Featured Interview With CJ Verburg
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Although I grew up in northern New Jersey, my most formative years were the ones when I escaped parental controls, hopes, etc. and explored on my own. Favorites include living with 7 friends in a seaside mansion in Marblehead, MA, where I helped my then-boyfriend rebuild a 72-foot yawl, and owning my first house in Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, where I ran a small theater company and collaborated on theatrical adventures with my friend and neighbor Edward Gorey. San Francisco stole my teenage heart the first time we met, and after Edward died and our theater burned to the ground in a freak chimney fire, I moved permanently(is there such a thing?) to the city of music, love, and flowers. Out of all this gadding about has come a 19th-century epic-in-progress which chronicles the adventures of an orphaned Bostonian, a Cape Cod sea captain, a Baltimore courtesan, a San Francisco journalist, and many other colorful characters rooted in real-life history. Meanwhile, I continue to have a great time writing mysteries!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
After my mother died I found a scrapbook photo of me at age 1 “reading” to a circle of stuffed animals. If only I’d known sooner, I could have skipped the phase of wanting to be a cowgirl and circus rider! Still, thanks to parents who read to me every night, I started reading at age 3. I did skip the entire children’s picture book section of the library, unless you count Marguerite Henry’s wonderful “Misty of Chincoteague” and “Album of Horses.” Magic and history also were early favorites: Hilda and CS Lewis, and the Landmark series, from Catherine the Great to the Monitor and the Merrimack. By age 12 I’d completed my first novel, and by 16 won my first playwriting award. It’s all been uphill from there.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Agatha Christie was the first mystery writer I read, and her brilliant plotting still awes me. I love the Golden Age authors: Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Rex Stout…and now I’m reading crime fiction writers I met at the Left Coast Crime 2014 conference in Monterey, including Ann Cleeves, Louise Penny, Laurie R. King, and Jeri Westerson. Like Penny and King, I draw inspiration from poetry and music as well as books–I first picked up Louise Penny because she’d used one of my favorite Leonard Cohen lines as a book title (‘How the Light Gets In’). Aside from crime and mystery I love meaty books such as Norman Rush’s ‘Mating,’ Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow,’ and just about anything by Jane Austen or Barbara Kingsolver.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My book ‘Croaked: an Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mystery’ is very much in mind as I’m now working on the sequel, ‘Zapped.’ I think the main reason I started writing this series was my frustration at having finished all the English village mysteries I knew of. My friend, neighbor, and frequent collaborator, the brilliant artist Edward Gorey, was also a great fan of this genre. His whole house was like a library, with one room for nothing but mysteries. One day Edward and I were lunching in our local greasy spoon, Jack’s Out Back, and I mentioned to him and Jack that this would make a great setting for a murder mystery. Edward said “Oh, absolutely.” Jack said “Only if he’s the one who gets killed.” I took that as a mandate and a challenge, and proceeded to write ‘Croaked.’
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Loved the Carol comments. I dearly miss having such literate friends. Maybe I should go back to college and find some more! Or go to SF and hang out with the original, Carol!
Best, Anne
Anne, I think the reason last weekend’s Left Coast Crime Conference in Monterey had such a great roster was the horrid winter everywhere else. By all means, come on out!