’t very large, compared to the whole doughnut.
The original MPF headquarters was located in Whitehall, and to enter the building’s back entrance, the policemen had to cross through a bricked courtyard called Scotland Yard. The name stuck. However, because there was a great fear of organized spy rings and of the police spying on private citizens, the original metropolitan force didn’t have any detectives. The Detective Branch wouldn’t come into being until 1842. After several reorganizations over the next century and a half, it came to be what today is called New Scotland Yard.
Peel based his police force on two radical principles: first, that police officers must prevent crime and second, that the first objective could be achieved only if the public trusted, recognized, and were willing to assist police constables. To achieve both of these objectives, Peel authorized a whole set of conditions by which the police were to operate.
You might come across a list called “Peelian Police Principles,” which is represented as a list that Peel himself wrote down. Recent scholars makes a very convincing argument that Peel never wrote down such a list, though you can find references to many of the things on the list in his speeches and writings.
Here are the things that Peel promoted, which startled London and the surroundings counties, and set British policing on it’s ear:
Each constable was given a badge with a unique number. The constable was required to give his badge number to anyone who asked for it. A policeman could no longer hide behind the anonymity of his fists and a mask.
Constables wore blue uniforms, and carried only a truncheon to distance them from the army, who wore red uniforms and carried firearms. Previously the army was responsible for violent responses, including the use of firearms on civilians.
Constables were expected to enlist voluntary public cooperation in what we would call today Neighborhood Watches. Peel stressed that every English citizen still had the traditional responsibility for reducing crime and apprehending criminals. The police, however, were to be the only full-time, paid guardians of the law.
Policing was based on a series of local patrols. Constables were to know every nuance of their beats; restrain from using physical force; concentrate on persuasion, advice and warnings; and stay out of public houses during duty time.
The absence of crime and disorder was to be used as the measuring standard as to success of police efficiency.
Peels policing reforms worked. By the time Mr. Holmes investigated A Study in Scarlet in 1878, the bobby had become recognized around the world, whether as the caped, blue-uniformed beat cop, appearing out of the fog, tipping his hat, and wishing Holmes a good evening, or the red-faced, portly constable consulting his notebook in the witness stand and saying, “On March 27 of this year, at 9:52 PM, I was proceeding in a westerly direction, in the performance of my duties…”
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Writing quote for the week:
The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
~Sir Robert Peel, British Home Secretary, 1834 to 1835 and 1841 to 1846
Monday, May 19, 2008
Indiana Jones and Me
by Julia Buckley
I took my sons to Blockbuster over the weekend to pick out a couple of movies. Inside we were confronted by a huge Indiana Jones display: posters, limited edition prints, popcorn holders with scenes from the movie. I wandered over and lingered in front of it.
"Boys," I said. "Look at all this cool stuff."
They glanced at it, not that impressed. "Yeah," said my older son.
"Look at this neat poster. It's for the new movie. Only five dollars. Don't you want one?"
"Nah."
I ran an affectionate finger over the plastic wrap. "Are you sure? Look what a great poster it is. He looks just like he did in the first movie."
The boys moved on, and I realized that I hadn't wanted the poster for them. I had wanted it for me. Once I faced this realization, I bought the poster, and when I got home I hung it in my office.
All you have to do is watch tv news to see the significance of the debut of the new Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. People are going nuts for this fourth installment; they're digging out their fedoras and bull whips, their Indie action figures, their leather jackets. They're marching around outside of theaters looking as goofy as those parents who dress up on Halloween. But I understand how they feel. It's about nostalgia.
I fell in love with this character long ago, back in the 80s when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theatre and knew, deep down, that Harrison Ford was the man for me. (I had already suspected it when I saw Star Wars). The arrival of the new movie brings back that wonderful rush of pleasure that seeing the movie brought. Added to the exciting mix is the return of Karen Allen, who played Marian Ravenwood in the first movie and then sort of disappeared from Indiana Jones history. Now she's back, 56 years old and as pretty as ever, playing Marian and bringing us fans back to that wonderful first movie, the best of the three.
As a writer, I see the perfection of the Raiders story: the kind that catches you from the very start and then never stops shocking you until the very last ironic frame. It's a masterpiece of storytelling, of cinema, and yes, of mystery.
