Clea Simon's Blog, page 29

Five Questions with Denise Swanson

Denise Swanson has cozies covered! With four series, including the Stumble River (most recently, Die Me a River) and Chef-to-Go (look for Leave No Scone Unturned next March), she creates relatable heroines – small-town gals who have to set things right. No wonder she’s a New York Times bestseller.

How does a book start for you?
Each book is different. Sometimes a title will pop into my head and I’ll start there. Sometimes it’s something I hear or read on the news. And occasionally, it’s a dream that will lead me into a story.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

My sleuth’s cousin shocked me when she decided that she was Celiac. I hadn’t intended her to have that condition and in fact had to go back to a previous scene to make sure it was consistent with her gluten allergy.

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

 My upcoming book, A Call to Charms is set in a fictional town called Echo Springs. It’s a bit like Brigadoon in that not everyone can see or enter it.

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What are you working on now?’

I’m currently writing the third book in my Chef-to-Go series. No title yet.

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?
How about what do I write besides cozy mysteries? I also write contemporary romance and have two connected series in that genre. The Change of Heart books consist of a novella and three novels. And the Delicious Love series currently have two novels, but I have plans for at least three more.

New York Times bestselling author Denise Swanson was a practicing psychologist for twenty-two years. She writes the Delicious Love and Change of Heart contemporary romance series, as well as the Scumble River, Devereaux’s Dime Store, and Chief-to-Go mysteries. Her books all feature small-town heroines with lots of heart.

Denise’s books have been finalists for the Agatha, Mary Higgins Clark, RT Magazine’s Career Achievement, and Daphne du Maurier Awards. She has won the Reviewers Choice Award and was a BookSense 76 Top Pick. 

Denise lives in rural Illinois with her husband, classical composer David Stybr.

Five Questions with Susan Larson

It’s probably odd for most of Susan Larson‘s fans to hear that she’s written a mystery, though the subject – Mozart – would make sense to them. After all, Susan was an opera singer before she turned to fiction. But I edited Susan’s writing before I ever heard her sing. Thanks to her expertise and her way with the written word, she worked as a stringer – a freelance classical music critic – during my tenure at the Boston Globe. That’s why I know her debut mystery, The Murder of Figaro, will be a success, and why I am happy to introduce her to you here.

How does a book start for you?

My first book started as a short story about a child’s love affair with an animal. I sold it, the magazine decided not to print, so I expanded it into a family story with the horse (my horse) as a figure of constant love, patience and loyalty.

The Murder of Figarostarted after I read a particularly awful historical murder mystery, and commented to my husband that I could write a better one. “So do it,” he said. I started right then. I picked one of my favorite humans as the protagonist and tried to turn him into a sleuth. He was not very happy about it.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

That would be Constanze, Mrs. Mozart. She has always gotten a bad rap – she was dumb, she was avaricious, she was a woman, and a bad woman exhausted the great genius’s creative juices, etc. In the book, she evolved into a witty, talented and charming young matron, with a instinct for who ferreting facts and building a case for who dunnit and who didn’t.

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that?

The Murder of Figarotakes place in Vienna, 1786, during production week for the world premiere of Mozart’s brilliant and controversial new opera “The Marriage of Figaro.” Anybody who was been through a production week knows that nobody has any time time to do anything else, except, perhaps, eating and sleeping. By adding a mysterious death into production week, I knew I would be pushing the protagonists, cast, crew, indeed all of musical Vienna, to the limits of their sanity. As far as they are concerned, the dead body, the reversal of verdict from suicide to murder, the sudden illness of one of the sopranos, are just getting in the way of the production. Until that body and verdict insist on taking center stage, forcing the young composer and his wife to solve the crime before the curtain goes up. 

Larson as Donna Anna in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”

I have always loved Mozart and sang everything of his that I was physically able to sing. I had the feeling he was talking to me through his music. We have the same naughty sense of humor too. I always wished I could sit in a coffeehouse with Mozart and have a good gab about music, politics, dirty jokes, anything. Hence. I made up such coffee klatches and pretended to be everybody. 

What are you working on now?

I write the occasional essay on my WordPress page. I am working on a Figaro WordPress page now.  Also short political rants on Facebook. I do some  puff pieces for Emmanuel Music and Guerilla opera, as needed. The current political situation in my beloved country and worldwide has gobsmacked me and given me a major case of anxiety.  So nothing major is incubating right now. 

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have ? 

The Murder of Figarois a book that loosely parallels the Mozart/Da Ponte operas. “Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro),” is the central opus, of course.  You can read this without having ever heard this opera, but for heaven sakes, it’s the best opera ever written, and it is worth the listen. If you want to see the author, me, performing in this piece, you can get the Sellars video out of the library or look for it on YouTube.  Knowing Mozart operas makes reading the book more fun, and your life more meaningful. Trust me. 

The Mozart character in the book is not like the guy in “Amadeus.” This Mozart (as revealed in his many surviving letters) is much more sophisticated; he knows how to behave himself at court, not matter what goofy pranks he pulled with his friends. He is very ambitious, quite political, and also capable of being something of a shit. 

References to Mesmerism, funeral conventions in Vienna, stage moms, the American and the upcoming French Revolutions, and Mozart’s collegial relationship with the much-maligned Salieri, pop up in the course of this book. 

Spoiler alert: Salieri didn’t do it.  

Susan Larson has been an opera star, an actress, a music teacher, a journalist, a novelist, and an easel painter. 

She was born in White Plains, New York, and made her singing debut at the age of ten. She grew up performing in church choirs, school choruses, the marching band, and, of course, the high school musical.

Larson attended Indiana University and sang lead roles at the famed Opera Theater, earning a Bachelor of Music degree.  She earned her Master’s at The New England Conservatory, and became a freelance musician based in Boston. She was a charter member of Emmanuel Music (Craig Smith, music director) and sang opera produced and directed by the distinguished auteur Peter Sellars.

Her opera videos with Sellars can be found on London Records.  They frequently pop up on YouTube.

After incurring a vocal injury, Larson worked as a music writer for the Boston Globe and other publications.

She has written one previous novel, Sam (a pastoral),about a problem kid growing up loving her horse. 

Larson lives in the leafy suburbs of Boston with her beloved biologist-humanist husband, and near her brilliant daughters and her four superior grandchildren. 

On New England Authors, with Kameel Nasr

In addition to penning his own culturally conscious crime fiction, author Kameel Nasr hosts a cable interview show where he interviews New England authors. I’m honored to have been one of his recent guests. If you’d like to join us (and aren’t on the Cambridge cable system), you can view us here.

Editing, editing, editing…

I’m in the thick of edits for An Incantation of Cats, mulling over a particularly troublesome passage. (In brief, my editor wants more info about a bit of magic, and I’m trying to figure out how to work it in without gumming up the dialogue.) And so… I’ve set up the next month’s worth of Five Question Author Interviews. Um, that’s how this works, right? OK, back to work…

Coming January 14. Assuming I get through these edits, that is.

Five Questions with Barb Goffman

Sometimes I want my fiction short and … not so sweet. That’s when I turn to Barb Goffman, whose prize-winning short stories pack a punch in a neat little package. There’s plenty of atmosphere. Tension, too, but nary a wasted word. You can find her stories in Ellery Queen in the Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines, or in anthologies like Deadly Southern Charm. She’s just edited an anthology, Crime Travel, which comes out this December, too! I’m thrilled to host her here, too!

How does a story start for you?

My stories start with the main character’s voice. I have lots of plot ideas, interesting set-ups that I think might be able to become the guts of a story, but until I hear that voice, all my ideas are mere notes. Then, miraculously it sometimes seems, I’ll hear the first few sentences of a story in my head, and I’m off and running.

Who in your latest story has surprised you most – and why?

My latest story, “The Power Behind the Throne,” (published in the anthology Deadly Southern Charm, which came out in the spring from Wildside Press), is about a woman who’s on trial for murdering her husband. She surprised me the most because she does something toward the end of the story that I didn’t plan. I was typing and then there it was on the page, and it changed everything I thought I knew about her, everything the reader knows about her. I provided the set up and the character ran with it. Sorry to be so vague, but to tell what “it” is would give too much away.

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

All the stories in Deadly Southern Charmare set in the South. My story is a contemporary one, set in a North Carolina beach town. I lived in North Carolina for three years in the ‘90s (law school at Duke), and I was delighted to return to the state, even if only on paper, through this story. I chose to set it in a beach town because an important aspect of the story is that the main character is financially well off, so having the death that’s the heart of the story happen at her second house, her beach house, was telling. Also, this house is a bit isolated, and that helped with the plot too.

What are you working on now?

I just finished writing a short story with four points of view. It’s my most ambitious project yet, starting with one small incident and showing its effect decades later. I think the story came out well. (Really well, she says modestly.) I’m waiting for feedback from an author friend before submitting it. Fingers crossed.

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?

What’s your next story coming out that readers can look forward to?

In December my story “Alex’s Choice” will be published in the anthology Crime Travel. I’m so excited about this anthology because it’s been my baby from start to finish. I chose and edited the fifteen stories, all involving crime and time travel, and they all are so good. Wildside Press is publishing the book. It’s going to be coming out on Sunday, December 8th, which is Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. (It’s a real holiday!) In my story “Alex’s Choice,” a twelve-year-old goes back in time to stop a terrible accident, and the child unexpectedly faces a heart-wrenching choice. Some readers might become upset at that point and want to stop reading. To them I say, please keep going. You won’t be disappointed.

Thanks so much!

Barb Goffman loves writing, reading, air conditioning, and her dog—not necessarily in that order. She’s won the Agatha, Macavity, and Silver Falchion awards for her short stories, and she’s been a finalist for national crime-writing awards twenty-six times, including a dozen Agatha Award nominations (a category record), five Macavity nominations, five Anthony nominations, and three nominations for the Derringer Award. Her work has appeared inEllery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, andBlack Cat Mystery Magazine,among others. Her book, Don’t Get Mad, Get Even,won the Silver Falchion for the best short-story collection of 2013. Barb runs a freelance editing service, focusing on crime fiction. She lives with her dog in Winchester, Virginia. Learn more at www.barbgoffman.com. *** Barb is also a current Anthony Award finalist for her short story “Bug Appétit.” Read it here: https://www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/assets/3/6/Goffman_Bug.pdf

Fear on Four (purple) Paws

Check out this cool – and very purple! – cover. It will grace the WorldWide edition mass market paperback of my Fear On Four Paws, available online only as of Dec. 1. I’ll put up a link when it’s available!

And here’s the full cover flat, including the back cover copy! Always fun.

Five Questions with Hallie Ephron

Hallie Ephron is not only a New York Times bestselling author, she’s a loyal supporter of the New England crime fiction scene. That made me doubly bummed that I had to miss her local launch for the brand new Careful What You Wish For at our great local indie, Brookline Booksmith, due to longstanding dinner plans with hard-to-schedule friends. However, I do have a copy of this new domestic suspense book, and seeing as how it centers around a woman obsessed with neatening (which I’ve been trying to do), I know that I’m going to love it. More reason to procrastinate!

How does a book start for you?

Often it starts with a “What if…” – and of course the question is usually inspired by personal experience. So, for CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, it was What if a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives is married to a man who can’t pass a yard sale without stopping. And yes, I am married to lovely man who’s wedded to his stuff and spends his Saturday mornings, rain or shin, yard sale-ing.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

The packrat spouse. I wrote along and wrote along, unsure about whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. I didn’t know the answer for sure until I’d written the final scene.

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

Part of the story is set in a storage facility I call “Inner Peace Storage.” Tongue placed firmly in cheek. It has a storage unit that a widow didn’t know her husband had rented until after he died. The widow hires Emily Harlow, the professional organizer and protagonist, to dispose of its contents. That turns out to be an impossible task for a number of reasons, not the least of which is what the dead husband was storing there. (No severed heads.)

What are you working on now? 

I’m noodling around with an idea for a new novel but it’s early days. Mostly I’m on break working on essays and short pieces.

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?

What did I learn, writing the book?

I learned a lot about why so many of us find ourselves at the mercy of our stuff. I realized what distinguishes a collector from a packrat from a hoarder. And I’m still puzzling over the dynamics of a marriage in which one spouse is inured to clutter while the other is not. 

HALLIE EPHRON is the New York Times bestselling author of Never Tell a Lie, Come and Find Me, There Was an Old Woman, Night Night, Sleep Tight, You’ll Never Know, Dear, and Careful What You Wish For.  (Read the starred PW review here.) She is a five-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, as well as for the Anthony and Edgar Awards. http://hallieephron.com.

