{"id":2443,"date":"2017-12-28T12:07:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T20:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=2443"},"modified":"2017-12-28T12:07:08","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T20:07:08","slug":"author-interview-emily-littlejohn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/author-interview-emily-littlejohn\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview: Emily Littlejohn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EmilyI had meaning to get to Emily Littlejohn<\/a>\u2019s books for awhile \u2013 mainly thanks to a blurb from Deborah Crombie \u2013 and with a rare \u201cfree reading moment,\u201d I picked up the second book and was immediately smitten. The blend of the Colorado setting, indelible characters, twisty plots and a haunting overlay of folk tales in her now two novels, got me completely hooked. She was nice enough to answer a few questions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: I just finished your first book, and had a hard time believing it really was a first book, as you write with such a mature and nuanced voice.\u00a0 What led to this first book?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I have always been a huge reader, especially of mysteries and horror fiction. After working in public libraries for over a decade, I felt I’d been exposed to enough good (and not so good) literature to have an\u00a0understanding of what might\u00a0make a good story! I’d always wanted to try my hand at writing\u00a0fiction and I tinkered around on a few drafts of some books that will never see the light of day (they are that bad). When I decided to get serious about writing, it came very naturally.<\/p>\n

Q: I loved that the main character, Gemma, was heavily pregnant in the first book and realistically dealing with an infant in the second.\u00a0 I’ve enjoyed many police novels by women through the years (Anne Wingate and Barbara D’Amato to name two) that really dealt with the balance of work and child care in a realistic way.\u00a0 Was this something that was important for you to write about?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A: Ironically, I was six months pregnant with my first child when\u00a0Inherit\u00a0the Bones\u00a0<\/em>was published. At the\u00a0time I wrote the book, I loved the idea of a strong, pregnant detective. As I’ve gotten further into motherhood myself, it has become even more important to tell Gemma’s story. Like so many women in every industry, Gemma really does struggle to find that balance between career and family.<\/p>\n

Q: While these are certainly technically procedurals, they fall heavily into the traditional detective category (to my delight) but I’m assuming you still needed to ground your story realistically,\u00a0 What kind of research did you do to get the police details right?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: Does watching\u00a0Law and Order<\/em>\u00a0count as research? I have a\u00a0couple of\u00a0reference books that I use when I need to get a particular detail correct, such as the name of a weapon or a point of procedure. I try to include enough detail to be realistic yet not so much that the reader\u00a0gets bogged down in the\u00a0minutiae. I joke that if I don’t\u00a0include too many police details, I’ll have less that I can get wrong!<\/p>\n

Q: Another thing I enjoyed immensely, brought out differently in each novel, were the references to folk or fairy tales.\u00a0 <\/em>A Season to Lie was especially haunting with the use of the Yeats poem.\u00a0 What drew you to these references?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: After including an element of folklore in\u00a0Inherit the Bones<\/em>, I knew I wanted to do the same in\u00a0A Season to Lie.<\/em>\u00a0I stumbled upon the Yeats\u00a0poem while flipping through an old book of poetry that my father gave me years ago. I’d never read that particular poem before and I found it incredibly visual\u00a0and striking. I love the idea of my fictional characters alluding to other works of\u00a0literature, so it was fun to place a\u00a0particularly nasty character\u00a0into\u00a0A Season to Lie<\/em>\u00a0who happened to have a fondness for\u00a0quoting great poets.<\/p>\n

Q: I thought both books confounded expectations in a good way.\u00a0 In the first one, you use the circus as a background, with a dead clown, which sounded cheesy but definitely wasn’t.\u00a0 The circus setting was very effective and I wonder how you came up with the idea for using it as a background?\u00a0 You really brought “The Greatest Show on Earth” down to reality.<\/em><\/p>\n

