Gregg Hurwitz interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 2 Responses »
Mar 182012

What brought you to crime fiction and what are your thoughts on the distinction between commercial and literary fiction?

I am, at heart, a story guy and a structure slut. I studied Shakespeare, particularly the tragedies, because they are terrific thrillers. Macbeth: great mob tale. Hamlet: ghost story. Othello: pre-noir. Etc. Stateside, I love Faulkner – the corncob rape scene in Sanctuary? Need we say more about lurid classifications? I collect his paperbacks from the 50s for their great pulp covers. I enjoy terrific stories where I can find them, and one can find them in all sections of a bookstore. There’s a lot of poorly written stuff as well, both ‘literary’ and ‘commercial’, the only distinction seeming to be that commercial crap actually makes the authors money. If you write in clichés, get published, and DON’T make money, well that’s an even sadder state of affairs.

I also like to point out that ‘commercial’ writing extends across the board; Updike did okay for himself. Dickens never had trouble paying the rent – and his literary reputation has survived relatively well. When Gertrude Stein came to California, she only wanted to meet Dashiell Hammett – okay, and Chaplin too, but that dilutes the anecdote.

I think crime fiction has replaced the social novel. I’d press someone to find a better practitioner of the craft than, say, Poe or Chandler or Lethem or Lehane – or to find someone who better reveals to us a city or a family or a moral conundrum. But I find it’s no use getting defensive. One can’t really win arguing that he or she should be taken more seriously. Better to write as goddamned well as one can manage, and let people sort it out a couple hundred years hence.

I should clarify: I think your and others’ efforts to draw more attention to our kind of writing is noble and an important contribution to discourse regarding matters literary; what’s the good of books if we can’t argue about them? I was remarking that authors commenting on their own work is generally less helpful. No one’s ever won an argument claiming that they should be taken seriously, or that they should be accorded more respect. When it comes to genre and respect, I like to rip off Oscar Wilde: “Books are well-written or badly written. That is all.”

Are well-written crime novels about epic perseverance in a world where there is no healing, only constant movement towards it?

That’s certainly one good take on it. I think that there are a lot of angles on crime fiction – some reads like blue-collar tragedy, some like suburban morality tales, some like social novels. They’re all over the map, which is one thing I love about it.

Does the crime writer sit at the table of literature like a transvestite cousin at a family gathering, where he is silently pardoned while his fabulous hat is studiously ignored?

Wow. I wish we had that chair at our family reunion. To be honest, I don’t give this issue much thought anymore. People forget – Camus was inspired to write The Stranger after reading James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. Dickens was paid by the word. I don’t really care what others term appropriate or worthwhile – just what I feel in my gut when I’m writing and when I’m reading. Let it all be judged a hundred years after we’re dead.

What are you interested in as a writer?

How to deal with the unknown and unpredictable… A lot of my academic work was centered on Jung, and that’s because I believe that certain narratives are selected as useful to the human race – same as opposable thumbs.

What kind of criminals are you interested in?

What interest me are the ‘one small decision at a time’ criminals that I discuss in We Know.

If crime novels are the current affairs of art, do you see yourself as a tour guide to modern culture?

Though I do incorporate aspects of modern culture in the books to make them ring true, I think that my main job is to tell a story with real characters. I’m more interested in plot, structure, and character than pop culture. But I am a pop culture junkie, so it tends to work its way in where appropriate.

Why do you write?

I think I write to figure that out for myself. Often, it’s not until I’m done with a novel that I look back at it and know what it was about for me, what drove me to write it. If I know in advance why I’m writing something, I doubt it would work out. It’s sort of like deciding the morality of what you’re writing ahead of time – that’s not writing; it’s propaganda.

Are you saying you’re concerned with structural violence?

Yes, I suppose so – not that that’s a primary motivation. But one of the great things about crime fiction is that you can punish people and social structures that make you angry. So The Program, about mind control cults, was my reaction to looking into them, and growing angrier, and angrier, and angrier…

Is it fair to say that reading and writing crime fiction is about more than entertainment to you?

Yes – absolutely. Narrative is the backbone to our culture, and to our own process of psychological development. If you removed everything I’d ever learned from stories, I’d be one useless human indeed.

What kind of relationship do you have with your protagonists?

Intimate. I live with them for years before I write them. When I’m finally ready to start, I spend more time with them than I do with my family.

If you had to start all over tomorrow, would you?

Without question and with the same enthusiasm.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: The Crime Writer

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:44 am Tagged with: ,

Barbara Fister interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 1 Response »
Mar 112012

For whom do you write?

Hmmm. I guess every effective writer has an audience in mind, and in that sense, I write for people who read crime fiction and have certain expectations about what they’re likely to experience when they read a mystery. I am one of those readers. But my favorite writers manage to satisfy in terms of presenting a compelling story with characters I care about and give me something to think about and aesthetic pleasure, but don’t do so in a way so familiar it’s formulaic. So I don’t write for readers in the sense that I’m trying to deliver a product that meets certain specifications. I’m trying to write the kind of story I enjoy reading. Whether people actually read it or not is less important to me than writing something worth reading. Of course, I have a day job.

Where do you stand on the genre debate?

A few years ago we had a visiting speaker on campus, Mark Edmundson who teaches English Literature at the University of Virginia and wrote a book called Why Read? which argues that reading good books is a means of self-understanding and betterment – sort of an Oprah’s Book Club message except that he thinks the choice of what books you read for betterment should be made by experts like him rather than by television celebrities. I had breakfast with him, and we had a fairly raucous argument about the value of crime fiction; he asked whether I would teach a course on it. I said, maybe, if I had the chance. And he was disgusted: why waste students’ time with the second rate when they could be reading Shakespeare? What, plays about rape, murder, dismemberment, and feeding one’s ex her murdered children in a pie? Proper literature like The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus? Long story short, I now teach a course on international crime fiction. So there, Mark Edmundson.

Sorry, I warned you – I do go on and on! But I really should answer your question. I think part of the reason there’s a division between literary and popular fiction is that literary writers, who are often trained in MFA programs and who go on to teach in MFA programs to make ends meet, feel a bit annoyed that their hard-wrought prose doesn’t have much success in the marketplace, so they blame readers and the book industry for being too lowbrow. Quite a few readers who love crime fiction tend to return the favor, characterizing literary fiction as snobbish, boring, and full of self-absorbed characters who don’t do anything interesting, which isn’t entirely fair either. There’s good and bad in both camps. As for why thrillers – well, Patrick Anderson gives a pretty good explanation of why they are popular in The Triumph of the Thriller, though it’s mostly a run-through of his favorite (and most despised) authors in the genre. I tried to give my own answer (of a sort) in this article that appeared in Clues a while back:

http://homepages.gac.edu/~fister/copycatcrimes.html

Certainly in my own fiction I tend to write about things that are bugging me because it’s how I figure them out. My reading choices tend the same way, toward fiction that is socially aware and that will teach me something about the issues it engages – both in terms of information but also in terms of empathy and identification with human experience. I’m particularly fond of Scandinavian crime fiction because it treads a nice balance between the social panorama and individual character development.

Some would argue that the status of legitimacy that ‘literary fiction’ enjoys is owed to the fig leaf that a serious purpose provides. Since crime fiction is about the imminence of violent disorder, and it is hard to find a more contemporary topic, does the genre not have at least the same claim to recognition?

I do feel crime fiction (when done well, as it very often is) provides what literature always has for its readers: a reflection on our times, an exploration of human experience, an opportunity to think about ethical dilemmas through the lens of a story, and aesthetic pleasure. The fact that it is often derivative and formulaic doesn’t alter the fact that there are talented writers in the genre who write terrific fiction by any standard. I recently finished Lush Life by Richard Price that I could use as exhibit A: it’s simply a wonderful novel. There’s a lot of fiction that falls into the “literary” category that is also formulaic and derivative; that doesn’t mean it’s all rubbish. Yet many readers are uninterested in self-described literary fiction because they believe it’s more focused on stylistics than story and on exploring minutiae of personal experience through carefully-wrought descriptions of small events rather than in taking on larger social issues through dramatic story-telling.

Second, even when crime fiction isn’t particularly good in a literary sense, I think it still tells us something valuable about who we are and what we make of the world we’re in. What does it say about us that so many of our popular stories are about serial killers who stalk women, do nasty things to them, and create a public spectacle to celebrate their deviance – particularly when so many of the protagonists are themselves women and the largest audience for these stories is women? I don’t know, but I suspect it means something. To understand that, it would be interesting to explore the reading experience itself, as Janet Radway did in the 1980s for women reading romances. She went into the project thinking women were being schooled in patriarchal social relationships, which is what scholars surmised by looking at the texts, but found that compulsive readers of romance were totally hip to the absurdity of the “happily ever after” stories, but were actually sounding out their own lived experience through the contrast between idealized patriarchy and how things actually work. (Of course, Edmundson thought Radway was rubbish, that asking readers about their experiences was pointless, because what do they know? They’re not experts.)