The local news here suggested that there had been some "negative buzz" about the movie, whatever that means, but it would be awfully hard for this movie to disappoint people like me, who have been waiting for years to see this reunion, and will be cheering the moment Indie appears on screen and adjusts his hat over his eyes.
Who's with me? It opens this weekend. I'll get the popcorn (and yes, I did buy the limited edition Indiana Jones popcorn holders). I may be a sucker for Harrison Ford, but I know I'm not the only one.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Guest Interview: Elena Santangelo
Elena Santangelo is a mystery author and musician with a wicked sense of humor. In addition to writing both short stories and novels, she sings and dances in Philadelphia Revels productions, composes choral and handbell music
PPD
On your web site, you seem to be having entirely too much fun: essays about play, a stuffed pig in a paper hat, wicked song parodies, short stories about corporate bosses polished off while riding their Harley. Is nothing sacred to you?
Elena
Walter prefers "warthog" to "pig." And the parodies are tame compared to some of those hidden in my PC, covering a variety of, as Tom Paxton puts it, short-shelf-life political topics. But sacred-wise, I hate humor that's mean. Humor ought to be born of wit, or stem from the ridiculous. Other than that, anything that can be observed can and should be made fun of. People need to laugh more.
PPD
Both ghosts and historical mysteries are hot right now. You've combine both themes in your Pat Montella series. What's the most important thing to remember when writing a ghost as a character?
Eleana
That the ghost is a human being who happens to be dead. The only motivation missing from the character is that of survival. Everything else is possible. Ghosts need to be as 3-dimensional as every other character in the book, and must be true to the thinking of his/her time period. The coolest thing about putting ghosts in my novels is in figuring out how each one is going to communicate with Pat (or with anyone else in the book). I work on the assumption that straight-forward conversation isn't possible between here and the Other Side (because, heck, that would be BORING!). Better to have the whiff of black powder, or a phantom kiss beneath the mistletoe. Or even to have an invisible cat brush up against your leg.
PPD
One of your books ties into the American Civil War, another into Reconstruction, and the latest one into the decade after the American Revolution. Each book has a different feel. What do you do to recreate these historical periods? What obligations, if any, does a fiction author have to represent real history accurately?
Elena
My first historical fiction was a short mystery about Valley Forge. I thought my research was decent and I was proud of wanting to be accurate, so I gave it to one of the historians at Valley Forge NHP to read. He tore it to shreds. I vowed never to write a historical again. But I fixed that story and it won a national fiction award.
Now I immerse myself in the time period, listening to the music, viewing paintings of the time, visiting building as old as the ones in the books to see what they feel like, hefting objects like fire irons, weapons, tools. Almost exclusively, I use primary documents (that is, documents written during the time period, like diaries, newspapers, letters, etc.). I try to be accurate to the vocabulary of the time, at least, and not use modern expressions or words. As a musician, I have a personal need to get the SOUND of the prose right.
I don't think a fiction author necessarily has any obligation to be accurate, but the more accurate I can be, the more satisfied I am with the final product. Also, I believe readers enjoy the books more. You have to assume your readers will know something about history and you don't want them gagging on your anachronisms.
PPD
Kay and Karen Bishop are characters in some of your short stories. What are the advantages of having twin psychologists as your protagonists?
No advantages at all, apparently, since I've never been able to interest anyone in publishing a novel about them, even though I've tried changing their names, ethnic backgrounds and hometowns twice. I came up with the notion of Karen's character first--a college prof specializing in personality theory who occasionally assists local police by profiling criminals. It gives her an 'in' on murder investigations but she isn't a full-time law enforcement pro. Instead of giving her a usual sidekick--the cop lover, for instance--I gave her a mirror-twin sister. The relationship is fascinating to play with.
Kay is left-handed. And one thing that, if I remember right, isn't mentioned in the stories (because it's not important), but came out in the novel, is that they were connected at birth on their non-dominent arms from elbow to pinkie. When they were separated, Kay got a full pinkie, Karen has one knuckle. Because Kay's left handed, she's right brained--very creative, very good at seeing the big picture. Karen's got a scientific brain (sort of like Beth Ann grown up)--very logical and good at details. Fascinating because of this difference, but also, most 20-something identical twins (the ones I know), before they're comfortable in their own skins, they have a few more identity problems than normal folks. The insecurities feed into all sorts of great character conflict. Plus, there's always the mistaken identity possibilities.