A: As I started to write\u00a0Inherit the Bones<\/em>, three things came to me sort of all at once, and those three things laid the groundwork for the story. They were: pregnant cop; small town still living with unsolved trauma; and dead clown in full make-up. To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea where those three ideas came from. A muse? My subconscious? No idea. But the image of the dead clown,\u00a0especially, was very striking and I found myself wondering who the person was, behind all that make-up. I knew I wanted to write his story.<\/p>\n

Q: In the new book, a dead writer is found in the snow, again, almost cheesy.\u00a0 He even has a note stuffed in his mouth.\u00a0 But then you ran with it.\u00a0 I guess what I’m asking is what steps to you take to make the unbelievable not only real, but resonant?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A: That’s an\u00a0interesting\u00a0question and one that I’m not sure I can answer. I only know that as I write, it’s as though a movie is playing in my mind. I can see the setting, the characters, their next moves, all of it. The farther I get into a story, the\u00a0more detailed and rich it\u00a0becomes, and\u00a0the more real it feels. It\u00a0truly does start to seem\u00a0as though this really\u00a0happened.\u00a0<\/em>And I’m simply recounting it for the audience.<\/p>\n

Q: What do you start with when you begin a story?\u00a0 Plot, setting, character?\u00a0 All seemed essential in both books (my definition of a really good book).\u00a0 What is it that kicks off a story for you?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: For me, character drives everything.\u00a0 If I can’t feel something for the characters\u2014positive or negative\u2014I could\u00a0care less how spectacular or inventive the plot is. What really kicks off a story for me is\u00a0typically one or two thoughts…or questions. For\u00a0Inherit the\u00a0Bones,\u00a0<\/em>it was “who is this dead clown and what if anything does he have to do with an unsolved crime from thirty years ago?” For\u00a0A Season to Lie<\/em>, it was “why has a famous author been murdered on the grounds of a private school in the middle of a blizzard?”<\/p>\n

Q: One of the other things I truly enjoyed was that while Gemma is grappling with the darkness of her past as well as the darkness of the cases she deals with, she’s also trying to see what’s good in life.\u00a0 What do you see for Gemma, going forward, as she grows as a character?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: Gemma will continue to try to find that elusive balance between career and family. She and Brody, her romantic partner, will either settle into domestic life… or they won’t (I know what happens, but no spoilers allowed!)<\/em>. Her grandmother’s dementia is of course progressing and I see Gemma representing that sandwich generation, where she’s caring for an ailing parent (figure) and at the same time caring for her child. And of course crime never sleeps in Cedar Valley, so\u00a0there will continue to be murders and mayhem.<\/p>\n

Q: Can you name a book that was transformational for you?\u00a0 One that truly set you on the life path of reading\/writing?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I don’t know about transformational, but I read a lot\u00a0of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton and Robin Cook in my younger years.\u00a0Real page-turners. I grew up in a house where there were a lot of books, and nothing was off-limits to me. So, from a very early age, I was a voracious reader. But I didn’t have the confidence to take a stab at writing until I was much older. That’s probably my biggest regret… I wish I’d started writing ten years before I did!<\/p>\n

Q: And can you give us a sneak peek of your next book, out in 2018?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I’d be happy to!\u00a0Lost Lake\u00a0<\/em>takes place over the course of a few weeks in spring. Gemma is called out to the beautiful but isolated Lost Lake after a young woman disappears on a camping trip. Shortly after, a priceless\u00a0artifact is stolen from the local history\u00a0museum and the missing woman’s boss\u2014the\u00a0museum director\u2014is viciously killed. Are these three crimes connected? As Gemma investigates, she\u00a0learns of the tragic and gruesome\u00a0history of the lake… a lake that seems to\u00a0hold secrets worth\u00a0dying for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had meaning to get to Emily Littlejohn\u2019s books for awhile \u2013 mainly thanks to a blurb from Deborah Crombie \u2013 and with a rare \u201cfree reading moment,\u201d I picked up the second book and was immediately smitten. The blend of the Colorado setting, indelible characters, twisty plots and a haunting overlay of folk tales … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2445,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions\/2445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}