Are you familiar with Mystery Readers Journal? It’s a wonderful publication that’s been around for a long time, and it’s a staple for people who love to read and write mysteries. I was honored to have my story about how I came to write Incident at Cougar Creek published in the Northern California Mysteries Vol. 41, No. 4 • Winter 2025 edition. Here is the full piece, in case you weren’t able to get hold of a copy of the magazine.
Climate Fiction in Northern California by Mary Flodin
What’s my connection to Northern California? I’m a long-time member of Sisters in Crime NorCal, among other writer’s organizations. A native Californian, I’ve lived in Santa Cruz at the southern coastal edge of Northern California for most of my life. A naturalist by training and avocation, I care passionately for the rich and diverse flora, fauna, and watersheds of the Pacific coast region, as well as for our diverse human population. Naturally, that passion seeps into my stories.
By the time I could write my name, I knew I was born to be a writer, a story teller. Writing is a primary imperative of my life. During the years-long journey of creating my first novel, published in October, 2019, I discovered that my natural story writing niche lies within the intersection of 1.mystery/thriller/suspense— 2.romance—and 3.speculative/paranormal/magical realism/fantasy. I identify as a cli-fi (or eco-thriller) Romantasy author. More about the what and why of that here: https://maryflodin.com/
It wasn’t until I retired from a teaching career that I was able to throw myself a hundred percent into writing. Even though I had taught English language arts, literature, and writing in elementary, middle school, and high school for many years, I discovered quickly, when I finally set out in earnest to write a murder mystery of my own, that I really had little idea how to do it. So I read mysteries voraciously and I stumbled my way into a fabulous critique group with senstive, talented people who nurtured me all the way through the five years’ long process of writing and ultimately, seeing my first novel appear in print. (I met with several critique groups before finding the right fit. Beware—not all critique groups are good for tender writers.)
Along the way, I learned a great deal from attending conferences and workshops. I’ve taken online and in-person workshops, joined numerous writing groups including Mystery Writers of America, and I’ve read many books on writing. (Some are listed on my blog). One of the best, in my opinion, is Steven King’s On Writing. I also recommend How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (Author), Lee Child – editor
Through my journey to becoming a published author, I’ve learned that if you want to write, Focus is key. And Persistence. You must “put your whole self in,” believe, and never give up.
How did my newest mystery novel, Incident at Cougar Creek, come to be set on the edge of Northern Caifornia? In 2020, during the severe shut-down in response to the Covid pandemic, my husband and I were given a key to a gate that opened up to the pristine 6,000 acre Santa Cruz coastal mountains-to-the-sea property, designated at the end of the Obama presidency as the Cotoni Coast Dairies National Monument.
Friends own an organic farm at the upper boundary of the Cotoni land, and access to their property is through that gate, shared with the national monument land, to which I’d been given a key. The monument had not yet opened to the public in 2020, due to numerous controversies, so we hiked there in solitude nearly every day.
The root of the conflicts preventing the opening of the monument grew around respecting the original mandate of the monument—conservation of threatened, endangered, and sensitive species inhabiting the land—versus the BLM’s push to shift to a public recreation mission driven in part by a well-funded mountain bike trail building lobby.
The land was originally inhabited by the now-disapeared [genocided] Cotoni band of the Ohlone people. Conservation groups purchased the property in 1998 to prevent private development, and it was later transferred to the Bureau of Land Management. In 2017, it was designated as an onshore unit of the California Coastal National Monument.
My husband hikes at a pace different than mine, so I usually walk solo up a road we call “Sky Road,” which stretches from the sea to the redwood-crested coastal mountain ridge. About a mile and a half up the road is an uplifted marine terrace, said to be a probable sacred Indigenous site and a treasure trove of buried Native artifacts. The terrace provides a perfect spot to stop and watch for whales spouting far below. At the edge of the uplifted marine terrace, a mysterious and deeply shadowed California oak woodland spreads over the landscape, down into deep and trecherous ravines, and all the way up to the ecotone that defines redwood forest-crowned mountaintop habitat. Passing by this oak grove always gives me a tingly chill on the back of my neck, and the feeling of certainty that something happened here.
