Tag: Interview Page 11 of 18

I posted about the eighth Marty Singer novel, Chasing the Pain earlier this morning, and now I have a Q&A with the author, Matthew Iden to share with you. I had a harder time than I’m used to coming up with spoiler-free questions for this book, but think I pulled it off. I enjoyed this, hope you do, too.

Help us get to know you a bit—could you sketch out your path to publication and where the Marty Singer series came from?

After several frustrating years scaling the walls of traditional publishing only to be pushed off the parapet, I turned to self-publishing when it was still just a gleam in Jeff Bezos’s eye, about 2010 or so. I was lucky enough to have some immediate success with sales, but more importantly I realized what the important stuff was: connecting with readers, getting feedback, telling my story. It was empowering to see people who were not my mother actually appreciate my writing—this is the core piece of advice I give writers on the fence about self-publishing: as corny as it sounds, reaching readers is its own reward.

After three or four years, I’d done well enough to catch the eye of Thomas & Mercer—Amazon Publishing’s mystery and thriller imprint. They picked up all of my Marty Singer books (six at the time) and contracted for two standalone thrillers, which became THE WINTER OVER and BIRTHDAY GIRL.

The blush eventually came off the romance, but we parted amicably. I regained the rights to my Marty Singer series and self-published them, then added two more to the pile (THE BITTER FIELDS and CHASING THE PAIN).

The idea for Marty as a character came from my desire to write about a “real” individual. I love the Jack Reachers of the literary world, but I have a very hard time writing about them. I identify much more with Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander: solid, unvarnished, relatable.

I imagine that bringing back a character from a previous novel (at least one not designed to be a recurring character) is a tricky proposition—what came first, the desire to write more about Karl and this storyline lent itself to that, or the idea to do something with the “rehab industry” and he was a convenient way into that?

I really wanted to return to Karl. I make a few passing comparisons to him in CHASING THE PAIN as a King Pellinore-type figure: an aging, knight-errant who can’t seem to catch up with his own reason for being. Presenting him as someone with a substance abuse problem helped me solidify that framework; showing him dealing with his vices and corresponding fallout gave his story more substance.

I like to ask about supporting characters, and have at least a dozen things I’d enjoy asking about Madame Cormier (starting with: when can we expect a spin-off?), but something tells me that we can’t do that without ruining something for the readers. So, let’s go with Don D’Amelio instead. Where did he come from? He has certain, shall we say, sanguinary impulse that a lot of writers wouldn’t have given him—was that a little fun to write?

Watching Don come to life was a hoot. He started out fictional life as a sad-sack wasting his golden years sipping espresso and reading the sports page. Originally, his only function was to give Marty some more info about the rehab industry—what we call a “spear carrier” in the writing biz. But when I realized I needed a side-kick for my side-kick, I just went all-in and couldn’t stop laughing at how, uh, sanguinary I could make him.

Regarding Madame: you’re like the fourth person who’s wanted more. I think I might take the hint! I had a great time watching him come to life.

You’ve written in a handful of genres—are there any you wouldn’t want to try? What is it about Crime Fiction that brings you back to it?

I don’t have an interest in writing romance. Not because it isn’t a “real” genre, because the romance writers I know are some of the sharpest, hardest-working writers in the business, but just from a simple interest perspective: the stories don’t click with me and I can’t write what I don’t read.

Actually, my first love is fantasy, then science fiction, then crime fiction, but the world-building required of F/SF can be quite intimidating; my first attempts were dismal. Now that I have some writing experience under my belt, I have plans to go back and try my hand at a trilogy or three, but I’ve also come to love what I can do with crime fiction and won’t be abandoning it.

Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm” (a game I’ve recently invented). What are 3-5 books whose readers may like Chasing the Pain?

I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want CHASING THE PAIN sitting next to Elmore Leonard’s GOLD COAST on someone’s bookshelf. CTP is not as caper-ish as Gold Coast, but I think there’s a similar flavor and not just in the setting.

Robert B. Parker’s Spenser is really the ur-private investigator so many of us try to emulate, not just for the tough guy persona, but the humor. LOOKING FOR RACHEL WALLACE would probably please the same kind of reader.

And, as long as I’m getting too big for my writing britches, I might as well throw in James Lee Burke’s BLACK CHERRY BLUES and James Crumley’s THE LAST GOOD KISS.

What’s next for Matthew Iden?

I’m about two-thirds done with a standalone spy novel (working title: SCIMITAR) set in modern-day Paris that occurred to me during a vacation there. I’ve struggled with it for almost two years now while I’ve written other things, but it’s time to get this one done. I’m pretty excited to see how it wraps up…because then I’ll feel free to write Marty #9 or Madame #1.

Thanks to Matthew Iden for his time and these answers!

A Few Quick Questions with D. B. Borton

By HCNewton

On December 17, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Can you describe your initial path to publication with these books, and why are you reissuing them now?

I had been reading a mystery featuring an older woman detective, and the stereotypical portrayal just made me angrier and angrier. I threw the book against the wall and told myself, “I can do better.”

I wrote the book and signed on with an agent, who told me that she’d found the first chapter so hilarious that she’d read it to her sister over the phone. A year passed and I didn’t hear anything from my agent. Meanwhile, my cherished 18-year-old feline companion died (the book is dedicated to her). The grief opened a hole in my life that swallowed everything, including my writing aspirations, and I asked myself why I’d ever thought anyone would want to read my writing. The day after I hit bottom, I pulled myself together, sniveled my way over to the bookstore, and bought a book called How to Write a Mystery. The next day, my long-lost agent called to say that she was very close to selling the book to Berkley. I think the same first chapter sold the book to my editor at Berkley, who, as it turned out, also edited the series about an older woman detective that had made me so angry to begin with.

The first chapter never appeared in the final book. In it, the 59-year-old protagonist got her period in a department store dressing room, and had an epiphany: if Mother Nature couldn’t provide her with the Change of Life, she would have to make her own change. Some early readers advised Berkley against including it.

As for why I’m reissuing the series now, the economics of independent publishing has a lot to do with it. Series tend to be more profitable than single books. That’s the economic answer. But this series has always inspired a strong loyalty in many readers, who seem to identify with the protagonist. Over the years, I’ve continued to receive the occasional inquiry from a fan (or a fan’s daughter) looking for a complete set.

The community that Cat builds (or finds building around her?) in the apartment that ends up giving assistance and support to her is a frequent feature in female P.I. novels. Is there a particular reason for that, what is it about a female P.I./P.I.-type protagonist that lends itself to that in a way that your typical male P.I. doesn’t? How did you pick your residents of Catatonia Arms?

