0:01

In this episode, Tammy Bird tells us

0:03

about a novel inspired by the words

0:05

of an old man on an island. And

0:08

it's been a while since Justene has given

0:10

a book, a delightful recommendation. Well,

0:12

not anymore. Welcome to Queer

0:14

Writers of Crime, where we feature LGBTQ

0:18

authors, a mystery, suspense, and

0:20

thriller fiction. Justene

0:31

what is something that you keep telling

0:34

me over and over again?

0:36

I keep telling you to pimp your own books.

0:39

Yes, you do. So today

0:41

I'm going to pimp my books and it's actually

0:43

an audio book, A Body

0:46

on The Hill. My second Mitch O'Reilly

0:48

Mystery is now out on audio

0:50

book. People go to Audible

0:52

or they can go to Amazon and get it

0:54

there. So actually the first two

0:56

books, A Body In a Bath House and

0:58

A Body On the Hill are both available. If

1:01

they haven't listened to either one,

1:03

it's probably a good time to grab

1:05

them both.

1:06

Sounds wonderful. Sounds really great.

1:09

And you really want to delve into those

1:12

I will have links in the show notes to those.

1:14

Great people oughta to listen

1:17

and you know, if they prefer to read

1:19

and they haven't actually read your books, they need

1:21

to pick them up.

1:23

I agree. Everybody should read it.

1:25

Yes. Yes.

1:27

And now I'm going to get a little bit spiritual

1:30

on you

1:31

Okay. All right. We

1:33

can deal with it.

1:34

Each week I been promoting or talking

1:37

about a different podcast and

1:39

a lot of these are what we call podcast swaps,

1:42

where if I like another podcast, I say,

1:44

Hey, I'd like to promote your show.

1:46

And if they like mine, they'll say I'll promote

1:48

your show, but it's only if we like

1:50

each other show. So I turned down

1:52

more shows than I will accept to

1:54

do a. recommendation

1:56

for.This week

1:59

is something totally different. Tyler,

2:02

the host of this podcast

2:04

does not know that I'm going to mention his show,

2:08

it's Have A Blessed Gay. And

2:10

it's hosted by Tyler Martin spiritual

2:13

comedy podcast. He's an actor,

2:16

a singer, a comedian and

2:18

activist. he discusses

2:20

social norms,current events,

2:23

mental health spirituality

2:25

from an outcast perspective.

2:29

I don't know about you. I don't consider myself.

2:31

I certainly am not religious.

2:34

Although you do attend church every Sunday,

2:36

right?

2:36

I do attend church, but the Unitarian

2:38

church in, in, uh, we'll go

2:41

in one day, talk about what a

2:43

Unitarian church is, but for those

2:45

that aren't familiar with that I will tell you that probably

2:47

half of our congregation are atheist.

2:50

I know that sounds weird for a church and

2:53

I'll explain it one day. But

2:56

Tyler's podcast. I

2:58

met him on Instagram, right when the show started

3:01

and we became Instagram

3:03

buddies and he's the, one of the first people that gave our

3:06

show review. When

3:08

I first started listening to Have A Blessed Gay

3:10

I was hooked and Regardless

3:13

of not being religious. I am very,

3:15

fascinated by religion for a lot

3:17

of different reasons. And especially from a historical

3:20

perspective like,

3:22

you know, back in Jesus's time, there

3:24

was a new prophet, like every other week,

3:26

because it was a bad

3:28

time. People needed something to hold on to.

3:31

So why out of all the hundreds of profits

3:34

did he become the big guy? Tyler

3:37

talks about some of those things. I'm going to look

3:39

at my list here and give you some of the subjects he's

3:41

covered. Um, My

3:44

God is Better Than Your God, which

3:46

is about Christian privilege.

3:48

Yeah.

3:49

Catholicism and homosexuality,

3:52

plenty to say on that one. And

3:56

then my favorite show has done is who

3:58

created Christianity? Was it

4:00

Jesus? Was a Paul? Was it

4:02

Peter? Was it James?And again,

4:06

most historians believe Jesus

4:08

did exist. Not all but most do, but

4:11

what is the historical perspective?

4:13

How did the church get started? And

4:15

he delves into that. And it's really

4:17

interesting

4:18

yes. Yes, yes.

4:20

they wandered throughout the land and

4:22

preached his gospel. So,

4:25

for whatever reason he had the charisma and

4:27

I guess people liked his message and they carried

4:30

it on. So

4:33

You know, you're, you're basically like dissing

4:35

every Christian that believes that he was

4:37

divine, but that's okay. We can keep

4:39

going on this.

4:40

Anyway, I'm getting off course. I

4:43

just won't really want to promote this podcast.

4:46

you know, who killed Jesus is not, is

4:48

not really a good murder plot.

4:50

well, So

4:52

anyway, I'll wrap it up,

4:54

Okay.

4:55

Have A Blessed to Gay. I'll have the link

4:57

in the show notes and I highly recommend

4:59

it. Check it out. Tyler is funny

5:02

and he presents it all in a good manner.

5:04

And so that's all I have to say about that.

5:07

Is it my turn already?

5:09

Yes. What do you

5:11

have for us?

5:13

I have The Postscript Murders by

5:15

Elly Griffiths and Elly

5:17

Griffiths, a one

5:19

of her books, not this one, but

5:21

one of her books actually won

5:24

an Edgar award. for not

5:26

only best, first novel, but actually

5:28

for, best book of the year.

5:30

And that book was stranger diaries,

5:33

but this is one of her books

5:36

Hey, Whoa, Whoa. I got Whoa. I

5:38

want to tell people

5:40

Oh, well, of

5:41

the Edgar award is the

5:43

mystery equivalent to an Oscar.

5:47

It's a big deal.

5:49

Yeah. Sometimes we talk about that and, and,

5:51

I generally assume people know what it is, but, I'm

5:53

glad you stepped in and, uh, for

5:55

the new people, we've got that.

5:57

All right. So she is an Edgar award winning

5:59

author, and the

6:01

main character in this book is

6:04

a, gay. Sikh

6:06

detective inspector in

6:08

England. she's a lesbian,

6:11

so. She lives at home with

6:13

her parents. She's 36 and lives with her

6:15

parents. And, she does not

6:17

consider this a failure. She likes living

6:20

with her parents, better than living

6:22

alone. They have a good relationship.

6:24

They're friends. It was a very

6:26

comforting start because, uh,

6:29

you know, my daughter was at home and has the same

6:31

attitude, and I'm

6:33

glad to see that there's somebody else, at least in the

6:35

fictional world that, uh, is the same.

6:39

So, let me tell you who recommended this book?

6:41

Rich Stevens. One of our great

6:43

listeners, wrote to me and said, this is, this

6:45

is a terrific book. I think you should read

6:48

it. You'll love it. and he was

6:50

right. I read it and I loved it.

6:52

We want every one of our listeners

6:54

to be like Rich Stevens. He has recommended

6:57

guests to me to have on the show and he has

6:59

recommended you to have books on the show.

7:02

He's fantastic. Rich. Thank

7:04

you.

7:05

Yeah. Yeah. He's really wonderful. He's really

7:08

terrific. and we hope his payments in the mail.

7:13

Okay. So let me just say the

7:15

main character, I think is this

7:18

detective inspector. her name

7:20

is Harbinder Kaur uh,

7:23

and I'm pretty sure I'm mispronouncing her last

7:25

name, but her first name is Harbinder

7:28

there are three other characters who are,

7:30

uh, narrative characters. So

7:33

one of them is a former

7:35

monk who runs a little coffee shop.

7:38

And another is a gay

7:40

man who is living in this

7:42

sea, which I, I think it's the,

7:45

English equivalent of assisted living. And

7:48

he, he was gay when a time when it

7:50

was still illegal and he is, uh,

7:53

Generally surprised every time someone

7:55

talks openly about being gay, because

7:57

that was not his lived experience. And

8:01

the fourth person is a carer

8:03

who goes into this assisted living facility

8:06

and she is bisexual.

8:09

So it's a diverse group of

8:11

people. The victim

8:13

is Peggy Smith. Peggy

8:16

Smith is a murder consultant.

8:18

And let me tell you what a murder consultant does.

8:21

She thinks of murders for authors.

8:23

So she has a whole shelf full of books.

8:26

In which, um, the

8:28

authors credit her

8:30

with helping with the plots and without

8:32

her, the book would not be possible. And

8:35

what she comes up with is

8:37

new and intriguing ways to kill people.

8:41

And let me just say this Brad if

8:43

I ever get an opportunity to work as a murder

8:45

consultant, I am giving up this podcast

8:47

gig.

8:48

don't do that then.

8:51

No, it's it's it really

8:53

sounds like a great job. So one of the murders

8:55

that she, uh, thought up

8:57

for the bestselling author is,

9:00

the method was poisoned incense,

9:04

and I don't think I've ever actually read

9:06

poisoned incense anywhere. and

9:08

it's really too bad that wasn't a method of murder

9:10

in this book because it does sound intriguing.

9:13

But that was indeed the,

9:15

the most original that I had ever heard.

9:17

It actually sounds like something that would be obvious

9:20

that I never even thought of.

9:22

Yeah. Yeah. And that's,

9:24

and that's why she was used

9:26

by a lot of these authors. So

9:28

she ends up dead. And,

9:31

she was 90 years old living in the same

9:33

assisted living facility. Uh, the

9:36

Karen Nitalka shows up and

9:38

finds her dead and it just, it

9:40

just doesn't seem right. You know, you would think

9:42

that, you know, 90 year old woman, die

9:45

sitting in her chair and

9:47

for some reason it doesn't sit well. So,

9:51

Nobody really wants to listen to her.

9:53

The DI Harbinder doesn't, you know,

9:55

it's like, okay, that's interesting. I'll take the report.

9:58

And then when they go

10:00

back in the other three, go back in

10:02

to pick up a book as a memento,

10:06

someone comes in fully masked,

10:08

all in black with a gun

10:11

points, the gun at them, and then picks up

10:13

one of the books and just leaves. You

10:16

know, stealing an old book, it was, uh,

10:19

yeah, 1930s, barely

10:21

read book, not very popular and doesn't

10:24

sound very valuable, but it certainly adds

10:27

to the theory that Peggy Smith was murdered.

10:29

And so now, DI Harbinder Kaur

10:32

gets involved. you

10:34

get to know a lot about the authors for whom she

10:36

consulted. They go

10:38

to an authors convention in which the

10:41

three authors all give speeches. The

10:44

best-selling author talks about how

10:46

he has a lot of books published, but then he's got

10:48

a lot of books sitting that will never

10:50

see the light of day. One

10:52

of those books is called The Cricket Stump Murderers.

10:55

And I am glad that we'll never see the light of

10:57

day because it

10:59

can only pale in comparison to

11:01

The Cricketers Arms by Garrick Jones,

11:04

in which a cricket stump was indeed

11:06

the method of murder.

11:08

Went up someone's ass.

11:10

That's right. I wonder if Garrick

11:12

Jones used a murder consultant and

11:15

if not, maybe he hired me as a murder consultant.

11:19

Okay. So the

11:21

chapters all switch between the various,

11:24

voices, the, the four main characters,

11:27

the three of them are going off to

11:29

investigate on their own. As most

11:32

amateur detectives do. Harbinder

11:34

does not like that. they're investigating on

11:37

their own as most police people

11:39

doing do in these books. Um,

11:42

but she doesn't really have the resources

11:44

to, supplant them, the

11:47

author's convention is, is going

11:49

on in Scotland and, and

11:51

they're the only ones who can go and she can't get

11:53

to them too, stop them. So

11:55

as you can imagine, danger

11:58

ensues. and They

12:00

all handle it. Well. Um,

12:02

even Edwin the, the 80 year old

12:04

man insisted, if he, shows

12:07

great bravery, uh, Benedict

12:09

the former monk who

12:11

left the priesthood to get married, he's still a

12:13

Virgin and he's kind of living

12:15

this kind of still cloistered

12:17

life. He was cloistered as a monk

12:20

and then he's, you know, he has just this.

12:22

Coffee shop. He comes into

12:24

his own. it's just a marvelous book.

12:27

All of the characters, you know, each

12:29

of the characters has the same sort of development

12:31

that if, you know, a book focused on just

12:33

them, that's what you would expect. So she has

12:36

these four main characters who

12:38

hold their own in the plot. and

12:40

the plot is intricate and the whole

12:42

thing is just delightful. It's getting

12:44

a delightful recommendation from me.

12:47

I think it's been a while since he did delightful, I was going

12:49

through the list

12:51

Yeah, I haven't seen the delightful in while.

12:53

And, and, and this really is so

12:55

one of those, there were times I

12:57

laughed out loud. No times I said, Oh, that's

12:59

just, that's just adorable. Uh,

13:02

and you would not think adorable would come up in a murder

13:04

mystery, but, some of those moments were

13:06

adorable.

13:07

And I love it. When you have characters, you just

13:10

really love, when I did the foreword for

13:12

Lev Raphael's book. I

13:15

liked the characters so much that

13:17

he could of taken away the murder. And I

13:19

was so engrossed. I was so engrossed

13:21

in their lives. That would have been an interesting novel. The

13:24

fact that he added murder into it just was icing

13:26

on the cake.

13:27

Right. Yeah, he does. Very good. Speaking

13:30

of him, we're bringing out his fourth book

13:32

in the Nick Hoffman series, Little Miss Evil.

13:34

Um, that's coming out in the next month

13:36

or two. We also have

13:39

the second Caitlin Reese book coming out in

13:41

the next month or two and on the shelves

13:43

now, are the Nikki Baker the Long Goodbyes

13:45

and on the shelves also as my Grant

13:48

Michael's Dead As a Doornail and,

13:51

uh, Long Goodbyes and Dead as a Doornail, or

13:53

are the newest ones out there in those series.

13:56

And we're releasing two more in our other series.

13:58

I gotta say I'm missing out because

14:01

I've been picking up my reading and I have

14:03

yet to read a Nikki Baker novel.

14:06

Oh, you will love it. You will

14:08

love it.

14:09

That's all I hear is how red and Cheryl

14:11

Head, didn't she say that Nikki was an inspiration?

14:15

That says a lot right there.

14:17

And Cheryl Head has written the forward to Long

14:19

Goodbyes, which we're about to publish. So

14:22

she, shared her, experience,

14:24

in the forward. People should pick

14:26

it up.

14:28

Well, before I let you go, I have two things I

14:30

need to say that I should have said earlier. if

14:33

we have guests that want to be on the show were

14:36

already booked up till August. So

14:38

if you have a show coming out in the fall, let me

14:40

know.

14:42

You have a book coming out in the fall.

14:44

Yeah. If you have a book you want to promote or just,

14:46

you want to be on the show, let me know

14:48

because we're filled to August. The

14:51

other thing I want to say is the

14:53

vast majority of our listeners

14:56

listen to Apple podcasts. Apple

14:59

is making a bunch of changes right now,

15:01

and it's an absolute mess. So

15:04

if you listen on Apple, Please

15:06

subscribe. If you subscribe to

15:08

the show on Apple, you will get

15:11

the show probably within 30

15:13

minutes of its release. If

15:15

you don't subscribe, it

15:17

can take as long as a day and a half for

15:19

this show to appear in Apple Podcasts.

15:22

Oh my, that is wild. Subscribe,

15:25

subscribe, subscribe, or

15:27

use something else,

15:28

should be subscribing anyway. And that's all

15:31

I had. All

15:34

right. Well, I'll see you next week. Some

15:57

people buy a fancy sports car

15:59

or fly to a far away land

16:01

when they hit middle age. Author, Tammy

16:03

Bird started writing fiction with strong

16:06

female protagonist. A literature

16:08

professor by trade. She deemed

16:10

it fitting to write about the kaleidoscopic

16:12

prisms of human nature in her

16:15

thriller suspense stories and novels.

16:17

Be warned. Her work is psychologically

16:20

hard and gritty and real. It

16:22

may not be palatable to everyone. But

16:25

it is all that flows from the pen

16:27

to paper, even when she tries to write

16:29

something softer with a guaranteed

16:31

happily ever after. Welcome

16:33

to Queer Writers of Crime Tammy.

16:36

me.

16:37

I first want to tell you job well done.

16:40

You're a finalist in the Golden Crown Literary

16:42

Award, the Goldie. So

16:45

I just saw that the other day. And

16:47

that's for The Book of Promises. Your second novel

16:50

correct. That's where the second novel. Yeah.

16:52

Way to go on a second novel.

16:54

Thank you. Thank you very much.

16:56

You mentioned happily ever after.

16:58

Can your readers expect a happily ever after?

17:01

Uh, well, I guess it depends on how you

17:03

define happily ever after, because,

17:06

if they're looking for a romance

17:08

where two people get together

17:11

and they find their sparks

17:13

and they, they move in together

17:15

and everything is beautiful or whatever. No. They're

17:18

not going to find that in my books, that's not the purpose.

17:20

I write suspense thriller. And

17:22

so they're my happily

17:25

ever afters are simply

17:27

making it through to the other end

17:30

of whatever is happening to the characters

17:32

and coming out in one piece. Are

17:34

there characters who love

17:36

each other and their relationship develops

17:39

within my novels? Yeah, absolutely.

17:41

And, I write strong female

17:43

protagonist and in

17:45

both Sandman and The Book of Promises,

17:48

the strong female protagonist also

17:50

has a love interest, and it is a

17:52

love that is developing and growing, but it's not

17:55

the central focus.

17:56

How do I know I'm reading a Tammy

17:58

Bird novel.

18:01

well, I've been told anyway

18:04

that my,

18:06

that I, that I have very strong

18:09

diverse characters within

18:12

my work and I am, I

18:14

was an academic and, and still

18:16

am in my other life. And

18:18

my studies have all revolved

18:20

around other with a capital O

18:23

or marginalized characters. And

18:25

so I don't think I can help,

18:28

but to bring that, uh,

18:31

learning and knowledge and.

18:33

Um, passion into my writing.

18:36

And that's something that people,

18:38

I didn't know, people would pick up on that.

18:40

I just thought I was just writing what people

18:42

would write because people are all so

18:44

different. But I guess because

18:47

I've studied marginalization

18:49

and I've studied othering and I've studied

18:51

a lot of French, uh, feminist

18:54

work, it's, it shows

18:56

itself differently in my work. Evidently.

18:58

So, uh, and I'm, I'm excited

19:01

about that. I'm I always want people,

19:03

I'm sad that they're

19:05

able to pick out that it's my work, because

19:07

it's there. I wish that it

19:09

was there and more work, but, um, I'm also

19:11

excited that people are able to see that

19:13

that is super important to me to

19:16

get the, to get the diversity

19:18

in there and to make sure that it's done in

19:20

a way that is supportive

19:22

and true to the

19:24

characters that are representing.

19:27

well, I would think if they know the reading, a Tammy

19:29

Bird novel, that's a good thing. They've

19:31

made a connection. Why

19:34

thrillers and suspense?

19:37

I don't really know the answer to that question. Actually.

19:40

I know that when I

19:42

started, I, I guess

19:45

because. I've never

19:47

read romance. I've never enjoyed

19:50

romance. I didn't read it

19:52

when I was younger. When I was growing up, it

19:54

just has never interested me. My,

19:56

the people that I read were like

19:59

were, you know, the Stephen Kings of when

20:01

I was younger, those were the ones that were like Stephen

20:04

King and, and Koontz and people

20:06

like that. So I. I

20:08

guess you kind of what you write

20:10

as a compilation of what you've brought with

20:12

you from the beginning of your

20:15

journey on this earth.

20:17

So for me, that's

20:20

what I enjoyed reading. And that just

20:22

was, seemed a natural progression to me

20:24

when I decided that I wanted

20:26

to try my hand at this fiction

20:28

thing. Yeah.

20:30

Well, it's exciting to have a suspense

20:32

thriller novelist on the show in

20:35

the past. It's been mostly traditional

20:37

mystery. And I think part of

20:39

that was my fault. The name of the show used to be called

20:42

Gay Mystery Podcast. And

20:44

it's more than that. And I wanted that to reflect

20:46

in the name. So I changed it to Queer Writers of Crime.

20:49

To make sure that it was more diverse and also to

20:52

make sure I get people within those other crimes genres.

20:54

So hopefully by that name change,

20:56

that will change that because I certainly

20:58

would like to see more. Women

21:00

have written mysteries over the years.

21:03

I know it's been traditionally

21:05

a male dominated genre, as

21:07

with most things, but

21:09

in recent years, we've seen a lot large growth

21:12

in women who write thriller

21:15

novels. Why do

21:17

you think in the broader picture that is?

21:20

Well, I think that men dominated every

21:23

field for so very long.

21:25

And I don't, I, I think that a lot

21:27

of people coming up to today, some of

21:29

the, some of the younger

21:31

generation don't really

21:33

understand how

21:36

male dominated white male dominated.

21:39

All of the realms were when

21:42

we were growing up. And, and because

21:44

of that, um, I, I think again,

21:46

it's, it's that whatever

21:50

it comes into you is kind of

21:52

what goes out of you. And when you don't have

21:54

any role models around you

21:57

to show you that these are fields

21:59

that you can go into it's, it's almost

22:01

like the, when you talk about STEM education,

22:03

the science technology kind of education.

22:06

It has always been super male dominated

22:09

because when we were coming up

22:11

or when I was coming up, the girls

22:13

took home-ec and the boys took,

22:16

um, auto mechanics and

22:18

there, there were no other options.

22:20

You were a boy or you were a girl and you took

22:22

home-ec or you took. auto mechanic, you know, there,

22:25

there was nothing in between, and

22:27

it took a long time for the, for

22:30

us to begin to question that

22:32

and to feel comfortable saying,

22:35

you know, this is bullshit basically,

22:38

and that, um, we

22:40

need to be able to do what we want to do too.

