Q and A with Katie Crouch, author of Men and Dogs

What’s the backstory behind Men and Dogs?


My own great-grandfather disappeared while fishing in a river near Durham, North Carolina. No one knows what happened to him, but the family likes to hypothesize that he ran away to South America. I became interested in what happens to family members once they're gone—how they often become larger and more interesting in their absence than in their existence day to day. So I created a modern family, put the father on a fishing boat, and sent him out to sea. The rest of the book soon followed.

How did the title come about?

The book literally came from an image I had of a man in his boat with his dog. I scrawled the title on a notebook three years ago, and it never changed.



You’re from Charleston but now live in San Francisco. Did you go through a culture shock when you moved to the west coast? And how does it feel when you go back to visit the South?


By the time I got to San Francisco (I was 26), I'd been out of the South for a while, but going to college in Boston at 17 was a huge shock for me. In the winter, I literally could not get out of bed. Plus, I dressed up too much and everyone noticed my accent.

Now when I go back I feel like a flip-flop wearing leftist. I don't fit in at all. I will say, though, that my accent comes back after a beer, and I'm pretty good at re-adopting the slow, chatty pace of life. I still love it.


Speaking of setting, both Charleston and San Francisco play big parts in Men and Dogs. How important is setting in your novels?


I seem to be stuck on Charleston, despite having left almost 20 years ago. This is a compliment to the city, I think. There is something about it I can't shake.


Your characters are so well drawn and you create very authentic male characters. What comes first for you, the plot or the characters and how do you go about developing your characters?


Characters come first. If I know who they are and put them in a situation, then plot follows. It's like putting chickens --really smart, interesting chickens--in a pen together and watching what happens.

Did you encounter any particular challenges while writing Men and Dogs?



I had a hard time ending the book. I knew what had happened to the father, but I had to reconcile Hannah with that. I wrote the last three chapters seven times, trying to figure it out. I thought I was going to have a breakdown. But the characters and I figured it out together.

Men and Dogs is your second novel. Did you approach it a lot differently than your debut?

Not really. I'd like to tell you the second book was easier, but I think it's always a lot of hunting around in the dark.


Katie Crouch is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Girls in Trucks and the newly released Men and Dogs. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Observer, Tin House, Glamour, and McSweeney's. She received her M.F.A. at Columbia University, and was awarded a Sewanee Walter Dakin Fellowship and a MacDowell Fellowship. She currently lives in San Francisco

Guest Blog: Susan Malone

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

In books, as in reality, oh, just about everything! But does it seem as though what often draws us into the love lives of fictional characters would make us cringe in real life? Well, there’s a reason for that.

It’s called fantasy.

And not Fantasy as in a fiction category, but the good old-fashioned kind where we get lost in the romance of love. I know, I know, all the shrinks will tell us (and for good reason) that that’s not real love. We know already. If we wanted a dose of reality, we’d be in the therapist’s office rather than reading a fabulous novel, where the hero is oh-so charismatic, oh-so accomplished (okay, so I admit to a crush on MacGyver, so you know how old I am), oh-so noble. And oh-so not like anyone you actually ever get to meet.

The trick, as novelists, is to make him real enough that readers can sink their French-manicured fingernails into him, as does his love interest in the novel, while maintaining that larger-than-life charisma, which makes us all swoon.

Because admit it—you pretty much want to swoon over the male lead. Take even Hollywood out of it, with all of its Brad Pitts, George Clooneys, etc., etc., and let’s just focus on the guys in our imaginations coming to life on the pages.

He can be many things, which make him real enough to love. He can be sweet as well as charming. Stolid as well as funny. He can of course be flawed. Oh, do we ever love the bad boy. But not (as most men would like to believe) because he’s the Id run amok, but because the bad boy, if managed correctly on our pages, has the potential to become the Wild Man—the one we all want, with courage and strength and ethics; the one who conquers the evil forces while maintaining that vulnerability to stay true to the love of his life. Gladiator, anyone? Ugh oh, we were supposed to stick to books!

