Don’t miss our discussion on writing across different genres and the benefits of collaborative writing.

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Debbi (): Hi everyone. My guest today is a New York Times and international bestselling author whose work has been broadly described as suspense thrillers, often incorporating elements of horror, crime mystery, science fiction and supernatural. That’s quite a bit. His debut novel Forsaken was a finalist for the Bram Stroker Award in 2014. Several of his works have been optioned for adaptation to motion pictures. It’s my pleasure to have with me my guest, JD Barker. Hi, JD. How you doing today?

J.D. (): I’m doing great, Debbi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Debbi (): Well, it’s my pleasure to have you on, believe me. I’m glad you’re here. I love that you have no problem with mixing genres in your work. I think that’s awesome. Would you say that there’s any particular genre that tends to be dominant in your writing?

J.D. (): Well, it’s funny. I grew up, I’ve been writing my entire life, but I worked behind the scenes for about 20 some years. I worked as a book doctor and a ghost writer, basically helping other people get published, and one of the things I saw over and over again is an author would write a particular book and it would hit, and then all of a sudden they had to write that same book, but different for the next 20 books. The publisher just wanted that same book but different, and honestly, that scared me. I didn’t want to get caught in that kind of hole, so I made a conscious effort from the very beginning. I’m a huge fan of horror. I’m a huge fan of thrillers, so I basically bounced back and forth, and I think my Wikipedia page probably sums it up the best. I think that’s what you were reading from, but I describe it as a suspense novel as the common thread with little elements of horror, of sci-fi of this, of that and what that allows me to do. As long as I keep that thriller-suspense framework in place, I can branch out a little bit and the readers come along for the ride. It’s not so different that it frightens ’em off.

Debbi (): That’s really cool. That’s great. So it gives you more flexibility

J.D. (): And agents hate it, and publishers hate it because again, they want you to write that same book, but different. But I’m finding that the fans, they actually enjoy it because I’m not giving them the same book every single time. I think it gets old as a reader too, so it allows me to mix it up and just keep it fresh.

Debbi (): Totally, I agree. Yeah, so you’re directly reaching the readership as opposed to going through what a publisher thinks this should work, which is something I’ve advocated a long time.

J.D. (): Everybody approaches this from different angles, which is something else I picked up on over time. As a business model, publishers really only care about selling that book, the one they have in front of ’em, the one they signed you for. That’s really their only priority. But you as an author, you really need to look at your business, your model, your brand, and approach it from that standpoint. And you can really see the stark differences. If you walk into a major bookstore, you walk into a Barnes & Noble and you’re going to see pretty much the title of every book is huge. The author name is tiny little print at the top or the bottom. It’s an afterthought because the publisher knows they have to put it on there, but they just want to sell that one title. But if you look around that same bookstore at the brand name authors, the ones that we all know, the household names, you see Stephen King, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, John Grisham, their names are huge, and the title is nice and small, and they’ve obviously built up to that over time. But I think as an author, you really need to keep that in mind from the get go. And if you’re with a traditional publisher, push to have your name as large as it possibly can, and if you’re indie publishing do the same. I mean, there’s no reason not to.

Debbi (): Wow, that’s great advice. Excellent. I agree with you. I have to say, you are definitely an example of a successful indie author. What did you do to develop a readership?

J.D. (): I did a lot of different things. I wish I could pin it down to one in particular. I fell into being an indie author. It wasn’t actually my goal when I was working as a book doctor and a ghostwriter, that was all for traditional publishers, so I had fully intended to go that route. But when I finished up my first novel, it was called Forsaken. I went to query agents, and even though I worked in publishing, I had no idea how to actually query an agent. I never had to do it before, so I did it all wrong. I bought a list of agents, I think there were 200 of ’em on an Excel spreadsheet. I wrote a form letter literally to whom it may concern, and I sent every single one of ’em the exact same email. I sent them the first three chapters of my book as a PDF file, as an attachment.

(): And for the most part, most of them ignored it because agents are very particular in what they want, and they’ll list the specs on their website. They want to see the first chapter, they want to see the first three. They want it in an Arial font. They want it in Times New Roman font. Every agent’s got their own little quirky little thing, and if you don’t do that quirky little thing the second you end up in their inbox and they catch it, they just hit the delete key. So I basically queried all wrong. I didn’t get any real responses, and I decided to indie publish. But I made a conscious effort when I did that to basically come out with something that was on par with something coming out of a traditional publisher. So I hired professionals across the board for editing, for formatting, for cover design. Ultimately, we released a hard cover and audiobook and an ebook on the same day with plans to put out the paperback six months later, which was the traditional model at the time. And I basically made it as indistinguishable from something coming out of Random House, and that worked back then in 2014. It allowed me to get in front of a lot of places that I probably wouldn’t have if people knew that I was an indie author, and I basically hit the ground running.

Debbi (): Yeah, it’s funny you have the same kind of story that I had. I also fell into indie publishing. It’s like I had a contract with a publisher. The publisher went out of business nine months later, and it’s like, I can’t sell a series that has been published and then gone out of print nine months later. It just doesn’t happen.

J.D. (): No, that’s a whole other animal.

Debbi (): It was very frustrating. What year did you make the Times list?

J.D. (): I’ve been on there a bunch of times now. I think the first time, let’s see, we’re in 2025. It was probably around 2020. It was with The Coast to Coast Murders, and I wrote it with James Patterson. We hit number two.

Debbi (): Oh, wow.

J.D. (): And I’ve hit number two a couple of times now. I just did it again with our latest book. It’s called The Writer. We got stuck behind Rebecca Yarros. She was number one. We hit at number two, and I really had hoped to hit number one with this one just because you can’t put number two New York Times bestseller across the top of your book. It just doesn’t look right. But Rebecca Yarros, she is a powerhouse. We weren’t able to knock her off that spot.

Debbi (): Oh, well. I knew somebody who was second to JK Rowling, and I said, Hey, as far as I’m concerned, it makes you number one. So as far as I’m concerned, you may as well be number one. That is amazing. That really is amazing. Can you talk a little bit about what steps you took that took you from being indie author to having your work optioned by producers or whoever?

J.D. (): Yeah. Well, I’ve had a lot of crazy things happen in my career, and basically I call it capturing lightning in a bottle. I’ve done it a bunch of different times. So with the very first book Forsaken, when I wrote it, I had to explain where the wife buys a journal and just to get the book done, I wrote that she walked into Needful Things, Stephen King’s store from his book and bought it there. I fully expected to have to change that because you can’t do that sort of thing without a bunch of lawyers knocking on your door. But my wife read it and she said, you know what? Before you change it, let’s see if we can get King’s permission to use it. So that’s essentially what we did. We found out he had a house in Florida. It was about 10 minutes from my mom’s house.

(): So when we were visiting my mom, we printed up the manuscript, we hopped in the car and we figured, well, we’ll go over to Stephen King’s house. We’ll hope to catch him outside. Maybe he’s gardening or something. We’ll hand him the manuscript, he’ll give us a big thumbs up and we’ll be on our way. It didn’t work out that way. He lives on a little island off the coast of Florida called Casey Key. You go over this tiny little bridge, and if you make a left, you go to the public portion of the island where the restaurants and bars and hotels and stuff are, and if you make a right, you go to the entire half of the island that Stephen King owns. There’s immediately a no trespassing sign. Another sign there was a gate, and then another gate. We got about halfway to his house, and we just decided this is a really bad idea, and we turned around, went to a restaurant, and I called a friend of mine who knew Stephen King, told him what we were doing, and he said, oh yeah, don’t stalk Steve.

(): He hates that. Here’s his email address. Just send him the book. If he likes it, you’ll hear back from him. If the book is garbage, he probably won’t reply. I sent off the book and a couple of days later I got an email back from King and he said, I love this. Go ahead and use the reference. Let me know if you need anything. I thought for sure at that point, I wouldn’t have any trouble getting an agent or a publishing deal or any of those things. But like I mentioned, I did the query process all wrong. So I ended up Indie publishing the book, and it came out, and sales were okay at the beginning, but with any other indie title, nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew about the book. I started running Facebook ads and Amazon ads. I did all the things that every other indie author does, but for me, it wasn’t enough.

