[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner in Staunton, Virginia, at The Staunton Lanes, with writer and author, Andy Straka.

Andy is a best-selling, award-winning author, and in his book, Split City , we meet Billy Gill.

He's a washed-up pro bowler, and he owns a struggling small town bowling alley.

There's a murder to solve, and what on earth is going on with his identical twin brother?

Hi, Andy.

-Hi.

Thank you for having me.

-And I love this location to talk about you and your book, Split City .

-Yeah, it's fun.

It really-- it feels a little bit like the fictional Split City .

-Well, and bowling is not really all fictional for you, though.

-Yeah.

-So, growing up, it was really a special time that you had with your family.

-Yeah.

Yep.

This is actually my tenth book, and it kind of grew-- I started it right at the beginning of the, I guess, it was 2020 now, I'm losing track of time, when the pandemic started.

I was working on a couple of other projects at the time.

And, you know, the whole world seemed to be going upside down.

And I just had this vision that I needed to stop my other books, which tended to be much more closer to reality.

This was a military espionage kind of international thriller with a co-author that I was working on.

And I said, I want to write something that's just fun, and that's-- I've always been a fan of mysteries.

I mean, that's what I've written for most of my books, crime fiction.

But I wanted to write something that wasn't quite so-- serious is not the right word because there's a murder, but I wanted it to be more like an Agatha Christie, which I've always admired, people who write those, because they're often character-driven.

And I wanted to create a character-driven series that was-- and the idea for a bowling alley came out of my own background.

I happen to be-- this book is probably more autobiographical than any other books I've written-- are this new series.

I'm an identical twin.

I grew up in a small town, upstate New York, probably not much different than Staunton where we are now, actually smaller.

And my parents took us to church every Sunday, and they took us bowling at a local bowling alley.

It was actually about 10 miles away in a slightly bigger town every Sunday.

So, I had that memory come back to me, and I thought, wouldn't it be cool to create a mystery series with a former pro bowling, identical twin brothers who own this bowling alley, and there's mysteries to be solved.

And so-- and it's-- I thought, well, and I wanted to bring in the church element and the faith-based element and the community element.

So, there's a meeting that happens at this bowling alley once a month called Jesus Spares that meets, and it's a local pastor that comes in.

And all of the mysteries will kind of come out of that because it's kind of grown, and there are people that come for free bowling with that-- around that event.

So, that was the idea, and it was Billy Gills, Billy and Bo Gills.

They're identical twin brothers.

And that's-- I started with the characters.

I had no idea what was going to happen as far as the plot.

That's normally the way my books go.

I normally start with a character.

-Well, and you were quite a character yourself at the age of four years old, according to your website, taking a butcher knife and finding, going to the neighbor's house.

And were you looking for a murder or-- and luckily, the neighbors called your mom, right, to come and get you back.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know, but that was a story my mom told with a chuckle.

I don't know what would happen today.

They probably would have called Social Services or something.

But I showed up at the neighbor's house with a big butcher knife, and they called my mom, and course, I have no memory of this.

I was four years old, but.

And it was a small town.

You know, everybody knew everybody.

They knew who I was, and so they knew who to call.

-They're probably still telling stories about you, as it is a small town.

-Yeah.

-So, growing up as an identical twin, so did you and your brother play pranks on people in town and teachers?

-You know, we really didn't, not consciously.

There were times people would confuse us, and it was especially funny at a couple of occasions when my girlfriend in high school confused me for my brother coming up at an angle.

People can tell us apart who know us just because we have different personalities, and we look, even to this day, pretty similar.

But no, we didn't really do a lot of pranking.

-How about personality-wise, are you alike?

Are you different?

-Quite different.

Quite different.

-How so?

-My brother is an economist.

He has a PhD in Economics, works for a big bank.

He actually used to work for Freddie Mac and so forth.

I'm actually pretty proud of him.

He's achieved a lot in his life.

-I'm sure he's proud of you, too.

-But we were competitive growing up.

We played sports.

And we would, you know, as brothers tend to do, we would fight and, you know, tussle and we both decided to gravitate toward basketball.

We focused on basketball.

We played basketball together throughout high school and in college.

We were on the same high school and college team together.

And so-- -Well, that had to be fun.

-Yeah.

It was.

And that worked to our advantage in games at times.

-Yeah?

-So, because the other opponents of the defenders would get confused to who they were supposed to be guarding at times.