Interesting question. Women have, of course, traditionally done the cultural work of community building, so I suppose their take on detective fiction reflects that. But when I think of the classic writers, that strong sense of community isn’t there. Miss Marple is strongly identified with St. Mary Mead, and she often finds mystery when she’s off visiting friends, but the recurring characters are few. Girl detectives, on the other hand, have been embedded in communities since the modern girl detective emerged in L. Frank Baum’s Mary Louise series. At first, girls weren’t taken seriously as readers (or purchasers of detective novels), but when they were, publishers wanted to reflect the experiences and interests of their readers. So like Nancy Drew, Bess, and George, girl detectives have always traveled in packs, or at least in pairs.

I’m not really sure how I picked the residents of the Catatonia Arms, except to say that they all bring special knowledge and skills with them. Adding a retired cop at the end of the first book really completed that skill set while giving Cat an older ally against the young people.

There are a number of characters I’d like to ask you about, but I’m going to limit myself to Phyl Stinger, was there a particular historical inspiration for her? If not, just where did she come from?

I guess she’s a composite of several Hollywood screenwriters I’d read about and my imagination — writers like Frances Marion, Anita Loos, and June Mathis. I imagined that they’d have to have been tough as nails to survive in Hollywood.

I loved the way that Cat drew from her reading to guide her through her investigation/expectations of the P.I. job/wardrobe. Unless I’m mistaken, Spenser was the most prominent source of inspiration—is that because of something about the character himself, or given the time period, was he just the easiest to reference? Is there someone you wanted to work in a reference to, but couldn’t quite fit in?

I’d say that Robert B. Parker was a big influence on me. He’s a male writer who created the kind of community you were talking about around his male P.I. Spenser. The Spenser books have a lot of heart, and they’re very funny. Later books in the series reference other fictional detectives, like Kinsey Millhone, V. I. Warshawski, and Kinky Friedman.

Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm” (a game I’ve recently invented). What are 3-5 books whose readers may like One for the Money?

Oh, I like this game! As someone who’s always looking for comparable authors for advertising purposes, I’d love to hear what other people would say. A recent reviewer said that fans of Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone would like it, and I’d agree. Also fans of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody and, of course, Christie’s Miss Marple. Jana Deleon’s Miss Fortune series features some older women detectives who are a lot of fun.

What’s next for D. B. Borton?

I’ve been working on a standalone about a librarian who inherits a fortune, a valuable library, and a dangerous mission to return a handful of library books. I’m also planning to reissue the rest of the Cat Caliban books. And I’ve started thinking about a new Cat Caliban.

Thanks for your time, and this fun read, I’m looking forward to working my way through the rest of the series

A Few More Quick Questions with Gray Basnight

By HCNewton

On December 9, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Not only do I really appreciate Basnight’s taking the time to do this, but Lisa Weiss, the publicist who got me this book has been very helpful and encouraging. I wanted to thank her, too. This is one of the best sets of Answers I’ve received to my Questions, I hope you enjoy it, too.

The last time we did a Q&A, you said you were finishing a sequel to Flight of the Fox, I assume it was this, what was it about Sam Teagarden that made you want to write a sequel about him (an idea that Sam himself jokes about)? Is there a third book for the professor?

There are two reasons Sam Teagarden puts in this reappearance in Madness of the Q. The first was reader feedback. In fact, this sequel is dedicated to those readers who wanted another roller coaster ride with my mathematics professor, who’s dubbed by the media as the “American Prometheus.”

The second reason is the Q Document. The inspiration for the story came several years ago while listening to a Great Courses audio lecture about the New Testament. When the professor casually mentioned something called the Quelle Document (German for “Source”) as being a theorized long missing source for parts of Matthew and Luke, I pegged onto it as a potential “what if” fictional scenario. What if The Quelle Document were discovered in our time. And an even bigger “what if’ — what if the document said something from the founding days of Christianity that certain groups didn’t want it to say, and what if it said something that certain opposing groups did want it to say? Well, my guess is that all hell would break loose. So, in Madness of the Q, it does – fictionally, of course!

As for a third book, we shall see. If there’s sufficient demand from readers and/or the publisher, I’ll certainly consider it. I do have a nascent idea. All I will say is, I like Puerto Rico and perhaps there’s a reason for Teagarden to end up there. It’s a wonderful and adventurous island filled with good people, good food, and plenty of potential for a fictional thriller.

What kind of research went into this book? What’s the one thing you learned and, try as you might, you just couldn’t bring into the book?

Once I learned about the Q Document, I began reading up on the theory that it might actually have existed but was lost, and may someday be found. Not all biblical scholars agree, of course. But those who believe that it is an extant missing source for two of the Synoptic Gospels are both faith based and secular based, which intrigued me.

I also re-read a wonderful book first published in 1841 and still in print today. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay is occasionally called the first pop-psych book to explore crowd think. It dovetailed nicely with my “all hell breaks loose” theme, so I wove it into the title and quoted Mackay as the epigraph:

Men, it has been well said, think in herds;
it will be seen that they go mad in herds,
while they recover their senses slowly,
and one by one.

As for what was left on the cutting room floor, I felt a need to have Teagarden’s spouse Cynthia, be more of a partner. They met in Flight of the Fox and she became an important ally in many ways. Unfortunately, she couldn’t join him in the sequel because he’s on a solo run through Israel and Europe and there was no way around that. Thus, I invented imaginary conversations between the two to help him get through the roughest days, and justified the technique as a product of his stress. Thus far, most reader feedback has been positive with this approach.

I think most of us readers can guess some of these, but would you talk about the challenges in featuring someone of Teagarden’s age in a thriller (particularly those you didn’t expect)?

You mean the fact that he’s older than the average thriller protagonist? Yes, indeed. He turned 50 in Flight of the Fox which makes him 56 in Madness of the Q.

The principal challenge is to convince the reader that someone of that age is still sufficiently vigorous to take on dark forces. This is important to me. The older I get, the more convinced I am of an age bias built into American culture and our collective way of thinking (to which I was admittedly guilty of in my younger years).

Sam is however highly qualified for the job in both thrillers. His first gig out of college was a desk job at the CIA as an entry-level code analyst. It was so boring he quit after one year. He then became a mathematics professor who is highly skilled in the art of encryption and decryption.

Aside from his age, Teagarden does not have a black belt and knows very little about firearms. So, both his age and his lack of fighting skills may challenge a reader’s expectation of the formulaic run-for-your-life character.

I intentionally made all these choices to construct a character far less Jason Bourne and more of an Everyman. If readers are unbothered by his age, I’ve succeeded. If readers who are a little bothered by his age but stick with the narrative because the momentum carries them to its conclusion, I’ve still succeeded.

There’s a time jump between the two books, putting this one into our near future. How fun was it speculating about 2025 tech—and how hard was it not to go too crazy with it?

It was great fun. I have no desire to be a sci-fi writer, so there was no difficulty in not getting carried away. But I really enjoy casting into the near-term future and imagining where foreseeable technology is going based on where it has been.

For example, God Glasses. In the story, God Glasses allow a type of Superman x-ray vision. That may not happen anytime soon, but we already have the technology for video cameras to be built into eyeglass frames.

