Interview with Michael Billington
1. Greetings, can you tell us a little bit about your history and how your work has evolved up to this point?
I sometimes tell people that I started writing in the womb and haven’t stopped since then. Truthfully, I’ve always wanted to be a writer and, except for three years in the Army, including a couple of tours in Vietnam, that’s how I’ve earned my living since I was 15. I was in the seventh grade when a librarian, who was the mother of a friend of mine, gave me a copy of Here is Your War by Ernie Pyle. I devoured it and from that point on I wanted to be a journalist. The book is a collection of Pyle’s World War II columns and without exception they tell the stories of ordinary men and women caught up in extraordinary situations. As a reporter for nearly 50 years I went looking for those kinds of stories both in the United States and later overseas when I was writing about Operation Desert Storm, the invasion of Panama, the Rwandan civil war and other major news events.
I got my first newspaper job when I was still a high school student living in a small town in Ohio, and back then I covered sports primarily because I think my editor was a little afraid to have me cover anything that was deemed as ‘serious.’ Sports writing is very much an active-voice kind of storytelling, and the fact that I spent time covering everything from high school football games to professional baseball helped me later when I switched to covering the police beat and later still when I started covering news overseas.
I retired from journalism 2-1/2 years ago and began writing novels full time. When I did I discovered that I had so much to learn about character development, plot, and how to describe a scene that it was pretty daunting. I kept plugging away, however, and now have seven books on Kindle with an eighth on the way.
2. What genre, or genres, do you write?
I write mostly mystery novels, though I have written one Steampunk adventure and one historical novel.
3. What is your latest book called and what is it about?
I actually brought out two books on the same day last October. Both were a long time in the making. Blood Debt is a murder mystery set in Fort Lauderdale in 1985 and The Third Servant is an historical novel set in the time of Christ.
4. What was the inspiration for your books? When did you first get the idea for Blood Debt? The Third Servant?
Blood Debt was inspired by my days covering the police beat in Fort Lauderdale. Back then cocaine was king, the drug cartels owned cops, lawyers, judges and politicians and murder was an almost-every-day occurrence. The Third Servant was inspired by the parable in the Gospel of Matthew. In that parable Matthew tells us that the third servant, who did not increase his master’s wealth, was cast into the night. He never tells us, however, what happened to him after that. I was in church one morning when the sermon was about that parable, and as the priest was talking this whole story started unfolding in my mind. It took years to write and research and then rewrite it, but I finally got it finished.
5. How long did it take you to write it? What is your writing process like?
Both books took years to write because when I first got the ideas to write them I was still working full time and that often meant writing three or four news stories a day. I was also often overseas and that could mean weeks or months of not being able to work on either book. Once I retired I also had other writing projects that I was working on.
As for my writing process now that I’m retired, I normally write very quickly, something I had to learn to do as a reporter. I wrote my first novel – Corpus Delectable – in about three months. During my years as a reporter I jotted down a lot of notes about situations, places, characters, how cops work and things like that. I saved many of those notebooks and re-read them on a regular basis. Often while I’m doing that an idea for a new novel strikes me and I start writing.
6. What can we expect from you in the future?
At the moment I’m working on a new mystery set in Buffalo, NY about a female private detective who is searching for a rare first edition of Bleak House by Charles Dickens. What makes the book even more valuable is the fact that – in my novel – Dickens personally inscribed it to a friend. My heroine is a former military policewoman who was forced to leave the service when she lost half of her right leg in Afghanistan. I hope to have it finished in early February.
7. Among your own books, have you a favorite book? Favorite hero or heroine?
That’s a tough question. I think if I had to choose I would say my favorite book is Corpus Delectable. My favorite heroine would be Marcy Pantano, a former reporter turned consultant who narrates Corpus Delectable. She’s a 40-something divorcee who now has a hunky (much) younger boyfriend. She’s pretty feisty and kind of funny in the way she looks at life. She gets dragged into a murder investigation when a friend of hers is accused of killing his ex-wife, a former fashion model (a real ‘delectable corpse’). Marcy has to figure out why he’s lying to the cops about where he was when his ex-wife turned up dead in his apartment.
8. Do you plot ahead of time, or do you let the plot emerge as you write?
I don’t really plot ahead of time. I have a general idea of where I think the story is going to end up and I start writing. Along the way, my characters dictate where the story leads, and it doesn’t always wind up where I thought it would.
