Joshua Blu Buhs

The Los Angeles Times "Jacket Copy" blog interviewed Joshua Blu Buhs, author of Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend. The exchange opens:

Jacket Copy: Straight from the start, you tell us that Bigfoot doesn’t exist. Even though you say there is no Bigfoot, why did you choose to pursue this mythical creature in your writing?

Buhs: Initially it was the fact that I didn’t think Bigfoot existed, which was interesting to me. It was also about American ideas of what the natural world is. Sort of like: Here’s a screen on which people can project their ideas about nature. Though it turned out not to be as much about nature as I originally thought it would be.

JC: Did you ever believe in Bigfoot as a kid?

Buhs: I think, looking back, it is possible. As I grew up, I became more interested in standard and mainstream science.

JC: Why are Americans obsessed with this legend? Where did the myth come from?

Buhs: The myth of Bigfoot really...[read on]

Read more about Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Scott Lasser

Scott Lasser's new novel The Year That Follows begins with Cat Miller traveling to New York on September 10th of 2001. She goes out to dinner with her brother Kyle, who tells her he thinks he’s fathered a child, as his ex-girlfriend just got back from 3 months maternity leave, and they broke up a year ago. The next day he goes off to work and is never heard from again. Cat goes in search of the lost child, knowing only the mother’s first name and having a picture of the woman.

From a Q & A with Lasser at the Knopf website:

Where did the idea for THE YEAR THAT FOLLOWS come from?

It grew out of my last novel, All I Could Get. [My editor] Jordan called me during the summer of 2001, about seven months before publication, and suggested that it might be a good idea to make a pass through the Knopf offices, where I’d never been. The idea was to meet the marketing people, make myself known. I said sure, when? She suggested that anytime after Labor Day was fine. My daughter's birthday is September 9, a Sunday that year, so I said, “How about if I fly out on Monday, the 10th, and come in the morning of the 11th.” Which is how I happened to be in Manhattan on September 11. Now, if you were in Manhattan that day it might well have occurred to you to write about it, even if you had never written more than a grocery list. Writing about it certainly occurred to me, but I had to throw away reams of material before I got to this rather compact book.

You worked in finance in Manhattan for a while—Kyle, whose death sets THE YEAR THAT FOLLOWS in motion, does the same. Did you draw much on your previous life when writing Kyle and putting some of the elements of the book together?

A little. I...[read on]

Read an excerpt from The Year That Follows, and learn more about the author and his work at Scott Lasser's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Year That Follows.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joel Shepherd

Joel Shepherd's first trilogy--Crossover, Breakaway and Killswitch--features Cassandra Kresnov, "an android, but unlike anything Hollywood’s ever seen. She was created from technology that copies human beings in synthetic form, with appropriate improvements. So she’s basically human, only made of different stuff. The "improvements" are that she’s death on legs, the ultimate killing machine. The catch is that the same added intelligence that makes her the most deadly of her kind, also makes her more emotional, more vulnerable, and sends her in search of a life free from violence (that bit doesn’t work out so well for her though)."

From Shepherd's Q & A with Robert Thompson at Fantasy Book Critic:

Q: Since your Cassandra Kresnov novels have been completed for a few years now, let’s reflect. What was the most challenging part about writing the series, the easiest, and if you could go back and change anything, what would it be and why?

Joel: The most challenging part was simply coming up with an interesting, comprehensible plot. My plots tend to be a little complex, so making them all work logically wasn’t as easy for me back then (it’s easier for me now, everything improves with experience). The easiest bit was the characters; they’re strong enough that they tended to write themselves. If I could change anything...possibly I could do a few things differently with plotting, but not much. I haven’t thought about it much.

Q: In other interviews you mentioned how you wanted to play around with certain stereotypes in the Kresnov books, such as the ‘android cliché’, making your leads female, and I also liked how the futuristic setting was utopian rather than the much more common dystopian backdrop and how you made Cassandra accountable for her actions. Were there any other tropes that you were trying to break down in the series?

Joel: Not really. Though I’m not sure I’d describe the series as utopian, more just as not dystopian. I think the trend of human progress has been generally to the positive, with some nasty hiccups, and I don’t expect that to change. I also think some of the attraction of dystopian worlds is that a lot of writers either aren’t interested in politics, or can’t see a way to use it excitingly in their plots. Dystopian worlds usually preclude politics as we understand it...so it’s a bit of a cop out.

Q: Politics, religion and ethnic diversity all play an important role in the series. How much of this comes from your own life and what do these elements bring to your books?

Joel: [read on]

My Book, The Movie: Crossover.

