MLC: Do you remember the first mystery you ever read? If so, what was it, and what pulled you into it?
AUTHOR: I can’t recall the title, but yes, it was a Nancy Drew, lent by a friend: The Secret of the Old Clock” or something, and I was transported. Imagine what a girl could do! My world grew suddenly larger.
MLC: When did you first decide you wanted to write a mystery, and what led you to that decision?
AUTHOR: It was shortly after I discovered Nancy Drew. I was in fourth grade, and began my own mystery novel about the kidnapping of my pesky older brother. My mother discovered it, thought she had a juvenile delinquent living in her house, and threw it out. That was my first rejection.
MLC: Do you write in any other genres? If so, which ones?
AUTHOR: Yes, indeed – I write in many voices and genres. I did a stint as a journalist (Vermont Life, County Journal, Early American Life, Yankee, et al.), then won a scholarship to Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference for a mainstream novel; then wrote short stories for Redbook, Seventeen, American Literary Review, and lots of other magazines, both literary and commercial. After a divorce when for a time I couldn’t write anything longer than a page, I moved to poetry and published over 100 poems in the literary mags and in anthologies (Ashland Poetry Review, Beacon Press, Papier Mache, et al) – I still write and publish poems. I also did two nonfiction books, one being a somewhat humorous memoir (Make Your Own Change) about my family, my writing, my students, my quirky neighbors; the other was “Vermonters at their Craft, from which I borrow craftspeople for my novels. It wasn’t until 1996 that I began my first mystery, Mad Season, after reading about two elderly farmers who were assaulted because they were known to keep their money in barn coats, rafter holes; the money they dropped in bars and restaurants reeked of barn and they were arrested. St Martin’s Minotaur published that novel and four others. And now I’m doing a series for kids as well. And my young adult novel, Down The Strings, (not a mystery) is being reprinted. After teaching for years and raising four of my own, I feel a kinship with kids and young adults!
MLC: Which comes first for you, the plot or the characters?
AUTHOR: Definitely the characters. I try to have the plot come out of a flaw in my character, whether sleuth or villain. For example, in Harvest of Bones, Glenna has a temper and a weak memory, and once went after her confrontational husband with a pitchfork. His body was later found in a hole, and people said she did it. And she believes that she did! I try my darndest to create fully developed characters, albeit eccentric. Glenna was actually modeled on a great-aunt of mine, who drove her husband out of the house after five tempestuous years. He disappeared, and family legend said she did him in. She never told!
MLC: When you are all wrapped up in the story, do you feel like you could solve the crime, or maybe even solve all the world’s mysteries?
AUTHOR: Solve the crime maybe, and I do in my imaginations--but not the world’s mysteries. Those are too deep and too complex.
MLC: Do you write every day, or what kind of a schedule do you have? Do you write fulltime, or do you have a “day job”?
AUTHOR: I write every morning for four hours, research and rewrite in the afternoon, and if I don’t have a meeting or a chorus or play rehearsal at night, I’ll go back to the writing then. I’m a scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council, which involves some lecturing and facilitating book discussions in libraries, and I’m on the faculty of two young writers’ conferences. When I was teaching full time, I wrote in free periods and any time (or place) when I could find a minute. Early on, I wrote with virtually one foot in the diaper pail--stimulating!
MLC: Other than your writing, what do you enjoy doing? What is the most important thing to you in your day-to-day life?
AUTHOR: I sing in a community chorus (classic music) and in our Unitarian Universalist choir – a mix of folk, ethnic and classic tunes. I love music. And all my life I’ve acted and or directed amateur theater. I love my two Maine Coon cats, too--they have a musical language all their own! And I’ve seven grandchildren, all still in school and all delightful to observe. I put them in books, along with my own grown offspring.
MLC: Who are your favorite mystery authors? Do you try to emulate them in your own writing?
AUTHOR: Right now I’m reading Kate Atkinson--her Case Histories is a literary mystery one might say, and highly original--nothing formulaic about it--she’s brilliant. I love Jane Langton for her sense of humor and quirky characters, and Dorothy Sayers, of course--especially Gaudy Night. I suppose in some sense I try to emulate them, but want, of course, to write in my own voice. Maybe it’s more envy than emulate!
MLC: In your present book, is this part of a series, or is it a standalone book?
AUTHOR: At the moment I’m working on two series at once. The most current is a sequel to my middle grade Pea Soup Poisonings, called The Great Northern Spy Train Robbery. And I’ve just sent my agent the first book in a projected new series.
MLC: If you are doing a series, do you see an end to it sometime, or do you plan to go on for several years with it?
AUTHOR: I ended the five-book Ruth Willmarth series when the feds quarantined and slaughtered Ruth’s cows--a logical ending. I do want to do another one day because I like and admire Ruth (much tougher than I am!), but now I’ve just completed the first in a new series, featuring Fay Hubbard, a whimsical character from an earlier book, who is a former (failed) actress who makes goat cheese and takes in foster children; the second in the series will involve puppets--my sister was a puppeteer and they’ve always fascinated me. I’ve also a projected trilogy using the persona of 18th century feminist and revolutionary Mary Wollstonecraft.
MLC: Do your characters ever drive you a bit crazy by going off in their own direction? If so, how do you rein them in, or do you just let them run off on their own?
AUTHOR: Many fiction writers claim that they write in a sort of trance in which the characters virtually dictate to them and then run off on their own, and this is often true of my characters. I’m constantly amazed at what comes up through my fingers out of the “unconscious,” and what my characters do. Since I don’t outline, they can easily take off. But sometimes as I revise, I haul them back, slap their wrists and say, “Okay, now settle down a little.” But just as often I let them run--I love surprises.. If I were to outline, there wouldn’t be as many surprises.
