CHARLOTTE, NC OBSERVER

Posted on Sun, Aug. 12, 2007
Lavenes team up to write with a blended voice
JERI KRENTZ

When Joyce and Jim Lavene work side-by-side at their home in Midland, murder is never far from their minds.
Married for 36 years, they began writing together in the early 1990s. Now they're the authors of several mysteries series, including one about stock-car racing, one about a Piedmont sheriff and one about a garden shop owner.
Sitting across from each other, staring at back-to-back flat-screen monitors, they write as much as a chapter a day.
Jim holds the keyboard; Joyce holds the family's 20-pound cat.

The couple moved to North Carolina from northern Minnesota. Near Duluth, they lived on 5 acres of farmland; they cut down trees and built their own log cabin. They grew corn and other crops and became master gardeners and herbalists. For a time, they made their own clothes.
After they moved to Midland, near Concord, they started an office supply company, which they ran for 15 years.
Jim, 54, says Joyce has always been a writer. When she was 9, she published a poem about bowling. She wrote her first novel at 14.

Joyce, 53, says Jim has always been an avid reader.
For years, they were interested in writing stories together, but couldn't figure out how to do it.
Then in 1989, after Hurricane Hugo knocked out their electricity, the couple sat with their three children around a campfire, taking turns telling a round-robin story.

"The idea stuck," Jim told me. "We thought, maybe that's how we could write. We started with short stories, then nonfiction, then novels."

It took a few years to refine the process and find a blended voice. At first, they worked best in their car exploring back roads. With one writing and one driving, they brainstormed until they settled on a plot.
Before long, they started writing full time. Joyce also works as a senior staff writer for the Weekly Post, covering Stanly and southern Cabarrus counties.

In 2004, she founded Carolina Conspiracy, a group of mystery writers who attend book events together. Maybe you've spotted them: They dress in red and black and decorate their booths with crime scene tape.
The Lavene's first Sharyn Howard Mystery, "Last Dance," came out in late 1999. Their Peggy Lee Garden series began in 2005. And the stock-car series debuted in May. "Swapping Paint," set in Concord, tells the story of Ruby and her new husband, Glad, an ex-cop from Chicago. Book two is due out in February.

The Lavenes' children, now in their 30s and 20s, read their rough drafts.
But Joyce says she has trouble getting them to come for dinner.
"A lot of our plots use poisonous plants."

Reading Life Editor Jeri Krentz
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