By Kristen Hains
Special to the Herald
While July may not be the time of year most people are thinking of fall colors, one northern Michigan author is hoping that this summer everyone is talking about "Color Tour."
Color Tour, is the second in a series of murder mysteries penned by Interlochen author Aaron Stander. Color Tour hit bookstores on July 1 and is the sequel to Stander's "Summer People," which was published in 2001.
The murder mystery picks up with Sheriff Ray Elkins, who first appeared in Summer People, set to track down the killer of a beautiful young teacher from a prep school in northern Michigan. But as often the case, any similarities to persons (or places) is purely coincidental.
"There's nothing up here that exists like this (school)," Stander said.
Stander, a retired college professor who chaired the English department at Oakland Community College and works part-time in the Creative Writing department at Interlochen Arts Academy, found his way into novel writing quite literally by accident.
"In the late 80s I was supposed to be teaching a graduate seminar at Oakland University," he said. "I hurt my back and I was ordered to bed by the surgeon."
While he was bedridden a friend brought him a book which started him on a summer of reading. Soon the words were flowing on his own murder mystery. He finished the manuscript and set out to find an agent to get the work published.
"I went to all the trouble of spending three years to find an agent," he said. "The agent was most encouraging, but she went into Betty Ford and was never heard from again."
Stander then threw the manuscript on a shelf and forgot about it. In 2001 the advent of POD (print on demand) started making its presence in the book publishing world. Would-be authors like Stander could pay $100 and have their book published.
"I published (Summer People) and got 10 copies and thought that was the end of it," he said. "One of the copies I gave to someone who I didn't know at all. She wrote a review that was in the Record-Eagle and all at once it started selling."
Shortly thereafter it was featured on a book club hosted by Diana Fairbanks at TV 7&4. "It was amazing," Stander said. "My wife refers to it as the summer of miracles ... the unintentioned author."
Stander visited a fair number of book clubs while promoting Summer People and it was at their urging that he started on a follow-up to the novel. "It took me a long time because I rewrote it four times," Stander said of the five years in between books.
He credits the help of early readers like writers Ann Stanton, Anne-Marie Oomen and Lori Hall Steele (who also helped with the publishing of the book) with getting Color Tour to the end product.
"I did what I tell my students to do," he said, "and that's find really smart readers and listen to them."
With the manuscript finished, Stander began exploring his publishing options. "It looked like a commercial publisher was going to take it and then for a variety of reasons they didn't it," he said. "(The book) was done and I thought, 'what the hell.' I am too old to wait for someone to decide that I'm OK."
With that, Stander formed Writers & Editors and set off to self-publish the title. He quickly found that publishing was a whole new world. "It's just a whole lot of things to learn very quickly. I was in the state of confusion a lot of the time," he said. "Fortunately Lori (Hall Steele) helped guide a lot of those."
With Color Tour now in bookstores throughout northern Michigan, Stander has already begun work on the next of the series. The working title of that book is "Deer Season."
Stander will be signing copies of Color Tour at Leelanau books on Saturday, July 22 and at Horizon Books in Traverse City on Saturday, July 29.