Oh, no I've gotten that [indistinct].

We purposely had numbers that were somewhat similar.

So, I guess you could call that a prank.

It was a tactic, if you will.

So, anyway.

So, yeah.

So, I wanted to create, and I-- but the personalities-- you asked about the personalities.

We're different.

And I tend to be a little bit more outgoing, and he tends to be more thoughtful and analytical and so forth.

I have a Master's, but of course, he has a PhD, and he's-- I don't-- when I go into his office, I haven't been there in a few years now, but it looks like hieroglyphics on the board with all these economic, you know, formulas and things and so forth.

So, I don't understand it.

He doesn't necessarily understand my world necessarily either, except he does do some songwriting and some singing, so he does have that.

-So, he's got that creative spark.

-He's got that creative side, too.

-A little bit of creative to him.

-He does.

He does.

-What about your parents?

Were they writers?

Creative artists?

Singers?

-No.

Not really at all.

My dad was a manufacturer.

He started a company.

He was a methods engineer.

And unfortunately, he passed away when I was 11, and the company ended up getting swallowed up by other people and so forth.

And my mom was a secretary.

So-- but they were both in bowling leagues growing up, and I remember seeing-- and some of that you see in Split City with the bowling shoes and so forth and the bowling ball and stuff.

And it was-- so, every time I sit or walk into a bowling alley, those memories flood back to me.

And I guess that's what I tried to evoke with the Split City series, with the Jesus Spare series, is a feeling of community where you're known.

I guess it's a little bit like Agatha Christie meets Cheers.

I know I'm dating myself with that series.

But for those of us who remember that, you know, "where everybody knows your name," I think, was the tagline from that.

And that's what I wanted to create with Split City .

-With a quote in the book, was this from your dad?

"Iron sharpens iron, boys.

Keep at it.

Winners never quit.

The harder you work, the luckier you will get."

-That was from my dad.

Something-- I paraphrased it a little bit.

But yes, that definitely was-- in fact, he gave us a book with that title, which was all about great sports heroes and so forth.

-So, it's got to be great for you to be able to take, after your success in the other series which we'll talk about later, but then to bring so much of you and your family into Split City .

-M m-hmm.

Yeah.

-But another side of you, you are actually a licensed falconer.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, for the viewers, let's tell everybody what that means.

-The sport of falconry means hunting with birds of prey.

And it's actually not legal to own a bird of prey in the United States.

They're all protected species as part of the Migratory Species Act.

-Mm-hmm.

-But you can possess one for either hunting purposes or rehabbers also may possess them temporarily, as they're rehabbing them back to health, particularly those that are injured in the wild.

So, there are about 5,000 licensed falconers in the United States.

And that goes back to my Pavlicek series.

I actually was not a licensed falconer when I started that series.

But after a book and a half, and I'd been out with a bunch of falconers and several groups over a few years and research and so forth.

I said, you know, I can do this.

So, I went and got a sponsor and got my license, and so I had five different hawks over a number of years.

I don't have one currently just because of some health issues I have had.

And I was also-- I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, stage 3 prostate cancer.

And so, I'm sitting here very blessed.

Very thankful to still be in remission with that and to be able to write books.

So, there's been a few hiccups along the way, and so I had to kind of give up falconry at that point, just going through some things, and then I've had some other health issues.

But I'm very thankful to be doing this and to still be writing.

-Well, we're very thankful too that you're here and have brought so much creativity and some great books into the world.

You mentioned the word research.

And I guess, falconry, you took that level of research in your book to a whole new level by becoming licensed.

But what was the research like for this series with Split City ?

-You know, it didn't require as much because I knew the feel of a bowling-- it was almost in my-- -You were home.

-It was in my DNA.

-Yeah.

-You know, and it was just-- so, okay, I know what this feels like.

I feel like I'm home.

I feel like-- and the same thing with the setting because I grew up in upstate New York.

I've been in Virginia now for 34 years.

And most of my other books are set in Virginia.

But it felt like coming home.

It feels like coming home even when I go-- and I write the settings and I write the scenes.

I know what it feels like to live through an upstate New York winter.

I know what it feels like when those muddy streams are running in the spring, and you just kind of go, "Ah, it's finally warming up."

-Right.

-And 40 degrees feels balmy, you know, when it's been, you know, 20 and below, you know, from winter.

So, I know that.

It's part of who I am.

