Speed Dating For Writers

by Kathleen Ernst

I recently attended Malice Domestic, an annual celebration of the traditional mystery. Participating authors were invited to enter a drawing to earn a place on the roster for Malice-Go-Round. "It's like speed dating for authors," explained Barb Goffman, who organized the event.

I've been involved with Malice for years, but this is the first year my name came out of the hat. I teamed up with my writer-pal Molly MacRae. Convention attendees (i.e. readers) settled down at twenty banquet tables to be enlightened.

Teams of authors moved from table to table. Each author had two minutes to introduce readers to our newest titles, and thirty seconds to move to the next table.

That's me introducing readers to the latest Chloe mystery,
The Light Keeper's Legacy.  (Greg Puhl photo)

The next ninety minutes passed very quickly. At the end I was exhausted. Would I do it again? Heck, yes! I was very glad for the opportunity to make a personal, if brief, connection to so many avid mystery fans.

If you're considering participating in this or a similar event, here are a few observations:

If you have the opportunity, work with a friend. Molly and I quickly developed a rhythm that perfectly fit the allotted time. It also helped, I think, that our books have some common elements.

Me and Molly at Love Is Murder in Chicago Last Febraury,
 where we were each honored with LOVEY Awards.

(I participated in a similar event once where I was paired with a new author at each table. The organizer explained that the rotation was set up that way so no individual was "stuck" with a time-hog for the entire session. A fair point, but it made it impossible to ever settle into a routine.)

I asked several readers afterwards what worked best for them. Their suggestions were simple:  Be friendly. Make eye contact. Share why this book is important to you instead of simply summarizing the plot. Don't over-hype.

Since I'd just received my ARC of the next Chloe Ellefson mystery,
 I couldn't resist showing that too.  And my latest kids' mystery is on the table! (Greg Puhl photo)

The feedback on giveaways was mixed. A few authors walked in with baskets full of little gifties, which immediately instilled in me an inferiority complex. Like most, I passed out bookmarks. I appreciated it when people who weren't interested in my work simply passed them back to me before I left the table. Most of the readers I spoke with said they took everything home to sort through later.

One table was left empty so each author team would get a four-minute rest break part-way through. I assumed "part-way" meant "half-way," and so steered Molly to Table 1. What I didn't notice was that the rest table was the *last* table, so Molly and I didn't get a break at all. Not my best move ever, but hey, somebody had to take Table 1. And Molly's still speaking to me, so all ended OK.

Finally, I have to give a shout-out to Barb Goffman and her team. Malice-Go-Round worked like the proverbial well-oiled machine, thanks to their organization. (And Barb does this on top of organizing panels, too.)

Here are all the participating authors. (Greg Puhl photo)

I've already signed up for Malice 2014, and I'll toss my name into the Go-Round lottery again.   Hope to see you there!

(Until then, you can always visit me at www.kathleenernst.com - I have some great book giveaways going on!)

Strong Women

by Kathleen Ernst

I’m celebrating a launch today—but it’s not the latest Chloe Ellefson book.

As I’ve mentioned on Inkspot before, I write for both children and adults.  In early 2009, American Girl invited me to create a character set during the War of 1812.  I said yes, and began the long process of researching and writing a series aimed at girls age eight and up.

Now, at long last, my six books about Caroline Abbott are hitting the shelves.

I’ve written two Caroline books and a Chloe Ellefson Historic Sites mystery every year for the past three years.  The deadlines have been challenging, to put it mildly.  But I wouldn’t have given up either project.  As I send Caroline into the world, and anticipate sending the third Chloe mystery into the world very soon, I’ve been thinking about that.

What do all these books have in common?  Strong females.

Caroline is nine years old as the series begins.  When the United States declares war on Great Britain, she and her family are plunged immediately into the thick of it.  Her father is captured by the British, leaving Caroline, her mother, and her grandmother to keep the family’s home and shipbuilding business going.

Creating these three characters was very satisfying.  Grandmother, who was widowed during the Revolutionary War, is frail of body but strong of spirit. 


Mama immediately takes charge of the family shipyard and begins negotiating contracts with the US Navy.  Each in their own way, both of these women provide wonderful role models for Caroline.

