I’m always pleased to welcome today’s guest back to my blog. While in truth reading everything she’s been up to these days makes me want to grab a cold rag and an aspirin and lie down 🙂 She’s as inexhaustible as she is prolific. See if you don’t agree. Let’s join Author Marilyn Levinson for a look back at her writing career. ~ Donnell
A Look Back on a Writing Career
by Marilyn Levinson
Author Marilyn Levinson
If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be having eight books and a short story published in 2024, I would have burst out laughing. Who produces that many books in one year? Certainly not me, who manages to write a book a year and marvels at my friends who write two and three in a twelve month period. But it happened.
BOOKED ONÂ MURDER, the eighth and final book in my Haunted Library series, was scheduled to come out in August. RUFUS AND THE WITCH’S DRUDGE, the second book in my middle-grade Rufus and Magic Run Amok series, was scheduled to come out in May. (All right, I am writing two books a year, but only until the fourth Rufus book is done.) And my YA horror, THE DEVIL’S PAWN, was republished in January. That was my 2024 schedule until the final days of last December when things suddenly took a turn.
I knew Kelly Moran, one of the four publishers of the newly-created boutique publishing house that was debuting in January because we’d had the same literary agent. Also, Kelly was familiar with my books and their reviews because she’d recently redone my website. When two of my publishers changed hands, I felt it was time to take back the books they had. Not only did Kelly want to publish COME HOME TO DEATH, the very first book I’d written, she was also eager to republish all my mysteries and suspense novels. (I said, “Please, let’s not do more than four books this year.) And one of my previous publishers asked to republish the two kids’ books whose rights I’d gotten back.
Two publishers asking me to republish all of my backlist was quite an experience! Many of these books had been published with small presses and hadn’t received the attention I felt they deserved. How validating it was to know that my older books were considered good reads worthy of being sent back out to the reading public sporting new covers. And finally COME HOME TO DEATH had its book birthday April 30th!
I’m equally proud of my short story, “Stabbed in the Heart.” I hadn’t written a short story in ages, and was delighted when I was asked to write one for the anthology, FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MURDER, which will be released May 14th. Meanwhile, I’m writing the first book in a new mystery series and the third book in my Rufus series, both of which will be out in 2025.
Why all the good fortune that’s come my way? Believe me, this wasn’t always the case. I chuckle when I think of the success my first book, AND DON’T BRING JEREMY, had when it was first published in the mid-eighties. I thought that every book I wrote after that would sell and be praised to the skies. Alas, that wasn’t the case. There were many years when proposals were rejected and manuscripts weren’t sold. Still, I kept on writing, focusing on mysteries instead of books for kids. Eventually, things began to change.
They say learning to write is a process. I also believe that having a writing career takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. All of the elements of fiction writing become second nature as we continue to write, despite rejections and publishing disappointments. I think perseverance is so important if one wants to have a writing career—perseverance in writing more stories; perseverance in sending out your work; perseverance in making the necessary connections to promote your stories so readers will read them. Perseverance in trying out new writing styles, writing in different genres, and perseverance in maintaining a place in the writing community because this is where we receive the support and camaraderie of our fellow writers.
About the Book:Â
Erica Parker has barely been a bride nine months when two thugs show up at her apartment while her husband is away on one of his infamous business trips, claiming he owes their boss a huge gambling debt. Frightened for her life, and without any other options, she heads for her childhood Long Island home she escaped three years ago. And swore never to return.
The aunts who raised her are as interfering and controlling as ever, but soon as the family attorney advances the rest of her trust from her parents’ life insurance, she can return to normalcy. Instead he refuses, spouting nonsense about how, if she waits, she will soon inherit millions. On her twenty-fifth birthday. Problem is, someone doesn’t want her to live that long.
A former Spanish teacher, Marilyn writes mysteries, romantic suspense, and novels for kids.
​As Allison Brook, Marilyn writes the popular Haunted Library series. DEATH OVERDUE, the first book in the series, was an Agatha nomination for Best Contemporary Novel, a Library Journal “Pick of the Month,” and on Goodreads’ list of the “200 Most Popular Books Published in October, 2017.” BOOKED ON MURDER, the eighth and final book in the series, will be released on August 6, 2024.
​Many of Marilyn’s books are in the process of being republished. Among them, THE DEVIL’S PAWN, a horror-suspense YA novel that will give you chills but leave you smiling when you’ve read the last page, has just been released. Her “Children’s Choice” middle grade novel, RUFUS AND MAGIC RUN AMOK, has been republished and will be followed by three new books in the series.
​Marilyn’s romantic suspense, COME HOME TO DEATH, will be out with Rowan Prose Publishing on April 30th. Her two Golden Age of Mystery Book Club mysteries have received many wonderful reviews and will come out in a new edition in the spring of 2024.
​And there’s lots more to come, including a new mystery series! To learn more about Marily and her alter egos, check out her website at Cozy Mystery Books | Author Marilyn Levinson/author Allison Brook
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Donnell,
Thanks so much for having me back as your guest. I love your blog—always filled with interesting posts.
Thank you, Marilyn. Behind this blog and the words it took to write it are years and years of effort and hard work. Only another writer knows how difficult it is to devote the time and energy you have to your writing career. So glad your backlists are being re-released. Readers are in for a treat! I love second chances, don’t you?
I do! And I’m so thrilled that the first novel I wrote is now out for people to read. That’s perseverence!
Marilyn, what a whirlwind. Many continued good fortune.
Your perseverance and wonderful work are an inspiration!
Thanks, Lynn.