Author Jane Haddam Makes No Mystery of Her Love for Writing

One of the perks of being an author, according to Jane Haddam, is that you can make things happen in a story that you wish would take place in your life. 

“There’s not enough justice in the world. In my mind, I think of ways to kill people I would like to see dead,” Haddam told an audience of about 30 people at the Tolland Public Library Tuesday night. 

Haddam, born Orania Papazoglou of Bethel, CT, is an acclaimed mystery writer. Her appearance at the library kicked off the second season of Tolland’s Eaton-Dimock King Author's Series. 

According to Tolland Public Library Foundation member, Kate Farrish, the series has been “widely popular around town.” 

Having written 25 mysteries, featuring the character of a former FBI agent, Gregor Demarkian and his vibrant Armenian-American neighborhood in Philadelphia, Haddam has been a finalist for Edgar and Anthony awards. 

With a start in romance novels, Haddam knew she wanted her mysteries in third person and that she did not want her series to be “cozy.” 

“Although I don’t want to be one of the people who does really dark things, the cat isn’t going to solve the mystery, and no one is going to giggle after the murder,” Haddam said. 

She told us she got a pen name at the suggestion of her editors and publisher. The theory was that anyone who could not pronounce an author’s name would not read their book. As most people already called her Jane, a last name was picked in reference to the Connecticut town. 

Although Haddam has a therapeutic practice of killing off real-life acquaintances in her books, as she might like to do in real life, Haddam says she has other preferences for her enemies. 

“I don’t want any of them dead in real life,” she told the audience. “I’m much more vicious than that. I want them alive because their suffering stops when you die, and I have plans for them.” 

The real source for Haddam’s inspiration in her books comes from “getting into other people’s heads.” 

Haddam described to the audience that common crimes are often acts of stupidity, but that it's not possible to write a book based on that. 

“I want to know why some people throw away everything they have,” she said. “I want to figure out by what thought or emotion...or lack of emotion that causes people to commit these crimes.” 

Haddam describes her writing process as “very organic.” Beginning at 4:35 every morning, she claims she is writing before she is even awake. 

She says she “usually start(s) with a bunch of characters and see(s) how they interact with each other.” 

In one story, A Great Day for the Deadly, Haddam admits that by the time she wrote the ending, she forgot what was in the book.

“I quit smoking during that time,” she told the audience. 

As a way of “getting out of her own head,” Haddam said she couldn’t picture herself doing anything else. 

“It’s enormously fun,” she said. “It’s the single most normal thing I do. I’m being serious when I say that I was writing 25-page stories at 8 or 9-years old,” she said.

Haddam now begins to write more than one piece at a time. After a first, rough draft of a Demarkian book, she writes a draft of one of her nine books in her limited Georgia Xenakis and Case Sheppard series. 

For more information on Haddam’s series, visit her Web site. 

Haddam is a resident of Litchfield County and is a mother of two sons and the widow of three-time-Edgar-Award-winning novelist, William L. DeAndrea. 

The lecture series, sponsored by the library and the Tolland Public Library Foundation is made possible through the Phoebe Dimock King and Elizabeth C. King Eaton Endowment. 

The endowment was created in 2009 through a generous bequest from the late Elizabeth C. King Eaton. The benefactor, whose grandfather was born in Tolland in 1888, was raised in town and like her mother, the late Phoebe Dimock King, spent her professional life as a librarian. 

The Tolland Library Foundation is eligible to receive donor designations and can be sent to the Foundation at 21 Tolland Green, Tolland, CT, 06084.