Unbreakable spirits (although they keep trying), by Catriona

What single moment of being a published writer has been the most memorable?

I write this sitting, not in the kitchen sink, but outside a winery on the regular Wednesday write-in of the Wednesday Writers. So I thought I'd ask them.

Lisa, Spring, Tamsen

Eileen Rendahl, who's not actually here tonight because she's off on a troll hunt (i.e. looking at the giant wooden trolls of Oregon, not fighting cyber-bullies - although imagine if she was doing both. I'd watch that show.), texted to say that her sweetest moment was when she wanted to branch out into more than one genre and gave her Pocket editor a couple of ideas. "Then I met up with her at a conference. She gave me a big hug and said 'Apparently, you can write everything!'."

Tamsen Schultz "A woman wrote to me to say my books had helped her through the treatment for a brain tumor. They took her away to a different place and gave her something else to focus on. That letter made me cry. Also, I've got this great one-star review on Amazon - 'very Nora Roberts' Failed attempt to bring me down, lady."

Spring Warren "It was when I had won a prize, for The Breaks, which has a male protagonist. I went into the room for the presentation and people I half-knew said polite hellos but kept looking over my shoulder for someone else to talk to. [Don't you hate that? CMcP] Finally someone asked "So, Spring, why are *you* here?" and I said, "Well, I won the prize." They had been looking for the guy (sic) who wrote the prize-winning book. Ha!"

Lisa Nalbone "The one that pops to mind is the *first* time I got a tag on Instagram saying a total stranger had found my book and it had really helped them. (That's the book that became Learn More, Worry Less, Love Learning.) She was going to do a podcast and feature it . . . somewhere . . . Oh, what wasn't she going to do? And what did she do? Correct. But it was a sweet moment."

And now me, Catriona. I'll go for one of my worst moments. Funny now, but at the time . . . ach, it was funny then too. But pretty dark humour. I was having a book launch in the big Waterstones on Princes Street, in Edinburgh. We were taking over the top-floor cafe, with the view of the castle. Swankerama. I arrived and started climbing the stairs, feeling like quite a lot. At the first landing, there was a sign and I caught sight of my name. Here's what the sign said: [big writing] THE CAFE WILL CLOSE AT 5PM TONIGHT [small writing] because of an event with Catriona McPherson [big writing] SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.

Cx

Eileen and me one night when she wasn't troll-hunting

Remember that time...? by Eric Beetner

 What single moment of being a published writer has been the most memorable?

I’ve been a very lucky writer and after 15 years since my first novel was published, I have a host of memories. If I had to total them up, surely my good memories outnumber the bad ones. However, as any creative knows, it’s the bad ones that stick with you.

So for every kind word a writing hero has said about my work, for every book I’ve signed, every glowing review I’ve gotten, every awards ceremony I’ve attended, there are moments of indignity and humiliation that come along with this crazy business.

For example the weekend I went 0 for 3 on awards starting on a Friday night when I lost a Shamus award, into Saturday night when I lost an Anthony award only to get on a plane, fly back to L.A., don a tux and make it just in time to lose an Emmy award on Sunday. 3 nights, 3 nominations, zero wins.

There was the time I sat at the signing table at Bouchercon in alphabetical order in between Jeff Abbott and Cara Black. It was like the empty space between two skyscrapers as long lines of people queued up for both of them and nobody came for me. Then one guy leaned out of line to pep me up (I think?) and said, “Don’t worry, buddy. First one’s the hardest. You’ll get there.” To which I had to tell him, “This is actually my ninth book.”

I went to host my very first book club at a local bookstore only to sit around for an hour all by myself. Nobody had signed up and nobody came.

I have had no fewer than six – count ‘em: 6 – publishers go out of business while publishing my books. Some with a little up front notice, most with almost none. You can understand I’m a little gun-shy now about new publishing ventures.

There was the time when someone stopped me to tell me how much they like my books only to realize 5 minutes into the praise that it was another Eric she was thinking of. She hadn’t read my books and didn’t seem all that interested, even after our chat.

