Time to close this blog . . .

Hello all,

I think it's time to close down this blog. I've really enjoyed it and appreciate your support more than I can ever say, but between writing, promoting, blogging on Poe's Deadly Daughters, and having a life, it's just too difficult to keep this blog going. I'll leave it up for reading but won't be adding to it. You can still catch me Fridays at: http://www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com
and the other gals there are a lot of fun to hang out with. Hope to see you there.

I've turned in the second in the Kitty Bloodworth/Fifty-Seven series and waiting to hear from Five Star whether or not they will publish it. I'm writing the third in the series, getting Kitty into lots of trouble. Hope you will have a chance to read them. Again, thank you for your support of my books.

Wishing each of you years full of great reads. Hugs around, Lonnie

Interview with author Liz Zelvin

Today's post is an interview with author Liz Zelvin. Her book, pictured left, was recently released. I hope you enjoy meeting her.

LC: Please tell us about your upcoming book. What inspired you to write this book?

LZ: Death Will Get You Sober is about a guy, my protagonist Bruce, who wakes up in detox on the Bowery on Christmas Day and realizes he’s got to do something drastic about his life. The formula he finds is “Don’t drink, go to meetings, and investigate a murder.” That’s an AA saying—except for the part about the murder. The other thread is the healing of the friendship between Bruce and his two sidekicks: his best friend Jimmy, who got sober 15 years before he did, and Jimmy’s girlfriend Barbara, the codependent addictions counselor. I started with a great title and a desire to pay tribute to the courage and honesty of people who recover from alcoholism. Not drinking is just the beginning.

LC: Please tell us about your day job. How does it figure into your writing? And how difficult is it for you to work full time and write as well?

LZ: I used to direct an alcohol program on the Bowery, but I left that job, which was my last actual day job, in 1999. Now I have two careers about which everybody says, “Don’t quit your day job!”: online therapy and mystery writing. Besides my author website at http://www.elizabethzelvin.com/, I have an online therapy website at http://www.lzcybershrink.com/, where I “see” clients from all over the world via chat and email. So my schedule is completely flexible. The challenge is deciding what to put in that high-energy time slot at the beginning of the day. Whatever I do first thing in the morning gets my best. Sometimes it’s clients, sometimes it’s the writing. Sometimes I have to go out and run around the Central Park reservoir, because if I postpone it till the afternoon I may not do it—just like the writing. Lately I haven’t been working on a novel—I’m a little ahead there—but working for hours and hours on promotion for Death Will Get You Sober, especially my book tour around the United States in May and June and my virtual tour in April, which involves lots of guest blogs and interviews.

LC: What got you started writing?

LZ: I always say that I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 7 years old and that I first read my favorite childhood book, Emily of New Moon, when I was 8. Maybe under hypnosis I could tell you if Emily got me started or if I already had the idea. The book was by L.M. Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables. Emily was another little orphan girl on Prince Edward Island, and she had an unquenchable urge to write.

LC: What keeps you writing, given the difficulties of working, promoting, writing something new, etc?

LZ: When Emily’s stern Aunt Elizabeth forbids her to write, Emily says, “Oh, I must write, Aunt Elizabeth…It is in me. I can’t help it.” And when Aunt Elizabeth says, “Don’t you know that it is wicked to write novels?” (this book came out in 1923) Emily says, “Oh, I’m not writing novels yet—I can’t get enough paper. These are just short stories.” Maybe it’s something like that. I’m not always writing fiction, but I spend hours with my fingers flying over the keyboard one way or another. And in spite of all the discouragement, not persisting was never an option.

LC: How did you find your publisher?

LZ: Ha! Lonnie, you know the answer to this one: with great difficulty. I queried 125 agents and 35 publishers between Death Will Get You Sober and the next manuscript in the series. And in the end, I got to St. Martin’s through a back door. I knew it took talent, persistence, and luck. I applied the persistence. The luck took its own sweet time coming. But I can say now that I was very lucky.

