Kindness, Community – and Murder?

 By Cindy Brown

Kindness is my criteria, for well, almost, everything. It’s a “must” in my friends. It’s how I found my husband after a string of short-lived relationships. And my favorite books, TV, or movies all have kindness at their core. Oh, I don’t mind evil characters—I do love mysteries, after all. But I want good to triumph over evil, or at least give it a good kick in the pants.

Community is also really important to me. I love waving to neighbors on the street, being greeted by name when I walk into a place, or hanging out with groups of people with a shared goal or interest. I’m lucky to get this feeling of community from my neighbors, art class friends, fellow volunteers, church members, community gardeners, and my writer friends (more about that later).

What does all this have to do with mystery and murder, you ask? If you read cozy mysteries, you’ve probably noticed the kindness and community inherent in their small towns, knitting circles, and coffeeshops. But more serious mystery authors—like Louise Penny, Ann Cleeves, and William Kent Krueger— imbue their stories and characters with those qualities, too. In all their books, the murders are a way to explore human connections: to think about why people do the things they do, why some are bent on destruction, why some are victimized, and why others come to their aid.

That’s what I explore, too, and you’ll find that kindness and community connect all my books, including my new serious mystery, Echoes of the Lost (May 12^th from Ooligan Press), which explores the need for community and connection, and the consequences that follow their loss. I’m thrilled that early reviews acknowledge my focus, like this one from Booklist: “Brown’s latest, set amidst the houseless community in Portland, Oregon, features heartbreak, tragedy, and violence juxtaposed against heartwarming generosity, bravery, and humor…A superbly written story that highlights the massive social issue of houselessness and that will appeal to those who enjoy twisty mysteries combined with feel-good stories that deliver a strong social message.”

I can’t write about kindness and community without talking about my Hen friends (former Henery Press authors) at Writers Who Kill. Thanks, Kait, Annette, and Grace for your support and kindness. I feel lucky to be a part of your community. 

If readers would like to be a part of my community, they can find me at cindybrownwriter.com, or sign up for The Slightly Silly Newsletter on Substack.

An Interview With Cindy Brown

by Grace Topping

Cindy Brown describes herself as a mystery writer, theater geek, and purveyor of general silliness—all evident in her hysterically funny Ivy Meadows series, madcap mysteries set in off, off, OFF Broadway. Each book in her series features a theater production, a body, and lots of humor. Cindy knows where to stash a body or two. Don’t believe me? Check out her web site for photos of the best places to hide a body. If you recognize some mystery writers in the photos, it’s purely coincidental.

Cindy’s latest book, Ivy Get Your Gun, is being released TODAY, May 17. To celebrate, she is holding a launch party 7-9 pm at O’Connors Vault, 7850 S.W. Capitol Highway, Portland, Oregon. Cindy and some local actors will be doing readings of chapters from her book. If you find yourself in the Portland area, stop by and join in the celebration. But you’ll have to check your gun at the door.

It’s a pleasure to welcome Cindy Brown to Writers Who Kill.

With your background in theater as a musician, actor, director, producer, and playwright, what made you turn your efforts to writing mysteries?

Cindy Brown

It was Ivy. One day she appeared in my head as a full-blown character. I knew she was an actress, I knew she was a part-time PI, and I knew she didn’t fit into a play or a screenplay. I also knew there would be a murder during a production of Macbeth (it’s cursed, you know), so I decided to learn how to write a mystery. I’d written a lot of plays and screenplays, so I had a good idea of dialogue and dramatic structure, but setting and description took me awhile.

One reviewer wrote that Macdeath satisfies on numerous levels. You’ve got Ivy the PI, Ivy the actress, the mystery, and lots of information about the production/writer she is working on. How much of a challenge is it bringing all of these things together?

It’s tough. It’s not so much the various facets of Ivy, but the theatre angle. I have to mention all the familiar characters from each play, work around copyright issues, and make sure the timelines work. Timelines are a challenge in any mystery, but theatre and actors’ schedules are pretty specific, e.g. theaters are always open on Saturday nights but dark on Mondays. And there are timelines within the shows—if the character is on stage all during Act Three, he can’t commit a murder then. It’s challenging to write, but really fun, too.

Ivy comes across as a take-charge girl—nothing wimpy about her. In Macdeath, she literally rolls with the punches, and in Ivy Get Your Gun she faces down gunslingers. What is it about Ivy that gives her so much moxie?

I love that word! I think Ivy’s moxie (I got to say it, too!) comes from the fact that her parents emotionally abandoned her after her brother’s accident, when she was just 11. She basically had to fend for herself, and it made her vulnerable and independent at the same time.

Humor is one of the most enjoyable features of your books. “When I learned about the cruise, the money, and the fact that I’d play Nancy in the onboard musical of Oliver Twist, I felt like I’d died and gone to Broadway.” As most writers will attest, humor is hard to do. What is your secret for injecting humor?

I present a workshop called, “How to Be Funny on the Page (even if you’re not in real life),” so I think about writing humor a lot. For me, a couple of things are vital. One is not to try to be funny, but just write about things that I find funny. It takes the pressure off and I really get to enjoy the writing. The other incredibly important bit is rewriting. Sure, some stuff comes out funny the first time, but most of the time I tweak and tweak and tweak to make sure the timing is right.

It’s obvious in your books that you’ve done your homework on the production/writer that you are featuring. Even your analogies relate to them. “…the S.S. David Copperfield rose out of the fog like Miss Havisham’s wedding cake….” How much research do you do before you start writing?

Tons! I love research, especially when it involves reading novels or plays. I also read a lot of nonfiction about my subjects. For example, I read several biographies of Annie Oakley before beginning Ivy Get Your Gun. I also try to see as many dramatic productions as I can (theatre, film, TV). There’s a good story about that in Ivy Get Your Gun —it’s in the Reader’s Discussion Guide at the end of the book (and you allude to it in the next question).

In Ivy Get Your Gun, Ivy objects to how Annie Oakley is portrayed and attempts to correct fallacies about her life perpetuated in the movies, etc. Who is the real Annie Oakley? What did you like most about her?

She was an amazingly strong woman who survived a nightmare childhood to single-handedly pull her family out of poverty while she was still a teen. Even more impressive, she maintained her integrity after becoming the most famous woman in the world. One story I love: Prince Edward once extended a hand to congratulate Annie on her marksmanship. Instead of taking it, she went first to his wife Princess Alexandra and shook her hand, maintaining that, “In America, ladies came first.” It was a huge breach of custom, and Annie did it deliberately, since Edward was well known as a womanizing lout, and Alexandra a gentle spirit devoted to the poor. Gotta love her.

In Oliver Twisted, Ivy’s fear of water complicates her job of going undercover on a cruise ship. What lies behind her fear of water?

When Ivy was 11, her brother fell through the ice while skating on a frozen pond. She was supposed to be watching him. Instead she watched as the black icy water closed over him. It’s the defining point of her life.

You’ve done library appearances with other writers. What part of promotion do you enjoy the most, or the least?

While I enjoy hunkering down in my writing cave, I also sometimes feel isolated, so I love in-person events. I also love connecting with readers, whether in-person or by email. It tickles me no end to know that we have both experienced Ivy’s world. I have to admit that I don’t always enjoy social media. I like the connections, but it also means more time in front of a computer screen, and can distract me from my writing (look, a puppy video!).

Any hope that your books will come out in an audio version?

My publisher is working on it.  I really hope it happens, because I would love to read the books myself—I’ve done a fair amount of voice work.

 I read that you placed third in the international Words With Jam First Page Competition (judged by Sue Grafton). That’s impressive. What advice can you give to aspiring writers about first pages?

Someone once told me, “Open with a question.” It doesn’t have to be a literal question, but something that draws the reader in. The first page that won accolades in the Words With Jam contest opens with this (from The Sound of Murder):

            I should never do anything pre-coffee.

            “It was only a teeny fire,” I told my Uncle Bob over the phone.

See the inherent question(s)? Here’s another great first line that works that way, from Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth: “The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.” Love that line.
 
So far Ivy has worked in productions related to Macbeth, Oliver Twist, The Sound of Music, and Annie Get Your Gun. How do you select the works that you feature in your books? Have you picked your next production? If so, can you tell us about it?

My choices are fairly narrow: I need to work with plays that are familiar to readers, and stories that don’t have too many copyright restrictions. The next book, The Phantom of Oz, takes place during an outer space-themed production of The Wizard of Oz (called The Wizard: A Space OZpera), and is set in a haunted theater. It’s been a blast trying to write slightly silly spooky stuff.  

You wrote that you would most like to be remembered for helping to launch ARTability in Arizona. Please tell us about that.

I was the first statewide director for ARTability, an organization dedicated to providing access to the arts for people with disabilities. It began as a coalition of Arizona arts organizations and disability organizations. Having buy-in from both the arts and disability communities made us very effective: We were able to do a lot to make arts events more accessible (sign language interpretation, audio description, wheelchair-friendly exhibits, etc.). That kind of collaboration hadn’t been done before; in fact, we won an innovation award from the NEA (The National Endowment for the Arts) and NASAA (The National Association of State Arts Agencies). I am a firm believer that the arts enrich and even save lives and am very proud to have had a small part in making art accessible to all.

Is your work area neat or messy?

See photo :) 

Readers, what do you think?

Thank you, Cindy.

Thank you for having me!

Below is a description of Cindy's latest book--available in bookstores and online today.

Ivy Get Your Gun

There’s a new sheriff in town—and she can sing! When Gold Bug Gulch’s actor-gunslinger Mongo winds up shot for real, actress and part-time PI Ivy Meadows goes undercover as the ingénue in the tourist town’s melodrama. Unfortunately, she’s distracted by a pack of marauding Chihuahuas, a problematic love life, auditions for Annie Get Your Gun, and a personal mission: to show people the real Annie Oakley. What’s more, the no-good, yellow-bellied varmint who killed Mongo isn’t finished with the Gulch—or with Ivy. Will our heroine prove she can get a man with a gun—before the killer gets her?

www.henerypress.com

To learn more about Cindy Brown and her series, visit her at

http://cindybrownwriter.com

https://www.facebook.com/CindyBrownAuthor

An Interview with the 2015 Agatha Nominees for Best First Novel by Paula Gail Benson

Malice Domestic’s 2015 Agatha Nominations for Best First Novel:
Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman, Tessa Arlen (Minotaur Books)
Macdeath, Cindy Brown (Henery Press)
Plantation Shudders, Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Just Killing Time, Julianne Holmes (Berkley)
On the Road with Del and Louise, Art Taylor (Henery Press)

Tessa Arlen, Cindy Brown, Ellen Byron, Julianne Holmes, and Art Taylor are enjoying having their debut novels celebrated this year at Malice Domestic. We are so pleased to welcome them to WRITERS WHO KILL to answer a couple of questions about their work. Thanks so much to Tessa, Cindy, Ellen, Julianne, and Art, and best wishes!—Paula Gail Benson

For many debut novelists, their first published novel may not be the first one they have written. What was your path to your debut published novel?

TESSA ARLEN: Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman is my first novel. I had always enjoyed writing, but I had never had the time before to concentrate on actually committing myself to a full length novel. When our third daughter went to college in 2008 I decided that winter to see if I could pull off writing a novel. I chose to write a mystery simply because I thought that if the plot sagged in the middle I could always bump off another victim. I chose the first decade of the 20th century because it was a time of colossal social and political change (rather like now) where the aristocracy led lives of privilege and excess, and the have-nots were no longer willing to lead quiet lives of desperation. I wrote the book for myself with no intention of it being published, until my husband gave me a persuasive shove in the right direction. From putting down the first words to finding the right agent who sold the book to Minotaur (in five weeks) to being published was a little over six years!

CINDY BROWN: Like Ellen, I began writing for the theatre—out of necessity at first. While working as an actor, I often supplemented my income with various acting-related gigs. One summer I was teaching drama camp and couldn’t find any scripts that had enough roles for all my students (and their various talent levels), so I wrote a few short plays. The feedback was great (Snow White and the Seven Aliens was especially popular), so I kept writing. I had over a dozen one-acts produced in Phoenix, Arizona, and a couple of short films, too. Then when my husband and I moved to Portland, Oregon, I woke up one day with a character in my head. I knew her name was Ivy Meadows; I knew she was an actor and part-time private investigator; and I knew she didn’t fit into a play or screenplay, but needed her own series of novels. It took me several years and tons of rewrites to get Macdeath ready for readers, but I loved every minute of the ride (okay, maybe not the rejections, but everything else).

ELLEN BYRON: I began my writing career as a playwright after some lame attempts at acting. (Although I did do voiceovers to some success. I’m proud to share that an ad agency once got a Cease and Desist letter from Dr. Ruth’s lawyers after people thought she was doing commercials for Middlesex Auto Dealers, thanks to my canny impression of her.) I balanced that with being an entertainment journalist—Shirley MacLaine once gave me brandy in the middle of an interview at her NY home when I confessed that I had bad cramps—and eventually moved out to Los Angeles to write for TV. During a long hiatus, suffering from writing-for-sitcoms burnout, I decided to try my hand at my favorite literary genre, mysteries. My first novel was Reality Checked (now named You Can’t Be Too Thin or Too Dead), and I was thrilled when it won a William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant. I was less thrilled when it failed to sell. However, to ease my anxiety while my agent was shopping it around (to no avail, sigh) I wrote Plantation Shudders, which found a wonderful home at Crooked Lane Books.

JULIANNE HOLMES: Four years ago, maybe longer, an agent wrote to Sheila Connolly, then president of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime, and told her he was interested in talking to writers who wrote cozy. He and I couldn’t find a project to work on, but several of my friends got book deals because of that connection. Two years ago, when Sherry Harris wanted to start a blog, but didn’t want to go it alone, the Wicked Cozy Authors were born. I was invited to join them, even though at that point I didn’t have a contract. That summer, an opportunity came up to write the Clock Shop Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime, and because of all of these circumstances, I was given the opportunity to audition for the gig. Which I got. I signed the contract in the fall of 2014, and Just Killing Time was published last October. My debut came through a different route, but it was and is no less thrilling.

ART TAYLOR: Oh, I hesitate to even talk about the manuscripts that have been piling up under the bed over the years—though these days they’re less likely printed and piled than simply languishing in some combination of files in a lonely corner of the hard drive. At the same times that I struggled with several novel projects that ultimately fell flat for one reason or another (plotting and pacing issues generally), I’ve also been fortunate to have enjoyed some much-appreciated success in the short story market, and it was that success that helped me find a different route into what became my first novel. On The Road With Del & Louise is a novel in stories, the first couple of which appeared in earlier forms in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine before Henery Press became interested in this book as a novel following the title characters’ longer journey.

Do you consider your writing plot-driven, character-driven, neither, or a combination?

TESSA ARLEN: A bit of both. If an idea doesn’t translate well into plot, I discard it. My second book in the Lady Montfort series Death Sits Down to Dinner, just flowed right from the start! But I rarely pick up my pen so to speak until I have replayed a skeleton of the plot over in my head for days. I enjoy gardening so weeding, transplanting, and pruning are wonderful activities for plotting. I usually start each book with a list of characters and a bio for each of them, but the people who populate Lady Montfort’s world kind of creep up on me as I write and their personalities become clearer and their idiosyncrasies more evident as the story unfolds. My two main protagonists in the Lady Montfort series are like old friends now that I have finished Book 3: Death By Any Other Name, and I hope that each story brings out a bit more about their particular characters.

CINDY BROWN: I love character-driven fiction—as long as it has a compelling story. That’s what I try for in my novels. Character comes first, partly because I like to write comedy and feel that most humor springs from character. Sure, situations create opportunity for comedy, but to me it’s the character’s viewpoint that makes scenes funny. The story angle, however, carries almost as much weight in my books. Though I love it when my characters lead me by the nose, I do need to corral them into a story. To that end, I use a three-act dramatic structure to make sure I have a viable plot, to create story arcs, and to keep myself from wandering off on subplot side roads.

ELLEN BYRON: Definitely both. I may lean more toward characters, given my background in theatre and TV, but I always map out a general plot. Sometimes I do find myself having too much fun with a couple of characters’ subplots, at which point I steer myself back to plot. My Cajun Country Mysteries series allows me the best of all writing worlds; I get to create interesting (I hope!) stories, write entertaining (I hope!) scenes between unique characters, and paint a written picture of a world that I love.

JULIANNE HOLMES: What a great question. Cozy series are very character driven—the protagonist and her team are the center of the series. That said, I am a huge fan of the Golden Age novelists, especially Agatha Christie. I really like the puzzle aspect of the mystery, and keeping the reader on her toes. That requires some plotting. So, it is a balance. I won’t sacrifice a character to the plot, i.e. make him/her do something out of character to get me out of a narrative jam. But I also want the reader to have a satisfying experience when the book is finished.

ART TAYLOR: While I’ve had some situations that have sparked the ideas for stories, character is almost definitely what drives my work—though after a point, I think that character and plot should be so intensely intertwined that it’s difficult to separate one from the other. The adventures the title characters take in On The Road With Del & Louise cover a range of plot types in the mystery genre—a traditional whodunit, for example, and a twisty wine caper and an episode of domestic suspense—but throughout, it’s Louise’s voice, her observations, her desires, and her struggles that keep the whole thing moving along. I was just reading a quote from Raymond Chandler about a magazine editor pulling a bit of description from one of his stories because it held up the action; Chandler theorized that readers “just thought they cared nothing about anything but the action; that really, although they didn’t know it, they cared very little about the action. The things they really cared about, and that I cared about, were the creation of emotion through dialogue and description; the things they remembered, that haunted them, were not for example that a man got killed, but that in the moment of his death he was trying to pick a paper clip up off the polished surface of a desk, and it kept slipping away from him, so that there was a look of strain on his face and his mouth was half opened in a kind of tormented grin, and the last thing in the world he thought about was death.” That’s a long quote, I know—thanks for indulging me!—but maybe it serves as a reminder that what all of us care about isn’t just what happens next in a story, but who it happened to and how it affected her and what sense she made of it all.

Thanks to you all for joining us at WRITERS WHO KILL. Here’s some additional information about these talented writers:

Tessa Arlen, the daughter of a British diplomat, had lived in or visited her parents in Singapore, Cairo, Berlin, the Persian Gulf, Beijing, Delhi and Warsaw by the time she was sixteen. Tessa’s first novel is Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman. She lives with her family on an island in the Puget Sound. http://www.tessaarlen.com/

Cindy Brown is a theater geek, mystery lover, and award-winning writer who recently combined her passions to produce madcap mysteries set in the off, off, off Broadway world of theater. Her books star Ivy Meadows, actress and part-time PI, and are published by Henery Press. They include Macdeath, The Sound of Murder (3rd place in the 2013 international Words With Jam First Page Competition, judged by Sue Grafton), and Oliver Twisted (coming June 2016). Check out Cindy’s slightly silly look at mystery, writing, and drama at cindybrownwriter.com.

Ellen Byron’s debut novel, Plantation Shudders, was nominated for a Best Humorous Mystery Lefty Award, as well as being chosen by the Library Journal as a Debut Mystery of the Month. Body on the Bayou, the second in Ellen’s Cajun Country Mystery series, launches in September. Her television credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me and Still Standing, as well as pilots for most of the major networks; she’s written over 200 magazine articles; her published plays include the award-winning Graceland and Asleep on the Wind. Ellen is a recipient of a William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant for mystery writers. http://www.ellenbyron.com/

Julianne Holmes writes the Clock Shop Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. The first in the series, Just Killing Time, debuted in October. Clock and Dagger comes out in August. As J.A. Hennrikus, she has short stories in three Level Best anthologies, Thin Ice, Dead Calm and Blood Moon. She is on the board of Sisters in Crime, and Sisters in Crime New England and is a member of MWA. She blogs with the Wicked Cozy Authors. http://JulianneHolmes.com

Art Taylor is the author of On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories. He has won two Agatha Awards, the Anthony Award, the Macavity Award, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction, and a selection from On the Road with Del & Louise was chosen for the forthcoming Best American Mystery Stories anthology. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University, and he contributes frequently to the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine as well as blogging at Criminal Minds and SleuthSayers. www.arttaylorwriter.com