Guest Author Interviews
Katherine Shephard
February 2004
Bio and Excerpts
Interviewed for SinC-IC by Lorie HamSinC-IC: Why did you choose to write mysteries?
A great love and respect for the genre. It's always intrigued me. Being in performing arts and politics my entire life (what a blend, hey?) I've been surrounded by mystery. I like it that way, so writing about it seemed natural. Add in romance, humor, a dog and music - voila! All the things I love.
SinC-IC: What is unique about your main character or setting?
KS: I have two primary settings - I not only cross genres I cross state lines. As one reviewer stated:
"Although written by a "chick" about a "chick" and likely mostly for "chicks," and primarily a love story, it crosses these two genres into political intrigue and even murder (which is resolved in the end). It even has animal humor, yet another sub-genre! For a first-time novelist to cross so many genre lines and write in the first person is virtually unheard of, yet Ms. Shephard does it successfully."
SinC-IC: What authors do you like to read?
KS: Ones that make me laugh! I wouldn't dare start dropping names for fear I'd hurt feelings . . . but if you can make me laugh - you have a reader for life! I love to read books set in Michigan and/or Texas. I prefer authors that write in the first person.
Life is tooooo short not to have fun. Give me characters with ATTITUDE!
SinC-IC: How long did it take for you to write this book?
KS: The seed was planted at the 1996 Presidential Convention. It was published in 2003.
Hmmmmmmm. Okay. It took me a few years for the research. I spent time at the capitals in Michigan and Texas. I went into the bowels of 5 star hotels seeing how folks get in and out without being spotted. I researched listening devices, etc. The house featured in the series is an actual residence - I spent quite a bit of time there getting the details "just right." And, of course - the hours in the bathrooms! That's where you hear the "truth." My experience, from the inside out, is that no one tells the truth to your face. They get dramatic - like they're divulging "the real scoop" - but if they did - whoa. Ugly! Now that I'm on that subject - I have a list of "unexplained" political deaths…
SinC-IC: Do you make a living off of your writing?
KS: Not from the novel. Since that is what I do exclusively--writing the series and promoting it--the answer would be 'no.'
SinC-IC: What do you like most about being a writer?
KS: Other than writing - - marketing and promotion. I'm an extrovert - I love meeting people and sharing my love of reading. I don't need to be "pushing" my own work - but, when someone sees an author enthused about literacy, books, etc. they are curious ;-) I call it "marketing outside the box" -- it works! (and getting an endorsement from the Governor of Texas was pretty special!)
SinC-IC: What do you like least?
KS: Not having a secretary. I want to write and promote exclusively. Now THERE'S a goal!
SinC-IC: How much time per day or week do you spend writing?
KS: That depends. (don't you hate that answer?) If I'm on tour - not as much as I'd like. Last year I spent the majority of the time on the road. It's thrilling and exhausting. When you do 2 or 3 appearances a day, then get in the car and drive 5 hours or hop a plane - that leaves little time to write. When I'm "home" I pour it on -- 8-12 hrs. per day.
SinC-IC: How do you discipline yourself to write?
KS: I don't.
I have several friends who are my conscience. . . they remind me to get back to the keyboard because they want more, more, more! My editor shoves me, and a deadline . . . if it isn't in - big trouble. This is my full time job (other than being a mom to a fabulous 17 yr old son). I have an office fully equipped with a coffee maker, scented candles, and stereo system.
I have 6 CDs that rotate - I can't write without music and the scent of lilacs and roses. Lilacs to represent Michigan and roses, of course, for Texas.
SinC-IC: Do you hear your characters speak to you?
KS: All the time! They're my best friends. I've been known to order artichokes for Bob Larken when dining with family and friends. If they don't speak to me, how would I know what they want to say? That Victoria, though, she's too much! No matter how many times I glare at her - she just won't shut up!
SinC-IC: Anything else you might want to add
KS: Check my calendar often. Let me know where you'd like me to appear and I'll pass it along to my publicist and publisher. We'll see what we can do!
Julia Spencer Fleming
January 2004
Bio and Excerpts
Interviewed for SinC-IC by Lorie Ham
SinC-IC: Why did you choose to write mysteries?
JS-F: Crime fiction is the place where true storytelling still flourishes. I think we as human beings are hardwired to want stories with real characters, good language, and plot. It's what I want to read, and it's what I am driven to write.
SinC-IC: What is unique about your main character or setting?
