Debut Author: Questions I never expected…

By Susanna Calkins

When I first started telling people that I was about to publish my debut novel—A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate--I didn’t know what to expect.  Most people were surprised astonished—after all, only my husband knew anything about my scribblings for the last ten years, and even he had only the vaguest notion what my story was about. 

So the questions I got asked—as well as what I didn’t get asked—surprised me.  No one asked me what had inspired the book, or how I did my research (those kinds of questions seemed to come up later). 

Instead, I got:

Is there much sex in it?  Uh, gulp. You’ll have to read it to find out. (Seriously, this was the number one question people asked me).  

Who’s your agent? Will he represent me? I found this question very awkward.  I didn’t want to shut the door behind me, but at that point, I had only known my wonderful agent David Hale Smith of Inkwell Management for a few days between the time I signed with him and when Minotaur bought my books. 

I’ve started a novel. Can I pitch it to your publisher? Well, gee.  I think that most agents, editors, publishers etc. are looking for finished products, which are ready to go. As everyone says… don’t spoil your book by sending it out into the world too soon!

Is your book much like Harry Potter or Twilight? Those books are awesome.  Everyone wants to read them.  Okay, well, my books are mysteries, so I guess that’s different. Sure, my main character, Lucy, is about the same age as Bella. But she’s not from Washington. She’s English though, like Hermione, but really nothing like Hermione at all. My book is set in seventeenth-century England, but there aren’t any trains in it. Or horcruxes.
 

So you set your book in seventeenth-century London. That’s when Elizabeth I was the queen. Or was it Queen Victoria?  Close. Well, about sixty years after QEI, and 150 years before the other.  The monarch was actually Charles II. (Nope, not the one who was beheaded. His son).    

So you wrote a mystery.  Are you as exciting as Dan Brown?  Um…you’ll have to read it to find out?  (How often can I use that one?) 

Do you plan to quit your day job? Um…I don’t think many writers make a living this way.  (If my boss is reading this—Plus, I love my day job. I’d never quit! If he’s not reading, then I’ll stick to my first response. I don’t think most writers make as much money as what people assume). 

Are you going to make your book into a movie, like The Help? That would be pretty darn surprising, but hey if BBC or Masterpiece Theatre comes a-calling, they know where to find me!!!  And yes, I will see if they can cast you/your cousin/your child in the production.  

Do you think my sister/aunt/cousin/neighbor/long-lost pet would like your book?  YES!

Author Bio

Susanna Calkins is a historian and academic, currently working at Northwestern University. She’s had a morbid curiosity about murder in seventeenth-century England ever since she was in grad school, when she was first working on her Ph.D. in history.   The ephemera from the archives—tantalizing true accounts of the fantastic and the strange—inspired her historical mysteries, including A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she lives outside Chicago now with her husband and two sons. Connect with her at her website or on twitter.

Book synopsis: A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate (Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press) April 23, 2013

When someone she loves faces hanging for the murder of a fellow servant, Lucy Campion—a seventeenth-century English chambermaid—must interpret the clues hidden in miniature portraits, popular ballads, and a corpse’s pointing finger to save his life…all before the true murderer turns on her…

 

Researching the Historical Novel in the Former Soviet Union

By William Burton McCormick

Every author who wants to write a historical novel set in a foreign locale has a fundamental problem: How does one overcome language barriers, cultural differences and temporal and physical distances to get the perspectives of those living in a bygone era?  The problem is further complicated when the historical setting is the early Soviet Union, where information was lost or locked away and official versions of events were distorted to glorify the Communist Party. 

I encountered this problem when I first began Lenin’s Harem, my historical novel about the Latvian Riflemen, the doomed vanguards of the Russian Revolution.  The Riflemen were arguably the first great heroes of the Bolshevik Revolution, but they would fall out of favor both with Soviet government and to some degree their own people in later years. Finding unbiased information on the American side of the Atlantic was nearly impossible. History books, even ones on Latvia, made only fleeting references to them. Certainly no source provided enough detail to write narrative fiction.

But I was determined to get the story no other Western writer had yet touched. So, to pierce the veils of history and totalitarian regimes, I moved to Latvia, living in Riga sixteen months to unearth the facts.

It was a daunting experience at first. I arrived in Latvia, knowing little of the language, knowing nobody, not even where I was going to live.  But, for me, there was no other way to do it. I had to immerse myself completely in the land, the people and its history. I rented an apartment in the center of the city and began to explore the country and its past. I met with historians, museum curators and journeyed to every place depicted in the novel. The longer I stayed, the more the region’s tragedies became clearer to me.  Nearly every family had lost someone to the World Wars or Stalin’s purges. I saw the pictures of smiling children who would die on prison trains and went to the graves of soldiers murdered by their own generals.