For example, why has Nicholas Sparks hit such a cord? (Several of my agent friends, jaded to the core, admit to the guilty pleasure of reading his books.) Well, there’s a reason for that . . . Sparks’ heroes are just that—strong men, often knocked to the mat by the loss of love, who then find within themselves the strength to love again. And a woman’s dream is to be that very love who brings such a man back to life. In Freudian terms, ‘to be chosen.’ For our purposes, sort of Prince Charming in reverse.

In real life, these men might be cloying; someone we just want to push away. All of that ‘I can’t live without you’ stuff can get, well, annoying when diapers pile up and meals need cooking and no one has paid the light bill. Conversely, have you ever dumped one of those relentless sorts? While a man pursuing a woman at all costs through the course of a novel may be oh-so-romantic in the pages of a book, in real life we call that stalking. In real life we take out restraining orders.

Most good mates in reality are, well, just guys. Good guys. The kind we take home to Mom and for whom she cooks (joyously) on Sundays. But in our spare time, in the hours of our night, we run to Heathcliff.

And yes, there’s a reason for that . . .

So your job, as a novelist, is to find that balance between decent and powerful; between loving and the ability to stand atop Mt. Everest with a single bound. Your job is to capture all those readers (75% of whom are female) who are holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night . . .



AUTHOR BIO

Award-winning author and editor Susan Mary Malone’s works focus on women’s issues, touching the inner emotions of the feminine psyche. She is the author of four traditionally published books (fiction and nonfiction) and many published short stories. A free-lance editor, thirty-plus Malone-edited books have now sold to Traditional publishers.

Q and A with Ann B. Ross, Author of the Miss Julia Series

How did the idea for the Miss Julia character come about?


The character of Miss Julia first evolved from hearing a voice in my head, a voice that made sharp, incisive comments that I could never say aloud myself. Then I became aware of a mental image of an older woman walking down a sidewalk, holding the hand of a little boy. It finally dawned on me that those comments were coming from that woman, that she had something to say and I’d better begin listening to her.

This is the eleven novel in the series. Do you keep a series bible to keep details straight? How do you keep coming up with so many fresh and amusing adventures for your characters?

A series bible is a great idea, and I wish I’d thought of it years ago. When I start a new book, I rarely sit and dream up the “fresh and amusing adventures,” much less outline the entire story. Things just begin to happen when Miss Julia makes her appearance.

Did you face any special challenges writing the latest novel?

The special challenge with the latest book, MISS JULIA RENEWS HER VOWS, was to avoid (in spite of the title) a Renewal Ceremony. There is a wedding ceremony (Hazel Marie’s), and I figured that was enough.

What is your favorite part of the writing process? How about the least favorite part?

My favorite part of the writing process is when I’m on a roll and characters are saying things I’m not expecting, which then leads to my falling off the chair, laughing. My least favorite part is proof-reading the galleys, when it’s too late to change anything.

You always tour the Southeast for your novels. Do you have an especially interesting tour adventure you'd like to share?

I’m often asked why my tours are limited to the Southeast, but they haven’t always been. I’ve been sent to Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc. I am limited, however, by the fact that I don’t fly. And as you may know, Viking’s Publicity Department arranges all the tours and they (as I understand it) rely on bookstores to request a visit.

All my tours are interesting--it’s a thrill to walk into a store and see a crowd of people waiting, especially since I’m always afraid no one will be there. I was in Birmingham once when there was an earthquake, on the road to Memphis once with tornados right behind me, leaving New Orleans once when the rain was so heavy I crossed the 5-mile Lake Pontchatrain without seeing it, left Atlanta one morning so sick I had to stop and throw up on the side of I-20 and, well, I could go on but I won’t. On second thought, I will. The most moving and treasured moments have been when readers have told me how much Miss Julia has meant to them. One woman’s daughters buried her with one of my books in her casket; people getting chemotherapy take them to treatment centers with them; recent widows have thanked me for lifting their spirits; seminary professors have used the books to instruct students on what not to do; ministers have referred to them in their sermons, and one woman said she couldn’t die until Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens got married. I’m worried about her now.

The series is ten years old. If you could write yourself a note now and give it to yourself ten years ago, what sage writerly advice would it contain?


