The Santa Barbara Writers Conference in June will bring together three outstanding threads of local literary history: Ross Macdonald, Dennis Lynds and Gayle Lynds. Each represents a different period during the last 75 years, but all three overlap.
On SBWC’s opening night, June 5, Gayle Lynds will accept in memory of her author/husband Dennis Lynds the ninth Ross Macdonald Award for Literary Excellence. The following night, she will be one of the week’s five featured speakers, evenings open to the public.
Just who are these three authors and their connections?
Ken Millar (1915-1983) wrote under Ross Macdonald, a name often mentioned in the same sentence as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He changed the mystery genre by elevating and enriching the hard-boiled detective and giving his characters depth with story lines on several levels. He was married to another author, Margaret Millar.
From 1944 to 1976, Macdonald published more than two dozen books (The Underground Man), 18 of them about his protagonist Private Investigator Lew Archer. Several were made into movies and TV series. Acclaim came later in life when he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1974.
One of his close friends, Dennis Lynds (aka Michael Collins plus seven other names), was also a big part of Santa Barbara’s writing community until his death in 2005.
Like Macdonald, his some 80 novels and 200 short stories raised the literary standard of mysteries with deeply developed characters and multiple storylines. His most popular character was the one-arm Private Investigator Dan Fortune. Lynds was awarded the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1968, among other impressive awards.
When I asked Gayle Lynds about her first impression of SBWC more than 30 years ago, she said, “Why, I sat down next to a woman named Susan Gulbransen!”
We both laughed at the memory of being “newbies” that year, a moment when we hit it off and spent the rest of the week attending workshops, panels and speakers together. By the second night, we incorporated a naughty but wonderful nightly habit of sharing Snickers bars. Those Snickers became our signature for going to SBWC.
During those years, the well-known mystery writer Dennis Lynds taught a special workshop. It was jammed with students. Even so, Gayle and he met, connected and the rest became romantic history.
Although he wrote mysteries, she was drawn to spy and thriller novels. She now has seven novels published as well as three of the Covert-One Series with Robert Ludlum.
Her latest came out last year, The Assassins (The Judd Ryder Books, St. Martin’s Press). Twelve years ago, she and David Morrell co-founded the annual ThrillerFest in New York City.
She currently lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, John Sheldon, a retired judge.
In a recent phone conversation, I asked Gayle to describe Dennis.
“He was great fun, jolly, wisecracking a lot and generous with time,” she said. “I’m one of those writers who can’t be interrupted while working. Not Dennis. If he was interrupted, he was still warm and caring.”
At the time they met, she was in the process of getting published and honing her craft. She talked about what she learned from him.
“I was so lucky to have one of the best teachers,” she said. “We would sit and work on a manuscript together. I don’t learn well with lectures but do with hands-on learning. Working with someone so advanced in his writing career gave me a great opportunity to see how he structured his stories and the process of writing them out. He would talk about it while doing it.”
Tempting as it must have been to follow his mystery genre, Gayle took another direction.
“I like writing thrillers,” she explained. “He liked writing mysteries. They’re different, so we had to meet in middle and learn the ways of each. We’d have constant dialogs about what worked and what didn’t. He emphasized that characters — whether villain, victim or aiding in the crime — had to carry their weight in the plot or story as well as the importance of a scene within the structure. Dennis made mystery scenes end so well that you wanted to read on.”
Gayle absorbed those lessons and is now among the top thriller writers. What amazes me about her books are the number of characters and intricate plots in one novel. Her research must be time consuming beyond belief. So what attracted her to that kind of writing?
“I wanted to write on a big canvass,” she said. “Some authors are minimalists and others are maximalists. I don’t know why but I love big sprawling stories that talk about issues with adventures along the way. I’m in awe of people who write them. It’s the way my brain works, something Bob Kirsch (the late Los Angeles Times book editor) made me recognize.
“The importance of being a conscientious writer is to understand who you are even down to the tastes in your mouth. Many people eat, but they don’t taste. If you lose that ability, you lose other parts of yourself. I am process conscious about life and writing. We need to build on strengths not on weaknesses.”
Our conversation then moved to the relationship between Dennis Lynds and Ken Millar.
“Dennis and Ken were good friends,” she said, “and often read each other’s work. Dennis told stories of going over to the Millar’s house after a day of work where there’d often be a party going on. He admired how Ken focused on his work during the morning hours. His focus was so strong, no one was allowed to interrupt him.
“There’s a story that one morning Margaret’s car broke down during Ken’s working hours. She had to wait until the afternoon to call and ask him for help.”
Fred Klein, retired vice president and executive editor of Bantam Books who now lives in Santa Barbara, summed up their relationship.
“Dennis spanned the history of mystery writers to become a leading writer with the sensitivity and literary style of Ross Macdonald,” he said, “They showed mutual respect for each other in that Dennis dedicated a book to Macdonald and he dedicated a book to Dennis.”
Gayle Lynds also pointed out that Dennis was part of the famous men-only, biweekly writers’ lunch organized by Millar at El Cielito downtown.
“Dennis and Ken cared about each other,” she said. “He would call Dennis every lunch week to join him and other writers.”
The Santa Barbara Writers Conference offered Gayle Lynds more than the opportunity to hear featured speakers while chewing on a Snickers bar. She discussed its importance.
“I was bowled over by the entire experience,” she said. “I had the feeling that I was the only one there who had never published anything other than journalism. My favorite workshop was with Rita Mae Brown, who taught a lot about structure. She said, ‘If you write, you’re a writer.’ By time left, I felt I was a writer, although not an author.
“I began to understand the big learning curve involved in writing and how disingenuous our culture is about thinking that you just write a book, get it published and then become famous. It was a blow that I couldn’t be published immediately but found out from other writers the way it really works.
“I also found that one can learn to write but can’t teach it. You have to push the envelope and try to learn.”
Once more the SBWC will offer a magical week (June 5-10) at the Hyatt Santa Barbara, 1111 E. Cabrillo Blvd., to students of all kinds of writing, from fiction to screenwriting to poetry to nonfiction to memoir and more.
One of the highlights will be Tom Nolan, Ross Macdonald’s biographer and co-author with Susanne Marrs of last year’s release, Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence Between Eurdora Welty and Ross Macdonald, presenting the Ross Macdonald Award for Dennis Lynds to Gayle Lynds. The two of them will discuss the two mystery authors and Dennis Lynds’ legacy.
The award was created by the former Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival (2000 to 2008) and given to a California author whose work raises the standard of literary excellence. Among previous recipients have been Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, Sue Grafton and James Ellroy.
Each day at SBWC there will be 22 intense workshops during the day and into the night. While you can’t teach writing, you can learn the craft of writing and find constructive criticism and support in these workshops.
Each day at 7:30 pm, a featured speaker will discuss different aspects of writing. The lineup this year besides Gayle Lynds (Monday) includes Rufi Thorpe (Sunday), F. Paul Wilson (Tuesday), Aline Ohanesian (Wednesday) and Monte Schultz (Thursday). Tuesday features Agents Day with appointed times to talk about publishing with the experts.
Click here for more information about the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, or to register for the event.
Click here for more information about Dennis Lynds. Click here for more information about Gayle Lynds.
— Noozhawk columnist Susan Miles Gulbransen — a Santa Barbara native, writer and book reviewer — teaches writing at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and through the Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education Division. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.