(): So I reached out to another friend who used to do PR out in LA for rock bands, and I asked her if she wanted to work a book, and we started discussing the book and looking for different angles to promote it, and I told her about this trip to Stephen King’s house, and she said, you know what? That’s the story. So she wrote that up. Ultimately, Publishers Weekly wrote it, basically a story about an author who made a failed trip to Stephen King’s house to try and get his blessing on something. But that story came out, and then librarians read it, bookstore owners read it, and that sparked sales for the book. And then ultimately, I ended up selling about a quarter million copies of that indie published title. So when that happens, the traditional publishers really take notice. So when I had my next book ready to go, it was called The Fourth Monkey about a serial killer in Chicago. I had no trouble getting an agent. The book ended up going to auction with multiple publishers involved, and when the dust settled, I had a seven figure deal for two books with HMH, which is now part of Harper Collins and a film and TV show attached, and all of that played out probably over a couple of days. It was extremely quick.

I asked her if she wanted to work a book, and we started discussing the book and looking for different angles to promote it, and I told her about this trip to Stephen King’s house, and she said, you know what? That’s the story.

Debbi (): Wow, that is remarkable. And you kind of put yourself in a position to make these things happen. That’s the thing. You reached out to a publicist that helped.

J.D. (): Yeah, I mean, I’m really good at spotting the opportunity, and I don’t shy away from it. I would rather try something and get completely shot down and fail at it, but at least I walk away knowing that that I tried, and I tend to do that over and over again, and it’s worked out more times than it’s failed.

Debbi (): That’s awesome. That really is awesome. You have a book coming out soon, don’t you?

J.D. (): I’ve got a bunch of ’em. So writing with James Patterson, he’s not only taught me a ton about the writing process, but the business side. So I’ve got a number of books coming out with co-authors. I’ve got solo titles coming out, but my next solo title, it’s called Something I Keep Upstairs, it comes out in May. It’s a haunted house story. The tagline for the book is for a haunted house to be born, somebody has to die.

Something I Keep Upstairs [is] a haunted house story. The tagline for the book is for a haunted house to be born, somebody has to die.

Debbi (): Intriguing. How many books do you have coming out then with other people as well as your own?

J.D. (): Just over the next 12 months, I’ve got 12 of them in the pipeline.

Debbi (): Oh, my goodness. Wow. So collaboration is really working out for you, to say the least.

J.D. (): Yeah. Well, I’ve doubled down not only on the writing thing, but also the business side. So, after The Fourth Monkey hit, that was traditionally published, I wrote a prequel to Dracula for Bram Stoker’s family that came out through Putnam. So another traditionally published book. I basically did a couple on the traditional side, but because I got a taste of being an indie author, I really missed that. I missed the freedom that I had. I started looking at the economics of it. As an indie author, you make about 70 cents on the dollar. If you’re with a traditional publisher, you might get a nice big advance check, but you have to pay that money back and you’re paying it back at like 15, 20 cents on the dollar, these small little incremental payments. So at one point I took a look at it and it didn’t make sense to me, so I called my agent and I said, okay, here’s my new book.

(): It was called A Caller’s Game. I’m going to go ahead and publish it myself in English around the world, and you can go ahead and sell to the foreign territories. And at that point, I was in about 150 different countries, about 24 different languages. So she kind of took the book in that direction, and I published in English, and I really liked that. I called it a hybrid approach because I was able to hit all those different markets. I was able to control everything, but I still had that one particular problem that indie authors have. You can’t get into all the bookstores, you can’t get into Costco, you can’t get into Target or Walmart or airports. So for years, I tried to find a way around that, and if you fast forward to about a year and a half ago, I came out with a book called Behind a Closed Door.

(): I sent it off to my agent. The book started going to all the publishers. We got a film deal right away, but I really didn’t want it to go to a traditional publisher, and it was about to go to auction. I got a phone call from somebody who worked at Random House, and she said, listen, we’re about to offer on your new book. When that comes in, you need to turn it down. And I asked her why, and she said, well, we’re about to lay off a number of people, and the editor who wants your book is on that list, got a similar phone call from Harper Collins, and then about a week or two later, all these layoffs happened across the industry. So that kind of solidified my thinking of not wanting to go to that model,

(): But my last real job I had, I worked in finance. I was a chief compliance officer at a brokerage firm, and I had heard that Simon and Schuster had recently got bought by a private equity company. So I reached out to some friends of mine that I used to work with, and they put me in touch with a private equity firm. Ultimately, I had some discussions with Simon and Schuster, and over about a six month period, we negotiated a deal where I created my own imprint on Simon and Schuster. So I can basically act as an indie author. I can publish what I want when I want because I’m a publishing house, but sales, print and distribution are all handled by Simon and Schuster. So I’ve got them as my backbone, which means as an indie author, I can get my book into all these places that you can’t typically get into, and that’s what I’m doing today. So it’s a very different business model, I think, from a lot of indie authors, but I think it’s where the industry itself is going.

Ultimately, I had some discussions with Simon and Schuster, and over about a six month period, we negotiated a deal where I created my own imprint on Simon and Schuster. So I can basically act as an indie author.

Debbi (): Yes, I agree with you 100%. Wow, this is just amazing stuff. Thank you for sharing this. Speaking of sharing, and you see the cover.

J.D. (): Yeah, so that’s one of my co-author titles. Working with James Patterson, one of the things that he taught me is the benefit of working with other people, and as a ghost writer and a book doctor, my first 20 years in this business, that’s all I did. I collaborated with others. So when I sat down to write my first solo title, that actually felt weird to me working on a book all by myself. I missed working with other people. Working with Jim has been a blessing, but I wanted to branch out and do some co-authored stuff on my own. So the one you’ve got there, it’s called Heavy Are The Stones. I wrote it with a woman named Christine Daigle, and in real life, she’s a neuropsychologist, so she was able to bring that aspect of her life into the writing process, and as an author, I can fake my way through being a neuropsychologist if I want to. I can do enough Google searches and watch some Netflix specials and fake it well enough to be able to pull it off. But when you’ve got that authentic voice in the writing room with you, you can’t beat that. So I look for that in my co-authors. I try to find people who can bring something to the table that I can’t necessarily replicate on my own.

Working with James Patterson, one of the things that he taught me is the benefit of working with other people, and as a ghost writer and a book doctor, my first 20 years in this business, that’s all I did.

Debbi (): I love it. I reviewed this book actually a long time ago, and part of my review, in part of my review, I said, this just shows you how beneficial it is to collaborate with other authors. I mean, I made the point of saying it. It was like, this is brilliant, a great, brilliant approach here. Yeah.

J.D. (): Well, if you think of just the writing process, whether you’re an outliner or a pantser or a discovery writer, however you want to phrase it, you’re basically coming up with that entire story idea all on your own, and if you’ve got a co-author, you’ve got somebody you can bounce ideas off of. They may come up with something totally out of left field that you’ve never thought of or vice versa, or you might run with an idea that they come up with. So it takes a story in a completely different direction.

Debbi (): I can totally appreciate that. The weird part is that I’ve come to appreciate collaboration through screenwriting.

J.D. (): Yeah, I mean, I think that ��

Debbi (): It is so weird

J.D. (): At this point. I’ve got eight different projects in what I call various stages of Hollywood Hell. And a number of them are in development for TV shows, and there’s writers�� rooms, and when I do a Zoom call with those writers, there’s five, six, seven different people all working on that screenplay all at the same time, and the fact that all those different voices in there, they create this unique thing that none of them could come up with on their own.

Debbi (): I have to ask you. In the background, is that Nighthawks I see on your wall?

J.D. (): Yeah, it’s got Elvis sitting at the counter? It’s kind of hard to see.

Debbi (): It’s got Elvis at the counter? It looks so much like Nighthawks.

J.D. (): Yeah, it’s similar, but it is kind of like a spinoff of Nighthawks

Debbi (): Of Nighthawks. I think that is so cool. I love Nighthawks.

J.D. (): Yeah. I’m a huge fan of John Hopper.

Debbi (): Me too. Yeah, totally. Let’s see. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

J.D. (): Well, it’s changed a lot. When I was in the corporate world, I was working at 60 to 80 hours a week, so I would squeeze in writing whenever I could. That might be my lunch hour sitting in traffic in line at the grocery store or whatever, and I would knock out maybe two to 300 words a day. Now I’m doing this full-time. I’ve been full-time for about 10 years now, so the schedule’s completely different. I get up at the crack of seven in the morning. I told myself when I left the corporate world, I’d never set an alarm before seven again. So I get up at seven, I grab my coffee from the kitchen and I just sit down on my desk and just start writing. I turn the internet off when I first get there. I don’t look at anything online, no email, nothing like that until I get my words for the day, and that’s changed a lot too.