At its best, the genre tackles social issues in a way that helps us approach important issues such as the roots of violence, the effects of crime on victims, and how social institutions function in matters of justice – or how they fail. I think crime fiction is actually uniquely suited for exploring these issues because it plays on our anxieties, which play a large role on how social issues are formed collectively.

What do you consider to be the main appeal of crime fiction?

It engages us with questions of right and wrong in a variety of arenas – relationships, social issues, environmental issues, whatever – in the compelling form of a story. It lets us get close to things that give us anxiety and get a better handle on them, but without any risk of getting hurt.

Does it offer an education?

There’s some interesting psychological research that supports the claim that fiction has a role to play in how people make meaning. For example: Victor Nell has studied the trance-like state that reading induces and found that neural processing demands are higher when reading a book than when experiencing other media. It’s not escape from thinking, it’s escape into thinking that happens to effectively block out other distractions.

Richard Gerrig studied the psychology of reading and one of his experiments tested whether people could separate the “facts” related in fiction from those relayed in non-fiction. Basically, they couldn’t; what we read in fiction enters our knowledge base, particularly when we’re reading about a topic we know little about. That to me means writers of fiction should be concerned about how accurate they are simply because we don’t mentally shelve fiction separately from non-fiction.

And a gang of psychologists write an interesting blog “on fiction” – http://www.onfiction.ca/ – also has some of their research studies posted there.

The Telegraph also recently reported on a study from Manchester and the LSE on how fiction can “explain the world’s problems” better than reports – *http://tinyurl.com/58l5df.* And a library and information science professor at the University of Western Ontario, Catherine Sheldrick Ross, has studied what readers get out of what they read for pleasure and found that readers learn a lot from books that they read for pleasure – some of it self-knowledge, some of it knowledge about the world.

What are your topical concerns?

As a reader I gravitate toward crime fiction that focuses on the choices individuals make in a world where there are a lot of ethical choices facing us. In In the Wind I was thinking about police culture in Chicago and how difficult it would be for a cop with integrity to respond to the kind of brutality that is fairly bog-standard in the CPD. It’s making a choice to not close ranks that sets up the main character’s situation. I was also intrigued by the striking similarities between government surveillance during the Vietnam War era and what was emerging in the post 9/11 environment. The constitutional issues were making my blood boil, so writing about it creatively was a therapeutic outlet.

Through the Cracks involves race and criminal justice as well as violence against women, and the debates about immigration here and the barely-concealed racism behind the rhetoric was definitely feeding my urge to write about it.

I think crime fiction provides a fertile ground for dramatizing and particularizing the ethical choices we make as a society and by making those choices the basis of a story they become more complex, more real, more compelling than when they are abstract policies or political positions. And the interesting thing is that by using people who enforce laws as the protagonists, we can see what happens when that enforcement is complicated by human nature and by the tendency for power to corrupt.

Ian Rankin’s Rebus is a wonderful fulcrum for that tension between individual morality and institutional failure. The ending of Exit Music, where we see how emotionally connected he is to Big Ger Cafferty demonstrates this nicely as the lines between crime and law enforcement have blurred.

Are you concerned with the social structures that facilitate crime?

Yes, totally. The way we deal with drugs and guns in our country, for example, coupled with the lack of opportunity for entire communities of young men ensures that there will be a certain amount of violent crime in those areas. Crime fiction often starts with the moment of violence and works backward. Uncovering the build-up to the outburst is what drives the story. Then again, some crime is nearly random. In Richard Price’s Lush Life, a kid who is holding a gun during a robbery fires it unintentionally when the victim responds in an unexpected way. But why was that kid involved in a hold-up in the first place? Why was a gun involved? Why did they pick on those people to mug? It turns out to be a very involving story though the crime itself is not complex or well-planned. Those character-driven stories interest me far more than ones that depend on elaborate plotting because they seem much more interested in the ethical issues, less in using deviance as a convenient way to set up an exciting situation.

Does such crime fiction instruct readers on how to deal with crime and the criminal in a culture that is searching for an ethical centre?

It does, and sometimes it does so in a valuable way; sometimes not so valuable. I get annoyed with the standard profiler-pursues-deviant-but-clever-serial-killer storyline because it bears so little resemblance to reality and the ethical center it presents is, to me, false. It sets up a Manichean struggle between pure evil and absolute good (represented usually by a federal agent who has to probe the elaborate deviance of the serial killer in a way that will give the reader the most thrills, which often have a misogynistic female-in-jeopardy element). It’s a mythology that is comforting, but it doesn’t tell us anything about good and evil other than that we’re excited by deviance but want to have it put back in its box after it’s done its work. For example, I think depicting torture as a legitimate and even noble pursuit in the television series 24 makes the audience complicit in a policy that is ethically wrong. It’s comforting because it excuses violence as a heroic necessity and it reinforces government power rather than asking us to question it. (It’s also entirely unrealistic about how that power actually operates.) On the opposite side would be The Wire, which doesn’t make easy excuses for the people in power and complicates our understanding of crime and ethics – and is much more realistic in depicting social institutions at work.

Do you see crime fiction as a guide to modern life? Can its protagonist be a role model for the compromises we make every day as a way to survive the modern world?

That’s an interesting thought. I suspect we see crime fiction dramatizing questions we face, but making them far more interesting than they are in our day-to-day life. Most of us don’t have jobs that matter the way we imagine a detective’s job does. Of course, in reality there’s a fair amount of boring stuff in a detective’s job, too, and plenty of frustration with delays, paperwork, dead ends, and the knowledge that making an arrest won’t stop people from hurting each other. But in fiction it’s a great frame for questions of good and evil and the choices we make.

Can crime fiction investigate moral principles and identify where they need revision?

I’ve heard a lot of readers say that they value the way crime fiction arrives at some sense of order out of chaos, that they respond to the triumph of justice, even if the characters and the choices they make are complex and more gray than black and white. I think readers want to understand questions of justice through the stories of characters enacting choices – because the empathy we develop enriches our understanding of ethical choices and perhaps helps us rehearse our own responses if we are faced with choices of our own. I think at its best it also helps us understand people with whom we may have little contact – people of races and classes other than our own or from other cultures. I felt very much better informed about Palestine after reading Matt Beynon Ress’s The Collaborator of Bethlehem, not because I learned any facts, but because of the way he depicted day-to-day life and customs and the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in an occupied zone with fanatics playing on people’s emotions.

How would you define the relationship between our current culture of fear and crime fiction’s current popularity?

I wrote an article about that – concluding “It gives our deepest fears narrative form—but doesn’t necessarily provide simple solutions that resolve our anxiety. Jenkins has pointed out, “[f]or all the science and quantification used to substantiate a new problem, its true momentum will be located in its appeal to deep-rooted anxieties that respond poorly to rational inquiry, still less rebuttal” (Using Murder 229). He suggests that the formation of social problems can be understood through its treatment in popular culture, where our fears are given dramatic form. Since crime fiction deliberately draws us into an exploration of that which frightens us and frames our inchoate anxieties in textual coherence, it may indeed be just the place to conduct such an examination.”

http://homepages.gac.edu/~fister/copycatcrimes.html

Does voyeurism, that Victorian ‘virtue’, persist in the genre’s theory that every private life tells a story of secret shame and trauma?

Huh, I never considered that. I think the form that voyeurism takes in popular fiction is an interest in “entering the mind of a monster/serial killer” (though why, I’ve never been sure) – and that particular monster is largely an invention, or at least is a fascination with a kind of evil that is quite rare. In these stories the monsters only appear normal on the outside, but are secretly some other form of life, alternate life forms sneaking into our midst. It’s a way of being titillated by the idea of evil while being able to feel absolved of any connection with it. The writers who tackle the complexity of real lives – where good and evil are more complex – are voyeurs of society like Dickens when he wrote about poverty.

How would you describe your long-term relationship with your characters?

I don’t quite know how to answer that. I got burned on my first published mystery/thriller, On Edge, in that the contract was for three books and I thought I would be able to do things with a character I liked and whose story was just starting. The editor left, the publisher canned the series idea though I had two more manuscripts drafted, and my character had to take early retirement. Now I’m a little less emotionally invested – which may be maturity, or may just be that I’m gun shy. As a reader, though, I am not as interested in the development of series characters and their lives as I am in each individual story, so perhaps that shapes my attitude, too.

If you had to start all over tomorrow, what would be your last thought before going to bed?

Probably the same as always – I’d better put the book I’m reading aside before I fall asleep and it hits me on the nose.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: On Edge

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:35 am Tagged with: ,

Jason Starr interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews No Responses »
Feb 262012

How would you describe yourself in a sentence?

