Interview with Sarah E. Glenn - 12 Days of SinC Christmas

If it's December 6th, it's my turn.

So, who am I?

Sarah E. Glenn loves mystery and horror stories, often with a sidecar of humor. Several have appeared in mystery and paranormal anthologies, including G.W. Thomas’ Ghostbreakers series, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, and Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology. She is the Web Maven for the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and also serves as Editor-in-Chief for Mystery and Horror, LLC.

Sarah developed strong ideals from her parents, a salesman turned missionary and an activist turned social worker. Despite their tutelage and a short stint as a classical languages grad student, she still loves Kolchak, superheroes, geek fandoms, and pop culture.

Her great-great aunt served as a nurse in WWI, and was injured by poison gas during the fighting. After being mustered out, she traveled widely. A hundred years later, “Aunt Dess” would inspire Sarah to write stories she would likely not have approved of.

Shaddap already! What's the giveaway?

On December 5th and 6th, the Kindle version of Murder on the Mullet Express will be free. Also, if you comment on my blog post with the word "snowbirds," you will be entered into a drawing for the new audiobook version of Murder on the Mullet Express!

Oh, wait. You won the drawing, but don't want an audiobook? We can negotiate sending you a print copy of MOME, or one of the other books in the series. Write me at sarahglenn 63 @ gmail.com minus the spaces.

And now ... the interview!

1.          What inspired you to start writing? I began reading at a very early age. I loved stories. Loved, loved, loved them. I couldn’t think of anything nobler to do (not sure where humor came into it). My earliest writings were continuations of the stories I loved (aka fan fiction), which I drew as well as wrote. I began with horses (big Black Stallion fan), moved to Betty and Veronica, and eventually to The X-Men, where I introduced my own characters.

In college, I was introduced to fantasy. I shifted to prose inspired by Roger Zelazny’s world of Amber, but developed my own plots and characters. I do enjoy other worlds, whether science fiction, fantasy, or historical.

2.          What did you want to be when you grew up? A witch, an astronaut, an alien, a superhero, a spy, an actress, and an author. The beauty of being an author is that you can be all of these people and more.

3.          What genres do you write? I started with horror and paranormal tales, but my interest in mysteries developed over time. People’s secrets and hidden motivations are fascinating. Zelazny’s first Amber series (the first five novels) starred Corwin, who woke up with amnesia in a private hospital and broke free. His first question was “Who am I?” The hospital’s records led him to his sister, who was not forthcoming. A brother, one of many, shows up. He’s in trouble, and offers to help Corwin take the throne. Turns out Corwin has been missing for longer than their father. The family has been betrayed by one of their own, and Corwin must discover what is going on.

Meeting Gwen sharpened my interest in mysteries as a genre. She is a long-term Agatha Christie fan. I’d read several of my grandmother’s Perry Mason books, but mostly watched my detectives on television. Together, we discovered Anne Perry, Donna Andrews, Catriona McPherson, Janet Evanovich, Louise Penny, and the Elizabeth McPherson series by Sharyn McCrumb.

4.          What advice would you give to a new writer, someone just starting? Write what inspires you. Don’t “write to market.” By the time you finish writing a story in a popular trope, the readers will have moved to something else. Plus, you will have wasted your energy on writing something you didn’t love. Writing is something that comes from the self, like any creative endeavor.

5.          Plotter or pantser? Oh, I pants my way through the beginning of everything I write. I have tried outlining first, but it takes the life out of the process for me. I usually have to write 30,000 words of a book before I figure out what the real story is. Then I outline, usually with the help of a calendar.

I don’t write in chronological order; I write the first scene that appears in my head. Eventually the narrative grows into a scene and sequence pattern, and the plot takes form. At some point, I have to move a block of story because I realize it should have happened earlier in the tale, and then retrofit things so it looks like it was there all along.

