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06/06/2018 08:30 AMKaren Olson has written a dozen novels—but none of them are the novel she would have pictured herself writing back when she was an English major at Roanoke College.
“I didn’t initially want to write mystery novels, I was going to write the Great American Novel,” she says. “I was an English major and I was a little bit of a book snob, and I didn’t think mystery novels were worth reading.”
That changed after a friend loaned Karen a mystery novel for her to read on vacation.
“I realized mystery novels were so much better than I had thought possible,” she says. “It was a whole new world for me.”
Karen devoured mysteries featuring strong female protagonists written by women: Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and others. She moved on to male authors, then decided to write her own.
Her first novel, Sacred Cows, fit the “write what you know” theme: The protagonist worked at a New Haven newspaper—Karen worked at the New Haven Register from 1992 to 2006, in addition to several other Connecticut newspapers.
“I did that, and then I wrote everything that I didn’t know,” she says.
Published in 2005, Sacred Cows won the Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award for best debut mystery from Time Warner/Mysterious Press. The novel came into life late at night, while Karen was working a night shift as a copy editor.
“I’d get home at 2 and I’d be awake until 4, so I’d write for a bit—I also watched all of ER,” says Karen, who met her husband Chris Hoffman at the Register; the couple has a daughter, Julia.
She had attempted fiction before, but without much success.
“A lot of writers I know are a little bit older,” notes Karen, who wrote Sacred Cows at 44. “You have to figure out what your voice is, what you’re going to write. I wrote for 15 years before I actually got published.”
Sacred Cows—and the following three books in the series—is set in the New Haven area. Locals will feel right at home.
“Those books are full of New Haven lore,” says Karen, who also had a short story published last year in the anthology New Haven Noir.
Two other series followed: The Tattoo Shop Mysteries, set in Las Vegas; and The Black Hat Thrillers, featuring a computer hacker. Karen hadn’t been to Las Vegas, so she visited twice while writing the former series; she read up on computers for the latter.
“I do a lot of research,” she says.
Today, she works full-time at Yale University Press, yet still writes 1,000 words a day.
“If it’s something you really want to do, you find the time,” she says. “I bring my laptop to work and I write on my lunch hour, and I write a little bit at night before I go to bed.”
Currently, Karen is working on a domestic suspense novel—something along the lines of Gone Girl.
“They say don’t write to a trend, but this book I’ve wanted to write for a long time,” she says. “When I first decided I wanted to write it, there was no such thing as domestic suspense.”
Though her books have increasingly addressed a more national and international audience, she’s committed to connecting with the local community, giving talks at the Hagaman Memorial Library and the North Haven Memorial Library.
For Karen, the mystery community has been a source of support. At the upcoming CrimeCONN on Saturday, June 23 in Stamford, she’ll speak at a panel on “The Thrill of Fact-Based Fiction.” However, even having sold a dozen books, Karen notes there’s no real “making it” as an author—unless you’re Stephen King.
“You have to be a little crazy to be doing it,” she says. “Most writers have day jobs like I do, and we don’t make a lot of money doing this. But I am compelled to tell stories.”
For more information about Karen’s books, visit www.kareneolson.com.
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