(): I mean, now I get two to 3000 words basically in the morning. I wrap up around 11 with that. That’s my daily word count. Then I flip on the internet and my inbox fills up with all the business side of this interview requests, talking to agents, various deals, things like that, and I deal with all that stuff. My quitting bell rings at three o’clock. I live on a little island off the coast of Portsmouth in New England, so I go for a run around the island. It’s 4.2 miles. I just do one lap. Then I come home and I spend the rest of the night with my wife and daughter. I really tried to separate the two worlds. When I first started, when my book started to hit in other countries, I used to get interview requests. I would come in at literally all hours of the night, and I tried to do all of ’em, so I would find myself up at one in the morning doing some interview in a country somewhere on the other side of the globe, but I almost burnt myself out, trying to keep up with that. In today’s world, I force everybody to schedule those things based on my schedule, so they’re all done by three o’clock in the afternoon regardless of where they are in the world.

I almost burnt myself out, trying to keep up with that. In today’s world, I force everybody to schedule those things based on my schedule, so they’re all done by three o’clock in the afternoon regardless of where they are in the world.

Debbi (): That’s a wise choice. It’s very easy to get burnt out if you get too engaged on the internet.

J.D. (): Yeah, absolutely.

Debbi (): I see it. I hear about it more and more happening with the online creators. It’s kind of scary. How much research do you do when you write a book? Before and during?

J.D. (): Honestly, as little as possible. Research feels like work, and I honestly just making shit up. That’s the part I enjoy. I just had a call right before I jumped on here with you with somebody. We’re working on a nonfiction book together, and it’s a whole different animal because we have to make sure every factual detail is correct. We have to be able to back it up. It’s a homicide that was never actually solved. It’s an unsolved case, but we know all the players that were involved, so we have to be extremely careful. We’re naming real people. If you don’t do that properly, you can end up in a courtroom. It’s like the amount of research involved in that versus writing a fiction book. It’s night and day,

Debbi (): Definitely. What are you reading now?

J.D. (): Ooh, let’s see. I’m looking over at my coffee table for those that can’t see, so I’ve got a copy of Never Flinch, which is Stephen King’s new one. It comes out in about a month. I’ve got an an ARC of that, and right below it is, I’m not sure what it’s actually called, but it’s a new Hunger Games book. I had to order that one.

Debbi (): Yeah, I read the first one. I never got to the next or any after that. I thought it was good. I liked it. Let’s see. What advice would you give to someone who would like a career in writing?

J.D. (): I mean, there’s basically two pieces I think every author needs to do. I think you need to read as much as possible. I’ve never had any formal training. I’ve never taken a single class on writing outside of English class and school, but I’ve read so much that the story structure is just ingrained in my head, so when I’m writing a book, I know the twist needs to happen here. I know the third act needs to start here. Those things feel very intrinsic to me. It’s almost like going down a road and missing your turn. I feel like I missed my turn and I have to go back when I missed one of those points, and it all comes from reading. And the other thing I think you need to do is write every single day, whether you’re writing your book or you’re writing something else, I think you need to write, and I see writing almost like a muscle.

[W]rite every single day, whether you’re writing your book or you’re writing something else, I think you need to write, and I see writing almost like a muscle.

(): It’s like going to the gym. You need to exercise it constantly, and if you don’t, then it gets weak. If you’re there every single day working it out, it gets stronger and stronger, and you’ll see that in your word count. If you set a goal of a hundred words a day, you’ll eventually start to hit that. It’s that much easier to get to 200 and a 300 at 400 before you know what you’re doing, a thousand. But if you dial it back, you take a week off, all of a sudden that gets more difficult to do. So write, write every single day.

It’s like going to the gym. You need to exercise it constantly, and if you don’t, then it gets weak.

Debbi (): Absolutely. Absolutely. And it also helps a lot to know the business before you get into it. The business side of the publishing business.

J.D. (): Yeah. I mean, whether you’re going indie or traditional, I think you need to understand as much of it as possible. I mean, you’re ultimately, you’re creating a product, you’re creating a widget that somebody else has to sell, and you need to understand that. I encourage most authors to try to go the traditional route at first at least, so they can get that experience and see how it’s supposed to work, and then go indie after that. If they decide that that’s the route they want to go. I run into people all the time that tell me I tried to get an agent. Agents kept passing on it, kept passing on it, so I put the book out myself. It drives me nuts when I see people do that because they’re almost shooting themselves in the foot. If agents are passing on your book, there’s a reason they’re passing on the book. You need to figure out what that reason is, figure out how to correct it, and then maybe resubmit it. But I really don’t think anybody should hit that self-publish button unless they’ve got a book that a traditional publisher would publish if you let them. It’s got to be that good. It literally has to be a five star read before you put it out in the marketplace, or it’s going to fizzle and die.

Debbi (): I agree. Quality is very important. The quality of your covers, the quality of the book itself, all these things are extremely important. They’re part of your brand really. They show you’re serious. Running your stuff past an editor, taking their advice, take advice from, get a proofreader too. Get somebody to really look over the copy and make sure it’s perfect. All those things are important. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

J.D. (): No, that’s it. Just check out my new title, Something I Keep Upstairs. It releases May 13th.

Debbi (): Alright, well that’s wonderful. Congratulations on that. And also check out Heavy Are The Stones. I’ve read it and I loved it. Yeah, it was a fun one. I was looking at my review and it was really interesting just to look at a review that I had done ages ago, and I thought, wow, I did love this book. I remember now how much I loved this book and why. Anyway, thank you so much for being here today, and I want to thank everyone who’s listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review. Also, this is the final episode of season 10. I’m officially done. I’ve officially done this for a decade, so I’m not sure how to feel about that. Either happy or freaked out, maybe both.

J.D. (): Sounds like there should be cake.

Debbi (): There should be cake. Yeah. Where’s the cake? The cake did not arrive. Anyway.

J.D. (): All right. Well, thanks for having me, Debbi. I appreciate it.

Debbi (): It was my pleasure. Believe me. Oh, your words are music to my ears, by the way. I got to talk to you about this when we do our bonus episode after this. Anyway, I’m still posting chapters for my work, book reviews and more on my Patreon page, so during the hiatus in the podcast. So check it out. I’m on Patreon. You’ll also find me on Substack doing various things. Until next time and until season 11 starts, take care and happy reading. Be seeing you.

With thanks to my !

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It’s a graphic novel, obviously, and I just am really getting to love graphic novels. I love this kind of imagery and this, and I could show you a lot more. If I I could manipulate the pages faster, it would be better. Oh, here we go. Here’s a big WHACK! of some sort.

I love this kind of stuff. Maybe I should have been a cartoonist. I don’t know. Maybe I could still be a cartoonist. I don’t know. Oh, here’s another one I like. I like when he kind of stacks up these dialogues. It was really interesting to read these. That’s the thing about graphic novels, they’re different. They’re a unique experience in just the feeling of reading the images as well as the dialogue.

It’s like a movie that’s not a movie. It’s like a book of a movie or a movie of a book. No, it’s a book that’s like a movie. It’s like a book that could be easily a movie, very easily. Anyway, it was really good and fun to read. Although I have to admit the type is on the smallish side sometimes, and the background would sometimes be, so it would �� there’d be enough of a coloring, a hue there that it would be hard to make out to type for my old eyes.

Anyway, I still enjoyed it very, very much and if you are into the whole Chandleresque thing, you’ll enjoy this book, I think. If you like graphic novels. Duh. Anyway, take care and I will be seeing you. Thank you.

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This film is 🙂

Actually, more like this! 🙂

You can also get early access on ! A slightly different platform experience. 🙂

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Check out our discussion about her medical and scientific thrillers.

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Debbi (): Hi everyone. My guest today writes fiction in the suspense and thriller genres. Most of her works involve science or medicine. She has a PhD in biochemistry and an MD, and she practiced pathology for more than 20 years. Her books include the Erica Rosen Trilogy, Ties That Kill, and her latest novel, . She’s also published several short stories. It’s my pleasure to introduce my guest, Deven Greene. Hi, Deven. How are you doing today?

Deven (): I’m doing great. How about yourself?

Debbi (): Great, thank you. And I’m glad you’re here today, so very glad that you’re on the show. You live in Northern California? Yes?

Deven (): That’s correct. Yeah.

Debbi (): What part? Because I used to live in Petaluma.

Deven (): Oh, okay. Well, I live, you may have heard of then of Orinda, which is a tiny town, but it’s near Walnut Creek in Berkeley.

Debbi (): Oh, yeah. I remember. It’s the Napa Valley, right?

Deven (): Yeah. Well, yeah.

Debbi (): I’ll be darned. Beautiful country up there.

