Lea Wait's Blog, page 175

The New Year Is Off To A Great Start

It’s only January 17 in the year 2019 and I’m feeling that this year will have a lot in store for we writers.

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Vaughn

First: I was invited to be a participant in Guys and Goals, a forum for gifted fifth and sixth grade boys. I was contacted by Jamie Pelletier who invited me to participate as a presenter. She told me that she was seeking adult men who would be positive role models for sixty young Aroostook County men who were at or near the top of their classes. First of all I want to be clear that never before have I been considered a positive role model! However, when I asked Jamie what would be expected of me she informed me that I would do four thirty minute presentations each to a group of fifteen students. The presentation was to be about my life and how I became a writer.

I started the presentation with an introduction giving the basics of my life, stating my being a local boy, my educational background, and a brief employment overview. I then asked if any of them were considering becoming writers. I was pleasantly surprised when there was at least one (or more) students in each group that raised their hands. I followed up asking if they were writing now. They all were. What followed was an enjoyable morning in which I hope motivated them to write–it motivated me.

The second positive was the influence we members of the MWPA are gaining in Maine. The Portland Press Herald decided to no longer publish reviews of books written by local (Maine) writers ( https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/79001-mwpa-saves-local-book-reviews-with-boost-from-stephen-king.html). Joshua Bodwell learned of this and started an online petition campaign. In two days the campaign (see link above) had increased online subscriptions and the paper relented–they will continue to publish reviews.

[image error]All of the above in a little over two weeks! As a result I have become re-energized (don’t expect me to wear a pink bunny suit and pound a drum, however) and have decreed that in the upcoming year I am going to become proficient in that part of our business that I hate the most–marketing my books! The first marketing activity is to remind everyone that my fifth novel (second in the Ed Traynor series) is slated for release on July 2 (already available for preorder–hint, hint). My first reader has gone on record as saying that it’s my best yet. The premise is: What would you do if you were summoned to a remote woods land to I.D. a body and it turned out to be your brother–with whom you’ve had a stormy relationship for years?

Well, time for me to get busy. Part of my campaign is to begin doing podcasts and I need to iron out some wrinkles. The primary wrinkle is “what to podcast about?” Any ideas?

A Wintry Mix – Of Words

 Kate Flora: Oops! There I was, settling in to watch Episode Two of the new True [image error]Detective when suddenly my iPad went “ding!” and there was the reminder. Blog for MCW tomorrow. Thought I’d done that. It was definitely on the list. The list that’s here somewhere, buried under a million other tiny pieces of paper. “Gotta go write a blog post” I tell my husband. “You know what you’re going to write?” he asks. “Absolutely no idea.”

Things don’t get better when I’m at my desk, staring at the blank white page. Nor when I rustle around the room, looking for a handful of reference books.

Well, heck, I think, maybe I can recycle some old thing. But when I find that old thing, it only reminds me that it isn’t suitable. So I dig out my trusty Rodale’s Synonym Finder (a book no writer can be without) and begin to read.

I am looking for the word “Winter.” It isn’t here. Happily, I find “Wintry.” It leads me to delicious choices like hibernal. Hiemal. Brumal. Cold. Frigid. Freezing. Ice-cold. Shiveringly cold. Icy. Frosty, snowy, arctic, glacial or hyperboreal. Then on to Siberian, inclement, stormy, blizzardly, windy, bitter, nippy, sharp, piercing, biting, cutting, brisk, severe, rigorous, hard, and cruel.

Does this make you want to pick up your pen? Are you a writer like me, who loves lists of words? Who thinks it would be fun to create a character who actually uses the word “hyperboreal?”

[image error]If I read on, the book offers me some lovely dark words for a crime writer, particularly one who is writing during the dark months in a cold New England landscape. Here are some tasty words to sample over your morning coffee: bleak, desolate, stark, cheerless, gloomy, dismal, dreary, depressing, unpromising, somber, melancholy. How about dark, gray, overcast, sullen, or lowering? These words pretty well fit the woods behind my house, which are shades of brown and gray and have been since the leaves fell back in November.

