A North Florida Mystery Novelist Celebrates 20 Years - A Guest Post by Michael Lister

This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger, Michael Lister. Best known for his literary thrillers and page-turning mystery novels, Michael has recently released  "Rivers to Blood," the latest book in his award-winning John Jordan mystery series. Michael was our featured author on July 21, 2011.

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1994, in an upstairs office, in a borrowed room with a beautiful balcony and a window air conditioner pumping coolness across my desk, I became a writer.

Of course, I had been writing for a while, starting and stopping, trying and failing––sad and bad attempts, beginning some five years prior.

But it was the summer of 1994 that everything finally aligned, as I was completing my graduate degree in theology, and I traded time spent in academic for creative endeavors, that a writer was born.

From that time till this I have not just written nearly all day every day, I have lived and moved and had my being as a writer, I have experienced and processed the world in that inimitable and idiosyncratic way.

And from the very beginning North Florida has been my beat, my canvas, my palette, my muse.

 I’ve often been called a regional writer, and that really resonates with me because I write not about a central, major city, but a region—its small towns (Thunder Beach), its river swamps (Double Exposure), its massive prisons in rural areas (Rivers to Blood).

There’s a certain way of life in North Florida, and it’s as different from South Florida living as the North is from the South. In fact, Florida is in many ways a microcosm of the country in reverse, (the north part of the state resembling the south part of the country; the south part of the state resembling the north part of the country).

My Florida is a wild, untamed place—backwoods, dirt roads, untouched, unspoiled, in some ways, unwelcoming. Not unwelcoming enough to those of us who call it home. It’s both my natural and spiritual home, and I love it like only a native can.

My Florida is a place of sunshine and shadow, darkness and light, heat and humidity, beauty and danger, a place of crackers and snowbirds, shotgun houses and beachfront mansions—an environment of great risk and great reward.

Amid seemingly endless rows of slash pines, a flat land lined with dirt roads covered by oak tree canopies, the Spanish moss draped over their branches blowing like a lace curtain in a summer breeze, awaits discovery, and like most native peoples, those of us who live here hope it’ll stay that way.  It’s a paradise, unlike the lower parts of the state, still preserved in much of its natural beauty and splendor, an Eden as yet untouched by original sin.

In my John Jordan mystery series (Blood Sacrifice, Rivers to Blood) I write about two Floridas-one virtually unknown, the other virtually unseen. The first Florida, the one I was born and raised in, is Gloria Jahoda’s “Other Florida,” the panhandle, which, unlike the southern part of the state, remains virtually unknown to most of the world. The second Florida, the one I worked in for nearly a decade is Ted Bundy’s hidden Florida, the Florida State prison system, which remains nearly invisible even to most Floridians. In addition to being the Floridas I know, they are the Floridas I love… and sometimes hate.

One of the writer’s jobs is to take his readers on a journey—preferably to a place they have never been, perhaps to a place they will never go. I often take my readers to such a place. I carefully lead them through the electronically locked gates of the chain-link fences, beneath the looping razor wire glinting in the sun, and into the strange world of a Florida State prison.

It is in this Florida, more than any other, that culture, class, and race clash and collide in an inescapable cauldron, the heat of which is so intense that it often explodes. Unlike free Florida, the Florida behind the chain-link and razor wire is the same in the north part of the state as it is in the south, and the fragile alliances of the strangest of bedfellows are put to the most rigorous of tests. This Florida has its own rites and rituals, its own unwritten laws and silently agreed upon conventions.

It is down these meanest of streets that I send my protagonist, Chaplain John Jordan—who is himself not mean, who, though tarnished and sometimes afraid, is not just the best man in his world, but a good enough man for any world. An ex-cop who still thirsts for justice, as well as strong drink, Jordan solves temporal mysteries while bearing witness to eternal ones. And he, more than anyone, can move among both the cops and the criminals using his insight into the nature of humanity to divine the guilty party, the one tree hidden in the forest, which like Poe’s Purloined Letter, is cleverly hidden in plain sight.

I also write historical hard-boiled noir thrillers (The Big Goodbye, The Big Beyond, and The Big Hello) featuring Jimmy "Soldier" Riley, a wounded, woman-haunted PI in Panama City during World War II, literary thrillers (Double Exposure, Burnt Offerings, and Separation Anxiety) and a contemporary crime series featuring former reporter, Merrick McKnight (Thunder Beach and A Certain Retribution)—all set in various times and places within my Florida.

To celebrate my first two decades as a Florida writer, we have some very special events, activities, and publications planned.

