Interviews

Interviews

Ms. Fiona McVie, a poet and an author in her own right, was born in West Germany. She now lives in Scotland and interviews authors from all over the world.

I feel honored to now be one of them.

Check out her blog. Her interview of this humble (?) author can be found here.

 

More recently, I was honored to be a presenting author on a panel of three mystery authors at the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books. Our moderator asked us to be prepared to answer the following questions:

My Vision As An Author:

To produce a variety of entertaining and thought-provoking tales with gritty fictional realism based on true stories with social relevance set in the past, present, or future to: 

          • Protect wildlife & the environment,
          • Fight crime & corruption,
          • Solve quirky mysteries.

My Palette:

Mystery & adventure novels that revolve around:

          • Domestic & international law enforcement, 
          • Covert military intervention,
          • Corporate & political culture & corruption,
          • Unusual U.S. Intelligence themes that my family, friends and/or I have lived,
          • Personal & professional obsessions.

Some non-fiction:

          • Poetry & essays, nautical, writing & publishing how-to books.

Five Fiction Series:

1. Environmental Adventures

2. Historical Crime Fiction

3. Personal Thrillers

4. Near Future Mysteries

5. Romantic Sci-Fi Mystery / ThrillersWhat’s Unique About My Books?

 

What’s Unique About My Books:

  • All heavily tainted & textured by my rather interesting & opinionated life:
          • Grew up poor on the wrong side of the tracks,
          • Learned how to cross those tracks & caught some breaks,
          • US Coast Guard Search & Rescue & Marine Law Enforcement, 
          • Lifetime sailor & voyager,
          • 32 successful years in the international corporate world,
          • 10 years living in a motorhome on the road (currently our only home)
          • Deep & broad high-tech roots: 
              • Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
              • International tech executive with blind ambition 
                • ~1,000 employees at 13 locations in 9 countries
          • As a result:
              • My books bleed quirky characters w/ tangled behavior
              • They are all influenced by cultural & social issues:
                • Overcoming addictions/obsessions:
                  • Blind ambition, food, alcohol, writing….
              • Battling environmental crimes:
                • Wildlife poaching,
                • Environmental terrorism.
                • Surviving corporate and political corruption
              • Overcoming cross-cultural conflict:
                • Within & across borders

The Books:

  • Five series published:
    • Fiction:
        • 13 novels (all paperback & eBooks – worldwide distribution),
        • 1 companion guide, 
        • 3 audiobooks (self-narrated, edited & produced – on Audible, Apple & Amazon).
    • Non-fiction:
          • 1 on the craft of writing & independent publishing,
          • 1 book on the sexy anatomy of poetry (imagery, rhythm, sound devices like rhyme, alliteration, echoes, symbols), tension, unity.) including a collection of my original images, poems & essays,
          • 2 nautical coffee table books.
  • Coming within the next ~4-10 months:
      • 6 more titles in process:
          • 2 mysteries (Sam Travis & Aubrey Greigh), 
          • 2 experimental “theatrical edition” audiobooks w/ music and sound FX
          • 1 Memoir
          • 1 Anthology of short stories

The Series:

  1. Sam Travis Adventures – set in the late 1980s (3 but very soon to be 4)
  2. Aubrey Greigh Mysteries – near future (3, will be 4 later this year)
  3. Lyon County Mysteries – historical – 1930s (2 will be 3 early 2026)
  4. Mayhem – distant future epic trilogy (3 plus 1 companion guide)
  5. Dream Runners contemporary series with Geo & Kate Janis (2)

Individual Titles:

4 non-fiction titles (no series):

    1. Poetic Detective (a poetry primer, poems, original images & essays), 
    2. Why Write? Why Publish?  

        (and a pair of nautical coffee table books):

    1. Moving a Boat & Her Crew
    2. Restoring a Boat & Her Crew

Description of each series:

