When is the next
Casey Jones coming out?
In June of this year! It's called Bad Moon on the Rise.
The next one will follow very quickly on its heels. It's entitled Sugar
and Spice. I'll post details here on buying copies as soon as
I have the specifics.
Why
didn’t you answer my email?
I am truly sorry if you wrote me over the past couple of years and did
not receive a reply -- I tried to answer every email, but there have
been times when they piled up so much because of family emergencies or
work overload that, for sanity’s sake, I had to throw up my
hands
and do the unthinkable (not answer them)... or I managed to lose the
folder where they were stored... or (insert some other lame excuse
here).
I thank you now for writing and inspiring me to keep going, apologize for being rude, and hope you understand that most writers are both insecure and disorganized. We facillate between needing constant validation and needing to pull a total J.D. Sallinger. Write again, pretty please?!
What do you do
besides write books?
For the past twenty years, I have worked as a free-lance
communications consultant and copywriter for companies,
non-profits, universities and various other types of
organizations. I actually love this job. Writing books is a solitary
profession and it takes (literally) years from start to finish to see
the end product. I have never been big on delayed gratification. I
enjoy working with lots of people (and collecting new characters!) with
my communications business, and being able to see or hold
something I have
created within a matter of months is grand.
In addition to work, I’m a single mom, which takes
up lots of
time, like to go down to the Pamlico Sound where my brother and I own a
small house surrounded on three sides by water and I also spend a
huge amount of my time volunteering for the local Democratic Party or
helping Democratic candidates with their campaigns. Politics is my
passion and a great hobby for a writer seeking character
inspiration: I am continually astonished at the human beings I meet,
their unexpected personalities and foibles and, well, the
utterly unpredictable ridiculousness of us all. My main
problem
right now is
that I have way too many characters and not enough books. I’m
hoping time will take care of that.
What’s
your favorite Casey book?
It depends on my mood. If I’m PMSing, Bad to the
Bone is
good. If I’m in a warm and fuzzy mood, I like Money
To
Burn. There are also times when I like Out
Of Time the best
because it's... short!
Where can I get
the Gallagher Gray books?
Next month! They are coming back in print and you will be able to order
them through your book store or on-line. I'll post the details here in
about a month or -- that's March of 2008.
Who is your
favorite character besides Casey?
Every time I write another book, I fall in love with a new character:
Ramsey Lee, Bill Butler, Burly, that dead guy in Money to
Burn...
but
my enduring favorite is Bobby D., whose plus-size heart would melt the
resistance of any woman. I kind of like big guys. They make me think of
big Irish kings who come tromping over the hill and grab you and throw
you down on the ground and... ooops, sorry: wrong genre!
What the heck is a
“swamp coot”?
A swamp coot is a low-class, trashy woman who manipulates people for
cheap amounts of cash so she can buy ridiculously cheesy status symbols
like bad cars, new trailers and tacky clothes. It helps to spray your
hair into an 80’s era do and wear high heels with jeans if
you
want to be a true swamp coot, but that is not strictly necessary. Being
a swamp coot is more of an attitude than anything else. However, you do
have to be white to be a swamp coot as this was an insult expressly
invented for white trash.
Where do you get
those weird expressions from?
I hear them around me every day as I live in Durham, North
Carolina. The Research Triangle Park may be tres
cosmopolitan these
days, but this place is still crawling with country people and true
Southerners.
Do you ever miss
living in New York City?
No. When I visit these days, all that
concrete makes me claustrophobic. But I still love NYC and now that I
don’t have to do my laundry, shop for
groceries and all the other pain-in-the-ass things about living there,
it’s great. I just stand in Times Square or the median of
Park
Avenue and soak up all the energy zinging around me. It’s an
amazing place, but I’m a Southerner and eventually all
Southerners get homesick and find their way back... home.
How do you make
time for all you do?
My house is a pig sty, I haven’t been able to get into my
closet
in six years, my yard horrifies my neighbors (but the raccoons love it)
and my daughter has the most incredible immune system you’ve
ever
run across. Next question, please!
Do you have any
regrets in life?
Oh, my god, yes. And they all have first and last names. But I have no
professional regrets about the publishing or
writing decisions I have made.
If you start second guessing the past,
you will drive
yourself insane and take away from the time you have for writing and
the joy you get from your writing. You just have to
continue to make the best possible decisions, given what you truly want
to get from your
writing, and go from there.
Beyond that, I think you just have to remember to make your own
decisions (don't let other people make them for you, as you are the one
who will have to live with them), follow your heart
and don't ever think that "conventional wisdom" in the
writing
world means anything other than "what people have always
done." There is no wisdom at all involved in what writers
"have always done" -- just low self-esteem, guilt at being
able to
do what they've always wanted to do... and, perhaps, caring a little
too much what other writers will think of them. Trust me: it doesn't
matter a rat's ass what other writers think of you or how successful
you may appear to them. It's what you think of yourself that, ultimately, affects your writing.
On the new Casey:
What is the new
Casey Jones about?
Bad Moon on the Rise centers
around Casey's search for a missing teenage boy and a surprising
discovery
about who his father is (one that hits a little too close to home for
Casey).
The investigation takes Casey into the poorest corner of the N.C. mountains, where meth labs and Hillbilly Heroin smuggling has taken the place of moonshining -- with devastating results.
You'll recognize some recurring themes: Casey struggling with independence vs. her need for friends... facing her personal demons, including a stint she did in a Florida prison... and her tendency to become so obsessed with a case that she fails to consider its affects on her life or on others.
I've brought back some favorite characters as well: Ramsey Lee, Bobby D. and Burly, to name just a few.
On Writing Groups:
Do you belong to a
writer's groups?
God, no. But I lunch and go on regular writing retreats with Diane
Chamberlain, Margaret Maron,
Sarah Shaber, Alex Sokoloff, Kathy Trochek and Bren Witchger.
They’ve been supportive of
me as I have meandered my way back into writing and I thank
them from my heart for their support.
On Other Authors:
Who do you read?
I am a huge Joseph Wambaugh fan, remain a big Thomas
Harris fan, will buy anything by John Sanford and find Dan
Fesperman to be a thoughtful writer who writes about things that are
important -- and writes about them well. I discover many writers
through my mystery book club,
which includes some amazingly well-read crime fiction buffs. You can
check out the book club and our reading
choices here.
Personal Dept.:
How old is your daughter now?
Zuzu is now ten, going on thirty-five. Her favorite things include
hotels, room service and limousines, god help me. There’s
never a
dull moment with this one:
