Cathryn Grant
Suburban Noir
 Photograph © 2010 Lydia Schufreider |
The first time I read The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell, I knew I'd found a genre that felt like home. As often happens with a new discovery, it wasn't long after that I came upon Patricia Highsmith's psychological suspense fiction. A few other favorites who I consider to have a psychological suspense element to their fiction are Laura Kasischke, Ian McEwan and Joyce Carol Oates (especially her novels written under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith.) My psychological suspense fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. My short story, I Was Young Once received an honorable mention in the 2007 Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction contest judged by Joyce Carol Oates. More recently, I've discovered Flash Fiction. You can read my experiments with this form here: Flash Fiction for the Cocktail Hour. Flash Fiction is a form ready-made for the web. Flash allows me to play, to write fiction that flows out as easily as a blog post. I love reading flash fiction because I can squeeze it into those little gaps in the day. I'm currently seeking representation for my novel that blends suburban noir with psychological suspense -- obsession and homicide in Silicon Valley. |
|
|
Every writer striving to improve her craft avoids cliches like the plague(!), and I'm no exception. However, I can't find any other words that describe how I felt when I first saw the Grand Canyon -- it took my breath away. My constant thought was -- how was it for the first human beings to come upon this fantastic, gaping hole? After all, I knew it was there, I'd seen hundreds of photographs, but I gasped, I was awe-struck. For the entire three days I was there, that vast crevice in the earth grabbed my entire body and wouldn't let go. As we walked around part of the south rim, I shivered. My knees dissolved to a pool of runny eggs any time my husband, or even total strangers, came within ten feet of the edge. Guard rails on outcroppings did nothing to slow the jittery rhythm of my pulse. I came home with this book - Over the Edge: Death In Grand Canyon. It's a terrifying and awe-inspiring place. Perhaps not the best place for a woman who imagines the potential for murder in the most innocuous surroundings.
|
||
