[Narrator] This program is brought to you by the generous support of the Secular Society.

Advancing the interests of women in the arts in Virginia and beyond.

♪♪♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪♪♪ -Welcome.

I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around the Corner at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, with crime fiction writer, award-winning author Ed Aymar.

His book, When She Left , opens with a young couple on the run and lots of trials and tribulations, and I'm wondering to myself, is it ever worth killing someone for love?

-Hm.

Let's find out.

-Hi, Ed.

Welcome to Write Around the Corner .

-Hi, Rose.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so honored to be part of this show.

We were talking earlier about the writers you've had on here, some of my heroes, some are friends of mine.

It's an honor to join the lineup.

-[Rose Martin] Well, thank you.

We're looking forward to everyone getting to know you and a whole new audience for you.

-I'm really looking forward to that, too.

-[Rose] And so, Marymount University.

You have a special relationship with the university here.

-I do.

I love coming back here.

I got my master's in literature from this university, and they were the first university I ever did a writing event for.

They invited me to talk to their graduate students in, their graduating students in humanities.

And it was great.

They've been so supportive of me.

And now I'm on the board of their College of Humanities and Sciences.

-Well, we're happy to give them a shout-out, and thank you for bringing us here.

-Thank you.

-[Rose] So let's go back to Ed realizing that he wanted to be a writer.

-You're an only child.

-Yeah.

-And so was writing an escapism?

Because I know your family was military, right?

-Right.

-[Rose] And so what was it like for writing and reading for you as a young boy?

-Reading's all I did.

You know, I think a lot of writers have that story, right?

We all have that story where there's a teacher that believed in you and said, "You should write."

And I had that.

But writing for me, I was kind of a lonely kid growing up, you know.

I was an extrovert, and I had a good-- I had loving parents, and I still do have loving parents.

-[Rose] It's good to bring that out right now.

In case they're watching, it's good to say your parents are loving parents.

-Yeah, they don't hate me all of a sudden.

But we, you know, we traveled a lot.

We, you know, lived in, you know, several different places when I was growing up.

And I read and reread books all the time, and my parents let me read whatever I wanted.

And that's I think when I started reading crime fiction.

Because I read really violent books.

And my parents had no problems with that.

It's kind of like the equivalent of a kid playing Grand Theft Auto today.

And they're like, "Should he be doing that?"

But it ended up-- those books ended up leading to better books.

-Mm.

Were they both readers?

-My dad was.

My mom too, to be fair.

My dad was the one who engaged with me, though.

And, you know, I remember when I first started reading thrillers.

And I read David Morrell, who wrote Rambo , and then wrote the Brotherhood of the Rose , and other really celebrated work.

And uh... -[Rose] How old were you when you were reading, like Rambo and some of these books?

-I think I was probably eighth or ninth grade.

And my dad had read them.

And Alistair MacLean was another.

So reading his books with all the twists and turns.

And my dad seemed to have a photographic memory.

He'd read those books years ago and could talk with me about them.

-[Rose] Hm.

Has he read your books?

-Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He reads everything I write.

-Which is-- -[Rose] Is he the first reader, or do you wait until after it's in print and then say, "Here you go."

-After print.

I don't ask him to read anything.

It's just-- I feel like it's an imposition to ask people to read books sometimes, because they're so big.

Which isn't to say that everybody shouldn't read my books, they absolutely should, and I'm happy to make that imposition.

Just not with my dad.

-That's what we want people to do, to say we want people to read Ed's books.

Okay, so you grew up in the military in an all-boy male traditional structure.

-Yeah, very much.

-[Rose] And how did that influence either what you became or didn't become?

And what you're doing now?

-That's a really good question.

Because I...

Growing up in a lot of male-dominated societies has really influenced me as a writer.

You know, I grew up in military environments.

I joined a fraternity in college.

I was very active in that.

I did sports.

And those were not coed sports.

They were all male sports.

And it kind of turned me off.

I was also-- you know, I grew up in the church, as-- Catholic church.

-We have that in common.

-Yeah, yeah.

I don't recognize you, though.

-I don't recognize you either.

-Your story doesn't check out.

-Yeah.

-But I-- It kind of soured me.

There was a point where all male societies to me have-- can occasionally get poisonous.

And there can be something in there where you have... where you have men who enjoy the company of men, but they like it because they really dislike the company of women.

And that was something I realized and something I really didn't take to.

My closest friends have always been women, but I hung out in male groups just because that's sort of where you get pushed, you know, different things, in sports, in school.

And the superiority complex that a lot of men have really-- really...

I was repelled by that.