When I go looking for “hibernal,” it isn’t there, but “hibernate” pops up at me, the perfect thing to during the month of January. Hibernate leads to: lie dormant, lie idle, lie fallow, stagnate, vegetate, and estivate. Perhaps more fitting, for those of us who find these winter months perfect for sitting at our desks and listening to the voices in our heads, there are these: withdraw, retire, seclude oneself, go into hiding, lie snug, lie close, hide out, hole up, sit tight.

I am pretty much holed up, lying snug, and secluded. But I love the almost song-like rhythm of:

hide out

Hole up

Sit tight.

Which leads me, since playing in dictionaries and Thesauruses is part of a writer’s fun, to [image error]the far more positive word: snug. Try these lovely words on for size: cozy, intimate, comfortable, easeful, restful, relaxing, quiet, peaceful, tranquil, serene, informal, casual, warm, friendly, inviting.

I am reminded of the snug in an English bar. Snug also suggests secret, private, covert, secluded, well-hidden, screened off.

So while you are reading this, I am secluded, screened off, and well-hidden at my desk, a space which is cozy, warm, and inviting. And once the screen is up and the manuscript is open, I shall turn my back on the hibernal, bleak, stark, cheerless landscape outside.

Hide out

Hole up

Sit tight.

And probably proceed to kill someone, or at least put them in serious jeopardy.

What are you doing on this dark and somber day?

p.s. Evidence of my long-time fascination with words are these three sheets of paper, found while cleaning out a drawer this morning. They were efforts to expand the boys’ vocabularies.

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Going Back Home

What do think when you return to your hometown? Does it make you happy? Sad? Did you grow up in a big city or a small town? For many of us, it brings conflicted emotions, especially if we have family members still living there.

I only pose these questions because they loom large in many of my novels. In my newest book, PRAY FOR THE GIRL (due out 5/30/2019), Lucy Abbott returns to her small Maine town after fifteen years in Manhattan only to discover that an Afghani girl had been stoned to death. Not only does this complicate her relationship to her friends and family, but the death of the girl changes her relationship to the small town she grew up in. It’s not the same place she left. Nor is she the same person.

Surprisingly, I did not grow up in a small town, even though most of my books take place in small towns. There’s something about returning home that intrigues me, especially how old acquaintances perceive you after many years away. What are the bullies and jocks like now? The pretty girls and the class clowns? People change and it’s interesting to see if they changed for the better or for worse. Some even end up behind bars. One of the worst, most pathetic wrestlers on the wrestling team in my hometown went on to become a big MMA star.

Gillian Flynn portrays these small towns wonderfully in SHARP OBJECTS. Camille returns home to write a report on a murder. But she has her own secrets to hide. Her interaction with her town seems fraught with danger and peril. Her mother proves to be a monster like no other. If you haven’t read this book than I suggest you do.

Many people hate returning home on account that they experienced a bad childhood or had a rough time in school. Others enjoy going home. Some never leave. I feel ambivalent about returning to my hometown because of some events that have happened. There was certainly good time, and certainly many bad times too. I still return every now and then, since it’s near Boston. But will I return when there’s no one left? How do you feel about going home?

I do, however, enjoy writing about it. Maybe it’s my complicated feelings about the matter that make it a fruitful topic for my novels. Add in the element of crime and it becomes so much more intriguing. In PRAY FOR THE GIRL, Lucy mud navigate a class bully as well as a love interest that wants to renew their teenage relationship—after fifteen years have passed. Complicating matters is a dying diner and the influx of Afghani immigrants that have moved into Fawn Grove, not to mention a dead Muslim girl.

So, tell me how you feel about returning to your hometown. In the meantime, make sure you preorder your copy of PRAY FOR THE GIRL and see how Lucy deals with her return to Fawn Grove, Maine.

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The Fine Line Between Saving and Hoarding

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, once again doing some weeding.

This past week, when I was moving last year’s file folders to make room for new ones for 2019 receipts, I realized that every single one of the places I file stuff was overflowing, even the file cabinet in my husband’s office. I need to keep some of those files for tax purposes, but for quite a while, I’ve been meaning to weed out research notes I no longer need. This appeared to be a sign that the time was now.