LC: What kinds of books find their way to your bedside table? Do they keep you awake after reading?

LZ: I consider very carefully whether I want to stay awake or go to sleep when I select a book to read in bed. But I still sometimes end up reading way too late, getting caught up in the story and wanting to know what happens. A new hardcover in a series from one of my favorites can do that: Marcia Muller or Margaret Maron or Reginald Hill. I don’t read a lot of thrillers, and I don’t enjoy being scared. If I want to be soothed enough to put the book down when I get drowsy, I’ll reread a book I’ve read many times before.

LC: If you could meet any writer in person, alive or dead, to chat and pick his/her brain, who would it be? And why?

LZ: The funny thing is that since I started sending out Death Will Get You Sober, I have met many of the mystery writers I admire. Annette Meyers, with her husband Marty (together, the historical mystery novelist Maan Meyers), live down the block from me and have been marvelously helpful and supportive. As you know, blog sister Lonnie, I’ve interviewed Laurie King, Nancy Pickard, Julie Smith, Rhys Bowen, Carolyn Hart, and several others for Poe’s Deadly Daughters. I get to hang out regularly with fellow members of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. To name only a few of the up and coming, Chris Grabenstein, Jane Cleland, Ken Isaacson, and Rosemary Harris all live in New York. And I’ve connected with dozens, probably hundreds, more on the Internet and at conferences like Malice and the Edgars.

My top pick for living writers I haven’t met would be Lois McMaster Bujold, who writes the Miles Vorkosigan series. They’re a perfect blend of galactic space opera and comedy of manners, sometimes mystery as well, and, as the blurb from Anne McCaffrey on her dust jackets says, “Boy, can she write!” I’m only two degrees of separation from her, because her best friend since seventh grade is cross-genre mystery writer Lillian Stewart Carl, whom I’ve met at conferences and who did a guest blog for us on Poe’s Deadly Daughters. And the writer from the past whose name keeps popping up as I think about this is Louisa May Alcott. There are things she could tell me and things I could tell her, like about the way feminism has evolved since her time. It would be an interesting conversation.

LC: Underneath it all, who really is Liz Zelvin?

LZ: Many years ago, I spent a wonderful evening sitting in a hot tub in Berkeley, California with two women friends, and we went around saying whom we’d like to become as we got older. I wanted to be two things simultaneously: a Wise woman and an Outrageous Older Woman. I think I’ve made a pretty good start on both of those. They come from very deep within me. I just had to grow into them.

LC: What do you see in the future for your writing?

LZ: If Death Will Get You Sober does well, I’d like to continue the series as long as I can. The lineup after this one would be Death Will Improve Your Relationship, Death Will Help You Leave Him, and Death Will Extend Your Vacation. And I’m toying with the idea of Death Will Fire Your Therapist.

LC: Liz, you were recently nominated for an Agatha award. Would you tell us about that?

LZ: Yes, to my amazed delight, my short story, "Death Will Clean Your Closet," was nominated for an Agatha for Best Short Story. The story appeared in Murder New York Style, an anthology by members of the New York TriState chapter of Sisters in Crime. It's also available as a free download on my site at http://www.elizabethzelvin.com/. It features Bruce, my protagonist in DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER, and his two sidekicks, Jimmy and Barbara, have cameo appearances. Bruce, who was just getting sober in the novel, is 90 days sober, which is a big milestone for recovering alcoholics. He's cleaning the closet in his rent-controlled apartment for the first time in years. And he finds a body. Or does he?

LC: What else would you like my readers to know about you?

LZ: You can learn more about me and Death Will Get You Sober on my author website at http://www.elizabethzelvin.com/. I also have a page on MySpace and am happy to add friends there. I blog on Poe’s Deadly Daughters with Lonnie and four other terrific mystery writers: Sandy Parshall, Sharon Wildwind, Julia Buckley, and Darlene Ryan. And I’m doing a virtual tour this month (April) as well as a get-in-the-car (sometimes get-on-the-plane) tour around the country in May and June. The schedules for both are on the Events & Appearances page on my site. You can also sign up for my mailing list and get notified about where I’ll be when and when I have something new coming out.

