November 2, 2024 • 60 mins
Mark Stevens, host of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers podcast and former president of the Rocky Mountain chapter for Mystery Writers of America, joins Off The Shelf Books on Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 11am/EST (New York City time). Mark is the author of the mystery books, The Fireballer, Antler Dust, Buried by the Roan, Trapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howl. Tune into the show to find out how Mark got started writing mystery novels. Listeners will also gain insight into the makings of Mark's page turning mysteries. Bring your questions as you may get your questions answered live on air! You're in for a treat - a whole lot of literary entertainment and more! See you there! Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 11am/EST (New York City time) Listener dial-in number: (347) 994-3490
Mark as Played
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the winning literary show off the show
Books Talk Radio Live with hosts Denise Journey, author of
the books Long Walk Up, Porsha, Love for Over Me, Fils,
Love Has Many Faces, and Rosetta's Great Hope. Turn up
your dials and get ready for a blast of feature
author interviews four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,
(00:22):
and so much more. Ready Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Each day provides its own gifts. That quote is from
Marcus Aurelius. Each day provides its own gifts. I want
to say thank you to our loyal listeners who have
been with us for over sixteen years here on the air,
and two our loyal and new listeners, and welcome you,
(00:47):
Welcome you, Welcome you to us, Saturday, November, the second,
twenty twenty four show. Thank you so much for joining us.
We have an insightful and talented author on deck for
you today ex to introduce you to I guess and
just a moment. But before I do, we'll come into
(01:07):
this is autumn. You see the change we'll do. Depending
on where you live, you may or may not see
as much of this, but the change in the and
the just the seasonal change, the tree outside my living
room is changing colors, taking on that orange red brown
hue the leaves, and then pretty soon the leaves will
be crunching underfoot. I just love this time of year,
(01:30):
and this is a wonderful time. People are gonna start
as it gets colder and temperature's job stay indoors more
and what better time to curl up with a good book.
And if you love, you love a romance and you
value relationships, not just a romantic relationship, but there's a
(01:50):
complicated father son relationship in this story. And also you
get to see these five friends that meet, the five
guy friends that meet at college and they are friends
for a lifetime, but one of them is linked to
a murder mystery. So there's a mystery in this story.
There's a friendship and there is an amazing love story
in this book. And the title of the book is
(02:12):
Love Pour Over Me. You can get it an ebook
or print, but if you don't sit on the shelf,
just ask the clerk, library, bookstore, etc. That you would
like to get a copy of Love Pulled Me by
then attorney and they can order you a copy because
it's carried by the largest book distributors in the world.
So go get a copy of Love, pull with me
(02:35):
and let me know how you enjoyed that story. And
now let us go and meet today special Off the
Shelf guests and this morning on Deck Off the Shelf,
it's Mark Stevens. And he grew up with parents who
worked as librarians. Oh my gosh. Then when the other
kid the used don't want to be a librarian and
(02:55):
talk about being lucky being if you love the story,
these your parents were librarians. He was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Mark has worked in media as a reporter and television
news producer. He also hosts a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers
podcast and has served as president of the Rocky Mountain
Chapter for Mystery Writers of America. Books Mark has written
(03:18):
and published include The Fireballer and LR Dusk, Buried by
the Rhone Chapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howe.
In addition, Mark also writes short stories. I encourage you
to check Mark out online. You can even go over
there now as you listen to today's show and learn
more about him, what inspired him to become a writer,
(03:41):
and about more about the uh the makings of his books.
You can check him out online at writer Mark Stevens
dot com. Is w r I T E r m
A r k s t E d e n s
dot com. Again it w R I T E r
m A r Okay Stevens dot com. We are absolutely
(04:04):
honored to have Mark here with us this morning. Welcome
to office shelves.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Mark, Well, thanks Emelian for having me on, Denise with
a fabulous introduction. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh excited every guest I've over sixteen years. I can
go back to when I first started. We were on
a real radio show. Was Rainbow so out of New York,
And I can't remember those early early shows. And I
used to just go right into the questions about their books.
And then I got emails from listenings they say, no, no, no,
(04:37):
we want to know a little bit more about their guests.
Please start asking about their books. So the first two
questions I asked you. I asked every guest to give
them our listeners a little back story on our guests.
But oh my gods, we have had New York Time
bestselling authors, we have had actresses, we have had movie producers.
We have had so many people come on here. People
(04:58):
were million dollar small busines who wrote the book It's
just amazing. So you adjoining an extinguished list of guests
here at Off the Shelf, and so to kick off
this morning show, Mark, would you please tell our listeners
where you grew up in what life was like for
you growing up.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Well, I grew up in Lincoln, Massachusetts, as you mentioned,
and I grew up in a very cool household. In
my mind, the fact that I grew up with two
librarians as parents, I mean, I would wish that on
every single, you know, student child, anybody growing up out there,
to grow up in a world of folks who are curious,
(05:39):
folks who were always looking to find out something new,
Folks who really just paid attention to information in general.
My mother in particular, really paid attention to the news,
and that gave me a real interest in both watching
TV news and starting to read the newspaper. Even as
an eighth grader, I knew from an early age I
(06:02):
wanted to be a reporter. I just thought it would
be so cool to be one of the I turned
on Huntley Brinkley. That'll give you an idea of how
old I am. But I turned on Huntley Brinkley on
NBC and just see all these reporters around the world,
and I thought, man, I want a job. So I
mean I was. I grew up in a very nice,
beautiful suburb of Boston, very fortunate upbringing in a lot
(06:26):
of ways, but I would say the main thing was
to be surrounded by folks who just believed in information
and believed in kind of you know, stimulating their their
lives by continuing to learn.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Did you have any siblings or you the only one
only child?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I had an older brother and a younger brother. For
some reason, I was the one who really got the
reading and writing bug. I was the one who, for
some reason really took to the news, and you know,
worked on my high school newspaper, worked on my college newspaper.
I had a job with a good newspaper right out
of college. You know, how can you explain why one
(07:08):
sibling versus another takes to certain things? But I don't know.
I just really thought that there was a lot going
out of a lot going on out there in the world,
and I wanted to go see it. I wanted to go,
you know, sort of be be one of the observers
of these events and get to know sort of how
the world worked. And yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And I was going to ask you next, but you
already told us the answer. I was going to ask
you when you were a kid, what did you want
to be when you grew up? And you wanted to
be a reporter, so you wanted to did you want
to be because we're in an age now with technology
and AI et cetera, and it's I mean nothing, it's
just going to stand forward is and we're just going
to go into more changes that we don't even see
(07:54):
now that are coming. But did you want to be
like a newspaper print newspaper, magazine or did you want
to be one of those people traveling a different parts
of the world and you're more of a television like
a journalist, whether you're covering the stories live on the ground.
What type of reporter did you want to be when
(08:15):
you were a kid?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, it was all about print. At first. It was
definitely print. I loved the whole aspect of doing interviews
and coming back to a newsroom and writing things up
and trying to put them together in a clear, interesting way,
and so it was all print. For about eight years,
I worked for a newspaper in Boston, The Christian Science Monitor.
(08:41):
I got transferred to Los Angeles. A couple of years there,
I tried to get on at the LA Times, but
the LA Times said, you know, you need some more
big city experience. I covered lots of different kinds of stories,
but the LA Times said, you really need to get
your kind of day to day grind go you don't
you have sort of the whole approach I had there
(09:04):
at the Monitor was just to write a few stories
a week, and they wanted more of a high volume,
really steady, somebody who could crank out a couple or
three stories a day. And so I got out the
Rocky Mountain News in Denver and spent a few years
there enjoying covering city hall for the Rocky Mountain News
and really just I mean, what's interesting to me is
(09:29):
as a kid, I knew I wanted to be a reporter,
and as soon as I was a reporter, I just
felt like that was where I belonged. So there was a,
you know, a good feeling that my career wish was
exactly what I felt like my skills actually were pretty
good at. But along came a opportunity to go work
(09:50):
for this is back in the nineteen eighties go work
for the mcneilair Reports, which was then a half hour
talk show on PBS, but they were expanding what became
the News Hour on PBS, and I was part of
a couple of people who interviewed for a job as
a television producer in Denver. They were looking to add
(10:12):
a Denver based television production sort of office to go
around the country, and it ended up not only going
around the country with Latin America and producing news documentaries
for what became the Mcneilair and News Hour. So again
I just felt like this is a great opportunity to
take my reporting talents and just learn about another medium.
(10:36):
Spent six years there, realized some pros and cons of
the television news business, and then ended up actually it's
kind of related to fiction, and kind of not because
I'd started to write fiction. I had had some success
getting an agent at the end of about six years
of working on a book, and because I got an agent,
(10:57):
I actually quit my job at mcneilair, spent another year
writing fiction, and then when the money ran out, ended
up going back to print journalism at the Denver Post.
So kind of a you know, a little bit of print,
a lot of print, I would say, and then the
six years of television news. But to me it was
all whatever.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, it all seems to you or another guest, and
I guess all the guests when I think of it,
in everybody your life, unfolks, even if you don't think
it's going to it, it just does.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
It's like a mystery that sometimes you look up how
did I get here? Because when you were, maybe in
a teenager, you never saw yourself when you'd be when
you were in your thirties, forties or fifties or sixties
or seventies. It's like, how did I get here? It
just what thing? Just like you said, it just kind
of connects. Now, who or what inspired your love for
(11:51):
actually writing books, because that's a bit of a bit
of a shift from reporting.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yep, totally. I grew up reading fiction. I always loved
stories and storytelling. I love books. As a kid, my
mother was a very serious reader. She loved really kind
of heavy literature, I guess, I would call it. And
she would just come home with an armful of books
every week and from the library. And you know, she
(12:20):
didn't spend time watching television. She read every night. And
I picked up the reading bug, but I never thought
I would even consider writing a book. I thought this
was just some some sort of magic, magical thing out
there until a friend handed me a mystery, my first
crime fiction when I was in my early twenties, and
(12:42):
the whole genre kind of just seemed much more appealing
to me than just quote unquote regular literature, regular fiction,
because mysteries had a clear beginning, a clear middle, and
a clear end, and there was something very satisfying about
the mystery genre, and I thought, this seems like maybe
(13:04):
something I could take my take a shot at, so
to speak. And you know, I came up with an idea,
and as I said, that first book took about six
years to write, but I got an agent's and I thought, wow,
this is this is doable, and it was encouraging and
(13:24):
it was a good New York agency that still exists
to this day. And I actually ended up in New
York at a meeting and walked into this you know,
literary agent's office with these giant, you know, twenty foot
doors and these old wood kind of feeling to it,
and I totally felt like an impostor and totally felt
like a pretender, like I didn't belong, but they said,
(13:46):
you know, we like this book, we like this manuscript.
