INTERVIEW: Margaret Maron - Author Of Award-Winning Mystery Novels

Welcome to “Up Close and Personal.” For every interview I will be introducing a literary personality discussing their views and insights, as well as upcoming literary events around the world.

Today’s interview is with Margaret Maron, she was born and grew up in central North Carolina. She has also lived in Italy. She and her husband, artist Joe Maron, lived in Brooklyn before returning to her home state where they now live.

She is the author of numerous short stories and more than 20 mystery novels to date. One series of novels features Sigrid Harald, a loner lieutenant in the NYPD whose policeman father was killed in the line of duty when she was a toddler. Another series follows the adventures of Judge Deborah Knott, attorney and daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger.

Her 1992 novel Bootlegger's Daughter was a Washington Post bestseller and has won nearly every major prize given to mystery fiction for her novels about North Carolina judge Deborah Knott.

Her awards includes the following: Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity awards. She has since won additional Agatha’s for Up Jumps the Devil (1996), and Storm Track (2000).

Her works have been translated into a dozen languages and are on the reading lists of many courses in contemporary Southern literature.

Ms. Maron is a founding member and past president of Sisters in Crime and of the American Crime Writers' League, and a director on the national board for Mystery Writers of America. She was a keynote speaker at the Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave in 2004 in 2004.

E.I. Would you share some early insight into who you were as a teenager? What were you like? Please tell us more about Margaret Maron -- the woman behind the summer job at the Pentagon, a founding member and former president of Sisters in Crime, former president of MWA, and award-winning writer?

M. Maron: Who I was as a teenager? Shy, awkward, insecure, beset by the usual teenage angst, angst that was complicated by always feeling like an outsider even though I was fairly popular. The Pentagon (Joint Chiefs of Staff) was huge fun though. Lots of single young officers floating through the halls. I was secretary to the colonel who headed the communications department, which was manned by several of those s.y.o.'s, including the naval lieutenant I married. At the time of our first date though, I was dating two other lieutenants, both army.

After marriage, I wrote dozens of short stories but up until my second novel was published, some ten years into my career, I had never met any other writers. This was before mystery conventions and conferences that encourage beginning writers to come and meet their future peers. I never had the nerve to write to one of those mystical creatures and ask for mentoring or even for a cover quote, so I struggled in solitude. With the second book, I stuck my toe into MWA waters and finally found my tribe! It was so wonderful to connect to people with similar interests and enthusiasms, who didn't look at me as if I were crazy when I asked, "If you were going to murder your husband, would you try to make it look like an accident or a robbery gone wrong?"

Getting involved with MWA and then with Sisters in Crime was a way to contribute to the mystery community.

E.I. What is it about the art form of writing that enchants you the most?

M. Maron: I always told myself stories from my earliest memories, but they were ephemeral and evaporated like the morning dew. To be able to write down these imaginary people, these imaginary scenes, and know that they will survive a little longer is extremely satisfying. And occasionally you'll write something that is so satisfying, so dead on, that you sit there awestruck and wonder where did that came from? Unfortunately, those moments are very few and very, very far between.

E.I. Many writers describe themselves as "character" or "plot" writers. Which are you? And what do you find to be the hardest part of writing?

M. Maron: I'm definitely "character." I like to take my characters, put them into an unfamiliar setting and then watch the plot grow out of the interaction of the characters. The hardest part? Keeping the plot and the motivations believably logical. I just can't take the easy way out and let my characters act against the moral code and intelligence I've given them simply because I can't figure out a realistic motivation. Sometimes that means going back and changing the character. More often, it simply means I haven't worked hard enough.

E.I. How do you imagine the audience when you are writing? Do you have sheets of newsprint covered in a story boards all over your walls?

M. Maron: I honestly never think about my readers when I'm writing. I'm telling the story for my own personal pleasure. I begin at the beginning and write straight through to the end. This is why I can't outline. If I knew where the story was going from page one, I'd be bored. I often begin a book without knowing the victim or the killer. In Shooting at Loons, the killer changed four times over the course of the book. I no longer let this worry me. I just go with the flow. So no, no story boards or outlines before the fact. The closest I come to outlining is with a box of old business cards. Whenever I think of a factoid that needs to be worked into the book somewhere, I'll jot a note about it on the back of the car. When I'm ready to begin a new chapter, I'll thumb through the cards to see if this is where that item belongs.

