March 2023

Mystery & Suspense magazine, an interview with Megan Collins, and a trip to Marseille

What’s new

I was beyond thrilled to see The Lady Upstairs included in a roundup of female-driven noir, putting my little book alongside such heavy-hitting authors as Megan Abbott, Vicki Hendricks, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Laura Lippman, and more. You can download the issue digitally for free here.

Also a reminder you can request a digital galley of The Hurricane Blonde on NetGalley here. And if you’re feeling extra supportive, here are steps to requesting your local library stock a book.

Interview with Megan Collins

Megan Collins & the cover of her most upcoming novel

Megan Collins is the author of The Family Plot, Behind the Red Door, The Winter Sister and the forthcoming Thicker Than Water. A former creative writing teacher, she is also the managing editor of 3Elements Review. She lives in Connecticut, where she obsesses over dogs, miniatures, and cake. 

What tabs do you currently have open on your computer?

Ready for the most boring answer you’ll probably receive to this excellent question? I don’t keep tabs open on my computer. It stresses me out too much to see them there, like items on a to-do list. I’ll have tabs open for a minute or two as I’m researching something or grabbing info from somewhere, but I never leave them open with the intention of returning to them. [Editor’s note: Wow, speechless.]

Also, as a thriller author, the research tabs I open tend to be things like “what does skin look like as it decomposes,” so it’s best to get rid of them quickly—before the FBI gets too curious. But! I will say that one tab I almost always open lately while working/writing is this specific video on YouTube that’s just eight hours of brown noise. I hadn’t heard of brown noise until recently (even though I cannot fall asleep without its sound sibling white noise), but having it on in the background has helped me focus so much!

What’s a book or movie or piece of art you wish you’d created?

A brief story before I answer: I was doing an event with author Kathleen Barber one time, and an audience member asked us both this same question. Kathleen answered Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, and I answered Night Film—also by Marisha Pessl! It was such a fun moment. We hadn’t coordinated our answers ahead of time or anything—there’s just something about Marisha Pessl’s books that instantly inspire writer envy (in a good, not-toxic way). But of course, I never could have written the brilliant and extraordinarily captivating Night Film, and that’s part of what makes it one of my all-time favorite books.

I also wish I’d written a novel version of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” It’s such a perfect concept—with a basically flawless execution—and I think the internal landscape of those characters would be so fun to explore in writing. [Editor’s note: A thriller-y version of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” by way of Megan Collins? Already pre-ordering.]

What are you craving to see (or see more of) in books, movies, tv, or other art?

For a while now, I’ve been craving a TV show about and for adults that makes me feel the way teen dramas did when I was in high school. I truly believe there were moments in TV shows from the late 90s/early 2000s—Roswell, Dawson’s Creek, etc.—that literally rewired my brain. Teen soaps excel at pairing a deeply emotional moment with the perfect accompanying song, making certain scenes impossible to forget, no matter how much time goes by.

Case in point: in the pilot episode of Roswell, when Max saves Liz from a bullet wound with his alien powers (I know, I know, but let’s just go with it), Sarah McLachlan’s “Fear” is playing—and it strikes the exact right tone, both sensual and mysterious, for the emotional lightning strike of that moment for Liz. After I saw that scene, I couldn’t hear Sarah McLachlan’s voice (which was a radio mainstay in those days) without thinking of Roswell—even if it was a completely different song of hers playing! I always crave a show that can deliver moments like that, ones that sink so deep inside the viewer.

I think the last show (about and for adults) that felt like it “rewired my brain” was Six Feet Under. When I first binged it in 2010, I sobbed so hard at the series finale (particularly the final montage that plays beneath Sia’s “Breathe Me”) that I actually ended up having to go to the eye doctor because, as she put it, the inside of my eyelids “looked like bubble wrap.” Even now, if I pull up that montage on YouTube, I’ll start crying. I want something that sticks with me for that long—a show that actually changes my life. We’ve been in a golden age of TV for a while now, but shows that make you feel that deeply are pretty rare in my opinion—although maybe that’s a good thing. I can’t be having bubble wrap under my eyelids all the time!

What would you like to shamelessly plug?

My next book, Thicker Than Water, is out in July and is available for pre-order now! It’s about two sisters-in-law who believe they have a perfect, unbreakable friendship until the man who connects them—the brother of one, the husband of the other—is accused of a brutal crime and they find themselves on opposite sides for the very first time.

It nearly killed me to write (and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite) this book, but ultimately I’m very proud of it, and I’m excited for readers to meet the two women at the center of the story who I see as two very different sides of myself.

Would you rather have Taylor Swift write a song about you or be able to write a finished novel in a month?

When I first read this question, I was like, “This was written specifically to sow chaos into my soul.” [Editor’s note: Can confirm.] But then I realized it’s actually a very easy answer.

As much as I love Taylor Swift—and I do, I love her so much; hi, Taylor! I know you’re reading this—she doesn’t often write happy tribute songs to people, so more than likely the song would have been written because I hurt her or pissed her off. And I never want to do either of those things!

So: finish a novel in a month. That would be excellent for my career, even if it means Taylor Swift continues not to know I exist. (Except she does because she’s reading this, as we already established.)

My Open Tabs

• I’m obsessed with Hollywood fixers and went on a Wikipedia deep dive on Anthony Pellicano recently and whoo boy. Check it out if you want to sink into rabbit hole of a man whose crimes involved French con artists, the director of Predator, alleged wiretappings in the Cruise-Kidman divorce, Chicago mobsters, Linda Fiorentino pretending to date an FBI agent, and more.

• My friend Hannah—hilarious, wonderful writer, all-around cool person—sent me this short story by Gwen Kirby in Tin House. Read if you like women using their power against terrible men, fantastic prose, and vignette style writing.

• Cooking dinner to this charming Dalida bop. (I miss White Lotus season 2, obviously.)

• An interesting meditation on when a local tragedy becomes national “true crime” and what happens when the internet takes charge of a murder.

• Planning to watch the Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown episode set in Marseille because South of France + good food + crime writers = best television. (Sorry to link to the evil empire!)