Claire Matturro interviews Carolyn Haines

Claire Matturo interviews Carolyn Haines

CHM: Carolyn, you’ve written 23 Sarah Booth Delany books, and an abundance of other stand-alone books, and four Pluto’s Snitch Mysteries, and now three books in the Trouble Black Cat detective series plus earlier novels about Trouble’s famous black cat detective father. Just how many books have you written?

CH: Over 80 have been published. I have books that I wrote that were never published (and likely never will be!).

CHM: Please tell us about your Trouble the Black Cat detective series, how you started it, and how you recruited other authors to participate, and what the future might hold. I still remember you calling me and how we laughed about the possibilities, and now there are 13 books in the series.

CH: My first break in publishing came from Tahti Carter at Harlequin Intrigue. I’ve always loved mysteries and grew up on Nancy Drew, Poe, Sherlock Holmes and others. When Harlequin edged from romance into romantic mysteries, I decided to try. With a lot of help from Tahti, I sold my first book. I created Familiar, the black cat detective who had a point of view in the stories, which was highly unusual for Harlequin at the time. Heck, the males had only recently been given a point of view in standard romance at this time. So Familiar, who saw himself as something of a Sam Spade character, was droll and observant of the foibles of humans. Familiar was patterned after one of my cats, E.A. Poe, a wonderfully smart feline. Tahti loved the “voice” of Familiar and how he helped the humans find clues to solve the mystery and also knew when to nudge them a little toward acknowledging their feelings. So when I was talking with some of my fellow writer friends, I had an idea for a collaboration—a collective of writers. We would create our own stories, but we would all share Trouble, son of Familiar, and the new black cat detective who has patterned himself after Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock. Trouble is from Alabama, but he loves British slang and terms, so he’s terrific fun to write. I am pretty good at talking people into doing things (even when they shouldn’t) and so KaliOka Press was born and we’ve published 13 Trouble books. I’ve only written 3, but it is wonderful to see the range and talent of the other writers as they tell their standalone stories, yet keep Trouble true to his character.

CHM: How in the world have you managed to find time to write so many books—and run a small farm and rescue animals?

CH: I worked for years in PR, which was a lot less emotionally demanding than journalism, which was my first love, back in the day when journalists actually served as the watchdog of their communities. I knew that if I wanted to be a writer, I would have to find time to write. I got up early and wrote, or I wrote late. I was lucky to have the habit of writing every day from my journalism career. If you want something badly enough, you find the time to do it. I know that sounds a bit simplistic, but I structured my life so that I could find those hours each day to write. I sacrificed a lot of things. It’s a rigorous life with a lot of demands. I write almost every day. The routine of the farm and animal care keeps me structured, which is good for me since I’m a goose. It has been a life with a lot of isolation, though, and COVID really brought that home to me in the last two years.

CHM: You were a journalist in South Alabama at one point, I know, because we almost crossed paths in the Mobile area. Can you tell us a bit about your newspaper days, and if or how print journalism led to your writing books?

CH: I had a wonderful, exciting life as a young photojournalist. I was exposed to all kinds of people and situations. I covered two state legislatures, educational issues, police, crime, courts. I got to learn a little about a whole lot of things. That exposure is vital to a fiction writer. You have to know a little about a lot of things to create convincing characters. I also learned discipline and to be edited. Strangely enough, it was working as a journalist that made me realize that motive is what lies at the heart of most human actions, and all the great fiction. Motive is everything.

CHM: You rescue horses, don’t you? And other animals. Can you tell us something about that, and where you and the critters all live? Do you care for them all yourself?

CH: I have a small farm in Semmes, Alabama, with 2 horses now (several have passed on), 7 dogs and 15 cats. I do take care of them by myself with a little help from my friends. The day to day care is up to me, but I am fortunate to have great veterinarians and and friends to help during emergencies. The horses I have now were going to be sold for meat so I bought them. The dogs are strays that I found on the roadways or who strayed up; the cats are mostly feral cats I’ve trapped and who are now lovely housecats. I did take in my brothers 6 feral cats recently and I realize now I can’t take any more animals—there’s just not enough of me to go around, and this is an expensive vocation. I am a 501(c)(3) and Good Fortune Farm Refuge has been lucky in obtaining grants to help low-income people get basic vet care. We also sold cookbooks for a spay and neuter initiative. We are desperately in need of spay and neuter funding for low-income families in this area. And we need some law making people responsible for their pet’s care.

CHM: You recently retired from teaching graduate and undergraduate fiction writing classes at the University of South Alabama. How does it feel to leave the classroom behind? And what important lessons did you learn from teaching that you can share with us?

CH: I loved teaching, and I was surprisingly good at it once I got over my fear and realized I had “the power.” I loved teasing the students and we had a lot of fun. I learned so much from them—because I had to clarify my thoughts and reasoning to be able to give it to them. It was a terrific two-way street. I’m not a big believer that degrees bestow literary skills on writers, but a solid writing program aimed at giving students skills, feedback, contacts in the business, etc., can be tremendously helpful. And my teaching job brought home again that learning should be fun, not punitive. We should learn all of our lives.

CHM: You write under the pseudonyms of R. B. Chesterton, Lizzie Hart and Carolyn Burnes. Did I miss one? And why use these pseudonyms? And do the names in the pseudonyms have any particular meaning to you that you chose them?

CH: They all have murmur diphthongs, which are supposed to bring luck and good fortune. The pseudonym was more of a signal to the reader—this isn’t Sarah Booth, this is different. And I did think a male sounding pseudonym (R.B. Chesterton) might be more suited to the type of book (scary but not gory) The Darkling and The Seeker are. Pseudonyms are hard to manage, and when I reissue the books as I get the rights back, I’ll simplify my life and use my legal name. I think readers are very capable of looking at the cover or reading the jacket copy and determining, this isn’t Sarah Booth or Trouble, this is darker.

CHM: Among the many, many books you have authored, I know of only one nonfiction book, My Mother’s Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story, which is about one woman’s testimony against Byron de la Beckwith in the Medgar Evers murder. Publishers Weekly called it “powerful” not once but twice in its review. What led you to write this? And did your background as a journalist help in the writing and research? Do you plan to write other nonfiction books?

Read the rest of the interview in September's Issue of READING NATION MAGAZINE