So, I started pulling files. When I managed to create a gap, I moved other files to the empty space. But then, inevitably, I began to see that some of the files I was shifting into the holes needed weeding, too.

[image error]Here’s the thing. I have always had a basic distrust of electronic storage of information. Computers crash. The Cloud isn’t all that reliable, either. I back up on multiple devices. I also print every email I think I may need to refer to later. If I suspect there’s a reason to keep a paper copy, I make one. I have file folders of email correspondence with my agent, with each of my publishers, past and present, and with readers (separated by pseudonym with a separate file for correspondence about my A Who’s Who of Tudor Women). I have files for promotion for each of my books, and files on books and short stories that didn’t sell (there are plenty of those, believe me!) going back to when I got serious about being a writer in the mid-1970s.

[image error]Since I’ve started this project, I’m determined to do it right, but it’s going to take much longer than I anticipated. I have to go through each folder to make sure I don’t accidentally throw away something I need. Of course the reason I created the folder in the first place was because I thought I might use the contents someday.

When, exactly, does saving become hoarding? I’ve had an article on jade, cut out of an old National Geographic, for decades. It has gorgeous pictures, but I’ve never used the material in a book or story. Yes, there’s a chance that I’ll have an idea in the future and wish I’d kept that piece, but if I do, I can find it again. That one goes in the trash.

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file drawer I haven’t yet dared open

Most of the sixteenth-century material in my research folders has already been used in published books. I’m not likely to use it again. I try never to say never, but right now it seems to me that I’ve done all I want to do with fiction set in that era, especially since I have one book already written that hasn’t yet found a publisher. I’m even more certain I won’t write more books set in 1888, so there’s no point in hanging on to all that nineteenth-century research.

I love maps, but do I really need to keep dozens of them showing New England and New York in the seventeenth-century? I set one romance novel and one juvenile historical (that never sold) in colonial New England. Lots of other historical maps need to go, too. I really can’t think why I’d need one of medieval trade routes, and that’s just one example.

[image error]I am finding hidden gems in some files, including lots of postcards, mostly acquired on research trips. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with those. Who sends postcards anymore? Photos I took on those same research trips will go back into my scrapbooks. Ditto some promotional material. I’m also keeping early rejection letters. I’m not sure why. But what about printouts of manuscripts in dot matrix that were never published because an imprint folded? Is it saving to keep those, or hoarding? If I don’t toss them now, there will only be that much more junk for my eventual heirs to get rid of. And what about printouts of all the posts I’ve written, not just for Maine Crime Writers, but for other blogs when a new book was about to come out? They exist online, supposedly forever. Do I really need to take up space with paper copies?

[image error]Speaking of paper, there is one bonus to come out of this wholesale weeding. Lots and lots of pages in these discarded files are blank on one side—perfect for printing up various drafts of my work in progress. I’ll recycle them after both sides have been used and I’ve moved on to the final draft.

As the saying goes, pictures are worth a thousand words, so I’m illustrating this post with shots of the weeding project in progress. I hope you’ll share some of your own experiences with downsizing in the comments section, and wish me luck as I continue to search for the fine line between saving and hoarding.

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Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of nearly sixty traditionally published books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (Overkilt) and the “Deadly Edits” series (Crime & Punctuation) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in a Cornish Alehouse) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” mysteries and is set in Elizabethan England. Her most recent collection of short stories is Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at www.TudorWomen.com

Weekend Update: January 12-13, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Joe Souza (Tuesday) Kate Flora (Wednesday) Vaughn Hardacker (Thursday), and Brenda Buchanan (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Lea Wait: Sunday, January 13, Lea will be interviewed about her THREAD HERRINGS by Harry Rinker on WHATCHA GOT? his nationally syndicated antiques and collectibles [image error]call-in radio show between  8:30 and 8:45 ET. To find out where the show airs in your area, check Harry’s website (www.harryrinker.com) The show also streams live at genlive.com – click on “Listen to Talk.”

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram 

has announced while they will continue to run national book reviews obtained from wire services, they will no longer run reviews of books by freelance reviewers about Maine, set in Maine, or by Maine authors. Maine authors, bookstores, and readers depend on these reviews. While this is a national trend, it’s a shame to see it happen in a state so rich in readers and writers. There’s a petition up at change.org if you’d like to sign it here.

