[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Ev ery day every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome.

I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner in Barboursville, Virginia with cozy mystery writer, ACF Bookens.

She's a lover of small towns, charming but imperfect people, animals of all sorts, especially plump cats and loyal pooches.

She loves a good mystery, a quaint bookshop, and a good cup of coffee.

What's not to love, right?

Hi, welcome -Thanks.

-to Write Around The Corner .

So great to have you.

-Thanks for having me.

I'm so glad you're here.

-Well, thank you for inviting us to your home and out here to share where you make the magic happen with writing all the cozy mysteries.

So, let's start by sharing exactly what is a cozy mystery?

-Yes, it's kind of a strange genre that kind of got defined in the last few years.

So, it's a mystery novel, murder-mystery typically, not always.

Usually set in a small town with no on-page sex and no on-page violence.

Couple other things - usually there's a woman sleuth.

And usually there's a group of friends or a small pair of friends, I guess, that help the person solve the mystery.

-And so it makes it really a book that anyone can enjoy.

-Yes.

-And anyone can get in and read and have fun and not have to worry about any of those things you said are going to be iffy or sometimes not attractive to all readers.

-Right.

It's very universal.

It's open to everybody.

When people ask me age range, I mean, they're geared toward adults, but they're appropriate for teenagers, too, you know, aside from the murder piece.

Parents should decide that for their kids.

-Yes, well, and you do a really nice job of making sure that that's also appropriate.

And we'll get to the books in a few minutes.

So, I want to know all about you.

So, I want to know all about you and growing up and, of course, Milo and our furry friends who are here today, right?

Miander and Roger.

So, tell me about you.

-I grew up near here in Fluvanna County, which if you guys don't know is southeast of Richmond.

And I went to high school at Fluvanna High.

Then I moved to Pennsylvania for college, and then kind of just traveled west, kept going, went to Ohio, and then ended up in San Francisco for a few years.

Came back to teach in Maryland and loved my students, hated the politics of teaching, and decided to step out of it.

And the way I stepped out of it was wonderful.

My mother, that part wasn't wonderful, my mom was sick; I came home to help my dad take care of her.

And after she passed, my dad said, what do you want to do?

What can you do for a year that you would love?

And I said I'd really love to write a book.

And he said great, I'll pay your bills.

Live with me, and I'll pay your bills for you.

So, I did that and that sort of started me on this trend.

I never wanted to go back to teaching after that.

And so, I've been editing and writing books.

And now I just write books full time.

-That's wonderful.

So, it's like your dream came true.

You're.

were given that opportunity to do something you really yearned to do.

-Yes, absolutely.

Dad has always done that.

He's just always had my back that way.

-And you have a three-year-old.

That's a little person.

-Oh, yes, he's a small person.

He's going to be four in June.

He's quite busy.

And he splits his time with me and his dad, but he loves to read.

I wish he could read himself.

But right now, I'm just reading the same books over and over.

But he's wonderful.

He loves to play outside, loves our dogs.

He's great.

His name is Milo, and he's at school today, so.

-So, he's a little adventurer, huh?

-Yes.

He likes to climb, climbs a chicken coop while I'm in meetings a lot.

And we've been trying to get him in parkour classes at some point, but he just started T-ball.

So, he's very big, but he won't call it T-ball.

He always corrects me, "It's baseball."

-Oh, that's so sweet.

That's so sweet.

So, in your free time, you love cross stitching?

-I do.

-Jigsaw puzzles, gardening.

What else?

-Good food.

Love going - now that things are opening up, I like to go out with friends for drinks or live shows.

I love good music, love good folk Americana music.

But right now, books and gardening take up a lot of my time, so - which is good.

I love that.

-Yes, it's great.

And you write right here.

You have a beautiful location to just be quiet and enjoy nature and begin to craft these wonderful cozy mysteries.

-Yes, it's a perfect place.

And when I - we bought this place about a year ago, a little over a year ago and I loved it because I couldn't see other people from the house, and not because I don't like other people; I do.

But I don't like to have to think about other people when I'm trying to be creative.

