Friday, February 16, 2024

An Interview with E.M. Munsch

Today, I welcome author E.M. Munsch for some questions, answers, and maybe a little hot tea.. Elaine writes the Dash Hammond series and her newest book Old Sins, was recently released. I’ve read it and it’s wonderful. Dash Hammond does not disappoint. Elaine, thank you for joining me on my blog today. 

 

What inspired you to create Dash Hammond?

 Years ago, our Sisters in Crime chapter had a roundtable critique format where anyone could submit almost anything and solicit comments from the other readers/writers. While working in my garden I tripped and fell into my humongous rose bush. As I was slowly and painfully picking the thorns out of my body and clothes, I wondered how a writer would write this scene, anything to stop thinking of each thorn. After I finished, I went inside and sat down at the laptop. I had the picture of a woman trapped in a rosebush, but unlike me, she has a gentleman who comes to her aid. Dash Hammond was born. He is a combination of Magnum, PI, Rockford and my dearly departed husband.

 

What genre do you write and for what publisher(s)?

 In the mystery section of the bookstore is where you would find my books. Some might call them cozies but generally the books don’t fit that description.

Mystery and Horror, LLC have published my last two books in the Dash Hammond series. The first five were self-published through Amazon, now called Kindle Direct.

 

When you begin your stories, do you go with the flow, or go with an outline?

As you might suspect from the first answer, I just ‘go with the flow.’ I generally get a scene in my mind and start with that. Sometimes I have a big picture, but most often, I’m connecting scenes, going back and rewriting. Occasionally I will make notes, not enough to call them an outline. My slap-dash method requires a lot of re-writing but generally I have fun along the way.

 

What favorite authors do you enjoy reading?

I have to start with Rex Stout who authored the Nero Wolfe series. I like to call his books the ‘Archie Goodwin’ series. I fell in love with Archie decades ago. His wit, his charm and his dancing shoes, what’s not to love. He has a sharp tongue that often gets him into trouble, like my man Dash.

Lawrence Block, grand master of the genre, also writes a protagonist who is witty and charming and a bookseller to boot, that is when he’s not being a burglar.

Since I’m a bookseller I have a whole store of authors to choose. In the last decade or so I’ve read Robert Crais and Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series. I make it a point to buy their books.

A newish author who can spin a good tale is Trace Conger, an Ohioan with a wicked side.

 

Can you tell us a little about the path to publishing your first book?

My books have been classified as ‘comedic mysteries’ by a fellow writer. I haven’t tried to make them funny but there are times when the characters say or do something that makes me (and others) laugh. I began writing as a lark, with no real goal in mind. I was nearing my 70th birthday and decided a book would be a good present for myself. A fellow bookseller had self-published with Amazon and she volunteered to help me set that up. Having been a bookseller all my life and having had many conversations with authors about their path to publication, I felt that I didn’t have the time to pursue an agent, etc. etc.

Part of my job in the Sisters in Crime has been to help with several anthologies we published over the years. The latest one had to do with bourbon. When it came time to publish it, we asked two of our former chapter members who had moved to Florida to care for elderly relatives, and had set up their own small publishing firm, Mystery and Horror LLC, if they would consider the bourbon anthology. They did and it was a great success. I then asked if they would consider my, at the time, latest book which turned out to be A HAUNTING AT MARIANWOOD. It’s a Dash Hammond book set in Kentucky (the others are set in Ohio on Lake Erie) and deals with a ghost.

They were kind enough to also publish OLD SINS the seventh in the series.

 

Would you tell us a little about your writing process and what your work area looks like?

As the nuns would say, a messy desk speaks to a messy mind. And that picture is worth a thousand words. I wish I could report a daily disciplined routine but alas, that’s not me. If I’m working on a piece, I generally try to write first thing in the morning for as long as I can. Once I take a break, sometimes I get interrupted by life. All night long I have scenes and dialogue running through my mind. Sometimes I will get up and write just to get the thoughts down so I can get back to sleep.

My desk looks like a bomb went off. I am very disorganized, always losing bits and pieces. My daughter cringes every time she looks at it. And my files on my laptop make some of my friends cry when they see the scattered bits and pieces.

 

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing?

I read, but not as much as I did before I started writing. I belong to a mystery reading group at my Barnes & Noble which gives me a wide range of authors to read. And I find myself scrolling through the internet looking for authors and books. When I have the money, I try to attend book-related conferences. As you might expect, I love meeting authors and talking about books.

 

What are you working on right now? What’s next?

The story I am writing now is a non-Dash book. It’s about my old neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1958. I had the opening prologue appear to me while sleeping. I jotted it down: “The streets I haunted as a child now haunt me in my dreams.” It’s taking quite a bit of time and I have no idea how it will end. I’ve three different endings in mind but pretty sure only one can be in the book.

After I finish that, I might jump back into the Dash series. I have several ideas but need to put fingers to the keyboard before I can definitely say what will be next.

 

Anything else you’d like to add? Where can we find you online? Where are your books sold?

Just thank you for inviting me to your blog. I’m hopeless when it comes to talking about my own books. Right now, I don’t have a website but you can check out the Derby Rotten Scoundrels website. That’s the Sisters in Crime website for our local chapter.

The last two Dash books are (or will be) on the shelves at the Louisville Barnes & Noble. But can also be ordered through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

 

If you'd like to meet the author and pick up a signed book, she'll be at the Barnes & Noble on Hurstbourne Pkwy, Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday, March 24 from one until three. She'll also be at From the Ground Up Books & Resources on Main Street, Lagrange, Kentucky on Saturday, March 30 starting at noon. 

Again, thank you, Elaine for joining me today. Let me say, I’ve read all of Elaine’s Dash Hammond books and they’re fantastic. You can find Elaine’s books, writing as E.M. Munsch, on the sites below.

 

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Old Sins - Relatives - you can't choose them and you can't lose them... unless they die. And that's what Cousin Maud did.

The distant cousin of his Irish mother was never a big factor in Dash Hammond's life. As a child, he remembers her pinching his cheeks. As an adult, he rarely saw her as he traveled the world serving in the United States Army.

But Maud remembered him. "A good man, a reliable man....a seeker of truth and a finder of lost things." She leaves everything to Dash counting on his sense of duty and honor to do the right thing and make amends for her mistakes. If Dash finds Maud's abandoned daughter, how many lives will this impact?

As he drives back and forth from Clover Pointe, Ohio, to Cleveland, Dash curses her under his breath but refuses to back away from a challenge.

Dash learns that old sins do indeed cast long shadows.

Monday, February 5, 2024

Book News

 

I'm happy to say that I finally received the publishing contract for my next Nathan Perry mystery, Murder in Mystic Hollow. I have no firm release date yet, but per my contract, it should be within the next six to eight months. Publishing is a very slow business, so fingers crossed.

 


In other news, I'm about mid-way through chapter six of a new non-Nathan Perry book, Exposure. Scroll down for previous information on that one. I'm doing my best to get it finished before I go to a convention in August, hoping to pitch it to a publisher there. Again, fingers crossed.

Carol

 




Sunday, December 31, 2023

My Year in Review

 

I don’t think I’ve ever written a “Year in Review” post before, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I laughed as I looked back through my datebook and see all the entries and reminders I wrote. Many, I have no idea what they mean.

I started the year by setting my goal in the 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge. I choose to try and read six books in 2023. That’s my usual goal and I've met that goal every year prior. I’ll post how I did at the end of this writing.

I also had been itching to write a screenplay, but had no idea how to do it. Fortunately, early in the year, one of my publishers, and a screenwriter himself, Tony Acree held a screenwriting workshop near me and I took the opportunity to learn a new skill. I have to say I loved it. I learned so much in that one-day workshop. I was ready to start and am happy to say I adapted my first mystery book, Homecoming to Murder into my first screenplay in three months. I was ready to enter it into some screenwriting competitions.

After the screenplay was finished, I started writing a new novel, leaving Nathan Perry and his fellow officers behind. The new book had new characters, new location, and a new murder. I was in the groove writing it. I felt a little guilty leaving Nathan stalled at solving his newest murder investigation, but I needed a break from the residents of Mystic, Massachusetts.

July rolled around with the Imaginarium Convention in Louisville, Kentucky occurring. This is always
my favorite convention to attend. I love seeing so many of my online friends in person and meeting new ones at the event. This year was extra special because my screenplay won Runner-up in the Long Format Screenplay category. My first screenwriting award! Unfortunately, I also came home from the convention with a case of Covid. Thankfully, it was mild and after a few weeks of doing a lot of sleeping, I was over it.

During all this time, I was still working on the new novel. In August, I attended the Lagrange (Kentucky) Authors Fair. I shared a table with my Louisville, Kentucky Sisters-in-Crime chapter and sold several books. One particular customer told me how much she loved my Nathan Perry series and was really looking forward to reading the next one. The guilt hit again about not working on the next book in the series, which was actually only about four chapters from being finished when I stopped writing it. The next day, I started working on it again, setting aside the other book for a while. I have to say, I wrote almost every day to get that book finished, sometimes writing for several hours in the day. In October, I competed Murder in Mystic Hollow and sent it off to my publisher. When it’s released, it will be the fourth book in the Nathan Perry Mystery Series. My publisher is shooting for a Spring release.

Also, in October, my screenplay won a second award for Best Screenplay in the ICE CineFest. I also wrote another screenplay. This one is a short script called Summer Darkness. It’s a paranormal thriller. What to do next? I found myself in love with the residents of Mystic again and started working on the next book, which might possibly be the last one in the series, tentatively titled, Kill the Story. We'll see how it goes.

After finishing the first chapter, my mind kept wandering back to the other book. I was coming up with ideas for more of it. That book is about a sheriff in a Colorado town. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not a western, but another contemporary murder mystery. The tentative title for it is Exposure. I’ve almost completed the
fourth chapter.

So that brings me to the end of the year. I exceeded my Goodreads Reading Challenging by reading eleven books this year. I really don’t know how I got so many read with all the writing I did. My reading goal for 2024 will be eight books, hopefully more. If you bought any of my books this past year, thank you very much. I love writing and hope to continue doing that for a long time. 

Happy New Year!
Carol 


 

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Video Reviews

I found out this week that my friend, fellow author, and book reviewer mentioned me in one of her latest videos, The "I" Tag, on her YouTube Channel, Sandy Says Read. I'm mentioned a little after the two-minute mark. After my first mystery novel, Homecoming to Murder, was released, Sandy reviewed it. What I didn't know until this week was she also reviewed the second book in the series, The Coin Collector. You can find the links to those videos below. Thank you, Sandy Lender.

 

The "I" Tag video: https://youtu.be/nYjip6UbNTw?si=XvZlic4j76mnOJUV

Homecoming to Murder review: https://youtu.be/v4bt6nJMzNs?si=DmG0ujfENG8MAprq

The Coin Collector: https://youtu.be/IBMIJRuysl4?si=p9UzHdnEc-m3xHW2

Take a look at Sandy's channel, she has some great videos on there.

 Carol

 


Monday, November 27, 2023

Cyber Monday

 

Seasons Greetings!

Happy Cyber Monday! Amazon has reduced the price on some of my books. http://amzn.to/2khvWld  If you would rather buy from other booksellers, check out my Buy Links page where you can find all the links to my books. https://bit.ly/3sIUsBl

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Carol

 

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Another Screenwriting Award

 I'm very excited to announce that my screenplay, Homecoming to Murder, adapted from my book of the same name, won Best Feature Script at the ICE Cinefest in October, 2023. This is the second award my screenplay has won.



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Saturday, September 30, 2023

Coming Soon


 I'm currently working on the first round of self-edits on my next Nathan Perry Mystery. If you're not familiar with my mysteries, you can find them on the right side of this page. Click on the cover and it should take you to the Amazon page for that book.

Murder in Mystic Hollow started out as a modern-day retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. If you read closely, you can see elements of Washington Irving's original short story. You'll find it has all the characters you loved in the first three books. You'll also meet newly hired librarian, Isaac Caine, who comes to Mystic for a new start and ends up falling for the lovely Katina Van Allen. When Isaac finds a dead body at the bottom of his stairs, his world turns upside down, and Detective Nathan Perry is called upon to find the killer. So many people are on the list of suspects, that Nathan become frustrated at not being able to sort it all out. Throw in a 35 year-old bank robbery and the officers from the Mystic Police Department find their hands full, not to mention the mysterious motorcycle rider that keeps taunting Isaac. It all comes to down Nathan and his officers finally figuring out, 'who done it.'


 Look for Murder in Mystic Hollow around the end of 2023, or the beginning of 2024.

Carol


An Interview with E.M. Munsch

Today, I welcome author E.M. Munsch for some questions, answers, and maybe a little hot tea.. Elaine writes the Dash Hammond series and her ...