E.I. What was your biggest challenge in writing Death's Half Acre? How did you decide what level of details your reader will accept? Did you work them out in advance, or did they evolve as you wrote the story? How did you overcome these challenges?

M. Maron: If you're asking about the act of murder itself, I seldom dwell on the grisly detail and I try not to sensationalize, so it wasn't much of a problem in that book. In Hard Row, the book before this one, the motivation for that murder came straight out of an actual news story about illegal use of pesticides on one of the large factory farms in our state. I was so horrified and angry, that I literally butchered the victim. As a rule, I don't get very graphic, but I was so emotionally involved in that story that I couldn't help myself. Several of my readers wrote to complain and I was sorry I had shocked them, but the man's crimes were shocking and I got so caught up in the story that when the gore and grisly discoveries continued, I just had to write it down. By contrast, the murders in DHA were almost bloodless.

E.I. In Death's Half Acre, how much of Candace was planned out in your head? How do you know where you will go next with your story?

M. Maron: Candace began as a simple black-and-white character with no redeeming qualities. By the time I got to know her though and to realize how her childhood formed her moral fiber, I could feel a little sorry for her and could understand where she was coming from even though I never really condoned her actions. But my growing sympathy for her did change the way I thought the story was going to go. Again though, when that happens, I just go along for the ride.

E.I. If you were asked to read a page from Death's Half Acre is there one that you would personally select to share with your fans? And why?

M. Maron: I never deliberately write a scene with the idea of having something to read when I give a book talk or do a signing, but I find that there is always something in each book that can be read without spoilers. Often it's one of Deborah's court cases and usually it's something amusing. In this book, that courtroom scene came in Chapter 4 when Deborah hears the case of two women who got into a knock-down-drag-out fight over a chicken that the other woman's dog had killed. I'm always amused by city people who claim to love the country and want to live there, yet are dismayed to find that their cul-de-sac backs up on a working pig farm or that the roads will be clogged with tractors and farm equipment.

E.I. How do you weave so much suspense and elements of information into your stories and yet you keep them so fast-paced?

M. Maron: Suspense? Me? I've never felt I was much good at creating suspense. I do think I'm pretty good at conveying all the information a reader needs to know without breaking the flow of the action, but I've never consciously analyzed what I'm doing or how I'm doing it.

E.I. What did you find to be the hardest part of writing the book? What was your biggest challenge in developing your characters, Candace Bradshaw and Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant? Did you work them out in advance, or did they evolve as you wrote the story? How did you overcome these challenges?

M. Maron: As I said before, the hardest thing is to keep it all logical and, at the same time, to allow for serendipity so that the characters can unfold and blossom. I liked it that Candace evolved from a cut and dried static figure to one that eventually evoked sympathy. As for Dwight Bryant, he's been around from the very first. Bloody Kin was a stand-alone and he was the lead detective in that book. Seven years, when I came to create Deborah Knott for Bootlegger's Daughter, he was already in place and has been in almost every book since.

E.I. You are well known in the writing community as a former president Mystery Writers of America, a former president of Sisters in Crime, and as an award-winning writer. Do you ever feel pressure or insecurity, or are you able to separate all that from your own creative process?

M. Maron: I never felt pressure or insecurity presiding over MWA, but there were some tense moments at the helm of SinC when we were getting so much hostility from certain parts of the mystery community because they didn't understand that being pro-women writers did not mean we were anti-male. All we wanted was our fair share of the pie, be it reviews, advances, or promotion. I never felt insecure in what we were doing though because I had the board's support and advice and I have always believed in "sunshine" rules— in open discussions and keeping a clear paper trail to document any actions. (Very few things done in secret remain secret, as too many of our national leaders and celebrities are constantly being reminded, so you might as well keep everything open and aboveboard from the beginning.) I will say that the two years I gave to SinC, first as VP and then as president, probably cost me at least one book and a couple of short stories. The experience and the friendships were worth it, though.

E.I. Ms. Maron, Thank you for contributing to my blog. It has been a pleasure for me to get to know your work a little better. Would you like to end your interview with a writing tip or advice for young aspiring writers?

M. Maron: The only advice I could give is FINISH THE BOOK! Don't even think about editors, agents, advances, publicity tours or any of the other elements until you have a finished book that is the very best book you could possibly write.

To learn more about Margaret Maron, please visit her web site

To purchase her books, please visit AMAZON and Barnes & Noble

Conferences, journalism and voice-recognition

Attended a conference in Melbourne at the start of the week.  One of the highlights was listening to Sushi Das, senior writer with The Age.  Enjoyed hearing someone with so much journalistic integrity describe her approach to writing news stories and feature articles.  This seminar also had me taking note afresh of the similarities and dissimilarities with writing fiction - things which can be learned or borrowed from journalists to sharpen fiction.

Have been playing around with Dragon Naturally Speaking across the last fortnight.  Wanted to try this program for years, but finally got round to loading it recently.  Was a little sceptical after hearing of Mrs T's difficulties with this Voice-Recognition software over at her Witty Ways blog, but given that stories grow out of an oral tradition, it seemed a reasonable idea to try and take story-telling back to an oral approach, as long as the Dragon and I were compatible with one another.

Thought I'd try reciting Jack and Jill as one of my first exercises, before cracking into a lengthy short story I've been telling for years but have never written down.

First time I tried, it came up with:

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To Japan across the water...

Hmm, not sure how it managed that.  Second and third time it did exactly the same. To Japan across the water.  Thought maybe I'd read too much Haruki Murakami of late or that it was having difficulties with my peculiar blend of accents, so did some retraining.  This involved reciting all of John F Kennedy's speeches to Congress, or some such, along with a couple of comedy sketches that the program obviously enjoyed hearing read aloud.  Anyway, a couple of hours later, I try Jack and Jill  once again.

This time it comes up with:

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To bitch about the water...

It might not be 100% accurate, but at least it seems to be on a similar wavelength to me.  If I had to climb a hill every time I wanted to fetch a pail, I'd bitch about the water too. The program stays. It can shape the grittier, less-tolerant voice behind my next story. 

INTERVIEW: Larry Gonick - Best known for his book “The Cartoon History of the Universe”

Welcome to “Up Close and Personal.” For every interview I will be introducing a literary personality discussing his views and insights, as well as upcoming literary events around the world.

Today’s interview is with Larry Gonick. He is a cartoonist, best known for his book The Cartoon History of the Universe, a history of the world in a comic book form, which he has been publishing in installments since 1977.Mr. Gonick has also written The Cartoon History of the United States, and he has adapted the format for a series of co-written guidebooks on other subjects, beginning with The Cartoon Guide to Genetics in 1983. The diversity of his interests, and the success with which his books have met, have together earned him the distinction of being "the most well-known and respected of cartoonists who have applied their craft to unravelling the mysteries of science" Drug Discovery Today, March 2005.

Since 1990 to 1997, Mr Gonick penned a bimonthly Science Classics cartoon for the science magazine Discover. Each two-page comic discussed a recent scientific development, often one in interdisciplinary research.

He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT in 1994 through 1995. In 1997, his 14-issue series, Candide in China, published on the WEB, described Chinese inventions.

Larry Gonick also writes the Kokopelli and; Company comic that appears in the magazine Muse and the satirical, anti-corporate comic “Commoners”.

E.I. Would you share some early insight into who you were as a teenager? What were you like? Please tell us more about Larry Gonick-- the man behind the award-winning writer and now a comic author?

LG: I grew up in Phoenix, where there was a lot of space to play outdoors. As little kids, we lived near huge vacant lots that were great places to make forts, run around, and step on these huge thorny burrs we called bullheads. Our feet got very tough in summer. My grade school, Grandview, had a 440-yard track, a couple of baseball diamonds, and many outdoor basketball courts. I was outdoors a fair amount. But I was basically a bookish kid, and rather shy. Not into tinkering or hardware. More on the theoretical side, though I can fix a faucet if I have to. Good student. Somewhat alienated, though I didn't feel this so acutely until high school. It came as a great relief when I finally met a few other outsider-intellectuals, who became proto-hippies soon thereafter.

Growing up, I had no specific goal for adulthood. Part of the reason was that I knew very few adults who weren't teachers (as my parents both were), so there was a lack of role models. I used to say I'd be either a writer or a mathematician—I was pretty good at both—but really had little idea what that would look like in real life. In college, I kind of backed into majoring in math, because I could get A's in it, and there wasn't much support for creative writing at Harvard in those days. Four years flew by, and I suddenly found myself applying for graduate school in math, which in those days pretty much meant going on to an academic career, without ever having consciously chosen that life path.

But I always liked to draw, too, and after college I picked it up again. One thing led to another, and in 1972 I dropped out of math and into cartooning.

E.I. What is it about the art form of writing cartoon text books that enchants you the most?