Deven (): Yeah, no, I like it here.

Debbi (): Yeah. So with a background like yours, I can certainly see how you got inspired to write medical thrillers or science thrillers. When you started writing fiction, did you find you had to kind of adjust your writing to be a bit less formal and more engaging, so to speak?

Deven (): Well, it’s quite different than writing pathology reports, I’ll say that. But I’d say that I’ve read enough fiction, especially in my genre, to be able to adapt pretty easily. And interestingly, when I first started out, I had a resident working under me, and she wrote a pathology report, and she did a description of everything, but she didn’t say what it was, and it was like she was waiting, trying to build up suspense. I said, no, this is a pathology report. You have to say what it is.

Debbi (): Yeah, yeah. Just say it.

Deven (): Yeah. But it’s different in what I’m doing now,

Debbi (): For sure. Yeah. I’m sure you do work in technical terms though. And how do you, what’s your method for taking complex scientific subjects and making them understandable to the average reader?

Deven (): That’s a good question. So I really like to put what I call sciencey things in my writing. That’s one thing I really enjoy doing, and hopefully people will learn things. So I’ll write something and then I’ll go through it several times to simplify it, and then I give it to other people to read who are not in the medical or scientific field and get feedback. And a great one is my little brother who didn’t know the difference between a gallbladder and a kidney, I found out. So he’s a good one. If he can understand it, most people can. So I wind up simplifying. I try to keep it still accurate. Some people may find it too much. I don’t know. They can skip over those parts, but that’s not the main substance of my books.

So I really like to put what I call sciencey things in my writing. That’s one thing I really enjoy doing, and hopefully people will learn things. So I’ll write something and then I’ll go through it several times to simplify it, and then I give it to other people to read who are not in the medical or scientific field and get feedback.

Debbi (): You’d rather sprinkle it in than overwhelm with detail?

Deven (): Yes, that’s my attempt. That’s my attempt.

Debbi (): I think that’s generally the way people approach it. I know that when it comes to legal terminology, I tend to, I used to be very, what’d you call it? Literal in the way I would present something, or very explanatory. It’s like, no, no, no, Debbi. Cut back, make it less explanatory, make it more, make it more like fiction. Duh.

Deven (): Right. It’s not a report. It’s not a brief.

Debbi (): So what is your latest book about?

Deven (): My latest book, The Organ Broker, and I happen to have a copy here.

Debbi (): Nice cover.

Deven (): Trying to get it in focus is about.

Debbi (): It’s a little out of focus there.

Deven (): Well, I’m not being very successful here. There we go. Anyway, it’s about, as one person thought, it was about someone who sells piano type organs to churches. And it’s not that. I think most people would get that. So basically the book starts with a political rally, and there’s a very charismatic speaker, and they’re in front of a big building, and people are holding signs that say, stop, STOP. And they eventually bring somebody, the police bring somebody and lead him wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, bring him into the building. And at the end you realize that he’s going to be executed. And the name of the organization is Stop Transplant of Organs from Prisoners because they’re now executing people and taking their organs to transplant. So that’s basically what it’s about. And it’s about a couple with a very charismatic husband, but he’s a jerk and the wife who’s kind of the brains behind the operation, and she really wants to see it succeed. And there’s this dark character called Broker Al, who actually sells the organs. You learn at some point, and things don’t go as they should. So that’s basically the story.

Debbi (): And what inspired you to write about this particular subject?

Deven (): Good question. I get my thoughts out of thin air. I did read a book a while back, which was interesting, about a man who accompanied his brother who needed a kidney to China. And they used prisoners, as you may or may not know, and it has been brought up in other countries. But it was an interesting read, and I just remembered one part of the book. I couldn’t believe where they’re actually going to get this kidney. And he’s kind of saying, well, who is this guy? And he’s talking to the doctor and the doctor says, this man is very bad. He’s so bad. I would kill him myself.

I get my thoughts out of thin air. I did read a book a while back, which was interesting, about a man who accompanied his brother who needed a kidney to China. And they used prisoners, as you may or may not know, and it has been brought up in other countries.

Debbi (): Oh my goodness.

Deven (): Yeah. But anyway, it is practiced kind of hush-hush in China and probably at countries.

Debbi (): Fascinating. Very interesting.

Deven (): It’s a “what if.�� What if we did that here? It has been talked about, it has been talked about.

Debbi (): That is very interesting. You also are offering to give away a copy of that book as well as the Erica Rosen Trilogy, is it?

Deven (): Yeah. Yeah. I have, it’s called Erica Rosen MD Trilogy. And there’s three books in that one. It’s older, so it’s about a pediatrician who has three events, I’ll say, because the first one, which is called Unnatural, is about genetic engineering. And the second one, Unwitting, is about autism. And the third one, which is called Unforeseen, has to do with pharmaceutical industry. So they’re all different, but they follow a story arc with Erica and her best friend Daisy. She’s a San Francisco pediatrician, but she does wind up going different places in the books.

Debbi (): Are your books generally set in the same area, location?

Deven (): No, actually, I move around. My story Ties That Kill, which I wrote in between takes place in Idaho. And actually after I wrote that there were the four killings in Idaho. These four university students were murdered. It’s been on the news a lot. And then The Organ Broker takes place mostly in Texas, which, it’s kind of a big capital punishment state.

Debbi (): Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That seems appropriate. Yeah.

Deven (): Yeah.

Debbi (): Let’s see. How much research do you do before and while you write your books?

Deven (): I do quite a bit. A lot of the main subjects I write about, I know a fair amount about, but often I have to do more research in that. But there’s also a lot of ancillary things that come up that I kind of don’t know anything about. And I really enjoy learning about these things. They may not be the main subject of the book, but I like to keep things interesting and just introduce things that may be about a place, a thing, a technique, an item. I had to learn some cell phone technology, for instance, for one of my books, learned Bitcoin technology for another of my books. Just a number of random things.

A lot of the main subjects I write about, I know a fair amount about, but often I have to do more research in that. But there’s also a lot of ancillary things that come up that I kind of don’t know anything about. And I really enjoy learning about these things.

Debbi (): I hear that more and more about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, people learning about this stuff. And I’m always amazed. It’s like I can barely wrap my mind around it.

Deven (): Well, I’m not saying I would invest in it, but��

Debbi (): Yeah, really.

Deven (): But I know something about it.

Debbi (): That’s very cool. There’s something I wanted to ask you, and now it’s just completely slipped my mind, but I will just continue on.

Deven (): Okay.

Debbi (): What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Deven (): Well, I’ve actually developed a writing schedule. When I first started to write, I was still working, and then it was just whenever. I couldn’t really easily fit it in, but I did most of my writing more late at night, on the weekends. And sometimes I would take vacation and just stay home and write. I wouldn’t go any place. But now I’m retired, and it took me a while. I would get kind of obsessed and want to just keep writing. And I’ve realized that that’s actually not a good thing. So now what I do is when I’m writing, when I’m doing the rough draft, what I call the rough draft, I write 1100 words a day. I get up, I have my coffee, and then I sit down to write and I write 1100 words, and then I stop. And it actually gives me time to think about changes I might want to make instead of just plowing through it really fast. So that works out well. And then of course, I wind up spending more time editing.

I’ve actually developed a writing schedule. When I first started to write, I was still working, and then it was just whenever. I couldn’t really easily fit it in, but I did most of my writing more late at night, on the weekends. And sometimes I would take vacation and just stay home and write.

Debbi (): Yes. Especially if you’re cranking out a thousand words a day. That’s pretty good. That’s darn good.

Deven (): I really do crank it out. I mean, I don’t correct much. It’s full of misspellings and bad grammar or bad punctuation.

Debbi (): But it’s all stuff you can clean up later.

Deven (): Yes, yes. So.

Debbi (): Getting it on the page is the hard part.

Deven (): Yeah.

Debbi (): Then you can clean it up. I know what I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you, as a pathologist, where did you work? What kind of work did you do?

Deven (): Oh, okay. Well, I was not a forensic pathologist. I was not an examiner. And if there’s any listening, I’m sorry, but they’re weird.

Debbi (): They’re always depicted that way on television too, so maybe that’s accurate.

Deven (): Well, having been to a number of lectures given by medical examiners, without going into any details, they like to show gruesome pictures and they like to shock an audience, even of pathologists. Okay.

Debbi (): Oh, wow.

Deven (): But I practice, actually, there’s a big healthcare institution here called Kaiser Permanente. I dunno the term of it, but it covers a lot of it.

Debbi (): Oh, yeah.

