Cudmore Publishes Negative Girl

By Matthew Avitabile

ONEONTA — A popular local author is making another splash with the publication of her second novel, Negative Girl. Cudmore is a Cobleskill-Richmondville graduate who lives in Oneonta, following her first novel The Big Rewind with a new publication.

Cudmore is the daughter of Mountain Eagle alum Dana Cudmore. The current novel Negative Girl is part of the series originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Tough and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, which won the Black Orchid Award from the Wolfe Pack, as well as the  Shamus Award from Private Eye Writers as the best short story of 2023. She has also been published in The Dark, HAD, MonkeyBicycle, Stone's Throw, Smokelong Quarterly, and other publications.

Crime has been a favorite topic since taking a course at Binghamton University under Professor Michael Sharp in which they read Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. Over time, Cudmore realized that mysteries and crime writing were “where I wanted to land.”

Negative Girl was the first time that she was able to write a Private Eye story, which she called a “Homecoming.” The protagonist in The Big Rewind was an amateur sleuth. 

Cudmore also cited many friends who are crime writers who are a “wonderful support network.”
“Having that support is so crucial,” she said.

Reading a lot of flash fiction and punk fiction allows for “differently structured and weird and wonderful fiction” as “inspiring,” even if not directly in the crime fiction genre. She cited Dave Housley and James Tadd Adcox as particular examples.

Her experience for Hometown Oneonta and the Freeman’s Journal for 11 years allowed her an insight into how crime affected communities and how police work occurred. She added that when she is “deep in a story,” she reads more non-fiction than fiction. Bob Mere’s Trouble Boys was the second-biggest influence on the book after Raymond Chandler. The book’s detective, Martin Wade, is “a bit like if Paul Westerberg played Phillip Marlowe,” she said.

Negative Girl was a project started in the summer of 2017 at the Barrel House Writing Camp in Port Matilda, Pennsylvania, going through multiple versions. She has attended the writing camp for the past five years. The text was completed in 2020.

There is an audiobook, as well. Cudmore read for Valerie Jacks, while Jay Karnes, of The Shield and Sons of Anarchy, read for the role of Martin Wade. It took just a “couple of sessions.” It is on Audible and Spotify.

Her first novel, The Big Rewind, was written in eight months. The process has become “much, much longer” since.

Negative Girl was a more complicated writing process, including from two different voices, in order to “get into the story that I wanted to tell.”

Cudmore said that the book had characters that she “liked spending time with.” Their stories are not complete, she said.

The author said that her experience allowed her to be a writer who also happened to be a journalist. She said that this allowed her to set deadlines and not be “too precious” for my work. Cudmore also said that this allowed her to “experience life and connect with people that I may not have connected with on any other path and hear their stories.” She said that this was “important not just to live as a human being but to be able to build characters that feel human.”

The author cites both of her parents, including her mother Nancy as a “storyteller.” She completed her MFA and her husband was working at Hometown Oneonta and Freeman’s Journal and started reporting for the papers. She started at Hartwick College as its staff writer in 2021 and “love[s] it.”

Cudmore said that she enjoys “having the opportunity to share stories with people” and to have “access to meet other writers” and read their works. “It’s such a blessing to meet and get to know these folks and share what I love doing with other people.”

Pick up a copy of Negative Girl here: https://www.amazon.com/Negative-Girl-Libby-Cudmore-ebook/dp/B0CPXRDFPL