Update: The Portland Press Herald says it will reinstate local reviews if 100 people buy a digital subscription using the promo code CARRIE. You can subscribe here.

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An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Working from home

A friend told me recently that her brother, who lives in what we around here think of as (The Other) Portland, is spending a month in Maine with their father to help him through some medical problems.  “Of course,” she said, “he can do that.  He works from home.”

We hear that phrase so often these days because so many people seem to be locked in their basements, hunched over their computers, trying to write the killer App that will bring them the big financial payoff that will make it possible for them to never work again, at home or elsewhere.  It’s a particularly interesting phrase for writers since the vast majority work from home, but the implications of it are worth considering.

In the first few decades of the 19th century, the industrial revolution created for the first time in the West a clear barrier between work and home.  Before then, almost all work was performed in and around the home, but factories and cities soon became the locus of work, leaving home as an alternative or contrast, the opposite of work.  This same dynamic gave rise to the gendering of work and home that led to an identification of home with women, but that’s a story for another time.

Now in the 21st century we seem to be revisiting the work-home dichotomy, in fact collapsing the wall between them.  But what remains is the sense that home is somehow better than work, a more desirable place to be.  I know many academics who complain that they simply can’t do any serious work at the office.  When I was an academic administrator I used to block off a day or so a month to vacate my office and instruct my secretary to tell anyone seeking me out that I was working at home that day.  The appeal is obvious:  casual clothes, a symphony playing on the radio in the background, unlimited access to coffee—and no pesky folks to distract you.

For writers, there is rarely an alternative.  John Updike rented a room over a commercial building in Ipswich, Massachusetts, to which he retreated daily to turn out the vast amount of prose and poetry that made him financially successful—and thus able to rent the space.  Other writers report that they like the routine created by having a writing space in a building separate from home.  They “go to work,” signaling to themselves that it’s time to get serious.  But for most writers, working from home isn’t a choice.  And it does have many rewards.  But is working where the rest of your life happens always the best approach?

I recall vividly the year I had a sabbatical from my faculty position at Ohio State when I was trying to write a book (on domesticity in 19th-century America, as it happens).  My son was two years old, determined to avoid naps, and always eager to play with Dad.  I did get some work done, but it was often frustrating because it forced me to choose between writing and fathering.  Fathering usually won, and that particular book never got written.  My son is now long out of the house, and my wife has a study far removed from where I work, but there are times when household chores provide distractions too hard to resist:  the laundry does have to be done, the woodstove tended, a pot of soup on the stove in need of a stir.  Writers of course are very, very practiced at finding excuses, perfectly reasonable arguments to turn away from the keyboard.  Would one be a steadier, more consistent writer working out of a space away from home?  Some would no doubt.  I’m not sure if on balance I would, but I’m unlikely to test the proposition.

The point here is that working from home, as common as it has become for many workers in addition to writers, may be a concept worth pondering a bit more closely than when we make the automatic assumption that those who do it are, as my friend implied about her brother, enjoying an especially blessed status.  Writers, what do you think?  Are you happy working from home?  Do the distractions of home sometimes make you yearn for a rented office elsewhere?  Or does where you write really not matter?

Inside A Writer’s Head

Bruce Robert Coffin here, wishing all of you the very best 2019 has to offer. I thought I’d begin the new year by allowing you a glimpse behind the scenes, where the magic happens.

Trying to explain novel writing to someone who’s never written a novel is, well, difficult. And, to be clear, I’m not talking about the nuts and bolts process of banging away feverishly on the keyboard with two fingers. I’m talking about novel writing. Spending day after day, week after week, and month after month, walking about like a crazy person with made-up characters living inside your head.

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For those seeking a better understanding of exactly what it is that I’m talking about, I recommend watching the Hollywood treatment of Les Stadiford’s book, The Man Who Invented Christmas. The story finds famed author Charles Dickens suffering from a debilitating bout of writer’s block just before the Christmas holiday in 1843. On the heels of several literary flops, mounting personal debt, and the desire to write something meaningful, Dickens sets out to write a “little Christmas story”. And, as we all know now, that little novella became A Christmas Carol, one of the most beloved and timeless tales ever written.

