Susanna Calkins Blog

Finding inspiration in 1920s headlines

4/6/2019

Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Dec 5, 1929; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune pg. 16

Every writer I know is regularly asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" Some authors love this question, some hate it. For me, I'm somewhere in between.

With my very first novel, A MURDER AT ROSAMUND'S GATE, I was essentially answering a set of questions that had come to me while I was studying murder ballads as a graduate student (as one does!) So, back then, it was super easy and fun to answer.
With my new series, the ideas came to me differently, so my response is no longer so pat. But I am regularly inspired by 1920s newspapers.

Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Sep 16, 1928; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune pg. 3

Obviously the newspaper is a great way to learn about what's going on in the neighborhood where I set my Chicago speakeasy, providing a useful level of detail. But more importantly, this kind of event can also be so inspiring--WHY would someone bomb an ice cream parlor?

(Stay tuned--I answer that question in the second Speakeasy Murders)

Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Oct 16, 1929; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune pg. 5

And of course, the headlines reveal other interesting things about Chicago culture. This kind of headline, "Bare legs not immoral," is exactly the kind of thing I will stop to read. It gives a lot of nuance to our understanding of the "New Woman," and this is the kind of detail that will find its way into my story.

What inspires YOUR stories? Even if you don't view yourself as a writer, what inspires the stories you tell to others?

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and the winning cocktail name is...

3/23/2019

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(Wow, that was unintentional cliffhanger! I thought I had published the actual content, but nope, I did not). So drumroll please....

...And the winning cocktail name is...

.....the HOTSY TOTSY!
Congrats to Kristopher Zygorski...the ARC of MURDER KNOCKS TWICE is on its way!

Thanks very much to all who submitted cocktail names for my contest. I had an unofficial panel of judges, but asked my next door neighbor and former bartender Lisa McCaw to make the final selection. We all agreed it seemed fun, and captures the spirit of my book really well!

Next up...figuring out the ingredients!!!

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Help me come up with the name for a signature cocktail, and you could win an Advance Reader Copy of MURDER KNOCKS TWICE!

2/24/2019

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I'd love to have a signature cocktail--or at least a unique name slapped on an existing concoction--for upcoming book events.

But I need your help!

If you leave me an interesting and original name for my cocktail in the comments below, you could win my last ARC of MURDER KNOCKS TWICE. (And if you make it sound 1920s enough, the name could make it into my next book!)

Here's the official blurb, if you need inspiration:

The first mystery in Susanna Calkins’ captivating new series takes readers into the dark, dangerous, and glittering underworld of a 1920s Chicago speakeasy.
Gina Ricci takes on a job as a cigarette girl to earn money for her ailing father―and to prove to herself that she can hold her own at Chicago’s most notorious speakeasy, the Third Door. She’s enchanted by the harsh, glamorous world she discovers: the sleek socialites sipping bootlegged cocktails, the rowdy ex-servicemen playing poker in a curtained back room, the flirtatious jazz pianist and the brooding photographer―all overseen by the club’s imposing owner, Signora Castallazzo. But the staff buzzes with whispers about Gina’s predecessor, who died under mysterious circumstances, and the photographer, Marty, warns her to be careful.

When Marty is brutally murdered, with Gina as the only witness, she’s determined to track down his killer. What secrets did Marty capture on his camera―and who would do anything to destroy it? As Gina searches for answers, she’s pulled deeper into the shadowy truths hiding behind the Third Door.

Thanks for your help! You're the Bee's Knees!!!! (but don't name your drink that--that name is taken! As is Corpse Reviver, Southside, Sidecar, Ward 8 (whatever that is)...

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My cover at last!!!

9/30/2018

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Without further fanfare...the cover of MURDER KNOCKS TWICE! I think it's gorgeous! Nice write-up in Criminal Element too!

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From 1667 London to 1929 Chicago...

9/20/2018

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It's the Bees' Knees!

Well the cocktail break is finally over and I have returned to my blog!!!

I’m no longer entrenched in the gritty plague-ridden world of 17th century London—I’ve now ventured into 1920s Chicago—a world that is both sparkling and shadowy.

The first in my new series is called MURDER KNOCKS TWICE (Minotaur/St.Martin's), and it is set in a 1929 speakeasy on Chicago’s West Side.

MURDER KNOCKS TWICE IS EXPECTED TO LAUNCH
April 30, 2019.