PPD
In addition to being a mystery writer, you're a musician, dancer, and composer. Are you planing any mysteries with a musical bent?
Please don't call me a dancer. My friends who are genuine dancers, on reading this, will spew whatever they're drinking onto their keyboards and make me pay for the damages. I do love folk dancing, though. Favorites: square dancing, a beautiful Israeli dance called Ma Navu, and a wild French Canadian dance called La Bastringue. But that wasn't your question.
HANG MY HEAD AND CRY has a modern character who's a part-time church singer, and much of the book (including the title) has references to spirituals, which are probably my favorite folksongs. POISON TO PURGE MELANCHOLY has a main character who's a fiddler and music master in 18th century Williamsburg. The thing is, history is FILLED with people making music. It's only since the advent of radio and recordings that Western society started getting odd ideas about music being for musicians only. Before that everyone sang and many people played instruments. Book 4, FEAR ITSELF (hopefully coming out in 2009) begins with a Carnivale celebration in an Italian immigrant community in 1933, dancing tarantellas to tunes from a concertina (a.k.a. a squeezebox).
PPD
What's next?
As mentioned above, FEAR ITSELF in the Possessed Series will hopefully be published in 2009. In the meantime, my first non-fiction book, DAME AGATHA'S SHORTS, is coming out later this year. It's a bedside companion to Agatha Christie's short stories, giving a little review of each, plus information about what was going on in her life as she wrote them, how the series characters developed, and things like chronological lists for you folks out there who like to read works in order. Other than that, I have an idea for a parody on gas prices...
To learn more about Elena and her books, visit his/ her website at www.elenasantangelo.com
Friday, May 16, 2008
Gardening by the inch?
By Lonnie Cruse
I'm sure some of you have seen the show GARDENING BY THE YARD on HGTV with host Paul. He's totally insane, so I can relate. But personally, I garden by the inch. Strawberry pots here, old fashioned washtubs there. Works for me because I recently harvested my very first strawberries. Yes, I've planted them before. No, they haven't produced. Sigh. But THIS time I have berries. Okay, THREE berries, but it's a start and more are ripening even as I type this. The strawberries are growing on my front po
rch along with petunias to attract the hummers to the hummer feeder and some sort of vine one of the lovely librarians gave me last year when I attended an author day at the Crab Orchard Lake Library. It grew a little last year but is making every effort to take over that end of the porch this year and I'm letting it. The huge pot beside the petunias is filled with rosemary. 
h. He also transported some bricks for me to line the area so he won't mow over it.) After I planted the the tomatoes and "hilled up" the dirt around them, I put more wet newspapers around the plants, watered them down, and covered the papers with just a bit more dirt. The newspapers are supposed to keep weeds out (and they biodegrade over time.) It looks a bit messy, but if it works . . . . I also planted marigolds in a row around the tomato plants which does a good job of keeping worms off the plants. Supposedly the worms that usually destroy tomato plants won't cross a line of marigolds. I hope they know that. Now, I usually, um, cheat with my tomatoes. Meaning I slip over to McPlants in Metropolis and buy one of their hot house tomato plants that already has blooms AND baby tomatoes in early May. Unfortunately, this year, while they had plants a foot tall or better, NONE of them had blooms and/or tomatoes. What IS this world coming to? Really. So I bought one tall plant sans blooms and four small plants, and we'll see. In July, if I'm lucky.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Boy Books and Girl Books
Elizabeth Zelvin
Not long ago I heard an eminent editor admit that in his publishing house, people refer without irony to “boy books” and “girl books.” Since I became active in the mystery community, I have heard many discussions of the fact or belief that, by and large, men will not read books, or at least novels, by women. That’s why many female writers conceal their gender behind initials, although like the initials in phone book listing, the use of initials in authorship has become a signal that the person thus identified is probably a woman.
