On April 3rd,
2018, Necessary Ends, Tina Whittle's 6th book in the Tai
Randolph/Trey Seaver series will be released by Poisoned Pen Press. Three days.
Hot damn! I'm a huge fan (not in a creepy stalker sort of way) of Ms.Whittle's, and
though we've never actually met, she was kind enough to grant me a interview so
we can all get to know her a little better (but not in a creepy stalker sort of way).
She is not only a talented writer and storyteller, but from what I can tell, she is also witty (or should I say, whitty),
intelligent, engaging, charming, caring and kind. I get the feeling she is
someone you'd be fortunate to have on your side should a battle of wits and
honor ensue. And my guess is that she was likely never to be chosen last for
dodgeball either.
(Photo by Kaley Whittle)
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| Photo credit: Kaley Whittle |
Put up your dukes, let's get down to it. Here's Tina Whittle:
CL: You taught both high school and college English from what I know about you. Was there a certain turning point in your life where you decided that you wanted to become a writer instead? In other words, was it just sort of organic or did you plan it? Were you teaching and trying to finish your first book? Was your first book published before you quit teaching? Can you elaborate on this, please? Curious minds want to know.
TW: I enjoyed teaching (and still do), but one of the main reasons I chose it as a primary career was its seasonal nature—I’d have Christmas breaks and summers off to write.
My
real “commitment moment” came during my Fiction Writing coursework in graduate
school, after I’d been teaching for several years. The professor sent my first
story back with only two words at the end: “See me.” So I did, convinced he was
going to tell me to abandon all hope and exit stage left. Instead, he said I
needed to take my writing seriously, and he offered to direct my thesis, which
would be the very first creative thesis at Georgia Southern University. That
gave me the confidence to complete what would become The Dangerous Edge of Things, the first novel in the series
that I am still writing to the day (thank you, Poisoned Pen Press, for your
continued support!)
By
the time it was published, I’d left teaching for other reasons (long-winded
ones). And so now writing is my full-time gig. I still miss students, though.
Not the grind and the hours and the grading (have mercy, the grading). But
students…yes. I miss them.
CL: Did you ever think of becoming a PI or getting a
PI license?
TW: Why,
yes! I am about to begin taking online classes to do that very thing. Though I
don’t think you’ll see me gumshoeing around South Georgia any time soon, I did
want to learn the process, mostly for my own writerly curiosity.
CL: When
you write, do you listen to music or do you like it totally quiet with no
disturbances? On that same note, are you able to write in public spaces such as
coffee houses, airports, etc.? Or are you distracted by people watching/listening?
TW: To
put words to page, I need total quiet and solitude. I tend to walk around
muttering to myself while thinking about scenes, and I get self-conscious about
that part of the process when others are around. I do love coffee shops,
although more for musing and pondering not for writing; I am an unrepentant
eavesdropper.
CL: Do
you choose your own book titles and covers?
TW: Mostly
yes, with input from my editors, my publisher, and the design team at Poisoned
Pen Press.
CL: What
led you into/pulled you toward the crime/sleuth/mystery genre?
TW: Scooby
Doo. I wanted to be Velma. As I grew up and learned that not all villains were
shady businessmen in sheets and rollerskates, I continued to devour crime
fiction in all its forms because I find the questions at its heart to be
important ones. What is right and wrong
and who gets to decide? What is the difference between justice and retribution?
How does the whole of humanity deal with the worst of humanity? Do people
change, and if so, how? Crime fiction is a way to wrestle with big issues in a
safe space.
CL: Of
all the crime shows on TV, documentaries, dramas, whatever, do you have a particular
favorite? What about podcast?
TW: Right
now, I am loving “Good Behavior” on TNT. Letty is a fascinating crazy quilt of
a human being—fully souled and dimensionally complex. Her relationships with
her mother, her mother’s boyfriend (who is Letty’s age), her estranged son, and
her sexy hitman lover are totally outside my range of experience and yet
totally relatable. This show surprises me every single time, and yet feels like
it could be happening right down the road. Well worth watching.
CL: Is
every moment of life a possible story to you? In other words, how much of
everyday life finds its way into your novels? (For example, the conversations
you overhear, the people you meet, the headlines…)
TW: Every
book I write has at least one thing that happened to me in it. I am a great
collector of life’s weird situational trinkets, though I don’t get to put most
of them into books because they’re too odd/coincidental/inexplicable. Like the
time I passed out on an airplane, and when the flight attendant called for a
doctor, the passenger who stepped forward to provide care was in fact the
brother of a guy who’d just agreed to blurb my third book. We figured this out
as he was checking my responsive readings, but that will never go into a book
(the other details are fair game, because even as I’m regaining consciousness,
the writerly part of my brain is taking notes). As Mark Twain said, “Truth is
stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to
possibilities; Truth isn't.”
CL: Were
you born/raised in Georgia? What do you remember most about your childhood?
TW: I
am Georgia born and bred and have lived in one part or the other my whole life.
What I remember most about my childhood growing up in the middle lands is the
sensory progression of cycles and seasons: the scent of newly turned earth in
the spring, the sound of the air conditioner in the summer when I slept in the
thinnest of my father’s t-shirts because I had a perpetual sunburn, the taste
of stewed doves in the autumn, the rare dustings of snow that sheened the
landscape picture postcard white. It seems as if the colors were more saturated
then, my skin more tender, my hearing more acute.
CL: How
did you get into Tarot card reading? What is your favorite card and why?