Researching this new series has been a lot of fun, and so-o-o different than how I've done research in the past.

I read every issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune for a year to better feel the period. The Drys! The Rumrunners! The Gin Joints!
I shook my head at advice columns and the ‘around town’ interviews...
I poured over the Sears & Robucks catalogue and studied advertisements..
I listened to twenties era music...
I watched tons of 1920s movies...
I walked around the area where my story is set, imagining the sights, smells, sounds...
And perhaps the most fun...so far I've tried about 25 different cocktails from the period. (My goal was to try 100 Prohibition-Era cocktails before my book launches!)

So stick around...and let's get swizzled!

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"Coffee Break" --another blog hiatus

11/27/2017

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As you may have noticed, I've been on a bit of a hiatus since the last time I posted on my blog....

But I am working on a new series for Minotaur, set in a 1929 Chicago speakeasy...and yeah, it'll be the bee's knees...

Just don't get too squiffy...there's a murder to solve!

See you soon!

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Writing From Passion--A Guest Post by Christina Hoag

7/4/2017

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"How do you write about a world you haven't lived in?"

This is the question posed by my guest author, Christina Hoag, a journalist-turned-novelist as she discusses her latest thriller...

From the official blurb:
Los Angeles homeboy Mags is desperate to get out of gang life, but the only exit is through sacrificing everything – and everyone - he loves. He must make the difficult choice, and soon, or have it made for him. Based on extensive interviews with street gang members, this noir crime novel explores a poor immigrant family’s struggle to survive in a gritty world where gangs appear to offer youth a way out but instead ensnare them in a tangle of deceit and betrayal.

Just think how boring literature would be if writers just wrote what they knew. You could basically throw out historical and science fiction, for starters, plus a whole lot else. Just how many authors, screenwriters and TV writers have been serial killers?

But how do you write about a world you haven’t lived in? Write what you’re passionate about, what intrigues you, and prepare to do a lot of research. You’ll also need your novelist’s imagination, a healthy dollop of intuition to fill in the gaps, and plenty of confidence that you can pull it off.

My novel “Skin of Tattoos” is about an immigrant family who leaves a war zone of guerrillas in Central America and ends up in a war zone of gangs in Central Los Angeles. Much to his family’s dismay, the protagonist Mags gets involved in a gang with some inevitable consequences, such as a prison stint. When he gets out, things really go sideways for both himself and his family.

How did I delve into this foreign world? First, I should say that I was a journalist, and the idea was sparked by my interviews with former gang members in El Salvador for a magazine story. I lived in Latin America for nine years so I knew that culture pretty well and speak Spanish.

Years later, when I moved to Los Angeles, I worked for The Associated Press and my urban affairs beat involved writing about inner-city neighborhoods. I remembered my idea for a novel about the trap of gang life, and was amassing knowledge.

I interviewed people involved with gangs in various aspects, plus people who were directly affected by gang activity. One of those interviews led to a nonfiction book about community peacekeeping in gang neighborhoods. “Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence” involved even more interviews with experts and former gang members. As I drove around these neighborhoods as a reporter, I absorbed details like the proverbial sponge.

To get more personal details about this culture, I read every memoir written by former gang members I could find. They were a fantastic firsthand source. I read books about gangs themselves, devoured news stories, watched movies and TV shows about gangs, which were great as visual and dialogue aids. I found online dictionaries of gang slang.

I stopped and started the novel many times, repeatedly losing my confidence as I began to realize the depth of the venture I’d taken on. But in the end, I persisted, and I’m glad I did even though it took years to finish the project. I love that book and all the characters.

Maybe I’ll even do a sequel.

Christina Hoag is a former journalist for the Miami Herald and Associated Press who’s been threatened by a murderer’s girlfriend, had her laptop searched by Colombian guerrillas and phone tapped in Venezuela, hidden under a car to evade Guatemalan soldiers, posed as a nun to get inside a Caracas jail, interviewed gang members, bank robbers, thieves and thugs in prisons, shantytowns and slums, not to forget billionaires and presidents, some of whom fall into the previous categories. Kirkus Reviews praised Christina as a “talented writer” with a “well crafted debut” in Skin of Tattoos (Martin Brown Publishing, 2016), a noir crime novel. Her thriller Girl on the Brink (Fire and Ice YA, 2016) was named to Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2016 YA list. She also writes nonfiction, co-authoring Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence (Turner Publishing, 2014), a groundbreaking book on violence intervention used in several universities. Christina makes her home in Los Angeles and lives on the web at www.christinahoag.com.

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"Entering the fringes of possibility..." A guest post by author J.L. Delozier

6/19/2017

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I'm delighted to host J.L. Delozier, author of thrillers TYPE AND CROSS and STORM SHELTER on my blog today. From the blurb:

Dr. Persephone (Seph) Smith is a psychologist with enhanced empathy, allowing her to feel the emotions of others.

But her gift comes with a price. Plagued by nightmares and insecure in her work, Seph absorbs the suffering of her patients by day and swills tequila by night.

When Seph is deployed to an abandoned air hangar turned medical shelter during a massive hurricane, one by one, as the wind howls overhead, staff and evacuees disappear into the dark recesses of the vast space. The missing return as mutilated corpses. The living, trapped in the shrieking metal structure by the storm, descend into varying levels of paranoia and madness. Seph, as both counselor and detective, must determine who, or what, is preying on them.

Is the panic and mayhem “shelter shock,” as the lead physician, Anne Parrish, insists? Or is everyone, Seph included, in danger of losing their minds—and their lives? Storm Shelter is a prequel to TYPE AND CROSS (WiDo Publishing, 2016) which features an older, wiser Dr. Persephone Smith. TYPE AND CROSS was recently nominated for International Thriller Writer’s “Best First Novel” of 2016.

"Write what you know.”

That tired, yet ubiquitous advice haunts first-time novelists and stifles the creativity of even advanced writers. Without dreamers—think Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clark—certain genres such as scifi, which relies on imaginative world-building, would be boring indeed.

That said, when I committed to writing my first thriller, Type & Cross, I succumbed to the comfort of what I knew—science, medicine, and psychology. No research required, right?

Wrong.

As I wrote, I soon realized I’d entered Michael Crichton territory: a story built on a foundation of scientific fact, but with details so twisted and warped, I’d entered the fringes of possibility. I’d created my very own Jurassic Park, and I needed to do some research.

For me, research meant digging out my old, dusty medical textbooks and boning up on hematology and virology—the study of blood and viruses, respectively. I had the added pressure of knowing my medical colleagues would be lying in wait, scalpels in hands, ready to shred my science to bits. I had to make the details genuine, but also salient and accessible to the average reader (i.e. not boring!) The science needed to drive the story, not drown it. Dr. Crichton was a master of this delicate balancing act. I was a newbie. Did I accomplish the task? You be the judge. I’ve had reviewers comment both ways.

When I started book two, Storm Shelter, I swore I would make it easier on myself. No international hijinks (thank you, Google Maps.) No bizarre medical conditions. This time, I would write what I know. The end result: Storm Shelter takes place almost entirely within a single air hangar-turned-hurricane shelter in San Antonio and is based upon my real-life experiences as a disaster physician for the federal government.

I’ve been in three such scenarios, and I merged the people, locations, and situations into one authentic and terrifying wild ride—no research required. Much of what you read in Storm Shelter actually happened in one form or the other (up until the grisly murders, that is!) It’s as close to a biography of those years as I’ll ever write, with details obscured to protect the innocent. Storm Shelter is available now on Kindle and releases in print on June 28th.

But now I’m onto book three, the sequel to Type & Cross. And guess what? I’m in the Basque community of Spain (research) running through the medieval streets of Bilbao (research) while chasing a mad scientist who’s attempting to genetically modify people’s blood types in order to create a master race (research, research, research!) I am not writing what I know.

I’d like to think Michael Crichton would approve.

J. L. Delozier spent the early part of her career as a rural family doctor and then later as a government physician, caring for America’s veterans and deploying to disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Gustav. Throughout it all, she quietly absorbed the sometimes fascinating, often heartbreaking and always dramatic life stories of her patients. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and four rescue cats. Learn more at her website jldelozier.com.

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Suspense Writing: It takes a village (a guest post by thriller writer Sherry Knowlton)

5/1/2017

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After a too-long hiatus from my blog, I am delighted to be joined today by Sherry Knowlton, author of DEAD OF SPRING (2017). I asked Sherry to talk about how she researches her novels, and below she shares some terrific insights into how she balances authenticity and readability.

(Basically, how to keep your reader entertained while being accurate at the same time!)

