Book Discussion Group To Meet

Mystery Writer Marcia Talley

By Jan Howard

Newtown meets Hannah when author Marcia Talley joins “The Landscape of the American Mystery Novel” discussion group on March 6.

Ms Talley’s first book, Sing it to Her Bones, a Hannah Ives Mystery, will be the topic of discussion.

The discussion series is sponsored by the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library and facilitated by residents Liz Arneth, a retired English teacher; Marian Wood, a writer; and Mary Maki, president of the Friends of the Library.

The discussion is the third in a series of four. The group will meet from 7:30 to 9 pm in the special collections room of the C.H. Booth Library. On March 27, the group will discuss Tony Hillerman’s Coyote Waits.

Sign up at the circulation desk or by calling 426-4533. A limited number of copies are available at the library.

In her presentation, Ms Talley will discuss how she started writing mystery novels.

“We mystery writers kill people for fun and profit,” she said this week.

She will discuss how she created her character, researched the book, and got it published. She will also do a reading and answer questions attendees might have.

“Where did the character come from? People assume when you write in the first person that it’s you,” she said. “Hannah is a lot braver and funnier than I am. She does things I wouldn’t do.”

Though she began writing Sing it to Her Bones in the 1980s, Ms Talley said she began writing seriously in the early 1990s.

It was then that she decided to apply for the University of the South’s Sewanee Workshop, a conference for writers funded by the late author Tennessee Williams. The legacy pays for well-known authors, such as Arthur Miller, to teach there, she said.

“I had to send them something I had written. I sent off 30 pages, and was astonished when they accepted me. I was there for two weeks.

“Everyone there was a writer, either published or not published,” Ms Talley said. “It was a wonderful experience.” She enjoyed it so much that she went back a second year.

In 1994 she began to write in earnest and became involved in a critique group. “We give ourselves tough love,” she noted.

Ms Talley made a name for herself in the mystery genre when she won the celebrated 1998 Malice Domestic Grant for Best Unpublished Mystery for Sing it to Her Bones. The book was an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Mystery of 1999, a featured alternate of the Mystery Guild in 1999, and on the “Top 10 Best-Selling Paperback Books” list of 1999, Poisoned Pen Bookstore.

She said publishing houses today are only interested in the bottom line, so it is difficult for a new author to get noticed.

“That award was a leg up,” Ms Talley said. “I am so grateful to Malice for picking me that year.”

In the novel, Ms Talley introduced readers to Hannah Ives, a breast cancer survivor and a spirited woman with a passion for life. In between the treatment and therapy and worrying about her teenaged daughter, Hannah discovered she had a natural knack for solving mysteries.

Ms Talley’s second Hannah Ives Mystery, Unbreathed Memories, was published in June 2000. It was selected as a featured alternate of the Mystery Guild.

“I have two books coming out in August. The third Hannah Ives mystery, Occasion of Revenge, from Dell, and a collaborate serial novel from St Martins Press that I masterminded with 12 other women mystery writers called Naked Came the Phoenix, about murder in an exclusive Virginia health spa.” A percentage of the profits from Naked Came the Phoenix will be donated to breast cancer research.

The other authors are, in order of the chapters: Nevada Barr, J.D. Robb, Nancy Picard, Lisa Scottoline, Perri O’Shaughnessy, J.A. Jance, Faye Kellerman, Mary Jane Clark, Anne Perry, Diana Gabaldon, Val McDermid, and Laurie King.

“The results were really fun,” Ms Talley said. “We have a lot of hopes that the book will do well.”

Ms Talley was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but spent her first 18 years traveling from state to state as the eldest of five daughters of a career marine officer. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she met her husband, Barry, in the dining hall where they both worked. After graduation, she taught sixth grade.

In 1971 she and her husband settled in Annapolis, Md., when he was appointed director of musical activities at the Naval Academy.

Ms Talley earned her MLS from the University of Maryland. She has worked as administrative librarian for TeleSec Library Services, head of technical services for the American Bankers Association, head of library systems support at the US General Accounting Office, and managed the computers at the US Naval Academy Library.

In 1999 she took an early retirement from federal service to accompany her husband on a six-month sabbatical, living on a 37-foot sailboat and sailing down the Intra-coastal Waterway from Annapolis to the Bahamas and back. She has two grown daughters, Laura, an attorney, and Sarah, an account executive, and two grandsons.

Like her protagonist Hannah Ives, Ms Talley is a breast cancer survivor.

Ms Talley has also written short stories, including With Love, Marjorie Ann, Agatha Award nominee for best short story of 1999; For Sale by Owner; and Conventional Wisdom.