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Sacramento Bee March 25, 2004
Q&A: Joyce Krieg
Air of mystery
For longtime radio listeners, Joyce Krieg is a blast from the past. She worked for flower-power Earth Radio 102 in the early 1970s, then joined KFBK NewsTalk 1530, first as a reporter, later as a promotions manager. Krieg was at KFBK when station management hired a little-known opinionated personality who coined the term "feminazis" and changed the pitch of talk radio forever. From Sacramento, Rush Limbaugh went on to talk to the nation.
Krieg, 53, quit radio in 1994 and moved to Pacific Grove to write a book. Murder Off Mike (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95) introduces Shauna J. Bogart, a talk show host turned amateur murder sleuth. It recently earned an Agatha nomination for "Best First Mystery Novel." A sequel, Slip Cue, is due out in July.
We caught up with Krieg at city hall in Carmel-by-the-Sea, where she works as a part-time temp in the clerk's office. Crime still doesn't pay.
Q: An Agatha out of the chute. Not bad.
A: It's certainly nice to get recognition in a field you are trying to break into. There are so many new mysteries out every year by unknown writers.
Q: Are there any other radio talk show sleuths?
A: The only other one I've heard of was down in San Diego. I think she hosted an NPR program.
Q: That must be thrilling.
A: Yeah. Part of writing a mystery is finding a niche. Today, there is every possible combination (for heroes), like the one-legged lesbian sleuth. But I think I'm the only one writing about a radio sleuth who has been in the business. I feel mine as the aura of authenticity.
Q: And it's set in Sacramento.
A: Setting is character. I think readers like learning about new places. The mean streets of New York and L.A. have been done so often. So I'm doing the not-so-mean streets of Sacramento.
Q: What was it like working with Rush Limbaugh?
A: He was a promotion manager's dream. He was willing to do anything, from speaking at a Kiwanis Club lunch to judging a chili cook-off. He would show up on time, he would be dressed appropriately and he was sober.
Q: Is your heroine hooked on Oxycontin?
A: (Laughter). No, she doesn't take any prescription drugs.
Q: Back to Rush. Why was he so successful?
A: Radio was so boring then, so serious. Then Rush came along. He was funny. He didn't take it seriously. He played contemporary music in his intros. And he was the hardest worker I ever met in radio.
Q: Any thoughts on shock jocks?
A: It's sad. I've almost given up listening to radio. It all sounds the same syndicated programming.
Q: Hey, Marie Osmond's going to do a show!
A: (Dead air).
Q: What's your next book about?
A: "Slip cue" is an old DJ term, when you segue from one record to the next without a pause. But the book has to do with the music industry.
Q: And someone gets killed.
A: Of course.
Q: Ever see Clint Eastwood.
A: We get calls for him here all the time. Amazing.
Bob Sylva
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
On November 16, 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine published an article I wrote about working with Rush Limbaugh at KFBK in Sacramento back in the 1980s. You can read the article by following this link; however, it will take you out of my fascinating Web site and into the Chronicle's site. So be sure to hit that Back button when you're finished reading, 'kay?
Take Me Home
Fall 2003
Washington Square
(Alumni Association Magazine)
Talk Radio Tales
Say you're the first female anchor of Sacramento's all-news KFBK radio station (the same station that launched the career of talk radio superstar Rush Limbaugh). Say you've enjoyed a very successful 15-year run in the business in positions both on and off air, in management. Then comes burn-out. The itch to take your career in a new direction. What do you do?
Joyce Krieg, '72 Journalism, packed her bags, moved to Pacific Grove, wrote a mystery novel featuring Sacramento-based radio talk show host and amateur sleuth Shauna J. Bogart, won St. Martin's 2002 Malice Domestic Contest for Best First Traditional Mystery, and inked a contract with her publisher for a trio of mysteries. Murder Off Mike, the first of the series, published in April, garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, which raved: "Krieg's debut reads like the work of a seasoned mystery writer and . . . reads better than the work of many genre veterans."
Krieg honed her writing skills as an undergraduate, publishing political commentary in The Spartan Daily about those tumultuous times. "I say jokingly that I can't remember a day when there wasn't a demonstration on Seventh Street-and it's very close to true."
