Welcome Back to Pottersville: Interview with Sherry Knowlton

“Alexa Williams is a successful lawyer, volunteers weekly at a women’s clinic, and has a sexy weekend boyfriend—not to mention an endearing best friend in her giant English mastiff, Scout. But one autumn day, when Scout takes off into the Pennsylvania woods, Alexa discovers a nightmare she’d never imagined. From that fateful day, Alexa becomes entangled in a murder mystery—one that she tries to unravel by linking it to experiences and symbols in her own life.” - Dead of Autumn.

So begins the synopsis for the first entry in the “Dead” series by June’s Author of the Month, Sherry Knowlton.

15) Sherry, your creation, Alexa Williams, is a stand out character in a genre already crowded with interesting professional and amateur detectives. What brought about her invention?

Alexa is a young attorney who has returned to her home town and joined the family law practice after a decade of law school and a stint at a big law firm in New York City. She’s looking for peace and serenity, living in a forest cabin with her English mastiff Scout. Instead, she keeps finding dead bodies and stumbling into dangerous situations. I created Alexa as a strong female character, who’s smart and sometimes too fearless for her own good. She’s not a typical amateur sleuth but her tendency to stand up for causes and tilt at windmills ends up embroiling her in the midst of a mystery.

14) What do you see as Alexa’s strengths and weaknesses and which quality do you think makes her such an effective and compelling detective?

Strengths – Alexa’s smart, brave, and really cares about people and issues such as the environment.

Weaknesses – Alexa sometimes acts without thinking when confronted with a dangerous situation or one that outrages her sense of justice. She also has a terrible track record with men.

Both her strengths and weaknesses combine to make her a good detective.

13) In your Amazon author page, you wrote, “Sherry spent much of her early career in state government, working primarily with social and human services programs, including services for abused children, rape crisis, domestic violence, and family planning.” Had any of these social service and executive positions informed or inspired you in the “Dead” series?

Very much so. The themes in several of my books reflect areas of social and human services that I dealt with in my career. In my early days in human services, I was involved in programs relating to women’s issues such as family planning, rape crisis and domestic violence. Dead of Autumn visits all three of those topics. My days working in child welfare programs pop up in Dead of Summer which focuses on sex-trafficking but also involves the foster care industry. I also administered a program for Indochinese Refugees after the Vietnam War. Dead of Winter features a later-era family of refugees, these from Syria. Some of the other themes found in the books, like environmental/conservation issues, reflect my personal rather than job interests and experience.

12) Let’s fast-forward to the latest entry in the Williams series, “Dead on the Delta”. How does a lawyer from the mountains of South Central Pennsylvania wind up in Botswana battling the ivory poaching trade?

If you haven’t read the earlier books, transporting Alexa halfway across the world to Botswana may seem like a huge plot leap. However, one of the main characters in the series, Alexa’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Reese, has a background in lion research. And, in the fourth book in the series, Reese has moved in with Alexa, and is working in the US for an international wildlife conservation organization. So, it is reasonably plausible that, in book number five, he’s been asked by his employer to take on a four-month temporary assignment in Botswana managing a lion-research project. The permanent manager has returned to the States for surgery. And, Alexa wangles a sabbatical from the family law firm so she can accompany Reese on this adventure. Of course, since this is an Alexa Williams novel, the adventure becomes much more dangerous than Alexa ever imagined.

11) On your YouTube channel, you’d made a plea to your readers to write more reviews. However, it can’t be said that Amazon itself is helping in that regard, thanks to their data-sharing agreement with Facebook with which they weed out allegedly “biased” reviews. This whole thing was brought about because of the Harriet Klausner scandal. So do you see Amazon as being a help or hindrance in the interests of book reviews?

All in all, I appreciate the role that Amazon reviews play in book sales. And, I certainly endorse a level playing field in which the reviews posted on Amazon (and elsewhere) are honest reviews from people who’ve read the books they are rating and reviewing. However, I’ve heard anecdotal examples of Amazon setting the criteria for unbiased reviews too narrowly. Authors have many “friends” and followers on Facebook with whom they have no personal relationship. It’s one thing to preclude your husband or mother from reviewing a book. It’s another to eliminate legitimate, unbiased reviews because a reader who enjoys your books also follows you on Facebook. It’s unclear to me how often Amazon strips reviews where reviewer and author have a loose connection on Facebook and how many of the unsettling stories I hear are apocryphal.

10) Plotter, pantser or plantser?

I always start with a rough chapter-by-chapter outline of each book. However, when I begin to write, the story evolves and can take new directions. But I always know the bad guy and the essentials of the novel’s ending before I write. I also use a calendar to keep the story’s time-flow straight since all of my plots take place over a few months’ time.

9) Now that the Alexa Williams series and fanbase is established, are there any plans to launch another series?

I have no current plans to start a new series. But I am well along on the manuscript for a non-fiction piece, a travel memoir which approaches my many journeys around the world through a series of essays on different topics. I plan to return to the Alexa series, book number six, soon.

Although I’m not yet contemplating another fiction series, I do have a fairly well-developed concept for a standalone suspense novel. I may take a stab at that after the next Alexa book.

8) How difficult or challenging was it for you to do the requisite research for Dead on the Delta?

I chose to base Dead on the Delta in Botswana, mostly because I’d been there several times on safari. In fact, my husband and I are hooked on African safaris and have taken seven in total to East and Southern Africa. However, I realized that enjoying myself on safari was different from mastering the details of a book about Botswana. I needed specifics about elephant poaching, animal behaviors, the day-to-day life of a lion researcher, and the politics/government of the country. So, it was the perfect excuse to go to Botswana on a research trip. My husband and I spent four weeks there doing research. Most of the time was spent on safari with an extremely knowledgeable and helpful guide who answered my questions on a wide range of subjects. I also traveled to the capital city, learning the city, the government, and interviewing an expert on Botswana wildlife conservation issues. Most fun of all, we spent three days on the Okavango Delta with a young lion researcher, Robynne Kotze, who educated me about her fieldwork and the nuances of lion research. This researcher works for a conservation program called WildCRU, which is sponsored by the University of Oxford in England. I had to obtain permission from Oxford to spend time with Ms. Kotze.

7) What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses as a writer?

This one’s hard. I think it’s difficult to be totally accurate when doing self-assessment. However, I’d say one of my biggest strengths in writing is the ability to write descriptive scenes. Readers often tell me that they can clearly visualize the story as they’re reading it. I am also able to construct fairly complex plots and subplots with multiple characters – and have all the pieces tie together.

In terms of weakness, I’m sure I have many. I still consider myself as a journeywoman writer. However, I know I’m frequently too wordy. I spent years working as a state bureaucrat where more words and complicated writing structure in regulations, legislation, etc., are the norm. Like so many, I aspire to write a sentence as clean as Ernest Hemingway’s but know that level of clarity is something I will never achieve.

6) You’ve described yourself as the kind of kid who’d bring a book and a flashlight under a blanket after bedtime. Who were some of your favorite authors while growing up and had any of them become influences on your own writing?

Yes. I loved to read from a very early age. Nancy Drew was a favorite series. Clearly, those books have influenced my current work. Sometimes I describe the Alexa Williams series as “Nancy Drew for grown-ups.” The list of authors I loved while growing up is long. Mary Stewart, Daphne DuMaurier, Helen MacInnes, and Alastair MacLean were popular suspense/thriller writers I gravitated to. Hemingway was and is a favorite. As a college English major, I did Independent Study semesters on two diverse authors, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy as well as read a wide range of classics. But the other author who I truly loved and probably influences my writing the most is John D. MacDonald and his Travis McGee series. McGee, who lived on a houseboat in Florida, never met a damsel in distress he’d refuse to help. I see a bit of Travis in my protagonist, Alexa.

5) Getting the hard copies from your publisher in the mail. Does it ever get old?

My books have all been printed as trade paperbacks with soft covers, but the sense of accomplishment is the same. Holding a book in your hand; one that you’ve spent so much time and effort perfecting is a unique thrill. I love it!!

4) Describe your typical writing day, if there’s any such thing. Do you draft in notebooks or your computer exclusively, use both and, if you set a daily word goal, what is it?

I draft my outlines on paper. And, I make lots of notes prior to and during writing that I jot down on paper as they come to me. I often get great ideas for plot points or dialogue when I’m driving, so I keep a notebook handy to make notes when I come to a stop. However, when I write the actual manuscript, it’s on computer.

I break most of the other rules that I hear from writing experts. I don’t write every day. I don’t set word goals. I travel quite a bit and also still do some consulting work. If I have to put my work-in-process aside for either of those purposes, it’s no problem. I’ll just pick up my writing when I’m back home or the consulting project is complete. However, there are key times when I’m really on a roll with a book. Then, I spend days and nights immersed in the manuscript. I’m a night owl, so it’s not unusual to find me writing at one o’clock in the morning. This somewhat erratic approach to writing works well for me.

3) Are Alexa and Reese ever going to tie the knot?

At this point, even I don’t even know the answer to that question. Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell.

2) What’s the one change you’d most like to see in the future of mystery/suspense fiction?

For Sherry Knowlton to join that elite list of automatic best-selling authors? Aside from that – and not unrelated - I’d like mystery/suspense fiction to embrace and elevate a wider range of authors. I read a fairly wide swath of authors in the genre and interview many on my podcast (Milford House Mysteries with co-host JM West). Those I read include best-sellers as well as authors published by smaller independent presses and some self-published works. So many of those in the latter group are wonderful, innovative writers with a distinct voice; in some cases, I consider their novels to be much better than those of other authors whose works continue to sell millions of copies the first day of publication. In an ideal world, some tectonic shift would occur to realign incentives in a way that would encourage key influencers (major booklists, reviewers, movie producers, and more) to take a serious look at books published outside the big publishing house tent.

1) So, what’s next for Sherry Knowlton?

As I mentioned, I have a travel memoir I hope to see published soon. Then, I’ll be turning back to the next Alexa Williams adventure. On a personal front, I’m emerging from COVID hibernation, fully vaccinated and ready for some adventures of my own. I have a road trip West planned this summer and hope to travel to England, Scotland and Ireland later this summer on a trip postponed from last year (pandemic restrictions permitting).

If you’re interested in learning more about Sherry Knowlton and her work, then follow the handy links provided below:

Facebook author page.

Amazon Author Page: The Amazon author page contains links to all five of her books.