Tell Me Your Story

 Since I seem to be at something of an impasse lately, I've decided that if I can't make headway with my own writing career, the least I can do is support my fellow authors the best way I can. On my own site I've been doing giveaways at the first of every month – physical copies only. Thus far I've only offered my own books, but I'll be expanding to other authors soon. I've volunteered to help with ZOOM panels at an upcoming writers conference. (Torture. I'm not fond of ZOOM conferences.  But needs must.)

Over the many years I've been writing and reading, I've been fascinated by other authors – their process, where the ideas come from, but especially their journeys – why they decided to start writing, what keeps them going, what keeps them writing in the face of the inevitable difficulties of life. 

In June, 2021, I began hosting  on my website a monthly series of author essays called Tell Me Your Story, inviting successful authors to share their life experiences and how those experiences have influenced their writing. Thus far my guests have included handwriting expert Sheila Lowe, whose life view changed forever when her daughter was murdered; Pricilla Royal, who recently took a leap of faith with her long-running historical mystery series; Mariah Frederickson, who was born with a speech impediment that has informed her whole life and world view, and our own dear friend Hannah Dennison, an Englishwoman who spent 25 years in the U.S., then made the hard decision to move back home—and what boost to her life and career that decision turned out to be! She discovered you can go home again. In October I'll be hosting Wendall Thomas, who will be our guest here on Type M this coming weekend, and I've lined up Karen Odden to tell me her story in November. I'm filled with admiration at how frank these women have been. It just goes to show that perseverance is all, and I don't feel quite as hopeless about my own difficulties.Visit  these brave authors as they share their intimate stories on the 20th of every month at  http://www.doniscasey.com 

p.s. If you've got the cajones to tell your own story, or know an author whose story must be told, contact me. I really want to share it. Someone out there need to hear it.

Guest Author Hannah Dennison

Hannah Dennison

Hannah's back! Type M 4 Murder is thrilled to welcome guest poster and one-time Type M regular Hannah Dennison back to the fold to catch up and to celebrate the release of her latest Island Sisters Mystery, Danger at the Cove. British born, Hannah originally moved to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting. She has been an obituary reporter, antique dealer, private jet flight attendant and Hollywood story analyst. Hannah has served on numerous judging committees for Mystery Writers of America and teaches mystery writing workshops for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program now on Zoom. After twenty-five years living on the West Coast, Hannah returned to the UK where she shares her life with two high-spirited Hungarian Vizslas. Take it away, Hannah, and tell us all about it.

Hannah Dennison

It’s wonderful to be here on Type M again. Thank you so much for inviting me. There have been a lot of changes since I last appeared as a guest in 2017—embracing my gray hair during lockdown for starters! 

Personally, it’s been an “interesting” time. They say you should never go back home again but go back I did and luckily, I haven’t regretted it. After twenty-five years in the USA – twenty of those living in Los Angeles, and five in Portland, Oregon, I returned to the peace of the English countryside with no husband but two dogs instead. 

Professionally, it’s been an exciting time since I now have three mystery series still in print (definitely something to be grateful for these days)—the Vicky Hill Mysteries chronicling the adventures of an aspiring investigative reporter who is stuck writing the obituary column; the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries featuring a mother-daughter duo who live on a country estate (a contemporary Downton Abbey meets Midsomer Murders), and my new series, the Island Sisters Mysteries that, as you might have guessed, star two sisters who live on an island. 

My new series was inspired by my new life and returning to the family fold. Gosh I had missed everyone—especially my sister Lesley, whose house is half a mile away if you take the shortcut through a field of extremely curious alpacas.

Hannah and Lesley

A relationship with a sister is like no other. Who else can I belt out songs with from Queen, Genesis and David Bowie or still drive our mother to distraction with our signature—and disgusting—Hot Snot Bogey Pie schoolyard rhyme? 

Although we’d been super close growing up, Lesley and I had drifted apart as the years passed, especially after my move overseas. As the eldest, I used to be the bossy one but I discovered that now it was Lesley who ruled the proverbial roost. As my 91-year-old mother pointed out, “Sorry darling, it’s your sister who holds the rolling pin these days.”  

Sisterhood can be both wonderful and challenging. I find that being labeled Eeyore to her Tigger is still extremely irritating. “That was fifty years ago,” I’d grumble, sounding very Eeyore-like. 

But it was through Lesley that the idea for the Island Sisters Mysteries grew. She introduced me to her friend Gill Knight who had worked as the HR manager on a tiny island called Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago twenty-eight miles off the southwest tip of the Cornish coast. 

Tresco has no police presence, no street lights, no cars and no hospital. In fact, when Gill went into labor, her husband had to call out the lifeboat to make the twenty-minute journey across to the main island of St. Mary’s. Gill also mentioned that those seasonal workers who came to work on Tresco were either running away from something, or hiding from someone. As a mystery writer, I couldn’t think of a better place to set a series! 

