Vanessa Cuti on Her Debut Novel "The Tip Line"

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Vanessa Cuti, author of The Tip Line, an unsettling thriller that asks just how far you should go to find love.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

Yes! The original idea came from my experience working as a tip line operator. I was so fascinated by the things that callers would tell me. It was almost strange how intimate it was. I knew I had to write a book involving it in some way.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

It really came down to character for me. Once I figured out Virginia (the main character) and her voice and really got into her head, her story just kind of unfurled.  

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Oh, absolutely. And I guess that’s sort of the magic but also the frustration of plotting a novel. You have something that you think is working…only to find out that it doesn’t. At all. 

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

It’s kind of like feast or famine for me. I’ve come to fear the famine periods but try to console myself with knowing that they will pass. With hoping so, anyway.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I jump back and forth between things. Which is a sort of maddening way to do it. But I do this until I find my way into the work, be it story or novel. I always imagine it like finally being able to open a stuck door or window. Once I find that, it’s like I can just walk right in to the project. And then I’ll know that it’s the one I should move forward with. But I do find lots of things die at this stage, sadly. 

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

I have a very little but very loud writing buddy: a Pomeranian named Teddie. She chooses the most inopportune times to want to be a lap dog and yet I always let her.

Vanessa Cuti’s fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Kenyon Review, AGNI, West Branch, Indiana Review, Cimarron Review, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Rumpus and others. She received her MFA from Stony Brook University and lives in the suburbs of New York. The Tip Line is Vanessa’s debut novel. You can find Vanessa on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

Regina Buttner on A Humorous Look at NOT Dating Over 50

If you should happen to do an internet search for “Dating over 50,” you’ll find tons of advice, most of it geared toward middle-aged women. Your search will yield bullet-pointed lists of issues for the mature dater to consider as you “get back into the game.” Dating in our fifties is different from what it was in our twenties, the experts caution, and we must take that into consideration as we re-embark on our search for love. We are wiser and more experienced now, and our tastes and needs have changed, too.

Well, I certainly hope so! There are some people who yearn for a magical elixir that will restore them to the glory days of their youth when they were wild and free, and their future was a blank page. Not me, though. I enjoyed plenty of good times with my girl crew during our teens and early twenties, going to concerts, taking random roadtrips, partying into the night. We went out with guys who were definitely The One, might possibly be The One, or had no chance at all of being The One. We met guys who we prayed would call us, and guys we hurriedly ghosted, long before “ghosting” was even a thing.

Yes, I had lots of fun in my younger days, but I eventually settled down, got married and started a family. Unfortunately, after the marriage had run its dismal course, I found myself single once again. Learning to socialize as a divorcee was a whole new world for me. Each time I joined my married siblings and their spouses for a dinner out, I felt like I was doing perpetual penance as a third or a fifth wheel. “Why don’t you try one of the online dating sites?” a successfully re-dating friend suggested. “Everyone’s doing it now. It’s not just for losers anymore.”

Thanks, girlfriend. I did eventually agree to give online dating a shot—which turned out to be an apt metaphor. It was like shooting in the dark at a moving target. After a few weeks of scrolling through countless profile photos and reading enlightening bios about Gabe who prefers steak over pizza, and Marcus who was “looking for someone to spend time with” (isn’t that what dating essentially is?), I was ready to pack it in. My inbox was full of messages from catfishers, narcissists, obviously married men (duh, your wedding band is showing in that out-of-focus golf pic), and a disturbing number of outright weirdos. Thank you for your interest, gentlemen, but I’m good!

Time for a paradigm shift. I gave my single situation a great deal of deep reflection, and decided it wasn’t so bad after all. As an unattached person, I have the freedom to do as I please, whenever I please. I can stay up reading till midnight if the mood strikes me, or take off to the beach on a whim. I can cook myself a nice meal at dinnertime, or not bother to eat till midnight if it suits my mood. My dog can commandeer the entire other half of the bed if she wants to (and she often does—she’s a corgi, and corgis have long bodies). Sour grapes? Nah. Those fish can stay in the sea. I’ll be paddling over their heads in my kayak, enjoying the solitary ride.