And so, this gives me a place to kind of be by myself.

And then when I want people to come, they come here or I go out and it's perfect.

-Oh, that's wonderful.

Have you always loved mysteries?

I know you are a fan of the game Clue.

-I love the game Clue.

I love Knives Out, the sort of Clue-ish movie, but my mom was the mystery fan.

So, growing up, she would read Elizabeth Peters and Ellis Peters, all these wonderful mystery writers.

And she would read them really fast, and I just always thought my mom was like a supersonic reader.

She was a fast reader.

But also, mysteries are really easy, like they're nice, escapist reading, and I love that.

Especially through COVID, people just needed something to disappear into that ended well, and cozies are great for that.

So, I love reading them.

Now, I read probably couple a week, just love all these women building businesses and solving murders and coming into their own.

It's just kind of an empowering genre, too.

-Well, I loved reading yours, too.

I mean, it was really enjoyable.

But I understand not just cozy mysteries, you also are a bit of a historian yourself, and love research.

-I do.

I love research.

So, I have a degree in history.

My first book was about the people who were enslaved at the plantation where I grew up in Fluvanna.

And I just get a real kick out of doing that kind of archaeology of archives, I guess, is what I would say.

And so, my characters are kind of based on me in different ways.

You know, one owns a bookstore and that's my dream, someday, and I'm such a bookish, nerdy person that that fits, and then the other's an architectural salvage person.

I don't do architectural salvage, but I love the history component of old buildings and things like this old house we're in now.

So, I love doing the research.

I do research as much as I can.

I just finished a project in Charlottesville.

And I'm starting a new project down in Fluvanna.

Just that's what I do on the side when I'm not writing.

-Do you get story ideas when you're doing those kind of research projects?

-All the time.

All the time.

I love finding out something like, you know, an old building or an old story that came out of something and then kind of delving into that, like both in research and then in my imagination and kind of filling in gaps.

It's really fun.

I will always try to take my inspiration from places I know.

So, I like it.

-Well, I thought it was really interesting that you had said, you know, find a map of a town and go ahead and start there.

You know where your bearings are going to be and write.

I thought, well, that's really clever as a way to introduce a new, you know, someone who says, oh, I want to try to write a book.

-Right.

It's a nice grounding.

You can know like what the street names are and you could change them, you know.

You can make yourself a little cheat sheet.

Instead of Main Street, it's called Talbot Street, or the opposite in my books.

But then you know, like, where's the water?

Where's the big city in relationships?

So, you don't have to kind of do like JK Rowling and create an entire world.

You can just use the world you know.

And that gives you a freedom to fictionalize like you want but also not have to create quite so much or keep as much straight.

-Well, and people always want to know, is it real?

Is the place real?

Is it a place I can go, you know, and begin to sleuth on their own some of the places and location and names?

So, do you use real names of people?

-Not for the people themselves.

So, the names are all based on the geography.

So, in one series, there'll be based on names, and I literally just go into the white pages and look up common last names in the area because names relate to places.

And so around here, there's lots of Shiflets, depends on how you spell it which part of the state you're from.

And so, I'll use Shiflett for one of my main characters, or I'll use Johnson.

And then the first names I usually take from people I know, hopefully in a flattering way.

I never name my villains after people because that just seems mean.

-That's sweet.

How many of the characters are a little bit derivatives of you?

-Both of the sleuths are.

-Are they?

-Yes, so they're both middle-aged women.

I really wanted to write middle-aged women because there aren't a lot of those.

A lot of cozies are young women in their 20s, which is great.

They're wonderful reads, but I'm not in my 20s anymore.

But there's also not a lot of books about middle-aged women with young children.

And so, I got to do that in one series.

And then I was a literature professor.

So, the bookstore series just means I get to read books and recommend books through my books, which is great.

-Well, and so your pen name is ACF Bookens.

But you also have this very serious side as Andi with research and editing and helping new writers.

So, what's that about?

What's that all about?

-I love helping writers.