Another is public pop-ups. Web based pop-up ads annoy me, umm, a whole lot. It happens because neither the advertiser nor the website proprietor cares about the irritation factor – and for plenty of people, it’s an exasperating reality but one they mostly just accept. Given that, let’s get ready for the same to happen in public. In the novel, Sam Teagarden and his wife have researched airfare to the Bahamas. Later, when he’s on a public sidewalk, the wi-fi gear attached to a giant billboard reads the credit card in his wallet and suddenly Sam’s image and name appear on the billboard as the advertiser stalks his movements in the effort to sell him a trip to the Bahamas. If this ever happens in reality, pro-privacy forces will naturally object. I’m certain, however, they’ll lose that fight because the vast majority of people will find it really cool to see their mug on a billboard, even if only for a few seconds.

Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm” (a game I’ve recently invented). What are 3-5 books whose readers may like Madness of the Q?

Well, I’m going to share the books mentioned by several of the early reviewers, and the ones that inspired me to try my hand at thrillers:

Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series
Dan Brown’s Langdon series
Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca, by Ken Follett
Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco

And I’d be remiss for not giving a humble plug to the prequel:

Flight of the Fox, by Gray Basnight (that’s me!)

What’s next for Gray Basnight? Any progress on that YA novel you mentioned before?

Thank you so much for asking about my YA! I love it and remain committed to its commercial prospects. Authoritative persons have recently advised me that it likely fits more neatly into Middle Grade, which means substantial rewriting, including the need to adjust the age of Junior Benét, the central character – a schoolgirl with a genius IQ who gets caught up in a dangerous adventure in New York City.

Presently I’m working on a crime novel, though I’m not sure how to classify it with more specificity. It’s drawn from my appreciation of both Quentin Tarantino and Elmore Leonard and my love for the classic Sergio Leone movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. When finished, it will likely have emphatic elements of humor and romance. And, by the way, it too is set about five years into the future.

Thanks for your time — and thanks for some more time with Sam Teagarden, I really enjoyed it, and hope you have plenty of success with it.

Thank you so much for this Q&A. Great questions and lots of fun to spend time with you again.

Even More Quick Questions With…Nick Kolakowski

By HCNewton

On October 6, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Nick Kolakowski

Wow, Nick Kolakowski is back for a fourth go ’round with my questions. I’m a major fan, and really enjoy these. I hope you do, too. Be sure to check out my take on his upcoming novel, Rattlesnake Rodeo earlier today.

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How has 2020 treated Nick Kolakowski the writer—have you been able to work? Are you finding writing time vanishing into doom-scrolling or binging something? Is there a pandemic novel in your near future?

When New York City went into lockdown, I threw myself into writing and editing. It became my coping mechanism, to such a degree that I had to step away a bit a few months later. First I poured my energy into “Lockdown,” a charity anthology of horror and crime stories that I co-edited for Polis Books; proceeds went to support BINC, which is helping booksellers through this weird time. With that completed, I finished work on “Absolute Unit,” a horror novella coming out next year from Crystal Lake Publishing; I’d started writing it last year, well before the pandemic, but it has some uncomfortable echoes with what’s happening now—mass infection is a big theme. By that point, I was pretty fritzed out, so I started trying to balance out the schedule; less writing, more actually getting outside.

How was it coming back from the dystopian-SF/Crime of Maxine Unleashes Doomsday to something very contemporary, very non-SF?

It felt good! With contemporary crime fiction, you don’t have quite the same pressure of world-building as you do with sci-fi and dystopian fiction. That being said, I did struggle with the plot of “Rattlesnake” a bit—for the longest time, I had the first two-thirds written, but couldn’t figure out a way to end it that really came together.

As much as I enjoy Frankie, Jake, and Janine—the character that keeps hanging out in the back of my mind is The Monkey Man. (Shockingly, a criminal always wearing a rubber gorilla mask is memorable!) Where did he come from? Too much time spent listening to The Traveling Wilburys? I’d imagine there’d be a big temptation to go wild with the character, but you kept him fairly low-key and reserved over these two books. How’d you resist?

The Wilburys were the inspiration for the name. And there was a lot of temptation to unleash him in a particularly messy/funny/creative way. What held me back was, of all things, Hannibal Lecter.

Specifically, when I was writing “Rattlesnake,” I was also watching both Hannibal Lector movies, and what I noticed was that Hannibal was a more effective character the less he was shown doing. He’s an incredibly powerful character in “Silence of the Lambs,” but aside from talking, he doesn’t do terribly much beyond his brief escape at the end; his power comes from his reputation. In the sequel, by contrast, he’s doing lots of things, and that drains the mystique from the character; he becomes something of a hammy joke. So that curbed my impulses to do something grand with Monkey Man.

Sometimes I think I resisted that impulse a little too much, though. Someone who dresses like that is no doubt capable of some freaky shit.

Jake’s wife, Janine, is never the focus of these books, but I think she has the most interesting arc over the course of these two novels. Somehow, she and Jake have managed for years to keep her pretty isolated from his world. But in the few days these two books cover, all that’s gone away, and she reacts better than Jake (and probably Janine herself) expects. Why tell that story in the midst of all the action and chaos? Was there a version where she gets overwhelmed by everything and can’t adapt to the circumstances?

Nope! In so many thrillers, there’s this cliché of a civilian character (whether the wife, daughter, husband, etc.) who falls apart completely under stress, and I wanted to steer away from that as hard as I could. Janine’s ability to deal with the situation, I felt, also gave some additional nuance to Jake and Frankie—they’re so tough that they can’t grasp that someone like Janine, who doesn’t have any criminal or combat experience, might be totally adaptable to a hard situation; it’s a huge blind spot that reveals something about their egos.

It’s one thing for authors to make specific geographic references in New York City—most non-New Yorkers have enough of a grasp of that area to mostly understand them. To a lesser extent that’s true of LA, Chicago, Boston, etc. But in Rattlesnake Rodeo, you throw around references to the Boise-area like a native, 97% of which are going to mean nothing to anyone not from around here. Is there a risk in that? Yeah, it’s a very authentic feel, but does the authenticity outweigh the potential alienation of someone from another part of the country/world? Or in the age of a search engine, does that not matter?

I’m not sure there’s a risk in it. This summer, I read S.A. Cosby’s “Blacktop Wasteland” and David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s “Winter Counts,” both excellent thrillers/mysteries that take place in areas not well-trod by most crime fiction (rural Virginia and a Native American reservation, respectively). Both of those books have tons of esoteric detail about those locations, and it adds a lot of nice texture to the narrative. I look at “Rattlesnake” (and “Boise Longpig Hunting Club”) the same way—a substantial portion of the audience is never going to go to Nyssa or any of those towns along the Snake River; they’re never going to swing by Fanci Freez, which has some of the nation’s finest milkshakes; but hopefully all the detail gives them a sense of place.

