Should Have Played Poker: Debra H. Goldstein

Today, I'm pleased to introduce you to Judge Debra H. Goldstein. She's the author of Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery (Five Star Publishing – April 2016) and the 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Mardi Gras Murder and The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Fourth Meal of Mayhem. Debra serves on the national Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter and Alabama Writers Conclave boards and is a MWA member. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Joel, whose blood runs crimson.

When did you first decide to become an author, and why did you shift your focus from publishing to law?
As far back as my first memories, I wanted to tell stories – of course, they were usually tales aimed at getting one of my cousins in trouble.  As time passed, I wrote short stories and plays for school and my neighborhood friends, but I thought, when I went to college, I probably would end up being a journalist who occasionally wrote creatively on the side. Two days after graduating early from the University of Michigan, I went to New York seeking a job in publishing and an opportunity to get on Jeopardy.  In case things didn’t work out, I spent evenings of the days I was job-hunting typing up law school applications for the following fall.  I was lucky enough to meet my goals, but realized I wanted to attend law school. Once I did that, my author career was put on a back burner, except for briefs, decisions, and social writings, for most of the years that I was a litigator and judge. In 2010, I became interested in creative writing again. After my 2012 IPPY winning book, Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus in the 1970’s, was published, I became so involved in the publishing world that I decided being an author rather than a judge was the career I wanted to pursue.

You were on Jeopardy!  How did they choose you? What was it like?
I became hooked on Jeopardy when I was in elementary school.  It became a dream to become a contestant.  When I was graduating from college, I sent in an application and was assigned an interview time. This was when they still did in person interviews in New York and occasionally other cities, fifty to sixty people at a time, rather than the computer application process. We were brought into a large room where Polaroid pictures of us were taken and attached to a written application we filled out.  Once the applications were collected, the moderator threw out an answer and went around the room seeking questions from us, not changing until we ran out of possibilities.  Because I followed the advice I received to sit in the front row and be eager, I was lucky to receive the answer “blue,” so I could pose the question “What color is the sky?” After we played this oral game, we all were handed answer sheets and together responded to fifty “answers” flashed in front of us on all possible topics.  The answer sheets were then collected and we waited while our tests were ostensibly graded. As this was not scan sheet grading, there was no way our papers could have been graded during the period the Jeopardy staff left the room.  Rather, I believe our behavior was being observed.  A few minutes later, the staff returned, thanked and dismissed everyone except four people whose applications allegedly had a problem. I was one of the four.  When the room cleared, and we leaned forward to find out what was wrong with our applications, we discovered we were the only four selected from the group to be contestants. Although I lost to a five day champion, the experience was a blast.

Do you have a writing routine and/or special writing space?
I only wish I had a writing routine!  I envy those who do, but as structured as I was throughout my legal career, my present juggling of family, writing, volunteer work and friends, is predicated on flexibility and fun.  The result of my non-routine is that I write short stories and novels in spurts, often to the pace of show music playing in the background.
My favorite place to write is anywhere I can see water, but I don’t get much opportunity to get to the beach.  Consequently, I have created different places in the house that I write depending upon the task.  Drafts are written in a chair in my bedroom or one in the living room while first draft revisions are done in the living room and final revisions are done in the room I dedicated to being my office.

Have you read anything good lately? 
I’m an avid reader whose taste includes bestsellers, books by brand new authors, and biographies.  Unlike some, I usually read the entire book, whether I like it or not.  Recent literary ones I enjoyed are My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  I’ll plead the fifth respecting mystery choices.

Tell us a little bit about Should Have Played Poker.
In Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, Carrie Martin's precarious balancing of her corporate law job and visiting her father at the Sunshine Village retirement home is upset when her mother appears, out of the blue, in Carrie's office twenty-six years after abandoning her family. Her mother leaves her with a sealed envelope and the confession she once considered killing Carrie’s father.  Confused, Carrie seeks answers about her past from her father prior to opening the envelope, but before she can reach his room, she finds her mother murdered.
Instructed to leave the sleuthing to the police, Carrie's continued efforts to discover why someone murdered her mother quickly puts her at odds with her former lover--the detective assigned to her mother's case. As Carrie and her co-sleuths, the Sunshine Village Mah jongg players, attempt to unravel Wahoo, Alabama's past secrets in this fast paced cozy mystery, their efforts put Carrie in danger and show her that truth and integrity aren't always what she was taught to believe.

Since this book is described as “A Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery”, will there be future stories featuring Carrie Martin?
I like these characters and hope they will reappear in many of my writings.  Although this is Carrie’s first public outing, the Mah Jongg Players and the son of the group’s ringleader appeared in my first published short story, "Legal Magic". When I came up with this plot involving Carrie, I needed a comic balance and realized the Legal Magic characters would be a perfect foil for her.

Tell us about the donations that go to YWCA and CARES.
Thank you for asking about the fact that all royalties I earn from any hardcover or e-book sales from the pre-order point through May 30, 2016 are being donated evenly between the YWCA of Central Alabama’s domestic violence and the CJFS CARES dementia relief programs.  I serve on the boards of both of these organizations and know the impact these programs have.  I’ve been so fortunate to have a successful legal career and be at the beginning of a really wonderful second opportunity that I believe it important to give back.  Hopefully, my writing will provide fun and enjoyment for readers and accomplish some good.

Thank you for stopping by!

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