Like, I spent a lot of time early in my career trying to figure out what advice in the writing world worked for me and what did it, and quickly decided that this kind of idea of one-size-fits-all writing advice was bad.

Like, it made people stepping into a vulnerable art form feel wrong, like they're not doing it right.

And so, I started kind of trying to piece out - well, how do you talk about that?

Like, how do you talk about the fact that if you have a child under five, you probably cannot get up first thing in the morning and write because the minute they hear your feet hit the floor, they're going to come follow you down the hallway?

So, how do you do that when all the writing advice is write first thing in the morning or write all night long or whatever it is?

So, I started exploring that for myself, and then I gathered a community of writers together.

And for years, I just wrote them a letter each week, based on something they had asked me about or something that I had experienced.

And that's kind of how I started just to develop this philosophy of writing as you are, you know, being your authentic self.

And so, now mostly I coach women writers on how they're to build their writing businesses, which is really fun.

-That sounds exciting.

And I love a piece of advice I read that you had given to either your younger self or a young writer about, you know, it's okay to write something fun.

You're still a writer.

-That's right.

There's nothing - we have this idea of this hierarchy of literature, like, you know, William Shakespeare's good literature and the stuff I write is not good literature.

But it's just not like that.

Like, all literature, all writing serves a purpose, all art serves a purpose.

And so, people read my books because they want to get away.

And that's great.

Good gracious.

For the last two years, we've all needed to get away a little bit.

So, same thing with romance novels, like I'm starting to read a whole bunch of romances because I'm going to launch it a rosie, a romance series in the spring.

Oh, Lord, help me, based on my own dating life, so.

But they're just fun.

I mean they're really fun to read, and you know it's going to turn out well.

And that's not a bad thing at all to just enjoy that.

-And when you engage someone in the story that they want to keep turning the page because they want to find out what happens to someone - or they read the second, third, or fourth book in the series because they're so invested with how endearing the characters are or finding out what happens next for them.

Then that's gaining a whole new group of readers and anyone who's reading, that's what you want, right?

You just want someone, everyone to pick up a book, find your place, find the thing that you like and read.

-That's right.

People say all the time to me, I wish I had these friends.

And I'm like, me, too.

I mean, I do.

Some of them are based on people I know.

But to have like a group of ten people who just always have your back, who doesn't want that?

I mean, that's just amazing.

-Yes.

So, how long does a cozy mystery take you to write?

-This week, it'll take me five days because I have a month deadline and I'll have to finish.

So, I have about 15,000 words, and I'll write the rest of this week.

Typically, I give myself a month.

I write pretty fast.

It's just how I write.

-Even with Milo?

-Even with Milo.

-A three-year-old and these two rescue pups who are very well behaved, I might add.

-They're doing very well.

Right.

Yes.

Because then I write after Milo goes to bed if I need to.

Right now he's in school, which helps and gives me a whole day to write.

And I do.

And because I can write fast, I can write five to 8,000 words a day, which is not what everybody can do and not what everybody should try to do.

But for me, it works really well.

-And that goes into your early advice: find your niche.

Right?

Find how you work best and then maximize that.

So, you - I'm, again, gathering that you work on a schedule, you try to schedule yourself?

-I do.

I have books planned through the end of 2023 now.

So, I have a schedule.

I have to hit deadlines for my editor and then deadlines for the publisher or for the retailers.

So, I just have to make my deadlines.

And so, that's how I motivate myself.

Otherwise, it's really easy to just be like, oh, I can just watch - Orphan Black is what I'm watching right now, Orphan Black for six hours, as opposed to actually doing my work.

-So, during the day do you have a schedule of so many words or so many pages?

-Yes.

So, I write in 1,000 word bursts and I sprint them, and then I usually - -What does that mean?

-So, I'll sit down and just say I'm going to write 1,000 words.

And so, I don't get up unless there's like a crisis.

I don't get another cup of coffee.

I try not to even go to the bathroom.

I get that 1,000 words done, then I give myself a 15-minute break.

Usually I try to do something physical, go outside in the garden, walk around with the dogs, do something, and then I come back and do another 1,000 words.

So, if I have a whole day free, I can do eight to 10,000 words and still be done, you know, by dinnertime and still have an evening to relax.

-That's amazing.

-It's fun.

-And you plot first?

-I don't plot first.

-Oh, okay, characters come first?

-Blurb for the back of the book comes first.

-Really?

Okay.

-And that's it.

That's all I do.

So, I have to have this for my cover designer.

So, I do the blurb.

So, I know usually what time of year it is because I have to tell them what the design is going to be.

I know what location the murder happened in.

And sometimes I know who died, sometimes I don't.

And that's it.

That's what I know.

And I don't plot.

I don't outline.

I just don't work that way.

So, I just start, and I go, and sometimes I get two-thirds of the way through the book and I'm like, I don't know who killed him yet.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

I always figure it out, but it's sometimes does get nerve-wrecking.

-That must be amazing.

That thought process going on in your head when you sit down to just say, okay, let's just see where this is going to roll out to go.

-Yes, it keeps it exciting for me.

Other people really love outlines, and I get that that feels structured for them.

But for me, it's like reading.

I get to see the story as it unfolds.

Like this morning, I just discovered gravestones under a box wood while I was writing.

I was like, oh, who knew?

I didn't know those were there.

That's exciting.

So, now I got to figure out how, what does that mean, even though they were there.

But all of it, it's coming from this places I know, so it just kind of drive - I mean, I don't know box woods with gravestones that I know of yet.

But it's still a place I'm recognizing in my head, so it's easy.

-You know, as a successful writer, I think there's also sometimes a stigma for writers like - I don't know if I can go self-published or I don't know where I should start or maybe the first book I need to have an agent or an editor and all of those things, the business side of it, can sometimes get in the way of the creativity.

What advice would you give writers with regards to all those things?

-Yes.

You should publish the way you want, that is the first thing I say.

Like, there's a lot of really good things that come out of traditional publishing.

Depending on what your timeline is, your own patience, your desire for control, like I like having control over everything from the cover design to the layout to everything.

But that takes a lot of energy and time.

Maybe you don't want to do that.

But I would say there's nothing to publish unless you write.

So, like, you have to make that writing.

-Oh, that's good.

-Yes.

-That would be good advice for them - there's nothing to publish unless you write.

-Right.

So, you can learn all you want about marketing and stuff, but if you don't have a book to sell, there's no value in it.

So, always, the writing has to come first.

And then you can learn the other stuff, and you don't have to learn it all tomorrow.

You can learn it over time.

And you can hire people like me or other people to guide you through that.

There's now a lot of resources for how to do those things that weren't there when I started writing ten years ago.

-And we talk, you know, we mentioned that earlier how under, you know, Andi, you are a resource for people for editing, for construction, for all of those pieces of writing to rely on an expert.

So, that would be another piece of advice for people - there are people out there to help you, if you tend to get lost in the weeds so that you just keep writing.

-That's right, that's right.

Or just even join groups on Facebook where people are already doing, you can pick up advice and doesn't cost you anything to do that.

But you can learn from other people.

Now, there's so many people that have gone before us that we can kind of look at and say, oh, this is how you do it.

For everything - from finding a query letter, how to do that for an agent, or how to land a publisher, to how do you find a cover designer and how do you do it?

That's all out there.

It just takes a little time.

-So, I want to get to your books, these two series.

So, I noticed some similarities, some differences.

I love the strong female sleuths that are in both books.

I love all the pets.

So, let's start there about the similarities in the series and then how, you know, they're similar but yet, they're different in the characters.

I became involved with the characters in the bookshop, and I became, you know, involved in the characters and others, so how do you keep them all separate, having multiple series at the same time?

-I have a good editor.

She's really good.

They helped me - I sometimes miss names.

Like there's a best friend in both books and sometimes I'll use the wrong name.

And then my editor, Katie, will find that out for me, which is wonderful.

But I tend to be really immersed because I write fast.

I stay pretty immersed in a story, so I don't waffle between the places or even the sleuths as much as I do just sink into where I am.