Deven (): So I worked at one of their labs where I got specimens from all over Northern California Kaiser to do special testing on it. I really enjoyed it, and I had to think long and hard about retiring, because I really enjoyed my work. But then I thought, actually the first job I got, the very first job I got, I was called almost in a panic. I had just finished my residency and just finished my boards. And a pathologist had died looking in his microscope, and he just had a heart attack and died, and they did a replacement. And so as I got older, I started thinking, I don’t want to die at the microscope.

I had to think long and hard about retiring, because I really enjoyed my work. �� I had just finished my residency and just finished my boards. And a pathologist had died looking in his microscope, and he just had a heart attack and died, and they did a replacement. And so as I got older, I started thinking, I don’t want to die at the microscope.

Debbi (): Yeah.

Deven (): I want to have some fun. I mean, not that work wasn’t fun, but.

Debbi (): Yeah, I get it.

Deven (): I thought, you know. So I just kind of picked a date five years away and stuck with it. So here I am.

Debbi (): Good thinking. So are you more of a plotter or a pantser? You sound like a pantser.

Deven (): Well, I am a plotter. I always start with a plot, but I have found that if I write anything detailed, it gets changed. I always have a plot. I don’t start with characters. I start definitely with plot, and I know the basic arc, where it’s going to start and where it’s going to end, and maybe some stops along the way, but in between I, I’m a pantser or you could say, but I always know who are ��

Debbi (): Where you’re headed,

Deven (): Where I’m headed. My books are not mysteries. People often say, you’re a mystery writer. I do write some short stories that are mysteries, but they’re, they’re more, you know what’s going on and you know what the stakes are, you may not know how it’s going to shake out. But anyway, that’s what I do. So I definitely have to make a lot of changes along the way. I can’t write that detailed an outline.

Debbi (): Neither can I could never write out every single thing that was going to happen in the book, otherwise I would just write the book.

Deven (): Well, yeah. Well, also you get ideas that pop into your mind. You think you were going to do one thing and then you think this would be better, or you even hear, I mean, actually one thing I’ve learned is I don’t write historical fiction, but in a way that would be easier because things change now. So sometimes I’ve written a book and things have changed while I’m writing it.

I don’t write historical fiction, but in a way that would be easier because things change now. So sometimes I’ve written a book and things have changed while I’m writing it.

Debbi (): Oh, yeah. Yes. It’s a very real problem.

Deven (): Yeah. Like Covid!

Debbi (): Yeah. That was a biggie. Yeah.

Deven (): Yeah. So I had to stick that in. There’s things you have to mention, you started and there was no Covid, nobody had heard of it, but things happened.

Debbi (): Yeah, for sure. In your guest post, you mentioned several writers that you particularly enjoy or were inspired by. Robin Cook, Michael Chrichton, Michael Palmer were three that I remember.

Deven (): Yeah.

Debbi (): Are there any other authors who you enjoy or who inspire you other than those suspects.

Deven (): Actually, I should have put Tess Gerritsen on that list.

Debbi (): Ah. Tess Gerritsen. Okay.

Deven (): Yeah. I mean, these are MDs that write medical thriller type books, which I enjoy. And that’s not the only thing I enjoy. Okay. But that’s what I like to write.

Debbi (): Exactly.

Deven (): Another book I really enjoyed was The Martian. It’s not medical, but it’s what you call sciency. And I really enjoyed that. And I read a lot of nonfiction and I read a lot of other fiction and some I don’t like. I won’t mention the ones I don’t like.

Debbi (): Do you read much science fiction at all?

Deven (): I used to when I was younger, but I really don’t now.

Debbi (): Same here. I tend to read less of it than I used to when I was younger.

Deven (): I mean, I loved Star Wars when it came out.

Debbi (): Oh, yeah.

Deven (): I stopped. I don’t know how many they’ve had now. I’ve lost interest in that. Not that I couldn’t be interested, but there’s so much other stuff.

Debbi (): Cool. Yeah. There are so many books. Yeah.

Deven (): Oh, there’s too many books. There’s so many books I want to read, and I’m not a fast reader, and I like to write and maybe do something else,

Debbi (): Really, you know. Have a life?

Deven (): Yeah. I like to think I do. So all those things take time. But I always enjoy a good book. And I’ve also started reading more memoirs. A lot of memoirs I find very interesting. And they’re usually about people that are known to some extent, and they’re usually quite different than what I expected.

I always enjoy a good book. And I’ve also started reading more memoirs. A lot of memoirs I find very interesting.

Debbi (): That’s interesting.

Deven (): Yeah.

Debbi (): Who in particular has written a memoir that you didn’t expect what they wrote?

Deven (): Well, one that comes to mind that I read fairly recently, Quincy Jones. So I was certainly familiar with Quincy Jones, and I suspected, I mean, he was 90 in his nineties when he died, so he was older and a very successful music. Well, he was a musician, but more of a music producer and that sort of thing. Very successful, often thanked at the Grammys. And I wondered how he got his start, because he started at a time when black people didn’t have a lot of opportunity, and I thought, I wonder if he was born into a rich black family. There were some, so I was curious to see what his story was. Well, I was completely wrong. He was dirt poor. He had a very terrible childhood, but he had an amazing personality and persevere. I mean, he was a force of nature. Very talented. But he just had a way of doing things. I was very impressed. I wish I had that.

Debbi (): Yeah, it would be nice to have that kind of energy. Yeah. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in having a writing career?

Deven (): Well, first of all, don’t expect too much.

Debbi (): Yeah. Boy,.

Deven (): Think everyone says that, but if that’s what you want, I really think, well, one thing I would suggest that I didn’t do was start writing short stories. I started with novels and then I started writing short stories, but I think it would make more sense to start with short stories. One thing I did do before I actually started writing, my first novel, which has yet to be published, is I took classes, I went to seminars, I took classes, paid some money. And I think you need that. You need to learn. Get books. At some point, you have to write. I mean, at some point you have to say, I think I’m ready.

I took classes, I went to seminars, I took classes, paid some money. And I think you need that. You need to learn. Get books. At some point, you have to write. I mean, at some point you have to say, I think I’m ready.

Debbi (): Exactly. And you pick up a good book or two, take a class. And from there, really, you just start writing.

Deven (): Yeah. You have to have to go for it. And then you also have to be very open to criticism because you’ll need it. Yeah. It’s kind of upsetting. You spend a lot of time writing something, you think it’s really good, and maybe it isn’t. It’s a good idea, but it will need some work. And if you have your mother read it, your spouse read it. I mean, everything I read, I have my husband read it first, but he likes everything I read. If everyone in the world was him, I’d be a great success, but they’re not.

You have to have to go for it. And then you also have to be very open to criticism because you’ll need it. Yeah. It’s kind of upsetting. You spend a lot of time writing something, you think it’s really good, and maybe it isn’t. It’s a good idea, but it will need some work.

Debbi (): Fortunately, my husband told me the first draft that I wrote of something was terrible.

Deven (): Oh, that’s nice, actually.

Debbi (): That was the best thing he could have done for me. And I said, you know something, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. This is terrible. So I went back, I made it better, and he said, much better.

Deven (): Good. Yeah.

Debbi (): He’s honest guy.

Deven (): My husband will point out certain things like actually a misspelled word. Well, I don’t need that. But yeah, so it just kind of makes me feel better for somebody to read it. And do you understand? I say, do you understand it? I mean, does it sound like gibberish?

Debbi (): Especially when you’re talking about science stuff? Yeah.

Deven (): Yeah. Of course he knows that, but I still want him to be able to follow the plot. Does it ��

Debbi (): Does it make sense?

Deven (): Does it make sense? You try to make it move not too slowly, but you want it to just flow and you don’t want to leave out too many words or too many sentences. So people will go, wait, what?

Debbi ():Where are we? What’s going on?

Deven (): Exactly. Exactly.

Debbi (): Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Deven (): Well, I think we’ve covered a lot about how I write, what I write. I like to write, I mean, my books aren’t for everyone, but if you like medical thrillers, medical or suspense, things like that, I think that you could like my books.

Debbi (): Fantastic. Well, it sounds like you write some really interesting stuff, and I want to thank you for being here today with us.

Deven (): Okay. Well, thanks for hosting me. I really appreciate it.

Debbi (): It’s my pleasure. And we can talk after this in a little bonus episode that I put up for Patreon supporters, if that’s okay.

Deven (): Oh, okay. I’ll hang on there.

Debbi (): Okay, cool.

Deven (): All right.

