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LITERARYScene By Ryan G. Van Cleave RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE SPOTLIGHTS BRADENTON AUTHOR ELIZABETH SIMS CRIMES IN A SECOND LANGUAGE by Elizabeth Sims It’s rare that I get to sit down with an author whose book I’m reviewing, so when Elizabeth Sims’ terrific new novel came across my desk, I decided to take this opportunity to learn more about this prolific local author. I already knew her fine book on writing You’ve Got a Book in You: A Stress-Free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams, and I’ve read other titles of hers as well (her Rita Farmer Mystery Series and the Lillian Byrd Crime Series), so I knew Sims had a lot to offer. Plus, I’ve met her a few times and she’s simply a hoot. But first, let me offer a few words about the book. Crimes in a Second Language is a stand-alone mystery about a retired schoolteacher couple (Elnice and Arthur) who leave the Midwest for the gritty urban landscape of California. Arthur is pretty much sidelined by emphysema, but Elnice more than makes up for things. She cooks up a friendship with a young cleaning woman named Solita, and the two run into plot aplenty. I won’t say more about what happens next since the turns and spins through the darker issues of urban life that follow are part of the fun, but I will say this: Sims is a master wordsmith. From her spot-on dialogue to her well-drawn female characters to her ability to propel a plot along at Tom Clancy speed while still using a lovely F. Scott Fitzgerald lushness of language, she’s giving the reader a lot to admire. How much research did you do for Crimes in a Second Language? It’s funny, it’s sort of like my life was my research for this novel. It’s based on some experiences my aunt and uncle had when they lived in southern California, as well as my 96 SCENE | JUNE 2017 arts&culture experiences doing technical writing when I was much younger, along with me hanging out with movie-business friends in Hollywood. The kernel for the story was the relationship between my au was a and M runni Manu Soo not sp aunt and her Mexican-born cleaning woman. My aunt, who a retired kindergarten teacher, couldn’t speak Spanish, Manuela couldn’t speak English, and my aunt got tired of running out to get a neighbor to translate. So she offered to teach Manuela English, and Manuela said yes. Soon enough my aunt found out that not only could Manuela speak English, she couldn’t read and write very well in her own language because she’d only gone to school through the fifth grade in Mexico. She started teaching Manuela the things she should have learned in school, basic subjects. Then my aunt learned that Manuela’s husband didn’t like all this learning his wife was doing. And I wondered, what if the husband had some nefarious reason to want his wife to remain ignorant? And I started working out a story from there.   How different is it to write a stand-alone book vs. a book in a series? I found it surprisingly easy because I didn’t have the constraints of having to use characters and settings that I’d already built. It was also fun to write a novel entirely in third person, though I did use third-limited most of the time, which I seem to prefer as a reader.    Who are some of your literary heroes? When I was very young, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, then moving into Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion. Those are the main ones that strike me at the moment. There are a few contemporary authors I’ve especially admired, but I can’t put them into hero category yet! In all of your experience as a writer, what has surprised you the most? A few years ago, I received a letter from a somewhat wellknown prison inmate (not a violent criminal) who wanted me to collaborate with him on his life story. I got in touch with a journalist who had written about him, and the journalist advised me to keep away from this guy at all costs, which confirmed my own feeling, so I politely declined. I’ve had readers proposition me romantically, which is also surprising. On a broader level, the speed of the whole digital publishing revolution has been shocking. Has the digital publishing revolution been good for writers? Such a complicated issue, because it has to do with both publishing and retail. For established writers of mainstream, traditionally published books, the digital revolution has been a mixed bag. Consumer choice used to be limited by how many books publishers could print and ship to stores, and how much shelf space stores had for books. If your books were in the


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