A New Voice: Meredith Cole

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

Meredith Cole directed feature films and wrote screenplays before writing mysteries. She won the St. Martin’s/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery competition in 2007, and her debut novel, Posed for Murder, was published yesterday, February 17, by St. Martin’s Minotaur. She blogs at www.thedebutanteball.com.

Q. Tell us about Posed for Murder.

A. Posed for Murder is about a photographer named Lydia McKenzie who has a fascination with murder scenes. She recreates historic cases for the camera, using her friends as models, and shoots in a film noir style. But when she finally interests a gallery in her work, a killer starts murdering her models and posing them just like her pictures.

Q. Your education prepared you for a career in film. Why did you decide to write books? What can you do in a book that you can't do on film, and vice versa? Do you plan to continue doing both?

A. I wanted to be a writer since before I could even read. I would dictate stories to my mother. In high school I became fascinated by film, and pursued a film career through graduate school. I directed two feature films, "Floating" and "Achilles' Love." I wrote a lot of screenplays, but I got tired of putting them in a drawer. Film is an expensive medium, and it’s difficult to get films made (even if you win Academy Awards) without big names attached and lots of cash. I realized that I'd always read more books than watched films, and storytelling was storytelling. So I set out to write a book.

Q. Why did you choose to write in the mystery genre?

A. I've always loved mysteries. When I first tried to write novels, I attempted what I thought of as serious fiction. But I ended up stuck in someone's head for pages and pages, and the plot went nowhere. I found the mystery genre very freeing, because I had somewhere to go and something to do there. I let the plot pull me through my first draft, and really enjoyed the ride.

Q. What was the inspiration for Posed for Murder?

A. I love photography, and I've always been interested in the "artist's eye." As a writer, I walk down the street and notice all sorts of weird details that I store away. And then someone will mention some shop moving away or some building going up, and I'll realize that I was so enthralled by something else that I never even saw it. I wanted to see a story though the eye of a photographer, and use her special skills to solve it.

Q. Why did you choose Brooklyn as a setting rather than other places you lived, such as the Charlottesville, VA, area where you grew up?

A. Williamsburg, Brooklyn is both a fascinating and frustrating place. It's a hip artsy neighborhood filled with young people, art galleries and boutiques. People come here from all over the world to try to make it as artists. I've lived here for almost 10 years, but didn't grow up here--so it's both familiar and fascinating to me. It's also a place in flux, unlike Charlottesville, so I think I found that appealing. But I don't rule out writing something set in Charlottesville, Northern Virginia or Washington, DC--all places that I've lived.

Q. Was this the first novel you'd written, or do you have others stuck in a drawer somewhere?

A. This was my second Lydia McKenzie book. The first was mostly backstory, but has a plot I might try to recycle someday!

Q. What made you decide to enter the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic contest? Had you tried to sell the book before entering the contest?

A. I tried to get an agent for awhile, and was told by a couple of agents that there wasn't a market for my book. This probably means they didn't know where they could sell it, or thought it would be too hard to do so. So I took a chance after learning about the contest from Robin Hathaway, a winner from years ago, and entered the contest.

Q. What was it like to get the call from St. Martin’s telling you that you'd won? How long did you have to keep it a secret before you could tell people about it?

A. I knew I was a finalist, but I had pretty much convinced myself there was no way I'd win. I saw I had a voice mail on my phone, and I was quite shocked to hear Ruth Cavin asking me to call her. Instead of calling her right back, I went over to the sink and started washing dishes. I think I was in shock. Then I told myself to snap out of it--she wouldn't be calling with bad news--and called her back. I kept winning a secret from almost everyone for awhile (except from family). But then I started letting it leak to friends. I had to spill it to the Guppies (an online SinC chapter of unpublished writers) because it would have been like keeping something amazing from your biggest support group. The Guppies all knew I was a finalist, and they were good about keeping it quiet. I think I was supposed to keep it quiet up until Malice Domestic, but Sarah Weinman got to blow my cover on her blog after we met at the Edgars right before Malice.

