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Author Update 2024: Michael Backus

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Author and creative writing instructor Michael Backus is an essayist, novelist, short story writer and screenwriter as well as a memoirist. His latest release, The Heart Is Meat: An 80s Memoir (Oil on Water Press, August 2024), is a “raw…tender…self-portrait of the artist as a strung-out young meat market worker in the throes of a volatile love affair” and “vividly evokes the carnival seaminess and romance of pre-gentrified downtown New York.” You’ll find Mike on his website MichaelJBackus.com and on Facebook and Twitter. For more about his work, read SWW’s 2017 and 2022 interviews.

Why did you write The Heart Is Meat and who did you write it for?
In my synopsis/pitch for the book, I wrote:

In 1982, NYC’s meatpacking district was a wild confluence of meat market workers, gay men hitting The Mineshaft, NJ mafiosos, veterans of three wars, heroes of the French resistance and Holocaust survivors.

It was a startling new world for a 22-year-old who grew up in a small town in Indiana. I never dreamed of moving to NYC; if my sister hadn’t moved there in 1978, it wouldn’t even have been on my radar. I got a job tossing meat at Adolf Kusy Pork and Provisions through my sister’s boyfriend; it was 1982 and NYC was still an exciting and scary place and the Gansevoort Meatpacking district on the north edge of Greenwich Village was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was pure chaos from 3:00 to 10:00 am, the streets clogged with hundreds of men in white coats, trucks blowing their horns, semi-trailers wanting to get unloaded and gay men frequenting the Mineshaft and the Anvil, two heavy leather clubs. More than anything, I wanted the book to be a document of that time and that place, a world of drugs, violence, levity, desperation, and hard work. I wanted to recreate the ongoing profanely aggressive dark comedy that was the meat market in general and our meat house in particular. Jimmy, my old boss at Kusy’s, had t-shirts made up that read “Adolf Kusy Pork and Provisions, we have the meat and the motion, the wild and craziest meat house in NYC.” A few years ago, I tracked down Jimmy and he said;

“I wish now I had a tape recorder and had just recorded every day down there. Just the…stories alone, the shit people came up with every day, the insanity of that place.”

If you go to NYC’s meatpacking district today, it seems almost impossible to believe my market of the early 80s ever existed. There’s the new Whitney museum, a seemingly endless number of high-end stores and restaurants, the lovely High Line park built on the old High Line railroad tracks (weedy and abandoned in the 80s). Today, a Van’s shoe superstore sits where Kusy once did. So first and foremost, I wrote the book because working there was a central experience in my life and I wanted to honor that. But I also felt some responsibility to make the book a document of a place and a time that’s so long gone, it’s hard to imagine it ever existed.

When did you know you wanted to write this portion of your life’s story? What prompted the push to begin the project?
I wrote a fiction short story back in the 90s called “Meat” that is loosely based around my experiences in the market in the 80s. It was published in the Portland Review, a literary magazine out of Portland State University and for a long time, I considered that my best short story. At that time, I wasn’t very interested in memoir. I resented its place in our literary culture, the idea that memoir was somehow “more true” than fiction, which is a ridiculous simplification. If I thought about it at all, it was as a possible novel and as a possible novel, I wasn’t interested in imposing an invented plot on what had been my life.

Then life intruded. I got older, people close to me started dying of old age and at some point, it was like someone threw a switch and I found myself writing short memoir pieces which eventually led to beginning the book that would become The Heart is Meat. One thing I learned about memoir is it’s easier to structure your narrative if you simply commit to a chronological approach, the structure takes care of itself and you can concentrate on content. With fiction, structure is never a given and the sheer number of ways you can approach a fiction narrative are daunting. That wasn’t an issue in writing this book and I found that very freeing.

I should also mention that a large part of the book is about maintaining a live-in relationship, living in the East Village of the early 1980s, going to art shows and dance clubs and guerilla art installations on the Hudson River piers. I try to capture what it was like to live in a New York City very different from today; how it could be scary, but it was also lively and exciting.

How is the book structured and why did you choose to put it together that way? How did you decide when to end the memoir?
I structured the book chronologically more or less but I made a couple of decisions about structure. For one, I wanted to start on action, just jump right into the moment so I didn’t detail how I ended up in NYC in the beginning, I started right in the middle of a day at work in the market, a day when my character was expected to apologize to a meat inspector I’d had a run in with a few days before. Adolf Kusy Pork and Provisions carried only boxed meat, so meat inspectors never bothered us, but they could cause problems if they wanted to which was why I was being forced to say “I’m sorry” for something I considered the fault of the inspector. This forms the first 30 pages or so of the book.

After this opening, I mostly moved forward chronologically but about halfway into the book, I have a second structural section where over a five-day period (the overall section is called “The Great Stakeout” and is broken down into sections marked Day One, Day Two…to Day Five) I detail two dramatic events happening at the same time. At work, there had been a holdup and murder in a nearby meat house and Adolf Kusy had the most ready cash on hand (we did more retail business than anyone else in the market) and everyone was sure we would be next. Plainclothes cops spent five days wearing white butcher’s coats and pretending to work among us while waiting for the robbers to strike. At the same time, the mother, father and sister of the woman I lived with were visiting from overseas and staying with us in our cramped East Village apartment. Each of the five days, I navigated work and cops and possible danger from 4:00 am to 2:00 pm, then after, when normally I’d be napping, I hosted her parents, running around the city, doing touristy things. It was a lot going on at the same time, but it ended up being a central structural part of the book.

About the ending, I struggled with it for some time and I still don’t think it’s perfect. If the book is partly about working in the Gansevoort meat market and living in a very different NYC, it’s also about the slow dissolution of a relationship. I used that final breakup as the end of the book, but after I was done, I interviewed my old boss Jimmy and added an Epilogue with information on what happened to some of the characters in the book over the previous 25 years. Jimmy remembered some things differently than I did and I included those memories without changing my own, this memoir being how I remembered my life back then. The epilogue also allowed me to include one of Jimmy’s memories about the market then, which helped me make one last point about the uniqueness of that particular time and place, which worked as the actual ending to the book.

Tell us more about how the book came together.
Writing took a couple of years; I mentioned a fiction short story “Meat” earlier, that story had an aggressive, profane and hopefully comic voice and I was able to find that voice very early on in writing the memoir. That was a huge help. But after multiple rejections, I’d more or less given up on publishing the book. It had some of the best writing I’ve done in my writing career, but it seemed out of step with our literary and social culture; the meat market world in 1982 was often over the top in how people expressed themselves, how they acted (toxic masculinity sums up the market nicely), and while I’m totally on board with our larger culture’s attempts to embrace a more open, inclusive approach to everything, I wasn’t sure my book really fit into the American literary world of today. Oil on Water Press is out of England and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that an English publisher accepted my book. I’m not convinced an American publisher ever would have. In terms of the book cover, the publisher came up with it after I sent them a photo from the 80s of Adolf Kusy’s sign outside the meat house. I liked it from the start and after I was able to get a couple of blurbs from known authors, the cover was complete.

Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for this book?
Nothing so dramatic, but when interviewing my old boss, I discovered that a couple of guys I worked with had died just a few years after I left the job. And he had details that were different from mine. For example, in “The Great Stakeout” section of the book, I remembered the two killers being described as Serbians. He remembered them as Jamaicans, and while I acknowledged that in the Epilogue, I didn’t change anything in the body of the memoir. It seemed useful to acknowledge the reality that memoir is as created a world as fiction; that the moment an event is over, it becomes a memory and all memory is subjective.

One last sad thing; I always imagined finding Jimmy, my old boss, and giving him a signed copy of the book, that he more than anyone would appreciate the details. It was one of the reasons I wanted to get the book published in the first place. But just a couple of months ago, while trying to figure out how to get the book to him, I found out he died in 2023 at the age of 73, which was a surprise since he seemed healthy and robust his whole life.

