What happens when the people around you stop feeling like competitors and start feeling like collaborators?

There’s a stereotype about writers that most of us recognize immediately: the guarded creative protecting their ideas because success feels limited. And in some spaces, that mindset makes sense. When opportunities feel scarce, people naturally become more protective.

But in this episode of Find Your Freaks, Tonya Kubo sits down with bestselling thriller author M.M. Chouinard to explore what happens when a community operates differently. In the mystery writing world Michelle inhabits, success often feels additive rather than competitive. Readers recommend authors to each other. Writers cheer each other on. Collaboration becomes part of the culture instead of a threat to it.

Together, Tonya and Michelle unpack how the structure of a community shapes the way people connect, share, and belong. Michelle also shares her path from developmental psychology and academia into thriller writing, along with the role fandom, creativity, and online connection have played in her life and career.

At its core, this episode asks an important question for community builders: Are people naturally territorial, or are they responding to environments that taught them success is mutually exclusive?

In This Episode, We Explore

• Why some communities naturally encourage collaboration while others create competition
• How scarcity changes the way people connect and share with each other
• The unique culture of the mystery writing and reading world
• Michelle’s transition from academia and developmental psychology into thriller writing
• The role fandom plays in creating belonging and identity
• Why readers often become the bridge between creators rather than gatekeepers
• How creative communities shape the emotional experience of success
• What community leaders can learn from environments where generosity thrives

Episode Highlights

[03:45] Michelle’s journey from psychology professor to bestselling thriller author

[09:20] Why mystery readers rarely stop at just one author

[15:10] How abundance thinking changes the culture inside creative communities

[22:35] The emotional difference between collaborative and competitive spaces

[29:40] Why fandom creates connection faster than traditional networking

[36:15] The hidden pressures creators feel when success seems limited

[42:05] What community builders misunderstand about scarcity and behavior

[47:10] Why belonging grows faster in spaces where people openly share opportunities

Meet Our Guest

M.M. Chouinard is an Edgar Award–nominated bestselling author known for weaving psychology, suspense, and human complexity into gripping thrillers. She is the author of The Serial-Killer Guide to San Francisco series, the Detective Jo Fournier thriller series, and the standalone psychological thriller The Vacation. Before becoming a full-time author, Michelle earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Stanford University and served as a founding faculty member at University of California, Merced. When she’s not writing dark and twisty stories, she enjoys caffeine in all forms, amateur genealogy, crafting, baking, and absolutely anything related to Halloween.

Meet Your Host

Tonya Kubo is a community strategist, writer, and rebel with a cause: helping people find the place where they truly belong. She’s spent nearly two decades building online spaces that feel more like chosen family than comment sections, and she’s not afraid to call out the fluff in favor of real connection. As the founder of Find Your Freaks, Tonya brings together unconventional thinkers, builders, and bridge-makers who believe that “normal” was never the point. When she’s not hosting the show, she’s raising two daughters, leading client communities, and making meaning out of the mess.

Key Quotes

• “When success feels limited, people protect themselves. When success feels expansive, people start pulling others in.”
• “Readers don’t usually want one good book. They want a whole shelf full of authors they can trust.”
• “Community changes when people stop seeing each other as obstacles and start seeing each other as possibilities.”
• “Scarcity doesn’t just shape money. It shapes behavior, trust, and belonging.”

Resources & Mentions

• M.M. Chouinard Official Website
• The Serial-Killer Guide to San Francisco Series
• Detective Jo Fournier Series
• The Vacation
• Edgar Awards

Support the Show

If Find Your Freaks matters to you, consider buying us a coffee to keep the show ad-free. Every dollar supports production so more weirdos can find their people.

Find Your Freaks merchandise is available through Abilities and Attitudes.

Let’s Stay Freaky

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• Podcast Hub

What’s Next

In the next episode, Tonya explores why some communities naturally foster collaboration while others create competition and territorial behavior. Drawing from this conversation with Michelle, she unpacks how scarcity shapes the way people connect, share opportunities, and decide whether it feels safe to truly belong.

[Speaker 1]

Mystery readers and mystery writers are my freaks, and I love them because we are puzzle obsessed. We all love cats. Well, most of us love cats.

The mystery writing community is one of the most supportive communities I've ever been a part of, and this is one of the reasons why I guess I finally feel like I've found home. In the real world, I always felt like the craziest person in the room. In the academic world, I always felt like the most normal person in the room.

And in the mystery writing community, I feel like this is it. It's like Goldilocks. It's like the perfect fit.

The mystery writing community is very much about rising up all boats. So, you know, nobody in the world ever said, I only read one mystery writer. So if I read a quality mystery, it's just going to get somebody else's books a chance to thrive as well.

And I love that mindset.

[Speaker 2]

We're wired for connection, but most of us are faking it to fit in. I'm Tonya Kubo, and this is Find Your Freaks, the podcast that flips the script and spotlights the quirks you thought you had to keep quiet. Subscribe now and head to findyourfreaks.com for show notes and extras. Because around here, what makes you weird makes you wonderful. Normal was never the point. We love to talk about community.

We love to talk about how to build it, grow it, sustain it. But today, we are talking about the people who obsess over red herrings and stay up all night, and I kid you not, I mean all night, trying to guess the killer. I can't actually think about a better person to have this conversation with today than best-selling mystery author Michelle Shunard.