We'll definitely try to sell it for you. And in
the end they couldn't. And in the end, that was
the beginning of three different agents I had, with three
different projects that all were unsuccessful in terms of finding
a publisher. But I had so much encouragement from established
(14:07):
literary folks that I just kept at it. And also
in the meantime starting to find my starting to find
my community, my writing community in Colorado, so and they
were also encouraging, and I just kept at it.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So let me ask you this. So I'm listening to
you because I've been at this for a minute as well.
It's changed so much. Just everything near everything here in
this world had but you used to when you years ago,
Like a lot of people, a lot of the big
publisher now just started out maybe two people sitting at
a kitchen table, like a lot of major firms started
(14:43):
out somebody in a garage, somebody sitting at their kitchen table.
And I can the several big firms, some of the
founders that I've met, when they tell you it started,
you wouldn't It would be astounding to see where the
companies are. But so anyway, a lot of big publishing
(15:03):
houses started out just a few people building it out,
and it just grew. They grew so years ago you
could go directly to a publisher or an editor and
sell a book. And then it there came a period
where it was like, no, they told you had to
have a literary agent, and then you know you gotta
get they the feed for the literary agent for almost
all your work. They gonna get a cut up, depend
(15:25):
on how that contract's designed. And then no, now you
need a publicist or the publicists can get your attention
a literary agent. Then the literary agent gets in touch
with the editor and the publisher. How a lot of
people are either go on a hybrid and they're are
a self published But would you say to somebody listening
to off this shelf right now, who would love to
(15:45):
be in your shoes? You have a published book, they
may not, you have several published somebody who wants to
be in your shoes? W would you t s s
uh recommend that they get a literary agent or how
would you uh suggest that approach getting a book published today?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think about this question
all the time, and I have lots and lots of
friends who are They look at they look at what
it takes these days to first of all, get an
agent and second of all get a publisher, and then
of course the ultimate thing is to get a publisher
who is going to turn your book into a big hit.
(16:26):
But they look at that, they look at that whole
long course and they say, boy, that's going to take
a lot of years. And then they just quickly look
at what is capable. Is possible is to quickly, and
you know, it could be six months, it could be
a year, come up with a plan to publish your book,
and that means independently, just produce it because all the
tools are out there. And I am kind of a
(16:50):
unicorn or somebody out there who's just going to say,
I really really encourage up and coming writers to think
about the long game, think about the long term. And
the reason I think that, and of course this is
kind of I mean, I fully believe in everybody's right
to choose for themselves. And that's the beauty of having
(17:12):
independent publishing today is because if you've got a story
to tell, and you believe in that story, you can
get it out there and you can sell gobs and
gobs of copies. You can outsell me and all my
traditionally published friends. If you have a great story, it
will take off if you know how to get it
out there and market it. And I have friends who've
(17:35):
been independently publishing books for years and they've sold way
more books than I have. But I really like traditional
publishing and I'm going to plant a stake in the
ground for it, because you're if you get a good
literary agent, they're really going to help you with your novel.
The good literary agents, to me are the one I've
(17:56):
got gives me tremendous feedback on my books and how
to improve them. He's a great reader, he's a very
sharp reader, and he gives me feedback. Then they go
to the editors. You know, once you find a publisher,
the process that you're going to go through to improve
that book is just if it's a good publisher, legitimate,
(18:21):
well known publisher, you're going to go through a real
process that will just up the quality of the storytelling
and up the quality of the writing. I just think
I just love that whole business of going through that process.
It's eye opening. And I think independent publishing is fine,
but it's full of shortcuts which don't demand that you
(18:45):
apply really high editing standards and really high writing standards
to what you're putting out there. And that's why, to me,
so many books only sell a few copies.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Good point, good point. You make a good point, and
there are a lot out here, and a traditional publisher
they don't always do this. A lot of times they
do it only with the big names, but they can
put some dollars behind behind your books. But regardless of
how you do it, there's no crystal ball that just
because you came out with a book, even if you
put a lot of work into it, that it's gonna sell.
(19:22):
But yeah, the quality could definitely be hired. And that's
a great point. Now, let's talk about your books specifically.
Please give off the chef listeners an overview of The Fireballer.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, my most recent book came out just coming up
on two years ago, in January of twenty twenty three,
and The Fireballer is my first non crime fiction. It's
a book set in the world of professional baseball. It's
about a rookie pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles, and he
(19:58):
is a phenomenon because he is the talk of the
country because of his ability to pitch. He's he can pitch,
he can throw a fastball. For those baseball fans out there,
they already know that today's pitchers can top one hundred
miles an hour. The record is. The record is one
(20:21):
hundred and six miles an hour by a professional baseball pitcher,
and at that speed, a batter has zero point three
seconds to decide whether to swing, how to swing, where
to swing. It's one of the most incredible athletic talents
if you're a good hitter in the major leagues to
(20:42):
be able to swing a bat in point three seconds.
Even at one hundred miles an hour, you might have
an extra tenth of a second, but it's an incredible
response that a whole human athlete has to decide how
to swing, where to swing, all that kind of stuff.
It's a really incredible thing. My pitcher in my book
can throw occasionally at one hundred and ten miles an hour,
(21:05):
so it's looking ahead a little bit in the sport
if in fact they ever get there. But at one
hundred and ten miles an hour, the game is existentially gone.
There's no time left for a batter to swing. So
he's creating this existential threat to the game, the human
(21:27):
part of it. The heavy thing he's carrying around though,
And his name is Frank Ryder and he's again the
talk of the talk of the country. The heavy thing
he's carrying around though, is that as a twelve year
old in little league where he played outside Atlanta on
the little league team, one of his pitches got away
(21:47):
from him and I'll just leave it that there was
a very tragic situation that happened. So he's carrying this
heavy burden around with him knowing that the very thing
that is bringing him fame and attention and conversation and
controversy is the very thing that can be very very
(22:09):
damaging as well. Because wow, obviously, Yeah, so that's the
burden he's he's been given.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Wow. Then can you describe Frank writer a little and a
little more detailed beyond this event with the pitching? What
what is he like his family background and what what
even aside from baseball, what drives him?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah? Great question. So he he is driven by this,
He was driven even as a youth by just a
pure fixation and fascination with baseball. He just really got
into the whole mental aspect of understanding the game and
appreciating it. He grew up outside Atlanta. As I mentioned,
(22:55):
he grew up with a twin brother, and his brother
was the catcher on the day of the tragedy. His
parents are both in education. They're thoughtful, smart, upbeat people,
and when this tragedy happens, they realize that they need
to probably move away from Atlanta so that so that
(23:16):
Frank is not burdened by being around classmates who know
what happened that day and the rumors and talks. So
they moved to Colorado, and in fact, the parents forbid
Frank from playing baseball or playing team sports through high school.
He can do he can do solo sports, he can
do track and field or whatever he wants to do,
(23:39):
but he can't do anything in terms of baseball. And
one day, watching his high school baseball team play, he
does something that gives away his talents. I'll just kind
of leave it at that, but you know, suddenly he's
suddenly he is scooped up by the high school team
(23:59):
for his last year and then he goes to Metro State,
which is a pretty well known community college in Denver.
It's actually no longer a community college. It's more like
a university, but it's called Metro State University now in
downtown Denver. That's an actual school. Well. The other sort
of just elements to throw in there, that he's got
(24:19):
a long time high school sweetheart girlfriend who remains his
girlfriend as he gets drafted by the Baltimore Orioles and
as he moves to Baltimore, he's still in touch with
his girlfriend back in Denver. And at the same time,
once he finds himself in Baltimore as a very young
(24:43):
athlete but well paid because he's been the number one
draft pick in the country, he gets a huge contract.
He's also very much alone, so he finds himself in
a strange city, not knowing anybody, all this pressure. You
just have to figure out how his life is going
(25:04):
to go. And without giving away too much, I can
just say that the book really pivots on a key
point once he's on the Orioles. Of course, the last
thing in the world that this pitcher, this individual want
to do is hurt another player, another opposing batter, because
(25:24):
he's seen the damage that one of his baseball, pitches
can slip. But in baseball, if you know, there's an
unwritten rule that if one of your players gets hits,
the opposing pitcher has to go out there. And it's nobody.
I mean, people talk about it all the time, but
it's an unwritten rule that you have to retaliate, you
(25:46):
have to throw, you have to throw at another batter.
And you know, people lie to the camera and say, no,
I wasn't trying to hit him. I ball just got away.
But that's just part of the unwritten rule of baseball.
The last thing he wants to do is hurt somebody.
And I'll just put in a dot dot. God is what.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Sort is coming full circle? That's what That's the way
it's coming across to me. Before we talk about I
want the next talk about your latest novel. Then I
want to go into your mystery series. But can you
introduce us quickly to a few other major minor characters
in the book The Fireballer.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Well, yeah, sure. They also tell the story not only
from Frank's point of view, but I also tell the
story from the owner's point of view, a guy named
Ray Gallo. And what one of the things I really
wanted to explore in the book is the issue of
team owners who who sort of let their franchises languish,
(26:50):
who don't seem as compelled to win. I mean, you've
got the New York Yankees, You've got the LA Dodgers.
Those franchises and others many others like them always seem competitive,
always seem like they want to win. And there's franchises
in all the major sports where there's just a everything
(27:11):
everything other than winning. That's all that matters is winning.
And meanwhile there are these other franchises like for years,
the Baltimore Orioles were languishing, the Colorado Rockies are continuing
to just not put a winning team on the field
for years and years and years. Why is that? How
can you be an owner who doesn't want to invest
(27:33):
in your own team and do the one thing you're
asked to do in sports, which is a win. So
I wanted to get into a situation where to get
into a character's head. And Ray Gallo, the owner, is
the other major character in the book, as he sees
this phenomenon, this picture arrive on his team and shake
up everything about what he believes, and he's challenging the
(27:58):
whole organization. Frank is to say, we're here to win.
Let's win. And in fact the ability that Frank brings
immediately in their first year brings the Orioles up into
the world series. So Ray is the other major character.
Of course, We've got Ray's girlfriend, Maggie. We see a
lot from of interaction between Frank and Maggie, a lot
(28:22):
of it on the phone. And then also there's a
brand new potential love interest in Baltimore. She happens to
pitch for. She happens to pitch for the community college
team in Baltimore, and her name is Olivia, and she
becomes a real temptation for Frank and gets him into
(28:44):
a little bit of trouble. I'll just kind of leave
it at that with his major relationship with Maggie, and
helps him understand and appreciate what he's really got with
his girlfriend back back in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Oh my god. Oh, I guess sounds like the fireballer.
