ERICA MINER – Murder Mars Beautiful Music

Oct 17, 2024 | Crime, Mystery, Thriller | 3 comments

Former Metropolitan Opera violinist Erica Miner is now an award-winning author, screenwriter, arts journalist, and lecturer based in the Pacific Northwest. Her debut novel, Travels with My Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. In her current Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series, Erica’s fanciful plot fabrications reveal the dark side of the fascinating world of opera.

Erica has given workshops for Sisters in Crime, the Los Angeles Creative Writing Conference, EPIC Group Writers, Write on the Sound, Fields End Writer’s Community, Savvy Authors, and numerous libraries on the West Coast.

OVERTURE TO MURDER: Young violinist Julia places her own life in jeopardy when she investigates a gruesome murder at the San Francisco Opera. However, a person near and dear to Julia is in grave danger when the killer seeks revenge for Julia’s sleuthing.

What brought you to writing? I started writing when I was 7 or 8. In my Detroit grade school, there were a number of outstanding after-school programs. I was placed in one for Creative Writing. I fell in love with the process of creating characters and plots and weaving them together to tell stories. Even when I started studying the violin, then in my professional career as a musician, I kept writing. I still love telling stories, and I’m still at it.

How do you come up with character names? Coming up with names is one of my favorite parts of writing fiction. I worked in the Met Opera  Orchestra for 21 years. I have a wealth of musical names to draw from, including solo artists, composers past and present, their colleagues, and more. Panoplies of names to choose from among the 100 or so other musicians and people from all realms in the opera house, from opera superstars to stagehands. Sometimes, I use a foreign name in a different language for fun. I named the protagonist of my series after the daughter of my closest friend in the Met chorus. In the process, I get to kill off lots of people who made my life miserable. What could be better?

Do you base any of your characters on real people? My stories revolve around my experiences with the colorful, fascinating, quirky, maddening characters who populate the opera world, a world of volatile individuals who somehow have to work together: wannabe stars, detestable divas, snarky stagehands. There’s no love lost between them. They’re a gold mine of resources for my characters.

Do you outline, or are you a pantser? I’m an obsessive outliner. I must have a blueprint to guide me in the process. The mystery genre is the most difficult to write: a jigsaw puzzle in which every plot point must fit perfectly with the one that came before and the one that comes after. The puzzle falls apart if one piece is out of place or the wrong size. I can take as long as six months to sweat over an outline and make it as seamless as possible before I write one word of the story. I make appropriate modifications as I go along, but I wouldn’t dream of putting together my murder mystery puzzle without that framework.

What kind of research do you do? Sometimes, I end up down a rabbit hole when I do my research. But I absolutely love it. The histories and cultural backgrounds of these opera companies and their cities are fascinating and enlightening. The Met and New York (Aria for Murder) are endlessly alluring. Santa Fe (Prelude to Murder) is the second oldest city in the US; its opera company performs in an outdoor theatre in the middle of the desert. In San Francisco (Overture to Murder), one of the world’s most beloved and sophisticated cities, opera started as a diversion for miners during the gold rush. They developed into high-brow entertainment by the French and Italians who descended upon the city. And it goes from there. While playing in the Met Orchestra, I focused on performing operas to the highest standards of the most prestigious opera house in the world. Now I get to explore why the composers wrote the operas and who the historical figures involved were.

Where do you place your settings—real or fictional locations? Despite my protagonist being an amateur sleuth, my opera mysteries are traditional by definition, as they take place in real locations at major venues in large cities: the Metropolitan Opera (New York), the Santa Fe Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. In some scenes, there could be 1000 people or more. I feel palpable excitement in these places, where I can find almost limitless locations and situations around which I can create my fanciful plot fabrications, revealing the dark side of the fascinating world of opera. There are so many opera houses, so little time!

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and your books? I’m gratified that my mysteries have found a niche among book lovers in general, mystery lovers specifically, and opera aficionados—especially those who also love reading mysteries! My readers, who know a lot about opera, tell me they always find something to relate to in the real operas that I weave into the mystery plots. My readers who start out knowing little or nothing about opera tell me they delight in learning about this unique art form for the first time. Many of them have been inspired to see their first opera, and some have described this as a “religious experience.” I couldn’t ask for a more meaningful response.

How do our readers contact you?
Via email: eminer5472@gmail.com
Website: https://www.ericaminer.com

ISBNS:
978-1-68512-781-7 (pb)
978-1-68512-782-4 (eb)

BUY LINKS: Overture to Murder
Also, by Erica Miner:
ARIA FOR MURDER
PRELUDE TO MURDER

GROUPS I BELONG TO:
Mystery Writers of America,
Sisters in Crime,
International Thriller Writers,
Pacific Northwest Writers Association,
Level Best Books Authors