6.          Do you listen to music while you write? My co-author can only write in silence. My imagination rides music like a horse. When I’m writing in a specific historical period, I listen to music (with earbuds) from that era. It helps set the mood, and in some cases, the attitude of the culture. The popular music of the 1920s is more rambunctious than the compositions of the French Romantics and Impressionists, even though they aren’t far apart in age. Life has a soundtrack, as far as I’m concerned.

7.          How did you convert your book into an audiobook? Scott Ellis of Scott Ellis Reads spoke to our Sisters in Crime chapter a few years ago. One of our dreams has been having audiobooks, so when we reconnected with him earlier this year, we decided to go ahead with him.

We sent Scott sample material from Murder on the Mullet Express, and he sent us audio from different narrators who work with him. Even though the primary characters were mostly female, we chose him for his facility with the different accents and general tone.

Scott guided us through the process with ACX, which is owned by Amazon (so far, Amazon has provided us the best bang for our buck for the series). I claimed our book on ACX, and extended an offer to his company (we had agreed on the rate by then).

He posted his reading of the first chapter quickly, and we made comments. We also met with Scott via Zoom to provide more information on the characters—their general tone (pleasant, gruff, etc.), backgrounds (some are Southern, others are not). Scott offered his suggestions for how minor characters might sound.

After that, he uploaded recordings of the chapters to ACX for us to listen to and approve. Once we had approved the initial recordings, we then received completed recordings for final approval. It was a last-minute chance to catch problems, which I appreciated.

The projected date of completion at the time of the offer was late January 2025, but the audiobook became available before Thanksgiving. Amazon/ACX runs the book through its own approval process. They say the average time for approval is 10 days, but ours took two weeks. But there were no requests for corrections!

Gwen and I were both pleased with the work Scott Ellis did with the audiobook. He did an excellent job.

On December 5^th and 6^th, the Kindle version of Murder on the Mullet Express will be free on Amazon. If you comment on this post with the word “snowbirds,” I will enter you into a drawing for a free copy of the audiobook. If you don’t want a download of the audiobook, I can send you a print copy of Murder on the Mullet Express or another book in the Three Snowbirds series.

Lightning round – Just for fun:

Tea or coffee? Yes, with sugar. Lots of sugar.

Morning person or night owl? Whooo, me?

City or country? The ‘burbs suit me best.

Thanksgiving or Christmas? Halloween.

Extrovert or introvert? Introvert in person, extrovert online.

Print, ebook, or audiobook? Ebooks for nonfiction, audiobooks for fiction.

Pizza, burgers, or pasta? Pizza. See, I can give a straight answer!

Other books by Sarah E. Glenn

Murder at the Million Dollar Pier - co-written with Gwen Mayo.

Ybor City Blues - co-written with Gwen Mayo.

Short Stories:

"Bolita and Blues" - Paradise is Deadly: Gripping Tales from Florida’s Gulf Coast

"Hornswoggled" - Mystery with a Splash of Bourbon

"Two Old Crows" - co-written with Gwen Mayo for Mystery with a Splash of Bourbon

"The Odds Are Always Uneven" - co-written with Gwen Mayo for Hoosier Hoops and Hijinks

"New Age Old Story" - Fish Tales: the Guppy Anthology

Okay, that's about all the fun I can stand. I got wordy.

I hope you have a great end to this year, whichever holiday you do or do not celebrate. Drop me a line below--I'm eager for other people to hear our first audiobook!

Want to follow me? Thanks!

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SarahGlennAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahelleniglenn/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sarahglenn.bsky.social

Interview with Gwen Mayo - 12 Days of SinC Christmas

 

Who is Gwen Mayo?

Gwen Mayo is a history junkie who grew up in the hills of Eastern Kentucky.  Her home state’s colorful past forms the backdrop for her Nessa Donnelly mysteries, Circle of Dishonor and Concealed in Ash. The series is set during the turbulent political upheaval of post-Civil War Kentucky at a time when Kentuckians were often confronted with murder.