Did you ever feel you were revealing too much about yourself while writing The Heart Is Meat? If so, how did you push past this feeling and continue?
Absolutely, I freaked out fairly regularly about it. I published a novel, The Vanishing Point, a couple of years ago and while the main character has a lot of me in him, I could always hide behind the idea that this is fiction and that character is NOT me. But in the memoir, the character literally has my name. It IS me. There’s a genuine vulnerability to that and I can’t claim to have fully come to grips with it, though in the end, it is what it is. In terms of pushing past this fear, when writing, I always tell myself that I need to be as open and honest as possible and if at some future point, someone wants to publish it, then I’ll worry about it then. And I’ve been writing a long time now, I’ve taught creative writing for over 20 years and I’m still teaching it. I’ve long ago come to peace with the notion that I might at times be showing too much of myself, which isn’t the same as saying I never have moments of doubt and worry.

There’s another consideration. The girlfriend who I was living with (Maya in the book) is alive and well. I met her in college, we both ended up in NYC, we lived together for five years on 12th Street and Avenue A. I still know her, mostly in a “like your post on Facebook” way but she didn’t ask to be a character in a former boyfriend’s memoir and I feel some trepidation about that. I have not talked to her about it and part of me has to be selfish and say, “This is my story,” but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware that I’m revealing intimate details about someone who hasn’t been part of my life for 30 plus years.

How did you pick the title of the book?
I worked on the title with my sister and her partner; they came up with the Heart is Meat part, I wanted to add something about what it was so I added An 80s Memoir to the end. I sometimes go back and forth even at this late date on the title, but here’s the thing. When I published my novel The Vanishing Point, I had changed the name a couple of times and The Vanishing Point was the original title and I was eager to return to it. But now in retrospect, I find The Vanishing Point kind of mundane and mostly forgettable. It sounds generic. Whatever else, The Heart is Meat is not generic.

What was it about New York City that first drew you to it? Has your view of the city changed?
My sister moved to the city from Indiana in 1978, she still lives there. I visited her in 79 and while I was not the kind of kid who ever imagined himself living in NYC, something about the vibrancy of the place interested me. It was dirty, it was dangerous, but the streets were also full of people at pretty much any time of the day or night. There were artists and writers everywhere, so in 1982, thinking of myself as a fiction writer, I moved to the city because it seemed the best city for a fiction writer to live in. And it was, pretty much in every way other than doing the work itself. I wrote almost nothing in my time there but much of what I experienced informed everything I eventually did write. I left the city in the late 80s to go to grad school in Chicago but returned in 1998 and spent the next 16 years there and it was a totally different city. Still lively and crowded, but not in any way scary anymore (despite what certain politicians say, NYC is one of the safest cities in the country), I built a fine life around working for a college on the upper east side (both in the administration and teaching creative writing as an adjunct professor), I rode my bike everywhere, I played basketball four times a week at the 92nd street Y. In so many ways, it was an idyllic lifestyle and totally different from my experience in the early 80s. But one of those differences was how expensive it had become and when I lost my apartment in 2014, I literally could not afford to live there anymore. If I could have afforded it, I’d probably still be there.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update: Lynn Ellen Doxon

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Lynn Ellen Doxon had authored over a thousand newspaper and magazine articles, three nonfiction books, and a children’s book before she branched into historical fiction in 2022 with the publication of the first World War II novel in her Becoming the Greatest Generation series. Book two in that series, and her newest release, is The Moonlight Cavalry (Artemesia Publishing, April 2024). You’ll find Lynn on her website LynnDoxon.com and her Amazon author page. For more about her work, read her 2023 interview for SouthWest Writers.

The Moonlight Cavalry is the second book in your Becoming the Greatest Generation series. Can you give readers a little background on this new book?
In the first book, Ninety Day Wonder, schoolteacher Eugene Sinclair is drafted against his will as war rages in Europe but before the US is involved. Following boot camp he is trained for the Coastal Artillery and sent to the shores of Puget Sound. He feels his calling is in medicine and manages to get additional training as a pharmacist. His pharmacy training is completed on December 5, 1941.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, he is almost immediately reassigned to anti-aircraft artillery and sent to Camp Davis in North Carolina for Officers Training School. On his way there he meets Sarah Gale, a young woman who works in the camp laundry. Ninety days later he is commissioned as an officer and deeply involved with Sarah Gale.

Following further training in Texas (and New Mexico since Fort Bliss extended all the way to what is now White Sands) and Florida, where Sarah Gale is now stationed as a WAC and they become engaged, he was sent to the Pacific, where he is separated from his battery.

In The Moonlight Cavalry, Gene leads a replacement platoon to the island where his unit will soon arrive, then rejoins the unit as they follow the 24th Infantry around New Guinea and the Philippines. Along the way they experience pitched battles, battle fatigue, friendly fire and the biggest killer in the Pacific, tropical diseases. Gene contracts malaria and is plagued by hallucinations of his fifth great grandfather’s experience in the Revolutionary War.

What drew you to the historical fiction genre?
I discovered historical fiction in elementary school, and it quickly became my favorite genre. In high school I waded through several Michener novels and read War and Peace.  I was a voracious reader all my life and read The Thorn Birds (which isn’t historical fiction) in one sitting when it first came out. When I decided to start writing full time, historical fiction seemed the natural choice.

Were there any scenes you found difficult to write? How did you move past that?
As the relationship developed between Sarah Gale and Gene, I had to consider how to write intimate scenes between them. Since this is a 1940’s novel I went with the suggestive level of many 1940’s movies, but I still am not sure those scenes are as engaging as they could be.

What is the most difficult aspect of writing historical fiction?
There is a lot of research involved in writing historical fiction and the temptation is to try to include all you have learned. I quickly figured out that my long descriptions were not as engaging as Michener’s. They sounded more like the academic writing I did on the way to getting my MS and PhD. I tried to remove everything that did not contribute to the story.

Also, this story takes place recently enough that there are some people who remember it and more who can say “that’s not what my dad told me.” Sometimes I could not find research on details I wanted to include so I just made things up. It is fiction, but the historical details still need to be accurate, or somebody will call you on it.

When writing a series, what is it that keeps readers coming back for more?
Each book has to be a complete story but still have some unanswered questions to draw the reader to the next book. Of course, everyone knows how the war comes out, but how does Gene fare for the remainder of the conflict? It is also important to have characters people love. I hope I have made Gene and Sarah Gale into characters that people want to know.

How much involvement did you have regarding the book’s cover design?
I sent the editor several suggestions and he sent back something that was much better.

What is your elevator pitch for The Moonlight Cavalry?
The Moonlight Cavalry is the story of a searchlight battery of antiaircraft artillery, told by their executive officer, island hopping across the Pacific during World War II.

Authors are faced with handling much of their own exposure when it comes to media and marketing. How do you balance your writing career with the business of being a writer?
My daughter and I just started a digital marketing company. In that process I have learned a lot about effective websites and social media marketing. The problem is I simply don’t have time for everything, and things aren’t too well balanced at the moment.

What part do critique groups play in your writing process?
I find the critiques of other writers to be very important. I belong to a critique group that has made several suggestions that I believe will make the third book much better. I believe critique groups and beta readers are extremely important in the writing process.

When can readers expect to see book three in your Becoming the Greatest Generation series?
Life is pretty hectic right now. I am hoping to have a publication date in November 2025.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



Author Update 2024: Irene I. Blea

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Dr. Irene Blea is a nonfiction author, novelist and poet, as well as a retired university professor and civil rights activist. Her newest book release is Dragonfly (March 2024), a collection of poems spanning 50 years of her life in which she “shares her transformation from the prescription of traditional female roles riddled by confusion and conflict to one of peace, understanding, and redefinition.” Look for Irene on Facebook. You’ll find many of her books on her Amazon author page, but Dragonfly is available here. Read more about Irene’s work in SWW’s 2015 and 2017 interviews.

What are you trying to communicate to readers through Dragonfly?
Humans need beauty in their world. It is a healing element. Each year I wait for a golden dragonfly to visit my yard. It stays for hours in the same place, and we commune with one another. I thank it for sharing its beauty. It makes me feel connected. If it does not appear, I miss it and wait for it the following year. The cover is indicative of my need for beauty and connection. As humans, we sometimes need to heal from something that has no name or something to which we have paid little attention. Because I have experienced this, I offer my understanding as a spiritual guide via poems of transformation and healing.

