You were raised 40 miles south of Richmond in Virginia, the capital of the confederacy…

For me, the best southern fiction takes the hypocrisy of the south, a region that seeks to steep itself in religion and moral rigidity, and melds that with the reality of a multitude of social, sexual and class backgrounds and situations. Those are the underpinnings of the great books of the south, whether it’s William Faulkner’s Light in August or Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. I say the holy trinity of southern fiction is race, class and sex. What about southern fiction? What does it mean to you? I was working 60 hours a week as a manager at a hardware store. He said: “If you sign with him it will change your life.” My friend was right – he changed my life. But I spoke to a friend who was already attached to Josh. I’d met people in the past who said they were agents. Are you working on anything now?” I was kind of gun-shy. I loved your ideas about southern fiction. After the event, an agent called Josh Getzler walked up to me and said: “I loved what you said. People laughed and it broke the tension in the room. Eryk invited me to respond and I was like, “Ma’am, I understand that you miss that period of time but, you know, for people who look like me, that period of manners and etiquette wasn’t so great…” I was a bit of a smartass. At the end of the event, a lady got up and made an obtuse, somewhat racist comment about the south and how she missed the manners of the antebellum period. A friend of mine, Eryk Pruitt, was a moderator for a panel about southern crime fiction and he asked me to be on it. I went down there to promote My Darkest Prayer, handing it out to anyone who would listen.

There’s a worldwide mystery convention called Bouchercon in Florida.

So what happened between My Darkest Prayer and Blacktop Wasteland ? I spoke to a friend who said: 'If you sign with him it will change your life.' My friend was right It was very much a catch-as-catch can sort of existence. I was riding around in my car with a trunk full of books, going around bookstores, events. My first crime book, My Darkest Prayer, came out with them and when you’re working with an independent, they do as much as they can, but you have to do a lot. I was working with a small independent publishing firm, really good people. You were already a writer, but what was life like before?

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