She teamed up with humorist Sarah E. Glenn to write the Three Snowbirds travel mysteries set in the 1920s. Murder on the Mullet Express, Murder at the Million Dollar Pier, and Ybor City Blues are available wherever books are sold. The fourth Three Snowbirds mystery, Mustering Out, is coming soon.

Gwen is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, an active member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and a member of the Derby Rotten Scoundrels Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Florida Gulf Coast Sisters in Crime. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies, in webzines, and in micro-fiction collections.  

The Giveaway:

On December 5th and 6th, the Kindle version of Murder on the Mullet Express will be free. 

We also have a brand new audiobook for this novel! Sarah Glenn is giving away a copy of the audiobook on December 6th. Visit her blog tomorrow to learn how to enter the drawing for a free download of the audiobook version of Murder on the Mullet Express.

The Interview:

1. What genre do you write in, and what drew you to that genre? Do you aspire to write in another genre? If so, which one(s)?

I write historical mysteries because I love the genre and the history. Classic whodunits are puzzles with key pieces hidden in plain sight. Using my brain to become a detective, follow clues, avoid misdirection, and find the truth is a wonderful experience. Exploring another time and place makes historical mystery the ultimate escape.

2. How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

My current Three Snowbirds mystery, Ybor City Blues, is the third book in the series, which I co-write with Sarah E. Glenn. I wrote two historical thrillers in the Nessa Donnelly series, set in Kentucky during the 1870s. I have also written dozens of short stories, some in conjunction with Sarah, including one in the anthology, Paradise is Deadly – Gripping Tales from Florida’s Gulf Coast. 

It's hard to choose a favorite book. They are all pieces of me. I suppose it would have to be my first book, Circle of Dishonor. 

I had written a few short stories with my cross-dressing detective, Nessa Donnelly. 

The idea of writing a full-length novel was daunting. It took a little pressure and a lot of encouragement from my Sisters in Crime chapter in Kentucky to get me to attempt a book. 

It took lots of pressure and much laughter to get me to let my boss become the doctor in my book. The character of Dr. Haydon is not only named for him but was completely rewritten with him in mind. 

He died of cancer shortly after the book was released. I will never forget the look on his face when he held the first copy up and told everyone in the room that he was going to live forever.

3. What's your approach to writing? Are you a plotter, or do you let your story unfold and the characters present themselves (Pantser)?

I am a plotter. I start with a brief outline of what I intend to write. The outline does get shifted some as the story progresses. Characters get their own ideas of what they should do, but the bare bones of the story remain. I also write from beginning to end, which is really hard when you team up with a writing partner who is a pantser, who starts writing with whatever scene she likes and fixes everything when the story is off track. It has made for some interesting conversations.

4. If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?

Healing. It would be amazing to have the power to stop pain, ease suffering, and mend the damage life throws at us.  

5. Since it’s the holidays, what’s your favorite holiday food?

Just one? That is so unfair. The holidays are all about getting together for fun and fabulous food. Turkey is the star at Thanksgiving; not just the bird and turkey gravy, but my father’s turkey dumplings and Sarah’s grandmother’s stuffing rely on rich turkey broth. My younger sister’s broccoli casserole and her pumpkin rolls are also big favorites. 

As for Christmas, I have a dozen amazing cookie recipes, one for chocolate pecan pie and the best old-fashioned peanut butter fudge recipe around. Over twenty years ago, I started a new family tradition by roasting a full prime rib for the Christmas dinner and serving it with a side of orzo thick with fresh spinach and toasted pine nuts. The other sides vary depending on who’s coming and what their favorite foods are, but the mingled aroma of Christmas in our kitchen makes every mouth water.

There is no way that I can pick just one favorite holiday food. Can you?

6. Tell us about your current work in progress.

I am working on book 4 in the Three Snowbirds series, Mustering Out. Cornelia is ready to retire, but a series of unexplainable deaths among the lung patients brings out the detective in her. The provost officers in charge of the case look no further than Cornelia’s hand-picked successor but Cornelia knows Ruth would never harm a patient. Her efforts to find the real killer threaten to turn her retirement party into a wake as Cornelia, Teddy, and Uncle Percival race against time to discover the angle of death roaming the halls of Fitzsimmons General Hospital. 

Lightning Round – Just for fun:

1. Holiday pies --- apple or pumpkin: Apple, if those are the choices. I prefer Pecan.

2. Morning person or night owl:         Night Owl

3. Beach or Mountains: Beach in spring, mountains in the fall

4. City or Country: Country

5. Vanilla or Chocolate Ice Cream: Vanilla

6. Favorite Movie: The Princess Bride

7. Last book Read: Hop Scot by Catriona McPherson

8. Print, audio, or ebook: Print, I’m old school (maybe just old)

Other books by Gwen Mayo:

Murder at the Million Dollar Pier - co-written with Sarah E. Glenn.

Ybor City Blues -  co-written with Sarah E. Glenn.

Circle of Dishonor - a Nessa Donnelly story.

Concealed in Ash - a Nessa Donnelly story.

Short Stories:

"Bolita and Blues" - Paradise is Deadly: Gripping Tales from Florida’s Gulf Coast -  co-written with Sarah E. Glenn

"Special Label" - Mystery with a Splash of Bourbon

"Two Old Crows" - co-written with Sarah E. Glenn for Mystery with a Splash of Bourbon

"The Odds Are Always Uneven" -  co-written with Sarah E. Glenn for Hoosier Hoops and Hijinks

Learn more about Gwen Mayo at:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/p/Gwen-Mayo-Author-100063602106093/

Author page - https://gwenmayo.weebly.com/

The Perfect Rainy Day Read

 For those of you in ports north of Florida...

Free on Kindle Unlimited!

Coming in 2025: Our first audiobook!

 

Gwen Mayo and I are thrilled to announce our partnership with Scott Ellis Reads to produce our first audiobook. We're starting with Murder on the Mullet Express, the first book in our Three Snowbirds series. The projected release date is January 2025, nearly a hundred years after the story's setting. This milestone fulfills a dream we've had since founding Mystery and Horror, LLC.

We Did a Thing

 

Graphic courtesy of Rosalind Barden.

Most of what Gwen Mayo and I have done in the past couple of years has been invisible. I have been working full-time from home, Gwen has been ferrying my mother to and from the doctor. We had a death in the family, and it's been a depressing time.

We published three anthologies and two novels written by a friend. I attended Sisters in Crime meetings by Zoom. Neither of us were able to write for a while, and when I started again, it was with my first love, fanfiction. I slipped into the slightly more social community of https://shutupwrite.com/.

This year, we're out of the house. Gwen is the 2024 president of our chapter of Sisters in Crime, and we've been attending meetings in person. We've also participated in panel discussions and venues where we could sell our books. I had to relearn how to use Square. 

We also finished something important: Ybor City Blues, the third book in the Three Snowbirds series. Our favorite Army nurse, Cornelia Pettijohn, is on her way back to Fort Fitzsimons when gangsters board the train and haul her away. It seems that a friend of Charlie Wall is in trouble and Cornelia's just the person to help. Her very close companion, Teddy Lawless, and Uncle Percival Pettijohn offer their assistance.

Soon, the three snowbirds are up to their ears in hot water. Witnesses are being killed, sidekicks are being attacked. Just when Cornelia thinks it can't get any worse, the trio get a surprise visit from Teddy's estranged mother. She's heard about Teddy's (sham) engagement and is here to see her finally wed. Cornelia would rather deal with the gangsters.

Anyway, we have something new to show you. Take a look at it and give us a review! The book is free on Kindle Unlimited. 

Thank you for your patience.

Doing Research: the Tampa Bay Hotel

When Gwen Mayo and I work on the latest Three Snowbirds novel, we try to visit the sites that the ladies visit. Our next book, Ybor City Blues, is set in Tampa and Ybor City (Ybor City is part of Tampa now, but was a separate town in the 1920s).  