The biggest challenge, by far, was that much of the information simply wasn’t available in English. To communicate with older historians and specialists on the Latvian Riflemen, I had

to use translators. But this was frustrating and expensive. Because of the Soviet occupation

of Latvia through 1991 much of what had been recorded was in Russian rather than Latvian.

So, as a next step, I set off for Moscow for a fifteen month course in Russian at Moscow State University. My spoken Russian is still terrible, but I used the knowledge I gained at the university to help me with written translation. The time in Moscow also gave me access to the Russian point of view on these events. It gave the book an additional perspective.

There’s no reason to transport yourself across the world to sit in a room studying. No matter how busy I was I always took time to journey to some location or meet with some key person.  Yet, as my research amassed, I began to spend those long winter nights writing twelve or fourteen hours at a sitting, often until five or six in the morning. I didn’t want any distractions. No internet, no television, only a few music CDs for entertainment.

During this time, I accumulated so much research that I spent the next years cutting through it and polishing Lenin’s Harem into the best, most accessible book I could muster. I knew no one would read a dry historical account. It had to be a gripping, human narrative. Solid entertainment with a warning underneath about the dubious rewards of defending totalitarian regimes.

I thought I had succeeded, but I decided to test it. I wrote a short story about a Latvian revolutionary in a similar style and submitted it to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, a publication known firstly as popular entertainment and secondly as a tough market to crack. When the story, “Blue Amber”, was accepted, I knew I had the right balance between fiction and history. In fact, the work was eventually nominated for a Derringer award as one of the year’s best.

Then, it was on to submitting the novel and Knox Robinson Publishing picked it up. I was honored to see something to which I had dedicated so many years finally realized.

Was it worth it? Well, strictly in financial terms, unlikely. Living years in Eastern Europe is not a way to make money. But measured in life experiences, inspirations for further works of fiction and an accurate, gripping novel as end product – I think I have succeeded.

Author Bio:

William Burton McCormick was born in Maryland and raised in Nevada. He graduated from Brown University with degrees in Ancient Studies and Computer Science and earned an MA in Novel Writing from the University of Manchester. He is a published fiction author and a member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers.  William is Hawthornden Fellow for 2013.

Lenin’s Harem Synopsis:

Lenin’s Harem is the story of  Wiktor Rooks, a ruined aristocrat swept up in the chaos of World War I, who by twist of fate finds himself a member of the elite guard of the Russian Revolution, a group of Latvian soldiers known colloquially as “Lenin’s Harem” for their loyalty to the Bolshevik cause. Concealing his aristocratic past from his enemies, Wiktor hides in plain sight while the Russian Empire crumbles around him. But where does he go when the revolutionaries win?

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Thrilling Midwives

 

by Samuel Thomas

When you picture your typical protagonist for a thriller, a few professions come to mind. You have your detectives, police officers, lawyers, and spies, of course. Occasionally you’ll get a doctor, or a reporter thrown in there, but there is a “type.” Historically speaking they’re usually men, and they are usually in the business of figuring things out. Problems arise when a nefarious person, government agency, or criminal organization (did I repeat myself?), wants to keep them from figuring it out.

In light of this, my decision to write thrillers about a midwife seems brilliantly iconoclastic, right? What less likely protagonist could there be, except a nun? (Shout out to ITW member Nancy Bilyeau, whose recent thriller The Crown is about a nun. It’s excellent and you should read it.) In truth, I started with the midwife, and found myself writing a thriller as if it were the most natural thing in the world. How did this happen?

To answer this question, you have to think a bit more about midwives. Thrillers are about secrets, and who has more intimate knowledge of their clients’ secrets than midwives? (You could say, “Lawyers, detectives, and doctors!” but you’ll also notice that they made it onto the list of “usual” professions.) Added to this is that I write about a midwife during England’s Civil Wars, which stretched roughly from 1642-49, and culminated in the execution of King Charles I.

At this time midwives didn’t just deliver babies. They were part and parcel of the criminal justice system. If an infant died under suspicious circumstances, you called a midwife to lead the investigation. Looking for a witch? You’ll have to find a midwife first, because she will be the one to search the suspect’s body for the witch’s mark, where Satan’s familiar sucked her blood. Midwives also worked with women who’d been condemned to death, questioned women accused of bearing illegitimate children (which was a crime), and investigated rape accusations. In short, if a woman ran into trouble with the law – either as victim or perpetrator – a midwife would be there to track down the bad guy and see him (or her) to the gallows.

So the next time you run into your neighborhood midwife, show a little respect. She could be on her way to deliver a child, but she also may be unraveling a series of brutal murders, or trying to keep you safe from Satan’s machinations. It’s a busy job, but someone’s got to do it.

Samuel Thomas is the author of The Midwife’s Tale: A Mystery (Minotaur/St. Martins, 2013). He can be found on line at: http://www.samuelthomasbooks.com/ or

http://twitter.com/SamThomasBooks