One spring day in 2020, I noticed a sheriff’s vehicle parked on the road at the edge of the oak grove. Stopping to investigate, I discovered a sheriff’s officer kneeling in the shadows of the oak, with his back to me. Naturally, I approached, and asked him what was going on. Naturally, he told me, “Nothing to see here Miss. Move on.” But of course, that started the wheels turning.
A few days later, I peered into the oak shadows where the sheriff’s officer had been and I “saw” the body of a naked woman bleeding out on the ground. I hurried past. A hallucination born out of too long a time in pandemic isolation and too little human contact? Or a true Vision?
I “saw” the body several more times before finally gathering the courage to stop and talk to her. I think I actually spoke outloud, but maybe not. I said I was very sorry that this terrible thing had happened to her (she had an arrow sticking through her heart) and I asked her what exactly did happen. She told me.
The woman explained that she was a Native from a tribe whose ancestral lands were in Southern California and Baja California across the Mexican border. She said that their elders had troubles because it was their custom to travel on traditional trails to visit relatives, hardly realizing they had crosed The Border, and then they would be detained by ICE trying to go home again. The imaginary woman under the oaks explained to me that her people need help and she hoped someone would tell their story.
Well, I of course went home and started searching the internet for such a tribe, and I actually found a perfect match. The Kumeyaay Nation. Being a mere second generation Californian, I had never heard of the Kumeyaay, although they have inhabited California for millenia. I discovered they have a strong presence at University of Califoria San Diego and San Diego State University, as well as their own Kumeyaay Community College. I tried to contact a representative of the tribe by phone and email to tell them I was inspired to write a story with Kumeyaay characters, and I was hoping to speak with them about getting a sensitivity check. But everything was in lockdown. No one was answering phones.
Meanwhile, on my walks, I continued to see the woman. She “told” me more about herself. Other imaginary characters—starting with the woman’s daughter and a California Fish and Wildlife officer— joined her under the oaks. I asked them questions, and through the whisper of distant ocean waves and wind blowing over the coastal prarie grasses, I heard their answers in my head.
Then I’d go home and write. The novel began to take shape. A new twist was presented to me: the story involved mountain lions. Over the years, I had attended talks and even a field trip with the Santa Cruz Puma Project—a mountain lion conservation organization affiliated with the University of California Santa Cruz and California Department of Fish and Wildlife. I had met the Puma Project Director, Dr. Chris Wilmers, several times. Caifornia is one of only two states in the US where pumas are a legally protected species. When it became clear to me that the mountain lion piece of my story had tumbled into the realm of the fantastical, I phoned Dr. Wilmers hoping for a reality check. Although the pandemic was still raging, Professor Wilmers actually answered his phone. I explained that I was working on a novel involving mountain lions and I wanted to convey to readers the most important points people should know about puma conservation, but I appologized that the story I was writing was a bit far out, and I hoped not to write anything that would misrepresent or offend the scientists. Dr. Wilmers spoke with me for over an hour. I took lots of notes.
The pandemic finally sputtered down and things started to open up. My husband and I traveled from our home in Santa Cruz down south to San Diego, where I met with Native Studies professors and students at UC San Diego, attended a Pow Wow and cultural events at San Diego State University, toured the Museum of US in Balboa Park, visited the Sycuan Cultural Center and Kumeyaay Community College, explored the Imperial Valley Desert Museum, and met and interviewed several Indigenous artists and elders. Here’s a link to my very amateur video documenting that visit. I left for home with a blessing to continue writing my story.
After many many iterations of versions, revisions, edits, feedback from Beta readers, hiring of a very expensive and well-known New York content editor, and receiving eighty agent rejections, I submitted my manuscritpt to the same small independent press that published my first novel. Paper Angel Press said Yes. They have been a pleasure to work with. It’s been five years, and many concidences that have seemed to guide me, since that first vision of the murdered woman under the woo-woo oaks.
Cotoni Coast Dairies National Monument (aka Cougar Creek Coast Ranch National Monument) finally opened to the public on August 15, 2025. Incident at Cougar Creek went to press in October, 2025. I’m excited to see Incident at Cougar Creek in print. I hope a few people will read and enjoy it. May it be worthy. Eyay e’Hunn My heart is good.
Find Incident at Cougar Creek at Amazon , Paper Angel Press, Bookshop Santa Cruz, or order through your favorite book store.