In popular culture, authors are often portrayed as brooding figures who seethe with creativity. After long, pensive walks along a cliff (or dock, or meadow), the authors return to their garrets and type pages and pages of inspired prose.

For me, it doesn’t work quite that way. You’re more likely to find me writing in my sunroom in winter or in the gazebo on a nice summer’s day. And, I like to take walks, but I work out most of my plots in the car while I’m driving to yoga. Yes, there’s certainly a large element of creativity and inspiration involved in writing my Alexa Williams suspense series. But, much of my process involves a more mundane – although often fascinating-- task: research, research, research.

Some genres of fiction might not require much, if any, in-depth research. (Certain fantasy novels spring to mind.) But, I write contemporary suspense, and each of my novels also include a historical story that parallels and intersects with the main plot. So, I want the background details in both stories to be as accurate as possible to enhance the novel’s “believability” and credibility. Plus, I don’t want my readers to drift away from the suspense, distracted by a historical anomaly or incorrect fact. (Wait a minute. Would that Depression-era character really have said, “Awesome, dude”?)

I rely on some of my own experiences and knowledge of a topic or place as I write. But, often, I need to do further research to refresh my memories or obtain more specific information. My research follows two broad paths: learning from written, video and audio sources; and, interviewing experts.

My new book, Dead of Spring, deals with fracking and politics. The historical story takes place during the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis in 1979. The setting for the contemporary story is Southcentral Pennsylvania, but my protagonist, Alexa, also travels to Tuscany and Umbria. I live in Southcentral PA. I worked in Pennsylvania state government. I’ve been following the politics of fracking for years. I lived through the Three Mile Island crisis. And, I’ve spent time in Italy. Still, that experience was not enough. I needed to review a lot of source material to fully capture these topics in my book. These sources ranged from technical articles and regulations on fracking to news clips and newspaper articles from the Three Mile Island event to Italian justice procedures.

I might be able to get away with just delving into books and relying on the Google for my information. But, experts always add so much depth to my understanding of a topic. The acknowledgement sections in my novel are quite long because talking to experts has become a key pillar of my research process. And, I’ve been lucky to find subject matter experts on a wide variety of topics who have been very gracious with their time and expertise.

For Dead of Spring, I relied on a State Police trooper and several other law enforcement officers, a judge, a historian responsible for the preservation of the Pennsylvania State Capitol, staff from Pennsylvania’s Lt. Governor’s office, a regulator in the state’s Department of Environmental Programs, gun experts, and more. One of the most helpful experts I interviewed was a landowner in northern Pennsylvania who leased his land to a hydraulic fracturing company in the early days of the state’s fracking boom. He took me on a tour of both his lands and other fracking sites at different stages of development. He also walked me through his personal experience by showing me his photographs of the transformation of his property. A beautiful woodland that step by step by step turned into an acre of gravel and machinery. Pristine drinking water that now requires constant filtering just for showers and bathing. Battles with the energy company about compensation for various problems. His fracking tutorial was eye-opening.

Of course, research is only one aspect of the writing process...

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Exciting news--I received the Mayor's Award for the Arts

11/15/2016

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Recently, I was honored by the City of Highland Park with the Mayor's Award for the Arts.

What a thrill!

The candle on the cake was receiving the award on my birthday, the day that all of Chicago seemed to be celebrating the Cubs win.

And of course I owe to all my dear alpha reader, who nominated me for the award!

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<<Previous

Finding inspiration in 1920s headlines

and the winning cocktail name is...

Help me come up with the name for a signature cocktail, and you could win an Advance Reader Copy of MURDER KNOCKS TWICE!

My cover at last!!!

From 1667 London to 1929 Chicago...

MURDER KNOCKS TWICE IS EXPECTED TO LAUNCH
April 30, 2019.

"Coffee Break" --another blog hiatus

Writing From Passion--A Guest Post by Christina Hoag

"Entering the fringes of possibility..." A guest post by author J.L. Delozier

Suspense Writing: It takes a village (a guest post by thriller writer Sherry Knowlton)

Exciting news--I received the Mayor's Award for the Arts

Susanna Calkins

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MURDER KNOCKS TWICE IS EXPECTED TO LAUNCH April 30, 2019.

Susanna Calkins

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MURDER KNOCKS TWICE IS EXPECTED TO LAUNCH
April 30, 2019.