Men may object to this generalization, which oversimplifies as generalizations always do. It might be illuminating to ask what books by women they read. Are they “boy books” written by women? Are they crossover books? Noir is very fashionable these days, and women as well as men are writing noir. Megan Abbott comes to mind—a woman who had already written a scholarly examination of the tough guy in American fiction before her first novel was published. Or how about women whose prose style is “tough” and would have been called “masculine” before the women’s movement? I think of SJ Rozan, a writer I admire greatly, of whom I like to say (when I can get away with it) that her prose is built like a brick s***house. Not a wasted word, not a dangling clause, not an adverb. It doesn’t hang together—it grips.
A hundred years ago, when I was a college English major, there were two kinds of writer, or rather, two prose styles: Hemingway and Henry James. Hemingway’s the guy who put the kibosh on polysyllabic words of Latin derivation and made action verbs king of the sentence. Back then, it was possible to say, “I don’t warm up to that Hemingway style. I don’t know that I want to write that way.” I know, because I said it, and no one lynched me. Today, that choice has become an absolute. I heard the highly respected Stephen King tell an audience how to be a writer the year he was made a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America: “Read, read, read. Write, write, write. And lose the adverbs.”
I confess I have mixed feelings about abolishing a whole part of speech, maybe a quarter of the English language, by fiat. Actually, adverbs aren’t lost. They have migrated to the other side of the aisle, where the girl books sit. I learned this from a prolific and talented short story writer named Tom Sweeney. He’s been published in Ellery Queen and SF magazines and also in Woman’s World, which I’ve heard is a tough market to crack and pays well. Tom told me Woman’s World wants adverbial writing. When he writes for that particular market, he makes sure he puts those adverbs in.
Am I saying women don’t write nice tight sentences with action verbs? No, of course not. And I can delete an adverb with the best of them. I think it’s subject matter, focus, and sensibility, to use an old-fashioned word, rather than prose style that separate the boy books from the girl books.
I’ve written before about relational psychology—the theoretical approach that explains how and why men mature through separation and women through connection. Separation and autonomy—the tough-guy loner PI—boy books. Connection and relationship—mysteries, and not just cozies—girl books. Another psychological model uses the gender-related concepts of instrumental and expressive traits. Instrumentality is about how stuff works. Expressiveness is about how people feel. Instrumental—technothrillers—boy books. Expressive—romances, sure, but also character-driven mysteries—girl books.
Am I exaggerating? Still oversimplifying? Of course. But like the eminent editor, I’m making the point that there are boy books and girl books. Let’s tackle the distinction from another angle. Let’s look at the Great American Novel. Suppose we lived in a less patriarchal society. Suppose we had always acknowledged that there are boy books and girl books that have to be judged separately on their merits within their own categories, the same way there’s a male winner and a female winner in the New York Marathon. Here are my picks. Great American Novel, boy book division: Huckleberry Finn. Great American Novel, girl book division: Little Women.
How many men have read this wonderful book? Its author created characters so real that it’s still in print almost 140 years after publication, still read for pleasure—and with pleasure—by millions of readers, and still capable of moving readers to tears on an umpteenth rereading, as well as inspiring some of us to become writers like its protagonist. My husband has. I’m proud to say he’s read almost all of Louisa May Alcott, motivated by an interest in the vivid and accessible picture of life in 19th century New England in the context of Transcendentalism, whose theorists included Emerson, Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, Louisa’s father. He (my husband, not Bronson Alcott) also wanted to know what was in those battered books that I was crying over every time I read them. I’d like to hear from any other man who has.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Torturing Women for Fun and Profit
Sandra Parshall
I’ve just put aside, unfinished, yet another “Instant NY Times bestseller!” that features long and thoroughly sickening passages told from the point of view of a deranged serial killer.
As I wrote in a previous blog, I’m not terribly squeamish about violence in fiction, and I’ll admit that I like Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter novels, but I usually steer clear of serial killer stories. They seem to be taking over crime fiction, though, so they’re hard to avoid. And they’re more graphic than ever before, especially in the degrading way they treat women. What’s especially disturbing is that many of these books are written by women.
The one I just gave up on went into great – and, dare I say it, loving – detail about the killer’s torture and rape of his female victims, and the sensual pleasure and sexual satisfaction he experienced. After three or four such scenes, I was feeling queasy and disgusted. I had to ask myself how many more descriptions of the killer’s engorged penis I really wanted to encounter. The answer was none.
