John Copenhaver

John Copenhaver’s historical crime novel, Dodging and Burning, won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery. His second novel, The Savage Kind, won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. He cohosts on the House of Mystery Radio Show, is the six-time recipient of Artist Fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and for years, wrote a crime fiction review column for Lambda Literary called “Blacklight.”

Copenhaver teaches fiction writing and literature at Virginia Commonwealth University and is a faculty mentor in the University of Nebraska’s Low-Residency MFA program.

His new novel is Hall of Mirrors.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Images often make great titles. Before I began outlining the story, I knew I would call the novel Hall of Mirrors because it’s evocative, and I like the metaphorical image it conjured in the reader’s mind. It’s about doubles and identity. My bad girl/good teen duo, Judy and Philippa, from the first book, The Savage Kind, return, but now it’s 1954, and Washington, DC, is fully consumed with post-WWII paranoia.

Enter Lionel and Roger, who serve as foils for Judy and Philippa. They are a mixed-race gay couple who write under the pseudonym of Ray Kane, a hardboiled, straight mystery author persona, one of the girls’ favorite authors. After Roger is fired from his day job at the State Department for being gay, which was part of an actual initiative carried out by the federal government called the Lavender Scare, he dies in a suspicious fire. The cops deem it a suicide, but Lionel suspects foul play.

Both Judy and Philippa and Roger and Lionel represent mixed-race same-sex couples, so they serve as reflections of one another. But like any funhouse hall of mirrors, there’s distortion. Are they who they seem? Are there good and bad reasons for deceiving others about your identity?

Mirror images and doubles are also a trope in classic film noir. I reference the final scene from The Lady from Shanghai because it was an incredible funhouse sequence with mirrors and doubles and shattering glass that informed my story; it’s the most noir thing you can imagine, visually speaking. Also, there’s some subtext: Rita Hayworth was forced to whitewash what Columbia Pictures head Henry Cohn called her “Mediterranean” look for the American audience, and then Orson Welles made her a blonde in the film. So, Hayworth herself was wearing a kind of disguise.

What's in a name?

In The Savage Kind, Judy Nightingale began as Judy X in an orphanage, and then Judy Peabody. Peabody is her adoptive parent’s last name. The Peabodys mistreat her, so when she turns eighteen, she selects her own name, Nightingale, because, as she remarks to herself, “a Nightingale is a bird that sings at night, a symbol of beauty despite the darkness.” I named her Judy—or Judith—as a nod to the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, in which Judith seduces and beheads Holofernes to save her home, the city of Bethulia. She’s powerful, self-possessed, and not afraid of violence like my character.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Teenage-me wouldn’t be surprised about the love of the historical period or the mystery/thriller plot. I was a huge Christie fan and devoured Patricia Cornwell's novels. You can see both writers in my book–I have a puzzle mystery and a serial killer! However, I would’ve been shocked about my openly gay characters. It wasn’t easy to be out in the 1990s in high school in rural Virginia, and I wasn’t.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings. Absolutely. Because so much has to be set up. You must establish the reader’s bond with your characters, lay down the appropriate threads of the mystery plot, capture the reader’s attention, and propel the story forward. All this requires lots of editing. However, the opening scene of Hall of Mirrors, with Lionel staring up at his burning apartment, trying to process the weight of what’s happening, has remained largely intact from early drafts.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Oh, yes. Parts of me are in all my primary characters, but none of my characters are me. I’m a Gemini, so (surprise!) I like to explore duality in my characterization. Judy and Philippa contrast with each other, and so do Lionel and Roger, and then the couples also contrast each other. The friction between what is considered socially proper versus what’s morally right is a consistent theme in my work and my life. Everything is about contrasts and the questions that arise from contrasts.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m a big film buff if that wasn’t already apparent. I’m also a collector of film scores. I’ve been collecting them since high school and own thousands. For this reason, I write cinematically, not because I’m attempting to, but because that’s how my imagination is structured. I want to create a fully immersive experience for my reader with all the mood and detail of a lush film noir.

Visit John Copenhaver's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Savage Kind.

My Book, The Movie: The Savage Kind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathleen Bryant

Kathleen Bryant inherited a love of travel from her parents, who bundled her up for her first road trip when she was only six months old. Originally a Midwestern farm girl, she’s spent the past decades thawing out in the West, hiking its deserts and mountains, bouncing along backcountry roads, and sometimes lending a hand at archaeological sites. After writing numerous travel guides and magazine articles about Sedona, Grand Canyon, and the Four Corners, she’s returned to her first love, writing novels. Today, Bryant lives with her musician husband in California, where she continues to seek out new adventures, finding them on hiking trails, at farmers markets, and in the pages of a good book.

Bryant's new novel is Over the Edge.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I chose Over the Edge as my working title because it reflected the story’s trigger incident and emotional theme.

The book opens with Jeep guide Del Cooper’s discovery of a body lying on a canyon ledge, someone who’s literally fallen over the edge. Or so it seems.

As for Del, she’s been figuratively over the edge. Three years earlier, she was a crime reporter who made an error in judgment that killed a cop. She started drinking, lost her job, and even now, after pulling herself back from the abyss, she struggles to hold it together. She has unexplained visions that might be clues to the murder… or signals she’s still poised at the knife edge of normalcy.

