Members, remember to participate in our free book programs by Saturday!

Lana Waite Interview, plus links to author biography, book summaries, excerpts and reviews

Author Image Not Available

Lana Waite

An interview with Lana Waite

Lana Waite talks with BookBrowse about the fun she had creating the town of Burrywood - the fictional but idyllic setting for her first murder mystery book - and the people that inhabit it.

The town of Burrywood seems very real, as if it is based on an actual place. Is there a Burrywood?
Burrywood was created entirely in my head but I hope there are many towns just like it in this world, places where multi-generations stick together, make their homes, and raise families. When I grew up in Seattle there were about forty cousins close by. Family picnics were grand affairs. Vacation trips included lots of playmates. Now the family is scattered. It takes an important event to get everyone together. For instance, we planned a one hundredth birthday party for my dad. For something that important people were coming from Hawaii, California, and Arizona. Unhappily the date we had set was ten days after 9/11. The celebration never happened. If we’d all lived together in a town like Burrywood the observance would have gone on as planned.

Why did you write about such a small town? And what do you like most about Burrywood?
Small towns are cozy. Everyone knows everyone else very well and, if they are lucky, everybody agrees to disagree. That means that—even though opinions conflict—differences are allowed, little things are overlooked, and there are no warring factions. Burrywood is like that. It sounds like Utopia, I know, but hey—it’s my town. I can make it the way I want to.

And the physical setting is special. The town is on the waterfront facing Puget Sound. There is a landscaped railroad car diner on the shore. There are fishing boats at the docks. Across the water are the snow-covered and misty Olympic Mountains. The park is in the center of town, a half-circle facing the water. It’s surrounded by the newspaper office, the drugstore, the police station, and the mansion, all of which are important to the story. It’s a wonderful place. Truly, I just love that town.

Where did you get your plot?
That is almost the first question people ask and I always have to answer, "I don’t know." When I first began writing in earnest I joined writing groups. One of my first teachers insisted that we could not write a story if we didn’t know where it was going. In other words, she thought we needed an outline. Well, I tried to write outlines but I couldn’t even outline a short story. I didn’t know what was going to happen!

My savior was Tony Hillerman. I’ve heard him talk several times (and he’s the most wonderful speaker on the craft of writing that I have met) and on the first occasion he said he couldn’t outline. He said he even changed the murderer in one of his books several times. His words gave me permission to write any way I could.

In my writing groups people wouldn’t let me begin a book by "setting the scene." Get right into the story, they insisted. O.K., fine! The next session I read the opening line of my first chapter—"I didn’t get to kill him. He was already dead." And at that point, that was absolutely all I knew about the book. I didn’t know what Burrywood looked like until I had Diana walk around there. I didn’t have any characters in my head until she met them in the town. I didn’t even know other people were going to get murdered. What an adventure!

Did you base the characters on people you know?
That’s another thing lots of people ask and the answer is no. People who know me think I’m Diana however.

Character names are important and often set the tone for a book. How did you choose yours?
That was fun. The characters are all pretty definite types and I picked names I thought went with their personalities. Winona was the oldest and bossiest and she had an old-fashioned name. Ginger was the young, peppy policewoman and her name just fit. Annie seemed like a good name for a small, feisty, homeless woman. Amos sounded right for the Reverend. And Tolliver was academic enough for an ex-principal. As I said, it was fun.

The reader gets involved with these characters. Are you going to write more about them?
At the moment I’m writing a book about other people in an entirely different setting. This is partly because I’m afraid another book about Burrywood, from Diana’s viewpoint, might be too much like the first. I don’t want to bore people.

But I can envision a Burrywood book with Annie as the viewpoint character. I think it could be quite interesting—she’s sassy but insightful and empathetic—and she’s pretty smart. Ginger, who sees town life from the police point of view, might be a good protagonist too. Or Winona, the mayor. Using various viewpoint characters in the same town for successive books could be a unique idea.

There are quite a few murders in the book but it’s basically cheerful. There are touches of humor in the story. Isn’t that hard to achieve?
I think the tone of an author’s book is often set by how she views life. I’m basically cheerful and optimistic. I like people who are funny, who speak with wry humor. I like people who see the funny side of things, who can forgive and forget, who don’t carry around a load of anger. I like to know, to read about, and to write about people with whom I could be friends.

How long have you been writing?
Forever! Way back in grade school, if there was a class skit to be given, I wrote it. No one asked me to, it was just automatic. But I got pretty busy after I was married to a Navy man and it wasn’t until our three kids went to college that I began seriously trying to write books. My first ones were awful!

Why did you choose mystery as your field? What do you most enjoy reading?
Mysteries often tell the most straightforward story. In the ones I most enjoy there isn’t a whole lot of personal angst and introspection. There’s not a great deal of description either. In Sue Grafton’s books, for instance, she doesn’t need to tell me what Kinsey looks like. After a few paragraphs of listening to Kinsey talk, I know what she looks like—to me.

The books I enjoy reading are about people I enjoy. Kinsey is one. Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax, Anne George’s two sisters books, Robert Campbell’s Jimmy Flannery mysteries are all favorites of mine. They are about nice, empathetic, smart people.

Why do you write in first person?
I think it’s the easiest way to get into a character’s head.

What will we see from you next?
It’s a book set in the mountains of California, The Madd Mountain Murders. All new characters. I hope you’ll like them.

Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Lana Waite at BookBrowse
The Madd Mountain Murders jacket Buried In Burrywood jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Lana Waite but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose readalikes

  • Lilian Jackson Braun

    Lilian Jackson Braun

    The history of Lilian Jackson Braun is perhaps as exciting and mysterious as her novels. Between 1966 and 1968, she published three novels to critical acclaim; The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Ate ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Buried In Burrywood

    Try:
    The Cat Who Smelled A Rat
    by Lilian Jackson Braun

  • Rita Mae Brown

    Rita Mae Brown

    Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of many books including Rubyfruit Jungle, In Her Day, Six of One, Southern Discomfort, Sudden Death, High Hearts, Bingo,, Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Buried In Burrywood

    Try:
    Claws and Effect
    by Rita Mae Brown

We recommend 7 similar authors

View all 7 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: The Demon of Unrest
    The Demon of Unrest
    by Erik Larson
    In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.