Admin_99

When I was watching Asteroid City, the new film from Wes Anderson, I kept thinking of a line from The Fabelmans, the Steven Spielberg movie that came out last year: “in our family, it’s the scientists versus the artists.” Asteroid City is a film about a group of strangers in September 1955 who all wind up in a desert town made famous by an ancient asteroid impact, now populated with scientists doing astronomical research and atomic bomb testing. It had seemed, from the advertisements, that Asteroid City would be Wes Anderson’s first sci-fi movie, and it is, but it’s also more a film exploring the relationship between science and art—the shared investments of scientists and artists—and how everyone is equally in pursuit of an understanding what it means to be alive and a part of the universe. In Asteroid City, a science competition for extraordinary youths presented by the Research and Experimentation Division of the United States Government brings five families to the small town of Asteroid City, which doesn’t have much besides the military science facility, a diner, a hotel, and the asteroid itself. We learn the most about the Steenbeck family: the father Augie (Jason Schwartzman) and his son Woodrow, or “Brainiac” (Jake Ryan), and his three mischievous little girls. Augie, a former war photographer, doesn’t know how to tell his kids that their mother has passed away from her long illness three weeks before they began their trip to take Woodrow to the award ceremony of the science competition in which he was a finalist. Unsure how to handle things, Augie calls his father in law, Stanley Zak (Tom Hanks), to watch the girls. Woodrow, meanwhile, has befriended the four other nerdy finalists—especially Dinah (Grace Edwards), the daughter of movie star Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson). Asteroid City, the place, is a visual portmanteau of different eras of the American West—part John Ford cowboy-canyon vista, part Los Alamos (the secret pop-up town in Arizona where the Manhattan Project built the Atom Bomb), part 50s Palm Springs retreat, part Road Runner cartoon. And it is in this place, at a moment when teen geniuses, rowdy kids, scientists, cowboys, military officers, teachers, and parents all gather for the unveiling of America’s greatest future scientist, that the town gets a visit from an alien, who wants the asteroid back. The film is a retro-futuristic treat, a creative throwback alien invasion movie, festooned with the hallmarks of a 50s sci-fi B-feature. And yet, it’s something else entirely. I don’t usually feel the need to discuss the theater viewing experience of a movie I’m reviewing, but I will say that, as I was exiting the theater, I overheard some guys behind me express frustration at the film’s large-scale existential focus, because they had hoped Asteroid City was going to be a more charming Mars Attacks! and their hopes had been dashed. Indeed, the promotional materials do not prepare us for the big twist of Asteroid City, which happens in the literal first second of the movie: a Twilight Zone-seeming frame narrative that isn’t ultimately Twilight Zone-esque at all, one that dramatically changes the genre of Asteroid City from sci-fi tribute to something far more meta and philosophical, transitioning not between different levels of reality, but between different levels of imagination and inquiry. It is about, in the words of one character, “infinity, and I don’t know what else.” I won’t say what is really going on here, but I will say that this dimension allows Asteroid City to really, really be about how humans search for meaning, and how we deal with phenomena we do not understand. The film is about not knowing what to do when we are confronted by the limits of our knowledge and analytical ability. It is about trying to discover something deeper about our roles, our parts, ourselves. After seeing it, I wish I had counted how many times characters say the words “I think”—there are lots of sentences like “I think I know now what I realize we are,” rhetorical gestures of uncertainty and the struggle for discovery and the exertion of introspection. The film’s script, which was written by Anderson from a story he co-created with Roman Coppola, is one of his sharpest and most ambitious. As always with Wes Anderson films, which feature large ensemble casts and numerous setpieces, Asteroid City is in large part about being part of a production, and what that means. In movies in which everyone’s role is relatively small and there are no call-sheets on set, everyone must work together to make the movie what it is. In this film, being part of a production is just like being a part of human civilization—we all have our little parts to play in the grand scheme of things, and no one is more important than any other. Sometimes we wait around for our purpose, and sometimes, we wonder what our purpose even is. But it’s not a dark film. Mostly, except for a few black-and-white interludes, Asteroid City is a bright, sherbert-colored movie—a visual carnival of oranges, yellows, and turquoises. Like all Anderson films, it is a film about trying to make human connection, and visually, we are instructed not to be afraid of what we don’t understand about all the forces in the universe: time, space, death, being, love. It brings these big questions down to tangible examples; this is a film with multiple love stories and many, many parent-child relationships. It is about reaching for one another amid the strangeness, the unknowability of the universe, and finding someone just like you reaching back. View the full article

Whether you spend the summer lounging at the pool, hopping on a plane, or sweating it out on the train as you slog through your daily commute, you require a good book as temperatures climb. These historical mysteries are the perfect accompaniment to anything from blazing mornings to sultry summer nights, and all will draw you into mysteries even hotter than the temperature. The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray This Austen-meets-Christie imagining of the circumstances surrounding one of the most reviled of Austen’s character’s murders is a top pick for summer. A summer house party is a classic setting, not to mention we get plenty of nostalgia as we revisit not only Wickham but a slew of Darcys, Tilneys, Knightleys, and Brandons, who are all suspects in the murder. A bonus: the recently released second in the series, The Death of Mrs. Willoughby, is the perfect fall companion book, set in October. Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia There’s nothing hotter than a scandalous Harlem speakeasy in summer, proven by this fun 1920’s series opener. Louise Lloyd is forced to help solve the murders of Black women in her neighborhood, forcing herself to reexamine her greatest trauma. If you’re looking for a hot book, both in terms of sultry temperatures, steamy dances, and a mystery that turns up the heat with every page, this book should be on your TBR. Treachery on Tenth Street by Kate Belli Speaking of summer heat, Kate Belli’s third Gilded Gotham mystery has it in spades. Every page of this Gilded Age New York novel is dripping with atmosphere as intrepid journalist Genevieve reunites with her erst-while lover and fellow sleuth Daniel to solve the murders of artists and models. Along with the steamiest summer New York has had in decades, the pressure of finding the murderer before one of Genevieve’s closest friends is targeted causes the team to sweat it out. Secret Identity by Alex Segura If you’re in a summer blockbuster mood, Alex Segura’s Secret Identity will scratch that itch. Set in the 1970’s, this novel follows Carmen, an assistant at a comic book giant who is invited to help design their first female superhero. But Carmen soon is embroiled in mystery when one of her colleagues is found dead. Creative ego, competition, and sexism battle it out in the workplace as Carmen tries to unravel the mystery. A refreshing and more literary take on a historical mystery. Murder at the Mena House by Erica Ruth Neubauer If you’re like me, summer encourages visions of exotic travel. The first of Erica Ruth Neubauer’s Jane Wunderly Mysteries, the 2021 winner of the Agatha Award, offers a perfect escape from everything but the heat. Wealthy widow Jane and her somewhat eccentric aunt venture to Egypt in 1926, where the sand burns with the sun and passions burn hotter. The murder of an insufferable socialite points a finger at Jane, and she, along with a handsome stranger, solve the crime before Jane can take the fall for it. If you loved Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile or Murder in Mesopotamia, this is perfect. The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu Set in another unusual location, the vibrant depiction of 1936 in the Crown Colony of Singapore in this series opener is enough to make anyone forget where they’re actually sitting. Su Lin’s missionary education and traditional cultural knowledge make her the perfect person to solve the murder of the nanny to the Acting Governor‘s daughter, a position which Su Lin now fills. This novel will transport you through time and across cultures, ideal for indulging in summer escapism. The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell If you wish to avoid summer heat all together, I suggest this wintery read from Pariac O’Donnell. It opens on a cold, blustery night in 1893 when a seamstress with a mysterious message stitched into her skin falls from a window and doesn’t end until all three of the sleuths caught up in the mystery are led on a twisty ride that is at once riveting and surprising. There’s a reason this novel has been praised by the likes of Oprah and Publisher’s Weekly. A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality by Kate Khavari Another 1920’s book, my second Saffron Everleigh mystery will take you from blooming summer wildflowers to damp fall leaves. Research botanist Saffron is asked to consult on a series of murders marked by the bouquets found in the victims’ homes. Alongside her insufferably handsome and irritating partner, Dr. Lee, Saffron discovers that there’s more than just nasty flowers contained in the bouquets, but hidden messages that send Saffron and Lee to a jazz club, a high society parties, and glittering theatre. A book that seamlessly takes you from summer into fall. View the full article

Alas, there are only four works in translation that I could find for June that counted as crime fiction, but what crime novels they are! It’s a great batch of mystery, noir, and suspense below, with meddling kids in China, mysterious housekeepers in Sweden, murderous mourners in Japan, and vengeful sisters in Brazil. Zijin Chen, Bad Kids Translated by Michelle Deeter (Pushkin Press) Bad Kids is about all kinds of morally compromised people, of all ages. When three teens come across the footage of a middle aged man’s murder of his in-laws, they decide to blackmail him. They’re also understandably worried about retribution for some of their own acts, and it’s a toss-up if the law will catch them first or the target of their blackmail. You’ll find yourself rooting for these scrappy outlaws, despite their occasionally heinous acts, as they take on the symbols of vast authority. A perfect noir for modern China! M. T. Edvardsson, The Woman Inside Translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles (Celadon) A struggling father takes in a new lodger in Edvardsson’s chilling latest, impressed by his tenant’s commitment to her studies and bolstered by her job as a housekeeper for a wealthy, powerful couple. His tenant grows fond her new landlord and his daughter, and increasingly suspicious of the strange dynamic between the controlling husband and frail wife in the house she cleans. When the couple turns up dead, and the tenant falls under suspicion, a host of dark secrets is bound to be revealed. Edvardsson already impressed me greatly with A Nearly Normal Family, and The Woman Inside firmly establishes him as One to Watch. Seishi Yokomizo, The Devil’s Flute Murders Translated by Jim Rion (Pushkin Press) Another fiendishly complex mystery from the master of locked room murders, Seishi Yokomizo, The Devil’s Flute Murders revolves around the murder of a composer in post-war Tokyo. Yokomizo’s iconically scruffy Kosuke Kindaichi is called in to solve the murder, and finds himself racing to find the killer as the body count grows. Atmospheric, chilling, and structurally complex. Itamar Vieira Junior, Crooked Plow Translated by Johnny Lorenz (Verso) Two sisters find a sharp, ancient knife in a suitcase stashed under their grandmother’s bed. Moments later, blood and loss have changed them forever, and the lingering effects of their discovery follow them through life as subsistence farmers on a remote plantation. Magic, social realism, and deep character studies grounded in a complex community are the hallmarks of this brilliant novel from a rising voice in Brazil. There’s also soon to be an HBO miniseries! Oh, excuse me. A Max miniseries. View the full article

When my husband and I lived in British Columbia, we used any and every opportunity to get outdoors. After trying life in suburbia, we opted to rent an old farmhouse (built in the late 1800s) on the bluffs above the Fraser River. We had a gorgeous view of Mount Baker from our front yard, and a babbling brook in the back. Sometimes, packs of coyotes would roam through the property late at night, howling at the moon and rattling the original, time-warped windows in the kitchen. I was grateful that our bedroom was on the second floor on those dark nights, but secretly feared that coyotes were surely smart enough to climb stairs if the windows ever shattered like I feared they would. You’d think we had enough of the great outdoors surrounded by forest and field, but we always wanted more. We spent our free time and weekends hiking, fishing, and bush camping—which never required a reservation because we simply drove up logging roads and then trekked through the wilderness until we found a spot we liked. Usually by water. Once, when we were camped beside a small river in the middle of nowhere, I unzipped our tent well past midnight and stuck my foot into a couple inches of water. It had been raining lightly when we went to sleep, but it must have been pouring upstream—the river had flooded its banks and would have swept our tent away if I hadn’t woken at 3am and wondered why the sound of rushing water was so loud. This wasn’t our only close call, but it stands out as one of the scariest. Still, we adventured undeterred. When I was seven months pregnant with our first child, I convinced my husband to take me fishing in the Vedder (one of my favorite pastimes). I was up to my thighs in the icy cold river, casting for trout in the clear, deep water of a seam. We were maybe ten yards from shore, set up with a little base camp on a sandbar, when a pair of men stuck their heads through the bushes that surged over the bank. Being an often overly friendly, small town girl, I smiled and waved. “The fishing is great!” I called to them. They smiled back, saluted, and disappeared. We never saw them again, but didn’t think much of it. Until we hiked back to the place where we had parked our car. It was gone. The only evidence that it had ever been there at all was a set of tire tracks in the dirt and a glittering pile of broken glass. This was in the early days of cell phones, and because we never got reception on the river anyway, we had left our (often unusable) brick of a telephone in the glove compartment. Along with our house keys and my wallet. We practically invited a home invasion. Getting out of that sticky situation is a story in and of itself (replete with doberman pincher guard dogs and a questionable shack in the woods that after further reflection was undoubtedly an illegal grow op), but the experience became more than just a cautionary tale to me—it changed the way I viewed our outdoor escapades. I had always thought the most dangerous aspect of our adventuring was the wild world around us. After our car was stolen and we had to hike in the growing darkness of a late summer evening in search of help (with me hauling around what felt like a basketball-sized baby in my belly), it became very clear that the biggest risk of all wasn’t nature, but man. When I wrote The Long Way Back, I wanted to capture the joy and excitement of exploring the natural world. In fact, every experience that my mother and daughter duo, Charlie and Eva, chronicle, is something I have personally done or a place my family and I have visited. In some ways, the book is a travel guide to a few of my favorite spots on the continent. I also wanted to emphasize just how unpredictable nature is—sudden storms, wild animals, and threatening terrain are all part and parcel of getting outdoors, and forgetting that reality is something we do at our peril. And yet, I still believe the greatest menace is manmade. In the ways that we use, manipulate, and hurt each other—intentionally or not. I learned my lesson long ago as we walked the gravel path of the dyke above the river, and I carried a healthy distrust of strangers into the next stage of my life. Some of my innocence was lost that day, but at a relatively small cost. It could have been so very much worse. What Charlie and Eva face is a threat much greater than anything I’ve ever experienced, and yet it feels all too possible in a world where reality often seems much more fraught than fiction. In the end, our car was found abandoned in the city less than six hours after it was stolen. The cops believed it was used for a drug run and then abandoned. No one ever came to our house out in the sticks, but we changed the locks all the same. Not that the new deadbolts would have done any good. Those windows were one thrown rock from oblivion. And we were alone in the middle of nowhere. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing, and continue to love and seek out new experiences whenever I can. Paulo Coelho says it best: “The danger of adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort.” I couldn’t agree more. Do you? *** View the full article

I laugh every time I read this: "What’s odd are her first few suggestions about taking pencils on a plane and how to sharpen them and a reminder to bring paper (DUH. For heaven’s sake, are we first graders here?"

