A visit with author John Ouellet

Today my guest is John Ouellet, a former FBI colleague in the Detroit Division. John, I know you recently retired and just had your first novel published. That’s exciting news I’ll want my readers to learn about. Thanks for agreeing to be a guest on my blog.

Please introduce yourself and tell the readers a little bit about yourself: when you began writing, your background, where you live, etc.

My name is John Ouellet. I grew up north of Boston and graduated from Northeastern University with a criminal justice degree. As an ROTC grad, I received a commission in the Army, first as an MP, then an Infantry Officer. I spent nine years there before a 23-year career as a special agent with the FBI, the entire career in Detroit. So I guess that would lead you to believe crime/mystery would be my genre. Or maybe military history. Actually, my first novel was a love story, A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE. That was in the early 1990’s. It’s unpublished but I think it has some of my best writing

Has your law enforcement background influenced your writing?

Yes, very much so. Besides knowing how to do a decent procedural, it gave me a character foundation whereby I could feel the motivations, hear the speech pattern, and put together some credible dialogue in scenes that don’t seem contrived. (In my love story I had to reach some. I mean, I love my wife but we would make a pitiful novel). In crime writing, a cop/investigator comes up with scenes, characters, dialogue, and motives effortlessly. I guess the trick for us as writers is to get out of our own skin and completely into our characters.

I have several completed crime novels in my thumb drive waiting to breathe air. I particularly love writing the Caper which Lawrence Block (I believe it was Block) called the “How catch ‘em” as opposed to the “who dunnit.” The sub-genre is best done by the late Elmore Leonard. Here the character runs the show. What he or she does is secondary to how they do it.

What inspired you to begin writing, and do you write every day?

I’ve always loved to write, and I think I know why. As a kid I played cowboy and Army. I didn’t just play; I acted out my own screenplays. I had others act them out with me. If I were alone, heck, I’d take on all the parts. Very (melo) dramatic. I was the only six-year old in the neighborhood to have a love scene played out just before the hero bought it.

I was voted my high school class writer but it was a fluke. I wrote a horror short story that was published in the school journal my senior year. Other than the perv who scratched and scribbled in the boy’s bathroom, I was the only guy anyone could think of, and I didn’t beat the perv by much.

I’d love to write everyday but it doesn’t happen. But, John, you know how that works – when you’re a writer, you’re always writing, wherever you are, even in your sleep.

I know you have a new novel that just came out. Please tell my readers about it.

Yes, the plug. Thanks, John. THE CAPTIVE DOVE, published in November 2013 by All Things That Matter Press. It came to me from a FBI colleague who had read the short stories I had published in St Anthony Messenger (I mention this in the acknowledgments).

Joe, his brother-in-law is of Palestinian descent. In 1964 when he’s six and his sister is 14, they accompany their grandfather to the village Dayr Ghasana in the West Bank from their home in South Chicago. His sister and grandfather soon leave, but Joe stays on until June 8, 1967, and is rescued by Israeli soldiers after being caught in Ramallah at the start of the Six-Day War. Joe is with his mentally handicapped cousin who is killed on the second day. It takes Joe three days to find his way back to the village where an Israeli captain takes him through hostile fire and bombings to get him to the Tel Aviv airport. True story. I added fictional characters and accounts to create a more compelling one.

What intrigued me most about Joe’s story was the theme of war from children’s eyes where Joe witnesses heroes and villains on all sides. It is in first person point of view, and though it’s a flashback (where Joe can reflect as an adult), the perspectives of this new world all come from young Joe.

Tell us about your publishing experience.

I take it you’re referring to the act of getting published. As I mentioned, I have about ten complete and three incomplete novels. I send them out and get some feedback, but mostly boilerplate rejections. And by the way, I don’t count the rejections so that someday, someone will say, “Hey, you know that guy was rejected 74 times before he was published.” That’s like Miguel Cabrera counting the number of times he didn’t hit a home run. I count only the acceptances. One.

Back in the early 90’s, I was mailing out the query, synopsis, and three chapters via US Postal and FedEx. That cost bucks. Even though email submissions are cheaper, you still can’t shotgun them out.