Oh my goodness. And you know what you would have
to the description. It's one of the things I love
about Aufice Shelf when all this talk more in depth
about their story. This story sounds so incredibly interesting and
it's not something you could put in a book the
(29:20):
front cover, of the back flap or description on a
book site. You have to hear the author talk about
the makings of this story. Now, what is the title
of your most reads books? You said came out in
twenty twenty three, and then I want to talk about
the Alison Cole mystery series. But what's the title of
your most recent book.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Well, I got a book coming out next April. It's
the first of a thriller series and that just got
announced this summer. It's called No Lie Lasts Forever, and
that will be out in April, and it's set in Denver.
And I'd be glad to tell you a little bit
about that, or I can tell.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Go ahead Alison series.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Okay, Well, I'll just give you the basic setup for
No Lie Last Forever. There's two main characters, and it
takes a second to explain, but one is a female
television news reporter h and she is senior. She's been
around for a few years. She is probably twenty years
(30:27):
into her career, and she gets involved in a situation
one day where she is negotiating between the police and
a hostage taker in a convenience store situation where this
hostage taker is taken some hostages and he's demanding certain things,
and he has asked for her, this reporter, her name
(30:50):
is Flynn Martin, to be the negotiator in between what
he wants to tell the police what he wants. Well,
she's on live TV. She she knows how to handle
this situation. She's being told by the police what to
do and how to handle it, but she thinks she
can do a better job with her own instincts. Well,
(31:14):
her approach leads to one of the hostages getting killed,
and in fact, the hostage taken then is taken out.
So her station puts her out for a few days.
They put her out now and they put her out
indefinitely and say, you know, that was just not the
way you go about this business. When the police are
(31:35):
telling you what to do, you need to do it.
So she is put out. She's on suspension. So hold
that thought for a second. Meanwhile, we start follow we
the a brand new murder happened, and the murder happens.
(31:56):
It's been fifteen years since the serial killer was active
in Denver, and all of a sudden, fifteen years later,
we have a brand new victim whose whole murder scene
is exactly the way the old serial killer who has
never caught used to leave his crime scenes. And we
(32:18):
start following the retired quote unquote retired serial killer who
is very, very concerned because he did not commit this
latest crime. He knows, of course, he knows he didn't
do it, but it's done exactly the way he used
to do it. So he needs to clear his name.
He doesn't want this new murder attached to him, nor
(32:39):
does he want the cops to go back in investigating
all the old serial killing killing cases because that might
lead yet again to his doorstep. So he contacts the ousted,
the defrocked television reporter who is out on the sidelines
and says, I can and get you your job back,
(33:02):
and you can get my name back, you can clear
my name, And of course she doesn't believe it's him.
There's no way that this guy, whoever it is, is
contacting her can possibly be the retired serial or the missing,
the uncaught serial killer after all these years, and so
she spends the first source in third of the book
(33:26):
basically saying there's no way it's you, and he figures
out a very very creative way to prove to her
that it's him. And once he once he establishes a connection,
they start working together to figuring out who actually committed
the latest murder.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Wow, oh my god, readers, I can see readers now,
why would she even work with this day? Why don't
you just turn him in?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah? Well no, it's good.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
The conflict there, you know, the readers, that's this conflict
in the story is good.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Yeah, she doesn't know she He establishes enough trust so
he can get her information, but she still doesn't know
who he exactly who he is, so he's hiding behind
all sorts of anonymous ways to reach her and contact her.
And he absolutely scares the Jesus out of her. So
(34:23):
and he's got leverage over her too.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
So No, Lie Last, forever? Do out this like Spring
the five, No Lie Last for everybody. Mark Stevens, look
for it, look out for that one. You guys. Now,
what is we want to talk next about the Alison
Cole mystery series and is this your first series? And
(34:46):
can you tell us what the inspiration behind this mystery
series was?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Sure? Yeah, got five books out in the Alison Coyle
Mystery series they started coming out in two thousand and seven,
and the inspiration was just a very very clear, magical,
kind of galvanizing day in you know, quite a while
ago now, but I had written a couple of crime
(35:14):
fiction books. They were standalones. They were kind of urban
jungle books in terms of just being cities and you know,
typical urban crime novels that we all love because a
lot of mayem happens in the cities, and that's where
(35:35):
you know, so many classic crime books take place. And
I had never really considered doing sort of outdoor anything
in terms of something environmental or anything like that. And
one day, my wife and I were on a day
long horseback ride in the place called the Flat Tops
Wilderness in western Colorado. It's the second largest wilderness area
(35:56):
in Colorado. Absolutely beautiful, remote, stunning place, and we were
led by this young woman. You know, a lot of
horseback rides and if you've ever taken a horseback ride
out west, you kind of more typically get some grizzled
old guy who doesn't really say much all day and
(36:17):
expects you to know how to ride. And you know,
they've done this ride with a bunch of vacationers or
tourists hundreds and hundreds of times, and they're just sort
of jaded. Well, that day, we had the opposite. We
had a young, vivacious, articulate, upbeat woman who knew every
bit of her environment. She knew the every plant, she
(36:39):
knew every tree, she knew all the geology, she knew
the cloud formations, she had all the scientific terms, and
she was taking care of about ten of us on horseback,
like you know, just like it was walking down the street,
super easy, you know, for her to do. And she
was tiny and just abulian, I would say, bubbly. And
(37:02):
about halfway through the day, as I'm talking to her
and being an old reporter, of course, I ask a
million questions and my wife kind of gets, you know,
rolls her eyes because I'm always tustering people with me,
you know, but you know, she kind of casually mentioned
that she was also a hunting guide when when the
after you know, when the fall season came around, and
(37:24):
it was just one of those moments I just thought, Wow,
a hunting guide is a major character for a mystery
novel would be interesting because you know, they're they're usually
taking men up in the woods. They're they're around guns.
The guns are already there. You've got extreme conditions because
once the hunting season starts, it's usually snowing and definitely cold,
(37:47):
and there's just rugged mountains to get around and rugged
back back country terrained to navigate. And I thought, you know,
that'd be an interesting character and would create some interesting
themes to get into. And this is before I mean
I started writing Alison Coyle books in the nineties, so
(38:09):
a long time ago, and it didn't come out until
two thousand and seven. But this is before at CJ Box,
was before Craig Johnson started publishing. It wasn't after people
like Tony Hillerman or anything like that. I mean, there's
been plenty of outdoors the kinds of mysteries long before
I started writing, So I wasn't doing anything that unusual.
(38:30):
But you know, there's a whole group of and tons
of writers out there now who do write very environmental
kind of mysteries set in outdoor spaces. So I wrote
my first book in that series. It did get a
good New York agent, as I mentioned earlier, on a
(38:50):
really good New York agent. We spent about a year
working on it. Ultimately it didn't sell, but I found
a small ish publisher in outside Boulder in two thousand
and seven, and he loved the book and he printed
up two thousand hardbacks, which was scary to me to
think about how I was going to sell those, but
(39:11):
I got in my current, started doing bookstore tours all
over the state and Wyoming and poking around, and then
that book did so well that I thought, well, I'm
going to write another one, and I could go into
each of the five stories, but ultimately just watched Alison
(39:32):
Coyle kind of mature and start to become a series character.
So ye, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I love that. Back on the what you shared about
how that the story came to be the Alison Cole
So if you could tell us how old Alison Cole is,
what she's like, and then also give us a brief
synopsis of Aunt Lard Desk.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Sure, Well, the main character thing with Alison Coyle is,
and she's in her mid thirties, is that she is
a survivor of a commercial airplane crash. As a longtime
reporter and somebody who covered a lot of disasters, I've
covered earthquakes in Mexico City that killed tens of thousands.
(40:22):
I've covered earthquakes in El Salvador. I've covered volcanoes in Columbia.
I've covered mud slides in Puerto Rico. I've covered wildfires
and all sorts of things. I developed a fascination with
random death. Sounds kind of a strange, morbid thing to
think about. But well, you know the plane that went
(40:46):
down in Iowa on its way from Denver to Chicago
years ago and actually turned into a movie called Fearless.
Just this whole idea that a plane crashes in a
cornfield and some people don't make it and some people do.
This is a huge h of sorts of interest for me.
You're intrigue and how you go about your life afterwards.
(41:08):
So I thought, I'm going to put a character on
the page who has survived. And the reason she's into
flattops is because she found a healing spot for her.
This is her calm space to be. She's never going
back to the big city, and she developed these skills
as a hunting guide on her own. So that creates
(41:30):
me a little character. She so appreciates the flattops and
wants to become kind of its protector. It's backwood sheriff
in other words, that she doesn't want the big city
Mayhem coming up into her precious, precious land. Well, Andlerdos
basically is built around two themes. One is big game poaching,
(41:55):
which is the whole idea of rigged hunts. These are
hunts that people pay money for where the prey are
basically a pre planned in terms of where they are,
and they're they're tracked by radio collar, so it's easier
(42:16):
for those folks to then come in and kill big games.
So Alison basically gets, you know, she sees she sees
something through a big snowstorm at the beginning of Antler
Dust and she sees here's a gunshot. She sees something
(42:37):
she's not sure what it is, and that just puts
her on a trail when when a fellow hunting guy
goes missing, she she's put on this trail of trying
to figure out what's going on. So it's that's the
main theme in Antler Dust, and each of the books
takes on kind of an environmental theme. Buried by the
(42:59):
Rhwan is the second book, and that touched on fracking,
which in twenty eleven when it came out, was not
it was being discussed in the Colorado community. But I
think it was sort of on the leading edge of
having a fracking as a element in a mystery novel
back then. And then Trapline dealt with illegal immigration and
(43:22):
for profit prisons, which sounds like, how do you how
do you deal with how do you deal with that
issue up in the woods? But I found a way
and Trapline went on to win the Colorado Book Award
for Best Mystery. So I think I did okay and
the Lake of Fire, Lake of Fire, and then you know,
just on and on different different environmental and and and
(43:43):
kind of social issues in all the books.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Awesome. I wanted to ask you just a little bit
going back, what just for our listeners who are maybe
interested in getting each book in the series, what is
going on in Alison Cole's life at the start of
Bury By the Room. I'm having a for some reason,
I don't know why. I'm having a lot of time
visualizing her. But what's going on is she's so outdoors
(44:09):
that she has like real close friends, tight relationships. So
is she more just outdoors with the animals and nature
type of person.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
She definitely has a community. She's got a good friend.
Her name is Trudy, who is a health food not
and starting to develop her health food business in Glenwood Springs, Colorado,
as buried by their own gets going. Trudy is somebody
she rescued from an awful I've rescued is too strong
(44:40):
a word, but Trudy get out of a really, really
bad marriage in the first book, and Alison and Trudy
become super close friends through the entire rest of the series.
