Winter Austin
A Requiem For The Dead
The dead can no longer keep their secrets …
The Writer’s Dossier 10/2/2024 – The Winter Austin interview
DOSSIER: In your new novel, A REQUIEM FOR THE DEAD, you start off with a grizzly scene on a cold February morning. Although so many people ask you about how you got your first name, The Dossier is more interested in how living in the Midwest influenced which season you decided to focus on in your books. Don’t you want to talk about those two weeks in August when you can get in the water in Iowa?
AUSTIN: August?!?! Who has time for water therapy when I’m drenched in sweat and goat hair or cow poo while dealing with the crazies at the Iowa State Fair? Welcome to Iowa, where this author spends her summers chasing livestock, 4-H kids, and the latest Iowa-inspired brew, whether that be coffee or liquor. Frankly, I prefer summer heat over the bitterly cold temps that have crept into Iowa in the last decade. But I’ll never get my husband to ever move to a state with a constantly warmer climate. How else would we be able to bask in the glow of Iowa State athletics?
Ah yes, Midwest weather, where you’ll commonly hear: “if you don’t like the weather wait five minutes.” It does play an integral part in my plots, and in some cases, it is the setting. With the way I have laid out the timeline for my Benoit and Dayne series, I try to cover all the seasons. I have yet to do spring. I love making the weather part of my stories. I guess it comes to me because of my roots. I grew up a farm kid, where the weather effected everything from raising livestock to making sure your crop would have good yields.
Making other states jealous
DOSSIER: In your four Sheriff Elizabeth Benoit and Deputy Detective Lila Dayne mystery novels, have you ever hidden a dead body in a corn field or a chicken coop? Yeah, that’s another Iowa reference. (You’re rethinking everything now, aren’t you?)
AUSTIN: LOLOL! I think you might regret asking me these questions.
DOSSIER: Nope. Not at all.
AUSTIN: Corn fields are so cliché. Iowa is hogs and chickens; and for my cattle-loving family, we’re the 10th largest cattle raising state. Yes, we do raise the most corn and soybeans in the country. Nebraska and Indiana are just jealous.
In book 2, I did have a serial killer dump a body in a cow pasture. At some point there will be a hog confinement building come into play. 😉 That story will be the epitome of my career.
Apple Cider donut season!
DOSSIER: When and where do you like to write and what environment works best? Is there music playing in the background or an apple pie cooling on the windowsill?
AUSTIN: I prefer home. As much as my husband hates it, I’ve confiscated his recliner because the chair with the footrest up places my laptop at the right angle for my neck and shoulders. I’m not keen on sitting at a desk in a desk chair after spending all day in one for my dreaded day job. I try to write at Zero Dark Thirty, before trudging off to work. If the mojo is really flowing and the job didn’t drain me too much, I’ll get back into the writing for an hour or so before bed. Most of the heavy writing happens on the weekends. While my kids were brought up under this and completely know when I hit the writer’s cave, you leave me alone. My husband’s family and my own don’t quite get that. My nieces and nephews think I just wave a magic wand, and the words just come out. Yeah, not even.
Depending on my mood or where I’m at in the book, I might have music going, or dead silence. Certain scenes/chapters I can handle songs with singing. Most of the time, I need instrumental only music. I’ve found some great places that play only original soundtracks or trailer music.
As for that apple pie, you’re more likely to smell cinnamon rolls or homemade donuts. Apple Cider donut season! I do make a good pie, but I do pastries better. It’s the main reason I’m stuck doing bread and rolls, or whatnot for holiday meals.
Iowa is not always nice
DOSSIER: When you sit down to start a new novel, what are you focusing on most? Obviously, you have a story idea in mind, but are you zeroing in on revealing deep character traits in your cast, crafting very specific regional setting details, or is there a message you want to communicate through your writing?
AUSTIN: This highly depends on circumstances. I’ve started books with nothing. Nada. Benoit and Dayne book 1 was this way. Tule Mystery contracted me on an idea. I literally pulled this whole thing out of thin air. I started my career as an author writing romantic suspense, where you had to have the right balance of interpersonal relationships and the mystery/suspense. The longer I do this, I find myself digging deeper into the characters and pulling out all of their dark, dirty secrets. With a series, I can only reveal portions of them because I want my readers to be drawn into their lives and come back for more later.
I tend to write a message in, a lot of the time, by using the title of the book in the plot. But my underlying message will always be, Iowa is not always nice. We Midwesterners are always passed over, being flyover states we’ve gotten used to it. But we are capable of some of the most horrendous atrocities. We are, after all, human.
I wasn’t always keen on writing books set where I lived. It wasn’t until a former agent made me really consider it. I realized there weren’t many books set in Iowa, especially in the mystery/suspense/thriller genres. Honestly, writing about my home state in the very areas I’m familiar with made setting and scene writing way easier. There is something to the write what you know.
Sucking up to Flyboys
DOSSIER: Do you have any news or announcement you’d like to disclose in your Dossier?
AUSTIN: I’m taking a new path, into a new state, falling back on an old familiar love—the West. If only I had the voice for Westerns, I’m close, but I love studying history, not writing about it. I’ve got a 3-book series lined up—if it goes well, we’re looking at more than just 3—delving into the world of modern Bounty Hunting. Or if you will, Fugitive Recovery Agents.
I love different cultures. I think it’s because my family is such the American melting pot of different races. I’m researching and learning about the Basque with a special emphasis on those that moved into the American West. This series is set in Idaho. Road trip!
Despite my best attempts, I can not separate myself from the military. Every book, I have ever written, kid you not, has military characters in them, main or secondary. This time, my new gal, Dorothy “Dot” Ybarra was an Army Aviator, flying some of the best birds. I’m gonna have to suck up to my Flyboy contacts. LOL!
Don’t worry. There will be another Benoit and Dayne book or two. We have to work out the details on when my top-notch investigator and her stubborn sheriff will be back in action.
DOSSIER: See. I told you it’d be fun.
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