Lillian Stewart Carl: In a way I'm still doing fantasy, just contemporary fantasy. You have ghosts. You have magic (in Memory and Desire.) As for going back to heroic fantasy, I don't know. After watching Fellowship of the Ring, I was reminded how much I love Tolkien and could feel that vestigial love for sword and sorcery stirring. But there are only so many hours in a day, and right now I'm committed to building up my mystery audience. (Not that I've ever written a straight novel-length mystery, it always has something extra.)

Crescent Blues: You've had quite a few short stories published. Which do you feel are harder to write -- short stories or full-length novels?

Lillian Stewart Carl: Full-length novels. They're, well, longer. They take a lot more time and planning. Of course, I've been putting so much research into the recent short stories that it seems like a waste to stop at 7,000 words. I compromise by writing short stories on topics that are relevant to my novels too. The story "Over the Sea from Skye" uses a lot of the research I did on Bonnie Prince Charlie's 1745 rebellion, which also figures heavily in The Secret Portrait, the novel I just finished. This story will be in Alternate Generals III. My story in the first Alternate Generals, "The Test of Gold" (now on Fictionwise) is about a young Roman's misadventures in Celtic Britain -- some of the research for that showed up in Time Enough to Die.

Crescent Blues: Which short story did you enjoy writing most?

Lillian Stewart Carl: This is like asking me which of my sons I like the most... I don't really remember how I was feeling when I did some of the earlier stories. I do remember that "The Rim of the Wheel" (Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and Fictionwise) is based loosely on a trip I took to India. And I enjoyed the illustration that appeared with it. (I bought the original.) The Tibetan guy in that illustration inspired a character in The Winter King... Oh, yeah, that was an earlier question.

Of the recently published stories, I enjoyed "A Rose With All Its Thorns" (Past Lives, Present Tense and also Fictionwise). A rabid feminist historian buys the personality of Anne Boleyn (it's wave-of-the-hand science fiction) and then trots off to a conference of Tudor historians at Anne's Hever Castle. But of course Anne doesn't cooperate. At one point our feminist thinks indignantly, "I paid good money to have my prejudices confirmed, damn it!" It's painful to have one's mind broadened.

Of the yet-to-be published ones, probably "A Dish of Poison" (Much Ado About Murder) a murder mystery based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. I enjoyed reading the play and interpolating the story into its crevices, a skill I learned many many years ago when I was writing science fiction fan fiction. I used the actors from the wonderful movie version of Twelfth Night -- Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Hawthorne, Toby Stephens -- but set the story in 1815, right after Waterloo.

Crescent Blues: Least?

Lillian Stewart Carl: Hard to say. Some of the ones I had published many years ago may have caused me gray hairs but I've mercifully forgotten. "The Muse", which was in Realms of Fantasy magazine this winter (it's now on Fictionwise) was one I started and stopped and started again several times over several years. On one level it's a ghost story set on the island of Skye (yes, Skye again). On another it's an allegory of creativity and sexuality.

Then there's one I already mentioned, "Over the Sea from Skye", which is alternate history. Supposedly, Bonnie Prince Charlie wins his revolt and it's his enemy, the Duke of Cumberland, who turns up on Skye asking Flora MacDonald for help. I had to do some heavy-duty digging into the Seven Years War, obscure German battles and the like, to come up with a viable how-this-changed-history scenario. The story ends in 1775, with Samuel Johnson (yep, a favorite historical character) commenting on how eloquently Thomas Jefferson (ditto), Franklin, and friends are asking for closer ties with Britain.

Crescent Blues: Like most cross-genre books, paranormal mysteries sometimes suffer at the hands of marketing and bookstore staff who don't seem to know how to "classify" them. Do you think there's a solution to this dilemma?

Lillian Stewart Carl: Some editors are saying that I'm carving out my own market niche, with the implication that when I've done it, to get back to them. (Gee, thanks!) My own editor, bless him, says that what I'm doing is transcending the market, and to keep writing what I have to write and the market will eventually follow. This is one reason they're publishing me in hardcover now, because apparently it's a little easier to cross genres in hardcover.

There are a lot of writers in the same situation I'm in. I think the only solution is for readers to keep on reading and talking about the cross-genre books they enjoy, and eventually the buzz will reach the marketing departments at the major publishing houses.

But I do have sympathy for the poor booksellers, trying to decide where to slot a cross-genre book! While it would be nice if they would put, say, Shadows in Scarlet into the mystery section, the romance section and the fantasy section, they can't do that. There's too much competition for those slots.

Crescent Blues: We understand you're working on a new book. Want to tell our readers more about it?

Lillian Stewart Carl: The one I'm just starting is the sequel to The Secret Portrait, titled The Murder Hole. This is a series, with the same protagonist, an inquisitive and intrepid American journalist living in (surprise!) Scotland. An academic scandal back in the U.S. makes her decide to leave her job and her marriage and join forces with an old friend who publishes a magazine in Edinburgh. Now she has a license to go around poking into attics both literal and metaphorical, with sometimes startling results. Plus, she meets a certain police detective in The Secret Portrait.... Well, as she says, the last thing she need is a man to complicate the life she's gone to such lengths to simplify.

Yeah, right.

Michael and Rebecca from Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust are secondary ongoing characters in this series. In The Murder Hole, they have a baby girl!

Lillian Stewart Carl: Simple economic necessity. No one can buy my work if it's not available.

My more recent novels are coming out from Wildside because Wildside is willing to take a chance on cross-genre books written by a smallish (but soon to be much bigger, right?) name. The editor there remembered my very first fantasy novels and so was open to just about anything I sent him. Wildside was recently mentioned by The Washington Post as among the best of the small presses, I'm delighted to say.

Crescent Blues: How have your readers responded to your books being available electronically?

Lillian Stewart Carl: I'm utterly astounded and gratified to report that I've been among Fictionwise's best-selling authors! I intend to get used to this, of course. Whether these are the people who've been familiar with my work all along or people who've just now discovered it, I have no idea, but I suspect I'm picking up some new readers through Fictionwise -- and am delighted to welcome them to the fold.

Crescent Blues: When did you begin writing?

Lillian Stewart Carl: About the time I began breathing, I think, although I suppose I had to get old enough to actually hold a pencil. I honestly do not remember ever not being able to read. I always wrote, poems, stories, plays. I didn't actually start finishing anything until somewhat later in life, I'll confess.

I started writing with intent to sell when my sons were still small and I was teaching part time. I was laid up in the hospital, going stir-crazy, and my wonderful husband brought me a tablet and some pencils. I started writing a fan story and, well, it all got away from me.

Crescent Blues: Who influenced your writing most?

Lillian Stewart Carl: I have to mention my high school English teacher, Ellis D. Lutz (Upper Arlington High School, Upper Arlington, Ohio), who was not only very complimentary about my work for his class but who would honestly and fairly critique anything I wrote outside of class. There's also my good friend Lois McMaster Bujold. We first met when we were in junior high school and immediately recognized each other as kindred spirits. We'd write together, we'd write for each other.... And I can testify that even as a teenager she could write rings around us lesser mortals. Check out her newest novel, The Curse of Chalion. Wonderful, creative, thoughtful, high-quality fantasy.

As for authors I enjoyed when I was young -- my goodness, there are so many. I read everything from Dante to Dumas to Michener to Steinbeck to Heinlein and Bradbury. Tolkien is my all time favorite -- I still wonder at the luminosity of his (now classic) prose. C.S.Forester and his Hornblower were also favorites. Shirley Jackson's quirkey horror novels. And certainly Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, Daphne du Maurier -- I read Rebecca in one sitting. (And yes, the Rebecca in Ashes to Ashes is named after the book. Memory and Desire is my own attempt at a novel in which one of the main characters never appears.) Nowadays when I want to read some excellent prose I'll read one of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael novels or something by P.D.James. For a laugh, it's Bill Bryson -- he has an amazing way with words.

Crescent Blues: You've alluded to writing fan fiction more than once. What shows inspired you?

My first fan fic was Star Trek -- the original Star Trek. Lois and I put out one of the very first Star Trek fan 'zines, way back in our teens. This bewildered the guys in our SF group. No one had ever heard of an all-fiction 'zine before or even of writing fiction around a (gasp!) TV show! Somebody at the Philadelphia Worldcon last year actually had a copy of that 'zine. Wow.

Way back before I turned pro (i.e., sold anything), I wrote Battlestar Galactica fan fic for different 'zines. Great practice at putting a story together. I also did one Star Wars story, inspired by Return of the Jedi. My favorite fan fic is a Blake's Seven story. I'm quite proud of that one. I've also played around with ideas for Dr. Who stories, for example, but I just don't have the time to indulge in that sort of thing any more. Well, except for the Shakespearean story, for which I was actually paid!

Crescent Blues: What advice would you give new writers -- especially those wanting to write cross-genre fiction?

Lillian Stewart Carl: If you have to write, if you have no other choice but to write, then go for it. You'll need perspiration, persistence and patience. Keep on writing, keep on honing your work, keep on sending it out. As for cross-genre fiction, keep your fingers crossed that it will eventually reach critical mass. There's a real balancing act between writing what your heart tells you to write and writing what your head tells you will sell. And for heaven's sakes, steer clear of the publishing, editing and agenting scams that are proliferating like weeds!

Crescent Blues: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about? Soapbox and white space free of charge, of course.

Lillian Stewart Carl: No soapboxes, thanks -- I'll just default to some BSP [Brazen Self-Promotion] here.

My next novel will be published in October. It's titled Time Enough to Die, and closer to a straightforward mystery than any of my other contemporary novels (well, except for The Secret Portrait series). But you don't think I'd actually write a book without a relationship and some supernatural touches, do you? We're still working on the cover copy, but here's an early draft:

Thanks for giving me the chance to hold forth!

Click here to learn more about Lillian Stewart Carl.

Click here to read Teri Smith's review of Shadows in Scarlet.

Teri Smith

Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, a financial assistant, acquisitions editor for Samhain Publishing and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. A multi-published short story writer, her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Jean Marie Ward, was published in 2007. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living.