Together, Mary Welk and Luisa Buehler are two thirds of The Mystery Mavens . Uniting with others gives each plenty of support to write solo, too, as they discuss in their interviews at the recent Love is Murder conference.
In the interview, Mary shares practical tips she used as publicity chair for the conference that generated plenty of media attention. Her tips got results—and are useable for other writers seeking to promote their own work. Mary’s most recent book in the Caroline Rhodes series is The Scarecrow Murders….just another day of murder and mayhem in a quaint college town. Mary started what became her first book when she was in her 20s and took a closer look at it thirty years later. The extra few years (who’s keeping track when we’re on the road to publication?) gave Mary time to savor her accomplishments and have fun with the results.
Luisa Buehler writes cozy mysteries that aren’t that cozy…she says you won’t find fluff, but you will find an upbeat tone. Her fourth book in the Grace Marsden series is The Scoutmaster: A Prepared Death.
In the interview, Luisa tells how she managed to write her first book without a computer and without huge chunks of uninterrupted time. Yes, how she did it is a mystery to me, too, and a wonderful subject for a mystery writer to talk about.
Luisa’s tip for writers is to read– aloud. It’s much too easy for our brain to insert what we didn’t write (but thought we did) and gloss over a string of words that may have a glitch in them. It’s the glitch that takes the reader away from the story. And reading the story aloud can make sure the sentence is smooth and smoothly connects to the story.
