Gay mystery novelist Michael Craft has received his third consecutive Lambda Literary Award nomination for his Mark Manning
mystery Hot Spot. He hasn't been awarded a Lammy yet, and the third time was not the charm (The Snow Garden by Christopher
Rice won).
The bi-coastal writer's latest novel is Desert Winter (St. Martin's Press, 2003), in which his character Claire Gray, a middle-aged
transplanted New Yorker and Broadway director working as a professor in the theater department at a college find her hands full. In
addition to her directing duties on campus (a production of Laura) and her erotic explorations with Tanner, her young stud of a
boyfriend, Claire becomes involved in solving the mysterious death of a wealthy and elderly, antique-collecting gay man found
crushed beneath his toppled refrigerator.
Gregg Shapiro: In Desert Winter, the second 'Claire Gray mystery,' Claire becomes embroiled in uncovering clues surrounding a
murder. Do you think that there is a natural inclination for people to sleuth?
Michael Craft: (Laughs) Well, there is in amateur sleuth series and this is one of those. Obviously, mystery falls into several
subgenres and if the protagonist is not a policeman or investigative reporter or a detective, it's going to be someone who does not
normally encounter murder investigations. These are collectively known as amateur sleuth mysteries, if the protagonist is a librarian
or shopkeeper or a theatre director. In this case, in Desert Autumn, she had her first encounter with unexplained death and came to
know the local detective who is her neighbor's brother. Because of her three decades of theatrical background, she found that she
had developed a keen insight into character plotting and motivation. These are real buzz words of theatre and of course, they're buzz
words of crime-solving, as well. That's the sort of plausibility link that I tried to establish that would allow Claire to get involved in
murder investigations in the first place, and then stay involved.
GS: You have written two novels in which Claire is the main character and you have written six in which Mark Manning, your other
mystery-solving marvel, is the main character. Is there a difference in female sleuthing techniques vs. male?
MC: Well, again, it goes back to the distinction of their professions. Manning is an investigative reporter and deals with this sort of
thing quite routinely. Whereas Claire Gray is a total novice to her sleuthing and just sort of relies on instinct. Beyond their respective
backgrounds in crime-solving, there's a real key difference in terms of the characters themselves. When I was ready to launch the
Claire Gray series a little over a year ago, I kept warning readers, 'Claire Gray is not just Mark Manning in a dress. They're very
different people.' Mark Manning is a hero who I consider to be more conventionally heroic in that he knows where his mind is at. He's
very self-confident, to the point of being smug, as some readers have criticized. He just goes about his business and he does it. Claire
Gray is very different. Aside the fact that she is a woman, she is simply not as emotionally secure as Manning. She's struggling with a
lot of emotional baggage that she covers quite well, but she still has issues. These issues are at the romantic level. Her back story is
that she really never has connected with a man in the sense of being willing to even consider committing to marriage. This is the
underlying emotional subplot of her series, how she's dealing with all that. Whereas, Manning resolved his big issue and came out in
the first book of the series, Flight Dreams.
GS: I'm glad that you brought up the fact that Mark is a gay man and Claire is straight. What are the challenges in writing these
characters?
MC: I recently had a reading here in Kenosha (Wisconsin) and the first question I got afterwards was from a lady who asked,
'Don't you find it difficult to write a female protagonist?' I simply answered, 'I'm gay. It's easy.' That comment may have been sort of
flip, but it got a good laugh. I thought about it after I got home and there really is more to it than that. I think any fiction writer writes the
opposite sex an awful lot. No novel I can think of is told only through the eyes and minds and thoughts of exclusively male or female
characters. Every novel I can think of has both men and women in it and it has been written by a man or a woman who has to put
words and thoughts into characters of the opposite sex. Now, that task is somewhat magnified where there's a first-person narrator of
the opposite sex, so basically the entire narration of story is told, in this case, in the thoughts of a woman. I don't find it that difficult. My
partner, Leon, is the first to read all of my drafted manuscripts, because I trust his judgment and I value his input, and after he had
read my first draft of the first Claire Gray mystery, he came into the room where I was sitting and said, 'My God, Mike! Claire Gray
sounds more like you than Mark Manning does!' I don't know if I have a split personality or sexual identity issues myself (laughs). I
hope not. I really haven't found it difficult to write the character of Claire Gray. In fact, I enjoy writing that character very much. I think
she's a great gal and I love her.
GS: Mark Manning makes an appearance in Desert Winter. Why?
MC: Quite frankly, at a pragmatic level, I wanted to interest my Mark Manning readers in this book. The next Manning installment,
number 7, isn't due out until August of 2004. It's the first time that there's going to be a two-year gap between the Manning
installments. I thought, I need to give those loyal readers something to hold on to and at the same time, hopefully, interest them in this
other series as well. It has been really intriguing to me, the fan-mail that I get through my Web site. In the past, when I was writing only
the Manning series, I was surprised at the amount of mail that I got from straight female readers who enjoyed that series. It was sort of
based on this, during chats with my agent and my editor at St. Martin's, that we hatched the scheme of developing a second series to
address that mainstream audience more directly.
GS: Desert Winter is also populated with gay characters.
MC: Right. Writers write what they know (laughs). Ironically, I've found that since the Claire Gray series has been launched and
because it is a new series sort of directed toward the mainstream audience which is much larger and harder to target, that it has
caught on much more quickly with my gay readers than it has with the mainstream audience at large. By far, I get more mail from gay
readers about Claire Gray than I get from mainstream readers.
GS: In September, the premiere of your stage play Photo Flash, a mystery, will be performed in Kenosha. Is Claire a vehicle for
you to explore your interests in theater via both the books and the play?
MC: Absolutely. I think it's safe to say at this point, I'm old enough, I've had a lifelong interest in theatre. I got involved in high
school, as most people do if they're going to get involved at all, and I stayed involved in college, at the University of Illinois, and I've
been involved in community theatre here in Kenosha for the last 10 or 15 years. When I got my first book contract for the first three
installments of the Mark Manning series, which were published by Kensington Books, I realized it was time to buckle down and
concentrate on the writing because that has been a very long-held goal of mine to become an established, published, novelist. So, I
thought, something has to go, and theatre went. ... The last thing I did at our local theatre was to direct my first play. That was a real
eye-opener for me. Up until then I had only acted in 17 productions. After doing all that acting and then doing a first-time directing job
that by most accounts was considered pretty good, I felt that I really did have quite an understanding of what a play is. It's been in the
back of my mind for the longest time that this is an aspect of theatre that I have not yet explored, meaning, writing a play. ... I realized,
'I've got Claire Gray sitting here right under my nose. Why not put her to use?' Since I've had a bit of practice now at writing mystery
novels, I thought, write a mystery play. Audiences love them. I do think plotting is one of my strong suits. People seem to like my
dialogue, as well. So, I rolled up my sleeves and tried my hands at my first script and got a lot of input from people I trust ... . There's
been a lot of enthusiasm for the script.
GS: What is your ultimate goal?
MC: When I'm writing a novel, I really know what the goal is. You get it published then you hope you sell a lot of copies. In terms of
writing a play, the goal is not so clear cut to me and basically, everyone I've asked has said, 'The first thing to do is to just get it
produced and then see what happens.' One of the local colleges did offer to produce it, but Lakeside Players, the community theatre
here, also offered to produce it and if it's produced there, which it will be, I get to direct it. The theatre is going to use it as the opening
of their 30th season in September. ... The story of Photo Flash, the play, is the basis for my third Claire Gray novel, Desert Spring,
which is now written and on my editor's desk at St. Martin's. That'll come out in February.
GS: I understand your house in Kenosha is featured in a cover story in the February 2003 issue of Chicago Home and Garden
Magazine. How did that come about?
MC: My partner Leon and I have a second home in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, Calif. Leon's family owns a business here
in Wisconsin, but we spend what time we can out in the desert. We've developed a large circle of friends there, including an interior
decorator that recently moved there from the Chicago area. He's had work published before in Chicago Home and Garden. We
happened just to show his snapshots of the Wisconsin house and he got all giddy about it and said, 'You've got to have this
published.' He brought the editor up to see the house once and they were suitably impressed and the rest is history.
