Welcome to this week's Coffee Chat!
It feels like early Spring in the Midwest, and I'm hoping it's here to stay. But my winter TBR pile is still large, and it looks like today's guest--mystery writer Rena Leith--will be adding to it.
Nice to meet you, Rena. How do you take your coffee?
RL: Keurig brewed Panera Light with two teaspoons of sugar and French vanilla half and half in a mug ( or Harney’s Paris tea plain).
Ally: One mug of coffee coming right up. Meantime, please introduce yourself.
jBio:
I currently live in Cape May County in New Jersey where I moved after spending years in the San Francisco Bay Area with my Maine Coon cats Sierra and Ginger. I attended Clarion Writers Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy at Michigan State University and sold a story I wrote there to Damon Knight for The Clarion Awards anthology. I wrote technical manuals in Silicon Valley and also published several poems and science articles as well as a couple of chapters in Research & Professional Resources in Children’s Literature: Piecing a Patchwork Quilt. I’ve also taught English in high school and community colleges.
Something unique/unusual that most readers don't know: "I lived in the Philippines for two and a half years as a child. My father was a consultant for the Philippine government during the time when they were preparing for their independence. As a result, I traveled up to Baguio in the mountains before it was a well-developed city and down to Cebu in the Visayan Islands and Zamboanga on Mindanao. I spent time talking to a man polishing a tray full of moonstones as he squatted under a tree. I also watched a little Moro boy peeing through the slats of a wooden walkway among houses on stilts in a lake. For a ten-year-old American girl this was the height of adventure and really whetted my appetite for the strange and unusual."
Author Links:
Website: http://www.renaleith.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorrenaleith/
Twitter (@RenaLeith): http://twitter.com/RenaLeith
I currently live in Cape May County in New Jersey where I moved after spending years in the San Francisco Bay Area with my Maine Coon cats Sierra and Ginger. I attended Clarion Writers Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy at Michigan State University and sold a story I wrote there to Damon Knight for The Clarion Awards anthology. I wrote technical manuals in Silicon Valley and also published several poems and science articles as well as a couple of chapters in Research & Professional Resources in Children’s Literature: Piecing a Patchwork Quilt. I’ve also taught English in high school and community colleges.
Something unique/unusual that most readers don't know: "I lived in the Philippines for two and a half years as a child. My father was a consultant for the Philippine government during the time when they were preparing for their independence. As a result, I traveled up to Baguio in the mountains before it was a well-developed city and down to Cebu in the Visayan Islands and Zamboanga on Mindanao. I spent time talking to a man polishing a tray full of moonstones as he squatted under a tree. I also watched a little Moro boy peeing through the slats of a wooden walkway among houses on stilts in a lake. For a ten-year-old American girl this was the height of adventure and really whetted my appetite for the strange and unusual."
Author Links:
Website: http://www.renaleith.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorrenaleith/
Twitter (@RenaLeith): http://twitter.com/RenaLeith
INTERVIEW:
Ally: Tell readers what kind of book you're featuring. Does it have scenes that might be too "warm" for younger readers?
RL: LOL! No hot sex in my book. It’s a cozy mystery in which my heroine Cass discovers that she would like to reconnect with her old college sweetheart who is now a local police officer. It’s so low key in the romance department that my editor at The Wild Rose Press would like me to up it a peg or two in the next book!
Ally: How do you go about writing a new book?
RL: I do a lot of wandering around the house thinking out loud and annoying my cats. You’ve heard of outliners and pantsers; well, I’m a fish boner. I get an idea, which is often seeing a scene, a character, or a sequence, and write the first three chapters. Then I walk around muttering to myself until I figure out an ending, which I write up. Next I write up the fish’s spine and start adding the ribs. Once outlined, I write for 15 minutes to 5 hours at a time. The next day I edit to get into the right mental space and then write new material. I take notes constantly on Notepad using the microphone or on paper. I’ve discovered that writing in the middle of the night is usually illegible the next morning, so I’ve cultivated the use of the microphone function on my iPhone in the middle of the night when inspiration strikes.
Ally: Who is your main character? Why will readers care about her?
RL: Many writers will tell you that they are their main character. Mine is an idealized version of me. She’s a lot thinner for one thing! She has the house in the location I wanted. I think you should care about Cass because she’s the emerging woman. She’s emerging like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Her eyes are opening, and she’s moving away from conventions and expectations and into adventure. She’s the what-if in each of us. After the upheaval of her divorce, she follows the path less traveled. There’s room in her life now for mystery and magic.
Ally: Was your journey to publication full of bumps or pretty smooth going?
RL: I once thought about wallpapering my bedroom with my rejection slips. It’s been a long haul with a few little successes along the way. While books on writing can be foundational, the human interaction that writers helping writers provides has been essential for me. Writing groups have played a huge part in keeping me going. Some writers who’ve been part of groups I’ve belonged to and helped and encouraged me include Margaret Dumas, Claire Johnson, Mike Cooper, Gordon Yano, Janet Finsilver, Carole Price, Camille Minichino, and the list could go on. Margaret is the one who told me about The Wild Rose Press’ Call for Submissions for humorous ghost stories. And of course I live by that famous phrase from Galaxy Quest: Never give up, never surrender!
Ally: Who or what inspired you to write fiction?
RL: An imaginary dead body. I’ve always loved to tell stories, which often annoyed my mother and sisters. We lived in an old house, which to this day my sisters and I believe is haunted. It had a huge, dank basement with the proverbial naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting eerie shadows as it swung back and forth. The basement was unfinished, but that’s where the washing machine and dryer were. Mom would send us down to do the laundry. One day I climbed up on a chair and looked through a small, screened window into a crawl space. A large, oblong mound of dirt occupied the center, looking exactly like a burial mound. So being me, I immediately made up a story about a body being buried there. I was pretty convincing, and my sisters refused to go back down. Of course, I was such a good storyteller that I even scared myself out of doing the laundry down there where something might rise from its grave, snatch me, and drag me back down to its lair. My mother was furious! It seemed natural to write my stories after that.
Ally: Have you thought about one of your books being made into a movie? Who would play the parts?
RL: Oh, yeah. That would be fantastic although it’s likely to wind up a different artifact than my book! I think I’d like to see either Amy Adams or Olivia Wilde as Cass and Daniel Dae Kim as George. Maybe Aiden Turner from Poldark and The Hobbit movies as Jack and Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Gillian. I can see Dominic Sherwood from Shadowhunters as Dave. I think Emma Watson with platinum hair would be perfect as Mia. I think another actor from Shadowhunters Alberto Rosende would be a good pick for Ricardo. He’s also a musician, so perhaps he could do the theme song. Mina is a little harder to cast. I watched Sigourney Weaver in A Monster Calls, and she exhibited the fragility and underlying strength I see in Mina; however, I also think of Mina as more ethereal, more of a “grey lady,” someone in touch with the elementals. Michelle Pfeiffer or Cate Blanchett come to mind but not quite. But I think perhaps Tilda Swinton has the right quality.
Ally: What are you currently writing?
RL: My next project is the second book in the Cass Peake series tentatively titled Hidden Gems. Because it’s set on the northern California coast at Halloween, I’m aiming for a fall release date. Cass, Doris the ghost, and Thor the cat return.
In Hidden Gems, Cass has settled into her little Arts and Crafts bungalow in Las Lunas and adjusted to losing a husband and gaining a ghost, but she still hasn’t told George Ho, her old college boyfriend, who’s a gorgeous Hawaiian and very superstitious about ghosts and leery about having one follow him home, about Doris. He always carries green onions in his pocket at funerals to avoid gaining an unwanted ghostly roommate. As Halloween nears, Cass’ brother Jack and his wife Gillian come over to the coast from Berkeley to spend the holiday with her and visit Thor, the obstreperous black cat they rehomed with Cass. George, now a police detective, wakes Cass one morning to make sure she’s not the dead body they’ve just discovered on the beach in front of her cottage. The locals call that stretch of sand Murder Beach…for good reason.
