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Mark Shaiken: Thanks.
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Alison Nissen: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Florida writer. Podcast with your host, Alison Nissen. And today I am lucky enough to have mark shaken with me, Mark, could you give us a 60 s elevator pitch about who you are and what you write.
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Mark Shaiken: I'm a recovering attorney. I was a lawyer. I was in the law business for 4 over 4 decades.
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Mark Shaiken: I left in 2019, just in time to start writing books and the pandemic which sort of coincided. I've written. Oh, the first book was a memo of a not famous lawyer entitled After, and just like that.
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Mark Shaiken: And then the the next 4 have been my legal and financial thriller series starring my star lawyer, Josephina Julian Jones, 3 J. To her friends.
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Alison Nissen: How did you come up with the name Josephina? Julian Jones?
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, a lot of alliteration. I don't know it, you know. Some of the stuff. Just sort of happens. I certainly have never known someone that was named Josephina Jillian Jones. I've known Jillian's and Josephine is, and actually, they were both pretty nice folks, and so maybe that's how it came about.
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Mark Shaiken: But Unclear.
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Alison Nissen: Oh, I love 3 J. Because it's very it's an intimate name, cause it's it's that type of nickname where you
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Alison Nissen: in some ways earn it, and then to be called that it's a privilege for
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Alison Nissen: people, so does she take that as a privilege, as a name such as that.
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Mark Shaiken: I think she does, you know, in court the the recurring Judge character of course, calls her Miss Jones. But at the end of Cramdown. They had a more informal discussion. After the hearing ended and they went off the record and he mentioned something about maybe over a coffee or drinks, you'll give me the backstory of what really happened in that case.
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Mark Shaiken: And so the next book there's likely gonna be some drinks and a cup of coffee, or something like that, where he gets to call her 3 J. She still calls him Judge, because there's no way around that. But I still call the judge. I work for judge, and it's it's been 40 years. So
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Mark Shaiken: yeah, but that it is an intimate name and there, you know you have to know her to call her that.
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Alison Nissen: Well, I just a quick little story is
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Alison Nissen: as an Alison in high school. I was flipping through different names that people would call me, and friends started calling me Ally.
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Alison Nissen: and so I started writing it on top of my papers.
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Alison Nissen: and I had a teacher address me as Allie, and I freaked me out so much that I never went by Allie again.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah. Well, with a name like Mark, you don't get that opportunity. There's really not much you can do with that one. So
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Mark Shaiken: But you know names are interesting. I keep a list of names, and sometimes the name is something
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Mark Shaiken: I've heard or seen, maybe on a news report that I kind of like the first name, and I want well, forget it otherwise. So I just keep a list of possible
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Mark Shaiken: upcoming names, although the the new character in Cramdown was named Robbie, and that's that's a nothing name I didn't want the name to get in the way of that. He kills people, so
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Mark Shaiken: I.
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Alison Nissen: Okay. So your latest book, which is crammed down and Robbie Mcfadden is a mobster boss who graduated from Wharton business School.
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Alison Nissen: Robbie Mcfadden does not sound at all like a mobster name.
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Mark Shaiken: You know I didn't want him to have a lobster name. I wanted him to have a a sort of
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Mark Shaiken: kids, teenager kind of first name as a juxtaposition to what he actually does for a living and
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Mark Shaiken: in his father in the book. His father was in the mob, and didn't want Robbie to go into the mob, and so Robbie was smart. He went off to Wharton to get a business degree. He did. He came back. He was in the legitimate business world for a while, but really hated it, and decided he could be the a better mobster by running it like a real business, using his Wharton background. So he's a very business like
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Mark Shaiken: mobster with a bent toward
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Mark Shaiken: history. So he bores people with these these soliloquies about history.
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Mark Shaiken: and nobody has the guts to tell him to shut up because he's Robbie Mcfadden, and he might kill him so they listen to it.
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Alison Nissen: All right. That's actually pretty funny.
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Alison Nissen: So tell me, how did this book come about? How did you come up with the idea.
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Mark Shaiken: So cram cram down so each book has something to do with bankruptcy. Law. Jo, 3. J. Is a bankruptcy lawyer. I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And so you write what you know, and hoping that that doesn't turn people off. And so far I'm getting lucky, and it's not cause, you know, who would read a bankruptcy novel?
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Mark Shaiken: But so the phrase cran down is is actually in the business reorganization section of the bankruptcy code.
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Mark Shaiken: And it's this this phrase that has been around bankruptcy for decades, and it, you know, has the opportunity to have a lot of, you know, double on Tandra is not just the law thing, but if you don't like it, I'll cram it down your throat. You know a phrase that you might hear in an argument, having nothing to do with the law.
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Mark Shaiken: The the story. Then, has something to do with the use of that
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Mark Shaiken: bankruptcy provision to help a business that
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Mark Shaiken: builds homes for marginalized members of members of marginalized communities.