During their time in Tampa, Professor Pettijohn, Cornelia, and Teddy will be staying in the Tampa Bay Hotel, opened by rail baron Henry B. Plant in 1891. 

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A post shared by Sarah Glenn (@sarahelleniglenn)

This hotel was one of eight built by Henry Plant along his rail lines to promote tourism. It had over five hundred rooms and was the place to be during the Gilded Age. Guests could enjoy the golf course, casino, stables, indoor heated swimming pool, and even a race track situated on the grounds. It even had its own flag!

Naturally, we paid special attention to the details of the guest and dining rooms, since our characters will be seeing a lot of them. 

A comfy place to sleep.

Table setting from the original dining room.
The hotel had its own silverware and dishes.

For entertainment on Sunday, Col. Harold B. Bachman's "Million-Dollar Band" provided music for the guests in the bandshell at Plant Park. They performed at the Park during the 1925-1927 winter seasons, often attracting crowds in the thousands. We plan to have some fun in this setting.

Why yes, that IS a cutout of Bachman!

I'm afraid that by the time of our book, the hotel was in its last decade of service. The family sold the hotel to the city of Tampa in 1905, a few years after Henry Plant died, and the city closed the hotel in 1930. The Tampa Bay Junior College moved into the space, but part of the hotel reopened as a museum in 1933, which is still open for touring. The rest of the hotel houses offices for the University of Tampa.

You can learn more about the Tampa Bay Hotel from Gwen Mayo's post, The Magic Kingdom of Henry Plant.

The Three Snowbirds: Why Homosassa?

In Murder on the Mullet Express, our three snowbirds head to Homosassa, Florida as their first stop. The characters’ motives for this destination become clear (to the detriment of Uncle Percival), but someone unfamiliar with Homosassa might wonder why we set a story there in the first place, especially in the 1920s. 

Homosassa and Homosassa Springs are two communities divided by U.S. 19 in Citrus County, a fairly rural area. Today, it’s best known for its manatees and Monkey Island. We visited Ellie Schiller Park more than once, which has a timeline of Homosassa’s history. The Yulee Sugar Mill and Tiger Tail Island were interesting, but we found ourselves drawn to the tale of a Florida Land Boom project.

In the 1920s, the West Coast Development Company bought up a large amount of property in the area around Old Homosassa on the cheap, with an eye to reselling it as a planned community. I read the brochure from the newly-formed Chamber of Commerce, and they essentially said they were building the Biblical shining city on a hill (in a place with very few hills and fewer people). Eden might be a more accurate term; the area was overflowing with fish, game, and waterfowl. 

The proposal generated a lot of interest, but getting the customers to the property was a challenge: due to the enormous number of would-be entrepreneurs, Florida railroads had put an embargo on passengers. Not to be daunted, West Coast arranged for potential investors to arrive in Jacksonville, where they would be driven across the state in the luxurious new Cadillacs. Immediately, our minds went into gear: imagine the locked-room mystery one could set in a private car during a lengthy ride!

Unfortunately, that sort of puzzle works best in short form, not a novel. Plus, it wouldn’t really involve Homosassa. A deadly ride might turn up in a future story, though.

So, back to the proposed city. Sales of premeasured lots began in early 1926. The speculators who arrived first were, for the most part, not interested in living there themselves. They were there to buy property that they could then resell at a higher price. Eventually, it would pass into the hands of someone who did want a Florida home and was willing to pay through the nose for it. That sort of mindset leads to skullduggery, and where there’s skullduggery, there’s often murder.

The planned city included an arcade and casino. In those days, a ‘casino’ could refer to a place where people gathered for social affairs, but gambling was always a possibility. Tampa, only a few hours’ drive to the south, had a thriving gambling enterprise run by organized crime in the 1920s. To make things even better, the homegrown gang, Charlie Wall’s boys, were butting heads with mobsters who had come down from Chicago. Oh look, there’s murder again.

We drew from these elements to create our characters. Once that was done, the plot began to write itself. I hope you’ll find the results colorful and enjoyable. 