For THE CAPTIVE DOVE, I knew without a track record I wasn’t going to cut it with a major literary agent or Press. Been there, done that, and frankly, John, I wasn’t about to waste my time and efforts. So I went to the small, independent Presses. When I got a name, I ran them through the Predators and Editors website. Then I just Googled them for any good/bad reviews. All Things That Matter Press came off looking promising so I took the plunge.

As you know, small presses have no budget for marketing so I’m still a babe in this area (glad you didn’t ask about my marketing experience ‘cause this would have been a very short block).

Also, you won’t find a copy editor to dot your “i’s” so don’t rush through the galley as I did the first time around. It came out on Amazon, I bought 15 copies, advertised it on Facebook, then slunk back to tell folks to hold off on buying the “Oops” copy until I got it close enough for government work.

What is your most rewarding writing experience?

Getting published (somebody believes in it).

Do you belong to any writing groups, or critique groups?

I just joined the Public Safety Writer’s Association. Another plug, I started a group on GoodReads in the Mystery and Thriller section “Crimewriter how to.” It’s advertised for crime writer’s (or novelists who are creating such scenes) who don’t want to rely on LAW and ORDER for their procedural and tactical law enforcement info. I invite readers of this blog to join as expert advisors, as well those writers who could use this as a resource.

Are you working on a new project?

Always, John. I do have a mystery series concept with the first book half done.

Is there anything you would like to share with our readers?

Thanks for reading this and THE CAPTIVE DOVE. John, I’m not proud. I’m not going to say writing is its own reward. The reward is the reader. Without them, we’re on the range shooting blanks

Please provide the readers with a link to your website, and a link to your book.

Oh, well, ah … I got no website.

The novel can be found at:

THE CAPTIVE DOVE http://www.amazon.com/The-Captive-Dove-John-Ouellet/dp/0989403246

Thanks for sharing your story with all of us, John. I wish you much success in your journey as a writer. I look forward to seeing you in July at the Public Safety Writers Association conference in Las Vegas.

A Visit With Author, Marilyn Meredith

Welcome, Marilyn, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

I wear many hats. Actually, I seldom wear any, but I have a lot of things that I am and do, namely wife and mom, grandmom and great-grandmom, Sunday School teacher, mentor to other writers—and of course a writer myself. I love to read and watch movies.

What are your immediate goals?

That’s a good question. I don’t often think in terms of goals except what I plan to accomplish each day. Anyone who is my friend on Facebook knows that I plan out what I’m going to do and then do it. I’ve always derived satisfaction from accomplishing things.

What has been your most rewarding experience during the writing process?

Whenever someone tells me they enjoyed my book—and even more when they tell me things that they loved about it.

Tell us about your new release, Spirit Shapes. Is it available in print and e-book?

In Spirit Shapes, ghost hunters stumble upon a murdered teen in a haunted house. Deputy Tempe Crabtree’s investigation pulls her into a whirlwind of restless spirits, good and evil, intertwined with the past and the present, and demons and angels at war.

And yes, it is available in both formats.

How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?

I was brought up in God-loving, church going family and of course this does have some influence on my writing—I shut bedroom doors (people can use their imaginations) and I don’t use “bad language” in my books. Yes, some of the characters curse—I just don’t quote them.

As far as environment, I use where I live as the basis for the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series, the Southern Sierra (the mountain range at the eastern edge of California’s central valley). Tempe is the resident deputy in the town of Bear Creek which has a strong resemblance to the town closest to me. The actual Bear Creek is much like the Tule River which runs through town and in back of my house. Because we have an Indian reservation as a neighbor and Tempe is Native American as are some other characters in the series, and the reservation sometimes has a part in the books.

Where, when, and what is the perfect surrounding when you write?

I write best in my office on my computer in the early morning hours. However, when I’m planning a new book, I can write anywhere—in a notebook, scrap paper, whatever is handy, while I’m riding in a car, at a writing conference, wherever and idea pops into my head.

After hours of writing, how do you unwind?

Usually by doing work that needs to be done in the house, folding laundry, preparing dinner. (Being a writer is such an exciting life.) At least once a week, hubby and I go to town and see a movie and go out to lunch. I don’t do any writing in the evening. Because I get up early, I usually go to bed early though I may watch a little TV, or a movie, or read.

Another way of unwinding is when we go to a conference or a book festival which we love to do, and we treat the trip like a mini-vacation.

Contest:

The person who comments on the most blogs on this blog tour will have the opportunity to have a character named after him or her in the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery.

Tomorrow I’ll be visiting here: http://murderby4.blogspot.com/ and

http://aaronlazar.blogspot.com/

http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Meet Hard-Boiled Detective, Ben Solomon

Please introduce yourself, when you began writing, etc.

I’d first like to thank John for this swell interview. A little further on I mention encountering plenty of gracious and generous folk online, and this is a prime example.

As for me, I’m a lifetime Chicagoan. I’ve always had my hand in one art form or another—call me a renaissance hack. I can’t say I’ve done it all, but I cherish some experiences uncommon to most hog butchers to the world. For example, I’ve danced as an extra with the Bolshoi and Joffrey ballet companies, performed in David Mamet’s only children’s show, worked tech for The Steppenwolf Theatre, and sang “Happy Birthday” to Paul Newman on the set of “The Color of Money.”

I’ve been writing since grammar school, everything from stories to comic books to poetry—such as it was. In my time I’ve founded a literary journal and a critical guide to video releases, and I penned regular columns for Hollywood Online, AOL and Chicago Parent magazine. But I’ve never touched operettas—can’t say I’ve ever done that one.

Have you written any novels?

No, I haven’t. Short fiction and commercial assignments make up most of my recent output. It’s a cliché, but sweating out a 3,000–9,000 word piece gives me all kinds of respect for anyone who can craft a complete novel in any way, shape or form.

I know you have an interesting website. Give my readers an overview of what it’s all about.

“The Hard-Boiled Detective” takes it own unorthodox slant on publishing. (Or maybe I’m just an upstart.)

In a nutshell, the site offers an ongoing subscription series of hard-boiled adventures. Every month, subscribers download three works of short fiction in their format of choice: ePub, mobi or PDF. I’ve fashioned the stories in the old-school tradition, very “retro detective.”

In addition to the detective stories, the site features a hard-boiled glossary, a long-lost interview with Dashiell Hammett, and a fabricated interview with Raymond Chandler.

What else do you write?

Lately I’ve been dabbling with short works of a macabre nature, sometimes in a hard-boiled style, sometimes not, but always with a twist.

What is your most rewarding writing experience?

What comes to mind may sound like the smallest of things, but I especially dig discovering a minor moment that reveals a character and/or reveals a sense of ourselves.

For example, in one detective story, the P.I.’s in the bathroom just before a climactic confrontation (it’s a glamorous profession). He removes his jacket and shoulder holster, and plans to walk out with the gun hidden beneath a hand towel. Just before he leaves the room, he catches sight of himself in the mirror and tosses himself a quick grin. Maybe it comes off a bit silly in this context, but I felt very proud of capturing that brief moment.

Do you belong to any writing groups, or critique groups?

I’m getting to know a community of writers at local, ongoing readings in the city. I’ve also met quite a number of the most generous and gracious people on-line through social media and listserv’s. I’m very interested in pursuing professional affiliations as I become more established and generate a little more scratch.

Are you working on any new projects?

It’s a bit early to give too much away, but I am beginning a new series of sorts. The fantastic nature of the main character allows for the stories to take place in any setting of place or time, and that’s intriguing.

Is there anything you would like to share with our readers?

I’d like to humbly thank them for reading, period, whether they come anywhere close to my work or not. I’ve been removed from being a “regular” audience member for so long that I truly appreciate anyone who reads simply to read, whatever they read, on whatever level they read.

Please provide the readers with a link to your website.

Series info, subscription info and links to features can all be found on The Hard-Boiled Detective homepage:

http://thehardboileddetective.com/

Ben, thank you for visiting my blog. You are an interesting man, and based upon what we’ve just read, I can imagine your characters and stories are riveting. Much success to you in your present and future endeavors.

Meet Robert Weibezahl, Author, Actor, Singer

Robert, please introduce yourself, tell the readers when you began writing, etc.

I began writing when I was a teenager, but aside from a few poems and stories in school literary magazines, I didn’t start publishing until much later. My first book was the literary cookbook, A Taste of Murder, co-written with Jo Grossman. My first novel, The Wicked and the Dead, was published a few years later and the follow-up in the series, The Dead Don’t Forget, has just been published this year. I’ve also published a number of stories and one of them, “Identity Theft,” was a Derringer Award finalist. It’s available in the great eBook collection, Deadly by the Dozen, edited by Mark Terry.

I have an English degree from Haverford College, and after college, I returned to my home city of New York and began a career in publishing. I later moved to Los Angeles and shifted gears a bit, working in the film and television industry for a time – an experience which provides much of the background for my Hollywood-based mystery series featuring screenwriter-sleuth Billy Winnetka.

I live in California with my wife and daughter (who is currently away at college). Beyond my literary pursuits, I am an avocational singer and actor.

Do you write every day, and are novels the only things you write?

I write every day because I write for a living – that is, I make my living writing press and marketing material for publishers. I have also been a monthly review columnist for the national book review, BookPage, for eleven years. These commitments often prevent me from writing “creatively” on a daily basis, but I believe any writing we do helps to make us better writers, so it is all part of the process.

I know you have a new novel that’s just been released. Please tell my readers about it.

The Dead Don’t Forget, from Oak Tree Press, is the second in a crime fiction series featuring screenwriter-sleuth Billy Winnetka. The books are set in Los Angeles in the 1990s. In this installment, Billy meets a screen legend—a now 80-something woman who was a huge star in the silent film age. Gwendolyn Barlow is living in her deteriorating mansion in Hancock Park, largely forgotten. But someone remembers her, because she has been getting disturbing phone calls, threatening her with death. Or so she says—no one really believes her at first. But things turn uglier when someone actually makes an attempt on her life. Billy is soon mired in an investigation that suggests more than one person may have a reason to want Gwendolyn dead. Meanwhile, Billy is spending his days on the movie set where his screenplay, Perchance to Dream, is being filmed. It is not going well. A hot head novice director is wreaking havoc, and, being Hollywood, innocent heads will roll. Billy’s only solace is a new romance—with Gwendolyn’s attorney, Kate Hennessey. But in Billy’s world, nothing, especially not love, is without complications.

What other novels have you written?

The Wicked and the Dead.

What is your most rewarding writing experience?

For me, the most rewarding thing is when a reader lets me know that he or she enjoyed one of my books – and why. It is particularly gratifying if a reader “gets” what I was hoping to accomplish. Just yesterday, for example, an old friend who I worked with in the film business called to tell me he enjoyed The Dead Don’t Forget, and he told me he had been reading the book in a doctor’s waiting room when he got to the moment where a character is killed. He said he uttered, “Oh, no!” aloud and everyone else in the room looked at him as if he were crazy. I just love knowing that he was that absorbed in the book and cared that much about a character.

Do you belong to any writing groups, or critique groups?

No, I’m a bit of a lone wolf in that way.

Are you working on a new project?

I always have a few things in the works. I’m working on a noir book set in the early 1960s, and another novel, set in Hollywood in the 1930s, is percolating. And I should get to work on the third Billy Winnetka books, for which I have a general outline in my head. I’ve also written a play, Which Way the Wind Blows, that I hope will be produced.

Is there anything you would like to share with our readers?

First and foremost, thanks for their support of writers. Publishing has changed so much over the last decade or so, and the commercial success of a book is more and more dependent on word of mouth and online buzz. So if you enjoy a book – be it one of mine or someone else’s – do post your comments on amazon.com or goodreads.com or any other site that reviews and/or sells books. Writers really appreciate that.

Please provide the readers with a link to your website, and a link to your book.

My website can be found at http://www.RobertWeibezahl.com, and I invite readers to “like” my author page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robert-Weibezahl-Writer/115515968523507. The Dead Don’t Forget can be purchased at http://www.bn.com, http://www.amazon.com, and http://www.oaktreebooks.com

Thank you, John, for inviting me to be your guest at your wonderful blog.