In rural middle-class families, it was not uncommon for young children of the period to be given what might seem to modern readers extraordinary responsibilities.  This gave me room to give Caroline a lot to handle as the series unfolds.  She sometimes makes mistakes but does the best she can, with her mother and grandmother as examples of what women are capable of.  And Caroline figures out that even a young girl can make a positive difference in difficult times.

How does she compare to Chloe Ellefson?  At the beginning of her series, Chloe is recovering from clinical depression.  The challenges she faces in solving the mystery in Old World Murder help her recover her inner strength.  While a few readers have characterized Chloe as weak because she struggled with depression, I think that her past makes her a much more complex and fully realized woman; and I hope that her ability to leave that past behind as the series unfolds makes her inner strength that much more satisfying.

The mysteries Chloe explores often reveal some aspect of strong women from history.  She discovers women who may have had few options, but nonetheless did their best to stand up to difficult times, to find or make beauty of their world, to help their families and community.  The Light Keeper’s Legacy, which is coming soon, includes an historical timeline braided with Chloe’s investigation.  Several strong women emerge from the past—but more about that another time.

I love writing about strong women--nine years old or ninety; real or imagined.  I hope that readers of all ages enjoy spending time with them, too.

To learn more, visit http://kathleenernst.com.

The gorgeous illustrations from the Caroline Abbott books were created by Robert Papp.

Fiction in Real Places

by Kathleen Ernst

Is it wise to set a murder mystery in a real place? 

The first book in my Chloe Ellefson series, Old World Murder, is set at a large historic site where I once worked.  I used to be a curator at Old World Wisconsin; Chloe is a curator at Old World Wisconsin.  You know what they say: write what you know.


Several writers advised me to fictionalize the setting, but I simply couldn’t do it.  I sent the manuscript to a former colleague before publication, and it made the rounds among administrative types.  Happily, they gave it a thumbs-up.

They weren’t just being kind to me.  They were being savvy.  In these difficult financial times, museums and historic sites are looking for new audiences, new ways to let people know just how much they have to offer.  In my case, I think the site staff realized that my books might bring a few new visitors to the site.  Yes, my fictional characters are involved in murder and mayhem.  But the site itself is portrayed—quite accurately—as a gem.

I’ve been delighted to hear from readers who have indeed discovered the site through Old World Murder and book 2, The Heirloom Murders.  I’ve got locations guides for each book posted on my website.  Readers can download them and take a Chloe Tour on their own, seeing each real building or place that appears in the books.

And this year, I worked with Old World Wisconsin staff to create special “History and Mystery” tours, focused on the Chloe Ellefson books.  Participants arrive before-hours for a behind-the-scenes look at locations featured in the novels. 

I take guests into the buildings they read about and discuss the choices I made when writing the books.  I’m able to share some background about the site, providing pertinent context that didn’t quite make it into the novels.  Guests also get to visit areas that are not normally open to the public. 


The curator of research, who has worked at the site since the 1970s, shares little-known stories about identifying, relocating, restoring, and researching each structure.  That’s a rare treat, and I can tell that participants would be happy to listen and ask him questions all day.


The experience ends with a private reception and—of course—a booksigning.  The combination must be appealing, because the first tours have sold out.  One lady on the first tour flew in from New York!  So far we’ve raised $2,000 for Old World Wisconsin.

So is it wise to write about a real place?  For me, the answer is definitely yes.  I think Old World Wisconsin staff would agree.  The site supports and promotes my books; I support and promote the site.

In future books, when Chloe visits other historic sites, I hope to do the same thing.  The Light Keeper’s Legacy, which comes out in October, is largely set in an old lighthouse on an island in Lake Michigan.  A special fund-raising tour there sounds like great fun to me!

For more information, visit http://kathleenernst.com

Docent Duty

by Kathleen Ernst

My husband Scott and I are recently back from our 4th stint as docents at Pottawatomie Lighthouse in Rock Island State Park, WI. 
Rock Island is situated off the northern tip of Door County in Lake Michigan, and Pottawatomie is the state’s oldest light station.

The current lighthouse, built in 1858, was magnificently restored by the Friends of Rock Island in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  It sits on top of a bluff on the northern end of Rock Island, over a mile from the boat landing and campground.  There are no roads on the island, and it takes two ferry rides to get there.

As docents, we give tours to guests from 10 AM to 4 PM each day.  Since Scott and I both love history, and telling stories, it’s a great gig.  We’re also responsible for housekeeping chores.


Otherwise, we get to live at the lighthouse.  How cool is that?

There’s no electricity or indoor plumbing.  (That’s Scott filling an Igloo at the old pump, in the rain.)  But we have a fridge and stove powered by bottled gas, and we get to sleep in the keepers’ bedroom.


We have lots of quiet evenings.  Lots of time for an impressionable writer to ponder stories of long-gone keepers, and to imagine the lighthouse as it once was.



So it was pretty much inevitable that I would write a book about the lighthouse.


In The Light Keeper’s Legacy (coming in October), my protagonist Chloe Ellefson is invited to serve as a guest curator at Pottawatomie Lighthouse.  She’s excited about the job and eager for some solitude in such a beautiful, remote place.  Needless to say, since this is a murder mystery, her time on Rock Island isn’t quite as peaceful as she’d hoped.

 Writing the book let me explore some new personal issues for Chloe, who is struggling to figure out what she wants from life.  And it let me write an homage to the strong individuals who lived on Rock Island in the 19th century.  The Light Keeper referenced in the title is Emily Betts, a real  and totally awesome woman who served as Assistant Keeper at Pottawatomie.  (In the National Archives photo below, that’s Emily barely visible in the doorway.)

 The book also showcases the complexities of managing natural resources over the years.  And it let me share a very special place with readers—some of whom will, I hope, decide to visit Rock Island and support ongoing restoration projects.


 It doesn’t get much better than that.

http://kathleenernst.com
http://sitesandstories.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/kathleenernst.author

Killing the Good Guys

by Kathleen Ernst

I recently joined a book group to discuss my Chloe Ellefson mysteries, and one of the members had a question I hadn’t fielded before. In the first book, Old World Murder, a very nice character is killed about mid-way through. “How can you create such an appealing character and then kill him off?” she asked.

We discussed the choice of victims in murder mysteries, and the conversation moved on. However, I’ve been thinking more about it. In the second Chloe mystery, The Heirloom Murders, two nice people are killed. In The Light Keeper’s Legacy, which comes out in October, another nice person takes the hit.

I didn’t plan to kill a sympathetic character per se. In each case, the victim suited the needs of the story. Creating a sympathetic victim can up the emotional stakes too, making it even more important to find the killer and bring him/her to justice.

I’m well into the opening stages of writing a fourth Chloe mystery. In this one, by chance, I took the opposite approach. The victim is a generally unpleasant woman. Once the crime is committed lots of people can go on the suspect list because she did so many not-nice things to so many people.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong approach. I do think, though, that I’ll try to keep balance in mind as the series progresses.

How about you? Do you prefer your mysteries to include unlikeable murder victims? Do you appreciate the extra heart-tug when a favorite character dies? Or does it not matter? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

http: kathleenernst.com

image courtesy Simon Howden, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404

And We Have A Series

by Kathleen Ernst

Two good writerly things happened in the past couple of weeks. First, I got to see the final cover art for the third Chloe Ellefson mystery, The Light Keeper’s Legacy, which will be out in October. I love the cover, and suspect that readers will too.

Second, I got to announce a big project in the children’s arena. For the past three years I’ve been working on a six-book series for American Girl, but it’s all been under wraps. Although most of it is still under wraps, I was able to announce that it’s going to be published in the fall. That was fun.

Writers seize opportunities when they come. I’ve been blessed with a lot of opportunity lately. That’s wonderful, but it also meant that the past year in particular was…shall we say…intense.

Early on, my husband and I talked about keeping on a book-a-year schedule for Chloe, and we both felt that was important. The Light Keeper’s Legacy turned out to be the most complicated book yet. (I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s the way the story evolved.) It includes multiple timelines and required a lot of research. I ju-u-ust barely made my deadline. At more than one point I truly wondered if I could pull it off. I was so head-down on the thing that it all felt very abstract.

Then I got to see the cover. Suddenly, it started looking and feeling like a real book.

Even better, it’s the third Chloe Ellefson mystery. To me, that makes it official: I’m writing a series. The dictionary I checked defined a series as “a set of successive volumes published in like form with similarity of subject or purpose.” I’d like to think I’m building some momentum.

Midnight Ink recently released their list of titles for the fall 2012 list. It’s an impressive list. I’m proud to be part of it.

http://kathleenernst.com
http://sitesandstories.wordpress.com