Liz Freeland's new mystery hero Louise Faulk is one of New York's first woman police officers, a sharp-witted young woman of modest means who solves murders and combats prejudice as she builds an independent life in 1913 New York.
Hi there I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Liz talks about her long lived career and what's kept her going as she's published close 50 books in romance, chick lit, family drama and now her new mystery series.
Here's great news! We've got five signed copies of Book One, Murder in Greenwich Village, to giveaway to five lucky listeners. Just enter here, or go to Jenny's Facebook page. If you don't do Facebook you can email me at jenny@jennywheeler.biz to go into the draw. We'll give away one paperback a week through until April 30. Winners will be advised by email or Facebook.
Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
Why Liz writes under three different pen namesHer early career in romance and chick litHer move into historical and cozy mystery Spending time as an artist in a New York garretThe writers she admires mostThe secret to authoring more than 50 books
Where to find Liz Freeland: Website: https://elizabeth-bass.com/As Elizabeth Bass: @ElizabethBassAs Liz Freeland:https://www.facebook.com/authorLizFreeland/
What
follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for
word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.
Jenny: But now, here’s Liz. Hello there Liz and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.
Liz Freeland - mystery author
Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon a Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? And if so what was the catalyst for it?
Liz: Well it's hard to say, because I think I have pretty much always loved telling stories. I wrote stories in school, but I think the biggest catalyst was when I was a theatre geek in high school. I went to college and studied theatre, and started play writing. That's how I really started taking myself seriously as a writer, trying to write plays.
After college, I started turning my hand to fiction. It's hard to write plays for yourself, especially when you're completely undiscovered and you don't have a lot of venues to get your work performed. So I started writing stories, and even novels on my own after work. I really enjoyed it. You sort of get to be the puppet master of everything. It's great. You're the director, the actor, you're everything in a novel so I really love that aspect of it. I never really looked back after I started writing fiction that way.
Fifty romances under three names
Jenny: You’ve had an amazing career – writing more than 50 romances and contemporary fiction titles under other names including Liz Ireland and Elizabeth Bass. We’ll get to that a little later. Firstly though, your new series is a mystery set in pre-World War 1 New York. It features Louise Faulk, a sharp witted young women of modest means trying to make a life for herself in the great city . What led you to make this jump to mysteries?
Liz: Well I read romance, and then for a while I was writing "womens fiction", which are just family dramas. I went through a period where I was having a family drama of my own, and I just didn't feel like writing that kind of book anymore. I felt blocked. I'd always loved mysteries, but I felt intimidated by the idea of writing a mystery actually. I held them in a lot of reverence and I thought the plots were more intricate than I would be capable of. So I dallied with them on my own, but I hadn't tackled one seriously. However, I decided it was just the time to do it. I'm lucky enough that I have a great relationship with an editor at Kensington, and he said "if you wanted to write a historical mystery, that would be very interesting to us". So I went ahead and took the leap.
Switching from romance to mystery
A Cowboy's Heart - Liz Ireland