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Mark Shaiken: so that they can have a home much like habitat for humanity
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Mark Shaiken: would do in in many of the cities in the United States and
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Mark Shaiken: in order to reorganize, they have to cram down their plan over the objection of a bank is the the theory.
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Mark Shaiken: So that's where the phrase comes from. Bankruptcy. You force a plan down a throatable creditor who doesn't want that treatment.
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Mark Shaiken: But it gives a lot of opportunity then for
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Mark Shaiken: other things to happen in the book without, you know, giving away a spoiler, and one of the bankers hires Robbie.
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Mark Shaiken: and I won't. I won't go into too much of why, but from what I've already said, you can kinda gather. Why, the the banker is hired, Robbie, and it's really the first book that I've ever actually killed anybody off, and it was kind of exhilarating, so I probably might do that again, and I did enjoy the the mobster character.
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Mark Shaiken: and so he'll probably back be back again in the next book.
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Alison Nissen: Alright. So you you had a little bit of a thrill killing the character off. I know we all. We writers. We see those T-shirts all the time. Be careful, or you might end up in my book. Type of thing. So tell me the experience of creating a character that deserved that sort of treatment.
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Mark Shaiken: So there's there's a handful of people that don't make it to the end of the book,
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Mark Shaiken: and they're very different. I'm I enjoy making, you know, creating characters that are not just good or bad guys. So I have good, bad guys and bad good guys. And I have bad bad guys, and there are some good good guys. But even 3 J. Would be would have a a part of her. That, you know, isn't isn't perfect, because none of us are
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Mark Shaiken: and not that that part of her is bad. But it can cause a lot of a lot of problems in in her life, and then the life of her friends. So I mean the the the idea of killing people off has something to do with whether you're interested in that character, and and surprised that the character gets
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Mark Shaiken: bumped off at the end of the book, or whether you hate the character, and you're hoping the character gets bumped off at the end of the book.
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Mark Shaiken: And it it allows me to sort of add an element of suspense that I haven't done before in the prior books, because I went to a Quaker college, and I haven't ever killed anybody off in a book or in real life. And so it's an interesting
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Mark Shaiken: way for me to grow in in the, in the writing process, which is fun.
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Alison Nissen: So, adding that layer of suspense
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Alison Nissen: is so, what's the difference between what you did before? And adding that.
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Mark Shaiken: It's just sort of, I think, a natural progression. I'm just looking for new, a, a new ways to add suspense to the storyline.
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Mark Shaiken: There's some chase scenes, I mean. I've done that before.
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Mark Shaiken: There is
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Mark Shaiken: in in the prior books. The the storyline does have suspense to it. I just felt like in this book by adding a mobster. I was adding something that I had not done before, but that, you know, really does ex exist in Kansas City. It's a huge mob town, and historically it was a huge mob town. So you can do. And I did. You can do a lot of research
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Mark Shaiken: which is also fun for me to sort of research this. See who the real mobsters were. See, you know what
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Mark Shaiken: their European heritage was, be it? You know Italy or or Ireland, or someplace else Robbie's an Irish mobster
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Mark Shaiken: and you know, see if I can weave into the book
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Mark Shaiken: something that's true, something that really did happen in Kansas City's past
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Mark Shaiken: into a fictional character in the presence which is a hook that I I love to do, and I've done in every book.
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Alison Nissen: I love that technique. That sounds really fun.
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Alison Nissen: I know you like so in cram down. Obviously, we're talking about the the housing market, and and this group that's much like habitat for humanity. And
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Alison Nissen: and so do you get much into the social issues that revolve around housing and the underprivileged.
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Mark Shaiken: I do. I I'm pretty active in habitat here in Denver. So that is kind of a natural
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Mark Shaiken: and but I wanted to fictionalize it, so that I could say something about it rather than having to put a habitat hat on and and say something, and so the the name of the outfit in Kansas City is called Abode Llc.
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Mark Shaiken: And you know they acquire land and build low income housing for people that otherwise couldn't get a home. And that raises the question, well, why can't they get the why don't these groups have as much access as they should to the American dream having a house.
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Mark Shaiken: And the reason, historically is that you know, ma, large amounts of discrimination. In a variety of ways one was called redlining. You could find a house, but you can get a mortgage
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Mark Shaiken: because banks have literally drawn a red line around, you know, paper and ink
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Mark Shaiken: of a neighborhood in Kansas City, and that red line was the line within which no one that was black or Latino or Asian could ever own a home.
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Mark Shaiken: And so the practice became known as redlining
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Mark Shaiken: and it still goes on hopefully less than it it did in the twenties and thirties and forties. But groups like abode or habitat are ways to get break through the red line.
