An Interview with John Gaspard by Grace Topping

The Curious Mysteries of Eli Marks

I first became aware of John Gaspard when our books were published by the same company. I was amazed at his broad body of work, including novels about a magician, short stories, books on writing, and film production. It wasn't until I listened to the audiobook of his first Eli Marks book that I came to appreciate how talented he is. I binged through several of his audiobooks and watched some of his films. Eli Marks is a very appealing character. Recently, John released The Curious Mysteries of Eli Marks, stories about Eli's boyhood. It was a pleasure talking to John about his career and getting to know more about him.  

Unleash your inner detective with teenage magician Eli Marks!

Join thirteen-year-old Eli as he moves in with his magician uncle and uncovers the secrets of the magic world in “The Curious Mysteries of Eli Marks.”

With brain-teasing puzzles in each chapter, Eli uses his smarts to solve mysteries while learning about the fascinating world of magic.

Readers can join in the fun and try to solve the puzzles alongside Eli … PLUS learn ten amazing magic tricks with step-by-step instructions and illustrations in the second half of the book.

 

Welcome, John, to Writers Who Kill.

Authors frequently write a prequel to their mystery series, providing additional background about their main characters. In The Curious Mysteries of Eli Marks, you took it a step further and wrote about your main character as a young boy. What inspired you to write about Eli Marks as a middle school student?

There are three main reasons I decided to write the Eli Marks prequel series: First, the adult Eli Marks books hint at details about his earlier life that seemed interesting to explore more. Things like the death of his parents, going to live with his Uncle Harry and Aunt Alice, and learning magic as a kid. I felt there was a good story to tell about his teen years.

 Second, coming up with the mystery plot is always the hardest part for me when writing the adult books. To get better at writing mysteries, I challenged myself to write ten short mystery stories for the last Eli Marks book (“The Self-Working Trick”). That was helpful but difficult, so I thought writing a middle-grade mystery series would be good practice, because it required coming up with ten more mystery plots.

 

Finally, I wanted to attract more readers to the Eli Marks series. I thought that by creating a middle-grade prequel series, I could draw in younger readers who might then continue with the adult books as they got older. I'm still waiting to see if that strategy works!

You used a series of short stories and involve young readers in solving the puzzles presented in each story. Why the short story approach rather than a novel-length book about Eli’s early life?

I decided to use the "solve the mystery" format from the Encyclopedia Brown books I enjoyed as a kid. In my version, young readers get a chance to figure out the solution before it's revealed … and then the story wraps up (which never really happened in the Encyclopedia Brown books—once the mystery was solved, the story just stopped).

Another challenge was that teenage Eli wouldn't be solving serious crimes like his adult self. So, I had to come up with everyday situations where a mystery still needed to be solved—events that might not lend themselves to a full novel. This required creating mundane puzzles versus murder cases.

 

However, although the book consists of ten short mysteries, there is a through-line that follows Eli’s ninth grade school year, from start to finish.

The Young Eli Marks Mystery Series seems like the perfect way to get middle school students interested in reading and in the world of magic. In fact, Master Magician Lance Burton highly recommends your book. What is it about magic that would appeal to kids this age?

I’ve had the good fortune to chat with many, many magicians over the years (including big names like Lance Burton and Teller), and almost all of them share one memory: Seeing a magic trick as a kid and wanting to learn more about magic. It’s the perfect age to look for the tools to fool the people around you. It’s a way for shy kids to connect with their world and for less-shy kids to turn the spotlight on themselves.

In your book, you provided instructions on how young readers can perform several magic tricks. I was under the impression that magicians don’t reveal how they perform magic. When is it appropriate for magicians to share their secrets?

There really are few real secrets left in magic: a quick search on YouTube will reveal the workings of most tricks. If someone has a genuine interest in magic, I’ve found that most magicians are very willing to direct neophytes in the right direction when it comes to learning magic.

There are ten tricks taught in the back of the book; each one of the tricks also appears in one of the stories, where we get to see how Eli struggles to learn each new effect. The tricks are very basic and designed to use props from around the house, so that no special purchases need to be made.

I had the great good fortune to receive input from two magicians who also teach magic, to ensure that the instructions and the illustrations would prove helpful for the reader.

In your Eli Marks series, Eli is a skilled magician. What inspired you to make your main character a magician? Do you perform magic yourself?

