Today I'm interviewing a couple of authors who are as diversely interesting as they are impressively talented.
Jen J. Danna and
Ann Vanderlaan first began their writing partnership with a favorite series of mine, the
Abbott and Lowell Forensics Mysteries. There are currently four titles in that series. Jen and Ann have now joined forces in a new series, the
F.B.I. K-9 Mysteries, and its first title,
Lone Wolf, comes out tomorrow, and they have a new author name of
Sara Driscoll for it. As with all their work,
Lone Wolf is a special read, and I will be posting my review of it here on the blog tomorrow.
So, now I will let you get to know
Jen and
Ann as they answer some questions about their writing and personal lives.
Reading Room: I’ve always been fascinated with how a
partnership in writing a book works. I’m
guessing neither of you is a control freak.
Considering that you live in Canada, Jen, and you live in Texas, Ann,
when and how did the two of you first meet and decide to write a book together,
and what is the division of labor?
Jen: When I started writing again
following a very long hiatus (more on that later), I posted some of my work online.
Ann saw some of that work and introduced herself. She had correctly caught me
in a gun error—she’s a gun owner herself and I’m a gun control-loving Canadian,
and I was clearly making it up as I went along. We started talking and she
offered to beta read some of my writing. But it quickly got to a point where
she was contributing so much on both editing and plotting that we knew we’d be
more successful if she was involved right from the beginning. That process is
essentially the same one we still use: we do character and story/series
planning together, then I write each chapter, and Ann rips it apart. We then
put it back together as a team and then move onto the next chapter. Once the
entire manuscript is done, we do several similar passes at the manuscript
level. Ann also writes the chapter titles/descriptions, assists with research,
lends her particular medical/technical/veterinary expertise, helps beat out the
‘Canukisms’ I inadvertently write into the manuscript, and is invaluable when
we are writing characters that require a local colour and voice I simply don’t
know. The perpetrator of the crimes in Lone
Wolf is a perfect example of this. His life comes directly from Ann’s
experiences and from the people she knew from when she lived on the east coast.
.
Reading Room: I follow both of you on FB and probably know
from our acquaintance through your books some interesting facts about you, such
as scientist and dog lover. Could you
tell those who are just starting to read you something about yourselves in your
day jobs or activities?
Jen: I work full time in an
infectious diseases lab at a Canadian university studying dengue fever, West
Nile, influenza, and a number of other pathogens. We run a number of national
and international studies funded by both American and Canadian funding
agencies. We are an extremely busy and diverse group, but the day job is never
boring (we don’t have time for boring!). So my writing has to fit around my day
job, which means writing during my lunch hour, after work and in the evening,
and on weekends.
Ann: I’m retired,
but have never been busier. Aside from our writing, I am the treasurer and
registered agent for a 501(c)(3) bully breed rescue, train and amuse my own
dogs every day, assist my therapy dog with his day job at a domestic violence
shelter and an elder care facility, practice nosework with my therapy dog in his
favorite sport, and act as interpreter between vets and rescue members for some
medical cases.
Reading Room: Jen, I had the good fortune to meet you at my
first Bouchercon in Albany, New York in 2013.
You and Ann had started the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries series,
which I’ve really enjoyed, as I’m a big fan of forensics and you all did a
superb job of that. Could you tell us a
bit about how you and Ann came to decide on that series’ subject matter? Will there be more Leigh Abbott and Matt
Lowell in the future?
Jen: Both Ann and I are scientists by heart and career and
we both find the field of forensic anthropology fascinating and an interesting
spin on a typical police procedure when you want to build in an active forensic
angle. I personally wanted to be able to combine my love of science with my
life-long love of mysteries, without writing a biothriller, which would be too
close to my actual day job to be fun. It required learning the field of
forensic anthropology to make the series believable, but my job at the
university made all the professional journals available to me. Dr. William
Bass, the father of modern forensic anthropology was speaking at Killer
Nashville when I attended in 2011. Many writers spoke to him about how they
loved his books (he writes with Jon Jefferson as Jefferson Bass). I’m sure I
was the only one who spent time talking to him about his career as a scientific
researcher and how his journal articles allowed me to write our forensic
mysteries.
The next book in Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, Lament the Common Bones, will be
released on March 15, 2017. This book is special because it not only has a full
and very interesting case, but also wraps up a long arc of some very personal
troubles for Leigh Abbott.
Reading Room: Now, to your exciting new series, the
FBI K-9 Series with Meg Jennings and Hawk, her search-and-rescue Labrador. How did this series come about? And, the new author name of Sara Driscoll?