22:42

And I hated home-ec and

22:44

I didn't want to take home And

22:46

now people that

22:49

are in school don't have, they can

22:51

take home-ec if they want to, no matter how they

22:53

identify or they don't have to take home-ec if

22:55

they don't want to, no matter how they identify. And

22:57

I think that's making a difference. I think it's

22:59

helping to change the way that, that

23:01

we look at what we can and what we can't do.

23:04

And so different areas are

23:06

starting to, to diversify,

23:08

which is beautiful.

23:10

When. I talked to you. I sent you an email

23:13

because your most recent book is

23:15

The Book of Promises. And

23:17

I asked you if it was okay, if I could read

23:20

Sandman instead. And

23:22

you said, of course, and I want to thank you very much

23:24

for allowing me that freedom. And

23:26

I don't know if I told you why Sandman

23:29

takes place in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I

23:32

love the Outer Banks. Absolutely

23:36

love it. I love Okracoke Island. so

23:38

as soon as I saw that your novel takes place

23:40

in the Outer Banks, I had to go for it.

23:43

so I generally don't like, as I told you,

23:45

before we started, I don't get into the writing process

23:47

so much, but because you chose

23:49

the Outer Banks and. The

23:51

crime that's there, or I guess I can

23:54

open up, they, they discover bodies as, and

23:56

it was a serial killer. Sure. That's

23:58

right in the beginning. So I'm not giving away a spoiler but

24:00

where did you get that idea?

24:03

Well, and, and this is something

24:05

when I go to readings and things, the

24:07

readers find this, find this very interesting.

24:09

So I think it's a great question. Um,

24:12

I actually got

24:14

the idea while in the outer banks,

24:16

my wife and I got married in October. And

24:19

we went on our, when the, as soon as it

24:21

was legal, we got married. We went to,

24:24

um, even though we'd been together for years

24:26

and years before that, we went

24:29

to, uh, an inn Pamlico

24:31

Inn on the sound on,

24:33

in Buxton, which is not

24:35

too far from the ferry that you take over to

24:37

Okcracoke. And

24:40

when we, while we were there,

24:42

of course, it's October. So it's, it's

24:44

cool. So there aren't a lot of people, anywhere, a lot

24:46

of things are closed. There's not much

24:48

happening, which we loved. I don't

24:50

know if you've ever been in the off season, but ha

24:53

it's my favorite time to go. But

24:55

so there's this, the whole ice cream shop there and

24:57

it was open and we thought, Oh, that'd be good. We'll go

24:59

get an ice cream. So we go into this little

25:01

shop and there's one gentleman behind

25:04

the counter, older gentlemen, and

25:06

he's talking in the, in he's, he's a,

25:08

he's a lifer he's. So he's always

25:10

lived on the Island and, and that's where he

25:12

grew up. So he had that very

25:14

heavy, um, Oh,

25:17

almost Okracoke-ish kind of

25:19

accent. Um, and

25:22

we started talking to him and I was just fascinated

25:24

by the stories he was telling us. And

25:27

I said to him how it is just

25:29

really quiet cause the whole time we were there, no one else came

25:31

in. I said, wow. It is just really

25:33

quiet around here this time a year. We're going

25:35

to have to come back this time more often, because

25:37

this was really cool. And he said,

25:39

yeah, it's so quiet around here

25:41

on the off season season that you could bury

25:44

a body and no one would ever know. And

25:46

I was like, and

25:49

that just stuck with me. It wasn't, it

25:51

was no more and no less than that. And

25:54

I, and so we went

25:56

and we did our thing and we enjoyed

25:58

ourselves and I didn't even know that it was

26:01

percolating in my brain and when

26:03

we got home, um, I

26:06

just, it just, I just kept thinking about it and

26:08

I just sat down and just started writing it in

26:10

that. And then we went back two

26:12

more times to do some additional research

26:14

to te to actually take the ferry over

26:16

to Okracoke, because

26:18

I have a piece in the, in the novel that

26:21

depends on the ferry.

26:23

And so I thought, well, I need to know when it travels,

26:26

how it travels all the pieces. And

26:28

so we went back a couple of different times for that, but

26:30

that's where it came from was just that one

26:32

sentence in an ice cream shop,

26:35

in Buxton.

26:36

well regarding Okracoke. I was excited

26:39

when that started happening, because I

26:41

love that Island so well for

26:44

those that aren't familiar with the outer banks, I'm

26:46

gonna let explain what, what are the outer banks

26:49

of North Carolina?

26:50

The Outer Banks are this just phenomenal

26:53

little strip of sand? It is

26:56

the, it there's

26:58

one road in. And

27:00

the same road out. There's only one way

27:02

in and out. And it's across this huge

27:04

bridge coming across part of the ocean

27:07

where you have to come across and

27:09

the, you know, the road that you travel in

27:11

on once you get into the outer, but once

27:13

you're traveling down, the outer banks is. Just

27:16

a two way road that goes

27:18

all the way from one end of the islands.

27:20

And it's a series of islands and it's

27:22

all the way from one end of the islands to the other

27:24

end of the islands. And then you can take ferry

27:26

and go different. You can take different fairs,

27:28

there's three or four different ferries down there that you can take

27:31

to different islands. But the strip

27:33

of sand is only like a mile wide

27:36

total. And so it's this, just

27:38

this very small strip of

27:40

sand. And, um,

27:43

the beaches are fantastic

27:46

because they're not, especially when you get all the way

27:48

down to Buxton in that end, like

27:51

the Okracoke end of the

27:53

outer banks. It starts

27:55

way up. And a lot of people go to

27:57

Kill Devil Hills. A lot of people have heard of

27:59

that Kill Devil Hills, that

28:01

area, that there's, there's humongous

28:04

dunes there. I don't know if you've ever been there or not,

28:06

Yes, I have.

28:07

huge dudes. We tried to climb them when we were there.

28:09

We were like, well, we're too old for this, but

28:12

if you go down further into the Buxton area,

28:15

And there's the Rodanthe House,

28:17

which is, uh, part of, uh,

28:20

uh, a novel. I don't remember

28:22

who wrote, who wrote it, but anyway,

28:24

that house is there and you can see that. And that's, Rodanthe

28:27

this one of the, one of the islands that

28:29

you, that you can go on, but it's

28:31

just the strip of sand and there's really

28:33

not a lot to do except just

28:35

kind of hang out and, um,

28:38

reconnect, you know,

28:41

Exactly. And you brought up Kill Devil

28:43

Hills, the Kitty Hawk era, which are

28:45

probably the prime tourist area, because people want

28:47

to see where the Wright brothers took off,

28:50

which is an amazingly short distance

28:52

that they actually flew. It's not it's laughable when

28:54

you see it. They're really

28:56

hurting themselves. If they don't have sound and check

28:58

the rest of the outer banks. I

29:02

have so many fond memories of being

29:04

there and I live in Los Angeles

29:06

now. So it's been ages. I have so many

29:08

fond memories of being there. And the beaches

29:10

there that I've got to tell you the opening

29:13

of the novel, where they are. finding

29:15

these bodies is deliciously

29:18

creepy and I loved

29:20

it.

29:21

Thank you. Thank

29:22

uh, you did a great job, a great job. You,

29:24

you gave me the willies.

