My Favorite Canadian: Catching Up with Chevy Stevens

INGRID THOFT

If you’ve had a chance to spend time with the Reds or other mystery/thriller writers, you probably know that they are some of the nicest, most generous people around.  This has certainly been my experience with New York Times bestselling author Chevy Stevens.  With six critically acclaimed books under her belt including STILL MISSING and the soon to be released, NEVER LET YOU GO, Chevy is not only a fabulous author, but also a wonderful friend.  During a recent family health crisis, Chevy was a wonderful cheerleader via text and also offered to send me cupcakes and a masseuse named Sven. What more could you ask for in a friend?  She very graciously accepted my request for a little chat on today’s blog.

CHEVY STEVENS: Thank you so much, Ingrid, for this lovely introduction. I was honored when you asked if I would like to guest post on Jungle Red. I’ll try not to mess it up or get too Canadian on you, eh? I never realized how many times I said "eh" until I was out one night with Ingrid and some friends in Seattle and they called me on it EVERY TIME. Apparently, I am a Canadian cliché. Really sorry about that. And I still feel terrible that Sven got snowed in and never made the trip. Can I offer you some poutine, Nanaimo bars, or a jug of maple syrup?

INGRID: I had no idea what a Nanaimo bar was, Chevy, until a box arrived on my doorstep!  And cookies from Sven!  He's so thoughtful!  Let’s talk about work:  Every writer has a different approach to producing a book.  Do you have daily goals?  Weekly?  How do you make sure you meet them? 

CHEVY: OMG, my new goal: Introduce Ingrid to the Nanaimo Bar experience. Done!  I do have writing goals, but I’m not sure I have done a very good job with always meeting them. Life has a tendency to get in the way sometimes. When I’m beginning a new book, I usually have a daily word count goal or a plan of how many pages I want to show my editor by a certain date. When I am editing and revising, it’s not about page count, it’s about what I want to accomplish that day. For example, I might decide I want to finish rewriting a certain chapter or section by the end of the week. If I am feeling unfocused or under the weather, I will pick something easier, like fixing an old scene, instead of writing something new, which requires more brainpower.  

INGRID: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer?  The writing of a particular book or maybe getting published in the first place?

CHEVY: For me, the hardest part has been what happened after my first book STILL MISSING was published. I was beyond thrilled that it was successful, but I didn’t understand that would bring new challenges on my time. I still struggle with how to balance the demands of life with writing and marketing, especially now that I have a young daughter. Last year she started preschool, and I think we got every illness possible. I can’t work when my head is all muddled with fatigue, and I felt a lot of stress about missing my deadlines, especially because I was already behind on this book. However, without any deadlines I probably would nap and watch TV all day!

INGRID: I feel the same way in terms of dealing with competing demands on my time, and I don’t have any kids!  Some days, the marketing and PR piece interrupts the writing, although it’s certainly a good problem to have.  What else has changed for you since STILL MISSING was released seven years ago?

CHEVY: I feel a little more relaxed about the process now, but check back with me in a few weeks when my book hits the shelves! When STILL MISSING was released, the publishing world was so new and frankly, scary to me. I thought that everything had to be perfect—every blog post, every interview question, every Facebook or Twitter post. I still try to do my best, but now I realize perfection is impossible.

Earlier in my career, bad reviews cut me to the bone and could cripple my creativity. I still don’t like reading one if someone is being vicious or attacking me personally, but I can shake it off more easily now because I have the support of my fans and more internal confidence. I give everything I have to each book and that’s what is important to me—that I keep learning and growing and challenging myself.

INGRID: I’ve always been hugely impressed that you read all your reviews.  You are a brave soul!  What has changed for you personally in recent years?

CHEVY: I am in a much different phase of my life. When I started STILL MISSING, I was a real estate agent, single, still smoked (eek!), went everywhere with my beloved dog, Annie. I didn’t know what my future held, but I knew that I had to follow my passion. By the time STILL MISSING was published in 2010, I had quit real estate, sold my house, lived on savings for a couple of years, eventually went back to work, and connected with my husband on Facebook. Now we have a daughter—and two dogs!  

INGRID: Authors do the actual writing, but it takes a village to bring a book to readers.  What are some of the key relationships in your writing life?

CHEVY: A good relationship between an editor and an author is crucial, and I am blessed to have a fantastic editor, Jennifer Enderlin, at St. Martin’s Press. We have worked on over six books together, and I completely trust her feedback and enjoy our brainstorming sessions. My agent, Mel Berger, signed me after he read an early draft of STILL MISSING, and he makes sure that the business side is taken care of so I can focus on writing. Behind the scenes, I have worked with the same copyeditor for five books and had the same cover designer for most of them, too. I am really lucky to have a great support team at SMP and in Canada, and after this many books and years working together, I genuinely consider them friends, not just business associates.  

During the writing process, I believe in having early readers because I don’t think that any one person sees things the same way and after working on a draft for months, it all looks the same. My critique partner, Carla Buckley, and another good friend, Robin Spano, read NEVER LET YOU GO and helped me take it to the next level—and kept me sane when I locked myself into a hotel room for the last week of rewrites. For my current project, I am very glad that YOU, Ingrid, were willing to show me around Seattle and share your sources, and helped me brainstorm, while we enjoyed some fabulous meals and desserts. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

INGRID: I am absolutely the woman for the job when it comes to fabulous meals and desserts, in the name of research, of course.  This picture of the two of us was snapped during one of those research assignments, and clearly, we took the task seriously!  Do you have any writing quirks?  Location?  Music?

CHEVY: I love, love ear plugs. I buy them in bulk and keep them stashed in my purse, my briefcase, and in my desk drawers. If I am working at home, I usually wear them—and sometimes I forget I have them in and just walk around the house with everything all nice and muffled.  When I am working at a coffee shop or in a public place, I use my ear buds and listen to soft music. The other thing I can’t live without is a specific Microsoft wireless keyboard. I am so addicted to it I have two in use at all times and another brand new one in storage in case something happens.  

INGRID: I’ll have to get the hubby to hook you up with the Microsoft store!  Tell me your favorite thing about your upcoming release, NEVER LET YOU GO?

CHEVY: Oh, yes please!! I would go crazy in a Microsoft store. I would probably end up with a storage unit for all my keyboards. Sigh…what a wonderful thought. Right, back to your question! I really enjoyed the mother and daughter relationship in this book. It was lovely to write, and I truly hope that my daughter and I remain close like that during her teen years

INGRID: You’re a great mom; if anyone can navigate the teenage years, it will be you.  As I mentioned before, you’re a wonderful friend, but I do have a bone to pick with you.  If my productivity isn’t up to snuff, it’s often your fault since you love to text and email me the results of your favorite means of procrastination.  C'mon Chevy, tell the readers more!

CHEVY: Oh ho! Now all your fans will be hunting me down and yelling at me for distracting you from your writing! Well, I have to confess it’s true—I do have a tendency to get really excited about a plan, which usually involves travel to some sort of retreat in a sunny destination, with poolside drinks and a beautiful view, and then immediately think about who I can drag along with me on my wild daydreams. I’m addicted to VRBO and TripAdvisor and spend far too much time working out the pros and cons of various hotels, villas, and flight options. Ingrid, I’m still holding you to the idea of you and I hosting a writers’ retreat somewhere exotic! Who’s in?

INGRID: I’m in, although, you don’t seem to be taking my suggestions very seriously.  The naturalist resort in Mexico didn’t fit the bill as a possible location? ;)

CHEVY: The naturalist resort is still open for consideration! I just have to lay off the Nanaimo bars and hit the treadmill harder, and I’m game. Meet you there.

Have a question for Chevy?  Just comment, and you’ll be entered to win a copy of NEVER LET YOU GO, either the ARC now or the hardback upon release.

Chevy’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is also running a giveaway that includes a free copy of THOSE GIRLS with the pre-order purchase of NEVER LET YOU GO.

Click here for details!

NEVER LET YOU GO – available for pre-order – released on March 14

Eleven years ago, Lindsey Nash escaped into the night with her young daughter and left an abusive relationship. Her ex-husband, Andrew, was sent to jail and Lindsey started over with a new life.

Now, Lindsey is older and wiser, with her own business and a teenage daughter who needs her more than ever. When Andrew is finally released from prison, Lindsey believes she has cut all ties and left the past behind her. But she gets the sense that someone is watching her, tracking her every move. Her new boyfriend is threatened. Her home is invaded, and her daughter is shadowed. Lindsey is convinced it’s her ex-husband, even though he claims he’s a different person. But has he really changed? Is the one who wants her dead closer to home than she thought?

With Never Let You Go, Chevy Stevens delivers a chilling, twisting thriller that crackles with suspense as it explores the darkest heart of love and obsession.

www.chevystevens.com

https://twitter.com/ChevyStevens

https://www.facebook.com/ChevyStevens

CHEVY STEVENS grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home.  For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a realtor.  While holding an open house one afternoon, she had a terrifying idea that became the inspiration for STILL MISSING, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller and win the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel.  Chevy’s books have been optioned for movies and are published in more than thirty countries. 

Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle.  When she’s not working on her next book, she’s camping and canoeing with her husband and daughter in the local mountains.

Remembering Ruth Cavin

by Julia Spencer -Fleming

She was called “The Legendary Ruth Cavin” so consistently, you would be forgiven for thinking her parents, in a fit of enthusiasm and foresight, had given her the name, the way a pop star might christen his offspring “Prince Michael.” I first encountered her in a message left on my answering machine in April, 2001.

“Hello, this is Ruth Cavin of St. Martin's Press. I'm looking for Julia Spencer-Fleming. I guess I'll just send an email.”

Six months before, I sent a manuscript to the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery contest, Ruth's baby. And her email (riddled with typos because she had so much correspondence to get through) changed my life.

She congratulated me on winning the 2001 contest and said St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books would like to publish In the Bleak Midwinter.

Ruth once told me over drinks that making offers to first-time authors was her favorite part of the job.

“They're so excited and happy,” she said. “At least for that moment, they think you're the best, the smartest editor in the whole world.”

She was full of quips like that, of piercing observations and hysterically funny stories that would have been right at home at the Algonquin Hotel's Round Table.

She did not, however, dress the part. I don't think I ever saw her in anything other than a long, comfortable dirndl skirt, with a shirt in the winter and a T in the summer. At writing conferences, she would hike the halls with an enormous messenger bag hanging crossed over her chest, smiling non-stop, her white hair whisping around her head like a dandelion gone to seed.

When I first met her, she was already bent over from the scoliosis that would be such a trial to her last years, but her frail appearance was deceiving.

“Walking from my subway stop to the office used to be a problem,” she confided.

“I have to stop to catch my breath, and people kept coming up to me and asking if I needed help," she said.

"But then I figured out all I have to do is hold my cell phone up to my ear until I'm ready to go on again. No one bugs you if they think you're making a call.”

When she turned 87, she finally gave in to Tom Dunne and agreed to let the company have a car pick her up at the train station and deposit her at the Flatiron Building, much to the relief of everyone who knew her.

She was a joy to work with.

Not that it was joyful to hear that this and that and especially that other bit would have to go. But she had such a keen eye and perfectly-shaped sense of story you always knew after you finished the hard work of rewriting to her specifications, the book would be better and stronger than it ever could have been without her.

I became utterly blocked while writing my fourth novel, To Darkness and To Death. In order to make sense of its complicated structure, I had outlined the book—42 pages of outline, in fact. The story was to take place over 24 hours, I was four months past my deadline and stuck at 7pm—and I already had 140,000 words (for those of you not intimately acquainted with word counts, that means a published book of over 400 pages.) The characters had turned to cardboard and I had no idea how to get the thing moving again.

I dumped my problem in Ruth's lap on Friday afternoon. Monday morning I had a three-paragraph email telling me to cut one of the major viewpoint characters, consolidate two story lines, and throw away the outline—it wasn't working for me. I tossed a quarter of the pages I had already written along with that damn outline—and the rest of the story poured out to its conclusion.

That is the power of a good editor. That was the power Ruth Cavin wielded for the benefit of all her authors. The world of letters is smaller and sadder today—and so is everyone who knew Ruth.

On Launch Parties

No Malice Palace
RO: I know, I know...lots of people say they're pointless and a waste of money, but dang it, I finished another book, it's coming out and I want to celebrate! Perhaps it's because my first two parties went so well. When Pushing Up Daisies was released people from every stage of my stage came to the launch party. Old bosses and colleagues showed up. Old boyfriends. Relatives I hadn't seen in years. It was wonderful. I felt like a bride. The party was at Partners & Crime in Greenwich Village and they sold so many books they had to run to B&N five blocks away to buy more. (I enjoy repeating that.) It was a fabulous experience. The next day I flew to Phoenix for an event at Poisoned Pen and signed hundreds of books. I thought..I could get to like this.



Needless to say that never happened again. You can only be a virgin once. I knew I had to do something different for The Big Dirt Nap - which is kind of funny - so I had a party at The Friars Club. I thought if nothing else people will come to see the landmark, members only club. And they did. It went well, I sold books, a good time was had by all.



So now we're up to book three, Dead Head. CBGB's is no more. The Fillmore is long gone, but given the title and the subject matter, I was hellbent on having a party in the village and I think I found the perfect spot - No Malice Palace. First off I love the name. And the place is as cool as it gets, a lounge-y, low key bar with a garden in the back. In fact the website says Bar, Parties, Garden..it had my name all over it.