JS-F: My protagonist, Clare fergusson, is an Episcopal priest, struggling with her new vocation and trying to feel her way toward what is right under difficult circumstances--namely that she’s falling for the town’s very married chief of police, Russ Van Alstyne. The series is set in the fictional town of Millers Kill, which is based on several towns in the Adirondack region where I grew up. That area of New York State has always seemed steeped in history. When I was a kid, we used to go tramping around on the Saratoga Revolutionary battlefields. And there’s this sense, when you’re close to the Adirondack Park, of this sort of looming nature that’s almost about to fall in on you. It had very deep, dark overtones for me.
SinC-IC: What authors do you like to read?
JS-F: I love Charlaine Harris’s stuff. Deborah Crombie, Kate Charles, Steve Hamilton, Kent Krueger--I’m waiting to dash to my bookstore when his latest Cork O’Conner book comes out. The biggest influences on my writing have been Lawrence Block and Margaret Maron. Block’s work continues to amaze me with it's absolute transparency and clarity. Like poetry, with never an extra, unnecessary word. And Margaret Maron made me fall in love with regional mysteries. Her evocation of North Carolina is so rich and full, the setting becomes a major character. I knew she was going to moderate my “New Kids On The Block” panel at Malice Domestic and I emailed her ahead of time to tell her how much I owed to her writing. When she wrote back that she enjoyed my book, I printed out the email and stuck it up beside my computer.
SinC-IC: How long did it take for you to write this book?
JS-F: I started In the Bleak Midwinter in the fall of '98 and finished it in August '00, picking it up, putting it down, working on it when I could. The writing itself wasn't difficult, but finding time was--during that period I went to a new law firm, my husband was downsized from his corporate job and became a full time student, we had two active kids to run around and I became pregnant and delivered my third child. Looking back, it's a miracle I found time to write a shopping list, let alone a novel.
Things were a lot more settled during the writing of A Fountain Filled With Blood and my third book, Out of the Deep I Cry, due out in April '04. Fountain took almost exactly a year to write and Deep was a little over nine months. By necessity, I’m learning to be more productive over a shorter period of time.
SinC-IC: Do you make a living from your writing?
JS-F: I used to practice law - personal injury. The unexpected success of In the Bleak Midwinter has enabled me to quit the practice in favor of writing full time. Which is not a bad thing, since I think I'm a much better writer than I was a lawyer! My husband is a former attorney who also has a new career as an Elementary-level special education teacher, so he was very supportive of my taking the leap. And it is a leap. Writing for a living is, to all intents and purposes, running a small business out of your house.
SinC-IC: What do you like most about being a writer?
JS-F: Wearing sweatpants and slippers to the “office.”SinC-IC: What do you like least?
JS-F: No one brings in boxes of donuts to share. I miss that.SinC-IC: How much time per day or week do you spend writing?
JS-F: It varies. When I’m touring or deeply involved with family-and-kid related activities (I have three children, so you can imagine what kind of time they take up) I can go days and days without touching the keyboard. Once I get into a book, however, I tend to work from 7:30am, after the children leave for school, until 3:30-5:30, depending on when they come home. I used to call it a day at 1,000 words, but having to push myself to finish Out of the Deep I Cry, I came to realize I could do more than that, and still produce quality writing. So now my daily minimum is 1,500 words. If I make 2,000, I’m very happy.SinC-IC: How do you discipline yourself to write?
JS-F: The same way I discipline myself to exercise. (She laughs loudly.) In some ways, it was easier when I was working full time. I only had two hours a day, max, early in the morning before the children got up. So I had to sit down and get to work. Now, there are so many other aspects of the business competing for my attention--not to mention Ebay! It really is like exercise - I have to force myself to write the first page or two each morning. After that, I’m into it, and then the problem is often stopping when I feel I’m on a roll.SinC-IC: Do you hear your characters speak to you?
JS-F: “I see dead people...” They don’t speak to me. My creative experience is more like watching an exceptionally vivid movie and then reproducing what I see and hear. When I need to figure out what one of my characters would do at a certain point in the book, I - this part is hard to describe - I sit with them. In a sort of Zen-like way. Think of someone you know well - your mother, your spouse, your child. For almost any given situation, if you think about it long enough, you can accurately predict that person’s actions, words, and emotions. So discovering my characters is more about allowing them to reveal themselves.And trying to describe the touchy-feely aspects of the creative process is my second least favorite part of being a writer!
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