Mystery Lovers Corner

MLC: What did you do for a living before writing mysteries?

AUTHOR: Actually, I’m still doing something else for a living! I’m a secretary.

MLC: What's your average day like?

AUTHOR: I write all day on Fridays and Saturdays. I get up around 6:30 a.m., which is earlier than I do when I have to go to work. If it’s high summer, when it gets light earlier, I’m usually up at 5:30 a.m. I try to be at the computer and writing at 7:00 a.m. with my cup of hot tea. That is essential countless cups of hot tea. I write a bit, then get up to feed a cat, write a bit, then get up to feed another cat, write a bit, then make soup or bread or cookies, write a bit, put the clothes in the washer, write a bit, make the bed, write a bit…. A full day of writing interrupted by Life. I write until I mentally poop out, anywhere from 2:00-4:00 p.m. I plot the new book in January, creating a 30+ page outline. I aim to begin writing the first draft on February 1. It takes me a few months to get through the first draft. Then I give it to my writing partner, Police Detective Paul Hornung, to read through and catch the errors. The second draft follows, making corrections and punching up description, dialogue, filling in bits like clothing details, etc. I then send the ms to my English police friend, who reads it for correct English police procedure and proper British words. When it comes back, usually end of the summer, I fix any problems.

MLC: Do you have pets?

AUTHOR: Three cats: Dickens, Chaucer and Thackeray. I also have a variety of outdoor wildlife that visit me, which I consider “pets.” I’ve never tried to tame them. They just hang around and I feed and photograph them. Depending on the time of year, of course, I have chipmunks, groundhogs, raccoons, possums, skunks, foxes and coyotes.

MLC: Are you a morning person or a night owl?

AUTHOR: Three cats: Dickens, Chaucer and Thackeray. I also have a variety of outdoor wildlife that visit me, which I consider “pets.” I’ve never tried to tame them. They just hang around and I feed and photograph them. Depending on the time of year, of course, I have chipmunks, groundhogs, raccoons, possums, skunks, foxes and coyotes.

MLC: What groups are you a member of that you feel are important for you as a writer?

AUTHOR: First of all, Sisters in Crime. I founded the St. Louis chapter and I’ve made a lot of deep friendships through SinC. I’m quite involved with the chapter, having served as president, program chair, corresponding secretary, and historian. I’ve worked on the Midwest MysteryFest every year we’ve had it, plus an annual St Louis-wide book/literacy event, at which SinC has a booth. I do belong to MWA, but since I can’t get to the Midwest Chapter meetings (held in Chicago), that group doesn’t have the personal importance to me, but they have a lot of valuable aid available to authors.

MLC: When did you start writing?

AUTHOR: I knew in grade school that I wanted to be a mystery writer but I didn’t seriously try until ten years ago. I took a continuing education class and was fired up and encouraged by a marvelous teacher. That got me started.

MLC: Have you taught writing classes?

AUTHOR: I’ve given some talks about various aspects of writing, but nothing formal like in a college.

MLC: Have you taken writing classes?

AUTHOR: The B.A. degree program at Webster University really taught me a lot. I went back to college, got a degree in English with an Emphasis on Writing as a Profession, graduated with departmental honors, and began writing mystery novels in earnest.

MLC: What are your views on critique groups?

AUTHOR: I had a bad experience with them! People offering advice need to be gentle and constructive. No one learns if she feels attacked, which is what happened to me. That moderator had no rules and just let people say the nastiest things about people and their writing, like they were on a one-upmanship ego trip. Dreadful! I’m sure they can be wonderful and very helpful, but it really depends on the moderator to guide the participants.

MLC: What is your favorite subgenre of mysteries?

AUTHOR: English, either a police procedural or cozy.

MLC: What has been your biggest challenge in being published?

AUTHOR: Promotion and marketing. There are a lot of books vying for attention. Getting your writing noticed is difficult.

MLC: Why did you decide to write the mysteries you're writing?

AUTHOR: It’s grown out of my love of Britain. I’m an Anglophile: food, folk music, culture, scenery, ancient architecture, history. I absolutely love their customs. I got the idea to combine my love of customs and England into an English mystery series. Each book in the series is a month apart in time so I use an English custom as the backbone of that book’s plot and go through the year.

MLC: How did you choose the setting for your mysteries?

AUTHOR: I’d lived in English during my professional folk singing stint. I’ve also vacationed extensively there. I got to know the area and decided to use my favorite section of the country, Derbyshire, as the backdrop of my books. I chose Derbyshire because the landscape is incredibly varied. Plus, since I love cozies, I wanted an area that had a lot of old villages.

