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Winter, 2002 - Vol. 1, Number 1

ALL POINTS BULLETIN

By Ellen Hart

What is the Minnesota Crime Wave? Or, put another way... should you lock your doors at night and sit in your living room with a loaded shotgun, waiting for us to arrive?

The answer, of course, is that we're harmless. We wouldn't hurt a fly—except in our mystery novels.

Just about a year ago, four Minnesota Crime writers began talking about getting together as a group to do readings, signings, panel discussions, publicity tours—and of course, periodic meetings at local coffee houses to schmooze with each other and swap publishing war stories. In January of 2001, the Minnesota Crime Wave was born.

We are, in order of loveliness not age, Carl "Sailor" Brookins (author of the Michael Tanner series), Deborah "Kill 'em With Kindness" Woodworth (author of the Rose Callahan Shaker series), William Kent "The Iceman" Krueger (author of the Cork O'Conner series), and Ellen "Murder Most Fowl" Hart (author of the Jane Lawless and the Sophie Greenway series). I place myself last in the loveliness chain out of humility and a true Minnesotan sensibility. Minnesotans never put themselves forward. We don't brag, or talk too loudly or long about ourselves. And frankly, that's the problem. How does a tastefully reticent Minnesota author promote his or her work? The obvious answer is that he or she should leave that sort of nasty stuff to the publishers. But publishers today are spending less and less time and money helping books find their way into the hands of readers who might enjoy them. That job has fallen to the writer.

And so, dear friends, in an effort to inform and entertain, we've decided to do a tri-yearly newsletter. Taking our cue from Goldilocks and the Three Bears (as Minnesotans, we always take our moral cues from the Classics) we don't want to make it too big or too small, but just right. The copy you have in your hands is issue number one. That means you've gotten in on the ground floor. Hold onto this issue because one day, after we all sell our sizzling crime novels to Hollywood, it will be worth millions. Oops. Did I just brag? Don't tell my mother.

TRUE CONFESSIONS: MINNESOTA WRITERS TELL ALL

We asked several Minnesota mystery authors to answer a few questions for us. Here are some of their responses:

Q. There are at least 25 active mystery writers in Minnesota. Why do you think there are so many?

"Only twenty-five? Good grief, we've got at least three times that many bad poets!"
-M.D. Lake, author of the Peggy O'Neill mystery series

"Living in Minneapolis is conducive to writing. I find life here stimulating without being distracting."
-R.D. Zimmerman, author of the Todd Mills mystery series

"I decided to set my crime series in Minnesota because, at the time, I thought it was a strikingly original idea. Who else but me would set a mystery in such a peaceful place? Shows you what I know."
-Elizabeth Gunn, author of the Jake Hines mystery series

Q. We all had preconceived ideas about what the writing life would be like. What surprised you—negatively or positively?

"That I could be the author of fifteen published novels and still not be rich."
-Mary Monica Pulver, aka Monica Ferris, author of the Needlecraft mystery series

"I had certainly been forewarned that writing is not the biggest part of your 'job' as a writer, but the reality of how much time you spend on things other than writing—research, promotion, writing community contacts, etc.—is a bucket of cold water."
-K.J. Erickson, author of the Mars Bahr mystery series

"The great thing about being a writer is that now, nothing is wasted; one's faults are as much use as one's virtues. The nasty surprise... was that we have to promote ourselves, which leads to thuggish behavior and indigestion."
-Elizabeth Gunn

"Having spent more than 30 years as an ink-stained wretch cranking out stories for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, I have no illusions about writing."
-Larry Millet, author of Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota mystery series

"I assumed that, once I got my first book published, I would hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing 'Nearer My God to Thee' as agents desperate to represent me pounded on my door, publishers risked their jobs in outrageous bids for my next book, and fans made it impossible for me to go anywhere in public without bodyguards. None of this happened. I'm still mad."
-M.D. Lake

"Of all the jobs I've had, writing novels on an annual basis is the hardest; sometimes I feel like my brain is bleeding."
-John Sanford, author of The Prey Series

Q. Does it bother you that you're writing about murder as entertainment?

"It used to. Then I realized mysteries... are not just about murder and mayhem but about justice... I think the lift they provide for our spirits makes us more aware of the times when justice really happens in the world."
-Mary Monica Pulver

"Why should it? It didn't bother Moses or Homer or Shakespeare, or Twain or Dickens or Faulkner, so why should it bother me? We're not advocating murder—we're writing morality tales."
-John Sanford

"Death has always been a form of human entertainment, so long as it remains at arm's length."
-Larry Millet

RAP SHEETS

WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER

The name on my birth certificate and on the dust jacket of my books reads William Kent Krueger. Those who know me well simply call me Kent. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, a city I dearly love, in an old house shared with Diane, my wife of nearly thirty years, and my two children Seneca and Adam. The most salient piece of information I can offer is to say that in my life I've been greatly and mysteriously blessed.

Ostensibly, I write about murder, but I don't think of it that way. I think my books are about family, about values, about spirituality, about the beauty of a particular place, which is the great Northwoods of Minnesota. I write about people faced with difficult choices and I explore their lives in an attempt to understand why they choose the paths they do. I love that I work in fiction because I can write about things that are important to me and know that people will read them. Maybe they'll even be moved by them.

Iron Lake. Boundary Waters. Purgatory Ridge. These are my works so far. They take place on the edge of the Iron Range of Minnesota, far to the north of most people's thinking and experience. My protagonist is Corcoran (Cork) O'Connor, former sheriff of the fictional Tamarack County. He is a man of mixed heritage, three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Ojibwe. He has a family whom he cares about deeply, and lives in a town that he loves. He's a guy I like to write about because when I'm writing Cork, I'm often writing straight from my own heart.

