Today we have with us at the Café mystery author Lou Allin, from Canada. Her latest book was just released by RendezVous Press in November 2007 and is entitled MEMORIES ARE MURDER. I think this time we’ll start by asking her about her love of coffee.

LOU:
I love coffee in the morning. So I'll be at the Stick-in-the-Mud in downtown Sooke on Vancouver Island, watching the fog cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca, talking to my barista neighbor Dave Evans and enjoying an Americano to celebrate my dual citizenship.

CAFÉ:
Sounds fun, think I’ll join you in having an Americano today. While I wait for my coffee, tell us a little about MEMORIES ARE MURDER.

LOU:
Northern Ontario realtor Belle Palmer's old flame comes to town, only to drown in a remote lake. Belle and a very pregnant friend find themselves paddling a kayak into the wilderness to escape from a killer.

CAFÉ:
How long have you been writing?

LOU:
Though I wrote before high school, lately only since 1987 when I got my computer.

CAFÉ:
When did your first novel come out? Why don’t you tell us a little about it?

LOU:
NORTHERN WINTERS ARE MURDER appeared in 2000. It featured Nickel Capital realtor Belle Palmer and her German shepherd, Freya.

CAFÉ:
Have you always written mysteries? If not what else have you written?

LOU:
I've published over sixty poems in small magazines (and the National Enquirer.) Sixteen of my short stories have appeared in that first venue as well.

CAFÉ:
What is the setting for your latest book and what brought you to choose it?

LOU:
Sudbury in Northern Ontario is the Nickel Capital of the World. thanks to a meteor nearly two billion years ago which left a massive basin of rich ores. It is also the site of one of the greatest ecological disasters and recoveries. By 1900, the landscape had been decimated by tree cutting and the results of open-pit smelting and acid rain. An area the size of New York City around the city core became a blackened moonscape. Since the Seventies, a coordinated effort by business and citizens (along with one humungous air-scrubbing Superstack) to plant durable rye grass and nearly twenty million resilient trees has revived the area. Sudbury won an award for these efforts at the Earth Summit in Rio.

CAFÉ:
That sounds very interesting. What is the main reason that you write?

LOU:
I can't not write. Especially on long winter nights, it's great entertainment and an unceasing puzzle and challenge.

CAFÉ:
Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to take away from your work?

LOU:
I'd like to awaken them to the beauties of the Canadian wilderness, the mystery of the animals and the recovery of this once-blighted land.

CAFÉ:
You’re making me want to visit already. Do you have a schedule for your writing or just write whenever you can?

LOU:
I'm retired now and free to make my own schedule. Usually I prefer to write in the morning, sandwiched before or after dog pack walks.

CAFÉ:
Yet another morning writer. Dog pack walks sound fun. Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

LOU:
I used to merely plot the crime, motive, and denouement. That brought an amusing spontaneity. Since a back problem told me to make better use of my time sitting at a computer, I do more initial planning. The upside is that fewer plot revisions are required.

CAFÉ:
If you had your ideal, what time of day would you prefer to write?

LOU:
Morning. 9 to 11.

CAFÉ:
You said you are now retired. Did you once have a day job?

LOU:
I taught English for 28 years at a community college. That alone should qualify me for sainthood. I finally found my niche in Police Report Writing and even got to perform poodle abduction scenarios so that the future officers could interview and take notes.

CAFÉ:
Now that sounds like the makings of a story. Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

LOU:
Yes, but partly because a British agent (Anne Perry's to be exact, a lovely woman) had taken the two books. She couldn't find a publisher for a Canadian setting. That delayed me two years.

CAFÉ:
Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?

LOU:
Here's a particularly brutal review! Keeps me humble. Then again, what some people hate, others like and vice versa. And if I've written an actual dangling modifier, i.e. "Rotting in the cellar, my father found the potatoes," I'd like it pointed out.

"In order to allow her many talents to shine, however, Allin needs some editorial help. On almost every page I encountered sentences so burdened with dangling modifying clauses that I had to stop reading while I struggled to figure out what the author meant to say." (If you really want to read more of this you’ll have to contact the author)

CAFÉ:
Not fun. What kind of promotion do you find most affective?

LOU:
Effective? One on one on a street corner waiting for a passport.

CAFÉ:
Haven’t tried that one. Do you have a most interesting book signing story-in a bookstore or other venue?

LOU:
Once I drove 1200 kilometers to a small mystery conference in Kingston, Ontario, only to sell one book. A mass market guy had cornered everyone for $8.99 and no one wanted to spend more. Grr. But the church supper was delicious.

CAFÉ:
Future writing goals?

LOU:
I'd like to get well underway on my new series set here in Sooke (my retirement home) on Vancouver Island where the rain forest meets the sea. If I could sell Sudbury, I can sell one of the most beautiful places in Canada. Book One, AND ON THE SURFACE DIE, is scheduled for 2009. Readers will be introduced to three varieties of banana slugs. Licorce ones are my favorites.

CAFÉ:
Any heroes?

LOU:
The late L R. Wright. Her West Coast mystery series, not to mention her Edgar, put Canadian crime writing on the map.

CAFÉ:
Person you would most like to meet dead or alive?

LOU:
Roz Russell or any of the silver screen goddesses. I'm a big fan of classic films. My father was a movie booker, a dream job. From the time I was five, I was previewing four new films weekly at a private showing.

CAFÉ:
Now I’d take that job. I love old movies. When you have time, what do you read?

LOU:
Peter Robinson. Nevada Barr. John Buchan hardbacks, i.e. Greenmantle, Thirty-Nine Steps, I return to once a year.

CAFÉ:
What are your hobbies?

LOU:
Cooking (Italian, Indian, Mexican). American politics during election years. Botany: I need to learn the names in my environment especially since I've left the boreal forest for the rain forest.

CAFÉ:
Favorite TV or movies?

LOU:
His Girl Friday. Cabaret. A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim. Witness for the Prosecution.

CAFÉ:
All great. Any pets?

LOU:
Two rescue border collies and a mini-poodle.

CAFÉ:
I know you are in Canada, but specifically what part of the country do you live in?

LOU:
Vancouver Island, Canada's Caribbean.

CAFÉ:
Any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

LOU:
Start young and don't stop. Know when to move on to the next challenge.

CAFÉ:
Anything you would like to add?

LOU:
The mystery community has always lent a helping hand to new writers. I respect that.

CAFÉ:
Website?

LOU:
LouAllin.com

CAFÉ:
Where can people purchase your books?

LOU:
I'm supposed to be distributed in major US and Canadian bookstores, but you know small presses. Stores often order just one copy. Try Amazon if all else fails.

CAFÉ:
Thanks so much for joining us here at the Café today and good luck with your books.

©2007 Lorie Ham. All rights reserved.