She worked at the Woodland Daily Democrat before switching from print to broadcast journalism, a field that, Krieg says, "opened up for women in a huge way" in the 1970s. Briefly the newscaster at Earth Radio 102, she joined the staff of KFBK in 1978. Her road to the big time didn't start with what Krieg calls "paying my dues at the 5000 watt station in Bakersfield doing the overnight shift." Her news background and radio-suited voice allowed her to skip that career step.
Then came the Limbaugh era, completely redefining what talk radio was-and wasn't. "Whatever you think of his politics-and I don't agree with any of his politics," Krieg clarifies, "before Rush, talk radio was dull and boring, something your grandfather listened to. Rush had no guests, just opened up the phone lines and talked to callers about the hot news topics of the day. And whether or not you agreed with him, he was funny." And different. "The stuff about talk radio we now take for granted was brand new in 1983."
Krieg set her novel in Sacramento because of her familiarity with the locale and because, unlike San Francisco, Sacramento represented "something of an untapped market, setting-wise, for mysteries." An avid reader of the genre herself (Sue Grafton and James Ellroy are two of her favorite authors), Krieg views mysteries as a "fun vehicle to explore different cities, countries and professions. There's a sleuth for every possible political and sexual outlook, for every mental and physical impairment. It's an amusing way to get inside someone else's skin for a couple of hours."
Since the climax of Murder Off Mike occurs in old Sacramento during the Jazz Jubilee, Krieg made the May event part of her publicity tour. She was invited to ride in the parade and signed copies of her book at Freeway Gardens, one of the festival venues featured in the novel.
When not working on the second installment of Shauna J. Bogart's adventures in mayhem, Krieg works as an assistant to Pacific Grove City Councilmember Susan Goldbeck. The author doesn't rule out the possibility of weaving small-town politics into a future plot, but predicts she'd set that story "in the Delta, or someplace close to Sacramento. Have the bodies dropping there."
Kat Meads
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
May 2003
Murder, Jazzed Up
Murder, Jazzed Up
Murder and mayhem at the Jazz Jubilee? That's right, in Murder off Mike.
Author Joyce Krieg knows the Sacramento radio scene well. After all, she worked for 15 years at KFBK. "I was, I believe, the first female on-air talent at the station, when I started there in 1978," she says. She later worked as the promotion manager, recalling the start of Rush Limbaugh's career and the pure excitement when the Kings game to town.
She left the station in 1993, moved to Pacific Grove, Calif., and started working on a murder mystery novel. Murder Off Mike, published this spring by St. Martin's/Minotaur, is set in Sacramento, with a sequence taking place during the annual Jazz Jubilee at such familiar landmarks as Freeway Gardens and Turntable Junction.
The plot revolves around one Shauna J. Bogart, the host of a top-rated radio talk show in town. One day she gets a call from a character named Rudy, telling her that "brown suits" killed a man at the address of her radio mentor, Dr. Hipster. Sure enough, her friend is found dead with a bullet in his brain, but the cops call it a suicide. Shauna J. believes differently--Dr. Hipster was a man full of life. Other revelations feed her suspicions and she soon begins to make her own inquiries, leading to surprise, deception, and increasing danger as she peels away the onion.
Murder Off Mike won the 2002 St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Contest for Best First Traditional Mystery. "After years of trying to get the book published, I put it away and almost forgot about it," she says. "But one day surfing the web I saw the notice for the contest, dusted off the manuscript, and lo and behold, I won. You just never know."
Krieg will be on hand for booksignings and sales during this year's Jubilee. She is scheduled to appear Saturday, May 24, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Stage Nine in Old Sacramento and from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Jubilee Superstore at Cal Expo; and on Sunday, May 25, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Freeway Gardens. For more information, click on joycek.com.
Alan Humason
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
Sacramento Jazz Jubilee program
Murder Off Mike
That's the name of author Joyce Krieg's first novel, which debuted in bookstores last month. Murder Off Mike is the winner of the 2002 St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic "Best First Traditional Mystery" contest.
Sacramento is the setting for this entertaining "who done it."
And guess what? Much of the action takes place at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, including the suspensful conclusion.
That makes sense. Joyce lived in Sacramento for many years, working in radio before moving to Monterey about 10 years ago. She is an enthusiastic Jubilee fan and in recent years, a volunteer. She has written several entertaining columns for Jubilee publications recently.
Murder Off Mike will be available during the Jubilee at Tower Records in the Jubilee Superstore and at Stage Nine at Front and K Streets in Old Sacramento.
