By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
Doug Yunker has been a small town paperboy, conscientious objector, Peace Corps volunteer, social worker and college professor and administrator.
Now, the soon-to-be 82-year-old resident of Tenmile is a mystery writer.
Yunker recently self-published “Happy Endings: A Yachats Cozy Mystery”, the inaugural book in a potential series that kills off an elderly resident of Yachats within its first three pages.
It’s not Yunker’s first book. Another self-published novel, Pimento Cove, is about his four years in Jamacia during the Peace Corps. A memoir, A Paperboy’s Own Story, is drawn from a boy’s conversations with relatives and customers in what Yunker terms “the strange little village” of Howe, Ind. where he grew up.
Yunker did his graduate work in social work at Indiana University, and then with the blessing of his local draft board spent 1966-68 working at a social service agency in Indianapolis. He lived four years in Jamacia working with the Peace Corps and was then recruited to teach social work at the University of Iowa.
He eventually spent the bulk of his professional career at Boise State University, where he was director of its social work department before retiring in 2003. Yunker’s wife, Susanna, brought Yunker and his son, Zach, to her family’s Tenmile compound in 1978 “to see if we would be marriageable material.” He was and they moved there from Bellingham, Wash. in 2011.
Yunker’s mystery book was aided by a six-member writer’s group that meets Tuesdays in the Yachats River Road home of Andrea Scharf, who gets a thank you on the second page of his book. “It’s a safe place to try your ideas,” Yunker says. “Nobody gets crushed.”
Yunker used an Amazon program to publish his work, which is printed as people order it. He’s able to set the price ($19.95) and also has them available at Books and More in downtown Yachats. The cover picture is a watercolor by Marion Moir of Newport, a teacher and leader of his watercolor painting group. The author photo on the back cover was created by Hayden Keady, a 10-year-old friend using artificial intelligence.
There’s more to come. Yunker is already on the fifth chapter of his second Yachats cozy mystery.
Longtime Yachatians might recognize some of the characters in “Happy Endings” and certainly the many references (with permission from its owners) to the popular local wine shop, Beach Daisy. In the book, the shop owner is Scarlett, who is a marvelous cook and teams up with the main character, Edgar Young, to tackle the mysterious deaths in town.
Because he is writer, YachatsNews let Yunker answer questions via email.
Question: What started you on your writing journey and describe your two previously self-published “Pimento Cove” and “A Paperboy’s Own Story” and what they were about.
Answer: From grade school on through college and graduate school, and in my profession as a social work educator where I had to churn out a few “professional papers” from time to time, I never felt free to move toward imaginative, creative writing. However, there was plenty of opportunity to be creative in lectures and when developing educational experiences for undergrad and graduate students. That was when I began incorporating novels and various artistic mediums in courses and seminars.
“Pimento Cove” is a reflection of my years living near Pimento Cove, Lucea, Hanover Parish, Jamaica. It is the journey of two brothers, one born light and the other dark, as they were separated and grew up in the 1960s and 70s, one in a land and tourist industry and the other in a dance theater company. The book focuses on the cultures, music, food, and evolution of a dance company. The issues of gender identity, skin color, class, and racism are featured.
“A Paperboy’s Own Story” is a memoir written in vignettes about the various people and places in my hometown, Howe, Ind., a town of about 300. I was related to many of them, and knew more than I should have about the others because I was a paperboy who delivered an evening paper to them and on Saturday mornings collected, door to door.
Q: What is a Cozy Mystery? What are the characteristics of this emerging genre?
A: Cozy mysteries (also referred to as cozies) are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which violence occurs offstage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.
The detectives in such stories are nearly always amateurs and are frequently women. These characters are typically well-educated and intuitive and hold jobs that bring them into constant contact with other residents of their community. Dismissed by the authorities in general as nosy busybodies, particularly if they are middle-aged or elderly women, the detectives in cozy mysteries are thus left free to eavesdrop, gather clues, and use their native intelligence and intuitive “feel” for the social dynamics of the community to solve the crime.
Q: You describe two ways of writing fiction — just starting and letting the characters take you and the reader on this journey or outlining a plot and direction. What did you choose and how does that work?
A: If you want to learn to write there are hundreds of websites filled with expert advice. There seem to be two schools of thought about getting started. The first is to outline the story, identify important characters and prepare and kind of characterization of each, know how the novel will conclude, develop a pacing mechanism, and then start at the very beginning and get it done. The second approach, my style, is to have in mind a place, some characters who might inhabit the space, a direction it might be fun to explore, and let the characters lead me through their process in an organic, holistic kind of way. I get the ball rolling and then watch what they do and how the story unfolds.
Q: Will some Yachats residents see themselves in the book?
A: “Happy Endings” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
“However,” as in every work of fiction one reads, it is easy to identify feelings, behaviors, and attitudes similar to one’s own or someone you know. I do believe we all share common values and beliefs that we hold dear and that may move us toward pointing at one of my characters and thinking, “Well I’ll be darned, that’s so and so! It has to be!”
Q: How does your participation in both a watercolor and writing group enhance both endeavors?
A: Rather than enhance, I believe staying active in both fields gives me relief. For example, while I’ve been answering these questions, I’ve taken time out to work on a new gouache painting that is in process. I’m a member of a wonderful watercolor painting group that meets at the Newport Visual Arts Center every Thursday. They are my “Painter Sisters” and I have written about them. The group of four women and I have been together for about six years.
I have been a member of a series of three writing groups in the last 12 years. I started with a group in Bellingham, and when I moved to Yachats connected with the “Tuesday Writers” in Waldport. Currently, I participate in a group led by Andrea Scharf that I’ve unofficially labeled “The Yachats River Writers”. While both are creative processes, I do find that painting is more soothing and writing more exhilarating.
Tell us a secret:
During the summer breaks during college and graduate school, I was a “catcher” in a trapeze act, out of Sarasota, Florida, called ‘Los Cabrones Voladores‘. We were never Ringling Brothers material but did work for Clyde Beatty’s Circus.
I very much enjoyed this article about Doug Yunker. You go, guy. His story is a bit similar to mine. At age 92 I just published another novel.
Martha Pound Miller, Portland