And Alison's boyfriend in book one, without getting too much away,
isn't around in book two, and she Alison starts to
(45:02):
take an interest in another hunting guide and starts to
develop the relationship there and guy named Colin, and there's
just this you know, small community. I would say Allison
is pretty much a loner. She's still dealing with this
commercial airplane crash, and she takes a lot to trust
(45:25):
her or to get her into a situation where she
can really trust anything. She prefers to be alone, enjoys
being alone. But she and Trudy are very close, and
slowly but surely Colin, I'd say book two kind of
brings them together, and then Colin and Allison are very
much together in book three, four and five.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
So yeah, at the beginning of the series, is Alison
does she kind of stumble into this detective type of work?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
She she is this something that just comes into her life.
Is she become more so of a detective type as
the story the books progress.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Great, great question, And that's always the kind of conceit
with amateur detectives and mystery series, because you know, there's
this real life aspect of how do you become somebody
who just learns to ride a horse one day and
then suddenly you're solving or helping solve murder mysteries the
next in book after book, and you know, goes back
(46:33):
to the whole thing about why we like mystery series.
For Alison, she stumbled into it, she became good at
and she realized she was good at her Her tracking
was excellent, her ability to decode a situation or figure
out a scene and understand who had been there, Her
(46:56):
senses are good for that. We kind of as readers,
I think, and I hope as a writer, I'm just
sort of hoping readers accept the fact that she's talents
from book to book, and we care more about sort
of the issues she's getting into, and we care about,
of course, how She's going to solve the next case
as it comes along, and of course you try to
(47:20):
keep it somewhat plausible in terms of, you know, how
they're working with the police and the police authorities, and
they're not necessarily the leading the charge on every single case,
but they are major, maybe the major players who bring
folks to justice, and you know, because they are so
familiar with Alison. She's so familiar with the back country
(47:43):
and how to get around and spot where people have
been that she's a huge help to the small town
police who surround the Flattop's wilderness.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
All the stories do all of them take place in
Colorado in a similar location, and so why did you
choose this particular setting.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Yeah, they do all take place in the Flattops wilderness,
and the towns nearby like Glenwood, Springs, Rifle Meeker, Yampa
are the major towns that kind of surround the Flatops.
And the reason I chose it is because, first of all,
I didn't know of anybody else writing mysteries in that area. Secondly,
(48:31):
I happened to love the Flattops. There's something absolutely serene
and beautiful about it, and I wanted to kind of
share that through the printed page with the whole experience
of being in the flattops. And you know, there have
been other folks that come to me and say, you
should send Alison down to this part of the state,
(48:52):
or you should put her on a journey where she
ends up in another part of the state, or some
reason or other, go cover this issue or that issue.
And to me, she's just so tied. This is where
she is kind of just grounded. It's where her home
is now. And ultimately, in terms of arc, the big
(49:15):
question is would Alison ever go back to the city
because that's where she started out, and can she get
back to a mental place where she can go back
to the city and accept all the random stuff that
goes on in the city. And the series is only
five books in. I don't know if at this point
if I'm going back there because things are going well
(49:35):
with my other writing projects. But ultimately that would be
the big character question for Alison, as if she could
deal with moving back to the city.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
I was going to ask you if Melancholy, how was
the last book in the city. It sounds like that's
an indefinite You're not sure. You just said you don't
not show if you're going to revisit it, or if
if it's the series is over.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Yeah, it definitely doesn't wrap up the Allison arc, and
there's some other characters where the arc is not complete.
I certainly intended to write a sixth book, and unfortunately,
or fortunately things are going so well with these other projects.
The Fireballer kind of that idea kind of came out
(50:25):
of the blue as a non crime fiction and just
took me a couple of years to write and a
couple of years to get out and you know, getting
behind that and making all the improvements until it was
published really was a great side journey and away from
crime fiction. And then this latest book is supposed to
be the start of a news series with an excellent
(50:46):
publisher and Thomas and Mercer, and so I can see
my next few years. I'm coming down the first the
home not the home stretch, but about halfway through the
sequel to No Lie Last Forever. So I feel like
my writing time is really going to be committed for
the next few years to that new series. So whether
(51:07):
I'd love to get back to Allison, but I'm just
not sure when or how. So A good a good
good problem.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
You've got your hands full now. You also write short stories,
which mark is your favorite? Would you say short story writing?
Short stories or novels?
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Definitely the novel form. I think short stories and people
people who write them are amazing. It's so challenging to
come up with a good short story that's, you know,
four or five thousand words, and so much happens in
such a short amount of time, and I have to
have such a great idea, and I so admire and
(51:49):
respect the short story writers out there. That's really something
else I wish. I I wish I could work on
my novels in the morning and maybe work on short
stories in the afternoon. That would be great. But I
just don't have that many short story ideas. So when
they come, they're great, and I try to follow up
on them. But yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Please share for our listeners, those particularly who are authors themselves,
three or four steps that you've found personally found to
be effective at getting the word out about your books.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Well, my main point or main tip on this question,
which is always such a great conversation, is do what
feels natural to you. You know, if everybody says you've
got to be on social media and you're not comfortable
on social media, you don't have to go on social media.
(52:45):
If everybody says you've got to write a newsletter and
get it going long before you are even published, and
you're not comfortable writing a newsletter, I don't think you
have to write a newsletter. Yes, I think as an author,
you have to get out there. And I would encourage
every author to push their comfort zone. You know, if
(53:07):
you don't think you like going to conferences and giving presentations,
try it, get better at it. You can push yourself
a little bit. I do think ultimately, really the thing
these days is word of mouth. The unfortunately the all
(53:28):
the blurbs, the reviews are great and everything else, but
you really need to have word of mouth. And I
think that is really building your writing community. So even
whether it's the quality of writing or the quality of
your marketing plan, it's going to come down to having
a extensive, as big as you can make it, writing
community where you have people advocating for you, pushing for you,
(53:55):
who've got your back, have are out there saying good
things about book, and they may be the ones online,
they may have their social media accounts, but really just
getting your community together. And that means participating in the
writing community. Not as a transactional thing like if I
(54:16):
do this for you, will you do this? Do this
for me? But just get in there and support other writers.
Be a genuine friend, be a genuine help if you can.
That means maybe reading a book by another writer you
don't know how they might end up being able to
advocate for you way down the road when you need it,
when your agent drops you, or when your publisher drops
(54:39):
you and you need to look for another agent or
another publisher. You know you might end up hiring a
publicist as you mentioned earlier, and having the publishists do
a lot of work for you, which is perfectly legitimate
way to go about it. So and then you know,
through that writing community you're going to find the high
(55:00):
quality publicists who will really do a good, solid job
for you and not just take your money and pretend
to spend it. You know what I mean. So get
your writing community. It'll help you with your writing community
(55:22):
to help you with the quality the pros on the page,
and your writing community will help you celebrate your book
and help spread the word when it comes out. And
obviously I mean I would encourage folks to do as
many bookstore appearances and zoom interviews and podcasts interviews and
anything that they can. It's you know, but keep it
(55:44):
real and keep it to what you feel comfortable doing.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
So yeah, and that's great advice as we come to
the last few minutes of the day. So, can you
tell us when you started the Rocky Mountains Should Write
this podcast?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah, I started it in twenty fifteen, in May of
twenty fifteen and coming up on three hundred and ninety
five episodes in I think something like that. Oh yeah, So,
just been a real pleasure to interview writers. And the
key with the Rocky Amount of Fiction Writers podcast is
(56:25):
that you've got to be a member of Rocky Mountain
Fiction Writers, which is a fabulous organization. We have members
from around the country. You have to be there a
member of our MFW, or you have to be somebody
who's presenting a workshop or presenting at our annual conference,
somebody who's going to be participating in the community. And
we like a keynote speaker might come on and do
(56:47):
an interview on the podcast previewing their speech at an
upcoming conference. We'll do things like that. But we've had
you know, three hundred and ninety plus interviews with people
who believe in their books, in their writing, and sometimes
they'll promote a book and we'll talk about their book,
or we'll talk about some element of the writing business
(57:09):
or marketing, or you know, we'll have a specific discussion
on an element of craft. So it's really been enjoyable
and really a lot of fun to put together.
Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah, awesome. Where can off the shelf listeners get a
copy of your books? Mark?
Speaker 3 (57:28):
They are available everywhere books are sold. If you had
to writer, Mark Stevens dot com. There are links all
over the place. The Ambler, the Allison Coyle mystery series,
is widely available, Fireballer is widely widely available, and all
the Alison Coyle books are on audio. Fireballer has got
a great audio version out there as well.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Okay, now, do you have any upcoming speaking engagents? You
were talking about getting out to bookstores and getting on
podcasts and going to writers conferences, etc. Do you have
any upcoming engagements that our listeners could support you at.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Well, I definitely am planning and I've already signed up
for Left Coast Crime in March in Denver, which is
the second largest crime fiction writing conference in the country
after Boucher Khan and Boucher Khan next year will be
in New Orleans in I believe August or September, and
other than that, I'm actually winding down the whole push
(58:29):
around interviews around the Fireballer, which has been a couple
of years and I so appreciate the opportunity again today
to talk about it. But now it's turning in. As
soon as we get over the holidays here, we'll really
be ramping up interviews around Noah Last Forever, which will
only be a few months away come January twenty twenty five.
(58:52):
So right now I'm in between talks. There is a
book club I'm going to be speaking out in Denver
in February, but right now I can't remember. He kills
you off top.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
My head, Okay, Oh my goodness. We have had the
pleasure of connecting with Arthur Mark Stevens and he is
the host of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers podcast, which
we spoke about, and he served as the president of
the Rocky Mountain Chapter for Mystery Writers of America. Some
of his titles are The Fireballer, Antler, Dusk, Buried by
(59:22):
their Own chapline Lake of Fire, The Melancholy How and
look for it Look Forward in April, Look Forward, Look Forward,
No Lie Last Forever. That is Mark's latest newest novel
coming out twenty twenty five, No Lie Last Forever. Mark
is online at and I courage you to visit him.
Writer Mark Stevens dot com w W R I T
(59:46):
E R M A r K S T E B
E n s dot com. He's his last name is
still with a be Writer Mark Stevens dot com. Thank
you so much, Mark for being here with us today.
So enjoy having you here on off the Shelf and
appreciate you taking time out of your business schedule to
(01:00:07):
join us to our listeners. As I always tell you,
thank you, thank you, thank you. You are amazing, You're awesome,
you are incredible. Today we start to believe that. Go
out and trede a fabulous day for yourself today. Send
you back here next Saturday, eleven am Eastern Standard time.
