ANA MANWARING – Newspaper Columnist – Poet – Author – Educator

Ana Manwaring is a former newspaper lifestyle columnist. Her poetry, personal narratives, book reviews, and short stories have appeared in diverse publications, including the California Quarterly, KRCB Radio, Morning Haiku, and Mystery Readers Journal.

 

A graduate of the University of Denver (B.A.) and Sonoma State University (M.A.), Ana teaches creative writing, produces the monthly North Bay Poetics poetry event on Zoom, and operates her editing company, JAM Manuscript Consulting—“Spread Excellence.” She’s also the 2022 SinC-NorCal programs chair. In her “past life,” she has prepared taxes, taught ESL, worked for a PI, consulted brujos and out-run gun totin’ maniacs on lonely Mexican highways—the inspiration for the JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventures.

Ana, husband David, ace gopher hunter Alison, and a host of birds, opossums, skunks, deer, fox, coyotes, and occasionally the neighboring goats co-habitat an acre of Northern California.

After earning her M.A., Ana finally answered her mother’s question, “What are you planning to do with that expensive education?” Be a paperback writer. (ebook and audiobook, too!)

The JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventures: A missing persons case to locate an American gone missing in the resorts of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo turns investigator JadeAnne Stone’s life into a nightmare of secrets, betrayals, and pursuit as she and her dog are ensnared in a web of trafficking. Who will she trust as loyalties shift and greed rules?

JadeAnne and I are thrilled to be back on George’s blog. Since our first visit, we’ve published books two and three of the JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventures. And now we’re unpublishing them. Why on earth? Because I’ve been picked up by Indies United Publishing House who is re-releasing second editions of all three books and publishing the 4th this year. An Ambitious publishing schedule, but penance for taking 28 years from being threatened on a lonely stretch of the Pan American Highway in Michoacán (the inspiration and inciting incident) to publication of Book 1, Set Up. I’m paying my dues now with the new covers, more revision, and editing, as well as finishing Coyote—Pursuit and Terror Across the Border (there’s going to be an exciting chase, shoot-out, and lots of suspense), which will release in November.

Set Up re-released February 16, 2022.

People ask about my writing process. Unfortunately, I’m lousy at discipline and routine. The most challenging part of the process is getting myself to sit down at the computer to write. I always find pressing things to accomplish first. Today it was weeding. But I’m really fortunate to be blessed with a large, light-filled writing studio on the second story of a barn behind my house. I look into oaks and eucalyptus and can watch the birds, the play of light and shadow through the leaves, listen to the soft susurrus of the breeze off the coast, and, when I’m not distracted, write. I’m making good use of our wonderful Sisters in Crime write-ins (I attend 1 Pm and 10 Pm currently) and my M/W/F Study Hall with my writing students. I use the social writing time for outlining, revision, poetry writing, blogging, or brainstorming character names, which often come through reading my mail. In book 4, we’re going to have two new bad guys: Denver “Zeke” Stoner and Slim Killins. I have no idea who they are or what parts they’ll play yet, but when I went to mark my mail-in Recall ballot in the California recall election, there they were. The good news, I get to my desk every day since COVID and sometimes three times, even if I’m not specifically writing, but I’m most productive with high-intensity writing stints like NaNoWriMo.

A huge help in launching my writing career (besides retiring in January) is Sisters in Crime NorCal. I can’t stress enough how beneficial professional organizations and conferences can be to your development as a writer, marketer, and speaker. I’ve met many wonderful writers and readers who’ve helped me, taught me, and encouraged me. I’m a member of several branches of SINC, MWA NorCal, California Writers Club, and a Left Coast Crime attendee and participant. I’m looking forward to our LCC after two years without a conference. I’m excited about Albuquerque, too. The big chase scene culminating in the climax of Coyote will take place between Albuquerque and Denver, and I’m going to take a few days while I’m in the “area” to scout out locations. I try to experience my settings whenever I can. However, I’ll leave the shoot-out to vicarious experience and my imagination—but I’ll know what the air feels like and how the trees smell!

I write in more than one genre. I’m currently completing a memoir of my years in Mexico, and occasionally I write book reviews and short personal essays. I have two poetry chapbooks published, and I’m working on a third of “found” poems on climate change. I’m also writing the great American dysfunctional family novel told in three voices: the dying matriarch with dementia, the elder daughter who is deceased, and the resentful second daughter. Luckily the dead sister is pretty funny.

Two events brought me to writing: I’ve always loved reading stories and wrote a short story entitled “Me and My Dinosaur” instead of writing my third-grade dinosaur report. My teacher Mrs. Clancy loved it, and I got to read it to the class. (This trick worked again in Medieval History at University—I wrote a short story instead of writing a term paper, Another A, but no public reading). The second push toward writing was when I was 11 or 12, and a palm reader predicted I’d be a bestseller by the time I was 50. Isn’t 70 the new fifty?

