Twilight Tales would like to introduce you to two mystery writers at this weeks featured reading: Mary Welk and Mark Zubro, both of whom write great mysteries with interesting locales. Both also have quite a following for their books, so we are quite pleased they could both make time to come and visit us and share something of their work. You can look them both up online to see just what sorts of fun and mayhem they get their characters into. If you aren’t yet fans of theirs you will be once you hear them read.
Following are their answers to our interview questions.

Let’s start with the basics: What’s the title of the story you’ll be reading for us, and can you tell us a little something about it?

Mark: Schooled in Murder - 12th book in the Tom Mason mystery series. It’s about a murder at a school and the madness of the world of modern education.
Mary: I’ll be reading the prologue from A MERRY LITTLE MURDER, the first book in my “Rhodes to Murder” mystery series featuring Caroline Rhodes and Carl Atwater, followed by “Code Blue”, a short story I wrote for the anthology CHICAGO BLUES. The two pieces differ greatly in characterization and mood, the second piece being much darker than the first.

One of our volunteers tracked you both down at the Printer’s Row Book Fair, are you still surprised at the unusual things that can happen at personal appearances?

Mark: For me the most surprising thing is when someone actually shows up.
Mary: Having been in the writing business for over ten years, very few things surprise me any more. But something happened at Printers Row this year that really tickled my funnybone. On Saturday, two of my writing companions walked up and down Dearborn Street carrying a sign advertising the 2009 Love Is Murder mystery conference. The sign was tacked to a yard stick that they held high enough to be seen above the crowd. Love Is Murder was spelled out in big, bold letters on the sign, and my friends handed out bookmarks explaining the event to all they met. They eventually returned to the Echelon Press booth where some of us associated with LIM were signing books. Hard on their heels came two security guards who were working the fair. They pointed to the sign and asked us what it was about. We told them about the conference and they just shook their heads. Apparently they’d been approached by several people who saw the sign and decided that the words “Love Is Murder” referred to some sort of terrorist plot cooked up by a sect of hate mongerers. Once we stopped laughing, we assured the officers that we loved the city of Chicago and everyone in it, we were innocent of any and all hate mongering charges, and we were only advocating a fun time at a great mystery conference. The officers accepted our word, but they made us hide the sign under the table for the rest of the day. It was amusing at the time, but it does remind you that some people are one beer short of a six pack when it comes to brains.

You’ve both been published mystery writers for a while now, was that an easy or hard thing to make happen?

Mark: The short version of a tale I am loathe to tell is that in a stunning bit of luck and serendipity, I sold my book to the first place I sent it to and without having an agent.

Mary: Not easy at all. As an unpublished manuscript with the working title of FOUR TO GO, my first book, A MERRY LITTLE MURDER, was a finalist in the 1996 Hemingway First Novel Competition. It was the only mystery among the twelve finalists, the winner being a novel called THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR WILDE. I’d also entered it in the 1996 St. Martins’ First Novel Contest, and the judge who read it wrote to me saying it was one of the two best manuscripts she’d read that year. It didn’t win that competition either, but I was encouraged to seek out an agent by those two successes. The problem was, I wasn’t very knowledgeable about the publishing business, and my query letters stunk. I never found an agent to represent me. Despite that, the book was finally published in 1998 under the title A DEADLY LITTLE CHRISTMAS. After the fourth book in the series, THE SCARECROW MURDERS, was released by Hilliard & Harris Publishers in 2 004, Echelon Press agreed to reissue DEADLY under their imprint. The only problem was, they weren’t thrilled with the title. Eventually we compromised and the book came out as a revised edition in 2007 under the title A MERRY LITTLE MURDER. Echelon will be reissuing the second in the series later this year, but again as a revised edition under a new title. What was originally published in 1999 as SOMETHING WICKED IN THE AIR will now be called THE RUNE STONE MURDERS.

What kinds of things first brought you to writing, and what kinds of things inspire your stories?

Mark: Freddy the Pig in the Walter R. Brooks novels brought me to writing. Two things that inspire my writing: one - the desire to understand why we do the awful things we do to each other; two - the desire to get even with people I don’t like, for example, it would never be good, in my stories, for a person to be racist, sexist, homophobic, or a school administrator - you are unlikely to make it to the end unscathed.
Mary: I come from a family of avid readers and writers. My dad was published in the field of science. My mother saw some of her poetry published. Two of my sisters are published in the non-fiction field. I had my first short story published in a school newspaper when I was fourteen. Needless to say, it was a mystery. In the mid ’60’s I turned to music and joined a couple of local folk-singing groups as a guitar player and song writer. In 1967 I met my husband, a motorcycle-riding, guitar-playing college student who, although he was in ROTC at Loyola, still tweeked his nose at the establishment by singing war protest songs outside of City Hall. We married in ‘68, and a bunch of kids later, I returned to writing, this time writing stories and plays for my children. I’d written the first draft of A MERRY LITTLE MURDER in 1967 while in nursing school, but it gathered dust in my desk until 1992 when I pulled it out, discovered that the plot was pretty good (although the characters and dialogue weren’t), and set about rewriting the entire thing. Due to work and raising children, it took me four years to get it to the point where I was pleased with the results. After that, I hired a professional editor and revised the manuscript six times before sending it off to the two competitions I mentioned previously.

I’m inspired by good puzzles, and so I try to write puzzling mysteries. I get ideas from things I read in the newspapers, from personal stories told by friends and family members, by places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. I’m fascinated by interpersonal relationships, so all of my plots involve people who commit crimes because of relationships gone wrong.

Did anyone every give you any advice about writing that was really helpful or totally out there?

Mark: Yes, and I’m not quoting here, but Sarah Paretsky told me once that I should concentrate on writing the book and creating the characters I wanted to. She gave me confidence to keep going.
Mary: Most of what I’ve learned about writing has come from reading excellent literature. I try to read writers who are masters at their craft, and I read as much to learn the craft as to enjoy the story. Other writers can teach you about the technical side of writing, but I’ve found that learning how prose should flow, how tension should build, etc., comes mainly from reading novel after novel after novel. As for advice, the best thing someone told me was to put my manuscript aside for a few weeks after finishing it, then take it out and read it with a fresh eye for style, rhythm, word use, description, etc. I’ve found I can improve a story if I do this.

When you wander the aisles of a book store, what kinds of books do you pick up?

Mark: Mysteries and non-fiction history.
Mary: I write mysteries, but when I’m in a bookstore, I naturally gravitate to the non-fiction section. I’m fascinated by history, and I enjoy reading historical non-fiction, especially political or war-related history. Again, I’m interested in what makes people tick, and history fulfills that need to understand people.

Finally, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience before we see you read in person?

Mary: I’d like to thank everyone who’s come tonight to hear Mark and me read. I appreciate your interest in our work and in storytelling in general, and I hope you enjoy our stories. I’d also like to thank the staff of Twilight Tales for inviting us to appear here. And if you enjoy mystery fiction, please join Twilight Tales — and me! — at the annual Love Is Murder mystery conference in February, 2009. We have a great lineup of authors, demonstrations, and activities to offer both readers and writers at a brand new hotel just north of the20city limits. Thank you!

We hope you’ll join us on Monday August 25th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear Mary’s and Mark’s fiction, and perhaps more discussion!

