Elena Taylor

Elena Taylor spent several years working in theater as a playwright, director, designer, and educator before turning her storytelling skills to fiction. Her first series, the Eddie Shoes Mysteries, written under the name Elena Hartwell, introduced a quirky mother/daughter crime fighting duo.

With the Sheriff Bet Rivers Mysteries, Taylor returns to her dramatic roots and brings readers much more serious and atmospheric novels. Located in her beloved Washington State, Taylor uses her connection to the environment to produce tense and suspenseful investigations for a lone sheriff in an isolated community.

Taylor is also a senior editor with Allegory Editing, a developmental editing house, where she works one-on-one with writers to shape and polish manuscripts, short stories, and plays.

Her favorite place to be is at Paradise, the property she and her hubby own south of Spokane, Washington. They live with their horses, dogs, and cats. Taylor holds a B.A. from the University of San Diego, a M.Ed. from the University of Washington, Tacoma, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.

The new Sheriff Bet Rivers mystery is A Cold Cold World.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title, A Cold Cold World, came to me very quickly. There were a few different reasons why it fit the book so well and was on my mind. There is a song by Blaze Foley with the same title. (Titles are not covered by copyright). I love the simplicity of the lyrics and the tune. It’s about regrets and the challenges of living.

Further, Blaze Foley was murdered, making him an apt figure to inspire a mystery novel. The first novel in the Bet Rivers series focuses a lot on music, the protagonist, Bet, and her father and friends are musicians and singers, and would often sing together. I feel it’s a song they would have performed.

I also wanted to pit Bet against a monster storm. When I lived in North Bend, Washington, we usually got a few inches of snow at a time, which might linger for a week. One winter we had several feet that stuck around for eight weeks. That’s the storm I recreated here. It was definitely a cold, cold world. I’m thrilled that my publisher liked the title as much as I did.

What's in a name?

Elizabeth “Bet” Rivers came to me out of the blue. I knew she was Bet before I knew that was short for Elizabeth. Names are very important to me, though they are a combination of me researching the meaning of names and using those, and names that appear in my mind as if by magic.

Alma is named after an Alma that I worked with years ago, an equally tough, tiny, almost octogenarian who would no doubt have done a great job running a sheriff’s station.

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

My teenaged reader self would not be the least bit surprised at A Cold, Cold World. She read mysteries nonstop and loved small towns, horses, and women who stand up for themselves.

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

I find it very easy to write an opening scene. That’s usually where my imagination takes hold. But I quickly work at finding the ending. For me, the middle is extremely challenging to write if I don’t know where a story or a character is going.

Each book is a little different with regards to rewrites. The beginning might change the most if I realize new things by the end of a first draft, but I also once changed who the killer was after several rewrites on a certain novel, so endings can change too.

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

There is some of me in every character I write. My characters reflect how I understand the world, including the dark side of people. So, while I’ve never killed anyone, and like to think I never would, I put myself into the shoes of my killers and try to imagine the situations they are in to do the things they do.

I do believe there are evil people in the world, but no one is defined by a single action. We are a complicated intersection of our histories, our biology, and our situations. There are psychopaths out there, but the much more interesting criminal is the one who knows right from wrong and makes a bad choice anyway.

I like to consider what drives people to do the things they do, and the fact that a person’s fortune can change on a dime through one careless act or bad decision. People often say, “I had no choice.” But we always have a choice, and what we do says a lot about us.

Another choice might have been the better path, but it often wasn’t as obvious, or was harder to commit to. Much better if we can see all the choices in front of us before we make a big decision.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

As mentioned before, music inspires me. In bluegrass and country music, there are a lot of songs that tell a story. I’ve always been intrigued by how much character and plot can be packed into a song. (If you don’t believe me, read the lyrics to "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts" by Bob Dylan).

I also take inspiration from photos, paintings, and the world at large. I’ve had novels and stories inspired by deep dark lakes, images of people and buildings, and true crime events or things I hear on the news. Finding a story is the easy part, writing a satisfying plot is what’s hard.

Visit Elena Taylor's website.

--Marshal Zeringue