Rogue Male: Author Craig McDonald explains the intrigue of writing about other writers

May 20, 9:35 AMBaltimore Crime Fiction ExaminerSandra Ruttan

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In 2006 Craig McDonald published a collection of author interviews titled ART IN THE BLOOD.  Three years later, he’s back with a second collection, ROGUE MALES.  The Edgar and Anthony Award Nominated McDonald spoke to the Examiner about his latest book and his upcoming projects.

Examiner:  What is it about authors that makes them so fascinating to write about?

 

McDonald:  I approached the interviews as a student of the craft and as someone who wanted to build a career as a fiction writer. But I come from a line of barbers, farmers, ironworkers and teachers — not really a writer among them. So I treated these interviews as private recitations. And apart from my interest in the authors as writers, I also tried to pick and choose my subjects to arrive at the most compelling personalities. 

Examiner:  So far, your collections have focused mainly on male authors.  Would you consider doing a collection of interviews with female authors?

 

McDonald:  If a publisher was interested, I’d certainly love to do it. I’ve interviewed many dozens of writers beyond the ones spotlighted in the two interview books, and have some really interesting interviews with women writers ranging from Laura Lippman to Anne Rice to Candace Bushnell to Elizabeth Berg, most of it never really seen before. 

Examiner:  You’re an author yourself, and have been nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America and an Anthony Award.  Is interviewing other authors a way of trying to understand your own creative tendencies and the impulse to write? 

 

McDonald:  In the early going, yes, it certainly was every bit of that, but even more than that, to try and arrive at the strategies for succeeding and surviving in a field that doesn’t leave a lot of room for financial independence or, even more treacherously, a sustained career as a fiction writer, particularly in genre. So many authors vanish after two, three books… By the time my last two or three interviews were conducted, I had my own novel contracts, so these issues were very much on my mind. 

Examiner:  What’s one of the most fascinating things you learned writing this book?

 

McDonald:  So far as ROGUE MALES goes, the sense of inevitability — or even resignation in a couple of cases — on the part of these men that they have arrived at fiction writing as a career. There are at least a couple of authors in ROGUE MALES who seem really kind of dumbfounded at the way they make a living. Then you’ve got two or three in there who sound like they’re ready to maybe pack it in. And then you have someone like Elmore Leonard, who is in his 80s, and still loves what he does.  

Examiner:  What’s next for Craig McDonald?

McDonald:  Early next year will see the release of my third novel, PRINT THE LEGEND, from Minotaur Books. Author Hector Lassiter, “the last man standing of the Lost Generation,” a writer who was friends with Hemingway in Paris and Key West, travels to Idaho in 1965 to poke around the circumstances of Hemingway’s death. He uncovers a decades-long conspiracy against writers being conducted by J. Edgar Hoover. Like HEAD GAMES and TOROS & TORSOS, this one is rooted in a lot of dark historical fact.