‘World Enough’ a MA Book Award ‘must read’

World Enough has been named a “must read” in the Massachusetts Book Awards, presented by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, for books published in 2017, joining such others notables as Alice Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic and Claire Messud’s The Burning Girl. Top honors for the year went to The Chalk Artist, by Allegra Goodman, followed by Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng, and The World of Tomorrow, by Brendan Matthews. Thanks and a shout out to friend (and Pulitzer winner) Lloyd Schwartz – also a “must read” for his Little Kisses – for letting me know!

Goodbye KISS, an appreciation

“Hey, watch this!”

Spring 1976, and the four of us were parked in Phil’s Firebird when he took a mouthful of lighter fluid from his trusty BIC, flicked the sparkwheel and blew. The ensuing flame singed the car’s visor – and his eyebrows – resulting in much stoned laughing and coughing and slapping at sparks. It was the same trick we’d seen Gene Simmons do the previous December at the Nassau Coliseum, when Simmons’ band Kiss had been presented with its first gold record (for “Alive!”). America had entered its bicentennial year, and a million teens in a million parked cars and basements had enlisted in the Kiss Army, throwing off the shackles of convention and commonsense to revel in the newfound freedom of rock ‘n’ roll.

On Tuesday, the iconic rock band Kiss plays Florida to kick off the summer American leg of its “End of the Road” farewell tour, supposedly packing up all its pomp and pageantry with it. “Supposedly” because the band already did a farewell tour in 2000-01, and two of the original members (drummer Peter Criss and lead guitarist Ace Frehley) abandoned ship years ago. But it seems likely that the band that changed the look — if not the sound — of hard rock is on its last eight-inch-high platform-booted legs. …

[Yeah, sometimes I still write about music. Read the rest of the piece here .]

Five Questions with Shawn Reilly Simmons

Some writers focus on short stories, some on novels. Shawn Reilly Simmons does both. Her cozy series, about the Red Carpet movie caterers, moves about as well – taking readers from one film location to the next. We’re lucky Shawn had time to sit down with us today and talk about writing a long-running series, short stories, and more.

How does a book start for you?

I tend to think about the setting first. My series, unlike many other traditional mystery series, moves from location to location for each book, because my main character is a movie set caterer, and she goes wherever her next job is. So far Penelope has catered movies on a Florida beach, near a dense forest in Indiana, in a small town in New Jersey, in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, and in the mountains of Vermont. Once I get the setting nailed down, I think of the first murder, and my supporting cast of characters, and how the crime might have taken place in that particular setting. Then things flow from there.   

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

Like in many of my books, I’m often surprised by characters who I first write as a supporting or minor character that gradually turn into someone who is more important to the story. Many times I’ll introduce a character, just to have someone for a main character to talk to, and they begin speaking to me, taking the book in a whole new direction. It’s always fun to see where we go from there.   

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

Murder on the Chopping Block, which is due out next month [Sept. 15], is set on California’s central coast, in a fictional town near Monterey called Salacia Beach. I’d read an article about nearby Monastery Beach, which has been nicknamed Mortuary Beach by the locals because a large number of people have drowned there, some who were just walking along the sand near the water. I became fascinated by this place where rugged cliffs meet the ocean and thought it was a perfect location for a story, beautiful and deadly.

What are you working on now?

I’m beginning work on the eighth book in my series, as well as writing a few short stories. I’m one of the editors for the upcoming Writers Police Academy, Best New England Crime Stories, and Malice Domestic anthologies, so I’ll be working with the contributing authors on those, as well as a number of other projects in the pipeline. 

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?
I think your questions were great! I’m always available to answer specific questions from readers via email, FB messenger or Twitter if anyone would like to reach out to me. And my monthly newsletter (sign up via my website) has recipes and book giveaways too…so I encourage everyone to keep in touch! 

Shawn Reilly Simmons is the author of The Red Carpet Catering Mysteries featuring Penelope Sutherland, an on-set movie caterer, and of several short stories appearing in a variety of anthologies including the Malice Domestic, Best New England Crime Stories, Bouchercon, and Crime Writers’ Association series. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and the Crime Writers’ Association in the U.K.