9. Who are some of your favorite authors to read? Favorite books?
My favorite authors pretty much span the spectrum. Old favorites include Dashiell Hammett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. I’m also a fan of contemporary writers such as Rebecca Forster, Kory Shrum, Tom Benson and EM Kaplan.
My favorite books – and there are many that I have read and re-read - would have to include Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Shrum’s Dying for a Living as well as Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz and The Stand by Stephen King. All of them have very memorable characters, which is what I look for most in a book.
10. Where can we buy your books?
All of my books are available on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK
1. Greetings, can you tell us a little bit about your history and how your work has evolved up to this point?
I sometimes tell people that I started writing in the womb and haven’t stopped since then. Truthfully, I’ve always wanted to be a writer and, except for three years in the Army, including a couple of tours in Vietnam, that’s how I’ve earned my living since I was 15. I was in the seventh grade when a librarian, who was the mother of a friend of mine, gave me a copy of Here is Your War by Ernie Pyle. I devoured it and from that point on I wanted to be a journalist. The book is a collection of Pyle’s World War II columns and without exception they tell the stories of ordinary men and women caught up in extraordinary situations. As a reporter for nearly 50 years I went looking for those kinds of stories both in the United States and later overseas when I was writing about Operation Desert Storm, the invasion of Panama, the Rwandan civil war and other major news events.
I got my first newspaper job when I was still a high school student living in a small town in Ohio, and back then I covered sports primarily because I think my editor was a little afraid to have me cover anything that was deemed as ‘serious.’ Sports writing is very much an active-voice kind of storytelling, and the fact that I spent time covering everything from high school football games to professional baseball helped me later when I switched to covering the police beat and later still when I started covering news overseas.
I retired from journalism 2-1/2 years ago and began writing novels full time. When I did I discovered that I had so much to learn about character development, plot, and how to describe a scene that it was pretty daunting. I kept plugging away, however, and now have seven books on Kindle with an eighth on the way.
2. What genre, or genres, do you write?
I write mostly mystery novels, though I have written one Steampunk adventure and one historical novel.
3. What is your latest book called and what is it about?
I actually brought out two books on the same day last October. Both were a long time in the making. Blood Debt is a murder mystery set in Fort Lauderdale in 1985 and The Third Servant is an historical novel set in the time of Christ.
4. What was the inspiration for your books? When did you first get the idea for Blood Debt? The Third Servant?
Blood Debt was inspired by my days covering the police beat in Fort Lauderdale. Back then cocaine was king, the drug cartels owned cops, lawyers, judges and politicians and murder was an almost-every-day occurrence. The Third Servant was inspired by the parable in the Gospel of Matthew. In that parable Matthew tells us that the third servant, who did not increase his master’s wealth, was cast into the night. He never tells us, however, what happened to him after that. I was in church one morning when the sermon was about that parable, and as the priest was talking this whole story started unfolding in my mind. It took years to write and research and then rewrite it, but I finally got it finished.
5. How long did it take you to write it? What is your writing process like?
Both books took years to write because when I first got the ideas to write them I was still working full time and that often meant writing three or four news stories a day. I was also often overseas and that could mean weeks or months of not being able to work on either book. Once I retired I also had other writing projects that I was working on.
As for my writing process now that I’m retired, I normally write very quickly, something I had to learn to do as a reporter. I wrote my first novel – Corpus Delectable – in about three months. During my years as a reporter I jotted down a lot of notes about situations, places, characters, how cops work and things like that. I saved many of those notebooks and re-read them on a regular basis. Often while I’m doing that an idea for a new novel strikes me and I start writing.
6. What can we expect from you in the future?
At the moment I’m working on a new mystery set in Buffalo, NY about a female private detective who is searching for a rare first edition of Bleak House by Charles Dickens. What makes the book even more valuable is the fact that – in my novel – Dickens personally inscribed it to a friend. My heroine is a former military policewoman who was forced to leave the service when she lost half of her right leg in Afghanistan. I hope to have it finished in early February.
