Literary Spotlight

Ann Cleeves is a British crime writer and was the first author to win the inaugural Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland Quartet.

Q: Your writing style has been likened to that of Agatha Christie. What is your reaction and was she an influence?

A: Obviously it’s an honor to be likened to Christie – she’s given enormous pleasure to so many readers – but I think most female British crime writers get compared to her because she’s so iconic here. I did read her when I was young and loved the page-turning quality of the stories and those wonderful surprise endings. I certainly write within that tradition. But today we’re looking for more than a puzzle, I think, and crime fiction takes itself more seriously. We’re exploring violence, grief, big subjects, even if we’re doing it in an entertaining way. I’m interested in looking at ordinary people and what drives them to commit murder. I don’t create monsters. Perhaps that comes from my background as a probation officer. I worked with killers and most seemed pathetic and inadequate little men.

Q: You’ve said you like writing about isolated enclosed communities. Can you explain how your characters grow out of place?

A: I enjoy writing about enclosed communities partly because of the Christie influence again. It’s a classic detective story device: the boat floating up the Nile, the train stuck in the snow. I enjoy observing the rules of the genre, even playing with them. But it must be true that people are influenced by the kind of community in which they were raised – even if only by reacting against it. Someone who grew up in Shetland – where RAVEN BLACK and WHITE NIGHTS are set – has a very different view of the world from someone who was a child in the inner city. The relationship between people and the natural word is more immediate. Weather matters. You always know which way the wind’s blowing, if you’re a crofter or a fisherman. On a very basic level, it determines which door you’ll use to get into your house!

Q: How can writers enhance the settings in their stories?

A: Setting has to be an integral part of the book. If I come across a couple of pages of descriptive prose in a book, I tend to skip it. But if setting is part of the plot – take Tony Hillerman’s books for example – and characters grow naturally from it, then the reader has an experience that’s almost like travel. Fiction can help us understand another community’s culture and preoccupations. That’s why I enjoy translated European crime fiction so much. The books are terrific – as scary and quirky and interesting as anything written in English – but I also feel as if I’ve visited another country without having to pay for a plane.

Q: How does writing about what you know make for a stronger book? Can you give an example?

A: It’s certainly easier to write about what you know. If you have a firm picture of a place or process in your head, then it’s easier to write about it in a way that makes it real for the reader. You can select the small details that bring a scene to life. To do that just from imagination is much harder work! Sometimes though you have to move away from your comfort zone. RED BONES, the third Shetland book has a background in archaeology. I know nothing about it, and I had to make sure I spoke to several archaeologists as I was writing. It’s not so much about getting facts right, though that’s important too, it’s getting the flavor of what it’s like to work on a dig, the way people talk about their passion. You can’t get that from a book.

Q: I’ve read that you said writing is a bit like acting. Can you elaborate why?

A: We both have to see the world through our character’s eyes. That’s it, I think. One great actor once said that she could only understand a character, bring her life, once she’d chosen what shoes she would wear. Standing in those shoes, she saw things in a different way. Of course, writers have to stand

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Robert Morgan was raised on his family's farm in the North Carolina mountains. He is the author of eleven books of poetry and eight books of fiction, including the bestselling novel Gap Creek. Winner of the 2007 Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, he teaches English at Cornell University. He is the recipient of the 2008 Thomas Wolfe Prize. His newest work is titled Boone.

Q: You are primarily a poet and novelist. What led you to write a biography of Daniel Boone?

A: Since I was a kid I’ve always been interested in the frontier and the Indians and after five novels, I wanted to try something new. I wanted to see if I could do a story that would address the folklore and fake lore and bring a breath of fresh air to Boone. I wanted to make him more alive and so I researched the archives and found documents from his career as a surveyor. Unlike many biographers who tire of their subject after a while, I grew more and more interested. Also, other biographers had not studied his wife Rebecca, whom I found interesting. I was surprised to learn that Boon was also a free mason.

Q: Growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains must have been a unique experience. How well do you think your regionalism of this site transferred onto the pages of your books? What does regionalism in literature mean to you?

A: Regional writing takes on different guises. Most people are familiar with the southern or western writers but there are also African-American stories and Asian stories and many others who exemplify regional writing. The story of American fiction is one wave of discovery after another. In the 1940’s, for example, there were the Jewish writers like Philip Roth. Then there are writers like John Updike whose regional writing includes the suburbs.