And so, I didn't have to-- it was fun because I didn't have to work so hard in creating some of the scenery.

And then the characters, of course, is just-- I thought, well, I want to make a lot of really different sort of characters and peculiar people.

It's, you know, just small-town people, people that you'd want to hang out with.

They all have foibles.

They all have imperfections.

-And they're all endearing.

So, you had mentioned in the beginning that you love character-driven stories.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, was that the first step, is developing the characters, or were you developing the storyline first?

-Absolutely, the characters.

And the same thing is true with my Pavlicek series.

I started with Frank Pavlicek, and I had this idea that he would be a former cop who becomes a private investigator.

Well, okay.

There are a million of those, right?

But I wanted to do something different, and I was out actually with my wife who had got me into bird watching, and I saw this hawk go by and I said, "Oh, I think there's something called falconry.

I think you could have a hawk."

And then I, of course, I immediately thought of The Maltese Falcon and all these references and stuff.

That's where that came from, but it was the character.

It was-- and, you know, the story kind of grew out of that.

That's normally what I start by.

-Do you write a draft first, or do you know the ending first?

Or do you let it happen just organically?

-It's not an analytical sequential process, I'll put it that way.

-Okay.

-It is-- I do write-- I don't write an entire outline, but what I will do is I'll start with the character, and then I'll start with an essential problem.

I usually know where I'm going to some degree, but I only know so far as the, you know, the next little ways in the journey.

My favorite quote was that we-- I was at a panel years ago with the late Donald Westlake up in-- at the University of Virginia.

And that question came up about outlining versus, you know, writing, just writing it out.

And people, you know, were giving various answers about that, very erudite answers, and it came to Donald.

And, of course, you know who he was.

He had 50 books and-- -Yeah.

Right.

ANDY: His books were made into movies and all sorts of two different series.

And he said, "Well, I use the technique of narrative push.

And I see all these people," at least some of these MFAs, definitely.

And he said, "Basically, I just make it up as I go along."

-That's great, though.

-Yeah.

And I think it's a little bit of both.

-Yeah.

-I think part-- if something's too scripted, at least for me, I want that feeling of spont-- I don't want to know everything that's going to happen.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I get surprised many times by characters.

"Oh, I didn't see that coming."

And even-- whether it's a romantic element or whether it's-- whatever subplots are coming around, and the main characters sometimes.

And that's part of the pleasure of it for me is, well, I'm telling this.

This story is unraveling before me as I'm writing it.

And now, it may change.

-Right.

-I may go out some blind alleys, but as I've gone along and written more and more books, it gets a little bit easier to kind of recognize those before I get too far.

-Yeah.

What's the favorite part of the process for you?

-The favorite part is probably almost like where I am now with the second book in the Split City .

It's almost done with kind of a first/second draft sort of thing, and I'm doing editing and rewriting and pushing things around, and there's a certain amount of creativity involved in that as well.

The, you know, it's also-- I also very much enjoy doing the first draft.

It's sort of cranking out all the-- you know, the draft and at least some rough feeling for where the story is going to go.

But then getting to that next level of editing, self-editing, and it is really fun.

And fortunately, there are a lot of writing tools now available.

I use a software called Scrivener that I can scene the entire book, sort of a 30,000-foot view, and I can move virtual cards around and move whole chapters very easily, which is great, a great tool, because when I wrote my first book back in the late 1990s, I had three-by-five cards out of my ping pong table laid out, I was moving them around that way.

So, it's a-- -Technology can be a great thing.

-Yes.

Yes.

So, anyway.

So, yeah.

That's been sort of my process.

-So, all right, I heard that you said you were drawn to voice in characters.

So, when you're looking at voice, what's the most important thing that you would even share with people who are just trying to write a book or what to look for in a book that they're reading of how important voice is within-- in that context?

-I think it goes back to character and personality and also to a rhythm of the words.

To me, I've had the opportunity to read a lot of books.

I've been fortunate enough to serve as a literary judge for the Edgar Alan Poe Awards, for example, on two or three different occasions.

So, I had to read a lot of very fine writers, much better than I, and to me, fine writing-- take someone like William Kent Krueger, for example.

To me, it's music when I read him or Michael Connelly or some of these people.

It almost sounds like music, and I can hear that in the voice.

And there's personality there, and it's unique, or to take sort of a different text, look at someone like Janet Evanovich.