Thanks for these comments. Mental health of new writers... does it exist any more?

Good points! Best darn Zombie Apocalypse ever.

It’s been a really great year for new books coming out from Latine authors (including authors based in the United States and writers from across Latin America, because borders aren’t real anyway so why divide everyone up), so I decided to highlight a few of the many new titles hitting shelves this year. Below, you’ll find a mix of horror, noir, psychological thrillers, and historical mysteries, as well as a blend of new and established voices. This article is not pegged to a particular heritage date or holiday, because we shouldn’t need an excuse to read diverse books. Juan Martinez, Extended Stay (University of Arizona Press) El Norte meets Barton Fink in this hotel horror. Two siblings flee from Colombia to the United States and end up at a dingy hotel in Las Vegas where strange figures lurk in the corridors and monsters feed off of the sorrow of the most vulnerable. What follows is both a brilliant horror novel and a sharp critique of capitalism and exploitation. E. A. Aymar, No Home For Killers (Thomas & Mercer) After their brother is found murdered, two sisters must work together to find out the truth behind his murder. One is a strait-laced lawyer, but the other, one of the most charming new characters I’ve come across in a long time, is a cheerful psychopath bent on seeking vengeance (or as she likes to think of herself, a vigilante). Mariana Enriquez, Our Share of Night (Hogarth) What a strange and luminous novel. Mariana Enriquez stunned with her collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, and Our Share of Night is just as fantastic (and fantastical). Beginning in Argentina in the years of the dictatorship, Our Share of Night follows a father and son on a grief-driven road trip as they mourn the loss of the woman who united them, her dangerous (and possibly immortal) family close in pursuit. A dark vampiric noir that heralds a new era in South American horror. Paz Pardo, The Shamshine Blind (Atria) Paz Pardo’s The Shamshine Blind is one of the more exciting debuts to hit in early 2023, a heady mix of high-concept speculative fiction, alternative history, and hardboiled detective fiction. In an alternate 2009, a new chemical compound that can elicit targeted human emotions has been weaponized in war and made ubiquitous for recreational purposes, upending the global and social orders. Amidst the new chaos, a small city enforcement agent gets put on the trail of a new product, a trail that points in the direction of a much broader conspiracy. Pardo’s novel is full of wit and wild invention and is sure to leave readers wanting more. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief Pilar Quintana, Abyss (Bitter Lemon) A young girl grapples with the complexities of the adult world in this moody psychological thriller. Her mother is deeply depressed, flourishing only when tending to her plants or in the arms of her lover, and her father is older, absent, and unable to process emotions. The father finds out about the lover, who disappears, and the family heads to a modern home in the Columbian mountains to recover their intimacy; the home, like the mother, is beautiful and cold, and its former mistress went out one night in her car and never returned… Claire Jiménez, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez? (Grand Central) In this moving take on the vanished woman trope, Ruthy Ramirez disappears on her way home from school at age 13, leaving behind a family in tatters. Twelve years later, she seems to have reappeared—on a trashy reality show called “Catfight.” Is it Ruthy? Where has she been? And will she and her family ever reforge their bonds? Leopoldo Gout, Piñata (Tor Nightfire) This stunningly crafted possession novel is rooted in Aztec history and Nahua religious practice, with an ancient Aztec vessel as the conduit for a powerful spirit seeking to avenge the victims of colonialism. Piñata follows an architect and her two daughters, first in Mexico City, then in New York City, pursued by the spirit all the while, as Gout examines the classic possession tale—an adolescent girl, given powers through her liminal state—and reframes it as a response to racism and the erasure of history and culture. Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker’s Magician (Agora) In the second book of Pelayo’s Chicago Saga, an old movie palace and an icon of horror film culture may be the keys to solving a gruesome new homicide. Pelayo brings out the city’s gothic culture with loving care and plots an invigorating mystery with compelling characters. –DM Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio (Zando) Part of a new wave of haunted house horror that continues to expand and redefine the genre, Monstrilio is about a woman who creates a monster from a piece of her dead son’s lung, feeding it bloody sacrifices as it grows into the image of her long-gone child. Her monstrilio is loved, cared for, and wholly monstrous. But are not the monsters among us also capable (and deserving) of love? Read this if you liked Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home! Mercedes Rosende, The Hand that Feeds You Translated by Tim Gutteridge (Bitter Lemon) Set in Montevideo, Uruguay, from where Mercedes Rosende also hails, The Hand That Feeds You is the sequel to Rosende’s much-lauded Crocodile Tears. Ursula, Rosende’s heroine, is now in possession of all the loot from an armored truck, with robbers, cops, and PIs hot in pursuit. Ursula has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and given the ineptitude of her pursuers, she’s bound to triumph in the end, but how she does it? Comedic thriller gold. V. Castro, The Haunting of Alejandra (Del Rey) V. Castro’s heroine is haunted by the spirit of La Llorena—or, at least, an ancient evil that has found a way to embody a folk legend. She must go to a curandera and process her personal and generational trauma before she can even hope to be free of the demon possessing her, in what also functions as a perfect metaphor for clearing the fog of depression and seeing the societal structures and history that contribute to our present-day malaise. Vincent Tirado, We Don’t Swim Here (Sourcebooks Fire) A YA ghost story that’s also a great excuse to stay out of the pool! In Tirado’s latest, a teenage girl who loves swimming moves to a rural town where swimming is Verboten, despite a lovely lake and the shells of several public pools. Why have so m? any of her fellow students worried about water? And why have so many of them died? Rodrigo Rey Rosa, The Country of Toó Translated by Stephen Henighan (Biblioasis) The Cobra is a reluctant would-be assassin recruited to take care of a troublesome environmental activist. When he finds himself on the run and presumed dead, he joins the Mayan struggle against the violence of developers, but will he ever see his young child, held hostage by his spymasters, again? Juan Goméz Barcena, Not Even the Dead Translated by Katie Whittemore (Open Letter) Goméz Barcena’s Not Even the Dead is a hallucinatory trip through the frontier days of northern Mexico, as a soldier who agrees to the proverbial ‘one last job’ finds himself on the heels of a supposed heretic who may just be a prophet. The story travels through a vivid, haunting landscape that seems to transcend time. This is a deeply imagined novel and one you won’t soon forget. –DM Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate (Random House) Both of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s parents worked in radio, so perhaps that’s part of the inspiration behind this bonkers ode to sound engineering and the (literal magical) power of the human voice. Silver Nitrate features a sound editor and a has-been actor as they befriend an elderly icon from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, only to find themselves drawn into a vast conspiracy to harness the magic of the silver screen and bring an occult-obsessed Nazi back from the dead. This book has everything, and I could not recommend it enough! Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte (Berkley) I loved Isabel Cañas’ lush, gothic debut, The Hacienda, and I’m psyched for her follow-up, set on the Texas-Mexico border during the 1840s, and featuring two childhood friends reunited in a battle against the undead. John Manuel Arias, Where There Was Fire In 1968 Costa Rica, a fruit plantation burns after a family argument. Decades later, the family is still riven by their secrets. What caused the fire? What happened to the family’s patriarch? And what truths will characters learn about themselves, trapped with their thoughts and unpredictable company during an epic hurricane? View the full article

Nicole Kotsianas was a Garden State girl, born and bred. “Jersey through and through,” she told anyone who asked, as if it wasn’t already abundantly clear. In high school, she drove a dirty white 1990 Buick Century her grandfather had given her, with cowskin interiors and the fuzzy dice—the “Buey Beast.” Her hairstyle, complete with bangs, harked back to her days as a teenager holding a lighter aloft for Bruce Springsteen, who had attended her same school. When, as an adult, she finally made it out to Los Angeles, she wandered down to the Venice boardwalk and strolled past head shops and haunted houses and didgeridoo-playing Rastafarians. It reminded her of the Jersey shore, only with more weed. Nicole’s employer, a corporate security and investigations outfit called K2 Intelligence, didn’t discriminate much when deciding which clients to take on. They’d help an unsavory regime with as much gusto as they mustered for a widow who’d been bilked of her savings. For a time, they’d even asked some pointed questions on behalf of Harvey Weinstein, in the months before he was arrested, which earned them a few cycles of bad press. Around the firm’s offices in Manhattan, K2 investigators sometimes referred to the company as “the CIA for the corporate world,” which could be interpreted as a compliment or a slight, depending on one’s perspective. Nicole worked on the Investigations and Disputes Team, where there were more women than men. Jules Kroll, K2’s founder, liked it that way; he believed that women were better listeners. Most of Nicole’s work was tied up with the kind of meat-and-potatoes research that comprised the bulk of her team’s caseload: due diligence for companies, asset searches, and investigations for high-net-worth individuals, a specific kind of deep-pocketed client. Hollywood, and this half-formed slip of a case that had landed on her lap in October 2017, felt so foreign. It had come to her from a lawyer in LA whose client, a well-known Hollywood movie producer, was being impersonated. But when Nicole looked into it in those first few days the whole thing struck her as a bit off and, as far as cases went, even a little bit weak. The lawyer’s client was Amy Pascal, who had produced Molly’s Game and the Ghostbusters reboot. Pascal was a big deal, but the extent of the impersonation didn’t seem to add up to a whole lot. Someone pretending to be Pascal was making calls around town—Hollywood was a “town,” Nicole now learned, a small and tidy place with its own etiquette and language. In some of the conversations, the fake Pascal flirted with the men on the other end of the line. But the caller was also tentative, like someone toying with an idea whose true shape she hadn’t quite grasped. Nicole thought it sounded a little like the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which had erupted in the press that very month, with the gender dynamic powerfully inverted: an exceptionally influential woman was taking advantage of her position to lure unsuspecting—and, most importantly, unknown and powerless—men into awkward compromises. Yet, compared with the firestorm erupting around Weinstein, this was penny-ante stuff. Probably just a weird lady somewhere pulling a prank, she thought; a few phone calls here and there, none of them were very long, and they didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Now and again, the fake Pascal was said to have probed about people’s availability to work on nonexistent projects. Bizarre, Nicole thought, but no one had been robbed of any money—not even Pascal, a multimillionaire and the obvious financial mark. The real Amy Pascal had been targeted before. Pascal had built an illustrious career in Hollywood. Beginning as a secretary at a production company, she had risen to become the vice president for production at 20th Century Fox and ultimately the chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Along the way she had earned a reputation as a hit-maker, involved in some of the most successful movie rollouts of all time, including the 2012 Skyfall, the first James Bond movie to gross over $1 billion at the box office. After a decade at Sony, her reign came to an abrupt and humiliating end in 2014, when a previously unknown group from North Korea, calling itself the “Guardians of Peace,” hacked into Sony’s computers. The group released a trove of private data, including scores of embarrassing emails between Pascal and famous actors, like Angelina Jolie and Meryl Streep. In an instant, Pascal, whom Forbes had once ranked as the twenty-eighth most powerful woman in the world, was brought down hard, and she had been trying to rebuild her reputation since. Now she was in the crosshairs again, and needed to nip it in the bud quickly. Nicole had a performative streak. Once she got going, she was not inclined to stop. Her high school classmates voted her “most dramatic,” and she was a runner-up for “Class Chatterbox.” Maybe it was the years of theater—six years in Annie in an off-Broadway production, nine shows a week, when for a while it seemed like she might make a career of it. Then there was the Model United Nations. And in college Speech and Debate, the art and science of linguistic persuasion. She spoke quickly, ideas flowing, connections hopscotching. She could build an argument or hurl an insult with equal measure. She was also practical, a doer with a mind for details and numbers, graphs and flow-charts, and cold logic that binds them. She had always planned on studying communications at Emerson College after high school, but when the dot-com bubble burst and gutted her father’s investments she settled for Rutgers, the New Jersey state school, where she studied economics. In hindsight, she came to view it as the best decision she’d ever been forced to make. She immersed herself in the bustle of the Daily Targum, the country’s second-oldest collegiate newspaper, whose student journalists had produced award-winning coverage. She became the paper’s opinion editor and sat on the editorial board. An imaginary future spooled out before her in which she might one day become a war correspondent. In the end, the lure of home was too strong—and it seemed like newspapers were dying by the dozens. After graduating, she got a job in Manhattan probing securitizations and derivatives for a subsidiary of the Financial Times that offered a premium service for paying customers, and later for a bond-rating agency doing qualitative research. She fell in love with finance. But as much as she felt the lure of the city, she also knew that one day she would return to the suburbs of New Jersey, and settle there in her very own “oasis.” Over drinks at the annual Christmas party one year, she started chatting with the K2 investigators, whose firm shared a bathroom on the same floor. This “journalism” job wasn’t really journalism and she was growing tired of it. K2 wasn’t journalism, either, but she was intrigued by what they were doing, and whether it might be an opportunity to put her investigative talents to good use for better pay. K2 hired her in 2015. Most of her work was focused on white-collar crime. Fraud. Identity theft. Even impersonation. By 2017, she and her husband, Anthony, a Manhattan litigator, had one small child and another was on the way. At thirty-three, she was providing for her family. This was her perfect life. * One of the most influential women in Hollywood, Amy Pascal existed on the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, yet here she was entrusting the fate of her public persona, and perhaps her private one as well, to an unknown investigator on the other side of the country. Maybe that was by design; the “town” was small. As she began her investigation, Nicole heard variations on the same basic story: “Amy Pascal” was calling industry professionals inquiring about their availability for work. The conversations had turned awkward and, in some cases, oddly flirtatious. She got her hands on a few short voice mail recordings but they added very little. Nicole needed something more to go on. And then, one day in October 2017, Nicole’s office phone rang. A distraught father was on the other end. He told the investigator about his twenty-six-year-old son, Will, who was right now stranded in Jakarta, caught up in something gone horribly wrong involving Amy Pascal. “He thinks he’s working on this project,” the father, Fred Strathmann, said. “Something doesn’t seem right.” While Will Strathmann had been running around on his Indonesian goose chase, Fred and Francy Strathmann had made their own inquiries. Fred took a closer look at the websites and emails of his son’s supposed benefactor, Amy Pascal. He had found a number for Pascal’s office in LA and placed a call. He explained to an assistant that Will was working with Ms. Pascal on a project in Indonesia for which he hadn’t yet been paid. Almost immediately he was patched through to one of Pascal’s assistants, who delivered a series of revelations: Amy Pascal was not involved in any projects in Indonesia. And Fred Strathmann wasn’t the first person to call—though he was the first to identify the connection to Indonesia. Pascal’s identity had been compromised by some unknown criminal enterprise and the Los Angeles County district attorney had already opened a preliminary investigation. Pascal had hired a private investigator in New York. The assistant was sympathetic and said she would put Fred in touch with all of them. It was 2 p.m. in Pennsylvania, where Will had grown up and where his parents still lived, when Fred began frantically calling and texting his son. Will’s initial reaction to the revelation that he had been conned was denial: he accused his father of inventing a story of fraud and deception, in order to lure him home for some as-yet-unknown purpose. It simply made no sense, he pointed out. What on earth would compel someone to invent such a complex and elaborate scheme? The hours and hours of telephone conversations? The hotels in Indonesia that, in some cases, had been prepaid for him? The pages and pages of nondisclosure agreements, logistics packets, itineraries, and emails outlining every aspect of his three trips, down to the dour temperament of a shabbily clad Indonesian driver with horrible English. There was simply no way it could not be real. Suspended between fear and rage, alternating in those first few minutes from shock to incomprehension, he tried to explain these complexities to his father, who was unmoved. But as dawn approached, the strength of his father’s love and concern proved overpowering, and a crack appeared in the artifice. And as it did, fear settled in. Will’s phone rang just minutes after he hung up with his father. The LA district attorney told him he needed to make his way to the U.S. embassy. Moments later his phone rang a third time. The woman on the other end of the line said her name was Nicole Kotsianas and she was an investigator from K2 Intelligence, a corporate security firm in New York City. On the other side of the world, Will sat alone on the hotel bed, his phone to his ear, wondering if he was being watched. He turned his ire on this supposed investigator, Nicole. He asked her: How could he be sure that she, in fact, wasn’t part of . . . whatever this was? Then his anger gave way to a wave of cascading fears. He wondered whether he would even be able to make it out of Jakarta safely. Nicole urged him to skip the visit to the U.S. embassy and get to the airport as quickly as he could. He took an Uber, leaving his hotel room just after two in the morning, and used his phone to buy a ticket home. He spoke to Nicole again as the now-familiar scenery passed by, and she tried to reassure him again that she was on his side. At the airport he waited for three hours in a large outdoor amphitheater, hemmed in by wire fencing and guards, watching the milling crowd until, at 6:30 a.m., half an hour after he had been scheduled to meet Mr. Rusdi at the hotel, he finally boarded an Ariana Afghan Airlines flight. Fake Amy had already called him three times, and sent several messages and a voice mail. “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.” More messages poured in as he listened to the airline attendants run through routine security protocols. The reminder to fasten his seat belt felt oddly comforting. He spent the flight to Japan staring out the window, running through worst-case scenarios; even after landing he worried that she, his Amy, would find a way to cancel the final leg of his journey home. If Amy was capable of creating a completely fabricated world for him in Jakarta, he wondered, what wasn’t she capable of? Will didn’t sleep for four days after arriving home. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life. The criminals knew virtually everything about him: his parents’ names, his address and bank account information, his work history and his contacts. And those long hours of conversations with “Amy” had at times veered into deeply personal, revealing territory. On the fifth day, his phone rang. It was Amy. He stared at the screen and let it ring. She didn’t leave a message. *** Excerpted from The Con Queen of Hollywood: The Hunt for an Evil Genius, bhy Scott J. Johnson. Published by Harper. Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. View the full article