Q: In your opinion, can there be poetry in fiction novels? Can you elaborate with examples?

A: The best poetry of our time is prose in fiction. There is powerful poetry in the writings of Hemingway, who thought of himself as a poet, and also in Faulkner, Melville and Wharton. Poetry uses language to create powerful experiences. We can see this in the fiction of these writers.

Q: As a college instructor of English, what writing trends have you observed in undergraduate curriculums and does this trend correlate to what the marketplace is supporting?

A: Over the past four decades I’ve seen quite a change in terms of the ambitions of students in writing fiction. In the early years they tried to write like the hip writers and were experimental in their works. Many aspire to write shorter pieces for The New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly. Over the years the students got better - at least at Cornell -where they seem to work harder and focus on mainstream. They don’t yet have the experience in writing or law or medicine, for example, to handle specific genres like crime writing.

Q: What advice do you have for writers?

The advice I give at conferences is to have persistence. Everybody becomes a writer in their own way. You learn by doing it. Those who succeed have a fire in their belly. Those who succeed are the ones who get rejected or don’t get the agent they want and go right back to the computer and work on their book again.

Revision is important. Younger writers starting out enjoy that first rush and heady feeling finishing the first draft. They are reluctant to go back and revise. As we get older we like the second and third chance to go back and fine tune our writing. It’s a pleasure to make it more alive. Some say the first draft is the engagement, the final draft is the marriage.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Ramsey Campbell is a British horror fiction author who has racked up an impressive four World Fantasy Awards, ten British Fantasy Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards and the Horror Writers' Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also been named a Grand Master of Horror.

Q: On your website you say, “I believe I’m in a minority of writers who say that they write horror.” Could you please explain? Do you find there is a stigma attached to the genre (either by the public or the publishing world) and if so, can you speculate as to why that is?

A: The field is often associated with its most disreputable elements. Too many horror writers seem to have little more ambition than to try and be more disgusting than one another. I once described such writing as Janet and John primers of mutilation. Me, I think the best horror fiction is a branch of literature, and I believe it has just as much scope. One quote sums up the attitude the field too often encounters. Years ago the husband of a lady who was interviewing me said “If he’s so good, how come he writes horror?”

Q: It has been said that with Scared Stiff, you created the genre of erotic horror. Do you agree/disagree and why or why not?

A: I don’t believe I invented it – there’s eroticism in Le Fanu’s “Carmilla”, in Robert Aickman’s tales and elsewhere – but I made it more explicit. What interested me in the first place was to see whether horror fiction retained its power if you made the sexual themes overt. I think these tales did, but in a different way from the effects of restraint.

Q: I’ve read that your childhood was an anxious one. How were you able to channel these fears into the pages of fiction? What lesson can other writers learn from their positive and negative experiences?

A: I think my early derivative tales may have been a way of writing about terror without letting it become too personal. As my skills developed I wrote about my personal fears and experiences – it was a way of talking about them. I’d say even the worst experiences are potential material –it’s a writer’s attuitude to life.

Q: You worked in tax offices and public libraries before you made the decision to write full time. What advice can you give writers just starting out?

A: Don’t try to write for a living too soon! Find when you’re most creative and use that time to write. By having a “proper job” you’re less likely to feel driven to submit work that’s insufficiently finished.

Q: What are the pros and cons of imitating a successful author? How does this advance or limit the development of one’s own voice?

A: There’s nothing wrong with learning by imitation. If you have something individual to offer, that will eventually emerge. Robert Bloch began by imitating Lovecraft, Lovecraft initially modelled his writing on Poe, but who could mistake either for anyone else?

Q: You have said that one of the most enjoyable parts of writing for you is reading your stories to audiences. Why? How does this enhance your power as a good storyteller?

A: It doesn’t change my approach to writing my stuff, but in reading to audiences I can establish where the stresses of the sentences go and convey some of the tone of the dialogue. What I most enjoy is observing the audience’s reactions, not something you can usually do as a writer. I especially like making them laugh, which I often do.

Q: What is your latest work?

A: Most recently published are The Grin of the Dark and Thieving Fear. I’ve just delivered a novel, Creatures of the Pool, and I also have a new collection out next year, Just Behind You.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Sandi Shelton is the author of three novels; What Comes After Crazy, A Piece of Normal, and Kissing Games of the World. A humor columnist, she has won numerous journalism awards.

Q: Why do you think readers relate so well to your humorous experiences in parenting?

A: Well, I wrote three non-fiction humor books about parenting because I was stunned to realize that my life had completely derailed around the time I became a parent. Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE being a mother, however, it was undeniably a life changing event, this parenting business. When I started writing my humor column for the newspaper where I am a feature reporter, I honestly did not know that it was a humor column. I thought it was a family life column. It was only when other people started telling me that it made them laugh and made them feel better because such things were also going on in their own houses, that I felt better. I think that people are comforted in knowing that they are not alone; and that we all have this secret anxiety that we are the only ones mismanaging life to such a HUGE extent.

Q: You have been described as a young version of Erma Bombeck? What is your response?

A: Erma Bombeck was the master, pure and simple. I never aspired to be her, but I did like her work. Before she came along NO ONE was admitting that motherhood wasn’t all just roses and sunshine every single minute. These days, I no longer write humor columns, having switched to novels some years ago. Writing novels was always what I wanted to do; the humor column came out of the fact that I wrote for a newspaper to make a living, and started the humor column there because it felt somehow closer to writing fiction than the news writing I was being paid for.

Q: You started writing fiction at six years old. How important is it to foster writing as early as the primary grades in our schools?

A: It’s true that as a child, I always did love writing and I would sit for hours and create stories. Beyond providing children with opportunities to express themselves creatively instead of always giving them multiple choice tests instead of chances to write – school systems aren’t really the ones responsible for creating little writers. I think that falls to the parent. Let their imaginations go and don‘t insist on measuring or judging the outcomes.

Q: How did you turn your columns into a book?

A: Whenever I asked my agent if I could sell a book of columns she said “no,” that publishers weren’t interested in them. But then one day I was contacted by Working Mother magazine which ran my column each month, and told that a publisher had contacted them and wanted to talk to me. I boxed up about 400 columns and sent them to the founder of Bancroft Press in Baltimore and three months later he proposed a book. The newspaper where I work gave it their blessing. It turned out that I actually owned the columns because they weren’t part of my reporting job there.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Robin Hathaway is the author of two mystery series. When the “Agatha Award” winner isn't writing, she is a free lance editor, teaches mystery writing and lectures on the mystery novel at schools and libraries. Her short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Death Knell.

Q: You didn’t begin writing until you were fifty. What was the impetus that got you started? What can would-be writers take from your experience as a late bloomer?

A: I was ten when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I was reading an Agatha Christie book and wanted to write just like her. In college, I took every writing course offered and wrote oodles of depressing short stories that were never published. Time passed. I married, had two daughters and operated a graphic arts business called “Barnhouse Press.” (There was a press in the barn and one in the house.) On my fiftieth birthday, my husband said, “You always wanted to write a novel. Don’t you think it’s time you started?”

I wrote three novels in three years, featuring Dr. Andrew Fenimore, a cardiologist patterned after my husband. I was enjoying myself thoroughly until my husband spoiled it all by saying, “Don’t you think it’s time you sent them out?” Thus began the rejection years. By the time I was sixty, I was ready to give up. But someone suggested I enter a contest sponsored by St. Martin’s Press. "The Malice Domestic Contest for Best Traditional Mystery" (The name is almost a novel in itself!) Miraculously, I won! The prize was the publication of my novel, “The Doctor Digs A Grave.” The next year (1998) this same novel won “The Agatha Award.” My dream had come true!

Q: It took you ten years to get the eye of a publisher. How important is perseverance when it comes to finding a publisher? What should a writer do while waiting for an acceptance?

A: Perseverance is half the battle. Hang in there! And while you’re waiting to be published, keep writing. Also, be sure to join some writers' organizations. I joined Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, where I met other writers, agents and editors and I heard experts speak on everything from forensics to drug dealing, crime scenes to marketing your book. Two things to remember: 1. It’s never too late to start. 2. Never give up!

Q: Mystery novels are one of the most popular genres in today’s marketplace. Why do you think this is so?

