Interview With Author Richard Sherry
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a retired college professor and administrator, having worked in Christian colleges for 37 years in Kentucky and Minnesota. My first book, from 2020, is The Long Run: Meditations on Marriage, Dementia, Caregiving, and Loss, about experiences caring for my first wife, Candy, during the 11 years from diagnosis to death. I remarried in 2022. I’ve written and published three novels, A Month of Sundays; Mondays, Mondays; and First Tuesday. These are political thrillers about uncovering levels of corruption in American politics.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
First Tuesday begins in the fall of 2023, and leads into the summer of 2024. It features characters on both sides of the spectrum, President Gerard Freeman (a Democrat) and candidate and former president Frederick Gray (a Republican). Along the way, some of the influences that shape our politics are revealed through a captured videoconference. The story ends abruptly in the late spring of 2024 as one candidate leaves the race and one declines to run again, leaving both parties on the brink of actually rethinking what their parties see as the vision for America.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Sixty years ago I had a morning paper route in my “home town,” Spokane, Washington. I got up at 4 a.m. and got started. Except for a few years in college, that’s what I’ve done ever since. So I write early, and then put more time in later. Because I’ve tried to make these novels “realistic,” I research both before and as I write–so there’s a calendar in front of me, reminding me when the Supreme Court hears oral arguments, or when the Senate is in session.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Many, because I used to be an English teacher. Dante. C.S. Lewis. Tolkien. “Bad” science fiction, like Heinlein. “Hard” science fiction, like Arthur C. Clarke. Satire, ranging from Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift to John Scalzi (try Redshirts on for size). Gritty detective novels by John Sandford and Michael Connelly. Westerns, like C.J. Box and Craig Johnson’s Longmire. Most of them create not only complex characters but a profound sense of place and context. Nearly all of them have an edge.
What are you working on now?
I’m at work on my fourth in this series, called “BakerMischief,” after the main character, Ed Baker, a retired professor of political science. The new book is Wednesday, After. The “Wednesday” is what happens two days after a new Republican president is sworn in to lead the United States. I have been deeply concerned about the forces that lead politicians to make choices that affect all of us, and I try in these books to bring some of them to light. I recognize that our republic struggles with tensions from both sides that want to tear it apart. Yeats wrote in the late 1930s that “the center cannot hold,” just before WW II. I think most of us are in the center, but struggling to stay there.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Almost all of my “publicizing” up until early this year was word of mouth and notices on my Facebook page. I’ve also done talks at local Rotary meetings, especially on Mondays, Mondays, my novel on the Supreme Court. Lately, I’ve begun working with the Blue Cottage Agency in Minnesota, which has developed some great materials and begun circulating them on the web.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
My wife, Marjorie Mathison Hance, who writes the North Lakes Mystery Series, began by writing about the world she knew best, the lakes area in northwest Minnesota. I put my character, Ed Baker, in one of my favorite spots in the world, in northern Washington. I’d say the biggest challenge for new authors–remember, I used to teach writing–is to think about your audience and to try to reach them in ways that engage them fully. Don’t just go with the intellect, or the emotions, or a spiritual component–we are “whole” people, who respond both with our mind and our senses. Final advice: get good readers; proofread; fight against cliches or trivia or the “overdecorative.” Do not get in the way of the story. Let your people talk like people.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I could be flippant and say, “Don’t bet against the house,” but anyone who writes to see if what they do is publishable is in effect betting against the house. Each year, 2.3 million new titles are self-published; publishers put out about 1 million new titles beyond those. We have never had a phenomenon like this anywhere. Don’t expect to be successful; work at being satisfied that you’ve done good work.
What are you reading now?
I’m in the research and write stage for Wednesday, After, so I’m focusing more narrowly on things I need to know and that my characters believe and act on. When I take a break, I read the J.D. Robb Dallas novels (the ….in Death series); pure formula, from characters through plot. I love John Scalzi, and just read Starter Villain in about two hours as a huge break.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have been trying to work on a book with the title “Upstream” for almost five years. This will be nonfiction. My concern is that we almost never attempt to deal with social problems by actually solving the problem at the root. We deal with symptoms and consequences, because the problems themselves would require us to question many of our assumptions and values. You don’t solve poverty with food shelves or even with low-income housing; you have to go back to think about how we understand our economy and the nature and value of both work and human life.
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?
I’m a Christian, so I start with a book full of books, The Bible. I think probably The Boy Scout Handbook would be next, because it covers most of the stuff I’d need to know. And then, probably, Dante’s Divine Comedy. And then a complete Shakespeare!
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