This week Twilight Tales features a returning favorite and a new voice to our mic for your listening enjoyment.
First up is new voice Zally Adams. Zally read us a wonderful piece of fantasy fiction when she first appeared with Tina Jens’ writing class back in April. Considering her sense of humor and story telling ability, we are sure to be pleased with what she’ll read for us this time: either the continuation of the tale she began that night, or whatever else her happily warped mind constructs in her next alternate reality. Whichever case, we are confident Zally will continue to make us laugh and amaze us with stories for quite some time to come.
C.T. Thieme is a returning favorite. He tells fabulous ghost stories, both real and imagined. One of his recent publications was in the new anthology Hell in the Heartland (Annihilation press, Roger Trexler and Martel Sardina eds.). The story Moon Creek Road is an eerie tale of Streator, Illinois and its environs. C.T. always manages to make us think and surprises us with the unique turns his stories take. We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
Following are their answers to our interview questions.

What’s your story called, and what is it about?

Zally: The piece I will be reading is from a selection of origin stories I have been working on about the creation of 20th century gods.

C.T.: I was afraid that was going to come up eventually. It doesn’t have a title yet. Not because of lack of effort, but because it just hasn’t come to me yet. Right now, I’m calling it “Mo and Jesse” so I have something to save the file as. It is a conversation between two, well, people, depending on your point of view. They are definitely people from my point of view. Kind of like “My Dinner with Andre” except Andre Gregory once claimed he was god, Wallace Shawn attempts to kill him, and Satan is their waiter. They meet and talk in a recreated Garden of Eden in the middle of the Sahara. Ghosts, nuns and Al-Qaeda all make cameos in the cast of players.

What inspired the story, or what inspires you to write?

Zally: For the past few years I always wondered how ideas of gods were created and what kind of gods would be created in the 20th century. Sure there would be gods of things like electricity, computers, and cars but there are also very 20th century concepts that get swept under the rug, which is what this story deals with.
As for things that inspire me (I’ve never been asked this so it is a little odd to answer) I have to say it deals with a few things. Music, orchestral and cello solos are the biggest contender in my writing. I’m not sure why cello exactly but it always seems to play apart in my creative process. I also am a documentary buff and love nothing more than the History channel on a rainy afternoon (or National Geographic with the all their shows about serial killers and taboo subjects like that. Its nice fuel for the fire you know.) Besides that I love to research. I will spend hours with dusty old books looking up mental disorders, historical events, names, gods and even flower meanings until I find something that stirs me into writing.
More than anything else however is just observation from daily life. I enjoy studying human behavior everywhere I end up. Every scenario allows me to look for a different emotion, a different stance, facial expression that can be used in my writing. As of right now I have been hanging out at the Art Institute since it is the only museum in the city where people go with the mindset that they are going to judge everything around them. Its very fascinating indeed.

C.T.: This story is a good example of my general source of inspiration. I have always read and looked for old myths and stories, local, national and international. I’ve also always had a strong draw towards new interpretations of old mythological themes. Jungian archetypes with the overlay of various eras. When I was in high school, I was really drawn to the tales of Morocco and the Berber tribes of the Atlas mountains which eventually led to a trip there when I graduated. There was a tale I read, at the Peru, IL library of all places, regarding a very simple but special place in the desert where two great men met and talked. That image stuck with me until, twenty years later, it developed into this story.

You have both had some significant changes in your lives. Zally, you graduated from college and have begun to work seriously on your writing and C.T we understand you just welcomed an new addition to your family (congratulations!) This is a significant, positive change in both of your lives. Has it affected your writing in a good way?

Zally: Oh Gods! Don’t remind me I don’t have school in the fall, the concept of not being in a classroom is still beyond my mind to comprehend.
Even though I don’t have school to look forward to this has been the first summer that I have been able to devote to nothing more than my writing since, well, ever. The time has given me a chance to really explore my craft and play with developing concepts and ideas that I had to put on hold for far too long.
I have also been looking into becoming an editor in the future to immerse myself even deeper into the art form I love so much. But this idea is currently on hold along with the majority of my writing for I am apply for graduate school as we speak and that has been taking up the majority of my time.

C.T.: It would be easy to be melodramatic about this. Suffice to say, time becomes a very precious thing, and a balance has to be struck. The family is growing and needs time and attention. Still, to give it all one way or another is to betray both. In the first weeks of Byron’s life, I could see my father’s face in his. There is a legacy to consider.