What's in a name?

Sedona--the name is sibilant, mysterious, even seductive. People fascinated by its energy vortexes point out Sedona is a palindrome for “anodes.” Others suggest a connection to the Inuit sea goddess Sedna. The truth is more prosaic, but still charming: Sedona was the wife of Theodore Schnebly, the town’s first postmaster.

It’s easy to be dazzled by Sedona’s gorgeous scenery or caught up in its busy tourist center and yet, a raven’s flight away, the surrounding canyons are steeped in history and intrigue.

Lee Canyon—a fictional locale—is part of a proposed multimillion-dollar land trade, a trade that might be motive for murder. It’s a composite of actual places, filled in with my imagination. A failing ranch and abandoned film set. A thousand-year-old cliff dwelling. A secret trail. Places like these—far from the usual tourist track—are what gives Sedona its magic.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

As a young reader, my favorite books were Call of the Wild, Night of the Grizzlies, and a Crazy Horse biography. I’d read every Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Hardy Boys mystery by the time I reached my teens, when I started devouring gothic romances. Presented with Over the Edge—an outdoorsy mystery set in the West, with a hint of romance and peril for the female lead—my teen self might say, “Huh. So I didn’t go to med school after all?”

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are easy, and I change them the most. Endings are harder. Though I usually know exactly how I want the book to end, I’m more pantser than plotter. I need to feel my way through a story, give my characters some room, and not think too linearly until the final shaping, when I put on my editor hat.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Over the Edge is Jeep guide Del Cooper’s story. Her coworkers at Blue Sky Expeditions make up an ensemble cast of nature lovers, science geeks, history buffs, and a radio dispatcher who’s dialed into Sedona’s metaphysical community. Though wary of making connections, Del eventually realizes “these are my people.” They’re mine, too. I identify with their enthusiasm and curiosity, and they represent facets of my own Sedona experiences.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Next to reading, nature is my biggest inspiration. I grew up on a farm, where observing the natural world was a given. I’m also a longtime yoga practitioner, and the foundation of yoga is observation—noticing or perceiving through close attention. Observation can be a valuable writing tool, but more than that, it’s an invaluable living tool.

Visit Kathleen Bryant's website.

My Book, The Movie: Over the Edge.

--Marshal Zeringue

Deborah Batterman

Deborah Batterman is the author of Just Like February, a finalist in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2018 Best Book Awards, International Fiction Awards, and American Fiction Awards. A story from her collection, Shoes Hair Nails, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2012 she published Because My Name Is Mother, a chapbook of essays linked by the reminder that every mother is a daughter, too.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

When I read a novel with an intriguing title — and I think that can be said about Just Like February — I always look to that aha! moment when its meaning is revealed. Jake is a Leap Year baby, which gives him a unique perspective in terms of the passage of time, not to mention what becomes the central metaphor of the novel, revealed maybe halfway into it. There’s a fascinating history to how the calendar evolved. Politics and religion played their part in determining the length of months and marking important days in a way that might still be in sync with astronomy. All of which got me thinking that for all the scientific accuracy we have, randomness plays its part in our lives. Just like February.

What's in a name?

More often than not the names of characters just come to me. As a character surfaces in my mind, I form a picture of her or him and I start to play with different names. I’ve known more than one Rachel over the years (it’s a popular Jewish name) and I like the sound of it, which seemed to suit the narrator well. Haven’t you ever had the experience of telling someone they do or don’t look like their name? The name Jake popped into my head in the same way. Jake is actually derived from Jacob, a more traditionally Jewish name. And Jake is anything but traditional.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self, an avid reader, probably sensed I would one day write a novel.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Your question calls to mind a quote attributed to E.L. Doctorow: “Writing is like driving a car at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” The point being that for me beginnings, when they’re right, take me down a road that almost always leads to one possible ending. I love beginnings — I love the openness of the places a sentence or a paragraph can take me. To answer your question more directly, in my short stories, beginnings almost never change. In a novel, sections might get shifted for a stronger narrative arc.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think certain themes keep arising in a writer’s stories—in my case it’s family relationships and particularly the mother/child bond. As a mother, I can’t help but see at least a little of myself in my fictional mothers.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music plays a big part in my writing. Songs are often referenced but more important is the part I think rhythm plays in what I think of as narrative pulse. It’s what so often drives the story. I watch movies a lot and they influence me in terms of framing scenes. News stories also find their way into what I write largely as a way of placing the reader in a particular time.

Learn more about the book and author at Deborah Batterman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Just Like February.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alyssa Palombo

Alyssa Palombo's novels include The Violinist of Venice, The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence, The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, and The Borgia Confessions, as well as the contemporary novel Heavy Metal Symphony, published as A.K. Palombo. Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, she graduated from Canisius College with degrees in English and creative writing and now works as a marketing copywriter for a software company. When not writing, she enjoys reading, traveling, spending time with her dog, planning for next Halloween, listening to music and going to concerts, and adding to her record collection.

