New interview with mystery author Martha Conway

I’m happy to have mystery author Martha Conway back at Reviews and Interviews. She’s chatting with me about her newest historical mystery, Sugarland: A Jazz Age Mystery.

She was here back in 2014. You can check out that interview here, if you like.

Bio:

Martha Conway is the author of 12 Bliss Street, Thieving Forest, and most recently Sugarland. Her short fiction has been published in journals including Iowa Review, The Carolina Quarterly, The Quarterly, the Massachusetts Review, and Folio. Born in Ohio, she moved to California after college and received a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Currently she is an instructor at Stanford University’s Online Writers Studio and UC Berkeley Extension, and lives with her family in San Francisco.

Welcome back to Reviews and Interviews.

Thanks for having me!

Please tell us about your newest release.

Sugarland is an historical mystery that takes place in the early days of the Roaring Twenties. It’s set in the jazz clubs and speakeasies of Chicago in 1921, when Prohibition is in its first months. Eve Riser is a professional jazz pianist who is touring on the circuit when an accidental death in the middle of a romantic tryst puts her in danger. Her would-be boyfriend sends her to Chicago with money and a letter that she must deliver to a bootlegger in town. But before Eve can deliver them, the bootlegger is killed in a drive-by shooting that nearly kills Eve, too, and when she recovers, she finds that her stepsister Chickie has disappeared. Eve must get help from the bootlegger’s sister Lena, who wants to know who killed her brother and why.

What inspired you to write this book?

I have always loved the Roaring Twenties — the clothes, the excitement, the music, everything. In particular I love the very earliest jazz that came out of New Orleans and migrated first to Chicago and then everywhere else. In fact, it was when I was listening to song called “Si Tu Vois Ma Mere” (If You See My Mother), that I got the first glimpse of the story I would write: I saw an image of a woman looking for something in the snow. I think a lot of us see stories or scenes when we listen to music. This one compelled me to start thinking of the story behind Sugarland.

What’s the next writing project?

I’m doing the final edits for another historical novel, with the working title The Floating Theatre. It’s set in pre-Civil War America, on the Ohio River, which is the natural divider between the North and the South in the United States. The main character is a costume designer on a ramshackle riverboat theatre, and she gets caught up in the Underground Railroad.

What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (or the biggest challenge with this book)

My biggest challenge is getting the research to match up with the story. Often my ideas fly faster than my research, and I have a notion of what I would like to happen in the story that, when I dig a little into the facts of the time, just could not happen. I try to do a lot of research on the front end, before I start, to offset this, but it’s frustrating to find that, for example, a white woman for the most part would not have been able to play the piano professionally in 1921 in Chicago, or go to a club by herself unless she was a prostitute.

If your novels require research – please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?

Yes, I do try to do a lot of the research first. However, I find that as the story goes along it changes with the writing of it. In other words, although I start with a vague outline and at least a partial list of scenes, as I write I find that my story changes. That is exhilarating and daunting at the same time. I often have to go back and do more research when new developments occur. Luckily, I find that the act of doing research itself—reading interviews, taking notes on as many first-hand sources as I can find as well as scholarly secondary sources—really helps me find my way into the story. When I’m stuck, I do more research.

What’s your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.

I am a very habitual person, and I work best in my own environment that is so familiar to me I don’t even really notice it. I have an office in my house; for many years I shared it with my husband and son who played computer games on the computers behind me—but sitting at my desk all I see are my own notecards, my shelves of books, and my writing quotes / inspirations, so it felt like my own space. Also they were not allowed in during daylight hours! Luckily, my husband recently set up another office in another room, so now I have a reading chair and lamp where his computer station used to be. Hopefully I won’t use it too much to procrastinate by reading other people’s books! Jury is yet still out on that.

What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?

Right now I’m reading Sarah Waters and Anthony Trollope. I usually have a couple of books going at one time. I also enjoy reading contemporary literary fiction like Ann Patchett and Jane Smiley (I guess Jane Smiley could lay claim to many different kinds of genres!). Some of my favorite mystery writers are Cara Black and David Downing.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?

I just found out that Sugarland has won a Reader’s Favorite Book Award, and I’m thrilled!

Links:

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon

Thank you for coming back to Reviews and Interviews!

Thanks so much for having me again, Lisa!

