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Interview with
Kirk Russell Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Russell's wife, Judy Rogers, is the chef and co-owner of the Zuni Café in San Francisco. She is the author of the award-winning "The Zuni Café Cookbook." He has two daughters: one in college and one in high school. The family lives in Berkeley. The first
thing that strikes me about your debut novel, Shell Games, is its
realism. That's no accident-- you did a remarkable amount of research for
this book. Tell us about it. In making Marquez’s world, a couple of things worked in my favor. I’ve lived in California most of my life so know most of the terrain the novel occurs in. Then, and most significantly, the Fish and Game undercover team, the SOU, befriended me, and they’ve vetted the novels, pointed me back in the right direction when I wrote something that can’t happen. Of course, all of it is a leap from life. What you did takes a pretty big leap of faith. Not only did you invest a lot of time in researching this book, but you also had to convince the California Department of Fish and Game to let you tag along on stakeouts, sting operations, etc. How did you approach this and get them to agree? I was working on another novel (one lost in a bottom drawer now) and called Fish and Game because that novel had a subplot with an abalone poacher and I had questions about how they’d handle a situation. A dispatcher in Sacramento at Fish and Game headquarters gave me the names of a couple of officers who might be willing to help me, and then she said…."but you know who you really want to talk to, if you catch him," and that led to leaving messages for the captain who headed the Special Operations Unit. Eventually, I got to meet him, then other officers, and over time have gotten to know a couple of them. Gradually, opportunities came along where I could get to ride along or see a safehouse or a bust or some other piece that allowed me to start putting Marquez’s life together.What
made you decide to invest so much time and energy into this first novel?
Were you confident it would sell? Well, the short answer to that is the first novel didn’t sell, nor did the second, though there were tantalizing moments when a few agents asked to read the manuscript. When I met the Fish and Game team something happened inside. Part might have been reaching a point where I understood better what it took to write a novel, but, this is significant to me, I knew immediately this was a character I could truly care about, write, and believe in. I wanted to make a kind of modern-day hero and I saw the possibility in the what this team was doing and the way they did it. Now,
I've seen plenty of "save the bears," "save the bald eagle,"
and "save the walrus" campaigns, but "save the abalone?"
Why abalone? Abalone is not a charismatic creature like a Siberian tiger or a grizzly, but it is a creature that has been a delicacy for hundreds of years in parts of Asia. It’s highly valued there, and here was plentiful in my childhood. You could easily get an abalone sandwich or steak on the wharf in San Francisco, and few things taste better. I watched it gradually begin to fade away. White abalone is likely to be the first ocean species driven extinct by humankind and so abalone is in some ways emblematic of our inability so far to find a balance with nature. California loses an enormous number of abalone a year to poachers who can turn and sell each for roughly fifty dollars, and there’s a war underway with them to try and save what’s left. What
was your writing process like? Did you have any sort of routine? You were a builder before you were a writer-- in fact, you still run a small building business. Why did it take you so long to get serious about writing? The truth is I came out of U.C. Berkeley with an undergraduate degree in Rhetoric in 1978 and thought then I was going to write fiction. I wrote a novel, couldn’t find an agent, and learned carpentry and kept writing, working on short stories after the construction business grew into a hundred employees and my daughters were born. Eight or nine years ago we closed that business down, and though I still build, that’s when I turned back to the novel. I figured it was the last best chance. Shell
Games sparked a series; your second novel, Night Game, is set to be
released this month, and now you're working on a third book in the John Marquez
series. Did you always plan for this to be a series? Was it sold as
a one-book contract, or did your editor anticipate more installments? Seems to me there's more to your books than entertainment; you're also looking to educate readers about environmental responsibility, yes? How much does this weigh in when you're writing? It weighs in, but there’s no quicker way to bore than to preach, right? Nothing is worse than loose facts or something the author learned and just has to share dropped into the middle of a narrative. So, yes, I do want to carry a flag, but I think what I’m discovering is that’s best done with a thriller pace. Tell
me about the editing process. Have you worked with the same editor for all
three books? How has feedback shaped your work? Is
it difficult to avoid clichés while staying within the expectations readers
have for the thriller genre? What are your best three pieces of advice for aspiring authors? There are a lot of ups and downs, but the one thing you control is the writing. So keep writing. Rewrite and figure out your mistakes. Never fake anything. It will always come back to haunt you. Stuff doesn’t have to be true to real life but it does have to be true to you. Visit Kirk's site at http://www.kirk-russell.com/. Jenna Glatzer is the editor-in-chief of www.AbsoluteWrite.com and the author of MAKE A REAL LIVING AS A FREELANCE WRITER, among other books. Visit her site at www.jennaglatzer.com and pick up some freebies for writers!
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Kirk Russell
was born in the San Francisco Bay area and attended the University of California
at Berkeley. He enjoys hand gliding, mountain biking, skiing, cycling, hiking
and backpacking. Spending a considerable amount of time outdoors led Kirk to the
concept of writing about a detective for the Department of Fish and Game. In
researching and writing Shell Games (Chronicle Books, 2003), Kirk
traveled with the California Department of Fish and Game, participated in sting
operations, arrests, visited safe houses and engaged in surveillance and
stakeouts. He continues that work today. Night Game, Kirk's second novel,
is due out in October.