Michelle, we kick off every single episode with one big question, which is who are your freaks and why do you love them?

[Speaker 1]

Oh man, I have so many. I have a number of different freaks, but in this context, mystery readers and mystery writers are my freaks, and I love them because we are puzzle obsessed. We all love cats.

Well, most of us love cats. The mystery writing community is one of the most supportive communities I've ever been a part of, and this is one of the reasons why I guess I finally feel like I've found home. So you know I used to be an academic, and my joke used to be that in the real world, I always felt like the craziest person in the room.

In the academic world, I always felt like the most normal person in the room, and in the mystery writing community, I feel like this is it. It's like Goldilocks. It's like the perfect fit.

It's just right for you. Yes, and they're very, very supportive because I'm not a competitive person by nature, and I don't really care to be in hyper-competitive environments where my success comes at the cost of yours, and the mystery writing community is very much about rising up all boats. So you know, nobody in the world ever said, I only read one mystery writer.

So if I write a quality mystery, it's just going to get somebody else's books a chance to thrive as well, and I love that mindset.

[Speaker 2]

Oh my god. Okay, so we can go in so many directions, but first of all, I just want to say what you say about nobody reads just one mystery writer. Oh my gosh, that's so true, because I'm not a big mystery reader, but my mom was, and when your first book came out, which was Dancing Girls, I had posted about it, and I was just like, oh my god, you know, my mom was a big fan of J.D. Robb, and she would have loved the Dancing Girls. Like, I could totally tell, and I can't even tell you the number of people who messaged me privately, thanked me for the recommendation for the Dancing Girls, and then said, I had never heard of J.D. Robb. Thank you for introducing me to her as well. So you're right.

They're rabid fans, and one of the things that I wanted to ask you is, because you know, right now, especially with book talk, romance readers and romance writers are totally having their heyday, and romance readers get this reputation of being write-or-die fans, and what you're saying is mystery readers are just as devoted. I'm curious though, how are they different from your perspective?

[Speaker 1]

Oh, you know what? I'm not sure I would say that they are. I mean, other than they like, you know, a slightly different genre, although romance as mash-up part of mystery is really happening right now.

But yeah, I mean, I think that to be write-or-die, like I was write-or-die for Sue Grafton when she, you know, unfortunately she's not with us anymore. I write-or-die Mary Higgins Clark. I've got some authors that no matter what book they release, I will buy it.

The instant it comes out, I will buy it in hardcover. But that doesn't mean I'm not always looking for my next person that I'm going to write-or-die for, and I think that romance writers are the same. I also think that both communities read ravenously, and I think that the reasons for why we read ravenously in our genre are similar, if maybe slightly different, which is that we are looking for a world that has a kind of order.

So with romance, we want that happily ever after, right? That's H-E-A is the short thing for it, and you want that order to be restored. The same thing with mystery writers.

We want the killer caught, or at least brought to justice. And we want that order to be restored. We want to believe that we live in a world where the good is going to win out over the bad, and I think that's true for both of these genres.

So I don't know if that answered your question or completely went off track, but...

[Speaker 2]

It's perfect because you're right. We want justice done in one way or the other, right? And so in the romance genre, it's the happily ever after.

We want the girl to get the guy in the end. Or the guy to get the guy in the end, or the girl to get the boy in the end. Yeah, however it works.

It reminds me of a friend of mine recently started publishing romance, and when her first book came out, it was so well done for what I'm used to reading when it comes to independently authored and published romance novels, especially ones that just kind of go direct to Kindle. And so I reached out to her, and I was like, I love you and hate you, because I stood up, like I was up until 3 a.m. to finish this book, and my alarm goes off at 4. And her response was like, wait, I don't get it.

Like, Tanya, you know it's a romance. Like, they get together in the end. Why wouldn't you just pick it up the next day?

Like, they're stuck on a page, Tanya. Nothing's going to change. And I'm like, but I didn't know how it was going to happen, and I had to stay up to figure out how.

That's my point. And I feel like it's the same thing with you, right, with the thrillers. Okay, so we all assume that the killer is going to get caught or going to get brought to justice, but it's the tension of when that happens, how that happens, and what happens to our beloved main character in the process.

And talk to me a little bit about binge reading, because that is something, I thought I was the weirdo until I started getting, like, working more into the publishing industry and stuff. I thought I was the weirdo who, when I discovered an author, suddenly wanted to read everything they had ever written in their entire life, even if it was really bad stuff from high school. But now I hear, like, that's just a thing that we as readers tend to do.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, no, and as a matter of fact, the publishing industry is very well aware of that. It's something I've heard multiple times since the beginning of my career, is that your sweet spot is when you get at least five books in your back catalog, because then each new book that comes out, your readers are hopefully going to go, you know, a new reader is going to go, oh, and go back, and then, you know, they've got something they can latch their, you know, teeth or claws or whatever mixed metaphor I'm trying to use here into. You know, I find that I'm not only that with books, but I'm that way with TV. I'm actually annoyed.

So I have this new thing that I love. It's called Castle Impossible. It's a renovation show about these people that have this chateau in France that they inherited from their grandfather.

And it's on regular TV, and there's only one episode a week. And I'm very annoyed about that. I want to binge the series.