If I could send a note to myself back ten years ago, I’d write: “You’re in for the ride of your life. Stop worrying and enjoy it!” That’s neither sage nor writerly, but it would’ve saved me a lot of stress and anxiety.

Ann B. Ross holds a doctorate in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has written eleven novels featuring her popular heroine, Miss Julia. http://www.missjulia.com/

Q and A with Connie May Fowler, author of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

What is the backstory behind How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly?

Clarissa was birthed from various sources. I think the very first spark occurred when I was doing some leisurely reading about pre-Civil War Florida and came across information about the 1819 Florida Purchase Treaty. Florida was a Spanish colony and though Spain didn’t practice progressive policies throughout the New World, in Florida it did. For instance, women and black people could own land. Black men could sit on juries. It was, considering what was occurring in the United States, an imperfect Utopia. But the treaty called for Florida to be turned over to the U.S.—a place where slavery and the subjugation of women flourished—in 1821. Thanks to a real estate deal, the most basic of human rights were stripped from two groups: women and people of African descent. That haunted me. For about four years, I walked around with that in my head, creating characters that would have been directly, horrendously affected by the treaty. But I didn’t want it to be a historical novel in the traditional sense, so it also became a ghost story with Clarissa Burden being our current day heroine. Clarissa, too, has to find her path to freedom. I was interested in what happens to people who are trapped in cruel relationships (government or familial)—how that shapes them and affects other aspects of their lives. Clarissa’s challenges are many and most of them stem from the simple fact that she is mired in a horrible marriage. Her march toward freedom is tied to the past—she recognizes that—and this tension between past and present, the acceptance of cruelty or its outright rejection, forms the foundation of the novel.


Your novels often have supernatural elements. Where did your fascination with otherworldly matters come from?

I grew up around women who saw ghosts and interacted with them on a daily basis. It was like my own private Haiti—a place where the departed are integrally woven into the daily fabric of life. My mother and aunts were always receiving visitations from dead husbands, children, parents, brothers, and sisters. It was just the way things were in our family. And, occasionally, they would decide that a domicile had been infected with an evil spirit and then we would have to move, leaving behind all our belongings. It made for an interesting and sometimes terrifying childhood. But I think I’m addicted to the thrill. I watch bad TV like Ghost Hunters and then have to sleep with the light on.

Did you face any special challenges writing How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly?


I think novel writing is a very difficult art form. I have never had an “easy” experience. But How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly presented me with a few unique challenges. Clarissa’s husband is an Afrikaner; I’ve never been to South Africa so I had to do a lot of research: history, geography, etcetera. I had to know things that would never make their way onto the page. I wanted his speech—especially the Afrikan words he bandies about—to be authentic. I also had to allow the ghosts’ lives to arise from the page as organically and easily as Clarissa’s did. The ghost family’s backstory had to inform the present action without weighting it down. And finally, I wrote the entire book in fifty pages. And I kept rewriting those fifty pages until they were worn out. A friend of mine, the poet Rane Arroyo, finally pointed that out to me. So my main challenge was extrapolating those fifty ultra concentrated pages into a whole, fully realized novel.

Your setting—North Florida’s panhandle--really comes alive in the novel. I know you live in that area and have also written many columns about Florida. Can you share some of the things you especially love about your corner of Florida?

I live in one of the few relatively unsullied areas of the state. For instance, as I write this, the only sounds I hear are that of bird and surf song. Bears and coyotes make their home here. Sea turtles nest and dolphins hunt mullet. Rivers and seas commingle, creating dynamic ecosystems, and the forest extends to the edge of the bay. But we are, of course, experiencing tremendous pressures. I do not think that I will recognize this place in twenty years. Big Oil is trying to drill a mere three miles from the coast. They are telling any legislator dumb enough to listen that the rigs are invisible. If Big Oil and their lies win, we can kiss goodbye what’s left of this fragile paradise.
Your main character suffers from writers’ block. Has that ever happened to you and, if so, what did you do about it?