When I decided to write a mystery series, I looked around to see what occupation would naturally put my hero into a variety of locations and situations. As it turned out, I knew more magicians than the average person. I’d found them all to be smart, fascinating people who look at the world differently. It seemed like an ideal occupation for the lead in a mystery series.

I have done extensive research on magic, to keep the books accurate, and even took lessons from a world-class magician before I started the series. But I don’t have the performer gene, so I’ve limited myself to doing just one card trick, which I do at signings and writer-related events.

Some writers are challenging themselves to write in other genres. You’ve taken the challenge to new heights by not only writing mysteries but also penning books on writing and filmmaking and writing and directing low-budget feature films. How do you balance all of your pursuits?

The filmmaking books were written before any of the novels, but since the topic is evergreen, they continue to sell well. The information in the writing books (the two Popcorn Principles books) was drawn almost entirely from the filmmaking books, but reshaped for a different audience (novelists). So, in reality, most of my time is spent writing and marketing the mystery books.

 I understand that your book More Popcorn Principles, Further Cinematic Storytelling Strategies for Novelists (Book 2) came out recently. One early review described it as you blending your deep understanding of storytelling with the world of film. What do you think aspiring or seasoned novelists can learn from film to help them in their writing? 

 There are so many tricks that screenwriters and filmmakers employ in their filmed stories to better engage audiences: cleaner exposition, sharper dialogue, better characterizations. I found I was using what I’d learned as a screenwriter and a filmmaker when writing my novels. So, the Popcorn Principle books simply take those ideas and inspire writers to look at how the filmmakers did it and ask themselves: “What’s my version of that?”

 How did you get into writing and directing feature films? Are you still making them?

 I started making films as a teenager and have made numerous shorts and about a half-dozen low-budget features over the years. Now that I’m retired, I’m focusing more on writing and marketing.

 In the past, I’ve seen some of your films and enjoyed them. Can our readers find your films online?

 Indeed they can. A few of the more recent ones are available streaming online. Here’s a link to the movies:  https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/the-movies

 I listened to the audiobook versions of your Eli Marks mysteries and thought the narrator did a terrific job bringing Eli and your other characters to life. Were you involved in the production of the audiobooks?

 Yes. My narrator, Jim Cunningham, was one of the inspirations for the Eli Marks series. He’s an actor and voice talent here in the Twin Cities, (and an amateur magician). It was his idea to do the audiobook versions of the books. We record them in my basement sound studio and then I handle all the post-production duties.

 We went on to create a podcast (Behind the Page: The Eli Marks podcast), which is just about to start its fourth season. Each episode consists of an audiobook chapter from one of the books, along with an interview with a guest. Over the course of each season, listeners can hear an entire Eli Marks book for free. Guests have included Dick Cavett, The Amazing Kreskin, Teller (of Penn & Teller) and a slew of interesting magicians.

 You can find the podcast on your favorite podcast provider, or at this link:  https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/eli-marks-podcast

 You frequently present stories taking a different approach. For example, in The Greyhound of the Baskervilles you tell Sherlock Holmes’ story from the dog’s point of view. What inspired this approach?

 My wife and I have adopted a number of former-racing greyhounds over the years. They are a unique and funny breed. One day the title, “The Greyhound of the Baskervilles,” popped into my head. I thought it was a funny idea. The original book is in the public domain, so I sat down and re-wrote it from a dog’s point of view. The story and most of the dialogue is the same as in the Arthur Conan Doyle version; only the perspective of the narrator has changed.

 Last year I added a second book to the series: “A Christmas Carl.” It’s the same story as “A Christmas Carol,” but now the narrator is a greyhound named Carl who accompanies Scrooge on his long night with the three ghosts.

 Readers can learn more about these Greyhound Classics here:  https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/dogs

 

You’ve had a busy year. I understand that you are also coming out with an adult Eli Marks book, The Professor’s Nightmare. Please tell us about it.

 The new book consists of three Eli Marks novellas: “Lost in the Shuffle,” “The Square Circle,” and “The Professor’s Nightmare.” Each story takes us a little further in Eli’s journey. The book comes out on November 15^th.

 A unique feature of that book is that one of the characters in “The Professor’s Nightmare” has written his own book! The character is a retired philosophy professor and he’s written a book called “It’s My First Time Getting Old (So Excuse Me If I Go Astray): One Philosopher’s Journey Into Aging, Death and Beyond.”

The book (which was co-written with ChatGPT) can be read for free here:  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/q37hoxhx72

 What’s next for both young and older Eli Marks?

 I hope to do a second middle-grade book next year. As for the older Eli Marks … I’m not sure yet.

 What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned since you started writing?

 You don’t need anyone’s permission to write and publish a book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Interview With John Gaspard

by Grace Topping

One of the best things about a mystery is the magic the author creates in the story—the carefully woven plot, the hidden clues that help the main character (and perhaps the reader) solve the mystery, and the ta-da moment at the end when the main character reveals the identity of the murderer. It’s magical, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. John Gaspard takes his Eli Marks Mystery Series to the next level by including another level of magic. Eli Marks is actually a working magician, who conjures magic tricks and solves murders. John reveals some of the secrets behind the magic of his long-running series.

The Ambitious Card

First in the Eli Marks Mystery Series

Back Cover Copy

The life of a magician isn’t all kiddie shows and card tricks. Sometimes it’s murder. Especially when magician Eli Marks very publicly debunks a famed psychic, and said psychic ends up dead. The evidence, including a bloody King of Diamonds playing card (one from Eli’s own Ambitious Card routine), directs the police right to Eli.

                                                                                                            www.amazon.com

Welcome, John, to Writers Who Kill.

Your Eli Marks Mystery Series features a working magician as the main character. What inspired this series?

John Gaspard

I wanted to write a continuing cozy series and was looking for a fun and interesting main character to base the series around. As I thought about it, I realized that I had a lot of friends who were professional, working magicians. 

I’m not sure why that’s the case, as most people probably don’t even know one professional magician. But I knew several and they are all intelligent and interesting and a little odd. So that seemed like a good starting point.

Are you a magician yourself?

I am not a magician, so I had to do a lot of research in order to write about the profession with any degree of realism.

How did you conduct that research?

The research took a lot of different forms. I read many, many books and magazines on the topic, as well as watching videos in which magicians talked about their work and explained their processes. When possible, I tried to see magicians performing live (which is hard to do in Minneapolis, as there are not a lot of places to see a performing magician besides a couple of restaurants.)

I also took lessons from a local magician. I knew from the beginning that the first book would be about a particular card trick (The Ambitious Card) and so I took lessons from a magician named Suzanne, who taught me that trick. 

While Suzanne lives here in the Minneapolis area, she is a nationally known and respected magician. You can watch Suzanne fooling Penn & Teller here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3oMC9U2eY

So, Suzanne taught me variations on doing The Ambitious Card trick. But just as much time during the lessons was spent talking about the process of being a professional magician: What is your day like, what keeps you up at night, how do you put your act together, and so on.

I continue to do research even today, listening to podcasts about magic and magicians and even attending magic conventions. My goal is to always make sure that the magic is presented properly, so any magician who reads one of the books won’t be annoyed if I don’t get the details right.

The greatest moment in the process so far has been an email I got from Teller (of Penn & Teller), telling me that he had read one of the books and that he enjoyed it. He wrote: “I especially liked the accurate behind-the-scenes aspect of it. Usually, magic detective stories don't really have a clue about the mentality and preoccupations of magicians. Yours is true to life.”

So that was pretty great!

Do you reveal any of the secrets or techniques behind the magic tricks?

I don’t. In fact, I go out of my way to make sure nothing is revealed. However, I do make sure that all the correct steps are followed in presenting a trick, but I don’t give away how it’s done. That would spoil the fun.

Eli Marks also appears in two short stories. Which came first, the novels or the short stories?

The novels came first. I find short stories much harder to write than novels. There’s no wiggle room in a short story. However, from a marketing standpoint, short stories are a great way to get readers interested in your series.

In The Linking Rings, you take Eli from his usual setting in Minneapolis on a trip to London. Was it a challenge setting the story in a place without your regular supporting characters?

Not really. It was fun coming up with a whole bunch of new magicians for Eli and his Uncle Harry to interact with. My wife and I have spent a lot of time in London (and at The Magic Circle, where a lot of the story takes place), so it was pretty easy to drop Eli into that setting and see what happens.

Your Eli Marks mysteries have a lot of humor. In your novel, The Ripperologists, in which a killer starts recreating the crimes of Jack the Ripper, you’ve gone darker. What prompted the change?

Actually, The Ripperologists was my first novel. The idea appeared, nearly fully formed, in my head, which never, ever happens. Originally it was going to be a screenplay (which I had a lot more experience writing), but as I started to dig into it, I realized that it would work better as a novel.

The Ripperologists does have a much more serious tone, as I think the subject matter demanded it. But it also has its own touches of wacky humor.

Here’s an interesting side note: a major character in The Ripperologists (retired British police detective Henry McHugh) is also a major character in one of the Eli Marks mysteries, The Linking Rings. 

And for eagle-eyed readers, there is also another connection between The Ripperologists and the Eli Marks mystery series, although I don’t think anyone has spotted it yet. That’s an Easter egg just waiting to be found.

A lot of your readers may not know that in addition to being a writer, you’ve also directed some low-budget feature films and written books on filmmaking. How did you get into filmmaking?

I started making movies as a teenager (on Super 8mm film) and graduated to 16mm and then to the new digital media for the last couple of features. 

It’s a fun way to tell stories and, unlike novel writing, you get to hang out and work with a lot of creative people while making a feature film. Novel writing is a pretty solitary endeavor.

Even the two filmmaking books I wrote weren’t as lonely as novel writing, as they both involved conducting a lot of interviews with filmmakers, like Steven Soderbergh, Jon Favreau, and Roger Corman.

Did you also write the scripts for your films? If so, as a novel writer, how different was it writing scripts?

I wrote or co-wrote just about every movie I made. 

The process of creating the story for a screenplay or a novel is very similar. The part that’s radically different is that novels require a lot more detail about the characters and the situations.

Are the films available online for viewing?

Yes. If any of your readers have Amazon Prime, they can see one of my more recent features there. It’s called Ghost Light (but be careful – there are two movies on Amazon Prime with the name Ghost Light. Look for the one directed by John Gaspard).

In The Greyhound of the Baskervilles, you retell Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic mystery. How did that book come about?

That book was pretty much just a lark, and I’m surprised at how successful it has become. 

My wife and I have owned several greyhounds as pets over the years; these are retired racers, rescued from the track. They’re just great dogs, quirky, and a lot of fun to have around.

One morning I woke up and the title just popped into my head: The Greyhound of the Baskervilles. It just struck me as funny.

I then went on-line and found that the original book was in the public domain. I re-read it and realized right away that the POV of the book could easily be changed from Dr. Watson to a pet greyhound.

So, I went ahead and re-wrote it from this new perspective. The book is, essentially, the same book as before, except that it’s now narrated by a dog (Holmes’s pet greyhound, Septimus). 

I made the book a little shorter and trimmed some of the dialogue. I also gave Septimus the role of the hero in the climactic battle with the hound of the Baskervilles. 

The audiobook version is coming out soon and the producer/narrator on that project (Steve Hendrickson) did a really outstanding job on it.

All the books in the Eli Marks mystery series have recently been reissued with great new covers. Have you taken control of your publishing career?

I have. I own all the rights to that series and have also started a second series: The Como Lake Players mystery series, written under the pseudonym, Bobbie Raymond.

The first book in that series, Acting Can Be Murder, came out last year (and the audiobook version was just released this month). The second book in the series, Dying to Audition, will be out this summer.

As a big fan of audiobooks, I was pleased to see that your Eli Marks series is available in audio. Jim Cunningham does a terrific job on the narration. Were you involved in the production of the audio versions? Did you select Jim to do the narration?

I owe the creation of The Ripperologists and the Eli Marks mystery series to Jim Cunningham. He inspired me on both those projects. We’ve been friends for about 30 years, and he was the one who sparked my interest in Jack the Ripper and also sparked my interest in magic and magicians.

Jim is a professional narrator and it was his idea that we should produce the audiobooks of the Eli Marks mystery series. It’s a partnership: he does the reading, and I do all the editing and production for the books. And we have a great time doing it. He also recently finished narrating my two filmmaking books as well.

Will we be seeing more of your Eli Marks mysteries?

I’m plotting book #7 in the series and hope to have time to work on it later this summer, once the second Como Lake Players mystery, Dying to Audition, is finished. 

Thank you, John.

For more information about John and his books we didn't cover here, visit www.johngaspard.com

If you are interested in reading one of the Eli Marks short stories, here’s a free link to “The Invisible Assistant.”

https://bookhip.com/RLJQGX

And here’s a free link to the other short story, “The Last Customer.”

https://bookhip.com/TXSQS

Here are free links to audiobook versions of each of the short stories.

“The Invisible Assistant”

https://bookhip.com/GGHJVS

“The Last Customer”

https://bookhip.com/NCPKGD