I mean, it's hilarious.

It's just-- it's such a unique voice, and it's funny, and there's unique quirky characters, and you feel like, "Ah, I want to be a part of this world.

I want to know what happens next.

I want to know what happens to her next and her character."

And it's really-- it's almost like knowing a person.

-Well, I loved what you said about "I want to write books that I'm telling myself a story."

And that's what's bringing in all of those voices.

So, I can't wait to find out what's happening next.

So, I can't wait to laugh next to what's happening for each of those characters.

Okay.

Let's get to Split City .

-Okay.

-So, there were some great twists and turns in this book.

But set it up for everyone who has not read the book yet.

Open it up for us, and introduce us to the characters and the story.

-Sure.

You have Billy and Bo Gills.

They are identical twins.

-The identical twins.

-And you have Patula Jenkins, who is the general manager of Split City.

Split City is the small-town bowling alley in Partridgeberry County, a little town called Twin Strikes, which actually has nothing to do with the twins.

It was named after a simultaneous lightning strike that occurred years before on Lake Karas de Waupaca, which is where it's set-- -And I was not even going to try to say that.

-Yeah.

-Asking you to say that.

-Yes.

Which is an old-- -Yeah.

ANDY: --completely made-up Indian name of this lake in the Catskills mountains of Upstate New York, in this little lakeside town with this little bowling alley, and so, those are some of the main characters.

And Billy and Bo are quite different.

They were former pro bowlers.

At one point, they were on the tour, the PBA tour, but they've gone-- that was a number of years ago.

Billy just ended up migrating to this town because their uncle used to own the alley, and he sort of inherited it.

Bo has a lot of money because he started Tread Bow, which is this fashion bowling shoe company, and the manufacturing factory is actually in the county seat of Partridgeberry.

And that's actually a big part of the story in Split City .

So, when at the-- in the opening of the book, Billy is called to the morgue by the local sheriff, by the Partridgeberry County sheriff, to identify a body whom the sheriff tells him is his twin brother.

So, that's how it opens.

And I'm not going to say exactly where it goes from there too much, but things sort of begin to unravel and Billy's-- his brother is very eccentric.

-Right.

And flamboyant and very different and down-to-earth.

-His brother is very different than Billy.

Billy is sort of a meat and potatoes, run the alley kind of thing.

And Bo is, you know, has a big cabin cruiser.

He, like, he does something called extreme ironing where-- -We actually had to look that up to see what that meant.

-It's a real thing.

-Looked that up, like, I don't even know if that-- Carol and I were like, "Is that real?"

Yeah.

-It's real.

Yeah.

So, he does stunts where you have to iron a shirt, you know, doing all sorts of crazy, like skiing down a mountain or so-- he does all sorts of crazy things.

And so, Billy's concerned that Bo's got into some trouble, and of course, you know, he's somewhat of a target because of his money.

And anyway, that's kind of the impetus for the story, where it's beginning anyway.

-But I also love a story that has a great dog.

-Okay.

Oh yeah.

-So, you've got Herc in here.

-Yep.

Right.

So, Billy has an ex-love interest.

He has a budding new one, but his ex, who was a lawyer, and he shared custody of a golden retriever named Hercules.

They call him Herc.

And so, Billy ends up with him a great deal of the time.

And in a good part of this book, Herc's going around as sort of a semi-partner with Billy-- -Yeah.

ANDY: --in various settings, helping him to discover things.

-Well, and like any great bowling alley who has events for the community, then we've got the Jesus Spares, right?

So, we've got that event, a church service and bowling, and it brings the community together, but in ways that maybe the community doesn't always expect.

-Yep.

Yeah.

-Would that be fair to say?

Okay.

-Yeah.

-And so, then, they have other conferences that happened, the split down the middle conference, and so, the bowling alley is really the heart-- -Right.

ROSE: --of the community, where people can come to see each other, where they can get in trouble sometimes... -Yes.

-...where they can just visit, and the heart of the community.

-Yes.

-So, in terms of the story and how everything winds around the community and the bowling alley, what's one thing that you think really ties all of this together of the story of Split City ?

-I would say it's the setting, and it is the uniqueness of the alley and the Jesus Spares events that are going on.

It's a faith-based book but not preachy at all.

That was-- that's a big part of my life.

It was a big part of my life growing up.

And it's very community-oriented so that it is a coming together but not in a conventional sense.

So, the Jesus Spares services, if you can even call them those, don't-- do not look like-- -And that's really kind of clever because you have to smile.

Right?

Because you're like, okay.

The community is coming for a little religious community event, and it's Jesus Spares at the bowling alley.

-Right.

-So, it's clever.

-Well, and I stole that idea because it's actually a bowling shirt.

It's actually on several different bowling shirts for different teams around the country.

I said, oh, okay.

I know exactly what this is going to be.

It's going to be some kind of a unique event.

It's not going to be like a regular church service.

And so, there's a pastor who starts this.

He's from the south.

And he's actually a former football, college football player himself, big guy.

And he is the pastor of a small congregation there, but he has the-- he, along with Patula Jenkins, who's part of his church, have this brainstorm for this idea for Jesus Spares, so.

-Would you be willing to read something for us?

-Sure.

Of course.

-And set it up for us.

What did you choose?

-I chose the beginning.

-Okay.

-It's always good to begin at the beginning.

Didn't want to give too much away.

So-- -Okay.

-This is the beginning of Split City .

"In bowling, as the old joke goes, "there is never a good time to clean the gutters.

"Likewise, I suppose there is never "a good time to visit the morgue.

"Sheriff Reginald Lawton frowned at me "in the antiseptic light.

'Why are you a cop?'

I asked.

"'What kind of a question is that?'

"I'd always liked the man "but wasn't too fond of his laser-like appraisal of me "as we shook hands in the cold of the early morning.

"His coffee-colored eyes hinted a suspicion.

"His forehead tapered into huge brown ears.

"One of the ears had been partly lopped off, "which had spawned all sorts of rumors about his past "because he'd been a police officer "in the city years before.

"'I don't know,' I said.

'I imagine this must be "a stressful part of your work.

That's all.'

"'Stress comes with the job,' he grunted.

"I didn't respond.

My name is Billy Gills.

"I'm a former pro bowler "and co-owner of Split City Lanes, "a classic hometown bowling alley in Twin Strikes, "a charmingly run-downtown in Partridgeberry County, "a forgotten corner of the Catskill Mountains "of upstate New York, "which makes me about as far from being a cop "as I am from picking up a 710 split.

"The sheriff released my hand from his meaty grip.

"'Seems you're a little jumpy.'

'Sorry,' I said, "'Never been through anything like this before.'

"'Of course,' he raised an eyebrow.

"'But you also said you were certain "this isn't who I think it is.'

I nodded.

"'How do you know that again?'

He asked.

"'Instinct,' I tapped my head, 'You know, gut feeling.'

"'Right,' he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"He clearly wasn't buying my stick.

"But I needed to cling to something "to push away my anxiety.

"We were standing after all in the entryway "to the basement morgue, tucked discreetly below "the county medical examiner's office "in our county seat of Partridgeberry, "where a rusted vent fan wheezed above the door.

"The sheriff and I knew each other "through the occasional pick-up basketball game "at the local high school.

"I wasn't much of a hoop player myself "and neither was he, but the sheriff was an unselfish "and relentless competitor, a ferocious rebounder "who set tree-like screens "and never hesitated to dive on the floor for a loose ball.

"We might have come from different geographic "and racial backgrounds, "but we share the same competitive spirit "and have grown to respect one another "as casual acquaintances.

"He used a key to open the lock on the morgue door.

"Leaving an otherwise pleasant May morning behind, "I followed him into a short corridor "lined with gun-metal-gray lockers.

"The temperature in the hallway "reminded me of the inside of my refrigerator, "which I remember was badly in need of cleaning.

"'I appreciate you coming down here so early, Billy,' "said the sheriff.

'We don't usually have to go "through this step for suicides.

"But like I told you on the phone, "considering your brother's so well-known in the community, "not to mention a major employer, I want to be careful about any public statement.'"

-Oh, I think you've given the viewers-- that's a great point to end your passage to say, "I want to pick up this book."

Thank you so much.

It's been great chatting with you-- -Thank you.

ROSE: --and learning all about Split City .

-Thank you very much for having me.

-My special thanks to Andy Straka and the people here at Staunton Lanes for being so gracious and inviting us here so we could film this episode of Write Around the Corner .

Please check out our extended interview online.

We're going to be chatting with Andy about this book and all of his others.

And share that link with your friends.

We'd love to have them join us, too.

I'm Rose Martin, and I will 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 ♪