Novelist thrills audience at Youngstown library with her recipe for success

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

“Sometimes ignorance is bliss,” No. 1 New York Times best-selling thriller novelist Lisa Gardner said with a laugh before her appearance as guest speaker Thursday at The Literary Society of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County’s top annual fundraiser.

Gardner’s topic at the main library was “The Path to the Best Seller List.”

The prolific novelist, who has had 20 thrillers and more than 30 books total published, was 17 living in rural Oregon when she “one day decided to write a book.” “Walking After Midnight,” written during her summer school break, was the result.

The problem, Gardner said referring to her “ignorance is bliss” comment, was that she had no idea how to get a book published.

As a result, she put the manuscript under her bed and went off to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and came away with a degree in international relations with the goal of working for a multi-national corporation.

In the meantime, family and friends kept urging her to get “Walking After Midnight” published. So she went to the local library and checked out a book on how to publish a best-seller, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“It took about 10 years to become successful,” she said.

Gardner’s personal formula for writing a novel is to come up with a crime, most often based on a real incident, and begin a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

For example, Gardner said she might start with a family murdered in their home and their daughter kidnapped; or the daughter might be in on the crime.

Gardner runs her thrillers past police experts to ensure the techniques and scenarios she uses in her books are accurate.

The police presence in many of her books is detective D.D. Warren. The police have to be good people doing a good job. At the same time, the bad guy has to present a challenge.

“You need a smart cat and a clever mouse,” said Gardner, whose new book is “Look For Me.”

“One of the best parts of writing a thriller is being in the shoes of the person who is in jeopardy and the character causing the terror,” she said.

With more than 22 million books in print, Gardner is published in 30 countries and has had four novels become television movies: “At the Midnight Hour,” “The Perfect Husband,” “The Survivors Club” and “Hide.”

Her books have received awards from around the world, and she received the Silver Bullet Award from the International Thriller Writers in 2017 for work she did on behalf of at-risk children and the Humane Society.

Gardner said she found Youngstown beautiful, particularly its architecture, and thanked the 150 who attended the event for their support.

Deborah Liptak, development director for the library, said she is grateful for the support of the community and committees and sponsors for the Literary Society project, which raises money to bring nationally and internationally known best-

selling authors to the city.

Sponsors of the event were Denise DeBartolo York, Huntington Bank Trust, the Frank & Pearl Gelbman Charitable Trust, and the Carol A. Bacon Literary Society Fund.