Interview: E.M. Munsch, Author of A Haunting at Marianwood

E.M. Munsch is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, but has spent her adult life in Louisville, Kentucky.  She graduated from Nazareth College of Kentucky located outside of Bardstown and attended The Ohio State University for her graduate work. She has been a bookseller for fifty years working in both large and small, chain and independent bookstores. She opened the first Barnes & Noble in Kentucky where she set up a mystery reading group which is still active today. She also taught classes in the mystery genre for the Veritas Society and joined the local chapter of Sisters in Crime. 

With Susan Bell, she co-edited MYSTERY WITH A SPLASH OF BOURBON, an anthology of bourbon-related stories.

As E.M. Munsch, she writes the Dash Hammond series set on the shores of Lake Erie. The latest title, A HAUNTING AT MARIANWOOD, is now available on Amazon.

1.      When did you know you wanted to be an author?

I have always been a reader and am most comfortable in a library or bookstore. In 1972 I found my true calling as a bookseller in a small independent in Louisville. I was in heaven. Not only did I get to see all the new and old books but talk with the customers about them. And as my career progressed and I worked for B&N, I also got to meet many authors as they toured. I have the utmost admiration for them. To be able to stick to a project from start to end amazed me. I love stories, reading them and creating them in my head. I would scribble first lines, first paragraphs, even several pages but never finished anything. I would start something and then look over to see a book I wanted to read. Let someone else do the heavy lifting. It wasn’t until  I was 69 and a member of Sisters in Crime did I think I could be an author. And by Jove, I did it.

 

2.      How did you choose the fiction genre you write in?

As I said, I love good stories with interesting  characters. When I started bookselling, I picked up a Chip Harrison book by Lawrence Block, more about him later. This series is a take-off of the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin series by Rex Stout. It prompted me to begin reading Stout and I fell in love with Archie and the gang. Customers and I would discuss the fine points of living in the Brownstone. At that point I decided that mystery would be my field. I also read a lot of Regency romances since I was intrigued by that era and did start one or two romances (still unfinished). But time spent with a good mystery series won out.

 

3.      What is your current project and can share a little?

I’m currently working on the seventh Dash Hammond book tentatively titled A RELIABLE MAN. Maud Grealis, a cranky little old lady who claims to be a cousin of Dash’s mother, calls his father, a former sheriff, telling him something feels off. So father and son drive to Cleveland only to find Maud’s body. Dash discovers he is heir to all her worldly goods and several secrets.  Although Dash feels like he barely knew Maud, she chose him since, as she told her attorney, “Dash is a good man, a reliable man. He will do the right thing. He is a seeker of truth and a finder of lost things”.

You’ll have to read the book to see if Maud is right.

 

4.      What inspired you to create Dash Hammond?

I live in a  condo which has a small area for a garden. I had a knock-out rose that had turned into a monster. One day while pruning it,  I lost my balance, falling into and onto the bush. After I stopped swearing and as I slowly untangled myself from the thorns, I wondered how a writer would write this scene. Inside I went and sat at the computer, dabbing away at my multiple thorn pricks. I pictured a younger woman entangled in a large rose bush. Now, wouldn’t it be more interesting if, instead of climbing out of it unassisted, she had a neighbor who would help her. And Dash was born. He’s six-four (Thomas Magnum), has brilliant blue eyes (like my dear departed husband) and a wise-mouth (Rockford, Archie Goodwin and Bernie Rhodenbarr). This is his first encounter with his new neighbor as he had been traveling when she moved in.

I ‘dashed’ off several pages and took it to the critique group of my local Sisters in Crime. They loved it and asked the fateful question: What happens next? My answer was a simple: I have no idea, for all I know Annie’s still stuck in the rose bush.

These kind ladies pushed and prodded me along. All of a sudden I discovered I loved writing this story. And I still do love writing about  the Hammond family, the town of Clover Pointe, Ohio, and all the good and bad guys who pass through.

I guess I should add that he got his name ‘Dashiell’ because his mother (and me) are big fans of Dashiell Hammett.

