Knitmare on Beech Street (A Knit & Nibble Mystery) by Peggy Ehrhart | Author Interview

Tell us a little about yourself.

I grew up in Southern California, in the San Fernando Valley, at a time when it was mostly rural—not at all what it is like today. My parents were both transplanted Midwesterners, almost like pioneers. They bought a few acres of land that had previously been ranch land and then farm land and my father built a two-room house, the “little house,” that we lived in while he built what we then called the “big house.”

I gradually made my way across the country, going to graduate school at the University of Illinois and accepting a job offer at a college in New York City. I married a man I had met in grad school. He then moved to the East Coast and got a job in New Jersey and I ended up teaching in New Jersey too. We bought a fixer-upper house in a little New Jersey town and have been here ever since. We have a son who lives in Brooklyn.

How long have you been writing?

I won a Columbus Day essay contest in third grade and that sealed my fate. Forever after I was “the writer.”

Did you always want to be an author? What made you choose the cozy mystery genre?

I think I did always want to be a writer. I read constantly as a child, to the point that my mother thought I had some kind of affliction. When you read a lot, it occurs to you that you could tell stories too, and you become quite fluent as a writer because your brain has absorbed so much writing.

I chose the mystery genre because, as a mystery reader, it occurred to me that mysteries were so popular it was probably easier to get published in that genre than writing, say, literary fiction. I veered into cozies because I wasn’t having much success interesting agents in my more serious mystery efforts—though I published two mysteries set in the world of a struggling blues band with Five Star Press, which was willing to consider unagented manuscripts—in other words, submitted directly by the author.

I was actually recruited to write the Knit & Nibble series, by an agent who sells a lot to Kensington and had been told by an editor there that the press would like to acquire a series set in the world of a knitting club. A writer friend of mine who he represents gave him my name, for which I will be forever grateful. I learned to knit as a teenager, so I definitely had the background to take on such a project.

Do you prefer to read cozy mystery books, or do you have another favorite genre? What are you reading now?

I usually prefer to read non-fiction when I’m actively writing because I don’t want to get another fiction writer’s voice in my brain.

My sister gives me books related to fashion and fiber arts and crafts. I just finished The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux. It deals with the earlier form women’s pockets took, teardrop-shaped pouches separate from the skirts they were worn under. They usually came in pairs and they hung from a sash tied around the waist, accessed through plackets in the side seams of the skirts. They were often elaborately decorated, using various needlework techniques, which is a great part of their appeal to historians of clothing.

Do you have a favorite place to write?

I’m lucky to have a room of my own totally devoted to my writing. Our old house affords us a lot of space to spread out.

What’s on your desk (if you write at one!)?

The only really curious thing is a tiny old-fashioned brass bathtub I found at a yard sale. It’s about six inches long and I keep my paperclips in it. Otherwise, objects are just computer, monitor, printer, extra paper etc.

What is the first book you remember reading as a child? What was one of your favorite books you read as a child?

My mom would take me to the library every week starting in about second grade, and I would check out ten books, which I think was the limit. I remember a series dealing with a talking pig named Freddy that I absolutely adored. I was always thrilled when I found one on the shelves that I hadn’t read yet. I know my mother read to me and my slightly younger sister before we learned to read for ourselves—that is of course how children develop a love of reading—but I can’t’ remember what any of those books were.

Do you like audiobooks, physical books, or e-books better? Why?

I like physical books. To me handling the object is part of the pleasure of reading.

If you had the opportunity to live anywhere in the world for a year while writing a book that took place in that same setting, where would you choose?

My Knit & Nibble books are set in a charming New Jersey town very much like the one where I live. Readers tell me that the setting really comes alive for them and I’m sure that’s because I know my own town so intimately. Plots really grow out of setting.

I’d love to write a standalone mystery set in the Southern California world I grew up in. The San Fernando Valley is nothing like it was then, but parts of downtown Los Angeles are still similar, at least architecturally. So I think I would like to spend a year living in Los Angeles, maybe in one of those pastel stucco bungalows in the milieu that Raymond Chandler brought to life so evocatively.

What or who has influenced you the most as a writer?

Jane Austen. P.D. James commented that if the mystery genre had existed when Jane Austen was writing, she would have made an excellent mystery writer. The evidence is in Emma, where she very cleverly buries the clues that point to the real object of Frank Churchill’s affections. Any mystery writer looking to learn how to slip clues in unnoticed by the reader could learn from her.

In addition, the essence of the cozy series is the small-town setting featuring characters who recur from book to book. Austen’s books, too, are set in such a world, and the type of subtle humor with which she depicts her characters’ eccentricities is very appropriate to the cozy.

Do you have any author friends who support you while you’re writing? Do you belong to any writing groups?

I used to be very active in my local Sisters in Crime chapter and in the online group called the Guppies (Great Unpublished . . .) I got out of the habit of in-person meetings during the Covid era and haven’t gotten back into it, and the people I knew in the Guppies have either given up and dropped by the wayside or become successful authors and gone on their separate ways.

I was in an in-person writing group when I first started writing mysteries and it actually wasn’t very helpful. I know writers who swear by writing groups, but people have to understand the conventions of a genre to give useful critiques. For example, amateur sleuths abound in cozies and so for a writer of hard-boiled police procedurals to object that amateurs don’t actually solve crimes in real life is not productive.

Finally, what are you working on now? Can you tell us a bit about it?

I just sent Knit & Nibble #11 to my editor at Kensington and am about to start a St. Patrick’s Day-themed novella. It’s to appear in a novella collection called Irish Soda Bread Murder that Kensington is bringing out in 2025.

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions!

Excerpt from Knitmare on Beech Street