As usual, I’ve got to ask, what’s coming down the pike? Are you far enough into your next book to talk about it?

“Absolute Unit,” a horror novella told from the perspective of a sentient parasite living inside the body of a corrupt health inspector, is the next one (mid-2021)! Then after that, there’s another novella, “Payback is Forever,” that should come out from Shotgun Honey in late 2021. The latter is my attempt at a classic Chandler-style thriller, although there’s a contemporary twist to it that the audience will hopefully never see coming.

Thanks for your time—and thanks for another great ride with Jake and Frankie!

A Few Quick Questions With…Ronald Hera

By HCNewton

On May 3, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, Theology/Christian Living

A little bit ago, I posted about the novel Bethlehem’s Brothers, and now it’s time for a few questions with the author, Ronald Hera, who was gracious enough to give me a little of his time.

Tell us about your road to publication—was your plan/dream always to become a novelist and your education/other jobs were just to get you to this point, or was this a later-in-life desire?

I wrote technical papers occasionally for the SAE and enjoyed it, but the idea of writing for publication came when I was about to retire and wondered what I would do to pass the time. Writing has been good for me.

Most authors have dozens of ideas bouncing around their craniums at once—what was it about this idea that made you say, “Yup—this is the one for me.”? What kind of research did you do to prepare for it?

I have three books started now. One is a bad idea and I’ll probably not write that one. But two are promising ideas and are going smoothly. They are more like mystery/action novels. Bethlehem’s Brothers came to my head for two reasons. I see people moving away from their Christian roots and that bothers me. I wanted to show the struggles that went into deciding to be a Christian during the first century. In Jerusalem’s Brothers, I wanted to show how difficult it was during the early persecution and finally in Brothers Forever, the fall of Jerusalem and who the Essenes were.

My research comes from The Complete Works of Josephus, Studies in the Life of Christ by R.C. Foster, The Bible, and the internet. I enjoy the research because it teaches me a lot about a subject dear to my heart.

While writing the book itself, what was the biggest surprise about the process? Either, “I can’t believe X is so easy!” or “If I had known Y was going to be so hard, I’d have skipped this and watched more TV”?

My imagination ran WILD! I found it hard to make the book flow and my sentences were awkward a lot of the time. Editing was lengthy for me. Even naming the characters was a challenge sometimes. I wanted them to be real and meaningful names, so I researched meanings on the internet.

As I’ll discuss in my post about the book, I really appreciated how you merged the Biblical events with your material—it seemed like you exercised great care in that. How did you decide which parts of the life of Christ to have your characters directly interact with?

Thank you for the compliment. I think a fiction writer should make the scenes and surrounding events as real and accurate as possible while making the characters and some events purely fictional. That is a delicate balance. An example is when I had Enoch with Cleopas on the road to Emmaus. The Bible mentions Cleopas and “another”, so I interjected Enoch. One must be careful not to add to the Bible. I thought this might be okay.

As soon as I saw a Cleopas hanging around, I figured this is where you were going to go, and you pulled that part off particularly well.

What’s been the response to this in the years since the original publication?

Critics like it. Bethlehem’s Brothers has recommendations from Pacific Book Review and Kirkus. It was also a finalist in the prestigious Montaigne Medal awarded by the Eric Hoffman Award Committee. Of course, I would like more people to read it. Now with e-books, cost isn’t really an issue. Maybe a different cover would help.

There’ve been two sequels to this (and I imagine there aren’t more coming based on the synopses for them), are there other books to come from you?

Certainly. I have a fourth book to add to the series called The Rock of Michael. Michael is an angel who helps the Christians displaced by the destruction of Jerusalem settle in what is now Tel Aviv-Yafo. The other possible novel is another historical fiction piece set on a college campus during protests of the Vietnam war. It has promise.

So much for my imagination 🙂

Thanks for your time and willingness to let me badger you with these questions—again, I really enjoyed Bethlehem’s Brothers and truly hope that it finds the audience it deserves.?

I am confident it will. Perhaps a TV series or a Movie might get the word out to the audience.

A Few Quick Questions With…Paul Levine

By HCNewton

On April 28, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With...

Remember last week when I posted about Cheater’s Game and I said that I’d hoped to have a Q&A with the author? Here it is. If you’d told me 20 years ago, that I’d get Paul Levine to respond to a handful of questions I asked him for a blog? I wouldn’t have believed you—but I’d think that was a great story. His series of legal thrillers, Solomon vs. Lord, is still one of my all-time favorite series.

According to his website, Levine ” worked as a newspaper reporter, a law professor and a trial lawyer before becoming a full-time novelist. Obviously, he cannot hold a job. Paul claims that writing fiction comes naturally: he told whoppers for many years in his legal briefs.

His books have been translated into 23 languages, none of which he can read.”

And now, he’s wasting a little bit of time with me. For which I am very grateful.

Most authors have dozens of ideas bouncing around their craniums at once</i>what was it about this idea that made you say, “Yup—this College Admissions scandal is the perfect thing for Lassiter”?

The day the story broke last year, I knew I wanted to put Jake Lassiter into the middle of the scandal. My first thought: “Have those parents lost their minds?” Here were these well-educated, well-to-do parents cheating, bribing, and lying their kids into so-called elite universities. Call me naive, but I was astonished. I thought the moral implications interwoven with a criminal trial would be fascinating.

I’m sure even at this stage of your career, there are challenges and surprises to the writing process itself—what surprised you the most, or was the biggest challenge to getting Cheater’s Game written?

Legal thrillers almost always involve homicide trials. Murder is the crime that strikes the deepest emotional chord. Cheating to get into college, technically mail fraud, isn’t nearly as sexy. My challenge was to create a trial just as exciting with as many twists and turns as the “Witness for the Prosecution” or “Anatomy of a Murder.” Okay, maybe not quite as many, but you get the idea. Lassiter’s brain damage complicates the case. So does his inexperience in federal court and his anguish at having to defend his nephew.

I truly appreciated the way that Lassiter interacted with the federal prosecutor, Margaret Bolden—while adversarial, it’s not the typical depiction of prosecutor/defense attorney. What made you go this route?

I’ve created my share of prosecutors who are arrogant or self-righteous or mean-spirited or just automatons. But I have great respect for career prosecutors who are truly professional and treat opposing counsel with respect. Margaret Bolden is a savvy Assistant U.S. Attorney who’s tough but plays by the rules. She’s a good match for the wily Lassiter, who gets by on street smarts, rather than an encyclopedic knowledge of the law.

You’ve been writing Lassiter for a long time—is there part of you that has a hard time putting the character through this health challenge?

I lost a friend to C.T.E., the brain disease afflicting former football players. Like Lassiter, my pal was a lawyer and former player. It felt right that Lassiter, who made his living on the “suicide squads,” would be stricken. Obviously, for everyone’s sake, I’m hoping there’s a cure down the road.

Is this the end of the line for Lassiter, or does he have another case or two in his future?

Hah! Lassiter told me he retired after “Bum Deal” in 2018. But when his beloved nephew Kip gets indicted for taking other kids’ SAT exams as an imposter, well, what choice did he have but to get back in the courtroom? I suspect Jake has one more case in him.

This last one is purely selfish: I was a huge fan of the Solomon vs. Lord series, and I see they’ve appeared in the Lassiter books, any chance of them getting another novel, or are they just one more reason for me to go through the Lassiter backlist?

I get a ton of mail asking for another “Solomon vs. Lord” novel. Now, of course, they’re in some recent books. Lassiter defends Steve Solomon in a murder trial in “Bum Rap.” And Lassiter squares off against Solomon and Victoria Lord in “Bum Deal.” But a lot of readers are asking for the squabbling law partners (and lovers) to have a story of their own. We’ll see.

Thanks for your time and willingness to let me badger you with these questions—I really enjoyed Cheater’s Game and hope that it finds the audience it deserves.

Thank you!

A Few Quick Questions With…Like the Wolfe Podcast (and a little bit of an intro to it)

By HCNewton

On April 22, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout

Most of what I’ve written about Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin and their author Rex Stout predates this blog, but I’ve not hid the fact that I’m a near-rabid fan, and will take any excuse to mention them. So imagine my excitement when a few weeks ago, someone joined one of the fan groups on Facebook and mentioned he had a podcast working through the Corpus.

Like the Wolfe is working their way, book by book, through series starting with the first, Fer-de-Lance (something I wrote about it, their podcast episode). Typically, there’s a little bit of material that’s safe for someone who hasn’t read the book under discussion, but most of the episode is full of spoilers and assumes a familiarity with the material.

Which honestly, is fine—few Wolfe and Archie fans read (or re-read, re-re-read, re-re-re-re-read, etc.) the books for the whodunit.

In the first few episodes, the audio quality isn’t that great and the hosts are clearly learning how to do a podcast. But those shortcomings actually come across as charming, and their enthusiasm is infectious. By Episode 8-The Silent Speaker, the audio quality has really improved and the hosts have obviously become comfortable with the format.

I binged the first 9 episodes in under a week, and had a blast. Sure, I’d quibble with some of the observations and would demur with some of their evaluations/criticisms—but that’s part of the fun, right?

Anyway, I’ve blathered on long enough—the hosts, Reyna Griffin and Jeff Quest, were gracious enough to answer a few questions for me. Check these out, and then go listen to their podcast. If you’re new to Wolfe, it’s a great introduction (Quest himself is a newbie), if you’re a die-hard fan, you’ll love revisiting the books (if you’re in between—give it time, you’ll become a die-hard). If you have no idea what I’m talking about? Give the books a shot, and use this podcast to help (I also blathered on a bit about the idea here).

Why don’t you both start off by giving me a little bit of background info about you as readers/in general? Introduce yourselves to us—and how did you get to know one another? I’m guessing it wasn’t via a Craigslist advertisement, “Looking for a Co-Host for a Nero Wolfe Podcast.” (do note, out of respect for the character that brings us together, I didn’t abbreviate advertisement—I just can’t bring myself to do it anymore)

Reyna Griffin (RG): Hello! I always wonder what would be great to say about myself, but here it goes! My name LaReyna Griffin and I LOVE Nero Wolfe novels. I am a huge fan of mystery/detective novels – I really like to get away from the real world. For me reading is something I do to just decompress and I do like to read other than detective novels (even tho I will never say no to a Poirot story) these are my favorites. I am in 2 book clubs, they typically are not my usual books so I do get out of my comfort zone a few times a month. Some of my favorite authors are Christie, Beaton, and of course Stout. How I met JQ? Jeff was my boss at my previous job – he actually has been my boss since I was 18, in one way or another, and it was through this that I found that we both were book folks. The idea for the podcast was *maybe* a collab brainchild but probs more Jeff.

Jeff Quest (JQ): Jeff Quest here and I seem to remember this being prompted more by Reyna than myself. I’m the newbie to the series and take care of most of the tech side of the podcast.

I’ve always been a fan of mysteries and was more than happy to try an author I hadn’t read before. I have a far greater knowledge of spies, I write and podcast about them at my site SpyWrite.com and that’s probably what prompted the idea of a podcast looking at Wolfe. Wolfe is a surprising blind spot in my mystery reading so when Reyna suggested reading through the series and talking about each book I was up for it. However I leave the encyclopedic knowledge of the Nero Wolfe series to Reyna.

What brought each of you to the Nero Wolfe series? Was it a recommendation from someone? Just stumbling across one in a bookstore? Did you mean to buy a book about Orchid Growing and get a very poor substitute? For me, it was an aunt who insisted I’d like them—she eventually got tired of me ignoring them and just handed me a couple of them (I believe it was Where There’s a Will and something else), and that was it. Three decades later and I’m still re-reading them.

RG: My mother brought me to Nero but what kept me here was watching the A&E series (brought to life by Timothy [Hutton] and Maury [Chaykin]). I loved the books but the characters became so real for me once that show was aired. I actually rewatch the show on a weekly basis, it is just that timeless and good. It says something about a show that is on par with the books (maybe better??).

JQ: Reyna was the one that has me hooked on the series, although it really only took reading the first book to see why so many have fallen in love with the series. From the first moments Archie’s voice is so vibrant and fun, you can’t help but want to keep reading.

Why a podcast? Whose idea was it and how did it come about?

RG: Hmm I think the podcast because we wanted to share our love for the topic and this was the best format. I wasn’t much for a blog because I am not a writer and also I wanted to maintain some contact/interaction with JQ.

JQ: Yeah, since I had done a few other podcasts on spy related topics for my own site and the Spybrary podcast (Spybrary.com), this seemed like a fun way to keep in touch with Reyna while also having some interesting structured discussions.

What kind of response are you getting to these episodes?

RG: We were on break for a bit, due to life issues, but now we see that folks are interacting with the podcast – from comments to tweets about our choices.

JQ: So far so good. We didn’t really promote it much yet, we wanted to have a few episodes under our belt before doing that, but folks seem to be enjoying it, aside from my apparently foolish references to Wolfe as “Nero.” which gets folks riled up.* I had a chance to talk to Josh Pachter about the book he edited, The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe, which was quite fun. I’m hopeful that I can do some more of that. It would be great to give the fan community a place to hear the voices of others who enjoy his work, especially for those who don’t have a local Wolfe club to gather with.

* I’d note that I’m one of those riled up by that, Archie has noted that only three men refer to him by his first name. That’s a personal bugbear, and I don’t hold it against them (however must I grimace when I hear it).

One more question about the podcast itself—are we going to ever get to hear your “Lost Episodes” (Some Buried Ceasar, Over My Dead Body, Where There’s a Will, Black Orchids, Not Quite Dead Enough, Booby Trap—I assume Black Orchids is around the corner, given that you did Cordially Invited to Meet Death)?

JQ: I’ll take the blame for this. The dreaded “tech issues” reared their head. We lost a couple due to a garbled recording and I have a couple that I need to go back to the original recordings to reedit for release after the first edit was lost in a hard drive crash.

Luckily, I’ve spent the time we were on hiatus learning a bit more on how to put out a better podcast. So the quality for future episodes should be stronger than those early episodes.

Let’s shift to the books themselves: Jeff, you’re the neophyte (by the way, I’d love to be in your shoes and have all these great reads in my future—they’re great re-reads, but for them to be new again?), so what’s your favorite Wolfean moment so far? Reyna, I don’t know if you can limit yourself to just one at this point (especially without ruining anything for Jeff), so maybe give me one from the books you’ve discussed on the podcast.

RG: My favorite moment we have not hit yet! My favorite moment comes in The Doorbell Rang, a very cool scene in Wolfe’s office with the client where he puts her in her place while still being a gentleman.

JQ: Is it the very first book where Archie is lamenting losing the wallet that Wolfe gave him?* Although Archie gives Wolfe a hard time, it shows how much he really cares and what they’ve been through together. I really liked that moment.

* Great moment indeed, but it’s from The League of Frightened Men, the second novel (which Quest has mentioned enough on the podcast that I was surprised he slipped here).

You’ve both talked about enjoying Wolfe’s vocabulary. I know that my vocabulary (in writing and in conversation) improves generally when I’m in the middle of a Wolfe novel have you found that? Reyna, this is more likely for you (but Jeff can weigh-in if he wants): do you have a favorite Wolfean word/phrase? How many of them have entered your day-to-day vocabulary? Personally, off the top-of-my-head, I use “flummery” quite often; I can’t type it any other way than, “Pfui,” (and typically pronounce it like that); and will go out of my way to not use “contact” as a verb (and have been told I scowl when people do so at work). ?

RG: While I find “Flummery” as my go-to word for something outlandish, I prefer to use some of his phrasings – they randomly will pop into my head, usually when at work and dealing with a difficult client. One I used recently in a meeting with my boss was “Cheek meets cheek” – referenced in Eeny Meeny Murder Moe.

JQ: I probably haven’t read enough of the books for his vocabulary to really sink in yet but I can’t resist a good “satisfactory.”

You talked a little about casting Arche in your Introduction to him, and you’ve suggested actors for other prominent characters. But aside from a little tongue-in-cheek (I presume) casting that I couldn’t hear in your The League of Frightened Men episode, I don’t think I’ve heard you suggest anyone for Wolfe. My current picks for him are Vincent D’Onofrio or Steve Schirripa (assuming he can lose the Brooklyn accent), what about you?

RG: I love Vincent D’Onofrio, and his recent twitter soliloquies really reinforce this. He would be great! He has that slightly off-putting method that makes him a great Wolfe. Besides him, I actually can’t think of an actor that would be fitting for the shoes left by Maury Chaykin. I also need to see it, because before I saw Kenneth Branagh as Poirot I would never have thought we could recast from David Suchet.

JQ: I always find dream casting tough. Mainly because film and tv is so different from print. Personally, I’d go with some unknowns that could really make the role their own. The trouble with well-known actors is that it becomes hard to see past the actor and let them become a character that we all know and love.

If you forced me to pick, I’d go crazily out of the box and say someone like Andre Brauer for Wolfe and Daniel Radcliffe for Archie. Brauer has that great broodiness that’s needed and can just look smart. Radcliffe is too short but has a fun energy that he could bring to the role. But I might not mention those on the podcast, the Wolfe Pack (or Reyna) would probably string me up!

Bauer is an inspired choice—Radcliffe’s not bad, either, I can see that working.

Thanks for your time—and thanks for the podcast, I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

RG and JQ: Thanks for having us here and for listening!

A Few (more) Quick Questions With…Michael Landweber

By HCNewton

On March 16, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Fiction

Oh, wow…hard to believe it’s been almost 4 years since we did this for Thursday, 1:17 PM! Apparently, he’s used the time very well. I had many, many questions I’d like to ask about The In Between, but they’d require hours of both of us (and would probably eliminate the need for anyone who read this to listen to the book)— so, I’ll limit myself to these.

How is the process different for you in preparing something for an Audible Original rather than print?

The process of writing the book was no different than my usual process, which is to charge headlong into it and hope for the best. The initial editorial process was also similar. It was a joy to work with my editor at Audible, Lara Blackman. As all good editors do, she helped me improve the book significantly. There are some editorial differences for audio only that I would have never considered, such as limiting dialogue tags (“she said”) because the narrators are doing that work for you. But overall I did not change my approach much to write this as an Audible Original.

What part of this novel came first? The teleportation technology (and/or the problems with it), the world, the characters? And then how did you go about adding the rest?

I always start books with a what if question. In this case, it was what if you got lost teleporting. Of course, once a question sticks in my mind, I face the far more difficult task of figuring out how to turn the answer into a compelling story. So characters and plot come next with the world filling in around them. In this case, when I realized that it was a child who gets lost, I knew I had my novel. I’ve got two kids myself, and even though they’re teenagers now and slightly less prone to wandering off, the thought of them being lost is terrifying.

Why Tokyo? I get Omaha, but what was it that made Tokyo the destination for the family? (I have theories, e.g. the opportunity to write off a trip to Japan on your taxes, but I’d rather hear from you)

Actually, Omaha is a more random choice for me than Tokyo. I was an East Asian Studies major in college, focusing on Japan. After graduation, I lived in Tokyo for a year, working at the English-language Japan Times as a copy editor. It is a wonderful country and fascinating from an outsider perspective. Japan is also such a tech-forward place and Tokyo itself has so many hidden oddities in those towering buildings that it made sense to me that folks might be running bootleg teleporters in Akihabara.

When self-driving cars become the norm, are you going to be one insisting on manual control?

I am definitely a Luddite when it comes to self-driving cars. I just can’t bring myself to trust them. I get nervous even watching ads where the cars are parking themselves. Logically, I know that self-driving cars are probably less prone to fatal errors that human beings. But I still can’t quite fathom being in a car that is driving itself. This is not a new issue for me. In high school, I wrote a terrible story about a guy who gets into a self-driving cab that follows everything he says literally. The guy gets pissed and yells “Go to Hell!” That was a pretty typical ending for the stories I wrote in high school.

(I’d pay to read a copy of that story…)

So how awesome are Brittany Pressley and Mark Boyett as narrators? (there’s a softball for you)

They are amazing. When I found out that I would be able to make suggestions on the narrators, I canvassed my friends who are Audible listeners for ideas. Both Brittany and Mark’s names came up repeatedly. I’m also very lucky that Audible decided to give me two narrators for the alternating Lillian and Jackson chapters. The combination of the two voices really brings the book to life.

(I want the record to show that I hadn’t read these responses when I wrote my post about the book, I didn’t steal this phrase from him. But glad to see I’m not alone in thinking it.)

Thanks for your time and willingness to let me badger you with these questions–I really enjoyed The In Between and truly hope that it finds the audience it deserves.

A Few Quick Questions With…Noelle Holten

By HCNewton

On March 13, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., DC Maggie Jamieson, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Noelle Holten

Struck by inspiration a couple of days ago, I hit Holten up with a last-minute request to participate in this, which she graciously agreed to and found time in her busy schedule. Hope you enjoy this half as much as I did.

In case you haven’t read my posts about her books, Dead Inside and Dead Wrong, you should before (or after) you read this, so you have a clue what we’re talking about.

So what was it that flipped the switch for you to move from Award Winning Book Blogger to Crime Fiction Writer?

I’ve been an avid reader of crime fiction for so many years – too many to mention. In the back of my head I had always wished I could write a book but never thought I could string a story together. I was encouraged by other writers who I had met at various festivals and then in 2017 I attended Crime & Publishment run by Graham Smith with Michael J Malone. All I had was the prologue to Dead Inside and when I finally showed it to both of them (separately) and got the same reaction – ‘Wow. That’s powerful’ I thought maybe I could actually write a book… 12 weeks later, the draft for Dead Inside was complete!

If that draft prologue was close to the published version, I can easily see why they’d react that way. I did. 🙂

Technically, Dead Inside was a Maggie Jamieson book, but it was Lucy Sherwood’s just as much (if not more). Was the plan all along to slide into Maggie’s series like or did Dead Inside evolve into a story focusing on Lucy?

Dead Inside had always been Lucy’s story. In fact, Maggie had originally only played a small part in the book and the whole series I had mapped out in my mind. I always saw this as an ensemble series – many, if not most of the main players would be introduced in Dead Inside and then each of the following books would focus on someone else – with the police & Maggie solving any crimes that came up. My publisher felt that a police procedural would be a better focus and so I brought DC Maggie Jamieson more into the story. Dead Wrong was/is her story and we see much more of her in the other books that follow.

How was the experience of writing Dead Wrong different than Dead Inside? Having the confidence from one under your belt, was it easier? Or was it like starting from Square One again?

I think writing Dead Wrong was much harder. Although I had an idea mapped out, I had Dead Inside in my head for a few years – or at least an outline of it. I also didn’t have deadlines to meet! That makes a huge difference no matter how disciplined you are! I still feel very much a newbie to the game and love learning more about writing as each book comes alive. I don’t think it will ever get easier for me as I am always worried that I won’t write a story that people will want to read – the whole imposter syndrome sets in.

Obviously, you’re a Crime Book Junkie, but is there another genre you’d like to try your hand at?

If I had to choose another genre it might be horror – as I definitely would have no chance at writing a rom com or sci fi – I know I couldn’t do it! I do have an idea for a stand alone psychological thriller – so I might try that one day.

Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm” (a game I’ve recently invented). What are 3-5 books whose readers may like Dead Inside? [N.B. I meant to ask about Dead Wrong, whoops.]

Oh this is a tough one! Ok, I have some series in mind so I will choose one book from those I guess!
Silent Scream by Angela Marsons
Somewhere to Hide by Mel Sherratt
A Suitable Lie by Michael J MaloneI can’t really think of others off the top of my head but the above I think each have a similar feeling to Dead Inside that I think readers would enjoy if they enjoyed these books.

What’s next for Noelle Holten, author?

I have a few crime festivals I will be attending either as an avid fan of crime fiction or on a panel. I am currently editing the third book in the series (cover and title to be revealed soon I hope – woohoo!) and that should be out towards the end of this year. I’m also about 20k into writing Book 4. I work full time as well and although blogging itself has taken a back burner, I am still reading and reviewing too. Somewhere in between all that I try and sleep too!

It’s Release Day Eve for Dead Wrong. How nervous are you? How’s it compare to Dead Inside?

I am EXTREMELY nervous. I think I feel exactly the same as I did when Dead Inside came out but maybe even a little more nervous. I mean, what if people don’t like Dead Wrong?! What if they were expecting something exactly the same as my first book – and it’s not the same – oh my god, the nerves!! So yeah, I don’t think it gets any easier.

Thanks for your time—and thanks for Dead Wrong, I’m really enjoying it, and hope you have plenty of success with it.

Thank YOU for having me and after your incredible review of Dead Inside. I am SO NERVOUS to hear what you think of Dead Wrong.

A Few (more) Quick Questions With…Matthew Hanover

By HCNewton

On January 13, 2020

In A Few Quick Questions With..., General Fiction/Literature, Matthew Hanover

So, I gushed a bit about Hanover’s upcoming novel, Not Dressed, earlier. Now it’s time to ask him a few questions about it and a few other things. I should add, the book is available for pre-order, get on it.

With maybe two exceptions, I’ve only had good experiences doing these Q&As over the years, but this was by far the best—Hanover went well above and beyond the call with this one and was more than generous with his time and effort. Drinks are on me if we’re ever in the same city, sir.

Before we move to Not Dressed, let’s look back at Not Famous for a moment—I’ve asked a couple of your colleagues this question, and I’d love to hear your perspective: Why is it, do you think, that male readers respond so strongly to books about music? (your novels, Hornby’s, etc.)

I think—and I could be wrong—but the love of music is such a universal thing that it’s easy for male readers to relate to characters that are interested in music, or music-themed books. It’s a universal language we can all understand even if we listen to different stuff.

What lessons were you able to take from the writing, editing, marketing, launch, etc. of Not Famous to the process for Not Dressed? Were there some things that you assumed “Oh, I’ll know better next time” or “I’ve got to do this again for the next book” that in the end, you couldn’t use? Was this an easier process, more difficult, or are the experiences so tied to the different books that you can’t compare?

Not Famous did better than I expected, but I kind of set a low bar for myself as to how it would perform. I was generally happy with the launch, but when sales slowed down, I was often told that the best thing to do is to write your second book because it’s easier to sell a novel if you have more than one. So, I’m hoping that plays out, but I’ve also learned that promoting a novel—any novel—is really hard work. Both traditional and indie authors are competing with millions of other authors trying to get their novels read. While I consider my genre to be “lad lit” it’s also quite clear that most readers are women, and you have to market to women readers as much as men.

One thing that was really different was the time it took to complete each novel. Not Famous was mostly an on-and-off effort over seven years to finish the first draft. Not Dressed took seven months to complete the first draft. My writing has also become a bit more efficient. The first draft of Not Famous was over 107,000 words. The first draft of Not Dressed was 97,000. They both ended up at approximately 94,000 words, so there was a lot more cut from the first novel, which makes sense because I was still learning how to write fiction. I suspect future books will also get easier to write. Whether I’ll improve on my marketing remains to be seen. We’ll see how this new novel goes!

Let’s turn to Not Dressed now: Jake has two significant females in his life his girlfriend (a talk radio producer/co-host who moonlights doing nude modeling) and his new friend (a giant geek who doesn’t know what to do with her life), which came first—the nude modeling hook or the idea for a geeky best friend? And just where, if you can recall, did the girlfriend helping make ends meet via nude modeling come from in the first place?

I knew I wanted to do a workplace comedy for my next novel, and my original development of ideas focused entirely on that. But, I think a good novel requires multiple arcs to be really interesting, and so the first arc hat I came up with was the nude modeling one. I’d been trying to write a short story about a guy whose girlfriend models nude for a long time, even before Not Famous was finished, but I just couldn’t get it to work as a short story. It worked great for the novel because she is driven to model because they’re trying to make ends meet, and her solution to that problem causes another, bigger problem for their relationship.

The geek girl theme I came up with towards the end of writing the first draft of Not Famous when I came up with the scene where the main characters end up at a vintage gaming night. I loved the idea of exploring that type of character and quickly realized a geek girl as a love interest would be a lot of fun to write. And so I decided to use that in my next novel.

Kaylee’s more than just a geek, there’s more to her than the excellent taste in SF/F, how did you make her more than the stereotype?

Developing Kaylee as a character was even more fun than I thought it would be. She started as more of a retro gamer geek but eventually decided to make her a sci-fi geek with an affinity for Star Trek.

To really capture the realistic geek girl I reached out to people on social media, and drew upon my own interactions, and came up with a series of traits and quirks that I thought made her as realistic as possible. I liked making her a bit quirky with her geek obsessions, like her OCD with mixing and matching clothes from different SF/F properties. Which I thought was a fun trait. Most young women would say they feel sexier wearing matching bra and panties, Kaylee, however, would never wear Marvel and DC Comics together. I thought that was a perfect manifestation of her personality.

I’d forgotten you’d said that there’d be a tie between Not Famous and Not Dressed, so it was a pleasant surprise when I got to that passage. How fun was that to write? How tempting was it to bring the two sets of characters together more?

After Not Famous I heard from readers who said they’d love a sequel. I knew I didn’t want to write a sequel because I felt that I was done writing Nick and Alli’s story, and any attempt to continue it in a new novel would take me in a direction I don’t want to go down. But having the book set in the same universe was a lot of fun, and I started planning for this before finishing Not Famous. You may recall that Not Famous begins after Nick has a one-night-stand with Emma, who works at Burnham & Modine—the office where Jake, the main character of Not Dressed, works. I loved doing this as opposed to a sequel, and I really enjoyed featuring more of Emma in this novel. Her friendship with Jake is loosely modeled off a friendship I have with a female coworker.

Readers of Not Famous will be happy to know that even though they don’t appear in this novel, you will get some gossip about how things are going with them.

Typically, when I run into architecture in fiction, it’s the kind of career that Jake imagined himself having, not what he ends up with. Burnham & Modine, the architecture firm that Jake works for, strikes me as incredibly accurate—is that the result of research (if so, how did you go about that) or is this from personal experience (not necessarily as bad)?

I know a lot of architects because I work in marketing for a developer. So, over the years I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories about working in the business, and overwhelmingly I hear that the job isn’t as glamorous as it is made out to be in fiction and in Hollywood. And I loved that because it was a great angle to play up in juxtaposition to the theme of expectations versus reality. I also used some generic bad office stories I’ve experienced as well.

Sisters play a significant role in both of your books—is this coincidence? Do you owe your own sister some debt you’re repaying?

It’s not entirely a coincidence, that’s for sure. I think the dynamic between siblings makes for great stories, and while each novel delves into a sibling relationship, these relationships are completely different.

In Not Famous, Nick has a much younger half-sister going through her own coming-of-age issues. In Not Dressed, Kaylee has a younger sister, close in age, who, unlike Kaylee, was popular in high school, had a lot of boyfriends, and ultimately reaches certain life goals before Kaylee does. This wasn’t one of my original ideas, but as I developed Kaylee’s character and her backstory, I really liked the idea that while she’s comfortable being a geek she feels insecure around her popular younger sister. It really made for an interesting character and resulted in some of my favorite scenes in the novel.

That said, it wasn’t my original intention to have another sibling conflict in this story, but it really gave Kaylee the depth I felt she needed to be a three-dimensional character. She’s not defined just by her geeky interests alone, but by a rivalry with her younger sister who had a much easier time growing up because of her popularity.

It appears you put a lot of thought into the backstories of your female love interest characters. How do you approach creating these and making them realistic and unique?

I’m really proud of both characters and how they turned out. I spend a lot of time thinking about the backstories of my main characters and how that affects their actions throughout the story. I spent seven years thinking and rethinking and tweaking Alli Conwell’s backstory for Not Famous because it needed to explain so much of her behavior long before the reader finds out what her backstory really is.

Developing Kaylee and her backstory was a similar, albeit quicker, process. First and foremost, I wanted Kaylee to be different from Alli. But, I think readers will find lots of similarities and differences between them. Both are ambitious, but Alli knew what her path was, and Kaylee doesn’t. Alli is independent and works hard to maintain that independence. Kaylee, however, still lives with her parents and is trying hard to find her true calling so she can be independent. As for their differences, Alli is shy, while Kaylee is more free-spirited. Alli was proudly innocent and virtuous. Kaylee, however, feels insecure about her lack of experience and has years of pent up jealousy of her promiscuous younger sister. Despite their differences, both are strong young women with hopes, dreams, and fears.

How much Star Trek: The Next Generation did you have to watch to get this written? Favorite episodes from this time?

I actually binge-watched the entire series as research. I’d seen bits and pieces before, which is why I chose that particular Star Trek show to be her primary obsession. I wanted to have her quote some episodes and really feel like a genuine Trekkie. I also got the idea of her being fluent in Klingon after watching the show and learning about the subculture of people who have done just that. I even got help from the Klingon Language Institute (yup, there’s such a thing) to help with the translations when Kaylee speaks Klingon. I thought it would be a fun easter egg for Trekkies who know Klingon to read it.

TNG has a lot of great episodes, and I would have loved to have quoted more, but one of my favorites does get a mention by Kaylee as one of her favorites, too.

What’s next for Author Matthew Hanover? Is Novel #3 underway, or are you solely focused (for now) on getting this launched?

I’m currently focused on the forthcoming launch of Not Dressed, but I have been jotting down ideas and notes for a third novel, of which I’ve already determined the primary plot. Just like Not Dressed, it will be in the same universe as Not Famous and have some character crossovers.

Thanks so much for your time and help in getting this Q&A into better shape. Also, thanks for Not Dressed, I had a blast with it and hope that it finds its audience.