Interview Keith Slater

By

Jina Bacarr

1. What genre is your book?

Murder Mystery

2. What is your publishing history?

About 15 text books, 2 novels, 30 short stories, 3 short story collections, a dozen plays published (plus others performed) and 300 scientific papers.

3. How does your experience with this book differ? Or, if this is your first book, is publishing a book what you expected?

I usually get more notice of galley schedules than in this case. I think the reason is the decision to advance publication date by a month.

4. By your email, I'm assuming you live in Canada. Do you use any Canadian locales in your book? Are they central to the plot?

No, it’s set in Britain, where I was born, and the locales are central to the characters, as well as to the plot.

5. How did you do your research?

Mostly written from personal experience of people and locations, with some book work.

6. Is there anything in your personal life (your job, past experiences, family) that inspired you to write your book?

No.

7. What are you working on now?

Two text books, another murder mystery for e-Wings, three more novels (not yet sure where I’ll be publishing them), a couple of short stories, some TV scripts and two plays.

8. Would you write a sequel to this book if the opportunity presented itself?

The murder mystery, though not exactly a sequel, uses some of the same characters.

9. What advice would you give to new writers?

Have a number of projects going at the same time. This gives you a change of viewpoint and avoids writers’ block (but make sure you keep your notes well separated!).

10. What do you know now that you wished you had known when you started?

How to develop realistic characters! (On the assumption that I know it now!!!)