Ally: Let's talk about you with this short answer questions.
Ally: Tell readers what kind of book you're featuring. Does it have scenes that might be too "warm" for younger readers?
RL: LOL! No hot sex in my book. It’s a cozy mystery in which my heroine Cass discovers that she would like to reconnect with her old college sweetheart who is now a local police officer. It’s so low key in the romance department that my editor at The Wild Rose Press would like me to up it a peg or two in the next book!
Ally: How do you go about writing a new book?
RL: I do a lot of wandering around the house thinking out loud and annoying my cats. You’ve heard of outliners and pantsers; well, I’m a fish boner. I get an idea, which is often seeing a scene, a character, or a sequence, and write the first three chapters. Then I walk around muttering to myself until I figure out an ending, which I write up. Next I write up the fish’s spine and start adding the ribs. Once outlined, I write for 15 minutes to 5 hours at a time. The next day I edit to get into the right mental space and then write new material. I take notes constantly on Notepad using the microphone or on paper. I’ve discovered that writing in the middle of the night is usually illegible the next morning, so I’ve cultivated the use of the microphone function on my iPhone in the middle of the night when inspiration strikes.
Ally: Who is your main character? Why will readers care about her?
RL: Many writers will tell you that they are their main character. Mine is an idealized version of me. She’s a lot thinner for one thing! She has the house in the location I wanted. I think you should care about Cass because she’s the emerging woman. She’s emerging like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Her eyes are opening, and she’s moving away from conventions and expectations and into adventure. She’s the what-if in each of us. After the upheaval of her divorce, she follows the path less traveled. There’s room in her life now for mystery and magic.
Ally: Was your journey to publication full of bumps or pretty smooth going?
RL: I once thought about wallpapering my bedroom with my rejection slips. It’s been a long haul with a few little successes along the way. While books on writing can be foundational, the human interaction that writers helping writers provides has been essential for me. Writing groups have played a huge part in keeping me going. Some writers who’ve been part of groups I’ve belonged to and helped and encouraged me include Margaret Dumas, Claire Johnson, Mike Cooper, Gordon Yano, Janet Finsilver, Carole Price, Camille Minichino, and the list could go on. Margaret is the one who told me about The Wild Rose Press’ Call for Submissions for humorous ghost stories. And of course I live by that famous phrase from Galaxy Quest: Never give up, never surrender!
Ally: Who or what inspired you to write fiction?
RL: An imaginary dead body. I’ve always loved to tell stories, which often annoyed my mother and sisters. We lived in an old house, which to this day my sisters and I believe is haunted. It had a huge, dank basement with the proverbial naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting eerie shadows as it swung back and forth. The basement was unfinished, but that’s where the washing machine and dryer were. Mom would send us down to do the laundry. One day I climbed up on a chair and looked through a small, screened window into a crawl space. A large, oblong mound of dirt occupied the center, looking exactly like a burial mound. So being me, I immediately made up a story about a body being buried there. I was pretty convincing, and my sisters refused to go back down. Of course, I was such a good storyteller that I even scared myself out of doing the laundry down there where something might rise from its grave, snatch me, and drag me back down to its lair. My mother was furious! It seemed natural to write my stories after that.
Ally: Have you thought about one of your books being made into a movie? Who would play the parts?
RL: Oh, yeah. That would be fantastic although it’s likely to wind up a different artifact than my book! I think I’d like to see either Amy Adams or Olivia Wilde as Cass and Daniel Dae Kim as George. Maybe Aiden Turner from Poldark and The Hobbit movies as Jack and Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Gillian. I can see Dominic Sherwood from Shadowhunters as Dave. I think Emma Watson with platinum hair would be perfect as Mia. I think another actor from Shadowhunters Alberto Rosende would be a good pick for Ricardo. He’s also a musician, so perhaps he could do the theme song. Mina is a little harder to cast. I watched Sigourney Weaver in A Monster Calls, and she exhibited the fragility and underlying strength I see in Mina; however, I also think of Mina as more ethereal, more of a “grey lady,” someone in touch with the elementals. Michelle Pfeiffer or Cate Blanchett come to mind but not quite. But I think perhaps Tilda Swinton has the right quality.