What sorts of stories interest you as a reader, and what types of fiction do you wish there was more of out there to read?

Zally: If there is a book put in front of me I will probably attempt to read it. I can’t choose just one type of story when there is so much out there!
I love books that use symbolism and I try to bring that to my own writing. Every plant, color and name I use is there for a reason and I love to watch my reader’s faces as it all clicks in their mind. Foreshadowing is a delicate art and I respect any author who can use it well. With foreshadowing comes great description, a book or story holds me if I can see the world it is taking place in, which is why I love fantasy and horror. Description is so important to both genres that I just gravitate towards them.
I also like disturbing books like my all time favorite ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ The fact that the acts committed in such books are so horrible yet the narrator is so strong makes me love them. It’s the ability to get inside the mind of a psychopath in your own home without worrying that your going to end up garbage bags at the end of the story.
Right now however my reading list has been taken over by steampunk novels and short stories for their interesting take on history and technology. Oh and the brass, I love the description of the sparkling metal.
As for fiction I would like to see more of. Hmm, I think there isn’t a specific type of fiction I would like to see more of than I would like to see interesting new ways to explore genre. I would like to see more aspects of fantasy combined like in ‘Scar Night,’ by Alan Campbell who mixed steampunk technology and angel lore together beautifully.

C.T.: In the 1980’s, NPR put a significant amount of effort and funding into supporting radio or audio drama. They aired mostly modern and some well written older series. ZBS Media (zbs.org) produced some extremely well written tales that were long enough to take the time necessary to develop not just characters and settings, but also the mood or sense of the story. I love a good piece of flash fiction, but I do miss the well told tales where action was not necessarily immediate and you got to know the place and the characters before you went on the adventure. Darren Callahan is one writer that springs to mind as someone who has actually accomplished great work with this neglected and valuable format.

Have you gotten any advice as a writer that you would like to share with us?

Zally: I met Neil Gaiman a few years ago at an NPR taping and was able to meet him. I brought my journal that at the time had ‘publish or perish’ written on the cover and Mr. Gaiman asked me if I wrote and what the story I was working on was about. I started to tell him and he hushed me telling me he didn’t want to be spoiled and wanted to be able to read it one day. I almost died on the spot. I still have the journal up on my bookcase with the simple word ‘Publish’ written by him in the cover.
Besides that it’s not the advice that I have gotten it’s the obstacles I have faced that push me to want to write. Being told that what I do can be nothing more than a hobby and not an art fuels my desire to prove myself. I know it is not what you expected for advice but I think that being able to take the negative and turn it into something positive to fuel your desire is just as important as hearing praise.

C.T.: There has been good and bad advice. Then some advice that is what you make of it. What has really made the difference is the encouragement, especially from writers I’ve met through Twilight Tales. Encouragement or not, I’d be writing. I don’t seem to have the choice. But to share that writing is another thing entirely. Whether it was Marty Mundt taking the time to help me work up a story into a stronger piece or Eric Cherry asking, “so, when are you reading next?”, the willingness of the T.T. community to let me read a story and to have that constructive feedback from writers I don’t quite feel in the same league with has been something I’ll never be able to adequately say thank you for. What Tina Jens and Twilight Tales has allowed for is more valuable than any piece of sage advice I’ve ever received.

Is there anything you’d like to add to let our reader’s know more about who you are as an author?

Zally: Even though I write fairly depressing or gore filled fiction I’m really a nice girl! Well that is if you excuse the decapitated body under the floor. I swear that was a one time thing and I would never do that to another person who said my work was mediocre…I promise.

C.T.: Stop on by heathens-haven.com. Originally collected Chicago ghost tales, short stories, novel excerpts and memories all floating in the digital ether.

We hope you’ll join us on Monday August 11th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear Zally’s and C.T.’s fiction, and perhaps more discussion!