E.A. Aymar
When She left | No Home For Killers
DOSSIER: You’ve been a staple on the “appearances circuit” for nearly a decade doing author panels, conferences, readings, signings, and more. What one place, event, or interaction do you remember as the most awkward or weird encounter you’ve had out there?
AYMAR: Am I a staple on the scene? I consider myself more of a barnacle. Just hanging around until someone scrapes me off. But that’s how I approach most things in life – employment, dinner parties, marriage.
The oddest event I ever attended, and I’ll keep this story as SFW as possible, was at Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee. The conference hotel was conversationally known as the Dahmer hotel, because Jeffrey Dahmer had murdered someone there. I’m not one of those people who find serial killers compelling, but I was curious to learn more about the incident, so I looked it up after I checked in and realized that room was just a floor or two above mine. I had to see it for myself, so I took the elevator upstairs and crept down the hall. When I got there, the door was closed (of course) and everything looked normal.
But I heard something inside.
So I crept to the door and, from inside the room, I heard people copulating (how’s that term for SFW?).
In Jeffrey Dahmer’s hotel room! At 1 in the afternoon!
I was stunned. I texted a friend of mine, who had also checked in, and told her to come upstairs. She told me that she was taking a nap. I replied, “look, people are HAVING SEX IN JEFFREY DAHMER’S HOTEL ROOM! Come up and listen!”
And she texted back, “Why would I want to do that?”
And then she, apparently, just fell asleep.
Can you believe her? What a weirdo.
DOSSIER: What was more challenging for you: the purgatory of querying agents or the hell in waiting to hear back from publishers while on submission? Besides developing a thick skin for rejection, what should writers expect or do to get through those times?
AYMAR: Anytime you’re on submission, whether it’s with agents or editors, the process is likely to be excruciating. Especially the first time. There’s the very real potential, after all, that your life is definitely going to change, and hope can crush you. I spent years working on my first book, and it took me over a decade until I was finally published. Those are tough times, especially if you’re determined to go the traditional route (agent+editor). And it’s very hard to accept that the rejection you’re experiencing is a necessary part of the process.
The best way to go through it, while you’re waiting, is to keep writing. I wouldn’t recommend writing a sequel immediately, because if your first book doesn’t sell, then the second will likely be – in a commercial sense – a wasted effort. Write smaller pieces. Essays, short stories, articles. Try to get those published. Those shorter pieces will bolster your eventual writing portfolio. And there’s also the chance that this writing brings you closer into the crime fiction community.
These things help you in your career.
Beyond that, there’s also the reward of publication with these shorter pieces, and that’s very necessary. You’re going to doubt yourself as the rejections mount up, but if you have some success placing a story or essay, then you’ll know your efforts aren’t in vain. We’re raised – not necessarily wrongly – in a culture of work and reward. From our early school days, we understand that, generally, studying hard and persistence earn a high grade. It’s dispiriting to work harder than you ever have on a book, and then experience a lack of reward…particularly because there’s no certainty of ever achieving the success you seek. Nothing is guaranteed in this field. So give yourself those earned rewards. Keep working, but with the consequence of success.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (A beach on the coast of Portugal with NATO jets going overhead, silence, or the back of a loud jazz lounge at 10pm?)
AYMAR: I love knowing where writers write. There was a book that came out years ago called The Writer’s Desk that showed all these famous writers writing in their offices or cars or beds, and I thought that was just so neat. Something about it was almost mystical. This private creative space.
I’ve loved the idea of a backyard writing shed for some time now – this place you could go, where only your work exists. But I also despise going outdoors in DC summers. So no backyard writing shed for me.
I write in a home office, and I tape up my outline and images of the characters around me. It feels like I’m stepping into the novel every time I sit down to write, and there’s something enchanting about that.
But I also like writing on the road, and in hotels, and on planes. My romantic idea about writing spaces has changed a bit. After all, wonderful books have been written during wars, in prisons, hiding in attics, under the ravages of depression. There’s a beauty to a lovely writing place, but not a necessity.
DOSSIER: You’ve had a good editorial relationship with your agent, and you’ve known others who were less involved. Based on your experiences, how do you feel about agents who offer their collaborative assistance vs those who are more hands off?
AYMAR: I love my agent (Michelle Richter, Fuse). She’s been a staunch ally, a wonderful person to bounce ideas off, and she understands and believes in what I’m writing. It’s not easy to find the right match in publishing, and many of these matches change through employment or financial necessity. She hasn’t, and I cherish her.
Michelle also has a background in editing, so she’s very hands-on when it comes to manuscripts. I love that. I want someone to dig into my book, to leave red on the pages, to tell me what works and what doesn’t. I want them to love it, of course, but any work can be stronger. If there are writers resistant to editing then, chances are, they’re not good writers.
I’ve probably had close to 100 works published by now, including fiction and non-fiction. In that time, I can only remember pulling my work twice because of editing changes I disagreed with. In one sense, that means I’ve been fortunate. In a better sense, I’ve been open and eager to learn. That’s always important for a writer.
DOSSIER: Your fourth novel, WHEN SHE LEFT, comes out on February 6, 2024, and in each book, you’ve been able to top the last one with stronger characters and deeper plots. Are you going to keep going down a dark “power and violence” path in your writing where you find the one story you’ve always wanted to tell, or will you cut left and try your hand at a Nicholas Sparks or a children’s book? (The Dossier thinks they know the answer to this!)
AYMAR: First, thank you and, second, this is something I think about a lot. It’s important to have an identity in your writing, and I think I’ve found mine. It’s dark humor, and women fighting back against something (spoiler: usually men), and a character who’s delightfully unstable, and betrayal. Those are the main elements that have made up the books and short stories I’ve written, and I think they’ve been the best elements. And I hope they’ll make my work identifiable. In the same way that you know what a Jennifer Hillier or May Cobb or S.A. Cosby or Louise Penney book is from the moment you read the opening pages.
I want an identifiable E.A. Aymar book.
I believe that’s the right approach commercially, and I think it’s an inescapable approach, creatively.
It’s hard, albeit not impossible, for me to imagine writing a book without a criminal element, but I also find “crime” to be a wide term. So much of canonical literature, like Camus or Dreiser or Ellison, could be considered crime fiction. There are shifts I’m seeing in my own writing, either because of age or experience or the industry or all of those – such as less violence – but those four elements of my stories have never changed.
Those are four walls within which I’m content to remain, unconfined.
Website: eaymarwrites.com
Jeff Circle 