by June Shaw
The first writers' conference I attended was in New Orleans, only an hour or so away. It was for romance writers.
The thing is I didn't know that; neither did my new friend who drove us there. We were both new writers, both writing mystery. So how did we wind up there? And how did it turn out?
Each of us had read a small article in an area newspaper saying there would be a Fiction Writers Conference that weekend. We both wrote fiction. We teamed up and went.
Splitting up to attend different workshops, we met in the lobby sometime later and like in a comedy, both said, "Do you know what kind of conference this is? They're romance writers!" Neither of us could believe we'd been duped into coming to this kind of conference, but you know what we found? It was great! Neither of us decided to start writing romance, but we learned so much that could help us in any area of writing. We made lots of new friends, and joined their group that meets in New Orleans.
Gosh, that was so many years ago. What a great memory. I've been a member of their group ever since and for the past three years have been its Published Author Liaison. (Okay, so I've written a romance and there's quite a bit of romance in my mystery series.) I've also been representing our state on the board of Mystery Writers of America's Southwest Chapter.
When I decided to get a website, I checked out sites of many published authors. One that made me smile belonged to Candace Calvert. She was writing light-hearted mysteries; a nurse was the main character. On her site she had photos I enjoyed, one with her husband.
Since I was trying to write Janet Evanovitch-inspired mysteries, I loved Candace's site. I told her so and modeled my own website after hers. A year later, after I'd sold the first mystery in my series and it was newly published, I attended a Malice Domestic conference, wondering what I was doing there. I was no one in all those big name authors. Soon after I got in an elevator heading toward my room, the door opened. It was Candace and her husband. "Hey, Candace, I'm June Shaw," I said and we shared hugs. And soon afterward I was running into people I knew from online groups. I was making friends and having such a great time it almost didn't matter that I was new. It was my first big confence. What great friends I also made there.
Do I believe writers' conferences are worthwhile? Absolutely. You pick up knowledge in various areas and make new contacts and greet friends. I'm attending an excellent one in Houma, Louisiana, today that will feature some editors, agents, many best-selling authors, and many of my new and not-so-new friend. No wonder I'm so excited!
How about you? How do you feel about writers' conferences?
www.juneshaw.com
Showing posts with label Malice Domestic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malice Domestic. Show all posts
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A Conversation With Gerrie Ferris Finger, Part 1
By Pat Browning
Gerrie Ferris Finger is a writer who writes, pointing her pen at anything and everything that interests her and everything required for a job, and she has more than one publisher. That may be unique! Let’s do a quick rundown.
She spent 20 years reporting on everything from soup to nuts at a major newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After the death of colleague and mentor Lewis Grizzard she compiled his newspaper columns into two books, THE LAST BUS TO ALBUQUERQUE and SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF GOD. She compiled her own best columns into Q&A ON THE NEWS. In 2000, she wrote a novel, LOOK AWAY FROM EVIL.
Fast forward now. Desert Breeze is publishing four romantic suspense novels in Finger’s Laura Kate Plantation series. The first, WHEN SERPENTS DIE came out in 2009. Finger signed a contract for two romance e-books with Desert Breeze Publishing AND – she won the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Minotaur Best First Traditional Novel Competition. Her entry, THE END GAME, will be out April 27.
Pat: First things first, Gerrie. The editorial review at Amazon.com says: “…The End Game features a strong new heroine in a vivid Southern setting. Gerrie Ferris Finger puts a new spin on the classic mystery novel.” Sounds great! Tell us what the book is about, and where the idea came from.
Gerrie:
Before I began The End Game, a sensational case in Atlanta ordained the plot. A preschool child went missing. He'd been in foster care since infancy, passing from foster family to foster family. How could the system lose a child? As far as I know, he was never found. About that same time, Atlanta police began busting massage parlors, finding ten-to-twelve-year-old foreign girls working in the back rooms, giving more than a traditional massage. The two sad cases combined to inspire The End Game.
Pat: I looked up the guidelines for the Malice Domestic Competition. Among other things, they say:
(quote)
*Murder or another serious crime is at the heart of the story, and emphasis is on the solution rather than the details of the crime.
*Whatever violence is necessarily involved should be neither excessive nor gratuitously detailed, nor is there to be explicit sex.
