Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to interview many acclaimed authors. They a
nswer questions with refreshing candor. Here are some of the most successful writers telling it like it is.
You left your day job to write full-time. What’s surprised you about the writing life?
It’s much easier to lie on the couch and eat potato chips or watch Better Call Saul than sit down and write another paragraph. I’ve had to relearn self-discipline in writing these books. Alex Grecian, talking about The Harvest Man
Sue Grafton is best known for her alphabet mystery series (A is for Alibi, etc.), with her feisty protagonist Kinsey Millhone. NPR’s Maureen Corrigan said the forthcoming conclusion of the alphabet series “makes me wish there were more than twenty-six letters at her disposal.”
ames Rollins, and The Fargo Adventure Series with Clive Cussler. He’s also the author of the Briggs Tanner series, among other novels. A U. S. Navy veteran, Grant spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer.
Dennis Lehane is known to millions of readers. His novels Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter Island became blockbuster movies, with the most recent film being The Drop, which is based on his short story, Animal Rescue.
Philip Kerr obtained a master’s degree in law and philosophy from the University of Birmingham in the UK. He worked as an advertising copywriter for Saatchi and Saatchi before becoming a full-time writer in 1989. He is best known for the Bernie Gunther series of historical thrillers set in Germany during the 1930s, World War II, and the Cold War. He was a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shamus Award, and winner of the British Crime Writers Association Ellis Peters Award for Best Historical Crime Fiction. He has also written a Young Adult series, Children of the Lamp, under the name P.B. Kerr.
Sophie Hannah, a British poet and novelist, is an internationally bestselling author of psychological crime fiction. Her novels have been published in 27 countries and have featured the detective couple, Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer. In 2013, it was announced that Hannah would pen an Agatha Christie novel featuring Hercule Poirot, the first new novel in 38 years to feature the world famous detective. The decision to write the novel was endorsed by Christie’s estate and publisher.
I’m occasionally asked why I write crime-thriller novels.
Jonathan Kellerman has written 43 books. Thirty seven of them have been novels; all have been bestsellers. Twenty nine of the novels have featured Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who is a consultant to the LAPD.
Faye Kellerman is the bestselling author of twenty-six novels, twenty-two of which feature the husband and wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. Faye and her husband, Jonathan Kellerman, are the only married couple ever to appear on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously for two different novels.