I’m on my way! Set Up released on 2/16, The Hydra Effect releases 5/18, Nothing Comes After Z 8/17, and Coyote 11/16.

Find me at:

 

 

 

7 Comments

  1. Madeline Gornell

    Great meeting you, Anna! You should be very proud of all your accomplishments! Continued success.

    Reply
  2. Vinnie Hansen

    Slim Killins. Hah! A bit of dark humor. Love it. Reminds me of an Elmore Leonard name.

    Thanks, George, for the excellent job you do promoting and putting together these posts. Every time I learn something new about my writing buddies.

    Reply
  3. CINDY SAMPLE

    Fun interview, Ana. Congratulations on the new editions! Can’t wait to read the latest release.

    Reply
  4. JoAnn Ainsworth

    Congratulations, Ana, on the new editions from Indies United Publishing House!

    Reply
  5. Vicki Weisfeld

    Love the palm reader! What a diverse set of experiences, to entertain your Muse with. Best wishes for continued success.

    Reply
  6. Donnell Ann Bell

    What a charming blog, and darn it, I wish I’d come up with the title Nothing Comes After Z!!! I met the lovely Ana at Left Coast Crime a couple of weeks ago, an absolute pleasure.

    Thanks, George, best wishes, Ana!

    Reply
  7. Michael A. Black

    What type of dinosaur was it? 😉 It sounds like your books ate a lot of fun. I’ll have to keep an eye out for them. Good luck.

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

VINNIE HANSEN – Author of the Carol Sabala mystery series

The day after high school graduation, Vinnie Hansen fled the howling winds of South Dakota and headed for the California coast. There the subversive clutches of college dragged her into the insanity of writing, where the dark influences of Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller coaxed Vinnie to a life of crime. A two-time Claymore Award finalist, she’s the author of the Carol Sabala Mystery series (misterio press), the novel Lostart Street, and many short stories. Retired after 27 years as a high school English teacher, she remains sane(ish), notwithstanding the evidence of her tickling the ivories with local ukulele bands.

Do you write in more than one genre? Yes, my short stories range from literary to noir. They’ve appeared in diverse publications from Lake Region Review to Santa Cruz Noir. My most recent print publication, “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” is in Gabba Gabba Hey: An Anthology of Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Ramones

In full-length work, my Carol Sabala series falls most accurately in the Private Investigator tradition. Carol Sabala starts as an amateur sleuth, but her career arc in the seven-book and one-novella series takes her into official private investigation.

I’m currently working on two novels, One Gun and Crime Writer, in the literary suspense sub-genre of crime fiction.

Finally, I dabble in non-fiction with a lovely creative non-fiction piece published in Catamaran Literary Reader’s Winter 2021 issue and an article in the last issue of Mystery Readers Journal.

Who’s your favorite author? An impossible question to answer, George! Since I write all over the place, I read all over the place. Right now, I’m in love with literary suspense, and my favorite authors in that sub-genre are Jane Harper, Allen Eskens, and Lou Berney.

When I was working in PI fiction, my inspiration was Sue Grafton.

Some of my favorite books of all time lie where the literary and mystery genres intersect. Think William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace or David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars.

But an author who is a favorite for other reasons is Dorothy Bryant. She comes from an English teaching background, as do I, and that background wends its way into works like Miss Giardino. Dorothy Bryant was feisty, the first woman to wear pants when teaching at Contra Costa College.

Her first book, Ella Price’s Journal, was traditionally published. Still, when her agent deemed her second book “very bad,” Bryant struck out on her own before self-publishing was common or easy. She established Ata Press and published this “very bad” book, The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You. The book was later picked up by Random House and stayed in print for 30 years. Who doesn’t love that story?

But the main thing I love about Bryant is how she explored everything from the diary format to stage plays to science fiction. She followed her love of writing wherever it led her. She did not feel confined by genre. More than any other writer, she’s my role model.

What kind of research do you do? I do whatever research a book or story demands. The fifth Carol Sabala novel, Death with Dessert, involves immigrants coming over the border in Arizona, so I went to Arizona and drove down to Sasabe. I wanted to see the terrain, feel the quality of the air, smell the desert. You can’t Google those sensory details.

Since I’m a crime fiction writer, I’ve toured our local police station, the county jail (twice), San Quentin prison (twice), the FBI Crime Lab in San Francisco, and a prison in Wisconsin. I tried to visit a detention facility in Mexico but was rather forcibly removed. I’ve done two police ride-alongs and attended the Writers Police Academy, where I made a tourniquet for a writhing dummy squirting blood and participated in Shoot; Don’t Shoot video scenarios used for police training.

My personal experience has led to some unintended research. My husband and I were both handcuffed and put in the back of a sheriff’s vehicle to bake for an hour as the LEO’s sorted out a report of shots fired on our street. The photo shows what our street looked like that day. That’s our brown house!