Regina Buttner is a registered nurse-turned-writer who was raised in beautiful upstate New York, where she spent many years exploring the small towns, winding back roads, and scenic hiking trails in the Adirondack mountain region. She recently traded the snowy upstate winters for the sun and surf of coastal Florida (but in my heart, I'm still a North Country girl!) Her favorite pastimes in the Sunshine State are kayaking among the mangroves, walking the gorgeous beaches, and attempting to teach tricks to my crafty little corgi, Pekoe. Down a Bad Road is her second novel, with more to come!

How Has My Time in America Versus My Time in England Shaped My Writing

I write a historical crime series set in World War Two London which features DCI Frank Merlin, a Scotland Yard detective. I grew up in the Welsh town of Swansea, whose most famous literary product is the poet Dylan Thomas. After school in Wales and university in Cambridge, I have spent most of my adult life to date living in London. However I have enjoyed three extended stays in America. In 1972 I spent six months as an English Speaking Union exchange student at an American school in Pittsburgh. The school was called Shady Side Academy. My second spell in America was in the late eighties when I was in charge of the US office of a British company located in New York. My third extended visit was in the mid 90s when I had lot of business in America with the UK computer business I had started with a partner. This stay was not full time but I spent almost six months a year in Los Angeles for a few years. In Pittsburgh I lived in the home of a wonderful local family, in New York in an apartment on the East Side, and, in Los Angeles in a flat in Century City.

All three stays were very different experiences. In the first I was a school student, in the second a corporate employee, and in the 3rd an entrepreneur but I had a brilliant time on all of them. I was not writing at all when I lived in America, but maintained my childhood ambition to become an author one day. I travelled a great deal on all my visits. When my stay at Shady Side Academy finished, I bought a Greyhound Bus Pass for $200. This enabled me to travel anywhere I wanted for a month. The journey was memorable. I travelled in one go across America to Vancouver, sitting next to a friendly and fascinating Indigenous American for a good part of the journey. Then I went down to California. In San Francisco, the father of the family I stayed with pointed out his bearded next door neighbour. ‘He’s a film director. Just finished some gangster movie with Marlon Brando I believe.’ I then travelled across the South via Grand Canyon, Houston and New Orleans to Washington. There I happened to spend, I later found out, the night of the Watergate burglary. On my 80s stay in New York I travelled a lot on business, mostly to Florida, Texas and California. I travelled a little on my final stay in the nineties, but mostly on the West Coast or to New York, where my company was eventually taken public.

What impact did my time in America have on my writing? Well the overwhelming impact has come from reading American writers. At school in Pittsburgh, I first became acquainted with great noir masters from the thirties and forties like Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, James M Cain and Jim Thompson. When I was working in New York, I got to know another batch of great crime writers including Patricia Highsmith, Elmore Leonard, and John Grisham. Then when I was based in Los Angeles in the 90s I discovered Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, James Ellroy and Walter Mosley. Of course all of these great writers have their own styles, but collectively they all know how to keep the reader gripped from the outset, and generally write great dialogue which helps the story zip along. They also write superb plots. The British and Continental crime writers I was reading at the time had many merits but I definitely think this American punchiness stood apart. One favourite European author of mine who does match this American literary characteristic is Georges Simenon, the creator of Inspector Maigret. Simenon has much in common with many of the best Americans – short, pithy dialogue and a lean writing style.

So to the question posed: how has my time in America versus my time in England shaped my writing? The answer must be in the positive influence of those various writers listed above. I doubt I would have read anything like as many if I had not lived in the USA. In addition I have been much affected my experience of living in such a vibrant, exciting country. I think my time in America has made me much more daring in life than I might otherwise have been. I dared to write a book after all!

Mark Ellis is a thriller writer from Swansea and a former barrister and entrepreneur. He is the creator of DCI Frank Merlin, an Anglo-Spanish police detective operating in World War 2 London. His books treat the reader to a vivid portrait of London during the war skilfully blended with gripping plots, political intrigue and a charismatic protagonist.