This year will witness a new novel published in each of my 3 main series––John Jordan, Jimmy “Soldier” Riley, and Merrick McKnight.

First up is Rivers to Blood, the sixth John Jordan mystery, following 2012’s Florida Book Award-winning Blood Sacrifice.

Next is The Big Hello, the third Jimmy “Soldier” Riley 1940s noir novel, following 2013’s The Big Beyond.

These two novels are connected by a certain theme of love and honor and a single stanza of Lovelace poetry: "Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more."

The second Merrick McKnight novel, following 2010’s Thunder Beach, is my first to be set in my hometown of Wewahitchka and is titled A Certain Retribution.

Written over many, many years, these books will be released this anniversary year in celebration and also appreciation of my faithful, supportive readers.

There will also be an old-time radio show production of The Big Hello with a full cast and sound effects performed live before an audience and several readings and signings throughout the year.

I hope you'll help me celebrate what I hope is just the beginning. For more information you can check out my website: www.MichaelLister.com. And if you sign up for my newsletter, I'll send you an ebook edition of one of my novels.

           

             

Jonathon King - Mystery With a Slice of Life

Jonathon King has seen it all.

King’s 24 years as a police and court reporter have taken him from the underbellies of the seamiest slums to the multi-million-dollar yachts and penthouses of the mega-rich. He’s observed autopsies and criminal trials, stood over homicide victims, and accompanied police officers on high-speed chases and undercover drug deals. And he’s “cannibalized” his career to transport readers to places they’ve never seen and allow them to experience a side of life they’ve never encountered.

King has always loved reading and newspapers, so after taking a journalism class at a local community center, he went on to earn a degree from Temple University in Philadelphia. His first job was working the overnight police shift for the Philadelphia Daily News. When he was offered a district job at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in 1984, he moved to Florida where he has lived ever since.

While King enjoyed a successful career as a journalist and garnered many awards for his writing, he’d wanted to pen a novel since his high school years. He was inspired by John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Goodbye, a book King calls “the nugget of the dream.” He first tried his hand at novel writing in 1982 but soon realized he didn’t know enough about people. So he spent the next 20 years learning. “I got to see a lot as a police reporter, and I let it all soak in,” he explains. “I write from images that have collected in my head.”

In the winter of 2000, King spent two months writing his first novel, The Blue Edge of Midnight. The book introduces Max Freeman, a burnt-out Philadelphia cop who moves to the Everglades to exorcise his personal demons. Freeman (a character based on a policeman King knew from his Daily News days) is pulled back into police work when he discovers the body of a kidnapped child. The book earned King the 2002 Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best First Novel and was the basis for the six-book Max Freeman series, novels King describes as “human storytelling within a crime framework.” In the latest offering, “Midnight Guardians,” Max investigates a dangerous conspiracy involving Medicare fraud. Bestselling author Michael Connelly praised the book as "Full of true characters and jagged surprises."

King enjoyed creating human characters and exploring “the sense of humanity that motivates people to do the evil things and the right things,” something he found difficult to do within the confines of journalism. So, in 2004, he left the Sun Sentinel to devote himself to writing fiction. In addition to the Freeman series, King wrote two standalone novels.  He drew on his passion for history in The Styx, a historical mystery set in 1896 Florida. The book was awarded a bronze medal in the Florida Book Awards. Eye of Vengeance, a thriller King calls “more biography than fiction,” centers on a Florida reporter who becomes the target of a former sniper out for revenge. Kirkus Reviews raves, "Strong characters, complex tensions and fascinating details about crime-reporting should have readers lining up."  A seventh Max Freeman novel is currently “under construction.”

King wants his readers to enjoy his stories, but he hopes they  will also learn something about the Everglades, a place he loves, and about people and what moves them. According to King, “If you don’t touch people and their basic humanity when writing, you’re not really storytelling.”

For more about Jonathon King, visit his website at www.jonathonking.com.

 

 

 

 

Tesfagiorgis's Story: The Dark Days - A Guest Post by Doug Eadie

Doug Eadie (R) with Tesfagiorgis Wondimagegnehu

This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Doug Eadie. The author of 20 books on board-CEO partnerships, his two latest titles, Governing at the Top  and The Board-Savvy CEO  were released last month. In this post, Doug shows his personal side by sharing the riveting story that inspired his blog, "Entwined Lives." Doug was our featured author on March 3, 2013

I AM LIVING NOW AT PEACE
“I am living now at peace – of course, doing everything I can to forget my dark days.”  These are Tesfagiorgis Wondimagegnehu’s closing words in the video we’d just filmed in my room at the Jupiter International Hotel in Addis Ababa the last morning of my ten-day return visit to Ethiopia this past May. Sitting across from Tesfagiorgis, keeping my eye on the camera as he tells the story of his experience in the late 1970s under the military group – the Derg – that had overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie, I now understand fully how terribly dark those days were for my Ethiopian friend.  And I realize what a miracle it is that Tesfagiorgis is alive and well – happily married to Almaz with two beautiful children, Bersabel and Natnael – and that we are together again 45 years after saying goodbye when I returned to the States from Ethiopia.

