It gives me great pleasure to welcome Sandy Manning onto the website today. Following a career as an attorney in New York and New Jersey, Sandy has turned to writing full-time. She is a winner of the Cincinnati Mercantile Short Story Contest and has written two novels - the first of which was a winner in the 2020 Kops-Fetherling International Book Awards.
Alex: Tell us a bit about yourself, Sandy.
Sandy: I grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I wanted to be a writer from the time I was five years old, in part perhaps because it gave me an excuse to daydream and talk to myself. After earning an M.A. in English, I moved to New York and took a job as an editor on a small magazine, Law Enforcement Communications. Three years later, tired of being poor in Manhattan, I went to law school. My legal career spanned from a top tier New York law firm to the Office of the Public Defender to solo practice. I was also Chair of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, writing articles and appearing on media in the years leading up to the abolition of the death penalty in the state in 2007.
Alex: How would you describe your writing, and are there particular themes that you like to explore?
Sandy: I like to write about human relations and the tension put on individuals under stress. My novels explore the ethical choices people are sometimes forced to make - and the consequences from those choices. One of the reasons I like spy thrillers is that those ethical questions are often central to the story, and being an intelligence operative by definition, puts a character in stressful and difficult situations. I also am fascinated by world events and how those events can affect the lives of individuals who may not be paying much attention to what is happening elsewhere in the world - in Romania or in Russia, for example. I do have a bit of a tendency to write overly complicated novels - and then in my rewrite, I sharpen and simplify.
Alex: Tell us a bit about yourself, Sandy.
Sandy: I grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I wanted to be a writer from the time I was five years old, in part perhaps because it gave me an excuse to daydream and talk to myself. After earning an M.A. in English, I moved to New York and took a job as an editor on a small magazine, Law Enforcement Communications. Three years later, tired of being poor in Manhattan, I went to law school. My legal career spanned from a top tier New York law firm to the Office of the Public Defender to solo practice. I was also Chair of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, writing articles and appearing on media in the years leading up to the abolition of the death penalty in the state in 2007.
Alex: How would you describe your writing, and are there particular themes that you like to explore?
Sandy: I like to write about human relations and the tension put on individuals under stress. My novels explore the ethical choices people are sometimes forced to make - and the consequences from those choices. One of the reasons I like spy thrillers is that those ethical questions are often central to the story, and being an intelligence operative by definition, puts a character in stressful and difficult situations. I also am fascinated by world events and how those events can affect the lives of individuals who may not be paying much attention to what is happening elsewhere in the world - in Romania or in Russia, for example. I do have a bit of a tendency to write overly complicated novels - and then in my rewrite, I sharpen and simplify.
Alex: Are you a writer that plans a detailed synopsis or do you set out with a vague idea and let the story unfold as you write?
Sandy: I do a little of both. Usually I write an outline and then when I get into the novel, I tend to deviate substantially from the outline.
Alex: Tell us about your latest novel.
Sandy: In Nerve Attack, former American intelligence operative Kolya Petrov, struggling with the physical and psychological aftereffects of kidnapping and torture, is drawn back into the game when Dmitri, his childhood best friend, holds the key to stopping an attack by terrorists armed with a deadly nerve agent. Working with Dmitri, however, is complicated. While their friendship had been forged during their years in an abusive Russian boys’ home, the two men’s lives took very different paths. Dmitri had headed the North American branch of a Russian gang until Kolya, working undercover, put him in prison. Now ten years later, Dmitri’s cooperation is essential to finding the smuggler of the nerve agent, and he refuses to work with anyone but Kolya.
Kolya reluctantly agrees to undertake one more mission. With Dmitri as partner and backed by a team of fellow agents, he embarks on a journey through Russia, from the White Nights celebrations in St. Petersburg, to the dachas outside Moscow, confronting mafiya heads while evading Russian security forces. But the greatest danger waits for his return to the United States, and Kolya must face it alone. To fulfill his mission, he must come to terms with his past, both recent and more distant. Can he trust Dmitri not to take revenge for the betrayal of their friendship? Can he rely on his own judgment and abilities, despite a leg injury and ongoing PTSD, to survive an elaborate plot that threatens his life and that of his fiancée along with the lives of hundreds of innocent people?
Trojan Horse, the first in the series, and which introduces Kolya Petrov and company, won the 2020 Phoenix Award from Kops Fetherling International for Best New Voice in Action/Thriller and was a finalist in the category of Political Novel in the 15th National Indie Excellence Awards.
Nerve Attack's pub date is September 22, 2021 and is currently available for preorder on Amazon, Encircle Publications' website, and through independent bookstores.
Sandy: I do a little of both. Usually I write an outline and then when I get into the novel, I tend to deviate substantially from the outline.