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Mark Shaiken: and habitat will buy land abode will buy land in otherwise prohibited area, we'll call it
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Mark Shaiken: and and build a house and then sell it to an underprivileged marginalized, you know. Family
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Mark Shaiken: but it in Kansas City was there are parts of Kansas City that,
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Mark Shaiken: were incredibly segregated may not have gotten the memo at the end of the Civil War that the war was over, and that the North had won
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Mark Shaiken: and th. The practice just continued and continued, I remember the first house that that my wife and I bought when we lived in Kansas City was back in maybe 92 or 93, and it was in a very old neighborhood, and the original deed
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Mark Shaiken: re
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Mark Shaiken: Prohibited the owner of the house from selling it to a black person. The person, any person of color that was those weren't the language that they used a Jewish person like us all that's illegal. So it's not enforceable anymore. But it was kind of jarring to read that in the deed.
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Mark Shaiken: and that would.
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Alison Nissen: That'd be that would totally be jarring and slightly
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Alison Nissen: both exhilarating and upsetting.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, all of the above
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Mark Shaiken: and 3 J is black. And so, you know, she gets to
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Mark Shaiken: do something that's on the right side of the the moral line.
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Mark Shaiken: And the bank that's involved in all this is the only black owned bank family owned bank in Kansas City.
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Mark Shaiken: and one brother is very one of the brother owners, is very interested in being the member of the community and doing right by the community, and the other one wants no part of it. He just wants to make money.
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Mark Shaiken: so that there's lots of conflict between the 2 brothers to the point where, you know. Maybe even a black owned bank is is talking about doing something like redlining in the book.
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Alison Nissen: Oh, very intriguing. It definitely allows the audience to
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Alison Nissen: imagine like what they're you know. I've lost my question.
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Alison Nissen: I imagine the audience's imagination can go just about anywhere with all of those different scenarios.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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Alison Nissen: When you create the characters
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Alison Nissen: you mentioned, you know, being able to go back and and look at historical figures that might have been true, and then you can fictionalize them. Do you have any other techniques that you like to use.
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Mark Shaiken: I like a lot of dialogue, because in real life that's what people do. They talk? Lawyers, of course, you know, talk endlessly.
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Mark Shaiken: And and so I do try to incorporate realistic dialogue. And by that, what I mean is not the our
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Mark Shaiken: TV dramas that you see with lawyers, because that's not really what happens in court or back in the office, and they're squeezing.
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Mark Shaiken: you know, months into a 48 min of actual drama.
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Mark Shaiken: And so the dialogue to me in those shows isn't isn't
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Mark Shaiken: authentic. And so I tried to make the dialogue authentic. But the truth is.
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Mark Shaiken: the lawyers write a ton, you know, during their career. That's one of the main things that they do. But you don't write dialogue. And so I had never written dialogue before, and was, you know, a little flammoxed as to how to do it, and I decided I would do it
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Mark Shaiken: to make sure it was at least in my mind authentic by out loud speaking. Both parts were all the parts. So if if you walked by me when I was writing dialog when I'm writing dialogue. It's probably an odd moment. I'd probably sound crazy because I'm
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Mark Shaiken: talking in different voices to myself to hear what it sounds like to try to make it sound like it would sound in court or in a deposition, or in the lawyers office. After a bad hearing kind of thing.
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Alison Nissen: That's a great technique. I really like that. And you actually change your voice.
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Mark Shaiken: I do. I didn't wanna confuse myself. You know the the books are on audible, and it's been a fascinating experience to hear the technique of the narrator change the voice
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Mark Shaiken: that he's using slightly, not not going into falsetto to sound like
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Mark Shaiken: Threej might sound like, but he he has a way of of changing his voice so that you just know that it's her talking in the dialogue without having to have it identified. And maybe I'm doing a little bit of that. Maybe
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Mark Shaiken: somebody walking by wouldn't know whether it was 3 J. Or her law partner. But
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Mark Shaiken: it helps me figure out what and a lot of times I'll say God, that's not at all how it would have sounded! I need to rewrite that.
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Alison Nissen: It's a great way to check yourself.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah. It's fun.
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Mark Shaiken: Keeps me busy.
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Alison Nissen: It keeps you busy, and these are self published.
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Mark Shaiken: They are.
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Mark Shaiken: you know. I I publish, I co-authored 2 books when I practiced, and we had a real publishing company.
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Mark Shaiken: and I was sort of, you know, fat, happy, and dumb. I didn't know this was back in the nineties. I didn't really
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Mark Shaiken: no anything other than I had a schedule I had to, under which I had to deliver chapters
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Mark Shaiken: to the publisher, and then they took over. They edited it, they formatted it, they sold it. They marketed it, and then they sent me a check every quarter, and I I thought, Well, that's this is this is great. What a great way to, you know, make a living. And I thought, maybe that's what I would end up doing when I left the practice
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Mark Shaiken: of law. But by then
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Mark Shaiken: you know, you fast forward t020-19-2020, there were many fewer publishing companies.
