…enter. The application lay on by desk for weeks. Finally, one day, I noticed the deadline was coming up. I thought, "What the heck, nothing ventured, etc." and sent in my manuscript. When I think how close I came to NOT sending it in, I get chills.  

The day Ruth Cavin [senior mystery editor at St. Martin's Press] called with the news is indelibly engraved in my mind. Whenever I'm feeling low or blue, I call it up, and the world becomes bright again. My first reaction was total disbelief. When she said, "I called to tell you you've won..." my first thought was the lottery. (I was a conscientious follower of Publishers Central Bureau!) When the truth finally penetrated, I got one gigantic migraine. It lasted three days. But it was worth every minute. 

Crescent Blues: Have you always wanted to write mysteries? 

Hathaway: I've always wanted to write. The mystery part came later. I wasted a lot of time writing a lot of very tragic short stories in an attempt to make it in the "literary" field. I wish I had a nickel for every story. However, I think writing that awful stuff helped me to write better.  

I'm sure the mystery idea was planted in my mind at an early age, but didn't surface until much later. We had a mystery writer in our family: Helen McCloy. She was very popular in the Thirties and Forties. I always admired her, and her work. Now, I believe that I always wanted to be like her. I guess today, she would be called a "role model." But, so far, I've taken only one small step in that direction.   

Crescent Blues: What writers -- in or out of the mystery genre -- have influenced your work? 

Hathaway: Obviously, Helen's writing influenced me. Others I have admired are Josephine Tey, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Raymond Chandler. I like the traditional mystery but with a modern edge or bite. And that's what I'm striving for. I have a long way to go. I also like mysteries with humor. I think that humor gives the serious and frightening parts of a mystery an extra edge, by contrast. 

Crescent Blues: Tell us about your career outside of writing and how it influenced your books. 

Hathaway: For 25 years I ran a printing/publishing firm called Barnhouse Press. One printing press was in the barn, another in the house. The kitchen, to be exact. My two daughters claim they were lulled to sleep by its pulsing beat.  

I've always been a book nut. Anything to do with books was OK with me and I could never be too far away from them. I love the smell of them. I guess I'd eat them if they were digestible, but I'm getting carried away.  

I would have been happy as a bookseller, a librarian -- and I was happy as a printer. When I walk into a stationer's shop, if I hear a multilith running and I smell ink, I'm drawn like a moth to light, to that back room to see what's going on. I still have a collection of rare old type and a small hand printer. I keep meaning to set it up and ink it, but there isn't time for everything. Sometime, I hope to include a printer as a character in one of my mysteries. Desktop publishing has almost eliminated those fine independent craftsmen. It would be nice to bring one back in a book. 

Crescent Blues: You've established a Web site about your books. How did you get interested in doing this, and what kind of reaction has it received? 

Hathaway: My daughter has a good friend, Elisabeth Roxby, who is a very talented Web designer. She offered to create my Web site for me. I am extremely grateful to her -- as I didn't have a clue how to go about it.  

My only contributions to the site were the little cartoon drawings -- and the back view of Fenimore. We hope to make the site more interactive in the future, include some excerpts of my new book to whet readers' appetites, and invite them to comment on the books by email. I would really welcome their reactions and criticisms (as long as they don't mention baseball!) 

Crescent Blues: Did you have any motive for writing the Fenimore books other than to tell a good story? 

Hathaway: You shouldn't have asked that. Now I'll get on my soapbox! In Dr. Fenimore I tried to create the kind of person I think a good doctor should be. Someone who is not only an expert in his field but who also cares for his patients and is loyal to the ethical tenets of his profession.  

Medical care in this country is going through a very difficult time. In the process many doctors have become technicians who sometimes lack the more human qualities. It is not all their fault. There are many factors involved. But a "health care provider" cannot replace the family doctor who knew you from childhood. I hate to see that person disappear completely.  

If there is a mission underlying the Fenimore stories it is to remind people that another kind of doctor did exist, in the hope that he/she should not be allowed to disappear from the health care scene entirely. (There, now I'll get down.) 

In closing, I would like to tell aspiring mystery writers not to go it alone. Join an organization like Sisters-in-Crime and Mystery Writers of America (MWA). The help of other writers can not be overestimated. I heard about the St. Martin's/Malice Domestic Contest from a Sisters in Crime member. And the first few chapters of the book that won was edited by a skillful mentor at MWA. And, finally, don't be afraid to get rejection slips. If you don't get them you are not a professional writer. Nothing was ever published from a drawer! 

Donna Andrews

Donna Andrews is the author of Murder with Peacocks, which won the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Award in May 1998.