Why I Love Book Clubs

I joined a book club late in life (after age 50), and I regret I didn't join one sooner. I've reaped three very important benefits. First of all, my book club members were the first readers of my novel in a relatively raw form. Their honest critiques helped me to hone my plot and edit my writing (although I had to go outside my all-woman club for male input). Second, each club member gets to choose one book, fiction or nonfiction, that we read, which means that I am introduced to writers, ideas, styles and information that I might otherwise miss or avoid. It really broadens my intellectual and emotional horizon. Finally, the club brings solitary readers together in a group experience that, regardless of agreement or contention, deepens the impact of a book for each member. I'd love to get your ideas on making a book club more successful, or problems to avoid. I'd love to donate my book, Lies Agreed Upon, to your book club for discussion!

The Work of Creating Believable Fictional Places

The action in Lies Agreed Upon plays out against both fictional and real settings, and I tried to make the fictional environments as descriptively believable as the actual backdrop of historic New Orleans. In fact, it requires more research to successfully describe imaginary places as it does to describe real locations. To create a fictional place, I first look for historical models in my research reading. I also browse the Internet for tourist descriptions, local memoirs and news stories of similar places. I study photographs of sites that fit with the age, style, scenery and location. I look to my own experiences where appropriate. For example, in Lies Agreed Upon, the Lost Lady Restaurant does not exist. So I drew on dining experiences in the converted buildings of other old farms, plantations and inns, and I found descriptions of real-life Louisiana restaurants housed in old plantation outbuildings to use as models. Right now, I am researching for my next mystery set in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. I must create a believable neighborhood, with look, history and demographics that fit with both local reality and the grimmer turns of my plot. I spent my teen years in this area and still visit my father there, so I can draw on memory and recent observations, but the final environment will be a composite of lots of research, imagination and a few experiences -- including some surprisingly dark ones for sunny suburbia!