--Marshal Zeringue

Hyatt Bass

From a Q & A with Hyatt Bass about her debut novel, The Embers:

What sparked the idea for THE EMBERS?

The Embers actually started as a screenplay. I was editing my first feature film, Seventy-Five Degrees in July, and in a restaurant one day, I saw a precocious looking New York adolescent girl wearing an oversized men’s blazer and carrying a stuffed animal backpack. I’ve always been fascinated by adolescent girls, and thought she would make an interesting subject for my next film. So I immediately started forming this character (now split in the book between Ingrid and young Emily). At the same time, I was completely blown away by the performance of one of the actors in my film—Harris Yulin—and I thought that whatever movie I made next had to feature him fairly prominently. I began working on a story about an unlikely friendship between a teenage girl on the cusp of adulthood waking up to all kinds of things—romance and independence and fantasies of where her life will take her—and an elderly man nearing the end of his life, looking back with nostalgia and yearning, but also thinking about what he might have done differently. I liked the contrast between them, and the idea that, different as they are, they might strangely find comfort in one another.[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Robert Dugoni

Robert Dugoni is the New York Times bestselling author of The Jury Master and Damage Control. From a Q & A about his latest novel, Wrongful Death:

What sparked the idea for Wrongful Death?

Answer: Like most of my novels, it was just a small thing. In this case, I read a newspaper article that mentioned the Feres Doctrine in reference to a soldier injured in Iraq. I thought it interesting, looked more deeply into the doctrine, and found that it had really been bastardized from the initial legal case, to the point of absurdity. I have tremendous respect for the men and women who leave their families behind to go and fight for the principles this country was founded upon. In Iraq, with the use of National Guardsman, more than ever we have men and women with families and careers putting everything on hold. I thought it would make an interesting premise to write a book that discussed the doctrine and what it means to be injured incident to your service.  But I didn't want it to be a book about the Iraq war. I wanted to write what I always try to write, a book about justice and injustice, a legal/political thriller. Hopefully I succeeded.

What is the Feres Doctrine?

Answer:The Feres Doctrine developed out of three cases that were consolidated and heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1949. Essentially, soldiers had died or been injured during their military service and the families were suing the government and military for negligence. For instance, Feres was housed in a barrack that had a faulty heater that caught fire and burned the barrack to the ground. Justice Jackson, writing for the majority, was faced with a true dilemma. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were returning from World War II and a decision that made the government and military subject to lawsuits for injuries or deaths could have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars. So Jackson came up with what is now called the Feres Doctrine, which says that a soldier injured or killed 'incident to his service' cannot sue the government or military for damages even if the government acted negligently or intentionally to injure him or her. In theory...[read on]

Read an excerpt from Wrongful Death, and learn more about the book and author at Robert Dugoni's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Wrongful Death.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jay Wexler

Jay Wexler, author of Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars, teaches at the Boston University School of Law.

From his Q & A at Religion Dispatches:

What inspired you to write Holy Hullabaloos? What sparked your interest?

I’d always wanted to write a kind of fun, non-academic book about church/state issues, and once I got tenure it seemed like the right time. The road trip aspect of the book, however, was not part of the original plan. That idea came to me while I was reading Sarah Vowell’s amazing Assassination Vacation, where she talks about her various trips to places connected to the assassinations of different presidents. I had just finished reading some other funny road-trip books like Steve Almond’s Candyfreak, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that maybe I should get out of my stuffy office and hit the road, see what I could learn by visiting the places where these church/state cases I’d been teaching about for so long actually happened.

What’s the most important take-home message for readers?

I think the overall biggest take-home message for readers is that it is both possible and desirable to...[read on]

Read more about Holy Hullabaloos at the publisher's website, and learn more about the author at Jay Wexler's faculty webpage.

Wexler studied religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and law at Stanford, and worked as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Page 99 Test: Holy Hullabaloos.

--Marshal Zeringue

Giff Beaton

From a Q & A with Giff Beaton, author of Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast:

Q: Can you tell us how and when you became interested in seriously watching and identifying dragonflies and damselflies? Is odonate watching becoming more and more common with birders?

A: As I became more and more interested in photography and watching birds, I started noticing other animals, like insects. As happened with birds, I started realizing how many different kinds there were. Then it became a great adventure to try to learn more about them and to try to find and photograph the different species. When I started getting interested in odonates, there were very few books to help with field identification, and of course no internet yet, so I had to dig up what few books there were. I was also fortunate to meet several very experienced dragonfly biologists and specialists, and they were crucial to learning more about this wonderful group of insects. My first photos of odonates were back in 1991, and I started trying to learn more about them around 1993, actively seeking out different habitats at different times of the year. I do think odonate watching is becoming more and more popular among birdwatchers and backyard nature enthusiasts.

Q: Are there other insects or animals that are commonly viewed by birders?

A: I think many birders are becoming more interested in many other “watchable” groups, like butterflies or moths and their caterpillars, odonates, and other showy or obvious groups of insects. Of course, wildflowers are another very popular part of nature for birders.

Q: What are some of the most common misconceptions about odonates that you've encountered?

A: Probably the biggest one is...[read on]

Visit Giff Beaton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Travis Thrasher

Cory Clubb interviewed Travis Thrasher for TitleTrakk.com. Part of their dialogue:

Cory: Upon visiting your website you seem to have a lot of different genre of novels, why is that?

Travis: Multiple personalities. No, seriously, I love all types of stories. I never knew the first published book of mine would be a simple little love story. I feel the stories I’m writing now are more of the type of thing I enjoy reading, yet I still have many story ideas in mind that fit into different genres.

If could go back and change that would you?

No. I feel that each book paved the way for the one following it. It’s sort of similar to growing up in all these different states and countries. Would I have planned that for myself from the beginning? Definitely not. But I wouldn’t change it—living in all those places defined me. I’d say the same about my books. But I always tell people that this is definitely NOT the way to...[read on]

Visit Travis Thrasher's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter James

Ali Karim put a few questions to Peter James, whose latest novel in the award winning Detective Superintendent Roy Grace crime series – Dead Tomorrow – is just out in the UK. Part of the Q & A:

Were you bookish in your youth?

Yes, I was an avid reader – also an avid letter-writer to authors. I once wrote to Enid Blyton saying that I had just read Five Go To Treasure Island and I was very worried that the five of them had spent seven days on an island and not one of them had gone to the toilet in all that time. She wrote a nice letter back telling me not to worry, they had all gone several times but she didn’t think little boys and girls were interested, which was why she hadn’t put it in her book!

What books had you read in that period that perhaps led you to become a fiction writer yourself?

I really wanted to be a crime novelist when I began reading Sherlock Holmes at about twelve years old. Then one day in my mid-teens I read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock and I was totally blown away by it – probably even more so because it was set in my home town. I promised myself that one day I would try to write a crime novel set in Brighton that was just half as good as this one.

What I love most about this timeless novel is that it...[read on]

Learn more about the author and his work at the official Peter James website and blog.

Peter James has worked as a screenwriter and a producer of numerous films, including the The Merchant Of Venice, starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes.

Dead Tomorrow is the latest of five novels in the the award winning Detective Superintendent Roy Grace crime series, which Judith Cutler calls "predictably deeply researched, elegantly written, fiendishly plotted and impossible to put down." The other titles are Dead Simple, Looking Good Dead, Not Dead Enough, and Dead Man's Footsteps.

The Page 69 Test: Looking Good Dead (the 2d in the DS Roy Grace series).

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Grabenstein

Karyne Corum interviewed Chris Grabenstein at The Raven Croaks. The start of their dialogue:

Why do you write mysteries? What in specific draws you to it?

Chris: Well, I think I like the puzzle solving aspect of mysteries. As a writer, you are forced to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. Also, mysteries are what I loved to read on the train ride from Metuchen to NYC. It's the one genre where the reader can be an active participant. I think mysteries have the same appeal that Crossword Puzzles do.

When did you begin the process of writing your first book? What did you find the most challenging?

Chris: I started writing my first book about a year after I left advertising. I had assumed I would write screenplays, since the commercials I had been doing for 17 years were mini-movies. But, I was WAY too old -- you have to be 24 to be a screenwriter. And, I lived on the wrong side of the country. Then I read Stephen King's little book ON WRITING and it convinced me that I may be able to write a...gasp...novel. All those words! Remember, a thirty second commercial has a maximum of 70 words. Books have thousands. Usually around 80 thousand, in my case. The most challenging part was....[read on]

Chris Grabenstein's latest book is Mind Scrambler, the 5th John Ceepak mystery.

Grabenstein won the Anthony Award for "Best First Mystery" (given at Bouchercon 2006) for his debut novel Tilt A Whirl—the first in a series of John Ceepak stories to be set "Down The Shore" in a New Jersey tourist town called Sea Haven. It was followed by Mad Mouse, Whack A Mole, and Hell Hole.

The Page 99 Test: Mind Scrambler.

--Marshal Zeringue