The routine indignity of my wife never finishing a book of mine is a sore spot. I had to stare at a copy on her nightstand for more than six months, bookmark never moving beyond chapter 2, before I had to remove it and stash it away where it could no longer mock me. Worst of all, she never noticed it was gone.

One single moment? Perhaps the very beginning. The moment that should have warned me what this writing life was going to be like. The pain I would endure if I kept on.

I had a book signing for my debut novel. A momentous occasion for any author, and something that can only happen for the first time once. It was at a favorite and legendary bookstore. I invited friends and family, other writers I admired. I signed the guest book for the store only a few columns from Michael Connelly, Mickey Spillane and Megan Abbott. 

Then two days before the signing, my publisher informed me they wouldn’t have any books for me. Production issues, they said. I had to do my debut signing with nothing to sign.

I had my one, sad, author copy which I read from. And then politely thanked everyone for coming, but had to send them home empty-handed. It was humiliating and demoralizing and a perfect foreshadow of the way my writing career would go from there. I still get nightmares about it. It’s the author equivalent of showing up to your final exams late with only 2 minutes on the clock, and also you’re naked. It’s the one time you wish you had one of those ‘I had a signing and nobody came’ moments. I’m telling you, the inverse of nobody showing up is way worse. If nobody is there you’re ashamed in front of the mirror and the bookstore staff. When everyone shows up except the books – you’re ashamed in front of the mirror, the staff, and everyone you will continue to see regularly who will remember this moment the same way they’d remember a time when your pants fell down.

A crowd who braved L.A. traffic about to be disappointed

Reading from the one copy of the book in the store that night

So, yeah, so many moments. Hard to pick just one. It’s a deep well. I have several appearances this fall where I assume I will add to the list, so stay tuned! Or better yet, come by and witness the car crash for yourself.

Second Chances by Gabriel Valjan

What single moment of being a published writer has been the most memorable?

 

I’ve enjoyed many memorable moments as a published writer, from nominations that I never thought would come my way, to invitations to moderate panels and contribute to anthologies, to meeting Walter Mosley, BUT I think every writer would agree with me and say that seeing their first book the first time is an indescribable accomplishment. It’s your firstborn, your book baby.

           

Which is why I’d like to shift the emphasis of this post from first to second chances.

           

Today marks the rerelease of THE GOOD MAN. The rights had reverted back to me, and I faced a decision, either to shop it with publishers interested in orphans, or self-publish it. That books 2 and 3 in the Company Files series were nominated for Agatha and Anthony Awards nudged me to approach Level Best Books about adopting the series. I didn’t want to lose that momentum. There is another reason. The novel was not the first novel I had written, but memorable for several reasons.

           

THE GOOD MAN has had an interesting history. The majority of agents liked the writing but, for a variety reasons, passed on representation. One particular agent objected on the plot’s implausibility, and then followed up with a second email to say it was morally offensive. Sigh, as if I didn’t hear no twice. When I was writing the novel, the Jason Bourne franchise was popular, and I wanted to offer readers a throwback to traditional espionage and suspense from the likes of Eric Ambler, Len Deighton, Graham Greene, and le Carré. I’d grown tired of relentless action scenes in the Mission Impossible and Jack Reacher films, and I never liked the crutch that tech and gadgets offered characters. The sexual conquests of a James Bond seemed dated. If Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb had existed then, I’d say he was my idea of a spy.

           

Readers familiar with the film The Third Man will recognize the setting, though I hope I draw them deeper into the unknown histories of postwar Vienna and the early days of an American intelligence agency. Survival required a chess master’s skill to know all the players and their pieces on the board.

           

Write what you know, and what you don’t know, you research.