 AT HOME IN ADDIS ABABA FOR 2 ½ YEARS

I’d grown very close to Tesfagiorgis during the 2 ½ years he’d lived with me and my Peace Corps housemates while he studied and we taught at Tafari Makonnen School in Addis Ababa.  By the time I headed back to the States for graduate school in June 1967, Tesfagiorgis had become, I realize looking back, very much my kid brother.  A very serious, hard working student, Tesfagiorigis also had an easy going manner, a beautiful smile that we saw often, and an infectious sense of humor.  He was the perfect companion for our long Sunday walks around Addis and into the Entoto hills overlooking the capital city.  He was also blessed with that pride and sensitivity that characterize Ethiopians and make them such attractive friends. 

My last few weeks in Ethiopia the summer of 1967 were so busy I didn’t really think much about the impact my leaving might have on Tesfagiorgis and the other Tafari Makonnen student living with us then, Tariku Belay. There were final examination papers to mark, graduate school arrangements to make, travel plans to finalize, packing to do – so much in so little time. Anyway, Tesfagiorgis and Tariku, soon to graduate from one of Ethiopia’s finest secondary schools, were seemingly on their way to a promising future.  I needn’t worry, I thought; they were well launched.  Finally, June 8 arrived, and I left for Bole Airport around 7 a.m. after hugging Tesfagiorgis and Tariku goodbye, carrying the letter the boys had handed me as I walked out the door of the house we’d shared for over two years.  Not long after my Ethiopian Airlines flight took off, I opened the boys’ letter.  I was moved to tears reading their parting words.  I had to laugh, though, as I’m sure they knew I would – in light of my having taught English at Tafari Makonnen – when I read these words: “Whenever we are in a trouble, in the future, we will have a dream about something impossible.  We will make conditional sentences such as: If Mr. Eadie were here, we would tell him this and he would do that . . If Mr. Eadie were here we would go to the mountains . . .”  By the way, it gave me great pleasure to email a copy of this letter, which I’d saved for 45 years, to Tesfagiorgis and Tariku shortly before returning to Ethiopia. They never imagined they’d see it again.

 LOST AND MIRACULOUSLY FOUND

So the years passed quickly; life went on as it’s wont to do.  Tesfagiorgis and I corresponded now and then as he completed his undergraduate work at what was then Haile Selassie I University and began his career in public administration at the Ethiopian government’s Central Personnel Agency.  In the meantime, I completed my graduate work, launched a career in nonprofit management, and eventually married and started a family.  Sometime in 1974, after Emperor Haile Selassie’s overthrow by the Derg, Tesfagiorgis and I fell out of touch.  As I followed events in Ethiopia in the New York Times in the mid to late 1970s, I realized that attempting to contact Tesfagiorgis might actually put his life in danger.  I stopped writing, and no more letters from Tesfagiorgis arrived. Thus did our physical separation become a complete break.  By the time the new century arrived, I assumed Tesfagiorgis and Tariku had very likely died under the brutal dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. It was clear that thousands of young educated Ethiopians had been imprisoned, tortured and executed by 1991, when Mengistu was driven out of Ethiopia, and not one of the many Ethiopians I had met in the States over the years could tell me anything about Tesfagiorgis or Tariku. 

Now it’s November 2008, not long before Thanksgiving, and I’m settling into my hotel room in Seattle, where I’ll be speaking at a conference the next day. Calling in for my voice mail, I’m bowled over by the first message, from a man whose voice I immediately know: “If you are the Douglas Eadie who taught at Tafari Makonnen School in the 1960s, I am your former student, Tariku Belay.” He left his number, which I called right away and left a message. We finally talked when I got back home to Tampa Bay, and it turned out he was teaching in a high school in Minneapolis.  He’s been in prison under the Derg, had escaped and lived as a refugee in the Sudan before coming to the States.  He couldn’t tell me anything about Tesfagiorgis.  Staying in touch by phone and email, Tariku and I finally arrange to meet in Minneapolis in March 2011, the day before I am to speak at a conference.  The afternoon before leaving for Minneapolis, Tariku calls with exciting news.  He’s discovered that Tesfagiorgis is alive and well, retired and living with his wife in Addis Ababa.  His daughter is studying in the States, in Boston.  He gives me Tesfagiorgis’s telephone number, which I call right after we hang up. Tesfagiorgis is home and answers the phone. We are both soon in tears.  “This is a miracle,” he says. I wholeheartedly agree.