*The "detective" is an amateur, or, if a professional (private investigator, police officer) is not hardboiled and is as fully developed as the other characters.
*The detective may find him or herself in serious peril, but he or she does not get beaten up to any serious extent.
(end quote)
So squeamish readers won’t have to skip the scary parts?
Gerrie:
I'm laughing because skipping the scary parts would be skipping the murder of a human being, a must in most "murder" mysteries. Therefore, I shouldn't be laughing, should I?
My interpretation of the Malice/St. Martin's rules is that violence and sex should not be lurid. The murder should be off book, or if depicted in the pages, no gory details shown. Stab or shoot the guy and move on to solving the crime. If characters in the novel are lovers, the bedroom door should be firmly shut.
The Malice Domestic organization and St. Martin's Minotaur imprint sponsor the Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. Malice Domestic is a mystery writers and readers convention that celebrates the traditional "cozy" genre. Among the venerated writers are Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Malice contest winners receive tea pot trophies, the tea pot being a trademark of the cozy mystery.
Cozy is a misunderstood genre. It's more than quirky old ladies and gentlemen – maybe throw in a precocious child as Christie liked to do – sitting around drinking tea and discussing the bizarre neighbors. It's more than talking cats and recipe mysteries. It can cross over and become part of another genre, say the thriller.
The End Game is not cozy. Let me quote Robin Agnew, of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, from her recent review: "… it’s (The End Game) hardly a cozy, though it gives a nod to the traditional mystery through the use of an actual locked room murder and some tricky stuff involving train whistles. Dorothy L. Sayers would be proud. But then she wasn’t really a cozy writer, either."
Robin goes on: "Ferris’ ethos …(is) fairly hard boiled, and so is the topic she’s chosen to write about: missing children. Her spare prose and unsentimental writing style get you through some of the hard stuff in the story. Her main character, Moriah Dru, runs an agency called Child Trace, Inc. She’s retired from the police force and often works with her ex-partner, Rick Lake , as she does in this book. Lake is also Dru’s lover, but none of that complicates the story too much. Like a runaway freight train, this novel is all about narrative drive."
The "hard stuff" Robin refers to is the research I did on pedophilia and the callous attitudes in some countries. I don't belabor what I discovered, but some perspective was necessary to the story. I'll say here, there is no overt depiction of child abuse. The girls are gone when the story opens. The point of view is first person so readers know (or should know) there won't be a point of view from the bad guy. It's a chase mystery. Dru and Lake must find the girls before the unknown abductors take them out of the country. There's a murder -- off book, of course -- in the aforementioned locked room.
Pat: I went to your web site and read the excerpt. Loved the voice and conversational style. How much of your book and your style come from your life at the Journal-Constitution? How long did you work on the book before entering it in that famous contest? And why did you decide to enter?
Gerrie:
Although I've always been a cut-to-the-chase writer -- wasn't it Elmore Leonard who said to leave out all the parts nobody reads anyway -- my style was honed on news stories. I wrote a lot of travel stories and other features, which allows a little more elaboration, but newspapers give you a "hole" for your story. If your editor says you have twenty inches, you must boil your story down to twenty inches -- and hope editors don't start cutting your story from the bottom.
I worked on The End Game for, gosh, hard to say with all the revisions, maybe four months on the first draft. It's not a long book. It takes place in a twenty-four hour span. The way I work is, after the first draft, I'd get an idea for another book. I'd put the draft aside and draft another story. During this drafting, I'd review older manuscripts, polishing and tinkering. I've never been finished with a manuscript. If I had my published works before me now, I'd fiddle with them.
Pat: After you won and the contract was signed, how much to-ing and fro-ing took place? Were there lots of editing changes or is the book we’ll be reading basically the same book you submitted? How about the cover? It’s a great cover. Did you have any input or approval? Does it reflect the story’s theme or thrust?
Gerrie:
I'm delighted to say you'll be reading the book I wrote. There were no plot or theme changes.
Ruth Cavin is my editor. Last fall, her assistant e-mailed to say my book was queued next for Ruth to edit. I braced myself. Even though Ruth read it for the contest, now she was reading it to take it apart. Editors, in my experience, like to put their imprints on a work, but, to my surprise, Ruth's hand-written changes in the margins were few -- a word changed, a better phrase inserted, a typo corrected.
