Clued In

Laura DiSilverio ’84 B.A. English

There’s murder and mayhem afoot in Colorado, but no need to worry. The instigator of these nefarious plots is none other than best-selling mystery writer and Trinity University alumna Laura DiSilverio ’84.

Growing up in an “overwhelmingly normal and angst-free” Air Force family, Laura began writing and illustrating stories as a youngster, with a preference for stories that featured horses or princesses. Her first novel evolved from a creative writing class at Trinity, where professor Bob Flynn inspired her “and heroically refrained from gagging” upon reading her contemporary (never published) romance, Jeweled Torment.

After graduating a semester early—“I was eager to be a ‘real’ adult and start earning a living”—Laura joined the U.S. Air Force and focused on becoming an intelligence officer. Over the course of her military career, she served with an F-16-wing and completed assignments from Bangkok to the Pentagon and points all over the globe. Along the way she met and married her “wonderful husband,” had two “beautiful children,” earned a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and assumed command of a squadron in England. Commanding that squadron for two years was by far her most challenging assignment. She was seven months pregnant and had a 2-year-old at home. “I got maybe six hours of sleep during those two years,” she recalls.

It was “a Holy Spirit-guided epiphany in Elliot’s Bay bookstore in Seattle” that convinced her it was time to embark on writing and mothering full time. She retired from the Air Force in 2004 to stay home with her girls, then 4 and 6, and write full time, a decision she never regretted. “I sacrificed a lot of money and recognition to do it,” she says, “but as the (credit card) commercial says, ‘Priceless.’”

The transition from officer to author took five tough years of writing and rewriting 2,000 words a day, lots of classes, critique, and professional  groups, and bitter disappointments in the form of more than 100 rejections before an agent said yes and she signed her first book contract. “I’d bawl a bit when a rejection came in, eat a little Haagen-Dazs, and get back to work,” she says. (It’s no surprise that her motto is, “Never, never, never give up.”)

As a writer, Laura was drawn to mysteries initially because she likes the challenge of crafting a mystery that will challenge the reader, and she likes writing about characters that learn more about themselves as they investigate a crime. Her oeuvre includes 21 (and counting) novels—15 of them mysteries and three of them the dystopian young adult Incubation Trilogy, written at the behest of her daughters. She also has one nonfiction title, Winning the Retention Wars, about retaining women in the military. Close Call was one of the Top Five Mysteries of 2016, according to Library Journal; another, The Reckoning Stones, won the Colorado Book Award for best mystery in 2016. Her latest book, That Last Weekend, is a stand-alone suspense novel about five college friends whose annual trip to a B&B castle takes a tragic turn. Works in progress include The Empty Nesters Club, scheduled for release in 2018, and Queens of Hart’s Landing, slated for 2019. Both are what she calls “women’s fiction,” a genre she feels drawn to currently.

“As I age, I’m more willing to be vulnerable and to be honest in my writing and relationships, and I think that makes my stories ring true and gives them more impact,” she explains. “At least I hope it does.”

While writing is a very solitary profession, talking about writing and writers provides opportunities for social contact. As a member and past president of Sisters in Crime, an international organization of women mystery writers, Laura supports, encourages, and networks with women suspense writers. She is also a frequent keynote speaker and teacher at writers’ conferences and events.

A very recent empty nester, Laura says she is trying to redefine herself yet again and would love to hear from anyone who would like to offer encouragement or share their stories. She’s also up for Skyping with book clubs that read her books and speaking to writing or English classes. “Those encounters help take the ‘solitary’ out of the writing life,” she says.

Surely the future holds many more novels from this prolific author. “What keeps me motivated is getting better and writing truer stories that speak to people” Laura says. “Luckily, writing is one of those things you never master; there’s always room for improvement.”