Former Chip now in print

Greg Burghardt

Denyse Smith’s love for writing has paid off.

The 1990 CMU alumnae published her first mystery novel, “Unearthed Sins”
by Denlinger’s Publishers of Edgewater, Fl. in early August.

But the publication pot of gold was found at the end of a long rainbow.

Smith graduated with a journalism major and has worked as a freelance reporter
for the past 11 years. A Mount Pleasant resident, she currently writes for the
Mount Pleasant Magazine.

The idea to write “Unearthed Sins” came to her, ironically, while she
was watching a news broadcast.

“I was watching the news, and they were talking about a woman who disappeared
and they hadn’t been able to find her,” Smith said. “The ‘what
if’ question started to come into my head — what if they found
her? What would the police do? I guess I just started asking questions in my own
imagination and started to put it down on paper.”

The mystery novel is about Tim Powers, a recovering alcoholic police detective
who fights his own demons, while looking for a young woman’s murderer.

The title, “Unearthed Sins” came about because the deceased woman in
the story is found buried, and the main character, Powers, also has to face skeletons
in his closet and sins from the past. Because of his alcoholism, he has a hard
time determining if he was sober during certain events, which complicates the
plot.

“A lot of the characters’ names seemed to come to me from people I’ve
met, but the characters are compilations of people, not anybody in particular,”
she said.

Many of the characters sort of created themselves while Smith was writing her
book. Often during the writing stage, a character would appear and flow right
into the story, belonging where he was written in.

As a journalist by profession, Smith had a difficult time finding time to write
on her own.

“It took quite a while to do it,” she said. “When you write for
a living, it’s hard to write for a hobby, too. It took me a lot longer to
write than I thought it should because it wasn’t my daily job.”

Finishing the book was a long process, followed by another long process of contacting
20 publishers before she found a company interested in her work.

Her agent was enthusiastic about seeing the novel in print, and she was determined
to made it happen.

And she did.

“It was really a thrill, and actually at the time she called and said the
book was published, three great things happened to me in the same day,” Smith
said.

The book is available as an e-book, CD-ROM or by print-on-demand purchase.

Smith is working on the sequel to “Unearthing Sins” and pursuing her
master’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University, which she started
in the fall 2000 semester.

“It’s going really well. I’m surprising myself,” she said.

She is also considering doctorate school and possibly teaching journalism courses.

“I’m thinking about doctorate school, but it depends on how well I do
in the MA program. So far it’s going really well. I’m kind of excited
about that,” Smith said.

Changing writing styles from journalism to fiction, and taking so many tasks has
forced Smith to “change her hat in the middle of the day,” but her family
has remained supportive of her goals.

“My husband always tells me, ‘you ought to write that down,’ when
I have an idea for something. He’s very encouraging,” Smith said. “My
mom is one of my biggest fans. She bought the book and passed it around, telling
everyone it’s excellent.”