A: I think the mystery is popular because it usually ends with a satisfying solution. In real life, so many problems don’t get solved, we crave to escape to a more orderly world where problems are answered and there are fewer loose ends.

Q: Why are your books set in the Philadelphia area?

A: I write about Philadelphia because I grew up there and I know it well. The city is so rich in historic lore and has so many unique characters to draw on. I decided to set my Jo Bank’s series in south Jersey because it is beautiful and has a fascinating history. Lenni Lenape artifacts may still be found there and some of the inhabitants are direct descendants of the original settlers from the early 1700s. Also, it is the home of the Jersey Devil, who I saw once. Honest!

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Lisa See is the author of the critically-acclaimed international bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a New York Times bestseller. Her first book, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family , was a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book. She was the Publishers Weekly West Coast Correspondent for 13 years

Q: How do you view the earmarks of female beauty in western society today, compared to the 19th century Chinese women who endured the pain of foot binding?

A: I didn’t think of a parallel as to society’s standards of beauty when I wrote it. And readers don’t automatically see a parallel, but if you look at the issue of self esteem, you have to examine how mothers of 17-year-olds today are giving breast enhancement surgery as a gift.

Q: Do the characters of Lily and Snow Flower and their incredible bond have any roots in your own personal relationships? How do you think this fictional relationship impacts on the readers’ friendships?

A: I think every woman has been dumped on or dumped on others. My mom and sisters have best friends with people they knew from first grades. I don’t have that connection, that lifelong closeness. In part, what these characters share is the kind of experience I have not had.

Q: What amount of research was required?

A: There are three ways to answer this question. I could say it took two years to decide to do it. Or I could go back seven years when I wrote about the secret writing as I reviewed a book for the L.A. Times and became obsessed with it. I was working on another book in my free time. I found little information on the Internet, so I went to UCLA to do research. I traveled to a remote area of China – where I was told I was only the second foreigner ever to visit – to research the secret writing invented, used, and kept a secret by women for over a thousand years

Q: What message would you hope readers take with them?

A: I find that women readers really connect to the friendship whether it was 1,000 years ago or now. The nature of female friendship is unique. You tell things to your best friend that you wouldn’t tell your husband. It leaves you vulnerable and they reflect on their own friendships. I hope they get that core essence of female friendship and people have told me they have.

Q: How does a writer perfect his craft when starting out?

A: My mom is a writer, and she wrote a book on tips for writers. Write 1,000 words a day, or four pages. If you work or have kids, then make it 500 words a day. On the dreamy side, be true to your own vision; write the story that means the most to you, putting commercial considerations aside. Feel passionate about it because like a marriage, you will be connected to your book for a lifetime.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Louis Bayard is the author of the national bestsellers, The Pale Blue Eye (nominated for the Edgar and Dagger Awards) and Mr. Timothy, a New York Times Notable Book. A staff writer for Salon.com, he has written articles and reviews for the New York Times, The Washington Post and Preservation. His latest novel is The Tower.

Q: What advice can you offer writers when it comes to breathing life into their characters?

A: Well, of course, we observe the people around us, and we apply bits of our own history, but I’ve always thought imagination is a sadly underrated quality. We don’t have to have lived the same life as a character to project ourselves into that life. “Write what you know” can be very constricting advice if taken literally.

Q: Other than increased books sales, what has been the most significant impact on your career as a result of having a book named New York Times Notable Book?

A: Not a damn thing. To begin with, you can’t squeeze “New York Times Notable Book” onto a license plate. Nor does it assuage creditors. I tried it at a bar, too, with very modest results. This is what my mother said, “Notable for what?”

Q: Your historical/thriller books have drawn from very specific eras. What amount of research did it require?

A: It’s a lot of research – several months for each book – but it’s not as much maybe as people think. In the final pages of “Mr. Timothy,” the hero is on a ship bound around the world. Its a very brief section, but I thought, ‘Holy God, if I want to get the fact right, I’m going to have to read every damned Patrick O’Brian novel ever written.’ In the end, all I had to do was grab a few choice terms out of Moby Dick and cop a couple of place settings from Voyage of the Beagle. Presto! Less than an hour. What I’ve come to realize is that readers don’t need an avalanche of detail to situate them in a historical period. One really good detail can take the place of ten.

Q: While at Princeton you studied under Joyce Carol Oates. How did this affect your writing style?

