Spotlight Profile
June/July 2008
Alice Duncan was born to be a writer, but she came to that realization reluctantly. Instead, for many years, she expressed her creativity through singing in a Balkan women's choir and dancing in two professional international folk- dancing groups. Her first book was published in 1995 and won the HOLT Medallion for Best First Novel. Despite this promising beginning, her life as a writer has been challenging. In 1996, she and her "herd of wild dachshunds" moved to Roswell, New Mexico. Her mother's relatives had lived there for years. To be specific, since "fifty years before the aliens crashed."
Alice writes under a variety of names. As Alice Duncan, Anne Robins, Emma Craig, and Rachel Wilson, she writes historical novels. As Jon Sharpe, she has written Westerns. About her writing, Alice says, "Back when I was young and didn't know any better, I wanted to write the Great American Novel. After life kicked me around for a few decades I realized that, not only do I not want to WRITE the Great American Novel, I don't even want to READ it. What I crave from my reading material is to be taken away from life's toils for a couple of hours. Entertainment is what I aim to provide with my novels -- and I consider it a noble goal." To learn more about Alice and her work as a writer and as a participant in dachshund rescue, check out her website at: http://www.zianet.com/aduncan/ .
IC: How did you become involved with Sisters in Crime? Any good stories to share?
AD: I don't really have any good stories to tell. I live in Roswell, New Mexico, which is too far away from anywhere to allow me to attend meetings, darn it. When I started contemplating writing mysteries, I knew I had to be part of Sisters in Crime.
IC: In addition to writing, you're an active folk dancer and were once a member of a Balkan women's choir. Do these experiences factor into your books?
AD: Well, I haven't really written anything regarding folk dancing and singing into any of my books. Wait. I take that back. I wrote a Bulgarian family into an historical romance that never sold. The hero thought they sounded like a herd of untuned wild cats :)
IC: Along with your other interests, you're also involved in dachshund rescue. How did you get involved in that?
AD: I've always been involved in dachshund rescue, even before I joined a formal group of dachshund rescuers. I think this has something to do with the word "sucker" tattooed on my forehead. For some reason, people just give me dachshunds that need homes. Now that I'm involved in a formal rescue group, I foster wiener dogs who need a place to stay while we find "forever homes" for them. It's satisfying. I mean, some people foster kids. I foster dachshunds in distress. I feel sorry for kids in distress, too, but kids grow up to be humans. Dogs always remain wonderful :)
IC: Do dachshunds factor heavily in your books? How about dogs in general?
AD: I don't do too many dogs, although there were two dachshunds in Texas Lonesome, and there's Spike the dachshund in my "Spirits" books (Strong Spirits, Fine Spirits, and High Spirits).
IC: You seem like a very busy person. How does your schedule affect writing and marketing your books?
AD: Horribly. I have to earn a living and, unfortunately, writing doesn't cut it. So I work at various jobs (editing for Tekno Books, formatting stories for Sony e-books, working as a part-time secretary for a lawyer, and teaching on-line classes for Writer's Digest's Writers Online Workshops). I have to squish writing and marketing my own books around all that, and it leaves precious little time for marketing.
IC: If I'm interpreting the information on your site correctly, you've written several standalones as well as several series novels. Can you tell us a little about your books?
AD: They're all historical, and they're all lighthearted, even when there are tragic undertones. For instance, my very favorite protagonist, Daisy Gumm Majesty, has been hit with horrible problems by life, but she just keeps moving along. In fact, most of my heroines have to overcome incredible obstacles -- which they just do. They don't fall apart or have nervous breakdowns, mainly because they don't have time for them. There's a major exception in Mercy Allcutt, assistant to P.I. Ernest Templeton in my "Angels" books. Mercy's a rich girl who's never wanted for anything. She's charming, but I can't honestly relate to being rich :) My own life has been ... well ... difficult, I guess one might say.
IC: You write under a variety of pen names. How did you come to make that decision?
