> Dennis, how did you come to write for that series?
Did you already know
> Robert Arthur or someone involved with it, or did
they approach you cold?
Bill, as usual, it was a matter of
knowing the right persaon, and being in the right place at
the right time. Arthur wasn't well after the first 9 books,
and ideas were coming more and more slowly (As anyone who has
tried finds out, juvenile book ideas are damned hard to think
up.) So he approached his old friend Leo Margulies at Renown
Publications, whose only mag at the time was MSMM, for the
names of writers who had published in MSMM, particu;larly
those who had ghosted the Mike Shayne novelettes and proven
they could pick up other writers styles. Leo gave him my
name, and Bob contacted me. We had known each other vaguely
through Leo and MSMM. I had to prove to Random that I could
do a Three Investigators, and since royalties were involved,
unusal for that kind of work, I did so. Bob liked MOANING
CAVE, and so did Random. LAUGHING SHADOW was the
second.
> Did you like writing young adult
mysteries?
Not particularly. They were damn
hard, mainly because the two editors, Walter Retan and Jennie
Frisse (Later Jennie Fanelli), were extremely hard to please
with an idea and an outline. Sometimes I had to write the
outline five or six times before approval, and then always
had to rewrite the manuscript. (Many years later Gayle took a
shot at the Crimebuster Series and had exactly the same
problem. It drove her crazy.) There were even ideas Jenny
NEVER approved. I still have one in the drawer. The writing
itself was even difficult because you were so limited in
vocabulary, situations, violence, etc.
And why did they come out
> under the William Arden name, when you were doing
the Kane Jackson series
> at the same time? You mentioned publishers wanting
to keep series
> separate, but here was a guy writing for kids and
adults at the same time.
That was why---adult and juvenile
fiction had no connection in Random's mind, and I was tired
of new pseudonyms. Since I was already writing the Arden's, I
just used the same name.
>
> MYSTERY OF THE LAUGHING SHADOW (1969)
> (same copy I've had for 25 years), which has all the
required situations,
> but throws in a lot of unusual stuff I wasn't
expecting: anthropology and
> archaeology and mention of the peopling of the
Americas; some Mongol
> history and an introduction to Genghis Khan and his
descendants; talk
> about the president (Nixon) and his diplomatic
relations with China; a
> visit to a hobo jungle; and a young guitar-playing
hippy who encourages
> people to free themselves from their possessions. It
must have opened the
> eyes of some of the kids who read it. It wasn't set
in some generic place
> and time completely divorced from
reality.
Well, a person needs to have some
reason to write other than money. At least, I do. I write
about SOMETHING, and work-for-hire is no different. Jenny
knocked down a few things, but not too many.
>
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