Actually, I’ve never experienced writers’ block because I fear if I give into it, I’ll never write another word. But I thought it would be a kick to have a protagonist who is afflicted with one of the most wicked cases of WB ever. And what I find funny about poor Clarissa’s predicament is that wonderful narratives are occurring all around her. People are serving up amazing stories like gifts from the Magi. But she is so damaged, thanks to her loveless marriage, she can’t allow herself to see the stories unfolding all around her.


How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly is your seventh book. Suppose you could go back in time to when you were writing your first novel and tell yourself three things. What would they be?


That is a really difficult question. In some ways, writing Sugar Cage (my first novel) was a great and heady experience because I had no idea what I was doing or if anyone would care. I just created by the seat of my pants. And I think, actually, that is what I have to relearn every time I begin a new project. I have to become childlike again and really let loose in that syntax-filled sandbox. I do a lot of research and I think a lot about my characters, but if I try too fully to impose the empirical world onto the hallucinatory landscape of the novel, everything falls apart.



What comes first for you when writing a novel? Theme, characters, plot? Tell us a little about your process.

I’m character crazy. I love my characters and admittedly probably find them more fascinating than anyone else. But that’s okay. Writers birth their characters into being and then we love them—even the scoundrels—as if they were family. Being plotless is the great curse of the literary writer. I have to ruminate on the pulse points, as I prefer to call plot, long and hard. The best writing occurs when the pulse points of my characters’ lives arise organically from the page. Books contain an internal logic and if you try to impose an exterior order on the novel, you end up with a melodramatic plot or—even worse—a mechanical one. And without a doubt, I am my own worst enemy. I will walk around for years with characters in my head, doing research into their issues and the times they lived, and I will try to force a plot upon them. I will grow ever more nervous and manic, and when finally I am at my wits end, I will sit down to write—utterly terrified—and if I have any brains at all on that particular day, I will remain silent and let the characters do the talking. They know the plot. My job is to listen.

Q and A with Jeffrey Stepakoff, author of Fireworks Over Toccoa

What is the back story behind Fireworks Over Toccoa? 


In 2002, my family and I had just moved into a new home north of Los Angeles which overlooked the Six Flags park there, Magic Mountain. We had a two year-old and we’d just had our second child, and in the summers, pretty much every evening, we would all sit on our front porch and watch the fireworks over the park. The displays were extensive and really quite magnificent, filling the skies over the Santa Clarita Valley with these breathtaking displays of light.

I had such warm feelings about the nightly event, the four of us, this new family, sitting there in our new home, watching together like it was our own private display. I think fireworks just got into my heart that summer.

At the same time, along with working on the writing staff at DAWSON’S CREEK, I had a pilot deal with Twentieth Century. So I was searching for new ideas to develop for a TV series, and I lit upon the world of fireworks. I started developing the idea of a fireworks family, and learning about the wonderful history of fireworks and the old Italian pyrotechnics traditions.

I flew to Pittsburgh and visited the Vitales at Pyrotechnico and the Zambellis at Zambelli Fireworks Internationale. I even had dinner with George “Boom-Boom” Zambelli, one of the great Italian-American fireworks masters, just weeks before he passed away.

I learned there was this inherently dramatic world about these first generation Italian families who really brought fireworks to this country at the turn of the century, switched their plants over to munitions factories during World War II, sent their sons to fight in the war – often against Italy! – and were still rounded up, arrested and sent away to internment camps.

As often happens with pilots, that project did not move forward in Hollywood, and it went into a manila folder and onto a pile with all the other manila folders on the back of my credenza.

A few years ago, in search of a more family friendly lifestyle, I moved back to Atlanta with my wife and our young children. My wife and I were both raised in Atlanta, though we didn’t know each other until meeting in Los Angeles.

My wife’s family is from Toccoa, Georgia, where her grandfather was once mayor and owned the local car dealership, Tabor Motor Company. I visited Toccoa several times and simply fell in love with it. So, when I decided I wanted to finally write my first novel, I dug out that fireworks folder, and for a setting, started thinking about Toccoa.

I knew from my years sitting in story rooms that I wanted to construct a compelling story, a page-turn, if you will. Similarly, by this point in my career, I was very clear that I wanted to write what I love to write most, a love story. So I had fireworks, Toccoa, and I found a beautiful, smart, young southern girl named Lily Davis Woodward, and I was off.



