Transcription of Linda Greenlaw for the show Island Authors #297
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It’s always fun to have people back in the studio again, especially people who came in very early on in the Love Maine Radio world. Today I’m speaking again with Linda Greenlaw, who is a best-selling author and the only female swordfishing boat captain on the east coast of the United States. Her latest book, Shiver Hitch, will be published June 6. Thanks for coming in today.
Linda Greenlaw: Well, thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’ve been so many things. I feel like we introduce you as the only female swordfish boat captain, but you’ve also been a cookbook authoress, author, you have this new…. This is mystery. Is that this latest book that you’re doing?
Linda Greenlaw: Yeah. Shiver Hitch is a mystery, and it’s actually book number three in a series. The first two….
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’ve been busy.
Linda Greenlaw: Yeah. I’ve been really busy. I wrote the first two mysteries several years ago. At the time, I signed a contract to do three. Before I wrote the third one, I changed publishing houses. They were all about nonfiction from Linda Greenlaw, so I wrote a couple more nonfiction and then switched publishing houses yet again. They want me to finish this series, so I signed a contract for two more books, so this is three of four, Shiver Hitch.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I see. Okay. You’ve had this opportunity to really get your hands dirty as a swordfishing captain, but you also like to write. Some people would wonder about that. They’re in such different parts of the….
Linda Greenlaw: Yeah. Well, don’t wonder too long. I do not like writing. I never intended to become a writer. I love fishing. It’s what I consider myself. I introduce myself as a commercial fisherman. It’s a little weird now. This is book number 10, and I still pinch myself if someone introduces me as an author. Yeah, fishing is my first love. Now I feel like I’m writing to support my fishing habit, if that makes sense. Writing’s been very good to me. I’ve been very fortunate. My books have done well, so I’ve enjoyed the money, but the writing process itself, wow. Yeah, it’s the most difficult work I’ve ever done.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Why get into it in the first place?
Linda Greenlaw: I was invited to write my first book, and it was because of the very generous portrayal of Linda Greenlaw in The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. That book came out, and it was probably on the top of every best-selling list on the planet. I started getting phone calls from publishers saying, “Hey, you know, we’ve read The Perfect Storm. We’re intrigued with this female fisherman thing you have going on. Do you want to write a book?” At first, I resisted. I said, “No way.”
I never aspired to doing anything other than fishing. I love my life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do was fish, and I felt so fortunate. I found what I considered to be my life’s work at a very young age. I started fishing commercially very seriously at the age of 19. It was a college job, paid my way through school. Back then, I said I was fishing for tuition, but I really did fall in love with my life and continued. After I graduated from Colby College with a degree in English, I took that degree offshore and started my career.
Many, many years later, an opportunity to write a book comes along. As I said, at first I resisted it, “No. That sounds like lot of work.” Then I had to understand and realize what an opportunity I was being handed. Not only was I being asked to write a book…. I mean, “Wow, they’re going to pay me something?” The first thing I learned about being a writer is this thing called an advance. It was like, “That’s way different from fishing. You get paid before you do the work? That’s crazy, right?” But I’ve been very fortunate with it. Still don’t like it. I like my books, and I like what the books have brought my way in the way of changing life. I can’t say that I don’t at least appreciate my writing life in the winter when I’m not on the water. I used to fish year-round, obviously, all over the place. I now do appreciate sitting inside and looking out. It’s blowing a gale, freezing spray, and I’m like, “Here I am in my nice, little, warm office looking out the window at it.”
Dr. Lisa Belisle: And you still get to get paid.
Linda Greenlaw: I still get to get paid, and I still spend as much time as I can on the water. I’m still very much involved in the lobster fishing industry, which is, for me, very seasonal. I just got my boat in the water last week, and I’ll be fishing soon. I fish for halibut May and June and get my traps in the water. Last year, I fished almost until Christmas, so it’s a good … It still kind of feeds that part of what I feel I need.
My husband’s a boat builder. I do all the launchings and sea trials, so I get to drive a number of boats. I do a lot of deliveries for him, which is fun. Again, it gets me on the water. That part of my life still, I feel, still feeds the writing part of my life. Even when I’m not writing nonfiction, I’m not writing about my life. Writing mysteries, they say, “Write what you know.” My mysteries are very much small Maine coastal community. The characters are…. Everyone I know is a great character for a book.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, that must be a little complicated, because I have been up to Isle au Haut and there’s not so many people there to choose from. Even in Surry and that whole area, especially in the wintertime, it’s not like there’s lots and lots of people.
Linda Greenlaw: No, there aren’t a lot of people. There aren’t a lot of people, but fortunately, inspiration comes in a lot of ways. As I said, almost everyone I know…. I can take anybody in my life and make a great book character just because people are quirky, and I like quirky characters. Those are the type of people that I am sort of, I guess, drawn to or attracted to. I find them interesting, and those are the kind of people that are fun to write about, and they’re the kind of people that are fun to read about. I mean, I think about the books that I’ve read and enjoyed. I mean, it wouldn’t make a very interesting book to just write about sort of a dull person.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: How do people feel about you using them as characters, or do they even know, really?
Linda Greenlaw: In my works of nonfiction, people are very aware because, in most instances, I’ve used real names just to keep it true. You may be surprised to find that the only people that are upset with me are people that I haven’t used in a book. I actually have friends who say, “Hey, you know, use my name. I don’t care what you say about me.” Those are good friends to have because, obviously, there are things you’d like to say that maybe you don’t want to put a name on, but hey, if they don’t care, it’s all good.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, let’s talk about Shiver Hitch. Let’s talk about the story behind it because, obviously, this is going to be coming out very soon, and you’ve put a lot of work into it.
Linda Greenlaw: Yeah. It’s a ton of work. All of my books have been a ton of work. It’s very difficult work for me. Shiver Hitch, as I said, is book three in a four-book series. My main character is Jane Bunker, and she is a highly-decorated detective. She has spent the majority of her life in Miami in Dade County where she’s really been very busy fighting drugs. She was born in Maine on a small island off the coast. I call it Acadia Island, but it’s very much fashioned after Isle au Haut. Jane’s mother pretty much kidnapped Jane and her infant younger brother at the time and went as far away from this island as she could find. That ended up being Miami, Florida, and this was where she raised her two children very…. Anyway, I don’t want to give you a book report here because I’m hoping people will pick the book up and read it.
Jane finds herself in her early 40s back in Maine because of some catastrophic, mostly emotional events that occur in Miami, which are yet to unfold. This is book three. I’m going to wait until I know I’m really on my last book to solve all the mysteries in Jane’s life. She finds herself in Maine in a very small town where things seem pretty humdrum, but trouble follows her. They’re murder mysteries, and Shiver Hitch is no exception. Shiver Hitch takes her to Acadia Island, which is somewhere she hasn’t returned to since she was like six years old. I don’t know.
I like to write a lot about some current events so I talk about…. In all of the mysteries, I talk about the issues of loss of working waterfront. I’m really getting pretty deep into the drug problems in Maine, so that part’s interesting for me. I’ll tell you, the toughest part of writing the mysteries, for me, is the plot. It’s very difficult. My nonfiction that I wrote, they’re basically memoirs. I never needed an outline. You’re writing your own story. My first mystery that I wrote, I didn’t start with an outline, and that proved to be kind of a huge issue. I was like three-quarters of the way through the book and I still didn’t know who had committed the murder, so I’m like, “Oh, my God. I’ve got to wrap this thing up. Just choose, you know, a suspect.” I’ve learned. Book number three I started with an outline and I feel that it’s…. The more you do things, the better you get. I like to think that, anyway, so I think this is probably the best of the three mysteries. You learn some tricks of the trade, I guess.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Were you always interested in mysteries?
Linda Greenlaw: Not always interested in mysteries. I enjoy anything that’s well-written, and there’s no particular genre that I say, “Oh, you know, I’ve got to read every bit of science fiction I can get my hands on.” That’s not me. I have read mysteries, and the mysteries that I have enjoyed really…. When I was swordfishing, I read a lot of Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi on through. I liked the sort of, I guess you would call it the cozier mystery, not super-scary, because I don’t like things that stay with me when I go to sleep at night, so the cozier mystery. I love the length, page-wise, of the book. I could read it on the way to the fishing grounds. Five days, a couple hours a day be done with the book, put it to bed, start my fishing trip, and then maybe have a second one to read on the way home, that’s the type of mystery that I like.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Why were you an English major at Colby? What was the background on that?
