Elena Smith is back with another interview with one of the all-star writers from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. In the spotlight this time is Cheryl Head, an immensely talented author in the genres of both crime and historical fiction (and, as was announced just a few weeks ago, winner of this year's Saints and Sinners Literary Festival fiction contest with her story "By Any Other Name").. Among her works are the Charlie Mack Motown Mysteries (subject of a question on Jeopardy!) and the novel Time's Undoing, based on her own family history, which was a finalist for the Anthony, Macavity and Agatha awards and the Los Angeles Book Prize. For my money, she's one of the most important writers working in the mystery field today, and it's an honor to have her in SMFS. Take it away, Elena!
Before you turned to writing full time, you had a distinguished career as a television producer. What was the impetus that made you leave the corporate world and turn to writing full time? How easy - or hard - has that been?
I had a very fulfilling career in public media, and worked in both public television and public radio for three decades at the local and national levels. I was a radio reporter/producer in Detroit; Vice President of Production at the Detroit public television station; and Senior Vice President of Administration at WETA in Washington, DC. I was writing all the time - grants, scripts, essays, Congressional testimony, and yes, I even wrote a pledge break, or two. But my last job in public media, as a grant maker and program executive at the now defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, became less enjoyable - and very stressful - because of the politics surrounding our work. I started writing my first novel during my last couple of years in public broadcasting, as a creative outlet.
I had to flex a lot of new muscles to write fiction, and I’m still growing in the craft, but I’ve always been a very good storyteller.
Did your previous career affect your writing in any way? Did it open doors for you, or did you find yourself starting from scratch (or should I say “jump” ;-) )?
Absolutely. I use all my experiences from my media career - the travel, the meetings, the people I’ve met along the way - to inform my plots, characters and dialogue. I’ve traveled to five of the seven continents, and I’m always amazed at how the world’s people are more alike than unalike (as Maya Angelou’s poem says). But, I will say navigating the business side of writing and publishing was like starting from “jump” or to do you one better from Detroit slang: from the “git-go”. As a writer, in today’s publishing landscape, it helps to be adept at marketing, publicity, and social media. As a former television producer I learned that, but the thing that’s different now is the explosion of platforms to do that promotion, and the shrinking attention spans of audiences bombarded with all that content.
On your website, https://www.cherylhead.com/ your fiction novel “Time’s Undoing” was inspired by real events in your family. Was this a difficult story to write? Why or why not?
Yes. It was difficult to write. At the same time, it made me a better writer. I think I’m equally balanced at right-brain and left-brain processing. I can really get as turned on by analyzing a budget (I know. Please don’t judge me. LOL), as writing a pithy scene of dialogue. Before Time’s Undoing, I was very much a plotter. However, the novel was so personal (it’s a fictionalized retelling of the murder of my grandfather, by Birmingham, Alabama police, in the Jim Crow era of 1929) that I wrote the chapters that are in my grandfather’s voice, organically. It was challenging. But I was very motivated by the anger I felt when George Floyd was killed. I began writing Time’s Undoing the day after that tragic event.
Did you do a lot of research into your own past, or did you just write from the heart?
I did an extraordinary amount of research. I always do for my crime fiction series, but for that project it was a daily, 3-4 hours routine of searches through newspaper databases, Ancestry.com records, library archives, and conducting oral history interviews. Through that effort, I was able to acquire my grandfather’s death certificate which my family had never had, and I discovered a tiny newspaper account of his death. The book is constructed in dual timelines. For the historical chapters, I immersed myself in the research, set it aside, and wrote from my heart, and soul.
You have published both short stories and fiction. Do you have a preference, or do you let your story tell you how much you need to say? When you get a notion, how soon do you know if it will become a short story or a novel?
I think I have a preference for the short story, and I have dozens of unpublished shorts I’ve written over twenty years. I first fell in love with mystery/crime fiction as a teenager reading Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, and by the time I read Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, I was convinced that a well-written short story can have such emotional heft that it can change the way you think about the world. I know if I’m setting out to write a short story, or a novel. But, I’ve written a recent short story that members of my writers group tell me should be a novel. We’ll see.
What has been your best experience as a writer?
I hope to have many rewarding experiences as a writer, but for now I’m simply thrilled anytime my characters want to talk to me. It’s happened a few times. Usually, it’s just a whisper that I shouldn’t forget about them. But, the first time it happened, a character announced to me as I was waking up one morning, that he was gay. I remember sitting up in bed and saying aloud: “What?” I was three-quarters through my first novel, about Black soldiers in World War II, and I had to go back and change a lot of the book.
You are a triple minority - female, black and gay. How much does this impact your work, and in what way(s), if any?
As I’ve gotten older, I think of being Black, female and queer as being a triple threat. Like a Broadway performer who can act, sing, and dance. Or a college athlete who plays football, basketball, and runs track and field. I’ve learned to embrace all these aspects of my personality, and don’t think of it as having minority status. Instead, it’s a superpower which gives me at least three different ways of viewing the world, and my place in it, and it also gives me a lot of leeway as a writer. Not all my stories have queer characters, but a lot of them do. My novels primarily have female protagonists, but I adore writing my male characters, and I have the most fun with them. My writing will always be informed by the diversity and inclusion of our world, and I’m
not about to stop using either of those powerful words. They must have power, else why are there those who want to eradicate them?
I have not read all of your work, so forgive me if this is a stupid question: Have you ever written from a perspective that is not your own? (I.e. - men write from a female POV, whites write as people of color) If you have, how hard or easy did you think it was, and why?
Yes. And it’s a very valid question right now. I’ve written, for instance, about a trans woman in my Charlie Mack Motown Mysteries. I got in her head, and she in mine, as we navigated that story. I liked her very much, but I had some anxious moments writing her. I’m very careful when either writing about, or from the POV of, a person different than me. When I do I lead with humility, and ask for help. I always seek out a couple of sensitivity readers - and I pay them.
As someone who started her literary career after a corporate career, is there any advice you would give to people who are just starting their journey?
We all have stories in us. Some of us must get those stories out into the world. We’re called writers. My corporate career helped me with the discipline needed to get the work done. Writing, and getting better at it, requires practice and consistency. I can’t tell you how often the body memory of my media work gets me to the finish line of a novel. Once you’ve had the job of getting a live newscast on the air at 10 p.m., as I’ve done, having a two-week deadline on a manuscript edit is child’s play.
Who would you recommend that I interview next? (Feel free to name more than one person)
I would recommend Curtis Ippolito a writer based in California.He's recently edited an anthology of crime/mystery stories about climate change, and won the best short story Anthony Award in New Orleans. Ann Aptaker is queer crime fiction writer--a wonderful wordsmith-who has works in several Best Of short story mystery anthologies, and Fay Snowden, novelist and short story writer. She's an amazing writer, and smart person.
