She Dunit
How an unassuming Brit from Marin County just made a killing writing mysteries.A few months ago, the Chronicle ran an article noting the profusion of female mystery-writing talent around here, including Marcia Muller, with her 23 novels about San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone, and Judith Greber (pen name: Gillian Roberts), with 11 books starring freelance sleuth Amanda Pepper. Also featured were Ayelet Waldman's Mommy-Track series, Cara Black's investigations set in France, Nadia Gordon's two wine country mysteries, and last summer's Maisie Dobbs, by a newcomer named Jacqueline Winspear. A letter to the editor quickly followed, saying, all well and good, but what about the rest? The letter listed 26 more local mystery writers—each woman far more established than Jackie Winspear.
But Maisie Dobbs was not your average debut. Unlike most first novels in any genre, it sent the British-born Winspear, an elegant pale blonde in her late forties, directly to the heights of her field. A mystery set in 1920s England, it was both a literary success and the auspicious start of a career-making series. Winspear has gone from being a Marin County nobody with a half-completed manuscript to an award-winning writer who earned a several-hundred-thousand-dollar contract for her first two books. She's achieved the mystery novelist's dream, and she wasn't even dreaming it.
"I'd always wanted to write a book, but I never thought I'd write fiction," says Winspear. "I didn't think I could think up a story." In 1999, she was living in a nonfiction world, working in telecommunications and writing first-person essays. "Then one day I was driving from San Anselmo to work through San Rafael, going down Second Street, and just as I was passing the Pennzoil station, in my mind's eye I saw this woman come through a turnstile in London from the tube stop at Warren Street. That was my first vision of Maisie Dobbs. By the time I got to the stoplight, I knew what was going to happen to her." Winspear went home and wrote her first book's first chapter, which has scarcely changed since.
Winspear showed those 15 pages to San Francisco Chronicle reporter and former columnist Adair Lara. (Lara did the piece on the six mystery writers.) "I wish I had the rest of this," Lara told her when she'd finished reading. "I'd be here all day."
Eventually Winspear had close to half her story done, but she set it aside for almost a year when she married and moved to Montara, on the coast south of San Francisco. One spring Saturday she was out riding when the horse spooked and bucked her into the air. She remembers having one clear thought before she landed, breaking her shoulder, and it boiled down to: I should never have abandoned Maisie Dobbs.
After surgery, between bouts of physical therapy, and using her left hand, Winspear finished her book less than four months later, in August 2001. She sent sample chapters to three literary agents, one of them Amy Rennert, a former editor of this magazine, who promptly asked her to lunch. "When Amy said she'd represent me," Winspear says, "I told my husband, ‘If it only gets this far, it's OK. I'm in the game.'"
If it had only gotten that far, of course, you wouldn't be reading this. Rennert went on to do some savvy planning. She felt Maisie Dobbs might get more attention from a small publisher than from a Simon & Schuster or Random House. Soho Press has done well with mysteries and books set in other countries; its authors have been finalists for Edgars (the Mystery Writers of America awards) and National Book Awards. Rennert sent the manuscript to Laura Hruska, who edits Cara Black, as well as to editors at twelve other houses. "When Soho made an offer, I knew that one was coming from a bigger publisher," says Rennert, "but we didn't even wait to hear what it was."
Soho paid less than $10,000 for Maisie Dobbs, but the two weren't disappointed. A big advance isn't always a good thing; publishers tend to be disappointed if a writer doesn't make that money back in royalties. And they usually wait to find out how a book does before making it the first of a series, but after seeing a handful of pages, Soho paid another $15,000 for Winspear's second book.
Things started to get interesting as Maisie Dobbs neared publication, in July 2003. The novel drew applause from the publications booksellers read, such as Publishers Weekly, which gave it a coveted starred review. Virtually all the newspaper reviewers liked it, and Maureen Corrigan praised its "intelligent eccentricity" on NPR. After a 12-day "bidding auction" for the paperback rights, Penguin purchased both of Winspear's novels—though she still hadn't written the second one—for about $325,000.
In December, the New York Times named Maisie Dobbs one of its "notable books" of the year, one of only seven mysteries on the list. In yet another pinch-me moment, it was a finalist for the Edgar for Best Novel. This June, Maisie Dobbs comes out in paperback just as book two, Birds of a Feather, is being published in hardcover and Winspear takes off on a 14-city reading tour. Now Rennert is preparing to sell the third Maisie Dobbs mystery—and not for any piddling $15,000.
Need we say that Winspear never went back to her day job?
But Maisie Dobbs was not your average debut. Unlike most first novels in any genre, it sent the British-born Winspear, an elegant pale blonde in her late forties, directly to the heights of her field. A mystery set in 1920s England, it was both a literary success and the auspicious start of a career-making series. Winspear has gone from being a Marin County nobody with a half-completed manuscript to an award-winning writer who earned a several-hundred-thousand-dollar contract for her first two books. She's achieved the mystery novelist's dream, and she wasn't even dreaming it.
"I'd always wanted to write a book, but I never thought I'd write fiction," says Winspear. "I didn't think I could think up a story." In 1999, she was living in a nonfiction world, working in telecommunications and writing first-person essays. "Then one day I was driving from San Anselmo to work through San Rafael, going down Second Street, and just as I was passing the Pennzoil station, in my mind's eye I saw this woman come through a turnstile in London from the tube stop at Warren Street. That was my first vision of Maisie Dobbs. By the time I got to the stoplight, I knew what was going to happen to her." Winspear went home and wrote her first book's first chapter, which has scarcely changed since.
Winspear showed those 15 pages to San Francisco Chronicle reporter and former columnist Adair Lara. (Lara did the piece on the six mystery writers.) "I wish I had the rest of this," Lara told her when she'd finished reading. "I'd be here all day."
Eventually Winspear had close to half her story done, but she set it aside for almost a year when she married and moved to Montara, on the coast south of San Francisco. One spring Saturday she was out riding when the horse spooked and bucked her into the air. She remembers having one clear thought before she landed, breaking her shoulder, and it boiled down to: I should never have abandoned Maisie Dobbs.
After surgery, between bouts of physical therapy, and using her left hand, Winspear finished her book less than four months later, in August 2001. She sent sample chapters to three literary agents, one of them Amy Rennert, a former editor of this magazine, who promptly asked her to lunch. "When Amy said she'd represent me," Winspear says, "I told my husband, ‘If it only gets this far, it's OK. I'm in the game.'"
If it had only gotten that far, of course, you wouldn't be reading this. Rennert went on to do some savvy planning. She felt Maisie Dobbs might get more attention from a small publisher than from a Simon & Schuster or Random House. Soho Press has done well with mysteries and books set in other countries; its authors have been finalists for Edgars (the Mystery Writers of America awards) and National Book Awards. Rennert sent the manuscript to Laura Hruska, who edits Cara Black, as well as to editors at twelve other houses. "When Soho made an offer, I knew that one was coming from a bigger publisher," says Rennert, "but we didn't even wait to hear what it was."
Soho paid less than $10,000 for Maisie Dobbs, but the two weren't disappointed. A big advance isn't always a good thing; publishers tend to be disappointed if a writer doesn't make that money back in royalties. And they usually wait to find out how a book does before making it the first of a series, but after seeing a handful of pages, Soho paid another $15,000 for Winspear's second book.
Things started to get interesting as Maisie Dobbs neared publication, in July 2003. The novel drew applause from the publications booksellers read, such as Publishers Weekly, which gave it a coveted starred review. Virtually all the newspaper reviewers liked it, and Maureen Corrigan praised its "intelligent eccentricity" on NPR. After a 12-day "bidding auction" for the paperback rights, Penguin purchased both of Winspear's novels—though she still hadn't written the second one—for about $325,000.
In December, the New York Times named Maisie Dobbs one of its "notable books" of the year, one of only seven mysteries on the list. In yet another pinch-me moment, it was a finalist for the Edgar for Best Novel. This June, Maisie Dobbs comes out in paperback just as book two, Birds of a Feather, is being published in hardcover and Winspear takes off on a 14-city reading tour. Now Rennert is preparing to sell the third Maisie Dobbs mystery—and not for any piddling $15,000.
Need we say that Winspear never went back to her day job?
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