 

5.      So you’re an author. Which authors do you enjoy reading?

My two favorite authors, ones whose books I re-read constantly, are Rex Stout and Lawrence Block. Stout, of the Golden Age of Mysteries, created two very interesting characters. If Archie Goodwin were a real person, I’d be camped outside his brownstone, begging for a chance to go dancing with him.

Which brings me to Bernie Rhodenbarr, the burglar turned bookseller who still dabbles in the light-fingered trade. The cast of characters who surround Bernie are quirky but believable and Bernie’s comments on the books he reads and sells are both funny and educational. When we were in lock-down, the Burglar series was first off my shelf to help me get through those challenging times.

Block has such a body of work, from several series to captivating short stories. His non-fiction books, on writing, living and life, read like he is sitting across from you sharing a pizza and a beer. Like his characters, Larry, if I may, is a very remarkable man. I guess I should stop gushing but if you haven’t read Block do so at your earliest convenience. And if it’s not convenient, drop what you’re doing anyway and read his books.

 

I belong to a mystery reading group, and over the almost thirty years of meeting, we have tried a bit of this and that. For me the most satisfying are the series books. If I discover a new one, I’m thrilled. It means a whole new group of friends to visit on a Sunday afternoon. Teatime with Ann Cleeves.  

Thanks for visiting with us!

More on A Haunting at Marianwood:

Life is good for Dash Hammond. He's recently remarried his childhood sweetheart, Dr. Maevis Summers, and together they're raising his four-year-old son, T.J. A retired Army colonel, Dash keeps himself busy fixing everything from a leaky faucet to an unsolved murder.

His cousin Billy calls Dash to Kentucky when his sister, a nun, is in trouble. Sister Miriam Patrice has been hearing things, seeing things, and misplacing things.

Marianwood, the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Blessed Mother of God, is located on an old plantation thought to be haunted by its original inhabitant, who is rumored to prowl the grounds in search of her murdered beau.

In a battle of wits, will the victor be supernatural, or a very corporeal retired Army colonel?

Cover Reveal: A Haunting at Marianwood

 

A Haunting at Marianwood is the latest installment in the Dash Hammond series by E.M. Munsch. 

The Kindle version is now available for preorder on Amazon. E.M. Munsch is a member of the Derby Rotten Scoundrels chapter of Sisters in Crime, the first chapter of SinC I belonged to. Mystery and Horror, LLC, our press, is publishing this novel.

Description of the book, and excerpt below!

Life is good for Dash Hammond. He's recently remarried his childhood sweetheart, Dr. Maevis Summers, and together they're raising his four-year-old son, T.J. A retired Army colonel, Dash keeps himself busy fixing everything from a leaky faucet to an unsolved murder.

His cousin Billy calls Dash to Kentucky when his sister, a nun, is in trouble. Sister Miriam

Patrice has been hearing things, seeing things, and misplacing things.

Marianwood, the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Blessed Mother of God, is located on an old

plantation thought to be haunted by its original inhabitant, who is rumored to prowl the grounds

in search of her murdered beau.

In a battle of wits, will the victor be supernatural, or a very corporeal retired Army colonel?

An excerpt: 

Sister Miriam Patrice slid back from the kneeler. The quiet of the church soothed her as it wrapped its velvet cloak of serenity around her. She sat, hands folded, once in prayer but now to stop the trembling. Glancing at the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows casting a rainbow on the empty pews, she drew in deep slow breaths. She looked at the watch pinned to her tunic. Time to get back to work. She rose to leave the church, her place of refuge, a place free from the distractions of the running the community and the new retirement home the sisters established to help make ends meet. 

The members of the Sisters of the Blessed Mother of God found their numbers dwindling. New recruits, as Sister Miriam Patrice called them mimicking her cousin Dash Hammond’s military jargon, were very rare. The teaching congregation once had more than a hundred sisters. Vocations, callings to either the religious or the educational side of the community, had fallen to less than a handful each year. 