           

I chose as inspiration for the novel, the declassified Operation Paperclip. The details fit my need to avoid any reliance on technology, yet it spoke to the era, the Cold War, and to the technological legacy we enjoy today. Operation Paperclip was the CIA’s effort to recruit former Nazis for any competitive edge over Russia, our former ally during World War II. The ‘human element’ within my novel was how naïve we were in dealing with former enemies, and how the US turned the inevitable but convenient blind eye once identities were unmasked.

 

Deals with demons made, our national integrity was both compromised and tainted. There was no way at that time to do deep background checks on every individual. Like kids who lied about their ages to join the war effort, Nazis lied about their complicity in genocide and war crimes. As for the payoff—a single cell phone’s computing power far exceeds the capability of anything NASA used to put a man on the moon    

Most novelists don’t knock the ball out of the park with their first novel. I’m no exception. Writing the novel was a massive learning curve. My overall pacing was fine, though many paragraphs suffered from what I call The Raymond Chandler Curse, aka an overuse of similes, to the point of parody. I worked with line editor extraordinaire Dave King to rein in my own exuberance. I still advise authors to keep a copy of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers on their shelves.

 

With my first publisher, I worked with two editors who each had very different approaches to editing. I did the best I could at that time, as did my publisher, but we were both learning the industry. My knowledge about marketing was almost nil, I had no access to other writers for blurbs, and my social media presence at the time was primitive. THE GOOD MAN died a quiet death.

           

A second chance via Level Best Books today returned me to a moment in time, with the notable exception that I have more of an author and social media footprint than I did years ago. The editor’s hand was consistent from first to last page, and it reappears with attractive cover art.

           

Thank you, Level Best Books, and here’s to a second life.

My Little Light

 Q: What single moment of being a published writer has been the most memorable?

 

-from Susan

 

Never having made the New York Times bestseller list or won awards like a lot of my brilliant writer friends, my angle of vision and my sparkling memories are less dramatic. But they’re thrilling to me and still make me happy all these years later. While it’s hard to pin down a single event, I think everything surrounding the launch of my first mystery, Murder in the Abstract, is still the best. A book! A hard cover book! Invitations to do multiple book events around the Bay Area!  Booksellers treating me with the attention and respect they have for any new author! Friends and friends of friends and total strangers showing up to fill the bookstore spaces and then – gasp – actually buying the book! And – gasp again – asking me to sign the book! 

For years, I had gone to MWA meetings, taken coaching and classes, hooked up with Sisters in Crime, even attended my first Bouchercon, awestruck at the sense of community published authors had. And now, I was part of the clan.

I hosted a big party at an art gallery in San Francisco on the formal launch day in 2010 and everyone came, not just family and friends, but people I’d worked with in my prior career and artist friends of Tim’s. I put out books and the young friend I hired to handle sales if there were any had to run and get another whole box from the trunk of my car. (Maybe it was the drinks from the open bar?) What stood out was the warmth and support from all these people. 

 

In the intervening years, I’ve published six more books, have had lovely launch events, become a regular panelist and moderator at conventions and even a faculty member at a serious writing conference. I even got a nice review in the New York Times once, although I don’t think it made a difference in sales. But, for me, there’s nothing like that first time and the realization that I had done what I dreamed of for a long time.  

 Abstract was eventually published in many formats, was a book club selection in Harlequin, and had an audio production too. As a debut, even without a large advance and major mainstream attention, it was a debut to relish!

 

 

 

 

 

Critique Groups and Advice - by Harini Nagendra

Have you ever been in a critique group and, if so, what was most/least useful to you?

Okaayy - this is going to be the shortest column ever. 

No. 

No, I haven't ever been in a critique group. I haven't had the chance to, really - because I live in Bangalore, which is a city of 12 million, sure - but also a bit far (just a tiny bit!) from where most of the mystery writers whom I would love to have in a dream critique group live. Like my fellow Criminal Minds, for instance. Given how expensive it is to get on a flight from India to North America to attend a mystery writer's conference, I've only been to one - Motive 2023, in Canada - where the organizers were kind enough to fly me in and host me for the entire conference. I haven't met most of my fellow writers face to face.

I could join an online critique group, of course. But - somehow I've been reluctant. There's something about the chemistry and vibrancy of a face-to-face discussion group that I think (having never been in one, of course) would be a lot of fun, and very energizing as well. I do get a lot of online camraderie from Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Crime Writers of Color - the online mystery writer groups that I am a part of - but I have stayed away from joining a critique group online. 

My one concern about critique groups is this - how does one get potentially critical comments across to someone who just poured their heart and soul into a book, without damaging their confidence - by building them up instead of tearing them down - but with honest inputs. As a teacher, I know that requires skill. In any critique group, some will have that skill, and others - won't. I wonder how that plays out - if there are writers who had the nucleus of a good idea but were scarred by harsh critique and just never picked up the courage to write again. If so - and I have read some social media threads indicating that's the case - that's just plain sad.

But I have participated in a couple of manuscript swaps, organized by some of these groups. That has been very educative. I am writing from a context with which many of my potential readers may be unfamiliar - and when I sent around a mystery set in contemporary Bangalore to a couple of other writers, they asked me some questions that helped me see that what was obvious to me (writing from my context), was not at all obvious to my readers. And conversely, some of what I took for granted as 'that's just the way it is' was shocking to them. That manuscript is still with me, unrevised - but when I do get around to revisions, I'm going to find this very helpful. I have also participated in reviewing other writer's books, including unpublished authors' agent submissions. I have no idea if my inputs were of any use - but the process has certainly helped me a lot, in how to edit while thinking like a reader and editor, instead of just looking at a book through a writer's lens.

I thought this would be a very short blog post - but I guess it's been longer than I anticipated! If you made it this far, thanks for reading - and do let me know, in your comments, if you've been in a critique group - and if so, what's your experience been like? Do you have suggestions for anyone who'd like to form a group of their own?

It’s a Dangling Modifier, You Idiot! from James W. Ziskin

Have you ever been in a critique group and, if so, what was most/least useful to you. Put together your dream critique group?

I’ve never been in a writer’s critique group, and I confess I wouldn’t like to be. I imagine the participants hate/disdain/ridicule their fellow writers’ work, openly or—perhaps—secretly. There’s surely lots of scoffing, pooh-poohing, and downright gagging going on. Unless the critics are too polite to say anything negative at all. Then they just smile a mirthless smile and dole out platitudes with a ladle.

Which is probably for the best since I doubt those receiving feedback take it well. Oh, they might put on a brave face and try to act like mature adults. But, more likely than not, they’re seething inside. 

“Who does that hack think he is? I’ll go all Norman Mailer on his ass. Just see if I don’t…”

Scenes from a critique group…

— KILL YOUR DARLINGS!
— NEVER!

IT’S A DANGLING MODIFIER, YOU IDIOT!

YOUR NARRATOR IS HEAD-HOPPING!

I imagine my esteemed writer friends will object to my characterization of critique groups, and I heartily encourage dissent in the comment section below.

A Confession

But, if I’m being honest, my comments above are a deflection. To tell the truth, my ego is far too fragile ever to allow me to join a critique group. I simply can’t share my work with anyone before I’m ready. And when it’s finally time, I rely on trusted beta readers to give me feedback because I’m too chicken to risk negative critiques from other writers.

Write on!

 

Write Up

Have you ever been in a critique group and, if so, what was most/least useful to you. Put together your dream critique group?

by Dietrich

Some years ago, I joined Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope, an online community for writers, filmmakers and artists. I workshopped a few screenplays in hopes of improving my writing, and I did receive valuable feedback from the many writers there, reading and commenting on each others’ work. Eventually one of the screenplays I workshopped was optioned for an animated film, and that sure had a way of boosting my confidence. Overall, it was an experience that proved to be very worthwhile. 

As well as support, constructive criticism and valuable insight offered by such a critique group, there’s the opportunity to network, interact and find like-minded camaraderie. And any budding writer might also luck out and find a mentor. And experienced (published) authors in the group may offer advice on finding an agent or a publisher, sharing their first-hand experience about the business side. One thing I’ve learned along the way, the writing community tends to be generous, and many writers are happy to help each other out. 

Writers who join critique groups may be eager to swap manuscripts, and whether the group meets physically or online, there’s likely to be the opportunity of reading one’s work aloud, something that can seem daunting at first. And learning to tame the nerves sure served me well after the first ms was accepted and found its way to print, and I was asked to read before an audience at a live event. 

I can see a downside if such a group is too large, then not everybody may get a chance to read during every session. And if the writers coming vary from session to session then any offered feedback could lack continuity. Varying opinions can be overwhelming for any new writer, leaving them to weed through the comments and to decide what will work and what won’t, but I figured it was best to stay open to any advice that could make my writing better. And receiving feedback and constructive criticism from other writers likely kept me from submitting that first ms before it was really ready and saved me from seeing a lot more rejection slips.  

Okay, now for the fun part of the question(s). A dream critique group that I would jump at joining would have to include any or all of the following: Elmore Leonard, Charles Willeford, George V. Higgins, James Crumley, James Lee Burke, Stephen King, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Ayn Rand, Toni Morrison, J.D. Salinger and Harper Lee.

—

Real-life gangsters Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis anchor Kalteis’s entertaining latest Depression-era crime saga (after Under an Outlaw Moon). Upon their release from prison, Fred and Alvin form the Barker-Karpis gang with Fred’s mother, Kate ”Ma” Barker, and embark on a multistate spree of audacious—and eventually, deadly—bank robberies. Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI become alarmed when the public starts to view the Barker-Karpis gang and their contemporaries, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, as folk heroes. When Fred, Alvin, and Ma raise the stakes by turning to kidnapping, Hoover places them at the top of the nation’s most-wanted list. In the months that follow, the law starts closing in on the gang, driving them to increasingly extreme means of escape. Eventually, they end up in Minnesota, carrying out violent deeds for a crooked cop in exchange for his protection. Kalteis vividly evokes the spirit of the times, and paints multidimensional portraits of his central characters. Though readers well-versed in the era’s history will know how the story ends, the action is tightly coiled enough to keep them flipping pages and rooting for the rogues. It’s another winner from Kalteis. 

— Publishers Weekly

Release date: September 24th from ECW Press. More info and reorders here.

Advice, Please--and Keep it Nice

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Have you ever been in a critique group and, if so, what was most/least useful to you?

I’ve been in several critique groups—oh, the stories I could tell!—and I generally feel they have been useful. In fact, I’m now in two critique groups with very different processes. The first is a long-running critique group that I’ve been in for 30 years. The group consists of a TV screen-writer and editor, a non-fiction writer, a short story writer, a mainstream novelist, and me—a mystery writer. You might wonder how those with such wide-ranging writing goals are of use to me, a mystery writer? I was amazed to find they are among my best critique partners, ever. We turn in to the group everything from chunks of a novel, to complete books, synopses, non-fiction proposals, and query letters. It’s all over the place. And it is a really useful group, thoughtful and serious. The group amazes me with their close reading of a genre (mysteries) that they don’t write in and may not even enjoy reading. They read my manuscripts carefully and make some of the most astute comments I’ve ever had. The non-fiction writer is especially helpful. Go figure! They are the finest of what group members can be—people who care enough about the material to concentrate on it and make comments they hope will be useful. 

 The other group is useful in a different way. It’s more a work-in-progress group. We read small selections, up to twenty pages and often don’t ever see the complete work. I find that if I’m struggling with a particular section, it’s helpful to have other eyes on it. They are a bunch of very skilled writers and their ideas tend to be focused on what I’m writing—not what they want me to write. They are respectful and careful about their process. 

These two groups are a distillation of ones I’ve participated in for many years. There's more than just "getting" critiques. There's also giving them. I’ve been in groups with people with a wide variety of critique skills, both in giving and taking suggestions. I’ve  suffered with people who couldn’t seem to bear even the slightest suggestion that they needed to change something. I wasn’t sure I even understood what they hoped to get out of a group, except maybe to hear praise. And then there are people who were invariably harsh and seemed unable to think of ways to soften their criticisms If someone is too critical it can overwhelm a writer. These extremes aren’t good group members. They aren’t able to take advantage of a process that can be useful. 

The “sandwich” theory of critiquing seems to work best—sandwich a negative between two positives! It doesn’t mean you have to be smarmy, but to find something you can say in a positive light: setting, dialogue, characters, plot, prose, and description. 

 The value of a critique can depend on where someone is in the process. My experience about what has been most useful to me has changed as I gained experience as a writer. Early on, I was hungry for pretty much anything anyone had to say about my writing. That led to me to eagerly accept everything the group members said, and bend my words into pretzels when I revised based on a critique session, trying to please every commentator. Only with experience did I begin to realize that taking ALL advice was not helpful. What I needed to do was listen to advice that was valid for my vision of the book. In other words, I had to learn not to let others write my book. 

 But there’s another piece of this—sometimes you get advice that seems really wrong, that you dismiss out of hand. In fact, I’ve learned that sometimes the critique that seems least useful to me, in retrospect has value. So although it’s important to keep your goal in mind about what you think you’re writing, it’s also a good idea to let your group’s suggestions percolate in case they’ve given you valuable information that you weren’t ready to receive. 

 Critiquing is a two-way street. The most important thing about being in a group is to determine what you want from it. And to make sure the members of the group know what you want. Good critique group members will listen to and understand a writer’s goals and make critiques that fit that. If someone has turned in a novel that they think is pretty much done, group member shouldn’t go off on a tangent about how the book should have been written. One way to make that happen is to ask the writer what they hope to get from the critique session. If they say they just want a general feel whether the story line is interesting, it’s not going to be helpful to them if the members go off on line editing. 

 But the writer has a responsibility too, to let the group know if their needs aren’t being met, and what needs to change to make that happen. 

 One last remark. It’s hard to be in a group with people who are in very different stages of writing. Published writers may have different goals from beginning writers. They have different levels of skill and may want different things from a group. So if you’re thinking of joining a group, that’s another factor to take into consideration. Critique groups can offer a lot, but you have to be willing to be up front about what you want, and be willing to listen to what others want as well. It’s a work in progress! And here's the ultimate critique:

Introducing Guest Author Don Butler

Have you ever been in a critique group and, if so, what was most/least useful to you?

Brenda here.

It's my great pleasure to introduce guest blogger Don Butler, who will tell you about his writing and will touch on this week's question. Don is past executive editor of the Ottawa Citizen and an award-winning journalist. He has penned two excellent novels: A Life of Bliss and Norman's Conquest. Take it away, Don!

Thanks Brenda. I'm a walking, breathing advertisement for the notion that it's never too late to pursue your dreams. My first novel, A Life of Bliss, appeared in 2021 – weeks before my 71st birthday. My teenage ambition to be a novelist was derailed by a few decades while I worked as a journalist at the Ottawa Citizen.

When Bliss, a humorous travel mystery, appeared, I was ecstatic. The Citizen and other Postmedia papers ran a positive review, a CBC radio show featured an excerpt, and most readers loved it. But could I do it again or was I a one-hit wonder? The answer came this May, when Ottawa Press and Publishing released my second novel, Norman’s Conquest.

It includes the same quirky journalist characters as in my first book. One of them –Norman Pugsley, the curmudgeonly managing editor of the Ottawa Daily Advocate –takes a buyout after suffering a near-fatal heart attack. He imagines a placid retirement but instead is dragged into his former newspaper’s investigation of a cold-case murder, a crime that decades earlier had nearly wrecked his career.

This was my first stab at writing a murder mystery, so I recruited no fewer than eight beta readers – novelists, editors and writers – to critique my manuscript. Their frank feedback was invaluable and prompted many revisions. For instance, I made alterations after a few too many of my beta readers told me they figured out the guilty party too easily. It paid off. In a recent column in Postmedia newspapers, book reviewer Pat St. Germain called Norman’s Conquest “a solid whodunit with a few neat twists.”

About those neat twists. Mine is a murder mystery, yes, but it includes a lot of humour.It’s more Richard Osman than Ian Rankin. There’s an improbable, slow-simmering romance between Norman Pugsley and his former boss, a woman he could barely tolerate when he worked for her. There’s adventure travel, too, to B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest, Algonquin Park and the Northwest Territories, where Pugsley washes dishes on a canoe trip with former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Trust me – this all hangs together. Norman’s Conquest isn’t your typical murder mystery. I guess I’m not a typical novelist, either. I’m a late bloomer, having a blast, living the dream. And dreaming of a trilogy … perhaps.

Email: donbutlerauthor@gmail.com

Social media:

Facebook.com/DonButler2021

X.com/ButlerDon

Instagram – @butlerdon2022

Where to buy:

Ottawapressandpublishing.com

amazon.ca and amazon.com

Ottawa Chapters/Indigo/Coles stores

Independent bookstores in Ottawa

Damn Pinko Wants Morality in Books, by Josh Stallings

 Q: Do you often/sometimes weave a moral message into your writing, or do you think that's awful, and something that should never be attempted? Can you recommend good examples of books that do one or the other? 

 

A: Social commentary is one of the grand traditions of crime fiction going all the way back to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. When the first people sat around the fire telling tales I’m sure they had a moral component. It is near impossible to write without a personal point-of-view, it is equally impossible to have a point-of-view — excluding sociopaths — that has no moral stance. Even writing an amoral world is in itself a moral stance.

Where do we get one of these moral stances you speak of?

Our lives inform the causes we are attracted to investigate. And once we investigate them it is impossible to unsee that which we have discovered. 

I was a small child when my father was arrested. He served less than a year for disobeying a court order and sailing a trimaran that he along with other Quakers built to take them to the Christmas islands as a protest against nuclear testing*. This must have planted a seed that grew into my interest in prisons. Many folks in the peace and freedom movement saw the inside of jails. It made them heroes not “bad” people. Growing up I never saw prisoners as the other, or less than human. 

I grew up wild. As a teen I broke into homes, stole, sold pot and hash. At fifteen I was arrested for driving drunk without a license. A year later I was arrested for breaking and entering. I knew firsthand that criminals aren’t the other. I did community service for both these crimes. I was given second and third chances based solely on my whiteness. This affected my world view as well.  

As a child of the counter-culture I grew up believing humans are judged on their actions not on what society deems to label them. Profiteers who got wealthy making napalm designed to burn the flesh off villagers in Vietnam are worse than cats serving fifty years for stealing a car, or selling a pound of weed. Charles Manson is worse than a white-collar crook who fudged on his income taxes. If we allow the state to dictate who is and who isn’t labeled a criminal, then we are forced to agree that German citizens who refused to do as told by the Nazis are criminals. Or a less inflammatory example, people who drive 9 MPH over the speed limit are criminals. In the eyes of the state both are. My father was a criminal for acting out of his conscience. 

Com’on ya damn pinko, start talking about writing. 

Okay, right… Here’s the deal, it isn’t my job to convince readers to think one way or another, that would be propaganda, and lord knows we have enough of that bull crap flying around. It is my job to get truth — convenient or not — out into the world. 

When I wrote TRICKY I wanted to help readers see the diversity inside the intellectually disabled community. I also wanted to tell some truth about policing and justice in modern LA. A central question in TRICKY was, is a person with a record of heinous acts redeemable? When building Cisco’s character I had him at fourteen sentenced as an adult. He spent his formative years in adult prison. Part of that was to show what caused his hardness. And I wanted to expose the fact that we as a nation were punishing kids as if they were adults. And this isn’t old history, in 2001 in Florida a thirteen year old Black child was sentenced to life in prison. 