I very much enjoyed the film’s treatment of Dickens’s struggles with his characters. As any writer can attest, our characters can be pesky creatures at times. The movie presents an overly simplified explanation for how Dickens created his characters, i.e. as soon as he comes up with the perfect name for his characters they magically appear, along with all of the traits and foibles he had envisioned. And while in real life our characters seldom appear to us as easily as they do for Stadiford’s Dickens, there is some truth to the telling, especially when Dickens is haunted by his creations as he struggles with everyday interruptions, his own past, the storyline, and with the message behind his story. That, my friends, is exactly what it is like to write novels. Our characters do reside in our heads, and each one demands to be heard and listened to. Many times while working on a novel I have found myself diverging from the course I’d envisioned for the story because one, or more, of my characters had something different in mind.

Watching this movie, which has become one of my seasonal favorites, it’s easy for me to imagine the real Charles Dickens pacing about his home talking to himself, and to his characters, as I am prone to do nearly two hundred years later.

If you haven’t seen The Man Who Invented Christmas yet, give it a try. If nothing else you’ll be treated to a rare glimpse into the crazy world of novel writing. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sergeants Byron and Joyner are in need of my attention.

I Need More Space!

John Clark here: I know I wrote about downsizing, something I’m continuing to do, but I really need more space and that’s not a contradiction in terms by any means. I mean more juvenile and young adult space opera/science fiction. Not so long ago, fantasy and paranormal ruled the teen roost, but sci-fi has come back with a vengeance and I’m thrilled. I’m sharing some of the better reads below.

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Let’s start with a couple books that aren’t truly YA, but are dandy nonetheless. Mature teens will gobble them up. They are Switched and Switched Too by Diane Burton. Imagine you’re the non book smart sibling of emotionally remote parents. Your older brother got his PhD in his teens and is your parents’ darling. You run a repair shop out of the old farmhouse you inherited from your grandmother. One night, you’re accosted by someone who looks exactly like you and the next time you open your eyes, you’re on an interstellar research vessel, dealing with a super hot Mr. Spock clone. The books are about an evil experiment that was stopped, but not before two sets of twins were separated and raised on different planets. They’re a neat mix of hotness, intrigue, snarky dialogue and sabotage. Diane has written several other science fiction titles I plan on reading down the road in ebook format.

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Next up is Toxic by Lydia Kang. Read on: “Imagine yourself as human, but spliced together from bits and pieces of DNA and genetic material by someone who you’ve called mother for sixteen years. Then imagine she’s hidden you from everyone for your entire lifetime and she’s suddenly disappeared. You’re alone on a sentient spaceship that’s in the process of dying. Meet Hana. She’s awoken to this reality. She’s smart in what she’s absorbed from Cyclo, the sentient ship, plus what her mother taught her, but has almost no people skills because she was hidden from them. Have a small crew of somewhat scary entities arrive, each desperate to complete terms of a contract that will, they hope, atone for things they’ve done to others. Speed up the time frame they were originally given to analyze why Cyclo is decaying, thus threatening their only hope for redemption. Have them encounter Hana. Have Hana fall for one of them. Have plenty of scary things happen to all involved. Mix well and hand to anyone who likes a tension filled YA science fiction tale. Watch them get lost in said story. Success!”

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Even so, she goes against the Gods’ advice and wins the most powerful ship in the war, but at what cost? Read the book and find out. Then prepare to await the next in the series. You (and I) won’t be disappointed.”

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One Giant Leap by Heather Kaczynski is the sequel to Dare Mighty Things which was amazing. Here’s my mini review of book 2. “Nice sequel to Dare Mighty Things. The action and plot twists make for a fast and engrossing read. By the end, readers will be shaking their heads over which race was the villain and which was the victim. My only comment of a critical nature is that the ending was a bit too long, but that’s a very minor point.”

