Author Snapshot: Gyles Brandreth

A Snapshot of ... Gyles Brandreth

Most recent book: Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile (Touchstone)
Born: 1948 in a British Forces Hospital in Germany
Reside: London and Paris
Birthday: March 8th
Web site: oscarwildemurdermysteries.com


What’s your favorite city?
London, because in my head I am living in the 1890s when London really was the capital of the civilized world. (Followed by Paris, New York and Venice.)

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Walk along the north bank of the River Thames, from Chelsea embankment, where my hero, Oscar Wilde, lived, to Tower Bridge, near the Old Bailey courthouse where his public life was brought to an end.

What food do you love?
Italian.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Dates. I cannot stand them!

What’s on your nightstand?
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, my favorite comfort reading. And a pencil and pad in case inspiration strikes in the night!

What inspires you?
The amazing imaginations of the great late-Victorian writers: Wilde, Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson -- and from a generation before, the mind and spirit of Edgar Allan Poe.

What are you working on now?
My next Oscar Wilde mystery. He knew everyone and traveled widely: his life was so turbulent: the possibilities are infinite!

Tell us about your process.
I am disciplined. I plot carefully. I visit all the locations while I am plotting -- all of them, whether it is a morgue or the Sistine Chapel. And then I write at the computer, from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm usually. I aim to complete 1,000 words on a good day.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
The London subway. As chance has it, I am writing this on my laptop at Baker Street Station. Oscar Wilde used the London subway: it was very new in his time.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
When I was about 8. My first book was an attempt at a life of William Shakespeare. I was 11 at the time!

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Running -- or ruining! -- the country. I used to be a politician.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
None. I am constantly dissatisfied! That said, I am honored and excited by the fact that my mysteries are now translated into 19 languages and appear around the world. From Peru to Russia, people are fascinated by murder and the story of Oscar Wilde.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
Being able to disappear into a different world, a different era, and to meet extraordinary people, without having to leave my study.

What’s the most difficult?
Beginning. Starting the next one. Writing page one.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
Is everything you write about Wilde and his world true? Yes is the answer. All the details are accurate. The mysteries come from my imagination, but the world they inhabit is real.

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
How does it feel to be Number One on the New York Times best-seller list, Mr. Brandreth?

What question would you like never to be asked again?
Is that really your age?

Please tell us about Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile.
It’s a murder mystery featuring some of the most fascinating figures of the late-19th century: from Wilde and Conan Doyle to P.T. Barnum and Sarah Bernhardt. It takes you to the Midwest and Paris and places of laughter and darkness.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I am descended from the last man to be beheaded for treason in England and from the first man to identify Jack the Ripper.

Author Snapshot: Philippa Gregory

Six novels after she swept us away with The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory brings us The White Queen and the magnificent Plantagenet family.

In some regards, The White Queen isn’t new territory for Gregory, whose 14 previous novels have covered a broad swathe of history but are nonetheless bound by their author’s tight attention to detail.

In a CBC interview around the time the film version of The Other Boleyn Girl was released, Gregory said that “It gives me a real authority to talk about the period. There’s nobody going to say to me, ‘Did you know such and such?’ and I won’t know it. The pleasure for me, then, is that I can then relax and write the novel. I don’t start writing the novel until I am as confident of the historical record as if I was going to sit down and write a biography.”

One can imagine, then, the place where the research ends and the magic begins. Research will take you a long way, sure. But Gregory’s powers as a storyteller are what has entranced so many millions of fans over the years. Some of those fans will get the chance to hear Gregory up close and personal as she tours in support of The White Queen. In Canada, Gregory will be in Toronto on September 17th and in Victoria on September 28th. Event details and US tour dates are here.


A Snapshot of... Philippa Gregory

Most recent book: The White Queen
Born: Kenya
Reside: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Birthday January 9, 1954
Web site: PhilippaGregory.com


What’s your favorite city?
London.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
I get my hair cut, I go to the National Portrait Gallery and see the original paintings of the faces that I now know so well. I go to the London Library and read, I end up in the Berkley Hotel for the night.

What’s on your nightstand?
At the moment [The] Biophilia [Hypothesis] by Edward O. Wilson, and The Kingmaker’s Sisters, by David Baldwin.

What inspires you?
The history and the gaps in the history.

What are you working on now?
I am working on book two of the Cousins War series which will be about Margaret Beaufort, mother to Henry Tudor, and titled The Red Queen. I hope it will come out next year.

Tell us about your process.
I write on a laptop wherever I happen to be, I don’t need silence or study conditions, I write in airports and in my bed. I follow the historical record exactly wherever it is certain, and see my work as in a sense recreating the events that we know took place. When there is a gap in the record -- as happens so often especially for women's history -- I write the most likely, the most congruent with the facts we know, or the one that makes sense to me.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
I am in my study overlooking the North York Moors so I see a great side of hill with some trees, some craggy outcrops of rock and a big expanse of cloudy grey sky.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I never really wanted to be a writer, I wrote little stories from early childhood, but I did not know I would make my living from writing fiction until my first book was accepted by a publisher. Even then, I thought I would do it alongside my chosen profession of teaching history. But the history post never came up, and the next book did.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
There are so many things I would love to do. My first love was journalism and I would love to work in radio still. I would like to teach history in a university, I would like to run a conservation sanctuary in Africa, or train horses, or run an orphanage, or be a lady of complete leisure in a big house in the country...

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
I get a lot of pleasure when I have finished a book and I feel that it is as good as it can be. The Boleyn Inheritance was a very easy book to write; The Queen’s Fool, and The Constant Princess were very interesting to research and write too. I think The White Queen may be my best book and it has been endlessly fascinating to me.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
The hours and the work conditions -- just as I want.

What’s the most difficult?
I can’t honestly say anything is difficult. Sometimes the interviews are uncomfortable.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
Where do you get your ideas from.

What’s the question you'd like to be asked?
I like to be asked complicated questions about history by people who are genuinely interested.

Please tell us about The White Queen.
It is the story of Elizabeth Woodville whose beauty, and (according to accusations at the time) witchcraft skills seduced the 20 year old King Edward IV into marriage. An attack by the rival House of Lancaster forced him to run for his life into exile and her into hiding in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey while his cousin, Henry VI recovered the throne. But Edward’s military brilliance meant that he returned to England, recaptured the throne, in two successive set piece battles, and rescued his wife from sanctuary where she had given birth to their first son. The royal couple had ten surviving children before the King’s death when Elizabeth decided to secure the safety of her thirteen year old son by seizing power. The king’s brother, Duke Richard of York, suspecting foul play from the newly widowed queen, captured her precious son. The boy was lodged in the Tower and Elizabeth again fled into sanctuary with her remaining children -- her younger son, Richard, and her daughters.

The conventional history (commissioned by the Tudor victors) says that she handed over her children to Richard III who was Richard Duke of Gloucester. I don’t believe it. I think she smuggled him out of the country into Flanders, in the care of his aunt, the Duchess of Burgundy. Many historians agree that one of the princes may have got to safety, but we have no evidence to show it was done, nor how it was done.

In The White Queen I suggest that she sent a changeling into the Tower in her son’s place. Elizabeth survived the reign of Richard III and clearly became friends with him, releasing her daughters into his safe-keeping while she went to live in the country. The novel ends on the eve of the battle of Bosworth with Elizabeth certain that her hidden son Richard, will be the York heir.

Author Snapshot: Jennifer Weiner

Though Jennifer Weiner might wriggle under the appellation, if chick-lit has a champion purveyor, she looks like this: gentle eyes, calm of disposition, with a razor-sharp understanding of everything she observes.

Weiner’s books have been judged alternately empty and insipid and fully engaged with the pulse of contemporary American womanhood. Whatever busloads of critics might have said since the publication of Weiner’s debut novel, 2001’s Good in Bed, a lot of people would probably vote for the latter. Over 11 million copies of Weiner’s books are in print in 36 different countries. Her second novel, 2002’s In Her Shoes, was turned into a movie with Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz. The author was actually in one scene of the film.

Weiner’s latest book, Best Friends Forever (Simon & Schuster), explores the impact of love, desire and familial loss on a friendship between two young women. “Former mousy types, rejoice!” writes People. “In Weiner’s delicious latest, a popular girl hits trouble long after high school and only the geeky pal she once shunned can help.”

If you can’t get enough Jennifer, you need not despair. The author signed a development deal with ABC Studios last year. She says she’s working with “many fine writers to come up with comedies and dramas that feature my kind of characters and humor (i.e., smart, snarky, soulful, possibly larger than the average leading lady).”

A Snapshot of... Jennifer Weiner

Most recent book: Best Friends Forever (Simon & Schuster)
Born: DeRidder, Louisiana
Reside: Philadelphia
Birthday: March 28
Web site: www.jenniferweiner.com


What's your favorite city?
I love Philadelphia, but I always love visiting San Francisco.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Go to Yank Sing for dim sum. Go to the Ferry Building farmer’s market for flowers and bread, and the Cowgirl Creamery for cheeses. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge to build up an appetite. Take the cable car back to the Fairmont Hotel, and have wine, and cheese, and a nap.

What food do you love?
What food don’t I love? I'm a big fan of staples, cooked well: a good roast chicken and mashed potatoes, rib roast, grilled fresh vegetables

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Oh, there’s nothing I won’t eat again -- I’m all about second chances -- but I just had a bad run-in with macadamia nuts and sake, so I probably won’t be mixing those two again.

What’s on your nightstand?
About 30 books that I’m either reading or re-reading: Kate Christensen’s Trouble, Julie Metz’s Perfection and Stephen King’s The Drawing of the Three.

What inspires you?
Real life; my family and my friends. My daughters are both very funny.

What are you working on now?
I’m in the early stages of a novel about three different women -- young, middle-aged and old -- who find themselves thrown together, in the wake of various personal crises, in a big old house on the beach in Connecticut and I'm starting to gather the pieces for a potential non-fiction piece, which would be a big change for me.

Tell us about your process.
My process is necessarily dictated by my kids, and the ensuing lack of time. Most of my work happens in the afternoons (when I have a sitter), on a laptop, in a coffee shop, where the kids can't find me. I really need to leave the house in order to get any serious work done, and I try, as best I can, to replicate the atmosphere of a newsroom when I find a workspace -- I like a little hustle and bustle, and music and conversation, not to mention latte and scones.

But really, I'm working all the time -- there’s always a part of my brain that's thinking about the work in progress, whether I’m at the park, pushing my baby in a swing, or in the minivan, waiting to pick up my big girl from school.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
I’m working at my kitchen table, so ... a stack of bills I’m about halfway through paying. A bag from Target filled with sunscreen and sippy cups and Season 2 of Arrested Development that I need to unload.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I think as soon as I learned how to read. I remember being six, and my first-grade teacher Mrs. Palen giving me extra paper and letting me stay in for recess so I could keep writing a story.

If you couldn't write books, what would you be doing?
Hmm. Not sure that newspaper gig would have worked out, long-term. I
probably would have gotten a PhD in something and taught.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
The day I got to go home and tell my mother that Simon & Schuster was
publishing my book. The joy only lasted a few seconds. Then I had to tell
her what the title was.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
Writing has always been the thing that I love best and came most easily to me. I love just about everything about the work I do.

What's the most difficult?
The business of publishing: dealing with marketing and promotion and knowing that, as far as some reviewers are concerned, whatever I've written is just a big spun-sugar pink nothing.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
“Where do you get your ideas?” “What time of day do you write?” “Longhand or
laptop?”

What’s the question you'd like to be asked?
Nobody’s ever asked about all of the water imagery and swimming in my books. That would be fun to talk about.

What question would like never to be asked again?
“How do you feel about your books being called chick lit?” Not great. Next question!

Please tell us about your most recent book.
Best Friends Forever is the story of two girls who are best friends all through high school, then have a tragic break-up, and reunite on the eve of the 15th reunion, after the glamorous friend who skipped town does something terrible, and shows up on the doorstep of her mousy homebody ex-best-friend, saying that she's the only one who can help.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
Is this really the time to mention the third nipple?

Author Snapshot: Clea Simon

We engage with the work of the authors we love on many levels. In the case of fiction, that engagement is often about a careful blend of passion and voice. In non-fiction, it seems to me it’s about heart and sincere understanding of the material under study. It’s why the authors who excel at both fiction and non are rare. Those four things -- passion, skill, heart and research -- are unlikely to surface in a single person. When it does crop up, more often than not, the writer in question is a journalist.

Clea Simon is not the exception to the rule. A respected journalist whose credits include The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, Ms. and Salon, Simon wrote three critically acclaimed works of non-fiction before penning her first novel, 2005’s Mew is for Murder, the first in a series of popular mysteries featuring Boston rock journalist, Theda Krakow and her well loved cat, Musetta. The fourth book in the series, Probable Claws (Poisoned Pen Press), was published in April. Despite the punny titles and the strong cat connections, Simon points out that the cats in her books don’t talk. In fact, Simon has referred to the books featuring Theda and Musetta as “kitty noir,” something she says with a smile but is only half-joking about. And she’s right: there is a whiff of the darkness at the edges of the tales she’s chosen to tell here. Murder, mystery and music via the Boston club scene that Simon herself knows very well. A strong core of animal rights and welfare run through Simon’s books, though never in a self-righteous way. Readers knowledgeable about animal protection issues will find themselves nodding in agreement, those who aren’t will find knowledge shared in an interesting way.

Mystery, music, nightclubs, animals in danger: on a certain level, it’s an unlikely combination, yet, somehow, it works very well. And why? That special blend, I think: passion, heart, understanding and voice, voice, voice. Simon’s is as strong and clear as the passion she brings to the stories she tells.


A snapshot of... Clea Simon
Most recent book: Probable Claws
Born: East Meadow, NY
Reside: Cambridge, MA
Birthday: July 27 (I’m a Leo!)
Web site: www.cleasimon.com



What’s your favorite city?
Well, I adore Cambridge, where I live, but I’d have to say New Orleans. Not sure I could live there, but I need regular fixes, for sure.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Eat oysters at Acme, browse the “early novel” shelves at Beckham’s Books (where I have found many wonderful, sentimental turn-of-the-20th century finds), stop in at Louisiana Music Factory, and then head out to Tipitina’s, where through some marvelous happenstance Rebirth is opening for, oh, let’s say Dr. John. If there’s any time left, I’d end up at Coop’s or Clover Grill before the celestial ride home.

What food do you love?
Easier to say what I don’t... um, all seafood? Pheasant, quail, and andouille gumbo? Spicy boiled crawfish? (Can you tell I’m recently back from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest?)

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
The pre-cooked crawfish that a dear friend had shipped to me as a present. Very well intentioned. Very scary.

What’s on your nightstand?
Lens cleaner, a glowing squirt frog to squirt water at the cat when she gets rambunctious at four a.m. (the fact that it’s a glowing squirt frog helps), the books from the pile up the side of the nightstand that are leaning onto it for support. Clock radio set on the local college station.

What inspires you?
Talking with friends about making art (music, painting, writing).

What are you working on now?
I have just sent the sequel to Shades of Grey off to my agent. I’m sure she’ll suggest more revisions before we send it to my editor, but right now, I’m catching up on a lot of freelance and other things that had been pushed aside. Shades of Grey is the first in a new series, slightly paranormal, that Severn House will publish in September, but the sequel, tentatively titled “Grey Matters,” is due on May 31. It’s very odd to be finishing up the sequel before having any real-world feedback on the first book, but I’m grateful for Severn’s interest! At some point, I want to start revising my tongue-in-cheek pet noir, find a publisher for that...

Tell us about your process, please.
Although I try to write mornings, these days I find myself needing to get the money work (editing, mostly) done first and the creative stuff really kicks in mid-afternoon. I usually write to a word count (i.e., 1,000 words a day), five days a week. And although I have a basic idea of the book’s direction and a white board with sticky notes all over it of ideas I’ve had that often make little sense within 24 hours (such as “He has green eyes!” Or “Lloyd shows up at Bullock’s”) I tend to need to write the book out, then revise it to make sense.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
My iPod recharging, my various cat fetishes. A wilting daffodil and the cereal bowl from my breakfast.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I always knew that’s what I wanted. It just took a few years (as a journalist, an editor and in various other publishing jobs) before I realized it was feasible.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Pulling my hair out? I don’t know. Probably just cooking a lot more, or maybe studying zoology. I always wanted to be a herpetologist. But that’s because I love frogs and toads. I hated having to dissect them.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
This one changes. But I still have saved, on my answering machine, my agent singing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...” from December, when we got the Severn House offer.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
The dress code. Right now, I’m wearing sweats and big fuzzy socks. Several years ago, I gave away all the suits I had from my days working as a magazine editor.

What’s the most difficult?
The waiting. I don’t even mind the rejections so much as the waiting. When someone rejects something, you can revise it and send it out again. But not knowing? The worst.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
Where do I get my ideas? To which I don’t have a good answer. Also, if my heroines are me. To which I can only say, all my characters are part of me.

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
I’d like to be asked about specific plot or character developments in the book -- why did this character do that? More generally, how do your stories/characters develop?

What question would like never to be asked again?
“Why don’t you send a copy to Oprah?”

Please tell us about Probable Claws.
It’s the fourth, and I suspect maybe the last, Theda Krakow mystery. Theda has reached a turning point in her life. Her friends’ lives have all changed: Bill, her boyfriend, has retired from the police and is managing a jazz club, a job that takes a lot of his time. Bunny is about to become a mother. Violet is fully ensconced in her own relationship and her shelter work. The newspaper business is changing. Theda has to figure out where she stands in this new world, and there are no easy answers. It’s funny, because my editor thought it should be obvious that the next step for Theda is to get married. I don’t think it’s obvious. I think that things cannot stay the way they have, but that she has legitimate concerns and interests pushing her various ways.

This is all set against a backdrop of a very real, and possibly unresolvable conflict in animal welfare: the issue of euthanasia. Nobody wants to kill healthy animals, but there are too many cats, dogs, etc., for shelters to care for. So lots of places are trying innovative campaigns to reduce the necessity of euthanasia -- better matching people and pets, fostering animals, etc. -- but it’s an asymptotic approach to the absolute of eliminating the practice. And there is a lot of tension between shelters with different philosophies, a tension ratcheted up by the struggle for funds. Well, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that in this conflict, you might have a murder. A “no kill” murder, if you will.

Because, oh yeah, there’s also a murder!

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I was about to type, “I’m very lazy at heart and only write out of fear of deadline.” But a lot of people know that. So, um, I’ll have to come up with something else. But then I’d have to kill you.

Author Snapshot: Denise Dietz

You don’t see her without a smile. That’s not a surprise. People who have read her books suspect that the author, too, will be humor-filled, that she will be wicked smart and that the smallest of her comments will drip with a good-humored wit. In person, Denise Dietz, author of the Ellie Bernstein Diet Club mysteries is all of these things, and more.

Though Strangle A Loaf of Italian Bread (Five Star) is Dietz’s 14th novel, it is the fourth to feature diet club leader Ellie Bernstein who has replaced her eating habit with one for solving mysteries.

“Denise Dietz is like Robert B. Parker on estrogen,” author Marshall Karp has written. “Her heroine, diet guru Ellie Bernstein, is fiendishly clever, blatantly sexy, and uproariously funny. Trust me, ladies, this is not your maiden auntie’s murder mystery.”

Dietz lives on Vancouver Island off Canada’s westernmost coast with her husband, novelist Gordon Aalborg. Like most of Dietz’s work, her current novel in progress sounds deliciously funny. Called Gypsy Rose Lieberman, the books stars “a Vaudeville ghost who was -- oops! -- sawed in half by her magician husband.”

Dietz’s fans are likely already laughing in anticipation.


A Snapshot of... Denise Dietz
Most recent book: Strangle A Loaf of Italian Bread (Five Star)
Born: Manhattan, New York
Resides: Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Birthday: January 29
Web site: www.denisedietz.com


What’s your favorite city?
Colorado Springs, Colorado. I chose to live in Colorado, inspired by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which I “borrowed” from my mom’s bookshelf when I was a kid. I don’t agree with Rand’s ideology, but she’s one heck of a wordsmith!

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Only six hours? Inhale and absorb the scenery, especially Garden of the Gods, say hi to the librarians at the Penrose Library, and browse my favorite thrift/consignment shops.

What food do you love?
A perfect meal would be raw oysters, prawns and lobster, and New York cheesecake.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Cottage cheese.

What’s on your nightstand?
Potpourri. I’m rarely sick, knock on wood, but when I get the flu, my nightstand holds a copy of Stephen King’s The Stand. When I read The Stand I feel much better.

What inspires you?
Change the question to “who” and my answer is readers. I once had a long wait at the DFW airport and started chatting with a young woman. When I told her I was an author, she said, “Have I ever heard of you?” Exhausted, I merely said, “I doubt it.” She wanted to know my name. I said “Denise Dietz” and she said, “OMG, Beat Up a Cookie! I loved that book! My dad loved it, too.” That happened more than 10 years ago and it still inspires me. Another, more recent inspiration is Susan Boyle.

What are you working on now?
Gypsy Rose Lieberman, starring a Vaudeville ghost who was -- oops! -- sawed in half by her magician husband. I’m also writing the second book in my Sydney St. Charles apothecary series. Title: Toe of Frog. Working title: “The Da Vinci Toad.”

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
A huge, framed poster of Daniel Day Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, a photo of my husband, novelist Gordon Aalborg (Dining with Devils), and a stuffed “deadline” vulture named Michael Seidman.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
When I wrote a story for my high school magazine called “Is the Bronx Zoo in Brooklyn?” and it made everyone laugh. That was cool. In my second story, “Red Corduroy,” I killed a dog. Everyone wept buckets, including me, but I’d never kill a dog, or a cat, today, I swear, Girl Scout’s honor, cross my heart...

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
I can’t imagine not writing books, but I suppose I’d be looking for singing gigs. In my next life I want to be a stand-up comedian. Or the first woman to win racing’s Triple Crown.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
Seeing my first published book -- Throw Darts at a Cheesecake -- in the library. It was shelved with the new books. I ran up and down the aisles and shouted, “Come! Come! Come!” over and over. Several people followed me and when I reached the shelf, I pointed to the book and said, “Me! Me! Me!”

For you, what is the easiest thing about being a writer?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t find writing easy. It’s gobsmackingly gratifying -- especially when you hit page 170 and realize there was a good reason for the three wonky paragraphs you wrote on page 30 -- but it takes an incredible amount of self-discipline. That’s why, when people say “Someday I’m gonna write a book,” I try to stifle my snort.

