Lorrie Holmgren’s Emily Swift Mystery series are cozy mysteries which break the conventions. Instead of taking place in a small town community with a predictable set of friends – the convention for cozies – international travel writer Emily is in Hawaii in one book and the beautiful English Cotswolds in the next, and her armchair travelling readers love her for it.
Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and Lorrie talks about her second career as an author of fiction and the mystery in her own life that could be a plotline for one of her stories.
Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
How writing workshops got Lorrie startedWhy mysteries give her a thrillDiscovering the wonders of travelThe joys of blending fact and fictionThe writers she admires mostDefining writing 'success'
Where to find Lorrie Holmgren:
Website: lorrieholmgren.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lorrieholmgrenauthor
Pinterest: Lorrie Holmgren Cozy Mystery Writer (holmgren1501) on Pinterest
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorrieHolmgren
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 Wheeler: But now, here’s Lorrie. Hello there Lorrie, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.
Introducing Lorrie Holmgren
Lorrie Holmgren: Thank you, Jenny. I'm so glad to be here.
Jenny Wheeler: Beginning at the beginning as we like to do, how did you get into writing? Was there an epiphany that you suddenly thought one day, I've got to write fiction, a once upon a time moment, and if so, was there a catalyst for it?
Lorrie Holmgren: There kind of was. I had always loved to read and even when I was a little girl, I would make up stories for my own amusement. When I was in college, I took a short story writing class and just loved it. We had to write a story every single week, which is pretty challenging, but I enjoyed it so much.
Lorrie Holmgren - mystery author
From then on, I had the idea that someday I would write a novel. It was kind of in the back of my head. I didn't start right in to do it, but all my jobs involved writing. I wrote ads, news articles, op-eds, column speeches, news releases, you name it, but still in the back of my head I thought someday I'll write a novel.
Then the real catalyst. I took a week-long, very intensive novel writing workshop and it was taught by Will Weaver who wrote Red Earth, White Earth. From then on, I was serious about writing and really plunged into it. At that workshop I met other writers and we formed a writers group. We still meet, we still stay together and critique each other's work. It's very helpful.
Jenny Wheeler: That's wonderful. I hadn't heard of Will Weaver actually.
Lorrie Holmgren: Have you heard of the movie Sweet Land?
Emily Swift - travel writer sleuth
Jenny Wheeler: Yes, I think I have.
Lorrie Holmgren: He wrote the story that is based on, A Gravestone Made of Wheat I believe it's called.
Jenny Wheeler: You've now got three books published in your Emily Swift travel mysteries and the latest one that we're talking about particularly today is A Killing In the Cotswolds. Your central character is a travel writer and you pack lots of fabulous tourist information into every book, but particularly this Cotswolds one because it's such an amazing area to visit. Is that part of the appeal for you, that you get to go traveling?
Murder on Madeline Island
Lorrie Holmgren: It is a wonderful excuse to travel but the only time I planned a trip that was on purpose to collect information for a book was my trip to the Cotswolds. My first book, Murder on Madeline Island, I wrote about a place I knew very well because I had been there often with my writers group and I was familiar with it, so it was pretty easy for me to do the descriptions from that.
Second book again, Homicide in Hawaii,