The copy editor made minor changes, too. I'm easy to get along with when it comes to editors. At the AJC, I got used to major changes in my copy. Pat, have you ever walked into your newsroom and saw the lede to your story completely rewritten? You get used to it, or you head out the door.
About the cover. I was asked what my ideas were. I said I loved trains, which I do. Trains have a prominent role in The End Game, but I pictured a different cover than they presented. The graphic designer saw something in the copy that I didn't and conveyed it on the cover. It's wonderful. I can say that with pride, because I didn't design it.
Pat: One more question before we leave the contest. Do you have any advice, warnings or tips for an author planning to enter the 2011 Malice Domestic contest?
Gerrie:
Advice: write from your heart and soul; buff the manuscript to perfection and send it off. You enter the contest in October, and, if you haven't heard by March 31, you haven't won. So, while it goes through the process of elimination, don't sit and wait, work on a sequel or another book.
The process starts with readers who receive manuscripts from all over the country. They choose the best in their estimation and send them to St. Martin's. I don't know how many manuscripts Ruth received, but she told me that she'd winnowed it down to four or five to choose from -- all very good -- but mine was the best. Thank you, Ruth.
Tomorrow: We’ll talk about Gerrie’s series with Desert Breeze Publishing, the Laura Kate Plantation Series.
(Photos from Gerrie’s blog and website)
She spent 20 years reporting on everything from soup to nuts at a major newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After the death of colleague and mentor Lewis Grizzard she compiled his newspaper columns into two books, THE LAST BUS TO ALBUQUERQUE and SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF GOD. She compiled her own best columns into Q&A ON THE NEWS. In 2000, she wrote a novel, LOOK AWAY FROM EVIL.
Fast forward now. Desert Breeze is publishing four romantic suspense novels in Finger’s Laura Kate Plantation series. The first, WHEN SERPENTS DIE came out in 2009. Finger signed a contract for two romance e-books with Desert Breeze Publishing AND – she won the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Minotaur Best First Traditional Novel Competition. Her entry, THE END GAME, will be out April 27.
Pat: First things first, Gerrie. The editorial review at Amazon.com says: “…The End Game features a strong new heroine in a vivid Southern setting. Gerrie Ferris Finger puts a new spin on the classic mystery novel.” Sounds great! Tell us what the book is about, and where the idea came from.
Gerrie:
Before I began The End Game, a sensational case in Atlanta ordained the plot. A preschool child went missing. He'd been in foster care since infancy, passing from foster family to foster family. How could the system lose a child? As far as I know, he was never found. About that same time, Atlanta police began busting massage parlors, finding ten-to-twelve-year-old foreign girls working in the back rooms, giving more than a traditional massage. The two sad cases combined to inspire The End Game.
Pat: I looked up the guidelines for the Malice Domestic Competition. Among other things, they say:
(quote)
*Murder or another serious crime is at the heart of the story, and emphasis is on the solution rather than the details of the crime.
*Whatever violence is necessarily involved should be neither excessive nor gratuitously detailed, nor is there to be explicit sex.
*The "detective" is an amateur, or, if a professional (private investigator, police officer) is not hardboiled and is as fully developed as the other characters.
*The detective may find him or herself in serious peril, but he or she does not get beaten up to any serious extent.
(end quote)
So squeamish readers won’t have to skip the scary parts?
Gerrie:
I'm laughing because skipping the scary parts would be skipping the murder of a human being, a must in most "murder" mysteries. Therefore, I shouldn't be laughing, should I?
My interpretation of the Malice/St. Martin's rules is that violence and sex should not be lurid. The murder should be off book, or if depicted in the pages, no gory details shown. Stab or shoot the guy and move on to solving the crime. If characters in the novel are lovers, the bedroom door should be firmly shut.
The Malice Domestic organization and St. Martin's Minotaur imprint sponsor the Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. Malice Domestic is a mystery writers and readers convention that celebrates the traditional "cozy" genre. Among the venerated writers are Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Malice contest winners receive tea pot trophies, the tea pot being a trademark of the cozy mystery.