So on April 15 everyone I know - and that includes all of you - is invited to help me celebrate the release of Dead Head, at No Malice Palace, 197 east 3rd Street, bet. A & B, look for the green lantern (I love this part of the address..it actually says this on their website.)

There is no way I'll sell enough books to justify the cost of the party, but I need that good sendoff
and I like to let my publisher see me selling books and chatting people up. I also like inviting other people from the house to acknowledge their work on the work. (BTW don't forget to stop back tomorrow for our chat with St. Martin's art director, David Rotstein.)



How do you all feel about book parties? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Awkward? Awesome?

cynthia riggs

Cynthia Riggs is a 13th generation Vineyarder -- that's Martha's Vineyard - the setting for her terrific mysteries. Cynthia also runs a charming B&B on the island, in West Tisbury, which I got to visit once when I was lucky enough to be invited to one of her summer writers group sessions. If you've never visited the Island in real life, here's your chance to visit in your imagination. Cynthia's 8th in the series, Death and Honesty, is just out from St. Martin's.

JAN: Victoria Trumbull, your 92-year old protagonist is described as "indomitable."
And I've read that she is modeled after your mother. Tell us the joys and challenges of having a "senior sleuth" dig up the dirt on Martha's Vineyard.

CYNTHIA: One of my aims in writing about a 92-year-old sleuth is to attack rampant ageism. It's as bad as sexism, maybe worse. After a certain age one is considered half-witted and is consistently called "dear." Even Malice Domestic, which should know better, lumps its senior sleuth writers on cutesy panels. Victoria Trumbull, modeled after my mother, who lived to be almost 99 (for credibility, I had to make Victoria much younger), has some physical frailties, but mentally she's all there. She's had years of experience to draw on. She's no longer afraid to say what she thinks.

JAN: How does Victoria get involved in solving so many murders?

CYNTHIA: The police chief has come to depend on her because Victoria is related to most of the people on the Island, knows who's not speaking to whom, knows where they live, which is useful on an Island that prides itself on few or no street signs, and knows where the bodies are buried.

JAN: I love the plot line of your new book, Death and Honesty - a corrupt assessors office skimming off the top of wealthy landowners taxes. (Especially since I used to pay real estate taxes in West Tisbury) Tell us how you came up with the idea and how you developed or researched it.

CYNTHIA: A friend of mine, a wealthy landowner, ran afoul of the town's assessors, who treated him shabbily. I promised him I'd get even. I changed him into a former hooker to hide his identity, and changed the three male assessors into three elderly and venal Harpies -- they're named for the three Harpies of Greek mythology. Whenever the Harpies appeared in mythology, there was a dreadful stench, so one of my assessors wears too much perfume.

JAN: The critics rave about your evocative descriptions of Martha's Vineyard. What are the advantages and limitations (if any) of the island setting.

CYNTHIA: I was born on the Vineyard and have deep roots here. So it was natural to use the Island for my setting. Because I'm writing fiction, I take some liberties with places, but for the most part a reader visiting the Vineyard can follow Victoria's trail. I use real places, like Bert's Barber Shop, where Victoria gets her hair cut. The real Bert's displays the Victoria Trumbull books in a prominant place on top of an ancient console radio. I'm careful to avoid insulting real people and places. Knowing a setting intimately makes it easy to write about it. I'm not apt to get roads and topography mixed up.

By the way, we capitalize the word "Island" when referring to Martha's Vineyard (see both Island newspapers). We do not capitalize the word when referring to Nantucket or Manhattan.

JAN: Living on the Island, are you ever worried about stepping on anyone's toes with your fiction - say the local assessor's office, or is everyone a good sport about it?

CYNTHIA: I've reached the stage where I'm not afraid of stepping on toes. I think the assessors, as a matter of principal, don't read my books. After a book comes out, three or four people will come up to me and ask shyly if it's possible I patterned so-and-so (a sympathetic character) after them. No one claims credit for my villains. However, a lot of readers claim to recognize most of my characters, even ones entirely made up.

JAN: You also run a B&B in your family home, The Cleaveland House. Tell us about your writing schedule and how you can get any writing done in the summer months.

CYNTHIA: My writing and the Cleaveland House B&B work together just beautifully. I cater to poets and writers, who understand when I tell them I'm going upstairs to write. (And they buy my books.) I have only three guest rooms, so it's easy for me to deal with bedmaking and laundry, and I serve a simple continental breakfast. I start writing at 10 am and continue until about 5 pm, taking time out to pick up the mail, make beds, weed the garden, and think of what comes next in the story. Some guests read my manuscripts for me and make suggestions. Some end up in the books. All my guests are interesting.