So this is what we do, right? And I think also, the bigger chunk that we're able to get our hands on, the better it stays in the memory, so that we remember, you know, a year from now when that next book comes out. So I think that it's all of those psychological processing things going on.

[Speaker 2]

Right. And then there's the folks who, and I didn't know this existed either, I learned so much every single day, that they will not read a book until the series has been completed, because two reasons. One is they're terrified that the series won't finish.

And so they don't want to get invested in the characters, only to have the series not be completed. And the other is they're afraid something will happen to the author, and they'll have to go too long in between books.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah. Well, I think that's one of the things I've heard about George RR Martin, I think the Game of Thrones, that he takes a really long time between books. And I mean, to be fair, his books are long, and they are complicated.

And they, I'm not surprised that they take a while. But I'm not, yeah, I'm not that person. I'm not that person.

When there's something I want to read, I want to read it today. The instant gratification if I can have it. There's a couple of books I'm waiting for on pre-order that I'm like, seriously, why can't I have it today?

Right now?

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I'm just like, um, dear author, can you please send me each page as you write it? That would be working really well for me right now.

[Speaker 1]

I do, I gotta say, though, I do like the JK Rowling method of writing the last book, or not first, but midway and then putting it in a thing somewhere so that even if something did happen to her, her fans would get closure. I thought that that was very cool.

[Speaker 2]

That's actually quite thoughtful. Yeah, I like more authors could do that. I think we would all be okay with that.

Yeah. So thinking about, like, I have a lot of questions about your readership, especially with mystery versus other genres, because like, you know, in the nonfiction realm, so many books kind of just stand alone, people will follow their guru. But in fiction, it's like everything kind of there's this world building piece about fiction, that I think people who don't read a lot of fiction, maybe don't appreciate.

I'm curious with your mystery readers, because I know this happens with romance readers a lot. And I've seen it happen even with, like, especially with sci fi, right? Well, they'll read book three, and they will notice one little detail that seems contrary to something that happened in book one.

Right? And then they're just like, you must explain this to me. Do you have those kinds of stories?

[Speaker 1]

You know, I live in great fear of having a character who has blue eyes suddenly have black eyes, you know, like, but and I'm going to say that I do my best to try to track those details, of course. But this is why I will always say that editors are worth their weight in titanium. Because, like, my copy editor so many times has been like, suddenly, she's got blonde hair.

That's not what you want. Oh, geez. Yeah.

So because readers are smart. They are super smart. And especially if they're invested in your characters, which you want them to be.

They are looking at that with eagle eyes. And, you know, as a writer, I mean, this is a case of my glass shoes are too tight because I love what I do. And what I get to do is basically have fun.

But, you know, you're juggling a lot of things in the air. And so keeping track of them, editorial help is really super important. And that's one of the things I think if you're a self-published writer, finding an editor that you trust and who does a good job is so critical.

[Speaker 2]

How do you recommend that they would do that? I'm just curious.

[Speaker 1]

Well, this is one of the great things about the mystery writing community is that there are organizations like Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, where you can go and, you know, we have databases of resources or if what you're looking for isn't there, you can ask a fellow member and, you know, you'll have hands shooting up everywhere going, oh, here's somebody that I work with that I love and that does a great job with this. And that's another thing is like I've been in other sorts of communities where if you've got this great resource, you're going to keep it and not share it, right?

I don't understand that. And so we all share and we all play well in the sandbox and I love that.

[Speaker 2]

Oh, great. Well, that actually kind of leads into my second question because I was going to ask, like, I know how, you know, you've shared how engaged your readers are and how mystery readers are highly engaged as a community and of themselves. I was wondering if that transferred into the writing community or if it was a much more competitive writing community.

[Speaker 1]

No, no. The writing community has been amazing. And I have, so I have a friend that she's a YouTuber that talks about the publishing industry and she used to write in a different genre and she started writing in the mystery genre.

I didn't know her. I ran into her at a conference in the elevator and I was like, I know you. And she was like, oh, that's so cool because I don't know anybody here.

It's my first time in a mystery writers conference. I was like, that's it. We're going to introduce you to everybody.

And she came up to me later and she was like, you know, this is such a different experience from the other community that I used to be a part of. She's like, everybody is so welcoming. Everybody is so amazing.

And that had been my experience too. So it was nice to know that it wasn't just, you know, me imagining it, but that she really was embraced and brought in. And we were like, oh, you've got to do this or, oh, try this or, oh, join this.

Or we all want each other to succeed. And I know as I'm saying it now, I can hear it and I hear that it sounds ridiculous, but it's really, really true. And I'm sure there are some bad apples out in there, but for the most part, I haven't been around them.

And I think we do a really good job of standing up for each other.

[Speaker 2]

And yeah, well, and speaking of that, so you were recently nominated for an Edgar award, which was so, so exciting when I saw that on Instagram, I was like, but before we started recording, you said, well, I actually read every single title that was nominated with me. And like you then proceeded to tell me all the great things about the winner. So I think that that showcases that it really is the rising tides, raise all ships sort of metaphor.

Now I'm curious from your perspective, what makes a good mystery story?

[Speaker 1]

Oh, okay. So there's a lot to that. And here is what for me, if you can make me gasp at some point like, and I didn't realize.

