The Purloined Skull
The Purloined Skull is my first mystery, and I'm using twisted Edgar Allan Poe titles for the series, which I'm thinking about calling A Twist of Poe. By the time the second book comes out I'll have decided on the series title. For years I was a feature writer for a rural weekly newspaper and met some unusual and wonderful people and covered plenty of stories. They are the fodder for this series, though the mystery itself will be fiction, since not many crimes occur in small Arkansas counties.
The main characters are an investigative reporter, Jessie West, who has come home to lick her wounds after ruining her successful career in Los Angeles, and Dallas Starr, a burnt out undercover narc who left Dallas to find a peaceful existence as the crime scene investigator for the Grace County sheriff's department. He arrives the day a marijuana farmer's dogs dig up a skeleton, minus it's head, and immediately clashes with Jessie who is already on the scene taking pictures. She turns his head in a big way, but this isn't going to work, since he hates reporters. Solving the crime turns out to only be a part of the mystery, for finding the skull is the dangerous job.
You live out in the woods in Arkansas, so how inspirational is this for your writing?
Very much so. I don't get many interruptions, for no one comes to the door, not even on Halloween. Only deer, coons, foxes, and an occasional black bear or bobcat wander through and they don't bother to knock. I seldom write about city dwellers, even in my western historical romances, so the ambiance is perfect for setting the mood for my writing.
How important is it to you to have peace and quiet for your writing time?
Must be pretty important, even though I enjoy music, I never listen while I'm writing. I have a sign that reads, Do Not Disturb, Writer at Work. A fellow worker at the newspaper made it for me years ago. My husband knows not to disturb me, as I might be in a crucial scene and he could get somebody killed.
What attracts you to historical fiction?
That began when my publisher at the newspaper set up a page for a column for me, telling me that I was always telling people's family history when I interviewed them, so why didn't I begin a historical column. So I did and I've been beguiled by history ever since. I began to collect old photos and now have a bank box completely filled with them. Life in the 1800s was tough but adventuresome and I read a lot of women's diaries from that time. Though I would never survive such a life, it intrigues me.
Why did you decide in 1983 to sit down and write your first novel?
One rainy Sunday while my husband was reading, he reads all the time, I began thinking about what was in the news so much at the time. It was about so many Vietnam Veterans suffering from what is now called PTSD. I wondered why the women who loved these men weren't being discussed, so I started writing by hand about a woman who falls in love with a man who has spent years in a POW camp and come home so damaged he can't function in today's world. I spent about six months researching and was brought to tears so many times. Yeah, quite a subject to pick for my first go at writing. That book led me to help form a writer's group that is still going strong today. It earned me an agent eventually, but he failed to sell it. I now have a publisher who is publishing what they are calling Vintage Books and they are interested.
You had to learn how to develop the craft of writing by yourself, so how did you teach yourself to get to the stage of publishing quality?
That writer's group I mentioned. None of us knew anything, and there was no Internet either. One of us, whoever could afford it, would attend a writer's conference, take lots of notes, pick up handouts and share with the group, about five or six of us at the time. We continued doing that, picking brains of published writers wherever we could find them. And we helped each other over the years. Two of us were first published in the same year, 1993. In 1994 I was asked to teach writing the romance for the University of Arkansas Adult Education Program. So I guess I learned well.
Why have you decided to turn to E book publishing now?
All my books published by Penguin had gone out of print after all the publishing houses in New York merged into the big 6. My editor was gone and so was I. I went into regional nonfiction and had several historical books published. Then I decided to get back the rights to the six books I had published out of New York. Kindle was growing and many of us decided to take all our back list books and publish them to Kindle. I have since published an original novella there, but for the most part I continue to contract with publishers, the smaller ones and those print books are also offered as E Books. I don't know if I would ever do much self-publishing. I like having a publisher who does the covers, final editing, and helps me with promotion. I now have three small publishers and like all of them.
Who do you most like to read?
I like to read James Lee Burke mysteries, Craig Johnson contemporary western mysteries, Larry McMurtry westerns, Stephen King Horror, lots of thrillers. I don't have much time to read and do most of it on my Kindle, and also enjoy listening to audio books. I have a couple of books on audio myself and am planning on putting all my back list there when I get time.
What is next for you?
I'm rewriting that first novel, the Vietnam story, titled Beyond the Moon. I just finished the second in my Victorian romance series set in Kansas, and I hope to see it out next year. I have a book coming out the end of this month, a mainstream women's fiction called Once There Were Sad Songs from The Wild Rose Press. And I have a second mystery in mind for the Twist of Poe series with Oak Tree Press. That will keep me busy for another year or so. See, the thing is, I'm afraid I won't get everything written before either my fingers or brain give out, so I'm in a hurry.