A: I’m embarrassed to say, not at all, because I made a point of not reading her work. I didn’t want to be one of those ass-kissing students who said, “Oh, MS. Oates, I just love that part in them when you …”

At any rate, Joyce wasn’t the kind of teacher who wanted to be imitated. What she did was encourage us to find our own voices.

Q: What did you learn from being a contestant on Jeopardy?

Ha! I learned about Balmoral. That was the one I missed. And I learned what a competitive SOB I really am. I wanted to win, baby! And not just one game, I wanted ‘em all! Since then, I’ve gone through a very long and grueling process of game-show detox. I should write my own addiction memoir.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Anthony Capella is a British author whose novels, The Wedding Officer (now being made into a film by New Line) and The Food of Love have been translated into 22 languages. He also writes travel and food articles for the Sunday Times. The Various Flavors of Coffee is his latest novel.

Q: How did you choose to write culinary/romances?

A: I’m not quite sure. I’ve always liked food, and I spent some time working with Jamie Oliver, the British chef who’s done so much to make people aware of what they’re eating. But the truth is the idea for The Food of Love seemed to come out of nowhere for me. I realized that I liked setting books in that world, and it just took off from there. It isn’t some kind of genre I’ve invented – I just happen to have written a couple of books with the same theme.

Q: Respond to the comment that your works blend exotic adventure and erotic passion.

A: I guess that’s true to some extent. I think of my writing as being about sensuality – both in the way they’re written and also in their subject matter. Food isn’t just about pleasure; it’s also succor, and love, and tradition, and family. Most of my books are about having to make a choice between sensuality and duty in some way.

Q: You have said you made a conscious decision when writing Food of Love, not to write a literary book but instead an enjoyable comfort book. Explain your reasoning.

A: I wanted to write the kind of book I like reading. It’s very much like going to restaurants; I admire Michelin-award-winning places, but I don’t enjoy them and I almost never go back to them a second time. I like good food in pleasant surroundings: places that make you feel good, rather than dazzle you. And that’s the way I am with books, too. I like the kind of books that you reread when you’re in bed with flu, not books you have to work at or feel impressed by.

Q: What is the secret of a male succeeding in the mostly female written romance genre?

A: I’m not sure! (Have I succeeded?) Again, I think love is a universal subject. On the stage or in cinema, romantic comedy isn’t considered a female genre – no one thinks of Cyrano de Bergerac, which The Food of Love is based on, as a girlie play, or Twelfth Night for that matter, or Shakespeare in Love or Four Weddings and a Funeral. I write about love, certainly, but I don’t think of my stories as romance – I think of them as stories about people who discover the truth about themselves. Love is simply the catalyst which shakes their world upside down.

The Various Flavors of Coffee, for example, is the story of a young man who needs to grow up. His particular journey to adulthood is traced through his relationship with various women, but gaining the ability to love is the result of those experiences, not the whole focus of the story. If you like, it’s a story about romance, rather than a Romantic novel.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

Jane Johnson is an English author and Fiction Publishing Director for HarperCollins Publisher, UK, where she is responsible for the Voyager science fiction and fantasy list as well as publishing thrillers and historical fiction. She was also with Tolkien Publisher for several years, and worked on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Her novel, Crossed Bones (UK) The Tenth Gift (USA title) is her first foray into writing adult mainstream fiction. Ms. Johnson also writes for children.

Q: From the perspective of a publishing director, what catches the eye in novice manuscripts?

A: I look for a distinctive and authentic voice, one that hooks me within a couple of pages; clear, sharp writing, a sense of rhythm in the sentence structures, a good use of language without being flowery or overwritten; a strong sense of plotting and characterization; realistic dialogue -- and, of course, that indefinable 'something special.' The most important thing of all is to have the ability to make the reader want to turn the pages. That requires strong characterization, a real sense of a person that you are interested in, or can empathise with; and a great story.

Q: How does a novice writer come by these skills?

A: By reading, reading, reading; and writing, writing, writing -- and doing both with awareness rather than passively absorbing or channelling the words. And looking and listening to the world around them, getting out into it with eyes and ears open, trying to describe what they see and hear; jotting down dialogue and impressions, dreams and ideas. It is worth realizing that certain sectors of the fiction market sell better than others, and if you want to be published by a commercial publisher you need to be writing commercial material.

Q: In today’s marketplace, genre vs. mainstream – which is the tougher to write/sell and why?

A: I've always disliked such categorizations: historically, they were terms used by marketing personnel, rather than by readers and editors. As a reader, I read far and wide without making distinctions between books except as to whether I liked them or not. But gradually the market has ruled the publishing houses, and the corporate publishers have allowed these divisions to be imposed, so we're now faced with a fait accompli. I've always railed against the way that science fiction and fantasy are a) jammed together under the same dismissive heading and b) shoved in some dark corner of the bookshop (and never in supermarkets). This has created a self-fulfilling prophecy: and so the 'genre' has been supported less and less well and sold fewer and fewer copies. At present, it's probably the hardest area of the market in which a newcomer can break through.

Thrilllers, when they sell well, sell very well indeed: but because the rewards are visibly greater in this area, there's heavy competition. Writing well in any area is hard and requires great dedication and a thorough understanding of the sort of novel you're writing. You need the capacity to hold an entire storyline in your head; you need to hear and understand the characters; you need to be able to cut and edit your own work ruthlessly; and you need to be open to criticism and flexible enough to rework material if it's not working. That's the same across the writing of all areas of fiction.

Q: Crossed Bones/The Tenth Gift is inspired by the abduction of a family member in 1625 from a Cornish church by Barbary pirates. What are the challenges of writing about a historical event from a fiction point of view?

A: It was necessary to do incredible amounts of research into the 17th century and Morocco. It was necessary to read, absorb and hold in my head dozens of books and hundreds of articles, as well as landscapes and cultures before I could even begin to write. You can't just make things up as you go along if you want the story and characters to be authentic.

I read a lot of historical fiction, and there's nothing I hate more than anachronisms: they jolt you out of the reading experience and make you lose trust in the author. You need to be relaxed when you're reading, not constantly on the alert for errors. On the other hand, you don't want the writing to be fact-packed and stilted. And all this is then complicated by two passionate love stories that need to catch the reader up and fire their imaginations: characters and motivations must be convincing to pull that off. So making it all look effortless, while putting in the hard work is what you're aiming for -- the classic analogy of the swan gliding across a lake comes to mind: All grace and serenity above the surface of the water, and frantic effort beneath!

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

William P. Young, self-published author of the novel The Shack was raised among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents in what was New Guinea. He worked as a former office manager and hotel night clerk in OR. His book debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times trade paperback fiction best-seller list.

Q: What accounts for the popularity of your book?

A: It is a little outside the box like a parable. It’s the truth inside a story. It appeals to the heart as well as the brain. There is a lot of sadness out there and people have questions and want to have them discussed in the open. People speak out of pain, and this is a positive message that grace extends to anybody.

A lot of the success has come from word of mouth. And what has surprised me are the people who send e-mails describing its transformational impact. The people it helps are those who are hurt and broken. I’ve seen it help those in prisons and those in grief counseling.

Q: You have succeeded in creating a marketing success by self publishing. What was that like?

I am an accidental writer. I wrote this for my children as a gift. There is a huge group of readers not being written to. We tried twenty-six major publishing houses. The answers were either ‘too much Jesus’ or ‘we don’t’ have a niche for it; its too edgy.’ No one wanted us. There is an unspoken rule in publishing; if nobody else is doing it we can’t do it and if everybody else does it, we can’t.

So we printed fifteen copies at a local printer and gave some to people we loved and asked them to give it to people they don’t know. We learned a lot from the feedback. In sixteen months, there were four major revisions. I was very open to conversation about the book. The response was great, and we formed Windblown. Without intending to we shook up the publishing industry in a good way.

Q: You have said the shack is a metaphor for the house you build out of your own pain. Explain.

A: The shack is a metaphor representing the heart and soul of a human. We all build the inner house where we hide our secrets, shame and addictions; lot of us don’t let anybody in and fake the house on the outside. We live in two worlds; the world of shame in the shack and the other world of façade.

Q: How do you respond to the criticism of some Christian leaders?

A: This is a work of fiction. There are people who try to turn it into a theological conversation and they are missing the point. They see what they are looking for and it supports their own baggage. The interesting thing is that some of the angriest people who are against the book haven’t even read it.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.