Wednesday, June 24, 2009

10 Silly Questions with Crime Thriller Writer P.A. Brown


P.A. Brown and I sat down outside the scene of a double homicide in LA, where she was researching material for her next book. After P.A. washed the blood off her hands and stashed an evidence bag full of hair in a storm drain, we got down to the serious business of answering my ten silly questions.


1. If you could invite any famous person, dead or alive, for dinner, what would you eat?
Michael Connolly, and I'd want a full steak dinner, the finest cut, cooked to perfection with champagne and something sinfully rich for dessert, though chances are I wouldn't have room to eat it. But a night spent talking to him, hell, I probably wouldn't eat anything.


2. Who do you think you are?
Patricia Cornwell. Hey, we share a first name, we both write thrillers. And I'd sure like her books sales figures.


3. What’s your problem?
Not making any money at this damned 'hobby' of mine and being told I'm not really working.


4. If you could have one wish, would you give it to me?
No, I'd use it to give myself ten more wishes. Who do you think I am, your fairy godmother?

5. Where you at?
Having a mid-life crisis. It's been ongoing for the last decade, but I don't want to surrender it, since what's left? Old age? Uggh.


6. If you had to choose only one vice, what would it be?
Sex – is that really a vice? Or drinking. How about drinking while having sex? Now that conjures up some delicious thoughts.


7. What’s your favorite brand of cereal?
Sugar Pops


8. When you wake up in the morning, what celebrity do you most resemble?
Either Phyllis Diller or Marty Feldman, from Young Frankenstein, hump and all.


9. Do you know your ass from a hole in the ground? And if so, how do you tell the difference?
My ass might be big, but it's not big enough to fall into or trip over. And it could never break a horse's leg.


10. Do you have anything you’d like to plug?
L.A. Heat has been revised and reissued by MLR Press and it's hotter and better than ever. Also, MLR Press has just released my latest, Geography of Murder. It's a real departure for me, being a BDSM book. But I'm pretty proud of it and I love my two characters, Detective Alexander Spider and Jason, his lover.

P.A. Brown says this about herself: Southern California, where I lived from 1978 to 1986 was for me the land of dreams and lies, where illusion battled daily with reality, and reality rarely wins. People ask why I write. It's simple really, I write to give the little voices inside of me an outlet. Otherwise they'd drive me crazy.

So it was probably fitting that I spent eight years there. L.A. Heat grew out of those sometimes dark, always fascinating days. Like nearly everyone else who makes the trip, I went to Hollywood to reinvent myself. But I quickly discovered that in Hollywood, writers have about as much cachet as what a dog leaves on your lawn. Did I stop writing? Hell no, I just stopped telling everyone I was a writer, and just kept perfecting my craft.

Eventually I dropped the idea of doing screenplays and went back to my real love: novels. It was years before I took up bragging rights again and once more told anyone crazy enough to express even the least interest that yes, I was a writer and I wrote Science Fiction - then - and murder mysteries - now. For a while, when I wasn't writing I used to paint. There's not much left of those days, the odd scattering of sketches and a painting or two.


I'd also like to plug my new trailer for Geography of Murder. It's almost as hot as the book.

16 comments:

  1. Sex is the best of everything, whether you do it alone or together with someone but of course you have to shut them out when you're writing...I sometimes now think that writing may be the best of even that...oh, who the hell knows haha!

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  2. Great responses, Pat! Your Geography of a Murder trailer looks killer! Can't wait to read the book.

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  3. I tried having sex while I was writing, but it's way too messy. Do not go there.

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  4. For me, Pat, I find I can only think with one head at a time. The blood flow either has to be up or down...so it's writing OR sex...and not both at the same time. You are so right.

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  5. Pat, what is that black dot on your head in the picture of you? A bullet hole?

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  6. My secret is out. I'm actually a living dead zombie. Makes it harder and harder to write -- all those little bits keep falling off on the keyboard.

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  7. While I've got everybody here, don't forget to enter my contest -- for a copy of either Geography of Murder or the next book in the series, Forest of Corpses, just send me an interview question that you would like me to ask Detective Alexander Spider in my upcoming interview. The contest closes on July 15th and I'll draw from all the names entered on July 16.

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  8. How do you like your name Detective Spider? Seems you're in a sticky web, eh?

    OK, I'll shut my big mouth ;)))

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  9. Fun interview, Pat. Loved the trailer!

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  10. Fun answers, Pat. Hey, a murderer in my town was seriously implicated by evidence he put in a storm drain. Anything can happen...

    Carly

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  11. Jason, do you ever wish you could put Spider in the swing? Make him beg??

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  12. Sex while writing sounds like the best vice for me.

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  13. Furiously trying to describe the fleeting sensations... I'm a sick puppy, what can I say? Comes from living alone.

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  14. Excellent interview, Jason. You put Pat on the spot a few times, and I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. How about sex and cheese-cake? Ice-cream's already been done, eh?

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  15. Who is Jason?? I feel my blog is slipping away from me.

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  16. Loved the trailer, and the interview!

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