Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Unlike many of you, I am not a writer. I forced myself to create a book because I wanted to share what I learned prosecuting sex crimes and running what may have been the first Special Victims Unit (in Queens County, New York City.) That book (Sex Crimes: Ten Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators) was published by Random House nearly 25 years ago and its influence, including being named a NY Times Notable Book, surpassed all my dreams for it. After I returned to sex crimes prosecution, in a small, rural Pacific Northwest county in 2010 I decided to write a sequel and, to make it accessible and reasonably priced, to publish the two books as one e-book. My books chronicle my career, many of the major trials and cases I’ve prosecuted, and the war to accomplish justice in a courtroom that I believe defines what sex crimes prosecution is supposed to be.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My two-book e-book is entitled “Sex Crimes: Then and Now” with a readers’ line explaining it is “My Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators. There’s a passage from “Sex Crimes: Then” that sums up my inspiration for writing:
“What I hadn’t known was that being a sex-crimes prosecutor meant eyewitnessing courage. It was the one common denominator among the victims I had the privilege of accompanying into a courtroom to testify that they had been raped.
Other ADAs in the office insisted on more common denominators than that. They wanted their rape victims to fit a certain image. How the jury responds to a victim is an enormous percentage of the verdict in any sex crimes trial–which is why prosecutors want Good Victims.
In New York City, Good Victims have jobs (like stockbroker or accountant) or impeccable status (like a policeman’s wife); are well educated and articulate, and are, above all, presentable to a jury; attractive–but not too attractive, demure–but not pushovers. They should be upset–but in good taste–not so upset that they become hysterical. And they must have 100 percent trust and faith in the prosecutor, so that whatever the ADA decides to do with the case is fine with them. The criteria for a Good Victim varies with locale. In the Bible Belt, for example, the profile would be a “Christian Woman.” But the general principle remains the same.
Such attitudes are not only distasteful, they are also frightening. They say that it’s O.K. to rape some people–just not us. Old-time convicts spell justice “just us”–prosecutors aren’t supposed to. Sex-crimes prosecutors are supposed to understand that the only way to keep the wolf from our own door isn’t to throw him fresh meat but to stop him the first time he darkens anybody’s door. Rapists progress–often they start with people they know before moving on to strangers. They become emboldened by success with easy prey. They start believing we’re all prey.”
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
First I have to do the work of prosecuting sex crimes before I can write about it.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I’m paraphrasing but a critic once said of my husband, Andrew Vachss, that he takes a sentence, strips it bare, puts it in a closet for six months and starves it before he lets it onto the page. I think he uses words more precisely and powerfully than any other author I have ever read.
What are you working on now?
I have started a small publishing house which specializes in non-fiction solutions to violence e-books. After I struggling through the worst of the learning curves on my own book, the second book, In Good Hands by David Hechler was published last month by paywhatitcosts.com. Hechler is an investigative reporter whose in-depth coverage of one fatal daycare center in South Carolina reads like a murder mystery at the same time that it exposes critical information about the decision to change daycare.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far my best promotion is through people in my field already familiar with my work on the topic. I am just now beginning to learn how to step past that limited arena.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Once when I was prepping a witness, in response to me asking what she would say if the defense attorney asked her about our preparation, she answered “I would tell him that you told me to tell the truth and be myself.” I guess I think that advice applies to a lot of things.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The first time an editor talked about “my voice” forced me to think about that concept and be true to it.
What are you reading now?
Barry Eisler was kind enough to acknowledge my work in a just-published book called “Livia Lone.”
What’s next for you as a writer?
What’s next for me is as an editor. Next in line for Pay What It Cost Publishing LLC’s is the revision and expansion of a beautiful booklet by Gillian Greensite called “Rape at College: How to Help a Friend”
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
“Two Trains Running” by Andrew Vachss
“Promises to Keep” by Charles De Lint
“Green Witch” by Alice Hoffman
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