Kris Neri

Mystery author Kris Neri says she's proof that having a somewhat checkered employment past can actually be a good thing.

"I've been an actress (mostly unemployed), sold insurance, been a middle manager in a medical lab, a bank teller, a secretary to a number of puffed-up executives, the person who hands out food samples in the supermarket, and other things," she says.

But what does that have to do with writing? Plenty, says Kris: "My lack of direction once felt like a failing, but all those experiences have brought so much to my writing and my life in general, that I can't regret them now."

To this transplanted Arizonan, every experience, good or bad, has provided a wealth of knowledge and feelings to draw from for her books and stories. Those things, she says, along with a dash of mystery and a generous application of conflict in her characters' lives, only help to make her writing richer.

"I love the way mysteries challenge characters," Kris says. "We don't meet these characters at the easiest times in their lives, but the most difficult and troubling. I like discovering the traits that emerge under pressure."

Kris's knack at building such three-dimensional characters has gained her reader praise and acclaim, including Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Award nominations for her first novel, REVENGE OF THE GYPSY QUEEN, (Rainbow Books, Worldwide Mystery). That book and the sequel, DEM BONES' REVENGE (Rainbow Books, Worldwide Mystery), also received the Samantha Award from Hutton Book Reviews for the Best Mystery Series.

Switching gears from her first two books, which center on the madcap adventures of Tracy Eaton, would-be writer and daughter of Hollywood actors, Kris goes a bit darker in her latest, NEVER SAY DIE, (Hilliard and Harris.). The protagonist, professional triathlete Zoey Morgan, is hit by a car and left for dead. Zoey fights her way back from death's door and, as the attacks escalate, struggles to save her life.

Kris also teaches mystery writing and is the author of WRITING KILLER MYSTERIES: 8 LESSONS TO GET YOU INTO PRINT; (T2G Productions), available on DVD. See http://www.krisneri.com for all her publication details.

And if that isn't enough to keep her busy, two years ago, Kris and her husband moved from California and opened the Well Red Coyote bookstore in Sedona , Arizona .

But while Kris now finds her life centered around words and books, she never actually considered writing as a career path.

"For years I wrote for little newsletters and literary journals," she explains. "It didn't occur to me to do it seriously until my husband asked me to write a humorous 'as told to' piece in his name about his experiences as a middle-of-the-pack, middle-aged triathlete, which was an interest of his at the time. That piece was published in "Triathlete" magazine and they paid me for it! Getting paid for writing and having it appear in a slick, national publication — that was a first."

Flush with her first success, Kris decided to write a few more on-spec pieces with equally good results: "It occurred to me that perhaps I could make a living doing something I loved. I wrote a few more spec pieces and they were all accepted by the first publications I submitted them to, convincing me this was actually going to be pretty easy. Naturally, my first few rejections hit around then, providing a reality check. But by then, I was hooked."

She enjoyed writing articles, but she says that after a while, "nonfiction writing failed to feed my soul." Kris then decided to try writing fiction, and since she was used to writing shorter, began with short stories.

"That shorter length simply felt more natural to me," she says. " I internalize the flow of stories precisely the way I developed articles, so I found the learning curve pretty quick."

Her first story to feature her series character Tracy Eaton, and the first to appear in an anthology, "L.A. Justice" in MURDER BY THIRTEEN, won the Short Mystery Fiction Society's Derringer Award for Best Short Story. Another story, "Capital Justice," won the same award the following year. Next spring '08, Kris will see her first collection of new and previously published stories, THE ROSE IN THE SNOW: TALES OF MISCHIEF AND MAYHEM; published by Hilliard & Harris.

Kris continued to write short stories, but when she decided to concentrate on her first novel, she was stunned that it found a new home so quickly. "I sold my first novel to the first editor who looked at it, in a mere ten days, including mail time," she says. " I haven't been quite that fortunate since."

Not that she's complaining. Kris feels fortunate to do something she enjoys and feels lucky to be able to write in a genre that has been a favorite since her childhood days of reading Nancy Drew. Even better, she likes being given the chance to write wrongs, something that doesn't always happen in real life.

"I've loved mysteries since Nancy Drew first led me into this life of crime, decades ago," she says. "Once I decided to try writing fiction, there was never any doubt that I would write mysteries.

"Mostly, I love the justice element in them. In real life, bad things happen to good people, yet they don't always see justice played out the way they deserve. And closure is just a concept people bandy about, but which is hard to achieve in the ongoing cycle of life. In mysteries, we can make things turn out a little fairer than they sometimes are in real life."

That doesn't mean that writing mysteries comes any easier, or harder, than her non-fiction writing. Call it a challenge that Kris enjoys working at: "The first quarter of the book is the hardest for me to write, but there's really no part of development that stands out as the most difficult. Sometimes titles prove illusive, characters change their own names, but it's all part of the fun for me."

Favorite Quote

Zoey Morgan had once heard the cynical adage, "Any day you don't wake up in a chalk outline is a good day." Oh, yeah? she thought now. What if that was precisely where you awoke? What kind of a day was it then? Obviously, your last." - From NEVER SAY DIE, Hilliard and Harris.

Favorite Writing or Other Moment

"The moment when I learn a book or story has been accepted — those are always pretty special. It's also great when I learn one of my students has had a book accepted."

Famous Last Words

"Writing is more difficult and the writing life is much harder than anyone thinks, but I can't think of anything more satisfying than making a whole world come to life between the covers of a book."