The Two-Headed Killer

With apologies to DC and Marvel.

When Gwen and I show our books to other authors, the first questions we get asked are: “You wrote a book together? How did you plot it?” 

Creative types often have problems working together. It’s like another cook in your kitchen or, worse, a boss that tries to micromanage you. You have your creative process, and they have theirs. This is true for even authors who married other authors; sometimes the choice comes down to writing separately vs. divorce.

Yet, it can happen. Richard Levinson and William Link created great television together: Columbo, Ellery Queen, Murder, She Wrote, and many other popular shows. Sometimes they devised plots together (often under the pen name ‘Ted Leighton’) which scriptwriters would turn into a television episode. Charles and the Caroline Todd created two long-running series of mystery novels together. James Patterson also co-writes, but he takes a top-down approach: he creates the characters and a detailed plot, which is then taken over by other writers.

In our case, short stories are relatively easy. We discuss what should happen, and then one of us begins writing. We take turns. I remember, while writing one story, saying to Gwen, “You need to invent something,” because we’d hit the point where Professor Pettijohn needed to reveal his latest invention. Then, we had to figure out how to use it within the story. Dialogue is a breeze. It’s fun to write, and Gwen suggests comebacks I can play off of.  It's great fun to have another imagination to build a story with. The sum is greater than the halves.

Writing novels, though, is a bigger challenge. One of our biggest roadblocks: writing style. Gwen is a true plotter, while I am a pantser (a writer who flies by the seat of the pants). When Gwen sits down to write, she lays out her plot, then starts at the beginning of the book and produces the ensuing material in a linear fashion. She inserts scenes only when the story demands it. 

I don’t do well with beginnings, since story openings invite a lot of second-guessing and, frankly, procrastination. Instead, I write the scenes that are the clearest in my head. It’s like a spider web: I fill the space between the scenes with the stuff that should precede or follow them. As a result, it can take me as long as 30,000 words to figure out what a novel is really about and force it into a logical chronology. Short stories are so much easier.

So, clashes ensue. We come up with the characters together, including ‘the crime before the crime’ and who the killer is. Gwen let me choose the poison in our first two novels because I love that sort of thing. I was the one who started Murder on the Mullet Express because she was working on Concealed in Ash. I mentally formed a crude sequence of events for the first part of the novel and wrote the scenes I had the strongest ideas for. Then, Gwen took over for a while and added more background to my work, plus she added the scenes between the scenes. So far, no problem.

I got back into the novel after editing a couple of anthologies, read over the previous text to reorient myself, and added further scenes. This was when the trouble started. I have this unfortunate habit of writing the scene where the killer was revealed to give myself a goalpost for the in-between narrative. Then, I wrote some critical clue discovery scenes between it and where Gwen left off.

This was a big mistake. Gwen started writing at the first gap and, through organic process, revealed a big clue that I’d set later in the book. I was unhappy that she hadn’t looked ahead, while she felt that certain clues would be discovered sooner with the technology available at the time. Then, I had a spark of an idea of how future trouble could be created with the information she’d changed. We discussed the new plot twist, and I removed and retooled the conflicting scenes as necessary. After that, I made sure to run ideas by her before I wrote them.

Gwen and I finished the book by using yWriter (which we no longer have) to coordinate the plot and firm up the chronology (which days the train ran, when court was open for arraignments, etc.). Even then, details cropped up that required retrofitting other scenes and adding new narrative.

I did the final edits to sand down the bumps. Some chapters needed more work than others. Once the text was smoothed out, though, we had a pretty good product. Readers seem to appreciate the cultural details and the plot twists that started as accidents. It took longer to write than the sequel, but how else were we supposed to learn?

For Murder at the Million Dollar Pier, we created a master plot. We also agreed that if one of us makes changes to the novel's plot, it needs to be changed accordingly in the master plot. This has reduced clashes and made it easier to see where the characters should go next, so we're using the same method in writing our third novel, Ybor City Blues. May all disharmony exist on the page, not between the authors.