I mean I do some practices.

Like at night, I think about what I'm writing the next day, try to get my headspace, you know, get my subconscious going on it a little bit.

So, I'm very involved in what I'm writing, that's one way.

The other way is I just use a lot of cheat sheets where I've just written down like, like I can never remember people's names.

I'm bad with names in real life.

I'm bad with my own characters' names.

So, like, I have a shop.

Somebody's helping my character, Paisley, keep a shop here.

I was like, Katie, you're going to, I don't remember what her name is.

Tell me what her name is, so.

-So, okay, Publishable By Death , the Saint Marin's Series.

Again, you talked about wanting to have a bookshop and just a quaint, beautiful, fun bookshop.

And, you know, Carol, my co-producer and I, we were both thinking, oh my gosh, pet beds, books, what could be better?

Little coffee cafe in the background.

So, this series has how many books in it?

-There's nine in it.

-And is it going to go even more?

-Yes, ten will come in November.

-Okay.

Alrighty.

Now, do you think it's really important that they're read in chronological order?

-No, they're standalone books.

The murders are always solved in each book.

But if you're a person who likes that sort of TV show feel, where there's like an overarching storyline, then it's probably better that you read them in order, just because things like romances change and the friendships change.

But the plot of the murder itself is contained within each book.

-And I love the name of the bookstore, All Booked Up.

I love that.

The other thing was you bring in some tough subjects, so even though they're cozy mysteries and they're light and they're fun and they are escapism, you touch on sometimes, some topics of racism, like the Green Book in this one and some tough things that people are going to deal with.

Why was it important for you to make sure that those were also included parts of the books?

-Yes, because I'm an activist sort of at heart but the way I do that is through storytelling.

And so, I'm very involved in anti-racist movements and so that was a natural thing for me to do on my first cozy - was to sort of explore the way race has played out in Virginia, in particular, in this case in Maryland, but also because I think that it's possible to enjoy something and also, think at the same time or to learn something.

And so, yes, I cover things from domestic violence to sexual assault to literacy, just because I think they're important for us to know about.

And just because it's light and fun doesn't mean you can't engage with something really meaningful at the same time.

-Yes, yes.

And I felt that, too.

So, in Cross By Death , there is a toddler, Sawyer.

-Yes, very much based on my guy.

-Okay.

Well, I was wondering because when I hear him in the yarn shop, untangling all the yarn and going through as they're trying to solve the different things, and her best friend, Mart, you know, doing wine, coffee, crafts, all kinds of things.

Now, and she also does cross stitch which you do cross stitch.

-Yes, I do.

-So, what would be the part of her character and that mystery series different from Publishable By Death , the Marin's series.

-Yes, the history piece is probably more of where I am.

I mean, and the fact that Sawyer, aka Milo.

People were like no three-year-old talks like that.

I'm like, no mine does.

He just does.

That's just how he talks.

So, that and then the history of the piece.

I mean, I still do, like I'm going to be working in Fluvanna again, doing our archival research for them.

So, I'm still doing that ongoing.

I do a lot of genealogical work for people, particularly African-American people.

So, that's just something else I do.

It's just another facet of who I am.

-Well, I love the history, and I love the fact that you're bringing in the museums.

You're also trying to bring us into with maps and locations to where I felt like I'm around that town.

You know, I could figure out where I'm going to go next in order to walk through the town with the characters.

And there's also just a touch of romance in there.

You know, you want to, you're aching for them to have some happiness.

-Yes.

Yes, that's total fantasy on my part.

I'm like, maybe I'll find my Jared or my Santiago, or my Daniel was the first one in Publishables , yes.

-So wonderful.

Well, would you be willing to read something for us?

-Sure.

-And what did you choose?

-I chose Crossed By Death because it's set here in the Blue Ridge.

So, I'll read up just the very beginning so you can get a sense of the feel.

"I stitched the scarf more tightly around my head "and wedged the hardhat into place.

"I learned the hard way that not covering "my hair on my head can mean a mess, "sometimes a bloody one.

"The doorframe appeared to be solid, "and when I pushed hard against the floorboards "with my right foot, they held solid, too.

"I walked into the Scruggs Store "and crouched beneath a collapsing roof.

"Not much left here I can safely search through, "but I was going to do my best.

"I'd paid good money for this salvage job, "and I was going to get what I could.

"I'd driven past this old gas station all my life "and had mourned as the vegetation took it over "and began to pull it down over the past few years.

"I knew, though, that no one in our rural Mountain County "was going to buy the place, "not after someone had been murdered there 20 years ago.

"A single gas pump on a country road "wasn't enough incentive to take on that bad mojo.

"It was a loss, though, because the station "had been there for almost 100 years, "first as a country store and then as a welcome fueling spot "25 miles from the nearest city.

"I was determined to not let it all disappear "when the bulldozers parked outside knocked it down.

"My 50 dollars had gained me entry and rights "to anything I could carry out "before the station was destroyed.

"And I was going to get my money's worth "while saving a bit of history along the way.

"I was new at the salvage business, "but I knew enough about local history "and had watched enough Barnyard Builders , " American Pickers , and Salvage Dogs "to feel like I could find the good stuff.

"I headed to the left, toward what used to be "the checkout counter and hit paydirt right away.

"The original counter was still there, "complete with a handwritten sign about check cashing, "as well as a Virginia lottery ticket "from somewhere in the last decade of the previous century.

"A few coats of poly on this baby "and it would make a great piece of wall art "for someone who loved that 1990s feel or just wanted to relive their heyday."

I'll stop there.

-Yes, we don't want to give too much away, except that I'm thinking when she's going through that place as a salvage and that she has her little boy in the car and you have are crawling on her belly, you know, to get through them and then look at the house - you never really are quite sure what treasures you might find.

And I think there was a quote in here somewhere that you said everybody's story was worth telling.

And that, I was thinking, oh, that's kind of like every artifact has a story.

Everything is real.

-Absolutely.

-So, are you a collector of those kinds of things, too, that everything has a story?

-Yes, everything in my house has a story.

They're all hand-me-down furniture, all pieces from my mom, or pieces that people made for my mom.

The quilts in my house are things my mother made or people made in honor of her, so, the photographs, everything.

And I really believe in, I just believe every person is important.

And that means their story is important.

And so, knowing these little stories, especially the stories that don't get told, you know, people that run the county, the little country store, they provide the, like, lifeblood of that community and yet they get overlooked so much.

So, I love sitting in with those places and going into those stories and really examining what those people are like.

-Do you get into the history of that too in the community, just generally, because that's fascinating or - -I do.

-Interesting for you?

-Yes, as soon as I bought this house, I researched the community.

This community was called Burnley.

There was a big plantation here.

There was a train station.

You know, I just immediately looked into all the history here because I want to know where I live and who's here, and they call this little community the Valley, the Burnley Valley, because we're between two hills.

-So, what would you like to share with someone if they are not familiar with either of the series?

What will they find?

What would be the that joy to share with a viewer?

-Yes, I always tell people if you like murder mysteries, animals, good friendships, and page turners, these are good books for you.

Like, so that you'll find strong women.

You'll find a little bit of romance, not the main point but the sub-plot.

You'll find a lot of local history, all based in real places, and you'll find some of me.

So, I hope people like that part.

-Yes, I've done.

I do.

And congratulations on these.

I've totally enjoyed them and a little bit of escape and a little bit of fun.

And doesn't everybody deserve that?

-Absolutely.

-My special thanks to ACF Bookens, Andi, for inviting us here to her home to meet her beautiful rescue dogs who have been so well behaved.

And my special thanks to Jill Flynchum.

Jill is a viewer who got in touch with us and said this is one author she really wanted to have on the show.

So, thank you, Jill Flynchum, for suggesting it.

It's been a great show.

Check out more of our conversation online because she's going to stick around, and I've got a lot more questions.

Be sure to tell all of your friends about us.

I'm Rose Martin, and I'll see you next time Write Around The Corner .

-♪ Every day every day Ev ery day every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