Barbara Fister is a librarian and mystery author. I, Jessy Randall, interviewed her by email in March, 2013.
Q: Do you think librarianship is
a good day job for a writer? Why or why not?
Hmm... it's an enjoyable job, and a social one, so it's a good balance for the
time you spend alone when writing. Also, nobody's life hangs in the balance (at
least in an academic library), so there's not the kind of emotional drain that
some jobs have. That said, it was actually getting too deeply sucked into
conflict at work that led me to start writing on the side. I was getting far
too wrapped up in the trivia of workplace politics, and decided to channel some
of that negative energy into imagining dark and disturbing things that I could
explore without getting personally hurt.
The downside to having an enjoyable day job is that I end up writing articles
and opinion pieces about my profession. I'm grateful to have a public platform
for my ideas, writing regularly for both Library Journal and Inside Higher Ed,
but it seems to wear out some part of my brain that used to dream up plot
twists and character developments. I've been much slower to finish my current
work in progress than previous books, partly because I do a lot of non-fiction
writing these days. Maybe I should look for less satisfying, more frustrating
work.
Q: Have any of your library
experiences made their way into your fiction?
I didn't think so until a friend pointed out that the slightly deranged, barely
literate cop who digs into a suspect's past using LexisNexis is most likely
sharing some librarian DNA with me. My current series character is fairly nerdy
in a way that is more consistent with her background, which is a mix of higher
ed and law enforcement.
Q: Did your library knowledge
help you to navigate the publishing world?
You would think so, wouldn't you? No. I was a total idiot about publishing. I
didn't even do the kind of research most people do. I think I was so averse to
rejection, I didn't want to know how it worked (or, perhaps more accurately,
doesn't work!) - in just the same way Googling that nasty thing you were just
diagnosed with can make you feel worse. The extent of my planning was to limit
my search of Literary Marketplace to agents who were members of the Association
of Authors' Representatives with zip codes in Manhattan. I got lucky. Don't try
this at home.
Q: Do you tend to keep your
writing life a secret from your library colleagues? Why or why not?
I did, and to some extent still do, largely because I am a fairly private
person who doesn't mix my imaginary life with public life very well. I don't
want to spook my characters into hiding. (Come out, come out, wherever you
are!) But when I wrote my first mystery, which is very dark and twisted, I
wasn't sure what people who know me at work would think. It's funny - if they
read the same fiction I was reading they would have been prepared, but they
don't, so . . . There is still one professor who introduces me to his classes
as knowing "more about sex and violence than anyone I know."
The number of people who assume my books will be about sentient cats and
knitting librarians makes me wonder whether I project that image, or if the
stereotype of librarian overwhelms my public identity. I mean, I like cats,
okay, but I don't knit, and I'm much more interested in the kind of crime that
happens on mean streets, not in drawing rooms (though the money-dealing and
political power-grabbing that happens there might lead to what happens on the
streets. And THAT'S interesting.)
Q: Do your colleagues read your
books, and do they talk to you about them? Do they take advantage of having an
author in their midst?
Quite a few have, and some probably tried and politely don't mention it. One of
my co-workers writes fiction, but she has her own writing group, which lets us
off the hook for any potential mismatch of literary tastes and aspirations. I
have given generic advice (as in "don't do this at home") and try to
keep up with what's happening in trade publishing, so know something about the
many options available to authors today. I've also talked to classes
occasionally about the writing/publishing experience. But other than that, I
think they mostly forget I write mysteries. (Perhaps because I am so slow at
it, and it's easy to forget when I'm only popping up with a new book every few
years. Don't try this at home.)
Q: Do you know any other
librarian mystery authors?
Perhaps the first person I spoke to at a publisher's reception at Bouchercon,
the annual fan convention for the genre, was Marcia Talley, who said "Oh,
I used to work at the Library of Congress." We now interact through
Sisters in Crime, of which she is a past president. (She's a real pro who
writes a gentler kind of a mystery and lives part of the year on a boat in the
Caribbean, so is obviously doing something right.) Everyone else in the room
seemed to suddenly need to talk to someone over by the bar as soon as it
surfaced that I was a librarian. Cat allergies, perhaps. It's probably time to
confess that I made a rookie mistake in my first book: I killed a cat. Nobody
told me that it's okay to slay legions of humans, preferably attractive young
women, but do not on any account touch a cat's whisker. Oops.
Q: Who are your favorite mystery
authors?
I used to have a short list, which featured Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos,
James Lee Burke, John Harvey, Elmore Leonard, and Reginald Hill. Now it's
harder to keep a list because there are so many excellent writers out there.
Denise Mina is fabulous. Lindsay Faye's Gods of Gotham knocked my socks off.
Sean Doolittle keeps writing wonderful books that fly bizarrely under the
radar. Timothy Hallinan's Bangkok series is wonderfully well-written and full
of heart. I also enjoy reading a lot of Scandinavian authors and particularly
like Johan Theorin, Arnaldur Indridason, and the collaboration between Lene
Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis. I know I'm leaving off a ton of favorites that will
come to me later, but there's no shortage of great books out there.
Q: What advice would you give to
as-yet-unpublished mystery authors?
Enjoy the imaginative and creative act of writing. Love your characters. Don't
get too sucked into the competitive and self-aggrandizing business of writing
if it takes all the fun out of writing itself. There are too many variables out
of your control to take success or failure personally. For me the two great
pleasures of writing are being able to wring out of thin air something about
the world that feels emotionally truthful and becoming lost in an imaginary
world of my own making. That doesn't happen as often as I would like, but when
it does, it's intoxicating.
A question from a fan (from last week's post): "Barbara
is great! I'm a big fan of her non-fiction writing about libraries, and I've
started reading her fiction, too. I'm curious to know about inspiration and
tying it all together. What comes first, the mystery or the solution? Also,
does she have to code-switch between fiction and non-fiction or does she feel that
each somehow informs or facilitates the other?"
For me, the mystery
definitely comes first - or at least the conflict, and then the specific
situation involving a crime, and the solution very late in the game. (For
example, Through the Cracks came out of my wondering what it's like for the
victim of a crime when the person they thought committed it is exonerated. That
has to be fairly traumatic, and it also made me think that in some wrongful
convictions, the state didn't care enough about the victims to get it right,
which is a double victimization. I was particularly thinking of a Chicago
police commander who oversaw a number of false confessions obtained by torture
- he didn't give enough of a damn about the victims to bother solving the
crimes.) (I may have already said all this, or something like it, so feel
free to leave it out.)
As for "code-switching" (lovely phrase) - I do have to watch out (as
I think all writers do) to avoid infodumps or any really cool stuff I found out
doing research that doesn't have to be there to advance the story. Also, I need
to let characters who I would disagree with in real life be as intelligent and
capable as the characters who would share my politics - straw men make for
boring, unrealistic characters and one of the best functions of fiction is to
give our empathy a workout.
To be honest, though, I think my non-fiction writing has been influenced by
writing fiction in that it made me more aware of the narrative shape and the
emotional dimension of laying ideas out like a story. And I like having even my
most dry academic writing to end with a zinger.
And that is the zinger on which we shall end.