To have Cisco do time this way, it showed why the police didn’t believe they could trust him. That was the story motivation. My personal motivation was this was a truth about our justice system we needed to think about.

Mushrooms and injustice grow in the dark. It is part of our job to shed light on it. But it must always be in the context of the narrative. I don’t plan these things they come naturally out in the writing.    

Here are two different but good examples of writers who have written about the US prison system.

Chain Gang All Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, is a near future story where for profit prisons pit inmates against each other in gladiator battles. If they survive a certain number of death matches they can win their freedom. It is violent and action packed, filled with desperate passionate characters that had me up late into the night. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah also ends every chapter with a footnote, some that build and enrich the fictional world and others highlight injustices in our world. 

Here is a footnote from a chapter titled “Electric.”

“On June 16, 1944, fourteen-year-old George Stinney, Jr., became the youngest person ever executed by the United States. Young, Black in South Carolina. Of course, of course. He was charged with the murder of two young white girls who’d been killed by a railroad spike to the head. Seventy years after electricity pulled his life apart, he was exonerated. Since 1973, at least 186 who were wrongly convicted have been sentenced to death.”

Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room weaves past lives with the current life of multiple characters in a woman's prison in central California. 

Romy Leslie Hall, inmate W314159, is our guide through a hard life that began in a poor section of San Francisco, migrated to LA and ends up in prison with two consecutive life sentences. She is both innocent and jaded. Rachel Kushner handles her characters with respect and care but never hides their darker hard sides. Exposing what happens when you can’t afford real legal help, as public defenders are overworked and underpaid. They often haven’t the time to meet with the accused until the time of their trial. Maybe we let this slide because we believe “if they didn’t do anything, they wouldn’t be in court in the first place.” Often the only crime committed was to defend yourself, or show up in the wrong place at the wrong time while being poor.

She subtly slips in facts about prisons without judgement.

“How many of you are dyslexic?” Jones asked our group of sixty. Every person raised their hand except me.

We dyslexics hold a disproportionate number of jail cells, I was glad to see this confirmed. 

No one can read either of these books without coming away thinking we need complete prison reform.

Terry Shames is a great writer to read for moral content that is never preachy. A Reckoning in the Back Country: A Samuel Craddock Mystery, deals with illegal dog fights. A subject that is clearly upsetting, but in Shames’ hands you can look at it without needing to turn away.

We all have subjects that matter to us. As a reaction to gun violence, Eric Beetner edited two volumes of the anthology Unloaded: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns. Proceeds go to the non-profit States United To Prevent Gun Violence. He proved that guns weren’t necessary to tell good stories. And I know it made a lot of writers think about whether or not guns were important or necessary to our stories.  

Bottom line is, as a reader I don’t need or want a moral at the end of a story. I do want a story to have a moral point-of-view. I want to feel that the writer has done some thinking about the world they chose to show me. 

As a writer I will keep struggling to grow in my world view and sharing what I find with my readers.

* Family myths live larger than the truth. I just read the account of the Everyman in The Nation December 1962, it states that Hal Stallings and the other two crew members were given light sentences of 30 days. The facts that there were protesters and news coverage of the trial and all the defendants were white must have had a lot to do with this. In our family myth Pops went to San Quentin (seems like a leap but I have yet to confirm where he served) for a long time (30 days may have seemed long for us kids.) The four of us siblings were aged between two and eight so we will be forgiven if we got the facts wrong. Our activist parents didn’t need their stories embellished, they remain heroes by seeing social problems and struggling to end them, regardless of the possibility of personal cost. The danger of taking a stand will always be far less than the danger of not standing up. 

*****

What I’m reading: 

Hurricane Season (Sezonul uraganelor) by Fernanda Melchor, Translation by Sophie Hughes.