So if you can give me a twist like that, I'm going to scream your butt from the rooftops. My writing career has basically been trying to recapture or recreate for other people, the effect that I had in when I watched The Sixth Sense, and I'm not going to ruin it in case anybody hasn't seen, if it's watching this, if you haven't go watch it right now. But when the, the reveal came and my mind just raced back over this entire movie and I'm like, oh my gosh, to me, that is a good mystery and what I try to do with mine.

So like, I hope I've had people tell me that they've had that moment with the dancing girls. I've had other people tell me that they figured it out, you know, when the relevant sort of, they figured it out earlier. But my goal is if you figure it out, I assume that there's going to be a percentage of my readers who's going to figure out who my killer is or what my twist is.

So then my job is to make it a fun ride. Even if you figured it out, I want you to have a fun ride and be like, oh, I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing.

And then like you said, go, I want to see how this is going to play out so that they can't stop reading the pages, even if they know, you know, what the ending is going to be. I think both of those things make really good mysteries.

[Speaker 2]

Oh, I would totally agree. And speaking of a fun ride, the serial killer guide to San Francisco is so different to me from the detective Joe Fournier series. Yes.

Talk to me about what led to that, right? Cause I really did think you were going to be like dark serial killer suspense for like your entire career. And then when you drop the serial killer guide to San Francisco, like I told my 15 year old, I'm like, we have to read this together because I think we're going to have good laughs when we read this book.

And she like looks at me, she's like, mom, it has serial killer in the title. That just doesn't seem like your thing. And I'm like, but it looks so fun from the back cover copy to the endorsements.

Talk to me about what led you to go from one to the other.

[Speaker 1]

Okay. So I've always had, well, there are two kinds of things going on in my brain at any given time. Most authors will tell you that they've got 10,000 ideas, right?

And it's a question of mining, which ones that you want. There are some stories that you want to write that are going to lend themselves to darkness. And that if you want to explore the themes, you really have to tell it in a certain way.

There are other stories that are more fun and a little bit lighter. And I've always loved books that make me laugh. And I personally think that there is a natural and actually a necessary marriage between darkness and laughter.

I think that we as humans use laughter to be able to cope. And I think there are all kinds of psycho neuro-immunology studies that show that those of us who find ways to laugh, we heal better, we are healthier. So for me, it is a good marriage.

So I've always had these two sets of things I wanted to write. So my goal in life that I hope to always have is one series or a string of standalones that can explore the darker side and another series or set of standalones that are a little bit more fun and a little bit more quirky and a little bit more veering. I don't particularly call this a cozy, but it veers more towards that cozy vein.

So like, for example, I saw a thing about feet washing up in the shores, I believe of somewhere near Seattle, right? Like feet. Okay.

That's interesting. And so my mind instantly goes to, oh, there's a serial killer who has a foot fetish and, or, you know, or the opposite or whatever. And now I want to write that book, right?

Now that's a Joe Fornier book, or I should say a darker thriller book. By the way, just so you know, it turns out that these were people that like had unfortunately drowned at sea and all of the feet were in athletic shoes because what would happen is when you decay, you disarticulate and then the shoes are buoyant. So the shoes would make their way back while other things didn't.

That might be too much. Feel free to edit it out if that's way too much.

[Speaker 2]

Fascinating. Okay. We're going to circle back to that in a moment.

Keep going.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah. So, you know, as I have this idea, my brain goes off into the story. I know that it's going to fit over here.

So this is why one of my career goals is to have an outlet for both of these types sides of my brain.

[Speaker 2]

Okay. So what triggered the idea for the serial killer guide?

[Speaker 1]

Oh, okay. So this was the pandemic. So during the pandemic, I have a cat who has been trying to kill herself for years.

She eats anything and everything she can get her teeth into. I'm not kidding. Fireplace insulation is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

So she randomly ends up in at the vet during the pandemic though. Right. You couldn't go in.

So I had to sit on my car for four hours while they were doing their thing. So I was listening to true crime podcasts because that's one of the things that I just do. I've been fascinated by true crime since, you know, probably I was in diapers if I'm honest.

So a podcast about the doodler had just dropped. The doodler is a San Francisco serial killer who to this day unfortunately has not ever been found. So as I was listening to this and I can visualize these different locations, I was just bitter that I couldn't go see any of that because of the pandemic.

I'm like, oh, when it's done, I'm going to go on a little tour of all of these places. And I was like, a serial killer guide tour. Somebody should give serial killer guide tours.

And it turns out, I'm not sure that that's the best idea for like a way to solve crimes or, you know, whatever. But it's all I could think of from that point on was who would give a tour like that? What would they look like?

What would their history be that would lead them to this sort of fascination? And and that's where the book was born.

[Speaker 2]

And what was it like for you to be able to write a book? You know, because a lot of times when you're a novelist, you have to like make up a town. And so you have to do, you know, kind of this fictional world building, but you got to use an iconic city.

You know, I happen to know it's in your backyard. What was that like for you to be able to write in popular landmarks, but also places that you're connected to?

[Speaker 1]

That's a really cool question. Because my Joe Forney series is set in Western Massachusetts, which is where my family's from. So I know it, but I fictionalized it for a bunch of reasons.

I fictionalized it. San Francisco is it has been so much fun to write because I have loved San Francisco since the day I set foot in it when I was four for the first time. And there are just so many things about it that I adore.

So being able to open this up and let this floodgate of things that I love about this place come out. It's just been so much fun. So I do still fictionalize certain things, certain places, certain locations.

They're all inspired by something real. But, you know, like, I don't necessarily want to, if something bad's going to happen in a place, I don't necessarily want that to be associated with an actual business that might have to deal with that. And it's been a relief in a lot of ways to be able to just, you know, like, so when I described Alcatraz, that was one of my favorite things about the first book was my was writing about Alcatraz, because I've always loved going there and the atmosphere and the history of it.

And so being able to pull on this thing that I know and bring it to life for someone else. It's just so much fun.

[Speaker 2]

Now, have you had any readers reach out to you about the landmarks you've chosen or some of the places you've fictionalized and going, Hey, I know what you were doing there. I know what you're talking about.

[Speaker 1]

It has been one of the coolest experiences of my life to have San Francisco natives reach out to me and tell me that I did their city justice. So that has been, yeah, that is a, that is a tear jerking moment that happens for me. And I have had people ask me things like Salerno's pizzeria.

Is that based on a real place? And I'm like, yeah, it is. It's based on a place in a completely different part of the city.

That's one of the reasons why I fictionalized it called Giorgio's pizzeria that I go to and I love. And they've actually recently updated the decor a little bit, so it doesn't quite fit the description. But when I wrote it, the description was dead on.

And so I actually had a local book club ask me about locations and things that were inspired so they could go do a tour of it. So cool. Yes.

[Speaker 2]

So it's, I mean, that's the kind of rabid fandom we're talking about, right? Like what let's just take a deep departure into a different industry. You know, what massage therapist or bank wouldn't love to have somebody reach out and say, where are all your locations?

Because I want to take a group of my friends to tour them. I can't even think of like a better endorsement of Offer Market Fit and really of meeting your people where they're at and filling a deep need.

[Speaker 1]

And that's actually, I'm starting a sub stack. I've started it. I'm going to be building it more.

I'm going to be doing basically like tour guide stops from things from the book, fictional, non-fictional, because all I, you know, she's a tour guide. So she talks about real stuff. And of course the fictional stuff happens.

And I've had people say, oh, are there, are there real tours? There's one murder, mayhem and music tour in San Francisco that people can take, but people seem to really want to do this. So I'm not the person to do it, but there is a writing conference coming up in San Francisco.

And so as my author event, I'm going to do a little tour of downtown and see if I can channel Capri.

[Speaker 2]

Oh, I would love that. And we will get the details because that sounds like an absolute blast. And it's one of those things, like you said, you're not necessarily the person to do it, but maybe somebody listening is like, I am the person and there could be a partnership.

I absolutely. And we'll definitely put the sub stack information in the show notes. Cause I can imagine other listeners will want that.

I want to go back though to, this is something I observed early on. And I want to say it's shortly after you made your Tik TOK debut where you were doing these crime scene, I'm just going to call them crime scene tutorials, but where you were like breaking down what is important information and why we get certain things from television. And you were talking about blow fly activity specifically in this one video that is forever burned into my mind, but I apologize.

Oh no, it was awesome because there was that video. And then there was the blood splatter versus blood spatter video, which was incredibly meaningful to our family because my daughter at the time was taking a university like summer camp course and she was learning about blood spatter. And that was one of the things they talked about is the difference in the words.

And she was learning like what gun shot blood spatter looked like versus knife wounds versus carotid artery, like arterial bleeds versus other things, spray versus drops and yeah, deep, deep conversations with my 12 year old at the time. And so I was showing her and she was very impressed cause you knew what you were talking about. Cause part of what they addressed is how, what TV gets wrong and what TV gets right.

But this all came after, I think it was on Twitter, like way back in the day where you had referenced something about, I don't know if it was spending a shift or spending a whole night in a morgue.

[Speaker 1]

That was not me.

[Speaker 2]

That was not you. You weren't talking about doing it cause it would have been after dancing girls came out though.

[Speaker 1]

I would 100% do it if I could. I have not done it. It might've been, I was talking about a book that was written by a coroner.

Okay. Might've been that, but yeah, I would, if I was given the opportunity, 100%. I did see, I did watch someone be embalmed.

Maybe that's what I was.

[Speaker 2]

That is exactly what it was. Cause I was just going to go, but you wouldn't get embalmed in the morgue, right?

[Speaker 1]

Not in the morgue proper, but like the room adjacent. Yeah. But yeah, so it wasn't like a whole night, but I did see the process of an embalming.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

Okay. Which actually leads to the question of talk about going to great lengths for research for a book, right? It's like, I don't think non fiction readers appreciate how much fiction, like the links that fiction writers go to in order to present a believable story.

What for you drives that level of dedication?

[Speaker 1]

I've always had more questions than answers in life and everything always fascinates me. So one of my high school jobs was working at McDonald's and learning how the system worked and the timing of the fries and then this and getting it right. I loved learning that as an intellectual exercise.

So I would love to learn any job, anybody who can put in front of me, tell me about your job. Tell me how you do it. Tell me all the things that people don't know.

Tell me about the questions you wish people asked. It's just fascinating to me. So basically writing is a way for me to get to goof off all day and research, whatever the heck I'm currently fascinated by.

[Speaker 2]

At any point, do you like, does the responsibility to the reader enter in when you're doing the research piece? I mean, I know it does when you're doing the writing piece.

[Speaker 1]

I mean, I think that is part, yes, you are correct in that, you know, I've never been a police officer. I've never been a police detective. I've never been a district attorney.

