BOOK SIGNING: 5 Maryland mystery/suspense authors

On Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., five Maryland mystery and suspense authors will sign their books at Little Professor Book Center at 1532 Liberty Road, Eldersburg MD 21784.


David Faulkner, a retired FBI agent and former congressional chief investigator, will sign his debut adventure/mystery novel of the Civil War-era, THE OYSTER WARS.

Mary Ellen Hughes, author of the Craft Corner Mystery Series will sign WREATH OF DECEPTION, STRING OF LIES, and PAPER-THIN ALIBI, three mysteries with a particular touch of arts and crafts.

Debbi Mack, a lawyer, novelist and short story writer whose work has appeared in the CHESAPEAKE CRIMES anthology, will sign her debut novel, IDENTITY CRISIS, a hardboiled mystery of murder and identity theft.

Alan Simon, former CIA operations officer and consultant, will sign his debut spy thriller TO LIVE AMONG WOLVES, in which a CIA "terminator" and his beautiful Mossad partner rush to prevent a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East.

Joanna Campbell Slan, author of PAPER, SCISSORS, DEATH, a 2009 Agatha Award Nominee for Best First Novel about a young mom turned amateur sleuth, will also sign CUT, CROP & DIE, the second book in the series.

For more information, call Little Professor Book Center at 410-795-8535.

Interview with LINDA BANCHE

Inter

Linda Banche is a 2010  EPIC Award nominated author; she shares with us details abuot why she loves to write Regencies and and all kinds of other good stuff.

What prompted you to write Regency Romances?

I write Regency because I read Regency. When I read a romance, I want an escape to a world that is different from ours, but still familiar. The English Regency, that period about 200 years ago during the Napoleonic wars, fits the bill because the first stirrings of the modern era occurred then.

I've enjoyed Regencies for a long time, but a few years ago, I went on a romance reading binge. I visited the library twice a week. I took out armloads of books. The librarians all knew me. I wallowed in Regency, and did I have a great time wallowing.

But then the unthinkable happened: I ran out of books. Panic! My favorite authors can write only so fast, and I didn't like the second string. How could I feed my Regency romance habit? The solution: write my own.

And so the journey began, as I spent my days and nights warming my desk chair as I typed and typed. A story took form. The tale had a beginning, middle, and an end.

I wrote a book! (I won't tell you about all the writing errors I made. After all, I want a happy ending.)  I tell people I'm persistent. That's French for "too stupid to quit".

Share with us the nitty-gritty about research and how you mold your historical characters so they’re true to their era while also sympathetic to those of us in the “modern” world.

I read a lot and I Google a lot. Period novels provide a lot of information about social attitudes. For basic facts, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool is very useful. This book spans the Regency and Victorian eras, and contains a lot of not-obvious information, such as explanations about English money, the political system, and such uniquely British things as titles and the entail.

From there, I went to Google. I searched and I bookmarked everything. I have over fifty Regency bookmark folders, each with about ten bookmarks apiece. I also take the historical courses offered by various Romance Writers of America (RWA) chapters. The Beau Monde, the Regency chapter of the RWA, has a private loop with lots of people who know tons about the era and are more than willing to help.

What aspect of actual writing do you find most enjoyable: plotting or characterization. Why?

Characterization. I don't plot much. I start with an outline, about nine to ten single spaced pages of story, then I go back and fill in. The story follows the outline, but tends to expand as I write and think of more things to add. Pantser am I.

What is the biggest challenge you face as a writer?

Not letting the promotion overwhelm me. Promo takes an incredible amount of time, and I still don't know what works and what doesn't. We all have to promo, but the writing has to take priority and I still haven't figured out a good balance.

What is the title of your most recently published book? Briefly tell us what it’s about and let us know where we can buy it.

My latest available book is Pumpkinnapper, a Regency Halloween comedy novella. Here's the blurb:

Pumpkin thieves, a youthful love rekindled and a jealous goose. Oh my!


Last night someone tried to steal the widowed Mrs. Emily Metcalfe's pumpkins. She's certain the culprit is her old childhood nemesis and the secret love of her youth, Henry, nicknamed Hank, whom she hasn't seen in ten years.


Henry, Baron Grey, who's never forgotten the girl he loved but couldn’t pursue so long ago, decides to catch Emily's would-be thief. Even after she reveals his childhood nickname--the one he would rather forget. And even after her jealous pet goose bites him in an embarrassing place.


Oh, the things a man does for love.

Available from The Wild Rose Press in e-format only: Buy link here: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/pumpkinnapper-p-3685.html

What are you working on now and when/where do you expect it to be available?

The Wild Rose Press has just accepted my Regency Christmas novella, Mistletoe Everywhere. I expect the story will be available next December. Here's the blurb:

A man who sees mistletoe everywhere is mad--or in love.


Charles sees mistletoe. Not surprising, since he's spending Christmas at Mistletoe Manor. But, the mistletoe always hangs over Penelope, the despised lady who jilted him after their last meeting. And no one except him sees the mistletoe.


Penelope wants nothing to do with the faithless Charles, the man who cried off after she had accepted his marriage proposal. But he stares at her all the time. Or rather, he stares at the empty ceiling over her head. What does he see?


According to folklore, mistletoe is the plant of peace. Penelope and Charles, so full of hurt and anger, must decide if they will heed the mistletoe's message and make peace.

How thrilled are you that your Regency Time Travel, Lady of the Stars, received a 2010 EPIC Award nomination?

"Thrilled" is too mild a word for my reaction. How about ecstatic, overwhelmed, shocked, flabbergasted? And then multiply those words by ten and you'll get the general idea. I've entered other contests, and I've never been a finalist. In fact, Lady of the Stars started life as a losing contest entry. I know the pros and cons of contests, but, at least once, I'm a finalist. I'd love to win, but I can be very happy as a finalist. At last! More info about Lady of the Stars here: http://www.lindabanche.com/1352.html

In addition to EPIC, what other writer’s organizations do you belong to? How how membership helped (or not helped) advance your writing career?

I belong to the RWA, and the Beau Monde and New England (NECRWA) subchapters. The RWA courses on both writing and history have been a great help. For Regency information, the Beau Monde is a great resource, and I went to an RWA conference, courtesy of the NECRWA. Since I hate to travel, the NECRWA conference is probably the only one I will ever attend. They held the conference at a hotel six miles from my house and I can deal with six miles.

FUN QUESTION: Turkey or chicken, and why?

Turkey, and not because of eating them. Wild turkeys come to my bird feeder, and I love watching them. I can't imagine them on a serving platter. I'll save the eating for their domestic cousins at Thanksgiving.

What are the addresses of your website(s) and blog(s):

Website: http://www.lindabanche.com

Blog: http://lindabanche.blogspot.com/

[P.S.  Blog Hostess Note:  As former president of RWA's New England Chapter, I vouch for the support of that particular organization, as well as that of the National RWA.]

Author Interview with LEIGHTON GAGE

Booklist has this to say about Leighton Gage’s Chief Inspector Mario Silva crime series: "An outstanding series...Gage's talents include not only captivating characters and realistic plots, but also an intensely realized sense of place and an urelentingly fast pace that yanks the reader from beginning to end, unable to stop or pause, just as the cops are unable to take a day off. Silva just may be South America's Kurt Wallander."

Why write crime novels instead of, say, romances or science fiction?

I write what I read. When visiting a bookstore or library, I gravitate to the mystery section. And, even there, I have preferences. I’m most likely to choose historical mysteries, or mysteries set outside the United States.

What prompted you to create your series character, Chief Inspector Mario Silva?

In a past life, I used to do documentary films. I read once, in a São Paulo newspaper, about a Brazilian cop who’d attended the FBI’s National Academy (that’s the one that gives advanced training to police officers, not the one that creates special agents). I went to interview him, thought about doing a film, decided not to.

But it set me to thinking about what his work must be like. Later, I met an old law-school colleague of my brother-in-law. He ran, until a short time ago, the (850 man strong) homicide squad for the city of São Paulo. By then, I had pretty much decided that I’d give mystery writing a shot. I was able to convince the homicide super cop to let me tail along on a number of his cases. But he worked in one city and dealt with only one kind of crime – murder. For my projected series (I was thinking of a series by then) I wanted to increase the scope by writing about different kinds of miscreants.