What’s the most difficult?
Waiting for reviews! You send your “baby” out into the world and hope someone doesn’t say, “What an ugly baby!” I’ve been lucky with starred reviews for The Landlord’s Black-Eyed Daughter (written as Mary Ellen Dennis) and rave reviews for Footprints in the Butter and Fifty Cents for Your Soul. However, I’ll always remember a lazy reviewer who, obviously, hadn’t read my book. She compared me to Diane Mott Davidson: Colorado locale, 40-ish sleuth, food title, and then wrote: “So I suggest you buy a Diane Mott Davidson book, instead.” Diane is a fellow Coloradoan and a friend, but our “voices” are very different. Before I could vent my ire, I discovered that my sales had spiked. It seems the only thing people remembered was the comparison to Diane.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
It’s a toss-up between “How long does it take you to write a book?” and “Have I ever heard of you?”

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
“Would you be our Toastmistress at Left Coast Crime (or Bouchercon or Malice)?”

What question would you like never to be asked again?
“My life would make a great book, will you write it?” To that end, an attorney once asked me to ghost-write his John Grisham rip-off. He offered me 50 per cent of his royalties.

Please tell us about Strangle a Loaf of Italian Bread.
The title is from a quote by the late, great Gilda Radner. She said: “Eating is self-punishment; punish the food instead. Strangle a loaf of Italian bread. Throw darts at a cheesecake. Chain a lamb chop to the bed. Beat up a cookie.”

Sara Lee, a waitress at Uncle Vinnie’s Gourmet Italian Restaurant, plans to try out for the John Denver Community Theatre’s production of Hello, Dolly! Before she can, she’s strangled with a Daffy Duck necktie and trashed in her restaurant’s Dumpster.

Diet club leader and mystery maven Ellie Bernstein wants to know why everybody didn’t like Sara Lee. At the same time, Ellie -- who has never owned a dog -- is dog-sitting a diet club member’s Border collie and coping with her cat, Jackie Robinson’s reaction to the canine guest. Then Ellie discovers that the dog’s owner has disappeared into thin air.

Eventually, Ellie’s search for Sara Lee’s killer lands her at the Hello, Dolly! auditions. Only problem is, Ellie can’t sing or dance.

This is the fourth book in the series but, like all of my books, it stands alone.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
My life is an open book (hee!) But very few people know that I sang on a cruse ship with a British rock and roll band. Our most popular song was “Happy Anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. Abramowitz...”

Author Snapshot: Kamran Pasha

Some people -- critics and supporters alike -- are watching the debut of Kamran Pasha’s Mother of the Believers (Washington Square Press) with deep political interest. Viewed a certain way, so much is at stake. Recently, on his blog, Pasha wrote that “controversy is inevitable when it comes to writing about Prophet Muhammad, who has the distinction of being simultaneously the most beloved and hated man in world history. Revered by his followers as God’s last messenger to humanity, and vilified by others as a false prophet, the founder of Islam has always been a figure that excites passionate emotions. So in writing a novel that looks at his life from the perspective of the woman he loved most, I have no doubt that I will become the target of those feelings.”

There’s more of that kind of thing swirling around Pasha’s novel. Doubtless, none of that will be bad for sales, which just a few days after the book’s publication date already look quite brisk. But, right here and now, none of that matters. What does matter: Mother of the Believers is a fascinating and beautifully crafted work of historical fiction. Set in Arabia in the seventh century, it is the story of Aisha, the favorite of the Prophet. Aisha tells his story with sharp and affectionate eyes. “I have been blessed -- and cursed -- with perfect memory,” Aisha tells us early in the book. “I can recall words said forty years ago as if they had been uttered this morning .... The Messenger ... used to say that I was chosen for that reason. That his words and deeds would be remembered for all time through me, the one he loved the most.”

As far as narrative devices go, having a beloved mate tell the story from her eyes is not a bad one. It gives her license to indulge her poetic heart and gives the author space in which to cloud his imaginings.

Mother of the Believers works on all levels. A deeply entertaining fiction -- nice and thick, just the way those of us who love historicals like ‘em -- as well as a bridge to understanding a way of thought and life that will be at least somewhat foreign to many of the book’s readers. Has there ever been a better time for both of those things?


A Snapshot of Kamran Pasha...
Debut novel: Mother of the Believers
Born: Karachi, Pakistan
Reside: Los Angeles
Web site: kamranpasha.com


What’s your favorite city?
Medina, Saudi Arabia.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Go to the Tomb of Prophet Muhammad. Pray. Meditate. Go to the neighboring cemetery, Jannat al-Baqi, and visit the grave of my novel’s heroine, Aisha, the Prophet’s wife. Medina is the most peaceful city I have ever known. Six hours inside its sacred precincts would feel like both an eternity and a blink of the eye.

What food do you love?
Spinach. I have been addicted to spinach since I was a child. Sautéed or cooked in curry sauce, I could eat spinach for every meal!

What’s on your nightstand?
A copy of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. This is one of the most important books for any writer -- in fact, any artist. It explores why we procrastinate as artists, why put off doing what we love, and inspires the reader to overcome his or her blocks and live a creative life.

What inspires you?
Women and words. I have a work of art that hangs over my writing desk, symbolizing my two sources of inspiration. It is a black-and-white photograph of a beautiful woman wrapped in a veil of cursive script. The beauty of women and the power of words -- they are inextricably linked in my heart. Perhaps that is why I primarily tend to write about strong women, and why my first novel is told from a woman’s point of view. The Sufi mystics of Islam teach that the beauty of God is manifest in the feminine form, and my fascination with women has very deep spiritual roots. It is the never-ending quest to probe the depths of the female psyche, to explore the mysteries of the divine feminine, that keeps me creatively inspired.

What are you working on now?
My second novel, Shadow of the Swords. The book will follow the battle between Richard the Lionheart and the Muslim king Saladin to conquer Jerusalem -- and the heart of a beautiful woman.

Tell us about your process.
I am a night owl and normally don’t start writing until 10 PM, and then work until 2 AM in the morning. I am a screenwriter and I usually write a screenplay version of my novel first as an outline. With the dialogue and action already written in the screenplay, I turn to descriptive prose and shape the story into a novel.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I can’t remember anytime that I wasn’t a writer. One does not choose to be a writer. In fact, I would say most writers don’t “want” to be writers. That’s just who we are, we can’t help it. We may in fact hate the compulsion to write, since it takes us out of the social world and locks us into a private -- and sometimes lonely -- place.

There are times when I wish that I had some other passion, as writing is an exhausting process, both physically and emotionally. But words have power over me, and no matter how much I may want to resist, they summon me back to my writing desk. In Islam, creation comes from God using words. He says, “Be” and it is. It is therefore the power of the word that connects us back to our source, the ultimate creative force that imagined the universe into being. Words give me the fuel to live, to breathe. I cannot imagine doing anything else. Being a writer is more than a job. It is the essence of my soul.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
I would be planted six feet under the earth. Writing is life. If I could not write, I would be like a plant denied water and sunlight. I would wither away and disappear.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
Securing my first book deal after spending nearly six years desperately trying to get agents and publishers to look at my manuscript. There is nothing as fulfilling as a victory that is long in the making.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
There is nothing easy about being a writer. I have no idea how I do it, nor perhaps why. Writing is very much like channeling spiritual energy. It feels like a force greater than myself takes possession of me and moves my hand across the computer keyboard. I often read over my words and am shocked, because I have no memory of having written them. That is usually true with my best writing. And as a result, I can’t really take credit for the best of my work. My conscious mind has nothing to do with the act of creation. Something deeper, something far more ingenious than my limited human mind, is doing the work. I’m just renting it the use of my hands.

