Julie Kramer, author of the soon to be released STALKING SUSAN, was one of five authors selected to speak at the

LibraryJournal Breakfast at the Public Library Association Conference in Minneapolis March 27.

She talked about how libraries create authors, and how she wanted to be like Phyllis A. Whitney when she grew up."When I first decided to get serious about writing a book, one of the first things I did was go to the library," Kramer said. There she reread debut novels by her favorite thriller writers and tried analyzing what made them so good. That took about a year. And that was her favorite part of writing a book.

But she found making  up stories harder than her day job as a journalist writing news, so she started checking out books about the craft of fiction. One of the most useful, WRITING MYSTERIES, featured advice from famous authors, including a chapter on pacing and suspense written by Phyllis A. Whitney. "I took her advice about curiosity, emotion, viewpoint and giving every character a secret. Eventually I had a big pile of pages."
 
Next she started checking out books about researching agents. And it worked. Elaine Koster agreed to represent her.

Then Kramer checked out books about the publishing industry, all the while revising and improving her manuscript. Before long she had a two-book deal with Doubleday. And her editor, Stacy Creamer, decided to market her book under suspense. Just like Phyllis A. Whitney.   
  
-------
Julie Kramer's debut STALKING SUSAN will be released July 15, but will be available for early sale at Thrillerfest. To learn more about her, visit her website at www.juliekramerbooks.com .

By Laura Benedict

I’ve reviewed books myself on a freelance basis for a Michigan newspaper for over ten years, I’m married to a writer, and I have many writer friends, so I’m deeply aware of how affecting reviews—both positive and negative—can be.

But any writer who says he or she doesn’t read reviews of their books is probably fibbing. It’s a sore, sore temptation to listen in on what folks are saying about your baby, even when you suspect that someone out there is going to claim it’s ugly as sin.

The early word was not great. Two out of the Big Four—Kirkus, PW, Library Journal, and Booklist—were stinkers. They weren’t just bad. They were cruel. And I mean cruel, as in, “who did I piss off to get this kind of treatment?” cruel. As a writer, that was my first, defensive reaction. They couldn’t have possibly read the same book I wrote! The other two were better, but equivocal. I knew I should’ve been grateful: not everyone gets her first book reviewed by the Big Four. I found myself saying stiff-upper-lip things like: “Well, I wanted to run with the big dogs. Guess I’m off the porch, now!”

Journalist and author Emily Benedek recently published her debut novel, RED SEA. In a recent interview with Bookreporter.com reprinted here with permission, Emily discusses her story.

RED SEA chronicles the investigation --- spearheaded by an Israeli Special Forces commander, a counterterrorist expert and an American reporter --- into a major terrorist attack. In this interview with Bookreporter.com's Joe Hartlaub, Benedek explains why she chose to write this book as a work of fiction, even though its information came from one very real source, and discusses the various inspirations behind her characters. She also compares and contrasts writing fiction and nonfiction, shares her thoughts on the current state of homeland security and names a few of the figures --- both literary and otherwise --- who have helped shape her work.

Bookreporter.com: RED SEA concerns an investigation into a terrorist attack that slowly uncovers a plot for an even greater catastrophic attack. The back story regarding the book, however, is almost as fascinating as the novel itself. You originally made contact with an Israeli counterterrorism expert whose story could only be told as a novel; the result is RED SEA. Why did the expert insist that his story be told as fiction? And, even as fiction, did you have problems bringing it to publication? 

By Joe Kolman

NAKED OPTION, my first novel, is about a disgraced options trader who tracks a multi-million fraud and a murder through Wall Street’s gay subculture.

I wrote it because I couldn’t find many novels that fit the reality that I saw as a financial journalist. Most of the characters in the Wall Street thriller genre are one-dimensional portraits of greed. There’s certainly plenty of greed on Wall Street, but it’s only one of many powerful emotions — and not necessarily even the dominant one.

I tried to make the plot as exciting as I could – without bending reality. Dave Ackerman, the narrator of NAKED OPTION, is a brilliant young trader, but one day, recklessly trying to one-up his firm’s superstar, he goes naked on an option trade — and loses $112 million in two hours. His career is over. Then he hears about an auditing job at an investment bank. He knows within minutes that something is very wrong, but he’s so desperate he takes the job.

By Theo Gangi

My debut novel, Bang Bang, has been coined a gritty urban thriller. I’ve always written about urban dynamics, since I’m a city kid and don’t know much else.

I found the thriller genre by accident—a professor of mine at Columbia’s MFA program saw a gun in a chapter of a previous  novel and said, ‘So, clearly we’re dealing with noir here.’ I hadn’t read noir at that time—I thought I was writing literature.

 Once I dove into thrillers—starting with Hammett and Chandler and working up to Connelly and Child-- I realized that these guys were not only having more fun, their work was culturally viable, personally engaging and readers didn’t need a PHD to get it. I   always felt my work should appeal to everyone.