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Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing


Mar 16, 2023

Mark chats with Dharma Kelleher who writes action-driven thrillers that explore the complexities of social and criminal justice in a world that favors the privileged. She is one of the only openly transgender authors in the crime fiction genre. They talk about that and a lot more.

Prior to the interview, Mark reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, provides a personal update and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

 

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Mark and Dharma talk about

  • Dharma's "long, torrid" life-long affair with writing, and beginning to write on a manual typewriter in their teenage years
  • What happened in the intervening years, including getting a degree in journalism
  • Coming out as transgender, initially to self in college, and then later on. And the challenges of doing that in the deep south of the US
  • Celebrating 25 years of marriage in 2023
  • Falling back in love with writing in 2007 thanks to NaNoWriMo
  • Spending eight years focusing mostly on the craft of writing
  • Pitching to 90 agents and then landing a deal with a New York publisher
  • Coming to the realization that the trad pub model wasn't going to work (due to the publisher requiring print book rights even though they weren't planning on publishing beyond eBook)
  • Getting tired of hearing the "we already had a transgender author book this year" from publishers
  • Red Market's release in February 2023 and how Dharma is selling it directly before doing a wide publishing release
  • How you get it early and get more when you buy it direct from the author
  • Switching from a WooCommerce to a Shopify website for direct sales
  • Doing the best they can to deliver their books to any customer wherever they are on the planet
  • Being the first person in Arizona to donate a kidney to a stranger and how that was part of the inspiration for Red Market
  • The Jinx Ballou Crime Thriller series and how crime thrillers, mysteries, etc are often about "justice"
  • Some of the things writers can get wrong when they include transgender characters in their fiction
  • Disclosure (Netflix) - that takes a deep dive into those tropes
  • The importance of giving transgender characters agency in fiction
  • How the tropes can cause real harm, not just hurt feelings
  • Dharma's love of numbers and love of writing being among their biggest passions
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on two of the things that came up in their discussion.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Dharma Kelleher writes action-driven thrillers that explore the complexities of social and criminal justice in a world that favors the privileged. She is one of the only openly transgender authors in the crime fiction genre. Dharma lives in Arizona with her wife and a black cat named Mouse. 

Learn more about Dharma and her work at https://dharmakelleher.com.

 


The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0