Rhonda Pollero - F.A.T. and Funny

Not many writers can say they’ve done a stint as a dancing ketchup bottle, but Rhonda Pollero has.  “The worst job ever” gave her the drive to tackle a Ph.D in forensic psychology and become a USA Today bestselling author.

Pollero dreamed of being a writer since first grade when she won a Daughters of the American Revolution writer’s competition, but she worried about being able to earn a living.  So she became a paralegal, although, she admits, “not a very good one.”  In the meantime, she penned a romantic suspense novel titled Legal Tender.  “It took ten years to sell my first book," she says. "I made every mistake you could possibly make along the way. I was learning about the industry and finding where my voice fit.”  Over thirty novels later, she is three books into her F.A.T. series, a collection of humorous mysteries that center on the misadventures of a bargain-hunting paralegal named Finley Anderson Tanner.  “Finley’s been in my mind for years,” she explains.  “I come from a family of shoppers, so while I didn’t get the shopping gene, I learned from the masters. The only part of Finley that’s me is her E-Bay shopping.  I’m an E-Bay junkie.”  Pollero describes the books as “what would happen if Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) wanted to solve a crime.”  Booklist calls them a “… stylishly entertaining new amateur sleuth series that’s certain to be a runaway hit.”

The latest F.A.T. book, Slightly Irregular, was just released.  In it, Finley gets caught up in a kidnapping plot.  And eBay doesn’t sell clues.  The end result is “Fun,” according to Publisher’s Weekly.  Pollero simply says, “My goal is to entertain readers for however long it takes them to read my books.”

Pollero is hard at work on the next F.A.T. mystery, Bargain Hunting.  She has also co-written a non-fiction book, Adoption is Forever.  Pollero says writing with co-author Traci Hall was a wonderful experience.  “I’m an adoptive mother, and Traci gave up a child for adoption," she says. "We wanted to share the reality of adoption, including the bad parts.”  Since the two women share the same sense of humor, this book is as funny as it is informative.  Adoption is Forever garnered several national awards.

Although her writing keeps her busy, Pollero still finds time for her husband, her 15-year-old daughter, and Pebbles, “a dumpster cat with issues” because she writes at night and sleeps while her daughter is in school.  A self-described “movie junkie,” Pollero enjoys watching pre-1940 film noire.  She also loves the Florida lifestyle.  Having moved to the Palm Beach area from Maryland nine years ago, Pollero likes “being able to live eighty percent of my life outside.  It beats the heck out of snow days.”

While Pollero has long abandoned her ketchup bottle costume, she has retained her ability to make people laugh.  And this makes for a legion of happy readers.

For more about Rhonda Pollero, visit her website at www.rhondappollero.com.

Next: Bill Chastain - Chronicling America's Favorite Pastimes

Joanna Slan - Crafty Cozies

“Crafty” can be defined as “clever.” It can also refer to a person who is skilled in creative activities. For Florida native Joanna Campbell Slan, both definitions apply. In her Kiki Lowenstein Mysteries, Slan combines her two passions – writing and crafting – to create a series of clever mysteries interspersed with creative tips. Her newest novel, Death of a Schoolgirl, casts Charlotte Bronte’s classic character, Jane Eyre, in the role of  amatuer sleuth. Slan describes her books as “funny like Janet Evanovich, romantic like Nora Roberts, and centered on women’s friendships like Debbie Macomber.” With the release of Death of a Schoolgirl, she’s forced to add another comparison:  “British like Rhys Bowen.”

Slan has been a book lover for as long as she can remember. As the child of an alcoholic father, she escaped into the pages of her favorite books. According to Slan, “Books saved my life and gave me hope that I could escape my beginnings.” They also instilled in her an intense desire to write. “Even as a child, I wanted to write something that would give people hope and possibly change their lives” she recalls.

After graduating magna cum laude from Ball State University, Slan used her journalism degree to pursue a career in public relations. In addition to print journalism, she did some corporate speechwriting, worked in television and radio, and was involved in the first Farm Aid concert in 1985. Eventually, she started her own PR firm.

Since all of her jobs involved writing, she decided to branch out into writing non-fiction. She authored 13 books including several on scrapbooking techniques. But it wasn’t until her son was older that she had the time to attempt a work of fiction. In 2008, after four rewrites, Slan completed her first novel – Paper, Scissors, Death. “That book took 50 years to write,” she says. “It took me that long to believe I could do it.” And those 50 years paid off.  Paper, Scissors, Death was named a 2008 Agatha Award finalist for Best First Novel.

Paper, Scissors, Death introduces Kiki Lowenstein, a young mom whose world centers around her daughter and scrapbooking. Kiki’s comfortable little world is turned upside-down when her husband is found naked and dead in a hotel room. “Kiki is someone I like and admire,” Slan says. “She gets knocked down, but you can’t keep her down for long.”  Paper, Scissors, Death was the first of a six-book series. Slan describes herself as a believer in series fiction, saying “I love knowing that once I find something that’s satisfying and enjoyable, I can go back to the bookstore and find more.”

Between Book #4 and Book #5, Slan decided to write a series of short stories featuring Kiki. “My fans told me that a year between books was too long for them,” she says. “They needed their ‘Kiki fix.’ So I did. The stories are available on Amazon, and the response to them has been simply amazing.”

Slan’s latest offering, Death of a Schoolgirl, is the first in a new mystery series, The Jane Eyre Chronicles.  Based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre,  Death of a Schoolgirl was released by Berkley Trade on August 7. “Jane Eyre has long been my favorite book,” Slan says.  “Like most readers, when they find a work they love, I hated to see it end. After the success of my Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, I was casting about for another project. It occurred to me that Jane Eyre had all the hallmarks of a great mystery—and better yet, Jane has all the characteristics of a great amateur sleuth.”

Death of a Schoolgirl explores the responsibility we have to other people’s children.  Slan presented the first hot-off-the-press copy of the book to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a ceremony at the State Department.“Secretary Clinton wrote that it takes a village to raise a child. Today more than ever, we need to reach out past the boundaries of our homeland and care for the children of the world,” explains Slan.  “In my book, Jane refuses to turn her back on a group of schoolchildren even though she herself is at risk.”

Critics have warmed to Slan’s message. Kirkus Reviews noted,” Slan refashions a beloved heroine as a surprisingly canny detective. Her stylistic imitation of Charlotte Brontë is seasoned with a dash of social commentary and plenty of suspects to mull over.” Publishers Weekly noted that Slan’s new book “credibly recreates Regency London and the era of the Bow Street Runners.” That compliment causes the author to laugh. “Such is the power of imagination,” she says. “I wrote about bad air quality, cold rain, and murky weather while looking out the window onto the beach at Jupiter Island. In fact, I actually did wrap an oilcloth around me and walk on the beach during one storm in January to get the feel for the driving rain so common in England. Maybe it helped!”

While Slan’s mysteries are fun to read, they each have a social issue at the core: class differences, deception, prejudice, domestic violence, and caring for aging parents or endangered children.  Like the Kiki Lowenstein books, the Jane Eyre series will have its own social agenda. “I hope to put my readers in touch with something they may not have thought about before,” Slan says. “To do something I love and maybe even help someone – can it get any better than that? I don’t think so!”

For more about Joanna Campbell Slan, visit her website at www.JoannaSlan.com

Next: Rhonda Pollero - F.A.T. and Funny

Joanne Lewis - Alchemy and Self-Publishing

Fort Lauderdale writer Joanne Lewis got off to an early start in self-publishing. She wrote her first book at the age of eight, a book about the weather titled, appropriately, The Book of Weather. She hand-printed and illustrated each page on construction paper and fashioned a cover from two pieces of cardboard covered with leftover wallpaper. Then she got her big break – her school librarian placed the book on the library shelf. “Nothing made me prouder,” Lewis says. “I visited the library every day. I don’t recall anyone checking out my book, or if it was listed in the card catalogue or given a Dewey decimal number, but I didn’t care. There it was on the shelves. My book. I was a writer.”

Lewis went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Film/Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. After spending a discouraging year in Hollywood looking for work in the film industry, she decided to go into something more practical. “My father’s words bounced around my head: You have to have a career so you know what you’re unemployed from,” she says. So she went to law school. Lewis graduated in 1989 and moved to Florida, where she took a job as a prosecutor with the Broward County State Attorney’s office. But her dreams of writing wouldn’t die.

Lewis wrote her first novel, a mystery titled The Forbidden Room, while working felony trials and sex crimes. The book was picked up by a small press. Although she didn’t sell many books, Lewis was invited to speak on panels and did book signings. After hiring an agent, she was approached by an editor at Simon & Schuster to write a series featuring a young female prosecutor. Two months later, the agent presented her proposal to the editor who said that she was no longer interested. Then the agent unexpectedly passed away.  

Lewis was now 29 years old and “feeling like the height of my writing career would be traced back to my elementary school library.” So she stopped writing – for a while. “Somehow I knew I would start writing again when I was in my forties,” she recalls. “Don’t ask me how I knew this - I just did.” What she didn’t foresee was the life-changing event that would kickstart her writing career.

Four days shy of her 41^st birthday, Lewis was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After a radical hysterectomy and six months of chemotherapy, she emerged cancer-free and ready to write. She turned out murder mysteries, historical novels, and Wicked Good, a commercial novel that she co-wrote with her sister, Amy Lewis Faircloth. Wicked Good, the tale of a single mother struggling to raise a teenage son with Asperger’s Syndrome, chronicles the frustrations and joys that characterize the relationship between a parent and a special needs child. It also illustrates the unique, abiding love each has for the other. The book took the sisters three years to complete. They posted it one chapter at a time on a blog where it was discovered by a small publisher. Published as an e-book, Wicked Good reached the rank of Top 100 Special Needs books on Amazon.  A bound copy of the book was set to be published, but the deal fell through.

Lewis was understandably discouraged. But a call to her sister helped her regain her perspective. “One day, as I was trying to decipher the secret to writing a successful query letter, I called Amy and told her I was no longer having fun,” Lewis says. “I was tired of writing letters and hoping someone would consider me worthy. My sister said, ‘If you’re not having fun, don’t do it.’ So I stopped. I decided to self-publish."

Lewis is pleased with that decision. She believes that self-publishing offers new writers many advantages that traditional publishing cannot, including creative control and a say in pricing decisions. She also sees self-publishing becoming more generally accepted than it was in the past. “Do you know who looks down upon those of us who choose to self-publish?” she asks. “People in the publishing industry. Do you know who doesn’t care if we self-publish? The readers. All they ask for, all they deserve, is a good book. What I don’t understand is why self-publishing, which is the same as being self-employed, is given a bad rap. I started my own law practice and was congratulated for being an entrepreneur.  Why is writing the only industry where being self-employed is frowned upon?”

Lewis has some words of advice for aspiring self-publishers. “For the most part, the successful writers have books that are well-written and well-edited, and they work really hard to get noticed. But there’s something else. Alchemy, I call it. Turning metal into gold. Magic. Providence. Good fortune. Covering cardboard with yellow and green wallpaper and placing it on the school library shelf.”  

Lewis has self-published her second novel, a mystery titled Make Your Own Luck. The story centers around a young attorney’s efforts to prove the innocence of a 13-year old accused of murdering her father. Along the way, she learns what really happened the night of the murder and discovers some hard truths about her family and herself.

Lewis’s next book, The Lantern, (scheduled for release this fall) is a historical fiction novel about a modern-day woman's quest to find a girl from 15th century Italy who dared to enter the competition to build the lantern on top of Brunelleschi's dome. Her search interesects with some of the most famous figures of the Renaissance, including members of the Medici family, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello and a young Michelangelo.

In retrospect, Lewis is glad she followed her dad’s advice and went to law school.  She currently works as a family mediator and a guardian ad litem who represents children. “I feel like I am helping people,” she says, “and I make a decent living, which allows me to pursue my passion for writing.” She also tries to remember her sister’s advice: If you’re not having fun, don’t do it. “I don’t sell a lot of books,” Lewis admits, “but I know that will change when I am in my fifties. Don’t ask me how I know this, I just do. Hopefully, this time my life-changing event won’t be so drastic.”

For more about Joanne Lewis, visit her website at www.joannelewiswrites.com.

Next: Joanna Slan - Crafty Cozies

              

Diane Gilbert Madsen: History and Mystery

To some, history is just a dry compilation of names and dates. But for Diane Gilbert Madsen, history is alive with fascinating mysteries just waiting to be solved by the right detective. So Madsen decided to create one: DD McGil, a sassy insurance investigator with a penchant for literature, statistics and anything Scottish and an intense dislike for her real name (Daphne December).  DD is the signature character in the DD McGil Literati Mysteries, a unique series of whodunits. 

Madsen, a Chicago native, has always been a mystery buff. She grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and the works of Agatha Christie and John Dixon Carr. But after earning her master’s degree in English literature, Madsen decided to pursue a career in business.  Even while she served as the Director of Economic Development for the State of Illinois, the desire to write was always in the back of her mind. She wrote a murder mystery about art smuggling, but it was never published. So when she and her husband, Tom, sold their consulting business and moved to Placida, a rural town in Southwest Florida, Madsen decided to write something different. She had always loved researching obscure, interesting incidents in the lives of famous writers, and she decided to use these as the basis for a series of mystery stories. “When I decided I could combine historical incidents with a mystery, I knew I was on to something,” she recalls. 

After Hurricane Charley, Diane helped her husband Tom run their Association Management business in Boca Grande where many structures had been damaged.  She eventually completed A Cadger’s Curse, a novel that merges the life of Robert Burns with present-day counterfeiting and murder. Madsen, a member of the clan Buchanan, has always been fascinated by the iconic Scottish poet.  A Cadger’s Curse is based on a controversial poem Burns etched onto the window of a Scottish inn. He later had to return and break the glass to avoid being accused of treason.  In Madsen’s book, the fragments come into the possession of DD’s eccentric aunt, setting the stage for robbery, intrigue, and murder. A Cadger’s Curse was praised by Publisher’s Weekly as a “promising debut , the first in a new cozy series , (that) introduces DD McGil, a 38-year-old freelance insurance investigator and former English professor who's a whiz at breaking and entering. Well-drawn characters and a suspenseful plot will leave readers looking forward to the next installment.”

 A Cadger’s Curse was soon followed by Hunting for Hemingway which debuted at the Hemingway Museum in the writer’s boyhood home of Oak Park and won an Honorable Mention in the 2011 Fiction Awards at the New York Book Festival.  Hunting for Hemingway centers around an incident that may have ended Hemingway’s first marriage. The writer’s young wife was on her way to meet him in Switzerland, carrying a valise containing the original and carbon copies of his short stories and the beginning of a novel that he’d been working on for over two years. The valise was stolen in a train station, and Hemingway never got over the loss.  In Hunting for Hemingway, the valise turns up in modern-day Chicago. “This book involved a lot of research, which I love doing,” Madsen says. “Everything up to the point where the stories show up is factual. I also had to research the complexities that arise once a lost manuscript is found.”  Library Journal calls Hunting for Hemingway “…humorous … breezy and fast paced.” Booklist said it is “… sexy and fun, a combination of not-too-gritty, hard-boiled detective novel and cozy mystery infused with neat little bits of Hemingway lore.”   And Madsen definitely enjoyed the reviewer in The Hemingway Review who said:   “I suspect Ernest Hemingway’d have gotten a kick out of DD McGil.”  Getting into the real spirit of the story, Madsen even wrote an article on the Corona Number 3 typewriter Hemingway used to write his lost stories. The article was published in Mystery Scene Magazine.

The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper is the third Literati Mystery.  It is due out shortly and deals with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and what he might have uncovered about the identity of Jack the Ripper, the world’s most famous criminal.  

When Madsen is not watching sports, observing the wildlife from her Twin Ponds home, or helping her husband rebuild his vintage Corvette, she’s hard at work on her fourth Literati mystery, The Cardboard Palace, in which a stolen Jane Austen manuscript at an exclusive Women’s Club leads to murder and the discovery of an explosive revelation.  

             Madsen describes the DD  McGil Literati novels as “fast-paced and witty, combining true incidents in the history of famous authors with modern-day mysteries.”    She hopes her books will not only entertain but will also generate interest in the history of famous authors. “History is people,” she explains, “and I love illuminating a bit of its personality."

            For more about Diane Gilbert Madsen, visit her website at http://www.dianegilbertmadsen.com/

Next: Joanne Lewis - Alchemy and Self-Publishing

RIP Ray Bradbury

One of the brightest lights in the literary world blinked out today. Although Ray Bradbury was not a Florida writer, no one can deny that he was fabulous. He was one of the writers who helped me fall in love with the beauty of the written word. His coming-of-age novel, Dandelion Wine, remains one of my top five favorite books, and his writing possesses an incomparable lushness and humanity. This is a very sad day for readers everywhere. We've lost a true national treasure.

Kristin Harmel - The Lit Chick

Florida writer Kristin Harmel’s seventh novel, The Sweetness of Forgetting, (scheduled for release  Aug. 7 from Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster), is a real departure for the Orlando-based novelist, who grew up in St. Petersburg. She wrote her first published book, a laugh-out-loud chick lit novel called How to Sleep with a Movie Star, at age 24, and quickly followed it with three more chick lit tomes from and two young adult novels. Her books have been published in numerous languages and are sold all around the world.

Harmel’s writing career began earlier than most. As a 6-year-old, she penned her first novel, which she describes with a laugh as “a little hand-written, stapled-together Bobbsey Twins book.”  At sixteen, this “obsessive reader” started writing for a local newspaper, and months later, she was covering minor league and high school sports for the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times). After earning her degree in journalism and communications from the University of Florida, she began writing for People magazine, where she’s still a contributor more than a decade later.

At age 23, Harmel spent the summer in France. That summer changed her life. “It taught me to slow down, to appreciate what I had, to look inside myself,” she says. “It gave me the courage to get out of the rat race and attempt a novel, which is something I’d always dreamed of doing. Two months later, I started my first book.” In 2006, How to Sleep with a Movie Star was published. Praised as “hilarious” by Cosmopolitan magazine, it tells the story of a 26-year-old reporter whose life is turned upside-down after an encounter with a movie star. This was followed a year later by The Blonde Theory, the tale of a corporate attorney who goes undercover as a “dumb blonde” to see if her love life improves. Harmel calls her first few books “Bridget Jones-esque, entertaining reads about women striving to be better versions of themselves and trying to find their way in life – set to an amusing backdrop.” The Blonde Theory was followed by The Art of French Kissing (set in Paris), and Italian for Beginners (set in Rome). Harmel also wrote two novels geared toward young adult readers : When You Wish and After.

Now, at the age of 33, Harmel’s writing has grown up with her. The Sweetness of Forgetting moves away from her chick lit roots to tell the story of a 36-year-old bakery owner who discovers that her grandmother, now suffering from Alzheimer’s, has a mysterious past buried in 1940s Paris. “It’s a completely different kind of book for me,” Harmel explains. “It was a transition I’ve been ready to make for a long time. I’m so proud of the depth of the story I was able to tell here, and I’m hoping that readers are as touched by reading it as I was by researching it. I was able to touch on some topics that mean a great deal to me, including Alzheimer’s, the Holocaust and interfaith cooperation.” Already, the buzz both here and abroad has been wonderful, and translation rights for The Sweetness of Forgetting have already sold in a dozen territories overseas. In August, Harmel will set out on a book tour that includes New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago before heading to Italy to promote the release of the Italian language version of her novel. But whatever the language, The Sweetness of Forgetting has a plotline that takes readers deep into a surprising interfaith tale based both in Holocaust-era Europe and modern-day Cape Cod. The novel also includes nine original recipes from the main character’s bakery. Harmel describes the book as “ a story of family, love, honesty…and baked goods.”

While writing is her passion, Harmel, who is now the travel and dating expert for The Daily Buzz, (a  nationally syndicated morning television show) doesn’t find it difficult to set time aside for reading, cooking, and traveling. She’s seldom in her Orlando home for more than a month at a stretch, and she likes spending time with friends. But according to Harmel, what she loves most of all is "being able to tell a story that will hopefully amuse and inspire. It’s a privilege to be able to do that with the written word.”

For more on Kristin Harmel, visit her website at http://www.kristinharmel.com/.

Next: Diane Gilbert Madsen - History and Mystery

Robert Tacoma - Laughter's the Key

What do a Key West cat juggler, the sexy leader of a California cult, a mysterious Everglades hermit, two bumbling criminal brothers on the lam, a womanizing Wal-Mart greeter, and a former possum rancher named Taco Bob have in common? They’re all the comic creations of the delightfully wacky imagination of Gainesville writer Robert Tacoma. Tacoma describes his books as “Florida fiction that’s stranger than fiction.

Tacoma, who grew up in Tampa, didn’t set out to become a writer. A former construction worker, Tacoma was a huge fan of Florida writers like Carl Hiaasen, John D. MacDonald, Randy Wayne White, James W. Hall, and Tim Dorsey. But it was a book by California writer Christopher Moore that changed his life. According to Tacoma, “I’d read a book by Tim Dorsey, and in the back of that book was a list of some books with funny names. I found one of the books and read it. It was by Christopher Moore. I went to his website, and he had a discussion forum. I’d written a few little silly things, and I started putting some of them on there. One day, he wrote back and said, ‘You know, that’s really funny. That’s great.’ He encouraged me, so I can blame it all on Christopher Moore.”

Three years later, Tacoma completed his first novel, Key Weird. “I have no idea where the idea for that book came from,” he says. “The ideas just came to me as I started writing.” It marked the debut of Tacoma’s signature character, Taco Bob—a down-on-his-luck Texas possum rancher who wanders into Key West after a string of bad breaks. “I needed a character that could go through the stories unaware of what’s going on," Tacoma explains. "Even though Taco Bob’s the central character, the action usually takes place all around him but doesn’t directly involve him.” In spite of the similarity in their names, Tacoma says that “there’s not as much of me in Taco Bob as you might think. He’s a lot more laid back.”  The two do, however, share a passion for fishing. “One of the things I like best about living in Florida, besides the climate and the water, is the fishing,” he says. “I’ve been fishing the Hillsborough River for over fifty years. I wanted to write about Florida and have a good excuse to go fishing.”  

Tacoma continued the fishing theme in Key Weird’s sequel, Key Weirder. In it, Taco Bob decides to travel the state searching for the ultimate trout recipe. Unbeknownst to him, he is being pursued by an assortment of unscrupulous characters in search of a golden idol that Bob has been inadvertently using as a doorstop. Tacoma includes several original recipes in this book (including one for a killer smoked fish spread). Key Weirder was followed by Key Witch, a story that includes a little lovestruck space alien whose observations conclude each chapter. Key Manatee, Tacoma’s fourth novel, is “a parody/homage to the Travis McGee series.” It was the hardest book for him to write. “I really enjoy John D. MacDonald’s books,” he says. “I’ve read every one of them twice. I wanted to stay close to Travis McGee while telling my own story. And I wanted the ending to have everybody get what’s coming to them.” Tacoma’s spirit of fun continued with Color Me Weird, a small volume he describes as “a coloring novella for grown-ups.” This was followed by three more novels – Key Lucky, Possum Surprise, and Sheriff Skunk. Tacoma’s latest offering, Key Dali, is the story of a Key West street performer who pairs up with his old friend, Taco Bob, to save an orphanage from an unscrupulous bank (with predictably hilarious results.)

Tacoma really enjoys his writing career, and he doesn’t think he’ll be running out of weird ideas for his stories anytime soon.  The way he explains it, “There’s this sifting thing that happens here in Florida. All the really strange stuff seems to find its way into Florida and the Keys.” He hopes his offbeat stories will bring smiles to his readers’ faces. “My number one job is for my readers to have a good time,” he says. “There are so many bad things going on today. I want to make people laugh and have fun.”

To find out more about Robert Tacoma’s books, you can visit his website at www.tacobob.com

Next: Kristin Harmel - The Lit Chick