Cozy is a misunderstood genre. It's more than quirky old ladies and gentlemen – maybe throw in a precocious child as Christie liked to do – sitting around drinking tea and discussing the bizarre neighbors. It's more than talking cats and recipe mysteries. It can cross over and become part of another genre, say the thriller.
The End Game is not cozy. Let me quote Robin Agnew, of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, from her recent review: "… it’s (The End Game) hardly a cozy, though it gives a nod to the traditional mystery through the use of an actual locked room murder and some tricky stuff involving train whistles. Dorothy L. Sayers would be proud. But then she wasn’t really a cozy writer, either."
Robin goes on: "Ferris’ ethos …(is) fairly hard boiled, and so is the topic she’s chosen to write about: missing children. Her spare prose and unsentimental writing style get you through some of the hard stuff in the story. Her main character, Moriah Dru, runs an agency called Child Trace, Inc. She’s retired from the police force and often works with her ex-partner, Rick Lake , as she does in this book. Lake is also Dru’s lover, but none of that complicates the story too much. Like a runaway freight train, this novel is all about narrative drive."
The "hard stuff" Robin refers to is the research I did on pedophilia and the callous attitudes in some countries. I don't belabor what I discovered, but some perspective was necessary to the story. I'll say here, there is no overt depiction of child abuse. The girls are gone when the story opens. The point of view is first person so readers know (or should know) there won't be a point of view from the bad guy. It's a chase mystery. Dru and Lake must find the girls before the unknown abductors take them out of the country. There's a murder -- off book, of course -- in the aforementioned locked room.
Pat: I went to your web site and read the excerpt. Loved the voice and conversational style. How much of your book and your style come from your life at the Journal-Constitution? How long did you work on the book before entering it in that famous contest? And why did you decide to enter?
Gerrie:
Although I've always been a cut-to-the-chase writer -- wasn't it Elmore Leonard who said to leave out all the parts nobody reads anyway -- my style was honed on news stories. I wrote a lot of travel stories and other features, which allows a little more elaboration, but newspapers give you a "hole" for your story. If your editor says you have twenty inches, you must boil your story down to twenty inches -- and hope editors don't start cutting your story from the bottom.
I worked on The End Game for, gosh, hard to say with all the revisions, maybe four months on the first draft. It's not a long book. It takes place in a twenty-four hour span. The way I work is, after the first draft, I'd get an idea for another book. I'd put the draft aside and draft another story. During this drafting, I'd review older manuscripts, polishing and tinkering. I've never been finished with a manuscript. If I had my published works before me now, I'd fiddle with them.
Pat: After you won and the contract was signed, how much to-ing and fro-ing took place? Were there lots of editing changes or is the book we’ll be reading basically the same book you submitted? How about the cover? It’s a great cover. Did you have any input or approval? Does it reflect the story’s theme or thrust?
Gerrie:
I'm delighted to say you'll be reading the book I wrote. There were no plot or theme changes.
Ruth Cavin is my editor. Last fall, her assistant e-mailed to say my book was queued next for Ruth to edit. I braced myself. Even though Ruth read it for the contest, now she was reading it to take it apart. Editors, in my experience, like to put their imprints on a work, but, to my surprise, Ruth's hand-written changes in the margins were few -- a word changed, a better phrase inserted, a typo corrected.
The copy editor made minor changes, too. I'm easy to get along with when it comes to editors. At the AJC, I got used to major changes in my copy. Pat, have you ever walked into your newsroom and saw the lede to your story completely rewritten? You get used to it, or you head out the door.
About the cover. I was asked what my ideas were. I said I loved trains, which I do. Trains have a prominent role in The End Game, but I pictured a different cover than they presented. The graphic designer saw something in the copy that I didn't and conveyed it on the cover. It's wonderful. I can say that with pride, because I didn't design it.
Pat: One more question before we leave the contest. Do you have any advice, warnings or tips for an author planning to enter the 2011 Malice Domestic contest?
Gerrie:
Advice: write from your heart and soul; buff the manuscript to perfection and send it off. You enter the contest in October, and, if you haven't heard by March 31, you haven't won. So, while it goes through the process of elimination, don't sit and wait, work on a sequel or another book.
The process starts with readers who receive manuscripts from all over the country. They choose the best in their estimation and send them to St. Martin's. I don't know how many manuscripts Ruth received, but she told me that she'd winnowed it down to four or five to choose from -- all very good -- but mine was the best. Thank you, Ruth.