A good guy.

How would your best friend describe you in a sentence?

A funny guy.

If God exists, what will be your first words at the pearly gates?

You’ve got some serious issues, dude.

Crime fiction is at its best when…

It is honest and unflinching.

The worst literary vice is…

Too much reliance on metaphors and flowery language.

Why do you keep reading a book?

To find out what happens next and to be entertained.

Which of your books would you suggest to a first time Starr reader?

Panic Attack

Why?

Think it’s the best example of what I do.

What do you like about your writing?

That I can entertain myself.

What don’t you like about it yet?

Nothing really. I think I can always push myself in new directions, but if I didn’t think what I was doing was awesome I wouldn’t do it.

What’s your favourite word?

The name of someone who is very special to me.

Which single word would you remove from the parlance of our time?

None. I love language–the good and the bad. I don’t think any language should be censored. If there are words that offend people I think they should be used even more frequently.

Which single profession would you remove from the business world?

Paid baby killers. Are there paid baby killers?

Which single person would you remove from the planet?

One of college English teachers….I’m kiddng….Well, okay, maybe I’m not.

Which fictional character would you most like to meet in real life?

Patrick Bateman.

What’s the best one-liner you’ve ever read or written?

Love anything from Henie Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield.

An American, an Englishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar…

and drink some beer?

Your five favourite party guests are…

Haven’t had party guests lately. My NYC apartment is too small.

Which book by another author do you wish you had written?

I never think that way. I have a lot of favorite books, but writing is personal, and I don’t wish I’d written any of the books I admire.

Sum up your latest book in no more than 20 words, including its title:

The Craving, the sequel to my fantasy thriller The Pack, coming this spring from Penguin.

What scene or theme did it start with?

A suspense sequence involving a major character from The Pack.

What happened next?

Can’t give that away. But let’s just say no one is safe in this novel.

What was the greatest challenge in writing it?

Well, it’s a sequel, so the challenge was making it suspenseful for readers of The Pack, but making it mysterious for readers who pick up The Craving without reading the first book first. It’s better if you read The Pack first, but you don’t have to.

What was the greatest moment in writing it?

Getting the perfect first sentence.

What are the greatest problems in writing today?

All the uncertainty with e-books.

What are the greatest opportunities in writing today?

E-books, authors getting more in control of their destinies.

What’s the most amusing situation you’ve found yourself in because of your writing?

Oh definitely a recent event with Ken Bruen, Camilla Lackberg, and Simon Beckett in a small town in Germany where we wound up as participants in a three-ring circus!

What do you wish you’d known when you started writing?

That I would still be doing this 15 years later. It would have taken some of the early pressure off.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: Cold Caller

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:50 am Tagged with: ,

Paul Johnston interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 1 Response »
Feb 192012

How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

A sardonic pseudo-intellectual with a crippling inability to suffer fools and interests in music, film, literature and hoopoes.

How would your best friend describe you in one sentence?

A kind and caring soul who is also one hell of a writer.

How would you describe your writing in one sentence?

Ideas-driven crime fiction characterised by satire, violence, and maverick protagonists.

How would you describe your ideal reader in one sentence?

One who is prepared to create her/his own meanings from the text rather than expect everything to be handed over on a plate.

If God exists, what will be your first words at the pearly gates?

If god exists, which I seriously doubt, I will be on Charon’s bark, asking where the nearest hellish pub is.

Crime fiction is at its best when…

it doesn’t talk down to the reader.

The worst literary vice is…

thinking you’re smarter than the reader.

What makes you keep reading a book?

The usual stuff: engaging characters, a stimulating plot, well-depicted locations, smart dialogue – oh, and as much subversion of genre, authority figures, and the establishment as possible.

What’s your favourite word?

aperandosyni – Greek for infinity/ immensity (sublime, moi?)

Which single word would you remove from the parlance of our time?

Capitalism

Which single profession would you remove from the business world?

Hedge funds

Which single person would you remove from the planet?

Long list, but George Osbourne currently tops it. (Excuse me while I go and rinse my mouth out.)

Which fictional character is going to be shot, come the literary revolution?

Miss Marple

Which fictional character would you most like to meet in real life?

Obvious – Sherlock Holmes (NOT BBC/ Guy Ritchie/ Anthony Horowitz versions).

What’s the best one-liner you’ve ever read or written?

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

An American, an Englishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar…

The Yank says, ‘I’m taking this place over’, the Englishman says, ‘Good idea, I’ll help you’, and the Scot bottles them both.

Your five favourite party guests are…

Helen of Troy, Patricia Highsmith, Aristophanes, Marilyn Monroe, and James Joyce.

Which book by another author do you wish you had written?

Ulysses

Why?

Because it jams all of human life into one day and remains optimistic.

Sum up your latest book in no more than 20 words, including its title:

The Silver Stain, Alex Mavros in Crete, where he gets involved in a Hollywood war movie, dope production, and antiquities smuggling.

What happened next?

Er, rather a lot of mayhem – then his crazy girlfriend turns up…

What was the greatest challenge in writing it?

Linking the horrors of the Nazi invasion of 1941 to contemporary life on the island.

What was the greatest moment in writing it?

The end – always is; you think writing novels is fun?

What are the greatest problems in writing today?

Making money from it.

What are the greatest opportunities in writing today?

Inevitably, the Internet – but I suspect it’ll be much less liberating for authors than many believe.

What’s it been like to return to Alex Mavros after seven years?

Interesting, although I cheated by keeping him the same age as he was back then; it was like waking up part of my mind that had being hibernating.

What do you like about your own writing?

That it goes for the jugular from time to time.

What don’t you like about it yet?

That it doesn’t go for the jugular often enough (cravenly, because of market considerations).

What’s the most amusing situation you’ve found yourself in because of your writing?

The first photo shoot I ever did took place on top of a five-storey building in a freezing wind, to which access was up a filthy ladder – and I was wearing a suit (I’ve never done so again).

What do you wish you’d known when you started writing?

That publishers could be so fickle, although I knew that as my old man, who was a thriller writer, had warned me and I STILL went for it – dumb, huh?

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: Body Politic

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:03 am Tagged with: ,

Peter May interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews No Responses »
Feb 122012

What is the Prix Intramuros and what did winning it mean to you?

The Prix Intramuros is an annual award given at the crime-writing festival in Cognac in France. A committee arrives at a shortlist of 6 or 7 books for the prize, and the books are then sent out to prisons all over north-west France, where panels of prisoners read them and vote for their favourite. So the best crime book is actually chosen by criminals. There can hardly be any better plaudit for a crime writer than to receive the acclaim of the criminal fraternity!

After winning the Scottish Young Journalist of the Year Award at age 21, why did you move into crime fiction?

I only ever went into journalism as a means of making a living from writing. But I always wanted to write fiction, and in fact moved from newspapers into television drama, where I was a scriptwriter, and latterly producer, for fifteen years. It wasn’t until the mid-nineties that I dedicated myself to writing books, and fell into the crime-writing genre more or less by accident.

As the only western member of the Chinese Crime Writers’ Association, you seem to have wide access to police and forensic procedures in a country famous for its secrecy. How come?

An introduction to the Chinese police is a little like an introduction to the mafia – it must come from a trusted person. In my case that trusted person was an American criminologist called Dr. Richard Ward who trained most of the top police in China during the nineteen-nineties. I was fortunate enough to meet him in Paris, where he agreed to put me in touch with his Chinese contacts. That opened a door for me that is normally closed foreigners, and I never looked back.

Do your China Thrillers, featuring Beijing detective Li Yan, attract a wider audience than domestic crime fiction?

It is true that many readers came to my China Thrillers because of an interest in China. So yes, the appeal of them was considerably broader than just those fans of crime fiction. And, I think, these days that interest in China – which is likely to be THE major superpower in the next fifty years – is pretty universal.

What attracted you to the trans-European mix of your Enzo series, set in France featuring an Italian-Scottish forensic scientist?

Growing up in Glasgow, I was aware of the sizeable Italian community in the city. In fact, one of my best friends had an Italian mother and an Uncle Enzo – whose name I borrowed for my main character. Living in France, as I do, the French setting seemed perfect for bringing the three cultures together. It has been a lot of fun.

How well does the thrawn Scotsman’s cultural heritage serve Enzo MacLeod in France?

Enzo is pretty thrawn himself. He is a stubborn, womanising, almost naively honest, ageing hippy, who has spent long enough in France to absorb much of the culture and characteristics of the French male. While never having fully integrated, he is probably more at home there now than he would be back in his native Scotland. So perhaps we could describe him as Frottish – or Scench.

What do you think makes Scottish crime writers so popular abroad these days?

I think Scots write with an unvarnished honesty and humour that strikes a universal chord.

Between travelling, researching, and meeting readers, how do you manage to keep writing and keep your writing authentic when you are in so many places at once?

A very good question. Having just spent three months on the road – two of them in the States – I am asking myself the same thing, for I have another two books to write within the next nine months. It’s just a question of clearing the decks and getting down to it. I will probably surface again around New Year to see if the world is still turning.

How important is a sense of place to you?

Place is crucial in all my books. I always regard the setting as one of the main characters. It will bring its own personality to the story, and its weather, people, moods and geography will always have a bearing on how the story is told.

Do you make a difference between US, UK, Irish, and Scottish crime fiction?

In a way the differences in crime fiction are cultural. There is certainly a sense of a British style of crime writing, with Celtic offshoots, just as people are now aware of a Scandinavian school. British crime fiction is characterised by the name we give it – “crime” fiction. It is hard, and uncompromising. Americans call their crime fiction “mystery”, a much softer term which is, I think, reflected in the style of stories they tell and the way they write them. The French have a much higher regard for crime fiction than any of the critics in the anglo-saxon world. It is as highly regarded as literature and has its own literary category in “roman noir” – literally the black novel.

What do you make of ‘Tartan Noir’ as a collective term for Scottish crime fiction?

I think it’s inward-looking and parochial, and in no way does justice to the diversity and quality of writing that exists in Scotland. It sounds like something a tabloid newspaper has dreamt up.

Switching between locations, cultures, and sub-genres, in what literary tradition do you write?

The writers who had the greatest influence on me when I was young were Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, J. P. Donleavy, and of course Raymond Chandler.

Do you have a writing routine?

I get up at 6am and write 3.000 words a day. I always stop when the counter reaches 3.000, and always leave my desk knowing exactly what I will write first thing the next morning – that way I never suffer from writers’ block.

How much of a back story do your serial characters have? Do you keep a file on each of them?

My characters are thought through in considerable detail, and yes, I keep a file on each – advisable when writing a series, because it is very easy to forget when writing book six what you said about a character in book one. I keep a kind of bible of all my research and story and character developments in a piece of software called Scrivener. The Enzo Scrivener file now runs to several gigabytes, including location videos.

Having garnered over 1.000 credits as a television writer, would you say the skills you developed during your journalism and television days are compatible with crime writing?

They are. From journalism I brought the techniques of in-depth research, and the ability to write fast under pressure. In television I honed my abilities as a writer of dialogue, which I have now brought to my books. Most dialogue in literary fiction is dreadful.

Do you plot your novels or write to see what happens next?

I spend several months developing story ideas and character. I then write a very detailed synopsis of around 20.000 words – which is where I enjoy the white-heat of creativity, and the joy of freehand storylining. Other writers do this in the book itself, and then spend the next several months re-writing through several drafts. Once I have my synopsis, all my attention is devoted to doing the story justice through the quality of the writing. I never re-write when finished, just polish.

Which of your novels would you recommend to a novice?

The Firemaker, the first of the China Thrillers, is as good a starting point as any.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: The Blackhouse

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:22 am Tagged with: ,

Damien Seaman interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 4 Responses »
Jan 292012

How would you describe yourself in a sentence?

Damien Seaman is a brilliant writer of historical crime fiction.

How would your best friend describe you in a sentence?

Damien Seaman is up his own arse, albeit an amusing drinking buddy.

If God exists, what will be your first words at the pearly gates?

Prove it.

When you found out that Allan Guthrie exists, what were your first words at the gates of Blasted Heath?

Prove it.

Crime fiction is at its best when…

It manages to combine mystery and suspense.

The worst literary vice is…

Insulting readers’ intelligence.

What’s your favourite word?

Ausgezeichnet! Or Babelsberg.

Which single word would you remove from the parlance of our time?

Not really a word, but I’d like to remove the poor, abused ampersand.

Which single profession would you remove from the business world?

The legal profession. All it does is make everything more expensive.

Which single person would you remove from the planet?

It’s not the planet some people need removing from, just positions of power and responsibility.

Which fictional character is going to be shot, come the literary revolution?

The revolution will never come. Its time has passed.

Which fictional character would you most like to meet in real life?

Sherlock Holmes, maybe.

What’s the best one-liner you’ve ever read or written?

What’s the best one-liner I’ve ever written? Are you kidding me? How can I answer that without coming across as a douche? One of my favourite one-liners from history is when Benjamin Disraeli said of political rival William Gladstone: “He has not a single redeeming defect.”

An American, an Englishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar…

Order peach schnapps and have a debate over the finer points of Hegelian dichotomy.

Your five favourite party guests are…

I don’t host parties. I go to other people’s parties.

Which book by another author do you wish you had written?

Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett. Or possibly The Da Vinci Code. Though for different reasons.

Sum up your latest book in no more than 20 words, including its title:

The Killing of Emma Gross is an expressionist police procedural with a hardboiled edge and a basis in real events.

What scene or theme did it start with?

It started with wanting to write about Berlin in the 1920s, the idea of doomed glamour and glittering promise betrayed. I also wanted to avoid writing about Britain, which I saw as the fastest way to becoming ghettoised. As a European writer, I wanted to write something with broader appeal.

What happened next?

Long story short, I decided I wanted to write something based on a real case because there were so many fascinating ones in Germany between the wars. Having done my research, the case that attracted me most was that of serial killer Peter Kürten in Düsseldorf, so I moved the whole book over to a Düsseldorf setting and started doing deeper research into that.

What was the greatest challenge in writing it?

Mixing fact with fiction, which is like putting two angry ferrets in a sack and expecting them to get on. They don’t.

What was the greatest moment in writing it?

That point when it all clicked as I was standing beside the Coronation Channel in South Holland, and I realised how to make my ending work. It was dark but inside my head all I could see was pure, bright light.

What are the greatest problems in writing today?

1. Finding the time to write – but I think this one was always tricky.

2. Consolidation in the publishing industry meaning that the lion’s share of world book production is controlled by the shareholders of just six global corporations whose interest in the future health of publishing extends as far as the bottom line on the P&L statement.

3. Consolidation in book distribution which means that there are fewer distributors despite the growth in distribution channels.

What are the greatest opportunities in writing today?

E-publishing is a great way of making a wider variety of books available to readers. But I think the key is to seek out great editors and imprints, whether traditional or digital. Great editors are your only reliable sign of quality these days, because great editors care about getting great writing out to readers.

What makes you keep reading a book?

My mood and what’s going on in my life, primarily. If I’m too distracted with other stuff, then the best novel in the world won’t keep me reading. I think it’s similar to the fact that my enjoyment of a night at the theatre is directly proportional to the comfort of the seats.

What made you keep writing The Killing of Emma Gross?

Sheer bloody-mindedness and the belief that if I got it right it would be really, really good.

What difference did the German cultural context make to your research and writing experience?

Hard to say, because I’ve never written a historical novel that wasn’t set in Germany. It made it feel like I was doing something really exciting.

What’s the most amusing situation you have found yourself in because of your writing?

A former drug smuggler wanted me to help him write his memoirs. Which I was up for, but we lost touch.

What do you wish you’d known when you started writing?

The winning lottery numbers for that week would probably have helped a lot.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: The Killing of Emma Gross

Posted by Len Wanner at 11:01 am Tagged with: ,

Gerard Brennan interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 2 Responses »
Jan 152012

How would you describe yourself in a sentence?

Not quite right in the head.

How would your best friend describe you in a sentence?

That bastard that gets him in trouble with his wife when the top comes off the bottle.

If God exists, what will be your first words at the pearly gates?

I’m really, really sorry.

Crime fiction is at its best when…

It grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go from the first page to the last.

The worst literary vice is…

Genre snobbery.

The highest literary order a writer can aspire to is…

To be a writer people want to read.

What makes you keep reading a book?

Interesting characters that I care about, even if I don’t like them.

Why should people read your books?

I write about characters you’ll care about, even if you don’t like them.

What do we need to know about Norn Irn before we get your books?

Very little. You get the info you need as you read the book. Northern Ireland can be a daunting topic but I make an effort to seed in only the relevant and interesting details about our history, culture and current situation.

If you had one hour to discuss your work with school kids as old as the wee rockets, what would you focus on?

Peer pressure, self-respect, video games.

What made you want to write?

A lifetime of reading and wanting to figure out what made my favourite writers tick.

What’s your favourite word?

Bunoscionn (pronounced bun-oss-key-on). It means upside down in Irish. I don’t remember much Irish from my school days but that word always stuck with me.

Which single word would you remove from the parlance of our time?

I like them all, really.

Which single profession would you remove from the business world?

Accountancy. I might not have wasted so many years aspiring to a safe and boring job if it didn’t exist.

Which single person would you remove from the planet?

Only one? Too hard to choose, man…

Which fictional character is going to be shot, come the literary revolution?

I’m okay with fictional characters. For the most part we can ignore the ones that we don’t like. It’s the reality TV ‘stars’ that make me want to take up human-hunting. That’s a plague that can’t be ignored.

Which fictional character would you most like to meet in real life?

Sean Duffy from Adrian McKinty’s The Cold, Cold Ground. A catholic cop from Northern Ireland in the 80s. Jesus, he’d have a story or three to tell. Plus he likes a drink but isn’t an alcoholic. You wouldn’t feel guilty about having a pint with him.

What’s the best one-liner you’ve ever read or written?

“Fuck it. The short version of the Serenity Prayer.” — Ken Bruen. Me? I haven’t written my best one-liner yet.

An Irishman, an Englishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar…

Barman asks, “Is this a joke?”

Your five favourite party guests are…

Me, my wife and my three kids.

Which book by another author do you wish you had written?

This week it’s Stolen Souls by Stuart Neville. Just finished reading it and it’s up there with the first two. Not sure which one it’ll be next but it’ll need to blow my socks off.

Sum up your latest book in no more than 20 words, including its title:

Wee Rockets is a gritty, urban morality tale. A study in social deprivation and a lost generation.

What scene or theme did it start with?

A granny mugging. I wanted to start low and see how much further down I could drag street-level crime.

What happened next?

A frustrated resident turned vigilante.

What was the greatest challenge in writing it?

Creating characters you love to hate and hate to love.

What was the greatest moment in writing it?

Typing, ‘THE END’

What impact did your kung fu training have on the book?

Nice question! I felt I understood violence better and human reactions to it. I didn’t just ‘learn the moves’ when I studied and eventually taught kung fu. It was almost a study in fight psychology. I also chatted to and learned a lot from fellow students who have had much hairier experiences than me.

What are the greatest problems in writing today?

Personally, it’s a lack of freedom. Financially, I can’t survive unless I work a non-writing full-time job which really fecks with my productivity.

What are the greatest opportunities in writing today?

Again, personally, I’ve been very lucky in that the Arts Council of Northern Ireland has funded my work three times now and bought me a little extra freedom to write. And the digital revolution in publishing has opened some doors to writers like me.

What made you publish Wee Rockets with Blasted Heath?

They opened their doors to me.

What’s the point of The Point?

That love is powerful. It can be life-affirming or deadly.

What’s the most amusing situation you’ve found yourself in because of your writing?

I still smile and blush a little about the time some work colleagues found one of my stories online. They confronted me during a tea-break and demanded to know who I’d had sex with in the office storeroom. IT WAS A WORK OF FICTION! They wouldn’t buy it, though. I guess that’s a credit to the credibility of my writing, right? Ah, come on… I have to get something from that horrific moment.

What do you wish you’d known when you started writing?

How to write. I’m getting there now, though. I think.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: Wee Rockets

Posted by Len Wanner at 9:42 am Tagged with: ,

Amanda Kyle Williams interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 2 Responses »
Jan 082012

If God exists, what will be your first words at the pearly gates?

Can I have my dog back? Her name was Maude. She was an old, cranky pain in the ass. But I really loved her a lot.

How would you describe yourself in a sentence?

Bright and sunshiny.

How would your best friend describe you in a sentence?

Edgy and possibly bipolar. I actually asked her this question on a walk this morning in preparation for my interview with you. That was her answer, which proves you really cannot trust anyone.

Crime fiction is at its best when…

… you’re turning pages. It doesn’t matter if it’s been labeled as ‘literary’ or if the reviewers hated it. It doesn’t matter if the trades and bloggers sang its praises from the rooftops. What matters is that readers cannot wait to get back to it. They’re racing through it and not wanting it to end all at once, sneaking it out of their desks at work, reading a couple of chapters on the train. That’s when crime fiction is at its best, in my opinion. Mysteries, thrillers, cozies – whatever is under that crime fiction umbrella, it just needs to engage the reader. That’s a simple thing, right? Not. At the risk of sounding like a whiny, spoiled writer with soft hands and a rather large rear, writing is hard. Poor me. I get to make things up and write them down for a living.

The worst literary vice is…

… No idea. Plus, I’m so not qualified to answer that.

The highest literary order a writer can aspire to is…

I think it’s fluid, depending on the writer. And the genre. For me, the goal is to entertain. Sure, I hope I say something brilliant. I hope there’s some nugget in there somewhere. But my job, what I aspire to do, is to provide the kind of escape and the kind of thrill you’re looking for when you plunk down hard earned money for a book. Hopefully, while I’m designing all these extraordinary circumstances fiction writers put their heroes through, I’ve somehow also created something human and accessible, gotten the nerves popping, and pulled out a laugh here and there. It’s all about the reader’s pleasure. In that regard, I’m in a service industry. And yes, there are laughs in this series. And yes, you can do that in thrillers. And I fully intend to keep doing it.

What’s your favourite word?

I love words that remind me of food. I read the little blurbs under pictures of gorgeous food because they use words like sumptuous, delicious, luscious, delectable, decadent… Everything stops when my monthly Bon Appétit Magazine arrives. Total food porn.

Which single word would you remove from the parlance of our time?

The F-word. But only so I could get through an entire conversation without accidently dropping that bomb.

Which single profession would you remove from the business world?

Breeder. As long as there is profit in animals, animals will be abused, devalued, misused. Spay and neuter, people. Rescue, adopt, and foster homeless animals. Good lord. Don’t get me started. You’ll see all my crazy come out.

Which single person would you remove from the planet?

If the question was how many asses should get kicked on the planet, I’d make you a long list. But I really can’t think of anyone I’d be comfortable wishing off the planet. I know there are some terribly vile humans out there. I’m just not authorized to make decisions about who gets to be here. And, to be honest, I’m a little superstitious about those kinds of things. Plus, this would come back to bite me eventually.

Which fictional character is going to be shot, come the literary revolution?

I sincerely hope it’s Hannibal Lecter. Not because he wasn’t fully drawn. He was. But because he is utterly evil. And because he’s unrepairable. He deserves a bullet. I’ll do it myself, and then enjoy some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Which fictional character would you most like to meet in real life?

It changes, depending on what I’m reading. I’ve just started to read Sue Grafton. I know, I know. I’m only a decade and about twenty-five books behind, but I wanted to find out what all the fuss is about. So anyway, I really like Kinsey Millhone. I think she’d be fun to hang out with.

Your five favourite party guests are…

… my best friends. I endeavor to avoid formal settings and parties with too many big shots. My idea of a good time is some great food and great friends sitting around table laughing. If there’s also vodka, hey, that’s a bonus.

Which book by another author do you wish you had written?

I want to spout off something here that makes me look thoughtful and terribly well read, but really I wish I’d written any book that had readers lining up and book clubs placing orders, screenwriters salivating, publishers cranking out fresh contracts, and agents sending chocolates. I happen to admire authors who’ve managed to be a commercial success, especially the ones that haven’t sacrificed quality.

Who or what has taught you most about writing?

My editors, without question. From the small press editor I had back in 1990, Katherine Forrest, to the fabulous freelance editor that helped me get my book in shape for Random House, Benee Knauer, to my current editor at Bantam, Kate Miciak. Incredibly talented, brilliant, and generous people. I’m still learning. I guess I will always be learning the craft. Every note from my editor, every insight, every rewrite she pushes me through, it all makes me better.

What do you like best about your writing?

It’s instinctive. It wasn’t born in a classroom.

What is your creative blind spot?

I have trouble seeing the good in my writing at times. I pick it apart. I’m a perfectionist. It doesn’t serve a writer well. I can spend six hours on two paragraphs. Makes it tough to crank out volume.

What’s it like to be in print again after several years?

Off the charts exciting. The dream realized. I hardly believe it sometimes. It’s what I moved toward and wanted and dreamed of for twenty-five years. It’s fantastic.

What gave you the confidence to try your hand at a mainstream novel?

I’m not sure it was confidence in my writing necessarily. Perhaps it was confidence in the dream and in the process. I just kept pushing toward it, kept working, kept polishing, until I felt my first mainstream manuscript was ready for an agent’s critical eye. You just do the best work you can and then you throw it out there and see what happens. Believing that whatever input comes back makes you a better writer, that it moves you closer to the goal of one day becoming a great writer, takes the fear out of the submission process because you’re prepared to use the criticism for your own betterment, rather than fold up because of it. And frankly, if you’re not willing to listen to the pros about what’s wrong with a manuscript, to rework and rethink and accept that wise counsel, you’re not willing to grow.

What part of the research made the biggest difference to the book?

I took a course in criminal profiling that was very well done. It taught me a lot about what a criminal investigative analyst does and gave me a good foundation to build on with Keye Street, who is a former behavioral analyst for the FBI. I also learned something about homicide investigation. I wanted to have a sense of how a homicide unit might approach a case and how they might work with a consultant. I also had a lot of jobs over the years. One of them was with a courier firm that had a small private investigating branch. I was a court appointed process server. I became very familiar with the city, with the courthouses, and with what it’s like to get a subpoena in the hands of someone who doesn’t want one. This job informed my writing in so many unexpected ways. My character was fired from the FBI and she used her skills to open a small detective agency. So when I have her out serving subpoenas and scouring the city, I’ve been there. It gave me a lot of confidence to write those scenes.

What have you learned about self-promotion since The Stranger You Seek came out?

Social media. Wow. What a great tool for connecting with readers and booksellers. I mean really connecting, not just promoting. And listening and answering comments and being available. These people are the foundation of your career, your partners. You want them to become involved in your career, to cheer you on. That means being a real human and actually giving a shit about their dreams and ideas and getting to know them. It’s fantastic. On a personal level, I’ve made so many friends. Professionally, connecting with readers, having booksellers hand-sell your book because they know you and trust you and feel that you’re accessible and that you appreciate them too has been really amazing. Writers who don’t have a name in the mainstream need some kind of buzz. Facebook and twitter connections are great to help get that buzz going. My website has been a great tool too. I built a page for book clubs and posted a letter to them offering to come to their discussions or call in. That has turned out to be so much fun.  Readers are smart and funny and thoughtful. I also loaded my website with cool stuff, creepy book trailers, a Meet Keye Street character bio, my personal bio, some dark animation from a scene in the book, a link to order autographed books. I tried to make www.amandakylewilliams.com fun. My personal email address is on the website. I answer every letter. I value every one of them. The feedback has been fantastic and 99% positive. There was one guy who described in great detail all the ways he disliked my book. But seriously, he did it with such flair and so much passion and hatred, I found myself giggling through it.

What would you have done differently if you’d known this prior to publication?

To be honest, Len, I don’t even know. I’m such a newbie, I don’t know yet where I’ve screwed up. I probably have.  I’ll probably look back one day when I get a clue and have some ah-ha moment. But right now it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Feels good. It’s been a wonderful experience.

What’s the best one-liner you’ve ever read or written?

For true one-liners, I still love the old wisecracking, hardboiled types. Dashiell Hammett’s Nick Charles. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. These guys invented snark. “How do you like your brandy?” someone asks Philip Marlowe. “In a glass,” he answers. Love that stuff.

Sum up your latest book in no more than 20 words, including its title:

The Stranger You Seek: journey into the mind of a profiler, struggling to get into the mind of a killer.

What scene or theme did it start with?

I had known for quite a long time that I wanted to write crime fiction. I’d started the ball rolling as far as research. I knew I wanted to write a former profiler with addiction issues. That was all I knew. No character. No story ideas. This went on for a couple of years. Lots of stops and starts. Nothing felt real, the characters, the story. I’d trash everything and start over. Then one November night I’d taken a drive up to the North Georgia Mountains to visit my brother and his family. He had adopted my niece Anna when she was an infant from China. She was four or five this November visit and she looked up at me with those glittering dark eyes and hair, just a gorgeous Asian child, and opened her mouth and sounded like Scarlett O’Hara. I was just so knocked over by how deeply southern she was. On the way home I started thinking about what it would be like to grow up looking different than the neighbors in the American South. I started to envision my Chinese character for the first time, raised by white southern parents, a sense of humor, some demons. I pulled over on the side of the highway, just me and my little dog Bella, and I wrote this line. “I have the distinction of looking like what they still call a damn foreigner in most parts of Georgia and sounding like a hick everywhere else in the world.” And as soon as I wrote that line and heard Keye’s voice, I knew it was right. I knew her voice was strong enough to be my narrator and strong enough to carry a series, which is dedicated to Anna, my beautiful niece.

What happened next?

Funny you should ask. I pulled back onto the highway and my transmission practically fell out. My car was toast. I had no cell phone. This was about six years ago and I’d been resisting the cell phone thing. I walked to a gas station with my tiny dog and called for a truck to tow me home. Well, I was still many miles and an hour and a half from home. They told me I could ride with the driver. Something about this guy gave me the creeps. I knew if I got in that tow truck, me and my little dog would end up in bits in his freezer. It was quite chilling and perhaps only the second time in my life I’d had a feeling like this about someone. That event ended up setting a very dark tone for The Stranger You Seek. I’m grateful for this creepy-ass driver now. You really never know what the universe will hand you. My car falling apart turned out to be a gift.

What was the greatest challenge in writing The Stranger You Seek?

Being still. Just being physically still for hours at a time. Some days I feel I have to tie myself to the chair.

What helped you brave the inside of a murderous mind?

I’ve always had an interest in this. I’m really curious about the fantasies and demons and appetites that drive a killer. When I was taking that criminal profiling course, I could not wait for another assignment or to talk about a real case. The rest of the class were law enforcement professionals and I was the clueless gung-ho writer. Ok, so I’m a little obsessed with murder. That’s normal, right?

What was the greatest moment in writing the book?

Without a doubt, typing ‘The End’ was the highlight. Of course, I’d get the book back many more times for revisions and line and copy edits, but finishing the first draft and feeling in my gut it had real potential… nothing like it.

What are the greatest problems in writing today?

This isn’t going to be popular among my author friends who self publish, but that’s one of the problems in my mind – too many self-published, unedited authors. Sure there’s some real talent out there that maybe didn’t get picked up by a press and should have, but generally I think people need good editors. They need to be pushed to come up higher. They need to go through the laborious process of getting a book out in the mainstream. I think half the people on my street have some kind of self-published crap available on Amazon. It feels like the easy way out to me. How are you going to get better if there’s no one there to raise the bar?

What are the greatest opportunities in writing today?

Oh God. I don’t know. I’m so insulated as far as knowing anything at all about the industry. But on a personal level, for me anyway, the greatest opportunity in continuing to write is just getting better at it. That’s my dream and I think it’s the dream for most writers. Just to get really, really good at your craft.

What makes you keep reading or writing a book?

Well the approach is totally different. I have no patience with reading books. Reading is hard for me. I’m dyslexic. I have comprehension issues. So if I’m working hard to read and something, plot, character, some insight, beautiful language, something doesn’t grab me pretty early on, I’m out of there. Writing a book is completely different. You have to have infinite patience with the work in order to tweak and revise as many times as books need tweaking and revising.

What are you writing these days?

I’m currently in the final pages of book 2 in the Keye Street series, Stranger In The Room. I expect to turn it in this week and start book 3, Don’t Talk To Strangers.

What’s the most amusing situation you’ve found yourself in because of your writing?

I showed up at a local crematory and asked for a tour. This was research for the 2nd Keye Street novel. They were much nicer before my line of questioning led them to believe I was writing about a crooked crematory operator. And when I was trying to develop my website and find a designer that could do what I wanted to do, I called this hotshot New York City company I knew had designed this beautiful, creepy, elaborate site for a very popular crime writer. I mean her website is stunning. Animation for each book. They told me she’d paid fifty-thousand dollars for her site design. I dropped the F-bomb as in “You are fucking kidding me!” And they hung up on me.

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started writing?

Sometimes you just need to relax and let it fly out. Many years ago a friend said to me after I handed her something to read: “This doesn’t feel real. Why can’t you just write like you talk? Now that’s something I’d like to read.” At the time I thought it was about the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. I mean, clearly she had no real understanding of the writing process. She didn’t. She had an understanding of the reading process. I came to realize how simple yet brilliant this was. And how difficult it is to get out of the way of yourself and allow your writing come to life.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: The Stranger You Seek

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:53 am Tagged with: ,

Anthony Neil Smith interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 5 Responses »
Dec 112011

How are you, Mr Smith?

I’ve had a sort of crap week, but I’m at the end of the semester, ready to give one more exam, and then sit back for a few weeks of Holiday cheer, reading bestsellers, and writing feverishly.

How would you describe yourself in a sentence?

Melancholy, like Poe, but with a better furnace.

How would your best friend describe you in a sentence?

I asked him. He said: “I think you can take Neil at face value and trust he’s going to do what he says … as a writer: brave.”

Crime fiction is at its best when…

It’s unpredictable and makes you care far more about these characters than you expected to.

The worst literary vice is…

Ah, well, I’m tempted to go with John Gardner’s concept of “frigidity”, but I think it’s the writer thinking that what he or she is writing is actually “important”.

The highest literary order is…

Telling a good story that not even we, the writers, know the full impact of.

What’s your favourite word?

Goddamn. It was the one I was always told was the worst possible curse word. Pretty much blasphemy. But if that’s true, why was my dad saying it all the goddamned time, right? It’s two perfect, nasty syllables.

Which single word would you remove from the parlance of our time?

“Like”, when used in place of “said”.

Which single profession would you remove from the business world?

Professional baseball player

Which single person would you remove from the planet?

Oh, wow, that’s loaded. Let’s say, if I could live on a spaceship like The Enterprise or that weird bubble in The Fountain, then myself so I could soar through space and see planets and shit. I know that’s not the spirit of the question, but fuck it.

Which fictional character is going to be shot, come the literary revolution?

Obviously Jack Reacher, but he’ll be prepared for it and will keep charging, boring millions of more readers.

What’s the best one-liner you’ve ever read or written?

Well, Victor Gischler and I both had a hand in Emerson Lasalle’s assertion that “Technology is ruining science-fiction.” Or maybe it was all Victor. But I like that. Otherwise, it’s probably “Says you.”

Your five favourite party guests are…

Seeing a “u” in “favorite” always looks weird. Also, not a big fan of parties.

Which book by another author do you wish you’d written?

Lush Life by Richard Price

Sum up your latest book in no more than 20 words, including its title:

All The Young Warriors. Minnesota. Somalia. Terrorists. Pirates. Heartbreaking. Thrilling. Cheap. Ebook. Eight words left. Okay, not any more.

What scene or theme did it start with?

I saw a story about some young Somali-American men in the Twin Cities who “disappeared”, only to turn up in Somalia fighting for the terrorist group there who is decimating the whole country. Since the prairie town where I live is three hours from the Cities and also a place where many Somali families are settling, I wondered about the impact of that on a small town, but more importantly on the people left in the wake.

What happened next?

I thought up a scene where two small town cops stopped these two Somali men because they weren’t driving so well in a blizzard. One is a pretty ordinary middle-aged Midwestern man, and his partner is a pregnant woman. Then the driver ends up shooting both of them and getting away. I think that chapter set the whole chain of dominoes falling down in a powerful way. At least I hope so.

What made you take the story abroad?

It was a suggestion from Allan Guthrie, who really thought I could pull it off even though I wouldn’t be able to actually travel to Somalia. So I spoke to a couple of Somalian students here, and then I did a lot of research. But I also had to be inventive. I’m not trying to recreate the “real” Somalia as much as I am inventing one for the world of the novel. The same way I have to reinvent the small town in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. To me, these settings are going to be more “hyper” than they would be in reality. Kind of how Tony Scott saturates scenes in his movies with too much exposure, color, motion, and scratchiness. It’s seeing the world through a particular lens.

What was the greatest challenge in writing that novel?

Other than writing about Somalia having never been there, I think the emotional content. I wanted to shed as much authorial intrusion as possible. I wanted it to feel very raw. I wanted less of my usual attitude and swagger.

What was the greatest moment in writing it?

There was a moment near the end when all of the Somali “warriors”, led by the character Jibriil, break out into song, but it’s not a song you’d expect. I wasn’t allowed to use the lyrics, unfortunately, but I still thought the title alone would bring it up in nearly every reader’s mind. That scene felt kind of like a Werner Herzog or David Lynch scene, and it helped set up the finale very well.

What reader response did you hope for when you wrote All The Young Warriors?

I honestly hoped for a “You’ve GOT to read this!” response and crazy sales and awards and a big movie deal.

What reader response do you hope for now?

Oh, I’m still holding on to that. At least in my daydreams.

What are the greatest problems in writing today?

In *writing* (because I won’t get started in “publishing”), I’d say the same as ever: too many writers, too many books not being able to find the right readers. Also, unnecessarily long novels. We need really good editors.

What are the greatest opportunities in writing today?

I would say it would be new digital publishers trying a new model and helping get writers noticed on a bigger stage. They can do it cheaper than print publishers.

What are the problems of self-promotion?

The same people who have no problems accepting pitches and ads from huge corporations (including some people who sympathize with the Occupy Movement) get really upset when an individual self-published author (or even small press author) tries to convince people to buy their books. Some of those authors are bad at it, I agree, but the outrage on Twitter is way off-scale. It’s taken very personally, and that’s disappointing.

What is the most surprising situation you’ve found yourself in because of your writing?

I was invited to Italy when Yellow Medicine was translated and published there. I was surprised by the outpouring of support and the enthusiasm of the people there. I was also surprised to be asked to sing something on camera in an interview while overlooking the River Po.

What have you learned from teaching creative writing?

I’ve learned so, so, much about that transition we make from “wannabe writer” to “writer”. At some point in all of the students, that lightbulb goes on over their heads and the work begins to really sing. I wonder when it happened for me. At some point during grad school, and then again during the writing of Hogdoggin’, or I don’t know…but it’s nice to see that “crossing over” moment on the page. I’ve learned that creative writing can absolutely be taught as a craft, and can help beginners see their own work differently, usually by reading and commenting on classmates’ works. Helps to develop a thick skin, too. Many students avoid me after the first workshop is done because I’m pretty direct with my critique, because I want them to know what they’re up against out there. An editor won’t tell them in as much detail as I will. So they get frustrated and a bit mad. Then, by the time they are ready to graduate, they’ve come around and are glad they took those classes with me. And I’m really proud of the work they’re handing in for the final portfolios.

What advice do you start your courses with?

“Write about what you’re interested in”. Enough of that silly “write what you know” stuff. Write what you want to know is more like it. Research. Learn. Writing about it gives you an excuse to do it…within reason.

What advice do you end your courses with?

Don’t stop trying to learn more about how to do this. Ever.

What is your creative blind spot?

It seems that no matter how hard I try, the “big cop thriller” that I wish was in my head just never comes out right on the page. It’s always too dark, with unsympathetic characters, or is a bit too over-the-top, or has too much explicit sex and violence and bad language in it. As much as I would love to write a book that would appeal to fans of Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane and James Lee Burke, it’s always as if I sabotage myself in order to keep from being bored.

What do you like about your writing?

The voice and the risks.

What is your writing about?

In a lot of the books, there’s always a character (or two or three) trying to start over. Change who they are and go somewhere else and just start over. While in the long run, I hope that changes, it always seems to incorporate itself into the novels these days. Maybe it’s because after grad school, that’s exactly what I had to do–a couple of times! I moved over a thousand miles from home, where I knew no one, and had to start again. Then three years later, I had to move again (new job) to another state, another new set of people, another landscape. So, until the next obsession comes along… (I just rewatched the movie Velvet Goldmine the other night, and it’s got the same theme or recreation and starting over. Good music, too).

What is your ambition as a writer?

I would love to one day have a great crime series going that sells well enough so that the publisher keeps wanting a new one from me. Would love to do a couple of novels a year–one in the series and one that’s not. Sort of a Simenon thing. But as long as I can stay with publishers who are willing to help me build an audience and keep asking for the next novel, I’d be thrilled.

What made you decide to publish All The Young Warriors as an e-book?

Several things: 1) a very close (heartbreaking) call with a traditional publisher, 2) another weirdly close call (or maybe not) with another traditional publisher, 3) the idea of having to send out another round of submissions to more traditional publishers–smaller indie places this time–after thinking this was a pretty big book, and by “big” I mean “lots of people will like it”. And that round of submissions would take longer than the first, and it would be another year or so before it would get published even if one of those places did buy it, and I wanted people to read it now. 4) About the same time I asked my agent, Allan Guthrie, that maybe we should try some digital publishers, he mentions he’s trying to start one, and he’d like All The Young Warriors as one of the launch books. So…

What made you move to Blasted Heath?

…with Allan becoming my publisher instead of my agent, and this Kyle Smudge guy with his wealth of social media, *and* the success I’d had on my own with e-books all year, *aaaaaand* hearing about the line-up that included Ray Banks and Douglas Lindsay, I knew I’d found a really good home for the digital version. I love the indie press/indie record company vibe, and I love being a part of a strong brand, so this was looking like a lot of fun. It’s new, it’s untested, kind of like when I joined up with awesome indie publisher Two Dollar Radio for my second novel. Ground floor, baby. Had to climb those walls without stairs or an elevator. Same here.

What makes a good title, and how important is it for the success of an e-book?

In my own reading, I hope the titles give me a sense of the book without telling me what to think about it. Don’t point me the right way. Just intrigue me, please. Allan is a lot of help with titles. I think I’ve had some good ones (Yellow Medicine and Hogdoggin’, Psychosomatic) but sometimes I hit the wall.

Just a side rant: one thing that shows big publishers don’t “get it” is when they make the name of the author HUGE on the cover, and the title is less than half the size. And there’s hardly any cover art. Come on. You can do better. It’s almost like “Generic Book by Big Author! You liked his last one? You’ll like this one the same!” That sort of branding isn’t the same as when a great publisher nails a strong look for a line or an author. Old Penguins or Vintage Crime or Melville House. Or, like with Blasted Heath, all of the covers are done by J.T. Lindroos, so you have a sharp and consistent feel across all of them. Excellent.

So, titles? Yeah, good ones help.

What will be your first words at the pearly gates?

Wow, how about that? Real pearls. So do I get to stay?

What do you wish you’d known when you started writing?

That publishers would change so much so quickly just from the time I graduated high school to the time I published my first novel (about 14 years). They used to build a writer’s audience book by book. Now they want the big score first time out without doing a whole lot of promotion. But wait, that’s… that’s typical author whining.

I wish I’d known it was all going to be okay even if I didn’t get on with the Big Six and become a bestselling crime writer from the first novel. Because yeah, I love my life and my job and the fact that I get to write novels. But I tell you, I lost a lot of time worrying about it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: All The Young Warriors

Posted by Len Wanner at 10:08 am Tagged with: ,

Nick Quantrill interviewed by Len Wanner

Interviews 1 Response »
Dec 042011

Why crime fiction?

Because it does everything I want. As a writer, it means I can a detailed look at the city I live in and tackle the subjects I think are relevant and interesting, and maybe make some sense of what I see. As a reader, I primarily want to be entertained, but crime fiction often helps me engage with a subject or a place I’d not thought about previously. It works on different levels.

What are your thoughts on the UK crime fiction scene? Is there a sense of a writing school?

I think UK crime fiction is pretty vibrant at the moment, but I don’t really sense an over-riding writing school, as such. Maybe that’s something which is more relevant to the marketing people to help actually sell books. If I was to consider myself part of a scene, I’d probably look online, where short story websites and social networks are nurturing new writers. Again, I’d hesitate to call it a writing school, as it covers a wealth of different approaches to the genre, but the new technologies are starting to bring about fresh opportunities for crime fiction writers. Small presses are springing up and the relative ease of eBook publishing is being exploited by established names, who for whatever reason, might be looking for an outlet for their work. The more writers involved, the better.

Did you have any writers in mind when you set out to write your debut, Broken Dreams?

I’m a big crime fiction reader, so I try to take what I consider to be the best of certain writers and create something of my own with it. I always try and figure out what I like or don’t like about book as I read and take the lessons from it. Whilst I was writing Broken Dreams I was very aware of the way Ian Rankin evokes a sense of place in his Rebus novels, the pace Lee Child injects into his Reacher novels and the intelligence and maturity of Michael Connelly’s Bosch novels. Obviously, if I could get remotely close to any of that in my lifetime, I’d be delighted, but it feels like I can at least begin to understand how these writers set the bar so high. And that’s a start.

Are your dreams about the writing life still intact?

Very much so. 2010 has been a real eye-opener in terms of the demands made on writers. It’s incredible how much effort goes into everything, but I’ve had a taste now and I want to build on the platform which has been created. I always want to do more and step things up. I’m certainly not naive about the future, though. Like many, I still need a day job to pay the bills, so I just try and do the best I can with whatever time I have. If anything, it probably helps me appreciate the good things all the more and motivates me to work harder.

What aspects of crime and crime prevention are you interested in?

I studied ‘Social Policy and Criminology’ in the past and that was probably the starting point. That gave me the theoretical grounding that taught me there’s always more than one side to a story. Living in an isolated small city, I tend to think of security in a fairly narrow way. As I’ve moved away from my twenties and the feeling the world can’t touch me, I’ve probably become more concerned at low-level and personal crime.

Have you ever been worried that descriptions of social realities might put readers off?

Not at all. I think a writer has to first write for themselves and the consequences of social realities are something that interest me. We all make choices. As an example, Broken Dreams is partially concerned with the lack of economic options once the default option of working in the fishing industry disappeared from everyday life in Hull. That’s just a reality. What comes next for the people left behind? I don’t come to any conclusions and it’s certainly not politically motivated. The trick is to make it interesting enough to take the reader with you on the journey.

How do you see the role of the artist in the 21st century?

The 21st century is an absolute overload of information, spin, advertising and rules. The artists I admire, in many different mediums, throw a little light on these things and maybe offer a few clues as to how to interpret them. Artists can only offer their version of the truth. It’s up to us what we do with it, or whether we agree or not. Maybe an artist’s role is to entertain, but they can do so much more, too.

What do you wish to accomplish as a writer of fiction?

The ultimate aim is to leave behind a body of work which goes some way to detailing the life of a largely forgotten Northern city in the early part of the 21st century. First and foremost, I want to be able to look back at it with a sense of pride and feel like I’ve given it a go. Balancing that wish with getting through everyday life means I could always use more writing time, but anything above and beyond that would be great.

Do you have a writing routine, perhaps even a case file for each character?

Nothing quite so fancy, I’m afraid. I am a planner, but at the beginning I only tend to have sketches of characters. I don’t like to get bogged down at the start. I just need to know the basics, so I tend to use Microsoft Excel for my notes. Weird? Probably, but I just find it easy to work with and add to as I go along. Even as I start book three, my lead character, Joe Geraghty, is partly a mystery to me. I know things about him and his back-story, but there’s gaps to fill in, and I as write more, I learn more. I like to keep things open-ended in that respect.

How do you feel about writing a series?

There are two main factors for me to weigh up in that respect. The first is whether I still feel Geraghty is someone I want to write about. As I start book three, it feels like there’s plenty of life in him, but each book is looking like it’ll be a two year cycle of writing, so I need to get that decision right. The other factor is whether people want to read about him, or whether I need to change my focus. Time will tell on that.

I admire the way George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly tackle things. Pelecanos continues to write about Washington DC, but regularly updates this by writing from a different perspective. Connelly freshens things up by relegating Bosch to the background for a novel and promoting another character. There’s ways and means, so it feels like I’ve got lots of options going forward.

Can you describe your journey to publication?

In the final analysis, it was probably much like any other writer. I sent the first three chapters and synopsis to Caffeine Nights before being invited to send the rest. Prior to that, I tried to harness the Internet the best I could. I posted short stories on my website and MySpace, and although there were some right stinkers in there, for better or worse, nothing was hidden away. I think that process started to build me a readership, but equally important, I had a history to show Caffeine Nights. They could see I was serious and had been working at things for a few years beforehand.

Are you now where you always wanted to be?

My only aim has been to have a publishing contract, so in that respect, I am where I want to be. However, I’m nowhere near done and I doubt I ever will be. If you’re not striving to improve, what’s the point? Next year will see my second novel. The Late Greats, published and I make my debut appearance in the Mammoth Book of Best British Crime. But I want more and I want to improve.

What advice can you give budding writers? What’s the best advice you’ve been given?

Don’t hide your work away. I think I really benefitted from building a presence online. It’s sometimes frustrating and you need patience, but the foundations have to be put in place. Other than that, read widely and write regularly. I’ve never been one for deliberately seeking out advice, rightly or wrongly I try to trust my own instincts, but Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing have more than a ring of truth to me.

Whose writing has most influenced your own?

Of the big guns, Ian Rankin, George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly are must reads. I also took a huge amount from reading John Steinbeck in my twenties, and more contemporary stuff from Roddy Doyle and Irvine Welsh. Anything with a bit of heart, basically. True influence has come from closer to home. The playwrights and musicians of Hull who I’ve come to know over the years spur me on, precisely because they don’t seem any different to me. If they can do it, I hope I can.

Whose crime fiction can you especially recommend?

It feels like preaching to the converted on such a website, but aside from the ones above, Ray Banks writes fantastic, gritty stuff and for me, Graham Hurley’s DI Faraday series is the best police procedural we have in the UK. More recently, I’ve discovered the work of RJ Ellory, which I think has got real substance. Going a little deeper, on the Internet, Byker Books are doing great things, and like most, I hugely enjoy Paul Brazill’s short stories. Top tip for a newcomer is Ian Ayris. He’s building a following with his short stories, but I think whenever and however his first novel appears, people will be talking about him. My publisher, Caffeine Nights, is building an impressive stable of crime writers – I’m particularly looking forward to husband and wife team, Bob and Carol Bridgestock’s debut in 2011. Bob worked as a Senior Investigating Officer for the police for a number of years, so that should be special.

What do you wish you’d known when you started writing?

I’ve been thinking on this, and I don’t think there is anything I wish I’d had prior knowledge of. It’s been a lot of fun learning as I go along. I write because I love to, so it doesn’t feel like hard work. I knew my publisher had plans in place, so I made a start on The Late Greats as soon as I finished Broken Dreams in an attempt to stay ahead of the game. You can’t really prepare for first time you go live on radio, or stand up in front of an audience to read, but that’s the fun of it. It’s a great ride!

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONE BOOK EVERYBODY SHOULD READ: Broken Dreams

Posted by Len Wanner at 9:47 am Tagged with: ,
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