On this month's Special Page:
An exclusive interview with the best-selling mystery and crime fiction writer Dana Cameron, who has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards.
Dana Cameron is an American archeologist, and author of award-winning crime fiction and urban fantasy. She is known for her Emma Fieldling, Anna Hoyt, and Fangborn books among others. Some of her Emma Fielding archeological mysteries have been made into TV movies by Hallmark Movies and Mysteries.
This exclusive interview was conducted by The Horror Zine's Media Director, Trish Wilson.
Trish Wilson's interview with Dana Cameron
TRISH WILSON: You took an archeological trip to Turkey in 2009 with author Tess Gerritsen, who wrote the Rizzoli and Isles series of mystery/thriller novels. How did your background in archaeology, this trip, and other archeological digs influence your writing, especially the Emma Fielding novels?
DANA CAMERON: I had always wanted to be a writer, but didn’t want to have the “adventures” I thought I needed to write. Archaeology ticked all the boxes for the things I love: research, languages, writing, history, travel, and puzzles. My boss and I were surveying a site when we were threatened by a pot hunter with a metal detector—and a gun. I was telling a friend about this later, and she said “you need to write this all down!” My very early desire to write woke up and it was from that incident that Emma Fielding and Site Unseen were born. I wrote the next five mysteries loosely based on my own experiences in the field, only amped up to eleven.
Tess and I got to know one another because of her interest in archaeology; we started chatting at a writing conference after I told Emma’s “origin story” on a panel. That trip to Turkey was brilliant and when we weren’t seeing amazing sites (and sights), we talked a lot. Tess told me I should write an archaeological thriller with X,Y, and Z elements in it (including Turkey). When I returned, I started to work on the thriller, but it was...flat. At the same time, I was trying to write a novel based on my urban fantasy story, “The Night Things Changed,” with my “Fangborn” characters: werewolves, vampires, and oracles who protect humanity and fight evil. That wasn’t working either. It was only later on that I understood that they were two sides of the same book, and from that, I found Zoe Miller an archaeology student who doesn’t know she’s a werewolf and part of the Fangborn. She became my protagonist for the Fangborn novels. So, when you read any of my fiction, it will usually be set in the past or touch on archaeology in some way.
TRISH WILSON: You’ve received numerous awards for your writing, including the Agatha, Anthony, and the Macavity awards. What do you think awards play in the life and career of a writer?
DANA CAMERON: Awards bring wider attention to your work, which is always a good thing. That builds your community, which is so important—writing is lonely! A wider community also brings more opportunities for you to write. And I think awards are important for a writer’s ego—and to be honest, it takes a lot of ego to a) come up with a complete story and b) imagine someone will want to read it. I was on the verge of giving up writing when my story “Femme Sole” was short listed for the Edgar Award, along with Dennis Lehane, Ace Atkins, Jim Fusilli, and Luis Alberto Urrea (who won). I figured, if my work could stand up in that company, I should keep writing.
TRISH WILSON: What do you think are the most important things about writing a short story?
DANA CAMERON: I work to develop a character who resonates with the reader while that character is in the middle of something that will change their lives forever. You might be able to get some setting in there too, but it’s the plot and character that matter most in a short story. In fact, it’s how the character resolves the plot that tells you even more about them.
TRISH WILSON: Which do you prefer – short stories or novels – and why?
DANA CAMERON: They serve different purposes for me. I like short stories for discovering a new world and a character. If I’m happy with what I did in short form, I know I have the basics, and from there, I can find the adventure that character might want to be part of. Short stories are the amuse bouche and novels are a complete meal, so it depends what you’re in the mood for.
TRISH WILSON: You've written Urban Fantasy such as your Fangborn books, which feature an archeologist who is also a werewolf. What attracted you to that genre?
DANA CAMERON: That’s easy: Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner (who also writes as Leigh Perry) invited me to contribute a werewolf story to their collection Wolfsbane and Mistletoe. I was delighted, because they are both good friends and fine writers. Then I was terrified because I didn’t want to let down my friends with a bad story. I turned to my reference books—remember, I was an academic long before I wrote fiction—and I had nothing on werewolves. I was stuck for a solid, sweaty fifteen minutes before it dawned on me: I could make up my own brand of werewolf. This was after I’d written all six Emma Fielding mysteries! But I had worked hard to keep the archaeological settings in those strictly factual, and hadn’t ventured into more fantastic stuff before. I started flipping a lot of the usual conventions to make them secret superheroes who seem like murderers because they’re always first at the scene of a crime.
TRISH WILSON: Which writers have influenced your own work?
DANA CAMERON: I’ve already mentioned Charlaine and Toni, and it would be impossible to list all the authors who sent me with their storytelling —from the authors of Nancy Drew to Shakespeare to Stephen King to Harlan Ellison to Dorothy Parker. But I identify several authors that left a mark when I was figuring out how I write. At first, I tried to write like Kazuo Ishiguro, but that was a dire mistake. It was reading I Am Jackie Chan, I learned that when everyone wanted to be the next Bruce Lee, Jackie found a way to stand out in martial arts movies through comedy. It’s not your voice if you’re trying to write like someone; it’s your voice if you sound like you. I realized my story telling style was way closer to Robert Heinlein’s than Ishiguro’s, and my work improved when I embraced and explored that. I also owe a lot to Dorothy L. Sayers and Edith Wharton, because, each in her way takes a microscope to the societies in which their characters live, and that’s right up my alley.
TRISH WILSON: Did you have mentors early in your career who helped you? If you did, who were they? What kind of help did they give you? I've noticed some writers have had mentors and they've maintained professional relationships and even friendships with them.
DANA CAMERON: I don’t think I’ve had what you’d call a mentor, but I have had supportive friends and excellent critics reading my work, both in writing groups and as individuals. That’s the thing I think is most important, after finishing a book: getting more and more capable critique on it.
TRISH WILSON: I see you every year at NECON, a writers convention held in New England. This year, it was at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. How did you first discover NECON? Which conventions do you go to, and what would you advise other writers to do for their craft when going to a writer's convention?
DANA CAMERON: I went to my first NECON about ten years ago because Christopher Golden talked me into it—I’m sure I’m not the only one he convinced! We knew each other through Charlaine and Toni, and because I’m pretty sure we ran into each other at Boskone, which is another event that focuses on science fiction and fantasy, but has plenty of room for horror and crime writers. The Multiverse Convention is similar, and succeeds at being super inclusive and diverse.
TRISH WILSON: Crime, mystery, and horror often seem to be linked. How has horror in particular played out in your own crime and mystery stories?
DANA CAMERON: The more I write, the more I want to explore different depths and types of emotion, and while the horrific can exist in crime fiction, my earlier work is much less grim than my later work. As I moved into writing thrillers and noir, I’ve played more with the notions of what true evil looks like or what people will do when they are pushed to extremes. Anna Hoyt is noir, but there are moments that many people would describe as horror, because her back is always against the wall.
TRISH WILSON: What scares you?
DANA CAMERON: I startle easily, I dislike spiders (downgraded from “am terrified of spiders”), and Project 2025 scares the bejeezus out of me. But deep down? I am most scared of losing or damaging something I love by not paying enough attention to it.
TRISH WILSON: You've created some fascinating heroines including Emma Fielding, Zoe Miller, and Ann Hoyt. What attracts you to leading female characters? What are your favorite things about creating such interesting people?
DANA CAMERON: I’ve noticed I tend to write about women and power, usually when they don’t have it, but sometimes when they suddenly find themselves with control over their bodies and lives. The two most stark examples are Zoe Miller and Anna Hoyt. Zoe has been broke and on the run her whole life; when she finds she possess the physical strength of a werewolf—and more powers than most Fangborn—she is forced to negotiate between humans and the Fangborn.
Anna had been raised with tales of her family’s poverty and the small pox epidemics in the 1720s, so she believes she is secure having inherited her father’s tavern and the right to run it. That lasts right up until her husband decides he wants to force her to sell it to a local thug. My favorite thing about making up these characters? I learn from them. I started running because Emma Fielding did. I studied mixed martial arts because she did, and that led me to think about writing Jayne, a covert operative in Exit Interview, who taught me to look at the world from a different point of view. Zoe taught me about kindness, and having the courage to act when I can.
TRISH WILSON: Your Emma Fielding novels have been made into two Hallmark movie mysteries. How involved were you with creating those flicks? How different were they from your books? Any more movies based on your works coming up in the future?
DANA CAMERON: There were three movies made! Site Unseen, Past Malice, and More Bitter Than Death. I had absolutely nothing to do in their creation apart from writing the novels. I did get to visit the set on two occasions, and that was a blast for me—I love seeing behind the scenes of anything. The first movie was closest to the book’s plot, and the next two were more in the spirit of how I wrote them, rather than true to the books word for word. I had heard a script was in the works for a fourth movie, but since then, there were been big changes at Hallmark, so who knows? It was a terrifically fun experience and came completely out of the blue.
TRISH WILSON: There seems to be more women writing crime, mystery, and horror than ever before. Who are some notable women writers in your opinion?
DANA CAMERON: Most recently, in I’ve loved Cheryl Head’s Time’s Undoing, which about a reporter’s quest to find the truth about her great-grandfather’s murder. Zin E. Rocklyn’s Flowers for the Sea blew my mind. I’m looking forward to reading the “Alien” novels by Mary SanGiovanni (Enemy of My Enemy) and V. Castro (Vasquez), and I can’t wait to see how their particular brands of horror play out in this ‘verse.
TRISH WILSON: What are your upcoming projects, and where may readers find you on the web?
DANA CAMERON: At the beginning of September, I published “The Bull Dancer,” a Sherlock Holmes pastiche—my Holmesian writing always tends to be on the grittier side. And in October 8, 2024, Anna Hoyt: A Novel of Colonial Crime will drop. I love that book, and the cover design, by Errick Nunnally, is just perfect.
My website is www.danacameron.com
and I’m on social media at:
www.facebook.com/dana.cameron/
https://www.instagram.com/danacameron65
@danacameron.bsky.social
Thanks for having me, Trish! This was fun.