Tomorrow: We’ll talk about Gerrie’s series with Desert Breeze Publishing, the Laura Kate Plantation Series.
(Photos from Gerrie’s blog and website)
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Hillerman Country
Contest deadlines have come and gone – except for one of the best. The Tony Hillerman contest for best unpublished novel set in the Southwest is open until June 1. No entry fee, and a great prize – publication by St.Martin’s Press and a $10,000 advance. What’s not to like?
Thanks to Tony’s daughter, Anne Hillerman, the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference has been reformatted to a writers weekend and will go on in November. Conference details are at Anne Hillerman’s Word Harvest web site: http://wordharvest.com/
Here’s a quick look at rules for the novel contest.
Rules for the 2010 HILLERMAN MYSTERY COMPETITION
Sponsored by the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference (THWC) and St. Martin's Press, LLC
1. The Competition is open to any professional or non-professional writer, regardless of nationality, who has never been the author of a published mystery (as defined in subparagraph 2(a) below) and is not under contract with a publisher for publication of a mystery. Only one manuscript entry is permitted per writer.
2. All manuscripts submitted: a) must be original, previously unpublished works of book length (no less than 220 typewritten pages or approximately 60,000 words) written in the English language by the entrant; b) must not violate any right of any third party or be libelous; and c) must generally follow the guidelines below.
GUIDELINES
1. Murder or another serious crime or crimes is at the heart of the story and emphasis is on the solution rather than the details of the crime.
2. The story's primary setting is the Southwestern United States, including at least one of the following states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Southern California and/or Utah.
3. Nominees will be selected by judges chosen by the editorial staff of St. Martin's Press, with the assistance of organizers of the THWC, and the winner will be chosen by St. Martin's editors. The decision of the editors as to the winner of the Competition will be final. St. Martin's reserves the right not to select any winner if, in the sole opinion of the editors, none of the manuscripts submitted are of publishable quality.
4. An attempt will be made to notify the Competition winner, if any, no later than October 31, 2010.
5. If a winner is selected, St. Martin's Press will offer to enter into its standard form author's agreement with the entrant for publication of the winning manuscript. After execution of the standard form authors' agreement by both parties, the winner will receive an advance against future royalties of $10,000.
6. All entries must be received or postmarked no later than June 1, 2010 …
Detailed rules and an entry blank can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/yju83f7
No winner was chosen in 2009, but Roy Chaney won in 2008 for THE RAGGED END OF NOWHERE, set in Las Vegas, and now available.
Here’s part of Chaney’s acceptance speech. (The full speech is at the Word Harvest web site)
***Quote***
The Ragged End of Nowhere is set in Las Vegas, and the great beauty of Las Vegas lies in its inherent absurdity. The most obvious example of this is the simple fact that this glittering city that never sleeps has been plunked down in the middle of one of the most inhospitable desert landscapes in the United States.
The idea of building a couple of dozen casino hotels with a hundred thousand or so guest rooms in the middle of a barren desert where the average rain fall is negligible and the only major source of water is a river that has to be shared with six other states is not a shining example of good reasoning. And the notion that an entire city with a metropolitan population of nearly two million people might take root in such a place is nothing short of preposterous or it would be, if it hadn't already happened.
… Not only are Las Vegans aware of the absurdity that surrounds them, they actually seem to embrace it. As just one example, the mayor of Las Vegas is a former mob lawyer who has the habit of showing up at official functions surrounded by sequined showgirls in feathered tiaras. He considers himself a doctor of mixology and when the mood strikes him he teaches classes to all and sundry on the proper construction of a martini. If any other mayor in the country displayed this kind of joie de vivre he would be rousted out of city hall so fast it would make his head spin, but in Las Vegas it's just another day at the office.
***End Quote***
And speaking of contests:
Next week I’ll have
A Conversation with
Gerrie Ferris Finger,
a prolific writer whose mystery novel,
THE END GAME, will be released on April 27.
The novel won the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's Minotaur competition for
Best First Traditional Mystery Novel in 2009.
..........................................Stay tuned!
-------
Photo of Window Rock from web site of OETA, Oklahoma’s PBS station.
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