The book was a bestseller, and it was written by a woman, which means that in all likelihood the majority of its readers have been women. I have to wonder what enjoyment female readers get from this kind of story, which seems to me to be a kind of pornography. Yes, justice will be done in the end, but is the triumph of good over evil in the last chapter enough to make the degradation that precedes it a pleasure to read?
There’s no question that crime fiction writers have to come up with ever more shocking scenarios to grab attention in a crowded marketplace, and taking readers into the sick mind of a serial killer seems to be a favored approach. It’s all imaginary, since the average writer isn’t a serial killer and has no firsthand knowledge of the psychopathy involved. The author can make up anything he or she wishes to produce suspense and shocks. Most of the time they choose to portray women as victims of torture. These unfortunate females are imprisoned, bound, gagged, strung up, sliced, burned, blinded, beaten, kicked, raped, sexually assaulted with objects, starved, suffocated, drowned, shot, stabbed, buried alive -- every awful bit of it described in detail, all in the name of entertainment.
Sure, the occasional story will have a male victim. But fictional serial killers have a lot more fun torturing and murdering women. And apparently readers find women much more appealing than men as victims. I’m trying to understand why.
Why does the reading public support the mass production of books about the torture and killing of women? Why are so many readers, many of them female, entertained by this kind of novel? What emotional need does this entertainment meet in the reader? Why do women make “better” victims than men?
An even scarier question: After these maim-and-kill-her books begin to seem tame, what’s next?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Falcon and Falconer
Sharon Wildwind
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold …
~William Butler Yeates, The Second Coming
There are a lot more favorable reports than I expected from people who bought a Kindle last Christmas. The talk turned very quickly from “Will I like this?” to “Where can I download books.” The answer, of course, is only from the company that sells the Kindle. But in the ensuing discussion about downloading, I learned that lots of libraries now offer a download service for e-books. The download is good for three weeks, then something—I’m not quite sure what—happens so that the book is no longer readable. I have visions of Peter Graves watching the smoke coming out of the tiny tape recorder at the beginning of Mission Impossible. In any case, this e-book service is apparently spotty, available in certain parts of the country, but not in other parts.
Along the same intersection of technology and geography theme, Blogger, the people who host this very blog, have installed a post-now, publish-later feature. This means I can write my next blog at any time, post-date it, and have it magically appear at the right time on Tuesday morning. The only problem is we are having some trouble with the timing on the automatic poster. One of the Deadly Daughters discovered that the default time setting for this service matches the current time in Belize. No one knows why or how to fix it.
All books are now classified as thrillers, which has come to mean, “We want you to buy this book.” The name cozy mysteries, which went through an identity change a few years ago to become traditional mysteries, now appear on the verge of being morphed again into classic mysteries. Again no one knows why, how to fix it, or if it even needs fixing.
The on-line mystery lists, the mystery conventions, booksellers, and almost anyone else you care to name are on exhausting round #937, or there-about, regarding inclusion versus exclusion. Is an author an author or not? Many of the lists have stopped being helpful in themselves and have become a nexus or clearing house for other information. Click here to read my sample chapters. Click there to read my blog, follow my virtual book tour, link to my pod cast, or read what I’ve posted on my web site. I’ve even gone over to the dark side and now subscribe to two sets of writing-related pod casts and one RSS feed. This morning, I have 22 pod cast episodes to listen to and 55 RSS headlines to read.
The way the mystery world is changing is enough to drive me crazy.
Did I mention that, in spite of taking my cholesterol meds and eating all the right things, my happy cholesterol (what I call the high-density variety, the good stuff) is the pits? My doctor had one word for me: exercise. So every morning now, I’m out pounding the pavement for thirty minutes. And no, I haven’t flipped out. There really is a connection between Kindles, e-book downloads not being available in Montana, blogs running on Belize time, identity questions, pod casts, RSS feeds, and cholesterol.
