Q&A with Baltimore’s Laura Lippman About Her New Short Story Collection

Baltimore’s Laura Lippman is renowned for best-selling crime novels and for her iconic heroine PI Tess Monaghan. A journalist with The Sun for over a decade, she has written for a slew of publications including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and her awards include an Edgar and an Agatha.

Lippman is also an accomplished short story writer with several story collections to her name. The latest, SEASONAL WORK, gathers twelve riveting tales about secret cell phones, a father’s hidden past, and a married couple whose secret games go awry.  Like Lippman’s novels, the stories in SEASONAL WORK are deliciously dark, smart, and compelling. In a starred review, Booklist called the book ” a first-rate collection, an obvious must for the legions of Lippman fans, but also great reading for anyone who savors short crime fiction.”

We caught up with the author to discuss SEASONAL WORK, creating strong female characters, and writing during a pandemic.

Some of these stories had been previously published. How did they all come together as a collection?

When I looked at the stories that made the cut, I was surprised to see certain themes, or even obsessions, emerge. It quickly became apparent that there was a Tess/Baltimore section, then stories about girls and stories about infidelity, that old crime staple. I was particularly struck that the three stories of infidelity addressed every point on the triangle — the (unwitting) other woman, the betrayed spouse, the cheating spouse.

What do you like about writing short stories that differs from writing novels?

I actually prefer novels. Short stories are so hard and they feel like such a high-wire act. But I like the challenge of compression, telling a story in less than 20,000 words, or even less than 5,000 in some cases.

Do you have favorites among the stories and why?

I like the title story, “Seasonal Work,” which was inspired by something that happened to me as a young reporter — no one ever proved the family was grifting, but I always suspected it. And “Snowflake Time” makes me laugh, it just does.

It was fun to see Tess Monaghan appear in the book, along with her mother, Judith. What inspired “The Everyday Housewife” about Judith Monaghan? 

I was asked to write an espionage themed story. From the beginning, it has been part of the official history of Tess that her mother works at NSA, but no one knows what she does. (I had a boss at the Evening Sun whose wife worked at NSA and he had no idea what she did.) But I was really interested in how espionage isn’t that different from gossip. I am always interested in how certain activities are mocked when women do them, then elevated when men participate. Like crying — we take crying men so seriously. Also, men gossip all the time and they’re terrifically catty. But no one ever describes it that way.

You write about women who aren’t afraid of walking into darkness. They’re brave and they don’t always play nice. Do you think your depiction of women characters has changed over time and through your own life experience?

Motherhood has changed me (and Tess) alike. Let me be clear — I don’t think one needs to be a parent to write about parents. I’m just saying that motherhood has affected me profoundly. And, yes, I think I’m less interested in playing nice than I was when I started writing novels and my characters reflect this.

All of the stories have such compelling plots. How do your plots generally develop? Do you throw a character into a situation and see what happens? Do you know where things are going as you write? 

With short stories, I usually start with a prompt, but I try to figure out what’s going to happen ahead of time. I think novels are more forgiving of indecision than short stories, at least for me.

The story “Slow Burner” includes a narrative told through text messages. How did the form of that story come to you?

I don’t remember the specific moment — it might have been a re-read of Heartburn. But I’m interested in how technology has embedded itself in our lives.

How many, if any, of the stories were inspired by a real-life event?

“Five Fires” was inspired by a story I read in the Kansas City Star, about a small town where a rape victim and her family ended up moving because of the way the girl was treated.

I’ve already mentioned the title story. I think that’s it.

The last, novella-length story, “Just One More,” takes place during the pandemic. How has this strange and difficult time affected your writing practice?

I was able to write and found great comfort in writing. But for a long time, I couldn’t read with much focus or concentration. I’ve started rebuilding that muscle by reading very short novels because I like the feeling of accomplishment I have when I finish a book. That said, I just recently started Ford Madox Ford’s The Fifth Queen, which, in the digital version I have, is really three novels. But when I heard Ford had written about Katherine Howard, I knew I had to read it. And I will. Very slowly.

What other short story writers would you recommend?

It’s the tiniest bit self-serving because she is a fan of “Slow Burner,” but I’d like to recommend an editor, specifically Steph Cha, who’s editing Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories for Houghton Mifflin. Crime fiction, like the rest of the world, gets caught up in this stupid debate about whether a push for diversity means eschewing meritocracy, as if anyone actually knows what a meritocracy is. With her first anthology in 2021, Steph has already shown that it’s pretty easy to put together a kick-ass collection without sacrificing quality. There are some amazing crime writers of color working today; they even have organized a group called, well, Crime Writers of Color. And the thing is, they’re challenging all sorts of interesting preconceptions within crime — what a cozy looks like, for example, who gets to be the investigator, what justice really looks like.