Please welcome back Kathleen Marple Kalb to the blog today in her Nikki
Knight personae. The book, Live, Local, and
Long Dead: A Vermont Radio Mystery has new
life through a new publisher and a series commitment. You can get it at the
publisher, Wild
Rose Press, Amazon, and
other vendors. The book comes out Tuesday.
IF
YOU JUST HANG ON…
When it comes to
writing, I’m a gila monster.
A large venomous lizard,
you ask? Well, kinda. The gila monster kills its prey by hanging on to until it
surrenders. (That’s your inspirational weird fact for the day!) I hang on and
keep writing characters I love until I convince everyone else to love them
too…or at least give them a try.
It’s why there’s a
second Vermont Radio Mystery, LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD, coming out this
month…and why there are a lot of Vermont short stories out there, too. While I
know, and really admire, writers who come up with new characters and a new
“world” for each new story, I’m just not that creative.
The basic idea of a
mystery series set at a small radio station in Vermont was my first idea for a
book, when I started writing fiction seriously in 2015, after my son started
kindergarten. It seemed like a fun way to combine the experience of my first
on-air job up there in the Green Mountains with my dark and snarky newsroom
sense of humor – and finely honed appreciation for quirky crimes.
The first version, best
described as Stephanie Plum with moose and without Janet Evanovich’s skill, was
a great learning experience. It was not, however, saleable, as I learned after
my first agent hit a brick wall that had nothing to do with him, and everything
to do with the product.
Fast-forward a couple
years, after the first round of my husband’s cancer battle, and successful
querying and submission with a new agent who found a home for my first few historical
mysteries. And what did I want to do but go back to Vermont? This time, though,
with a main character, disc jockey Jaye Jordan, who was a lot more like me: a
grownup, a mother, someone who’d seen things, done things, and taken a few
hits. But Vermont was still my happy place – and I’m still me, so I kept the
farting moose, the snarky humor, and the quirky, diverse cast.
My agent loved it and
sold it…and LIVE, LOCAL, AND DEAD ultimately earned out. Not enough, though,
and the series wasn’t picked up.
That might have been the
end if not for the short stories.
When I started writing
shorts, I gravitated to a setting and characters I knew well, which meant
Vermont and Jaye. The shorts started to sell, and every time one of them was
published, a copy or two of LIVE, LOCAL, AND DEAD sold, proving to me, and
anyone who might consider my work, that there was indeed a market for it.
Not to mention the fact
that I couldn’t let go.
Gila monster, remember?
That’s why, when Level Best picked up my historical
and a new contemporary series, I didn’t do the smart thing and pull everything
else that was on submission. And when the Wild Rose Press offered for the
second Vermont book, and the only thing I had to say was “Yes, thank you!”
And now, I’d like to invite you to my happy place, a
very small radio station in a tiny Vermont town, where weird crimes seem to
keep happening, with a (literally) colorful cast of locals, wicked humor, warm
family moments, and of course, that flatulent moose.
Not a gila monster in sight. Except, of course, for
me.
LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD:
Vermont DJ Jaye Jordan's Green-Up Day ends in murder when not one, but two,
bodies turn up in an old park -- and one of them was much too close to both her
ex and her current man when it was alive and bodacious. Now Jaye, with the help
of a colorful (and diverse) cast of townies, will have to clear her men's
names, unravel a World War II-era mystery…and get Grandpa Seymour to the Senior
Prom on time.
Nikki Knight ©2024
Nikki
Knight is an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning
weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories
and novels including the Vermont Radio Mystery LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD
from the Wild Rose Press. As Kathleen Marple Kalb, she writes the Ella Shane
and Old Stuff series, both from Level Best Books. A Derringer finalist,
she’s had stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly,
and anthologies including DEVIL’S SNARE: Best New England Crime Stories
2024. She’s Co-VP of the New York/Tri-State Sisters in Crime Chapter
and a past VP of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She, her husband, and son
live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.
.jpg)
