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Author: Stephen Greenleaf

Links:

    -ENTRY: Greenleaf, Stephen (Howell) (Encyclopedia.com)
    -AUTHOR PAGE: Stephen Greenleaf (Mysterious Press)
    -AUTHOR PAGE: Stephen Greenleaf (Simon & Schuster)
    -John Marshall Tanner: Created by Stephen Greenleaf (Thrilling Detective)
    -Stephen Greenleaf (Stop You're Killing Me)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Stephen Greenleaf (Enotes)
    -INTERVIEW: STEPHEN GREENLEAF: CREATOR OF CALIFORNIA’S NEXT GREAT PRIVATE EYE (Ed Lynskey, Mystery File)

Q. You’ve said that no further PI Marsh Tanner books will be written and you’ve essentially retired from writing. Why did you make the decision to take “retirement”? Do you have any regrets? Would you care to share any opinions on the state of today’s publishing industry, good or bad?

A. My retirement was more forced than elected. When no publisher was willing to bring Strawberry Sunday out in softcover, even though it had been nominated for an Edgar, I knew Tanner’s day was done. Luckily I was able to write Ellipsis as the last chapter in the saga, and allow its subtext to suggest the reason my series had come to an end. I don’t see any need (or much demand) for the Tanner series to continue.

I do plan to write more fiction, though it’s not likely to be anything of interest to major houses. Over the past two years I’ve turned a couple of (unproduced) screenplays of mine into novels and may publish them with iUniverse or some similar outlet.

In the beginning, I was published by small imprints and edited by their editors-in-chief: Juris Jurjevics at Dial and Marc Jaffe at Villard. Both men liked the books and did their best to sell them within the limits of their corporate circumstances. After that I had no contact with the head of the house that published me, and Tanner became just another book. He didn’t survive the experience. (By the way, I never left a publisher before the person who brought me there had already departed, voluntarily or otherwise.)

I don’t blame my own “ellipsis” on the publishing industry. Every author thinks more could have been done to promote him and his work, but the fact is, Tanner was around long enough for anyone interested in the genre to have taken a run at him. I hear the phrase “I read one of your books once” far too often for comfort (it’s much more damning than “I’ve never heard of you”), indicating that Tanner struck a chord with comparatively few readers.

Flesh Wound : A John Marshall Tanner Mystery (1996) - Stephen Greenleaf (1942-) (Grade:B+)