Readers, if you'd like to learn more about Martha and her writing - and enter for a giveaway, here's a list of her other tour stops:

*Monday, October 10(today!) @ The Muffin - Interview and Giveaway

Wednesday, October 12 @ Renee’s Pages - Review

*Wednesday, October 19 @ Thoughts in Progress - Guest Post and Giveaway

Friday, October 21 @ Bev Baird - Review

*Monday, October 24 @ Building Bookshelves - Interview, Review, and Giveaway

Tuesday, October 25 @ Choices - Review

*Friday, October 28 @ Mystery Thrillers & Romantic SuspenseReviews - Guest post and Giveaway

*Sunday, October 30 @ Vickie S. Miller - Review and Giveaway

Wednesday, November 2 @ Bring on Lemons - Review

Thursday, November 3 @ Deal Sharing Aunt - Review

Monday, November 7 @ Celtic Lady’s Reviews - Review

Interview with novelist Martha Conway

Novelist Martha Conway is visiting today to tell us about her newest novel, a historical fiction work titled Thieving Forest.

She’s in the midst of a virtual book tour through Wow-Women on Writing’s The Muffin. 

Bio:

Martha Conway’s first novel 12 Bliss Street (St. Martin’s Minotaur) was nominated for an Edgar Award, and her short fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Mississippi Review, The Quarterly, Folio, Puerto del Sol, Carolina Quarterly, and other publications. She graduated from Vassar College and received her master’s degree in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She has reviewed fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Review of Books, and The Iowa Review. The recipient of a California Arts Council fellowship in Creative Writing, she has taught at UC Berkeley Extension and Stanford University’s Online Writers’ Studio.

Welcome, Martha. Please tell us about your current release.

My husband describes Thieving Forest as “Little Women meets Last of the Mohicans.” It’s historical fiction, which is a departure from my last novel (a mystery), and it follows five sisters when their lives in pioneer Ohio are disrupted by an abduction. Four sisters are kidnapped by a band of Potawatomi Indians, and the younger sister, Susanna, goes after them. Meanwhile the man in love with Susanna—who is part Potawatomi himself—follows as well. It’s a tale of survival and self-creation as each one of these characters undergoes a kind of transformation as the journey progresses. And it’s also a romance. Seth, the man in love with Susanna, re-discovers his Potawatomi heritage, while Susanna transforms from a younger sister nicknamed Princess to a woman who can fend for herself.

What inspired you to write this book?

I have five older sisters, and I was interested in sibling dynamics. At the same time I was reading a lot of quest or adventure stores — Patrick O’Brian and Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain), to name a few—and wondering why there were never any females who went off on a journey. I wanted to flip the genre. At first I thought my protagonist, Susanna, would go off to California or Oregon, but when I was doing research I found a book called “Tales of the Great Black Swamp.” This swamp was in northwest Ohio, near Toledo, and it was huge —nearly the size of Connecticut. I grew up in Ohio, and I had never heard of it! It’s almost all drained now, but at the time it was a serious obstacle to travel. I wanted a place that my characters could get lost in, and the Black Swamp seemed perfect for that. And since I grew up in Ohio, the setting resonated for me.

Excerpt from Thieving Forest:

Susanna grasps the tree trunk in front of her with her bare hands, feeling for any small holds in the rutted bark. Her mouth is so dry that it hurts. She can’t see her sisters’ faces but wisps of their red hair, each one a different shade, lift in the wind. Their black mourning collars and dark dresses bleed into the color of the trees, and only Beatrice has a cap on her head. One Potawatomi wrenches Naomi’s violin out of her hands and ties it up to the bundle of dead chickens. Then he pushes her with the handle of a spade—their father’s spade—and drives her and the others into the bracken and trees and the vines of small, unopened roses that mark the edge of Thieving Forest.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m working on the next installment of my Ohio trilogy, called The Floating Theatre. It takes place in antebellum America along the Ohio River, which was the natural separation between the North and the South. After being abandoned by her cousin, May Bedloe, a socially awkward seamstress, gets a job on a ramshackle riverboat theatre and becomes involved in the Underground Railroad.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Very, very early in my childhood. I loved to read, and from there it was a natural leap to wanting to write. I liked writing on wallpapered walls if no paper was at hand, much to the annoyance of my mother.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I’m not sure I could write forty hours a week even if I had forty hours a week to write, but I do write every day for two or three hours in the morning. I also teach creative writing. Since I’m a very habitual person, I’ve found what works for me is to make writing a daily routine. If it’s eight o’clock in the morning, I should be writing.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

If I’m feeling sluggish or blocked I eat a couple of chocolate-covered espresso beans. That always gets the juice going again.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A writer! Although I did go through a period in high school where I thought it would be interesting to restore old paintings (I was given a back-room tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and it was fascinating).

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Just my thanks for taking the time to read this interview! And I hope you check out Thieving Forest. I’m biased, but I think it’s a pretty good read.

Links:

Book site | Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

Thanks, Martha! Happy writing!