7. Among your own books, have you a favorite book? Favorite hero or heroine?
That’s a tough question. I think if I had to choose I would say my favorite book is Corpus Delectable. My favorite heroine would be Marcy Pantano, a former reporter turned consultant who narrates Corpus Delectable. She’s a 40-something divorcee who now has a hunky (much) younger boyfriend. She’s pretty feisty and kind of funny in the way she looks at life. She gets dragged into a murder investigation when a friend of hers is accused of killing his ex-wife, a former fashion model (a real ‘delectable corpse’). Marcy has to figure out why he’s lying to the cops about where he was when his ex-wife turned up dead in his apartment.
8. Do you plot ahead of time, or do you let the plot emerge as you write?
I don’t really plot ahead of time. I have a general idea of where I think the story is going to end up and I start writing. Along the way, my characters dictate where the story leads, and it doesn’t always wind up where I thought it would.
9. Who are some of your favorite authors to read? Favorite books?
My favorite authors pretty much span the spectrum. Old favorites include Dashiell Hammett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. I’m also a fan of contemporary writers such as Rebecca Forster, Kory Shrum, Tom Benson and EM Kaplan.
My favorite books – and there are many that I have read and re-read - would have to include Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Shrum’s Dying for a Living as well as Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz and The Stand by Stephen King. All of them have very memorable characters, which is what I look for most in a book.
10. Where can we buy your books?
All of my books are available on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK
Biography
Mike Billington spent nearly a half century as a reporter covering stories around the world and across the United States including Operation Desert Storm, the Rwandan Civil War, hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, Katrina and Rita as well as the Love Canal environmental disaster and the 9/11 airline crash near Shanksville, Pa. During his career he earned more than 40 awards including the Brotherhood Medal of the National Conference of Christians and Jews for an undercover investigation of white-power extremists and the Southern Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting for a series he co-authored exposing police abuse of Florida's Contraband Forfeiture Act. He also received several awards for a lengthy series on infant mortality in Delaware. An Army veteran who spent two tours in Vietnam, his awards and decorations include the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman's Badge. In addition, he was twice decorated by the Vietnamese government. He is single and currently lives in Spain.
Author's website: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7827793.Mike_Billington/blog
Twitter: @Billington_Book
Mike Billington spent nearly a half century as a reporter covering stories around the world and across the United States including Operation Desert Storm, the Rwandan Civil War, hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, Katrina and Rita as well as the Love Canal environmental disaster and the 9/11 airline crash near Shanksville, Pa. During his career he earned more than 40 awards including the Brotherhood Medal of the National Conference of Christians and Jews for an undercover investigation of white-power extremists and the Southern Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting for a series he co-authored exposing police abuse of Florida's Contraband Forfeiture Act. He also received several awards for a lengthy series on infant mortality in Delaware. An Army veteran who spent two tours in Vietnam, his awards and decorations include the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman's Badge. In addition, he was twice decorated by the Vietnamese government. He is single and currently lives in Spain.
Author's website: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7827793.Mike_Billington/blog
Twitter: @Billington_Book
Character Interview
Corpus Delectable
Marcy Pantano, a former hard-charging cop reporter who is now a consultant, finds herself trying to prove a friend innocent of murder. It's a job made harder by the fact that her friend is lying about where he was when his ex-wife, a former fashion model turned food critic, was stabbed to death on his kitchen floor. Complicating Marcy's life is her hunky boyfriend Quinn Bowman, a freelance photographer who is considerably younger than her. He wants to take their relationship farther than she is willing to go. Set in a Delaware beach town, Corpus Delectable mixes humor, crackling dialogue and enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing.
Character name: Marcella Anna Maria Madonna Pantano (but please, just call me Marcy).
Book title: Corpus Delectable
Tell me a little about yourself?
Well, I used to be a reporter in Wilmington, Delaware but I quit one day not long after my divorce from my jerk ex-husband and moved downstate to the beach. I now live in a small condo that doubles as the office for my consulting business. I’m 40-something and have been accused of being more than a little sarcastic. I come from Buffalo where my parents and three sisters still live. I’m Italian, was raised Catholic and still am, though my feminist friends say I should leave the church because they think it treats women like second-class citizens.
Where do you live?
I live in Lewes (you pronounce as if it was spelled L-O-U-I-S), Delaware. It’s technically a city but I can’t really think of it as one. I mean, it only has one traffic light and you could fit the entire population in the bleachers at Fenway Park in Boston and still have enough room left over for a Shriner’s convention. My condo is right on the beach and across the street from a Dairy Queen, which makes it pretty much ideal for me.