I've never been any of these things. So yes, it is my responsibility as someone who is trying to capture this effectively to talk to those people and learn the things that I need to learn in order to be able to do that effectively. There are times when I have finessed things, because one of the things you learn as a fiction writer is that you can write something that's impossible, but you can't write something that's implausible.

So sometimes reality is implausible, unfortunately, and you have to shave corners off of things. But for the most part, I try to be very meticulous about that. And it is my nightmare to have people write me, I shouldn't say it's my nightmare, but I'm always afraid of, I want to make sure that I preempt people that write me and do things like, oh, well, you use clip and magazine interchangeably, and they're not interchangeable.

And that's a real thing that a real reader taught me. And I now know to keep that straight. And that's all well and good.

But sometimes, you know, I don't want to let somebody down. You know what I mean? We all make mistakes.

But I want to get it as right as possible.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, well, and so first, when you say clip in magazine, I was thinking newsprint. But you mean for like firearm?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, exactly.

[Speaker 2]

So the girl who knows absolutely nothing about firearms will have to have a firearms expert on here at some point. But you know, it reminds me I just recently on threads, there was an author, and she was talking about how she was kind of up all night and fixating in front of her husband about how to write this scene about somebody who was dying of liver failure. And she wanted it to be interesting, but she also wanted it to be accurate.

And he was just like, write whatever you want, nobody's going to notice. And then she put it out to beta readers. And she goes, and let's just talk about the number of healthcare professionals who wrote in asking all of these super detailed, meticulous questions about what I was describing.

She's like, all I could do was show it to my husband and say, huh, nobody cares, huh, honey?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, yeah. And there there is that balance as well. So there are things like if I'm writing Joe, and I just talk about a gun.

Well, that I mean, that's not real, because there is no detective on the planet who's going to look at a gun and think gun, they're going to think, well, that's a Beretta, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, that's how their mind works. So in order to be able to represent that effectively, I need to be able to get those details right. Capri is going to look at a gun and go gun, that's a gun, you know, and she's actually in book two, learning that she may have to learn some things about guns.

So as a fiction author, you have to always be writing in a way that's veridical to your character. So sometimes you're gonna have to research things in a different way than maybe you really even want to. I made a mistake, since your original question is going to great lengths.

Here's the only thing I regret, and that I will be careful about in the future. One of my books, I have somebody fall off of a building. I wanted to know, I needed to know what would happen when somebody falls, when they hit the ground, because that's obviously going to matter for CSI, for autopsy, etc.

Right. And for the crime scene, when I'm setting what it looks like when this body is found. So I googled what happens when someone jumps from a height and clicked on a video that and it was a live person committing suicide.

Oh, so I would say a little piece of advice, just read the descriptions of the videos before you click. Yeah, you might see things that you can't unsee.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. Well, and that, I mean, that brings up a whole other topic of what we can find on the internet when we don't necessarily intend to, that we don't even realize, because it doesn't occur to us that that's what we would find.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, it would never occur to me that someone would put up a video of that. I thought it was going to be, you know, a professional talking about physics or the effect of impact on a body or, you know, yeah.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. Oh, and that has to, and that's heavy too. Right.

And I think some of that is also, you know, there are books that stick with us because they cause such visceral reactions. You know, we just see something in our mind that we can't see that sometimes I think is even worse than what reality would have been.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

And I don't know that we stopped to think about what the author had to go through in order to be able to paint that picture. Yeah. So that's a good cautionary tale.

So going back to the Edgar nomination. So it's a huge deal. So anybody here who doesn't read mystery needs to understand that that's a huge deal.

It's a huge deal to have, by the way, Edgar Award named after Edgar Allan Poe, just to give folks an idea of what a big deal it is. Did it change anything for you, your process, your confidence? Has it affected the audience at all?

[Speaker 1]

The audience? I don't, I don't know. I hope maybe, I don't know, but it definitely has in my mind.

I've always, and I think a lot of women suffer from imposter syndrome. I always have suffered from imposter syndrome. There is nothing that my brain can't undermine.

It's just, I've got this panel in my head that's here to tell me, you know, all the ways I suck. And that's how it always is. This is the first thing that my imposter syndrome has not been able to undermine.

And I think the reason for it is because of the way that this particular award works. So it's a committee of mystery writing authors who read all of the books that are submitted. Now I'm sure they break it down into whatever, but then by the end, the people that are shortlisted, every one of the judges has read this book and says that it's worthy to have risen to the top of this pile.

So far, my brain has not been able to find a way to undermine that, to say you were in the top five books in this category. My particular award was the Mary Higgins Clark award, which I, Mary Higgins Clark is one of my ride or dies that I've always read every single book that she's ever put out without even, you know, reading the blurb on the back kind of situation. So to be honored for writing that sort of fiction was amazing.

[Speaker 2]

I can imagine. And I don't know the specifics of the award criteria, but how many books total would have qualified for it? Is it like all the mystery books that were published in that year or is it in a calendar year?

[Speaker 1]

It is in a calendar year. Mary Higgins Clark has some specific criteria that it has to be a young or youngish woman who has generally speaking, good family relationships, who is thrust into the middle of some situation that she did not ask for. She's just trying to get along with her life.

And then she has to get herself out of this situation. And there are a few other things like there can't be, you know, massive profanity and there can't, you know, so there's some other stuff like that. But so yes, it is a subset of the crime fiction genre.

I'm not quite sure. I don't know exactly how many.

[Speaker 2]

But still, it's like, it's not like you were one of five nominated in a field where there were only 20 qualifying books.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, correct. Correct. And it's also not an award where it's a question of there are lots of there are lots of awards out there where you can pay to enter.

And then they it's still legit that they pick the best, whatever. But I don't like that because not a lot of some people can't afford to pay these entries. Right.

And so I think, you know, and the Edgar Awards are sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America. And so this is an organization that's been around for, you know, 80 years. And books like The Maltese Falcon, you know, have won Edgar Awards, I think The Maltese Falcon won.

I should fact check myself, but some really incredible books. So to be in this company has been amazing for me. And it's for the first time I feel like, okay, I am good at what I do.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, well, it's one of those things where an outsider said, you're good at what you do, enough to where they nominated you for an award. So it is hard for the inner critic to fight that. Yeah, I'm curious, doing this as long as you have, do you still geek out over fan emails and reviews?

[Speaker 1]

Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I try to be careful about reviews, because I have a philosophy when it comes to reviews.

You'll hear authors say, you know, reviews are for readers. They're not for writers. And I think that that's 100% true.

So like, I have a one star review on my on The Dancing Girls that I absolutely love. And it's on the landing page. And it says, I hated this book, I hated spending so much time in the killer's head.

And I love that. Because if you don't want to spend time in the killer's head, you don't want to read that book. So yes, thank you for alerting people to that.

So there's a purpose for reviews. And it's not necessarily meant for me. Right?

So you got to be careful about that. But yeah, when someone writes me and says, Oh, I really loved this, I really loved that. One of the best ones I ever got was for the second Joe book, she goes back to Cajun country in Louisiana and visits family.

And spoiler alert, I've never been to full on Cajun country. I've been Cajun adjacent, I visited, but I had somebody write me and say that my writing took them back to visiting their grandmother in Cajun country. And I just, that's when those hours doing the research and watching the videos and interviewing people and everything else is 100% worth it.

Because you know, when somebody can say that, and I think we were still under partial lockdown when that book came out, and they were like, it transported me at a time when I can't go myself. Yeah, that was amazing. What I thought you were gonna ask me is I thought you were gonna ask me if I still fangirl over other mystery writers?

Well, answer that question. That's a really good question. That so at another conference that I was at, I was in an elevator, I turn around and it's David Baldacci.

And I was just like, I said, lobby, please. And he hit the button. That was all I managed.

And I'm just gonna say this, he was the toastmaster for he did a bunch of stuff. And we had an active auction. And we made a certain amount of money.

And he on the spot doubled it. He's a great guy. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

Wow.

[Speaker 1]

But no, I did not work up enough courage to ask for his autograph.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I get mute when I run into like, people who are famous to me, whatever. And I had a situation where somebody who a very famous writer, and we were like this far apart. And the person next to me was one of those like, hyper enthusiastic fangirls.

And so she was like squealing and screaming. And then she looked at me and she was like, you don't like her and I'm like, can't speak.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, barely breathe. Like all I could do was like control my breathing. And I have to imagine that when you're you know, at that level of fame, you know, like when you're like Tom Cruise, you've had enough squealing fangirls in your face, you probably all set.

Right, exactly.

[Speaker 2]

Stoned face, like I'm sure it was like resting serial killer face. But I was just like, I just need to make sure I keep breathing, right?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yep.

[Speaker 2]

So I'm wondering, because you mentioned that one star review, and having somebody who doesn't want to spend so much time in the killer's head. I think the average person would ask, do you worry? That's not the question that I really want to ask.

What are your thoughts around maybe the perception of glamorizing dark topics? Because I think an average person would say, well, do you ever worry about glamorizing the dark topics you explore? But really, it's like, what are your thoughts about exploring these dark topics?

[Speaker 1]

You know, I think that's a really important question. And I that's one that Capri struggles with in the serial killer guide to San Francisco, right when she's being told, oh, you need to write this book or do this podcast about your grandfather's purported killings. And she's like, well, isn't that exploitation?

And I think there's a movement now in true crime, podcasting and documentarianism to really focus on that we're doing this, not to glamorize, not for sensationalism, but because a we want justice, right? We want to see justice done. And B, we want to warn you, it's good to know, like, if you are in this situation, maybe don't do this.

Or if you you know, being aware of what is out there, I think is really important. And then the other thing is mentioning the victim's names. So that's one of the things that I try very hard to do, like in Capri's inserts, I mentioned the victim's names, because a lot of times, and I'm guilty of this, I'll talk about, you know, oh, you know, the Golden State Killer, right?

It's a lot easier to reference this by just the one killer rather than the 50 victims, right? I've noticed a lot of podcasts are taking time to spend time talking about the victim and who they were, and what this took away from the world. Oh, I'm sorry, hidden answer number four.

There are podcasts out there that are contributing to finding killers. Like, let's talk about Michelle McNamara, right? Which, why, of course, did the name of the book just fly right out of my mind?

But she helped to solve the Golden State Killer. Yeah, she helped bring that killer to justice through her armchair, you know, detective work, right? So, and yeah, I'm sure that there are cops right out there.

If there's cops watching this right now, they're like, please don't encourage people to go and do our job. They don't know what they're doing. We do not need vigilante justice.

And yet. We don't need people screwing up, you know. But at the same time, to the degree that we can shed light on cold cases and things where maybe there just aren't enough resources to keep these stories alive and keep eyes on them, I think that that's a really important thing.

Okay, so that's all nonfiction, right? What I'm doing is not nonfiction. But I would argue that some of the same goals are there.

So I want to reinforce notions of victims. And so one of my books, the theme of the book, or one of the underlying issues of the book was statutes of limitation on rape, and the fact that they are still extant in so many states in our nation, where, you know, you basically have a year if you've been raped to report it. And if you don't after that, oh, well.

So I told a fictional story that was designed to shine light on what I consider to be an extreme injustice in our justice system, and hopefully raise awareness through this work of art about something that I think needs to change. So I would argue that, you know, it's our job to do it responsibly, for sure. But I think that there are really good things that come out of the mystery genre.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, well, and I think sometimes, if you can fictionalize it, right, you can actually highlight things that would come across as inappropriate if you were telling the real story of real people, right? We never want to victim shame. So we don't want to highlight the errors in judgment a victim made that made it easier for her to be killed, or him to be killed.

But we can highlight those things in works of fiction as, like you said, the cautionary tale to the person who's reading, who's like, oh, you know what, if I find myself in that circumstance, maybe I make decision A instead of decision B. Right.

[Speaker 1]

Well, and, you know, we live in a world where we should be able to go out and have a night drinking with our friends wearing tight clothes, if we want, that should be all right. But the truth of the matter is there are certain kinds of attention or certain kinds of behaviors, like stumbling drunk out of a bar on your own to your car, that's maybe not the smartest thing to do. And we should be able to be safe.

I wished that we were. And actually, a really great movie about this is Woman of the Hour. It's a Netflix movie.

It's based on, they call them the dating game serial killer. But this guy pretended to be a photographer and killed a bunch of people in the 70s. And it was actually on the dating game in real life.

But what I love about this story is it focuses on how women are ignored. And it focuses on how we are afraid to speak up for ourselves. And spoiler alert, in the movie, she's face to face with this killer, she's getting a vibe that something's not right.

And she finally finds her voice to say, I'm not going anywhere with you. And if that gets one more woman out there who is in an uncomfortable situation to say, No, I'm not going to allow this. I don't care if it hurts your damn feelings.

I'm not going to do this. Then that is a brilliant piece of art for me.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, and I, I'm seeing more fiction doing that lately in across genres. And I find it very interesting how norms are being shaped among younger generations. So like the 20 somethings I know, based on what they're reading versus what you and me read, as we were growing up, you know, they're much more, I will say conversant in consent culture.

And in you know, sort of red flags that we just didn't have any awareness to because we weren't that wasn't represented in what we were paying attention to at the time.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 2]

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so we're gonna put all the information of how to connect with you because you and me could talk for hours.

[Speaker 1]

Yes.

[Speaker 2]

Before we let you go, though. So we have a little a little quick round that I like to call freak flags fly. And it's five fast questions.

No wrong answers. Okay, just whatever comes to mind. Are you up for it?

[Speaker 1]

Yes, let's do it.

[Speaker 2]

All right. Fill in the blank. You're my kind of freak if you're passionate, kind and empathetic.

Oh, like that.

[Speaker 1]

What is something you love that your friends don't get? Oh, you know, I think I think I, my vibe attracts my tribe. So my friends, but the world at large.

I think there's a lot of people that don't understand why I'm fascinated with or you know, they would call it fascinated with serial killers and true crime. That's macabre. It's dark.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

Okay. And what community would you infiltrate just to understand it better?

[Speaker 1]

Law enforcement. 100%.

[Speaker 2]

It's a fascinating community.

[Speaker 1]

Yes.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

What tool ritual or practice helps you stay connected with your people? Connected with my people, write-ins, write-ins and organizational events. So I belong to Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America going to meetups going to as a matter of fact, we're having a reading this next weekend, doing those kinds of things, but either over zoom or in person, I personally prefer zoom for, you know, bunches of reasons, but whatever makes you comfortable do it.

[Speaker 2]

Okay. Last question. You've dropped a lot of names so far, but who is someone doing freakishly good work who deserves a bigger stage?

[Speaker 1]

Oh, doing freakishly good work that deserves a bigger stage. I mean, a lot of the people that I know that I think of that are doing freakishly good work or getting recognition for it. Okay.

Katie Tietjen. She was one of the nominees for the Mary Higgins Clark Edgar award. Her book was called Death is in the Details.

[Speaker 2]

I feel like I need to read that book. That is just very amazing. Oh, Michelle, thank you so much.

Thank you for giving us a glimpse into the world of a writer into crime fiction in general, but also just what writers think about when they're thinking about their fans and they're thinking about creating work for their fans and everybody listening. I just, what I want people to take away from this, because this is what I'm taking away from it is no matter how intricate your interests are, you're never too much too different or too out there for your perfect people. Michelle, thank you again.

[Speaker 1]

Thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast. I so appreciate it.

[Speaker 2]

That's it for this episode of find your freaks to help more weirdos find their way here, subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you're craving connection, join the freak show at findyourfreaks.com. What makes you weird makes you wonderful.

Normal was never the point.