Guest Author Interviews
April 2001
Interviewed for SinC-IC by Wendy Jensen
SinC-IC: Why did you choose to write mysteries? :DS: First, let me tackle the question of why fiction. I have always enjoyed writing. In grade school I wrote poems and plays that got the attention of teachers and classmates. I was hooked. However, I also loved science and wanted to be a physician like my father. It was he who told me that I could always be a writer after becoming a doctor, that many well-known writers were also MDs.
Unfortunately, medicine is a strict taskmaster, requiring one's total attention and passion. I practiced for ten years, writing several nonfiction medical texts, a number of clinical research papers and editing scientific journals, but no fiction. It wasn't until I left full-time practice to become an administrator at UCLA that I found the time to write my first novel.
Robin Cook was just getting popular at the time and it was clear that in the context of fiction, he could tell a story that also dealt with difficult life issues. The choice of writing a mystery versus any other genre seemed natural. To me, a good doctor is really a detective. He or she must take various clues (patients' symptoms, their physical signs and their story or history) and figure out what's really going on -- that is, make a diagnosis.
I have now written and published four novels and optioned two screenplays from my novels. Three of the novels (Double Illusion, Wednesday's Child, and Shou) were co-written with my husband, Joel, who is also a physician.
I think the fact that we are physicians has had an enormous influence on our fiction writing. Certainly we have selected medically related themes in all of our novels so far. Also, because we have had an opportunity to get to know so many different individuals over the years, to learn about their lives from a kind of intimate perspective that is quite unique, we have between us a breadth of experiences from which to draw our characters and situations. Even though some people call our books medical mystery/ thrillers, we have tried very hard not to write the same book each time out, so that Double Illusion, our first book, is quite different from Wednesday's Child, our second, and completely different from Shou, our latest.
SinC-IC: What is unique about your main character or setting in Shou?
DS: Shou (the Chinese ideogram for longevity) is a multi-layered, multi-national story which makes it difficult to describe in a "sound byte". But essentially it contains the stories of two main characters.
Dr. Ni-Fu Cheng, a Chinese physician who has spent his entire career searching for the secret of shou only to finally face the fact that not only may his discovery not save the world, it could possibly destroy it.
Dr. Lili Quan is an American-born medical resident who has spent her 28 years fighting against her Chinese identity, only to realize at her mother's deathbed that she really knows nothing of the heritage she rejects. Within the novel, Lili and Ni-Fu meet and ultimately change each other's lives.
The setting is particularly unique because most of the story takes place in China, a part of the world many American readers have not visited or studied. Placing Shou there came as a result of our travels to the Far East. My husband Joel (also my co-author) and I developed a particular interest in China and Chinese history after spending a month traveling through the mainland in 1985. We also visited Taiwan and Hong Kong several times. In 1988 we spent a week in Korea as part of a student consulting project at the end of our MBA program at UCLA. This project was for a Korean corporation, advising them on how to enter the global pharmaceutical industry. Naturally, we created a subplot in Shou, involving a Korean company trying to steal the secret of longevity.
When we returned from China, we became a host family for some of the many native-born Chinese students at UCLA. Two of these students were especially helpful in elucidating recent Chinese history and culture -- especially the events surrounding both the Cultural Revolution and the Student Democracy uprising. Qing Zhou was a brilliant graduate student in mathematics when we first met him in 1986. He had been a victim of the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s and became the model for our main character Chi-Wen. A second student, Hao Cheng, was an undergraduate at UCLA. Born in Shanghai, Hao was a decade younger than Qing and the same age as the students that participated in the Democracy uprising in 1989. Hao became the model for our student leader, Zheng Tu.
Although Shou is fictional, like our earlier books, it is strongly rooted in fact. Every name, date, street name and historical reference is accurate. Our work is a combination of our curiosity and our experiences as students, as physicians, as travelers and most importantly as friends of many both American born and native-born Chinese.
There are three main intertwined themes that we have tried to explore in the novel. First, we were interested in the issues surrounding aging and longevity. The Chinese in general and particularly the people in the ancient city of Xi'an, where much of the story takes place, have been obsessed with longevity and even the possibility of immortality for centuries. In 1985, we spent several days in Xi'an. As we always try to do on our travels, we visited as many medical facilities as possible.
Our Chinese hosts were very gracious, until we asked to visit their Longevity Institute. They adamantly refused. Naturally, this only piqued our curiosity. Moreover, we saw a few dozen old women directly outside the Institute with bound feet and that was quite odd since the ancient barbaric practice of deforming the feet of young girls to make them immobile was outlawed in 1911. Only a very few such women were still alive with this deformity, scattered throughout the rest of China. Of course, our fertile imaginations started working overtime: what if the Chinese were, in fact, on to something!
We also tried to explore, in the fictional context of Shou, some of the global/political implications of increased longevity. How, for example, would the shift towards more older voters affect the allocation of resources and tax dollars (e.g. would more be spent on health care such as hip replacement and bypass surgery and medical research and less spent on vaccinations, head start programs and education?) What about the impact of increased population growth on the environment and the world's resources (would more food, medicine, water, living space etc. be allocated to the aged?) Would the aged suddenly dominate the political process? What quality of life would there be for such large numbers of centenarians?
This thought led us to a second intertwined theme of the book: modern (late 20th century) Chinese political history. Many of our student friends viewed the 1989 Student Democracy Movement as a generational struggle between the ruling Chinese elders and the increasingly restless, ambitious and politically outspoken Chinese student leaders. This was interesting to us because, historically, age has been less a basis for civil strife and oppression than race, religion, economics, etc.
These two themes of the centuries old quest for the secret of longevity amidst the political turmoil and generational conflict in China's recent past served as a backdrop for our third theme, the cultural differences between American-born and native-born Chinese. Los Angeles has a large population of American-born Chinese. As physicians and as students at UCLA, we knew and became friends with many of them. Once we became a host family for native-born Chinese students, we were struck by the tremendous cultural divide between the two groups -- even within the same generation.
We explored this by creating a romantic relationship between a most unlikely couple: Lili Quan and Chi-Wen Zhou. Lili is a beautiful, bright, very hip and assertive American-born Chinese physician; raised in San Francisco, and just completing her medical residency. She promises her dying mother that she will travel to China to discover her roots. Lili does make the journey, only to become a pawn in a deadly international conspiracy. While exploring her past, Lili discovers much more -- including Chi-Wen, a young, handsome, gentle and very spiritual Taoist who has been a victim of the Cultural Revolution.
SinC-IC: What authors do you like to read?
DS: My reading tastes are quite eclectic. Some of the writers I love best are those whose styles are completely opposite from mine such as Pat Conroy or Margaret Atwood and, just recently, Zadie Smith. On the other hand, Hemingway's short, crisp sentences were a major influence on my own style. I think it's a style that almost compels the reader to turn the page to see what's next. Other physician writers like Robin Cook, Michael Palmer and Michael Crichton have given me the courage to put pen to paper.
SinC-IC: How long did it take you to write Shou?
DS: Shou took about three years if you factor in all the research we did on the book. We traveled extensively throughout the Far East, then returned home to Los Angeles where we read every book and article we could find on China and Korea. We also interviewed many Chinese-American and China-born individuals. We felt that for this book to work, we had to make the Chinese characters as believable and real as possible. Happily, some of our best reviews have come from Chinese readers.
SinC-IC: Do you have at least one family member who is supportive of your writing endeavors?
DS: My husband's constant encouragement is probably the most important factor that has kept me writing.
SinC-IC: Do you make a living off your writing?
DS: I have been fortunate in getting reasonable advances for all of my nonfiction books and most of my novels as well as payment for screenplay options and in one case, the screenplay itself. However, I enjoy medicine and healthcare consulting too much to quit my day job.
SinC-IC: What do you like most about being a writer?
DS: I get great joy when someone who has read one of my books tells me how much they enjoyed the story and/or the characters. To know that I can take a blank page and create something that people appreciate is a wonderful feeling.
SinC-IC:.What do you like least about being a writer?
DS: The business of writing (marketing and selling) has become much more competitive and a lot less fun than it was a decade ago when I wrote my last novel. With the consolidation of the major publishers and retailers, there is much less opportunity for a "midlist" writer to get the attention of readers. That was actually why I chose to publish my third novel with a POD publisher. I felt this would give the book time to find an audience since it essentially would never go out of print as my first two books had done. I have been told that I have taken a very big risk doing this even though a recent CNN report predicted that by 2005, 75% of all books will be produced this way). Someone has to be a pioneer -- I only hope that readers do discover Shou and agree that it is a great read.
SinC-IC: How much time per day or week do you spend writing?
DS: Because of my novels so far have been written while I was either practicing medicine or consulting, I have to write very early in the morning and late in the evening. On weekends, if I am actively working on a novel, I will often write for a six hour stretch.
SinC-IC: How do you discipline yourself to do your writing?
DS:The hardest part is to get started on a project. I seem to find all kinds of ways to procrastinate. But once I have outlined a story and begin, then I am very focused. I am in between novels now so I am currently in the musing stage.
SinC-IC: Do you hear your fictional characters talk to you in your mind?
DS: Absolutely. It is really true that characters begin to have a life of their own and often want to veer off the outline you have written for them! Just now I am plotting my next book and I'm finding it hard to get Lili Quan's character (from Shou) out of my head. The protagonist of this next book is also a woman and I don't want to reproduce the same character. Somehow I will have to exorcise Lili!
SinC-IC: Husband/wife writers are rather unusual. The Kellermans are the only others I can think of offhand. Do you find writing with your husband brings you closer together, or does it cause conflicts in your relationship?
DS: I would have to agree that my husband and I are an unusual couple in that we actually write our books together (as opposed to the Kellermans who each write their own novels). We've been total partners in every aspect of our lives since we met thirty years ago. We are very lucky that we work so well together and that our partnership seems to enhance the other rather than create conflict. I know I would never have accomplished as much as I have over the years without Joel's wonderful support and I believe he feels the same about me. We even started playing doubles tennis since we moved to Florida and people are always remarking how nice we are to each other. Apparently many a marriage has suffered on the courts (in fact, that just might be a plot for our next book!)
SinC-IC: Is there anything else you'd like to tell us? .
DS: Shou is the third novel Joel and I have written together. The first, published in 1984 by Putnam's paperback division, was called Nursery by the publisher and will be re-released under our original title, Double Illusion. Our second novel, Wednesday's Child, was a leader paperback for Simon and Schuster. It sold well in Europe and was even translated into Norwegian. Wednesday's Child has been re-released this year by the Authors Guild. All our books are available through the online bookstores and can be ordered at any retail store. We hope that as the business changes, writers like ourselves who enjoy fiction writing but are not (yet) New York Times bestselling authors will continue to have opportunities to have our work reach the public.
SinC-IC: Thank you for this fascinating and informative interview!
May 2001
Interviewed for SinC-IC by Lorie Ham
SinC-IC: Why did you choose to write mysteries? :MM: When I began reading only mysteries, I decided it would be fun to write one, now it's a compulsion.
SinC-IC: What is unique about your main character or setting?
MM: I borrowed my great-grandmother's name for Tempe. She is part Yanduchi Indian though it is only recently that she's become interested in her heritage.
SinC-IC: What authors do you read?
MM: Jan Burke and J.A. Jance are two of my favorites. I recently read Dana Stabenow and will certainly look for more.
SinC-IC: How long did it take you to write this book?
MM: It always takes me about six months to write a book, and sometimes much longer for the rewrite.
SinC-IC: Do you have at least one family member who is supportive of your writing endeavors?
MM: I'm fortunate to have a husband who has always been supportive of my writing and even more so now that he's retired. The rest of my family thinks it's "interesting" that I write.
SinC-IC: Do you make a living off your writing?
MM: I make more money off of other writing endeavors than from my fiction. The fiction is a labor of love.
SinC-IC: What do you like most about writing?
MM: I like being in control of a world I've created, goodness knows, I have no control over the world I live in.
SinC-IC: What do you like least?
MM: Probably the effort that must be put into promotion, though some of it is fun.
SinC-IC: How much time per day or week do you spend writing?
MM: I spend most of my day every day, doing some writing related activity.
SinC-IC: How do you discipline yourself to do your writing?
MM: I've never had a problem with that. Back when I was babysitting three grandkids I wrote the first draft of a book. I watched them, wrote, was interrupted a lot, and cleaned up the mess at the end of the day.
SinC-IC: Do you hear your fictional characters talk to you in your mind?
MM: Not so much that they talk to me, my characters are as alive to me as my friends and relatives. The books I've written about them are like memories of things I've experienced.
SinC-IC: Anything else that you would like to add?
MM: Sisters in Crime is one of the most supportive writing organizations I've ever belonged to. Though the closest chapter is about an hour and a half drive, I try to get to as many meetings as possible. I count some of those members among my closest friends.