RETURNING TO ETHIOPIA AFTER ALMOST  50 YEARS
I began to think seriously about returning to Ethiopia after my 45-year absence that fall at the 50^th anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps in Washington, where I reunited with a former Tafari Makonnen student, Abebe (now known as “Abe”) Abraham and with former Addis Ababa housemates Garber Davidson, David Karro, and Mike Altman. Meanwhile, Tesfagiorgis and I had been carrying on a robust email correspondence, and the more I learned about his life after my departure back in 1967, the more miraculous our discovering each other seemed.  My wife, Barbara, and my kids, Jenny and Will, strongly encouraged me to make the return trip, pointing out that I wasn’t getting any younger and might some day terribly regret missing this wonderful opportunity.  What sealed the deal was getting an email early in 2012 from an Ethiopian named Berhane Mogese, who was practicing law in Addis Ababa.  “I do not think you remember me,” he wrote, but his face came immediately to mind.  I’d met Berhane, then a high school student, my first week in Addis Ababa in September 1964, and although he hadn’t studied at Tafari Makonnen, we’d seen each other several times during my three-year stay in Addis.  In fact, right after seeing his name on the email, I walked down the hall to our storage room and dug a folder of old photos out of my files; there was the photo that Berhane had sent me on July 7, 1967.  His inscription on the back said, “We may see each other some time in life.  I shall miss you.” OK, that was it. Could anyone be more strongly called to do something, I thought, and I started to map out my return trip.

Now let me tell you some of what I learned about Tesfagiogis’s experience under the Derg as we sat across from each other in my hotel room in Addis Ababa last May, filming the video clip, and I think you’ll agree that our reuniting is, indeed, a miracle.  

TESFAGIORGIS’ DANGEROUS DOUBLE LIFE UNDER THE DERG
I don’t recall that Tesfagiorgis and I spent much time chatting about Ethiopian politics while he was living with me and my Peace Corps housemates, but his political awakening wasn’t long in coming after his graduation from Tafari Makonnen and enrollment in Haile Selassie I University.  These were heady and hopeful times, as students throughout Ethiopia, sensing that the old feudal order that Emperor Haile Selassie represented was near death, saw a wonderful opportunity to play a leading role in creating a new, presumably more democratic, Ethiopia. Tesfagiorgis certainly jumped in with both feet, for example, participating  in demonstrations against the Ian Smith regime in Southern Rhodesia and the government’s banning of the Ethiopian University Students Union and passing out leaflets protesting the murder of a student movement leader. Indeed, Tesfagiorgis was one of a small number of fourth year students at the University suspended for a full year because of their refusal to stop boycotting classes until imprisoned student leaders were released.

The “dark days” that Tesfagiorgis so fervently hopes to forget began not long after the group of military officers known as the Derg overthrew the tottering regime of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.  As the revolt against the Emperor was gaining momentum, Tesfagiorgis received his bachelor’s degree from the University and began his public administration career at the government’s Central Personnel Agency. He continued to be politically active, joining one of the new political parties that emerged in these tumultuous times: the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party (EPRP), which eventually became passionately and violently opposed to the Derg. He also assumed leadership roles in the new political structure established by the Derg, being elected chairman of one of the 283 local urban dwellers associations known as “kebeles,” and also of the political discussion forum that had been created in the Central Personnel Agency. When the Derg declared all-out war on EPRP, empowering kebeles to arrest, torture, and execute Ethiopians suspected of being EPRP supporters, Tesfagiorgis found himself leading an extremely stressful and highly dangerous double life that eventually resulted in his imprisonment and near-execution.

THE STORY OF GONDERIT’S ESCAPE AND EXECUTION

One of the dramatic stories Tesfagiorgis told me about his double life concerned a female kebele colleague, Gonderit Girmaye.  One day an official of the security arm of the Ministry of the Interior walked into Tesfagiorgis’s office at the kebele and asked that Gonderit be summoned. When she appeared, she was informed she was needed for urgent work at the Ministry. Agreeing to accompany the officer to the Ministry, Gonderit excused herself to straighten up her desk and lock her drawers while Tesfagiorgis and the official had tea. When she didn’t return and couldn’t be found anywhere in the kebele office, the irate officer and Tesfagiorgis began to search the kebele compound. Here’s the rest of the story in Tesfagiorgis’s own words:

At the back of the building, there was a big metal structure supporting a water tank. At the foot of the metal structure I saw a pair of female shoes and I knew he saw them too. But the security officer immediately turned his face in the opposite direction and continued shouting “Where is she?” It was logical to suspect that she could have climbed the metal structure, which was very close to the stone fence of the compound, jumped over and escaped. I wondered if the security officer might himself be a member or a sympathizer of EPRP.  I was shocked and confused.

Then all of us kebele workers got together in a room and talked about what had happened until around 6 that afternoon, but we didn’t get anywhere. The security officer warned us to conduct our own investigation into Gonderit’s disappearance and submit our findings to the Ministry of Interior security unit the next morning, along with our passport size pictures. My kebele colleagues and I continued to talk until about 3 a.m., wearing ourselves out and getting nowhere. Finally, we compiled our report and attached our pictures and submitted them to the security unit. We were told we’d be called later and that we’d suffer the consequences for Gonderit’s escape. Fortunately, this never happened.  I later learned that Gonderit had broken her leg  jumping over the fence and was forced to take refuge in a relative’s house not very far from the kebele.  Arrangements were made for her escape, but, I’m sorry to say, Gonderit was caught, tortured and executed. She was a very nice and strong lady that I and all my kebele colleagues cannot forget.

WITNESSING A HORRIFYING TORTURE SESSION
Another story that Tesfagiorgis told as we shot the video clip in my hotel room had to do with an invitation to his kebele from a neighboring kebele to participate in the interrogation of some suspected EPRP supporters. Because Tesfagiorgis’s kebele was suspected of disloyalty, the invitation to participate couldn’t safely be refused, so he and his close friend and reliable kebele colleague, Gebrehiwot Asfaw, along with some other kebele colleagues went to the neighboring kebele late one evening.  What Tesfagiorgis witnessed that evening left him shaken and fearful, knowing that he could all too easily become a victim himself. Watching two or three of the suspects being suspended between two tables and having the soles of their bare feet viciously beaten with sticks and cables was horrifying enough.  But he couldn’t have imagined what would happen next. One young prisoner from Tesfagiorgis’s kebele was told to take off his jacket and shirt and lie down on a table, to which his hands and feet were tied. One of the guards then put gasoline-soaked papers on the young man’s bare chest and set them afire. Crying and begging for mercy, the young man soon lost consciousness, was untied and thrown on the floor. As Tesfagiorgis observed, “I started to seriously think about myself and knew something worse was hovering over my head.”

SURVIVING TWO YEARS IN PRISON

Things grew ever more dangerous and nerve wracking for Tesfagiorgis, who as chairman of his kebele was forced to participate in door to door searches for EPRP supporters. “Arrests and killings were widespread,” according to Tesfagiorgis, “and survival was a daily worry of the young and their parents and relatives. Seeing bodies of people killed and thrown in the streets became more and more common. In those days, smoking a lot, drinking a lot and sleeplessness were daily routines. If you asked the people why they were doing that they would jokingly tell you that they were not willing to give away their healthy lungs and livers to the Derg.”  Tesfagiorgis’s exhausting and frightening double life came to an end when he was arrested early in 1978.  After being interrogated and forced to make a videoed public confession on a stage at the Central Personnel Agency, Tesfagiorgis served two years in prison. One of his most horrifying memories from his two years in prison was when at 4 a.m. one day, 12 of his fellow inmates, including two newly made friends, were taken – hands tied – out of the cell and executed, their bodies thrown in the street and left there for a half day for the public to see. Tesfagiorgis later found out from a former official now imprisoned with him that “whenever he saw me I reminded him of a miracle, and the miracle was my survival.  He told me that I survived that bloody night by one single vote in my favor.  I could have been the 13^th person to be executed.  That made things fresh in my mind and made me sleepless again for some days.  I never knew who voted for and against my life.”

A HAPPY ENDING
Tesfagiorgis’s dark days came to an end. He suffered terribly, but he is keenly aware how fortunate he was to have survived when hundreds of thousands did not. He is grateful to have been able to return to the Central Personnel Agency (which became the Civil Service Commission), where he spent his whole career, and he feels blessed to be happily married and the father of two wonderful young people. 

James Swain - The Magic of Mystery

If you’ve ever watched in amazement as a magician performed a card trick, you have something in common with award-winning author James Swain.

As a young boy, Swain was “bitten by the magic bug.”  He had an intense curiosity about how magic tricks were done. Over the years, he studied the craft and eventually became a master at sleight-of-hand.  He parlayed his talent into a successful career and earned his place in the circle of high-profile magicians.  This was how he first learned about “muckers.”

 

While visiting a Las Vegas casino with a magician friend, Swain spotted a gambler cheating at Blackjack. Although no one else noticed, the move was obvious to someone with Swain’s expertise. His friend explained that the man was a mucker – a person who switches cards during a game. The experience motivated Swain to hone his “grift sense” – an innate ability to spot a scam. Swain soon became a leading authority on gambling cons and swindles.

But how did Swain go from mucker-buster to national best-selling mystery writer?  He gives his wife credit for that.

After graduating from New York University with a writing degree, Swain worked for a Madison Avenue magazine before moving to Florida.  He then took a job with a publishing company and later started his own magazine rep firm. But writing was his real passion. He had penned three successful books on magic and a few unpublished novels. Then, in 1999, he showed his wife a story he’d written. She suggested he change a secondary character to a main character and rewrite the story as a book. Swain took her advice, and on their anniversary, he learned that the book, Grift Sense, had been bought by Simon and Schuster.  

Grift Sense introduced Tony Valentine, a retired cop who is an expert at exposing casino cheats. Swain’s lean, muscular writing style is the perfect fit for this hard-boiled protagonist, and the plot is peppered with wry wit that makes it a delight to read. The story gives readers an insider’s view of the casino world – a place as fascinating as it is unfamiliar. The critical success of Grift Sense spawned eight more Tony Valentine novels, a series that Kirkus Review calls “…smooth, funny…one of the finds of the decade.”

In 2007, Swain switched gears with Midnight Rambler, the first of four Florida-based novels featuring Jack Carpenter, a private investigator Swain describes as “a tour guide for the underbelly of South Florida.” Swain believes that Florida is unique when it comes to crime. “Criminals don’t just pass through. They come for a reason and often stay,” he says. “There’s a never-ending source of material.”

Swain has recently gone high tech with the release of four e-books: The Program (a Jack Carpenter novel); Jackpot and Wild Card (part of the Tony Valentine series); and The Man Who Cheated Death (the sequel to The Man Who Walked Through Walls, a novel about a master magician named Vincent Hardare).  Swain has a keen interest in e-publishing, calling it “the wave of the future.”

Swain has just published the second in a series of paranormal thrillers that are a departure for this mystery writer. Dark Magic is the story of a magician who can talk to ghosts, and Shadow People published in June, 2013, is the sequel. While the subject may be different, Swain hopes readers will find the stories as engaging as his other works.  “I haven’t written a book I don’t love,” he says. “It’s important to me that my books are things I can be proud of.  I love success, but I love the craft of writing more.”

And, for his legion of readers, that may be the real magic in books by James Swain.

For more about James Swain, visit his website at www.jimswain.com

The Alligator Man - A Guest Post by James Sheehan

This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger James Sheehan. James is the author of four thought-provoking legal thrillers. His latest, The Alligator Man, was released in October. James was our featured author on March 13, 2012.

Some of the most common questions I get asked about any book that I write are: Why did you write this particular book? Where did you get the storyline? Is it personal to you? Why did you pick this particular setting? What is your particular writing methodology? I am going to try and answer some of those questions with regard to my present book, The Alligator Man.

 Why did I write this book? Well, the general reason is that I wanted to write a story about one of those enormously rich CEO’s getting his at the hand of one of the employees he screwed mightily. That’s a forceful theme for a book. One we can all identify with. I can’t tell you how I arrived at the specific plot because that would give you the ending. However, I will give you a hint. I got the plot from two ski instructors in Aspen who told me a story about somebody who died there. If you want, you can contact me after you read the book and let me know if you solved that riddle.

 The other story in the book is about a father and son who were estranged from each other for 28 years. The father, Tom Wylie, is dying of cancer and his son Kevin decides to visit him, not because he cares, but because he wants some answers about why his world was blown apart when he was eight years old. He does get his answers and he gets to know his father in the process.

 I honestly don’t know where that story came from. Was it personal to me? Maybe. My dad has been dead for over 30 years, and I still miss him tremendously. I wish that he were around and had been around over the years so I could have talked to him and sought his advice during the crucial periods in my life. In that way, I identify with Kevin and his frustrations.

 I loved writing this book because the setting is so great---the Everglades, alligators, boa constrictors, a great blue heron and men behaving badly. What more could you ask for? I loosely based part of the story on an actual town and some real characters. That’s one thing about Florida--it has more than its share of colorful characters from the past.