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Mark Shaiken: The publishing companies that I published with when I practiced were.
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Mark Shaiken: and technical companies. They publish law or business or medical books.
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Mark Shaiken: and that wouldn't be right for what I was going to write.
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Mark Shaiken: And then the process is, you know, overwhelming and a little scary, to say at least, if I had a literary agent, how would I find one? How would I know if they were, you know, upright and fair.
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Mark Shaiken: And then how long will it take? You know I'm 68 going on 69, and if I have to wait 2 years to hear back from a publisher that they don't like the book, or they can't publish it, you know I I and then repeat the process with another publishing company it would take forever.
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Mark Shaiken: In the meantime Amazon came along and made self publishing. Easy
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Mark Shaiken: and
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Mark Shaiken: I love it. You know I it means I have to market the book, which
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Mark Shaiken: a again I was pretty spoiled when I was publishing with a real publishing company, I added, didn't really have to do much. I gave some speeches, but that was it. So. There are differences.
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Mark Shaiken: I do use an editor that I love, and I do use a book designer and formatter that I love. And so they come out looking.
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Mark Shaiken: I think they come out looking as good as a random house, you know, published it because the the book designer does book covers for Random House,
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Mark Shaiken: and
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Mark Shaiken: I think they're edited well.
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Mark Shaiken: for the most part, and so the product is fine.
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Mark Shaiken: And then hopefully, people like what's inside.
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Alison Nissen: Well, Mark, shaken. How could people find out more about Cramdown and the other books that you have published.
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Mark Shaiken: I think the easiest way is to go to mark shaken author.com if you're on medium.com, which is a kind of writing reading
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Mark Shaiken: website. If you're a member, you can find me there, too.
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Mark Shaiken: Mark shaken.medium.com, and you can sort of keep track of my 3 or so essays a week that I I publish on God knows what topics, whatever comes to mind.
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Alison Nissen: Oh, wow! That's a lot.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, it's fun.
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Mark Shaiken: medium pace.
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Alison Nissen: I'm glad you enjoy it.
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Alison Nissen: Well, are you ready to switch to our rapid fire questions.
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Mark Shaiken: Go for it.
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Alison Nissen: Do you have a favorite snack? Food.
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Mark Shaiken: I do, but I try to stay the heck away from it like it's twinkies. And during the pandemic we were ordering them by the you know, the dozen from Amazon, so
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Mark Shaiken: need to stay away from them, but they are just the best food in the world.
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Alison Nissen: What project is your next undertaking for your household renovation?
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Mark Shaiken: Oh, gosh! I hope none cause we did a number last year, and it'd be nice to have a down year
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Mark Shaiken: or an off year completely. So unless something breaks, the answer is, we're gonna just hold Pat in 2024.
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Alison Nissen: Final question.
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Alison Nissen: do you have a favorite pair of sneakers.
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Mark Shaiken: I like my brooks sneakers. I'm kind of a brooks addict.
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Alison Nissen: I have Brooks, too. I've been wearing the same
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Alison Nissen: style for about 15 years, so each time there's an upgrade, and I need a new pair.
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Alison Nissen: There I go!
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Mark Shaiken: I am completely the same. Exactly. Yeah, they just fit well, and they're light as a feather, and my feet never get hurt so good.
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Alison Nissen: Well, Mark, shaken. Thank you so much for stopping by.
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Mark Shaiken: Thanks, Alison. This was great. Appreciate it.
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Alison Nissen: You have been listening to another edition of the Florida writer. Podcast with your host, Alison.
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Alison Nissen: I'll send out
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Alison Nissen: boom. We're all done.
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Mark Shaiken: Okay.
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Mark Shaiken: you do.
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Alison Nissen: Mark shaken lives with his wife Lauren and their dog Emily, in Denver, Colorado.
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Alison Nissen: He's schooled at
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Alison Nissen: Haverford College and Washburn University, and practiced Commercial bankruptcy law for almost 40 years before moving
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Alison Nissen: on in 2,019 to write volunteer travel and play music.
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Alison Nissen: He's the author of the following books in his bestselling, award-winning, 3 j. Legal thriller series, all set in Kansas City with the backdrop of jazz, barbecue, and history cram down
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Alison Nissen: unfair discrimination, automatic stay and fresh start.
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Alison Nissen: He's also the author of.
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Alison Nissen: and just like that.
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Alison Nissen: essays on a Life before, during and after law.
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Alison Nissen: a memoir of a not famous lawyer
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Alison Nissen: connect with Mark at Mark, shaken author.com
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Alison Nissen: for more information about the Florida Writers. Association. Visit us on the web at Florida. writers.org
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Alison Nissen: until next time.