And it showed up in my writing later.

-And when we get to the book, now it makes total sense why you write such great women.

-Oh, thank you.

-[Rose] But how about your son?

How have you made sure-- -because you have one son.

-Yeah.

-[Rose] And so how are you making sure that his life is something that, you're crafting as being in charge of this one human, right?

And making sure that you're giving him those things you were either missing or you want him to know.

-Well, I never thought of it that way, and now it feels like a lot of pressure.

-Okay, let's relieve the pressure.

So it's only about your son.

-No, it's tough.

And it's fascinating.

Because we don't-- if he wants-- whatever he wants to play with, whatever toys he gravitates towards, fine.

We have no problems with that.

Whatever movies he wants to see, shows.

But from a young age, even before the influence of his friends, there was just kind of a natural tendency towards violence.

A natural--his toys, he took them together and my wife would say, "Why do all the toys have to fight?"

And he was, you know, like just one and a half or two and banging the toys together and then asking me when he was three or four, like, "Who would win?"

And he's like, you know, "This truck or this fireman?"

And I'm like, "I don't know, man.

"It's a truck and a fireman.

[indistinct] win.

The truck probably."

But there was always that level of violence, right?

And that natural tendency towards fighting.

And I was an only child and I only have this kid.

And I never really liked kids until my own.

So I don't know how kids are.

And I asked my wife, "Would a girl do this?"

And she's like, "No, a girl wouldn't have all their toys fight."

So it's fascinating to see that.

But he's also a very empathetic, very feeling kid.

And I think we try to do a really good job of explaining to him, you know, "This is-- I don't want you to look "at something one dimensionally.

"I want you to see beyond that.

To be something better."

-And that's great.

I mean, to know that you've got that responsibility.

So you and your wife together are being like, "We've got this little human, so let's do the best we can with them."

-Yeah.

It's strange.

Because I didn't really-- I feel like I was maybe a sociopath before, because I never really-- people would say, "Oh, kids, you got to think about kids."

And I was like, "Why?"

[laughing] Then I had one, and it changed everything for me.

I think it...

I wouldn't say it made me a better writer or a different one.

But it made me a better person.

And it gave me a bit of separation from that.

Because prior to my son, writing was everything, you know.

My wife knew that, and it was kind of like a contest between her and my writing to see which I would favor.

-Oooh, that's a tough spot.

-Well, for me, not for her.

-Okay, but she knew she was going to win.

-Yeah, but then your kid comes in.

-[Rose] Yeah.

-And it's like, you know, that's like the best thing I've ever done.

-That's amazing.

-It's weird.

-Yeah.

-There was a point where I realized, you know, on my dying day, I'm not going to regret not having written more, but I would regret not spending more time with my son.

-[Rose] Mm.

I love that.

I love that.

Your background is so interesting because like, you're still doing reviews for the Washington Post .

-Yeah.

-[Rose] And yet you are so involved in everything crime fiction from every organization possible.

But yet you've got a media, TV background, too.

How do they all go together?

Or do they?

-Yeah.

So I worked for C-SPAN for years.

And I did marketing for them.

So I wasn't on camera or anything like that.

But it gave me a very good perspective of authors and books.

Because C-SPAN has Book TV on C-SPAN, too.

And I loved promoting them.

I love watching the tapings and the airings.

I think it helped in that in the sense that I had an understanding of the author's life a little bit before I started.

But there was so much I didn't know.

And I didn't know, for example, I thought--when I wrote my first book, which was fortunately not published, I thought I was like Moses.

I thought I was coming down out of a cave-- -With the tablets.

Here we go.

-[Ed] With the tablets.

-[chuckles] -Gather, readers, and see what I have.

And there was no gathering.

There were no readers.

There was nobody who wanted to publish it.

And I, you know, quickly learned like, "You know what, nobody knows who I am.

"I don't know anything about this industry.

"I have to make connections.

I have to meet people."

And I made a lot of mistakes.

And after that, getting involved with organizations, I saw writers, young aspiring writers, making those same mistakes.

You know, I like to do what I can to help them avoid those same pitfalls.

-That's wonderful.

So you're a mentor, and I left the mentorship even off the list.

So being a mentor to young writers.

And does your newsletter do some of that too?

Because you have a crime fiction newsletter.

-Yeah and that's been... you know, part of my background is marketing.

And that's a big part of being a writer, right?

So writers are looking at social media, ways to reach readers, [indistinct] at events.

And you really have to find the thing that works for you.

Social media doesn't really work for me in that way.

I can't get a lot of readers through social media.

