Avalon Books - Author! Author!


	Read some interviews from past editions:
		Zelda Benjamin April, 2008
		Shirley Marks December, 2007
		Donna Wright December, 2007
		Carolyn Brown August, 2007
		Roni Denholtz June, 2007
		Tara Randel April, 2007
		Sydell Voeller February, 2007
		Sheila Robins December, 2006
		Ann Holt October, 2006
		Cynthia Danielewski July, 2006
		Jane McBride Choate March, 2006
		Kathryn Meyer Griffith January, 2006
		Mel Taylor November, 2005
		Kathleen Fuller September, 2005
		Tracey J. Lyons July, 2005
		Ludima Gus Burton May, 2005
		Holly Jacobs March, 2005
		Sandra D. Bricker January, 2005
		Kathryn Quick November, 2004
		Cheri Jetton September, 2004
		Heather S. Webber July, 2004
		Karl Fieldhouse May, 2004
		Shelley Galloway March, 2004
		Ilsa Mayr January, 2004
		Kathy Carmichael November, 2003
		Dorothy P. O'Neill July, 2003
		Joani Ascher May, 2003
		Patricia DeGroot March, 2003
		Nancy J. Parra January, 2003
		Barbara Meyers November, 2002
		Christine Bush September, 2002
		Debby Mayne July, 2002
		Jean C. Gordon May, 2002
		Charles E. Friend March, 2002
		Norma Seely January, 2002
		Glen Ebisch November, 2001
		Gina Cresse September, 2001
		Terri Alcock May, 2001
		Clifford Blair March, 2001
		Amanda Harte January, 2001
		Kent Conwell November, 2000
		Carolyn Brown September, 2000
		Annette Mahon July, 2000
		Marjorie McGinley May, 2000
		Jack Lewis March, 2000
		Amanda Harte January, 2000
		Joyce and Jim Lavene November, 1999
	Return to the current Author! Author! interview:
		S.J. Stewart April, 2008


Click on images to learn more about these books. An Interview with John Paxson

How did you get started writing mysteries?
	Writing, in one form or another, has always been a large part of my life. In fact, I’ve made my living for 30 years now writing but most of that’s been in journalism—newspapers, radio and television—where the plots belong to someone else, the characters appear on stage wholly formed, adjectives are forbidden and brevity is the path of the righteous. I’d dabbled in fiction down through the years, writing a sizzling first chapter and then waiting for divine intervention to carry things forward. When that intervention, predictably, didn’t come I’d discard what I’d written and wait for the next bolt from the blue. (I have a large stack of sizzling good first chapters if anyone’s in the market.) About 10 years ago, I realized if I was to get beyond ‘a dark and stormy’ night, it was up to me and me alone to press on. I did—and wrote a first book.
*A first book—Bones—which Avalon published. You say you gave up waiting for divine intervention. What, then, drives your work forward?*
	I suppose in many ways it’s the regularity I’ve built into it. When I’m working on a novel, I budget two hours very early each morning five days a week. I know that time will be spent imagining and writing—that very little else will intrude—and it has become a wonderful technique for focussing. I also learned that when I hit a figurative brick wall, the only way to continue is to blast through, to just keep writing. It may not be the best writing I’ve ever done but I can come back and correct and polish it later. And it serves to push me through to another part where the writing and imagining come more smoothly and with less pain.
Both your first and second Avalon books are set in Montana? Why Montana?
	Simply, because I love it. I grew up there and, while I moved away a long long time ago, its wild beauty still defines for me what the world should look be like. As I travel around, the snowy peaks of the Bitterroots and the whitewater rapids and big trout holes of the Blackfoot are the yardstick I use to measure and judge what I’m seeing. It remains one of the last best places.
Tell us a little about your latest book, A Golden Trail of Murder.
	Montana, an old rancher dead in a wild mountain blizzard and only his grandson suspects murder. A former newsman turned sometimes-rancher/carpenter/sleuth Ben Tripp starts to ask questions and finds that the mountains hide a secret that some men believe is worth killing for.
Any other Ben Tripp mysteries on the way?
	I suspect there’ll be a third and have begun gathering ideas. But you know, that divine intervention thing has me on hold. Maybe next year. In the meantime, I’m finishing a rewrite on another novel which should come out early next year. It deals with the excesses of television and the unbelievable power of talk-show tv. I’m afraid it’s another publisher so I won’t mention the house, but the working title is Elvis Live at Five.
Tell us a little about your family.
	My wife Lucrezia and I have made our home in London for the past six years. She’s also a journalist but is taking a year off to get an advanced degree. Our two daughters Shauna and Amanda are both finishing up college in the U.S. and are about to launch into the big world. There’s one other member of the family named Dallas who reminds me—loudly—each morning at 5:30 that writing must remain secondary to the immutable daily task of feeding the cat.
When you’re not writing—and not working at your day job—how do you spend your time?
	As passionately as I can. My wife and I are avid fossil and rock hunters, fly-fisher-persons, sailors and city-walkers. Because London is so wonderfully located we’ve been able to pursue those passions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. When we’re at home, it’s movies, concerts, a wee spot of golf now and then and as many books as I can get my hands on.
Any advice for aspiring writers?
	If you want to be a writer—write. All the time. Write. Write every day. Budget the time. Set aside those several hours each day when it’s your job—YOUR JOB—to sit down and write. If you let the words out of their box, soon the ideas will start flowing and the characters will take on flesh and the fictional world will come alive. You’ll get to the point where you’ll actually be startled by some of the things your characters do. Don’t wait for a higher force, a bolt of lightning or the voice of a muse. Start writing and don’t stop. And it seems silly to say it, but enjoy it. It’s painful, dreadful, tiring, confusing—and some of the most fun there is to be had in life.