Interview with Michael Kaufman – S. 10, Ep. 19

My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is educator and crime writer Michael Kaufman. Check out our discussion of his Jen Lu series, featuring a brain implant character named Chandler. What would Philip Marlowe make of that? :) The one question I forgot to ask! You can download the transcript here. Debbi (00:52): Hi everyone. Today I have a somewhat unusual guest in that he's better known for his work in gender studies and his nonfiction books than for his crime fiction. However, along with his work as a lecturer and advisor, he co-founded The White Ribbon Campaign, a worldwide effort by men to end violence against women. And somewhere along the line, he decided to write crime fiction, mysteries. So it's my pleasure to introduce my guest today, Michael Kaufman. Hi Michael. How you doing? Michael (01:27): Great to be here with you today. Debbi (01:29): Fantastic. Good to have you on. Great to have you on. Tell us about how you went from lecturing non-governmental organizations and other huge bodies of people and starting a worldwide movement to fiction writing and to your mystery series in particular. Michael (01:51): Yeah, I think there's a couple of answers to that. One is that it reflects what I read many decades ago. Now I was an academic, so I read all that stuff and over the years, just increasingly, I've just focused, most of my reading has been in my first love, which is fiction, and a good chunk of that has been crime fiction and mysteries combined with the classics and all of that. The other answer to that I've always written fiction. My first novel, not a crime novel, but a straight ahead novel was published by Penguin Random House back a couple decades ago now. And so I've always had that interest. But here's the final answer to that. A lot of the work I've done in the United Nations system around the world, different governments, companies, you talk to people during a break over lunch or whatever, and I'd be there to talk about gender equality and inclusion and violence against women and transforming our workplaces and better lives for men and parenting, all sorts of things like that. (03:02): You sit down with a couple of colleagues and you'd expect the discussion would be really sort of super highbrow and I'm reading the latest whatever philosopher. People say, yeah, I'm reading this great mystery. And one of the things that's true is that for all of us, no matter what we do, the world of fiction and in the case for many of us crime fiction, it's a combination of both a wonderful escape, a wonderful entertainment, but also a wonderful way to engage with the world. Good crime novels, the page-turning plot. And we all try to do that, but they also delve into characters. You think of some of your favorite crime writers over the years, you might say, yeah, I loved his or her plotting or their plotting, but you also love the characters they create. You love the worlds. And also in the case of these, some writers, you love the issues that they explore. So for me, this is what I decide to spend more of my energy on is my writing, my fiction writing in particular, and to use that as a vehicle, both to be blunt, to entertain and to give people something that'd be really fun to read and enjoyable and exciting, page-turning, but also to explore different social, cultural, environmental, and political issues. So there's a multifaceted answer to your straightforward question. Debbi (04:51): Well, I'm with you a hundred percent on that. I have really tried to do that in some of my books. Yes, I've tried. Anyway, let's see. Tell us about Jen Lu, Is it? Michael (05:05): Yeah. Debbi (05:06): So what was it that inspired you to write about her? Michael (05:10): So my first mystery series, I'll just weigh them here. My Jen Lu series, The Last Exit and The Last Resort. I wanted to probably just came out of, I was visiting a friend in Washington DC. I'm affiliated there with a research center,