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- Author interview - |
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| Interview with Elizabeth Cosin, author of the Zen Moses Mysteries By PJ Nunn PJ NUNN - Welcome, Elizabeth. Tell us about Zen Moses. What inspired you to craft this character? ELIZABETH COSIN - It's difficult to define Zen in a few words or sentences. She's very complex and hard to pin down, one of the reasons I made her 33 years old as opposed to 23 or 43. I wanted a character who had been around long enough to have some wisdom, but not so long as to have everything figured out. I was in my early 30's when I created Zen and I'd just gotten through a few tough years, including a life threatening bout with cancer. I felt stronger, wiser and smarter, yet still in the process of defining the person I would become. That's where I wanted to start with Zen and that's why you'll always see her changing and evolving. I didn't really think about creating a specific character. I really just wanted to create an atmosphere, a noir-like, hard-boiled Chinatown ambiance. I was hoping a character would sort of rise out of that world. To my surprise, the opposite happened and I ended up creating a character that gave birth to a cool, hard-boiled world. The first two books have been great. What's next for Zen? The next novel is called Zen Justice, and it will be out sometime in Spring 2001. In it, Zen witnesses the murder of her old college roommate. In the process of searching for the killer, she gets drawn into a decades old conflict marked by hate, violence and unspeakable evils. I'm very excited about this book because it's deeper and darker than the first two and because I feel like I'm pushing Zen's limits as well as my own. Have you or will you be doing anything separate any time soon? I've been writing for television for three years and I'm continuing to do that. This year, I'm working on a show called Hopewell which will air on CBS next season. It's about a big city lawyer who moves his family to a small, fictional town in the Berkshires. Mystery fans will know the show's creator Rene Balcar from his years of working on Law & Order. I'm honored to be working with Rene and I'm looking forward to working on Hopewell, especially since it's being shot in New York, not far from the town where I grew up. How has your writing changed since that first book? I hope it's getting better. I hope it's changing as much as I am, but I think I'm too close to what I'm doing to really give you an answer. Has your writing won any awards? I have won several journalism awards for sports writing and investigative reporting. Zen and the Art of Murder won the Online Mystery Award (OLMA) in 1999, but I'm not even sure that group is still around. It was also nominated for a Shamus Award. Who are you when you're not writing? What are your hobbies? I support myself as a writer so even when I'm not working on Zen, I'm writing. When I'm not writing, I like to take it easy, reading as much as I can, mostly magazines and newspapers; I also try to keep up with other mystery writers. I save special books for when I go on "non writing" vacations which unfortunately have been rare in the last few years. I play tennis, basketball, some golf, and I workout at the gym. Who or what has most influenced your writing? The biggest influence on my writing is James Baldwin, a novelist and activist who I first read as a teen-ager. I sometimes think my whole career is re-writing his short story Sonny's Blues. He had a wonderful knack for getting to the essence of complex emotions, with a lyrical and urgent style. I'm also a big fan of Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and of course, many mystery writers including John D. MacDonald and James Lee Burke, who has a large and amazing talent. I think Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, James Hall and April Smith are among the better writers in mystery authors, and I often re-read their books for inspiration. Another influence is Garrison Keillor. He's known for being a great comic writer, and he also has a wonderful command of the English language. As a writer, where do you see yourself in 10 years? Living outside of San Francisco writing one Zen book every two years and spending three months every year doing nothing. What do you enjoy most about writing? Typing The End. What do you find most difficult? Typing Chapter One. What is your best advice for new writers? Read the writers you admire as much as possible. Once you start to write, keep at it. Write, re-write and re-write your re-writes. Finish what you start. Once you finish a draft, it's the greatest feeling in the world, even if you know in your heart you will have to re-write the whole thing. Find out more about Elizabeth and Zen Moses at http://www.zenmoses.com |
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