What’s the most difficult?
Surrendering to that force, that muse, that is doing the creative work. My conscious mind is terrified of giving up control, and I will procrastinate for hours, days and weeks, before the internal pressure becomes too great and I force myself to sit at my computer and start typing. And the moment that happens, I go into a trance and lose myself in the process. My conscious mind checks out and the muse takes over. Writing is truly a form of possession, no less terrifying than Linda Blair’s experience in The Exorcist. If I had a choice, I would never allow that surrender of my mind to another power. But I don’t have a choice. I was made for this purpose, so I guess I have to just suck it up and deal.

Please tell us about Mother of the Believers.
My first novel is a historical fiction tale that follows the birth of Islam from the perspective of Aisha, the teenage wife of Prophet Muhammad. I was inspired by Anita Diamant’s wonderful book The Red Tent, which tells the biblical story of Jacob and his 12 sons, the forefathers of Israel, from the point of view of the women in their lives. I wanted to do a similar style novel within the Islamic tradition.

Aisha is such a remarkable figure in Islam that it was a tremendous pleasure to write about her. She was a scholar, a poet, a statesman and ultimately a warrior who led armies into Iraq. And at the same time, Aisha was the Prophet’s closest confidante and most beloved wife, and he died in her arms. Aisha single-handedly shatters every stereotype of subservient Muslim women, and I hope that my book will serve as a starting point for a much-needed dialogue about the role of women in Islam.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I have a crush on Audrina Partridge from the MTV series The Hills.

Author Snapshot: Gordon Aalborg

Gordon Aalborg began his writing career as a reporter, columnist and bureau chief at The Edmonton Journal in his native Alberta, Canada. In the 1970s, he followed his muse to Australia where he spent many years as a freelance journalist, radio and television broadcaster, ultimately reinventing himself as bestselling romance author, Victoria Gordon.

Though Aalborg is back to writing under his own name, Victoria Gordon survives 20 books in. The most recent novel to be published under that name, 2004’s Finding Bess, was co-written by Aalborg and the author who is now his wife, Denise Dietz (Strangle A Loaf of Italian Bread), before they married. Aalborg and Dietz wrote the book via e-mail when he was still living in Tasmania and she was living in Colorado. “What a hoot -- she kept wanting to kill people off and I kept wanting to get them into bed together.”

While Aalborg became what may have been the first man to write serious category romance, I would suspect that the Victoria Gordon novels were not the books of his heart, romance or no. Aalborg’s own passion seems closer to the surface in books like the newly published Dining With Devils (Five Star). “Thriller writing is much, much more difficult,” than writing romances he has said.

Though Dining With Devils stands alone, it follows up 2004’s The Specialist, a novel Booklist said hit “the creepy jackpot with his villain, a transcontinental Hannibal Lector wannabe with an appetite for the well-muscled thighs of comely female cyclists.”

The protagonist in that book, Tasmanian Police Sergeant Charlie Banes, is back again in Dining With Devils. “Don't start it at night,” warns author Jeffrey Cohen (It Happened One Knife), in a blurb for Aalborg’s book. “You won’t get much sleep!”


A Snapshot of Gordon Aalborg...
Most recent book: Dining with Devils
Born: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Resides: Sidney, British Columbia, Canada.
Birthday: February 5th
Web site: gordonaalborg.com


What’s your favorite city?
I am not a city person, but if I had to choose: Hobart, Tasmania. I spent half my adult life in Australia and most of that in Tasmania, which I still think of as my spiritual home. Good people, good climate, spectacular scenery and world-class trout fishing.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Go bush. With fly rod.

What food do you love?
I am a dedicated carnivore.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Various and sundry TV dinners.

What’s on your nightstand?
I have no such animal.

What inspires you?
The work of other writers, usually much better than I am. And of course my esteemed wife, Denise Dietz, who is also a mystery writer. I was forced into the genre in self-defense after multi discussions about which was easier/harder to write, mystery or romance.

What are you working on now?
The third and perhaps last in my Tasmanian mystery/thriller series. I’ve been back in Canada nearly ten years now, and it’s time for a change. Might try fantasy if I live long enough.

Tell us about your process.
Get up, have morning coffee, indulge in evasive strategies such as checking news, weather, crossword puzzle, etc. Having exhausted all possible excuses not to write, I eventually confront my computer, review the last efforts, usually rewrite some part of that, and then carry on bravely.

Cannot plot as such. I begin with a vague concept and let the story (hopefully) tell itself. If I plot at all, it is more a matter of searching for ways to link individual episodes in my characters’ journeys.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
Books, more books, still more books, some pictures, in a messy office with a computer that rules my life when Deni isn’t doing that.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I’m not sure I ever wanted to be a writer. I fell into journalism at a tender age (long before there were computers), and it was downhill all the way after that. I woke up one morning and realized I was a storyteller. Once you realize that there is no going back -- you are doomed.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Tell stories in hell, probably to people who’ve heard them before. Or write the stories -- I’m positive computers were invented by the devil. Or not be able to tell stories -- that would be hell!

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
Going over the page proofs of Dining With Devils and finding myself generally pleased with it. Realizing I’ve actually learned something about story-telling, even if I won’t live long enough to learn it all.

The worst, strangely enough, was during my romance-writing heyday, when I got a huge royalty check one day, having done little for the previous six months, and found myself wondering: Is this all there Is to being a writer? Lots of money -- but no satisfaction!

In those days, Harlequin didn’t acknowledge that any man could write category romance. I went to [a Romance Writers of America] conference back in the 1980s with the admonition: “Keep your head down and your mouth shut and remember you don’t exist.” That is an awful situation for a writer. We all crave attention, recognition, balm for our fragile but outsized egos.

And in recent years I’ve been doing a lot of freelance editing, which gives me immense satisfaction along with equal frustration. But when it’s good, there is no greater joy than finding and helping to shape raw, genuine talent in someone who’ll be a significant writer, if they work at it hard enough, long after I’m dead.

I was -- just for the record -- Kelli Stanley’s editor for her Nox Dormienda (A Long Night for Sleeping) Bruce Alexander Memorial Mystery Award Winner at Left Coast Crime just recently. I bathe in her reflected glory and thank my lucky stars for having had the sense to recognize a damned good book in its infancy. Some of my other authors have gained crash-hot reviews, but this is the first to actually get an award ... and for a first book, too!

For you, what is the easiest thing about being a writer?
You get to be your own boss -- and everyone else’s.

What’s the most difficult?
You get to be your own boss.

About once a year I would sell my soul just to have somebody else make the decisions for a change. Thankfully, that doesn’t last more than about half a day. More seriously, I believe writing is something that gets more and more difficult the better you become at it, because the challenges never stop -- they run right over you without even slowing down.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
Deni often asks why I’m pestering her instead of doing my own work.

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
“If we offer to pay you enough, will you come to ??? and address/teach/discuss….?”

What question would you like never to be asked again?
“You’re a writer? Have I ever read your books?”

Please tell us about Dining With Devils.
As I said earlier, Dining With Devils is the second in what might or might not end as a trilogy. The book is a standalone, but follows on from my earlier book, The Specialist.

On a remote Tasmanian grazing property, a gundog judge is murdered, at first glance by a blind man shooting blanks at a dead pigeon in an incident seen but not understood by Police Sergeant Charlie Banes and his close friend, visiting Canadian author Teague Kendall. Kendall’s almost-lover, Kirsten Knelsen, an ardent caving enthusiast, is kidnapped elsewhere in Tasmania, with nothing to even suggest the two incidents might be related. Then Kendall himself goes missing.

It takes all of Charlie’s “country cop” skills to discover the links, which involve Kendall’s vengeful Tasmanian ex-wife, a psychotic, American-hating ex-Viet Nam sniper, and a killer believed to have been dead for more than a year.