June 2001
Interviewed for SinC-IC by Wendy Jensen
SinC-IC: Why did you choose to write mysteries?
BS: I grew up reading mysteries. My mom was an avid mystery reader. She’d be up into the wee hours of the morning finishing a book. She introduced me to two of her favorites, Nero Wolfe and British spy-chaser Tommy Hambleton. Also, as a kid, I must have read all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries.
SinC-IC: What is unique about your main character, or setting?
BS: Ed McAvoy is a former homicide captain with the Detroit Police Force who has had to take a medical retirement after his leg is shattered by a drug dealer's bullet. Although McAvoy feels he’s too young to be put out to pasture, he retires to a cottage on the banks of Deer Shanty Brook in the heart of New York’s Catskills where he wiles away his time tying trout flies, fishing, and slowly going out of his mind with boredom. When he’s offered the job as Chief of Police in the sleepy little village of Peekamoose Heights, McAvoy jumps at the opportunity.
Ed McAvoy unique in a couple of ways. First, he’s a working cop. He doesn’t have just one big case that he can devote all his time to. He has to administer a department, obey the laws of search and seizure, not violate anyone’s civil rights, and he has to worry about village politics as well. He’s also cerebral in his crime-solving approach. He doesn’t beat up anyone or get beat up. And, as yet (in any of the four Ed McAvoy Mysteries), he hasn’t had to fire his weapon. He uses guile and cunning to solve his cases.
Peekamoose Heights is a small village in New York’s Catskills. I don’t know of any other series, mystery or otherwise, set in the Catskills. But Peekamoose Heights is more than just a set or backdrop where the story takes place. It’s a community, populated by real people—some of whom play greater or lesser parts in the different books in the Ed McAvoy Mystery Series. I hope the reader, having met these people in Stream of Death, the first book of the series, will consider them old friends and be eager to visit the village again in the future. I also hope they agree with Richard Frisbie (the owner of the Hope Farm Press & Bookshop in Saugerties) who wrote in his review of Stream of Death: "I think this imaginary town is a gentrified version of Phoenicia, but wherever it is, I want to live there."
SinC-IC: What authors do you like to read?
BS: I read books by many authors, but two whose books I always look forward to are Dick Francis and Lawrence Sanders. I even like the new guy who the Sanders’ estate chose to carry on the Archie McNally series.
SinC-IC: How long did it take you to write Stream of Death?
BS: It took me a year to get it done and another seven to get it right.
Originally christened Fish Story back in 1993, it was a finalist in the St. Martin’s Press Malice Domestic Contest. I thought I had arrived. I was on my way to the big-time. Even though St. Martin’s passed on acquiring the publication rights, I figured, "Hey, an independent judge liked it and recommended it. A few more submissions and I’ll be a published author."
Those few submissions turned into a half dozen, then a dozen, all returned with photocopied notes that read, "Thanks, but not right for us." or "Thanks, but our list is full." or "Thanks, but ..." (you fill in the blank).
By now I had followed up with two more Ed McAvoy novels and a Caitlin O’Rouke novel—two of which also were recommended by St. Martin’s Press contest judges for publication, but, again, passed on.
Meanwhile, each time I wrote another Ed McAvoy novel, I revised Fish Story. And with each revision, I liked the story even better. But now the Fish Story rejections had increased to two dozen and were rapidly approached three—all accompanied by photocopied "Thanks, but ..." notes.
Then an email showed up on my computer—from Poisoned Pen Press. The tone was cautionary. They only publish a few mysteries each year, probably wouldn’t end up publishing mine, but would like to see the entire manuscript anyway. "What the heck," I thought. "It’s less than ten bucks in postage and I have copies galore sitting around gathering dust."
After three months or so, the response came. And not a photocopied rejection note, either. This was an honest-to-goodness personalized rejection note from editor Barbara Peters. The bad news was that, no, she didn’t think my novel was publishable in it’s current form. But she also gave me a glimmer of hope. If I would make these cuts here, reorder those chapters there, and make other modifications throughout, she’d be happy to take another look at it.
The returned manuscript itself looked as if someone had butchered a hog on it. There were red edit marks everywhere. Barely a page was left unscathed. "My story," I whimpered to myself. "She’s ruined my story." But as I read the suggested edits, I discovered that she hadn’t ruined it—anything but. The cuts and modifications needed to be made—even the words that I had thought were so cute and perfect. When they were gone, the story read so much cleaner and clearer. And rearranging a few chapters made the plot work so much better.