Linda Greenlaw: I basically majored in English because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I knew I did not love math and science. I enjoyed reading. I took mostly literature courses. I didn’t take any creative writing courses. I figured if I majored in English, I’d get through college.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I think you’re correct about writing. Having been a writer for a while myself, and mostly at this point doing magazine work for Maine Magazine and Old Port Magazine, it is always work. It’s not that it’s not enjoyable, but it is always work. It’s a different work for me than being a doctor, the way that being a writer is a different work for you than being a swordfishing captain. There’s this strange thing that I think some people believe that it… because we can all do it, we can all type words into a document, that somehow we’re all capable of creating great works. Really, anybody can write, but it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to be able to figure out the craft of it or be able to be persistent enough to complete a work.
Linda Greenlaw: Yeah. I really strongly agree with the last part of what you just said, and that’s the persistence of actually sitting down every day. I know when I sign a contract, I set a date. This is my start date. Of course, I’m going to have a deadline. I need to sit down every single day seven days a week and totally commit myself. I treat it like I do my fishing. It’s all in. Now, having said that, three or four hours a day is about all I can take. After that, I mean, I can push it and sit there longer. Believe me, I could sit there for eight hours, but after three or four hours, it’s garbage.
I’ve learned that three or four hours a day and then I can do something else, go haul some lobster traps, go paint some buoys, get out on a boat, take a walk, take a hike, cross-country ski, ice skate, whatever, just to get away from it. I’m still writing in my head when I’m doing this other, what I like to think more of a mindless activity, to the point of hauling lobster traps and actually composing and polishing a paragraph in my head. The next day, I sit down first thing in the morning and I don’t wonder where I’m starting. I know. I’ve already got it in my head where I’m starting.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’ve also had to learn something about the structure of these different genres being a nonfiction writer versus a cookbook writer versus a mystery writer. There is something different about each of those structures and the craft of them is probably slightly different as well.
Linda Greenlaw: Yes. The writing itself is the same. No matter what you’re writing, it’s personal on some level. Now, obviously, you think, “Well, a mystery…. This Jane Bunker, that’s not personal,” but it is. I mean, every thought…. I write in the first person. Every thought had to have originated in my head. I work very hard to make Jane Bunker not Linda Greenlaw, but it’s nearly impossible to keep everything out, if that makes sense.
The three different crafts, yeah, they’re all Linda Greenlaw. My head notes in the cookbook… I co-authored both books with my mom and that’s been fun for me, but yeah, a totally different writing process, I guess. I’ve been very fortunate to have good editors and people to work with who…. I knew going into my first book that I knew nothing about putting a book together. I felt confident in my ability to write, but that’s far different from putting a book together. I think you mentioned that. Anyone has the ability to write. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s story is worthy of being told. But boy, getting from there to having it in a book, it’s sheer work. That’s all it is. It’s just work.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It does require being on a team, because people can self-publish and do everything themselves, but that’s increasingly rare. Even people who self-publish, they still have line editors and they still have beta readers. I mean, there’s still stuff that you really are better off asking other people who have some expertise to help you with. If you’re actually publishing for a major house, then you have that team working with you.
Linda Greenlaw: Absolutely. It is a team. It is a team. I know that everyone has the same goal. They want this book to be as good as it can be whether, as you mentioned, the line editor… There’s a legal edit that my books go through, all these different edits and proofreads. Then there’s marketing and publicity. I have a publicist who puts a tour together, very little input from me, right? I’ve always been of the attitude, “Well, they know more than I do how to sell this damn thing,” right? Here it is. It’s a book, right? It’s great. I love it. They know how to sell it, so I go where they tell me go. I do what they tell me to do, and I do the best job I can when I’m on book tour.
I don’t despise book tour the way some authors do. It’s so funny. Very early on in my book touring career, I was on a 60-city book tour, 60 cities in 60 days. I was on the same track right before and right after certain authors. I heard two different things. One, the authors that say, “You’re kidding me. They’re sending you on the road for 60 days? You tell them, ‘No.’ That’s ridiculous.” Then there’s the other extreme, “Wow, your publishers are promoting your book like that? Oh, you’re so lucky. Look, I’ve got books in the trunk of my car, and I’m driving around begging stores to take a couple of them. Maybe I could do a signing.” Balancing those two things, yeah, I think I’m very fortunate that the publishers have been behind promoting the books. They don’t sell themselves, unless you’re Stephen King and at some point in your career that happens. I’m not there yet.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It does speak well of you that ten books in, even the last time, they were willing to put you onto a 60-city tour.
Linda Greenlaw: Right. I’m not doing the 60-city tours now, and it’s not because I wouldn’t. It’s because publishing has changed that much since my first book, second book, third book. Those were all huge book tours. Now, it’s pretty minimal. I’m doing a three-week tour, mostly New England. I’m not jumping on an airplane every day. I know it’s budget for publishing. Things have changed. More people are buying books online or listening to books on tape. The whole marketing thing, promoting of books, has changed in a big way.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You also have other interests. I mean, you have a daughter, you have a husband. You’re very connected with your community. How do all of these things fit together with the writing life, and the book-promoting life, and the swordfish-captaining life?
Linda Greenlaw: I’ve never been very good at juggling things or straddling things. When I am working on a book, I really need to concentrate really hard every morning. I have everyone around me trained that, if I’m working on a book, they’re probably not going to see me until lunchtime, and if they do see me, I’m not going to be very friendly. Everyone kind of knows that about me now, and they know not to invite me to do things because whatever you have going on is a lot more fun than what I’m doing, and so I’m very quick to, “Yeah, okay,” drop everything and, “Sure, I’ll go do that with you because I don’t feel like writing.” I never feel like writing, so it works that way. Because I do write early in the morning, during the lobster season I can go later in the day and haul some lobster traps. I’m very self-employed, so I am in control of my own schedule in that way.
My daughter is 26 today. It’s her birthday. She’s going to be married in September. Love the fiancée, he’s a great guy. She’s doing well, so everything’s good there. My husband and I have a 14-year-old boy living with us now, a kid from Isle au Haut. After eighth grade, they have to come to the mainland to go to school for high school. Great kid. I’m 56, my husband is 65, and we have a 14-year-old boy in the house, so it’s interesting. This kid’s a challenge, but I think it’s as good for us as it is for him, but it’s work. It’s like everything.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When we went to Isle au Haut to write the story about the Sunbeam, it was interesting to hear the people…. I think it’s the mail boat that you go out on. They had a lot to say about the community, but it wasn’t just Linda Greenlaw and Linda Greenlaw’s books, even though you’ve brought some notoriety, some fame to Isle au Haut. It was also about your husband and his business. I love that about the fact that everybody gets to be their own person and everybody is equally respected.
Linda Greenlaw: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I couldn’t be happier about Isle au Haut’s welcoming of my husband. They love my husband. He’s a Maine guy. He talks like them. He’s a worker. He builds boats. He’s successful. He’s very good at what he does. He builds the nicest boat built in Maine. Wesmac, little plug for Wesmac. It’s the Cadillac, I mean, hands down. Yeah, it’s been really nice. My husband loves the island. He loves the islanders, and he is loved in return, so that has worked out really nicely. My family loves my husband. My parents love my husband, which is important because that’s a deal breaker. It is. I mean, I got married at the age of 51. My parents really need to like the guy, right?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, I think it is interesting because it just is another example of how none of us exist in a vacuum. I mean, you have your close family. You have your extended family. You have your community. You have all the people who read your books. I mean, so this really is all woven into the person that has become who you are.
Linda Greenlaw: Absolutely, yeah. I’m really family and community-oriented, and the older I get, the more I realize that. I know that I always have been, but I guess it’s something that you don’t think about too much when you’re a lot younger. I really felt like I was in a bubble all my years of swordfishing. I didn’t think too much, talked to my family once a month between trips, at the dock for two days and might not even go home, might stay aboard the boat. Perspective changes, I guess, with maturity, for sure. Thoughts about everything change.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, I look forward to reading all of your future books because I’m just intrigued with the fact that you hate writing, or at least it’s very difficult…
Linda Greenlaw: It is.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: … and that you keep doing it. I’m sure that deep down inside of you, there is something burning that causes you to keep doing it. It can’t just be because they pay you, I’m guessing.
Linda Greenlaw: No. It’s not just because they pay me because, you know what? It’s like fishing. I’ve had years where I was quite sure I was going to be a millionaire, and I’ve had other years when I’ve probably qualified for free oil and food stamps. Usually end up somewhere in the middle, but it’s not about the money. I don’t write for money. I don’t fish for money. It’s not about numbers of books sold. It’s not about pounds of fish caught. It’s something more, and I know what it is with fishing, and I haven’t discovered what it is with writing yet.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I appreciate your honesty. As someone who writes, it is very difficult, and I give you a lot of credit for, as we said, being persistent.
I’ve been speaking with Linda Greenlaw who is a best-selling author and the only female swordfishing boat captain on the East Coast of the United States. Her latest book Shiver Hitch will be published on June 6. Congratulations. Keep up the good work, and thank you so much for coming in today.
Linda Greenlaw: Thank you so much, and thanks for having me back.