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| Interview with Letha Albright, author of Tulsa Time (July 2000), the first book in the Viv Powers mystery series. The novel was a finalist in the 1998 Colorado Gold contest sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and later won the 1999 Dark Oak award in the Oak Tree Press mystery contest with first prize as publication. Author's website. Read our review of Tulsa Time. Feature by PJ Nunn. PJ NUNN - Letha, tell us about TULSA TIME. LETHA ALBRIGHT - The underlying theme of Tulsa Time is faith and loyalty. How far will the bonds of loyalty stretch before they break? And what price do you have to pay when you don't have enough faith? When Viv's boyfriend is charged with murder, he refuses to talk. It’s up to Viv, a small-town newspaper reporter in Oklahoma, to find out what really happened. As she digs deeper, she uncovers deadly links to a pair of brutal murders that occurred eight years earlier. Only two men can answer Viv’s questions: one is inexplicably silent and the other has just escaped from a prison for the criminally insane. Is there a sequel in the works? If readers like Viv Powers, I’ll continue to write about her. She’s like a real person to me. Once when I took a lengthy break from writing during a scene in the book where Viv was in trouble, I felt guilty. It was like I had turned my back on a friend when she needed me most. In some ways, I have to write about her. I use Viv to work out solutions to my own life. For instance, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis eight years ago. I went through a year of terror and depression, before I finally realized that nothing had really changed. All any of us can say is that we’re alive today; we’re all right now. There are no guarantees to long life or happiness or good health. I’ve been fortunate the MS is in remission, and I have an incredibly supportive husband who helps me through the rough spots. During those dark days though, I often wondered what it would be like if the tables were turned. Would I react with such grace if it were my husband who was diagnosed with a crippling disease? A high percentage of marriages don’t survive the strain of chronic illness. How well would I have coped, I wondered, if my husband were ill and I was the healthy one? Deep in the recesses of illness and depression is where the story line of TULSA TIME was born. I wanted to examine loyalty from every angle. You think it’s bad now, I wanted to ask. Well, let’s see what Viv Powers does when it gets worse. And worse. I was rooting for her to overcome her own lack of faith, but until I wrote the final chapter, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. It became a journey that Viv and I took together. How did you get started writing? Many people who are voracious readers dream of becoming writers. That certainly was the case with me. As a child, I consumed Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. Then in high school I graduated to Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. After taking a couple of creative writing courses in college, I tried writing short stories but frankly, I wasn’t very good. So I enrolled in journalism classes to improve my writing skills, ending up with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri - having finally learned how to craft stories. My sister, who is two years younger and doesn't like to write, had to turn in a short story and poem for an anthology assignment in high school. I wrote them for her and they were my first published works - under my sister’s name. Oh no!.. Has your writing won any awards? Tulsa Time is actually my third Viv Powers mystery. The first two - Murder in Cherokee County and Baby Goods - were agented, but I wasn’t offered a publishing contract for them. Now I’m glad about that because I think they could use major rewrites. However, I did enter Baby Goods in the Colorado Gold contest, which is sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and it was a finalist. Tulsa Time also was a finalist in the Colorado Gold contest two years later, and it won the Dark Oak award in the Oak Tree Press mystery contest. First prize was publication. Who are you when you’re not writing? What kind of work do you do? What are your hobbies? For the past 11 years, I’ve had a day job as the editor of a magazine for teachers. I enjoy working with teachers and writing about education issues. But it is pleasant to take a break from reality and spend time with my fictional characters. Aside from reading, my hobbies revolve around the natural world with rock climbing, hiking, camping, and identifying flowers, trees and birds. Missouri isn’t known for its climbing areas, but we have a challenging rock face about a five-minute drive from my house. I meet friends there a couple of times a week and work on routes. Sometimes we go to the bluffs along the Missouri River. Although I’m not an accomplished climber, I find it very satisfying. When you’re climbing, that’s all you can think about because it requires absolute concentration. So it’s the ultimate physical challenge and an excellent stress reliever. I also like playing with the gear and learning new knots. Rock climbing is a metaphor for writing. When you’re looking up at the rock face, the lines seem clean and simple, and you know just how you will approach the route and work your way to the top. However, once you’re climbing, the holds you thought were there turn out to be slippery devils, and you’re soon fighting the rock instead of working with it. It’s never as easy as it looks. But when it all comes together and you make a few fluid moves, all the pain is forgotten. Who or what has most influenced your writing? I’m tempted to list the names of writers I most admire because I think we become better writers by studying the works of the best writers. Cormac McCarthy and John McPhee are among my favorite contemporary writers. They seem to have a finger on the pulse of human longing and motivation, and they illuminate the connectedness of all life. I have to mention another favorite wordsmith, singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams. Her music is drenched in the pain of the human spirit, kind of like a Raymond Carver short story, and her words stay with you long after the last note has sounded. I want my writing to be that way; I want to pinpoint where it hurts the most and examine it and find a way past it because that’s what living is all about. In Tulsa Time, Viv Powers asks the wife of an escaped murderer if she has a copy of the book Crime and Punishment. The woman who isn’t that literate, misunderstands the question and answers: "That’s what we live every day." In some small way, that's true of all of us. I read tons of mysteries, always finding new writers to admire. In my 20s, I discovered John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels, hooked on the notion of the tarnished knight who risks everything to restore moral balance. Then I moved on to Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels. I see his work as the template that informs mine. The idea that every motivation worth writing about stems from an inescapable connection to the past is what sparks my imagination and makes me want to sit down at a keyboard and pound out chapter after chapter. Finally, Marcia Muller’s mysteries introduced me to Sharon McCone, and it sunk in that women could also be these tarnished knights who prowl dark alleys in search of justice. What a liberating thought. What do you enjoy most about writing? I enjoy escaping into my characters’ world and living for a while through them. They’re very real people to me who have lives, even when I’m not there to follow them around and write down what happens. Do I live in a dream world? Maybe. What do you enjoy least? Plotting. When I begin writing, I know how the book begins and how it ends, but everything in between is sketchy. I follow my characters and try to set a pace from behind. In Tulsa Time, I made a conscious effort to outline beforehand, but I left plenty of gaps for my characters to fill in. I think it’s important to allow room in the story for surprises – surprises for the author to discover. That helps keep the story fresh. Best advice for new writers? One thing that has helped me most as a writer is to identify the subjects that fire up my imagination - emotional subjects that relate to my deepest fears and insecurities - and to use them as a springboard for creativity. If you write with passion, you’ll speak to other people who have the same passions. And that’s what you really want to do as a writer: Connect with other people. |
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