Alex: Tell us about your latest novel.
Sandy: In Nerve Attack, former American intelligence operative Kolya Petrov, struggling with the physical and psychological aftereffects of kidnapping and torture, is drawn back into the game when Dmitri, his childhood best friend, holds the key to stopping an attack by terrorists armed with a deadly nerve agent. Working with Dmitri, however, is complicated. While their friendship had been forged during their years in an abusive Russian boys’ home, the two men’s lives took very different paths. Dmitri had headed the North American branch of a Russian gang until Kolya, working undercover, put him in prison. Now ten years later, Dmitri’s cooperation is essential to finding the smuggler of the nerve agent, and he refuses to work with anyone but Kolya.
Kolya reluctantly agrees to undertake one more mission. With Dmitri as partner and backed by a team of fellow agents, he embarks on a journey through Russia, from the White Nights celebrations in St. Petersburg, to the dachas outside Moscow, confronting mafiya heads while evading Russian security forces. But the greatest danger waits for his return to the United States, and Kolya must face it alone. To fulfill his mission, he must come to terms with his past, both recent and more distant. Can he trust Dmitri not to take revenge for the betrayal of their friendship? Can he rely on his own judgment and abilities, despite a leg injury and ongoing PTSD, to survive an elaborate plot that threatens his life and that of his fiancée along with the lives of hundreds of innocent people?
Trojan Horse, the first in the series, and which introduces Kolya Petrov and company, won the 2020 Phoenix Award from Kops Fetherling International for Best New Voice in Action/Thriller and was a finalist in the category of Political Novel in the 15th National Indie Excellence Awards.
Nerve Attack's pub date is September 22, 2021 and is currently available for preorder on Amazon, Encircle Publications' website, and through independent bookstores.
Alex: How much research do you do and what does it usually entail?
Sandy: I do copious amounts of research, which is absolutely necessary for the type of books I write. I've researched spy agencies, guns, Russia, Romania. Right now, I'm researching the far right of Germany for my next book. My shelves are filled with travel books, books on the CIA, the FSB, guns, martial arts, but I also make good use of the vast knowledge available online.
Alex: Do you ever base your characters on people you have encountered in real life?
Sandy: Of course. Even though I'm writing about intelligence operatives who take risks and live on the edge, they are still people and for the book to be engaging, they have to be three dimensional. Characters are amalgams of various people I have known.
Alex: What are your interests aside from writing? And what do you do to unwind?
Sandy: I have way too many hobbies and interests. I like playing chess but not seriously enough to get into the intermediate level; guitar but not enough to get out of the intermediate level; reading (of course); photography which I do periodically; and stand-up, which I started the year before the pandemic, placing in the semi-finals in the 2019 Vermont's Funniest Comic contest. I enjoy traveling in non-pandemic times and know just enough French that I can muddle my way around the countryside of France without getting into too much trouble. I hope to try horseback riding again, before I'm too old. I like bicycling and hiking, and I'm usually up for a game of poker in the dime, quarter range. What I do to unwind - any of the above - but also throw in an evening watching television with my husband while the cat alternates between our laps.
Alex: Thank you so much for sharing your writing journey with us, Sandy. It's been fascinating.
Sandy: And thank you, Alex for giving me this opportunity.
Sandy: I do copious amounts of research, which is absolutely necessary for the type of books I write. I've researched spy agencies, guns, Russia, Romania. Right now, I'm researching the far right of Germany for my next book. My shelves are filled with travel books, books on the CIA, the FSB, guns, martial arts, but I also make good use of the vast knowledge available online.
Alex: Do you ever base your characters on people you have encountered in real life?
Sandy: Of course. Even though I'm writing about intelligence operatives who take risks and live on the edge, they are still people and for the book to be engaging, they have to be three dimensional. Characters are amalgams of various people I have known.
Alex: What are your interests aside from writing? And what do you do to unwind?
Sandy: I have way too many hobbies and interests. I like playing chess but not seriously enough to get into the intermediate level; guitar but not enough to get out of the intermediate level; reading (of course); photography which I do periodically; and stand-up, which I started the year before the pandemic, placing in the semi-finals in the 2019 Vermont's Funniest Comic contest. I enjoy traveling in non-pandemic times and know just enough French that I can muddle my way around the countryside of France without getting into too much trouble. I hope to try horseback riding again, before I'm too old. I like bicycling and hiking, and I'm usually up for a game of poker in the dime, quarter range. What I do to unwind - any of the above - but also throw in an evening watching television with my husband while the cat alternates between our laps.
Alex: Thank you so much for sharing your writing journey with us, Sandy. It's been fascinating.
Sandy: And thank you, Alex for giving me this opportunity.
