The interview is posted at a murder mystery site, but ranges (like Nyren's career) more widely than that. Here's what he had to say on the subject of what he looks for in a new writer:
Whenever I get a new ms, here’s what I want to see: 1) Something different, a situation or character or voice that I haven’t seen hundreds of times before (or if they are familiar types, presented so damn well that I can’t resist them); 2) A sure command from the very first page – I want to feel immediately that the author knows what he or she is doing – if it’s wobbly, I’m just going to move on to another manuscript; 3) Something extra. This is hard to describe, because you only know it when you see it, but for me it’s a special intensity, a fierceness or passion that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
I need to say a few words further on the subject of what I alluded to last night, about personal things going on for me at the moment. I still don't wish to get into this in any detail here, but...
Just at a time when I really need everything in my life (or at least as it ever does) to be going right, I feel everything's going wrong. One of my big issues is that I never quite feel I have a foundation beneath me that I can trust, so it's hard to dig my heels in and really start running because I'm always checking that the floor isn't going to open up beneath me.
As you know, I have an incredible opportunity full of possibilities in front of me right now. I really need my head to be in a good space, to feel that I can safely touch something fundamentall that I can trust...and push off from it. Like the wall of the pool when you're swimming.
Instead, I feel like everything's in danger of collapsing again. And as always, the things that other people-at least most of them-seem to able to count on without even thinking about I can't count on at all.
And, I note with a growing sick-feeling in my stomach...this is the fourth anniversary of my stint in Tennessee.
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