In Brazil, there is no DEA, no Secret Service, no Department of Homeland Security, no Customs and Immigration Service, and most of the police departments don’t have an internal affairs department. All of it, and more, is done by the federal cops. So I decided to make Silva a fed. And there was an additional advantage to doing that: their mandate is national. I’d get to take my readers all over the country.

That decision made, I had to find out about how the federal cops operated. Fortunately, my wife has a huge family (62 first cousins). And guess what? One of them turned out to be a federal cop.

Shortly thereafter, Silva, an amalgam of many different law-enforcement officers, began to emerge on the screen of my computer.

The crimes in your three novels are all very real, as are the settings. Share with us why you chose the crimes and the settings.

My choices always stem from personal exposure to the subject matter. In Blood of the Wicked, for example, I deal with liberation theology and the invasion of property by the landless. I count a liberation theologian, an ex-priest, among my friends. I have a relative whose ranch was invaded. And, yes, you’re right, the situations are very real. Each book ends with an author’s note in which I set down the facts that underlie the fiction. Some folks find it more interesting to start their reading there and not with chapter one.

What is the biggest challenge you face as a writer?

The next book; it’s always the next book. I want to make each successive novel better than the last, yet I find myself fearing I won’t be able to make it nearly as good. Remember this: no one is a good judge of their own work. We depend on the playback of agents, editors, critics and readers. I really only begin to know that I’ve succeeded with a book when the reviews start coming in.

What is the title of your most recently published book? Briefly tell us what it’s about and let us know where we can buy it.

Dying Gasp is my latest, (January, 2010.) In it, Silva and his colleagues travel to Manaus, the self-styled capital of the Amazon. There, they take on the people who force young girls into prostitution. Some of those kids aren’t more than ten or eleven years old.

As to buying the book, I’m a big supporter of independent booksellers. My web site links to a page that enables folks to search for one near them. Failing that, my books can always be found at any of the online booksellers, like Amazon, or the big chains, like Barnes and Noble. And, if you can’t afford to buy one, you’ll find my books in many a public library.

What are you working on now and when/where do you expect it to be available?

I’ve recently completed the fourth book in the Silva series. That one is called Every Bitter Thing, and it will be in bookstores in January of 2111. Currently, I’m working on the fifth. The working title is A Vine in the Blood.

Writers, especially new writers, are always looking for tips and helpful information. What is the single most important “tip” you can give a new writer?

It’s this: Join organizations like Sisters in Crime (yes, they do take males), and go to conferences. Those are the premiere opportunities, for those as yet unpublished, to learn about the harsh realities of the industry. And those realities are just as important as learning to string words together. People will tell you it’s tough to break in, but I don’t think there are many fledgling writers who realize just how tough.

Fact: A publisher who releases a hundred books a year is likely to be receiving as many as one thousand submissions a week. The bigger publishers receive as many as ten thousand. What are your chances? Do the math. And, once you’ve finally published your first book, then what? Are you in? Not necessarily. Not yet. Many debut authors get less than mediocre sales and sink without a trace. When that happens, your chances of getting a second book published are severely diminished.

The competition for readers’ time is fierce. There were almost three thousand titles published last year by publishers on the Mystery Writers of America approved publisher list. (If you plan on writing mysteries, and you don’t know what that is, you’d better go to the MWA’s web site and find out.)

Fact: If your publisher isn’t on that list, you’re going to find it hard to get your book reviewed, hard to get it distributed, and you’re not going to be able to get onto panels at any of the mystery conferences. Those are all profoundly important ways to get the word out about your baby. You have to get the book talked about in the press and on the internet. You have to get it on the bookstore shelves for people to pick up and leaf through, and you have to get yourself noticed as an author. If you don’t do all of these things, it’s virtually certain that your book won’t rack up significant sales.

Fact: There are a lot of people out there who prey on newbie writers. Check out the predators and editors web site to help you avoid them; become aware of the scams, and don’t pay an agent to represent you. Ever.

