Wendall Thomas: Snakes in her luggage and award noms up her sleeves

HALLIE EPHRON: Back in the fall, we welcomed Wendall Thomas ("Your Handbag is Killing Me") to talk about her debut novel, LOST LUGGAGE. So I was thrilled to see the book pop up as a finalist for the Lefty Award for best first, and for a Macavity Award. Huge honors, both!!

Here's how the book begins:

Travel is my business. Or at least it was. After the last two weeks, no one may trust me with a drink order, much less their seat assignments, cabin preferences, or credit card numbers.

Irresistible, right?!

And here's what one reviewer said: "Thank heavens! I've been waiting for years to find a successor to Janet Evanovich, and I've finally found one."

So welcome back, Wendall. Are you pinching yourself? Is your publisher over the moon? Just give us a taste of what it was like when it occurred to you that the book was going to be such a success and what the ride's been like?

WENDALL THOMAS: When you write a novel where your protagonist’s false eyelashes are taken out by a chameleon tongue and she’s forced to smuggle snakes in her bra, you don’t really figure you’re creating “award bait.” The idea that my name would even appear next to the fabulous writers up for both these awards still seems like an elaborate prank, but I’m very grateful the joke’s on me.

I think the nominations took my publishers by surprise as well, but of course anything that gets the word out about the book is great for them and for me.

Honestly, the loveliest thing about being nominated has been the chance to meet and hang around with the other nominees and to speak with some of the generous readers who voted for the book. The mystery community in general has been particularly generous and kind.

Besides, that, there have been three things that have probably thrilled me most since the book came out. The first was having my very first reading/signing in my hometown bookstore, TheRegulator in Durham, NC. The second was seeing Lost Luggage on the shelf in the Mystery section of the Los Angeles Central Library. And the third was getting to write a chapter of the sequel in the window of LA’s Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard, across from my former mecca, Tower Records. That’s burned on my brain forever.

HALLIE: I can't tell you how many aspiring authors who've told me their goal is to write like Evanovich. Was she your model? And what IS your one piece of advice for any author trying to write a funny crime novel?

WENDALL:  Janet Evanovich is the gold standard and funny beyond measure.  I’m assuming anyone who wants to write comic crime has to credit her with their inspiration. I certainly do. And, because I come from a screenwriting background, I’m also inspired by the screwball heroines of films like Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire, Charade, and of course, Romancing the Stone.

I guess my one piece of advice in terms of writing comedy in a  crime novel is the same as it would be for creating any kind of humorous piece—the comedy works best when a character is completely serious about what they’re doing. It doesn’t come from trying to write jokes or having your character try to be funny. It comes from creating situations where your character is going to have trouble, or create chaos, just because of who they are.

If you can create a character who’s conflicted by nature and put them in situations where that conflict comes into play, you can always create comedy in the unique way they handle the problem. Just take a look at Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory and you’ll see what I’m saying.

HALLIE: Do you think it's easier for you to write humor because you come to this from screenwriting?

WENDALL: God, I thought it was going to be. I do think it helps with writing dialogue, as at least I’ve had lots of practice with that. But in terms of the rest, it’s almost made it harder. There’s something about the format of screenwriting, with its separation of dialogue and action, and its availability of white spaces on the page, that makes it much easier to create a comic rhythm and build to a big joke or ending to a sequence.

I had to completely relearn and reinvent how I wrote pratfalls and banter once I was doing it in prose. The hardest thing about both Lost Luggage and the upcoming Drowned Under has been getting the physical comedy sequences right.

I’m still not sure I’m there yet.

HALLIE: And, honestly, has it got you amped or anxious about the next book? What have you got up your sleeve and when can we expect to see it? Will there be reptiles?

Oh, it’s made me a complete and total wreck. The next book, Drowned Under, is due to my editor this week and last night, as I was doing some proofreading, the theme music for The Newsroom came on and I just burst into tears. That pretty much tells you where I am at the moment...

The new book finds Cyd in Australia on her first ever cruise—from Melbourne to Tasmania. Best research trip ever, for me. In terms of reptiles, the cabin stewards admit a pet python has gone missing on a former voyage, but on this trip, while looking for her ex-husband’s missing parents, she winds up with a “functionally extinct” baby Tasmanian tiger in her purse.

HALLIE: Seriously!?! I'm laughing already. And thinking about Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant and the leopard in Bringing Up Baby.

So today Wendell (though she's finishing a manuscript) is open for questions. Mine: Wendell, what actress (in your mind's eye) would be perfect for the role of Cyd Redondo?

AND for those of you who missed it, Wendell Thomas's MULTI-award nominated first Cyd Redondo (travel agent) novel is zany adventure and  a perfect summer read.

Cyd Redondo, a young, third-generation Brooklyn travel agent who specializes in senior citizens, has never ventured farther than New Jersey. Yet even Jersey proves risky when her Travel Agents' Convention fling, Roger Claymore, leaves her weak in the knees-and everywhere else-then sneaks out of her Atlantic City hotel room at three a.m.

Back in Brooklyn, when she reads about smugglers stopped at JFK with skinks in their socks or monkeys down their pants, she never imagines she will join their ranks.... Find it on Amazon.

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