I’ve always loved Sunny Randall. Introduced at the dawn of the Millennium, Robert B. Parker’s youngest—and only female—PI is also his most modern creation. Divorced and sex-positive, Sunny has always enjoyed the company of men, yet she’s never needed a male presence to complete her. Right out of the gate, she’s been unabashedly great at her job (In one of the first scenes I remember reading in 1999’s Family Honor, she impresses a chauvinistic would-be client with her shooting skills.) And she unapologetically puts that job first. At a time in which women were typically relegated to supporting roles in crime fiction, Sunny earned herself a place alongside such shining exceptions as Kinsey Millhone, VI Warshawski and Tess Monaghan—even though she was created by a man. Her effect has been lasting. Twelve years after Parker’s death, she’s still out there, solving crimes, dealing with an increasingly complicated world around her. And though she’s aged less than a decade in the past 23 years, Sunny has managed to stay thoroughly modern… in most ways. When I signed on to write the 11th novel in the Sunny Randall series (taking over from the talented Mike Lupica, who re-introduced Sunny to the world after an 11-year hiatus, with 2018’s Blood Feud) the one anachronistic thing I noticed about this 39-ish woman was her lack of online engagement. In a world in which 75 percent of adults are on some sort of social media—with Sunny’s demographic representing the second largest group—I figured there had to be a reason why she wasn’t tweeting out her witticisms, chatting with her dad on Facebook messenger, posting photos of her artwork on Instagram, or making reels of her adorable dog Rosie for TikTok. And while she certainly does seem to have no need for Tinder—or any dating app, really—it’s a little surprising that a woman of her worldly tastes hasn’t at least given Raya a try. For a new legacy writer like me, bringing a classic and beloved series lead into the modern age is a balancing act. How can you maintain the integrity of a strong and multi-faceted character who was introduced at the time of flip phones, while still acknowledging that much has happened since 2007, when her creator released his final Sunny Randall book, Spare Change? I mean, back then, MySpace was barely a thing (and it was completely understandable that Sunny wasn’t signed up.) I decided to explore all of this by writing a story in which our intrepid PI is hired by a woman who manages influencers—and, as a result, becomes immersed in the world she’s managed to (mostly) avoid until now. My first step was to reread several of the earlier books, in order to figure out what Sunny’s feelings might be toward social media. Clearly, she knows what an influencer is. In fact, there’s mention of a local social media star named Carly Meme (nee Carlotta Espinoza) in Lupica’s Payback (2021). And even if there wasn’t, Sunny doesn’t live under a rock. Someone who has survived lockdown without social media has to be avoiding it for a reason, I reasoned. And it should be a compelling one. I decided that, after a bad Facebook experience in her early 20s, this skeptical investigator decided she had no need for online “friends” or followers. And being a stubborn person as well as a contrarian (remember, she’s a Bostonian who hates baseball!) she’s stuck to her guns over the years. Certain family members, though, seem more susceptible to the allure of Insta-fame. Though she has little contact with her sister Elizabeth or her mother, I imagine they both have active online presences—they really do sound like selfie queens to me. It might irk the two of them that Sunny isn’t a follower of theirs – and their efforts to convert Sunny would definitely make her dig in her high heels even more. I saw an opportunity to illustrate this when I was writing Bad Influence. In Revenge Tour, Sunny broke up with detective Jesse Stone—leaving her single for the first time in a long while. In Bad Influence, she reveals that she actually does have a never-used Instagram account—which her sister Elizabeth created for her after the split, signing her up for a dating app as well. Sunny, of course, used neither. But it did force her to reflect on her sister’s good intentions. She does just that in an early scene, when she logs onto Instagram for the first time in many months in order to direct message her new client, and remembers the circumstances leading to the creation of her account. [Elizabeth] even posted a few shots of my paintings, Sunny recalls. A gesture that I must say I was moved by. Of course, she wasn’t moved enough to try the dating app. While she didn’t delete the account altogether, she renamed it @RosieRandall and switched out Elizabeth’s curated photos for glamour shots of her dog. Bringing Sunny into the modern world was an interesting way for me to get to know her. Discovering her feelings about influencing (Harder work than she thought), Only Fans (Good business model! Sunny doesn’t judge.), and paid product endorsements staged to look like regular posts (Okay, maybe she does judge sometimes…) made it easier for me to understand how she’d relate to life in general. As a person who disdains social media—using it only as tool in researching her clients—Sunny is clearly a free thinker, who takes more pleasure in the real world than the virtual one. But on a different level, she knows also knows more than most of us what it feels like to be truly alone. No matter how much time she spends with her BFF Spike (who is notably not on social media either—unless he just doesn’t talk to Sunny about it) her beloved dad Phil, or whatever man she’s involved with at the moment, Sunny goes home to a life in which there are no dinging notifications, no ongoing gossipy group chats on messenger, no blush-worthy compliments from an unexpected Instagram follower. She’s never tagged in anyone’s Facebook memory. And when she finds herself blessed with great news or coping with personal tragedy, she’ll never know what it feels like to receive congratulations or words of encouragement from hundreds of friends – many of whom she’s never met before. In fact, she probably finds that entire concept as weird and disturbing as most of us did 23 years ago. In that way, I discovered, Sunny Randall truly is a classic lone detective. *** View the full article

I never knew my grandfather, Alpha LaRue Eberhart; he died long before I was born. But I knew of him through my father’s stories, along with sepia-toned photograph albums from my dad’s childhood. Tall, with perfect posture, a regal nose, and a twinkle in his eye, A.L., as he was called, wore bespoke suits, enjoyed a bourbon and a fine cigar, and took his family and friends on sporting trips to the big rivers and lakes of northern Minnesota and Canada. They’d fish for their dinner, tell stories by the campfire, and sleep under the stars. It was he who endowed his children—along with me and my cousins—with our love of wild places. I knew he was known across the country as a motivating, yet kind, leader in the early meatpacking industry. In 1901, George Hormel attracted A.L. away from the giant Swift & Company to join him in Austin, Minnesota where, together through twenty years, they’d build Hormel into an international brand. He and George Hormel were each big men with big ideas. A third character on our family stage was Ransome Josiah Thomson. A wily, pointy-eyed, small man, Ransome (nicknamed Cyclone for his excess energy), grew up in his grandparents’ small pioneer home in northern Iowa. After graduating from high school and obtaining classes in bookkeeping and stenography, Hormel hired Thomson as a bookkeeper, then promoted him to comptroller. While Hormel and Eberhart were securing new markets for Hormel meats and ramping up its growth, Thomson spent most of a decade embezzling nearly $1.2 Million from the company coffers ($18 Million today). This was national news. With his stealing, he erected a hybrid chicken farm-amusement park in the middle of nowhere that attracted as many as 60,000 visitors from across the country on a given weekend. By the time Thomson’s embezzlement was discovered in 1921, the Hormel company had nearly been brought to its knees and my grandfather was forced to resign. All these facts were known to me from childhood. For me the real mystery at the center of this crime story was: who was my grandfather, really, and was he complicit in the embezzlement, as some rumors suggested? While I built a successful career advising CEOs and their executive teams on how to change their companies into places where both business and people could thrive, I watched executives through nearly forty years and came to see how men in power tick. I saw their ambition and their gifts. I learned about their fears. I knew how their strengths could sometimes be their downfalls. I watched how they used—or misused—their power. While crafting this family memoir about scandal and greed in the early meatpacking industry, I would bring both the heart of a granddaughter and the eyes of a consultant to the story. I would need both. To do justice to these men I’d never met, I needed to walk around in their skins, trying to understand their motivations decisions. * White collar crime—as well as con men—have been around forever. As Donald Cressy famously suggests in his “fraud triangle,” all it takes is three conditions: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. Most of us have probably experienced at least one of these. Through nearly a decade, Ransome Thomson exhibited all three. I believe his pressure was primarily internal—the pressure he’d long felt to escape a life of hard farm labor like that of his father and grandfather; the pressure to be more like George Hormel and A.L. Eberhart in their fine suits and executive offices; the pressure for status and power. He had opportunity because he alone oversaw the mechanics of the Hormel accounting system. The company was growing fast. Thomson was a hard worker and eschewed vacations; he was smart, efficient, and easily trusted. He oversaw the transfers of money between accounts and between banks. None of the company’s bankers raised an alarm. When the accountants Ernst and Ernst were brought in to audit the books, they found no flaws. Even the federal government had eyes on the Hormel accounts during the first world war when it took some control of the production and distribution of food. I can only speculate about Thomson’s rationalization, but it likely came from seeing those above him doing better than he and believing he deserved the same. Maybe a little cash siphoned off wouldn’t be missed. If he didn’t take it while cash was plentiful, when would he? But Thomson was impulsive and compulsive, too, and suffered from high anxiety. Like most con men, as the years went by without being caught, he became more and more emboldened. While companies today may have better guardrails, white collar fraud continues. Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes’ terrific book What Makes Them Do It—Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal details the likes of Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay of Enron, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco, and Scott London of KPMG. Most executive fraudsters look like our next door neighbors. They often don’t think what they’re doing is wrong. They don’t set out to be criminals. Thomson, like those today, got away with his stealing under the eyes of skilled executives who missed the signs. Most of us have denied something we didn’t want to see. We revere “heroes” in our midst and we hold tightly to our myths about them. In conversation with Soltes, I understood that if companies were to fully eradicate every possible malfeasance, most would cripple under the cost. If George Hormel and his board, on which my grandfather sat, called in the best accountants and heard nothing from their bankers across the country, perhaps there should be no felt shame. Embezzlements happen. But the emotional trauma of this crime that led to my grandfather’s firing and cratered his wealth took up as trauma in my father and passed to me. My grandfather spent his remaining years rehired by big meatpackers and he never lost his legion of industry friends, but if our family’s American dream was born in Austin, Minnesota, it died there too, in 1922, siphoned off through the veins of Thomson’s embezzlement. So was my grandfather a complicit in this crime? I’ve had to reconcile competing influences as I’ve come to terms with my complicated family history. While many facts in this case are easy to find, others were a private matter. Within my father’s literary archives at Dartmouth, I came across four cardboard boxes he’d kept of my grandfather’s personal letters and business documents in the late 1920s. As I pored through those boxes, I read my grandfather’s words and heard his voice. I could taste his bourbon, breathe in the smell of bass grilling over an open fire. I felt his strong love for his family and friends. I found myself treading lightly at the start, not wanting to sully my impression of my forebearer. But we can’t write memoir that way. We have to dig in, press for answers from those who will talk to us, read through sources we can get our hands on. If the crime was what led to my grandfather’s firing, what was he guilty of? What I learned, grappled with, and ultimately reconciled is a conclusion that is not black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. The story speaks to the complexity of men in power, their human desire to hold onto their myths and see what they want to see. Like most white collar crime—the space between these polarities is where the real story resides. *** View the full article