Ally: What are you currently writing?
RL: My next project is the second book in the Cass Peake series tentatively titled Hidden Gems. Because it’s set on the northern California coast at Halloween, I’m aiming for a fall release date. Cass, Doris the ghost, and Thor the cat return.
In Hidden Gems, Cass has settled into her little Arts and Crafts bungalow in Las Lunas and adjusted to losing a husband and gaining a ghost, but she still hasn’t told George Ho, her old college boyfriend, who’s a gorgeous Hawaiian and very superstitious about ghosts and leery about having one follow him home, about Doris. He always carries green onions in his pocket at funerals to avoid gaining an unwanted ghostly roommate. As Halloween nears, Cass’ brother Jack and his wife Gillian come over to the coast from Berkeley to spend the holiday with her and visit Thor, the obstreperous black cat they rehomed with Cass. George, now a police detective, wakes Cass one morning to make sure she’s not the dead body they’ve just discovered on the beach in front of her cottage. The locals call that stretch of sand Murder Beach…for good reason.
Ally: Let's talk about you with this short answer questions.
- a. favorite book: Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier (Ally note: Mine too! I thought I was alone on this one!)
- b. book you're currently reading: Murder at the Fortune Teller’s Table by Janet Finsilver
- c. an author (living or dead) you'd love to take to lunch: Daphne du Maurier
- d. favorite movie: The Uninvited with Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell, and Cornelia Otis Skinner.
- e. a fantasy being/person you'd like to be: An elf or a hulda
Murder Beach
genre: cozy mystery
Blurb:
Her husband’s infidelity turns Cass Peake’s world upside down. Hoping to start fresh, she moves to a sleepy little town called Las Lunas on the northern California coast. The cute seaside bungalow is surprisingly affordable and Cass snaps it up. She soon discovers why the place was so cheap; it’s haunted! And the beach by her new home is called Murder Beach by locals. She can’t even get a pizza delivered.
Back in the Roaring Twenties, the bodies of Doris Pierpont, a notorious bootlegger’s daughter, and her lover were discovered on the beach. Summoned by a séance in the Swinging Sixties, Doris returned to the house. Now she wants to know who murdered her.
As Cass tries to make a new life and solve Doris’s murder, the corpse of the local bookstore owner is found in the sand. Is Murder Beach living up to its name once again?
Buy Links:
Wild Rose Press: https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/4966-murder-beach.html?search_query=murder+beach&results=5
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Beach-Rena-Leith-ebook/dp/B06XBDLRC7
B & N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-beach-rena-leith/1125888164?ean=2940157271923
genre: cozy mystery
Blurb:
Her husband’s infidelity turns Cass Peake’s world upside down. Hoping to start fresh, she moves to a sleepy little town called Las Lunas on the northern California coast. The cute seaside bungalow is surprisingly affordable and Cass snaps it up. She soon discovers why the place was so cheap; it’s haunted! And the beach by her new home is called Murder Beach by locals. She can’t even get a pizza delivered.
Back in the Roaring Twenties, the bodies of Doris Pierpont, a notorious bootlegger’s daughter, and her lover were discovered on the beach. Summoned by a séance in the Swinging Sixties, Doris returned to the house. Now she wants to know who murdered her.
As Cass tries to make a new life and solve Doris’s murder, the corpse of the local bookstore owner is found in the sand. Is Murder Beach living up to its name once again?
Buy Links:
Wild Rose Press: https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/4966-murder-beach.html?search_query=murder+beach&results=5
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Beach-Rena-Leith-ebook/dp/B06XBDLRC7
B & N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-beach-rena-leith/1125888164?ean=2940157271923
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