One of my students asked me just the other day if I plotted out each chapter beforehand. He was under the impression that all writers followed the same methodology. I had to tell him that there is no one magic elixir. Writing is a creative process and you’ve got to be you. Some people do plot out every chapter. Me--I have a general idea and I go with it. Once my characters are developed, they take me along for the ride. It may not the best way to do it but it works for me. I’m as surprised at things that happen as the reader is. That spontaneity makes writing more fun for me.

 That doesn’t mean the process is easy. Not having every little piece of the plot mapped out means that I sometimes struggle with aspects of it. That was especially true with The Alligator Man. I just couldn’t get it right. Eventually, after tweaking and tweaking, I finally got the plot where it should be. At least I think I did. I will only know that for sure if each and every one of you read the book and let me know.

Lesley Diehl - Country Fried Mystery

There aren’t many writers whose books were inspired by a vat of fermenting beer, but this is exactly what happened to Okeechobee novelist Lesley A. Diehl. “I was touring a brewery when I saw this open fermenting tank,” she recalls. “The brewer mentioned that the beer was releasing carbon dioxide. My imagination took over, and I asked him if someone could die in there.” Although he thought the question was odd, the brewer answered in the affirmative, and Diehl knew she had the makings of a book. A year later, her debut novel, A Deadly Draught, was published.

 
Diehl has always enjoyed writing. As a youngster, she wrote poems and short stories. In high school, her writing was encouraged by her English teacher. In spite of her literary inclinations, she decided to forego writing and study psychology instead. By the time she’d earned her doctorate, her creative side had taken a backseat to the sciences. But throughout her career as a psychology professor, Diehl’s creativity continued to bubble beneath the surface. When she retired, it returned with a vengeance, in part because her husband, Glenn Nilson, is also a mystery writer. Diehl and Nilson travelled the country in a small motor home with two cats and a dog before discovering the Florida Keys. Finding the Keys too pricey, they settled in rural Okeechobee. The setting got her creative juices flowing. “There’s something about living in Florida that stimulates the imagination,” she says.“Being born on a dairy farm in Illinois, I’m a country girl at heart, and I love that I’m still living around cows. And where else can you go to the post office and run into real-life cowboys?” Fortunately for Diehl, Okeechobee has a thriving writing community. She joined a writer’s group and found a critique partner that encouraged her work.

All the support and encouragement paid off when A Deadly Draught was picked up by a publisher. The story tells of Master Brewer Hera Knightsbridge who discovers her closest competitor's dead body on his brew barn floor. Since Hera found the body, the authorities, including an old lover, suspect she is the killer. Diehl notes that her book differs from other “cozy-style” mysteries because the protagonist has a very unusual job. Researching the character was fun for Diehl and enabled her to meet “a great group of brewer friends.”

Encouraged by the success of A Deadly Draught, Diehl went on to pen Dumpster Dying, the tale of Emily Rhodes, a down-on-her-luck bartender who discovers the body of the town’s wealthiest rancher in the dumpster. When her friend becomes the prime suspect, Emily sets out to find the real murderer. Along the way, she comes up against small-town mores and is joined by a colorful cast of friends and family. Diehl draws on her background in psychology to give depth to the characters, and she peppers the story with humor.

Diehl released three books in 2012: Poisoned Pairings,” the sequel to A Deadly Draught; Grilled, Chilled, and Killed, the follow-up to Dumpster Dying; and Angel Sleuth, a stand-alone e-book. In 2013, Camel Press published her newest book A Secondhand Murder. Also set in rural Florida, this is the first book in the Eve Appel murder mystery series. “Eve’s last name is my grandmother’s maiden name. I learned about buying secondhand at my grandmother’s knee. She repurposed, reused, and recycled before it was popular. The book is a kind of homage to her influence.” The book features a Connecticut Fashionista, Eve Appel, who moves to rural Florida to set up an unusual consignment shop with her best friend. The shop carries high end merchandise consigned by wealthy Palm Beach matrons who need a little spending money after their lives have been downsized by Bernie Madoff schemes. The shop seems to be a success until one Palm Beach customer is found stabbed to death on the dressing room floor. Will the murder affect their business? Will Eve be charged with killing the woman? Can Eve leave a philandering husband and find true love among the cowboys of rural Florida? Diehl provides the answers to these questions and many more.

Diehl also wrote short stories appearing in the three Thanksgiving anthologies published by Untreed Reads. “I’ve mined my Thanksgiving memories and reshaped them into what can go wrong at the holidays. My relatives won’t complain because they’re all dead,” says Diehl. In addition, next year will see the release of her self-published mystery, Murder is Academic the second in the Eve Apple mystery series; and a short story for the Untreed Reads Detective anthology. And who knows what else may tickle her writing fancy?

Even though her writing keeps her busy, Diehl wouldn't have it any other way. "I love letting my mind go into absurd places and situations," she says. "It's a lot of fun because it's so different from my real life."

For more information, visit the author's website at www.lesleydiehl.com and her blog at http://anotherdraught.blogspot.com.

 

 

 

 

Writing About What You Know About - A Guest Post by Dorothy Francis

 

This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Dorothy Francis. Her works range from a series of animal stories for children to six cozy mystery novels set in Key West. Dorothy was our featured author on June 15, 2011.


Do you remember the first writing you had published?  Most writers do.
Mine went like this:


                          KNOCK KNOCK.

             Jumped  from the tub.  Grabbed for a towel.

             I  raced to the door on high.

             Looked high and low.  No one was seen.
 
             Least not by the naked I.

I was following the new writer’s rule—write about what you know about.  And it worked.  I knew a little about human nature. 

During the years, I’ve taught many writing classes.  One of my themes to my students has been “Write about what you know about." The rule worked for me again when I wrote a short piece of prose for a magazine. I followed my own advice in the following sketch which earned an editor’s acceptance and a small check.

                                                         YOU NEVER KNOW

            In the 1940s, our Methodist minister in Olathe, Kansas often spoke of the Second Coming.  One Sunday morning, I thought this had actually happened.  A tall man, dressed in spotless summer whites decorated with heavy gold braid on the sleeves and shoulders entered our church and seated himself front and center.  Adults looked at him from the corners of their eyes.  Kids stared openly.  Nothing like this had ever happened in our town.

            But no, it wasn’t the Second Coming.  The man was a lieutenant from the new naval air station the federal government had just opened a few miles outside our sleepy village in land-locked Kansas.  I almost burst with excitement .  His family was from Hastings-on-Hudson in New York, and they had moved next door to us.  They had two children, and they needed a babysitter.  Me?

            No. Cautious parents didn’t allow their daughters to babysit for strangers. You never knew what those men might do.

            

             Mom and I took Lt. Comfort and his family a heaping box of strawberries from our garden.  They acted as if they had never seen strawberries fresh from a patch before. I wondered where they got strawberries.  Were there no strawberry patches in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.?

             “Any special way you fix strawberries?” Lt. Comfort asked.

            “If we have sugar, we usually sugar them down and add cream,” Mom answered.  “But if you have no sugar, they’re delicious right from the box.”

            “We have sugar, but we don’t have cream,” Lt. Comfort said.

            “I’d lend you some,” Mom said, “but we’re out, too.”

            “I’ll go get us some,” Lt. Comfort said.

            Mom shook her head.  “No grocery stores are open on Sunday in Kansas.  It’s the law.”

            Lt. Comfort smiled.  “We’ll see.”

            We headed for home.  An hour or so later, Lt. Comfort appeared at our door carrying a cup of sugar and a pint jar of thick cream.  Nobody thought of fat or cholesterol in those days.

            “For your strawberries,” he said, offering the gifts to my mother.  “We can get sugar from the commissary on the base, and I found us some cream.”

            Mom looked at him wide-eyed.  “Where did you find cream on Sunday?”

            He grinned.  "Drove to the air base and revved up my trainer plane.  Just flew around the countryside until I spotted a pasture filled with cattle. I landed the plane, and a farmer came running out, sort of excited.”

            Mom’s eyes grew even wider and I could tell she was squelching laughter.

            “It was a smooth piece of land.  The farmer said something about scaring his cows, and I apologized.  When I asked for a quart of cream, he just shook his head.  By then his wife had joined us, and she invited us

into their home.  She went to her refrigerator and found some cream for me”

           “I don’t believe it!” Mom exclaimed.

            “I gave her a few dollars," Lt. Comfort said, “and she seemed real happy about the whole thing.  Farmer’s name is Hoff.”
           

           “I know her,” Mom said. “I’ll get her jars back to her.”

            Mom fixed the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted.’         

            “You just never know what those men will do,” Mom said.

            Later, we did know just what those men would do.  They’d win a war for us.

            Lt. Comfort, if you’re still around Hastings-on-Hudson—we’re forever grateful!


When my husband and I started spending winters in the Florida Keys, that writing rule worked again for me, and I wrote a series of six mystery novels set in Key West.  I thoroughly enjoyed writing what I was beginning to know about.

The good news for me this year is that those six Key West mysteries have been released as e-books, and they’ll be around for a long time to come.  You can look for them on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Untreed Reads Books.  And the 16,000 libraries in the United States may be able to find them via Overdrive.