Just market on your calendar so you don't miss these
(01:00:30):
awesome storytellers eleven am Eastern Saner time, our New York
City time that you gonna catch all the shelf books.
Thank you so much, Mark. I will send you a
link to the show when it finishes streaming. Thank you,
thank you, thank you, bye for now.
Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Thanks for the great conversation.
You're listening to the winning literary show off the show
Books Talk Radio Live with hosts Denise Journey, author of
the books Long Walk Up, Porsha, Love for Over Me, Fils,
Love Has Many Faces, and Rosetta's Great Hope. Turn up
your dials and get ready for a blast of feature
author interviews four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,
(00:22):
and so much more. Ready Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Each day provides its own gifts. That quote is from
Marcus Aurelius. Each day provides its own gifts. I want
to say thank you to our loyal listeners who have
been with us for over sixteen years here on the air,
and two our loyal and new listeners, and welcome you,
(00:47):
Welcome you, Welcome you to us, Saturday, November, the second,
twenty twenty four show. Thank you so much for joining us.
We have an insightful and talented author on deck for
you today ex to introduce you to I guess and
just a moment. But before I do, we'll come into
(01:07):
this is autumn. You see the change we'll do. Depending
on where you live, you may or may not see
as much of this, but the change in the and
the just the seasonal change, the tree outside my living
room is changing colors, taking on that orange red brown
hue the leaves, and then pretty soon the leaves will
be crunching underfoot. I just love this time of year,
(01:30):
and this is a wonderful time. People are gonna start
as it gets colder and temperature's job stay indoors more
and what better time to curl up with a good book.
And if you love, you love a romance and you
value relationships, not just a romantic relationship, but there's a
(01:50):
complicated father son relationship in this story. And also you
get to see these five friends that meet, the five
guy friends that meet at college and they are friends
for a lifetime, but one of them is linked to
a murder mystery. So there's a mystery in this story.
There's a friendship and there is an amazing love story
in this book. And the title of the book is
(02:12):
Love Pour Over Me. You can get it an ebook
or print, but if you don't sit on the shelf,
just ask the clerk, library, bookstore, etc. That you would
like to get a copy of Love Pulled Me by
then attorney and they can order you a copy because
it's carried by the largest book distributors in the world.
So go get a copy of Love, pull with me
(02:35):
and let me know how you enjoyed that story. And
now let us go and meet today special Off the
Shelf guests and this morning on Deck Off the Shelf,
it's Mark Stevens. And he grew up with parents who
worked as librarians. Oh my gosh. Then when the other
kid the used don't want to be a librarian and
(02:55):
talk about being lucky being if you love the story,
these your parents were librarians. He was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Mark has worked in media as a reporter and television
news producer. He also hosts a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers
podcast and has served as president of the Rocky Mountain
Chapter for Mystery Writers of America. Books Mark has written
(03:18):
and published include The Fireballer and LR Dusk, Buried by
the Rhone Chapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howe.
In addition, Mark also writes short stories. I encourage you
to check Mark out online. You can even go over
there now as you listen to today's show and learn
more about him, what inspired him to become a writer,
(03:41):
and about more about the uh the makings of his books.
You can check him out online at writer Mark Stevens
dot com. Is w r I T E r m
A r k s t E d e n s
dot com. Again it w R I T E r
m A r Okay Stevens dot com. We are absolutely
(04:04):
honored to have Mark here with us this morning. Welcome
to office shelves.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Mark, Well, thanks Emelian for having me on, Denise with
a fabulous introduction. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh excited every guest I've over sixteen years. I can
go back to when I first started. We were on
a real radio show. Was Rainbow so out of New York,
And I can't remember those early early shows. And I
used to just go right into the questions about their books.
And then I got emails from listenings they say, no, no, no,
(04:37):
we want to know a little bit more about their guests.
Please start asking about their books. So the first two
questions I asked you. I asked every guest to give
them our listeners a little back story on our guests.
But oh my gods, we have had New York Time
bestselling authors, we have had actresses, we have had movie producers.
We have had so many people come on here. People
(04:58):
were million dollar small busines who wrote the book It's
just amazing. So you adjoining an extinguished list of guests
here at Off the Shelf, and so to kick off
this morning show, Mark, would you please tell our listeners
where you grew up in what life was like for
you growing up.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Well, I grew up in Lincoln, Massachusetts, as you mentioned,
and I grew up in a very cool household. In
my mind, the fact that I grew up with two
librarians as parents, I mean, I would wish that on
every single, you know, student child, anybody growing up out there,
to grow up in a world of folks who are curious,
(05:39):
folks who were always looking to find out something new,
Folks who really just paid attention to information in general.
My mother in particular, really paid attention to the news,
and that gave me a real interest in both watching
TV news and starting to read the newspaper. Even as
an eighth grader, I knew from an early age I
(06:02):
wanted to be a reporter. I just thought it would
be so cool to be one of the I turned
on Huntley Brinkley. That'll give you an idea of how
old I am. But I turned on Huntley Brinkley on
NBC and just see all these reporters around the world,
and I thought, man, I want a job. So I
mean I was. I grew up in a very nice,
beautiful suburb of Boston, very fortunate upbringing in a lot
(06:26):
of ways, but I would say the main thing was
to be surrounded by folks who just believed in information
and believed in kind of you know, stimulating their their
lives by continuing to learn.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Did you have any siblings or you the only one
only child?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I had an older brother and a younger brother. For
some reason, I was the one who really got the
reading and writing bug. I was the one who, for
some reason really took to the news, and you know,
worked on my high school newspaper, worked on my college newspaper.
I had a job with a good newspaper right out
of college. You know, how can you explain why one
(07:08):
sibling versus another takes to certain things? But I don't know.
I just really thought that there was a lot going
out of a lot going on out there in the world,
and I wanted to go see it. I wanted to go,
you know, sort of be be one of the observers
of these events and get to know sort of how
the world worked. And yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And I was going to ask you next, but you
already told us the answer. I was going to ask
you when you were a kid, what did you want
to be when you grew up? And you wanted to
be a reporter, so you wanted to did you want
to be because we're in an age now with technology
and AI et cetera, and it's I mean nothing, it's
just going to stand forward is and we're just going
to go into more changes that we don't even see
(07:54):
now that are coming. But did you want to be
like a newspaper print newspaper, magazine or did you want
to be one of those people traveling a different parts
of the world and you're more of a television like
a journalist, whether you're covering the stories live on the ground.
What type of reporter did you want to be when
(08:15):
you were a kid?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, it was all about print. At first. It was
definitely print. I loved the whole aspect of doing interviews
and coming back to a newsroom and writing things up
and trying to put them together in a clear, interesting way,
and so it was all print. For about eight years,
I worked for a newspaper in Boston, The Christian Science Monitor.
(08:41):
I got transferred to Los Angeles. A couple of years there,
I tried to get on at the LA Times, but
the LA Times said, you know, you need some more
big city experience. I covered lots of different kinds of stories,
but the LA Times said, you really need to get
your kind of day to day grind go you don't
you have sort of the whole approach I had there
(09:04):
at the Monitor was just to write a few stories
a week, and they wanted more of a high volume,
really steady, somebody who could crank out a couple or
three stories a day. And so I got out the
Rocky Mountain News in Denver and spent a few years
there enjoying covering city hall for the Rocky Mountain News
and really just I mean, what's interesting to me is
(09:29):
as a kid, I knew I wanted to be a reporter,
and as soon as I was a reporter, I just
felt like that was where I belonged. So there was a,
you know, a good feeling that my career wish was
exactly what I felt like my skills actually were pretty
good at. But along came a opportunity to go work
(09:50):
for this is back in the nineteen eighties go work
for the mcneilair Reports, which was then a half hour
talk show on PBS, but they were expanding what became
the News Hour on PBS, and I was part of
a couple of people who interviewed for a job as
a television producer in Denver. They were looking to add
(10:12):
a Denver based television production sort of office to go
around the country, and it ended up not only going
around the country with Latin America and producing news documentaries
for what became the Mcneilair and News Hour. So again
I just felt like this is a great opportunity to
take my reporting talents and just learn about another medium.
(10:36):
Spent six years there, realized some pros and cons of
the television news business, and then ended up actually it's
kind of related to fiction, and kind of not because
I'd started to write fiction. I had had some success
getting an agent at the end of about six years
of working on a book, and because I got an agent,
(10:57):
I actually quit my job at mcneilair, spent another year
writing fiction, and then when the money ran out, ended
up going back to print journalism at the Denver Post.
So kind of a you know, a little bit of print,
a lot of print, I would say, and then the
six years of television news. But to me it was
all whatever.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, it all seems to you or another guest, and
I guess all the guests when I think of it,
in everybody your life, unfolks, even if you don't think
it's going to it, it just does.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
It's like a mystery that sometimes you look up how
did I get here? Because when you were, maybe in
a teenager, you never saw yourself when you'd be when
you were in your thirties, forties or fifties or sixties
or seventies. It's like, how did I get here? It
just what thing? Just like you said, it just kind
of connects. Now, who or what inspired your love for
(11:51):
actually writing books, because that's a bit of a bit
of a shift from reporting.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yep, totally. I grew up reading fiction. I always loved
stories and storytelling. I love books. As a kid, my
mother was a very serious reader. She loved really kind
of heavy literature, I guess, I would call it. And
she would just come home with an armful of books
every week and from the library. And you know, she
(12:20):
didn't spend time watching television. She read every night. And
I picked up the reading bug, but I never thought
I would even consider writing a book. I thought this
was just some some sort of magic, magical thing out
there until a friend handed me a mystery, my first
crime fiction when I was in my early twenties, and
(12:42):
the whole genre kind of just seemed much more appealing
to me than just quote unquote regular literature, regular fiction,
because mysteries had a clear beginning, a clear middle, and
a clear end, and there was something very satisfying about
the mystery genre, and I thought, this seems like maybe
(13:04):
something I could take my take a shot at, so
to speak. And you know, I came up with an idea,
and as I said, that first book took about six
years to write, but I got an agent's and I thought, wow,
this is this is doable, and it was encouraging and
(13:24):
it was a good New York agency that still exists
to this day. And I actually ended up in New
York at a meeting and walked into this you know,
literary agent's office with these giant, you know, twenty foot
doors and these old wood kind of feeling to it,
and I totally felt like an impostor and totally felt
like a pretender, like I didn't belong, but they said,
(13:46):
you know, we like this book, we like this manuscript.
We'll definitely try to sell it for you. And in
the end they couldn't. And in the end, that was
the beginning of three different agents I had, with three
different projects that all were unsuccessful in terms of finding
a publisher. But I had so much encouragement from established
(14:07):
literary folks that I just kept at it. And also
in the meantime starting to find my starting to find
my community, my writing community in Colorado, so and they
were also encouraging, and I just kept at it.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So let me ask you this. So I'm listening to
you because I've been at this for a minute as well.
