Guest Post- Nancy Silverman

So glad to have Nancy Cole Silverman with us today. Nancy is the author of A Carol Childs Mystery series.

Give Me Brains over Brawn By Nancy Cole Silverman


I’ve spent most of my career in radio. I worked as a reporter, copywriter and account executive and retired as a general manager for a sports radio station, which only goes to show, God has a sense of humor. Throughout my career I would interview people, some of whom, I thought were unqualified for the position they were in and wondered how on earth did that person get that job? And then it happened to me. I became the first female general manager of a sports radio station in a major market, and I was about as suited for the job as a fish is to run a marathon. I had nobody to blame but myself. You see, I’ve always reached for the brass ring, even when I had no business doing so.


In a sense I’m a flawed character, driven, single-focused and obsessed. A Capricorn, determined to climb to the top of the hill, despite the odds, just to say I did it. Traits, I’ve learned since retiring from radio, that make for a good writer. Note, I said nothing about penning long poetic prose, or sitting with a glass of wine and reminiscing.


Writing is torture. And the best of it is pulled from the writer’s own tortuous experiences, whether they are the same as those that appear on the page, or merely the emotions they felt from something similar, allowing them to recreate the feeling in another form. Good writing allows the reader to feel a character’s pain - the heat of the flame against his skin – the desperation, the hunger in the pit of his stomach. And the best of writing opens the reader’s eyes and minds to a world they might not ever know. In my new series with Henery Press, my protagonist, Carol Childs, isn’t perfect. Like me, she’s a flawed character, a single mom, struggling to balance her career with her personal life, while in the midst of a career change as a journalist. Her boss, a boy-wonder, considers her the world’s oldest cub reporter and makes no bones about not wanting her on his payroll. The conflict is built-in before the first victim is found dead and the story begins.


But like me, Carol has reached for the brass ring and is determined to succeed. I like writing about strong women. I’m not talking about the type of heroine that can out box, out run, out shoot, or take on a group of super heroes and leave them bloodied and maimed in the street. But smart women, women who know and understand brain beats brawn ...and when a little humor is thrown in along the way, it offers as much levity as it does suspense. I think it makes for a much more believable and memorable character.

In my latest book, Beyond a Doubt, Carol risks her career, and her daughter’s life is threatened the closer she gets to exposing the powers behind a sex traffic ring operating in Hollywood. I hope my readers will appreciate how Carol deftly circumvented the dangers in her way to bring down the very public powers behind the operation, while getting a glimpse inside of a world they might never have seen before.

Nancy Cole Silverman
Author
Shadow Of Doubt
Beyond A Doubt (July 2015)
Without A Doubt (January 2016)