When I get past my warm-up phase and into my walk all of this noise floats away. Yes, the mystery world is now confusing, but those of us in the mystery community, both individually and collectively, are strong, smart people, and we’ll find our way through the background business noise. The important things remain the same. Who dies? What effect does that death have on people around them? How do I make my villain likable and dastardly at the same time? How can I make my heroic heroine bigger than life? What’s the difference between a clue and a really good red herring? What’s the difference between good and evil and what is justice, anyway? It’s important that we don’t lose sight of what’s at the centre of the genre we write.
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Writing quote for the week:
The only thing really worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.
~William Faulkner, southern author
Monday, May 12, 2008
Jess Lourey On the Herstory of Mystery
(submitted by Julia Buckley)
Thank you to the Deadly Daughters for allowing me to guest blog today on a topic that is near and dear to my heart: female mystery authors.
It is widely accepted that the first published mystery was “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” penned by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841 (and if you were going to contend this assertion, the blog of Poe’s Deadly Daughters wouldn’t be the place to do it). Wilkie Collins published his riff on detective fiction, The Woman in White, in 1860. Then, Sherlock Holmes hit the scene in 1887, providing the ultimate detective prototype. The mystery genre was taking shape, and by the turn of the century, it obtained mass appeal with the publication of pulp magazines and dime novels.
Like much literary history, the ascendance of the mystery novel is dominated by male authors. Heck, even Nancy Drew was originally penned by a guy. As Virginia Woolf wryly observed in 1928, it’s difficult to write without a room of one’s own. However, despite the obstacles of the time, three women managed to write their way to the top of the pile, redefining the mystery genre and turning out some amazing fiction. So, allow me to present to you a short herstory of mystery, featuring Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Agatha Christie.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Although Sayers considered her greatest work to be her nonfiction translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy and her time better spent writing literary works than detective fiction, she is best known for her mysteries. Sayers was born in England in 1893. She earned a degree in Modern Languages in 1915 and went on become a copywriter, which is what she was doing when she published her first novel, Whose Body?, in 1923. Whose Body? introduced the aristocratic, monocled amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey, who helmed 14 of her novels and short stories. She once commented that she envisioned Wimsey as a combination of Fred Astaire and P. G. Wodehouse’s fictional Bertie Wooster. In 1931, Sayers introduced Harriet Vane, her other main protagonist, in the novel Strong Poison. Critics suggest Vane, an Oxford-educated mystery writer, was a stand-in for Sayers.
Sayers is most famously known for bringing a literary element to detective fiction. Her writing is praised for being intelligent and layered, and she’s really, really creative with the cause of death in her novels (poisoned cat’s claw, anyone?). She also had a killer personal life, including a lover who was an unemployed car salesman at the time of their trysting, an illegitimate son, a devout Catholic faith, and amazing contemporaries, including C.S. Lewis. Sayers stopped writing detective novels in the late 1930s and instead focused on her poetry, religious dramas, and nonfiction.
Margery Allingham
Margery Allingham, though today not as widely known as Sayers or Christie, was one of the great Golden Age mystery writers. She was born in London in 1904, and both her parents were successful writers at the time. Although she published her first book, Blakkerchief Dick, in 1923, it wasn’t until 1927 that she published her first piece of detective fiction, and not until 1929 that her seminal character, detective cum adventurer Albert Campion, appeared on the scene as a minor character in The Crime at Black Dudley. Rumors have it that Campion was intended as a parody of Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey.
While Margery Allingham is unknown to most mystery readers today, I include her in this herstory because she wrote some great books worth discovering, and she is easy to identify with. She began writing “serious literature,” but found it out of touch with her easygoing nature and so switched to mystery, which she found neat and clean, a box with four sides—"a Killing, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it." According to the Margery Allingham Society website, mystery writing was “‘at once a prison and a refuge’ to a writer unsure of her aims but confident of her powers.” She improved with each book, stuck with mystery writing even when she couldn’t make a living off of it, and took risks with her characters. How many mystery writers out there can relate to that?
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is not only the best-selling mystery author of all time—-she’s the best-selling author, period. Her collected works have only been outsold by the Bible, and I’d argue that her writing has much better pacing.
She was born in England in 1890, married in 1914, and had one daughter in 1928. She published her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, in 1920. Christie’s beloved protagonist Miss Marple first appeared in 1930 in The Murder at the Vicarage. Under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, she wrote six romantic novels, and she also wrote four nonfiction books (note to you mystery writers who want to branch out—-even Christie did it!). All told, Christie wrote over 80 novels and short story collections and more than a dozen plays.