  1. Sam Travis Adventures (set in the late 1980s)
    • Quick-moving law enforcement procedurals of outdoor adventure fiction faithfully based on true crime cases from the files of my writing partner, a retired state cop. 
    • Think CJ Box and his Joe Pickett series, but faster-paced, grittier, and “out east” instead of “out west” (western MA Berkshire Mountains),
    • This is a popular series:
        1. A state cop & friends battle massive international wildlife poaching,
        2. They work a case involving a series of brutal kidnappings, rapes, and murders on the Appalachian Trail,
        3. Another case to thwart a large-scale domestic terrorism attack in Boston Harbor.
    • Major protagonists:
        1. Sam Travis, a Massachusetts Environmental Police Officer (EPO),
        2. Letty Mather, an FBI Behavioral Analyst who desperately wants to be a field agent. 
    • In the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts & the Boston metro area,
    • All of these stories are as authentic as they can get:
              • Based on actual case files of my writing partner for this series, Lt. Tom Kasprzak, a 32-year veteran of the Massachusetts EPO. 
    • Titles:
        1. Lethal Game (also audiobook edition)
        2. Lethal Trail
        3. Lethal Bounty
        4. Lethal Catch (coming summer 2025)
  1. Aubrey Greigh Mysteries (set in the near future)
      • Classic amateur sleuth & police procedurals with bizarre murders to solve in the midst of professional & sexual tension between two unlikely protagonists!
      • Locked-room whodunnits,
      • Major Protagonists: 
        1. Greigh (“Just Greigh”):
                  • Amateur sleuth, Scottish-born, raised as a Brit, educated in Edinburgh, and lives in Chicago,
                  • Best-selling mystery author who we later learn is also a part-time contract investigator for Interpol on V.I.P. cases.
        1. Chance McQuillan, a.k.a. McQ or just Q:
                  • Ambitious high-ranking female homicide detective,  
              • Boat loads of personal/professional tension between these two crime solvers when they must work together with a few other eclectic characters.
      • Set in Chicago, now America’s largest city (a “regionplex” spanning parts of three states),
      • Political pressure to solve the highest profile crimes in the city, some with dire international ramifications. 
      • Titles:
        1. Voodoo Vendetta (also audiobook edition)
        2. Dancing With Death (also audiobook edition)
        3. Rogue’s Gallery (“theatrical” audiobook coming soon)
        4. Exodus Road (coming Fall/Winter 2025-2026)
  1. Lyon County Mysteries (set in the early 1930s)
      • Hyper-authentic historical crime fiction set in Midwestern U.S. during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. 
      • Small town sheriff in rural NW Iowa teams up with an intuitive farm wife who is a polio survivor with an uncanny wit:
              • “Holmes & Watson imperfectly reincarnated.” 
              • Slippery & tangled biases of prejudiced constituents
      • They battle crime with limited resources in a hostile environment:
              • Huge dust storms called “black blizzards,” & economic disaster,
              • Big-city “businessmen”with hidden agendas invade their small town,
              • Feels like Armageddon, but this is about survivors against insane odds.
      • Book one: A deputy is murdered & left in a ditch, friends & relatives mysteriously commit suicide:
            • A few deputized locals team up to battle big-city career criminals.
      • Book two: 
            • A visiting gypsy circus’s freak is murdered. Why? Plus the rise of Nazis in US
      • Titles:
        1. Black Blizzard
        2. Murder in Purgatory
        3. Enemies Within (early 2026)
  1. Epic Mayhem Trilogy (2148 – 2178 AD)
    1. Futuristic paranormal romantic mysteries in a dystopian late 22nd-century setting in Chicago’s distant future.
    2. Book one: Investigative journalist Zaya French teams up with ex-Jesuit priest, a nun, a Chicago detective, and a telepathic girl who lives underground to solve a series of murders meant to cover up a conspiracy of planetary proportions. Believe it or not, this fun and entertaining story renders this outrageous premise entirely plausible!
    3. Book two: With a civil war as a backdrop in a country that looks much like a future iteration of the U.S. called the United Westican Territories, a reluctant visionary aims his small team toward a quest to avert a catastrophic event. 
    4. Book three: As worldwide political governance fails, three mega-corporations divide up the world’s geography. Disabled combat vet Daniel Morrissee, a young man nicknamed SeeMore, sees everyone’s near future. That threatens his sanity. But that gift (curse?) may just save all of humanity. 
    5. Titles:
          1. Underground
          2. Mean Streets
          3. Post Earth
  1. Dream Runners (contemporary fictional autobiographies – early 2000s)
      • Underdog story – Boy, then man, with unabashed visions of the American dream that tarnishes as he climbs the corporate ladder.
      • An aggressive but naïve corporate climber from the wrong side of the tracks
      • Competes successfully with Ivy League sociopaths, until….
      • Book one: 
                • Plots & Sub-plots set in the Midwestern U.S., N.Y., D.C., and Moscow:
                  • All places I’ve lived, worked, & visited in real life,
                • Beleaguered protagonist—a tech executive—becomes a reluctant intelligence operative, and then an avenging angel,
                • Nick Russell, New York Times Best-Selling Author says, “Nasty and nice! Good people in bad situations, and bad people in positions of power make Dangerous Dreams an engaging romp. GK nails it.”
      • Book two: Our now-retired tech exec retreats to SW Arizona:
                • He & his wife live in a home on wheels,
                • Deals with a TBI suffered while taking a human life at the end of book one,
                • Intrigue & danger follow our protagonists into the deep desert,
                • They are hunted by an influential domestic terrorist group with deep political ties
                • Their own friends in high places still need their help – risks be damned. 
      • Titles:
          1. Dangerous Dreams 
          2. Fractured Dreams

Why Indie (Independently Publish)? Why Not?  A Matter of Perspective! For Me….

Pros:

  • Independence feeds my inner control freak:
      • Nobody manages my rather unique style but me.
  • Fast to market:
      • I publish 1-3 books per year (not possible with traditional publishing),
      • I’m too late in life to wait for months or years to get each book traditionally published (Azimov quote: “if told 6 minutes to live, I’d type faster”).
  • I love to learn & apply diverse skills:
      • Edit & format my own manuscripts,
      • Design my own covers, 
      • Manage my own distribution,
  • My imagination is unfettered & unconstrained as an indie:
      • Although my small but diverse team of critics & beta readers keeps me honest!

Cons (cautionary tale):

  • Indies may risk “going to market” too soon because it’s easy once we learn how:
      • With control comes responsibility & accountability,
      • One amateurish publication can taint us as an author forever:
          • Mitigate with ice-hard pre-publication critiques by a diverse team of dedicated critics & beta readers (choosing a beta team is itself an art form).
  • We must learn & apply diverse skills well. That takes time/energy:
      • I shirk that which is least enjoyable to me—marketing—but I’m okay with that,
      • I may still miss the mark on story or packaging because of my own ego & possibly inflated sense of my abilities,
          • I mitigate by being ruthlessly honest with myself, get and listen to others’ opinions, and hire out my soft spots… or not!
  • I don’t know what I don’t know, so:
      • I never stop learning and applying!
          • Leverage:
              • Writing & organizing software like Scrivener
              • Formatting software like Vellum or for you non-Apple authors, Atticus
              • Use software to check grammar style, diction, sentence length, overused words with tools like ProWritingAid, Hemingway, AutoCrit….
      • I found and refined a writing process that works for me!
          • For more info on my own (paperless) process, subscribe to my email list tomorrow at my booth in the Indie Pavilion from 10am to 1pm. Or on my website at GKJurrens.com.

GKJ

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