Monthly Archives: January 2014

Launching My New Mystery—Finally

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

From idea to publication takes years in traditional publishing. That’s why I’m inviting readers to celebrate the launch of Show Me the Deadly Deer at Columbia Books, 1907 Gordon Street, Columbia, MO, at 2 p.m. January 25.

The book launch won’t be fancy: a short reading and Q&A, light refreshments, a lot of chatting and browsing through the store’s inviting inventory of new, used, and antiquarian books.

I began work on Deadly Deer about the time I moved back to Missouri, summer 2007. With The Feedsack Dress coming out and the move, I didn’t get much done for a while. Researching Deadly Deer helped me reacquaint myself with farming in my home state.

By late 2009 I had a solid draft. But I had to sell the first book in the series, Show Me the Murder, before I could sell the second book. That didn’t happen until late 2011, and Murder didn’t reach bookstores until February 2013.

In summer 2012 I submitted the final draft of Deadly Deer. Five Star/Gale, Cengage, which publishes four mysteries a month, put it on the schedule at the earliest available date, December 18, 2013, too late for Christmas sales. The Kindle edition became available December 18. Most stores and libraries didn’t receive the hardcover until early January.

Winter ranks low on my preferred time for a book release. Cold, snow, and ice combine to keep people off the streets locally and to discourage travel by road and air to other places.

The snow date for the book launch is February 1.

—Carolyn Mulford

Judy Hogan Interviews Me on When, Why, How

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

To mark the publication of Show Me the Deadly Deer, novelist/poet/memoirist Judy Hogan interviewed me for her blog, Postmenopausal Zest.

She asked such questions as when I started writing mysteries, why my series features a former spy going after murderers in rural Missouri, and how being a published mystery writer changed my work life.

Like many readers, Judy took special interest in the duality in my protagonist’s character.

Question 13: I’m interested in the psychic mixture in Phoenix Smith, your sleuth.  At times she’s extremely tough to go with an image of a sharp shooter, which she is, but other times she’s so compassionate.  It puzzles me, and I wonder how you think about it?

Phoenix struggles to balance the idealism of her childhood in a small town and the darkness of her adulthood in Cold War Vienna. She grew up with a loving family believing in service and hard work. Her drive, diligence, and intelligence led her to succeed in a harsh world, one in which she lived the double life of an economist dealing with money-obsessed entrepreneurs and bankers in her day job and traitors in her covert work for the CIA. When the cynical adult returns to her hometown, her love for and loyalty to her childhood friend conflict with her cynicism and distrust, and she finds evil as common in Laycock, Missouri, as she has in Eastern Europe. She also sees goodness and generosity of spirit, sometimes where she least expects to find it.

Her duality is a theme in the series. In Show Me the Murder, Phoenix must learn to trust in order to identify the killer. In Show Me the Deadly Deer, she initially regards the investigation as a game, a contest with the killer. (I’ve observed that some police officers work that way.) Then she meets suspects and witnesses affected by the death and becomes, in some instances, a protector. Which was part of her motivation in becoming a covert operative. In the third book, Connie, who isn’t Phoenix’s biggest fan, comments that she has a black walnut shell with a marshmallow interior. Phoenix certainly values justice more than the law.

To read the rest of the interview, go to http://postmenopausalzest.blogspot.com.

—Carolyn Mulford

Guest Blog Introduces Show Me Series

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

Author Judy Alter invited me to introduce my Show Me mystery series to readers on her blog, Judy’s Stew, on Wednesday, January 8.

After acknowledging that I became addicted to travel while a Peace Corps Volunteer, I explained the origins of my characters, three women who grew up together in a small town, led wildly different lives for thirty-five years, and come together again as each faces a major crisis.

“I select the main characters for my books as carefully as I choose companions for a long trip. They must share some of my interests but differ enough to surprise, challenge, and entertain me day after day for months.

“The protagonist for my Show Me series began to form ten years ago while I was working in Washington, D.C. I was horrified when the Bush administration revealed the name of a CIA covert operative, exposing her and acquaintances abroad to danger, ruining her career, and surely ending some friendships. I empathized because I’d feared that I wouldn’t be the only one to discover a friend in Vienna led a daring double life. Leading such a life required tremendous energy, brainpower, self-confidence bordering on arrogance, and—fascinating to me—idealism mixed with deception.”

To read the rest, go to http://judys-stew.blogspot.com/2014/01/wednesday-guest-with-some-great.html.

—Carolyn Mulford

A Writer’s New Year’s Resolutions

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

Every year brings the unexpected, but here’s what I intend to do.

Reorganize my files, both paper and computer, and discard at least some of the interim drafts and research notes of published books.

Take my laptop to the furniture store and find a recliner comfortable for writing.

Complete the fourth book of my Show Me mystery series, decide whether to write a fifth, and promote the first three.

Read the manuscript of my beloved MG/YA historical novel again with an objective eye, revise as needed, and find a publisher or publish it myself.

Pick up my clutter, give away the books that won’t fit on the shelves, and hire someone to clean my house.

Travel somewhere—preferably Norway and Argentina/Chile—without attending a writers’ conference.

Celebrate my milestone birthday by starting a new writing project, perhaps that MG set in World War II that I’ve been thinking about for four years.

—Carolyn Mulford