MLC: What was the inspiration for your mysteries?

AUTHOR: My love of Britain and the Golden Age mystery writers.

MLC: What writers have inspired you?

AUTHOR: First of all, Ngaio Marsh. I think she is absolutely a master at characterization and story line. Josephine Tey also influences me. With non-mystery writers, I’ve learned a lot through reading Daphne Du Maurier I lose myself in her descriptions.

MLC: How do you come up with your plot ideas for your mysteries?

AUTHOR: Since I’m traveling through the year with my books, I choose a custom in the month in which the new book will be set. I then create a group of characters who logically would be involved in that custom. After I have my characters, I think of something that could lead to the murder during that custom. So even though the backbone of the plot is the custom, and therefore the reason why those characters are there, it is the characters’ involvement with each other that creates the murder. To illustrate: in my book “On the Twelfth Night of Christmas,” I used a 12th Night party as the custom. Fine. Who’s at this party? It’s a family gathering, but extended family with employees from the family business. Whose family? Oh, let’s be different and use one of the police characters. Super. What happens among the family members to cause anger or stir up old problems, pertaining or not to the business, that will lead to murder? Now we’ve got the custom, situation and people to carry it off. It was easy to create and the actions of the characters are logical and drive the story, not being driven by the plot.

MLC: How do you research for your mysteries? How long does it take?

AUTHOR: When I decide on a custom, I paw over books of customs that I have in my personal library. If I need additional information, I go to the Internet. For police procedure, I ask Paul, my co-author, and my two English police detectives. I also have a huge collection of actual English police case stories that I pull bits and pieces from to flesh out my story. Medical information is supplied by my pathologist/coroner friend. All this probably takes a week or two. Of course, each book offers its own unique questions and need for specialized knowledge, such as “Pearls Before Swine.” I got the change ringing and tower bell information from my friend at Taylor Bell Foundry in England. For “The Coffin Watchers” I talked with a Tarot card reader. In the new book I’m working on, I talked to a police officer who is in charge of a mobile police station in Derbyshire. September 2007 I did research in England for two upcoming books. This included watching the Abbotts Bromley Horn Dance and talking to the lead dancer, as well as walking around several reservoirs and chatting with a wood carver and a curator of a castle. I also toured a police station and talked with the detectives. It’s important to me to get the books as accurate as possible.

MLC: Is the setting of your mysteries imaginary or real? Why?

AUTHOR: In a word, yes! Both. England and Derbyshire are obviously real, but the village where each book is set is imaginary, though based on places I’ve been. The fictionalization of the villages is deliberate because I didn’t want the residents of Hope, for instance, upset that I have a corpse turning up at their annual devil’s stone turning event. However, I do use the real sectional headquarters of Silverlands in Buxton for my police team’s headquarters. I felt that was important. And towns such as Buxton, Chesterfield, Manchester and other villages are mentioned if characters merely go there for lunch or in the course of their job. It’s fun for the readers who have been to these spots.

MLC: Do you live where you set your mysteries?

AUTHOR: Unfortunately, no. Perhaps one day I can live in Derbyshire, but right now I still must work, and that means staying on this side of the Pond.

MLC: Tell us about your latest mystery.

AUTHOR: Paul and I wrote “The Coffin Watchers”, the sixth in the Taylor & Graham series. It revolves around the custom of Watching the Church Porch, one of the oddest customs I’ve ever heard! There are variations of the custom, but essentially it involves villagers gathering on a specific night, such as mid summer’s or St Mark’s Eve. They sit on the church porch, watching throughout the night to see if the villagers’ spirits walk past or into the church! Seeing a person’s spirit foretells that person’s death within the year. In our novel, a death does occur, of course. Among the suspects is the village psychic, whom the police believe may have killed to make her reading come true. There is the minister, who is upset that her daughter has abandoned the church to put her faith in psychics could the minister have killed to bring her daughter back to the flock? Or the village’s former police constable who volunteers to help does he really want to be back in the job, or does he want fame, hoping to catch the burglar who’s been plaguing the village? Perhaps he’s just there to hinder the Team’s investigation. When a second murder occurs and a relationship is established between the second victim and the players in a love triangle, the police think perhaps there’s another link between this murder and the first, all tying it to the sighting of the ghost.

Website: www.joahiestand.com

E-mail address: me@joahiestand.com

Blog: I’m part of a group. www.lldreamspell.com then click on the FICTION button, then click on the AUTHORS button, then scroll down a bit and click on the FORUM button, which will take you to the site to read and post blogs.