A Visit With Author J.L. Greger

Today I’m visiting with JL Greger, scientist, professor, textbook writer and university administrator. Now, a fiction writer, her work inserts glimpses of scientific breakthroughs and tidbits about universities into her medial mysteries and suspense novels.

Please introduce yourself to my readers.

Hi. Although I no longer teach biology and do research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I still enjoy reading about scientific breakthroughs and putting tidbits of science into my medical mystery/suspense novels. So far, they are Coming Flu (2012), Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight (2013), and one tentatively called Ignore the Pain (hopefully 2013).

When did you begin writing?

I’m always confused by the question: When did you begin writing? Writing of what? In 1973, as I struggled with my dissertation in nutrition, I learned that publish or perish was a reality for me. Thus, I began a career of churning out research articles in nutrition and toxicology. If you want to know the fine points of how your body handles metals, such as aluminum and manganese, I’m your woman.

In the mid-eighties, I recognized that I could reach thousands of students interested in nutrition instead of hundred if I wrote a textbook for non-majors. Actually, I should admit that many students who take a “non-majors nutrition” course aren’t interest in nutrition per se, they’re meeting a requirement to complete a course in the biological sciences. It’s a tough crowd but with a co-author, we produced four editions of Nutrition for Living.

I retired early so I could start writing novels in 2006. There are many differences among writing styles used for research articles, texts, and novels. However, in all three, you’re telling a story and the details are important.

Do you write every day?

I try to spend time writing or editing a novel or short story and publicizing my work, mainly with blogs, every day. Reality is: I’m successful five days out of seven.

Tell us about your latest book.

In Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, physician Linda Almquist must discover whether an ambitious young “diet doctor” or old-timers with buried secrets have the most to gain from the deaths of two women in a medical school in the Southwest. Otherwise she might be next woman killed.

This book could be considered an insider’s view of a medical school. It’s not what is portrayed in many novels and movies; it’s grittier and funnier.

What other books have you written? What are your new projects?

In Coming Flu, epidemiologist Sara Almquist, Linda’s sister, is trying to stop two killers: the Philippine flu, which is rapidly wiping out everyone in a walled community in New Mexico, and a drug kingpin determined to break out of the quarantined enclave. Coming Flu was published in 2012.

In the third novel of the series, tentatively called Ignore the Pain, Sara will find the wrong people from her past follow her to Bolivia when she accepts a public health assignment there. I hope Oak Tree Press will be publishing it in November of this year. And yes I have visited Bolivia.

What is your most rewarding writing experience?

I’m still waiting for it.

Do you belong to any writing groups?

I’m a member of Croak and Dagger, the Albuquerque chapter of Sisters in Crime, and Southwest Writers.

Are you working on any new projects?

I plan to send Sara to more exotic locations with medical or epidemiological problems (i.e. Cuba, Thailand, Jordan and Lebanon) in future books in my medical mystery series. I’ve already traveled in Lebanon and Thailand and have booked a trip to Cuba.

Then there are other pet projects. I’ve extensively rewritten and renamed for the third time my first novel. Maybe, this one set in New England will see the light of day in 2014. I also dabble in short stories about my childhood on a farm in the Midwest in the fifties. My short story “Shoes” was published in the Oak Tree Press anthology Felons, Flames, and Ambulance Rides and won second place as a short story in the 2013 PSWA (Public Safety Writers Association) competition.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I included my Japanese Chin Bug in all three of my novels. He’s a great pet therapy dog, but he has a mind of his own, as the picture shows.

Links:

Link to sale of Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight: http://www.amazon.com/Murder-New-Lose-Weight-ebook/dp/B00DFCC3IM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372715439&sr=1-1&keywords=Murder%3A+A+New+Way+to+Lose+Weight

Link to Coming Flu: http://www.amazon.com/Murder-New-Lose-Weight-ebook/dp/B00DFCC3IM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372715439&sr=1-1&keywords=Murder%3A+A+New+Way+to+Lose+Weight

Link to website: www.jlgreger.com

Links to blogs: http://www.jlgregerblog.blogspot.com; http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6495996.J_L_Greger;