Debbi (): Let’s see. So thanks again, Deven, and best of luck with the latest book. Also, to everyone listening, thank you for your interest. I’m so glad for that. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a quick review. It really helps. Furthermore, if you would like to lend a little support toward the production costs of this podcast, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. We offer perks to supporters at different levels, so I hope you’ll check that out. In the meantime, ’till next time, our next guest will be J.D. Barker, and with that, I’ll just say, take care and happy reading. Be seeing you.

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She’s a retired pathologist writing medical and scientific thrillers!

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For early, ad-free access to episodes and more, !

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For the giveaway, she’s offering the winner a choice of either a copy of her latest book, .

Or the complete Erica Rosen MD Trilogy!

To enter the giveaway, just use her website contact form which can be accessed at: When you enter the giveaway, remember to tell Deven which prize you choose.

Now, check out Deven’s post about why she writes what she does.

Why I Write What I Write

The first book that filled me with suspense was The Wizard of Oz. I was in elementary school and worried about what would happen. Would Dorothy make it home? What would happen to the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Lion? Since then,�� I have always enjoyed a good crime or suspense book, whether fiction or non-fiction .As I got older, I graduated to fiction in the mystery and thriller genres.

While in college, I read my first true crime book and I was hooked on reading about things that really happened. As I continued through graduate school and medical school (yes, I spent too much time in school), books involving some aspect of scenece, depecially medical sicence, interested me most.

Thinking back, Robin Cook’s earliest works opened my eyes to�� the genre of medical thriller.�� Many followed. Most notabe, in my mind, are Michael Crighteon and Michael Palmer. They got the science and medicine right.

As I read more in that genre, I noticed that often the plots were weak and the science full of holes. I’m a stickler for details. Finding it hard to back away from something difficult, at some point, I figured, “Hey, I could do this.�� That was the start of my new career (and I use that word loosely) of crime fiction, mostly medical suspense/thriller writing.

I have discovered tha it’s not as easy as it looks. While I enjoy it, I have found writing to be more of a challenge than I anticipated—not that I ever thought it would be easy. There were many challenges for me. The hardest part was trying to get just the right amount of scientific detail in the book. I’m not sure I arrived at the perfect balance of offering accurate scientific information and detail on the one hand, and keeping the narrative understandable and interesting on the other. I would suggest that authors dealing with this dilemma have laypeople read their material and see how they react. Use that information to decide how much detail to leave in or take out.

Another problem I’ve run itno is world events. My first published novel, Unnatural, deals with human embryonic genetic engineering. Although it was possible, it had never been done when I wrote it. Or so I thought. When I was editing my rough draft, a Chinese scientist announced that he had secretly performed human genetic engineering. While many in the scientific community were horrified by this announcement, wondering what the effect would be on the engineered babies (we still don’t know), I scrambled to insert that event into my book. I concluded that if I wrote historical fiction, I’d never have to keep up with world events when writing, as history doesn’t change. Even so, I prefer to write about the current times. Some might consider my works to be science fiction, because they haven’t happened (that we know of), but my plots are currently possible.

One thing I really enjoy about writing is the research I do. Not only do I need to delve deeply into the science behind the main plot, there are ancillary things I need to learn about. The list is long, and includes crypto currency, cell phone technology, pharmaceutical manufacturing, Native American culture, genetic testing, locations I’ve never been to before.

Deven Green lives in Northern California. She enjoys writing fiction in the suspense and thriller genres. Most of her works involve science or medicine. Deven has degrees in biochemistry (PhD) and medicine (MD), and practiced pathology for over twenty years.

She has published The Erica Rosen Trilogy (Unnatural, Unwitting, and Unforeseen),�� Ties That Kill, and several short stories. Her next novel, The Organ Broker, will be released in mid-April, 2025

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Check out our discussion of his debut novel , which is a crime novel, not a financial guide. 🙂

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Don’t forget ! For details about that and his research on the Nigerian police, just click the link!

And for early access to ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and more, !

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He’s giving away a copy of his novel, , to a lucky winner.

To enter the giveaway, just request a copy from Ed through the contact page on . He’ll randomly select a winner from the entries.

Make sure to check out Ed’s story about the “joys�� of researching the Nigerian police!

One of the characters in Wealth Management is a cop from Nigeria. ��To make it realistic, I wanted to meet and talk to some cops from Nigeria. Easier said than done!

How could I meet some African cops?����I could go to Africa and get arrested, but that seemed less than ideal.����I was writing a novel, a thriller called Wealth Management, and I wanted the characters to include a detective from Africa (he would travel to Switzerland to investigate a financial crime with a connection to Africa and terrorists.)����To create the character, I could just make stuff up, or steal from novels set in Africa, or Google the night away.����But I wanted my guy to sound and feel authentic and, as a former journalist, I know you can’t beat reality.����Yes, it is often “stranger than fiction.”����It is even more often simply more interesting.

������������������������So I wanted to meet and talk to African cops, preferably from a country where English was spoken.����So I wrote a letter to the Gambian embassy explaining my request.����No response.����I knew a woman in California who was married to a Ghanaian, whose brother, she said, knew police officers in Accra.����I sent a letter to her, to be given to her husband, to be forwarded to his brother, to be forwarded to said police officers.

������������������������No response.

�� �� �� �� �� �� Getting desperate, I logged onto Amazon and searched for “police in africa,�� and, lo and behold, found a book called��Police��in��Africa.����It included a chapter about the Nigerian Police Force written by an Oxford sociologist who had spent a year with them.����I tracked down his address and sent him an email:����“Hi, you don’t know me, but I was wondering if you…etc.”����I did mention that I was a long-time writer for the TV show “Law & Order,�� which I thought might give me some cred.

������������������������It did, and he agreed to meet me, and I flew to England to see him (hey, tax-deductible business expense!), and we drank some beer and he told me about Nigeria and its police force and said he would arrange some introductions.����Bingo.����Now all I had to do was fly to Nigeria.

������������������������I set off with some trepidation.����Lagos is, in a nutshell, a tough town.����The population is fifteen million or thereabouts.����Nobody knows for sure.����The average daily temperature is about 90, with the humidity always over 80 percent.����Every short walk I took around my hotel left me drenched with sweat, but at least it was safe, the Oxford sociologist said, as long as I walked during daylight hours.����Lagos traffic jams (“go-slows��) are legendary.����The driver I hired to guide me around (for $35 a day) spent his nights sleeping in his car outside my hotel; the alternative was a six-hour roundtrip drive to his house across town.����Taxis and Ubers are okay, the Oxford sociologist advised, except “don’t get into a taxi with another person, that’s how you get kidnapped.��

������������������������As for the Nigerian police, they are notoriously corrupt, well known for shaking down motorists at checkpoints and worse.����“If a policeman comes to your house and sees five thousand dollars on a table,�� one civilian told me, “you are dead.����He will come back later and kill you.”����The criminals are world-class, too.����One police officer I met, a man well-known for being honest, told me that when he drives cross country, he hides his uniform in the trunk of his car and removes his police license plates.����If marauding armed robbers know he is police, they will know he has weapons and kill him to steal them.

������������������������And that’s not all he told me.����He and other good cops I spoke to gave me the kind of factoids that add texture to a story.����When a police officer is killed, a sign is posted outside the station saying “Gone Too Soon�� and giving his widow’s bank account details.����A police officer may read The New Dawn, the police department newspaper, in his station but will never carry it outside with him (see license plate anecdote above).

������������������������And there were bigger true stories:

������������������������One officer tracked and arrested a gang of Chadian killers near the Nigeria-Chad border.����After they were jailed, a man showed up to offer the officer a massive bribe to make the case go away.����(The man said the money came from the forlorn mother of one of the arrestees, who had sold her cows to raise the cash to free her “innocent�� boy.)����The officer declined, but his boss took the bribe, and the killers were freed, and they came after the officer for revenge and beat him so badly he lost an eye.����Years later, he encountered his boss again at an official function and �� “He didn’t look me in the eye.��

������������������������Another officer investigated the case of a woman who flew home from London and was followed from the airport to her house by robbers who shot her and stole her purse.����She was taken to a hospital, where she died.����Her daughter called the officer and asked what had happened to the 30,000 pounds sterling she had wrapped in her girdle.����(The robbers had not undressed her.)����The officer suspected the doctor and nurses who had treated the woman at the hospital of both robbing and killing her.����They confessed, he told me, after “persistent questioning, direct eye contact, and a persuasion toward empathy.”����The case was dropped, however, because the hospital’s owner was well-connected.����The good news: the officer’s superiors knew he had solved the crime and for that he was rewarded.