Scilly has five inhabited islands with a combined population of around 2,200, and over 142 islets and a lot of rocks. The islands are known for their flowers—especially the legendary scented Narcissi. They are a birdwatcher’s paradise where sightings of rare birds with names like Pink-Footed Goose and Rose-breasted Grosbeak jostle with the Egyptian Vulture—apparently not seen for 150 years and just sighted last Monday so this is breaking news. To add to the magic, the surrounding ocean floor is littered with hundreds of shipwrecks having been a main trading route from the East to the New World. It’s an incredibly romantic place fringed with sandy beaches, heathland and the ruins of seventeenth century fortifications that had been built during the English Civil War when fleeing Royalists sought refuge there.

My island of Tregarrick does not exist but that’s the fun of being a writer. Even more fun is teleporting the Burgh Island hotel from Bigbury-on-Sea and dropping it at the end of a causeway on a rock, hence the Tregarrick Rock hotel. 

Death at High Tide, book one, introduces us to the sisters, amateur photographer Evie Mead and Hollywood film producer Margot Chandler. Evie is a young widow and Margot, a reluctant divorcee who had been living in California for decades, (yes, I know it sounds familiar). After a couple of murders, the siblings end up as chatelaines of the Tregarrick Rock hotel.

Danger at the Cove, released just last month, is the second in the series but it can easily be read as a standalone. We meet the sisters again just ten days before the grand reopening. They’re behind schedule and struggling financially so when Margot’s former Hollywood friend turns up followed by a mysterious boyfriend, mayhem—and murder—ensue. Of course, I couldn’t resist adding in a shipwreck and buried treasure. 

Aside from the mystery and stunning setting the Island Sisters Mysteries are about the complex relationship between sisters. There is a saying, “Sisters by blood, best friends by choice,” and to that I say Amen!

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Hannah writes the Island Sisters Mysteries (Minotaur), the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries (Constable) and the Vicky Hill Mysteries (Constable)

Social Media Links

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Guest Blogger: The Return of Hannah Dennison!

As Hannah is in no need of introductory help, I’m not going to provide it. I will say this, though: Welcome back! It has been too long indeed, Hannah.

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When Rick invited me to return to Type M as a weekend guest, I was delighted. Apart from the fact that a few years ago I had been a member of this stellar group of authors, Type M hosted my very first blog post and has a special place in my heart. I even remember the date—July 13, 2008. It was after I’d met Donis at my all-time favorite bookstore, The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, whilst promoting my debut cozy mystery, A Vicky Hill Exclusive! Donis asked if I’d like to be a guest on Type M. At last I was a “real” author! I had made the cut! Frankly, that date still feels like yesterday although the starry-eyed newbie that I was then has long been replaced by a much more sober attitude to the realities of what it means to be a published author. Basically, writing is hard work—but would I swap it for any other profession? Of course not!

Since I wrote that first book, I’ve discovered quite a few things about my writing process. I’ve learned that each book is just as difficult to write. The only difference is that I have come to expect—and dread—the month-long panic and despair that follows reading the “shitty first draft” (to quote Anne Lamott’s well-known phrase). This panic gives way to a zombie-like numbness that accompanies the delete button as I cut about 70% of the shitty first draft and practically start again from scratch. I know that the key to finding the story is somewhere in that mess and that I just have to sit there and keep on going until it eventually materializes. It’s part of the so-called magic of the creative process. But trust me it sucks. HOWEVER … by about the fourth draft I start feeling excited as slowly, everything starts to come together. And yet with each new book I always fear that this will be the time it just won’t gel.

I’ve learned that the self-doubt monster will always be hovering over my shoulder and that the only way to ignore it is to focus on the writing and not the outcome. Even so, the monster lurks in the corner of the room and rears its ugly head from time to time, usually—and irrationally—when I’ve been given a lovely review or received a nice note from a reader which makes me question their intelligence and/or sanity. But at least I no longer beat myself up about negative reviews or spend hours obsessively Googling said negative reviewer to see how many stars they awarded other authors in the mystery genre. A word of warning—don’t go there.

I’ve also learned that it’s important not to put all your eggs in the proverbial one basket and always have a few elevator pitches up your sleeve. Sure, the term sounds corny but actually, it’s exactly how I sold my second series. It was a long elevator ride. This was at Malice Domestic (never under-estimate the importance of conferences) when I pitched an idea to an editor for a Hollywood nanny series that I’d been working on for ages. She pulled a face and said, “What else have you got?”