Is there one piece in the collection that gets to the heart of the whole?
It is difficult to select one, but I feel it is hija de la tierra because it speaks to healing from racism, class discrimination, and sexism. I often switch between two languages because this is the way I think and feel things. It is how I navigate in two worlds.

♦◊♦◊♦hija de la tierra
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦your ancestors were goddesses and kings
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦who ruled across lifespans
♦◊♦◊♦your ancestors have been diminished
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦to barrio dogs and cats
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦dogs and cats who roam the alleys of society
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦dogs and cats who teach us how to live
♦◊♦◊♦hija de la tierra
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦you were born to reign above the mountains
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦you should be born to live in peace

While going through your fifty years of poems, did you discover something about yourself or your poetry? Has your writing style changed over the years?
To my surprise, I discovered I was at the forefront of Chicano and Chicana poetry in the late 1960s and 70s. I had not realized this because I was busy researching, teaching, developing university courses, and writing textbooks because there were none in the beginning of the sociology of Chicano Studies. My feminism is consistent. The book is a composition of three chapbooks, and I inform the reader about how my style changed because of my education and some of it remained the same because of my politics.

What challenges did this work pose for you?
This work was not very challenging because I had read my poems to audiences for years, and I already had the work in print in the form of chapbooks. I dictated the work from the chapbooks to my computer, revised them a bit, and sent it to a couple of outside readers who made the work better.

How did the book come together?
I started the process on New Years Day of this year. The inspiration is the first sentence of the introduction to the book: “On January 1st, 2024, I opened my eyes and asked into the crispness of my bedroom if I would die that year. I have been obsessed with my death for decades… The room responded with, ‘I don’t know.’ I decided to rise and make some coffee….” While the coffee was brewing, I decided I did not want to die without letting readers know I had written poetry. My poems had been published in several places, but I did not have an entire book of poetry printed and distributed. It took a few months. As mentioned above, it was rather simple to put the book together since I had so much poetry categorized in the chapbooks.

The Dragonfly book cover is beautiful. Tell us about the process of working with the artist.
The publication is a composite of three talented females: me the author, Rose Kern the publisher, and my daughter, Raven, the cover artist who does not use her last name. We worked well together. Rose and Raven know their craft well and all I had to do was trust their feedback. I knew I wanted a “pretty” cover and Raven presented me with three options. Raven did the cover of my autobiography, Erené with Wolf Medicine, and I loved it. This made it easy to work with her.

How and why did you chose the title of the book?
The title is generally the most difficult part for me. It was late spring, and the publisher needed a title. Since I was waiting for the golden dragonfly to appear, Dragonfly seemed to fit.

Of all the books you’ve written, which one was the most challenging and which one was the easiest (or most enjoyable) to write?
Dragonfly was the easiest one to take from concept to publication and distribution. The most difficult book to write was my autobiography, Erené with Wolf Medicine. I wrote about leaving the Catholic Church, getting divorced, contemplating an abortion, domestic violence, and suicide. Each time I wrote about them, reviewed and edited them, I re-experienced the emotions. At the same time, in the end, it was cathartic, and I released a lot of sensations and found it healing. But it was difficult to take it from concept to publication, then release it for distribution.

What poets do you continually go back to?
I return to the classic Spanish writers because Spanish is such a beautiful poetic language. Sometimes the mystical, magical, tone of a poem is difficult to translate into English. Fedrico Garcia Lorca, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Pablo Neruda are among my favorites.

Do you have a preference for poetry structure or form when you write or read?
I write poetry by inspiration. Something needs to affect me profoundly. I am not trained in poetry, so structure and form are only important to the degree that I want to render emotion or message. Most of my structure and form is in breaking mainstream rules. It comes from reading and writing Chicano, Native American, and Afro American resistance poetry by other writers, which I began to do at the height of the Chicano movement.

Do you remember what inspired you to write your first poem?
As a child, I shared a bedroom with my younger sister, who was very ill and could not sleep. To comfort her, I recited poems. But I did not write anything down. Sometimes in the darkness of our bedroom, she would request a story that rhymed. They were generally about an animal, child clown, or a pretty lady.

How does a poem begin for you, with an idea, a form, an image?
A poem begins for me with an emotional reaction. They are like prayers.

What do most well-written poems have in common?
They must be written within the economy of language and render an emotional tone. I seek images and feelings, or that the scene is fully rendered. Well-written poems for me are not terribly long, epic, although my poems have become longer recently, and I cannot explain that. Except to say that the issues I have been writing about have to do with the environmental factors that ravage the environment and how Mother Earth struggles to respond to those ravages.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Healing must take place holistically at the physical, emotional and spiritual level. Pills, ointments, and massage can do some of that but there are other forms of medicine. Acupuncture, the sun, dragonflies, the presence of certain people, and animals can bring healing. These are healing elements, medicine, which address the physical, emotional, and spiritual components of health.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Author Steve Bennett

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Steve Bennett is a retired educator who also worked as a journalist for three New Mexico newspapers. In 1964, a shocking multi-murder occurred in San Diego, California in the seemingly idyllic suburb of Chula Vista where Steve was raised. Thirty years later, he began a decades-long journey to tell the story. His debut true crime release, His Own Flesh and Blood: The story of Raymond Goedecke, the killer in the choir (July 2023), is a “haunting exploration of deceit, manipulation, and the terrifying depths of human nature…a story that will leave readers questioning the very nature of evil and the masks that it wears.” Look for Steve on his SWW author page and on Amazon.

Steve, please tell us a little about yourself.
I was born in San Diego, California and raised in the suburb of Chula Vista. These were my formative years—beginning with kindergarten and continuing to college. A good athlete, I accepted a football scholarship to New Mexico State University where I earned a degree in education. For the next 37 years, I served as a teacher, coach and school administrator. During that time, I was a New Mexico Teacher of the Year nominee as well as an Outstanding Alumnus in the NMSU College of Education. Additionally, I worked as a journalist for three New Mexico newspapers. Since 1968, New Mexico has been and continues to be my home.

What was the impetus for writing His Own Flesh and Blood?
During my high school years in the 1960s, I believed the growing city of Chula Vista had it all: great weather, excellent schools, civic pride, very little crime. But those beliefs were shattered in August 1964 when I read the newspaper headline, “Homicidal Maniac Strikes, Four Dead in Chula Vista.” The article read, “Four members of the Henry Goedecke family were bludgeoned to death last night in their Chula Vista home.” Shocked citizens first believed the killer must be a transient, or an escaped mental patient. But the murderer—using a hunting knife and pipe—was eighteen-year-old Raymond Goedecke, the oldest son.

For me, the horror of the crime was magnified because the Goedecke family attended the Lutheran Church which sat directly across the street from my church, the First Baptist Church of Chula Vista. The close proximity of my church and Raymond’s church—where I had many friends—made his crime personal. And in the years to come, images of Raymond Goedecke would intrude upon my thoughts like an uninvited guest. But the real reason Goedecke cemented himself in my memory had to do with my teaching career. From the moment I stepped into my first high school classroom, dealing with dysfunctional and violent students, Raymond Goedecke became a fixture in my mind. At such times, I had a single thought, “Why did he kill?” His Own Flesh and Blood is my answer to the question.

Can you step us through the process you used when obtaining research material for your book?
Researching my book was daunting, a job spanning ten years. When I started the process, finding time for research was difficult since I was teaching full-time. So, research was limited to weekends and summer breaks. I began at the Chula Vista and San Diego Public Libraries copying newspaper articles which recounted the murder, trial and sentencing. Later, this continued at the San Francisco Chronicle and the Placerville Mountain Democrat. I obtained police records from the Chula Vista, El Dorado County, Vacaville and San Rafael police departments. An invaluable source was the El Dorado County Courthouse and San Diego Superior Court. In San Diego, I copied the entire trial transcript (one thousand pages) which enabled me to speak to the legal issues and combine them with newspaper articles and interviews, blending them together to create a consistent narrative for readers to follow.