������������������������Not all my interviews were that successful.����Several officers suggested I speak to high-ranking officials at the FCIID (the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department), Nigeria’s equivalent of the FBI.����I found its headquarters on a ramshackle side street, looking like a derelict motel, with hand-painted signs pointing the way to various offices and warning lesser officials not to park in their superiors�� spaces.����Looming ironically over the mess was a half-completed high-rise intended to replace the current offices.����It had been abandoned mid-construction following exposés of massive corruption.����If the police couldn’t get their own new headquarters erected honestly��.

������������������������In a reception area, I gave the name of an official I had been told to see.����The receptionist made a call and a middle-aged woman came and took me to her office.����There, she told me she was an investigator and introduced me to the Principal Staff Officer to the Inspector General, who took me to the office of another senior officer, who took me to the office of a more senior officer, who may or not have been the Inspector General, or possibly the Assistant Inspector General; he wouldn’t tell me.����Instead he explained to me the meaning of the word “hierarchy,�� the rules of which I had violated.����What I needed to do, he said, is get authorization from national police headquarters in Abuja and then he will tell me anything I want.����And, by the way, don’t let the door hit me in the ass on the way out.����I told him good-bye and took a couple of pieces from a candy dish on a table by the door.����By then I had what I needed anyway.

Edward Zuckerman began his career as a journalist, writing about zombies, killer bees, talking apes and other subjects for��Rolling Stone,��Spy, the��New Yorker,���Ჹ������’s,��Esquire, and many other magazines.�� He wrote two well-reviewed nonfiction books,��The Day After World War III��and��Small Fortunes, and then moved into writing for television dramas, including the original “Law & Order�� (50+ episodes), “Blue Bloods,�� and “Law & Order: SVU.”�� He has won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and an Emmy for his work on “Law & Order.”�� He lives in Manhattan and Manhattan Beach, California.��Wealth Management��is his first novel.

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Brenda discusses her journey from writing for her daughters to becoming a published author, her inspiration for various protagonists, and her writing process. She also shares insights into her latest series, the Hunter and Tate Mysteries, set in Ottawa. Brenda emphasizes the importance of setting in her novels and offers advice for aspiring writers. Check out the interview for more about Brenda’s career and her approach to crafting compelling crime fiction.

You can download here.

Debbi (): Hi everyone. My guest today is a Canadian crime fiction author with 25 published novels as well as standalones and short stories. She writes various police procedurals and mystery series for adults as well as mysteries for middle grade readers, which I think is really cool.

(): She is currently working on her new mystery series in Ottawa, set in Ottawa called the Hunter and Tate Mysteries. The third book in the series, Fatal Harvest, comes out in April, came out in April 2024. Sorry, excuse me. Her work has been shortlisted for several awards, including the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence, so wow. Okay. So she was once the writer-editor, I have to note here of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which really intrigued me because I used to work at EPA, but we can talk about that later maybe. That stuff is fascinating to me. In any event, it’s my pleasure to introduce crime writer Brenda Chapman. Hey Brenda, how are you doing?

Brenda (): Great, thanks, Debbi. Thanks for having me.

Debbi (): Oh, it’s a pleasure, believe me. And finding out that you worked in pest management, wrote about pest management to me is just fascinating.

Brenda (): I was only one of a group of writer-editors.

Debbi (): Yeah. Well, very cool. Still, we’ll have to talk about that at some point. Back when I was practicing law, I worked at the Office of General Counsel, Pesticides and Toxics Division, so I worked a lot on FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. What a mouthful, right?

Brenda (): Fiction is much more fun.

Debbi (): So anyway, when you first started writing fiction with serious Intent to be published, what inspired you to write for middle graders?

Brenda (): Well, my daughters were 12 and nine, and I was actually teaching at the time. I was teaching kids with special ed and reading with some of them, and I thought—one girl brought in a book to read aloud to me, and I thought I could do a better plot than this. And that got me spurred into trying it, and it was really just to see if I could do it. So I wrote the Jennifer Bannon Mysteries. The first one was called Running Scared, and I really wrote it for my daughters. And when I finished the manuscript and my youngest was reading it and she said, “Mummy, you write just like a real author.�� And I thought, wow, maybe I can get this published. So I spent my lunch hours trying to find a publisher and found one in Toronto. They took that first one and it turned into a four book series in the end.

The first one was called Running Scared, and I really wrote it for my daughters. And when I finished the manuscript and my youngest was reading it and she said, “Mummy, you write just like a real author.��

Debbi (): That’s awesome. So you found one in Toronto then? That’s great.

Brenda (): Yeah.

Debbi (): Fantastic. Is it a small press?

Brenda (): It was. They’ve been absorbed by Dundurn, which is a bigger middle press in Toronto, and they’ve taken over my books from that time and the Stonechild and Rouleau series, which is �� I went from writing for kids to writing for adults, and I did the Stonechild and Rouleau series, which is seven books set in Kingston with an indigenous lead detective, a woman, Kala Stonechild, and yeah, that series has done quite well, and I’m actually now writing the eighth. The publishers contracted me to do another book.

Debbi (): Fantastic. Congratulations. It’s wonderful. And I read your article, fabulous article on you there in that local paper.

Brenda (): Well, that was actually my old university. Lakehead University a couple years ago interviewed me and people in my life in the publishing business and put together that article. So yeah, it was.

Debbi (): Oh, that is wonderful. That is great. Let’s see. What has led you to choose particular protagonists in your various series? I noticed you have a number of them, different series and protagonists.

Brenda (): Yeah, I have three adult series. So the Kala Stonechild, I was actually working at Department of Justice and I had the indigenous file in communications. I was a senior communications advisor, and Kala Stonechild came out of my frustration with everything I was reading in the news. I’d have to go through the news every morning and the missing and murdered indigenous women, the conditions on reserves. I’m sure it’s the same. I live in Ottawa in Canada, but I know it’s a lot the same in the US. So Kala kind of came out of that, and I knew when I was writing a series that I needed a hook and she kind of became my hook. In another series that I was writing at the same time, I was contracted by a different publisher to write adult literacy series of novellas. And for that they wanted a strong woman. They wanted conflict with someone else in her life. They wanted a good mystery set in Canada and humor, and it had to be written at a grade three, four level, but for adults.

I was a senior communications advisor, and Kala Stonechild came out of my frustration with everything I was reading in the news. I’d have to go through the news every morning and the missing and murdered indigenous women, the conditions on reserves.

(): Yeah, yeah. So Anna Sweet is a PI living in Ottawa, and the mysteries are a lot of fun. The books are about 14,000 words, and that was kind of where she came from. And then the series I’m writing now, because Stonechild and Rouleau had been a police procedural, I thought, I really love police procedurals, but I’d like to not have both my main characters be cops. So Ella Tate is a reporter who’s been let off, let go from the paper as many have been. And she started up a true crime podcast and she freelances a bit with the paper, but she’s dirt poor. She’s living in a garrett apartment in the Glebe, which is the neighborhood in Ottawa near the canal, which I had lived in, and I actually put her in the apartment I used to live in before I met my husband.

I really love police procedurals, but I’d like to not have both my main characters be cops. So Ella Tate is a reporter who’s been let off, let go from the paper as many have been.

It was in an old brick house on the third floor and cold as heck in the winter just anyhow, she’s living there. And so she kind of came out of all that. And in the first book, which is called Blind Date, it’s about Ella Tate’s story and her background and how she had quite a rough life. Her brother, who she was looking after is living on the streets now. When the book begins, people in her life start being harmed and she begins to realize that they’re after her. And the apartment that she had had to move from when she lost her job, the woman there is assaulted and she looks a lot like Ella Tate, the protagonist.

Debbi (): Yeah, fascinating. Very, very interesting. I noticed your series of novellas and I thought, wow, I love novellas. They seem like just a perfect length. It’s like not too long, not too short, just enough to get some meat on the bones.

Brenda (): Yeah, yeah, they’re great. You have to be very tight with your words. You can’t have any extra ones. I had a terrific editor for that series and the Anna Sweet Mysteries, I really enjoyed writing them. They were a lot of fun.

Debbi (): Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to try more of those, frankly, just for a sense of completion quicker. Do you find they’re faster to write?

Brenda (): Oh yeah. They took about three months to write and a full length novel takes me about eight, nine months.

Debbi (): Yeah, at least. Yeah, for sure.

Brenda (): Yeah.

Debbi (): Let’s see. Now, I saw that you stuck with a desire to set your books in Ottawa rather than in the US as you were advised. I think that’s an excellent decision, personally. I think we here in the States are fascinated with what goes on in other places, frankly.

