Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
In my teens, I hitchhiked to Alaska and lived in a cabin on the banks of the Tanana River; in my twenties, I lived in Italy and then traveled overland across the Sahara, through the jungles and over the savannas of Africa and into southern Asia; in my thirties, I sailed alone around the world in a small wooden boat; in my forties, I wrote novels; and in my fifties bicycled the spine of the Rockies from Alaska to Mexico. I’ve worked on the Alaska Pipeline, as an environmental lobbyist in the Alaska Legislature, and run a storied environmental organization fighting to protect Alaska’s coastal rainforests. Several years ago, I moved to New York City to dig deep into leadership development and coaching. I now coach business and non-profit leaders intent on making big things happen in the world.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Broken Angels. It was inspired by hubris. I was kayaking with a friend around Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska—a 3-week trip. She’d just finished a mystery by an Alaska author and I asked her if it was any good. She said, yes—so I read it. It was beyond dreadful. I complained to my friend—
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “But I didn’t want to influence your opinion.”
“I want my opinion influenced. I wasted hours of my life reading this.”
That night we were weathered in by a blow. I was snugged up in my sleeping bag still pissed that a book could be so bad. And then I stepped off the edge. I said to myself that I could do better.
But I hadn’t a clue how to start. I so hapless, it was almost comical. Thousands of books written every year and I didn’t what to do after picking up a pencil.
Then, one random day, I remembered a novel that was a scene by scene rip-off of Shakespeare’s Lear. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. You’d think she’d be hauled off for plagiarism, but no—she’d won the Pulitzer. I cast about for a play where the author had been dead long enough he wouldn’t be coming after me for stealing his stuff.
Since I was writing a mystery—the play to use was obvious. The first mystery in western literature was Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Fortunately, Sophocles has been dead for 2,500 years and I figured he wouldn’t much care that I was taking his best work. That was my start.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write mysteries and I have no love for mysteries—generally because they are so contrived: a bunch of unlikely events strung together to produce an outrageously improbable outcome that has next to zero psychological plausibility: <i> she killed him because of a hang-nail? </i>
You might ask, is Broken Angels a bunch of unlikely events strung together to produce an outrageously improbable outcome that has next to zero psychological plausibility?
No. This story is the story that I wanted to read. It’s psychologically real, the characters are driven by who they are; they make bad decisions that lead to horrific outcomes—but each step of the way you get why they are doing what they are doing. The story is rich and complex and, at times, emotionally challenging for the reader. And it rips—you will not be able to put this book down.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
So many it is beyond count. For years, I would read with a clipboard keeping notes about how one or another author, say, introduces new characters, sets a scene, ends a chapter, squeezes in explication. It was my job to pry the secrets out of other authors. Let me say, however, that the most valuable book at the start of my career was “Self Editing for Fiction Writers.” by Renni Brown. Read this book. Do everything it says. My own prose jumped from juvenile to intermediate-adult over night.
What are you working on now?
Marketing my second novel Rinn’s Crossing–which will be published March 30, 2020. A very different book than Broken Angels–although it also takes place in Alaska. It was sparked by a fantasy I had–
Southeast Alaska is a place of breathtaking beauty. It is home to the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforest, the Tongass. The trees are majestic—towering into the sky. You cannot walk beneath them and not be moved.
Over the past half-century, those trees have been cut with criminal abandon.
The logging outraged me and I dreamed of sabotaging logging operations laying waste to the forest. It wouldn’t make any difference—another logging company would just take its place, but it’d be exquisitely cathartic. I figured could go wrong? Well, what if went wrong was that someone else was charged with my crime? And if that happened—what would I do?
Good question. That sparked the story.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Best method: write a book others enjoy enough to tell their friends about it. Everything else is a distant second.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Learn your craft.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Don’t do it.
I ignore it every time.
What are you reading now?
Just finished Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner–one of the classics of Alaska Literature. Read it.
What’s next for you as a writer?
After Rinn’s Crossing is launched, I start on a non-fiction story of sailing around the world.
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?
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