Anyone who has read Agatha Christie will have their own argument as to why she is still so widely read. For my money, it’s her character development, timeless examination of human corruption, and wicked (but fair) plot twists that keep me coming back for more. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Christie’s characters have a keen eye for detail, and I never finish one of her novels without feeling like if I just paid a little more attention in life, I’d see a whole new world.
And how can you not love a woman who says things like this?
· “An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.”
· “Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.”
· “I’ve always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.”
· "If I was born once again, I would like to be a woman - always!"
Although more women were becoming published authors in the early 1900s than in any other time in history, they were still underrepresented in all but one area: mystery. They dominated this genre. Danced on it. Slapped it and made it their own. Thank you, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Agatha Christie, for opening all those doors for us and for providing limitless entertainment and inspiration.
And so tell me: who did I miss on this herstory of mystery?
Jess Lourey, the guest blogger for today, has just released August Moon (http://www.jesslourey.com/august.html), the fourth novel in her Lefty-nominated Murder-by-Month series. Of August Moon, Denise Swanson, author of the Scumble River Mysteries, writes, "Lourey has a gift for creating terrific characters. Her sly and witty take on small town USA is a sweet summer treat. Pull up a lawn chair, pour yourself a glass of lemonade, and enjoy."
Jess will be touring the West Coast with mystery author Dana Fredsti in May and hitting the Midwest in June. Check her website for more details. Also, to win a free copy of August Moon, be the first person to email Jess through her website and correctly identify the female Scottish mystery author who was a contemporary of the above three and should probably have been included in this post. Be sure to tell her that Poe’s Deadly Daughters sent you!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Guest Blogger Tamara Siler Jones
Award-winning writer, Tamara Siler Jones, mixes magic, fantasy and forensics in the Dubric Byerly mysteries – Ghosts in the Snow, Threads of Malice, and Valley of the Soul. Tamara is currently working on the fourth book in the series. Visit her website at www.tamarasilerjones.com
Black Feathers
Many, many years ago, a man named Walt Disney made a movie about an elephant. Most everyone has seen it - I hope - and most folks know that Dumbo was an elephant that could fly because he had these REALLY BIG ears. And, well, he could just fly. How cool is that?
Anyway, some well meaning blackbirds and a mouse convinced Dumbo that, in order to fly, he needed a black feather. He didn't. He just needed to believe in himself.
Sometimes writers, both working and aspiring, cling to their black feathers, often when they're faced with failure. They brandish their feather and lay blame somewhere else. It's difficult to believe in yourself, it's a lot easier to believe in the feather, or fault things that render the feather impotent.
My critique group sucks!
I can't find a critique group!
I write perfectly! Don't need a critique group!
I write too big for genre!
I write too niche for genre!
I'm too original for these small minds!
I write too cozy for these highbrows!
They're all crooks anyway!
My book's worth a million dollars!
My cover art sucks!
My cover art doesn't fit my story!
How-to-write books are all wrong!
How-to-write books say this is the way!
How-to-write books disagree!
My agent dropped the ball!
My editor doesn't give me enough time!
Writing well is all about following the rules!
Writing has nothing to do with the rules!
I had shitty distribution!
I hate first person but that's all they buy!
I hate third person but that's all they buy!
Marketing didn't advertise it!
No one understands my brilliance!
I deserve to be published!
Reviewers get paid to write hatchet jobs!
XXX has it in for me!
My story's got plenty of plot!
It's literary! I don't need a plot!
And on and on and on. We've all heard them, we've probably all said them. I have too, on occasion.
The truth of the matter is, there are no black feathers, no tricks, no gimmicks, no sure things. It's up to us to fly. It's also up to us to make sure that we write things other people want to read. If you've submitted your story to every publisher and agent on the plan
et and they've all said "No", toss the feather away and admit it's probably not them.
It's the writer's job, their responsibility, to tell a compelling story that people want to read, in fact they'll want to read it so much that they'll pay money for it. It's the writer's job to fly, not the feather's fault when they don't.
-- Stephen King,
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Gotta love The Steve. :)