It's changed so much. Just everything near everything here in
this world had but you used to when you years ago,
Like a lot of people, a lot of the big
publisher now just started out maybe two people sitting at
a kitchen table, like a lot of major firms started
(14:43):
out somebody in a garage, somebody sitting at their kitchen table.
And I can the several big firms, some of the
founders that I've met, when they tell you it started,
you wouldn't It would be astounding to see where the
companies are. But so anyway, a lot of big publishing
(15:03):
houses started out just a few people building it out,
and it just grew. They grew so years ago you
could go directly to a publisher or an editor and
sell a book. And then it there came a period
where it was like, no, they told you had to
have a literary agent, and then you know you gotta
get they the feed for the literary agent for almost
all your work. They gonna get a cut up, depend
(15:25):
on how that contract's designed. And then no, now you
need a publicist or the publicists can get your attention
a literary agent. Then the literary agent gets in touch
with the editor and the publisher. How a lot of
people are either go on a hybrid and they're are
a self published But would you say to somebody listening
to off this shelf right now, who would love to
(15:45):
be in your shoes? You have a published book, they
may not, you have several published somebody who wants to
be in your shoes? W would you t s s
uh recommend that they get a literary agent or how
would you uh suggest that approach getting a book published today?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think about this question
all the time, and I have lots and lots of
friends who are They look at they look at what
it takes these days to first of all, get an
agent and second of all get a publisher, and then
of course the ultimate thing is to get a publisher
who is going to turn your book into a big hit.
(16:26):
But they look at that, they look at that whole
long course and they say, boy, that's going to take
a lot of years. And then they just quickly look
at what is capable. Is possible is to quickly, and
you know, it could be six months, it could be
a year, come up with a plan to publish your book,
and that means independently, just produce it because all the
tools are out there. And I am kind of a
(16:50):
unicorn or somebody out there who's just going to say,
I really really encourage up and coming writers to think
about the long game, think about the long term. And
the reason I think that, and of course this is
kind of I mean, I fully believe in everybody's right
to choose for themselves. And that's the beauty of having
(17:12):
independent publishing today is because if you've got a story
to tell, and you believe in that story, you can
get it out there and you can sell gobs and
gobs of copies. You can outsell me and all my
traditionally published friends. If you have a great story, it
will take off if you know how to get it
out there and market it. And I have friends who've
(17:35):
been independently publishing books for years and they've sold way
more books than I have. But I really like traditional
publishing and I'm going to plant a stake in the
ground for it, because you're if you get a good
literary agent, they're really going to help you with your novel.
The good literary agents, to me are the one I've
(17:56):
got gives me tremendous feedback on my books and how
to improve them. He's a great reader, he's a very
sharp reader, and he gives me feedback. Then they go
to the editors. You know, once you find a publisher,
the process that you're going to go through to improve
that book is just if it's a good publisher, legitimate,
(18:21):
well known publisher, you're going to go through a real
process that will just up the quality of the storytelling
and up the quality of the writing. I just think
I just love that whole business of going through that process.
It's eye opening. And I think independent publishing is fine,
but it's full of shortcuts which don't demand that you
(18:45):
apply really high editing standards and really high writing standards
to what you're putting out there. And that's why, to me,
so many books only sell a few copies.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Good point, good point. You make a good point, and
there are a lot out here, and a traditional publisher
they don't always do this. A lot of times they
do it only with the big names, but they can
put some dollars behind behind your books. But regardless of
how you do it, there's no crystal ball that just
because you came out with a book, even if you
put a lot of work into it, that it's gonna sell.
(19:22):
But yeah, the quality could definitely be hired. And that's
a great point. Now, let's talk about your books specifically.
Please give off the chef listeners an overview of The Fireballer.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, my most recent book came out just coming up
on two years ago, in January of twenty twenty three,
and The Fireballer is my first non crime fiction. It's
a book set in the world of professional baseball. It's
about a rookie pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles, and he
(19:58):
is a phenomenon because he is the talk of the
country because of his ability to pitch. He's he can pitch,
he can throw a fastball. For those baseball fans out there,
they already know that today's pitchers can top one hundred
miles an hour. The record is. The record is one
(20:21):
hundred and six miles an hour by a professional baseball pitcher,
and at that speed, a batter has zero point three
seconds to decide whether to swing, how to swing, where
to swing. It's one of the most incredible athletic talents
if you're a good hitter in the major leagues to
(20:42):
be able to swing a bat in point three seconds.
Even at one hundred miles an hour, you might have
an extra tenth of a second, but it's an incredible
response that a whole human athlete has to decide how
to swing, where to swing, all that kind of stuff.
It's a really incredible thing. My pitcher in my book
can throw occasionally at one hundred and ten miles an hour,
(21:05):
so it's looking ahead a little bit in the sport
if in fact they ever get there. But at one
hundred and ten miles an hour, the game is existentially gone.
There's no time left for a batter to swing. So
he's creating this existential threat to the game, the human
(21:27):
part of it. The heavy thing he's carrying around though,
And his name is Frank Ryder and he's again the
talk of the talk of the country. The heavy thing
he's carrying around though, is that as a twelve year
old in little league where he played outside Atlanta on
the little league team, one of his pitches got away
(21:47):
from him and I'll just leave it that there was
a very tragic situation that happened. So he's carrying this
heavy burden around with him knowing that the very thing
that is bringing him fame and attention and conversation and
controversy is the very thing that can be very very
(22:09):
damaging as well. Because wow, obviously, Yeah, so that's the
burden he's he's been given.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Wow. Then can you describe Frank writer a little and a
little more detailed beyond this event with the pitching? What
what is he like his family background and what what
even aside from baseball, what drives him?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah? Great question. So he he is driven by this,
He was driven even as a youth by just a
pure fixation and fascination with baseball. He just really got
into the whole mental aspect of understanding the game and
appreciating it. He grew up outside Atlanta. As I mentioned,
(22:55):
he grew up with a twin brother, and his brother
was the catcher on the day of the tragedy. His
parents are both in education. They're thoughtful, smart, upbeat people,
and when this tragedy happens, they realize that they need
to probably move away from Atlanta so that so that
(23:16):
Frank is not burdened by being around classmates who know
what happened that day and the rumors and talks. So
they moved to Colorado, and in fact, the parents forbid
Frank from playing baseball or playing team sports through high school.
He can do he can do solo sports, he can
do track and field or whatever he wants to do,
(23:39):
but he can't do anything in terms of baseball. And
one day, watching his high school baseball team play, he
does something that gives away his talents. I'll just kind
of leave it at that, but you know, suddenly he's
suddenly he is scooped up by the high school team
(23:59):
for his last year and then he goes to Metro State,
which is a pretty well known community college in Denver.
It's actually no longer a community college. It's more like
a university, but it's called Metro State University now in
downtown Denver. That's an actual school. Well. The other sort
of just elements to throw in there, that he's got
(24:19):
a long time high school sweetheart girlfriend who remains his
girlfriend as he gets drafted by the Baltimore Orioles and
as he moves to Baltimore, he's still in touch with
his girlfriend back in Denver. And at the same time,
once he finds himself in Baltimore as a very young
(24:43):
athlete but well paid because he's been the number one
draft pick in the country, he gets a huge contract.
He's also very much alone, so he finds himself in
a strange city, not knowing anybody, all this pressure. You
just have to figure out how his life is going
(25:04):
to go. And without giving away too much, I can
just say that the book really pivots on a key
point once he's on the Orioles. Of course, the last
thing in the world that this pitcher, this individual want
to do is hurt another player, another opposing batter, because
(25:24):
he's seen the damage that one of his baseball, pitches
can slip. But in baseball, if you know, there's an
unwritten rule that if one of your players gets hits,
the opposing pitcher has to go out there. And it's nobody.
I mean, people talk about it all the time, but
it's an unwritten rule that you have to retaliate, you
(25:46):
have to throw, you have to throw at another batter.
And you know, people lie to the camera and say, no,
I wasn't trying to hit him. I ball just got away.
But that's just part of the unwritten rule of baseball.
The last thing he wants to do is hurt somebody.
And I'll just put in a dot dot. God is what.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Sort is coming full circle? That's what That's the way
it's coming across to me. Before we talk about I
want the next talk about your latest novel. Then I
want to go into your mystery series. But can you
introduce us quickly to a few other major minor characters
in the book The Fireballer.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Well, yeah, sure. They also tell the story not only
from Frank's point of view, but I also tell the
story from the owner's point of view, a guy named
Ray Gallo. And what one of the things I really
wanted to explore in the book is the issue of
team owners who who sort of let their franchises languish,
(26:50):
who don't seem as compelled to win. I mean, you've
got the New York Yankees, You've got the LA Dodgers.
Those franchises and others many others like them always seem competitive,
always seem like they want to win. And there's franchises
in all the major sports where there's just a everything
(27:11):
everything other than winning. That's all that matters is winning.
And meanwhile there are these other franchises like for years,
the Baltimore Orioles were languishing, the Colorado Rockies are continuing
to just not put a winning team on the field
for years and years and years. Why is that? How
can you be an owner who doesn't want to invest
(27:33):
in your own team and do the one thing you're
asked to do in sports, which is a win. So
I wanted to get into a situation where to get
into a character's head. And Ray Gallo, the owner, is
the other major character in the book, as he sees
this phenomenon, this picture arrive on his team and shake
up everything about what he believes, and he's challenging the
(27:58):
whole organization. Frank is to say, we're here to win.
Let's win. And in fact the ability that Frank brings
immediately in their first year brings the Orioles up into
the world series. So Ray is the other major character.
Of course, We've got Ray's girlfriend, Maggie. We see a
lot from of interaction between Frank and Maggie, a lot
(28:22):
of it on the phone. And then also there's a
brand new potential love interest in Baltimore. She happens to
pitch for. She happens to pitch for the community college
team in Baltimore, and her name is Olivia, and she
becomes a real temptation for Frank and gets him into
(28:44):
a little bit of trouble. I'll just kind of leave
it at that with his major relationship with Maggie, and
helps him understand and appreciate what he's really got with
his girlfriend back back in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Oh my god. Oh, I guess sounds like the fireballer.
Oh my goodness. And you know what you would have
to the description. It's one of the things I love
about Aufice Shelf when all this talk more in depth
about their story. This story sounds so incredibly interesting and
it's not something you could put in a book the
(29:20):
front cover, of the back flap or description on a
book site. You have to hear the author talk about
the makings of this story. Now, what is the title
of your most reads books? You said came out in
twenty twenty three, and then I want to talk about
the Alison Cole mystery series. But what's the title of
your most recent book.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Well, I got a book coming out next April. It's
the first of a thriller series and that just got
announced this summer. It's called No Lie Lasts Forever, and
that will be out in April, and it's set in Denver.
And I'd be glad to tell you a little bit
about that, or I can tell.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Go ahead Alison series.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Okay, Well, I'll just give you the basic setup for
No Lie Last Forever. There's two main characters, and it
takes a second to explain, but one is a female
television news reporter h and she is senior. She's been
around for a few years. She is probably twenty years
(30:27):
into her career, and she gets involved in a situation
one day where she is negotiating between the police and
a hostage taker in a convenience store situation where this
hostage taker is taken some hostages and he's demanding certain things,
and he has asked for her, this reporter, her name
(30:50):
is Flynn Martin, to be the negotiator in between what
he wants to tell the police what he wants. Well,
she's on live TV. She she knows how to handle
this situation. She's being told by the police what to
do and how to handle it, but she thinks she
can do a better job with her own instincts. Well,
(31:14):
her approach leads to one of the hostages getting killed,
and in fact, the hostage taken then is taken out.
So her station puts her out for a few days.
They put her out now and they put her out
indefinitely and say, you know, that was just not the
way you go about this business. When the police are
(31:35):
telling you what to do, you need to do it.
So she is put out. She's on suspension. So hold
that thought for a second. Meanwhile, we start follow we
the a brand new murder happened, and the murder happens.
(31:56):
It's been fifteen years since the serial killer was active
in Denver, and all of a sudden, fifteen years later,
we have a brand new victim whose whole murder scene
is exactly the way the old serial killer who has
never caught used to leave his crime scenes. And we
(32:18):
start following the retired quote unquote retired serial killer who
is very, very concerned because he did not commit this
latest crime. He knows, of course, he knows he didn't
do it, but it's done exactly the way he used
to do it. So he needs to clear his name.
He doesn't want this new murder attached to him, nor
(32:39):
does he want the cops to go back in investigating
all the old serial killing killing cases because that might
lead yet again to his doorstep. So he contacts the ousted,
the defrocked television reporter who is out on the sidelines
and says, I can and get you your job back,
(33:02):
and you can get my name back, you can clear
my name, And of course she doesn't believe it's him.
There's no way that this guy, whoever it is, is
contacting her can possibly be the retired serial or the missing,
the uncaught serial killer after all these years, and so
she spends the first source in third of the book
(33:26):
basically saying there's no way it's you, and he figures
out a very very creative way to prove to her
that it's him. And once he once he establishes a connection,
they start working together to figuring out who actually committed
the latest murder.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Wow, oh my god, readers, I can see readers now,
why would she even work with this day? Why don't
you just turn him in?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah? Well no, it's good.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
The conflict there, you know, the readers, that's this conflict
in the story is good.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Yeah, she doesn't know she He establishes enough trust so
he can get her information, but she still doesn't know
who he exactly who he is, so he's hiding behind
all sorts of anonymous ways to reach her and contact her.
And he absolutely scares the Jesus out of her. So
(34:23):
and he's got leverage over her too.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
So No, Lie Last, forever? Do out this like Spring
the five, No Lie Last for everybody. Mark Stevens, look
for it, look out for that one. You guys. Now,
what is we want to talk next about the Alison
Cole mystery series and is this your first series? And
(34:46):
can you tell us what the inspiration behind this mystery
series was?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Sure? Yeah, got five books out in the Alison Coyle
Mystery series they started coming out in two thousand and seven,
and the inspiration was just a very very clear, magical,
kind of galvanizing day in you know, quite a while
ago now, but I had written a couple of crime
(35:14):
fiction books. They were standalones. They were kind of urban
jungle books in terms of just being cities and you know,
typical urban crime novels that we all love because a
lot of mayem happens in the cities, and that's where
(35:35):
you know, so many classic crime books take place. And
I had never really considered doing sort of outdoor anything
in terms of something environmental or anything like that. And
one day, my wife and I were on a day
long horseback ride in the place called the Flat Tops
Wilderness in western Colorado. It's the second largest wilderness area
(35:56):
in Colorado. Absolutely beautiful, remote, stunning place, and we were
led by this young woman. You know, a lot of
horseback rides and if you've ever taken a horseback ride
out west, you kind of more typically get some grizzled
old guy who doesn't really say much all day and
(36:17):
expects you to know how to ride. And you know,
they've done this ride with a bunch of vacationers or
tourists hundreds and hundreds of times, and they're just sort
of jaded. Well, that day, we had the opposite. We
had a young, vivacious, articulate, upbeat woman who knew every
bit of her environment. She knew the every plant, she
(36:39):
knew every tree, she knew all the geology, she knew
the cloud formations, she had all the scientific terms, and
she was taking care of about ten of us on horseback,
like you know, just like it was walking down the street,
super easy, you know, for her to do. And she
was tiny and just abulian, I would say, bubbly. And
(37:02):
about halfway through the day, as I'm talking to her
and being an old reporter, of course, I ask a
million questions and my wife kind of gets, you know,
rolls her eyes because I'm always tustering people with me,
you know, but you know, she kind of casually mentioned
that she was also a hunting guide when when the
after you know, when the fall season came around, and
(37:24):
it was just one of those moments I just thought, Wow,
a hunting guide is a major character for a mystery
novel would be interesting because you know, they're they're usually
taking men up in the woods. They're they're around guns.
The guns are already there. You've got extreme conditions because
once the hunting season starts, it's usually snowing and definitely cold,
(37:47):
and there's just rugged mountains to get around and rugged
back back country terrained to navigate. And I thought, you know,
that'd be an interesting character and would create some interesting
themes to get into. And this is before I mean
I started writing Alison Coyle books in the nineties, so
(38:09):
a long time ago, and it didn't come out until
two thousand and seven. But this is before at CJ Box,
was before Craig Johnson started publishing. It wasn't after people
like Tony Hillerman or anything like that. I mean, there's
been plenty of outdoors the kinds of mysteries long before
I started writing, So I wasn't doing anything that unusual.
(38:30):
But you know, there's a whole group of and tons
of writers out there now who do write very environmental
kind of mysteries set in outdoor spaces. So I wrote
my first book in that series. It did get a
good New York agent, as I mentioned earlier, on a
(38:50):
really good New York agent. We spent about a year
working on it. Ultimately it didn't sell, but I found
a small ish publisher in outside Boulder in two thousand
and seven, and he loved the book and he printed
up two thousand hardbacks, which was scary to me to
think about how I was going to sell those, but
(39:11):
I got in my current, started doing bookstore tours all
over the state and Wyoming and poking around, and then
that book did so well that I thought, well, I'm
going to write another one, and I could go into
each of the five stories, but ultimately just watched Alison
(39:32):
Coyle kind of mature and start to become a series character.
So ye, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I love that. Back on the what you shared about
how that the story came to be the Alison Cole
So if you could tell us how old Alison Cole is,
what she's like, and then also give us a brief
synopsis of Aunt Lard Desk.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Sure, Well, the main character thing with Alison Coyle is,
and she's in her mid thirties, is that she is
a survivor of a commercial airplane crash. As a longtime
reporter and somebody who covered a lot of disasters, I've
covered earthquakes in Mexico City that killed tens of thousands.
(40:22):
I've covered earthquakes in El Salvador. I've covered volcanoes in Columbia.
I've covered mud slides in Puerto Rico. I've covered wildfires
and all sorts of things. I developed a fascination with
random death. Sounds kind of a strange, morbid thing to
think about. But well, you know the plane that went
(40:46):
down in Iowa on its way from Denver to Chicago
years ago and actually turned into a movie called Fearless.
Just this whole idea that a plane crashes in a
cornfield and some people don't make it and some people do.
This is a huge h of sorts of interest for me.
You're intrigue and how you go about your life afterwards.
(41:08):
So I thought, I'm going to put a character on
the page who has survived. And the reason she's into
flattops is because she found a healing spot for her.
This is her calm space to be. She's never going
back to the big city, and she developed these skills
as a hunting guide on her own. So that creates
(41:30):
me a little character. She so appreciates the flattops and
wants to become kind of its protector. It's backwood sheriff
in other words, that she doesn't want the big city
Mayhem coming up into her precious, precious land. Well, Andlerdos
basically is built around two themes. One is big game poaching,
(41:55):
which is the whole idea of rigged hunts. These are
hunts that people pay money for where the prey are
basically a pre planned in terms of where they are,
and they're they're tracked by radio collar, so it's easier
(42:16):
for those folks to then come in and kill big games.
So Alison basically gets, you know, she sees she sees
something through a big snowstorm at the beginning of Antler
Dust and she sees here's a gunshot. She sees something
(42:37):
she's not sure what it is, and that just puts
her on a trail when when a fellow hunting guy
goes missing, she she's put on this trail of trying
to figure out what's going on. So it's that's the
main theme in Antler Dust, and each of the books
takes on kind of an environmental theme. Buried by the
(42:59):
Rhwan is the second book, and that touched on fracking,
which in twenty eleven when it came out, was not
it was being discussed in the Colorado community. But I
think it was sort of on the leading edge of
having a fracking as a element in a mystery novel
back then. And then Trapline dealt with illegal immigration and
(43:22):
for profit prisons, which sounds like, how do you how
do you deal with how do you deal with that
issue up in the woods? But I found a way
and Trapline went on to win the Colorado Book Award
for Best Mystery. So I think I did okay and
the Lake of Fire, Lake of Fire, and then you know,
just on and on different different environmental and and and
(43:43):
kind of social issues in all the books.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Awesome. I wanted to ask you just a little bit
going back, what just for our listeners who are maybe
interested in getting each book in the series, what is
going on in Alison Cole's life at the start of
Bury By the Room. I'm having a for some reason,
I don't know why. I'm having a lot of time
visualizing her. But what's going on is she's so outdoors
(44:09):
that she has like real close friends, tight relationships. So
is she more just outdoors with the animals and nature
type of person.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
She definitely has a community. She's got a good friend.
Her name is Trudy, who is a health food not
and starting to develop her health food business in Glenwood Springs, Colorado,
as buried by their own gets going. Trudy is somebody
she rescued from an awful I've rescued is too strong
(44:40):
a word, but Trudy get out of a really, really
bad marriage in the first book, and Alison and Trudy
become super close friends through the entire rest of the series.
