Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I'm Cathy Strasser, an author and occupational therapist, and I live and write in Sugar Hill, NH. This small town is located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, just north of the Franconia Notch. It is one of the most beautiful areas in the northeast, much of it preserved in the White Mountains National Forest. The area’s numerous hiking trails showcase the mountains, rivers and valleys and provide the setting for my first book An Uncertain Grave. I love this area, despite the weather extremes. People in this part of the country joke they have five seasons: ski season (winter), mud season (early spring when the dirt roads thaw and turn into quagmires), black fly season (late spring), summer, and foliage season (fall).
I want to introduce people to this part of the “North Country” through the characters and settings in An Uncertain Grave. Actually, the towns and trails in and around the White Mountains are as much a character as any of the people in the book.
How about your writing bio?
My short story “Afterward”, published in the Chrysalis Reader, was nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize – Best of Small Presses. I have had short stories published in the Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, The Literary Bone, Touched By Wonder Anthology, r-kv-r-y quarterly, Under the Stairs Anthology, Writing From the Heart Anthology and was a finalist in the “Family Matters” competition of Glimmer Train Magazine. Some of these stories are included in the Short Story section of my website and there are links to the rest there as well.
Writing professionally as an Occupational Therapist, I have had weekly columns on improving children’s fine motor skills published in the Caledonian Record and the Bangor Daily News. Feel free to contact me!
Why Write Mysteries?
I like puzzles. Jig saw puzzles, cross word puzzles, word searches, find the hidden pictures, tetras, dots…the only puzzle I don’t like is Sudoku – mainly because I’m a word person not a number person. When the time finally came where I felt ready to try writing a book, I knew I’d need a story line interesting enough to keep the book from sagging and growing stale in the middle. A mystery seemed like the perfect answer.
In addition to puzzles, I like order. I like it when problems can be neatly wrapped up and stowed away with the label “solved” pasted prominently on top. And the final reason - I like it when the good guys win and the bad guys lose and get punished for causing so much trouble, heartache and misery. I know this doesn’t always happen in real life, which is probably why I crave it in books.
The deeper fascination that draws me to mystery writing is trying to figure out why people make certain choices. When reading about a murder in fiction or non-fiction, my first question isn’t whodunit, but WHYdunit. Motive is the key for me and I try to bring that forward in my writing. People do things that seem totally unreasonable to me – and I have to know why. What brought them to the point where crime seemed to be the only option?
What prompted you to write this book/series?
I wrote this book for several reasons. I wanted to tell people about the area I live in and all the wonderful outdoor activities available here. I also wanted to present an amusing tongue-in-cheek look at the interplay between the long-time residents of the area and the tourists who are drawn to the region. It’s an interesting relationship, beneficial to both sides but sometimes plagued by misunderstandings and stereotypes. Since I lived in New York until my early thirties and have lived in New Hampshire for over twenty years, I feel that I’m “bilingual” in both viewpoints and can see and interpret some of the interactions.
Do you consider your book character driven or plot driven?
My book is definitely character driven. When I sat down to write the book, I had most of the characters already sketched out in my mind and I had a lot of fun letting them all loose to interact. My goal was to draw people into the book with the characters in the hope that they’d like them enough to want to spend more time with them in the second book in the series.
What makes your book unique?
I think my book is unique because it presents an accurate reflection of the concerns of the people who live in northern New Hampshire and gives a glimpse into the culture and values the people have around here – the importance of friendship and community and the tradition of helping a neighbor in need.
Do you plot ahead of time or let the plot emerge as you write?
I’m what writers refer to as a “pants-er” rather than a “plot-er”. That means I sit down and write “by the seat of my pants” without any detailed plot or outline. I like to take my characters and throw them into different situations and see what happens. It does mean I have to do a fair amount of revising if the story takes an twist and earlier scenes need to be tweaked to support that story thread, but all of that keeps the story fresh and interesting for me and – I hope – the reader.
How did you develop the names for your characters?
Scarlett O’Hara. Atticus Finch. Bilbo Baggins. Harry Potter. Rebecca. Oliver Twist. Hercule Poirot. Could any of these characters have been as effective with a different name?
Characters in what I plan to be a series of books are extremely important because I want the reader to like them, engage with them and come to feel they are friends. At the same time, I wanted the character’s names to in some small way reflect their personality.
Chapter one of An Uncertain Grave introduces Kenny Brainerd – a hapless hiker who stumbles across a dead body at the conclusion of a hike gone horribly wrong. Kenny is just not a very competent man– at anything. His first name came from a bungling co-worker in a long ago summer camp job. Then I needed a last name that suggested that, and Brain nerd seemed just about perfect, combine the words, lose an “n” and it was good to go.
The next names, Cliff, Mike and Kurt, were chosen to show the opposite quality – strength. One syllable, they all had a quick, decisive ring to them. Cliff and Mike are the state troopers that investigate the dead body and I wanted their names to reflect their abilities. And Kurt, head of a local search and rescue team, also needed a strong name.
The New York characters needed names that were a bit on the pretentious side, and Nelson Simon seemed to reflect that without being too much of a mouthful, while Alyssa gave me a mental picture of a glamourous career woman.
The rest of the local New Hampshire characters’ names were inspired by several years of newspaper stories and are typical of family names in the area. And the next book will expand the cast of local and out of town characters even further!
I'm Cathy Strasser, an author and occupational therapist, and I live and write in Sugar Hill, NH. This small town is located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, just north of the Franconia Notch. It is one of the most beautiful areas in the northeast, much of it preserved in the White Mountains National Forest. The area’s numerous hiking trails showcase the mountains, rivers and valleys and provide the setting for my first book An Uncertain Grave. I love this area, despite the weather extremes. People in this part of the country joke they have five seasons: ski season (winter), mud season (early spring when the dirt roads thaw and turn into quagmires), black fly season (late spring), summer, and foliage season (fall).
I want to introduce people to this part of the “North Country” through the characters and settings in An Uncertain Grave. Actually, the towns and trails in and around the White Mountains are as much a character as any of the people in the book.
How about your writing bio?
My short story “Afterward”, published in the Chrysalis Reader, was nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize – Best of Small Presses. I have had short stories published in the Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, The Literary Bone, Touched By Wonder Anthology, r-kv-r-y quarterly, Under the Stairs Anthology, Writing From the Heart Anthology and was a finalist in the “Family Matters” competition of Glimmer Train Magazine. Some of these stories are included in the Short Story section of my website and there are links to the rest there as well.
Writing professionally as an Occupational Therapist, I have had weekly columns on improving children’s fine motor skills published in the Caledonian Record and the Bangor Daily News. Feel free to contact me!
Why Write Mysteries?
I like puzzles. Jig saw puzzles, cross word puzzles, word searches, find the hidden pictures, tetras, dots…the only puzzle I don’t like is Sudoku – mainly because I’m a word person not a number person. When the time finally came where I felt ready to try writing a book, I knew I’d need a story line interesting enough to keep the book from sagging and growing stale in the middle. A mystery seemed like the perfect answer.
In addition to puzzles, I like order. I like it when problems can be neatly wrapped up and stowed away with the label “solved” pasted prominently on top. And the final reason - I like it when the good guys win and the bad guys lose and get punished for causing so much trouble, heartache and misery. I know this doesn’t always happen in real life, which is probably why I crave it in books.
The deeper fascination that draws me to mystery writing is trying to figure out why people make certain choices. When reading about a murder in fiction or non-fiction, my first question isn’t whodunit, but WHYdunit. Motive is the key for me and I try to bring that forward in my writing. People do things that seem totally unreasonable to me – and I have to know why. What brought them to the point where crime seemed to be the only option?
What prompted you to write this book/series?
I wrote this book for several reasons. I wanted to tell people about the area I live in and all the wonderful outdoor activities available here. I also wanted to present an amusing tongue-in-cheek look at the interplay between the long-time residents of the area and the tourists who are drawn to the region. It’s an interesting relationship, beneficial to both sides but sometimes plagued by misunderstandings and stereotypes. Since I lived in New York until my early thirties and have lived in New Hampshire for over twenty years, I feel that I’m “bilingual” in both viewpoints and can see and interpret some of the interactions.
Do you consider your book character driven or plot driven?
My book is definitely character driven. When I sat down to write the book, I had most of the characters already sketched out in my mind and I had a lot of fun letting them all loose to interact. My goal was to draw people into the book with the characters in the hope that they’d like them enough to want to spend more time with them in the second book in the series.
What makes your book unique?
I think my book is unique because it presents an accurate reflection of the concerns of the people who live in northern New Hampshire and gives a glimpse into the culture and values the people have around here – the importance of friendship and community and the tradition of helping a neighbor in need.
Do you plot ahead of time or let the plot emerge as you write?
I’m what writers refer to as a “pants-er” rather than a “plot-er”. That means I sit down and write “by the seat of my pants” without any detailed plot or outline. I like to take my characters and throw them into different situations and see what happens. It does mean I have to do a fair amount of revising if the story takes an twist and earlier scenes need to be tweaked to support that story thread, but all of that keeps the story fresh and interesting for me and – I hope – the reader.
How did you develop the names for your characters?
Scarlett O’Hara. Atticus Finch. Bilbo Baggins. Harry Potter. Rebecca. Oliver Twist. Hercule Poirot. Could any of these characters have been as effective with a different name?
Characters in what I plan to be a series of books are extremely important because I want the reader to like them, engage with them and come to feel they are friends. At the same time, I wanted the character’s names to in some small way reflect their personality.
Chapter one of An Uncertain Grave introduces Kenny Brainerd – a hapless hiker who stumbles across a dead body at the conclusion of a hike gone horribly wrong. Kenny is just not a very competent man– at anything. His first name came from a bungling co-worker in a long ago summer camp job. Then I needed a last name that suggested that, and Brain nerd seemed just about perfect, combine the words, lose an “n” and it was good to go.
The next names, Cliff, Mike and Kurt, were chosen to show the opposite quality – strength. One syllable, they all had a quick, decisive ring to them. Cliff and Mike are the state troopers that investigate the dead body and I wanted their names to reflect their abilities. And Kurt, head of a local search and rescue team, also needed a strong name.
The New York characters needed names that were a bit on the pretentious side, and Nelson Simon seemed to reflect that without being too much of a mouthful, while Alyssa gave me a mental picture of a glamourous career woman.
The rest of the local New Hampshire characters’ names were inspired by several years of newspaper stories and are typical of family names in the area. And the next book will expand the cast of local and out of town characters even further!
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