Q. You've had to wait quite a while between winning the contest and seeing the book published. Have you filled that time with writing the second book? Has it been difficult to concentrate on writing while you've been in the limbo between selling and publishing?

A. Looking back, having almost two years between winning and getting published has turned out to be really great. I've had a chance to network and meet so many people in the mystery community. I've also been able to learn from the experiences of friends, and get lots of advice on touring and marketing. I've also written another Lydia McKenzie book which is almost done. But it is challenging to switch between marketing and writing all the time, and it's sometimes hard to figure out what the priority should be.

Q. Have you learned anything about the publishing business that has surprised you, or has it all been just as you expected?

A. I didn't know what to expect, so it's all been very eye-opening. I've been most surprised by how long everything seems to take. There's a procedure for proofreading, putting out catalogs, etc., that the companies have been following for years, and every step seemed to take months and months.

Q. Do you work with a critique group or individual friends who give you feedback on your manuscripts, or do you go it alone?

A. I have a wonderful critique group I meet with every two weeks (when we can manage it), and who both reads my book as I write it and reads the final draft. I also have a few readers that help me out by reading the final draft cold and telling me if I've made any glaring errors.

Q. What is your writing routine? How do you fit it in when you’re also working at a job outside the home?

A. I freelance, so every day is different. It also depends on where I am in the writing process. I write best in the morning, and I've been experimenting with getting up very early (before my husband and son) and writing. All the marketing has sort of taken over the rest of the day.

Q. Do you outline before you write? If so, do you follow the outline faithfully, or do your characters do things you didn't expect and change the direction of the story?

A. I start with notes on the computer that morph into a rough outline. I divide the outline into chapters, still keeping it rough, and try to get most of the way through the book. Then I use that document to begin writing the book. I find it very helpful to have some place to go because I pick up and put down the book a lot on my way to finishing a draft. Within that structure, my characters end up going different directions, new ideas occur to me and I jot them down, and the plot takes new twists and turns. I have even tossed out two thirds of a book after a rough draft and rewritten it, so the outline is never set in stone. But I don't consider any of the steps wasted--they're just necessary to the finished book.

Q. What do you believe are your greatest strengths as a writer? What aspects of craft are you still trying to master?

A. I think I'm pretty good at character, plot and dialogue--probably from my screenwriting background. But I often forget to describe everything. It's in my head, but screenwriting teaches you to write very sparsely, so I try not to waste any words. Often a few things get left out until the final draft, or when one of my readers comments that they'd like "more".

Q. Do you ever have writer’s block? How do you get through it?

A. There's usually a specific problem that's keeping me from writing (whether it's a plot, work or family issue). But occasionally I just get burned out and need to sit around reading something that someone else has written for a few days. I used to panic when this happened, but then I realized that everyone needs to take a break every once in awhile. I'm also a big believer in deadlines. If someone else doesn't give me one, I make one up for myself.

Q. What writers have inspired you and taught you by example? Whose books are must-reads for you?

A. I really like Ruth Rendell's complex character portraits, and I think Agatha Christie is a terrific plotter. But I think I've been most inspired by the hard working mystery writers I've met personally who have been so generous with their time and advice --like Julia Spencer- Fleming, Donna Andrews, Elizabeth Zelvin, Rosemary Harris, Jane Cleland, Cynthia Baxter and Chris Grabenstein, to name just a few. Reading their work and seeing how they manage their careers has been very inspiring.

Q. Have you found writers' groups such as Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America helpful? In what ways?

A. I can't praise SinC and MWA enough. I found my writer's group, the Guppies, and got information about the Malice Domestic contest through SinC. MWA put me on three author panels last spring before my book even came out, and I'm now planning to do joint events with authors I met at the meetings. I have really met wonderful people through both organizations. They're terrific for networking, but also for finding out about opportunities. They've both been invaluable.

Q. What’s in the future for you? Will you continue writing this series indefinitely, or would you like to try different things?

A. I have a second Lydia McKenzie book written, and at least one idea for a third. But I also have a great idea for a thriller. I would like to continue the series and do other books. Hopefully I'll learn to write faster!