The killer everyone thinks perished in a Canadian cave is seeking revenge on Kirsten, the woman who trapped him there and left him to die. This time -- as before -- he intends to have Kirsten for dinner, and when Kendall’s ex-wife contributes Kendall to the menu, the killer fairly drools with anticipation.

Charlie’s rush to save his friends and end the killing spree is a race against time through the eucalypt forests of Tasmania’s east-coast highlands. Aided by a cranky old bushman and his Jack Russell terrier, Charlie also has help from the ubiquitous Tasmanian devils ... world-class scavengers with their own ideas about appropriate table manners.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I’ll pass on that. If two people know something it isn’t a secret anymore.

Author Snapshot: Jill Mansell

While it’s possible you haven’t heard of Jill Mansell, that’s likely about to change. The Bristol-born author’s books have sold over three million copies in almost every place outside of North America. January Magazine caught up with her on the eve of her U.S. debut to ask her a few silly questions, a few important questions and a few that seemed designed to do little beyond determine what a good sport she is.

Twenty books into an exciting career, Sourcebooks today debuts An Offer You Can’t Refuse.

Says Booklist: “Mansell’s novel is the perfect read for hopeless romantics who like happily-ever-after endings.”



A Snapshot of Jill Mansell
Most recent book: An Offer You Can’t Refuse (Sourcebooks)
Born: Bristol, UK
Reside: Bristol, UK
Birthday: June 16th, many moons ago...
Web site: www.jillmansell.co.uk


What’s your favorite city?
Venice, Italy.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Gaze around in awe and wonder, and fall in love with the place all over again. Sit outside a café in St Mark’s square and people-watch. Take a trip along the Grand Canal. Get lost down narrow side-streets. Look in the windows of real estate agencies and wish I could live there.

It really is completely magical. One warning though, that teeny-tiny cup of coffee at the café in St Mark’s Square will probably set you back 25 dollars...

What food do you love?
I’m a huge potato fan. (I don’t mean I’m huge, I just love them a lot.) Roast potatoes, creamed potatoes, fries, chips, sliced and baked with heavy cream and cheese... I’ve never found a way of cooking a potato that I didn’t like!

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
I was doing back-to-back phone interviews from an Australian hotel room earlier this year. I was really hungry, so during the minute-long break between calls I ripped open the packet of wasabi-coated peanuts I’d saved from my flight on Singapore Airlines. Briefly pausing to wonder what wasabi might be, I emptied the packet into my mouth... and my head nearly exploded. I then had to do a live radio interview with my mouth on fire and sweat breaking out on my forehead, whilst acting as if nothing was wrong. I think we can safely say I shall be steering clear of wasabi in future.

What’s on your nightstand?
Books, lip-balm, nail file, alarm clock. What should also be there is a notepad and pen for those brilliant plot ideas that always occur to you in the middle of the night, but the moment I put them there, you can guarantee someone will come along and steal the pen. A member of the family, that is. I'm not implying a burglar will break in and make off with it.

What inspires you?
The fear that if I don’t produce a book, my publishers will demand their advance back, which would be awkward as I’ve already spent it. Then they’d dump me and I’d have to go back to working in the real world. And I’d really hate that to happen because I like it too much in this unreal one!

What are you working on now?
My current book is about a female limo driver -- I was being driven to an event last year and got chatting to my chauffeur, who told me such amazing stories about his job that I knew I’d have to put some of them in a book. Some snippets of gossip are just too good to pass up...

Tell us about your process.
I write by hand, with a Harley Davidson fountain pen. I write the book itself in A4 pads, and keep notes and plot ideas in beautiful decorative notebooks. Weirdly, my handwriting is completely different in the notebooks. My mum used to type the novels up for me. Now my daughter is doing it. This is why there are no explicit sex scenes! Plot-wise, I tend to know what’s going to happen in the next chapter or two, but that’s it. If I try to plan out a whole book before writing it, I’ll get better ideas as I go along, so there’s no point. It’s scarier but more fun to improvise.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
I’m writing this in bed, with a great view from the window of the sports ground beyond our garden. It can be distracting sometimes, having fit hunky men playing soccer and tennis out there all day long, but I just have to tolerate it!

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I used to write a lot when I was a kid but never imagined I’d get to do it for a living -- it was a fabulous dream, right up there with wanting to be Miss World and sob photogenically on stage in a swimsuit and diamond tiara.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
I’d go back to my old job -- I was an electroencephalographic technologist, which means I recorded the electrical activity in people’s brains. I worked in a neurological hospital for 18 years and loved it.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
The day my editor phoned to tell me that I was number one on The Sunday Times bestseller list. I burst into tears.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
Getting stuck in commuter traffic on the way to and from the hospital every day used to drive me nuts, so being able to work from home is an absolute joy.

What’s the most difficult?
Getting the book written is all down to me -- I can’t ask someone else to take over when I get to a tricky bit or realize I’ve made a hideous mistake that needs sorting out. I wish I could!

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
“Jill, my angel, would you pleeeease let me buy the film rights to your book and allow me to star in the movie?”

And I’d like George Clooney to be the one saying it.

What question would you like never to be asked again?
“Have you never wanted to write a serious book?”

(No, I haven’t wanted to! Never ever! Stop asking me!)

Please tell us about your most recent book.
It’s romantic comedy, feel-good fiction about a girl who runs a bookstore in London and is desperate to win back the love of her life. If you enjoy movies like Notting Hill and Four Weddings, you’ll like my book. And if you don’t like those kind of movies, you’ll really hate it!

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
George Clooney is madly in love with me and has asked me to marry him. But it’s a secret, so don’t tell anyone I told you.

Author Snapshot: Lisa Lutz

Comparisons seem inevitable, at least in part because no one seems exactly sure what kind of books she writes. Some have argued that they’re not mysteries simply because, well, they’re not all that mysterious. Yet the action takes place entirely around a fully dysfunctional family of private investigators who do PI work on each other just as a matter of natural course.

The family, of course, are the Spellmans and the comparisons all leave much to be desired. They do, however, instruct in one regard: if an author is repeatedly compared to Carl Hiassen and Janet Evanovich, you understand that the books in question are funny. And Lisa Lutz’ Spellman books are certainly that.

Lutz’ humor is darker than Hiassen’s, though. More subtle than Evanovich’s and more sophisticated than either of those authors. In some ways, these are the books Meg Cabot’s grown up readers have been waiting for. The gentle subversiveness that Cabot displayed in her earliest books for young adults is here, but overrun and run amok without the constraints that might be put on an author concerned with offending an audience… or their parents.

Lutz has said she wrote The Spellman Files, her first novel, after a movie script she’d worked on for a decade was made into a dreadful film. It’s a story she told engagingly in Salon in 2005.

After that experience, she vowed (though I can almost see the laughter in her eyes when she reads that “vowed”) to turn her writing to projects over which she would have full control. Clearly the results of that experiment have paid off... for all of us.

The third Spellman book, Revenge of the Spellmans (Simon & Schuster), is published today. A fourth is in progress and all of that is good news because a lot of us just can’t get enough of those crazy Spellmans.



A Snapshot of Lisa Lutz...
Most recent book: Revenge of the Spellmans
Born: As far as I know
Reside: San Francisco (for now)
Birthday: March 13th
Web site: lisalutz.com


What’s your favorite city?
I think it’s Edinburgh, Scotland.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
I don’t know. I’ve never been there.

What food do you love?
Licorice.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Poutine.

What’s on your nightstand?
NyQuil, aspirin, dust, an alarm clock, a lamp, some books.

What inspires you?
Coffee and fear of having a real job.