MLC: Do you pattern your sleuths after yourself or someone you know? If so, do you let that person know they were your “pattern”?
AUTHOR: I relentlessly model characters after family, friends and neighbors. I make a sort of collage of personalities: you, you, and then myself, and memory, giving the characters a distinctive voice and making physical changes as well. So that in the end the story is full of “lies,” but hopefully (paradoxically) “true.” I guess I’m part of all my characters, male and female, young and old--even the bad guys. I’ve done a lot of theater in my life, and role playing; in each case I try to become the character, see what makes him/her tick. How else, except onstage or in a book, can one live so many different lives? It’s wonderful!
MLC: How long did it take you to get published? How many rejections did you have to suffer through first? Were you ever tempted to give up? What do you think made the difference when it was accepted?
AUTHOR: I was named a Bread Loaf Scholar for my first novel, which was mainstream and not a mystery, but it took a dozen more years and lots of rejections to find a publisher for that novel! After that I published two nonfiction books, including a memoir (New England Press and Down East Books), and lots of short stories and poems, but there were (are) still rejections off and on. My first mystery, Mad Season, had two rejections before my wonderful editor, Ruth Cavin at St. Martin’s, took it on. Two agents had earlier rejected it as well, so that I finally published it through my husband’s “literary agency.” I put that in quotes, because he was a teacher and not an agent, and I just ordered the stationery for him. Details on how I got published can be found on my website. But the whole process took only a year--I was lucky!
MLC: Do you ever attend any conferences? If so, which ones?
AUTHOR: Yes, I usually attend Malice Domestic, which I love because it’s mostly cozy authors--although I call mine “rural noir.” I go to Bouchercon whenever I have a new book out, and twice I’ve been at Bloody Words in Toronto, which was lots of fun. Oh yes, three times at Crime Bake, put on by our own Sisters in Crime-New England. It was fabulous this year. I also helped to critique manuscripts sent in by hopeful authors--many of them very good--and I enjoyed sitting down with them to discuss their work.
MLC: Do you have to promote your own work, or does your publisher do that for you?
AUTHOR: St Martin’s has always sent galleys out to the major review journals and magazines and been generally supportive, but mostly I’ve had to set up my book tours. For this, the speakers’ bureau at SinC-NE has been very helpful, and I’ve also used the contacts provided by Breakthrough Promotions, a small PR firm. Unless we’re selling a zillion copies of our book, at which time the publisher will help the rich get richer, we midlist authors have to get out there and pitch. SinC helps with its brochures such as “Shameless Promotion for Brazen Hussies!”
MLC: If you have to do marketing, what methods have worked the best for you?
AUTHOR: My website, a presence on the Internet and other Web sites like Mystery Corner, a blog on Amazon, along with short stories I published on Amazon Shorts, some radio appearances and reviews through a small PR firm, and a hundred panels through the years at conferences, libraries and bookstores.
MLC: Do you have any idea how your book is selling?
AUTHOR: For the most recent one, not at the moment. For the past books, I find out through my royalty statement.
MLC: What has been the best review you have gotten, and why?
AUTHOR: I guess I was most thrilled with the very first review (for Mad Season) from Publishers Weekly–-because it was the first, and I had no idea how my book was going to be received. PW used words like “masterful” and “fine storytelling” and I was overcome with joy. I also loved the review for Poison Apples in the Boston Globe that reads “Wright doesn’t put a foot wrong in this well-wrought mystery.” (I hope you’re not going to ask me about the worst review, though!)
MLC: Have you won any awards, either as an author or for your books? Please tell us about them.
AUTHOR: I was a Bread Loaf Scholar for my first novel, which gave me a blissful but sleepless two weeks at the Bread Loaf Writer’s conference, filled with readings, workshops, agents, famous authors and editors. I’ve won several first prizes for my writing in the literary magazines, and a generous grant from the Society of Children’s Book Writers for an historical novel.
MLC: Is there any one certain thing that a reader has written to you that made you just want to jump up and shout “Yes!!!!”?
AUTHOR: If they say something nice, I always shout Yes! If negative, I might scream No, but then take a second look and figure, Well, I guess they’ve got a point. One reader observed that two of my female characters sounded alike (I write from several points of view in each book) and she was right. I’ve tried harder since then to make each voice singular and unique.
MLC: What is your next project, and when will it be out?
AUTHOR: As I mentioned above, I’m just finishing the middle grade sequel, The Great Northern Spy Train Robbery, which is due for publication some time early this summer. Then I’ll start a sequel to the new (adult) Fay Hubbard series.
MLC: If you could write anything at all, ignoring what editors and publishers say they want, what would it be?
AUTHOR: The Great American novel, I guess--whatever that is.
MLC: Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring mystery authors?
AUTHOR: Persevere. Persevere. Persevere. Don’t give up.
MLC: Do you have any teasers for your readers and fans about the next book?
AUTHOR: The first book in the new adult series, Runaway, is about a foster girl who is abducted by her birth mother--and Fay, her foster care mother, is panicked. I’ve a quirky psychic in that book named Stormy Moon, of whom I’m already quite fond. Sometimes she’s helpful--and sometimes not. We first glimpse her arriving on a motor scooter where she “sat large and puffing in a red shirt and white shorts that made her thighs look like two pillars of salt.” Too much chocolate often interferes with her visions, but she does intuit things that Fay can’t see for herself.
MLC: If a genie suddenly appeared and said they would grant you just one wish for your books, what would you wish for?
AUTHOR: Another thirty years to keep writing them.
MLC: Please give us your website url and your email address where people can contact you.
AUTHOR:
www.nancymeanswright.com
nancyden@shoreham.net
MLC: Thank you so much for giving us a little glimpse into your books and your life. We look forward to a lot more books from you.
AUTHOR: So do I. And thanks for the chance to sound off!