Interview with Barbara Fister

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.