I don't post that much.

I'm not on that often.

It starts irritating me.

I doomscroll.

But the newsletter, that comes out once a month.

That gives me a chance to write about what's happening in crime fiction and to do it in a very personal way.

And it has about 5,000 subscribers, and they tend to be active subscribers, which is wonderful.

And it's, you know, you see you find with marketing and with PR, what works best for you, what makes you happiest is often the best route for you to reach readers, and that's mine.

-So I have a note that says, "Make sure to ask you about the picture of Cindy on the wall."

-Oh, my gosh.

How do you have that note?

[laughing] -All righty.

-Oh, man.

That's rough.

I, uh... you're going to make me blush through my Panamanian... [laughs] skin here.

Yeah.

So that's really awkward, but--it's a fun story, but an awkward one.

And it really is a testament to my wife.

So what I like to do is when I write books, I like to get photographs of actors that are characters that I envision for the book.

And it helps me visualize them and gives them a grounding sense of reality.

But also, it helps me-- I pin those pictures and I pin the outline all around my desk on the wall.

And when I sit down to write, I feel like I'm slipping into the story.

But from my first book, The Unrepentant , I could not figure out who the main character looked like.

It was this woman and she had-- and she was a younger woman and I just could not get an actress who reminded me of her.

And then our nanny at the time, my kid was a year or two old, our nanny at the time, her best friend came over with her once.

And it was this woman named Cindy.

And I was like, "Oh, my gosh, "she's-- that's exactly it.

That's who this character is."

So I went on Facebook-- and this is where it gets weird-- and I found Cindy.

-[indistinct] somewhat of a stalker.

Yeah.

-I printed out her picture and put it on the wall.

And then my wife was like-- she came down like-- and I forgot.

I forgot all about it.

And then she came down a couple weeks later and she was like, "Why do you have a picture of our nanny's best friend on the wall?"

And I was like, "Oh, that's inspiration for my book," and it just...

But my wife is very loving and understanding, and she bought it.

-Yeah.

And she knows you're a writer.

And characters come from everywhere.

So in the process of coming up with characters, we know that you're going to reach anywhere.

And that's probably what you tell other young writers, too, is think outside of the box.

You know, look for people.

Find even, you know, a conglomeration of all kinds of people.

And you might put them together, right?

-And you forget.

You forget.

People tell me stories that end up going in books, and then they'll say, like, "You used my story."

And I'm like, that wasn't-- It also-- this feels-- this isn't right.

But it feels like it's my story then.

It feels like it goes in the book and it's changed.

I've changed it, it belongs to me now.

That's not really fair, and I understand that.

But it's just part of-- I think it's just part of the process.

-[Rose] Yeah.

And I think you get inspiration from so many places.

I loved one thing that I heard you say.

"I want to write like fast food.

"Sitting with me in an uncomfortable way.

It's over way too soon."

-Yeah.

Yeah.

And I want it to feel, you know, depending on the book and the story, I want you to feel afterwards-- I want you to absorb it.

I want you to eat it fast, just like fast food.

-Page-turner.

-And then after I want you to feel a little upset.

I want you to feel a little, like discombobulated.

Like, "You know, I don't know how I feel about that."

But I-- and I want-- so I want there to be something unsettling.

And then I want you to come back and eat more.

That's my goal.

-[Rose] I love that.

And you're a structured writer.

So you like to know what's happening.

You're not just sitting down and seeing where it's going to go.

And it's interesting how their points of view in your book come from, you know, the person that's in that character that's going to be in the focus at the time.

So have you written always in a very structured way like this?

-Yeah.

I have to write by an outline.

And it-- you know, a lot of writers I know who don't write by outlines think it's going to dilute the book somehow.

That you're going to lose the tension.

You're going to lose the pace of it because you're telling a story that you already know how it's going to end.

And I understand that, but I don't see it that way.

For me, an outline is just like the beginning of a path.

Like it shows you like, "Okay, you're going to go into the woods here."

And you can see a little bit of white.

But when you start writing, you step-- you go, you go to that light.

And then you step beyond it.

So you don't know what's coming next.

Even if you have a sense of direction.

You don't know what the direction necessarily holds.

-And I read that you are a slow reader.

But your empathy comes through in the fact that you don't really like to give bad reviews.

-Oh, yeah.

-[Rose] Yeah.

Tough?

-I did when I wrote a review, one of my first reviews, not for the Post , but for a different publication.

The Washington Independent Review of Books .

And it just broke me.

I felt terrible for a week, you know?

And I didn't-- I wasn't mean.

I didn't-- I thought I was fair.