You’re a debut novelist. Tell us how your novel came to be published.

I also teach dramatic writing at Kennesaw State University and my students will tell you that I am nothing short of obsessive about story structure. Again, I suspect this comes from years of designing story under insanely tight deadlines. So I spent nearly a year outlining and developing the novel, and when I finally had a structure that I felt worked, I sat down and wrote most of it in the winter of ‘08. My wife was pregnant at the time with our third, and I have such fond memories of sitting at our dining room table and writing that winter, often late into the evening, while she sat nearby in the living room, sewing and reading.

I took some great notes from my publishing agent, Daniel Greenberg, and when we were satisfied with the draft we put it on the market. Katie Gilligan at Thomas Dunne, and imprint of St. Martin’s Press, responded to the material, got some in-house reads, and we made a two-book deal. I can’t even begin to tell you how fortunate I feel to be working with Katie and everyone at SMP. This is one of the most amazingly smart and supportive teams an author could ever even begin to hope to work with.



You have a television writing background. What were some challenges you faced when you switched to writing a novel?

You know what the biggest challenge I’m finding is? Letting go. Letting go of this project that I love so much and these characters that I have so deeply imbedded in my core. You don’t have that issue so much when you write TV. I suppose after many years on a particular staff, you have to switch gears and learn the characters and world of another series. But my experience in TV was that after several seasons spent writing about the lives of the same people, I was generally ready to move on. It was hard to let FIREWORKS OVER TOCCOA go, hard to stop writing it, living in that world, living with the characters rattling around in my head day and night. But at the same time, it’s been so thrilling now to start sharing it with readers.

On a craft level, I’ve learned, and am still enjoying learning, some of the more fundamental aspects of fiction writing. Really painting a scene and a moment with words. Filling in the subtext and the inner emotions with language. And at the same time, still dramatizing and not just telling.

Remember, a screenplay is really a map of a story, the bones, if you will. Everything from emotional subtext to the details of the scenery are delegated. The cool thing about writing a novel is that you are not only the writer, you’re also the director, the actors, the set and lighting designer, etc. To have that kind of absolute control over story is a wonderfully satisfying creative experience. To really get it just right. Which of course is something difficult to do in TV because of the speed of production and the collaborative nature of the process, a nature which, of course, often extends well beyond the story room and into executive suites.

So in order to fulfill all that novel writing affords an author, I’m constantly asking myself: Is this scene painted as well as it can be? Are my characters emotions dramatized as much as they can be? Am I still moving the story along as compellingly as possible?



Who are some of your literary influences?

I read a lot of different writers. I love popular fiction and I’m a sucker for Stephen King. The man knows how to tell a tale. Likewise, I appreciate the cinematic nature of what Michael Crichton was doing with his fiction.

People have been making comparisons of my work to Nicholas Sparks. I have read nearly all of his books, and I think I have an understanding, as well as a respect, for what he does as well as his appeal. I have some things to say, and some ways I’d like to say them, that I think go beyond what he’s doing right now. While I think love stories tend to be universal and often classic in nature, I like to dig, and keep digging until I really feel I’ve gotten to the true emotional center of a character. Continue to peel away the onion, if you will. I also think that while there are inevitable payoffs to our inciting incidents, they should be unexpected. If they’re not, I don’t think I’ve done my job well. I like to turn story over and over until I find a fresh way to do something. One of the senior editors at SMP called my work “Nicholas Sparks 2.0.” That makes me smile.

I also have to say, I was greatly moved, and I suppose influenced, by Cormac McCarthy’s last book, THE ROAD. His profoundly precise use of language and his ability to stir is something that got into my soul.



What is the most surprising thing you learned about the publishing industry? I imagine it’s quite different from television.

How nice everyone is, and more to the point, how much they genuinely love and respect writers.



You’re novel is set during World War II. Why did you choose to do a period piece?

I set out to write a love story. Could there be a more romantic time?! Really, when I did my research and learned about the close relationship between munitions and fireworks, how Italians were treated in this country during the war, and what was going on in the south during that time, it seemed a like a naturally dramatic period to me.

