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| Author Tyler Miranda |
Miranda
was raised on the under-developed west side of Oahu, where his stories are
often set. His experiences growing up in Hawaii in a local Portuguese family
have strongly influenced his writing, particularly with his Caucasian looks
making him a minority in his childhood community.
Sisters in Crime/Hawaii: Thank you for sharing with readers your short story, Frosted, included within MYSTERY IN PARADISE 13 Tales of Suspense, Tyler, and for taking time to visit with us today. Can you please offer a brief insight into something humorous, poignant, or unusual in your life that led you to a career in writing?
TYLER
MIRANDA: I began writing as a form of escapism. It
was a coping mechanism that helped me deal with what was going on at home. Writing
afforded me the opportunity to give order to chaos. During my teen years, I
needed that.
Sisters in
Crime/Hawaii: Why did you choose to
collaborate with 13 authors to participate in a short story anthology?
TYLER
MIRANDA: When I learned of this mystery/suspense
anthology, the idea for "Frosted"
finally crystallized. I had struggled with a "way" to tell this story
for about two years. However, pondering "Frosted" as a mystery/suspense story both opened it up and
gave me the vessel upon which to convey it.
Sisters in
Crime/Hawaii: In "Frosted",
what is one phrase or scene that reflects something about you as a writer?
TYLER
MIRANDA: I think the point-of-view reflects
something about me as a writer: that is, I like to experiment. This is the
first time I wrote a story from the perspective of "we".
Sisters in
Crime/Hawaii: Every writer has a WIP
(Work-In-Progress). Can you tell us a bit about your current project?
TYLER
MIRANDA: I've just finished the second draft of
my second novel. It's a story about a high school teacher torn between
professional duty and family obligation. The story examines the nature of
responsibility in a world rife with double standards.
An excerpt from Tyler
Miranda’s short story “Frosted”
FROSTED
1
We
had been talking about Mrs. Isis Souza since 1981. Ever since that first day
she ensconced herself in Wahiawa, she’d flapped an air of self-importance
before her as though from the fan of a luna. And up until the moment
she came, none of the neighbors had ever seen a U-Haul that long, like the
shiny body of a train sprawling from driveway to the back property line. Thus
began the first of the whisperings, about the...disconnect. It was Palm Street,
after all, not some gold-gilded boulevard behind the Pearly Gates of Waialae
Iki.
Adding to the confusion was the
residence Mrs. Souza chose. There were available houses on Royal Palm Drive,
the obvious choice for someone with that many personal belongings. Or she could
have found a place farther up the heights. But where Mrs. Souza landed was at
the Wahiawa Wah Mun Chinese School. (She clearly wasn’t Chinese, not even in the
dainty pinky finger held aloft while she sipped her morning coffee.) Having
struggled with low enrollment after WWII, the Chinese-language school had
finally adapted, shutting its doors on education in the mid-seventies, the
streetside buildings being converted into two dwellings. However, this wasn’t
where Mrs. Souza lived. She occupied the back of the property where
existed a huge, grassy field, ostensibly once a playground, that had on it an
outhouse with working water; a stage and a large carport; and the previous
groundskeeper’s two-bedroom shack. Of all the places Mrs. Souza could have
chosen, she settled on a droopy, one-story, Hawaiian plantation-style house
built in the 1920s. The low roofline and the quiet little portico and the
vertical plank siding let the house recede into the environment as though it
were meant to be there, as though peeking out from behind sugarcane long gone
or as though tiptoeing through a field of pineapple.
***************
Sisters in
Crime/Hawaii: Where can readers find your
books?
TYLER
MIRANDA: My first novel 'Ewa Which Way can be found on Amazon.com (both hard copy
and Kindle version), Small Press Distribution's website, and Bamboo Ridge
Press's website. It can also be found locally in Hawaii at all seven Costco
locations, Native Books/Na Mea Hawaii in Ward Warehouse, and Barnes and Noble
Ala Moana.
Small Press Distribution: http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=ewa+which+way
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