Teachers turned authors

COEUR d'ALENE - Three retired English teachers. Three murder mystery novels.

Yvonne Deitz, Vikki Moormann and Susan Schreiber combined their years of composition experience with their friendship and love of reading and writing to pen a three-book series following the Northwest life and mysterious goings-on encountered by fictional protagonist Jean Smiley: "Murder is Only Skin Deep," "Murder is a Pain in the Neck" and "Murder is Just a Heartbeat Away."

"They all deal with a retired English teacher, naturally," Moormann said with a laugh.

Readers and former students can rest assured the chapters have efficient outlines, use proper grammar, and are plenty of fun.

"They say, 'write what you know,'" Deitz added.

The trio met Thursday at the Iron Horse to discuss their Nancy Drew-style novels, which they began creating in 2005. They frequently met at the Iron Horse to map out their chapters and discuss plans for the plot as they progressed with the books.

"We even included one of their waiters who would get us a table back there in the corner," Deitz said.

Collectively, Deitz, Moormann and Schreiber spent 88 years teaching in the Coeur d'Alene School District. Moormann and Deitz met in 1969 at Coeur d'Alene's mid-high, which served just ninth and 10th grades. They both taught English and were joined by Schreiber in 1988.

"I'm the baby," Schreiber said, grinning.

The ladies are prone to laughter and giggling, like girls who know each others' secrets and have their own inside jokes. They taught for several years together at Coeur d'Alene High School and worked on curriculum committees, writing English curricula for the school district. Collaborating on a book project was a natural choice for them.

"We thought quite a lot alike about all these things and so it just worked," Deitz said.

Moormann and Deitz retired in 2000, with Schreiber following suit in 2002. Then Schreiber read a newspaper article about a man who drowned, and the wheels began turning.

"We got to talking about that and I don't remember who said, 'We should write a book,'" Moormann said. "My first reaction was, 'I don't want to do that after teaching writing for 33 years.' But they worked on me and convinced me and once we started, I enjoyed it quite a bit and I was really surprised."

"One of the things that inspired us about this man's death was the fact that he had died and he was off by himself and he had Alzheimer's disease," Deitz said. "We thought, 'Golly, why would his family or anybody let him go off fishing by himself?'"

Their imaginations began to ask questions of the 'whodunnit' sort and they began to build a fictional world which evolved into a story line.

"We started being goofy and saying, 'Well maybe it was planned, maybe it wasn't an accident,'" Deitz said. "Then we ran with that for a while."

They first thought about how the murder would take place, then decided who the murderer should be, the motive and other details.

"You remember the big stickler," Schreiber reminded Deitz. "How did they get caught? We never did know that."

They would create the overall storyline and then get together and outline three chapters at a time, splitting them up between the three of them. They would meet with their finished chapters to discuss the best way to smoothly blend their writing styles so the chapters would effectively transition.

"I loved it when we'd edit each others' chapters," Moormann said. "We'd argue about commas."

"If you ever want to see two comma queens, just look at these two," Schreiber said, causing all three to laugh.

The teachers-turned-authors dedicated the first book of the series to some very special people in their lives.

"This book is dedicated to all our former students who worked so hard to write for us; we now understand how difficult it was to write with clarity, precision and accuracy," the dedication reads.

"It solidified what was already a good friendship," Moormann said.

"It's helped keep us in touch with each other and keep us together," Deitz said. "That's worth a lot."

The trio will be at Hastings signing books today from 1-5 p.m. Hastings carries the books and they can also be purchased on www.amazon.com.