What’s your best advice for aspiring novelists?

I wish I could find something truly insightful and new to say here because it’s such an honor to be in a position where someone is asking me that. The truth from my heart is still what I always hear: write. Write, write and write some more. Also, of course, read.

As I mentioned, I’m a bit of a zealot about structure, so I think it’s important to master the fundamentals of story. I also think you must carve out time for yourself every single day of your life for your work. Time that is yours, specifically for writing. And even if you spend that time staring at your shoes, daydreaming about your story, or just daydreaming, you must cut that time out for yourself. It’s critical.

I also want to say, thank you again for asking me these questions. You know, when you write television and movies, tens of millions of people see your work, but rarely do they write to you, or come to hear you read, or ask your thoughts about what you wrote or why you wrote it. It’s such a commitment to pick up a book and listen to the dreams and whispers and heartache of another person. In so many ways, it’s an act of faith, an act of connection.

So I suppose that’s been the greatest thing for me in writing this book, in becoming a novelist, connecting with people this way. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my thoughts.

Jeffrey Stepakoff was raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he received a BA in Journalism. In 1988, the day after getting his MFA in Playwriting from Carnegie Mellon, he drove to Hollywood where he began writing for film and television. Jeffrey has “written by” or “story by” credits on thirty-six television episodes, has written for fourteen different series and has worked on seven primetime staffs, producing hundreds of hours of internationally-recognized television, including the Emmy-winning THE WONDER YEARS, SISTERS, WILD CARD, HYPERION BAY, THE MAGIC SCHOOL, C16: FBI, ROBIN’S HOODS, LAND’S END, FLIPPER, SONS & DAUGHTERS, MAJOR DAD, THE YAKOV SMIRNOFF SHOW, BEAUTY & THE BEAST, HAVE FAITH, SIMON& SIMON, and DAWSON’S CREEK where he was Co-Executive Producer. Stepakoff has also created and developed pilots for many of the major studios and networks, including 20th Century, Paramount, MTM, Fox and ABC. And he has developed and written major motion pictures, including Disney’s TARZAN and BROTHER BEAR, and EM Entertainment’s LAPITCH, THE LITTLE SHOEMAKER, Croatia’s selection for the 1998 Academy Awards.
A few years ago, Stepakoff returned to Atlanta, where he lives with his wife and three young children, and began writing fiction. FIREWORKS OVER TOCCOA is his first novel. Presently, he speaks around the country, teaches dramatic writing at Kennesaw State University, and is hard at work on his second novel for St. Martin’s Press. In his spare time, he builds forts in living room with sofa cushions.A Spring 2010 SIBA Okra Pick, An April 2010 Indie Next List Notable
http://JeffreyStepakoff.com/

UNEXPECTED FRIENDSHIPS by Peggy Webb




I am one of the lucky ones. I have a career that spans twenty-five years, and I’m still going strong. A quarter of a century! I can hardly believe it. Besides love of writing, the thing that stands out to me most is love of my fans.

In the early days of my career, I was so caught up in the whirlwind of book signings, lectures, conferences and deadlines that I saw my fans as a sea of smiling faces. Those were such heady times that often I could barely remember my own name, let alone those of my fans.

Then a wonderful thing happened. You started writing letters and sending cake recipes. You told me about your favorite characters and your children and your dogs. You told me about your dreams, your weddings, the births of your children and grandchildren. You took the time to share your lives with me.

Not only have I been blessed by getting to be privy to your lives, but you’ve blessed me with your generosity. You sent cards on my birthday. You compared my writing to the lyric beauty of Pat Conroy. PAT CONROY! One of my all time favorite authors! After I started writing the mystery series featuring an intrepid Elvis hound, you made a birthday cake for me in Wetumpka, Alabama – in the shape of a hound dog! You made an Elvis jungle room cake for a book party in Pensacola, Florida. You invited me to the Delta, and sent me a CD of yourself singing beautiful contemporary gospel songs. You invited me to a book party in Linn, Missouri, and every one of you dressed as one of my characters. You came to my house with soup and sympathy when I had bronchitis. You sent me a frantic email because you’d heard I was dead, and you begged me to say it wasn’t so.

Over the years, you became more than fans; you became friends.

There have been other beautiful, unexpected friendships, too – with fellow authors, booksellers, librarians, agents, editors. But today I’m not blogging about the other friendships that have grown out of my career. I’m blogging about my dear fans.

In the eighties, fan letters were sent to my publisher, who forwarded them to me. One of the most beautiful came from a woman in Brooklyn who had a special needs son. She’d just finished reading Touched By Angels, my simple little love story about a woman with her own special needs child, and the man who becomes hero to both. The mother in Brooklyn wrote that my book gave her hope. I cried when I read her letter. I cry when I think of it still.

Today email has made the world small. I get mail from fans in Italy and Germany and Africa. How wonderful! Still, I love getting the occasional letter delivered by parcel post. Yesterday a fan wrote to thank me for the “endless hours of entertainment,” I’d given to him and “countless readers.”

It’s my turn to say, thank you. Thank you for your loyalty and the endless pleasure your friendship has given me.

You can visit Peggy at http://www.peggywebb.com/

Big Apathy vs Yoda, The Perfect Literary Agent

By Andy Straka

Andy Straka is the author of the Shamus Award-winning and Anthony and Agatha Award-nominated Frank Pavlicek novels. A licensed falconer and co-founder of the popular Crime Wave at the annual Virginia Festival of the Book, Andy is also the author of Record Of Wrongs, which Mystery Scene magazine calls "a first-rate thriller." The latest book in the Pavlicek series is titled Kitty Hitter (ISBN 1594148120 Cengage/Five Star $25.95).

www.andystraka.com

                                                                                         *

Once upon a time, there was an unassuming writer from an unassuming town who dared to write a great novel.  At least she thought it was a great novel.  It had words and pages.  Lots and lots of words, and lots and lots of pages.  She thought they told a pretty good story.

Our unassuming writer had worked diligently on her prose. She had visited her local library regularly since she was a child and read more books than she could even remember.  She especially loved novels, and so she thought she might try to write one herself.  Maybe someday people would enjoy the story she had written the way she had enjoyed so many stories written by others. Sometimes, she even read a page or two of her novel for her friends.  They all told her she had an incredible knack for writing.  She felt she was destined to find a huge readership.                                                                                              
Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away (a/k/a New York City), the Book Wars slogged on.  The virtuous Federation of Writers was pitted against the Evil Empire of Apathy.  Fatigue and frustration fueled by budget cuts and other changes at publishing houses had replaced joy for many.  The book industry was flooded by manuscripts, far more than it could ever publish and hope to survive.  Tired, overworked editors and publicists searched often in vain for bestsellers and “breakout” books that would bring in enough sales to support the rest of their lists.  Elsewhere, bookstores and libraries were faced with the overwhelming task of sorting through thousands of new titles published each month.  Jaded journalists and book reviewers found themselves more and more bombarded by hype, and the reading public had begun to grow numb, drowning in a tsunami of new books, not to mention other entertainment choices.

Enter Yoda, the literary agent of our unassuming writer’s dreams.  Small but powerful, Yoda had gained a oneness with the publishing universe.  He often dined with influential publishing executives.   He wielded Publishers Weekly like a heavenly staff. Once in a while, he even entertained editors in his tiny tree house for tea. (They never minded stooping.) Yoda communed with trends.

Our unassuming writer gathered up her courage and mailed off her manuscript to Yoda’s exclusive tree house location.  (She found the address in the annual George Lucas Guide to magical literary agents.)  A few weeks later, the busy Yoda read her novel and instantly fell in love with it.  Hooray!  Success!

But, sad to say, not much has happened since then for our unassuming writer.  Her novel has apparently “made the rounds” and no one has bought it yet.  There are still a few possibilities, and Yoda remains cautiously enthusiastic about her prospects.  Keep writing and be patient, Yoda explains.  The photon torpedoes of rejection keep dropping and Yoda teaches her things.

Does the story of Yoda and the unassuming writer sound familiar? It’s purposefully trite and overly simplistic, of course, but I made it up because I occasionally need to remind myself of why I started all this writing foolishness in the first place.  The reasons, for most of us, aren’t all that complicated.  Wouldn’t we all like to have a Yoda in our corner, no matter where we might be parked at the moment on the ladder to success?  The story is incomplete though because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in nearly fifteen years of writing, the story is never over until you (the writer) says it is.  There is always another story, always another chapter, always a new beginning.

Not long after my first novel, A Witness Above, was published, a writer from Publisher’s Weekly asked me a question for a feature article they were doing on my book along with new titles from a handful of other crime writers. (The book was orphaned from the get-go when my original editor left Penguin and also suffered the misfortune of being published only four months before 9/11, yet still managed to go to a second printing.)  The magazine writer wanted to know what I, as a new author, thought about “the intensely competitive landscape of commercial crime fiction” or words to that effect.  I can’t even remember what my answer was, but it must not have been very quote-worthy because it never made it into the article.

Now I realize I may have misunderstood the question.  I had been an athlete in college and worked in medical sales for years.  I thought the man wanted to know if I felt intensely competitive toward other authors, if I thought I’d figured out some magic formula to claw my way to the top of the heap.  The truth was I hadn’t even made it anywhere near the top of the heap, not even made much of a dent, if indeed there was even a heap to climb.  I didn’t feel competitive toward other writers and still don’t.  I just had yet to learn the reason why.

My story is not that different from many others.  It took three years to finish my first book, another two years, and dozens upon dozens of rejections and rewrites before I was able to find an agent to take a chance on me.  Nearly ten years later, I still haven’t figured out any magic formulas, and sometimes I find it more difficult than ever to keep getting published, to stay in the game.   But I have been extremely blessed to have had not one but two wonderful literary agents.  (I made the painful decision to move on from my first agent to my current agent because, as fabulous as she was, she wasn’t as focused on the markets for which I write.)   And guess what?   Neither of my agents have been Yoda.  Nor have I ever really expected them to be.

If you’re in the category of searching for a literary agent, I don’t think you should be looking for a Yoda either.  Why?  Because he’s a figment of our romantic literary imaginations.  Because, agented or not, you still have to pilot the x-wing fighter yourself.  You still have to try to make the impossible run down the gauntlet of the death star of apathy and make the impossible shot.  You still have to make the magic and write the book. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go watch the movie again.)  The fact is the best agent in the world is going to have a difficult time selling any manuscript that isn’t all it’s meant to be.

So that then is where the competition lies.  Not with other writers but with ourselves.  Writing and writing and writing.  Searching for a better story, that elusive tale, perfectly told.  Becoming the writer, I personally believe, God intends us to be.

As I mentioned, I spent many years in sales, so I think I have at least a little bit of an idea what a busy agent’s day is like.  My number one rule when dealing with my agent is this: I respect his time.  I try very hard not to pester him with phone calls or emails or bother him about details I can figure out on my own.  My second rule is to never try to expect him to be responsible for my success.  I must retain that responsibility myself.  My job is to try to continue to provide him with the best quality work to sell, and to keep trying to make it better because I’m the one wielding the light saber . . . er, pen.

Big Apathy doesn’t care much about yours or my dream of being New York Times bestsellers.  An agent can be an important friend and ally in the jungle to help you in your writing, a critical link along the way.  But a good agent can never be a Yoda; he or she is simply a pro, and he or she will try to tell you like it is and try to point you in the right direction and then still have to sit back and root for you to make that impossible run.

And what if you don’t yet have an agent, yet, and you just can’t seem to find one?  Don’t despair.

Always remember it’s your writing that can take you where you want to go.  Nothing else.  Oh, and a trusty R2D2 laptop computer as you're traveling down that death star might just come in handy, too.

Teach you, I will.


* Plush Yoda Doll      
I'm jumping back online right now and ordering my $10 Plush Yoda Doll pictured above.   Partly in hopes that these nice folks won't sue me for using the image of their doll and also to remind me of the lesson of Yoda, The Perfect Literary Agent.