Good things are on my horizon as an author. I've just signed a three-book contract with Pocket Books that includes a stand-alone thriller and two more Cork O'Connor novels. Film rights to Iron Lake have just been optioned (joining Boundary Waters, which has also been optioned and is making the rounds in Hollywood). The paperback of Purgatory Ridge is due out in April of 2002, and the release date for the stand alone is February 2003.

Finally, I love being part of the Minnesota Crime Wave. How people who write about such dastardly deeds can be so warm, so funny, and such good company is a mystery to me. But then, I've already said I feel mysteriously blessed.

Priors:
Iron Lake (1998), Boundary Waters (1999), Purgatory Ridge (2001)

CARL BROOKINS

I've always been interested in lots of things. My career(s) are an indication of that, or maybe I just have a short attention span. I grew up in St. Paul, did a liberal arts degree at the University of Minnesota and then was a writer at the Minnesota Highway Department for two years. After that I worked as a producer/director for KTCA-TV, Channel 2, the public TV station in St. Paul. There was a good deal of writing involved.

After graduate school I took my family to Fargo, North Dakota, and helped develop the public television station there. Then it was back to St. Paul to a high-tech educational library company and then to Metropolitan State University. Both of those positions involved a good deal of writing.

Along the way I've also been a freelance photographer, a cable television executive, producer, and performer. More writing. In 1989, as a result of a long-standing desire, and classes in mystery writing at The Loft, I looked around and decided that with retirement approaching, I needed another career. As a life-long reader of mystery fiction and writing various kinds of fiction and non-fiction, writing a mystery story seemed a natural fit. Write what you know, they said. Well.

My wife, Jean, and I have sailed all over the world, including three weeks on the Inside Passage. What better location for the first in a sailing series, a story about a man who suffers grievous loss but ultimately prevails over unknown forces of evil arrayed against him. So, I write what I know and love and hope the joy of sailing comes through in Inner Passages, my first novel.

I'm happy to be actively involved in other aspects of the writing life, including being a member of Sisters In Crime and Mystery Writers of America, the facilitator of a mystery reading group at the Har Mar Barnes and Noble, and as a freelance reviewer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Priors:
Inner Passages (1999)

DEBORAH WOODWORTH

Readers often ask me how I decided to write about the Shakers, since I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Shaker. Blame my childhood. I grew up in southwestern Ohio, and once upon a time, Shaker villages dotted the landscape in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. For special occasions, our parents took us to one of our favorite restaurants—The Golden Lamb, in Lebanon, Ohio—and I'd always want to sneak across the street to the Warren County Historical Society, which has a small but wonderful Shaker exhibit. I was fascinated by these inventive people, and I continued to learn more about them as I grew older. As an adult, I returned to my interest in Shakers when I studied for a Ph.D in sociology, with a specialization in sociology of religion. Then I went off and worked as a program evaluation researcher for ten or so years. But the Shakers didn't leave me alone. Just before I decided to write a mystery, my husband and I visited the last remaining Shaker Community—in Sabbathday Lake, Maine—where I walked into the drying room of the Herb House and thought, "What a great place for a body!" And that was that.

Priors:
Death of a Winter Shaker (1997), A Deadly Shaker Spring (1998), Sins of a Shaker Summer (1999), A Simple Shaker Murder (2000), Killing Gifts (2001), Dancing Dead (forthcoming 2002)

ELLEN HART

After spending twelve years as a kitchen manager/chef at a large sorority at the University of Minnesota, it was either the real thing, or commit murder on paper. Hence, Ellen Hart became a mystery writer. Ellen's first novel, Hallowed Murder, was published in 1989, and since then this prolific writer has penned sixteen more mysteries in two different mystery series. The Jane Lawless series was one of the first ever to go from a small press directly to a mainstream New York publisher. The Sophie Greenway culinary mystery series has been called "Nick and Nora for the new millennium!" Ellen is a three-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery, as well as a two-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Crime & Detective Fiction. She teaches mystery writing through the University of Minnesota's Compleat Scholar program and The Loft Literary Center, the largest independent writing community in the nation. Entertainment Weekly magazine recently called her one of the "top novelists in the cultishly popular gay mystery genre." She lives in Minneapolis with her partner of 24 years.

Priors:
Hallowed Murder (1989), Vital Lies (1991), Stage Fright (1992), A Killing Cure (1993), This Little Piggy Went to Murder (1994), A Small Sacrifice (1995), For Every Evil (1995), The Oldest Sin (1996), Faint Praise (1996), Robber's Wine (1997), Murder in the Air (1997), Wicked Games (1998), Hunting the Witch (1999), Slice & Dice (2000), The Merchant of Venus (2001), Dial M for Meat Loaf (2001), Immaculate Midnight (2002)

Read back issues:
Winter, 2002 - Vol. 1, Number 1
Spring, 2002 - Vol. 1, Number 2
Fall, 2002 - Vol. 1, Number 3
Winter, 2003 - Vol. 2, Number 1
Spring, 2003 - Vol. 2, Number 2
Fall, 2003 - Vol. 2, Number 3
Spring, 2004 - Vol. 3, Number 1
Fall, 2004 - Vol. 3, Number 2
Spring, 2005 - Vol. 3, Number 3
Fall, 2005 - Vol. 3, Number 4
Spring, 2006 - Vol. 4, Number 1
Fall, 2006 - Vol. 4, Number 2
Spring, 2007 - Vol. 5, Number 1

© 2002-10 by Carl Brookins, Ellen Hart and William Kent Krueger.
Permission is hereby granted for reproduction of any material contained in this web site for purposes of publicity and promotion related to the sale of our books and/or appearances by members of the Minnesota Crime Wave.

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