From Reporter to Novelist: One Local Author's Love for Writing

Picture a crime involving a venture capitalist who leaps to his death from the balcony of a Boston hotel during a biotechnology conference. A local former reporter is then thrown into the mix to investigate, as the lone suspect in the case is her old college boy friend.  

So begins the plot of Jan Brogan's novel, Final Copy. 

But don't let the title fool you; the book was the first of several in what would be a series of mystery novels based in Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. 

"That's my favorite," said Brogan of the book. "It was done in a year that was really tough for publishing. I had a bunch of agents who wanted to represent it."

Brogan, a Westwood resident since the mid 1980s, is not just a novelist, she's also a seasoned journalist, having worked as a reporter for the former Norwood Transcript, the Waltham News Tribune, the Worcester Telegram and the Providence Joural. Currently she serves as a correspondent writing about health for the Boston Globe. 

Her life as a journalist has helped fuel the inspiration for her novels. Thus far, she's published four, including Final Copy, which was recently made available as an e-book for the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook for $2.99. 

"Really, the fun part of it is writing it," Brogan says of writing a novel. "There's nothing more fun. It's a big challenge, and if you go from reporting, you have to unlearn some things and not do a lot of sutff you do in journalism, and you have to use detail differently, but it opens up your brain. It's a wonderful thing."

Currently, Brogan is conducting research for a historical nonfiction novel about women who went whaling with their wives in the early 1900s. 

Speed Bumps on the Road to Success

While it may be her favorite of her novels, the publication of Final Copy didn't come easy for Brogan. While a number of publishers expressed interest in the book, none took it initially.  

"I took it off the market and was devastated," Brogan said. "And then I just didn't do anything and went back to reporting. I started working on some other things, and after a couple of years […] I entered it into this contest." 

That contest was the Steven Spielberg-founded Chesterfield Writer's Film Project, which reviews screenwriting, but will also accept book manuscripts, Brogan said. To her surprise, she was named among the top 40 finalists. 

Ultimately, though, she didn'twin the contest, and later submitted the book for publication through the Small Press market, and the book was published under Larcom Press, which has since gone out of business. 

"They did a really nice job of it," said Brogan. The book was named named one of the best new mysteries of 2001 in The Drood Review. "At the time that was a pretty big deal. That got bigger publishers interested in me."

Moving Forward

She then began work on her second book, A Confidential Source, and was able to sign through Mysterious Press. The publication, however, asked Brogan to change the name of the characters, many of whom were featured in Final Copy. The time lapse between the two books was two far apart to have the same characteres, she said. .

Still, Final Copy, which featured Addy McNeil as the main character, serves as a veritable prequel to Brogan's subsequent mysteries featuring the renamed Hallie Ahern as the main investigator.

"If I changed her name, I could make it in current time, and she was moving to Providence anyway," Brogan said of the protagonist. 

Mysterious Press, though, was soon bought out by another publisher, leaving Brogan among the 100 authors being dropped, she said. The book, however, received a solid reveiw in the New York Times Book Review, and St. Martin's Press eventually took the project on, signing Brogan to write two more books in the series.

"I actually hadn't been planning on writing four," she said. "I never really planned to write a series. My books really aren't series books, they're complete novels. They're the same characters, but its more about her succeeding in investigating a crime. You really don't have to read them in a sequence." 

The two books to follow were Yesterday's Final and, more recently, Teaser.

Advice & Inspiration

So what does Jan Brogan like to read? 

Some of her favorite books, she says, include The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, and The Big Short by Michael Lewis. 

But she also has her fair share of mystery favorites, from The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly to Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. She is also a fan of the Millenium Trilogy by Swedish author Stieg Larsson.

For aspiring mystery writers out there, Brogan recommends joining such writing organizations as the local chapters of the Mystery Writers of America or the Sisters in Crime. 

Moreover, she suggests signing up in April to take part in the New England Crime Bake in November.

"The best part of it is we have agents there," she said. "Agents come and you meet with the agent the next day and you pitch your story idea. You can submit a chapter. And a published author will actually tweak it for you."

Brogan is featured on the blog Jungle Red Writers.