LC: Thanks a million, Liz, I enjoyed chatting with you, as always.

Where was I?

Later tonight I'm posting an interview here with author Liz Zelvin. Liz is one of my fellow authors who posts weekly at Poe's Deadly Daughters. (http://www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com) Her first mystery, DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER has just come out.

Please stop by and "meet" Liz, I think you'll enjoy her.

Sunshine at last. Recently hubby and I went to Fort Massac Park to see how high the Ohio River is. We love to walk there, but at least half of the lower road or more is shut off, and the playground where our grandsons used to play has water a foot or two deep. The pottys are surrounded by water. Across the street where lots of people love to park and eat their lunch and look out over the river, the tables had to be moved and the area is covered in water. A few feet in front of those tables NORMALLY is a huge drop-off that we've trudged down in normal water levels to throw rocks or collect same. Now the water is up and over that hill, probably 20-30 feet high. Apparently the floodgates are still open in Paducah, but this is the highest we've seen the river in a long while. Thankfully, our creek, just a few yards from our house, has high banks and the water has stayed inside. I recently saw a family of ducks there.

Trees are budding out and everyone is sneezing. County-wide. Beautiful, but deadly on the sinuses.

I'm still reading GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DIE by Patricia Sprinkle, one of my fave authors.

Thanks for stopping by!

Daffodils?

The daffodils are poking their heads up and checking out the weather. Ditto for the forsythia. Ahhh, spring has sprung . . . we hope. A nearby city DID get a few snow flakes yesterday, on Easter. That probably should be illegal, but what do I know? Anyhow, we have hopefully survived a pretty rough winter, still dealing with flooding in the area, and are watching to see what blooms. Daffodils are my favorite because the bring in spring.

I've been working on my latest book and come to the conclusion that it really is NOT working. Therefore, I ripped it apart on Saturday, moved chapters, added/cut things, and held my breath. Now to try to smooth out the serious wrinkles.

Saturday night was the Southern Illinois Region/Ohio Valley Chapter of the Antique Automobile Club of America meeting. Great food. AND I was given a chance to speak to the group about my new book. Gotta love that group. They have a great new website at: http://local.aaca.org/southernillinois/

They will be featuring different club member's cars each month.

Time to exercise. Then tackle that manuscript again. Meanwhile, if you have time, check out the daffodils. Have a great day!

Coke Floats, etc . . .

The Coke Floats were a huge hit last Saturday at the official launch of FIFTY-SEVEN HEAVEN. And I want to thank the wonderful librarians again who came in 50's garb! Pictures on http://www.poesdeadlydaughters.com

Weather is warming up, flodding stopped . . . for now. Hope all of you are staying dry! I'm starting a new Barbara D'Amato book. And writing another in the '57 series. What are you reading?

Thanks for stopping by. Sorry to be absent so much. Sick hubby, loads to do around here.

Don't forget the Coke floats . .

Tomorrow is the launch of FIFTY-SEVEN HEAVEN complete with free Coke Floats. Hope you all can stop by.

It's raining again. Supposed to rain tomorrow. Yeah, we need it. Still recovering from last year's lack thereof. Sigh.

Gotta run. Company for dinner. Green beans aren't ready yet. Nor are the potatoes peeled. Still reading CONSIGNED TO DEATH. Finished PUSHING UP DAISIES, which I do recommend you read.

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget your umbrellas!

Check this out . . .

Author (and friend) Chris Well has interviewed me on his blog today. Here is the link:

http://chriswellnovelist.blogspot.com/

Chris's wife, Erica, created the wonderful covers for all of my Metropolis Mystery Series. Hope you will check out the interview.

Don't forget to stop by the library on Saturday (here in Metropolis) for a Coke float and to say "hi!"

The snow came and went in the blink of an eye, but stayed just long enough for some sledding. I watched and took pictures from a safe distance.

Thanks for stopping by!