Q. In parting, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

A. If you enjoy writing, then keep doing it. Don't let anyone tell you that it's impossible, but do realize it's hard work. And you have to be realistic about the business. Very few writers become rich, and not too many more can make a living at it.

For more information, visit www.culturecurrent.com/cole/.

It's A Small World

Elizabeth Zelvin

I love small world stories. I’ve been collecting them for most of my life. I live in New York, a city of 8 million residents plus 44 million visitors per year. It constantly amazes me how people who are connected to people I’m connected to pop up in unexpected places. The Internet has made the world much smaller, exponentially increasing the connections. But I’ve found I don’t have to go online to find those one and two and three degrees of separation that are so much fun to discover.

If I exchange emails with a fellow mystery reader from DorothyL about a book we both loved as children, then run into her at the Edgars in April and Malice Domestic in May, that’s not a small world story. In what I call a genuine small world story, the connections must be complicated and not too obvious—in fact, the more tortuous the better.

One of the emerging mystery writers I see the most of is Meredith Cole.
I live in Manhattan, she lives in Brooklyn, and we both attend the monthly meetings of the local chapters of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. We’ve both volunteered at the registration desk at the Edgars Symposium and have had stories accepted for the anthology Murder New York Style by members of SinC. We’re also both Guppies, so we meet online there and on other mystery e-lists. I think we're friends, and I hope she does too. None of that makes this a small world story.

Last fall, the legendary Ruth Cavin accepted my first mystery for publication by St. Martin’s. This spring, Meredith won the Malice Domestic Best First Novel contest. Ruth Cavin picks the winner, which is published by St. Martin’s. So Meredith and I have the same editor and will have our first books out at around the same time, next spring. Ruth even took us out to dinner at the Malice Domestic convention. And of course I whooped and hollered when they made the formal announcement of Meredith’s win during the Agatha awards banquet. So far, this is still not a small world story.

At the June meeting of MWA New York, during the schmoozing hour before dinner, someone mentioned Swarthmore College in conversation. I think it had to do with a discussion of funny names on the Guppies e-list. I didn’t attend Swarthmore, but my older sister did. I said so when someone mentioned Peter Gram Swing, founder and longtime chair of Swarthmore’s music department, who indeed had a great name for a musician. Meredith overheard me. “Swarthmore!” she said. “My mother just went to a Swarthmore reunion.” I meant to ask how old her mother was, but it was time for dinner, and the moment passed.

Fast forward to the following weekend. My husband and I drive to a cousin’s home in New Jersey for my Aunt Hilda’s 95th birthday party, for which she’s flown in from Seattle. Her actual birthday was back in April. She spent it playing tennis and going out dancing with her boyfriend. But now the East Coast friends and relatives are celebrating. (My Aunt Hilda isn’t part of the chain of coincidence, but the exquisite flavor of a small world story is in the details.) My sister, who lives in Boston, is present. She tells us that she attended her 45th college reunion the weekend before. I know that colleges schedule reunions by multiples of 5. I wonder when Meredith’s mom graduated. For her, it might have been the 40th or even the 35th, since Meredith is in her 30s. I don’t ask my sister if she knew her, since I don’t even know Meredith’s maiden name, no less her mother’s.

The next day, my sister emails to tell me that, driving to Swarthmore
(near Philadelphia) from Boston, she made a detour through Brooklyn to pick up a classmate who was staying with her daughter so they could travel together to the reunion. She even met the daughter. Yep, you guessed it. The daughter was Meredith Cole! Now, that’s a small world story.

Marcus Sakey's Writing Life

Sandra Parshall
Marcus Sakey was born 33 years ago in Flint, Michigan, and was raised by parents who are, he is pleased to note, still together after all these years. He now lives in Chicago with his wife. A decade in advertising gave Marcus “the perfect experience to write about thieves and killers.” His first crime novel, The Blade Itself, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2006 to rave reviews and predictions of genre stardom for the author. His recent decision to move to Dutton after St. Martin’s publishes his second novel has been the subject of lively debate on internet mystery blogs.

The internet has been abuzz with talk about your decision to leave St. Martins for a four-book deal with Dutton. How weird is it to have your personal career decisions discussed on blog sites? Do you read any of that stuff or try to ignore it?

It’s truly surreal. Flattering in a way, but mostly odd, as that kind of attention was never a goal of mine. And I do read it, and it impacts my mood. You try not to allow that, but it’s hard.

The thing that I love, the touching part, is that for every armchair general who thinks they know what’s best for my career, the community also offers up a friend who’s just happy for me. The relationships are my favorite part of this gig.

You're following your editor, Ben Sevier, from St. Martin’s to Dutton. Do you feel that maintaining your relationship with a single editor is vital at this stage of your career? Can you tell us what you've gained from his guidance? Has he helped you become a better writer?

Well, it was a very personal decision, and a tough one. My fingernails don’t get shorter than they were during the weeks of negotiation. And I’d rather not get into the details of that situation, other than to say that both houses are absolutely first-rate, and I was flattered they were interested.

I’ve been very lucky in my relationships with editors. Basically, an editor has two jobs: first, they push you to write a better book, and second, they guide and guard that book through to publication. Both Ben Sevier and my current editor at SMP, Marc Resnick, excel at their job, and they’re terrific guys to boot.

Ben was the editor who originally signed me, and I had more time working with him, and both factors played into my decision. One of the things I really admire about him was his response to my second manuscript. He said he loved it, but that it could be better. Then he gave me fourteen single-spaced pages on how. At the time, I nearly went out the window, but it made for a vastly improved book.


The Blade Itself was hyped as few first novels are (and lived up to the hype, I might add). All the attention must have been wonderful -- a beginner’s dream -- but did it ever make you a little nervous? Were you secretly afraid you'd be one of those writers who are expected to become stars but turn out to be duds instead?

Well, first off, thanks for the kind words. Honestly, I’m still adjusting to the fact that it’s out there, that people I don’t know have read it.

As for being nervous, yeah, absolutely. That pressure mostly manifested in writing the second book. If you’ve got any balls, you’re doing something different with your second than you did with your first, which is scary enough. To make it worse, you only have the one book, the one metric. So every time someone said something nice about Blade, every time I got a blurb, every time I heard a media plan, I would look at the book I was writing and see only the differences. Worse, I had to fight not to see those differences as failures. It was a struggle.

Now that it’s done, I’m really pleased with it. I think I’ve grown as a writer, and it’s definitely a bigger book in almost every way.

A friend told me she cried while reading the ending of The Blade Itself. Were you consciously going for a strong emotional reaction from readers when you wrote it, or were you expressing your own emotions?
Tell your friend I love her.

Yeah, certainly I was. Truth be told, I’m trying for a strong emotional reaction in every scene. The way I see it, your book is 350 pages, and every one of them, every single one, needs to be compelling. They all need to evoke emotion, whether that’s fear or laughter or tears. Some hit harder than others, obviously, but it remains a good guideline.

You’re part of the original Killer Year gang. How has that benefited you?

Killer Year has been great. It’s nice to have a cheerleading squad and a community to ask for help. And one of the most exciting accomplishments was selling an anthology that was edited by Lee Child. The book is called Killer Year: A Criminal Anthology and is coming out next spring from St. Martin’s. Keep your eyes open for it—I’ve read a couple of the stories, and they’re dynamite.

What draws you to thrillers rather than straight mysteries? What can you do in the thriller form that you might not be able to do in a whodunnit?

In a word, intensity. I’m not that interested in the classic mystery form, you know, a body is found, figure out who/how/why. That’s not to say that it can’t be done with grace and passion and flair, and I’ve certainly read mysteries that blew my hair back.

But by and large, I like the crime and thriller arenas more. Since they aren’t bound to a structure like that, a puzzle, you have more room to play. They also tend to be about putting characters into a crucible and continually turning up the heat to see how they will act, which I think connects with readers on a fundamental level. One of the reasons we read is to imagine how we might act if faced with impossible choices.

You've said that you want to write standalones because you want to portray your characters during the most important time of their lives and you can't do that again and again with the same protagonist. Yet a number of thriller writers have chosen to do series -- John Sandford and Lee Child, for example. Any chance you'll change your mind and start a series?

Well, the key phrase in that sentence is “I can’t do it.” There are many writers who can, and who do wonderful work with it. For me, though, after spending a year with these characters, the last thing I want to do is launch back into another story.

That said, I could see myself writing a series in the Harlan Coben/Laura Lippman model: one series book, a standalone or two, another in the series. I’m toying with a character that I think might have that kind of legs right now. So we’ll see.

How long were you writing before you published? Did you write fiction as a child? If so, what kind of stories were you dreaming up as a kid?

I’ve been writing all my life. I wrote abominable fiction as a child, wretched fiction in high school, and lousy fiction in college. Then I spent ten years writing for advertising and marketing, which believe me, is fiction. So when I made the jump, even though Blade was my first novel, I’d been training for a long time.

As a kid I mostly read science fiction and fantasy, so my stories were in that genre. Once I hit college, I started trying to write things I could sell to the New Yorker, which worked about as well as you’d imagine.

Do you still have a day job, or have you been able to leave that behind?

I’m incredibly lucky, in that this is my day job. I was actually able to do this semi-full-time from the beginning, because I worked freelance in advertising. So I would go in for two weeks, work on a campaign for jeans, make a healthy day rate, then go home and spend a month working on the novel. Advertising is a great gig, in that it’s one of a handful of places where simply writing, creating, can be quite lucrative.

Has publication changed your life in unexpected ways?

Yes and no. It’s thrilling to see my books out there, to do press tours and the like. But I live in the same place, drive the same shitbox car, sit at the same computer. It’s not like Hollywood stardom, where all of a sudden you’re whirled into the jet set.

Do you still have the same friends you had before (along with a lot of new ones)?

I have all my old friends, the real ones. It was interesting to see how many acquaintances got a sour expression on their face when I landed my first deal, but the friends, they were all supportive. And I have a ton of new ones, not because I sold a book, but because I’ve been going to conferences for years now, and have been fortunate to hang out with some of the most amazing people on earth. I really love the community.

What’s the best thing about being a published writer? What’s the worst?

The best part is that I know I get to do this thing that I love, this favorite job, for at least a couple more years. That’s a wonderful feeling. The worst is probably the nagging worry about things you can’t control. You write the finest book you can, you bust your ass to promote it, but ultimately, there’s only so much impact you can have on whether or not people buy it.

What aspects of your writing have you worked hardest to improve? Do you feel you’re becoming a better writer with each book?

I’m constantly working on my craft. To me, that’s part of the point. If you aren’t worrying about how to make each book better than the last, then go get a day job, have health insurance and regular hours.

For me, the most challenging part is plotting. I don’t try to work out every wrinkle and twist, but I need to have a sense of where the story is going, and I need to have surprises that also make sense. I hate it when writers cheat, so I work hard not to do that, which makes life harder. But I think it also pays off; I mean, look at Lee Child. There’s a guy who never cheats, whose books are relentlessly intelligent, and I think that’s one of the things his audience responds to, whether or not they know it.

When is your next book due out? Can you tell us the title and a little about the story?

My next book, entitled At the City’s Edge, will be out in early 2008. It’s the story of a discharged soldier who returns from Iraq only to find a similar war raging in his Chicago neighborhood. It’s got politics and corruption and gang violence and a love story and Roman history and a car chase, lots of fun stuff. I think people who liked The Blade Itself will like this one even better. Oh, and if you’d like a taste, I’ve got the first chapter posted on my website, at www.MarcusSakey.com.

Interview with Julia Spencer-Fleming

Sandra Parshall

Julia Spencer-Fleming began her career with In the Bleak Midwinter, which was published after winning the St. Martin’s Press contest for best first mystery novel and went on to win a string of major awards. Julia’s series about the Rev. Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne, who solve mysteries together in Millers Kill, NY, while struggling with their forbidden love for one another, has grown in popularity with each entry. Her fifth book, All Mortal Flesh, is a current Agatha Award nominee for Best Novel.

Congratulations on your latest award nomination. You've had so many nominations and wins -- does it ever get old? Are you blase about it now?

Trust me, having readers, critics or fellow writers say they like your work never gets old. Nor does it make me blase--I assure you, I'll be as nervous as anyone else at the Agathas Banquet at Malice Domestic. What those past nominations or wins do give me is perspective--I know if I win, I'm not going to wake up the next day any richer, wiser or more beloved, and I know if I lose, I haven't lost any of the support of my readers, my friends, and my publishing company. And I know that either way, I'll be in the bar afterwards!

What changes have you seen in your writing over the years, and what aspects of craft have you consciously worked to improve?

With each book, I find I'm more and more letting go of rules and trusting in my own voice, my own choices about language and structure. In In the Bleak Midwinter, for example, I bent over backwards to ensure no adverb ever got past my keyboard, because I knew the rule is to convey everything through the dialogue and through active verbs. I've loosened up on that. I trust myself now to use adverbs for color and clarification, not as a crutch for lazy writing.

When I started, I worked very hard to improve my scene setting. Members of my writer's group told me my characters seemed to be talking in a gray fog somewhere! Consciously addressing that weakness obviously helped--critics have frequently commented on my vivid sense of place. Now, I'm working on paring my descriptions down, while still giving readers a clear image of the setting. I've been rereading Lee Child's work to help me with this--Lee is a master at giving you just enough to make the setting come to life,without throwing in a single extraneous detail. I'm trying to figure out how he does it. I suspect, like most of writing, it's practice, practice, practice.

What writers have influenced you most?

Margaret Maron, Archer Mayor and Sharyn McCrumb for their regional settings. Lawrence Block, Steve Hamilton, and Elmore Leonard for language and dialogue (although I'll never manage to be as spare as they are). Outside the genre, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joanna Trollope, Jodi Picoult--women who create the perfect reading experience for me.

Everyone who has read All Mortal Flesh is dying to know how you'll get Clare and Russ through the situation you set up at the end of the book. Can you give us even a tiny hint of what's to come for these two?

Boy, do I wish St. Martin's had put a burst on the cover of All Mortal Flesh: NOT THE LAST BOOK! It came out last October and I'm still getting four or five emails a day asking me if this is the end of Russ and Clare. No. It's not. I'm finishing up the sixth book, (very) tentatively titled When A Stranger. (Or maybe A Stranger Wandering. Or Now the Silence. Or In Mercy Broken.) It opens a few weeks after the end of All Mortal Flesh and takes us through a whole year in Millers Kill, NY. We get to see the Van Alstyne family expanding their dairy farm (with the help of illegal migrant workers), how Clare's life and ministry are affected by her decision to join the National Guard, and we're introduced to the MKPD's first-ever female officer. And of course, there's lots more Russ and Clare, as they struggle to come back from the terrible events of All Mortal Flesh.

You've reached the stage where a lot of writers try stand-alone novels. Do you have plans for one (or more)?

Definitely. I'm committed to a seventh Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne book, and then I'd like to turn my hand to a project I've been researching on and off for a few years. In 2002, Maine closed its 178-year-old state prison in Thomaston. Secretly, over the course of a few nights, every maximum security prisoner in the state was transferred by bus to the new SuperMax facility in the neighboring town of Warren. In February. When Maine gets some of its worst winter weather. I started thinking: what if one of the terrible ice storms we sometimes see blew in suddenly? What if the roads iced over, the power lines came down, the state troopers' cars and the busses went skidding off the narrow county highway? What if the last load of men and a handful of civilian observers were trapped together in an unlit, unheated, unsecured antiquity of a prison?

I can't wait to dive into that and see what happens. I also have other ideas, including a possible series featuring a sort of "anti-Clare Fergusson"--an Episcopal priest who's so burned out by 20+ years of ministering that she retires to what she hopes will be a hermit-like existence on a Maine island. And I'd love to do something lighter and more romantic, set in Alabama, where my father's side of the family is from.

Visit Julia's web site at www.juliaspencerfleming.com.