New Mexico Magazine Author Question and Answer

Author Q&A

Online exclusive: Read the full interview with the authors featured in the print edition.

Balloon festival at White Sands National Monument

Aimée and David Thurlo

About the Authors
Corrales-based mystery novelists Aimée and David Thurlo have written more than 50 novels together, including the long-running Ella Clah mystery series and two other series. Aimée hails from Cuba; David grew up on the Navajo Nation. The writing duo has been married for 38 years. Upon the release of their new book, Coyote's Wife, Wolf Schneider asks them about the secrets of their success.

Is the Ella Clah series your most successful?

Aimée: Absolutely, she’s our star.

Tell me about how you collaborate as writers.

David: We do the ideas together, then I do the outline. Then we go back and forth on that until we’re happy with it. Then Aimée starts the first draft, and I go in right behind her, adding, editing, and leaving notes. And we go back and forth like that.

Is there something about New Mexico that makes it prime terrain for mystery writing?

David: I don’t know if it’s more mysterious or atmospheric, but there are a lot of good role models for writing here. Tony Hillerman, for one.

Absolutely. So tell me, do you believe in the skinwalkers, or Navajo witches, that you write about?

Aimée: I believe in the power of the word, and the power of not dwelling on the negative, and in harmony and balance. Witchcraft? Well, I do believe there’s evil in the world.

David: I’ve heard of a lot of strange things. Our characters believe in certain things or not—gun control, uranium mining, Navajo religion. And they’ll settle it themselves.

I’m dying to know if these Navajoland coalitions you write about—the modernists, traditionalists, New Traditionalists, and activist Fierce Ones—really exist.

David: No, we’ve kind of generalized the different philosophies we picked up along the way and given them names.

How often do you go to Navajoland?

David: My father lives near Farmington, and I grew up in Shiprock. We go back on birthdays, special occasions, and if we have to look at something we’re writing about—like the trading post in Hogback, which is now pretty much a deserted wreck. The house where I grew up was across the road from a uranium mountain, and after I’d moved out, I found out they had to tear down the houses and the helium plant and bury it all because there was so much radiation in the structure.

Jeez. What brought your dad to Shiprock?

David: He maintained the housing for the Shiprock helium plant across from the uranium mine.

What education led to your career in writing?

David: I was a science teacher with a master’s in teaching science from UNM.

Aimée: I came here from Cuba at age ten, and I started writing when David was teaching. Truthfully, Fidel Castro used to call anybody who didn’t work “a parasite of the state,” and I didn’t want to be a parasite. David was a teacher. I was nada. I thought, “I’m not going through life being nada.” Then David joined me writing.

What motivates you to write 12 pages a day and three books a year? Is it the money? Is it about getting the books in while the getting’s good?

Aimée: A lot of it is keeping track of our characters.

David: For now, we’re in demand. Our editor has accepted outlines for the next two Ellas. While we’re hot, we’re writing.

Wolf Schneider has been editor in chief of the Santa Fean, editor of Living West, and consulting editor at Southwest Art.

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