Jen: We owe a large part of the FBI K-9 series to our
agent, Nicole Resciniti of the Seymour Agency. She had lunch with editor Peter
Sentfleben, who was with Kensington at the time, discussing the books he’d like
to see. He requested a police procedural with a K-9 angle. Nicole brought that
request, along with a number of other requests from other editors to her
clients and Ann and I jumped at it. With Ann’s background in dog training and
handling, we knew we had a leg up on many other writers. We were thrilled when
Peter offered us a three book, hardcover deal. Lone Wolf is the first book in that series. Sadly, Peter moved on
to a new publishing house, but we are now working with our new editor, Esi
Sogah, on Before It’s Too Late, book
two in the series, which will release in October 2017.
As far as the name, Kensington wanted a fresh name for the
fresh series, so we came up with a name to encompass the two of us. Sara is the
name of Ann’s granddaughter. When it came to the last name, what we were aiming
for was something a little unusual that had no one like it through existing
booksellers. And Sara Driscoll was born.
Reading Room: Something that I’d like for all of your
readers to know is that you have one of the most interesting blogs around, with
its “ forensics, archeology, science,
(your) writing and publishing path, and, the world of K-9 investigations.”
The recent post “The Brains Behind the Dog” featured dog handlers and
there was a nice picture of Ann and the dog she serves as a handler for. Most of the posts lately have been about working
dogs, but this past year has also seen posts about Colma, CA, the city of death
and the talented photographer daughter of Jen, Jess Danna. So, the question is, do you write the blog
solo, Jen, or do you and Ann both contribute to it? Also, add anything else about the blog you
want.
Jen: Both Ann and I look for interesting
content for the blog, either through our own interests or current news stories.
For example, we followed the discovery of the remains of Richard III from the
first announcement of the uncovered skeleton, all the way through to the final
facial reconstruction and DNA results in real time. For the K-9 stories, Ann
has a heavier hand in the content as that’s her forte, not mine. Just as with
our prose, I do the writing, and Ann does the editing.
Reading Room: Can either or both of you remember your first
writing, be it as a youth or an adult, that made you think writing was in your
future?
Jen: I used to write for fun
as a teenager, but gave it up when my life got busy getting a university degree,
then getting married and raising kids. But about twenty-five years, later, as
my kids were older and didn’t need me as much, I started writing again. Back
when I first started, I was writing with a girlfriend—now published children’s
author R.J. Anderson. We lived 275 miles apart and used to snail mail chapters
of our stories to each other. I’m sure the writing was terrible but I really wish I’d kept some of it because there’s
absolutely nothing wrong with a learning curve and we all start somewhere. But
never in a million years did I think this would be a career. I have a science
degree and haven’t taken a single English class past high school. But both Ann
and I are voracious readers and you can learn how to write simply by reading a
lot of excellent writing.
Ann and I wrote for fun
for two years, composing five trunk novels in that time. We simply did it for
the joy of writing, until a few people said to us ‘Why aren’t you doing this
professionally?’ and we both thought ‘Why aren’t we?’ We scrapped everything
we’d done in the past and started the first Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mystery,
Dead, Without a Stone to Tell It, and
the rest is history. But neither of us initially intended it as a career.
Ann:
I never really thought of writing as my future. I always wanted to be an
engineer or biomedical scientist.
Reading Room: Something I like to ask all authors in an
interview is about their secret or lesser known talents. I know with both of you exude talent in your
writing and your other work, but what’s a talent each of you has that might be
quirky or not as well-known as your obvious ones? Dowsing? Grave digging?
Jen: Well, it’s not really a quirky
talent, but I, like the rest of my family, am very musical. I used to play the
oboe in high school, still dabble at the piano, and sing regularly in a choir.
Ann: I’ve taught courses in a vet school, a medical school, and
a nursing school before veering off into software and automation in the
oilfield. I am fascinated by large machines and how things work. But even
before grad school I was always interested in systems behavior: why do
individuals (people, red blood cells, software modules, etc.) behave
differently when alone rather than in a crowd, living body, or other system? After
years of living in a prolific moonshining county, I can walk outside on a crisp
fall morning and identify which of my neighbors’ stills are running and what
mash they are using. I learned how to quilt by hand. I also was taught how to
dowse, although I am a skeptic.
Reading Room: And, being interested in what everyone else is
reading, I must ask, what book or books do you have on your nightstand now?
Jen: I’m just about to start Louise
Penny’s most recent release A Great
Reckoning. I love her Chief Inspector Gamache books (and no, not just
because she’s a Canadian author writing a Canadian setting). She writes
beautifully, and that series is a fantastic example of how you can build up a
long arc over eight or nine books, culminating in a magnificent climax, in her
case, in How the Light Gets In.
Simply amazing.
Ann: With five
large dogs, reading is a communal activity in the living room reserved for
evenings or wet days. Currently, I’m reading And the Dog Who Spoke with Gods by Diane Jessup and Jordan’s Stormy Banks by Jefferson Bass.
Without Mercy, also by Jefferson Bass
is next on my list.
Reading Room: One last question that I personally
am excited to know the answer to. Are
you amazing authors going to be at Bouchercon next fall when it’s in Toronto?
Jen: Absolutely! Wouldn’t miss it!