TW: My
very first reading came from a friend. She knew I was stuck with my book (a
wild and unmannered thing that sprawled to around 120,000 words) and offered to
shed some divinatory light of the situation. As she turned over cards, I saw my
characters revealed—Trey as the King of Swords, Tai as the Queen of Wands—and
the plot points coalesced. Justice, the Magician, the Two of Swords. I could
sense of the spine of the story suddenly, and I knew what needed to fall away
and what needed to remain. And that became The
Dangerous Edge of Things. And I decided I needed to learn tarot—its strong
sense of narrative coupled with its archetypal richness make it the perfect
divination tool for a writer.
I
have many favorite cards—The Star, the High Priestess, the Two of Swords—but
right now, I’m really feeling connected to the Nine of Pentacles. A woman
stands alone in a lush garden, surrounded by the fruit of her labors, a falcon
on her arm. It’s a card that’s often called The Self-Made Woman, and it really
resonates with me at this time in my life—post childrearing, pre-retirement,
ready to move into the next stage of my life.
CL: If you are permitted to speak about this, what is
in the cards for Tai and Trey?
TW: I
am so glad you asked (even though I can’t spill many beans). Necessary Ends, the sixth in the series,
is a pivotal book in my characters’ story, one that I’ve been writing toward
since the very first scene. Library Journal calls it “the culmination of this
series’ primary story arc with the two damaged protagonists, after struggling
with family and personal demons, finding answers and moving on with their
lives.” I’m currently writing the seventh book, and while Tai and Trey are
absolutely still around in it, their circumstances have changed drastically.
CL: William
Gay or William Faulkner? Why?
TW: Faulker.
Because his “A Rose for Emily” is one of the finest pieces of crime fiction
ever written. Also a fine commentary on the violence of loss and the organic
possessiveness of the human heart and the price we bear for weaving the
multi-threaded story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Simply brilliant.
CL: Savannah or Charleston? Why?
TW: Savannah.
Both places have their Lowcountry charms, but Savannah is wilier and less
well-behaved—just how I like my cities.
CL: Your
favorite thing about the South? Least favorite thing?
TW: My
favorite thing? Our storytelling gene. We know how to work a narrative down
here, how to build one from scratch or how to renovate one with a few tweaks to
the factual nature of things. We know this in our blood. I never met a
Southerner who couldn’t tell a story.
My
least favorite? I know it’s a cliché, but the heat gets me. It’s soul-sapping.
I’ve never had the constitution for it. I think I was made for the mountains
instead of the coast.
CL: What
is, in your opinion, the most memorable thing about Tai as a character? What
about Trey?
TW: Tai
is utterly herself. Unlike me, she is rarely plagued with self-doubt—she
inhabits her somewhat feral and ferocious nature without apology or pretense.
In a world that encourages chameleon-like tendencies, Tai is as straightforward
and obvious as her birth sign, the Aries ram, and just as singular. My editor
described her thusly: Tai appears to be open and unguarded, but her heart is a
walled city. You may think you’ve charmed her, cajoled her, swept your way into
her innermost rooms. But you’ve only gotten as far as her boundary line.
As
for Trey, I think his most memorable quality is also the one easiest to
miss—his courage. I mean, he’s brave when he’s chasing down bad guys or
defending the innocent with his paladin-like single-mindedness—that’s easy to
spot. His real courage, however, reveals itself every time he raises his head
and forces himself to look someone in the eye. Every time he pushes forward
with a sentence when the words are failing him. Every time he manages to take
Tai’s hand of his own initiative. His world is often baffling and blinding and
laced with pain, body and soul pain. But he perseveres.
CL: Are you a No. 2 or a retractable pencil girl?
(No judgment)
TW: No.
2. Very sharp. No need for an eraser since I have seven on my desk (including a
Black Pearl, which is a sensory pleasure, almost worth making a mistake just
for the excuse to hold in hand).
CL: Fears and/or phobias? Do tell.
TW: I
say none, and it’s mostly true. Roaches disgust me, clowns creep me out, and
crowds make me anxious, but they don’t make me afraid. And still, most nights I
dream that the world is ending and it’s all my fault, and I wake up panting and
screaming. So obviously I’m not the best judge of my own state of internal
terror. Obviously the whole world is too much for me.
CL: Do you believe in ghosts? If so, have you ever
experienced one, personally?
TW: Ah. The first answer is yes, and the second
answer is no. I believe because I know people who have experienced
extraordinary things, verifiable things. Unfortunately, I don’t have the
psychic ability to peer beyond the veil. I think this is a shame, but I am
assured by my friends who do perceive the otherworldly that I am actually lucky
to be so supernaturally blind.
CL: As a final question, what is your favorite
cemetery and why?
TW: My favorite tourist cemetery is Bonaventure in
Savannah. Nestled in the bend of the Wilmington River, Bonaventure
is part graveyard, part park, and park marsh—there are benches throughout where
you can grab a spot of Spanish moss-dappled shade and watch herons and ospreys
fish, smell the salt air coming in from the ocean.
But my favorite cemetery is the tiny one a mile from
the house where I grew up. I can see it from the side door, a smattering of
modest headstones smack dab in the middle of a cotton field. My ancestors are
buried here—some I knew, most I didn’t—and I feel my place in our bloodline when
I’m walking that quiet consecrated place. It’s where I want to be buried.
CL: Thank you so much, Tina, for taking the time to answer all my questions (I'm so damn nosy) and giving us a little peek into both your personal and writing life. My favorite character in your series is you. :)
To learn more about Tina Whittle, please check out her site: tinawhittle.com
Necessary Ends from Poisoned Pen Press will be available for purchase, April 3rd, 2018 in both print and e-book on Amazon and e-book on Kobo and Google Play.
Also please check out my review of Necessary Ends, here.