About four years ago, when I was sharing a few chapters of my novel-in-progress 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster with my creative writing group, I was met with extremely harsh criticism from some of the members, mainly due to my main character, Trickster, they found her too deceitful, too violent, with no redeeming quality in her. 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is inspired by the life of my great-aunt, who was one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea. She had lived through the most tragic, dramatic period of modern Korean history. When I decided to write a book about her, however, she wasn’t able to tell me a coherent story of her life in Pyongyang due to her Alzheimer’s disease which was rapidly progressing. Thus, in the end, the novel became a mix of my own wild imagination and my research on relevant historical contexts. And yet, some of the important characteristics of Trickster came from those of my late great-aunt. She was so far removed from most Korean women of her generation. She was a woman on the move: she had left her husband and children behind in North Korea, for which she was called a bad mother, a bad wife even by her own sibling in South Korea. Depending on your perspective, she was a flamboyant storyteller, or just a big fat liar, whose adventurous anecdotes about her time in China often verged on magical realism. She was also a proud, arrogant woman. Whenever there were people around, she naturally dominated every conversation, and flaunted nonstop her knowledge of history and her mastery of three different languages. She was so unapologetic, so audacious in her own quiet way that at times she even came across as emotionless. Never in my life have I met a halmoni, grandmother, quite like her. Zenia from The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood, in her 1994 interview with Charlie Rose, says that a long, long time ago there were fascinating villainesses in literature, such as Lady Macbeth and Becky Sharp, the designing, clever, and manipulative adventurers who make their way by their wits. She claims, however, around the Second World War they all disappeared; the spirit of the era required its ideal women to be staunch supporters of their men at war, reliable and ready to build families when the men returned home. According to Atwood, the idea of women as angels on the pedestal, the idea that women are by nature virtuous and nurturing and sedentary, is a deeply flawed 19th-century view on sex, which serves as the antithesis to the idea of men as naughty daredevils on the rove. She compares this glorified view of women to foot-binding, a practice that makes women smaller than life by depriving them of the bad parts. In The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood creates a main character out of all the purely bad parts that had been stolen from women for so long. Zenia breaches every moral code expected among women: she constantly deceives her friends with her kaleidoscopic lies; she screws money out of them; she even steals their men. What makes Zenia such a formidable villainess is that she does not subscribe to any form of female solidarity or sisterhood that most women themselves consider inviolable. The only rule she plays by is that there is no rule she can’t breach. In plain truth, Zenia is hard to like. Whether Zenia is likable or not, however, bears no importance to me as a reader; Zenia is not there to be examined as my potential roommate but there to be a trickster to hook me in, to make me keep turning the pages and obsess. Margaret Atwood quotes John Keats who thought that Shakespeare had gotten as much delight out of creating Iago as he did Imogen. Atwood even goes further to claim that he had probably gotten more joy crafting Iago: “Because we all know what play Iago is from, but what play is Imogen [in]?” Lila (or Elena) from the Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante Like Zenia, Lila, the wily protagonist of My Brilliant Friend, is a born charmer at whom men relentlessly throw themselves like moths dashing into the fire. With her cunning intelligence and peculiar beauty, she turns heads and stirs controversy wherever she goes, attracting both fervent admirers and haters. She is unafraid of fighting men’s violence with violence – she carries a sharp shoemaker’s knife to deter the unwanted advances of townsmen – and she openly describes herself as mean with a smile. We as readers observe Lila through the eyes of the narrator Elena, Lila’s closest friend, whose first name, by no coincidence, is the same as that of the author’s pseudonym, Elena Ferrante. Elena comes in second after Lila in many things in life, including academic excellence and men’s attention, and often suffers caught between deep affection and jealousy toward Lila. In the history of world literature, there has been no serial fiction that explores two women’s friendship with such depth, complexity, and extensiveness as the Neapolitan Quartet by Ferrante. But what makes the quartet distinctive isn’t simply just the unconventional character of Lila. In The Story of the Lost Child, the final installment of the series, Elena commits the ultimate crime of a writer: she utilizes for her writing the vulnerable true history of someone very close to her, against the person’s wish. Out of fear that Lila may be working on a masterful book and thus surpass her as a writer, Elena steals the story of Lila’s life and turns it into a novel, betraying her old promise to Lila not to write about her. This metafictional duplicity of Elena seems to tell us that the dark sides or bad parts of female complexity aren’t merely rooted in viragos like Zenia or Lila, but in fact lurk in all of us. Amy Dunne from Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn In various interviews Gillian Flynn speaks of the early rejections the manuscript of Gone Girl received from editors who claimed that the readers of novels, mostly female, only want to read about female protagonists that are likeable, that they aspire to be. Amy Dunne isn’t indeed a lady most women wish to become. A mind-fucker of the first degree, Amy commits a murder and trap men with her elaborate lies with no sign of remorse. Growing up under the shadow of Amazing Amy, the perfected and fictionalized version of young Amy created by her parents, Amy Dunne has mastered how to separate her dark sides from her impeccable public persona. What makes Gone Girl stand out as an era-defining literary thriller is its audacity not to succumb to the pressure of moral values or marketability expected within society and industry. Unlike more conventional domestic-thriller hits, such as The Girl on the Train and Big Little Lies, in which the male villain meets his demise while conflicting female characters come to form cathartic solidarity at the end, Gone Girl does not offer a feel-good resolution. In Gone Girl, Amy Dunne, the heroine as well as the main villain of the story, gets to win and have the final say. Gillian Flynn admits that she has received a great deal of criticism on this unusual authorial choice. Certain readers are angered because they believe Flynn’s murderous and unrepenting heroine is a shame to womanhood. In defense of my violent, impenitent heroine Trickster from 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster, I quoted Flynn’s response to her critics: the notion that women are inherently good and nurturing is itself deeply sexist and limiting toward women. *** Featured image: John Singer Sargent’s Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889. View the full article

“Opposites attract” is a romantic adage that translates into numerous languages, exists in many cultures, and, thanks to an incredibly catchy Paula Abdul song, is well-known to anyone who was alive in the late Eighties. We all know pairings that seem too different to work: the extrovert and the introvert; the child of privilege and their working-class partner; the archetypal beauty and the beast. But when we remove pheromones and physical attraction from the equation, are we still drawn to those who are so different from us? Science tells us that people usually choose friends who share their interests, values, and world views. But many of us have companions with different cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds, who are from different generations, or have careers, hobbies, or interests far different than our own. In real life, these disparities may lead to rich and interesting friendships. In crime fiction, they often result in tension, strife, and even violence. I love exploring the complexities of female friendships in my novels. But I’ve never written such an unlikely duo as the pair featured in The Drowning Woman. While one character is a homeless woman forced to live in her car, the other is a wealthy society wife, shuttered in a seaside mansion by an abusive husband. Could two women from such disparate circumstances form a true friendship? Could they trust each other? Or is it all a ruse? From classics to modern bestsellers, crime fiction has no shortage of unlikely platonic pairings. Here are seven of my favorites. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith Tom Ripley has become an archetype of the charming, ambitious sociopath. In Highsmith’s novel, Tom is an insecure young man from a broken and abusive home. With no money or possessions of his own, Tom’s friendship with wealthy playboy Dickie Greenleaf soon moves from aspiration to obsession. When Dickie’s father sends Tom to Italy to bring Dickie home, things take a deadly turn. Skip the Matt Damon/Jude Law film adaptation and watch the French film, Purple Noon instead. It’s a sinister and stylish trip to 1960s Europe. Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby Ike Randolph is an ex-con, a black man who has overcome his violent past to build a solid, middle-class life. Buddy Lee is a white alcoholic with a criminal history of his own. The two men have little in common besides the dark chapters they’ve put behind them, and the fact that their sons – who were married to each other – have been murdered. This action thriller sees an unlikely friendship form between the two men as they seek to find out who committed the heinous slayings and exact their vengeance. As bullets fly and blood is spilled, the pair must grapple with personal and societal issues like homophobia, racism, and their shortcomings as fathers. The Hunted, by Roz Nay Reticent and damaged Stevie Erickson agrees to accompany her long-term boyfriend, Josh, to a dive camp in Africa where he has found a job. Overwhelmed by the exotic locale, Stevie is delighted when the couple meets Leo and Tamsin, a pair of seasoned and dashing European travelers. Stevie and Josh are entranced, delighted to bask in the glow of their new friends’ confidence and charisma. But a flirtation soon complicates things, and past truths surface, exposing a killer amongst them. And Stevie just might be the next victim. The Other Passenger, by Louise Candlish The friends in this sizzling page-turner meet on their idyllic riverboat commute to work. Jamie, is a gen Xer, happily married and living in a beautiful home, a gift from his wife’s wealthy parents. The titular other passenger is Kit, a hedonistic millennial, struggling to get ahead with his failed actress wife, Melia. Despite differing values and simmering jealousies, a friendship develops… until one day, Kit doesn’t show up for his commute. And the police want to talk to Jamie. Notes on a Scandal: (What Was She Thinking?), by Zoë Heller In the film version of this brilliant meta book, the unlikely friends are played by Cate Blanchett and Judy Dench. The casting alone tells you that this pair are unlikely besties. But when beautiful new art teacher, Sheba, embarks on an illicit affair with an underage student, she confides in veteran teacher Barbara Covett. Lonely and jealous, Barbara begins to write an account of the scandal, and her dark, obsessive motives soon become clear. Both the novel and the film are brilliant. White Ivy, by Susie Yang As a young girl growing up outside of Boston, Ivy Lin’s immigrant grandmother teaches her to steal. This affords Ivy the trappings of the cool suburban teen life she covets and captures the attention of wealthy, golden-boy Gideon Spyer. But when Ivy is sent to live with an aunt in China, the young romance is nipped in the bud. Years later, Ivy bumps into Gideon’s sister, Sylvia Spyer, and uses that friendship to reconnect with Gideon, and insert herself into their privileged orbit. But a ghost from the past appears in Sylvia’s boyfriend, Roux, who could destroy all Ivy has worked for. An Unthinkable Thing, by Nicole Lundrigan In this gothic thriller, eleven-year-old Tommie Ware is living happily with his aunt while his mother works as a live-in maid for the wealthy Henneberry family. When his aunt is brutally murdered, Tommie must move into the sprawling mansion with his mother and her enigmatic employers. There, he befriends Martin, the fifteen-year-old scion of the family. Much to Tommie’s confusion, Martin vacillates between acting as a kind big brother and a sadistic bully. The twisted games escalate until young Tommie is accused of a horrific crime. *** View the full article

One of my favorite lines about conspiracy theories is that when the famous director Stanley Kubrick was hired to fake the moon landing, he was such a perfectionist he insisted on shooting on location. That’s a funny one, but there are people who believe (maybe you) that Kubrick was hired by the government to film a fictitious moon landing and that he left six teasing clues in The Shining as proof he did. I learned all of this while researching conspiracy theories for Night Will Find You, a thriller about a missing girl that also examines our belief system—in higher powers, ghosts, science, psychic phenomenon, conspiracies—basically in things we can’t see or prove but believe anyway. Our era isn’t especially fraught with conspiracy theories, even though it feels like it. People have been building conspiracies since Nero was accused of setting Rome on fire and playing the fiddle while it burned. Can we even prove Nero played the fiddle? Who knows? Who cares? I can’t get behind the fake moon landing or the idea that the earth is a pancake. The conspiracy theories fostered by the likes of podcaster Alex Jones about Sandy Hook and the Holocaust are unspeakable. Unforgivable. But I can build up a froth about the government, and the rich and powerful, lying to us. This is the reason some conspiracies thrive in a “sensible” journalist like me—a legitimate lack of trust coupled with the problem that, sometimes, conspiracy theories turn out to be completely true. Yes, a long time ago, the Canadian government did hire a professor to create a “gaydar” machine so people who were gay could be identified and fired. In the ‘60s, the U.S. did secretly dose people with LSD in an experiment designed to achieve mind control. And the odds were that the astronauts who landed on the moon were most certainly going to die on their mission. That’s not something the government told us until years after the fact. Americans would never have stood behind such doubt. The powers that be thought we needed protecting, or more likely, they didn’t want to be accountable. Is this why the government won’t tell us everything they know about the manic UFO antics witnessed and reported by legitimate pilots? Why the stories about the flying objects shot down by the military just this past winter have simply dropped out of sight? Why the Pentagon felt the need to rename UFOS more elegantly to UAPs (Unexplained Aerial Phenomena)? I have so many questions. Herewith, a selection of conspiracy theories I can get on board with. Marilyn Monroe was murdered. Why would she kill herself in the nude? Why was there no glass of water by her bed at the crime scene if she swallowed a lethal number of pills? Why did it take an hour or more before the LAPD was called after she was found dead? Why would her housekeeper mysteriously begin washing the sheets she died on that morning? And why did the beachfront neighbors of Robert Kennedy’s brother-in-law report that sand got in their pools because a helicopter landed and helped Kennedy escape his lover’s crime scene (he was seen at Marilyn’s house the day she died). How much of the above is true? I don’t know for sure, but somebody does, and therein lies the frustration. A wish for justice. For fair play. In the case of Marilyn Monroe—and Princess Diana—no one, including me, wants to believe that someone who is extraordinary can die an ordinary and random death. Whatever happened to JFK, it isn’t what the government has told us. I’m a Texan. I stood in Dealey Plaza when I was eight years old and looked at the angle from the book depository window that at the time was marked with a big, dramatic X (until someone decided correctly that was tacky). I needed no forensics; I decided for myself that the shot was too tough to make. As an adult, I don’t buy that a magic bullet took a roller coaster ride through Kennedy and the governor of Texas and remained pristine. Even Lyndon Johnson didn’t believe in the single bullet theory. If that isn’t enough, I sat in a Chili’s restaurant with the late Jim Marrs, the author of the book on which Oliver Stone based his fascinating and conspiracy-laden JFK movie. Jim had offered to help me with some of my new thriller’s conspiracy theory research, and he conveniently lived in the small town where I grew up. His wife was with him at lunch that day, a lovely woman who hosted a book club for me once with cookies and deviled eggs decorated like black-eyed Susans. It wasn’t that Marrs, a New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and self-described “conspiracy factualist,” told me he was threatened by the government while writing the JFK book and that he was worried for his family’s life. It was that his wife confirmed it. That’s one degree of separation over a delicious cheeseburger, folks. The Denver International Airport is just … weird. The first problem—it was more than $2 billion over budget. Two billion. Where did that money go? OK, the airport is twice the size of Manhattan Island, but that number still gives plenty of life to the theories about underground tunnels and rooms nested in subterranean levels. For what purpose? There are many suppositions about that as well as the creepy ground-level art that greets travelers. One apocalyptic mural depicts a soldier with a gas mask and a machine gun. Grinning gargoyles loom over baggage claim. The red-hot eyed, 32-foot-tall blue horse sculpture, known as Blucifer to Denverites, rares up over the median of Peña Boulevard. The horse actually killed its maker in studio when a piece of it fell on him. The curse of the blue horse left such an imprint on me that the heroine of Night Will Find You is haunted by a vision of one that saves a friend’s life. The fashion industry makes small pockets in women’s clothing so we will buy more purses. This just makes sense. Why else am I unable to cram more than a credit card in my tiny pocket (that will fall out) if I have pockets at all? My husband, meanwhile, can tuck a wallet and keys and even a cellphone in his generous pants pockets. Like lemmings, women keep buying purses. The average purse retails for $160, and women have as many as nine to thirteen handbags in their closets. Some women pay as much for a single purse as it costs to buy a Tesla. We are hypnotized into believing we need different versions for summer, spring, winter, fall, work, casual, travel, weddings. We buy purses to the tune of at least $11 billion a year. We suffer spouses who ask, “Why do you need another purse?” It’s small pockets now, but the next thing you know, the government will start banning books and turn our world into The Handmaid’s Tale. *** View the full article

The inspiration for FINAL CUT, my murder mystery set behind-the-scenes of a Hollywood movie shoot that’s plagued by a string of disasters, came from my 27 years working as a costume designer and key costumer in the film industry — and realizing all the things that can go horribly wrong on a movie set, especially one that’s run without proper safety oversight. Since reading murder mysteries is (without question) my own favorite form of entertainment, I knew before I started writing that would be my genre of choice as an author. And I just thought that a movie set teetering on the brink of chaos was a good backdrop for a mystery because as the author, I can present the circumstances in a way that forces the characters in the story ask, “Are these accidents, or are they intentional attempts to sabotage the movie and cause harm to the cast and crew?” And yes, many of the situations I write about are based on real-life incidents. (That’s one of the first questions people ask me when I talk about the book.) Another question I’m frequently asked is, “How did you make the transition from costume designer to murder mystery author?” My answer to that surprises a lot of people: to me, that shift felt like a very natural progression. I always say I’ve been a storyteller for my entire professional life, but I started out on the visual side of the craft. That’s because costume design is all about storytelling; that’s what sets it apart from fashion design. Fashion is about satisfying the tastes of the commercial marketplace while costume design is about using clothing to help tell a story about a particular set of characters in a particular situation at a particular point in time. But full disclosure: I dreamed of being a writer long before I had any idea that costume design was a profession I could pursue. I wrote my own fan fiction for The Wind in the Willows when I was eight years old, not that I knew back then “fan fiction” was a thing. I only knew I loved that book, and I was sad when it ended. So I decided I was going to write my own adventures for Badger and Mole. I never stopped writing, but in college I became seriously interested in theater and was introduced to costume design as part of the curriculum. Before that, I didn’t know that such an occupation existed, and right away I was hooked because it combined so many of my interests—art, history, and obviously theater, the live action version of storytelling. I was also attracted to costume design because as a young person starting out in the workplace, I liked the idea of working in collaboration with a group of creative people toward a common goal. For me, that felt less scary than trying to make a living as a writer. After I graduated from the University of Virginia with my BA in Theater, I moved to New York City. I was 22 years old and had never lived in a city larger than Charlottesville, Virginia. To say I was a bit overwhelmed for the first year would be an understatement. Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland or Dorothy stepping into the Technicolor world of Oz come to mind as comparisons. At the same time, I was absolutely entranced by my new home. New York has an energy that seeps into your pores and becomes part of you; it happens organically. I began my design career as an assistant to costume designers who were already well established, like Patricia Zipprodt, a brilliant costume designer whose credits included the original productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Pippin, Cabaret, Chicago, and Sunday in the Park with George (to name only a few.) The training I received by working with talented people such as Patricia gave me a breadth of skills that served me throughout my career. After a few years, I began to design my own work at theaters and opera companies all over the country, including the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. Beverly Sills was the artistic director at that time, and she was one of my early professional mentors. I loved my work as a theater designer, collaborating with the directors of the various productions, the other designers, the artisans in the costume shops who made the clothing, and the actors. But in order to support myself in New York City, I was forced to double and triple-up on jobs, sketching for an opera in Minnesota at the same time a musical I was designing in Virginia was being made in the costume shop in Richmond, while technical rehearsals were in progress for an opera I designed at Lincoln Center. I still loved my work—the sketching, choosing fabrics, being in the costume shops, doing the actors’ fittings, seeing all our work come together on stage on opening night—that was thrilling. But I sometimes felt I couldn’t do my best work when my focus was split among several projects. I was grateful for the jobs, but I would have liked to be able to do just one job at a time. Then about 13 years into my career as a theatrical designer, I started to think about working in movies. I’m curious by nature: I’m always ready to learn or try something new if it sounds interesting. And there was this voice at the back of my mind that said, “If you want to see what it’s like to work in film, don’t put it off. Dive in and give it a try.” So even though I had become one of those smug New Yorkers who said I’d never move to the West Coast, that’s exactly what I did. I packed a bag and put my cat Mickey in his sherpa travel tote, and we moved to Los Angeles (although I didn’t let go of my NY apartment for 2 years just in case my Hollywood experiment didn’t pan out.) But as luck would have it—and the luck of good timing certainly played a role — I was given a wonderful opportunity more quickly than I could have hoped or imagined. Two weeks after I landed in Los Angeles, I was offered a job on an A-list feature film, The Addams Family, as assistant costume designer to Ruth Myers, and I was accepted as a member of the film union, the Costume Designers Guild. I will say that my theatrical training prepared me to take advantage of this opportunity, though I soon found I had a long list of new skills that I needed to learn—pronto. Movies and stage productions are very different from each other in the ways they’re made. In the theater, all the costumes have to be ready by opening night, and you get to see the finished product—the show performed onstage in front of an audience. Movies are made piecemeal, one shot at a time. A single scene is often made up of many separate shots that may be filmed on different days and possibly over the course of many months. And you don’t get to see the final product until the cast and crew screening, long after you’ve finished working on the movie. But as I became familiar with that piecemeal way of putting a story together, I began to develop a different perspective about the fundamental process of storytelling. I had the good fortune to work on several amazing projects that turned out to be good movies, including Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, The Firm, A Bronx Tale, The Aviator, Wag the Dog, Hairspray, Angels & Demons, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and X-Men Days of Future Past. I learned a lot on the sets of those movies, watching the story being created shot by shot in 3 dimensions. And I also learned by breaking down the screenplays I worked on, as I charted the scenes and costume changes on paper. Those experiences gave me a new awareness of and appreciation for story structure. That’s probably another reason the transition from costumer to writer felt seamless (no pun intended.) Now I look at the writing process more cinematically, in a way. I’m an outliner, but I think of my outline almost like the daily shot list of camera set-ups on a movie. When I’m writing, I have the movie version playing in my head, though there are always reshoots and plenty of editing required along the way. One more reason the shift from costumer to author felt natural to me: I finally listened to my very wise literary agent, Ann Collette, who urged me repeatedly to “write what I know.” After all, I spent nearly 30 years doing the research. And I have to admit the unique world of moviemaking provides a vivid backdrop for an endless number of stories that could bubble up from that creative stew of people, activities, and locations. To quote the actor Ben Mendelsohn, “Crewing and being on film sets is kind of like being in a carnival, with carnie folk.” Sounds like a good opening line for a novel, doesn’t it? *** View the full article

Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by stories about nomadic people, or those who are otherwise living off the beaten path: grifters, circus performers, con artists. If the character is doing life in a nonconformist, unstructured way, I want to read about it. I don’t think my interest is unusual; just look at the performance of books like On the Road; Eat, Pray, Love; and Wild. We love to believe that it’s possible for the most normcore among us to get off this hamster wheel and fling themselves into the great unknown. Like Frodo exiting the Shire, we envision ourselves unencumbered by the shackles of our 9-5s—our mortgages—our monthly expenses—the need to make dinner at six o’clock sharp—the need to wear certain clothes for certain occasions. Our daily lives may have modernized, but there’s still that residual ancient person in all of us who wants to sail to the horizon to see if the earth is flat. I wrote most of You Can Trust Me during the pandemic, when those shackles felt extra heavy. I’d had the character of Summer on the back burner for years, and I was dying to write just the right story for her. And so the book was born, along with Leo, a sister-companion to share her love of the open road. Sometimes I read a book and know the author feels the same way. Whether through the plot or the characterization, I intuit that the storyteller is a kindred spirit with a taste for stories about adventure, offbeat lifestyles, and characters with an unquenchable inner restlessness. Below is a list of some of my favorite stories about adventurers, bohemians, nomads, runaways, and other modern rebels. Anywhere You Run by Wanda Morris Set in the 1960s, this masterpiece of a historical thriller follows two sisters on the run, expelled from their hometown by reasons out of their control. Violet has that restless, uncontainable spirit we associate with freedom and rebellion, but as a Black woman in Mississippi, her choices are limited. When she ends up the accidental perpetrator of a crime against a white man, she finds herself on the run, contending with her own nature and that of the world around her. Meanwhile, her sister is on the run for a different reason: She’s found herself with child out of wedlock, and she flees social shame. Both women are pursued by a man with dark plans up his sleeve, and the runaway stakes edge up as the train goes off the tracks. This book was intrinsically about these two sisters, their similarities, differences, and the strength found in both. The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware Hal, a young, destitute woman making a semi-dishonest living as a tarot reader, finds herself at the center of a family drama when she’s accidentally written into the will of a stranger. About to become homeless and hunted by dangerous men to whom she owes money, she decides to use her skills at reading people to defraud the family and attempt to collect on the inheritance. They’ve clearly got the wrong girl, but since no other girl has stepped up to accept the money, she may as well try, right? She ends up neck deep in the family’s sordid past and way out of her depth. After all, she’s accustomed to reading people well enough to construct fake fortunes for them, but living among them and playing an extended part may be beyond her. Her restless, haunted nature plays in her favor, but there are forces at work she doesn’t understand. Pretty Things by Janelle Brown The daughter of a con artist (one of my favorite tropes) becomes embroiled in a series of escalating cons of her own to pay for her now-sick mother’s cancer treatment. The way the characters drifted from grift to grift felt off the rails, with escalating stakes as we rack in betrayal after betrayal. Nina, the protagonist, has spent a lifetime under the tutelage of an accomplished con artist, her own mother, and now finds herself running her own game accompanied by the mysterious Lachlan. This setup is obviously ripe for twists and turns, and it’s no wonder this book is so popular. Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda Set in my hometown and embodied with a trademark Los Angeles grittiness I don’t often see executed so successfully, Wonder Valley begins with a man running along the congested rush hour freeway, completely nude. One of the witnesses, a man on his way to white-collar drudgery, finds himself inspired and takes off running after the naked jogger. The book follows a handful of such oddballs, those living in unusual circumstances, and we find ourselves connecting with folks from Skid Row to the desert. I found the passages about homelessness especially interesting, as well as the storyline of Tony, our would-be runner. As much about connection and shared humanity as it is about its setting, this book felt adventurous by nature. Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt This was my first introduction to the concept of nomadic characters, and I still return to this middle grade masterpiece when I want to re-immerse myself in the world of the Tillermans. Dicey, a 13-year-old leader to her three younger siblings, finds herself in an impossible situation when their mother abandons them mid-road trip to seek financial assistance and housing from an aunt in Connecticut. When the Tillerman kids find themselves stranded in a shopping center, their mother having succumbed to a subtly rendered mental illness, Dicey decides they must walk the remaining distance and seek help from their aunt lest child protective services split them up. What follows is an epic adventure tale from Dicey’s perspective as she leads her siblings south, seeking out food and shelter along the way, their quest sometimes landing them in danger. This remains one of my favorite middle grade novels. A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bollen This upmarket crime novel follows two lovers, Nick and Clay, who meet in Venice with a plan to scam a millionaire by selling him counterfeit antiques and escape their turbulent lives in New York City. An atmospheric portrait of Venice and a contemplation of morally gray protagonists, A Beautiful Crime is evocative, dark, and twisty. Faithful to the international heist genre, its roots are in old New York, and Bollen paints a vivid picture of modern Venice. What is home, and who is truly good? These questions are left semi-answered, and the exploration is really the point. *** View the full article

Maybe I was influenced a little too much by Indiana Jones as a kid, or perhaps a childhood growing up finding arrowheads and fossils on the flat alluvial soil of the Midwest seared my imagination with a love of excavation, but whatever the cause, one of my favorite plot devices is the discovery of an ancient relic or artifact. It can be an object, something buried away for centuries that has repercussions in the contemporary world. It can be information that has been withheld, usually purposely, but once discovered drastically alters the characters’ perceptions. It can be a virus or contagion, bottled up and then released like a genie from a bottle. Or it can be a valuable piece of art or other valuable treasure (every pirate story relies on this). Whatever it is, ancient artifacts carry lessons from the past for the present, ones that can have grave consequences. While such objects might be considered merely a McGuffin, for me, they act as more than a hollow plot device. They add a layer of historical intrigue to a story, one that has always drawn me in and leaves me imagining the past. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) This 19th century novel is one that I reread every few years. The eponymous moonstone is a large diamond inherited by the 18-year-old British heiress Rachel Verinder. The diamond is stolen, and while the remainder of the novel is about who stole it and why, I always find myself thinking about the diamond itself. It was taken under criminal circumstances from India by Rachel Verinder’s uncle, and the diamond was said to be based in part on the stories of large Indian diamonds possessed by European royalty. Labyrinth by Kate Moss (2005) This novel moves between two periods—2005 and 1209—but what binds them together is a labyrinth discovered by an archeologist, Dr. Alice Tanner in 2005. Alice finds a cache of bones in a cavern in the south of France. Along with the bones, there is a labyrinth, and ring bearing the same design. The plot is quite literally an excavation. The labyrinth pulls her into a quest to understand a brutal history to which, she learns, intimately connected. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930) The artifact in this classic noir detective novel is a falcon that was paid in tribute to the Knights of Malta. The first time I encountered this story was the 1941 film version with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Peter Lorre. I went back to the novel after seeing the film, and love Sam Spade’s cool, clipped dialogue and his stoicism. But the most intriguing part of the story for me was the falcon, coated in a black to disguise its value. Its history—as a tribute to the Knights of Malta, then a gift to the King of Spain, then stolen by pirates—gives the novel an imaginative depth. Relic by Doug Preston & Lincoln Child (1995) The first of the Pendergast novels, the mystery of this book revolves around a discovery in the jungles of South America. A group of archeologists are massacred, and the discovery is hidden away and sent to the Museum of Natural History in New York. When people are brutally killed in the museum, it opens a massive hunt for a legendary creature. It’s an example of an ancient discovery that is alive, terrifying, and filled with mythology. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971) The story of The Exorcist is so filled with wild supernatural scenes, that it’s easy to forget the quiet origins of the drama. The object at fault for the terrifying possession of Regan McNeil is an ancient statue of the God Pazuzu found in an archeological dig in Iraq. The demon Pazuzu was an ancient Assyrian being considered the “King of Evil Wind demons,” and a protector of the home and pregnant women. *** View the full article