Palombo's new novel is The Assassin of Venice.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Assassin of Venice definitely lets readers know what to expect and what sort of story this is going to be. I think it communicates that the book is going to be a high-stakes thriller in a beautiful and interesting setting. Or that is certainly my hope!

What's in a name?

I don't always have a choice, as sometimes I write about real historical figures, and so in that case I already have their names. But when I do get to choose, my main characters' names have to feel like them. Before I start writing I daydream about the characters for a while, think through a few scenes, and try to get a feel for who they are and what type of person they are. Then I find a name that fits them. This is an extremely unscientific process and I don't know as I can describe it any better, haha. In the case of The Assassin of Venice, Valentina's name is actually a nod to Cesare Borgia, who I wrote about in my last historical novel, The Borgia Confessions - he was at one point the Cardinal of Valencia and later given the French title Duke of Valentinois, so Italian speakers went from calling him Cardinal Valentino to Duke Valentino. I had so much fun writing a villainous character in Cesare Borgia that that is part of what prompted me to write The Assassin of Venice, even if Valentina turned out to be less villainous and more...morally flexible, shall we say. And the name of Valentina certainly fit her - there's something assertive about the sound of it, I think. And Valentina is certainly assertive - that's putting it mildly!

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Honestly? I don't think she would be. The Assassin of Venice is exactly the kind of book teenage Alyssa imagined herself writing when she first decided to write historical fiction: some romance, some intrigue, some danger, and of course, a badass female heroine, and it's also just the kind of book she loved to read! This book challenged me in multiple ways, so teenage Alyssa's writing skills definitely had to do some leveling up to get to this point!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

As a general rule, I find beginnings more difficult than endings. I think this is because I always begin with the end in mind, and I almost always know the ending when I start writing: not just the plot climax and resolution, but the exact scene I want to end on and the chord I want it to strike in the reader. The last few lines were actually the very first things I wrote for both The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence and The Borgia Confessions. Of all my published works, none of the endings have changed from the first draft, beyond perhaps some minor tweaking of wording. I find beginnings harder to put my finger on: sometimes I start the story in the wrong place and have to go back and redo it, and I feel like I tend to struggle with making the openings really dynamic, something that grabs the reader right away.

With all that said, The Assassin of Venice was the complete opposite. It has what is probably my best first line ever (I've always wished I was good at snappy first lines, and I came up with a good one here) and I feel the first two chapters are my best first two chapters ever, if not some of my best writing yet. (We'll see if readers agree, of course!). And then, by contrast, I struggled with finding the right note to end this book on - I knew all along how the plot would resolve, but that very last scene gave me some trouble. I'm not sure why this was the case, except that all books are different to write!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Of all my main characters, Valentina is one of the ones who is most different from myself. They all have at least a piece of me in them, because for me personally I have to find some connection with a main character to be able to write in their voice. With Valentina, it's that she is fiercely loyal to her friends and loved ones, which is a trait I share. Other than that, we're quite different - we certainly solve our problems in very different ways! With that said, I had so much fun writing Valentina precisely because she's so different from me, and different from any other character I've written so far. It gave me an opportunity to try something new, to stretch my skills as a writer, and have fun stepping into a life that's nothing like mine.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Oh, I love this question. While I'm always inspired by the work of fellow authors, I often feel that my biggest influences are in fact other forms of media. Music is definitely the biggest one for me; it's one of my very favorite things in the world. I make playlists for all of my books that I build and refine while I'm working on a project, and I've utterly lost count of the times that I've gotten the idea for a certain plot point or bit of characterization from a song. In fact, the song "What Have You Done" by Within Temptation was one of the first seeds of inspiration for The Assassin of Venice.

Other than music, I'd also have to say that one of my biggest influences as an artist has been Tim Burton's work. The aesthetic of his films, certainly, but also the way that he tells darker stories or stories with dark elements, yet always with some light and hope in there as well. Dark but never bleak. That approach has had a big impact on me.

Visit Alyssa Palombo's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Violinist of Venice.

The Page 69 Test: The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence.

My Book, The Movie: The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel.

My Book, The Movie: The Borgia Confessions.

--Marshal Zeringue

Catherine Bybee

Catherine Bybee is a #1 Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Indie Reader bestselling author. In addition, her books have also graced The New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists. In total, she has written dozens of beloved books that have collectively sold more than 11 million copies and have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Raised in Washington State, Bybee moved to Southern California in the hope of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full time and has penned The Not Quite series, The Weekday Brides series, The Most Likely To series, and The First Wives series.

Bybee's new novel is All Our Tomorrows.

My Q&A with the author:

What’s in a name?

After forty plus novels sometimes the names I pick depend on what I haven’t used in the past. But most of the time I choose names that represent both the age and the nationality or background of my characters. When I start a new cast of characters, I ask myself who their parents were. Would the hero have his father’s name? If his parents were hippies from the 60’s, is the name on his birth certificate Moon Child? These two characters would likely have completely different childhoods and different challenges they would need to overcome in the story that I’m telling. If my characters are in law enforcement or the military, I have many people in the story call them by their last names.

