For our first mystery author interview here at the No Name Café, we are so privileged to have Jan Burke. So pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy this interview with this interesting and very nice author.

CAFÉ:

Thanks for joining us Jan, help yourself to the coffee. For those not familiar with your books, tell me just a little about them.

JAN:

I write a series set in Southern California, featuring newspaper reporter Irene Kelly. There are seven books in that series. Flight, which is now out in paperback, is something of a spin-off, and features homicide detective Frank Harriman. In the fall, Simon & Schuster will publish Nine, which is a stand-alone thriller.

CAFÉ:

When did you first start writing? First start publishing (short stories, books,etc)?

JAN:

I've written just about all my life, or ventured into one creative endeavor or another that required writing. But I first seriously considered writing a novel in about 1989. I wrote the beginning of Goodnight, Irene in 1990, talked myself out of continuing it for about six months, screwed up my courage and finished it in 1991. I sold it to Simon & Schuster that year, and it was published 18 months later, in 1993. In the meantime, I sold a short story to the publisher who bought the Dutch rights to the book, and that short story was published in 1992. So the first publication of any of short stories was in Dutch.

CAFÉ:

Why do you write? Why mysteries?

JAN:

I write because I'm a writer. I can't imagine not writing. Throughout my life, I've been involved in some sort of storytelling, either with music, film, drama, poetry, or writing fiction. I don't feel chained by it, though — just the opposite. It's something that brings me joy. I'm grateful to be able to do what I love for a living, Mysteries, because I've loved reading them. I have respect for the form and its history.

CAFÉ:

Did you have another occupation before you became a successful published author?

JAN:

I've had any number of occupations. Among them, I've worked as a playground supervisor, a waitress, a sales clerk, a camp counselor, a singer, a history researcher, a teacher, a tutor, a receptionist, a grinding wheel operator, a shipping clerk, a production manager, and managed a manufacturing plant.

CAFÉ:

Hey, I didn't know you were a singer, too. Do you have something you wish to accomplish with the things you write, i.e. enjoyment, challenging, fear...what do you want people to take away with them when they read your writing? Do you ever have a message?

JAN: I hope to engage the reader's imagination, draw the reader into the fictional world I've created, and tell a story that will hold his or her interest from the first to the last page. If the reader thinks about the characters, keeps wondering about them after closing the book, then I feel especially good. If everything works at its best, the reader feels that something I've said somewhere along the way resonates with him/her as true. I think most novels of crime fiction carry a message built into them, that justice is important, and worth some individual risk. That, as Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch so eloquently puts it, "Everyone counts, or no one counts." Mysteries are at heart both Everyman tales and classic heroes' tales, stories of redemption. I don't consider myself a message writer, but I also don't avoid issues that interest me. Irene is a character who cares about justice, and not just individual justice. She is a person who cares about the world around her and doesn't see Earth as a planet that she rides on just for her own selfish pleasure. It would be impossible to write her as someone who is blind to corruption, racism, or other problems. She is also intelligent, and not someone who would embrace overly simplistic analyses or answers. For me, each book has a theme, an underlying "this is what it's about." I don't write hoping that the reader will close the book and say, "What a fine book about x," if x is the theme. Bones is, at heart, about compassion. The villain is utterly without it. The heroes become involved and in danger because they have compassion. But I don't need the reader to recognize that -- it's just what held the book together for me as I wrote it.

CAFÉ:

What time of day do you find you are most creative?

JAN:

"Late at night," she answers at 4 AM. But I write at all hours of the day.

CAFÉ:

Another night person! So many writer's I've interviewed have been morning people. What sort of things do you do for fun?

JAN:

I spend time with my husband, my family, my friends, my dogs. I walk. I go to films and concerts. I enjoy the outdoors.

CAFÉ:

Do you have a favorite author/authors?

JAN:

Too many to name.

CAFÉ:

A book or author that influenced you a lot? Personally or professionally.

JAN:

Again, too many to name.

CAFÉ:

Favorite mystery movie?

JAN:

Rear Window. Combines the work of two of my favorites -- Alfred Hitchcock and Cornell Woolrich.

CAFÉ:

Favorite mystery TV show? If you don't have a favorite mystery one, then some other type of TV show that is a favorite.

JAN:

Columbo. No contest.

CAFÉ:

How do you feel about writing? And how does it feel when you are writing? Excited, frustrated, is it just business?

JAN:

It is work, but not drudgery. It requires long hours and commitment. It both terrifies and thrills me. Sometimes I have to force myself to face the blank page, but sooner or later, I find exhilaration in writing.

CAFÉ:

I know most authors starting out today have to do a lot of promotion, do you find being a well established author that you still need to do a lot of promotion? And if so, what type have you found most affective?

JAN:

Promotion is part of it for almost anyone, I think. The most effective in terms of what I can do personally is to meet booksellers (to whom I am so grateful for stocking my books in their stores, and for introducing readers to my work) and readers (to whom I am grateful for investing in my work and spending time reading it).

CAFÉ:

Can you ever see yourself not writing anymore?

JAN:

If I were mentally disabled in some way, I suppose. Or dead.

CAFÉ:

(laugh out loud) Pets? Types and names, please.

JAN:

Two big dogs from the pound, mostly German Shepherds, but who knows what else mixed in. Cappy and Britches. Their photos can be seen on my Web site.

CAFÉ:

What part of you shows through in your writing? What does your writing say about you?

JAN:

My sense of humor. That I have one.

CAFÉ:

Where do you get your character names?

JAN:

They name themselves, most of the time. Sometimes they are named after friends and a few times I've auctioned off a character name for charity. I also use the phone book and the "What Shall We Name the Baby?" book and ones like it.

CAFÉ:

What about writing is most important to you?

JAN:

That's hard to say. Many, many aspects of it are important to me. I'd hate to name just one. If I had to, I suppose I'd say that I write for myself first, but I never cease to feel that the connection to other readers is something magical. That sounds corny, but it's how I feel. The idea that someone takes something I imagined, reads it at the end of a long day, or on an airplane, or in the tub, or on the beach or wherever, and -- if we are both lucky -- begins to use his or her own imagination, and in effect creates something new out what I've provided, goes into a fictional world using that imagination -- I don't think I'll ever lose my sense of wonder over that.

CAFÉ:

That's great. Advice to an unpublished writer?

JAN:

I have some of this on my Web site, JanBurke.com.

CAFÉ:

Anything that you would like to add?

JAN:

Thanks for your interest!

CAFÉ:

Thank you so much for joining us. Hope you enjoyed the coffee...

©2007 Lorie Ham. All rights reserved.