We love to bring authors to your attention whom we think are good. So we’re delighted to bring to you today our Crime Writers’ Interview with Lynn Slaughter.
First, here’s her bio:
Lynn Slaughter is addicted to the arts, chocolate, and her husband’s cooking. After a long career as a professional dancer and dance educator, Lynn earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. She is the award-winning author of five young adult romantic mysteries: MISSING MOM, DEADLY SETUP, LEISHA’S SONG, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, AND WHILE I DANCED, as well as an adult mystery, MISSED CUE. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where she’s at work on her next novel and serves on the board of the Derby Rotten Scoundrels, the Ohio River Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime.
Kass Lamb (on behalf of the whole misterio gang): Welcome, Lynn. We like to start with a “tell us about yourself” question. What two or three things do people need to know to understand who you are?
Lynn Slaughter: I care about social justice and feel a lot of empathy for others, especially those who’ve been marginalized or hurt in some way. I also find humor very healing. I count myself extremely fortunate to have married a man who’s hilarious and keeps me laughing, even on the bleakest days.
Kass: You’ve written both young adult and adult suspense stories. Why YA? What is the appeal there?
Lynn: I used to say that teenagers were always my favorite age group to work with, whether teaching, mentoring, or counseling. That’s absolutely true, but it’s more than that.
Adolescence is such a dramatic, intense period of our lives. It’s a time when we’re trying to figure out fundamental questions of identity—who we are, who we want to become, and who we want to love. All of this is happening in the midst of the pressure of expectations from parents and peers. Learning to stand up for ourselves and feel that we have agency in our own lives can be a huge challenge.
It’s also a time of so many intense firsts—first love, first betrayal, and first painful breakup or major disappointment. Most of us can look back and recognize that our experiences as adolescents shaped our feelings about ourselves and the world around us in significant ways.
And of course, conflict and challenges for our characters are the lifeblood of fiction. The experiences of teens provide plenty of material!
Kass: Tell us more about how your “day job” before you became a writer has influenced your writing.
Lynn: I spent decades as a professional dancer and dance educator, including chairing the dance department at a performing arts high school. I also spent several summers teaching at Interlochen Center for the Arts, and later in my career, I served as the counselor at a summer residential program for high school students gifted in the arts. Not surprisingly, the challenges and issues of teenagers and adults involved in the arts, whether music, musical theater, writing, or dance, have figured prominently in my stories.
Kass: What do you find to be the most fun and/or the most difficult part of the writing process? Why is that?
Lynn: For me, writing that first draft is the most difficult. I’m an anxious writer and I get nervous about beginning a project or even the day’s pages.
I’ve developed some comforting rituals, such as lighting a candle, reading from Susan Shaughnessy’s Walking on Alligators, A Book of Meditations for Writers, and making sure I have plenty of coffee and water available.
Kass: What’s the oddest and/or most difficult thing you ever had to research?
Lynn: I think the most difficult was doing the research for Deadly Setup, in which a seventeen-year-old gets arrested and goes on trial as an adult for the murder of her mother’s fiancé. I needed to find out exactly what happens to a person who gets arrested, indicted, refuses a plea deal, and goes on trial. I especially wanted the courtroom scenes to be accurate and did a lot of research on opening and closing statements, interrogation of witnesses, the basis of objections, etc.
Kass: What’s next for you?
Lynn: A sequel to MISSED CUE is in the works, featuring Detective Caitlin O’Connor. It’s called DEATH IN THE END ZONE. Caitlin investigates another puzzling case, in which the bodies of two star football players are discovered in a compromising position in the end zone of their high school’s football field.
It marks a departure for me in a couple of ways. It has nothing to do with anyone involved in the arts. And it’s the first time I’ve written a novel that’s not a stand-alone. I’m officially out of my comfort zone!
Kass: I’m delighted to hear that. I loved Missed Cue! Thank you so much for joining us today.
There you have it, folks, our crime writers interview with Lynn Slaughter. See below for the info on Lynn’s latest release, Missing Mom.
You can connect with Lynn on social media at her website, her Amazon author page,
Goodreads, and X/Twitter.
MISSING MOM, by Lynn Slaughter
Never mind the circumstantial evidence. Seventeen-year-old Noelle, an aspiring ballet dancer, doesn’t believe that her missing mother would ever have committed suicide. So she launches her own investigation.
Meantime, she’s dealing with her growing romantic feelings toward Ravi, her best friend and fellow dancer, as well as her worries about why her little sister seems so reluctant to visit their father.
Threaded throughout the novel is also the story of Savannah, a young woman nearly twenty years earlier whose escape from an abusive marriage turns out to be related to Noelle’s investigation.
AVAILABLE ON: AMAZON ~ PRINT(ALSO AMAZON) ~ B&N ~ KOBO ~ GOOGLE PLAY ~ SMASHWORDS ~APPLE
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