Brenda (): Yeah. Well, I have so many American readers that really enjoy the books being set in Ottawa, and I actually had one reader from Minnesota email me through my website and she said, I’m going to come up and visit all the places in your Stonechild and Rouleau series.

Debbi (): Oh, wow.

I have so many American readers that really enjoy the books being set in Ottawa, and I actually had one reader from Minnesota email me through my website and she said, I’m going to come up and visit all the places in your Stonechild and Rouleau series.

Brenda (): So she went to Kingston and all over and she sent me an email afterward and said it was just the greatest time and she had a photo of herself canoeing on a lake somewhere. It was just great.

Debbi (): Oh, that’s great. That’s fantastic. Yeah, I’d love to go up to Canada and take the train across the country. That’s my big dream at this point. To see the Canadian Rockies.

Brenda (): A beautiful trip.

Debbi (): Yeah. How much research do you do before and while writing your books?

Brenda (): It will depend on the book. Some of them, I do quite a bit of research. I read up on them. I do a lot of research on Google in looking for information. I use Google Earth a lot. Sometimes I write about a place I haven’t been, so I look it up on the map and then I find all the photos of it and read up the town, whatever their website is and that kind of thing. But a lot of it, I’m just making it up.

Debbi (): Yeah, I know the feeling. Yeah, sometimes you just kind of have to trust that a certain amount of common sense will work for you.

Brenda (): Exactly. And sometimes I think, well, I don’t know exactly how this should go, but nobody else does either unless you’re in the profession. But I have had a couple of cops that have helped me out. They’ve read through my stuff and given me some pointers.

Debbi (): Yeah, that’s always helpful to have people who are in the business you’re writing about comment on stuff, that’s for sure. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Brenda (): Well, that fluctuates. I’m a pantser. I know that you’re a plotter, from a different video. So the way I work is I come up with the idea of the crime and I decide who did it and the motivation, and that’s usually all I know when I start writing. And I’m not some really, really disciplined. I write when I feel I want to write, but lately I’ve been trying to write 500 words a day. I have a book coming out May 1st, the fourth in the Hunter and Tate series. It’s called Who Lies In Wait. So I’ve been working on that and now I’m working on the launch and all that kind of thing. But I also have a contract with Dundurn to have a book done June 1st, so I’m plugging away on that. So I’ve had to be more disciplined this time around, but I tend to write later in the morning and into the evening. Sometimes, off and on.

So the way I work is I come up with the idea of the crime and I decide who did it and the motivation, and that’s usually all I know when I start writing.

Debbi (): It’s interesting. I used to be an afternoon writer, now I’m a morning writer.

Brenda (): Yeah.

Debbi (): It’s weird how these things can work and how they can change.

Brenda (): I used to be morning and now I’m more afternoon.

Debbi (): Yeah. Let’s see. Yeah, as a pantser, wow. I’m just blown away by people who can just sit down and write without actually figuring out some plot points ahead of time.

Brenda (): You have to edit a lot. There’s a lot. You find your clues and make sure everything’s lined up properly. So at the book I’m writing now, the manuscript, I have two months to pull it together, basically. I’m almost done writing it.

Debbi (): Oh, good luck with that and I’m sure you’ll do great.

Brenda (): Real work Is ahead. Yeah.

Debbi (): Lots of experience at this point. What, 25 books? 24 books you have?

Brenda (): Twenty-five, but the 26th is coming out in two months. So.

Debbi (): You’ve done this before. It’s not like you don’t know what you’re doing.

Brenda (): Every time. It’s difficult. Every book has its own challenges and you always think at the end of it, it this any good? And I think part of it is you work on it for so long. I don’t know if you find this, that there comes a point where you go, this is awful. Why am I writing? And then it.

It’s difficult. Every book has its own challenges and you always think at the end of it, it this any good? And I think part of it is you work on it for so long.

Debbi (): Oh, I know. I think every single writer must feel that way when they’re working on something. It’s like, what possessed me to go in this direction with this person? Why am I doing this?

Brenda (): What makes me think I can do this?

Debbi (): But then at some point you realize there’s a way to get through it and you get the thing done. It’s very interesting how that happens.

Brenda (): Magical.

Debbi (): It is. Yeah, there’s a certain amount of magic to it. So what author has most inspired you to become a writer?

Brenda (): Well, as a child, I really loved Enid Blyton. Dunno if you’ve ever read her book, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven. I just loved books where they went on adventures and solved puzzles. I’ve always loved the murder mystery genre, read a lot through university. Which authors �� I really loved To Kill a Mockingbird. I have to say that that book inspired me as well, and I know it is kind of a mystery. And in the crime writing genre, I love Michael Connelly’s books. There’s so many. Ann Cleeves, Denise Mina in Scotland. There’s so many great writers and I read quite widely.

Debbi (): Yeah, me too. I like all different types of books. What do you like to read outside of the genre?

Brenda (): Well, I belong to a book club and they pick, they’re quite well read and they pick different books, so I just enjoy reading whatever comes up,

Debbi (): Whatever comes up.

Brenda (): Right now we’re reading The Pull of the Stars by—see the book over here—Emma Donoghue. She’s a Canadian author and it’s about a pandemic 1918, and it’s told from the point of view of a nurse who’s working in a maternity ward and everyone’s sick, but it’s actually quite a good story with a lot of history to it. And so I enjoy all kinds of books.

Debbi (): Yeah, I enjoy history and historical fiction, that kind of thing. There’s a lot of good stuff out there. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in having a writing career?

Brenda (): Don’t do it.

Debbi (): Don’t do it? Don’t do it, if you want to make money right away,

Brenda (): I wish I had taken a creative writing course at university. I took English literature, but I think I would’ve gained a lot from a whole four year degree in creative writing. The other thing I would say is you just got to sit in the chair and do it, and it takes practice. It’s like any profession, you have to work away at it. You have to have good grammar skills and you have to treat it as a profession, I think if you’re going to be really good at it.

I wish I had taken a creative writing course at university. I took English literature, but I think I would’ve gained a lot from a whole four year degree in creative writing.

Debbi (): Exactly. Yeah, certainly you have to do the writing. You also have to get out there and have your writing looked at and commented on, get good criticism on it. Do you have beta readers or a writer’s group that you rely on?

Brenda (): I do for this series. I have beta readers and they have the first look at it, and I’m really trying to find out if they’re enjoying it. And then professional editors, of course, editing is massive to make a book shine and I realize with every book just how important it is to put in that time.

Debbi (): It is, it’s very important. And that’s something people really need to appreciate before they put their work out there, I think. How important it is to really make it look good and to make it something that people will want to read and want to keep reading.

Brenda (): Most authors will tell you that their first book never got published, but they’re glad in the end that it didn’t.

Debbi (): Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Would you say that Ottawa is a character in your books?

Brenda (): Oh, definitely. To me, the setting is so important and the feel you get from the setting. I don’t write a lot of description. I kind of slip it in so I don’t have great tracks of description. But in this latest one, Who Lies in Wait, it’s set in winter in Ottawa. And during the period that I’m writing the book, it’s snowing. There’s a big blizzard, goes on for a couple of days, the power’s off. It’s just great for writing a murder history to have all this, but I think the setting and the mood and all of that is another character in the book. And I don’t know about you, but I love reading murder mysteries set in different places. Just for that. I’d like to find out more about the place.

To me, the setting is so important and the feel you get from the setting. I don’t write a lot of description. I kind of slip it in so I don’t have great tracks of description.

Debbi (): Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I like that kind of thing. Definitely. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Brenda (): No, it’s been great. I enjoy writing, I love reading, and I love hearing from readers. My website is brendachapman.ca and you can contact me through there. I also enjoy visiting book clubs to talk about writing, and I can do that by Zoom as we are today or in person.

Debbi (): Alright, well that’s wonderful. Thank you so much, Brenda. I want to thank you for taking the time to be here to tell us about this and to talk about your books.

Brenda (): Well, thank you Debbi. It’s been great.

Debbi (): Well, thank you. And on that note, I will just say please, listeners, I would appreciate anybody who enjoyed this episode to please leave a review. I would really appreciate that. Reviews help a lot. Also, if you would take a look at our Patreon page, you’ll see that I’m now serializing the novel Red Harvest because it’s in the public domain now. And I thought, what fun to share. Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op with the world on my Patreon page. So go to my Patreon page if you want to check it out, find out all about the Continental Op, that fictional detective based on Hammett’s experiences working as a Pinkerton agent. In any case, our next episode will feature Edward Zuckerman as my guest. Until then, take care and happy reading.

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