Were you able to conduct interviews with anyone who had been directly involved with solving this case? How about descendants of the victims?
The simple answer is “Yes,” but interviewing former friends close to the Goedecke family (those traumatized by Raymond’s crime) was a delicate business. I approached everyone with the utmost care and sensitivity. However, the police officers, bailiffs, judges and parole officers (once I established credibility) were another matter. In particular, former Chula Vista police officers were eager to speak to me. I believe the Chula Vista Police Department did a flawless job to develop an ironclad case against Goedecke. The California Supreme Court decision (that vacated Goedecke’s death sentence) appeared to agree, since they found no legal or procedural problems with Chula Vista’s police investigation. In short, these former police officers were proud of their work.

However, when I first began, my first interview was with an old church friend from 1964, Lee Bendickson. A lawyer, he handled the Goedecke estate and later testified at Raymond’s trial. Bendickson helped by contacting people on my interview list assuring them I could be trusted. Above all, I avoided surprising people I didn’t know by cold-calling them. I conducted scores of interviews with Chula Vista, San Rafael and El Dorado County officers who were directly involved in Goedecke’s case. The most significant of these was the two Chula Vista officers who obtained Raymond’s confession to the murders. But my most important contact was with San Diego Superior Court judge William Kennedy. In 1964, Kennedy had been the lead prosecutor at Goedecke’s trial. Kennedy was instrumental in obtaining the trial transcripts of the 1964 proceedings.

Henry Goedecke (the murdered father) was survived by his mother Elizabeth Goedecke and a sister and her family. At the advice of a close friend of theirs, he asked that I not pursue an interview with the family since the murders were extremely traumatic for all of them. I honored his request.

All told, either by direct contact or telephone, I conducted from forty to fifty interviews—all of them tape recorded.

Do you think the time you spent working in journalism helped you transition into the role of writing nonfiction?
Doubtless, the two years I spent working in journalism helped improve my writing a great deal. Working for the Alamogordo Daily News—which went to press seven days a week—writing with the pressure of a deadline, everything improved: writing speed, organization, and flow of article. Above all, the experience impressed upon me the importance of accuracy of language: using precise nouns and verbs and, above all, never misquoting a single living soul. However, though rewarding and mentally challenging, newspaper reporters are paid even less than teachers. This is why I left my job in Alamogordo, to take a teaching position at the Mescalero Apache Schools, thus returning to teaching.

Did you experience any obstacles while writing His Own Flesh and Blood?
When I began the book in 1994, the judicial cases against Raymond Goedecke had been adjudicated, or legally resolved. Since no appeals or other legal issues were pending, police departments and courts were able to legally release information. Otherwise, there would have been significant roadblocks hindering or halting outright any request for information. Regarding personal interviews, most individuals I approached were willing to share their stories with me. However, a few—for personal reasons—simply declined.

If you found yourself stalling during the writing process, how did you move past it?
Like any writer, there were frustrating moments that stopped me cold. At such times I’d reexamine the crime photographs for another look. These images were black and white pictures and color slides, pictures that were chilling, sickening…truly beyond belief. The violence Raymond inflicted upon his family was unspeakable. To describe it as just a murder would be an understatement, it was a massacre. Raymond, a son and brother, slaughtered his family and reduced them to four, lifeless piles of bloody pulp. Every police officer who witnessed the crime scene told me they’d never seen this level of violence. Their beaten, bloody bodies scarcely looked human. But the photos taken at the San Diego County morgue were, for me, the worst. These showed the condition of the bodies after being washed and cleaned. With the blood removed, the damage inflicted on their bodies was shockingly evident: Ellen’s broken jaw, a deep wound on her chest from the pipe end; the gaping wound on Mark’s forehead that shattered his skull; their eyes closed as if sleeping, their lives and humanity ripped away. What made this more painful for me was the knowledge that Ellen and Mark were both awake when the attack began. Seeing this, no matter how often, summoned deep emotion, bringing tears to my eyes. However, this was quickly supplanted by another feeling…anger. “How could he do that to his own brother and sister, his own flesh and blood?” Soon, the awful bitterness would pass. Somehow the intense anger I felt for Raymond was rejuvenating. I went back to work.

How long did it take you from start to finish to complete your book?
The short answer is that I began researching and writing in 1994, but the book was not published until 2023. However, that’s not the whole story. When I began in 1994 (the year I joined SouthWest Writers), technology was less sophisticated. As a result, I approached the process the old-fashioned way by sending query letters to agents. Agents usually responded with, “Dear Mr. Bennett, your book, His Own Flesh and Blood sounds like a great story, however….” My file drawer is full of those. Eventually, I simply gave up. But recently, a few friends who’d read my manuscript showed a lot of enthusiasm. I began to look into publishing independently (Amazon, BookBaby, etc.). To my surprise, I discovered that Amazon publishes more books worldwide than anyone. But they hadn’t started their publishing arm until 1995, the year they published and sold their first book.

What other genres do you enjoy reading other than true crime?
My reading interests are quite broad, largely due to diversity of subjects I taught during my teaching career. Any subject related to history: American Civil War, First and Second world wars, ancient history and New Mexico history. Reading about native American culture; Navajo, Apache, etc., are subjects I find fascinating. This also includes biographies of great national and international leaders.

Who are a few of your favorite authors?
My favorite author list is a long one, but these are a few who stand out: Herman Wouk, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gore Vidal, Laura Hillenbrand, Drew Gilpin Faust, Ann Rule, Ron Chernow and, of course, William Shakespeare.

What’s on your horizon regarding writing projects? Do you intend to stick with true crime?
There are many true crime stories pertaining to New Mexico that interest me, however, I’m undecided. Since I have Attention Deficit Disorder, that is a subject I’d like to put on paper at some point.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Only that—after a break from writing for many years—I’m happy to be more active with SouthWest Writers, a fine organization.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



An Interview with Author Kendra J. Loring

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Kendra J. Loring is passionate about working with rescue horses in her therapeutic riding business. Her debut graphic novel, The Saga of Henri Standing Bear: A Rescue Story (Enchanted Equine Adventures Book 1, April 2024), is dedicated to horse rescues and the people who work so hard every day to save them. You’ll find Kendra on her website for Enchanted Equine Adventures and on Amazon.

Who is Henri Standing Bear and what do you admire most about him?
Henri is a horse who works as a lesson horse at the business I own, Enchanted Equine Adventures. I love how sweet he is with people, despite his old trauma and injuries.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
I hope the readers of his book see the value in rescue animals and get motivated to help all rescue animals! I hope they see Henri’s trauma as a small part of his story.

When did you decide to share Henri’s story? What was the “kick in the pants” to get started on the manuscript?
I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve been a writer since college in the 1990s. And when one of my favorite people put out a kid’s book, I knew it was time for me to do it! Bobby Bones’ Stanley the Dog: First Day of School was the inspiration for me getting Henri’s book together finally.

What challenges did this work pose for you?
Deciding whether or not to self-publish was a big challenge for me. It was a huge decision. I am glad I did publish on Amazon, but I can see the benefits of having a marketing team to help promote the book, also.

Tell us how the book came together.
It didn’t take as long to write the story as I would have thought, because most of it is actually true. Finding an illustrator was as easy as asking my mentor at WESST to help me locate someone in Albuquerque who does art. WESST is a great recourse for local small business owners. The editing took a bit longer because neither of us had done a book before.

It must have been exciting to see how illustrator Emina Slavnic interpreted your story. Do you have a favorite image or page spread from The Saga of Henri Standing Bear?
I love the images of Henri as a foal out in the Gila Mountains. And since we lost Acheron last year, I really like the images of Henri and Ash playing! I even made the image into a coffee mug for my mom, who loved Acheron like a grandchild.

What was the most rewarding aspect of working on this project?
I love seeing how much Henri has affected other people’s lives. He truly is a super horse!

What topics does The Saga of Henri Standing Bear touch on that would make it a good fit for the classroom?
I love Henri’s story. I think it shows the reader how strong and resilient rescue animals are. It shows how much horses can give back to us. And it gives hope when everything looks hopeless.

Why write a children’s book as opposed to telling Henri’s story in memoir or novel form?
I always saw his story as a graphic novel, with Henri as the super hero. As a riding instructor, I get to chat with all kinds of different kiddos (teens and pre-teens) about books. They overwhelmingly wanted a graphic novel about horses. Once we have the first three volumes done, we will bind them into one big graphic novel.

What did you learn in writing/publishing the book that you can apply to future projects?
I learned how to separate writing, illustration, and formatting of a graphic novel. I knew nothing about the illustration or the formatting until I got involved in this book. I’ve learned a ton about it during this process and I am confident about how to move forward with book two.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
The name Henri Standing Bear is from the Longmire book series. Henry in the books is Sheriff Longmire’s best friend. Lou Diamond Phillips plays him perfectly in the TV series. Henry has this side-eye look that he gives Longmire when they are doing something they shouldn’t be, and our Henri does the same look! So, I went ahead and got permission from Longmire author Craig Johnson to use the name in my book. He said he would be honored!

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Author Tim Amsden

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Tim Amsden is a retired attorney whose poetry can be found in national and international publications, as well as several anthologies. His first memoir, Love Letter to Ramah: Living Beside New Mexico’s Trail of the Ancients (University of New Mexico Press, September 2024), was inspired by two decades of living in the Ramah Valley. The memoir has been called a book of “gentle wisdom and quiet inspiration” that “reveals a deep sense of the land and lore of that patch of paradise presently known as New Mexico.” You’ll find Tim on Amazon and his SWW author page.

What do you hope readers will take away from Love Letter to Ramah?
The book’s narrative follows my wife Lucia and me as we take a midlife “off the cliff” leap from Kansas City into the natural beauty, deep history, and strong sense of place that pervade northern New Mexico. There we deepened our heightened visceral understanding that to survive and prosper as a species, we must live in concert with each other and the needs of the living earth. It also gave us a belief that those things are possible.

My hope is that in the process of walking along with us through our experiences and discoveries, the reader will feel a similar shift. I also hope they are entertained and surprised as they encounter such things as singing toads, talking pots, vampire bugs, and the daughter of the sun god in a land where ravens soar above the rhythmic yelp and drone of Native music, and old Spanish missions hunker over the bones of ancient peoples.

Tell us about the journey from inspiration to push to begin and completion of your first memoir.
Love Letter began its conceptual life some fifteen years ago with the working title Folk Music, a reference to the eclectic and diverse community of loving, earth-rooted people we encountered in the Ramah area, then it grew and morphed over a number of years, somewhat like Topsy.

A few experiences and people in the book were described earlier in other publications, including New Mexico Magazine and the volume I edited about the medicine man Bear Heart Williams titled The Bear Is My Father. Other pieces were written along the way, and some were added during the process of editing with the University of New Mexico (UNM) Press.

Although I’m listed as author, Love Letter was shaped by several other people as well. My wife Lucia was part and parcel of the entire process. She is also a writer, and her memories, suggestions, and editorial expertise are present throughout. Credit also goes to the folks at the press, especially my editor, who masterfully edited and championed the book, and to friends and early readers who provided invaluable input. Finally, the community itself deserves credit for creating many of the experiences related in Love Letter. Particularly notable is Ramah photographer Nancy Dobbs, who contributed the exquisite photograph that graces the book’s cover, shot from her front door.

What challenges did this work pose for you?
I think the greatest challenge was having the patience to let the process unfold in its own time until all the pieces were there, the narrative complete, and the central thrust clear. And although the book took a long time to create, that was a good thing, because some key portions were added at the very end. In addition, it was important to know when the book was complete and the time had come to stop tweaking and tuning. I once heard a painter say that one of the most challenging things for her was knowing when to stop, and that is true of many creative processes, including writing.

How is the book structured and why did you choose to put it together that way?
To some extent the structure is inherent; it follows the timeline through our move from Kansas City to the Ramah Valley, our twenty years in Ramah, and our eventual relocation in Albuquerque. Other pieces, such as experiences and explorations, natural and human history, sense of place, the night sky, sun dances and ghosts, were arranged to help readers flow easily along and remain engaged. In some ways it was like assembling a music compilation.

What was the expected, or unexpected, result of writing/publishing Love Letter to Ramah?
I had just started what I thought would be a long and tedious process of searching for a publisher (I do not have an agent) by sending out query letters to three publishers. One of them was UNM Press. The publication of the book exceeded any expectations I might have had, because of all publishers, UNM Press was my first choice. They responded by requesting to see the manuscript. The process that followed of creating the book with them was rigorous, very productive, and highly supportive.

Do you have a favorite quote from the book?
One of my favorite qualities of New Mexico is its resplendent sky, especially in the Ramah area, where air and light pollution are at a minimum. Here’s a bit from the chapter titled “Starry Starry Night”:

Sometimes after returning home at night and pulling into our garage, we would step out under the sky and one of us would whisper, “Look at that!”  People where we lived tended to talk in hushed voices when they were out beneath the stars, nightly reminders of the vastness of which they are a part. Perhaps awe of the night sky is even embedded in our DNA, a connection to universal mystery that we have experienced throughout our long evolutionary path.

We are literally children of the stars; every atom in our bodies was created in the furnaces of stars that died long ago. As the astronomer Carl Sagan once put it, “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we come from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us.” We are, however, in danger of losing that knowing, as our visibility of the night sky dims. To me, that is a very sad thing, perhaps even a subtle limitation of our ability to be a global tribe together. Gazing at the stars is an experience that gives us all common ground and connects us to the vastness of creation.

Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for Love Letter?
There were so many. A few examples are the unlikely story of Esteban, the Moroccan slave owned by a Spanish conquistador, who was the first person to make contact between Spain and the Zuni people; the macabre method tarantula hawks use to feed their young; the existence of the groups of people called Penitentes and Genizaros; and the strange desert-adopted life of the singing spade-foot toads.

A definite wow was the fact that a Native American oral constitution — the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy — was an important model for the documents that defined the values and structure of our new country, including the U.S. Constitution.

The most personally interesting was a dawning awareness that unlike most of the rest of the country, many of the artifacts and indications of earlier people in New Mexico are readily visible, present, and sometimes still in use. Spain, for instance, introduced acequias (a type of irrigation canal) to New Mexico around 400 years ago, and they still carry water for crops. Among other places, they crisscross parts of Albuquerque, and we sometimes take walks along them where they run through parks and behind homes.

Also, there are areas still held by their owners under old Spanish land grants, and signs on highways let motorists know when they are entering and leaving them. Finally, Catholic Missions built when New Mexico was part of the Spanish empire are numerous, especially on Native reservations.

Native people have also left their artifacts in and on the land. It’s not unusual to spot sherds, grinding stones, arrow points, petroglyphs, and ruins that were created many hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Before we moved to New Mexico, Lucia and I visited Albuquerque and stayed in a Bed and Breakfast near the Rio Grande River. The first morning, the owners led us down a staircase to the basement, where there was a dirt wall marked with dates of native settlements going back hundreds of years.

How did your work as a poet influence your memoir?
Being a poet has given me a love of lyrical and unusual ways of saying things, a fascination with the ineffable, and the practice of editing closely and repeatedly. Hopefully there are whiffs of those things in this book. In a broader sense, poets are somewhat like monks. They know their work will mostly be read by other poets, so they tend to be less ego-driven and more engaged in their creativity for its own sake. As a result, writing poetry has given me the habit of finding satisfaction in the process itself. It helps me see this book as a gift to the world, a small gesture toward loving the earth and each other.

Did you ever feel as if you were revealing too much of yourself (or anyone else) in writing your story?
No. I tried hard to avoid including things about other people that might disturb or hurt them. In the case of myself and my wife Lucia, we both wanted to share anything, good or bad, that made this a better book.

What is the first piece of writing you can remember completing?
When I was in the seventh grade in Robinson Junior High School in Wichita, I wrote a humor column in our little school paper called “Off the Deep End with Tim.” After reading my first submission, my home room teacher, who was also the paper’s editor, contacted my parents and said that it was so well written that I must have plagiarized it. That backhanded compliment put me over the moon and, I think, lit my writerly fuse.

Do you prefer the creating or editing aspect of writing? How do you feel about research?
I love them all. I am by nature a scavenger, always looking for unusual bones and stones, bright lizards and flowers and birds. So a phrase that pops, a clarifying shift, or a fact that casts new or different light are all grist to my scavenging mill.

What do you consider the most essential elements of a well-written memoir?
To me, a memoir is especially memorable if it contains a theme that provides a takeaway for the reader. As I was working with UNM Press, someone there asked, “What is the book’s raison d’être?” I could answer the question, but it motivated me to amend the text, so it expressed the central message more directly.

Is there something you’d like to develop from material you haven’t been able to use?
In downtown Kansas City, Kansas, there is a small shady cemetery dating from the late 1800s that shelters the remains of many Wyandotte Indians, most in unmarked graves. Among the few headstones that do exist are ones for the three Conley sisters, Lyda, Helena, and Ida, who dedicated their lives to protecting the graveyard from attempts to replace it with new development. They lived at that time on the land, often sitting with shotguns in their laps in front of the shack they built there. Eventually, Lyda Conley became a lawyer, and she defended the cemetery before the Supreme Court of the United States, thereby becoming the first woman of Native Ancestry to be admitted to the U.S, Supreme Court Bar. Although her case failed, the sisters gained support for their cause and the cemetery was not sold. I came across this cemetery once while taking a walk from my office in the EPA building a couple of blocks away, and returned many times because the energy of the place is palpable. I would get shivers every time I read the message on Helena Conley’s stone: “Cursed be the Villains that molest their graves.” I think this story calls out for an author, and I’ve thought about it for years.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I wish you all good things, and thank you for spending this time with me.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



The Writing Life: Inspired

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by Sherri L. Burr

Inspiration can come from numerous sources. I started listening to an audiobook obtained from the library that inspired me to purchase the physical book. Between the two, I devoured the work’s 17 listening hours and 565 pages in three days. Then I felt inspired to write these words.

Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest (New York: Crown, 2024) captures your attention and doesn’t release you until its last words are consumed. The subtitle of the book is “A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of Civil War.” We all learned in elementary school that the Civil War commenced after South Carolina fired upon and captured Fort Sumter in 1861. What Larson reveals are tales told in diaries, newspaper clippings, and many additional sources that depict what led to the momentous occasion.

Larson tells the Southern part of the story primarily through lenses that have been buried in archives for over 160 years. Larson begins each part of his work with a quote from The Code Duello to anchor the conflict as one perceived of honor by Southern planters who had been raised or married into “The Chivalry,” or the elite. Larson deftly explains that Southern planters felt they had a right to their high-born lives based on the unpaid labor of millions of enslaved men, women, and children. Many planters perceived a cataclysmic threat to their lifestyles in the November 6, 1860, election of Abraham Lincoln, despite his repeated statements that he did not intend to disturb slavery where it currently existed.

South Carolina was the first to secede on December 20, 1860, followed by six additional states (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) before Lincoln was sworn in on March 4, 1861. As The Demon of Unrest unpacks, a series of errors and miscommunications led up to the bombardment and fall of Fort Sumter on April 12-13, 1861. Lincoln’s call for federal troops to suppress the rebellion led to four additional states (Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee) to secede by June 8, 1861.

What was disheartening to read in The Demon of Unrest was how President Buchanan and President-Elect Lincoln did not understand that Southern elites mistook the communications from the North as an attack on their honor. Even the initial failure of Major Anderson as the commander of Fort Sumter to return fire was viewed as a violation of The Code Duello. That said, no amount of diplomatic overtures could have headed off the Civil War. In a situation of deep mistrust, communications were constantly misperceived.

In Erik Larson’s “A Note to Readers,” he explains that he was researching the events leading up to the Civil War when the storming of the capital took place on January 6, 2021. He writes, “As I watched the Capital assault unfold on camera, I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged. It is unsettling that in 1861 two of the greatest moments of national dread centered on the certification of the Electoral College vote and the presidential inauguration.” He continues, “I was appalled by the attack, but also riveted. I realized that the anxiety, anger, and astonishment that I felt would certainly have been experienced in 1860-1861 by vast numbers of Americans. With this in mind, I set out to capture the real suspense of those long-ago months when the country lurched toward catastrophe.”

As Larson was inspired by the events of January 6, 2021, to capture the dawn of the Civil War, reading his book can inspire writers. We, too, can follow current events, read books, head to archives and libraries, and sit at our computers to type stories long buried in our past or that of our nation’s. What most impressed me was Larson’s sources. By tapping into diaries (some of them over 4,000 pages long), he reveals why the Southerners thought the war would be quick and the North would capitulate to their desire for independence. Many wrote with giddiness about secession. The ease with which they captured Fort Sumter led many planters to believe they would be left alone to lead their lives enriched by the enslavement of other human beings. Some even thought the entire conflict, like the capture of Fort Sumter, would end with no bloodshed. None predicted that approximately 750,000 people would lose their lives in the Civil War. The 1860 population of South Carolina, for example, was 301,000.

Reading The Demon of Unrest encouraged me to write these words. Whatever motivates you, take up the call. You may produce work that inspires others in their pursuits.

Sherri Burr’s 27th book, Complicated Lives: Free Blacks in Virginia: 1619-1865 (Carolina Academic Press, 2019), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History. West Academic published Wills & Trusts in a Nutshell 6th Ed., her 31st book, on October 31, 2022. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, Burr has been a member of SouthWest Writers for over 30 years.



Author Update: Paula Paul

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Paula Paul is the award-winning author of over thirty novels including historical fiction, contemporary women’s fiction, and the Alexandra Gladstone mystery series. Her latest fiction release, The Last of the Baileys (March 2023), was inspired by her mother’s colorful family and the boarding house they ran. Look for Paula on her website PaulaPaul.net and on Facebook. You’ll find many of her books on her main Amazon author page, but The Last of the Baileys is available on Amazon here. Read more about Paula and her work in the 2016 interview for SouthWest Writers.

Please tell us about The Last of the Baileys, who are your main characters and where does the story take place?
The Last of the Baileys is set in a small town in West Texas called Anton, where my mother grew up, and in Lubbock, Texas, the largest city in the area. Trudy Bailey Walters is the main character, along with Adam Bailey who claims to be the descendant of a Bailey family slave.

Is Trudy Bailey Walters based on an actual person, or an amalgamation of people?
Trudy is an amalgamation of two of my great aunts who were the daughters of John and Julia Bailey, my great grandparents, who built and ran the boarding house in Anton where most of the story takes place.

What was the inspiration for The Last of the Baileys?
The inspiration for the story came from my memories of the old boarding house and of my mother’s colorful family, the Baileys. I brought Marta Romandino, an undocumented woman, into the story because of my interest in the plight of immigrants coming to the U.S.

How is this book different from your previous novels?
This book is different from my earlier books because it is not genre fiction. I have written mysteries and romance novels as well as children’s books. I have long wanted to write general fiction, however, and The Last of the Baileys is one of my attempts at doing that.

Of all the books you’ve written, were there any that posed more challenges than others?
As for the most challenging books I have written, the general fiction or literary fiction books have been more challenging than genre fiction because the plot is not so predictable. Also, I have tried, over the years, to add more depth to characters and to develop a better writing style. Both of those endeavors are challenging.

With so many books under your belt, do you ever find yourself struggling to flesh out a story idea? If yes, can you give us an example of how you moved past it?
I often have trouble fleshing out a story idea. I have begun to think that is just part of every project. When I get what seems to be hopelessly stuck, it is always because I don’t know the characters well enough. The solution is to have what I call a conversation with the character. I do that by asking the character a lot of questions. It usually starts out with something like, “Why won’t you let me move this story along?” The answer is almost always something like, “Let me tell you about myself so you will understand me better.” Then I just let the character talk about anything including childhood, fears, love life, bad habits, family—anything that comes to mind. I fill up several typewritten pages this way, and while some of it has nothing to do with the story, I don’t censor myself. When all that is done, I usually have what I need to move the story forward. Sometimes that means changing the plot.

As a seasoned author, do you still belong to writing groups or have partnerships to help culture an idea? What are your thoughts on critique groups?
The only writing group I currently belong to is the First Friday group that was started years ago by Lois Duncan and Tony Hillerman. It is for published writers, but many in the group are no longer writing regularly. I have belonged to critique groups in the past, and I got a lot of help and inspiration from them. I haven’t belonged to one in several years because it had gotten to the point that I felt I was teaching writing when I went and wasn’t getting the help I needed. I would love to find a group of widely published working writers.

Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently if you started your writing career today?
I would hate to have to start a writing career today because it is so much harder to get published than it was when I started. However, I think I would just do the same thing I did way back then. That is, I would read books that are like what I want to write. I would read how-to books and magazines. I would attend conferences and talk to other writers, editors, and agents. I would just not give up.

What is it that many beginning writers misunderstand about telling a story?
Beginning writers of fiction often don’t understand how intricately character growth and plot are related.

What marketing techniques have been most beneficial to you?
Marketing techniques are tricky in my view. I have tried buying advertising, being on talk shows, talking to various groups to promote my books, and having book signings. They all help to some extent, but I think a writer really needs a publishing house with money for promotion and we don’t all have that. It’s mostly just the top sellers who can take advantage of that these days. I have had the most success with marketing by hiring someone who specializes in marketing and knows where to place the ads. Regrettably, that can be quite expensive.

What’s next on your radar for writing projects?
My new writing project is a family saga. It is proving to be challenging.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
As for anything else I would like writers to know, it is to think about the question on a paperweight my daughter gave me years ago. That is: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



An Interview with Authors Robert Churchill & Steven Lisberger

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SouthWest Writers’ member Robert Churchill and writer/director Steven Lisberger (well-known for Tron, 1982) relied on a forty-year friendship and a shared love of story in their collaborative effort to create a novel based on one of Steven’s screenplays. Their debut release, Topeka (October 5, 2023), has been called “a sexy, fast-paced and exciting adventure drawing upon sci-fi, anime, and steam punk genre sensibilities in a hard-boiled noir mystery presentation.” You’ll find Steven at StevenLisberger.com and IMDb. Contact Bob through his dedicated Topeka email address bc@topekanovel.com, and look for Topeka at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers.

What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in Topeka?
RC: Ultimately, Topeka is a story about values — how some have been cast aside to society’s detriment, and how some have eternal redemptive value. As every story recounts a journey, Topeka is about how our choices on our individual journeys bestow or deny redemption.

SL: The novel is in part inspired by Japanese anime. It’s a story about how in a world of advanced AI we need our bodies more than ever.

What part did each of you play in putting the book together?
RC: Steven wrote a slightly different version of Topeka — a screenplay — a few years ago. I was blown away by the originality and power of the story, and by the maturity and timeliness of its themes, and just never forgot about it. For one reason and another, it wasn’t made into a movie, and when Steven was casting about for his next project (the man simply can’t NOT be writing something), I lobbied him hard to re-write it as a novel — that it was a story that needed to be told. He was reluctant, having never before written a novel, but the end result of somewhat comical negotiations between us, was that we agreed to proceed as co-authors, with him very much in the lead. After having a front-row seat to his prodigious and powerful creative output for most of my adult life, it was like being asked by John Lennon to re-write a song he’d never finished. An opportunity only the insane would pass up.

SL: Bob has a great deal of patience and is an excellent finisher, he enjoys completion. I prefer getting a project roughed out. It’s conception and rough excitation that gives me the greatest thrill. By the time I complete the mountain of ideas required, and figure out what the hell they mean, I find I have used up a considerable amount of my patience. I guess my imagination has already filled it in, finished it, and my body resents that my mind got so far ahead. My practical mind sulks over the cleanup and organization work still required. I must confess I do enjoy going over Bob’s finished material and looking for edits, additions or things I feel would benefit from more polishing. That part of finish work is fun for me; I enjoy how the smallest change can feel so important. I love drilling down on theme and structure at the end when one knows exactly what the characters are thinking.

Did what-if questions help shape this work?
RC: Steven’s answer to this question couldn’t be more complete or accurate, so I’ll leave it to stand on its own, but one of the great things about our friendship is that I’ve been one of his go-to sounding boards for decades (we’re each the brother the other never had), and even though his ideas are amazing, he’s always been willing to hear my take on them — as I often see what he sees just a little differently. He’s always been generous in his consideration of my perspective, and having these discussions with him for so many years has enriched my life tremendously. Moving into the realm of me actually making creative contributions to Topeka’s world and story upped that experience dramatically; it was very gratifying.

SL: I would say that what-if questions were the basis: What if the mind of my super professional, experienced, and wise attorney-wife was in the body of a young babe? My wife, Peggy, freely admits that 50 years ago when she was my hot babe, she didn’t know a tenth of what she does now. Of course I didn’t either, so that worked out. What if there was an accomplished enlightened and heroic doctor/surgeon who learned about the body, the secrets of life and death, by being a trained killer? What if an AI could merge with and assume the identity of a dead human? What if our leads could hack human minds? What if you fell in love with the ultimate woman in spite of knowing she was too good to be true? What if technology allows us to never grow up?

Tell us about your main protagonists and why readers will connect with them.
RC: Topeka is a near-future sci-fi action/adventure story, but largely follows the genre conventions of hard-boiled noir detective novels and films, so the cast of characters, although moving fluidly in a setting of cutting-edge high tech, AI, climate change, and the pressures these exert on society, remain somewhat familiar. Nora Osborne is the heiress to a high-tech fortune and CEO of the mega-corporation her eccentric genius father founded. Bode, a former military cyber-surgeon, is her employee but finds himself, in the course of being her protector, conflicted between oppositional oaths — to do no harm and to be ready to take a life to save one. These two navigate a lethal landscape among good guys who aren’t as good as they seem, bad guys who are worse than they seem, and assorted henchmen and double-crossers with their own sinister agendas, all while falling in love. In toto, they all keep the noir pot boiling non-stop. It’s a lot of fun laid over some very thoughtful thematic material.

SL: The protagonists are their own characters. Nora has an extreme experimental fantasy adventure. She is a mature successful woman who through a twist of fate and cutting-edge cyber tech, manages to have a young body again. With that young body she joins forces with her young doctor who falls in love with her. Together they accomplish the impossible, including having a love affair and breaking every law in the books, but when it’s all over she gets to return to her original body and rejoin her family and her adventure remains her dark secret. Kind of the perfect midlife crisis. Bode gets to be the ultimate healer for those who need his unique skills, but to save his patient he must also rely on what he knows about how to best destroy some extremely dangerous minds and bodies. Sometimes the cure is a whole lot worse than the disease. Bode is a Shiva, creator and destroyer.

How difficult was switching gears from your past type of writing projects to that of writing a novel?
RC: I’ve always written, but have never called myself a writer. I have a fairly substantial following online, though not under my own name, and have published a few pieces for a local newspaper, like an interview with David Crosby. So that Steven and I could better speak the language of screenwriting between us, I wrote a full-length screenplay — and that may yet find itself re-written as a novel.

SL: I primarily wrote screenplays, lots of screenplays; this is my first novel. Looking back at my scripts they feel like poetry compared to a novel. Screenplays, it is often said, rely on three things, structure, structure, and structure. It was a lot of fun in writing a novel to embellish in ways one could never do in a script. For starters, what the inner life of a character was, backstory, and filling in the world. And my favorite, writing tons more dialogue.

According to Topeka’s acknowledgment page, you two are lifelong friends. When did you meet, and how have you managed to remain friends for so long?
RC: Steven and I were introduced to one another by a third party who told him he should meet me — that we’d get along. That person was right, and we’ve been pretty much best friends since the day we met, through all of life’s ups and downs. I think it’s helped a lot that I’m not in any aspect of the film business, because that world is very much its own thing and almost impossible to stay grounded in, let alone maintain friendships. All my working years I was a building contractor, and when we’d get together at his place, we always went to the hardware store instead of anywhere “glamorous” even though our second-tier hangouts tend to be art galleries and museums.

SL: We met through Animalympics, a project I did for NBC’s coverage of the 1980 Olympics. Bob and I are children of the sixties, and share a belief that some aspects of the 60s philosophy have never lost their power and are sorely needed now more than ever. We both still believe in the power of the mysterious and believe that not all confusion is to be avoided. Sometimes the only way to get to where you need to go is through seemingly impenetrable confusion. We have always relied on each other for help in taking on the unknown. Bob is my sounding board and the fact that he is an excellent wordsmith was just a bonus. Over the years we have talked enough to fill shelves of books.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
RC: The best part of this project for me has been to make real and valued creative contributions to the work of someone I know to be a genius — and I don’t use that word lightly. In Tron Steven pretty much invented the look the whole world has adopted as “the look of the future.” Not silver-lame body suits with bubble helmets and not the beat up and dented Star Wars look. That neon-highlighted look may never die, and Tron sequels will keep being made long after we’ve all passed. Now it’s also the world’s most popular amusement ride. And there’s SO much more to Steven’s stream of creative output and insight than just Tron. In Japan he’d be revered as a living treasure. And hey, he’s my best friend! As a co-author he was tough — believe it — but I always knew and accepted that we were writing his story, not mine, and that all he wanted was to help me be a better writer. And he damn sure made me one.

SL: The plot is complex as are the characters. And there are a lot of characters. Because of the complexity there were worries about how all this would resolve. To feel all the gears mesh perfectly for the first time at the climax was the big payoff, and made all the work worth it. I have to say the years of preliminary work made all the difference.

Why did you choose Topeka for the title of the book?
SL: After Tron world, I liked the idea of focusing a cutting-edge sci-fi story in America’s heartland. And I always enjoyed that the name Topeka sounded a bit like a combo of Japanese anime titles.

How do your other passions (such as woodworking) intersect with your writing?
RC: Being a builder, I learned long ago that every ounce of every structure has to be transferred one way or another to the earth for the structure to be sound — and the same applies to a work of fiction. It’s all about premise as foundation, and themes as framing. The satisfaction in standing back and seeing how doing it right makes a thing of beauty is the same for either.

SL: Again, I enjoy hunting for the perfect piece of wood, chain sawing it out of the log, mulling and turning it to its shape, but would be happy to have another woodworker sand, finish, and polish the piece. And to my amazement I have heard some woodworkers enjoy that second phase the most because they get to see the beauty of the wood emerge. I have learned to be content with seeing that beauty in my mind’s eye. I should mention I never did find a partner in wood turning.

What do your mature selves bring to the writing table that your younger selves never could have?
RC: Steven’s and my situation is not at all common, but we were fortunate to have decades of solid friendship to get us through the creative process — but that seems to translate to “check your ego at the door” and just do the work. Doing the work with a pro’s pro wasn’t easy, but I never forgot that any number of aspiring writers would have killed to be in my place — tutored by the guy who wrote Tron. It was easily a not-easy graduate course in writing and drama.

SL: I have been writing for over fifty years. I am finally getting to the point where I feel I know what I enjoy the most, and am confident that I have the skills to execute. In the past when I picked the right story and characters and pulled it off there was a certain amount of happenstance and luck involved. I also now enjoy the confidence of knowing I have the tools and weapons to get myself out of any traps I may set for myself. It’s a cliché to say it but now holes are really more opportunities.

What do many beginning writers misunderstand about telling a story?
RC: Thinking a story will write itself from an interesting premise and engaging characters is a fool’s errand. Only a genius doesn’t need to know how a story ends when he or she sits down to write it. Beginning, middle, end — or don’t bother.

SL: I find young writers today are very good at knowing a genre’s conventions. But perhaps are too cautious about breaking those conventions and going off formula. One way to gain that confidence is to think thematically. Early on a hint of theme can be a North Star — and by the end it can make sense of the impossible.

Who are your favorite authors, and what do you admire most about their writing?
RC: Owing to the genre template we were working in (noir fiction), Steven had me read a ton of Hammet and Chandler to get a feel for the word flow and (hopefully) develop in me some discipline in saying more with fewer words — I stray too easily into the florid and verbose. He did me (and himself) a great favor.

SL: Shakespeare because he had no prejudices. He never picks sides but finds a way to ridicule and elevate all comers. He treats kings like fools and fools like kings. The beautiful as hideous and the wretched as beautiful.

What are the hardest kinds of scenes for you to write?
RC: With Topeka, I got to be the set decorator — so not really hard. Shakespeare’s settings are brutally austere — “a castle” or “an apartment” — and that’s it. I’m a very visual guy. I see the blank page as a movie screen. I describe what I’d like to see on the screen, so I moved Steven’s characters across my sets. Steven gave me a lot of leeway, and I sprung things on him that weren’t in the original version. The first time or two there were some tense moments between us. “You could have asked,” he’d say, but as we went on, it started to flow, and frankly, by me feeling free to throw stuff against the wall, I think he was inspired to go even further in his imagination than he had (which was already breathtaking) and we wound up really stoked by the process. We love what we got.

SL: Everyday stuff.

What writing projects are you working on now? Do you have plans for future collaborations?
RC: Well, Steven is still my best friend, and the man simply has no idea how to slow down his imagination. So, who knows?

SL: Still basking in the afterglow of completing Topeka. My story file is a few hundred pages of concepts and characters, I have a love hate relationship with it.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
RC: In my view, there are few popular entertainments that are both just plain fun and edifying. Topeka delivers both in spades.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Author Stephen McIlwain

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Stephen McIlwain is a practicing attorney who discovered writing fiction is good for his soul. Decades of experience in criminal defense lends insight and authenticity to his debut legal thriller, A Snitch in Time (August 2023), set in Albuquerque, New Mexico and based on a true case. Look for Steve on Facebook and his Amazon author page.

Tell us a little about yourself.
I am an almost retired lawyer who has been practicing law for more than 50 years. When I started practicing law, Richard Nixon was in the White House, and his first term at that. The last 20 years of my practice have been almost exclusively criminal law working for the Public Defender Department for eight years and as a contractor lawyer for the Public Defender for the past 12 or so years. I am married (55+ years) and we have three children with five grandchildren.

Please give us a little background regarding A Snitch in Time.
The book has as its main component a homicide in Albuquerque with appendages from various other cases and an addition of fiction.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I have enjoyed writing for quite some time. When I was in high school, I wrote a humor column for the school newspaper that I enjoyed immensely. I have liked all the writing courses I have taken. I have done a great deal of legal writing (briefs, motions, memoranda and the like), but discovered a few decades ago that fiction writing could be cathartic and therapeutic and was good for my soul.

Life experience can pepper our writing. Did you find this happening when you wrote A Snitch in Time?
Nearly all the legal material in the book is from my life experiences, so the “peppering” of my writing is extensive, and occasionally some situations practically wrote themselves.

Do you share any traits with your characters?
Ted Griego and I are close to being indistinguishable except that he is a better lawyer than I.

What is your elevator pitch for A Snitch in Time?
The book is about a double homicide committed during a home invasion. In the course of the police investigation, two innocent but clueless young door-to-door magazine salesmen are swept up in the investigation by two inept detectives and charged with the murders after the detectives extract a false confession from one of them. A separate detective works with a defense lawyer to uncover facts that eventually solve the case. Sometimes I need a slower elevator.

Is there a scene in your book you’d like to see play out in a movie?
The seemingly unrelated murder committed at the beginning of the book is a good scene as well as the detectives’ interrogations that result in the false confession.

Have any of your ideas stemmed from actual cases?
All my ideas for legal fiction have their genesis from actual cases.

How did you feel the day you held the copy of your first book in your hands?
When I held the book for the first time, I was speechless—too many instantaneous emotions to isolate just one. I still pause when the word author precedes my name such as it does at the top of your list of questions.

Is there an underlying structure that guides your writing process or is this something you discover as you work?
I have certain points that I want to include in the story, but I just let the story proceed and those points find their way into the writing without much help from me. The closest thing I do as an outline is create a timeline to keep track of what’s going on. If you would permit a digression, I’ll add that I have an unpublished book about growing up in Indiana that I have been rewriting for 30 years. There is one character who insists that he must write his part of the story and that my job is only to be his scrivener. I read an article about this happening to authors and remember one in particular: That writer had a character at a cocktail party and was having a challenging time getting the character to leave. The character finally convinced the author that he didn’t want to be at the damned party in the first place.

Do you have another legal thriller in the works?
I am nearly finished with a book that is a thriller but not a legal thriller. I have a few ideas swimming around in my head about more legal thrillers.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



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