“You’re ready to sell your paintings only when you don’t care about selling them.” Russell Meredith heard these words as a child when it was said by his art teacher. Looking back years later, he thought, what a Zen thing to say. His teacher, a local artist who was considered a character in their small Midwestern town, did have a couple little fat Buddha statues in her home studio. She shared her philosophy with the class, and defined “art” as “the intentional expression of feeling.”
Growing up in southwestern Ohio surrounded by fields but not part of a farm family himself, Meredith was neither a farm kid nor a town kid nor a subdivision kid. This not-quite-fitting-in is reflected in the main character in his books. The mysteries that Meredith explores are not just of murders, but those concerning life’s experiences.