 As she walked down the aisle to the back of the church, she heard it again. Tap, tap, tap. She stopped to listen, making sure she wasn’t mistaken. That sound sent shivers down her spine. Squaring her shoulders, she walked to the doors next to the church exit. One led up to the choir loft, the other down to the cellar. In days past she had gone up the stairs; today she would go down. 

Pulling the doorknob, Miriam Patrice met the resistance of a locked door. She pulled out her keys and unlocked it. She struggled with the door, suggesting to her that no one had gone to the cellar in a while. 

The stone steps were worn but sturdy. She moved cautiously into the darkness, one hand on the wall to steady her nervous knees, the other searching for the handrail. Her hope was that the security guard forgot to close the door one day and some critter, not two legged, was trapped down here and making the tap, tap, tap sound. Logically she knew this was wrong, but the alternative could be worse.

Decades ago, they discovered one of the newer buildings constructed during a period of rapid expansion had been built on an underground spring. It wasn’t long before the building tilted, as did their finances. What a waste of time and money. Fearful that what she would find was a tell-tale pooling or bubbling of water, she moved forward slowly. She said a silent prayer that she would not stumble into a puddle, a precursor of the inevitable unwelcome news.

Her trek seemed unnecessarily slow though reason told Miriam Patrice she should alert one of her sisters where she was just in case she lost her footing. But her reasoning had not been the sharpest of late. She blamed her sleepless nights, not because of an uneasy conscience but an overabundance of concern for her congregation and its uncertain future, both financially and individually. 

After spending a half an hour poking into the corners, searching for the origin of the sound, Miriam Patrice gave up. She needed a flashlight if she wanted to do a proper search. Next time she would be prepared. Next time she told herself she would be less skittish, more confident that she could deal with whatever sprung up from the tap, tap, tap. After deciding this, she nodded to herself. At least she didn’t hear a drip, drip, drip.

The sound had stopped so she decided to return to the church. As she locked the door behind her, the tap, tap, tap began again, louder this time. If she permitted herself, she would have said damn.

Call for Submissions: What Are You Afraid Of?

Courtesy of T. Fox Dunham:

What Are You Afraid Of?

We’ve all experienced messages from beyond the silver veil, whether we want to admit it or not. Some people take no notice, ignoring these outreaches. Others embrace them, seeing them as evidence of an expanded universe. Whether these stories frighten or comfort, we are reassured.

In my youth, I worked for various museums and gained a passion for the science of collecting folk culture. These personal experiences need to be recorded and added to this rich archive, presented for scholar and seeker. We’ve already established an archive of collected stories that have never been recorded before.

Our intent is to create and promote four podcasts with visual components over the month of October.

The content will be:

The reading of collected personal ghost stories as part of our outreach program to record folklore through social media, email and community events. Horror material including interviews with horror authors, the reading of classic ghost stories and discussions of the industry. And we will be producing interviews with ghost hunting groups. We will be recording this podcast from notoriously haunted locations.

The broadcast will be no longer than an hour, except for the last episode which will be transmitted around Halloween.

So we need true stories. They need to have been personally experienced by the author or someone close. The accounts should be in their own words as if telling the story to a friend or in an email. The stories work best when around 1,000 words, but we have done longer sagas.

We need help gathering stories, spreading the word so people will send us their accounts. We’d also be glad for any ideas for segments or general horror material for the show. We can offer promotion.

 

Email us your personal true ghost stories at whatareyouafraidof117@gmail.com

The Website: ghosthostwithfoxandphil.wordpress.com

Twitter: @pfwhatafraidof

 

Goodreads Giveaway: Undead of Winter

You may wonder what I've been doing between posting interviews. Well, I was editing and helping format Undead of Winter, the newest offering from Mystery and Horror, LLC. As part of our launch, we're giving away three copies on Goodreads.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Undead of Winter

by Sarah E Glenn

Giveaway ends December 13, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

This book is darker than our previous offerings. Some of the stories have a little warmth or humor, but the majority of them are best described as... chilling.

I encourage you to enter the giveaway, and to check the lengthier description of the book on Amazon. It might be the blast of cold air you're looking for!

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