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Then there’s Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne. I describe it this way:”Another nice entry in the resurgent YA science fiction genre, this one a retelling of Jane Eyre. Imagine earth having to be abandoned after a global winter. Numerous ships orbiting for hundreds of years, waiting for conditions to reach a point where return is possible. Blend in a smart, but underclass girl, a tormented, but attractive ship captain, solid friendships, deceit and intrigue, mix well and enjoy. “

Sanctuary by Caryn Lix is another that screamed for a sequel. Lucky me, I have an ARC in ebook awaiting me next week. “This begins with a very interesting premise, that some teens have a super power/ability and because these are unpredictable, they must be locked up with implants that prevent their using these abilities. Kenzie and her parents are living on an orbiting space prison, guarding these teens. Her dream is to become one of the elite guards. Then something goes awry. Shortly after her father returns to Earth, she’s captured by the prisoners and her mother refuses to try freeing her.

Add in a far scarier threat than mutant teens and an uneasy, but very necessary alliance with the prisoners, coupled with nonstop action and a cosmic mystery and you have a great read. The end hints at a sequel and I’d grab it as soon as it came out.”

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Others well worth a look are Dry by Neal Shusterman, Phantom Wheel by Tracy Deebs and Skyward by Brandon Sanderson.

Maine Winters — Then and Now

Lea Wait, here. And although I can’t officially claim to be a Mainer (I was born in Boston, and have only lived here ‘year round for 20 years) I do live in midcoast Maine, in a house built in 1774 on an island in the Sheepscot River, one of Maine’s many tidal rivers, about twelve miles from the North Atlantic.

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Cat inside (on my desk) watching snow outside

Normally along the coast we’ve had 25-40 inches of snow by this time of year. This winter we haven’t hit that total, although a few years back we had almost 80 inches in January alone. Our next storm is due tomorrow, though. We’ll just have to wait and see. We’ve had some single digit nights so far, but nothing below zero. Not so far.

Considering it all, no one is complaining. After all, we chose to live here. And this is 2019.  Most people have some form of central heat, whether a furnace or a wood stove.  Storm windows. Insulation. Grocery stores. Running water. Ovens and microwaves. Silk or thermal underwear. Fleece. Flannel. Wool. Plows. Salt and sand. And heated cars or trucks to get us from one heated place to another on plowed roads.

[image error]For hundreds – probably thousands – of years people survived here without most of those things.

I’m not an expert on the ways Abenakis and Micmacs survived winters.

But I do know a little about how Europeans lived here at the time my home was built. Before global warming. When the river wasn’t just patchworked with ice floes. It was  frozen so  hard  people used it for sleigh  races.

People prepared all year for winter. In snowy months men took sledges into the woods and lumbered.  Wood was chopped in summer so it would be dry for winter fireplaces. Fires were kept burning all day and night. On the coldest days, warmly dressed people slept 2-4  to a bed or pallet near the fire. Pine boughs were woven together in fall and piled around a house’s foundation. Snow would fill the empty spaces between the boughs, helping insulate the building. Snow was melted for water, for occasional washing, and for the soups and stews that, with bread, were sustenance. Fish, meat, vegetables and fruit were harvested in summer and dried, to be resurrected in winter stews. Clothes weren’t washed for months. Even infant’s clouts (diapers) were hung to dry in kitchens without rinsing.

In Maine, small workrooms (jointly called the ell) connected houses to their barns, so animals could be fed without going outside. Privies were often located in the far corner of the barn. Roads were not plowed. Sleighs pulled heavy pieces of wood to push down deep snow so horses and sleighs didn’t sink in it.

But most people stayed home for the winter. “Winter well!” was a common farewell in fall. Those who didn’t live in town might not see neighbors until spring. Babies would be born, people would die, and no one outside the family would know for months. Sometimes a whole family would die, of disease or hunger or cold or fire or depression that led to violence, and no one would know until late spring, when muddy roads dried and were again passable.

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1871 Winslow Homer wood engraving: “A Winter Morning – Shovelling Out”  Note wooden shovels.

I think of those people in winters like this one. I wonder how they felt. What they thought. How glorious spring must have seemed.

And I thank them. They, and others like them in other parts of our country, were survivors. And so our country survived.

A little cold and snow? Just part of life.

Weekend Update: January 5-6, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Lea Wait (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday) Bruce Coffin (Wednesday) Dorothy Cannell (Thursday), and William Andrews (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora