Carole Nelson Douglas ditched a newspaper career to become a full-time fiction writer about fifty novels ago.

Talk about double trifectas so far this year: a Career Achievement Award in Mystery from RT Book Reviews in L.A., and Guest of Honor slots at Malice Domestic mystery convention in D.C. and at CONduit science fiction/fantasy convention in Salt Lake City. Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta, the 23rd Midnight Louie feline PI mystery, comes out August 2. Late November welcomes the fifth Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator urban fantasy, Virtual Virgin. And Delilah has a novella, “Monster Mash,” in this summer’s Chicks Kick Butts anthology.

Carole’s titles have appeared on national fantasy, romance and mystery bestseller lists and have won many writing awards. The secret to her long, genre-blending career, she says, is passion and compassion.

Take it away, Carole!

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People often ask how I’ve kept a writing career going for so long through so many genres. I didn’t have a clue myself until I heard the great American fantasist, Ray Bradbury, speak. I’d written twenty novels by then, but had never analyzed what had driven me to write and keep writing. Bradbury said his secret was he’d never outgrown the subjects that fascinated him as a child: Mars, books, dinosaurs, carnivals.

So what was I passionate about as a young child? Books, yes, and cats, writing and putting on plays, begging hand-me-down clothes for dress up, cats, drawing and making up poems, old movies on TV, the young wife next door’s awesome high heels, Hopalong Cassidy’s voice on TV, and cats.

My kid lit was Little Women (women’s issues), Sherlock Holmes stories (historical mystery), and the T. S. Eliot poems that became the musical CATS (feline PI). I loved Edgar Allen Poe at an alarmingly early age (horror, mystery and suspense), and adored Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings later in college (high fantasy, urban fantasy and world-building on a grand scale).

No wonder Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta is the 23rd book of my Midnight Louie feline PI series. It’s Remington Steele with a romantic quadrangle and a Sam Spade cat. Temple Barr, Louie’s partner, is a gutsy and clever vintage clothing fan. Vegas Gold Vendetta’s murder mystery involves a dying cat collector and greedy relatives, but also addresses the series’ underlying serious issues: domestic and institutional abuse and ethic hatred. Passion and compassion.

The compassion had kicked into gear when I was in college and writing my first novel, a Gothic romantic suspense with a female protagonist who did not need to be rescued. I overheard an English couple denigrating the Irish, right in front of the libeled hotel employees. At that moment, my heroine became half-Irish, half-English and my novel gained a social/political issue and a depth of plot and character growth that allowed it to sell to New York even after the Gothic novel craze had died forever.

Twenty-five years later, the year I heard Ray Bradbury speak, because of my annoyance with wimpy women in books, I became the first author to take a woman from the Sherlock Holmes stories as a series protagonist–Irene Adler, the American opera singer and only woman to outwit him. Good Night, Mr. Holmes became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. (the arts, women’s issues, historical dress, mystery and suspense). In fact, I signed a copy and gave it to Bradbury in return for his signed copy of Fahrenheit 451. Talk about a fangirl moment!

Before then, my post-college reporting career focused on . . . you got it, women’s issues and the arts of writing, theater, acting, costuming. And I wrote a feature story on a remarkable survivor, a stray black alley cat they called “Midnight Louie.” All that reporting drove my fiction writing even more. After the Gothic, I wrote a female swashbuckler historical romance. I wrote bestselling high fantasy. Now, years later, I write bestselling urban fantasy with the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator series, which earned two Publisher’s Weekly starred reviews.

Delilah Street’s name comes from where she was found as an abandoned infant, so collecting and wearing vintage clothing from other people’s family history fills an orphan’s void. She rescues a . . . dog, an Irish wolfhound-wolf cross who becomes the K-9 in their investigative partnership. She’s pals with Cinema Simulacrums (CinSims) like Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles, black-and-white film noir characters overlaid on zombies to become living, 3-D attractions at Las Vegas 2013 hotels like the Inferno. And in Virtual Virgin, Delilah and her ex-FBI dead-dowsing love, Ric Montoya, go to Mexico to take down the demon drug lords responsible for the deaths of the hundreds of women in Juarez. (horror, women’s issues, animal companion, film noir) Passion and compassion.

