Potlucks, swinging, and royal mystery | author Keir Graff with William R. Hincy

What do potlucks, swinging, writing collaborations, and whiskey have in common? The answer: Keir Graff on WRITERS DRINKING WHISKEY. Join author, editor and hilarious gentleman Keir Graff and me as we discuss failure, the power of persistence, how swinging can bring (writers) together, and the new book THE ROYAL GAME, written under the Linda Keir pen name. Keir also provides a delicious whiskey cocktail, REMEMBER THE MAINE, and provides some writing tips on mysteries and thrillers.

Today’s drinking game: drink whenever we do!

Links:
William R. Hincy’s books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/William-R.-Hincy/author/B07ZYB5FHZ
William R. Hincy’s website: https://williamrhincy.com/
Keir Graff’s website: https://keirgraff.com/
The Royal Game ordering link: https://exileinbookville.com/item/oyU2qBKYKzYFtFD_uXSUMA
On The Filmographers Podcast: https://keirgraff.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53deb063224bbb974378b02bc&id=ec9ac1c2e0&e=8a72b8e484

REMEMBER THE MAINE
1 1/2 ounces rye
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
1 teaspoon cherry heering
1/2 teaspoon absinthe
Stir and strain into coupe glasses.
--From The Gentleman's Companion, by Charles H. Baker, Jr. (1944)

Bios:
William R. Hincy: “Some people run from their demons; others sit down and have cocktails with theirs.” William R. Hincy is a man who does and writes about the latter. Having become a writer after deciding it was the only sensible thing for a problem drinker to do, Hincy aspires to use literature to connect society on an emotional level through characters who no longer create messes but have instead become the mess. Between rounds, Hincy has won 3 American Fiction Awards, an International Book Award, and his personal anthology of short fiction WITHOUT EXPIRATION was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews. He now lives outside Los Angeles with his wife and kids, having found solace in the notion that the only things sacred are self and whiskey-winged interludes.

Keir Graff writes thrillers, mysteries, and contemporary fiction for adults, and adventure novels for younger readers. Recent works include The Three Mrs. Wrights and Drowning with Others, both of which were coauthored with Linda Joffe Hull under the name Linda Keir. With James Patterson, he is the coauthor of the middle-grade mystery Minerva Keen’s Detective Club, and working solo has published four middle-grade novels, including The Tiny Mansion, The Phantom Tower (a Chicago Tribune Best Children’s Book) and The Matchstick Castle (an Illinois Reads official selection). He is the editor of the anthology A Million Acres: Montana Writers Reflect on Land and Open Space and coeditor (with James Grady) of the crime-fiction anthology Montana Noir (one of Parade‘s “Books We Love”). The former executive editor of Booklist, he lives in Chicago, where he is the cofounder and cohost of the much-loved literary gathering Publishing Cocktails. He provides writing advice and book recommendations in his free monthly newsletter, Graff Paper.

About WDW:
And for our algo-overlords (please introduce us to your friends!)… Welcome to your literary happy hour, Writers Drinking Whiskey, the show where you share a drink with writers from around the globe and you find more than your next read: you find the next AUTHOR you're going to love. Hosted by award-winning author William R. Hincy, the show takes booktube, authortube and booktok to another level with engaging, in-depth, and irreverent conversations with today’s most interesting writers. And for our writers joining us, there's plenty of creative writing tips, fiction writing tricks, and poetry read by the poets.

Interested in being a guest? Have a great cocktail recipe and story to share? Fantastic! Contact WRH at contact@williamrhincy.com. We’re currently booking for special episodes and season 3.

Brought to you by Whiskey-Winged Lit
Fiction for the modern reader. Life is the accumulation of scars—tell the stories!

Here we go!

Chapters:
00:00:00 Start
00:00:28 Introducing Keir Graff
00:05:04 What we're drinking - Remember the Maine cocktail recipe
00:16:27 Where on Earth is Keir Graff
00:19:58 Hell's Gate or Hellgate High School?
00:23:17 Trying to make it as a writer (without acadamia)
00:37:13 Moving to Austin, TX
00:41:58 Rock Star, Movie Director, and Writer
00:48:20 Keir Graff's time at Booklist
00:55:57 You can't sell out until you've sold something
01:00:09 Publishing and Cocktails
01:06:41 The value of persistence
01:19:50 Writing Tips - Collaboration
01:34:17 Difficulty being an editor-writer
01:38:11 Writing Tips - instilling dread
01:42:03 Writing mystery reveals
01:48:41 Writng Life - biggest risk Keir Graff ever took
01:53:02 What's next in the publishing world - AI self-publishing
02:02:14 Shots - Rapid Fire Questions
02:13:10 Keir Graff reads from THE ROYAL GAME
02:21:11 Last Call - small pieces of life advice