The Thrill Begins

By Laura Benedict

I swore to myself that I wouldn’t read a single review of my debut novel ISABELLA MOON when they came out.
I’ve reviewed books myself on a freelance basis for a Michigan newspaper for over ten years, I’m married to a writer, and I have many writer friends, so I’m deeply aware of how affecting reviews—both positive and negative—can be.

But any writer who says he or she doesn’t read reviews of their books is probably fibbing. It’s a sore, sore temptation to listen in on what folks are saying about your baby, even when you suspect that someone out there is going to claim it’s ugly as sin.

The early word was not great. Two out of the Big Four—Kirkus, PW, Library Journal, and Booklist—were stinkers. They weren’t just bad. They were cruel. And I mean cruel, as in, “who did I piss off to get this kind of treatment?” cruel. As a writer, that was my first, defensive reaction. They couldn’t have possibly read the same book I wrote! The other two were better, but equivocal. I knew I should’ve been grateful: not everyone gets her first book reviewed by the Big Four. I found myself saying stiff-upper-lip things like: “Well, I wanted to run with the big dogs. Guess I’m off the porch, now!” Read the rest of this entry »

By Rebecca Cantrell

My father was a teamster and I don’t have TV, so I was doubly unprepared for picketing with the WGA writers in November. I took a morning off from my vacation, googled to find the nearest studio, and headed over. I hit the jackpot, because Disney and ABC are right across the street from each other so I could walk two lines.

ME

I’m a writer. And I’m here to help.

Usually that just makes people collapse in gales of laughter, but this was a writer-friendly crowd.

Someone immediately gave me a sign and I marched back and forth in front of the Disney entrance with a group of picketers. It was weird seeing all those writers together outside, squinting at the sun. Mostly, we’re an indoor species. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andy Harp

The beauty of the military thriller is that most live it! Fiction is only one short step away from fact.

I remember my first true-life brush with the spy game. I was a lowly intern working for a Congressman in the final days of Richard Millhouse Nixon’s presidency. Our LA, or legislative assistant, as those who frequent the hallways of Rayburn and Cannon know, asked me if I would like to go with her to a couple of Embassy parties. I quickly said yes.

(As some background, many embassies celebrate their countries’ national holidays with a party, but schedule it a few days from the actual holiday to keep away party crashers. It takes years to get on an Embassy invite list, and perennial staffers on the Hill, like my boss, were often on them.)

The first affair I attended was at Greece’s embassy and, as I soon found out, the Embassy party fits well on the pages of James Bond. Tuxedoed waiters work through the crowd with silver trays of crystal. The ouzo flowed and the dessert table was covered with baklava. The upper echelons of attendees wore tuxes and the worker bees were attired in coats and ties. Among the women, glittering diamonds abounded. Read the rest of this entry »

By Julie Kramer
Once upon a time I used to produce local television newscasts and talk shows. Authors and their publicists were always trying to get air time. I ducked many of their calls. But we were always glad to feature a live studio interview with President Carter about his latest book or get the inside scoop from a local author who’d written about the state’s most famous murder. Novelists were our nemesis.I’ve decided to share how these decisions are made. Not because I feel any guilt, but because readers might find it entertaining and writers might find it educational.

The truth is, It’s a much tougher sell to get publicity for fiction vs. nonfiction. But there are exceptions: Read the rest of this entry »

By Karen Dionne

So what if you’re not a scientist? you may be thinking. Hundreds of thousands of people could make the same claim: lawyers, social workers, pastry chefs; stockbrokers, carpenters, newspaper reporters; race car drivers, kindergarten teachers, and on and on.

But I write science thrillers. My debut novel FREEZING POINT, which Berkley Books will be publishing in October ‘08, is about a solar energy company that uses microwaves from orbiting satellites to melt Antarctic icebergs into drinking water while environmental extremists plot to stop them, neither realizing they’re about to unleash an apocalyptic horror that could wipe out all mankind. My day job is working alongside my husband in our family’s upholstery shop. And aside from the semester I attended the University of Michigan, I never went to college.

So what’s someone without a scientific background doing writing science thrillers? Simple: I write what I love.

If I’d stayed in school, there’s no doubt I would have pursued a biology degree. But in the early 1970s I quit college to move with my husband and infant daughter to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as part of the back-to-the-land movement.

While we lived in a tent and built our tiny cabin, scavenged wild foods, and carried water from a nearby spring, I devoured Discover Magazine and Scientific American. In fact, it was a feature item in the newspaper about a 1,000 square-mile section of the Larson Ice Shelf that had broken off due to global warming, combined with the greatest April Fool’s hoax in Discover Magazine’s history, that formed the basis for my novel.

Sometimes, I wish I had the educational background to give authority to what I write. But my lack of scientific training presents one distinct advantage: Because I don’t know the scientific reality, I can conceive a story that a scientist might think outlandish, learn enough of the science in the fields that interest me to tell the story plausibly, and then people the novel with engineers and experts and every sort of -ologist and live vicariously through them.

I’m not a scientist. I’m a scientist by proxy.

In science thrillers, accuracy is important, and I do a great deal of careful research for mine. In addition to consulting experts, I have a trusted reader, Jeff Anderson, who is a scientist and a medical doctor and a thriller author, who makes sure I get my science right.

After Jeff read an early version of FREEZING POINT, he flagged a sentence in which I described a character as a “brilliant Brazilian ichthyologist.” He wrote: “They don’t ALL have to be brilliant, you know.”

Yes they do, I countered. They’re scientists.

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Karen’s science thriller FREEZING POINT, about an environmental disaster in Antarctica, will be available October 2008 from Berkley. Visit her website at www.karendionne.net

By Jordan Dane

As a debut author, your first relationship with an agent can be like a courtship. The first blush of an offer to represent is followed by the unforgettable satiation of that first deal. You light up a cigarette and revel that nothing will ever be the same again, but in the afterglow, some authors may wonder:

• Did I make the right choice?
• What do I know about them…really?
• Was I sober when I agreed to this?

That first deal can be a heady experience. In the throes of a first-time negotiation, some authors may throw caution aside and grab that first warm bodied agent who comes along. And others may struggle with which agent is THE BEST. I think there is no “best” agent. It’s what is right for you—at the time. And one agent might work well for one author, but not so much for another—for many reasons. Read the rest of this entry »