Female friendships can be complicated—just like the women in them. My own best friend and I have been through it all. The ups: laughing so hard our sides hurt about jokes from years before; confessing our deepest secrets; crying on each other’s shoulders. The downs: growing apart during university; awkward catch-ups via messages on birthdays that sometimes went unanswered; getting into stupid arguments and simmering about them for far too long. But I know I can call her anytime, and she’ll be there. Crime novels magnify female friendships, taking them in directions that might shock or appall readers—perhaps because the characters are all too familiar. Whether readers have a best friend, dozens of girlfriends, or yearn for a connection with other women, crime novels about female friendship give them something to relate to, however horrifying the plot becomes. In my book, She Started It, I explore the way female friendship can be inextricably tied to hierarchy, cruelty and isolation in youth, and apathy, despondency and betrayal in adulthood. Poppy Greer is lost when her best friend Tanya joins their school’s group of popular girls: Annabel, Chloe and Esther. She doesn’t see why she can’t join them too, but teenagers can be ruthless. She’s not only purposefully left out, but actively bullied—a topic close to my heart; from my time as a teacher, to being bullied myself. Without female friendships, it’s easy to feel left behind. Ten years later, Poppy arranges a hen party on a private island, but she’s in no mood for celebrating. She’s invited those four for one reason and one reason only: revenge. The following novels encapsulate many different facets of female friendship, both positive and negative: loyalty, mentorship, laughter; obsession, jealousy, anger; and everything in between. How To Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliott An apt title, How To Kill Your Best Friend focuses on three female friends—Georgie, Bronwyn and Lissa—and the inevitable dynamic of who the closer pair are that always comes with a trio. When Lissa drowns off the coast near the luxury hotel she owns, Georgie and Bronwyn return to the area for her memorial service. An experienced swimmer, it’s obvious there is more to Lissa’s death than meets the eye. Every three chapters are interspersed with ‘How-To’ methods for killing your best friend: from a simple accident, to poison, to increasingly nefarious deeds, culminating in what really happened. The book exposes the comparisons that are so easily drawn in female friendships: the weighing up of each other’s lives to see who is winning, the regularity of jealousy, but also the dependency on one another and the vicious betrayal that comes with finding out a friend is not who you thought they were. No Home For Killers by E.A. Aymar For a lot of women, there is no greater example of female friendship than that of sisterhood. Your sister can be both a best friend and worst enemy; unquestioning, but also infuriating. No Home For Killers showcases the strength of sisterhood through Melinda and Emily Peña. Neither has spoken to the other in years, but when their brother is murdered the two come together to find out what really happened. A famous musician and activist, he was not a man without enemies. It doesn’t matter—they will uncover the truth, though not without bringing their own issues into the mix. Melinda is an ex-social worker wracked by guilt. Emily is a masked vigilante who wants to punish abusive men. The way they’ve dealt with their shared pasts couldn’t be more different, but this is a plot guided by their unwavering connection. When the chips are down, Melinda and Emily are ready for anything, because they know they have each other. The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas An often under-appreciated aspect of female friendship is that of mentorship and guidance. The Blue Bar, set in a powerfully vivid Mumbai, is a mystery: certain a serial killer is on the loose targeting women, a detective becomes determined to find a missing bar dancer. But at its heart, this novel is about the reliance women have on one another for support in an often cruel and exploitative world. Tara starts bar dancing at only seventeen. Such places can blur the lines between exotic dancing and prostitution, and she relies on her best friend and mentor-figure, Zoya, to help navigate the dangerous confines of a bar dancer’s life. Zoya guides her through not only dance steps and what clothes to wear, but also how to stay safe. When Tara agrees to a client’s assignment she finds odd but harmless, everything Zoya has taught her will be put to the test. And Zoya discovers she will do anything to protect her friend. One of the Girls by Lucy Clarke One of the Girls explores the difficulty of time passing. Lexi, the bride at this hen weekend on a tiny Greek island, used to be the party-girl. Her self-appointed maid of honour, Bella, can’t help but be overprotective of their old friendship and the fun they used to have. She’s desperate to get back the Lexi she knew, particularly amidst Lexi’s new friendships with the other women invited. It’s a common issue. Do you try and claw back what you had, or accept the dynamic has changed and make something new of it? With an ending that speaks to the strength of female bonds, every woman on this trip has a devastating secret which will connect them all (for better or worse) forever. It is a brilliant example of the lies and hierarchies that encompass complicated female friendships. The Collective by Alison Gaylin When is a female friend needed more than after a tragic event? The Collective is an excellent portrayal of how grief can isolate and swallow you whole. In the wake of her daughter’s murder, Camille Gardner has been consumed by nothing but the thought of revenge. She finds a group of women whose children were also killed, women who are equally out for vengeance. Men are strictly not allowed. This is a coming together of female pain, female frustration, and female rage. At first, Camille feels understood like never before. But as she entangles herself further and further into this secretive group, it becomes clear that getting out will be impossible without serious consequences. This is a story about being a mother, but it’s also a story about the intense bond between women who’ve experienced a shared tragedy—a bond that may be taken advantage of. The Favour by Nora Murphy Sometimes a stranger can be the exact friend you need. Leah and McKenna don’t know each other, but when Leah chances upon McKenna in a liquor store, she recognises herself in her. Without hesitation, she follows McKenna home—and discovers they are as similar as she thought for the worst reason of all. Even though they have never exchanged a word, Leah does something for McKenna—the titular “Favour”—that will change their lives forever. The Favour is a powerful portrayal of the unfortunately all too common female experience of domestic abuse. Leah instinctually recognises a fellow victim, and the two connect through their shared trauma, creating a poignant example of female friendship against all odds. My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa Female friendships can breed competition and rivalry to such an extent the relationship is fractured forever. In Jayatissa’s My Sweet Girl, Paloma has spent eighteen years in the United States, adopted by a wealthy American family from a Sri Lankan orphanage. She and Lihini were best friends there, united against the cruel treatment of those in charge, fearsomely close, but also fearsomely competitive at the news of a potential way out. When Paloma was the one adopted, they went their separate ways. America was meant to be the perfect life—but Paloma is cut off from her parents, struggles with drinking, and now her roommate has discovered a secret from her past she’s determined to keep quiet. Things go from bad to worse when she finds him dead, and after a drunken blackout she calls the police only for the body to have vanished by the time they arrive. Paloma’s mind spirals: does what happened here in the present have something to do with the past she’s been trying desperately to hide, and the best friend she left behind? Death of a Book Seller by Alice Slater Death of a Book Seller is female friendship turned obsession. Roach is a London book seller, fascinated with true crime and disdainful of most people, nicknaming them “normies”. Laura, who joins the bookshop in a bid to help it from failing, should be everything Roach hates. She’s cheerful, happy to help, wears cute clothes and takes her job seriously. But after a poetry reading where Laura hints at some kind of dark past, Roach thinks they’re going to be the best of friends. She’s determined to find out what Laura is hiding, and in doing so bring them closer together. It doesn’t matter that the more she tries, the more boundaries are crossed, the more Laura is repulsed, eager to get away. Here’s an uncomfortable truth: not everyone wants to be your friend, however great you might think they are. But loneliness and the need to connect are a dangerous combination in this novel, and Roach will never accept that Laura would rather be in the company of literally anyone else. Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas Teenage relationships feature prominently in my own novel, so it felt appropriate to include a YA novel that deals with similar themes. Dangerous Girls is set in Aruba, during that glorious summer when school is over for good but real life hasn’t started yet. Anna and Elsie are the best of friends after Elsie rescued Anna from the school bully, and this trip with their other friends to celebrate the end of exams is the culmination of their years together. The novel demonstrates the claustrophobia of teen friendships perfectly—the intensity and dependency that manifest from them, particularly when things are bad at home, which is the case for our protagonist, Anna. Everything is immediate and important, and it feels like the friendship will last forever. But when Elsie is brutally murdered on the trip, and Anna is the one accused of the crime, the true secrets and trials of their friendship are exposed for the world to see. *** View the full article

From the moment I sold my first thriller, I’ve been acutely aware of genre. I’m not alone. The explosion of the psychological thriller in the wake of Gillian Flynn’s blockbuster Gone Girl created a wide lane for crime writers to steer into. Twisty twists and unreliable narrators became our calling cards, and book concepts were shaped to fit the mold. I owe my career to genre boundaries, so I was not about to start a rebellion. In 2015, I was on the brink of quitting the business. I had been writing novels for a long time – long enough to get the message from the Universe that it just wasn’t going to happen. I was a divorced mom, co-parenting three children, managing a household and working as a family lawyer. Writing novels on the side was becoming impossible because there was no “on the side” left. I had run out of road. At the time, I was writing contemporary fiction about women. Two novels had landed at a publishing house, so I’d begun work on a third. While it was exciting to be published, those novels did not launch a sustaining career. Conventional wisdom told me the third would not fare better. The market for what I was writing had softened. That was it, I thought. I had to be pragmatic. Realistic. I had to get some sleep. It was time to have a long cry, then finally hang up this dream. But something still tugged at my sleeve. I knew I would always have regrets if I didn’t do one last thing. I needed to swing for the fences, and that meant reinventing myself. I would write a new book, and this time, I would pay attention to the story, but also to the market. The first step was asking what I could write that was more likely to achieve my goal. I sought advice about what was trending with readers. Then I took a hard look at my skill set, not just writing novels, but practicing law, raising children, and studying psychology. What did I know? What was I capable of writing? How could I write it in a way that would appeal to readers but also allow me to feel passionate about my work? I honed in on the hottest new genre – the psychological thriller. My legal practice had given me the skills to create complex plots, and the knowledge to deep dive into the psychology of dysfunctional human behavior and relationships. I knew I had found my new home. Three months later, my first thriller, All Is Not Forgotten, sold at auction in less than a week, with foreign and multiple film rights closing soon after. It catapulted me to a place where I could write for a living. The story lived in my head for nearly six years, but I hadn’t known what to do with it. It could have been a legal thriller, a family drama, even a police procedural. Had I written it to be any of those, I would not be where I am today. It was the choice of genre that launched my career. In the four years that followed, I wrote with both abandon and caution – letting loose with twists, complex characters and psychological exploration, but always making sure I was staying true to the genre that had given me this tremendous gift. I was in it now. There was no turning back. My passion had become my livelihood. To succeed, I had to channel that passion in a way that would remain marketable. As the space grew more crowded, authors were corralled into sub-genres. A novel about husbands and wives was now “domestic suspense.” Isolated settings were “closed circle” mysteries. Bone chilling plots were now “horror.” And if a character left the physical world, the novel was “supernatural.” Publishers were hungry for labels. Branding was top priority. Like an LA freeway at rush hour, the lane was congested and everyone was racing to find a place to enter – and remain. When Covid hit, the world turned upside down. Like most of us, fear pervaded every corner of my life. I started and stopped three novels, worried that I had gone too far afield of my previous work. At the same time, ideas were flooding in. Finally, I took a leap, writing a novel called American Girl. It was different from my four other thrillers, and yet I could hear my voice coming through loud and clear. The success of that work, first as an audiobook and soon coming to print, gave me the confidence to write my next novel, What Remains, without thinking about boundaries. I just wrote the story the way it needed to be told. As it turned out, many authors had begun bending genres, some even obliterating the lines that defined them. Authors like Colleen Hoover, who is now a household name, with Verity. And Laura Dave with The Last Thing He Told Me. Others followed. Catherine McKenzie, Jeneva Rose and Ashley Winstead, now seamlessly pen both thrillers and romance. Michele Campbell has blurred the lines of legal and psychological suspense in her upcoming release, The Intern. David Bell found success in both adult and YA listings. And literary authors Jean Kwok and Paula McLain wove tales of suspense in The Forgotten Woman (out later this year) and When the Stars Go Dark. The list continues to grow, driven by the overwhelming response from readers. The rebellion against genre was quiet, but powerful. I did not go off road with my new novel. I love writing psychological thrillers and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. But in telling the story of a cold case detective in What Remains, I did make a few detours – and I made them with abandon. Early reviewers noted that the plot had elements of cop dramas, psychological suspense and stalker cases. Before the genre rebellion, this might have struck fear in my heart. Would I disappoint readers? Would I confuse reviewers? Would I be tossed out of the genre that I know and love? Instead, I felt thankful to the authors and readers who made it possible for me to follow my instincts in crafting the story. I don’t know what lies ahead. Pendulums swing, and so will the publishing market. I will strive to write the best books I can with the skills at my disposal, books readers expect and, perhaps, some they will not. The need to balance passion with marketability is not gone, and I remain grateful to the genre structure that launched my career. But in this moment of rebellion, I can’t wait to see what authors do next. There is so much talent to be harnessed. So many stories just waiting to be told, and in ways that will make us think and feel surprising things, and take us on extraordinary journeys. *** View the full article

Introduction to Pre-event Assignments The below seven assignments are vital to reaching an understanding of specific and critical core elements that go into the creation of a commercially viable genre novel or narrative non-fiction. Of course, there is more to it than this, as you will see, but here we have a good primer that assures we're literally all on the same page before the event begins. You may return here as many times as you need to edit your topic post (login and click "edit"). Pay special attention to antagonists, setting, conflict and core wound hooks. And btw, quiet novels do not sell. Keep that in mind and be aggressive with your work. Michael Neff Algonkian Conference Director ____________ After you've registered and logged in, create your reply to this topic (button top right). Please utilize only one reply for all of your responses so the forum topic will not become cluttered. Also, strongly suggest typing up your "reply" in a separate file then copying it over to your post before submitting. Not a good idea to lose what you've done! __________________________________________________________ THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Before you begin to consider or rewrite your story premise, you must develop a simple "story statement." In other words, what's the mission of your protagonist? The goal? What must be done? What must this person create? Save? Restore? Accomplish? Defeat?... Defy the dictator of the city and her bury brother’s body (ANTIGONE)? Struggle for control over the asylum (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST)? Do whatever it takes to recover lost love (THE GREAT GATSBY)? Save the farm and live to tell the story (COLD MOUNTAIN)? Find the wizard and a way home to Kansas (WIZARD OF OZ)? Note that all of these are books with strong antagonists who drive the plot line (see also "Core Wounds and Conflict Lines" below). FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. ___________________________________________________ THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT (Photo : Javert from "Les Misérables") What are the odds of you having your manuscript published if the overall story and narrative fail to meet publisher demands for sufficient suspense, character concern, and conflict? Answer: none. You might therefore ask, what major factor makes for a quiet and dull manuscript brimming with insipid characters and a story that cascades from chapter to chapter with tens of thousands of words, all of them combining irresistibly to produce an audible thudding sound in the mind like a mallet hitting a side of cold beef? Answer: the unwillingness or inability of the writer to create a suitable antagonist who stirs and spices the plot hash. Let's make it clear what we're talking about. By "antagonist" we specifically refer to an actual fictional character, an embodiment of certain traits and motivations who plays a significant role in catalyzing and energizing plot line(s), or at bare minimum, in assisting to evolve the protagonist's character arc (and by default the story itself) by igniting complication(s) the protagonist, and possibly other characters, must face and solve (or fail to solve). CONTINUE READING ENTIRE ARTICLE AT NWOE THEN RETURN HERE. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. ___________________________________________________ CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE What is your breakout title? How important is a great title before you even become published? Very important! Quite often, agents and editors will get a feel for a work and even sense the marketing potential just from a title. A title has the ability to attract and condition the reader's attention. It can be magical or thud like a bag of wet chalk, so choose carefully. A poor title sends the clear message that what comes after will also be of poor quality. Go to Amazon.Com and research a good share of titles in your genre, come up with options, write them down and let them simmer for at least 24 hours. Consider character or place names, settings, or a "label" that describes a major character, like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST. Consider also images, objects, or metaphors in the novel that might help create a title, or perhaps a quotation from another source (poetry, the Bible, etc.) that thematically represents your story. Or how about a title that summarizes the whole story: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, etc. Keep in mind that the difference between a mediocre title and a great title is the difference between THE DEAD GIRL'S SKELETON and THE LOVELY BONES, between TIME TO LOVE THAT CHOLERA and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA between STRANGERS FROM WITHIN (Golding's original title) and LORD OF THE FLIES, between BEING LIGHT AND UNBEARABLE and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed). ___________________________________________________ DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES Did you know that a high percentage of new novel writers don't fully understand their genre, much less comprehend comparables? When informing professionals about the nuances of your novel, whether by query letter or oral pitch, you must know your genre first, and provide smart comparables second. In other words, you need to transcend just a simple statement of genre (literary, mystery, thriller, romance, science fiction, etc.) by identifying and relating your novel more specifically to each publisher's or agent's area of expertise, and you accomplish this by wisely comparing your novel to contemporary published novels they will most likely recognize and appreciate--and it usually doesn't take more than two good comps to make your point. Agents and publishing house editors always want to know the comps. There is more than one reason for this. First, it helps them understand your readership, and thus how to position your work for the market. Secondly, it demonstrates up front that you are a professional who understands your contemporary market, not just the classics. Very important! And finally, it serves as a tool to enable them to pitch your novel to the decision-makers in the business. Most likely you will need to research your comps. If you're not sure how to begin, go to Amazon.Com, type in the title of a novel you believe very similar to yours, choose it, then scroll down the page to see Amazon's list of "Readers Also Bought This" and begin your search that way. Keep in mind that before you begin, you should know enough about your own novel to make the comparison in the first place! By the way, beware of using comparables by overly popular and classic authors. If you compare your work to classic authors like H.G. Wells and Gabriel Marquez in the same breath you will risk being declared insane. If you compare your work to huge contemporary authors like Nick Hornby or Jodi Picoult or Nora Ephron or Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling, and so forth, you will not be laughed at, but you will also not be taken seriously since thousands of others compare their work to the same writers. Best to use two rising stars in your genre. If you can't do this, use only one classic or popular author and combine with a rising star. Choose carefully! FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here. - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why? ____________________________________________________ CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Conflict, tension, complication, drama--all basically related, and all going a long way to keeping the reader's eyes fixated on your story. These days, serving up a big manuscript of quiet is a sure path to damnation. You need tension on the page at all times, and the best way to accomplish this is to create conflict and complications in the plot and narrative. Consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you MUST have present in the novel. First part, the primary dramatic conflict which drives through the work from beginning to end, from first major plot point to final reversal, and finally resolving with an important climax. Next, secondary conflicts or complications that take various social forms - anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters. Finally, those various inner conflicts and core wounds all important characters must endure and resolve as the story moves forward. But now, back to the PRIMARY DRAMATIC CONFLICT. If you've taken care to consider your story description and your hook line, you should be able to identify your main conflict(s). Let's look at some basic information regarding the history of conflict in storytelling. Conflict was first described in ancient Greek literature as the agon, or central contest in tragedy. According to Aristotle, in order to hold the interest, the hero must have a single conflict. The agon, or act of conflict, involves the protagonist (the "first fighter" or "hero") and the antagonist corresponding to the villain (whatever form that takes). The outcome of the contest cannot be known in advance, and, according to later drama critics such as Plutarch, the hero's struggle should be ennobling. Is that always true these days? Not always, but let's move on. Even in contemporary, non-dramatic literature, critics have observed that the agon is the central unit of the plot. The easier it is for the protagonist to triumph, the less value there is in the drama. In internal and external conflict alike, the antagonist must act upon the protagonist and must seem at first to overmatch him or her. The above defines classic drama that creates conflict with real stakes. You see it everywhere, to one degree or another, from classic contemporary westerns like THE SAVAGE BREED to a time-tested novel as literary as THE GREAT GATSBY. And of course, you need to have conflict or complications in nonfiction also, in some form, or you have a story that is too quiet. For examples let's return to the story descriptions and create some HOOK LINES. Let's don't forget to consider the "core wound" of the protagonist. Please read this article at NWOE then return here. The Hand of Fatima by Ildefonso Falcones A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God. Summer's Sisters by Judy Blume After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinn who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world. Note that it is fairly easy to ascertain the stakes in each case above: a young woman's love and friendship, the entire world, and harmony between opposed religions. If you cannot make the stakes clear, the odds are you don't have any. Also, is the core wound obvious or implied? FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. ______________________________________________________ OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS As noted above, consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you should ideally have present. First, the primary conflict which drives through the core of the work from beginning to end and which zeniths with an important climax (falling action and denouement to follow). Next, secondary conflicts or complications which can take various social forms (anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters). Finally, those inner conflicts the major characters must endure and resolve. You must note the inner personal conflicts elsewhere in this profile, but make certain to note any important interpersonal conflicts within this particular category." SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it? ______________________________________________________ THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING When considering your novel, whether taking place in a contemporary urban world or on a distant magical planet in Andromeda, you must first sketch the best overall setting and sub-settings for your story. Consider: the more unique and intriguing (or quirky) your setting, the more easily you're able to create energetic scenes, narrative, and overall story. A great setting maximizes opportunities for interesting characters, circumstances, and complications, and therefore makes your writing life so much easier. Imagination is truly your best friend when it comes to writing competitive fiction, and nothing provides a stronger foundation than a great setting. One of the best selling contemporary novels, THE HUNGER GAMES, is driven by the circumstances of the setting, and the characters are a product of that unique environment, the plot also. But even if you're not writing SF/F, the choice of setting is just as important, perhaps even more so. If you must place your upmarket story in a sleepy little town in Maine winter, then choose a setting within that town that maximizes opportunities for verve and conflict, for example, a bed and breakfast stocked to the ceiling with odd characters who combine to create comical, suspenseful, dangerous or difficult complications or subplot reversals that the bewildered and sympathetic protagonist must endure and resolve while he or she is perhaps engaged in a bigger plot line: restarting an old love affair, reuniting with a family member, starting a new business, etc. And don't forget that non-gratuitous sex goes a long way, especially for American readers. CONTINUE TO READ THIS ARTICLE THEN RETURN. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. ________________________ Below are several links to part of an article or whole articles that we feel are the most valuable for memoir writers. We have reviewed these and agree 110%. MEMOIR WRITING - CHOOSE A SPECIFIC EVENT (good general primer) How to Write a Memoir That People Care About | NY Book Editors NYBOOKEDITORS.COM Are you thinking of writing a memoir but you're stuck? We've got the remedy. Check out our beginner's guide on writing an epic and engaging memoir. MEMOIR MUST INCLUDE TRANSCENDENCE Writing Memoir? Include Transcendence - Memoir coach and author Marion Roach MARIONROACH.COM MEMOIR REQUIRES TRANSCENDENCE. Something has to happen. Or shift. Someone has to change a little. Or grow. It’s the bare hack minimum of memoir. WRITE IT LIKE A NOVEL How to Write a Powerful Memoir in 5 Simple Steps JERRYJENKINS.COM When it comes to writing a memoir, there are 5 things you need to focus on. If you do, your powerful story will have the best chance of impacting others. MEMOIR ANECDOTES - HOW TO MAKE THEM SHINE How to Write an Anecdote That Makes Your Nonfiction Come Alive JERRYJENKINS.COM Knowing how to write an anecdote lets you utilize the power of story with your nonfiction and engage your reader from the first page. ________________________

Below are partitioned criteria for engaging in critique of novel-length fiction. This will help guide your writer's group and make the critique more focused and less arbitrary. Premise and Plot Does the premise or story concept sound high concept? Original? If so, why? Defend your conclusion. What makes it unique when compared to published novels or nonfiction in the genre? You must effectively argue this case for or against. If against, present examples why it might not be sufficiently original to capture the interest of an agent or publisher. Are you able to discern the primary source of dramatic tension and complication that creates the major plot line(s)? Can you or the writer create a conflict statement for the novel that demonstrates, for example: The Hand of Fatima A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God. Summer's Sisters After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved. The Bartimaeus Trilogy As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinni who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world. Part II Is the first major plot point that changes the course of action and begins the second act of this novel clearly defined? Can you state it? Keep in mind that the first major plot point begins the plot line noted above, i.e., the rising action of the story as a whole. Insofar as you know, does the story as presented to you display the mandatory tropes of the genre? If so, how? Be inclusive with your response. Demonstrate knowledge of your genre and its tropes. Does the author do anything to present or frame the tropes in a unique manner? Does the novel possess a setting and/or unique world that works to high-concept the novel, or at least make the story much more interesting and unique? If so, what features of this setting do you find unique or valuable to the story when compared to others? Do specific circumstances or characters evolve from the setting that make it valuable? If so, what or who are they? What novel(s) published in the last few years does this story most closely compare to? Why? This must be supportable with specifics and not general statements. Does it compare favorably? Is it sufficiently unique despite the comparison? If so, why? Why is this story, as presented, one that publishers will buy? To put it more simply, why is this story one that readers will pay to read? Respond to this with clarity and detail. Narrative, Scenes and Style How does the story read? Each one of the following bullet points must be addressed. Is the prose itself completely free of errors and ambiguity? Does the writer say more with less or is she/he wordy? Are the verbs sufficiently active or too much variation of "to be"? Also, is the writer good at description? Not sure? Ask them to provide examples of description of objects, events and people. Is the reader oriented spatially or do characters feel disembodied? If this narrative were film, would it make sense? Is the narrative sufficiently engaging? If yes, what makes it engaging? If no, what should be done to make it engaging? Be specific. Does the narrative include, as a whole, the three primary levels of conflict, i.e., internal, social, and plot related? If so, list them one at a time, and their context. If not, what should be done to include them? Part II Are the scenes set properly? Do they have a defined beginning, middle and end? Do we get a clear concept of who/what/where, etc? Does the prose itself evidence mastery of the form given the demands of the genre? If so, how? If not, why? What can be done to improve it? Does the narrative present situations, issues, circumstances, characters or plots that seem too predictable or stale from overuse? Or would you term the narrative more unpredictable and original, insofar as possible given the demands of the genre? If more than one point of view, does the writer juggle the multiple POVs with skill? If so, how? If not, why not? Ask for more narrative samples as necessary. Characters The main thing here is to focus on the manner in which the characters reveal themselves in the course of the narrative, via dialogue and action. Do they feel real or simply two dimensional? Do we observe them at their best or worst in the course of performing an action? Is the author using show-don't-tell techniques to portray them or simply delivering exposition? Do you feel any sympathy or empathy towards them? Is there anything unique about them or do they feel overly stereotypical?

Barbara Zitwer specializes in discovering new writers from all over the world. They look for writers with original voices and who have commercial, international appeal, and also for books that have potential to be developed for film and television. Barbara Zitwer herself specializes in developing books and editing. She has written several books as well as the play, PAPER DOLL, about Jaqueline Susann, produced in regional theaters throughout the US. She has produced landmark films such as VAMPIRE'S KISS with Nicolas Cage, was Executive Producer on LAZARUS RISING with Columbia Tri-Star and Bernie Sofronski, and she executive produced THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB with Julia Roberts. She began her career in publishing as an international scout and for 22 years has been attending book fairs in Frankfurt and London and cementing close international relationships. Her expertise is in working with new writers, editing and developing material and selling in the international market. She is known for discovering first time writers and working with translations and foreign writers. She is also known for quality popular, commercial fiction in the areas of women's fiction, satire, humor, mysteries and thrillers. BZ on Wikipedia | Truly Batshit - The Secret History of Vampire's Kiss, Craziest Cage Film INTERVIEWED BY MICHAEL NEFF OF ALGONKIAN WRITER CONFERENCES NEFF: Barbara, do you feel your agency differs in any way from other literary agencies. If so, how? B: Yes, I specialize in discovering new writers from all over the world who have never been published before. And, I work very closely with each author I represent for the long haul - for years sometimes, while a book is being written. I take on authors who have written, maybe a five page proposal, and help them through the entire writing process both with development and editing, way before we even present the work to a publisher. I also work with writers from every country and sell books in foreign languages and really have become an international agent who is based in NYC. I sell more work and rights in the foreign market than America and often I sell books in the foreign market before America. I also deal directly in Hollywood, which is different than most. My agency has a film production division and so I have a personal experience with filmmaking, Hollywood studios and an inside track. ________ NEFF: Where do your tastes run? What types of work do you feel comfortable representing? B: My forte is commercial fiction and narrative non fiction and I like writing that has a strong, unique voice and point of view. I am attracted to writers who tell bigger than life stories of ordinary people, if you know what I mean and who have a sense of humor, a wry way of writing. I like writing that is lean and might appear simple, yet is actually complex, metaphorical and has universal appeal. I am intrigued by unusual yet accessible stories from all over the world - work that can speak to someone in Ho Chi Minh City as well as St. Petersburg and NYC. I think the authors I represent do have international qualities and think in terms of issues and ideas that all people grapple with - one way or another - you can see that because I am successful at selling authors' foreign rights all over the world. ________ NEFF: In this tough fiction market, what criteria do you use to select manuscripts by first-time authors for possible representation? B: Firstly, I read everything that comes in to my agency, myself - no one reads for me. I have an open mind to anything -- so, I might have some pre-conceived ideas of what I would take on, but then I simply fall in love - if I read and I fall in love with what I am reading - I will take on the author. That's my first and most important criteria. Then I have to think about, if the work is very literary and small such as Daniel Wagner's A MOVIE AND A BOOK, which I sold to Knopf, which editor would love this? What publisher will publish this book? If a book is very unusual and might have a small market and I love it, the biggest challenge is to find a powerful enough editor or publisher who will publish the work. Otherwise, I am always looking for a really smart thriller or mystery, women's fiction, literary fiction, narrative non fiction -- travel memoirs. ________ NEFF: What makes this market for first-time authors especially challenging? B: Today, authors and/or agents have to create a hook( real or imagined- it's a marketing tool) , a platform- meaning - does anyone in the world or blogosphere know the author and if not, you must spin a first time author in a special way, package a book, do a marketing and sales pitch, create and tell the publishers how to sell the book, sometimes do mock-up of the cover-art, create a website and blog etc. Writers can also try and get reviewing jobs for major newspapers and magazine and review other books and get their name in print. Authors can try and sell short stories, write essays or pieces and get published. They can teach, attend writing workshops, go to literary functions and participate and MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: Know and visit all the bookstores where you live and where your book will be sold. Make friends with the people who are going to put your book in someone's hand - bookselling is still a big word of mouth business. In order to really succeed in selling books, it is essential for the author to become personally involved in the selling of it - there are exceptions to every rule today but most authors have websites, hire their own publicists and pay for their own authors' tours. I, as the agent, have to help a writer, package themselves and their book and position it in the marketplace so that the publishers will say YES and they can go to their corporate board and other colleague in sales and marketing and publicity with a book that has many elements there already. It is very difficult today to just send a ms: unbound , double spaced, typed pages on numbered paper and say it's a great book. Every editor will ask - who wrote it? What do they do? What do they look like? Do they have a column, a website, are the movie rights sold and is the movie in production, etc. etc. etc. Any first time author can be made to look "fabulous" -- it's all about how an agent, author and publisher present the author. Every author has a background and a story, which can be told to the booksellers and public in a boring way or a way that is spectacular. It all depends on who is "packaging" the author and how they are making something out of what the author's real life and experiences are. If the work is good, then that is what matters and the cosmetic presentation that publishers so desperately want is really easy to create. That's why GOD invented Madison Avenue and advertising! One just has to apply it to authors and their books today. No matter what book is considered - the pressure and insistence by publishers for "known quantities and already discovered work" makes it much more difficult. So, what I try and do is create a package, buzz, excitement, sometimes foreign sales, and a movie sale for a first time book and I get involved in helping in many ways to make a first time book stand out and be accepted. ________ NEFF: Many of us in the business think it horrible that a writer can spend many years on a project only to have it "rejected" by an intern whose job it is to "flush the slush" at the end of the day. Do you feel it is beneficial or hazardous for agencies and publishers to use young readers or interns to be the point guards on the pile? B: Usually hazardous, most especially with agents... I read everything myself because only I can know what is good and only I have the vision to read 5 pages of something and talk to a writer and know that his/her book can be great and worth taking on. The same goes for editors and publishers, which is why I try to only work and submit to editors that I have relationships with and who personally read the books I send them. Again -- I don't represent quantity so I can read everything and work with authors...and when I submit a book - an editor can know that if I give it my stamp of approval, it is probably worth them looking at themselves. It is preferable if an agent works with the top tier of publishing executives and has long standing relationships so that their books are looked at quickly and with priority, not delegated to a first time intern. But sometimes, actually, again -there are first time editors low on the totem pole like David Gernet, who bought John Grisham's first book - the rest is history; he became the head of Doubleday and finally Grisham's agent. So, you never know... interns can discover something and make something happen too. ________ NEFF: If you represent a first-time author who is dropped by the publisher because he or she did not earn out on his or her first novel, what is the strategy at that point? Is this circumstance happening more often than ten years ago? B: I would definitely take on a writer with a second book if I loved it. Just because their book didn't earn out , doesn't mean the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th or 5th book won't be a breakout bestseller. The truth here is that most books don't earn out. Most publishers earn their rent on one or two big books. The truth is that most first, second, and third books don't earn out. The issue is how much did the publisher pay for the book and how much did they lose. If a publisher bought a book for 5 million dollars and it sold 12 copies -- yeah, it will probably be difficult to sell book 2. On the other hand, another publisher might think: "Hey, publisher #1 paid 5 million so it must be good and they did a terrible job of publishing." So when the agent comes to them and agrees to sell book 2 for 1 million or even $300,000 to keep the authors career going, the new publisher might think book 2 is better and they are getting a big bargain. So, the issues of earning out on a first book is not really a big issue frankly. It's something publishers say when they want a way out of doing an author's book. That's my opinion. Publishers will go to bat and continue publishing writers who never earn out because they love the work -- and they believe that one day this one author will break through. There are many many examples of writers like this. ________ NEFF: Who are your favorite contemporary authors? Who would you recommend to young writers as sources of inspiration? B: I think we must find our own inspirations. What inspires each of us is very personal. But, Graham Greene is my favorite author and I never get tired of reading him, thinking of his characters and stories and imagining myself in one. ________ NEFF: What is the future for Barbara Zitwer? B: BZ will hopefully find many, many new and exciting authors to represent from all over the world. She is developing the film producing arm of her work, and acting as a producer of some of her clients' books and also working on her own film projects. She is also developing and co-writing books with authors, which have originated from her own ideas.

Dear Writer, Thank you for leaving a review of the 2023 New York Write to Pitch. Best, AAC Admin

The following are major pre-event assignments, readings, and guides (not including Part IV - Algonkian Novel Development Program) for Algonkian workshops and other events. Downloading, forwarding, or copying these assignments without the prior approval of Algonkian Writer Conferences is not permitted, however, routine utilization of the content in its extant form is permitted. Parts I, II, and II Pre-Event (includes eBook) Execution of the Pitch Model Assignment Recap and Dramatic Act Structure The Necessity of Publisher's Marketplace Prep for Agent Query Process NOTE: this is an information forum, not a response forum. Utilize the appropriate forums for posting necessary responses. _____________________________________ PART I Pre-event work as follows. This is Part I of four parts. We include a seven short assignments forum that will persuade you to consider several crucial and foundational aspects of your commercial novel project. Think of them as a primer. Complete them at your convenience and post the responses. Your responses to these assignments will be reviewed by faculty with an aim towards achieving a better understanding of your project and its current stage of development. We recommend writing down the answers in a separate file and then copying them into the forum to prevent any possible loss of data. To enter this forum (Algonkian Author Connect), click on the “Sign Up” link, top right and follow the instructions regarding password, email, etc. Once done, click on the assignments link above. ____________ PART II The second instance of pre-event necessity as follows. Read carefully and complete in the proper order as noted. You might become a bit astonished from time to time but push through. It all makes perfect sense. Now comes the Algonkian eBook. If you do not wish to utilize Amazon, the same booklet is found here as a PDF. In either case, you must faithfully absorb everything beginning with the first chapter, “Writer Ego and the Imaginary Bob,” and continue through “Settings are 60%.” This is vital to your potential success. It places emphasis on all the crucial core elements of novel development and editing that *will* be discussed in formal sessions. If you arrive at an Algonkian event not knowing the difference between a plot point and a pinch point, you will be swimming upstream from the first day and thereby seriously disadvantage yourself. Avoiding the study of proper technique won’t get novels published much less developed in a manner both artful and professional. Okay, much to do! Is it ever enough? No, but don’t recoil or hesitate if portions of the e-Book fail to comport with what you’ve been told elsewhere (writer groups, conferences, chat boards, etc.) because the odds are extremely high that what you’ve been told is wrong, if not potentially ruinous. Keep in mind, we all stand on the shoulders of those magnificent and capable authors who’ve preceded us. And remember too, there are no great writers, only great rewriters. ____________ PART III Quite often, after scoring well in a pitch session, the faculty person will ask us, “But can they write?” Premise and plot prod the necessary attention, but so many writers don’t cross the line because their actual prose narrative is not as competitive as it should be. Fact. In response to this circumstance we’ve created an online forum that serves two purposes. First, to demonstrate the best methods and techniques that should rightfully be considered when it comes to the creation of competitive narrative regardless of genre. Second, to act as a place where editors and agents will see the quality of your work up close. Use one of the two links above to get started asap. Simply open the topic linked above, read the guidelines and all the examples linked to Novel Writing on Edge, then edit your own opening hook accordingly. Once done, post at least 500 words by replying to the topic post. If you cannot include first pages at this time another good sample will suffice. Btw, you should already have an Author Connect member login if you’ve opened and utilized the Part I assignment (Seven Assignments). If you have not, please do so at the first opportunity. ___________ The Execution of the Pitch Model Like so many other things, this is crucial to your success. Before you can sell a viable commercial novel to a publishing house, you must work towards the goal of writing a viable commercial novel while simultaneously learning how to artfully pitch it. You will have a minute to deliver the actual pitch, and if you think this is not enough time, think again. It is more than enough. The idea is to communicate clearly and hook your listener. Your pitch must include a SCENE SET (as necessary), a focus on your PROTAGONIST (tell it through their point of view), sufficient PLOT TENSION deriving from a PLOT POINT (an event/circumstance/action that significantly changes the course of the story), and finally, a wrap with a CLIFFHANGER. So what's a cliffhanger? Regardless of the genre, literary or thriller or SF, the cliffhanger begs the ultimate question, and it’s always the same in one way or another: WILL BECKY SAVE THE FARM AND LIVE TO TELL THE STORY? Once done, you want the conference editor or agent to ask for more. Please review the following guidance at Novel Writing on Edge where you’ll find two pitch models and further elaboration. You will be using this model at the Algonkian event: https://www.novelwritingonedge.com/2013/11/algonkian-writers-conference-first-prep.html _____________ Assignment Recap and Dramatic Act Structure By this time, you should have in your possession three main assignment mails, namely, Part I (Seven Assignments), Part II (Development eBook), and Part III (Prose Narrative Enhancement). These assignments serve two purposes: to enable you to conceive and write a more perfect novel, one that might actually sell; and secondly, to instill within you with a language and knowledge base that will make meetings with publishing and tv/film professionals far more productive. Now, the following statement should sound familiar. If a member of the faculty asks you to define your first major plot point, inciting incident, or last major reversal before climax, you must comprehend the nature of these plot elements (for starters!), and deliver the response in a manner that demonstrates you are a professional. Amateurs *always* stick out, and they say “um” a lot, thereby failing to live up to our motto: From the heart, but smart. Besides displaying a high concept premise, the faculty also expect your genre or upmarket tale to be creatively developed using a certain approach and structure—one also utilized by screenplay writers—namely, the dramatic act structure. Whether the novel is a single, coherent plot line, or a parallel plot line with two major protagonists, the overall story progression manifests a readily identifiable endoskeleton, so to speak, i.e., an array of familiar points and notes along a story arc from beginning to end. There is more than one version of this, but they all achieve pretty much the same results: the Three Act, Nine Act, and the Six Act Two-Goal. A very good example can be found here. The above is included with your assignments and its importance cannot be over stressed. One of THE biggest reasons novels by unpublished writers fail is because the author is not sufficiently adept at plotting. A novel with a great start but a “saggy middle” always results from an inadequate understanding of how plot must work in order to satisfy the needs and expectations of readers, agents, and editors. Quite often, writers will bring stories and pitches to the NY event that are nothing other than circumstances, sets, and characters mixed into a quasi-amorphous stew, whirlpooled into forced fusion like fragments of a television season. A sign this is the case can almost always be found in the pitch itself. Acquisition editors, experienced agents, and other professionals usually don’t expect to get much traction out of the usual writer conference, but our events always surprise them. We mean to keep it that way. Our reps are on the line, and the better you look, the better we look. The more subs requested, the more contracts cut, the more willing our faculty are likely to return. No question. We also love the publicity and energy generated when the contracts flow. Btw, if the information above doesn’t square with what you’ve been told up until now, then choose the wise path of change. Rewrite as necessary. _________________ The Necessity of Publisher's Marketplace You are well advised to join Publisher’s Marketplace. Why? Because it lists recent sales by agents to publishers broken down by genre and provides a neat story-hook line (log line) for each sale that serves as a potential model for you. PM shows precisely what type of work is now being published in your chosen genre, thereby providing a comparison for your own work, and as a bonus, you learn the identities of productive “in the loop” agents (good to know regardless of circumstances). All in all, if commercial publication is your goal, PM is invaluable. The search feature is efficient and fairly straightforward. Membership is around $20 per month, but well worth it. The type of knowledge PM provides will give you a distinct edge over the competition. _________________ Prep for Querying Agents Though addressing the query-agent stage of your long, hard slog to becoming a published author might seem premature at this point, questions concerning this process nevertheless always arise at Algonkian events. Rather than await the next round of probes on this matter, we’ve decided to link you to the article below. It succinctly covers the critical prep steps you must take prior to sending anything like a query to a commercial agent (if and when it comes to that). Also, it effectively overrides the usual incomplete and/or foolish advice on this matter which currently infects the Internet like an electronic pox. With these answers already in hand, further questions at the conference, in theory, should be more informed, and therefore, the answers more productive. ____________________________________