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What It Takes®

Sue Grafton: The Alphabet Ends at Y

What It Takes®

Academy of Achievement

Film, Politics, Arts, Self-help, Sports, Society & Culture, Success, Literature, Humanitarian, Military, Social Justice, Technology, Podcast, Achievement, Music, Science

4.6943 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2018

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sue Grafton wrote a mystery for every letter of the alphabet but one. When she died in December of 2017, she left her fans with the ultimate cliffhanger: there would be no book for the letter Z. In this fascinating and funny interview, she talked about facing her fears every day when she sat down to write. And she explained how a difficult childhood and a miserable divorce paved the way for one of the most successful mystery series of all time. Her books were published in 26 languages, and spent a total of eight years on the New York Times bestseller list. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2018

Transcript

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0:00.0

In the 1970s, Sue Grafton was miserably working as a television screenwriter.

0:07.0

She was raising kids and also trying to write novels at night.

0:12.0

That's when inspiration arrived from the unlikeliest of places.

0:17.0

As it also happened, I was in the middle of a very bitter divorce.

0:21.0

I always looked to see this guy's attorney is in the crowd, but he's not.

0:25.0

I went through three custody battles, and at that point, I didn't have enough money for a fancy-pants attorney,

0:32.0

and I thought it was enough to be a nice person which is how

0:36.0

innocent I was so I would lie awake at night and think of ways to kill him.

0:42.1

I would and you know I went through several. I finally came up with

0:47.1

this scheme and I thought you know I bet I could do that however I am a very law

0:52.0

abiding little bun.

0:53.7

You know, I take my library books back on time

0:57.3

and I cross between the lines.

0:59.8

And I thought, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna get caught. They're gonna send me to prison. I'm gonna to do this and I'm going to get caught. They're going to send me to prison.

1:04.4

I'm going to have to wear that wretched prison clothing.

1:07.2

I'm going to have to eat starchy food. My butt's going to get wide.

1:10.8

I'm going to disgrace the buried children that I'm trying to save. So I thought to myself, why don't

1:17.9

I take this divine murder, put it in a book and get paid for it.

1:23.0

Which is exactly what I did.

1:26.0

That novel was A is for Alibi.

1:28.0

A is for Alibi launched one of the most popular mystery series of all time. It was followed by B as

1:36.2

for Burglar and so on. Sue Grafton wrote one book for every letter of the alphabet.

...

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