Table of Contents
Most Popular . . .
More . . .
Hotlists 2008
Hotlists 2009
Ranganathan's Five Laws:
Books are for use.
Books are for all; or Every reader his book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
A library is a growing organism.
Take Five:
Salem Witchcraft
Fiction
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (2008)
The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent (2008)
The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow (2006)
Nonfiction
In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton (2002)
Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience by Richard Francis (2006)
Buzz Books
Out and About. . .
I'm playing around at Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Good Reads. I've set up links to my pages on these sites. And, yes, I have a hard time keeping up-to-date on these sites...
I've set up "shelves" from these sites on Overbooked - here
Overbooked is spacing out: Myspace: Overbooked and Crime Space - and, facing out: Facebook profile.
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
Overbooked is the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores - Greenwood Publishing Award: to recognize excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The award recipient is selected for significant achievement related to a reviewing process that helps librarians make selection decisions.
Penny Louise - interview
Page Modified: September 30, 2008
INTERVIEW WITH JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING – MAY 2006
Julia Spencer-Fleming is the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Award-winning author of five mystery novels, including IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER. You can learn more about her at her website: www.juliaspencerfleming.com
Louise Penny is the author of STILL LIFE, available from St. Martin’s Minotaur in July, 2006, which has been nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award and a CWA New Blood Dagger.
Q: What made you segue from journalism to writing traditional mysteries? And as a cosmopolitan, hard news reporter, what attracted you to Three Pines – as opposed to, say, a thriller about a journalist in Toronto?
A: All my life I’ve loved and read traditional mysteries. My heroes are Agatha, Dorothy, Ngaio, Josephine. By then Michael and I were living in the Eastern Townships, south of Montreal. Here I found the inspiration for the book and the characters, and the courage to take the chance and finally write the book I’ve wanted to since I was a child reading Charlotte’s Web alone in my bedroom, safe and sovereign.
A hard-boiled thriller was never an option. Still isn’t. As a journalist I’d had my fill of tough stories, of cynicism, of marginal people. I was tired of being like that myself – smug, cynical, sarcastic, superior. It’s exhausting. I realized all I wanted in life was to be content, happy – to laugh and be free of the prison of self-absorption. So when it finally came time to write, it needed to be about a community I’d want to live in with characters I’d choose as friends. I wanted something fresh, something alive and redemptive. Something with a heart and soul and laughter and croissants.
Q: How did it feel to ‘win’ a contest (I count a Dagger Honorable Mention a big win!) and be published?
A: It was a dream. I’d sent off query letters to tons of New York agents – my theory always being we might as well be turned down by the best. And I was. Then I entered the Debut Dagger contest put on by the Crime Writers Association in Britain and was shortlisted. When I read that email I just knew my life had changed.
For two years, writing STILL LIFE and trying to get someone interested in it, I’d lie in the bath practicing my Oprah interview (Good question, Oprah) and dream of seeing my book in a store. I even took the manuscript on a trip to London and took it into Hatchards Bookshop, and showed it the mystery section and introduced it around, telling it if we were very, very lucky these would be its new friends.
In February I had the astonishing experience of sitting in Hatchards signing copies of STILL LIFE. I get teary even now thinking of it.
Q: Your fiction seems to spring first and foremost from its powerfully realistic characters. What’s your process for developing and working with your characters?
A: My stories are driven by the characters – their turmoil and fears and secrets and I love it. That was one of the great gifts of being a journalist and radio host with the CBC. I spent 20 years listening to people. Hearing their stories, hearing how they felt. It was a real education in the character of people – their courage and pettiness, their meanness and their spirit. People are amazing. And endlessly fascinating.
I start with an idea for a murder…someone kills someone else – for a reason. The reason, of course, is personal and secret and twisted. What was once a rational, natural feeling has become grotesque over time.
My books are about murder, but beneath that there’s another theme. In STILL LIFE it’s change and choice and that we’re products of the choices we make. In the second book, DEAD COLD, it’s about belief (as opposed to faith) and that we are what we believe about ourselves. The third book, which I’m working on now, is about jealousy and redemption and is set at Easter in Three Pines.
After that, if I have it right and firmly in my head, I let the characters loose.
Q: Any word yet on the US publication date for your second book, DEAD COLD? Tell us a bit about it.
A: DEAD COLD is set in Three Pines at Christmas. While STILL LIFE was about the murder of a beloved villager, book 2 is about the murder of someone universally hated. Motives and clues galore. It was an absolute riot writing it. At the same time it explores the issues of what makes us who we are…what voices do we hear in our head? What are our core beliefs and how do they drive us?
And something is creeping up behind Gamache, something from his past. Something we see coming, but he doesn’t.
I’m not sure when St. Martin’s Minotaur plans to bring it out though they have the book and like it – thank God. Phew.
Julia, thank you so much for doing this interview. To have someone as successful and prominent as you take notice of me and take an interest is amazing and more than that – you’re a wonderful role model for giving back. Thank you.
Hotlists
African American Fiction | Christian Fiction
2008 Excel Files: (download - print, sort, etc.)
Crime Fiction | Fiction | African American Fiction | Christian Fiction | Nonfiction Notables
Stars
Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
Speculative Fiction Romance Historical Nonfiction | YA
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I really appreciate all the e-mail I receive from avid readers and writers and regret that I am not able to respond to all correspondents. Special thanks to those folks who regularly help keep me on track - you know who you are....