LG: What one thing? One? Thing? Um... it's a thing with several ingredients. Let's put it this way: the medium's ability to combine text and images into a narrative rhythm that delivers humor, opinion, and information all at once—in a way that's hard to forget!

E.I. What do you find to be the hardest part of writing it? Do you have sheets of newsprint covered in a story board all over your walls?

LG: No, the walls aren't covered. I do a page breakdown of each "volume" (a 48-page unit) on a single sheet of 9 x 12 sketchbook. And that's one of the easier parts. The hardest thing by far is writing the first draft. It's always too long by a factor of 3, and I'm conscious of that fact as I write. This generates an uncomfortable running internal argument with myself about nearly every sentence. I put down a few words and then think "but...", and then agonize about it a while, and then coach myself to follow through with that sentence and worry about editing it later, after it's written, etc. Just exhausting! Everything else is more or less fun.

E.I. What was your biggest challenge in writing “Cartoon History of the World”? How did you decide what level of details your reader will accept? Did you work them out in advance, or did they evolve as you wrote the story? How did you overcome these challenges?

LG: The level of detail is pretty much determined by one consideration: does the story make sense? I aim to put in everything necessary to make the story coherent, and very little else. In retrospect, I think I could have left more out of Modern World, Part
2. There's always a tradeoff between details and the big picture, and when you see the big picture, often really good jokes pop up. So, if I had to do it again, I think I'd put in more humor and less about, say, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In a work of this complexity, pretty much the entire narrative framework is developed ahead of time. I used to wing it more, but now I'm convinced it pays to get organized.

E.I. How do you know where you will go next with your story? All the fascinating historical events and topics that have managed to slip through the gaps of common knowledge?

LG: In some sense, the main impulse for doing cartoon histories was to highlight the stuff that slipped through the gaps, as you put it. I'm a revisionist historian, or was when I started. Part of the point is to satirize received historical wisdom and the historians who promote it, especially when that received wisdom contains tendentious distortions, in other words, not to put to fine a point on it, the received wisdom serves the interest of the ruling class. And believe me, it isn't hard to find neglected and important information. When I started out, decades ago, there was a gold mine of data about women, minorities, and the underclass that had barely entered mainstream historical discourse. Later on, of course, this became mainstream historical discourse, at which point a lot of important narrative history dropped out of books, so paradoxically, by the end I was trying to restore some of the national-history type material that seemed absurdly traditional when I started out!

For example, I was horrified to discover not long ago that an 8th-grade history class had never heard of Magellan. I mean, really!

It also soon became clear to me that a lot of European history made much better sense in the context of Eurasian history, and this pointed me in the direction of Constantinople, first as a Byzantine capital and then under the Turks, not to mention China and India, which were the real centers of the world once upon a time. In the current book, this shows up in the very important role played in 18th-century European affairs by the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Another example would be the British abolition of slavery in the early 1800s. I'm not aware of a parallel development anywhere, so it seemed to be a fruitful subject of study, and I spent many pages discussing it.

Another would be the birth of the Dutch Republic, which I covered in Modern World, Part 1.

E.I. If you were asked to read a page from “Cartoon History of the Modern World” is there one that you would personally select to share with your fans? And why?

LG: I just flipped through the book, and I really couldn't pick out just one. I like 202-203 for graphics. P. 39, introducing Napoleon, may be a good start. Not too complicated, and summarizes his exalted opinion of himself.

E.I. You are the most well-known and respected cartoonists in the writing community who have applied your craft to unraveling the mysteries of science, you were a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and now an award-winning writer. Do you ever feel pressure or insecure, or are you able to separate all that from your own creative process?

LG: I always feel pressure and insecurity, but it has nothing to do with upholding a reputation. It's more about all the inadequacies I see in my own work. I'm a perfectionist without the time or ability to perfect things.

E.I. What would you tell those authors considering applying to an M.F.A. program? In your opinion how important is it for a writer to have a writing degree?

LG: This is one I have no opinion about. It does seem to be important to have a writing degree if you want a day job teaching creative writing. But whether or not writing programs produce a certain kind of writing is a question I'm not qualified to answer.

E.I. Mr. Gonick, Thank you for contributing to my blog. It has been a pleasure for me to get to know your work a little better. Would you like to end your interview with a writing tip or advice for young aspiring writers?

LG: Edit yourself mercilessly, but not while you're in the middle of writing.
The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2
Raw Materials

To learn more about Larry Gonick, please visit his website

To Purchase his books, please visit AMAZON and Barnes & Noble