Why do you write the genre that you write?
I write mysteries because I can create life-and-death stakes for a character that also gesture to life-and-death stakes for a culture. Mysteries are about justice and truth; and I think the difficulties of finding justice in a flawed system and assembling truth out of a collection of different representations are themes that resonate for many of my readers. As for why I write historical novels – I think the Victorian period in England has some extraordinary parallels with our world today with respect to social inequalities (imagine — half the men and all women were unable to vote) and a largely unregulated social media (1,000 newspapers in London in 1880), to name just two. However, when the world of the reader (present day, mostly US) and the world inside the book (1870s London) are far enough apart, it opens a creative “space” where the challenges of our present can be explored in a fresh way.
What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?
This is a great question! It makes me realize I don’t have terribly quirky characters, although Michael Corravan’s friend Dr. James Everett often shuts down an argument that he’s losing by muttering Latin under his breath, which language Corravan doesn’t know.
Tell us how you got into writing?
I began writing fiction partly because I failed at being a professor. Back in 2001, I finished my PhD dissertation at NYU on the medical and legal treatises, newspaper articles, and popular novels written about terrifying Victorian railway disasters and the bizarre and belated injuries that seemed to have no clear cause. This literature later provided the foundation for Freud’s ideas about psychological injuries (called “hysteria”) in the 1890s, theories of “shell shock” in WWI, and current theories of trauma and PTSD. After I graduated, I thought I might be lucky enough to find a tenure-track job, but I couldn’t. So I did some tangential academic things for a while – I adjuncted at UW-Milwaukee, I published some critical articles, and I wrote introductions for Victorian novels in the Barnes & Noble Classics Series. But none of those things were absorbing, in the way a career is. I was also at home with my two small children, and my brain was beginning to feel a bit mushy around the edges rereading Goodnight, Moon and Corduroy (lovely as they are). So I thought, why not take the research I did for my dissertation and use it to write fiction? That’s when I put Lady Elizabeth Fraser and her laudanum-addicted mother on a railway train in 1874 London and ran it off the rails. After about ten years and many false starts, that became A Lady In The Smoke (2016).
What jobs have you held before, during and/or after you became a writer?
In high school and college, I was a salad bar girl and cashier at Ponderosa Steakhouse, and a bartender at the airport in the Rochester, NY airport, which I never should have been doing because I was underage (!). Later, I did copywriting for McGraw Hill and worked in advertising and marketing at an ad agency, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, and Christie’s auction house in NYC. I was an adjunct Professor of English at NYU and UW-Milwaukee and an editor for Victorian Literature and Culture (an academic journal). I was also the PTO President at my son’s school, which was volunteer but probably should count as a job. (Holy moly, that was a ton of work; kudos to all volunteers out there!).
Where do you write?
My home office, which has a map of 1874 London on the wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a window that I open when the weather is not too hot.
What is your favorite deadline snack?
Gourmet jellybeans.
What is next for you?
I hope I’ll receive a contract from my publisher for a third Corravan mystery. I have a great idea for it – about a group of women con artists and thieves.
What are you reading now?
Geraldine Brooks’ Horse, which I’m really enjoying! It’s part historical, set in the US just prior to and during the Civil War, and part contemporary; it’s about art and justice, racehorses and race.
Where can we find you?
karenodden.com
Now to have some fun . . .
Vanilla or chocolate
Vanilla. But LEMON above all.
Ice cream or cake
Cake
Broccoli or squash
Squash! Butternut’s my fave.
Pizza, burgers, or pasta
Pizza with pesto, ricotta, and eggplant.
Breakfast, lunch, or dinner
Breakfast
Mountain or beach
Mountain
City or country
Country
Introvert or extrovert
Introvert, with a generous helping of extrovert. (I always measure 5/5 on the Meyers Briggs, if you believe in those tests.)
And even more fun . . .
You are stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
1. Coffee maker, preferably my Jura. Will settle for French press or a Keurig if I must.
2. My computer, of course, so I can write.
3. My husband’s lemon bars.
My bio:
Karen received her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University and subsequently taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her first novel, A Lady in the Smoke, was a USA Today bestseller and A Dangerous Duet and A Trace of Deceit have won awards for historical mystery and historical fiction. Down a Dark River (2021) introduced readers to Michael Corravan, a former thief and bare-knuckles boxer from Whitechapel, who serves as a Scotland Yard inspector in 1878 London. Under a Veiled Moon, the second book in the series, will be released in hardback, e-book, and audiobook on October 11, 2022. A recipient of a 2021 AZ Commission on the Arts grant and a national board member for Sisters in Crime, Karen lives in Arizona with her family.