Fact: Self-published titles (of mysteries, at least) far outnumber the titles brought out by royalty-paying publishers. But, as a percentage of total mysteries sold they are insignificant. As a rule, and with very few exceptions, they don’t get reviewed, they don’t get distributed and, for every case of self-publishing success, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of disillusioned authors with garages, attics and cellars full of books that will never be read by anyone. You want to get your self-published books into a shop? Good luck. First, you’ve got to make them available at the standard discount. Second, they have to be one hundred percent returnable. The book business is a consignment business. You could ship a thousand copies and have all one thousand returned to you. Are you prepared to take that kind of a financial hit? Print on demand isn’t the answer either. Booksellers don’t go out of their way to sell things they haven’t got in their shop. E-books? They may be the future, but at the moment, they only represent about five percent of all books sold. There are a few authors that manage to make a living from them, but they are all people with a big backlist. If that’s the way you elect to go, you’d better start thinking about writing ten books instead of just one.

I’m guessing that since you travel on a regular basis, you’ve learned to adapt and can write anywhere. Or are you a creature of habit, hunching down over your laptop in precisely the same spot every time you write?

I adjust my writing hours to the environment. Right now, I’m writing from a daughter’s house in Florida where I do most of my work in the mid-afternoon. In Paris, I tend to split it up into two sessions, one in the early morning, and one from five in the evening until about seven. At home, in São Paulo, I write from early in the morning until lunchtime and then take the rest of the day off. I don’t much care if I have a view out of a window. I can easily work in a room with no windows at all, because I get so involved in my writing that I don’t pay much attention to where I am. I cannot, as some writers do, work with music playing. I love music, and I tend to listen to it. And that winds up distracting me. I also get distracted by people. Writing in a coffee shop, for example, is something that I’ll only do if there is no quiet alternative in the place where I happen to be sleeping.(like visiting the daughter who has three grandkids and another one on the way). If I can’t find a place with near-absolute quiet, I need earplugs. I always have them with me. I buy those silicone ones in boxes of twelve. One thing, though: I do believe that a routine is important. My advice to any writer would be find best thing for you – and then stick with it.

Being a world traveler, with children and grandchildren scattered across the globe, must affect your writing—in both creative and business aspects. Care to share any of the details?

You know, it doesn’t really. My wife and I love travel, and we’re used to being gypsies. We actually get itchy feet if we’re in one place too long. In early October, for example, we got up one morning and Eide (my wife) said, “You know what? I’m getting tired of Paris.” (We’d been there since March, with only a short side trip to the UK to attend Crimefest, in Bristol.) I laughed, hit her with that line of Samuel Johnson’s (“If you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life.”) But, then, I started thinking. I was getting a little tired of the place myself. Look, don’t get me wrong. I love Paris. Right now, I’m looking forward to getting back to Paris. But at that moment, it was as if we were getting into a rut. Both of us concluded we were ready for a change. I’m beginning to feel the need for another change right now. So what do we do when that happens? We pack up, move on, and settle in somewhere else. We spend the first few days visiting friends or family. And then I slip into my writing routine. If I’m not in Brazil, I read the Brazilian newspapers on the internet every morning and the Brazilian newsmagazine, Veja, once a week. I’m on Skype to Brazil at least once a day. I can be in Europe, or the United States, but I feel the need to stay plugged-in to what’s happening back home. It’s the source of my inspiration.

FUN QUESTION: What do you prefer, a tropical climate or the snow and cold, and why?

I prefer the tropics, many times over. My wife is the cold freak of the family. I think that’s because she still views snow and cold as a curiosity. The first time Eide ever saw snow it was a long way away, up on a peak in the Andes. She was twenty two years old at the time. She actually didn’t put her feet into snow until she was twenty-five. On tour last year, we got snowed into a motel up in Vermont. She loved it! I was not as pleased.

What are the addresses of your website(s) and blog(s):

The Website is: http://www.leightongage.com
The blog is: http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/

The blog is a new endeavor (we started in late November) that I’m doing with five other authors who write books set outside the United States. Mostly, we don’t post about books. We post about curious aspects of the cultures we write about. We have a lot of fun with it. I’m hoping that whoever reads this will drop in and give us a try.

2010 Promotional Opportunities

Thank you to the nearly 100 authors and publishing professionals who were interviewed on our blog in 2009.

If you, or someone you know, would like to be interviewed in 2010, or if you'd like to take advantage of marketing and promotional opportunities by posting an article, a press release, or anything else (please, be creative), check out our submission guidelines in the right sidebar.

Happy, prosperous 2010 to everyone!

Happy New Year!