In the case of All Our Tomorrows, my hero’s name suits both his age and his background. Male, one syllable names are often viewed as strong and capable. That is certainly the truth about Chase Stone. His deceased father was entirely too narcissistic in life to believe anyone could live up to his name, and certainly wouldn’t have given his first name to his son. At the same time, he would have wanted his son to have a strong name. A name like Bartholomew wouldn’t work. While Bartholomew is a nice name, it doesn't scream confidence and powerful.

Conversely, Piper, my heroine, has a name that feels soft. Yet she is anything but. Much like the name of her dog… (I’ll let you read the book and discover that gem).

Names are super important to my writing process. I like nicknames that my characters create for each other. As with Piper and Chase. Piper rubs in Chase’s new-found billionaire status that he’s completely uncomfortable and unfamiliar with, in an effort to keep him down to earth.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Shocked. It often comes as a surprise to my readers that I was not the best student in high school. I barely pulled a C out of English Lit and still struggle with spelling. However, I have always been a fantastic storyteller. And thankfully technology has removed the obstacles that would have prevented me from my current career. The craft of this novel would

e amazed me, the content however, wouldn’t have. I’ve always read books with happy endings. I knew if I ever actually wrote a book, it wouldn’t be one where the hero or heroine dies at the end.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Getting started is a challenge, but once I’m in, I’m good. The middle is the struggle. It is often where a reader will lose interest if plots aren’t twisting and questions aren’t being asked. So long as I remember what plots need to be tied up, the ending takes care of itself.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Yes, yes and sometimes. It is difficult not to interject my personality with my characters. There have been flat-out plots I’ve used pulled out of the pages of my life. My last two series are prime examples of that. Why reinvent the wheel when you don’t have to? I’ve colorful life and see no reason to not use that in my work. If I’m writing about a character with abandonment issues…I know that life. Been there, done that. Is my character a parent? A single parent? Have they lost someonWhile everything I just mentioned are circumstances, these are the things that shape the nature of my characters. Are they led by fear or strong despite how they grew up? I write by the rule, “If I’m not crying laughing or swooning as I’m writing a book, my reader isn’t either.” So yes, I see myself in my books often.

As for the characters that are nothing like me, I try hard to put myself in their shoes as I’m writing. I feel like I’m role playing all alone in my office at my computer. It’s awesome!

There are an infinite amount of personalities out there.

I’m a professional people watcher. Utterly fascinated by the difference between each and every one of us.

Yet we all have one thing in common. At the end of the day…we are all heroes of our own story. Even the bad guys.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My personal struggles of course. I was an ER Trauma Nurse for many years. If you read the Author’s Note in the back of All Our Tomorrows, I spell out exactly what influenced this book.

I travel as often as I can and those experiences and the people I meet along the way, inspire locations and characters that I write about. I’ve also lived 55 years on this floating rock, have two grown children and a completely different life than I had ten years ago.

Inspiration is everywhere. You just need to open your eyes and look.

Visit Catherine Bybee's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rob Hart

Rob Hart is the author of The Paradox Hotel, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award that was named one of the best books of 2022 by Kirkus and NPR.

He also wrote The Warehouse, which sold in more than 20 languages around the world.

He is also the author of the Ash McKenna crime series, the short story collection Take-Out, the novella Scott Free with James Patterson, and the comic book Blood Oath with Alex Segura.

Hart's new novel is Assassins Anonymous.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think Assassins Anonymous is the best title I've ever had. You want something that's going to tell your reader—clearly and directly—what the story is about. With this one, you have a pretty strong sense of what it is you're going to get.

What's in a name?

The main character is named Mark, and that was for two reasons: Mark seemed like a good hitman-style word (the mark is the target, and he's being targeted by someone in the book). But also, I liked the idea of writing a character who was, on one hand, the world's deadliest assassin, but on the other hand, was just a regular, unassuming guy you could be standing in line with at the bank. Mark is a nice, solid name, with nothing fancy on it.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

I think I'd be shocked that I'm actually making a living, doing this!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are generally pretty easy for me. I tend to know where I want to start. Endings are a little harder—I know the emotionality I'm aiming for, but creating the container is a little harder. I went through a lot of different ideas for how to present it in this one, before I landed on the ending it has. But the truth is, the middle parts are the hardest. Because you want to keep the story going, you want to keep tension high but not overwhelm the reader, and you want the journey to make sense. It's when I'm writing the middle parts that I wonder whether a book might truly come together. Luckily they sometimes do!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Every character is me working something out for myself, so all my main characters are me, to some degree. It's like therapy, except I get paid instead of my therapist. Obviously I don't know what it's like to kill someone, but I know what it's like to look at my past, regret things that I've done, and want to be better—but wonder how that's even possible. Beyond that, I think Mark is a pretty funny—witty, acerbic, ready to crack a joke to break the tension. I like to think I'm pretty funny, but that's for other people to decide.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Two things: this one dug deep into my movie queue. I love action movies, and in particular hitman movies. My favorite of all time being The Professional. I wanted to pay homage to that genre the best I could. But also: I fight train, first in Krav Maga and now in Muay Thai, and it's fun to do that and then go write some action sequences. I like to think it makes the job a little easier for me, because I know what it feels like to get punched in the face.