I--you know, agonized about it ahead of time.

But I didn't like doing it.

And I think bad reviews are necessary and important.

And I prefer reading them.

Because-- not of my books.

-But I prefer reading them.

-Yeah.

That goes without saying.

-Okay.

Good.

Because they have to present a stronger argument than a good review.

But I also find now a bit of... creativity in trying to write a unique positive review.

Something that's not going to rely on traditional buzzwords.

You know, "This is the embodiment of the human experience."

I want to go beyond that.

And something that people will find novel and interesting.

-[Rose] Well, and I like the fact that you have such an attention to detail.

That you like your settings to be like a real place.

Like you had mentioned, "Oh, like the DMV."

You know?

Or being somewhere real.

But when the research part comes in, the pieces that you had to do on sex trafficking, and, you know, that had to be really, really tough.

Where do you kind of draw the line in your research so that you don't end up going down such a rabbit hole... to know, like, "I can go further, but for this book, I only need to go this far."

-Yeah.

It's tough to know.

And you don't always know where to stop.

A lot of times it's your editor or your early readers who give you that feedback.

Who say, "You know, you're losing me here.

You're going too far."

You can get-- you write and rewrite so often that you can get-- your nerves can get deadened a little bit, and you start to forget what's shocking or what's horrifying.

With sex trafficking, it was really tough.

And with my first book, I tried not to hold-- pull a lot of punches, I did.

And when people asked me, you know, they were like, "Where did you stop, you know, with the, you know, where did you draw the line?"

I said, you know, most of the stories that I read about or heard about were-- happened to children.

In my book, there were no children.

But that's not something-- that's not ground that I felt comfortable broaching for that book.

-Well, let's talk about this book.

I loved it.

And, you know, When She Left is a story in my mind about loss, no matter who you are, where you are, or maybe something that's missing.

I love the characters.

And thought they were-- I mean, I love the fact that there were strong women in Melissa.

But you introduce the characters to our viewers.

Give us the central people.

-Yeah.

So the story revolves around Jake and Melissa.

They're a young couple on the run.

Melissa's left her boyfriend, Chris, who's a rising star in a crime organization.

And Melissa and Jake-- -[Rose] Just by the way, I think he's awful.

-Yeah.

-He's a monster.

And like, okay.

So go ahead.

-Yeah.

I always like to have a character who's a little beyond redeemable.

Not that somebody can't find redemption, but Chris fit that for me.

But Jake and Melissa are on the run, and they're chased by a former or a current real estate agent/assassin named Wucky Wilson who's hired to find them.

And you're right, it's really astute that you talked about the loss of the characters.

Because for this story, I really wanted to-- I used to be a big fan of Hemingway.

Speaking of all-male kind of environments.

And he wrote a book of short stories that-- called Men Without Woman , I believe.

And it was all men dealing-- stories about men who have been missing what he saw as the feminine side of their nature.

And I wanted to write a book similar to that about how men react when they lose the woman in their lives.

So Chris has a distance from his mother.

And Wucky is worried that his wife's having an affair.

And he has a teenage daughter who's sort of on the verge of adulthood.

And Chris has lost Melissa.

And these three men are reacting to it, and they're reacting to those losses, and that really propels the story.

-So in the story, I love that Jake is a photographer.

And so we learn a lot about him through the pictures, and the theme runs through the book.

So it opens with them on the run in a diner.

So it's very action-packed from the very first page.

And then you've got assassins.

You've got twists and turns.

You've got them on the run because that Chris is upset that he's lost Melissa.

But there's more to it than that.

How did you keep these little nuggets of the story separate from revealing too much too soon, but you kept us, like you said, you want us to turn the pages fast and consume the book?

-I once got a really good review from Kirkus, and they're really hard to get good reviews from.

And they really praised my plotting.

And I thought, "I do not think I'm a good plotter.

I don't know where they got that from."

But I realized...

I thought about it.

I thought about what they said.

You learn sometimes from people reviewing your work.

That, you know, what worked for that book and what I've continued to do is use other perspectives.

Because you can reveal things about other characters through that without the limitations of just one person learning.

And that also complicates the plot.

Because I have Jake and Melissa and Wucky, and they all have their perspectives.

But bringing them together, finding a way to do that just naturally entangles and complicates everything in the story.

And within that, then all the surprises are revealed.

It almost feels like cheating.

Because I'm very intimidated-- I write thrillers.

I'm very intimidated by mysteries.

And mysteries that have, you know, clues throughout and hidden.

I don't know how writers do that, and it's something I worry about.