Joyce will participate in book signings on Friday, May 23, at Stage Nine immediately following the parade and on Saturday, May 24 from 1-3 pm at Stage Nine and 6-8 pm at Tower Records in the Superstore. A book signing is also scheduled for Sunday, May 24 from 1-3 pm at Freeway Gardens -- which makes sense, as that is the location of some of the book's exciting action.
Initial reviews have been very positive, including a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. Joyce is working on a sequel.
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
Coast Weekly April 10, 2003
A PG author’s whodunit thriller illuminates the cut-throat world of media takeovers.
Photo by:Randy Tunnell: I Think You Need a Comma Here: Joyce Krieg is determined to write another novel, cat or no cat.
By Chuck Thurman
On her website, Pacific Grove author Joyce Krieg counsels other writers, "Don’t just write about what you know. Take what you know and then write about what you’re passionate about." This bit of advice comes by way of Krieg’s experience in writing her first novel, Murder Off Mike, a whodunit-style traditional mystery published by St. Martin’s Press that will be on the shelves later this month. The heroine of Krieg’s book is Shauna J. Bogart, the host of a radio talk show in Sacramento. As presented by Krieg, Shauna J. is a feisty, independent sort of woman and "still the only employee pulling down a permanent, full-time air shift who uses the restroom with the Tampax machine."
Krieg happily acknowledges that she and Shauna J. are birds of a feather. After receiving her journalism degree from San Jose State University and later working as a reporter for the Woodland Daily Democrat, Krieg ventured forth into the male-dominated world of radio. It was the 1970s, when women in radio were almost entirely relegated to off-mike positions, the FCC required licenses-not today’s cereal-box-coupon-get-’em- for-nothing kind of licenses, but the kind a person had to study hard to earn-for anyone who went on-air, and FM radio was only just beginning to come alive.
It was against this backdrop that Krieg became the newscaster for Earth Radio 102, one of the first FM rock stations in California’s Central Valley. She went on to get her First Class Radiotelephone License and was hired by radio station KFBK in Sacramento as the station’s first female news anchor. Like so many smaller and independent radio stations, KFBK was gobbled up by increasingly larger conglomerates during the corporate feeding frenzy of the ’90s. In 1994, when Clear Channel Broadcasting bought KFBK, Krieg was out of a job.
Shauna J. also works in Sacramento. And she, too, gets storm-tossed by the corporate takeover of independent radio stations. But where Shauna J. is faced with solving the murder of a coworker that involves political and corporate intrigue, the newly-jobless Krieg was faced with the possibly more difficult (if less dangerous) task of realizing her dream to write a novel.
A frequent visitor to the Peninsula, Krieg moved to Pacific Grove in 1994, and began working on Murder Off Mike. It wasn’t always an easy path-she went off on several different tangents that lead to dead ends before completing her final draft. Stacks of rejection letters and re-writes littered the eight years between 1994 and 2002, the year her manuscript won the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic award for Best First Traditional Mystery.
Although it hasn’t yet hit the street, the novel has received favorable notice from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and Krieg has inked a deal for two more novels starring Shauna J. It’s a situation that Krieg is enjoying-not only is she getting to say what she wants to say without really saying it, she’s getting to do something she loves. Krieg says that Shauna J. is "definitely" her alter ego. "If I could do anything I wanted, could say anything I wanted, she would be my alter ego. It is kind of fun to make observations through her eyes and with her outlook on things."
Krieg attributes some of her success to simply paying attention to the realities of the marketplace. Although, as she points out, the "mystery" sections of bookstores and libraries may encompass everything from political intrigue to crime/action, publishers of mystery novels demand something much more specific.
"In the world of New York publishers, they have a much narrower definition," says Krieg. "A body is found very early in the manuscript, and you don’t find out who done it until the last chapter, and clues are scattered throughout."
In fact, it was paying strict attention to this format that lead to Krieg’s final re-write of Murder Off Mike. Krieg says she was gratified when a representative of St. Martin’s said that what they liked about the manuscript was its unique voice. "My manuscript was different," says Krieg, "but within the guidelines of what they expect."
Although Krieg tempers her excitement, knowing she still has a lot of work ahead of her in writing the next two novels, she says she can’t help feeling buoyed by her success. "I feel, ‘Hot Damn! This legitimizes what I’ve been trying to do.’ It’s hard not to feel like Sally Field, you know, ‘You like me! You really like me!’"
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
