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- Author interview - |
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Interview with Lise McClendon, author of Nordic Nights, and the forthcoming  One O'clock Jump, the first in a series featuring a female private detective due out in March 2001 from St. Martin's Press. Author's website: http://www.lisemcclendon.comRead our review of Nordic Nights. Feature by PJ Nunn. PJ NUNN - Lise, I loved Nordic Nights and Alix, but I understand your next book will be the beginning of a new series. Can you tell us a little about that? LISE McCLENDON - My next book debuts a series set in WW2-era Kansas City, featuring a female private detective named Dorie Lennox. It's called One O'clock Jump, and it begins on Labor Day weekend 1939 when war broke out in Europe. Lennox is on her first solo tail, following the girlfriend of an Italian businessman, when she loses the woman in a rather spectacular way. Also featured in the book is Lennox's boss, an ex-pat Brit whose First World War exploits left his lungs scarred from mustard gas. His memories of the war are triggered by the fighting in Poland. The tone of the book is more hardboiled than the Alix Thorssen series, more serious, but full of swing music, tough dames, and desperate fellas. Nostalgic for a simpler time but with eyes open to what the trauma of war can bring to all. One O'clock Jump is due in March 2001 from St. Martin's Press. When can readers expect another Alix episode? Alix will be back as well in a book called Blue Wolf. Walker is tentatively set to publish the book sometime in 2001. The book involves the reintroduced wolves from Yellowstone Park which are now migrating south to the Jackson Hole area. Alix helps with a wildlife art auction and is asked to investigate a hunting accident in the past . You've also been doing a little film work. How did that come about? A couple of years ago, I made a short film with some friends based on a short story I'd written called The Hoodoo Artist. The story is about a lonely woman who lives out in the Wyoming desert and finds a dead body on her property. It wasn't a straightforward mystery story and I hadn't been able to sell it, although I hadn't tried awfully hard. But I felt it had some great visual elements and some fellow writer/friends worked it into a screenplay for a short. I thought it would be about 12 to 15 minutes long but it ended up being almost a half hour. It was great fun but expensive, even though we shot it on digital video instead of film. We ended up as a short film winner at the Telluride Indiefest '99, and getting a certificate of merit at the Rochester International Film Festival. How has your writing changed since that first book? It's gotten better, I hope! One of the things that comes easier with experience is pacing and plotting. I still find plotting difficult, and probably always will, but it is somewhat easier now. You gain confidence with time and books under your belt, and that shows up in your writing. Confident writing takes chances and is more exciting. Who are you when you're not writing? What kind of work do you do? What are your hobbies? When I'm not writing I am a writer. You may see me scribbling down notes on people I see in bars or airports. I am fascinated with people in all their strange and exotic forms. Some of them don't inspire me to meet and spend time with them, but they all fascinate me. My hobbies are growing teenage boys and trying to keep the mule deer out of my garden. Both of these are more than full-time jobs. My other hobby is traveling, to see the world, and to get away from teenage boys and mule deer. Who or what has most influenced your writing? A couple of books on writing really helped me. Scene and Sequel by Jack Bickham (he wrote a similar one for Writer's Digest Books) is very helpful in learning how to tell stories, and to plot. I have lots of books on writing, and am always looking for more. Even if I only get one idea from a book, the price and time are worth it. As for other writers I admire, I am a big fan of Larry McMurtry, Alice Hoffman, and A.S. Byatt, none of whom are mystery writers per se. Alice Hoffman's Turtle Moon is one of the most perfect mysteries I have ever read - funny, moving, evocative of place, and magical. A.S. Byatt's Possession proves that you can write a spirited, "plotty," accessible book, and still win a literary prize. My favorite mystery writers are Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller, Michael Connelly, and James Lee Burke. As a writer, where do you see yourself in 10 years? I see myself writing novels, but beyond that it's hard to say. I would like to write more big books. I've written two or three stand-alone thrillers that are still unsold. Writing series fiction is safer, but I'm the type of person who gets bored easily and if my own writing bores me, well, that's about the end of that. I have some ideas for other things. I am a huge Jane Austen fan and I'd like to write a modern day Pride and Prejudice someday. What do you enjoy most about writing? I enjoy the challenge of the novel. Putting together, organizing, plotting, characterization, making it all fit together and work. It's an enormous job, and when it all works together, when the seemingly disparate parts mesh at the end, and there is that "ah" of satisfaction - it is the most incredible high. What do you find most difficult? Sticking with the novel, keeping at it to make it better. To make it all work is the hardest part. It's easy to get complacent, to think it's good enough. Rewriting, critiquing your own stuff is very important. Best advice for new writers? Persistence, persistence, persistence. |
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