-Oh, you did that.

There were some times that you also led us into a mystery with, you know, some of your other characters like Ruby and Eric and his mom.

And I think Carol and I both agree that sometimes the bad guys aren't the bad guys and the good ones aren't the good ones, and you're never quite sure.

I'm like, "Oh, I like this one.

No, I don't like this one anymore."

So it's interesting that you took us on this amazing journey.

What's like a sentence that you would capture your story that you want viewers to think, you know, "This is a story... and this is why I want you to read it."

-Wow.

That's a good question.

I wish I had a good answer for it.

But I think the main thing that I want-- if there was one thing about the story that described it, I really feel that it's within-- What I try to... Crime fiction often talks about the dissolution of love, you know?

Crime fiction has to operate from a place, you know, that involves hate.

I want to write a story... that hopefully celebrates love.

-[Rose] Oh, I love that.

Would you be willing to read something for us?

-Yeah, absolutely.

-Okay.

-What'd you pick?

-All right.

This is the very opening of the book.

This is in the diner.

I always wanted to set a story in a diner because that just seems like such a crime fiction cool thing to do.

So that's why I started it here.

"Melissa Cruz realized she was trapped "the minute those two men sauntered "into the 24-hour diner.

"'They found us,' she whispered to Jake Smith.

"Hope had finally begun to seem like a possibility.

"And now it was over.

"The abrupt ending of an interrupted prayer.

"Her fists tightened helplessly in her lap.

"Breath was hard to come by.

"Jake sat across from her, "his back to the door, oblivious.

"He didn't look up from the camera as he spoke.

"'Who?

What?'

"Melissa brought her hand to her forehead to hide her face.

"Hoped the movement wasn't obvious.

"'The people hunting us,' "she said, low and intense.

"It was difficult for her to say the whole sentence, "fear nearly turning it into a question.

"'Hunting us?'

"Jake swung around.

"'Jake!'

Melissa whispered desperately.

"He ignored her, "kept looking at the two men who had entered the diner, "stared as they sat at a booth near the door.

"'Turn around!'

"Melissa's high hiss broke through and Jake turned.

"The bruises coloring the left side of his face, "a faded map, "were already less apparent than they had been yesterday, "but Melissa still noticed them.

"And despite her fear, "they still caused her heart to ache, "love and guilt wrestling inside of her "like a pair of angels tumbling to earth.

"'That's not them,' Jake announced.

"Melissa wanted to believe him, "wanted to let that wave of relief wash over her.

"'How do you know?'

"He shrugged, unconcerned.

"'They don't seem the type.

"'Polos, slacks, one of them has a lanyard.

"'Probably here for some kind of convention.

"Came to get food after a party.'

"Men always had this certainty of working in absolutes, "the world defined by their perspective.

"'Nothing's wrong.

"We're fine.

I thought so.'

"Sometimes Melissa found this confidence comforting, "even if she knew "it was misplaced.

"She peered again at the two men.

"'Or they're trying not to look suspicious.'

"Jake grinned.

That easy smile "that always softened everything inside her.

"'Honestly, if the Wintersons "'made custom polos to find us at midnight "'in some random diner, "they deserve to catch us.'

"He looked at his camera, snapped a pair of pictures "of the half-eaten food on their table, "the soft apple pie and finished dinner "and empty coffee cup in front of him, "the cooling bowl of tomato soup "and nibbled grilled cheese sandwich in front of her.

"He reached across the table with his free hand.

"'No one's after us,' Jake insisted.

"Her hand was cold in his.

"Melissa had accidentally left her jacket in the car "and the diner wasn't warm.

"She could feel the chill coming in from outside, "from the thin glass window alongside their booth.

"'No one just leaves them, Jake, especially the way we did.'"

-Oooh, so you leave us with a big clue and a great teaser for the book.

Ed, thank you so much for having us here.

I appreciate it.

-I'm really honestly honored to be here.

I'm so grateful to join your lineup, and thank you for having me and for coming out to Arlington and to Marymount.

-[Rose] Yeah.

My special thanks to Ed Aymar for inviting us here to Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, and for sharing his book When She Left .

I hope all of you are thinking about getting a copy right now.

And you know, I'm thinking, aren't we all missing something in our lives?

Stick around because I'm going to have more of a conversation with Ed about the book.

And why don't you tell your friends about us?

You can catch us online.

Until next time, I'm Rose Martin and I will see you Write Around the Corner .

♪♪♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪♪ -[Narrator] This program is brought to you by the generous support of the Secular Society.

Advancing the interest of women in the arts in Virginia and beyond.