Who is the most important person in your life?
That would be my boyfriend, Quinn Bowman. He’s a freelance photographer and an adrenaline junkie.
What was your childhood like?
I’d have to say it was pretty typical. My sisters and I went to Catholic school and were pretty much raised with the idea that our real job in life was to get married and start having children as soon as we could. All four of us girls went to college and three of my sisters married Italian guys, which made my parents really happy… well, pretty happy anyway. They don’t really like my sister Rosemarie’s husband all that much but at least he’s Italian and Catholic so they tolerate him. I married a guy who isn’t Italian but he was Catholic and a doctor – well he was a med student then – so my parents were sort of okay with that.
Of all the people you've met, who would you LEAST like to be stuck in an elevator with?
Oh, definitely, my ex-husband Dr. Jack Thalberg. I put him through med school, moved with him to Boston and then to Delaware and got dumped for a nurse. There’s no love lost between us.
What is the most important thing in your life? What do you value most?
There was a time when I would have said my career was the most important thing in my life, but I’m older now so I’d have to say that my relationship with Quinn first and my relationships with friends and family second.
What is your biggest fear?
Quinn is, as I said, an adrenaline junkie. He takes assignments all over the world, usually winding up in places where there’s a lot of violence. My biggest fear is that one day I’m going to get a call saying he’s dead. It’s one of the reasons why, though he’s asked me, I haven’t said I’ll marry him.
What is the most important thing that ever happened to you? Why?
That’s a tough question to answer… I guess, in a weird sort of way, it would have to be getting divorced. It may sound strange but, although it was pretty traumatic at the time, my divorce was actually a good thing. I changed careers, mine is a lot less stressful now than it was when I was a reporter; I met Quinn; I moved to the beach and quit smoking… I’m even working on a novel, though I’ll probably never finish it. All in all, my life is better now than it was when I was married.
Do you have any special talents or abilities?
Not really. I’m a hard worker and I like to think that I’m pretty good at my job but I can’t run a marathon or knock someone out with a karate kick. I’m a pretty good cook but not world class. I can’t sing and friends who have seen me dance say that I look a little like a heavily medicated flamingo.
How do you see your future?
I’d like to think that Quinn and I will stay together, married or not, and that we’ll eventually buy a house somewhere down here by the beach. Someday I’d like to actually be able to say I’m a published author but if that never happens I’ll be okay with that. My biological clock stopped ticking some time ago but I’d like to adopt a child or even two… there are so many kids that have been abandoned either by parents or circumstance. I think I’d be a good mom.
If you could spend the day with someone you admire (living or dead or imaginary), who would you pick?
That’s another difficult question because I admire a lot of men and women… I think, though, if I had to choose I’d say Katherine Hepburn. She was an independent woman who was unafraid of new challenges. She was smart, unconventional, and sexy in a non-threatening sort of way. I also admire the fact that she had a well-developed social conscience. I think it would be fascinating to spend an entire day with her.
If you had a free day with no responsibilities, how would you spend it?
This will sound so mundane but I’d spend it at the beach with Quinn, a good book and a picnic lunch. We’d talk about anything and everything. When the sun set we’d go get ice cream sundaes at the Dairy Queen and then go home. We’d have a really great dinner and then cuddle on the couch for a while before going to bed. There’d be no phone calls, no projects that have to be done right away and no worries just for one glorious day.
Where can we find out more about you?
Well, assuming you’re not going to drop in at my condo in Lewes, the easiest place to find me is on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK where I hang out with my friends from other Mike Billington novels.
Book title: Corpus Delectable
Tell me a little about yourself?
Well, I used to be a reporter in Wilmington, Delaware but I quit one day not long after my divorce from my jerk ex-husband and moved downstate to the beach. I now live in a small condo that doubles as the office for my consulting business. I’m 40-something and have been accused of being more than a little sarcastic. I come from Buffalo where my parents and three sisters still live. I’m Italian, was raised Catholic and still am, though my feminist friends say I should leave the church because they think it treats women like second-class citizens.
Where do you live?