Visit Rob Hart's website.

My Book, The Movie: Potter's Field.

The Page 69 Test: Potter's Field.

The Page 69 Test: The Warehouse.

The Page 69 Test: The Paradox Hotel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Justine Pucella Winans

Justine Pucella Winans (they/she) is a queer and nonbinary writer who lives in Los Angeles with their husband and incredible Halloween-colored cats. Their books include YA mysteries like the critically acclaimed Indies Introduce title, Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything, and One Killer Problem. Their MG speculative horror titles include the acclaimed Stonewall Honor Book, The Otherwoods and Wishbone. When not writing queer, creepy, and funny fiction for kids and teens, they can be found training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reading (a lot of) manga and webcomics, and actively avoiding real life scary situations.

My Q&A with Pucella Winans:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

It was difficult for me to come up with a title for this book! Initially, it was The Westbridge High Mystery Club, as the story follows the main character, Gigi, enlisting the help of the school's unofficial Mystery Club to investigate the suspicious death of her favorite teacher. My agent wanted something a little more unique and catchy, so the next idea was Crimesolving, Crushes, and Other Things that Kill You. My editor wanted something shorter, and we eventually agreed on One Killer Problem. It definitely sets up the book as a murder mystery, and also gives a nod to the high school setting and the crime scene being a math classroom.

What's in a name?

I have only the highest respect for authors that put a lot of meaning in character names, but I am not one of them. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet in my cases, since I usually just go through lists of names and see what stands out and feels fitting for the character. If I have to name a more villainous character, it's possible I will use a name of someone who has wronged me in the past, but I'll never admit to which ones!

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage self would be surprised by the amount of queer representation in One Killer Problem, mostly because I was still figuring myself out and closed in high school. So she'd also be secretly excited, I think. There would probably be some surprise that I was writing in the mystery genre, especially something so funny. I was already trying to write novels while in high school, but the kind of stuff I wrote then was either dystopian or contemporary on the darker and emotional side!

I did write and even queried one thriller, but it was super dark to the point of agents not liking that it did not have a happy ending. So I think teenage me would really enjoy it, but be surprised that I was able to write something more lighthearted and fun and still get it published!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I've always been very drawn to characters and voice, so beginnings come more naturally to me. Endings are definitely harder, especially for mysteries like One Killer Problem. I had to nail the twist and big reveal in a way that doesn't feel entirely obvious from the beginning, but also isn't impossible for readers to figure out. For that reason, and my tendency to rush through endings in my early drafts because I just can't wait to get to the end, the ending definitely goes through more changes.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

None of my characters are exactly like me, but they all have some elements of myself that allows me to write from an authentic place. Gigi definitely shares my bisexuality, my IBS, my love for plushies and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and my past tendency to push people away so I wouldn't get hurt. However, we're totally different. I'm way more of an anxious and non confrontational person than she is! I relate to her brother, Luca, in the sense that I was the nerdy theater kid stressed about finances before college, but I'm not the kind of outgoing that he is. I relate to Gigi's friends, Sean and Mari, in being big readers and mystery fans, but they are both way cooler than I am. Some characters I'm not really like at all, so I wouldn't get too in their heads, but they are still fun to write!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I was a film and theater major in college, so I do take a lot of inspiration from movies and some plays. I'm also a big fan of anime, manga, and webcomics, so that storytelling inspires me a lot. When I was first coming up with the concept of One Killer Problem, I took some inspiration from the anime/series Hyouka, which has a Classic Literature Club that is dragged into cozy mysteries around the school. In previous drafts, the Mystery Club would constantly do odd jobs, which might have had a little Gintama inspiration, especially with the humor. I do also pull from my personal experiences, occasionally texting myself jokes and ideas as they come up.

Visit Justine Pucella Winans's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

James L. Sutter

James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the best-selling Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games. He’s the author of the young adult romance novel Darkhearts, as well as the fantasy novels Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine. His short stories have appeared in Nightmare, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death, and more. His new novel is The Ghost of Us. Sutter lives in Seattle, where he's performed with bands ranging from metalcore to musical theater.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Titles are both difficult for me and absolutely crucial—I want something that immediately conveys to the reader what the book is about. In the case of The Ghost of Us, I wanted people to know that it's about a ghost-hunter, and also that it's a love story. Of course, there's also a deeper resonance to the title, beyond just marketing: the book is a sapphic YA supernatural romance about a teenage ghost hunter who finds a ghost, but the ghost won't give her the evidence she needs to get famous unless she first agrees to take his little sister to the prom. So the "us" in the title refers to both the romance between the two girls, but also the complicated emotional bond between the sister and her deceased brother.

What's in a name?

Honestly, not that much. Since I'm writing YA, I generally start with the US Census's list of the most common names for the year my characters would have been born in, then scroll way down and try to pick something that's familiar but not too common.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Extremely! Before making my switch to queer young adult romance novels with my previous book, Darkhearts, I had spent fifteen years focused exclusively on fantasy and science fiction—in addition to publishing two fantasy novels, Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine, I was also the co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder tabletop roleplaying games, and have done a ton of work in TTRPGs, comics, video games, and short fiction, always with that SF&F bent. My teenage self would have been shocked to find me falling in love with romance novels! (He also would have been shocked to discover I was bisexual—that took another few years to really sink in...)