What are you working on now?
I’m “working” on the fourth book in the Spellman saga -- The Spellmans Strike Again.

Tell us about your process.
I’m a total computer girl -- can barely use a pen anymore. I’m the most lucid first thing in the morning and then I go downhill after that. I write until I feel my mind slipping and then I call it quits. I don’t outline in detail, but I keep a giant bulletin board and I feed it with index cards that can include anything from a joke to a major plot point. When I begin a novel, I just have a vague arc which I add to as I write. I use a daily word quota to keep me on point, as well as some mental threats. Sometimes I nap and hope that inspiration will hit me. I use booze only when necessary.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
A giant cement pillar, a computer, and a box of SpongeBob Band-Aids.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
When I realized that any other job I could get sucked.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Temping, most likely. Or motivational speaker.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
The day I got my first book deal.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
Work attire. I’ve always wanted a job where you can wear pajamas all day.

What’s the most difficult?
Touring. More specifically, the travelling/sleep deprivation part of book tours and the not-wearing-pajamas part.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
Are your novels autobiographical? (My mom likes to ask that question whenever she’s at a reading.)

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
“Can I buy you a drink?”

What question would like never to be asked again?
“Do you have your license and proof of insurance?”

Please tell us about Revenge of the Spellmans.
It’s the third installment of the Spellman series. My main character finds herself involved in therapy, blackmail, an SAT cheating scandal, and, well, revenge.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I refuse to answer that question.

Author Snapshot: Elizabeth Kelly

Elizabeth Kelly’s overnight sensation status need not come as a surprise: a magazine editor and award-winning journalist, Kelly has spent a lifetime wrangling words. That shows in her debut novel, Apologize, Apologize!, an in-depth visit with the dysfunctional Flanagans, an old money Massachusetts family with many branches and quite a lot of dogs. Apologize, Apologize! is charming, funny, accomplished and oddly muscular.

And it seems likely that Apologize, Apologize! will only be the beginning for this Ontario, Canada-based author. The book has thus far been sold to five countries and the film rights have been optioned by Daryl Roth and Richard Gladstein who produced Finding Neverland, The Bourne Identity, The Cider House Rules and others.

In her Author Snapshot, Kelly tells January Magazine that the easiest thing about being a writer is... writing, something she can’t imagine not doing.



Most recent book: Apologize, Apologize!
Born: Brantford, Ontario

What’s your favorite city?
I’m too untraveled to have a favorite city unless you count Hamilton [Ontario]. My favorite place isn’t a city but a beach town in southwestern Ontario called Long Point, miles and miles of practically deserted sand and surf. The poor man’s Malibu.

You only have six hours to spend there what do you do?
Sit on the beach and drink tea.

What food do you love?
Chocolate.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Chocolate.

What inspires you?
Other people’s courage.

What are you working on now?
The screen adaptation of Apologize, Apologize!

Tell us about your process.
Computer, computer, computer. I can’t remember how to write in longhand. Morning, noon and night, when I’m on a roll.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
When I was too little to formulate any sort of proper plan for my life -- eight, nine years of age, I knew I was going to be a writer.

If you couldn’t write books what would you be doing?
Probably not much of anything. Daydreaming and hoping someone else would do the healthy lifting. So, nothing -- or I would be a wildly celebrated performer in the musical theater.

What’s the easiest thing about being a writer?
Writing.

What’s the most difficult?
Getting paid.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
What’s your book about?

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
Has anyone ever told you that you look like Annette Bening?

What question would you like never to be asked again?
Has anyone ever told you that you look like Broderick Crawford?

Author Snapshot: Alan Bradley

Most recent book: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Born: Toronto, Ontario
Reside: Kelowna, British Columbia
Birthday: October 10th
Web site: www.flaviadeluce.com


What’s your favorite city?
London, England.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Squeeze in a visit to all of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s remaining churches. That’s a church an hour.

What food do you love?
Egg salad sandwiches.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Mushrooms.

What’s on your nightstand?
Conceit, by Mary Novik, and The Frozen Thames, by Helen Humphreys.

What inspires you?
What Peter Ackroyd (and others) have called “Albion” -- the idea of England as part of the collective imagination. Ackroyd wrote: “I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory, the place, the past speaks .... Just as it seems possible to me that a street or dwelling can materially affect the character and behaviour of the people who dwell in them, is it not also possible that within this city (London) and within its culture are patterns of sensibility or patterns of response which have persisted from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and perhaps even beyond?”

By observing myself, I can see that this sense extends not only throughout time, but through geographical space; that I am linked to England by more than genetics.

What are you working on now?
I’ve just finished the second book in the Flavia de Luce series, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. And begun work on the third.

Tell us about your process.
For me, inspiration springs from the thinking process. I might be ploughing through a rather dry old chemistry text, when I spot a certain suggestive phrase, such as “the egg shell will now be seen to assume a reddish tint,” and I think -- or rather Flavia thinks -- “Aha!”

As others have pointed out, plot springs from character, and character springs from plot, and they both spring from that kind of book-browsing inspiration. It’s rather like the recycling symbol: a circle of arrows that recycles, in itself, the idea of the alchemical Ouroboros, or Uroboros: the snake that swallows its own tail.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
Two cats cuddling, one teakettle boiling.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I began a novel at the kitchen table when I was five, but never got much past the first couple of paragraphs.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Reading books. For years I longed to be a theatre projectionist, but now I’ve done that.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
The moment when The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie won the Debut Dagger Award.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
The actual writing -- and the research.

What’s the most difficult?
Forcing myself to stop researching and get writing.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
“Do you actually get paid for doing this?”

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
“Would you be willing to provide a good home for a Steinway concert grand and a complete collection of Chums annuals?”

Please tell us about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
It’s a book about how far youthful idealism can carry you if it’s not stamped out, as it so often is. And besides that, I like to think that it’s a rattling good mystery, too -- the sort of book that makes you feel better when you’ve finished than you did when you started.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
That I share, with hawks, the ability to see into the ultraviolet part of the spectrum (at least, with one eye).

Author Snapshot: Maria Semple

Most recent book: This One Is Mine
Born: Los Angeles
Reside: Seattle
Birthday: May 21, 1964
Web site: www.mariasemple.com


What’s your favorite city?
Aspen, Colorado

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Anything, so long as I'm outside and covered with sunblock.

What food do you love?
What food don’t I love, is more the question. I'm a vegetarian and I consider bacon one of my favorite foods.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Chocolate chip cookies made substituting white sugar for brown sugar. I did this once. It was midnight and I had to eat something really bad for me, so imagine my good fortune to find a bag of chocolate chips in the cupboard. I went through all the ingredients and miraculously I had everything except brown sugar. It seemed harmless enough to use white sugar instead. Well, I don’t know what the chemistry of it was, but even the smell of them baking made me nauseous. I took one bite and I spent the whole next day vomiting. I have to stop writing about it, because I can taste it now.

What’s on your nightstand?
The galleys for Sarah Dunn’s new novel, Secrets to Happiness. It’s hilarious.

What inspires you?
Renouncing all praise and criticism. Knowing that I’m not special and the only way I can distinguish myself is by working hard.

What are you working on now?
My next novel. I’m so happy to be back writing after doing press for This One Is Mine. I love doing readings, and feel like it's important to honor you work by doing readings and press. But there’s nothing like succumbing to the madness of living in the world of your novel.

Tell us about your process.
I start every writing session copying poetry or part of a short story into a notebook. Then, I copy a random page of the dictionary. That gets me connected with words and the great writers who came before me.