I live in Lewes (you pronounce as if it was spelled L-O-U-I-S), Delaware. It’s technically a city but I can’t really think of it as one. I mean, it only has one traffic light and you could fit the entire population in the bleachers at Fenway Park in Boston and still have enough room left over for a Shriner’s convention. My condo is right on the beach and across the street from a Dairy Queen, which makes it pretty much ideal for me.
Who is the most important person in your life?
That would be my boyfriend, Quinn Bowman. He’s a freelance photographer and an adrenaline junkie.
What was your childhood like?
I’d have to say it was pretty typical. My sisters and I went to Catholic school and were pretty much raised with the idea that our real job in life was to get married and start having children as soon as we could. All four of us girls went to college and three of my sisters married Italian guys, which made my parents really happy… well, pretty happy anyway. They don’t really like my sister Rosemarie’s husband all that much but at least he’s Italian and Catholic so they tolerate him. I married a guy who isn’t Italian but he was Catholic and a doctor – well he was a med student then – so my parents were sort of okay with that.
Of all the people you've met, who would you LEAST like to be stuck in an elevator with?
Oh, definitely, my ex-husband Dr. Jack Thalberg. I put him through med school, moved with him to Boston and then to Delaware and got dumped for a nurse. There’s no love lost between us.
What is the most important thing in your life? What do you value most?
There was a time when I would have said my career was the most important thing in my life, but I’m older now so I’d have to say that my relationship with Quinn first and my relationships with friends and family second.
What is your biggest fear?
Quinn is, as I said, an adrenaline junkie. He takes assignments all over the world, usually winding up in places where there’s a lot of violence. My biggest fear is that one day I’m going to get a call saying he’s dead. It’s one of the reasons why, though he’s asked me, I haven’t said I’ll marry him.
What is the most important thing that ever happened to you? Why?
That’s a tough question to answer… I guess, in a weird sort of way, it would have to be getting divorced. It may sound strange but, although it was pretty traumatic at the time, my divorce was actually a good thing. I changed careers, mine is a lot less stressful now than it was when I was a reporter; I met Quinn; I moved to the beach and quit smoking… I’m even working on a novel, though I’ll probably never finish it. All in all, my life is better now than it was when I was married.
Do you have any special talents or abilities?
Not really. I’m a hard worker and I like to think that I’m pretty good at my job but I can’t run a marathon or knock someone out with a karate kick. I’m a pretty good cook but not world class. I can’t sing and friends who have seen me dance say that I look a little like a heavily medicated flamingo.
How do you see your future?
I’d like to think that Quinn and I will stay together, married or not, and that we’ll eventually buy a house somewhere down here by the beach. Someday I’d like to actually be able to say I’m a published author but if that never happens I’ll be okay with that. My biological clock stopped ticking some time ago but I’d like to adopt a child or even two… there are so many kids that have been abandoned either by parents or circumstance. I think I’d be a good mom.
If you could spend the day with someone you admire (living or dead or imaginary), who would you pick?
That’s another difficult question because I admire a lot of men and women… I think, though, if I had to choose I’d say Katherine Hepburn. She was an independent woman who was unafraid of new challenges. She was smart, unconventional, and sexy in a non-threatening sort of way. I also admire the fact that she had a well-developed social conscience. I think it would be fascinating to spend an entire day with her.
If you had a free day with no responsibilities, how would you spend it?
This will sound so mundane but I’d spend it at the beach with Quinn, a good book and a picnic lunch. We’d talk about anything and everything. When the sun set we’d go get ice cream sundaes at the Dairy Queen and then go home. We’d have a really great dinner and then cuddle on the couch for a while before going to bed. There’d be no phone calls, no projects that have to be done right away and no worries just for one glorious day.
Where can we find out more about you?
Well, assuming you’re not going to drop in at my condo in Lewes, the easiest place to find me is on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK where I hang out with my friends from other Mike Billington novels.
Corpus Delectable
Marcy Pantano, a former hard-charging cop reporter who is now a consultant, finds herself trying to prove a friend innocent of murder. It's a job made harder by the fact that her friend is lying about where he was when his ex-wife, a former fashion model turned food critic, was stabbed to death on his kitchen floor. Complicating Marcy's life is her hunky boyfriend Quinn Bowman, a freelance photographer who is considerably younger than her. He wants to take their relationship farther than she is willing to go. Set in a Delaware beach town, Corpus Delectable mixes humor, crackling dialogue and enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing.