Karna Small Bodman, from White House insider to writing page turners

BREAKING NEWS! Last night at Bouchercon 2018 Rhys Bowen's In Fairleigh Field was named the winner of the Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Fiction!

 
Today's guest is Karna Small Bodman.  Her careers as TV news anchor and White House press secretary turn out to have been research for her current career: the author of bestselling political thrillers.

She loves the question: Where do you get your ideas?

KARNA SMALL BODMAN: Every author recognizes that question since it’s asked so often on our book tours.  If you’re an aspiring writer, any one of you can pick up a morning paper or check stories online and see a veritable petri dish of plot points. But when I decided to start writing novels (long a dream of mine, after having written TV News scripts as a TV anchor and position papers in The White House) I figured out that “being there” is even better.

So I thought back on the six years I spent in the Reagan White House, first as Deputy Press Secretary, later as Spokesman for the National Security Council and recalled SO many events/crises/challenges that could be turned into a pretty good thriller or mystery.  Let me  take you on a trip down “memory lane” and list a few:

The first that is seared in my memory occurred 9 weeks into the Administration – the date was March 30, 1981. I was scheduled to be in the car with Press Secretary Jim Brady – but stayed back at the last minute to handle the workload. And you all know that when Jim and the President walked out of that event at the Hilton Hotel, that’s when John Hinkley fired those 6 shots wounding the President and four others. I would have been standing right next to him….but actually spent the day in the Situation Room as the crisis unfolded. Talk about plot, characters, settings!

Many other crises occurred, as they do in any administration, for example: the assassination of Sadat, the attempted assassination of the Pope, the shooting down of a Korean jetliner with an American congressman as a passenger, the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle with the school teacher on board.

See what I mean?  I have used many of these incidents, along with controversial presidential initiatives, foreign “bad actors,” and especially the settings such as the  Oval Office, Cabinet Room, Roosevelt Room, White House Mess and many scenes in the Situation Room. Four of my novels have been revised and released over the summer: Checkmate, Gambit, (I named my pups for that title and the heroine in the story) Final Finesse, and Castle Bravo – as a lead-in to the new thriller.

And that new one is Trust but Verify – I’m sure that title rings a bell with some of you.  Since I had the opportunity to travel to arms control talks with the Soviets and Summit meetings with their General Secretary – I have been fascinated with the challenges that Russia presents (then and now!) This story features a member of The White House staff teamed with an FBI Special Agent who race to unravel a plot by Russian oligarchs that  threatens the lives of international financiers and would sink stock markets worldwide.   

Now the question is: if you are an author, where do YOU get your ideas? And if you are a reader, what ideas might you have for US? Do leave a comment as it just might inspire the next thriller. And thanks to my friend, Hank Phillippi Ryan for her kind invitation to share my thoughts with you today.