29:26

Good. Good.

29:28

and we mentioned Okracoke a few times

29:30

and to listeners know it

29:32

is the southern most Island

29:34

of the outer banks. There's some smaller ones, but

29:36

it's the one that's populated. And.

29:39

The nice little thing about Okracoke Island is

29:41

it's seven miles long. And

29:43

most of that is national park land. So

29:46

he'd just have this little village built around

29:48

the lagoon and it really can't

29:50

grow that much unless they go straight

29:52

up. And that's the beauty of it. And

29:54

I almost bought a sandwich shop.

29:57

Really? Oh my gosh. I would love

29:59

to do that.

30:00

I know nothing about the f ood industry whatsoever.

30:03

And I just felt so much in love with it, with

30:06

the village and start talking

30:08

to this woman who just so happened to be selling

30:10

her sandwich shop. And she

30:12

showed me that obviously she makes really good

30:14

money in the summer, but she also showed

30:16

me. She does pretty well in the winter because of the, people

30:18

that fish

30:20

right.

30:21

and what stopped me was

30:24

when I asked her, why are you moving?

30:27

Her daughter was a teen. And she said, well,

30:30

you know, my daughter's in the school and it's, it's

30:33

first through 12th grade in one building.

30:35

And I feel like she needs to see more

30:38

is it's not enough for her. And

30:40

she really talked me out of purchasing that because

30:42

when she said that, I thought I'm

30:44

a gay man in my twenties. What

30:46

the hell am I going to do on this Island? So

30:50

I would think it'd be a lovely place to live now that I have the

30:52

husband, maybe I'd think about it, but it wasn't at

30:54

that time.

30:55

Yeah. We've actually thought about, um,

30:57

moving to that area, but

30:59

the problem for us is

31:01

more about, hurricane

31:03

season, right? Because

31:06

there is one way in and out.

31:08

And if you're on Okracoke, there's no way in and out

31:11

if there's a storm because the Ferry's

31:13

shut down. And so you're there.

31:16

They tell if they tell you to evacuate

31:18

or you're screwed, you're you evacuated

31:20

or you're screwed because the ferrys are shut down

31:23

and you're done, unless you are a fisherman and you

31:25

have a boat, um, you're

31:27

not going anywhere. You're going to be on that Island.

31:29

And it is super small. Like you said, the,

31:31

the area where the. Where

31:33

people can actually live is, is very

31:35

small. And when

31:38

a storm comes in, even on

31:40

the islands, even across

31:42

from Okracoke, you know, where the Island

31:44

is longer. Once the

31:46

storm hits it, it

31:49

destroys whole areas of

31:51

their road. And you,

31:54

you get in or out at that point.

31:56

And. So we thought about that and we

31:58

just decided ha you know, it

32:00

just, we would have to have a place

32:02

inland where we knew we could, could

32:05

go anytime that we needed to be there. And

32:07

it just, it got really complicated. So

32:09

we just decided we would just a visit.

32:12

well, and like you said, they're strips of sand really

32:14

when it comes down to it. So when a storm hits, the

32:17

Island can look totally different and has

32:19

over the many, many years, it used

32:22

to be, it used to be a good place for pirates to hang

32:24

out because it was a great place to

32:26

hide with the shifting sands. I

32:29

actually started to write a novel

32:31

that takes place in the outer banks.

32:34

it's going to lead up to a question I'm going to ask for you.

32:37

it's about half finished. It's a

32:39

thriller it's in my hard drive somewhere.

32:42

But something that I

32:44

thought about was I was told a long

32:46

time ago if you're writing about

32:48

New York City or write about Los Angeles,

32:51

it's okay to include the police department

32:53

because it's so huge that

32:56

it could be anybody. The

32:58

outer banks are Dare County, and

33:00

every one of those towns, they don't have

33:02

their own department. So their

33:04

security is the Dare County police department,

33:08

which has only about 150 people. Total

33:12

was there a discomfort level that you had

33:14

that maybe you were hitting

33:16

too close to home for some people, or did

33:18

that even cross your mind?

33:19

Yeah, and it did, and

33:22

it actually did a little bit.

33:24

Um, and I actually

33:26

spoke to someone

33:29

in the Dare County, Emergency.

33:31

Department and talk to them

33:33

about what would happen in an instance

33:35

like this, w you know, what would take place? Who

33:37

would they reach out to, who would be coming in?

33:40

How would they be able to take care of something of

33:42

that magnitude? And, um,

33:45

and, and I recommend that to,

33:48

you know, anyone who's who's researching

33:50

anything to make sure that you talk

33:53

actually talk to people. Don't just read about

33:55

it, but talk to people about it because, um,

33:57

I learned a lot about

33:59

there's. Manteo, I'm not

34:01

sure I'm pronouncing that correctly. Manteo

34:04

I think is how they say it, which

34:05

I think it's Manteo yeah.

34:07

I think it's Manteo they actually pull

34:09

a lot from there as

34:11

well. Um, a lot

34:13

of times that's where, that's where they're coming from for

34:15

the, like the volunteer, uh, people

34:17

that volunteer and things like that are coming from that area. But

34:20

it's um, the,

34:22

the big thing is they're

34:25

so tight knit that.

34:28

I actually had to say

34:31

that I would not talk about who talked

34:33

to me in the,

34:35

in Dare County, because if

34:38

people got. mad about what

34:40

I wrote or didn't agree with

34:42

what I wrote or thought it was horrible or whatever.

34:45

And I was to say, well, I talked

34:47

to so-and-so, they would all know that person.

34:50

And, and so that's kind of his kind of a weird

34:52

thing to me that now I

34:54

had never had anyone that I reached out to and said,

34:56

you know, Hey, can I talk to you about this

34:58

thing? That's going to happen in my story, whether

35:00

that's a short story or an academic piece or

35:03

a novel, um, I need to

35:05

do my research on this. Can I, can I sit down

35:07

or can I email you some questions or whatever

35:10

for them to actually say to me, you can't, you

35:12

know, you can't tell anybody that I'm the one

35:14

that, that talked to you. So that was, that

35:16

was a little bit, that was,

35:18

was very.

35:20

I was much more lazy than that.

35:22

I was creating a town a fictional

35:25

town town and was

35:27

kind of trying to come up with a reason why that would

35:29

be the only town in the outer banks that had

35:31

its own police department to,

35:34

so I didn't have to deal with the Sheriff's department, but

35:37

I think you're route was much better because it's much more

35:39

the way it is.

35:41

Yeah. And we can, as

35:44

writers, we can, we're writing

35:46

a fictional novel. So not everything

35:48

is going to be 100% correct.

35:51

It's right. But you have to stay

35:53

as true to the truth as you

35:55

possibly can, because if

35:57

you don't, whether it's fiction or not, people are going to call

36:00

you out.

36:02

With Sandman. I generally

36:04

don't like changes in point of view. I

36:07

can't tell you why. And I,

36:10

well, I don't like it when I hear somebody

36:12

say why don't like westerns. my

36:14

feeling is I liked westerns. If it's a well-written Western,

36:18

I generally don't like change at this point of view. That's

36:21

the way you chose to write. And I love

36:24

it. I

36:26

have to tell you that. the

36:29

negative I saw on that was I so

36:31

loved being in the point

36:33

of view of the killer and enjoyed that

36:35

so intensely, that was frustrated

36:37

when it went back to the protagonist who is Katia

36:40

or Katia. So

36:43

that leads me right into this. Explain who

36:45

Katia. Billings tell us who she is.