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I think beginnings are slightly harder, but in truth they're pretty much the same for me. That's because so much of my writing is based on character and relationship arcs—to me, a story is about who the characters start out as and who they become by the end, how they grow and change and become better. Since wanting to write about a particular change of heart automatically implies both a start and end state, I usually come up with the first and last scene at almost the exact same time, and they rarely drift much. It's everything in the middle that's challenging!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

There's so much of me in my books! While I was never a ghost hunter like Cara, my protagonist in The Ghost of Us, she's still a queer teenage outcast who's desperate for fame and can't wait to escape the suburbs of Seattle, all of which describes teenage me pretty perfectly! (And her relationship with rock-climbing in this book is pretty much my own...)

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I'm influenced by everything, but I think music in particular has been a big part of my writing journey—not so much specific songs or bands, but the experience of being a gigging musician at a young age, booking my band's shows, etc. I learned early how to grind and accept that rejection is an inevitable part of being an artist, and you just need to believe in yourself and keep pushing. As a punk and metal kid, I think I've had an easier time accepting that it doesn't matter if most people don't resonate with what you're making—it's about finding the people who do.

Visit James L. Sutter's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Maggie Auffarth

Maggie Auffarth is a lifelong book obsessive and crime fiction enthusiast. She holds a degree in creative writing from Wheaton College and she was a finalist for the Helen Sheehan Book Prize in 2018. When she isn't plotting fictional crimes, she enjoys baking, running, and binge-watching Lifetime movies. She lives in Atlanta.

Auffarth's debut novel is Burn It All.

My Q&A with the author:

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

She’d absolutely be scandalized (I was a pretty sheltered teenager), but I don’t think she’d be surprised. I often joke that every story I’ve ever written explores the same core concept: the relationship between two people, one driven by sadness and one driven by anger – and Burn It All embodies that idea more than most. In fact, my first ever attempt at a novel, which I started when I was fifteen, was about a teenage girl navigating lif in the aftermath of her best friend’s unexpected death, so maybe my teenage self would see Burn It All as the inevitable conclusion of her own groundwork.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

In general, I find beginnings much harder to write than endings. It’s true that there’s nothing scarier than a blank page. (And, if you’re like me, even a new scene or paragraph can be intimidating.) But, once I figure out where my story begins, it almost never changes. The same can’t be said for my endings. In fact, the original ending for Burn It All was completely different than the ending I eventually settled on. It took a long time – years, in fact – to find an ending that felt both genuinely surprising and inevitable for these characters.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

For me, the answer is both. I think it’s impossible to spend so much time creating a character and writing from their perspective and not put at least a little of myself into them, but I don’t think anyone who knows me in real life would recognize me in either of the two main characters in Burn It All – Marley is more calculating than me, and Thea is more perceptive. Even if the characters start with a germ of something that is true to me, they definitely develop their own distinct personalities over time.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m always inspired by music, and there are a few key artists, including Hozier and The Neighborhood, whose music was crucial to me when I was drafting Burn It All. I also took a lot of inspiration from movies like Promising Young Woman and A Simple Favor – psychological thrillers about emotionally complicated women trying to take some agency for themselves in a fraught world.

Visit Maggie Auffarth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Burn It All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Catriona McPherson

Catriona McPherson was born in Scotland and lived there until 2010, then immigrated to California where she lives on Patwin ancestral land. A former academic linguist, she now writes full-time. Her multi-award-winning and national best-selling work includes: the Dandy Gilver historical detective stories, the Last Ditch mysteries, set in California, and a strand of contemporary standalone novels including Edgar-finalist The Day She Died and Mary Higgins Clark finalist Strangers at the Gate. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, The Crimewriters’ Association, The Society of Authors and Sisters in Crime, of which she is a former national president.

McPherson's new novel is Deep Beneath Us.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title I’ve ended up with does a great job of telling the reader what kind of book they’re considering. Deep Beneath Us and the jacket image combined say: dread, threat, secrets. While I was writing I called the book Hiskith, the name of the reservoir and the flooded village at the bottom of it, and also a pun on “his kith”, evoking the centrality of a character who, Rebecca- like, starts out already dead and telling us the book is about his family.

But I knew, even as I wrote the drafts with “Hiskith” in my mind, that it was a disaster of a title from a marketing point of view. I let it go without a backward glance.

What’s in a name?

I love naming characters, even when it’s difficult. It was pretty easy this time. I wanted four cousins, two of whom had very ordinary names and two of who had slightly more unusual names, since their mothers were, on the one hand, aggressively down-to-earth and scathing about pretensions and, on the other, arty and ambitious.

Tabitha – guess which type of cousin she is! – has an ex-husband called Scott and a son called Albion, which is an archaic name for Scotland. I wanted just a hint of her ex’s ego as well as her own flight of fancy.

Naming the two men who’re fellow POV characters was slightly tougher. Lyle Gordon is still called Gordo – a very typical Scottish boy’s nickname – at twenty-nine, suggesting (I hope) his arrested development, which is no fault of his own. Barrett Langholm was a name I thought resonated with solidity. He’s a jobbing gardener and divorced father of girls. Maybe I’m too close to my characters but I think his name basically means with “good friend, great dad”.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Not at all. I’m writing about a birth family – in one of which I lived full-time back then – and I’m writing the geographical setting and social milieu I came from. Teenage Reader Me would be enchanted to find any novel of domestic suspense back then, mind you. Did they exist as a sub-genre? I’m not sure they did.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I find both fairly easy. It’s the middle that gives me all the angst. I rarely change a beginning much, except to add a short prologue, perhaps. At the other end of the book, though, I quite often realise that I’ve banged the story shut too abruptly and I have to add at least another scene if not a whole chapter.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

It’s going to have to be place. I can’t imagine any of my novels unfolding in any other landscape than where I’ve put them. This book wouldn’t work in a city, or suburb, or flashier bit of countryside. It needs the bleakness of shut shale mines, poor agricultural land and marginally productive forestry to produce exactly the mix of characters with just the mindset to let the story happen.

Visit Catriona McPherson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Go to My Grave.

My Book, The Movie: The Turning Tide.

The Page 69 Test: The Turning Tide.

My Book, The Movie: A Gingerbread House.

The Page 69 Test: Hop Scot.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Beneath Us.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kasey LeBlanc

Kasey LeBlanc (he / him) is a queer, trans, Jewish and neurodivergent author who writes stories for young people. His debut young adult novel Flyboy tells the story of a closeted trans boy, his Catholic high school, and the magical dream circus where he can finally be seen for his true self.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

One of the things I love so much about my title is that Flyboy, I think, really captures the essence of who the main character is and wants to be, and it's a title that takes on multiple layers of meaning as the story unfolds.

For instance, the opening line of chapter one begins: "There's a fly buzzing near my ear at the edge of my peripheral vision, and if looks could kill, this fly would already be dead". By the end of the scene that fly is (spoiler alert!) quite dead -- smashed against the very same church pew where Asher, our closeted trans protagonist, has just traced his real name with his finger. At the end of the chapter, Asher wonders why God would "give wings to such a useless creature", because if he could fly, he "certainly wouldn't stick around here".

So right from the start I think we have these dual desires -- of Asher wanting to be a boy, and not being seen as one, and of Asher wanting escape, which he envisions attaining through flight. Then we get into chapter two and Asher arrives at this magical dream circus where he is finally seen for the boy he truly is, only to once again have his dreams of flight crushed as he's assigned to perform as a clown, rather than on the trapeze rig. So much of Asher's journey is one of fighting to beseen and fighting to live the way he wants to live, and I think Flyboy as a title really encapsulates his experiences.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Not at all surprised to see that we published a novel (though teenage me would probably wonder why it took so long!), but I do think my younger self would be quite surprised to learn that we are trans! Pleasantly surprised, I think, especially once teenage me learns about the joys of testosterone and top surgery. Being a guy wasn't something I realized was a possibility for myself when I was younger, and it's part of why it's so important for me to write stories like Asher's for young people today.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Great question! I think that beginnings often change the most as I write because it's so hard to start in the right place from draft one, but I also enjoy the process of testing out new starting points as I go along. For endings, once I can really see a story's ending in my mind, it tends to stay pretty similar between drafts, at least in terms of the big picture and characters' emotional journeys and resolutions.

When I have a new idea and I feel like I can see where my characters' journeys begin and end, that's when I feel confident I can turn the story into a book. Unfortunately that tends to be the easy part -- where I truly struggle is everything that comes between, which is probably why so many writers refer to it as the 'murky middle'!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Both! I think people are naturally going to be most curious about how similar I am to Asher, the protagonist in this story, given my own identity as a trans guy. And it's really hard to say, in part because Asher's circumstances are so different than my own. I figured out that I was trans in my mid-twenties, and began coming out to people in my life not long after, all of whom were wonderfully supportive.

Asher doesn't have that luxury. He knows he's trans from a young age, and he is terrified of his conservative grandparents finding out, particularly given the financial leverage they hold over him and his mother. So much of Asher's personality is influenced by circumstances he doesn't have the power to control, and as a result he is very different than me.

At the same time however, there are very much moments in the story, particularly relating to Asher's experiences of gender dysphoria, or gender euphoria, where I feel very much like I'm baring a part of my own soul to the world because the only way I knew to convey the depth of his relationship to his body was through my own lived experiences.

Visit Kasey LeBlanc's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joanna Pearson

Joanna Pearson’s debut novel is Bright and Tender Dark. Her second story collection, Now You Know It All, was chosen by Edward P. Jones for the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and named a finalist for the Virginia Literary Awards. Her first story collection, Every Human Love was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, and the Foreword INDIES Awards. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, The Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and many other places. Pearson has received fellowships supporting her fiction from MacDowell, VCCA, South Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the North Carolina Arts Council/Durham Arts Council. She holds an MFA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and an MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Originally from western North Carolina, Pearson now lives with her husband and two daughters near Chapel Hill, where she works as a psychiatrist.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Bright and Tender Dark works in an oblique way to introduce some central thematic concerns—and paradoxes—of the novel. Bright conjures Karlie, the brilliant and charismatic young woman found murdered in her college apartment in the early days of the year 2000. Tender is the sore spot, tender as a bruise, left in Joy, Karlie’s freshman roommate, who both envied Karlie and yet also misses her, and who still has questions about what really happened. Dark is the space of uncertainty, where questions turn to urban legends, myth, or Reddit threads. Karlie’s absence becomes a void into which people who knew her, or hardly knew her at all, whisper their theories.

What's in a name?

I love that you’ve asked this question! One cannot name a main character Joy, particularly as a writer living in the South, without it being a little nod to Joy/Hulga in Flannery O’Connor’s much-venerated story, “Good Country People.” I’m someone who is never not being haunted by O’Connor’s stories, which were formative for me. I love how they grapple with questions of belief and interpersonal connection, exploring the ways in which we flawed humans have capacity for such grace and yet can also be so petty, vain, and short-sighted. It should be no surprise, then, that Joy in Bright and Tender Dark is a disaffected preacher’s kid. Her own reckoning with faith and organized religion, her sense of what faith means to Karlie in her own short life—I think these are powerful elements in the book. Much like Joy/Hulga in the O’Connor story, my Joy is someone who also feels she wears her own name poorly—or at least, with ambivalence.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Ha—I think she wouldn’t be surprised at all! Spooky lit fic? Urban legends? The weird liminal spaces where doubt starts to shift into belief, and belief into doubt? She’d be into all that!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Landing an ending is always tougher—and the ending for a novel like this presents an interesting challenge. On the one hand, I feel I owe my readers some specific answers (namely, who dunnit, and why). On the other hand, because I never set out to write a beat-by-beat mystery/crime novel, I’m playing with genre conventions, subverting them, and even abandoning them. The feeling I want readers left with is a complicated one—hope is a part of it, but I also want the reader to walk away with a shiver of recognition, a feeling of implication. I hope there are flashes of all our best and worst selves in these pages.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think when one is writing truthfully, there are always pieces of one’s self in every character, “bad guys” included! One of my abiding principals as a writer is that I must write with empathy, even when writing about characters whose actions I might never condone. I want to understand even when I don’t necessarily agree.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Two things come to mind. The first is season one of the podcast In the Dark, one of the smartest, most thoughtful investigative podcasts I’ve ever heard. It’s about the 1989 abduction of Jacob Wetterling, but it’s also about the rippling impact of this tragedy on an entire community. The second is that wonderful television series High Maintenance, which started as a web series, then aired on HBO from 2016 to 2020. It follows a pot dealer in New York City delivering his product to clients, so you get these little, prismatic glances into many different lives. What I loved about it—and what I found so inspiring—was the way each episode functioned as a beautiful, contained story, and then how the entire series wove into a larger tapestry, capturing the ways in which we are so profoundly interconnected and yet also often oblivious to those connections. The show is both moving and funny, as precise

Visit Joanna Pearson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Miya T. Beck

Miya T. Beck is a native Californian who always had a deep interest in the Japanese side of her heritage. Though she tried and failed to become fluent in Japanese, her studies did introduce her to the myths and fairy tales that inspired this novel. A former daily newspaper reporter and magazine writer, she lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Beck's new novel is Through a Clouded Mirror.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I never meant for Through a Clouded Mirror to be the title. It was a placeholder inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. I mentioned to my editor a few times that I was open to other suggestions, and I was surprised that HarperCollins wasn’t insisting on a title change. Around the time the initial cover design came to me for review, I asked for a brainstorming session. My editor and I couldn’t come up with anything that resonated more deeply. However, going through that process made me realize how well the title sets up the story for the reader. You know the plot is going to hinge on Yuki going to the other side of the mirror. That the mirror is “clouded” conveys a sense of mystery.

What's in a name?

My main character, Yuki Snow, is half Japanese and half white, and I wanted a name that mirrored her biracial identity and the feeling of not belonging in either world. Yuki (pronounced you-key) is the word for snow in Japanese, a doubling that her parents found meaningful but to her is a burden. She hates that kids at school tease her and call her “Yucky.” Yet the one time she visited her relatives in Japan, they laughed at her double name.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are the toughest for me because I’m still figuring out who my protagonist is as I write that first draft. The best piece of advice I ever received in a creative writing workshop was that you won’t know the beginning until you’ve reached the end. So I try not to obsess too much over the beginning and keep moving forward. Through a Clouded Mirror opens with Yuki at her new school writing a letter to her best friend from her old school. While the setting never changed, her interiority deepened with every draft.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Yuki reflects my own experience as someone who is biracial, in my case half Japanese. How do you find where you belong when you feel like you don’t fit anywhere? She also would rather read a good book than go to a pool party where she doesn’t know anyone. I can relate to that. Though on a hot, humid day in New York City, I’d make the opposite decision now.

Visit Miya T. Beck's website.

The Page 69 Test: Through a Clouded Mirror.

--Marshal Zeringue