I sketch out the scene I’m writing by hand, with a pencil on a yellow pad. When I get enough down, I move to the computer. In the larger sense, I’m a big believer in outlining and, as we say in TV, “breaking story.” Before I begin the novel, I know the big beats of the story, and where it’s going to end. I start my drafts at the beginning, and from there lots of cool stuff can pop up which can change everything, so I’m constantly revising the outline as I go.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
A fabulous map of Aspen, Colorado circa 1893. My next book takes place in Aspen and so I hung a map of the town across from my computer.

Out the window is Elliot Bay. Container ships and the Bainbridge ferry are doing their things. It’s actually sunny today.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
My father was a writer. And I idolized him. So I never thought about becoming anything else.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Being an executive assistant. I’m very organized and like being in the whirl of things, but don’t necessarily want the responsibilities and focus that comes with the whirl. Anytime there’s somebody I admire, I never think, “I want to be that person.” I usually think, “I want to be that person's assistant.”

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
When I got the call that Little, Brown wanted to buy my novel. I hung up and went downstairs to tell my boyfriend. On the way, I passed my daughter’s room. She was three at the time. I saw all her little dresses hanging from her closet and I thought, “Her mother is a novelist.”

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
The writing! I’m sorry to say that, but I really do love figuring out the story and the characters and the sentences.

What’s the most difficult?
Finding the time to write.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
How much of that is autobiographical?

What question would like never to be asked again?
Has Oprah read your book, because that would be really good for you, if your book got picked by Oprah.

Please tell us about This One Is Mine.
It’s a modern-day Victorian novel about marriages and relationships in LA. It’s funny and serious and passionate and surprising. People seem to really like it.

Author Snapshot: Marie-Louise Gay

Most recent book: On the Road Again! (with David Homel)
Born: Québec City
Reside: Montréal
Birthday: June


What’s your favorite city?
Montréal, of course.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
I live in Montréal. In the summer I might cycle to the top of the mountain, le Mont-Royal, which is in the center of Montréal, have an ice-cream cone and enjoy the view of my city floating on the St. Lawrence River. In the winter I might cross-country ski or skate on the Mont-Royal.

What food do you love?
Wild salmon. Pesto. Fresh raspberries.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Grasshoppers.

What’s on your nightstand?
Piles and piles of books.

What inspires you?
Traveling. Reading. Music. Colours and light.

What are you working on now?
A lot of different things: a puppet play for children; a poster for a Festival of theater, art and music for children; a new book project...

Tell us about your process.
I work every day from eight in the morning to the middle of the afternoon. I let my thoughts wander as I sketch little storyboards or characters that I am developing. As a story starts to take form, my drawings get more and more precise, and they, in turn influence the story. And after months of this creative doodling, many ideas and sketches thrown away or redone, a book is born.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
Out the window, all the trees in my yard are encased in ice and shining in the sun. In my studio I am surrounded by hundreds of books, plants, sketches and interesting pictures pinned to the walls; seashells, sandollars, starfish on my windowsill, paintbrushes, pens, coloured pencils in jars, paints, pastels and so on...

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
In my late 20s, after illustrating for a decade, I thought I could try my hand at writing also. I fell in love with the process.

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
I would either be an actress (actually, I was a child actress) or an architect.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
I am most happy at the very beginning of writing and illustrating a story, when absolutely everything is possible.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
There is nothing easy about being a writer or an illustrator.

What’s the most difficult?
When you are lost in your story and cannot find your way out.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
“Which is your most favorite book that you have written ?”
“Where do you get your ideas?”

Please tell us about your most recent book.
On the Road Again! is the second novel I have written with my husband David Homel. A family of four, two parents who are writers and artists and their two boys, Charlie and Max, have fantastic adventures while traveling off the beaten track. This time the family lives in a small village in France for a year. The eldest boy tells the story and comments with great humour upon their new life, their adventures and how his parents totally embarrass him.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I can’t, because then everyone would know.

Author Snapshot: Laura Benedict

Most recent book: Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts
Born: Cincinnati, Ohio
Reside: Southern Illinois
Birthday: July 2
Web site: laurabenedict.com


What’s your favorite city?
I’ve never been there, but I think it would probably be Florence, Italy.

You only have six hours to spend there. What do you do?
Visit the Uffizzi, the Galleria (where Michelangelo’s David is), and the Ponte Vecchio.

What food do you love?
Dark chocolate.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Olives. My grandfather was mad for them and I tried to eat them many times when I was little so I could be like him. But I gave up after he died because, really, it probably never mattered to him whether I liked them or not.

What’s on your nightstand?
A half-chewed WWII plastic army guy (the puppy did the chewing, not me), a booklight that needs new batteries, two fresh tissues, an alarm clock, a dental appointment card from three months ago and the following books: The Bible, Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables; For Your Eyes Alone: The Letters of Robertson Davies; David Corbett, Blood of Paradise; Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger, The Letters; Collected Poems of WB Yeats; Joyce Carol Oates, Mysteries of Winterthurn; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Palmistry; Seamus Heaney, District and Circle (poems); Michelle Gagnon, Boneyard.

What inspires you?
My children, the woods, music, artwork and good writing. Dreams. My intense desire to be able to afford fashionable clothes.

What are you working on now?
A horror novel based on the tale of The Gingerbread Man

Tell us about your process.
Definitely a “pantser” and not a “plotter.” I start with a strong image, then depend on my characters and the setting to lead me from there. I would be lost without a computer, though I’m not tied to a particular one. Sometimes, if I feel like I need to be more intimate with a scene, I’ll write it out in pencil in a notebook. I have a stack of eight or nine spiral notebooks of various sizes in a drawer at hand -- notes on stories and novels are scattered throughout them, though I usually settle into one when I get going on a novel. But there are also grocery lists, volunteer notes from the last couple Thrillerfests, dreams I’ve had, phone numbers and notes on my income taxes.

Lift your head and look around. What do you see?
Myself in my hairstylist’s mirror, my head beneath a big domed hair drier: no makeup, much of my hair in little foily thingys, a stuffed monkey, a bag of chocolate and hair stylist paraphernalia.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I had the first hint that I wanted to be a writer in 1985. I was sitting in my studio apartment near Washington University in St. Louis and I suddenly began writing a monologue for a woman who might have been a deranged character from a Tennessee Williams play. The apartment building, a bizarre art deco confection called The Castlereagh, had certainly been there when Williams lived in U City, so maybe he was looking over my shoulder. I confess that I have a weakness for Southern Gothic, so, maybe...

If you couldn’t write books, what would you be doing?
Perhaps living under permanent psychiatric observation or playing solitaire for hours at a time on my computer or working as a caterer or studying the habits of raptors.

To date, what moment in your career has made you happiest?
Finding out that the paperback reprint of Isabella Moon will be featured in Target beginning in mid-February. Target is my happy place.

For you, what is the easiest thing about being writer?
Revising.

What’s the most difficult?
Reading unpleasant reviews of my work. I’m all for hearing someone’s thoughts on my writing, even if they’re not crazy about it. I know my work won’t please/amuse/entertain everyone. But some reviewers seem to take a distinct pleasure in being particularly cruel. Now, I understand that I’ve put the work out there so folks get to say whatever they want. But it hurts sometimes and, yes, it can make me cry.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
How can you write the stories you write? You look like such a nice person!

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
Why aren’t there any talking animals in your work? (I’m working on it!)

What question would like never to be asked again?
Do you think you’ll get to be on Oprah?

Please tell us about Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts.
It’s the story of three women who told a very cruel lie about a handsome priest back when they were teenagers and ruined his life and career. The priest takes his revenge by enlisting the aid of a demon (Satan himself, if you like) to wreck their lives. It’s not a book for children or the easily offended. It contains much sex and violence and disturbing imagery. Then again, it’s a horror novel and horror novels are supposed to, well, horrify.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.
I’ve never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show.