We also came home while our house was being burglarized; my husband gave chase to the burglar, who pulled a gun and threatened to kill him. Luckily, he didn’t. Because of my husband’s pursuit, the cops were able to arrest the young man, and we ended up with front row seats to the criminal justice system—from arraignment through trial. The burglary and the question of what became of the gun served as the impetus for my next novel, One Gun, coming from Misterio press either late this year or early next year.

I’ve attended numerous panels and workshops on everything from search-and-rescue to autopsies. In a survival camp, I constructed an emergency shelter and tried to make a fire. I’ve been to a gun range, of course.

On a more cerebral level, I’ve read Adam Plantinga’s books 400 Things Cops Know and Police Craft and have reference books at my fingertips like Deadly Doses, when I need a little poison, or Police Procedure & Investigation by Lee Lofland when I need a better sense of how the whole bureaucracy operates.

Not all my research is so dark. I visited the Grateful Dead archives here in Santa Cruz to write my story “Dead Revival,” which was published August 15th at Yellow Mama. For an earlier story (“Room and Board” in Fishy Business, the Fifth Guppy Anthology) featuring the same duo of numbskulls, I toured our local Surf Museum.

And, of course, probably like every writer, I go down rabbit holes on the internet. I’ve spent whole afternoons looking at and reading about blue scorpions. For the story in Gabba Gabba Hey, I killed an hour watching videos of killdeers.

Vinnie Hansen, two-time Claymore Finalist
The Carol Sabala Mystery Series
LOSTART STREET, a novel
Newsletter
BookBub

21 Comments

  1. Susan Alice Bickford

    It’s great to hear your summary of all these events and efforts in one spot. You’ve lived a very interesting life and written some excellent fiction.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      Thank you for visiting, Susan. And welcome back to NorCal. See you later.

      Reply
  2. carole price

    Enjoyed your interview, Vinnie, particularly your research. I’m 20 years in as a police volunteer.

    Reply
    • Vinnie Hansen

      Carole, I’ve often thought volunteering for the PD or the Sheriff’s Office would be an excellent way to gain a better understanding of law enforcement.

      Reply
  3. Cindy Sample

    Wonderful interview, Vinnie. You really spend the time researching your books and it shows in your fine mysteries.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      Thanks for visiting, Cindy! I’m so looking forward to when I’ll start seeing my writing buddies again. Are you going to LCC in Albuquerque?

      Reply
  4. Heidi Noroozy

    Great interview, Vinnie! Ordinary Grace and Snow Falling on Cedars are also two of my favorite books.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      Good taste, Heidi. 🙂

      Reply
  5. Michelle Chouinard

    I’m also a big fan of Sue Grafton, and she was also a big inspiration on me! I recently finished a PI novel that my agent and I are getting ready to shop…I think of my protagonist as “If Kinsey Millhone had had a daughter…” So glad you decided to come hang out in California!

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      Thanks, Michelle. Glad to get out of the cold. I’ll watch for your book. What is the title?

      Reply
  6. Kassandra Lamb

    Great interview, Vinnie!! I loved The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You. One of my all time favorites. But I didn’t know all that about the author. Fascinating!

    I too cannot wait to read One Gun.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You was Alice Walker’s favorite book. (Just another bit of trivia I did not throw in the interview).

      Reply
  7. Liz Boeger

    What a great interview! So much fun in reading about your writing journey and research paths. Looking forward to reading One Gun.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      Thanks for dropping by, Liz. I look forward to reading you debut mystery, too. When will Chainlinked be released?

      Reply
    • Vinnie

      Thanks for dropping by, Liz. I look forward to reading you debut mystery, too. When will Chainlinked be released? r

      Reply
  8. Glenda Carroll

    Like you, I was inspired by Sue Grafton and her writing. It was so down to earth just like her protagonist, Kinsey Millhone. Great interview. I’ve been in a shoot, don’t shoot scenario. Once I hit the family dog.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      I’m beginning to think, “Weren’t we all?” I met Sue Grafton at LCC Monterey and had the perfect opportunity, when we were by ourselves, to tell her what a fan I was. Instead, I muttered a couple of inane comments about the SinC table. One of the regrets of my life!

      Reply
  9. K.B. Owen

    Fab interview, Vinnie! Wow, that’s some formidable research…especially the involuntary kind. *wink*

    Congrats on the Gabba Gabba anthology, and good luck on your projects!

    Reply
  10. Michael A. Black

    I found your interview very inspiring, Vinnie. It’s great that you’re putting your English degree to such good work. Best of luck to you. I’ll keep an eye out for your stuff.

    Reply
    • Vinnie

      Thanks for reading, Michael. I recommend Black Beans & Venom to readers sampling my work.

      Reply
  11. Vinnie

    Thank you, George, for hosting me, and for all the support you’ve been giving your fellow authors!

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *