Episode 66: Mark S. Bacon

Destination Mystery

Lyle Deming braked his Mustang hard and aimed for the sandy shoulder of the desert road. Luckily, his daughter Sam had been looking down and didn’t see the body. He passed a thicket of creosote and manzanita and pulled onto the dirt as soon as he could. “Stay in the car,” he told Sam in a tone that precluded discussion. He trotted 200 feet back on the road, around the brush, to reach the parked vehicle—and the unmoving, bullet-riddled body he’d seen next to it. -- Mark S. Bacon, Desert Kill Switch Mark S. Bacon is a prolific writer, first as a reporter -- and yes, that included a stint as a police reporter, be still my heart! -- then as a nonfiction writer, and finally in the realm of fiction. You can keep tabs on him (and read sample chapters and even some of his flash fiction stories) on his website, right here. Speaking of flash fiction, Mark gives a shout-out to some practitioners of the genre, including Margaret Atwood and Ernest Hemingway -- that's some pedigree! In fact, if you yourself want to give the genre a try, there is an annual competition in Hemingway's honor presented by Fiction Southeast. Be warned: it's addictive to write as well as to read. If you're looking for more, Mark has an entire book filled with only flash fiction, and in our preferred genre as well: Cops, Crooks & Other Stories in 100 Words. As always, below you'll find a transcript if you'd rather read than listen. Enjoy! -- Laura ******************************************************************************************************************* Transcript of Interview with Mark S. Bacon Laura Brennan: Mark S. Bacon is no stranger to crime. In addition to writing his Nostalgia City mystery series, Mark worked as a police reporter and is a master of the ultra-short story: his collection Cops, Crooks and Other Stories is full of murder and mayhem, all in 100 words each. Mark, thank you for joining me. Mark S. Bacon: Thanks for having me, Laura. LB: So you have been a writer for a long time. Not necessarily of mysteries, but you have made your whole career as a writer. MB: That's true. I went to journalism school and started working for newspapers, and then I moved into advertising. And I became a copywriter, writing TV commercials, radio ads, that sort of thing. Then I went into marketing and at the same time I started writing nonfiction books and did that for quite a while. I've always been a fan of mysteries, I've always read mysteries from the time I could learn to read virtually. Finally the chance came to start writing mysteries, which is the kind of thing I read all the time and really enjoy that. Some writers say they write to entertain themselves, and I think that's partially true with me. I enjoy getting my characters into tight situations and figuring out how they're going to make it out. LB: You have a journalism background, but the journalists in your novels are not necessarily the easiest people to get along with. MB: Ha! That's an interesting observation. Yes, newspaper and broadcast news people tend to be kind of nosy and they want to find out everything they can. And I was that way when I was a reporter. So, when you're trying to solve a mystery, solve a murder, and in the case of Nostalgia City where there's a lot of issues involved with the public image of this theme park, my characters are kind of at odds with the news media even though one of them was actually a reporter for a short time. Yes, I make my reporters pretty nosy. LB: Yes, you do. Well, when you were a reporter, was that fodder for you? Was that grist for the mill for being a mystery writer? MB: Oh, of course it is. And the biggest part I think was doing police reporting. I showed up at the police department every morning and read reports and talked to cops and went out at crime scenes and learned the lingo of police. I learned what the procedures are and that kind of gave me the background so th...