So off it went again. After another three-month wait, I received another response—but not a rejection this time. It was an offer. They actually wanted to publish my book.
Now after eight years, two name changes (initially from Fish Story to The Dog Wore Diamonds) and four more sets of revisions, Stream of Death is finally flowing into that big literary ocean with all the other new books published this year.
SinC-IC: Do you have at least one family member who is supportive of your writing endeavors?
BS: My wife Arlene—big time!
I didn’t start out to be a writer. I am, or was, by education and training an engineer, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering from General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan, and a Masters from Wayne State University in Detroit. As a Staff Quality Engineer at Ford Motor Company and later as Director of Quality Systems and Training at an automotive parts supplier, I traveled considerably in my work—four and five days each and every week.
When I finally burned out on the travel schedule and sat down to think about what kind of work I could do instead of what I had been doing for fifteen years or so, my wife said: "Don’t think in terms of what you can do. Think of what you’d like to do." What I really wanted to do was write. "Then do it," she said, "because your job is making both of us miserable."
SinC-IC: Do you make a living off your writing?
BS: Yes, but not as a playwright or novelist. Early on in my writing career I started doing quite a bit of free-lance scriptwriting for local video production firms in the area. Two years ago, one of the multimedia houses was expanding and offered me a full-time scriptwriting job. I’ve been writing training and promotional scripts for them since then.
SinC-IC: What do you like most about being a writer?
BS: Storytelling! It’s all about storytelling. With a play or novel, it’s my story—the way I want it told. With commercial work, it’s the customer’s story—the way s/he wants it told. But, regardless, what we writers do is tell stories.
SinC-IC: What do you like least about being a writer?
BS: Promotion! I know it’s something that has to be done, because no one else is going to do it, but I don’t really care for it. That’s probably the single biggest reason that my short-lived theatre company failed. I’m not a promoter. In a world of Mr. Insides and Mr. Outsides, I’m a consummate Mr. Inside. However, I’m biting the bullet and trying to do what I can to promote Stream of Death. I’m doing signings on Saturdays wherever they’ll have me within a four-hour radius from home, or speaking engagements at night within a two-hour radius, but I’d much rather be telling stories.
SinC-IC: How much time per day or week do you spend writing?
BS: When I was free-lancing, I’d write for myself in the mornings and do client work, run errands, and do household chores in the afternoons. Now that I’m working full-time and writing all day for someone else, I have to write my own stuff in the evening or on weekends whenever I can catch a few spare hours between the necessary errands and chores.
SinC-IC: How do you discipline yourself to do your writing?
BS: With my personal writing, I haven’t been very disciplined since I started working full-time. When the spirit moves me, I write. If it doesn’t, I don’t.
SinC-IC: Do you hear your fictional characters talk to you in your mind?
BS: I haven’t reached the point yet when they talk to me (thank goodness). However, I do overhear them talking to each other.
SinC-IC: Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?
BS: Four things, actually.
First, on creative writing classes: They certainly can help you with mechanics but, then, so can some good reference books. It’s still up to you, however, to come up with a good story and engaging characters. Remember, it’s all about storytelling. Don’t get caught up in technique and go rigid with all the rules that creative writing instructors seem to love. Pick up a John Grisham novel and see how many of those rules he routinely breaks. Grisham’s not being published because of a slavish adherence to writing rules. He’s being published because he tells a darn good story.
Second, on reading fees: You’ll get enough rejections for free. There’s no point in paying for them, be they from publishers, agents, or contests. For an agent or publisher, reading manuscripts is a cost of doing business. For contests, they usually have an Arts Council grant, anyway. And if part of the contest prize for a book doesn’t include a bonafide publishing contract with a reputable house, or if the prize for a play doesn’t include a production contract, why waste the postage even if it is free?
Third, don’t give up. Remember, Stream of Death was rejected by thirty-some publishers and about as many agents before it found a home at Poisoned Pen Press.
Fourth, I know that many people are reluctant—and rightly so—to spend close to $25 for a hardcopy of a first novel from an unknown author, despite some very nice reviews. The first three chapters of Stream of Death (as well as chapters from the still unpublished books) and a few of the stage plays in their entirety can be downloaded from my website (http://www.billstackhouse.com). If you’re unsure as to whether you’ll enjoy Stream of Death, download the chapters and take it for a test drive, then make your decision.
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