For some reason my widowed mother’s rash decision to purchase a highly impractical wing of a country house—without telling anyone—came into my head. She was 73 at the time and is now a spry 87. As you can imagine, my sister and I were really worried. It wasn’t so much the isolated location with a mile-long drive, no local shop and no public transport. The house was a money drain, with a roof in need of mending, heating and plumbing breaking down constantly and generally, the whole estate was falling apart. The editor loved it and asked for just a two-page proposal—which was just as well as I had nothing fleshed out at all! And so The Honeychurch Hall Mysteries were born

In a nutshell, my protagonist Kat Stanford stars in a hit road show called Fakes & Treasures. Weary of being permanently in the public eye, Kat switches careers initially to set up an antique business with her newly widowed mother, Iris. Kat’s mother, however, has other ideas. Kat is horrified to learn that not only has Iris secretly purchased a dilapidated carriage house on a crumbling country estate several hundred miles away from London, she’s actually an internationally best-selling author of erotica, writing under the pseudonym of Krystalle Storm. Kat sets off to make her mother “see sense” and ends up staying herself.

Yet, murder and romance aside, at the core of the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries is the relationship between a mother and daughter facing new and uncertain beginnings. I’m fascinated by the notion that it’s those who are nearest and dearest to us who are often the most duplicitous of all and so far, my fabulous readers are too! Happily, Minotaur will publish the fourth adventure in the series called Murderous Mayhem at Honeychurch Hall, in May 2017. If you’d like more info and a sneak peak at Chapter One, please sign up for my newsletter.

Thank you so much for inviting me today. Happy New Year everyone!

www.hannahdennison.com
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Traveling and Talking Books

Carolyn Hart and Hannah Dennison

I've just returned from Huntington Beach, California, where I participated in the third annual Ladies of Intrigue event, which is sponsored by MysteryInk bookstore. It was a day-long conference featuring more than 15 women mystery writers. including Carolyn Hart and Robin Burcell. This was, according to her, Carolyn's career event finale, and since she has no plans to travel out to this part of the country again, she particularly asked me and former Type M-er Hannah Dennison if we would participate in the conference this year. Of course we said yes. Carolyn has been a mentor and a friend from the beginning of both of our mystery writing careers, and we would both do anything she asked. So off we flew for one day in California, where we mingled and served on panels along with eleven other fun and fabulous authors*. Then Carolyn, Hannah and I schlepped back to Phoenix for an appearance at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore last night.

Carolyn, Hannah, Donis at Poisoned Pen
photo by Judith Starkston

I wonder sometimes how cost-effective it is for an author to spend her time and money traveling around the country appearing at bookstores and events and conferences. I know that every appearance gains at least a couple of new readers, who will spread the word, we hope. But as Rick said in his post about book launches (below) doing events with other authors is always a celebration. The mystery community is nothing but kind and supportive, and it's always nice to know that even authors who are infinitely more well-known than I have the same problems with their writing.

The view of the Pacific from my hotel balcony was worth the trip

I was interested in Aline's post (below) about audiobooks. I've met many a "reader" who prefers the audio version of a book to the print version, and I've been lucky that my publisher has sold the audio rights to all my books--but one! The audio version of my latest, All Men Fear Me, has not come out yet. According to Blackstone, the publisher who does the audio books for Poisoned Pen Press, the audio version of my previous Alafair book, Hell With the Lid Blown Off, did not sell well enough. This surprises me, since the paper version of Hell did very well. Also, I loved the audio version of that book. Hell is the only book in the Alafair Tucker series that has some first person narration, and when I first heard the character of Trent Calder (who had been a secondary presence in all the previous books) speak for the first time, I was bowled over. It was as though Trent, who had only lived in my head, was suddenly a real person.

Perhaps it was more expensive to make because Blackstone had to pay two narrators for Hell instead of one. I have been told that Blackstone is waiting until the audio of Hell makes a profit (Hmm. Hell Makes a Profit. Sounds like a book title to me.) Therefore, Dear Readers, next time you’re at your local library, please do me a favor and check to see if they own a copy or two of Hell With the Lid Blown Off in audio. If they do not, I would be grateful if you would request that the system buy one. Most public libraries have a mechanism for users to request titles. If you'd like your own download, check it out here. Once Blackstone makes money off of Hell, they’ll do an audio of All Men. I hope they do one eventually, since the ninth Alafair book, The Return of the Raven Mocker, will be out in January, and I don’t want to get several titles behind when it comes to audio books.

*Attending authors at Ladies of Intrigue this year were Carolyn Hart, Robin Burcell, Rhys Bowen, Kathy Aarons, Lisa Brackmann, Ellen Byron, Donis Casey, Hannah Dennison, Kate Dyer-Seeley, Earlene Fowler, Daryl Wood Gerber, Naomi Hirahara, Linda O. Johnston, Carlene O’Neil, Laurie Stevens and Pamela Samuels Young.