36:48

She is, uh, she's a,

36:50

uh, young up and up-and-coming. A

36:53

woman who has grown up on the Island

36:55

with her father and her brother

36:58

who has autism, her mother

37:00

has been killed in a car accident. And she

37:03

is, uh, she has

37:05

been kind of the caregiver of

37:07

the home. She's taken the place of her mother

37:09

at a very young age. So that's who,

37:11

that has built a lot of who

37:13

she is and, and given her

37:15

that kind of caretaker. Background

37:19

and because of that, she has gone into

37:21

a career. She has made a career

37:24

choice that is also

37:27

helping people. She becomes an EMT

37:29

on the, uh, from, for Dare

37:31

County and, uh,

37:33

that kind

37:36

of care taking persona

37:38

is edged with edginess

37:42

because she has had

37:44

so much put on her that she's

37:46

very stand-off. She's lost her mother at a very

37:49

young age. Her father works

37:51

all the time. She doesn't get, she doesn't

37:53

see him much. Her brother cannot

37:55

is not, is non-verbal. So there's not

37:58

a great deal of communication in

38:00

that respect for her. And because

38:03

she is the caretaker and spend so

38:05

much time doing that. She's very

38:07

standoffish and not, she doesn't

38:09

easily open up. So she tries to give

38:11

this kind of bad-ass persona when

38:14

it's really just a, a fear of

38:16

loss for opening up and

38:18

that's who that's, who she is going

38:20

into, what she does.

38:22

And she is. Um,

38:25

she is out as

38:27

a lesbian and she has

38:29

just recently had a very bad

38:31

breakup with her first

38:33

and only love she's in

38:35

her twenties. So she's, she's just broken

38:37

up with her first true love and.

38:40

Uh, she they've known each other since childhood.

38:43

And, and so her mother,

38:45

it has kind of taken on a mothering role

38:48

to Katia and, um,

38:50

the series of events that take place then

38:52

are even more devastating to her

38:54

because, um, of her

38:57

number one, caregiver, personality, and number two,

38:59

or connection to, um,

39:02

the people that are affected

39:05

by what's happening on the Island.

39:07

Well, I want to get to The Book of Promises, but before

39:10

I do that, I want to ask you a question. You talked

39:12

about that Katia is

39:14

out. And

39:16

when I lived in North Carolina, which was decades

39:18

ago, you had Greensboro

39:21

Raleigh and Charlotte, which were, for

39:23

the South, we'll say was, they were progressive

39:25

cities. When you drove

39:28

out 10 miles outside of town, it

39:31

was like a time machine going back 30

39:33

to 50 years. And

39:35

I know you you're close to

39:37

Raleigh, but you're in a small town.

39:40

Yeah.

39:42

Do you have a comfort level there or?

39:44

Yeah, we have a comfort level of where we are. We

39:46

are actually in a new,

39:50

um, our home. We had our home built like

39:52

five years ago. It's a new development.

39:54

And so in it's called Wendell

39:56

Falls. It's not actually in Wendell

39:59

it's it's outside of Wendell, its

40:01

kind of between Wendell and Raleigh and it's

40:03

much more progressive. Area.

40:06

Uh, so we're not, not progressive

40:09

where in Northville and North Carolina, but it's much

40:11

more progressive than, uh, Wendell.

40:14

So when we're home, we,

40:16

we have a comfort level with our community

40:19

within our community. And we have plenty

40:21

here we have a coffee shop and we have,

40:23

you know, so we have these things where it's mostly just

40:25

our community. And so we feel comfortable

40:28

within that. Um, outside of that

40:30

though, not always,

40:32

I, I teach at a very

40:34

progressive community college and

40:37

I feel very comfortable there being who

40:39

I am within those walls and with

40:42

the people that I know, uh, I,

40:46

there are other places where we go

40:48

where we are not. At

40:50

all comfortable. Um, but

40:52

the outer banks, uh, believe

40:54

it or not are absolutely one

40:56

of the places. Well, I mean, you, you probably

40:58

will believe it because there it's

41:00

a, It's a place where

41:03

all different types of people come all

41:05

the time and their money depends on

41:08

them being kind and

41:11

gracious to everyone because that's

41:13

how they make their living, especially in the

41:15

summer. And so it

41:17

is actually much

41:19

easier to be out and be who you are

41:21

in that area. And I think just

41:24

as we move forward in the world,

41:27

uh, there, there are people coming up now.

41:29

Um, They just refuse to not

41:32

be themselves. And I think it's forcing some

41:34

of the others too, to start to

41:37

be a little more open.

41:40

Um, but we're not there yet by any stretch.

41:43

So

41:43

Yeah. When I said those three cities were progressive,

41:45

that's putting in perspective that they

41:48

are North Carolina. Are

41:51

you a North Carolina native?

41:53

I am not. I'm a Colorado native.

41:55

Okay. Cause that was going to be my, my next question.

41:59

Your second book, The Book of Promises,

42:01

we went 1800 miles

42:03

to Denver and I was asking

42:06

you why Denver, but now I think I have the answer.

42:08

Yeah. Yeah, the house

42:11

in The Book of Promises. So there's a, uh,

42:13

there's a house that plays a huge part

42:15

in The Book of Promises. Uh, it

42:18

almost becomes its own character within

42:20

The Book of Promises. And,

42:22

um, so I lived on the

42:25

corner in a corner, in

42:27

a, in a brick branch on the corner

42:29

of middle-class kind of neighborhood in

42:31

Denver when I was growing up

42:33

and the house. Next to me

42:36

was a family that I did. They didn't

42:38

have kids. We didn't really know them that well, but then the

42:40

next house over was where my best friend lived.

42:43

And in The Book of Promises, my

42:45

house, the house I grew up in

42:48

actually becomes the second house. The one

42:50

where we didn't know the people, because

42:53

my house was on the corner and I needed the house

42:55

in the book to be between two houses. But

42:58

it was as if you took my

43:00

childhood living room and moved it. In

43:03

the house next door. And that became

43:05

that's the house that kind of takes on its own,

43:08

uh, life and The Book of

43:10

Promises. And it's because,

43:12

uh, I wanted to

43:14

highlight the kind of eclectic

43:19

nature of my father, who

43:22

I did. My, uh, my father

43:24

raised me, uh, very much like

43:26

Katia. My, my father was my.

43:28

W was the person who, who

43:30

protected me as a child. Um,

43:33

and. He

43:35

was, he had no sense

43:37

of design, none like zero,

43:40

our couch was Brown and white

43:43

plaid. We had a

43:45

blue and kind of Aqua

43:47

chair that was in there.

43:49

And there was, I mean,

43:51

Sounds lovely.

43:53

It horrible, horrible. I was

43:55

even as a child, I knew I would go into

43:57

my friend's houses and their furniture all match.

44:00

Then the curtains match the front. I'm like,

44:02

Ooh, what is going on in here? You could come to

44:04

my house to see. And

44:06

so that was such

44:08

a big part of who

44:11

I was growing up that

44:13

I always knew that that living room had

44:16

to be in a story somewhere sometime.

44:18

And The Book of Promises is where.