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Mark Shaiken: Thanks.
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Alison Nissen: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Florida writer. Podcast with your host, Alison Nissen. And today I am lucky enough to have mark shaken with me, Mark, could you give us a 60 s elevator pitch about who you are and what you write.
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Mark Shaiken: I'm a recovering attorney. I was a lawyer. I was in the law business for 4 over 4 decades.
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Mark Shaiken: I left in 2019, just in time to start writing books and the pandemic which sort of coincided. I've written. Oh, the first book was a memo of a not famous lawyer entitled After, and just like that.
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Mark Shaiken: And then the the next 4 have been my legal and financial thriller series starring my star lawyer, Josephina Julian Jones, 3 J. To her friends.
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Alison Nissen: How did you come up with the name Josephina? Julian Jones?
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, a lot of alliteration. I don't know it, you know. Some of the stuff. Just sort of happens. I certainly have never known someone that was named Josephina Jillian Jones. I've known Jillian's and Josephine is, and actually, they were both pretty nice folks, and so maybe that's how it came about.
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Mark Shaiken: But Unclear.
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Alison Nissen: Oh, I love 3 J. Because it's very it's an intimate name, cause it's it's that type of nickname where you
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Alison Nissen: in some ways earn it, and then to be called that it's a privilege for
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Alison Nissen: people, so does she take that as a privilege, as a name such as that.
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Mark Shaiken: I think she does, you know, in court the the recurring Judge character of course, calls her Miss Jones. But at the end of Cramdown. They had a more informal discussion. After the hearing ended and they went off the record and he mentioned something about maybe over a coffee or drinks, you'll give me the backstory of what really happened in that case.
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Mark Shaiken: And so the next book there's likely gonna be some drinks and a cup of coffee, or something like that, where he gets to call her 3 J. She still calls him Judge, because there's no way around that. But I still call the judge. I work for judge, and it's it's been 40 years. So
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Mark Shaiken: yeah, but that it is an intimate name and there, you know you have to know her to call her that.
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Alison Nissen: Well, I just a quick little story is
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Alison Nissen: as an Alison in high school. I was flipping through different names that people would call me, and friends started calling me Ally.
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Alison Nissen: and so I started writing it on top of my papers.
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Alison Nissen: and I had a teacher address me as Allie, and I freaked me out so much that I never went by Allie again.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah. Well, with a name like Mark, you don't get that opportunity. There's really not much you can do with that one. So
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Mark Shaiken: But you know names are interesting. I keep a list of names, and sometimes the name is something
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Mark Shaiken: I've heard or seen, maybe on a news report that I kind of like the first name, and I want well, forget it otherwise. So I just keep a list of possible
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Mark Shaiken: upcoming names, although the the new character in Cramdown was named Robbie, and that's that's a nothing name I didn't want the name to get in the way of that. He kills people, so
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Mark Shaiken: I.
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Alison Nissen: Okay. So your latest book, which is crammed down and Robbie Mcfadden is a mobster boss who graduated from Wharton business School.
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Alison Nissen: Robbie Mcfadden does not sound at all like a mobster name.
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Mark Shaiken: You know I didn't want him to have a lobster name. I wanted him to have a a sort of
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Mark Shaiken: kids, teenager kind of first name as a juxtaposition to what he actually does for a living and
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Mark Shaiken: in his father in the book. His father was in the mob, and didn't want Robbie to go into the mob, and so Robbie was smart. He went off to Wharton to get a business degree. He did. He came back. He was in the legitimate business world for a while, but really hated it, and decided he could be the a better mobster by running it like a real business, using his Wharton background. So he's a very business like
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Mark Shaiken: mobster with a bent toward
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Mark Shaiken: history. So he bores people with these these soliloquies about history.
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Mark Shaiken: and nobody has the guts to tell him to shut up because he's Robbie Mcfadden, and he might kill him so they listen to it.
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Alison Nissen: All right. That's actually pretty funny.
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Alison Nissen: So tell me, how did this book come about? How did you come up with the idea.
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Mark Shaiken: So cram cram down so each book has something to do with bankruptcy. Law. Jo, 3. J. Is a bankruptcy lawyer. I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And so you write what you know, and hoping that that doesn't turn people off. And so far I'm getting lucky, and it's not cause, you know, who would read a bankruptcy novel?
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Mark Shaiken: But so the phrase cran down is is actually in the business reorganization section of the bankruptcy code.
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Mark Shaiken: And it's this this phrase that has been around bankruptcy for decades, and it, you know, has the opportunity to have a lot of, you know, double on Tandra is not just the law thing, but if you don't like it, I'll cram it down your throat. You know a phrase that you might hear in an argument, having nothing to do with the law.
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Mark Shaiken: The the story. Then, has something to do with the use of that
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Mark Shaiken: bankruptcy provision to help a business that
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Mark Shaiken: builds homes for marginalized members of members of marginalized communities.
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Mark Shaiken: so that they can have a home much like habitat for humanity
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Mark Shaiken: would do in in many of the cities in the United States and
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Mark Shaiken: in order to reorganize, they have to cram down their plan over the objection of a bank is the the theory.
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Mark Shaiken: So that's where the phrase comes from. Bankruptcy. You force a plan down a throatable creditor who doesn't want that treatment.
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Mark Shaiken: But it gives a lot of opportunity then for
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Mark Shaiken: other things to happen in the book without, you know, giving away a spoiler, and one of the bankers hires Robbie.
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Mark Shaiken: and I won't. I won't go into too much of why, but from what I've already said, you can kinda gather. Why, the the banker is hired, Robbie, and it's really the first book that I've ever actually killed anybody off, and it was kind of exhilarating, so I probably might do that again, and I did enjoy the the mobster character.
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Mark Shaiken: and so he'll probably back be back again in the next book.
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Alison Nissen: Alright. So you you had a little bit of a thrill killing the character off. I know we all. We writers. We see those T-shirts all the time. Be careful, or you might end up in my book. Type of thing. So tell me the experience of creating a character that deserved that sort of treatment.
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Mark Shaiken: So there's there's a handful of people that don't make it to the end of the book,
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Mark Shaiken: and they're very different. I'm I enjoy making, you know, creating characters that are not just good or bad guys. So I have good, bad guys and bad good guys. And I have bad bad guys, and there are some good good guys. But even 3 J. Would be would have a a part of her. That, you know, isn't isn't perfect, because none of us are
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Mark Shaiken: and not that that part of her is bad. But it can cause a lot of a lot of problems in in her life, and then the life of her friends. So I mean the the the idea of killing people off has something to do with whether you're interested in that character, and and surprised that the character gets
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Mark Shaiken: bumped off at the end of the book, or whether you hate the character, and you're hoping the character gets bumped off at the end of the book.
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Mark Shaiken: And it it allows me to sort of add an element of suspense that I haven't done before in the prior books, because I went to a Quaker college, and I haven't ever killed anybody off in a book or in real life. And so it's an interesting
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Mark Shaiken: way for me to grow in in the, in the writing process, which is fun.
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Alison Nissen: So, adding that layer of suspense
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Alison Nissen: is so, what's the difference between what you did before? And adding that.
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Mark Shaiken: It's just sort of, I think, a natural progression. I'm just looking for new, a, a new ways to add suspense to the storyline.
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Mark Shaiken: There's some chase scenes, I mean. I've done that before.
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Mark Shaiken: There is
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Mark Shaiken: in in the prior books. The the storyline does have suspense to it. I just felt like in this book by adding a mobster. I was adding something that I had not done before, but that, you know, really does ex exist in Kansas City. It's a huge mob town, and historically it was a huge mob town. So you can do. And I did. You can do a lot of research
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Mark Shaiken: which is also fun for me to sort of research this. See who the real mobsters were. See, you know what
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Mark Shaiken: their European heritage was, be it? You know Italy or or Ireland, or someplace else Robbie's an Irish mobster
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Mark Shaiken: and you know, see if I can weave into the book
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Mark Shaiken: something that's true, something that really did happen in Kansas City's past
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Mark Shaiken: into a fictional character in the presence which is a hook that I I love to do, and I've done in every book.
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Alison Nissen: I love that technique. That sounds really fun.
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Alison Nissen: I know you like so in cram down. Obviously, we're talking about the the housing market, and and this group that's much like habitat for humanity. And
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Alison Nissen: and so do you get much into the social issues that revolve around housing and the underprivileged.
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Mark Shaiken: I do. I I'm pretty active in habitat here in Denver. So that is kind of a natural
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Mark Shaiken: and but I wanted to fictionalize it, so that I could say something about it rather than having to put a habitat hat on and and say something, and so the the name of the outfit in Kansas City is called Abode Llc.
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Mark Shaiken: And you know they acquire land and build low income housing for people that otherwise couldn't get a home. And that raises the question, well, why can't they get the why don't these groups have as much access as they should to the American dream having a house.
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Mark Shaiken: And the reason, historically is that you know, ma, large amounts of discrimination. In a variety of ways one was called redlining. You could find a house, but you can get a mortgage
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Mark Shaiken: because banks have literally drawn a red line around, you know, paper and ink
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Mark Shaiken: of a neighborhood in Kansas City, and that red line was the line within which no one that was black or Latino or Asian could ever own a home.
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Mark Shaiken: And so the practice became known as redlining
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Mark Shaiken: and it still goes on hopefully less than it it did in the twenties and thirties and forties. But groups like abode or habitat are ways to get break through the red line.
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Mark Shaiken: and habitat will buy land abode will buy land in otherwise prohibited area, we'll call it
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Mark Shaiken: and and build a house and then sell it to an underprivileged marginalized, you know. Family
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Mark Shaiken: but it in Kansas City was there are parts of Kansas City that,
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Mark Shaiken: were incredibly segregated may not have gotten the memo at the end of the Civil War that the war was over, and that the North had won
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Mark Shaiken: and th. The practice just continued and continued, I remember the first house that that my wife and I bought when we lived in Kansas City was back in maybe 92 or 93, and it was in a very old neighborhood, and the original deed
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Mark Shaiken: re
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Mark Shaiken: Prohibited the owner of the house from selling it to a black person. The person, any person of color that was those weren't the language that they used a Jewish person like us all that's illegal. So it's not enforceable anymore. But it was kind of jarring to read that in the deed.
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Mark Shaiken: and that would.
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Alison Nissen: That'd be that would totally be jarring and slightly
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Alison Nissen: both exhilarating and upsetting.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, all of the above
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Mark Shaiken: and 3 J is black. And so, you know, she gets to
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Mark Shaiken: do something that's on the right side of the the moral line.
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Mark Shaiken: And the bank that's involved in all this is the only black owned bank family owned bank in Kansas City.
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Mark Shaiken: and one brother is very one of the brother owners, is very interested in being the member of the community and doing right by the community, and the other one wants no part of it. He just wants to make money.
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Mark Shaiken: so that there's lots of conflict between the 2 brothers to the point where, you know. Maybe even a black owned bank is is talking about doing something like redlining in the book.
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Alison Nissen: Oh, very intriguing. It definitely allows the audience to
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Alison Nissen: imagine like what they're you know. I've lost my question.
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Alison Nissen: I imagine the audience's imagination can go just about anywhere with all of those different scenarios.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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Alison Nissen: When you create the characters
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Alison Nissen: you mentioned, you know, being able to go back and and look at historical figures that might have been true, and then you can fictionalize them. Do you have any other techniques that you like to use.
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Mark Shaiken: I like a lot of dialogue, because in real life that's what people do. They talk? Lawyers, of course, you know, talk endlessly.
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Mark Shaiken: And and so I do try to incorporate realistic dialogue. And by that, what I mean is not the our
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Mark Shaiken: TV dramas that you see with lawyers, because that's not really what happens in court or back in the office, and they're squeezing.
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Mark Shaiken: you know, months into a 48 min of actual drama.
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Mark Shaiken: And so the dialogue to me in those shows isn't isn't
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Mark Shaiken: authentic. And so I tried to make the dialogue authentic. But the truth is.
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Mark Shaiken: the lawyers write a ton, you know, during their career. That's one of the main things that they do. But you don't write dialogue. And so I had never written dialogue before, and was, you know, a little flammoxed as to how to do it, and I decided I would do it
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Mark Shaiken: to make sure it was at least in my mind authentic by out loud speaking. Both parts were all the parts. So if if you walked by me when I was writing dialog when I'm writing dialogue. It's probably an odd moment. I'd probably sound crazy because I'm
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Mark Shaiken: talking in different voices to myself to hear what it sounds like to try to make it sound like it would sound in court or in a deposition, or in the lawyers office. After a bad hearing kind of thing.
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Alison Nissen: That's a great technique. I really like that. And you actually change your voice.
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Mark Shaiken: I do. I didn't wanna confuse myself. You know the the books are on audible, and it's been a fascinating experience to hear the technique of the narrator change the voice
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Mark Shaiken: that he's using slightly, not not going into falsetto to sound like
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Mark Shaiken: Threej might sound like, but he he has a way of of changing his voice so that you just know that it's her talking in the dialogue without having to have it identified. And maybe I'm doing a little bit of that. Maybe
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Mark Shaiken: somebody walking by wouldn't know whether it was 3 J. Or her law partner. But
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Mark Shaiken: it helps me figure out what and a lot of times I'll say God, that's not at all how it would have sounded! I need to rewrite that.
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Alison Nissen: It's a great way to check yourself.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah. It's fun.
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Mark Shaiken: Keeps me busy.
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Alison Nissen: It keeps you busy, and these are self published.
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Mark Shaiken: They are.
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Mark Shaiken: you know. I I publish, I co-authored 2 books when I practiced, and we had a real publishing company.
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Mark Shaiken: and I was sort of, you know, fat, happy, and dumb. I didn't know this was back in the nineties. I didn't really
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Mark Shaiken: no anything other than I had a schedule I had to, under which I had to deliver chapters
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Mark Shaiken: to the publisher, and then they took over. They edited it, they formatted it, they sold it. They marketed it, and then they sent me a check every quarter, and I I thought, Well, that's this is this is great. What a great way to, you know, make a living. And I thought, maybe that's what I would end up doing when I left the practice
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Mark Shaiken: of law. But by then
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Mark Shaiken: you know, you fast forward t020-19-2020, there were many fewer publishing companies.
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Mark Shaiken: The publishing companies that I published with when I practiced were.
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Mark Shaiken: and technical companies. They publish law or business or medical books.
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Mark Shaiken: and that wouldn't be right for what I was going to write.
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Mark Shaiken: And then the process is, you know, overwhelming and a little scary, to say at least, if I had a literary agent, how would I find one? How would I know if they were, you know, upright and fair.
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Mark Shaiken: And then how long will it take? You know I'm 68 going on 69, and if I have to wait 2 years to hear back from a publisher that they don't like the book, or they can't publish it, you know I I and then repeat the process with another publishing company it would take forever.
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Mark Shaiken: In the meantime Amazon came along and made self publishing. Easy
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Mark Shaiken: and
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Mark Shaiken: I love it. You know I it means I have to market the book, which
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Mark Shaiken: a again I was pretty spoiled when I was publishing with a real publishing company, I added, didn't really have to do much. I gave some speeches, but that was it. So. There are differences.
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Mark Shaiken: I do use an editor that I love, and I do use a book designer and formatter that I love. And so they come out looking.
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Mark Shaiken: I think they come out looking as good as a random house, you know, published it because the the book designer does book covers for Random House,
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Mark Shaiken: and
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Mark Shaiken: I think they're edited well.
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Mark Shaiken: for the most part, and so the product is fine.
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Mark Shaiken: And then hopefully, people like what's inside.
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Alison Nissen: Well, Mark, shaken. How could people find out more about Cramdown and the other books that you have published.
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Mark Shaiken: I think the easiest way is to go to mark shaken author.com if you're on medium.com, which is a kind of writing reading
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Mark Shaiken: website. If you're a member, you can find me there, too.
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Mark Shaiken: Mark shaken.medium.com, and you can sort of keep track of my 3 or so essays a week that I I publish on God knows what topics, whatever comes to mind.
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Alison Nissen: Oh, wow! That's a lot.
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Mark Shaiken: Yeah, it's fun.
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Mark Shaiken: medium pace.
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Alison Nissen: I'm glad you enjoy it.
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Alison Nissen: Well, are you ready to switch to our rapid fire questions.
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Mark Shaiken: Go for it.
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Alison Nissen: Do you have a favorite snack? Food.
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Mark Shaiken: I do, but I try to stay the heck away from it like it's twinkies. And during the pandemic we were ordering them by the you know, the dozen from Amazon, so
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Mark Shaiken: need to stay away from them, but they are just the best food in the world.
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Alison Nissen: What project is your next undertaking for your household renovation?
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Mark Shaiken: Oh, gosh! I hope none cause we did a number last year, and it'd be nice to have a down year
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Mark Shaiken: or an off year completely. So unless something breaks, the answer is, we're gonna just hold Pat in 2024.
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Alison Nissen: Final question.
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Alison Nissen: do you have a favorite pair of sneakers.
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Mark Shaiken: I like my brooks sneakers. I'm kind of a brooks addict.
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Alison Nissen: I have Brooks, too. I've been wearing the same
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Alison Nissen: style for about 15 years, so each time there's an upgrade, and I need a new pair.
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Alison Nissen: There I go!
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Mark Shaiken: I am completely the same. Exactly. Yeah, they just fit well, and they're light as a feather, and my feet never get hurt so good.
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Alison Nissen: Well, Mark, shaken. Thank you so much for stopping by.
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Mark Shaiken: Thanks, Alison. This was great. Appreciate it.
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Alison Nissen: You have been listening to another edition of the Florida writer. Podcast with your host, Alison.
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Alison Nissen: I'll send out
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Alison Nissen: boom. We're all done.
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Mark Shaiken: Okay.
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Mark Shaiken: you do.
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Alison Nissen: Mark shaken lives with his wife Lauren and their dog Emily, in Denver, Colorado.
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Alison Nissen: He's schooled at
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Alison Nissen: Haverford College and Washburn University, and practiced Commercial bankruptcy law for almost 40 years before moving
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Alison Nissen: on in 2,019 to write volunteer travel and play music.
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Alison Nissen: He's the author of the following books in his bestselling, award-winning, 3 j. Legal thriller series, all set in Kansas City with the backdrop of jazz, barbecue, and history cram down
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Alison Nissen: unfair discrimination, automatic stay and fresh start.
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Alison Nissen: He's also the author of.
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Alison Nissen: and just like that.
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Alison Nissen: essays on a Life before, during and after law.
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Alison Nissen: a memoir of a not famous lawyer
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Alison Nissen: connect with Mark at Mark, shaken author.com
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Alison Nissen: for more information about the Florida Writers. Association. Visit us on the web at Florida. writers.org
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Alison Nissen: until next time.