In the Chicks Kick Butt story, “Monster Mash,” the head werewolf mobster hires Delilah to evict an unwanted opera-singing CinSim from his hotel. The cheapo has hired Lon Chaney, “man of a thousand faces,” as a house CinSim because he’ll morph into his many roles, the Phantom of the Opera, a vampire, and Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame. To solve the haunting, Delilah must duel serial CinSim monsters, but she ends the haunting by uncovering and resolving a horrific Chaney family feud involving Chaney, his wife and their son, who created the Wolf Man role, and who wasn’t really Lon Chaney, Jr. Again, passion and compassion.

Even as I morphed with the publishing industry to try new genres, my lifelong passions took new shapes and showed up to drive new characters and plotlines, never abandoning me or my imagination, because they were the things I did and still do care about, passionately.

Jiminy Cricket advised Pinocchio to “Let your conscience be your guide,” but I’ve always offered newer writers a variation on that: Let your subconscious be your guide. That will ensure you draw on your deeply buried childhood passions and they will never lead you wrong.

I’ve also realized that, for me, like Pinocchio, conscience must also be my guide. I want my writing and characters and plots to be intriguing, adventuresome, and romantic and fun, but with an underpinning of psychological realism and character growth. That means I must look the evils of my world in the face as well as portray the hopes we all have.

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Thanks, Carole!!

Readers, you can find Carole at:
Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook

A hearty welcome to Ms. Dana Cameron, a partner in several crimes (just ask her sometime about the Monterey Aquarium visit).

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Hi, I’m Dana Cameron, and right now, I’m up to my hip-boots in urban fantasy and colonial noir short stories! My second Fangborn short story, “Swing Shift,” combines werewolves, jazz, and spies in World War II, and was nominated for an Agatha, an Anthony, and a Macavity. For a limited time, you can read it at my website. A third Fangborn story, “Love Knot,” features vampire Dr. Claudia Steuben and appears in The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge (August 2011). The adventures of 18th-century tavern owner Anna Hoyt continue in “Disarming” and “Ardent.” Enjoy!

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One of my favorite lectures to present involves the cliches about archaeologists in popular culture. In addition to explaining “Why Archaeologists Are Middle-Aged German or English Men” (and how some of us are cute girls from Nawtha Boston) and “Why Archaeologists Always Dig Up Mummies and Golden Treasures” (and how we really don’t), I like to discuss why, in movies, comics, television, books, and any other fictional venue you can name, archaeologists are always uncovering “Things Best Left Undisturbed.”

From H. P. Lovecraft and Rider Haggard, to Dr. Who and Star Trek, to the Marvel Universe and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there are story lines featuring archaeologists who are warned not to disturb the spirit of X, the tomb of Y, or the sacred treasure of Z, and then promptly do, with dire consequences. Inevitably, fictional archaeologists and explorers open tombs, piece together clues that were separated for good reason, and awake long dead terrors. Why is this such a constant theme? Why do people worry we’ll uncover (“dis-cover”) something dangerous?

It’s because we do.

We don’t ignore the public records, but we dig for what else was going on behind the scenes. We’re interested in the everyday stuff that doesn’t make it into the history books, but both the quotidian and the exceptional are often connected to complicated and unhappy parts of the past, filled with exploitation or ignorance or violence. Many people will talk about leaving the past buried, and that’s exactly the opposite of what archaeologists do. Archaeologists uncover information, and sometimes even discover the truth. And then we talk about it.

Same as writers.

I discovered this same reticence to delve into hard topics when I started writing fiction. I realized that when the critics in my head were the loudest, when I had the strongest urges to leave my desk and clean the bathroom or go to the gym, or when I kept skipping over one scene, it was usually because it was difficult in some way. It was fraught with emotion of some kind, but almost always the scary, the sad, or the deeply, embarrassingly personal. It was something I would go a long way to avoid in real life.