44:21

That that's that's where that story started

44:23

was in that living room was,

44:26

uh, that was, that was the catalyst

44:28

for, for the beginnings of that story.

44:31

Well, not only was the location different

44:34

for The Book of Promises. It's

44:36

also young adult novel. Is

44:38

that accurate?

44:39

It wasn't really intended to be

44:42

YA the characters

44:44

are younger, but it is

44:47

it's. It was written more as

44:49

an adult novel,

44:52

uh, with younger characters,

44:55

but it, it has, it has kind of

44:57

been, it's been, it's been called

44:59

YA, which is fine. I don't, you know,

45:01

it doesn't matter to me, but

45:03

the characters are, uh,

45:05

you know, just graduating high

45:07

school and moving into college. So they're, you know,

45:09

the 18 year range for

45:11

the characters, but that just was,

45:14

um, it wasn't intended.

45:17

To be YA but I, I think a lot

45:19

of people have placed it there just by age

45:22

of the age of the characters.

45:24

well, to go to an extreme example, a Stephen

45:27

King's It., It is

45:29

not a young adult novel, but it's all younger

45:31

It was all younger. Yeah. And there's a lot

45:33

of young people in there. Yeah.

45:36

So how has The Book of Promises different than

45:38

Sandman?

45:40

But it isn't a, there, there is not

45:43

a, in The Book of Promises, there's not a serial

45:45

killer. It's not a serial killer

45:47

novel Sandman is, and Sandman

45:49

is about getting in the head

45:51

of the, uh,

45:53

serial killer that's part of the draw.

45:56

That's part of that was part

45:58

of what spoke to me when I was writing Sandman is

46:00

I needed to be in his head. I needed people

46:02

to see that who he

46:04

was as a, as a person and

46:06

how he got to where he was.

46:09

and you did a damn good job of that.

46:11

thank you. Thank you very much. And

46:12

Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.

46:14

And then, but in The Book of Promises,

46:16

it is much more focused. It's also

46:18

psychological. I'm a psychological

46:21

thriller writer. I that's,

46:23

that's what I enjoy. And so for

46:25

me, it's all about what's in our head

46:27

because in all of the

46:29

academic research that I've done in all of

46:31

my studies, um, through my,

46:34

you know, through my PhD, I have focused

46:36

on how.

46:40

There, there isn't know there there's

46:42

a lot of people see, uh, binary,

46:45

right? Uh, like a line between good

46:47

and bad black and white, um,

46:50

male and female, whatever. And

46:52

my entire belief system is built

46:54

on this continuum. No one is all

46:58

one or the other it's this continuum.

47:00

And we kind of slide around

47:02

on that continuum throughout our

47:04

life. And because of

47:06

that, w we're none of us are all

47:08

good and none of us are all bad. And, and

47:11

that psychological being is

47:13

fascinating to me. And so in all

47:15

of my novels and in my short stories

47:17

and everything that I write. Uh, that

47:19

that is focused that please, that plays a

47:21

part. So in Sandman, my focus was

47:23

on, um, kind of,

47:25

uh, the juxtaposition of, of that

47:27

good and evil kind of thing within all of the characters

47:30

that are playing that's playing out. And in The

47:32

Book of Promises, it's very centered

47:35

on this, um, idea

47:38

of best friends and one

47:40

friend taking advantage of the

47:43

other one and not

47:45

being, um, Not

47:49

being who we think that

47:52

she is. We learned very quickly that

47:54

she's, that, that she's

47:56

not who she pretends to

47:58

be, but because her best

48:00

friend loves her, um,

48:02

and has been in love with her unknowingly.

48:05

And again, my character in Sandman are out,

48:08

You know Katia's are they're out in

48:10

The Book of Promises. They're not out,

48:13

you know, that it. There's

48:15

they're still trying to find themselves. They're part of a,

48:17

uh, they end up being, um, one

48:19

of them, Spencer ends up, ends up,

48:22

um, coming out, but she doesn't,

48:25

she's not there yet. All she knows is

48:27

she loves her best friend and she wouldn't want,

48:29

she doesn't want to be with anybody, but her and she'll do

48:31

anything for her. And that's.

48:35

That's not good.

48:38

And so that, that's kind of the that's the

48:41

central piece in The Book

48:43

of Promises is that she would do anything

48:45

for her best friend and does

48:48

Well, I liked the, good and evil or good

48:50

and bad. You're saying that the lines are

48:52

not clear. Cut. Life is not Star

48:55

Wars or an old Western. It's

48:58

not always, that easy, but

49:00

you brought up Spencer Price. Uh, tell

49:02

us about Spencer as well

49:04

as the story.

49:07

Oh, Spencer is a young,

49:09

um, she's a twin. She

49:12

has a twin brother and

49:14

her and her twin brother live with

49:16

their mom or they are in

49:19

a divorced household. Their father

49:21

is alive. He's not, he's not dead

49:23

like in the book of prom, uh, Sandman,

49:25

but yeah. Um, he's not, he's

49:27

not a huge part of their life. Um,

49:30

but when he was a part of their life, he

49:32

would take them to the library all the time.

49:35

He loved reading, their mom loves reading.

49:37

And so she grew up in

49:39

the library and then in

49:41

fictional worlds and in learning and

49:43

in, and just being surrounded

49:45

by that idea of words. And

49:48

so she's always loved those kinds of spaces,

49:50

but when her father left,

49:53

she was angry. As we often

49:55

get when we're younger, when someone leaves us

49:57

in, however, they leave us, she's

50:00

angry. And so she's, she has that anger

50:02

inside her as well. And

50:04

she hasn't been, um,

50:06

she hasn't been tending to herself as well as she should

50:08

have and into her life

50:11

comes, uh, uh,

50:13

another. Young person

50:16

and they become best friends.

50:18

And it's the relationship

50:21

of these best friends. This best friend

50:23

is coming from another state and moving

50:25

in next door to her. And so in this instance,

50:28

or one house over from her, yeah. And

50:30

they as children, they, they always

50:32

say that they're going to buy the house

50:35

in between the two of them and

50:37

they're going to live there forever. And it, and

50:39

they create this book of promises

50:42

where they write their promises to each other

50:44

in this book. And as

50:46

they get older, her

50:48

promises remain very truthful

50:51

and very, um, Appropriate

50:56

for her age and for what they're doing

50:59

while her best friend's promises

51:01

began to get darker and

51:03

darker. And it's that, that's

51:05

kind of where that's, that's what that's,

51:08

what's threaded through. The story is

51:10

this book of promises and what

51:12

they promise to one another. And what happens

51:15

if you break a promise?

51:17

Well, that sounds great too. You have a dark

51:19

gritty side to you. Don't you?

51:21

I. I evidently I do. Yeah.

51:23

My wife said she never knew. Now she's afraid

51:26

to sleep with me. Is

51:28

it a rental sleeping with you for over 20 years and suddenly

51:30

I'm afraid. So I

51:33

said, well, just don't make me mad and we'll be good.

51:35

There you go. The book,

51:38

The Book of Promises and Sandman

51:40

are though they both standalones

51:42

Okay, well, Sandman was,

51:45

uh, I was originally asked to do

51:48

a trilogy with Sandman. And

51:50

so I am currently working on

51:52

the second book called Protege

51:56

because in Sandman we have one

51:58

character, Brent, who

52:01

is very, he's a very big piece

52:03

of the Sandman puzzle, but

52:06

he gets away. Uh,

52:08

before Sandman ends and

52:12

he's just, you know, he, he gets away

52:14

and he didn't kill anyone or anything, but, you

52:16

know, so he gets away and, and

52:18

Protege picks

52:21

up, picks Brent up where he

52:23

is now. And Brent

52:26

has a need. He makes

52:28

his money. Off of the pain

52:30

of others without inflicting the pain

52:32

on others himself, because he's

52:34

involved in the dark web. And

52:37

so Brent needs somehow

52:39

to still be able to make

52:41

money. He needs someone

52:44

or something, or some, you know, he needs to

52:46

still be able to do that. And so we pick

52:48

up. The Protege picks

52:50

Brent up to figure out what

52:52

he's going to do about that and how he's

52:54

going to, um, how he's

52:56

going to continue to keep his

52:58

followers on the dark web.

53:01

Now does the point of view change in

53:03

The Book of Promises.

53:05

It does.

53:07

I would think so the way, the way you described it, that doesn't

53:09

surprise me. We

53:12

ever reaching the end of the show. So

53:14

surprisingly, it always goes so fast. It

53:17

is time for awkward questions authors

53:19

get, and

53:21

these questions are from dozens of authors

53:24

that I asked and they are either just

53:26

difficult questions that we get every day, or some of

53:28

them are just downright bizarre.

53:30

Okay.

53:31

hold still. And I'm going to spin the wheel here. Okay,

53:39

your question is which

53:42

of the books you've written is your favorite?

53:45

Oh, Sandman, without a doubt. That's not even a

53:47

hard one. That was that wasn't even a good spin.

53:50

Um, I think that,

53:53

I think that when you. For

53:56

me anyway, I didn't

53:59

go into writing until I was in my

54:01

fifties fiction. I've been

54:03

writing in academia for years,

54:05

but I had, I always had

54:07

this desire to write fiction,

54:10

but I was always so involved

54:12

with my research in, um, So

54:15

it wasn't until I was in my fifties and I decided I

54:17

was going to go back to teaching. I went

54:19

from being an associate VP

54:21

to two teaching kind of a

54:24

night, kind of semi-retired went back to teaching

54:26

whatever. And I decided it was time for me to do

54:28

that. And I think because I had

54:30

held that dream for so long and

54:32

then I, and then I was able to produce

54:35

Sandman that, um, it, it

54:37

really isn't going to matter how many books I write

54:39

that one's always going to be always

54:42

going to be my baby.

54:43

The first born, you

54:46

and I are very similar. You published your first

54:48

book at 55, am I correct?

54:49

That's correct.

54:51

Same age for me.

54:53

Fantastic.

54:54

I used to moderate a Facebook group

54:56

that was specifically for new

54:58

writers to help them. And

55:00

it was so frequent every

55:03

day. Somebody will say something like I'm

55:06

30 years old. Do you think I'm too old to write

55:09

now that would have been a question. That's

55:11

a question for your who deal.

55:13

that one?

55:15

That is, and no, you're never

55:17

too old to write. Come on. I

55:19

have a, I had a.

55:22

Woman in one of my, uh,

55:25

Women's literature courses.

55:27

She was 82 years old

55:29

going back to school because she

55:32

wanted to learn about,

55:34

and I taught French feminist

55:36

literature. Um, and she

55:38

wanted to learn more about. Feminism

55:41

that she didn't understand

55:43

because she had come through the first wave second

55:46

wave, third wave. But she knew there

55:48

was this other kind of feminism

55:50

that she had never learned. She was in

55:52

her eighties. Come on. If somebody in

55:54

their eighties can come back to school and learn

55:57

and grow and, um,

55:59

apply that knowledge. No, you're

56:01

never too old pick up that stinking pen,

56:03

man, write that story.

56:05

I couldn't agree with you more. You,

56:08

uh, are member of two different societies,

56:11

active member you're in The Sisters in Crime

56:13

and you're also in the Golden Crown Literary

56:15

Society. How do you feel

56:17

they have helped you?

56:20

Well, The Golden Crown Literary Society.

56:22

I actually, when I decided that I was going

56:25

to write this novel, when I decided I was

56:27

going to write Sandman, I wrote about,

56:30

I don't know, I wrote about 2000 pages and,

56:32

and as it happens frequently

56:34

to people who want to write

56:37

you, get, you think you have, I have this wonderful

56:39

story. I'm a sit down, I'm going to write it. You get about 2000

56:41

words in and you don't know where to go. And

56:44

you don't know what to do, and you don't know anything

56:46

about arcs or climaxes

56:49

or resolutions. You just don't know anything

56:51

about what you need to know to

56:53

be able to write, because if a writer

56:55

does their job well as a reader,

56:58

you don't have to understand any of that.

57:00

You just know you're reading a good story, but as

57:02

the writer, you have to understand

57:04

that there's a, there's, there's a formula. There's

57:06

a. There are things that you have to put

57:08

in there. And I didn't know that. And The Golden

57:11

Crown Literary Society had a class,

57:14

they still have a class it's a, it's

57:17

a year long writing

57:21

seminar, and

57:23

they pair you with a

57:25

published author toward the end, and

57:28

they will read what you write

57:30

during the year in the

57:32

Academy. And while you're in the Academy for like

57:34

six months, Uh, writing

57:36

and having people, guest speakers, and coming in

57:38

and doing all these things. And then, uh,

57:40

at that time you get your mentor and

57:42

then they start reading what you've written and

57:44

giving, giving you feedback. Well, that's how I

57:46

wrote Sandman was in, that

57:49

was through that seminar. So they. They

57:52

actually gave me my,

57:55

my, my writer wings.

57:58

And then, um, as far as Sisters

58:00

in Crime, they have

58:02

honed my, so The Golden

58:05

Crown Literary Society, they focus

58:07

a lot on, you know,

58:09

mystery and, uh,

58:11

romance and science fiction.

58:13

So there's not a lot of authors

58:16

published authors that write what

58:18

I write. In that realm.

58:21

Right. And so joining

58:23

The Sisters in Crime has helped me to actually

58:26

hone then my,

58:28

um, more crime

58:31

based or they, they have

58:34

every month they have guest speakers

58:36

that come in. We just had one on poison. Different

58:39

types of poisons. So someone who that's

58:41

their job, they like study

58:44

poison and they come in and talk to

58:46

you. And so I go to these things with

58:48

them and, and we have meetings.

58:50

We used to pre pandemic. We would meet

58:52

once a month in a group. And we

58:54

would have guests speakers from all over the

58:57

place from a crime lab, from a whatever.

58:59

And so that has just been a tremendous

59:02

help and being able to figure

59:04

out the more, um, details

59:07

the, the, the little detailed pieces. So The

59:09

Golden Crown Literary Society helped me with the big

59:11

piece. And then The Sisters in

59:13

Crime helps me more with the smaller details

59:16

in my particular, um, area

59:18

for writing.

59:20

Well, they sound great in their own way.

59:22

They are, they are fantastic.

59:25

For the listeners, a reminder the guest

59:27

today is Tammy Bird and

59:29

her two novels. The Book of Promises

59:31

is the most recent novel that was released. That was

59:33

in 2020. What month

59:36

2020 was in May this past

59:37

May.Okay. So about a year ago, and

59:40

then the other novel is Sandman. Tammy.

59:43

It's been great to have you.

59:45

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be here.