And Alison's boyfriend in book one, without getting too much away,
isn't around in book two, and she Alison starts to
(45:02):
take an interest in another hunting guide and starts to
develop the relationship there and guy named Colin, and there's
just this you know, small community. I would say Allison
is pretty much a loner. She's still dealing with this
commercial airplane crash, and she takes a lot to trust
(45:25):
her or to get her into a situation where she
can really trust anything. She prefers to be alone, enjoys
being alone. But she and Trudy are very close, and
slowly but surely Colin, I'd say book two kind of
brings them together, and then Colin and Allison are very
much together in book three, four and five.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
So yeah, at the beginning of the series, is Alison
does she kind of stumble into this detective type of work?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
She she is this something that just comes into her life.
Is she become more so of a detective type as
the story the books progress.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Great, great question, And that's always the kind of conceit
with amateur detectives and mystery series, because you know, there's
this real life aspect of how do you become somebody
who just learns to ride a horse one day and
then suddenly you're solving or helping solve murder mysteries the
next in book after book, and you know, goes back
(46:33):
to the whole thing about why we like mystery series.
For Alison, she stumbled into it, she became good at
and she realized she was good at her Her tracking
was excellent, her ability to decode a situation or figure
out a scene and understand who had been there, Her
(46:56):
senses are good for that. We kind of as readers,
I think, and I hope as a writer, I'm just
sort of hoping readers accept the fact that she's talents
from book to book, and we care more about sort
of the issues she's getting into, and we care about,
of course, how She's going to solve the next case
as it comes along, and of course you try to
(47:20):
keep it somewhat plausible in terms of, you know, how
they're working with the police and the police authorities, and
they're not necessarily the leading the charge on every single case,
but they are major, maybe the major players who bring
folks to justice, and you know, because they are so
familiar with Alison. She's so familiar with the back country
(47:43):
and how to get around and spot where people have
been that she's a huge help to the small town
police who surround the Flattop's wilderness.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
All the stories do all of them take place in
Colorado in a similar location, and so why did you
choose this particular setting.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Yeah, they do all take place in the Flattops wilderness,
and the towns nearby like Glenwood, Springs, Rifle Meeker, Yampa
are the major towns that kind of surround the Flatops.
And the reason I chose it is because, first of all,
I didn't know of anybody else writing mysteries in that area. Secondly,
(48:31):
I happened to love the Flattops. There's something absolutely serene
and beautiful about it, and I wanted to kind of
share that through the printed page with the whole experience
of being in the flattops. And you know, there have
been other folks that come to me and say, you
should send Alison down to this part of the state,
(48:52):
or you should put her on a journey where she
ends up in another part of the state, or some
reason or other, go cover this issue or that issue.
And to me, she's just so tied. This is where
she is kind of just grounded. It's where her home
is now. And ultimately, in terms of arc, the big
(49:15):
question is would Alison ever go back to the city
because that's where she started out, and can she get
back to a mental place where she can go back
to the city and accept all the random stuff that
goes on in the city. And the series is only
five books in. I don't know if at this point
if I'm going back there because things are going well
(49:35):
with my other writing projects. But ultimately that would be
the big character question for Alison, as if she could
deal with moving back to the city.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
I was going to ask you if Melancholy, how was
the last book in the city. It sounds like that's
an indefinite You're not sure. You just said you don't
not show if you're going to revisit it, or if
if it's the series is over.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Yeah, it definitely doesn't wrap up the Allison arc, and
there's some other characters where the arc is not complete.
I certainly intended to write a sixth book, and unfortunately,
or fortunately things are going so well with these other projects.
The Fireballer kind of that idea kind of came out
(50:25):
of the blue as a non crime fiction and just
took me a couple of years to write and a
couple of years to get out and you know, getting
behind that and making all the improvements until it was
published really was a great side journey and away from
crime fiction. And then this latest book is supposed to
be the start of a news series with an excellent
(50:46):
publisher and Thomas and Mercer, and so I can see
my next few years. I'm coming down the first the
home not the home stretch, but about halfway through the
sequel to No Lie Last Forever. So I feel like
my writing time is really going to be committed for
the next few years to that new series. So whether
(51:07):
I'd love to get back to Allison, but I'm just
not sure when or how. So A good a good
good problem.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
You've got your hands full now. You also write short stories,
which mark is your favorite? Would you say short story writing?
Short stories or novels?
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Definitely the novel form. I think short stories and people
people who write them are amazing. It's so challenging to
come up with a good short story that's, you know,
four or five thousand words, and so much happens in
such a short amount of time, and I have to
have such a great idea, and I so admire and
(51:49):
respect the short story writers out there. That's really something
else I wish. I I wish I could work on
my novels in the morning and maybe work on short
stories in the afternoon. That would be great. But I
just don't have that many short story ideas. So when
they come, they're great, and I try to follow up
on them. But yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Please share for our listeners, those particularly who are authors themselves,
three or four steps that you've found personally found to
be effective at getting the word out about your books.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Well, my main point or main tip on this question,
which is always such a great conversation, is do what
feels natural to you. You know, if everybody says you've
got to be on social media and you're not comfortable
on social media, you don't have to go on social media.
(52:45):
If everybody says you've got to write a newsletter and
get it going long before you are even published, and
you're not comfortable writing a newsletter, I don't think you
have to write a newsletter. Yes, I think as an author,
you have to get out there. And I would encourage
every author to push their comfort zone. You know, if
(53:07):
you don't think you like going to conferences and giving presentations,
try it, get better at it. You can push yourself
a little bit. I do think ultimately, really the thing
these days is word of mouth. The unfortunately the all
(53:28):
the blurbs, the reviews are great and everything else, but
you really need to have word of mouth. And I
think that is really building your writing community. So even
whether it's the quality of writing or the quality of
your marketing plan, it's going to come down to having
a extensive, as big as you can make it, writing
community where you have people advocating for you, pushing for you,
(53:55):
who've got your back, have are out there saying good
things about book, and they may be the ones online,
they may have their social media accounts, but really just
getting your community together. And that means participating in the
writing community. Not as a transactional thing like if I
(54:16):
do this for you, will you do this? Do this
for me? But just get in there and support other writers.
Be a genuine friend, be a genuine help if you can.
That means maybe reading a book by another writer you
don't know how they might end up being able to
advocate for you way down the road when you need it,
when your agent drops you, or when your publisher drops
(54:39):
you and you need to look for another agent or
another publisher. You know you might end up hiring a
publicist as you mentioned earlier, and having the publishists do
a lot of work for you, which is perfectly legitimate
way to go about it. So and then you know,
through that writing community you're going to find the high
(55:00):
quality publicists who will really do a good, solid job
for you and not just take your money and pretend
to spend it. You know what I mean. So get
your writing community. It'll help you with your writing community
(55:22):
to help you with the quality the pros on the page,
and your writing community will help you celebrate your book
and help spread the word when it comes out. And
obviously I mean I would encourage folks to do as
many bookstore appearances and zoom interviews and podcasts interviews and
anything that they can. It's you know, but keep it
(55:44):
real and keep it to what you feel comfortable doing.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
So yeah, and that's great advice as we come to
the last few minutes of the day. So, can you
tell us when you started the Rocky Mountains Should Write
this podcast?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah, I started it in twenty fifteen, in May of
twenty fifteen and coming up on three hundred and ninety
five episodes in I think something like that. Oh yeah, So,
just been a real pleasure to interview writers. And the
key with the Rocky Amount of Fiction Writers podcast is
(56:25):
that you've got to be a member of Rocky Mountain
Fiction Writers, which is a fabulous organization. We have members
from around the country. You have to be there a
member of our MFW, or you have to be somebody
who's presenting a workshop or presenting at our annual conference,
somebody who's going to be participating in the community. And
we like a keynote speaker might come on and do
(56:47):
an interview on the podcast previewing their speech at an
upcoming conference. We'll do things like that. But we've had
you know, three hundred and ninety plus interviews with people
who believe in their books, in their writing, and sometimes
they'll promote a book and we'll talk about their book,
or we'll talk about some element of the writing business
(57:09):
or marketing, or you know, we'll have a specific discussion
on an element of craft. So it's really been enjoyable
and really a lot of fun to put together.
Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah, awesome. Where can off the shelf listeners get a
copy of your books? Mark?
Speaker 3 (57:28):
They are available everywhere books are sold. If you had
to writer, Mark Stevens dot com. There are links all
over the place. The Ambler, the Allison Coyle mystery series,
is widely available, Fireballer is widely widely available, and all
the Alison Coyle books are on audio. Fireballer has got
a great audio version out there as well.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Okay, now, do you have any upcoming speaking engagents? You
were talking about getting out to bookstores and getting on
podcasts and going to writers conferences, etc. Do you have
any upcoming engagements that our listeners could support you at.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Well, I definitely am planning and I've already signed up
for Left Coast Crime in March in Denver, which is
the second largest crime fiction writing conference in the country
after Boucher Khan and Boucher Khan next year will be
in New Orleans in I believe August or September, and
other than that, I'm actually winding down the whole push
(58:29):
around interviews around the Fireballer, which has been a couple
of years and I so appreciate the opportunity again today
to talk about it. But now it's turning in. As
soon as we get over the holidays here, we'll really
be ramping up interviews around Noah Last Forever, which will
only be a few months away come January twenty twenty five.
(58:52):
So right now I'm in between talks. There is a
book club I'm going to be speaking out in Denver
in February, but right now I can't remember. He kills
you off top.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
My head, Okay, Oh my goodness. We have had the
pleasure of connecting with Arthur Mark Stevens and he is
the host of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers podcast, which
we spoke about, and he served as the president of
the Rocky Mountain Chapter for Mystery Writers of America. Some
of his titles are The Fireballer, Antler, Dusk, Buried by
(59:22):
their Own chapline Lake of Fire, The Melancholy How and
look for it Look Forward in April, Look Forward, Look Forward,
No Lie Last Forever. That is Mark's latest newest novel
coming out twenty twenty five, No Lie Last Forever. Mark
is online at and I courage you to visit him.
Writer Mark Stevens dot com w W R I T
(59:46):
E R M A r K S T E B
E n s dot com. He's his last name is
still with a be Writer Mark Stevens dot com. Thank
you so much, Mark for being here with us today.
So enjoy having you here on off the Shelf and
appreciate you taking time out of your business schedule to
(01:00:07):
join us to our listeners. As I always tell you,
thank you, thank you, thank you. You are amazing, You're awesome,
you are incredible. Today we start to believe that. Go
out and trede a fabulous day for yourself today. Send
you back here next Saturday, eleven am Eastern Standard time.
Just market on your calendar so you don't miss these
(01:00:30):
awesome storytellers eleven am Eastern Saner time, our New York
City time that you gonna catch all the shelf books.
Thank you so much, Mark. I will send you a
link to the show when it finishes streaming. Thank you,
thank you, thank you, bye for now.
Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Thanks for the great conversation.
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