AD: Well ... it wasn't really my decision. I originally sold a book to Dell, then I sold a book to Dorchester, then I sold a book to Berkley (I was really ambitious in those days -- all those books were in the same year). Berkley wanted a name of its own, so I became Rachel Wilson. Dell wanted a name of its own, so I used my own name. Dorchester didn't care, but since the other publishers did, I became Emma Craig. Then, when my first two "Angel" books bombed when I wrote them as Alice Duncan (my real name) they asked me to select another name, so I became Anne Robins, which is a combination of my daughters' names. Whew. Publishing is not merely brutal, it can be quite complicated. Oh, and I forgot Jon Sharpe. I wrote a couple of the "Trailsman" books for Signet-a whole bunch of authors write those "Trailsman" stories-and they already had an author's name, which is...well...Jon Sharpe. So that's why I was Jon Sharpe.
IC: So "Jon Sharpe" was chosen for you. How did you come to choose the other names?
AD: Emma Craig is my maternal grandmother's maiden name. Rachel Wilson is my mother's maiden name. Anne Robins is a combo of my daughters' first names, and Alice Duncan is moi. I'd have chosen names from my father's side of the family, but there aren't any good ones. My paternal grandmother was Afton Homstead. Her sister was Alice Furbush. Can you imagine that moniker on a romance novel? So the only bow to my father's family is my own very name.
IC: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages to writing under several pseudonyms?
AD: I don't see any advantages or disadvantages. I just did what the publishers wanted me to do -- and I wanted to be published. So there you go :)
IC: Tell us a little more about the "Trailsman" books. What distinguishes your Jon Sharpe books from the others?
AD: Ah. There's a longstanding series of erotic westerns called the "Trailsman" series. One book is published every month, so they need a lot of writers to write them. I decided to try my hand at them, but I wasn't very good. It completely eluded me that these books are male fantasies. Ergo, the hero of the tales, Skye Fargo (and people say characters in romance novels have strange names) never makes advances towards the female characters. It's always the women who start things. Even 18-year-old virgins jump old Skye's bones. And that's despite the fact that the guy has a big beard and wears buckskins that I've never heard of him cleaning. But I don't mean to disparage the books. They're actually tons of fun.
IC: What are the challenges to writing as a man? How do you ensure that you get the male "voice" right?
AD: Beats me. I honestly don't know. I think my version of Skye was a bit too introspective for the nature of the series.
IC: Has writing from a male perspective changed or deepened your understanding of men?
AD: No. :)
IC: You have several protagonists; Daisy, a 1920s spiritualist, and Mercy, secretary to a private investigator are two of them. How are your protagonists like you? How are they different from you? How are they alike and different from each other?
AD: Daisy is me, only she comes from a happy family and has none of my crippling neuroses. Mercy was actually a consolation prize for me, because I thought the Daisy books were belly- up in the goldfish bowl of publishing. I was EVER so happy to be able to resurrect Daisy! My very first heroine, Maggie Bright from One Bright Morning, begins the book with a migraine headache in 1880 New Mexico Territory, and things go downhill from there :) I'm fond of Maggie, too. I guess most of my female protagonists are strong without actually thinking about it. They just get problems thrown at them and they climb over them, burrow through them, or walk around them.
IC: Of all your characters, do you have a favorite? If so, which one and why?
AD: My fave is Daisy Gumm Majesty for reasons already mentioned. I just love her! I think my favorite heroes are the smart asses like Julian Kittrick inHeaven's Promise, Elijah Perry inA Gambler's Magic, and Gabriel Caine in Gabriel's Fate. I never really had a strong male figure in my own life, so I guess I make 'em up.
IC: Of all your books, do you have a favorite? If so, which one and why?
AD: My all-time favorite so far isStrong Spirits. It's different from anything I'd ever done before, doesn't fit neatly into a genre, and just appeals to all of me.
IC: You write historical cozies. What are the challenges particular to your genre?
AD: Well ... researching the period, I guess, although I really enjoy that. What I really like to do is visit Pasadena, California, Public Library, toddle downstairs to the periodicals room, and read old magazines and newspapers from the 1920s.
IC: What kind of research do you do, and how extensive is it?
AD: I do tons of research, some of it on-line, some of it from the library and, as noted above, some of it from resources of the era. It's a lot of fun. For my next "Spirits" books, I managed to get hold of a cookbook published in 1919. I just Love stuff like that!
IC: How thoroughly do you plan your books before you begin writing?
AD: Very thoroughly. This is mainly because I don't want to have to write a whole book and then not have it sell. I write a complete synopsis and the first three chapters, and then pray like mad that some editor somewhere will buy it on proposal.
IC: Do you have a writing schedule or writing rituals?
AD: Yeah. I sneak a few minutes of writing in whenever I can. If I didn't have to work so hard at earning a living, I'd probably write for three or four hours in the morning and garden or cook for the rest of the day.
IC: On your website, you mention your struggle to succeed as a professional writer. What sort of challenges have you overcome?
AD: Oh, man. The main challenge is that I keep dumped by publishers! I swear, I've written for every publisher known to man, and then I get dumped. In other words, editors love my work, but readers don't buy it. I have no idea why, but it makes me sad.
IC: What do you see as the next step in your writing career?
AD: Same as ever: keep publishing. I figure I'll never get rich, but writing is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my life, and I feel very fortunate that I've been able to be published a bunch of books, even if I can't make a living at it!
IC: What has been your most effective promotional technique?
AD: None of them have been very effective for me, but I do think I've garnered readers by joining and participating in various listservs on line.
IC: What do you read for pleasure?
AD: Mainly cozy mysteries, although I'll read almost anything. I love historical mysteries, and I also really enjoy books like The Great Hurricane - 1938, The Professor and the Madman, and other works of non-fiction that detail fascinating eras in history. I also like true crime, probably because I'm hoping that if I read enough of them, I'll be able to recognize evil when I see it. So far, that hasn't worked.
IC: You also provide editing services for authors. How did you get into that line of work?
AD: It occurred to me as I read manuscripts from truly talented story-tellers in my career as reader/screener/recommender of works of fiction for Tekno Books that so many, many people would have success in their careers if they only knew the blankety-blank rules of the language! It almost makes me weep to have to reject a book because the author's writing skills just can't make the cut. Some folks can tell great stories, but they need vast help with the language, punctuation, grammar, etc. So one day I decided to do something about it -- if anyone wants to take advantage of my service.
IC: What are some of the most common errors you see authors make?
AD: They get elaborate and confuse their readers. I advocate the simple, direct approach to writing. Get your message across without messing it up with too many words. Also, some people have a very hard time distinguishing their modifiers. Here's an example: Our house at times was reminiscent of Wild Kingdom, I being the young buck challenging the domain of the alpha male. Okay, the guy does not mean he's challenging the domain itself. He means he's challenging his father (the alpha male) for rule over the kingdom. Also, people have tried to convince me that "action tags" are a viable means of communication -- and they aren't! This is just plain wrong: "I don't believe that," she walked to the window, "and I can't believe you do." Yikes! "he said," "she said," etc. are tag lines. "She walked to the window" isn't, confound it! I also have a particular aversion to run-on sentences.
IC: What advice can you give other members who are writer?
AD: Never give up. As Edison is reputed to have said, "Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration." It's the truth. The one way to be certain you'll never get published is to give up.
IC: What advice can you give members who are primarily readers?
AD: Keep reading!
IC: What one thing would you like people to know about you and your books?
AD: They're fun and funny.
IC: You're in the spotlight. Is there anything you'd like to add or talk about before we end the interview?
AD: Um ... please read my books! Order them for your libraries!
This interview was conducted for SinC-IC
by Elizabeth Terrell.
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