Interview With Ann Rule, Author Of Too Late To Say Goodbye - Page 2

Nowadays, Rule continues her involvement in police work by giving seminars to law enforcement groups.  She is a certified instructor on such topics as: Women Who Kill, Serial Murder, Sadistic Sociopaths, and High Profile Offenders.  Rule also took part in a task force hat helped create the VI-CAP computer application, a criminal profiling and tracking program, used by the FBI.

Rule puts out a new book every nine months or so, lamenting in her 2007 Newsletter, “I feel like I'm pregnant all the time!”  She usually walks a couple of miles every morning before she begins writing.  Her self-proclaimed vice is reading the tabloids on Friday night.  After seven days immersed in a real-life tragedy and loss, who could begrudge her that?

Rule welcomes book ideas from her fans, and has taken on her readers' suggestions on many occasions.  Nevertheless, she draws the line at high profile cases (Bundy being a notable exception), motorcycle gangs, drug and crime rings and cult stories.  She favors "sleeper" cases, which she says can be every bit as interesting as the notorious cases, plus the reader’s don’t know the ending beforehand. 

Flooded with both snail and email, Rule vows to read all correspondence but cannot possibly reply to each one, hoping that her fans would rather have her spend her time writing more true crime.  Rule maintains a Blog and puts out an annual newsletter, both accessible through her website. She posts periodic updates on the lives of all the people she has written about, including the killers, detectives, prosecutors and victim’s families - no small task indeed.

Ms. Rule graciously agreed to be interviewed about her latest book, Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal. Writer Ana Moreno Amon contributed to writing this article and Patricia Phillips helped develop some of the questions.

As a true crime writer you must have so many possible stories to write. How do you choose which ones to write about? Do you ever have to turn down people’s suggestions?

Ann: I have to turn down thousands of suggestions every year, I'm afraid. Although my readers have chosen the subjects for most of my books, I have to winnow out the most likely cases from about 3,000 suggestions each year. Sometimes, people want me to write about their family's losses. Sometimes, they want me to write their own life stories. And I hear about the high profile cases--like Scott and Laci Peterson, the BTK, The Vancouver Pig Farmer, Willy Pickton, etc. etc.- hundreds of times. I can only write two books a year, even though I work seven days a week, so, of course, I have to explain why I can't write most of the suggestions that come my way.

Article Author: Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education.

He is an in-house media critic, a recovering Tetris addict and a proud uncle.

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