More importantly, I also discovered those urges to stop writing were almost always indications that I was on to something good, something that would really feed the story I was trying to tell.

(Seriously? In order to write fiction, I need to uncover thoughts and feelings Best Left Undisturbed? That’s just great.)

I’m not writing autobiography when I write fiction, not even when the character is an archaeologist. But for a story to work, it’s got to have either emotional or physical danger. It has to feel real, so is has to come from somewhere, so writers, me included, mine their own experiences, strip away the details, and refine the sensation.

(No one who’s gone into that cave has ever come out again…Oh, that part of the cemetery haunted…Danger, danger, Will Robinson…)

Some recent examples: In “Disarming,”* 18th-century tavern-keeper Anna Hoyt is sent to London to undermine a powerful man. I drew on memories of painful homesickness and cultural alienation to show her response to leaving home for the first time—and doesn’t everyone love remembering how they didn’t fit in? The payoff I didn’t expect was that by doing so, I gave her the reasons to make the huge choice she has at the end.

“Ardent”** continues with Anna’s voyage home, where she must chose between the life of her first love and the new life she’s found for herself. It’s no fun revisiting choices that have changed your life, but in doing so, I realized Anna would turn some of her anger on those forcing her to make those decisions.

“Love Knot” appears in the anthology The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy With An Erotic Edge*** and features my Fangborn character, vampire Claudia Steuben. Claudia’s worked hard to keep her considerable powers in control, but when she encounters an artifact that rewards her actions with sexual pleasure, she must decide…okay, I’m going to stop there. That book doesn’t come out for another couple of weeks, so you’ll just have to wait to find out what happens.

My point is: You don’t get anywhere by covering something up. Discovery leads to understanding. So take a deep breath, ignore the rumors and warnings of the locals, and forge on. Visiting your own feelings might be like unleashing demons, but you may get what you need to fuel a story.

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* You can check out the podcast of Disarming, from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (June 2011).

*** Edited by Mark Van Name, it’s available August 2; I’ll give away a copy to a lucky reader of Maria’s choosing!

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Thanks, Dana!

Readers, tell us a tale of how you’ve forged ahead, uncovering something interesting. Commenters will all be entered for a chance to win a copy of The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy With An Erotic Edge.

Welcome to Elaine Viets, longtime friend and truly wonderful person!

Elaine Viets writes two national bestselling mystery series. In her tenth Dead-End Job mystery, “Pumped for Murder,” Helen Hawthorne investigates extreme bodybuilding and a death from South Florida’s cocaine cowboy days.

Elaine’s second series features St. Louis mystery shopper Josie Marcus. “An Uplifting Murder” is the sixth book. Elaine has won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty Awards and has been praised in the New York Times. She blogs for The Lipstick Chronicles and the Femmes Fatales.

*****

I write two mystery series. Funny mysteries. My books are beach reads – entertainment that makes you laugh. One reviewer called me “the queen of cozy humor” for my new Dead-End Job mystery, “Pumped for Murder.”

Both my series heroines work hard to bring justice to the victims they encounter. Helen Hawthorne tracks down killers in the Dead-End Job mysteries, set in South Florida. Josie Marcus, a mystery shopper, solves the mysteries she encounters in St. Louis. These women take murder seriously, but have a light-hearted view of life.

The reviewer didn’t know about my dark side. I write dark, brooding short stories. These stories are often told by the killer.

My venture into the dark side started with “Wedding Knife,” a story about a woman forced to wear an ugly bridesmaid’s dress. Nearly every woman would sympathize with her plight. Readers agreed. That story won an Agatha and an Anthony Award. My dark side was hungry for more.

I fed it with “Red Meat.” This time the narrator was a man. I’d never written from a man’s point of view – another discovery. This man was a killer on Death Row. He had it coming.

While my protagonists Helen and Josie tripped over bodies and solved murders for 16 novels, I relished my dark role. One of my latest short stories is “The Bedroom Door” in the Mystery Writers of America’s anthology “Crimes by Moonlight,” edited by vampire queen Charlaine Harris.

Through the “The Bedroom Door” I entered the world of the paranormal. This story was based on my grandmother Frances Vierling, who had second sight. Grandma believed that dead family members stopped by her bedroom to say good-bye before they left on their final journey.

I expanded the fictional grandmother’s psychic powers. Once again, I reveled in the voice of the guilty narrator – a jealous wife with a hair-trigger temper.

In each short story, I explore the depths of my dark side a little more.

I haven’t gone all the way. Not yet. I’ve never written a full-length novel. I may get there yet, but right now, the path remains . . . dark.

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Thanks, Elaine!! I’m honored to have been a fellow Agatha nominee the same year “Wedding Knife” won! How about you, readers? Have you in either reading or writing started to explore a darker side?

Comment below no later than Wednesday, July 20, 2011 for a chance to win an MP3-CD of “Crimes by Moonlight,” edited by Charlaine Harris, with short stories by Charlaine, Carolyn Hart, Margaret Maron, Dana Cameron and 15 more mystery writers! Drawing will be on Thursday.

A huge welcome to one of my new favorite writers, Jim C. Hines.

When he’s not writing the most awesome Princess series books or Goblin books, Jim writes a blog where he discusses everything from rape culture to health care plus the humorous side of being a writer. He’s also got a Zazzle store where he sells items with his fun cartoons.

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It was the middle of 2007, and my second book Goblin Hero had just come out. The book opened with “The Song of Jig,” a goblin-style tune which described the adventures of Jig the goblin from the first book with about as much accuracy as your typical history text.

I wanted to post an MP3 of the song online to help promote the book, but there were two problems:
1. I didn’t have the sound equipment to do a good job.
2. My singing voice is about as appealing as gravel in a dryer.
So a friend recommended I talk to a Michigan filker named Tom Smith.

Now I had been doing the convention scene for several years as an author, but I had never paid much attention to the filk track. But I e-mailed Tom, and he wrote back. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, and gave me a few possibilities for recording my goblin tune. We planned to meet up at ConText later that year.

The con arrived, and one of the first things I did was circle Tom’s concert on the schedule. If this guy was going to sing my song, I wanted to make sure … well, that he didn’t suck. Concert time arrived. I snuck in early to get a good seat and waited for the show to start.
He did not suck. I’d say Tom was the complete opposite of sucking, except then I’d be saying he blew, which isn’t right either.

Tom had a good voice, and was quick and skilled on the guitar, but what made the concert truly awesome was the love in his songs. This was geek culture put to music by someone who obviously loved it. Who loved the culture, the people, and the music.

Did I mention he was funny, too? Crossing Winnie the Pooh with Cthulhu to the tune of Return to Pooh Corner? Or his song 307 Ale (“a beer brewed in a tesseract”)? And as a former computer tech, I could totally related to “Tech Support for Dad.”

Other songs could make you cry, like his tribute to Jim Henson, “A Boy and his Frog.” And he wrapped up his concerts with “Rocket Ride,” a high-energy tribute to everything we love about pulp science fiction.
It opened up a whole new aspect of fandom and convention life. These days I consider Tom a friend, one of the nicest people I’ve met since getting into fandom. Oh, and that MP3 for Jig the goblin? We eventually met up in the hallway. He took one look at the lyrics, pulled out his guitar and microphone, and recorded it right there on the spot. You can listen to it here (link is to an MP3 file).

Or head over to Tom’s site and sample some of his stuff. Tell him Jim sent you.

You’re welcome.

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Isn’t it fun? I remember running across filkers back in the day (oh, 30 years ago or so) when I was busy helping out with the Dallas Fantasy Fair. I have very little musical talent, but love to listen and love the clever word play.

How about you? Do you have a favorite filker or songwriter that you love?

Comment below to win your choice of any of Jim’s DAW paperbacks.

Find Jim online at:

• Livejournal
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Fictionwise
• Wikipedia
• Goodreads