Lea Wait's Blog, page 253

Weekend Update: June 25-26, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Vaughan Hardacker (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Dick Cass (Wednesday), Barb Ross (Thursday), and ??? (Friday).

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

from Kaitlyn Dunnett: I’m interviewed in the June issue of Savvy Scottie Magazine about The Scottie Barked at Midnight. Cool, huh?

 

 

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: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com

And Now For Something Completely Different

John Clark sharing a bit of my college experience and a most amazing friend who I met during that time.

I graduated in a class of 38 from Union High School in June of 1966. Since most everyone who was college-bound was going to UMO or UMF, I was determined not to join them because I felt it would be a continuation of high school and I was ready for something completely different. I’d applied to Bowdoin, Princeton and Arizona State, the latter at the suggestion of my junior year English teacher Maxwell Fogleman who had moved to the Phoenix area because his wife had really severe arthritis. Bowdoin and Princeton weren’t thrilled with my math grades, but ASU, on the other hand, gave me a full academic scholarship. End of college search.

Mom was going to school herself at UMO that summer and arranged for me to share driving with a professor who was going to winter in California. We drove through a bunch of states I’d never seen and I remember almost killing us in Arkansas when I overestimated the passing power of his Fiat. I suspect he was more than happy to drop me off in Tempe for freshman orientation.

Going to school in the desert was a shock in many ways. The dry heat caused me to drop 15 pounds in little more than a week, I climbed orange trees on campus after dark to harvest fruit until I was informed that they were ornamental ones and the fruit wasn’t particularly good. Going from a high school of less than 100 to a campus where 29,000 students attended classes took some real getting used to as did hearing people with different color skin speak languages I’d never encountered before. Perhaps the biggest people shock was discovering how many Mormons lived in the area. Keep in mind that I’d gone to a rural Maine high school where the closest thing we had to a minority was the lone Catholic girl im my senior class. Heck, I didn’t even realize there was a significant Franco-American population in Maine until after graduating from college.

At that point in my life, I was still civilized enough to be relatively optimistic and made friends easily. One of my first friendships was with George Castano a fellow in his early twenties who came from Colombia in South America to study architecture. He had a Vespa scooter and we’d often ride through the Valley of the Sun to look at unique architecture. In fact George introduced me to Paolo Soleri’s experimental architectural community Arcosanti (https://arcosanti.org/). I also met a guy from Las Vegas, M. Thomas Carollo who remains a good friend to this day. Our friendship came about because we were the only two in a literature class who knew the Myth of Sisyphus. Other friends included two girls who had come from Laos where their parents were doing community work or were CIA operatives (which of these was true never became clear). Still another friend was a zoology major who wouldn’t go out with a guy until he let one of her two giant scorpions climb from his hand to his shoulder (I passed).

My most interesting friend, however came from Wales because, he said, “I’m tired of absurdly long names and freezing my arse off half the year.” When people first heard Wambu Jerusalem’s name, they expected to see someone with dark skin and an African accent. Fizbin, as I came to call him, was anything but. He was on the short side and chubby with pale blonde hair and scary blue eyes. At first, he planned on going into architecture or pre-medicine, but something happened one night when we left Parry’s Buffet on Mill Avenue to change that.

Fizbin was trying to explain the rules of cricket when there was one hellacious growl as we passed an alley. I froze and looked around expecting Satan to pounce on us. My friend swore in an odd language (I could tell from his tone of voice that what he was saying couldn’t be repeated in his mother’s kitchen) and got between me and whatever was about to attack. When the creature did come at us, I sobered on the spot. It might not have been the big guy from hell, but it looked like they belonged to the same union. The ugly bastard was close to seven feet tall, yellow green and had the classic glowing red eyes depicted in every horror tale you’ve ever read. Before I could react, Fizbin did something with his left hand while chanting in that strange tongue. He caught our adversary by surprise and the next thing I knew, it had been reduced to a greasy cloud of smoke that smelled like a cross between a decaying chicken and a burning tire. I threw up and, as soon as I was done, he grabbed me and we took off.

I was so shook up, I hid out in my dorm room for three days. Fizbin must have known I needed time to un-freak and start wrapping my head around the attack because he waited until I sought him out and asked what in hell was that all about?

It was time to trust that I could keep a secret, he said. He’d come to the U.S. as much to get away from some family difficulty, as he diplomatically put it, as to keep his buns warm in January. He went on to tell me about his family, who were involved in magic and had been for generations. If I hadn’t seen him in action, I would have been skeptical, but having witnessed an NFL-sized demon reduced to less than overcooked bacon in seconds, helped his credulity big time.

I kept his secret for the next three years and learned more about the magical world and its cast of characters than anyone reading the entire Harry Potter series. Fizbin changed his major to criminal justice shortly after the attack, graduating with honors. He returned to Wales and began a career in British law enforcement shortly thereafter when he moved to London.

I didn’t hear much from him for a while and things in my own life were fairly chaotic, so I didn’t think much about it. When things settled down, I reconnected with him and we’ve been in contact on a regular basis ever since. He retired from the Metropolitan Police Force as a deputy commissioner last fall. Early in his career he had been approached by a shadowy section of British intelligence that became aware of his unique skills. After he was assured he wouldn’t be turned into a human guinea pig, Fizbin signed on and became the central figure in what became known as the Bureau of Extraordinary Enforcement Science, or BEES.

Whenever we chatted by phone or online, he’d hint at some of the things he and a couple other gifted people were creating to even the odds against the bad guys. To say that I was curious and more than a bit envious would be a gross understatement. Last month, he came for a visit and we spent three days touring Maine while he talked nearly nonstop about some of his tricks as he calls them. I’ll let Fizbin take it from here.

Hello MCW readers. I’ve been following the blog since its inception and greatly enjoy the creativity and variety of postings. As John has noted, I’ve enjoyed a most unusual career in British law enforcement. To help you understand what I did, think about the concept of open source software. Simply put, it is code created that can be modified and improved by anyone capable of doing so. What we did at BEES is pretty much the same thing. Three of us would get a request from some law enforcement entity in the Commonwealth and we’d see if we could cobble together a mix of magic and technology to meet the need. Perhaps the best part of the job was having free rein to name our creations, like being part of Monty Python, if you will.

Our oldest creation came from a request by the Thames Division. With the river getting increasingly murky, they were having a devil of a time locating bodies. We came up with an ectoplasm based seeking device we called the (Infra)Red Herring. This dandy can function to a depth of 300 feet, run for hours and can be altered to seek out flesh, metal or plastic. It’s become very popular not only in the UK, but in parts of Canada. In fact, we get frequent orders from the Mounties in Kissit, Yukon.

Another very popular one is the Clink, named in honor of the old prison on Clink Street. Imaging a heat-seeking missile made of unbreakable and flexible transparent material. You have a hostage situation or a baddie who is vicious and armed to the teeth. Flick a Clink into the air and before you can say tea and crumpets, the villain finds himself handcuffed, often in embarrassing and uncomfortable ways.

Gumshoes are often used in conjunction with Clinks and another invention we call Pavement Pounders. Gumshoes start as a flying cloud of colored ectoplasm and often resemble a horde of insects. The good guys release one when a suspect is fleeing and wait for the fun to begin. The substance can hit 50 kilometers an hour and as soon as it gets ahead of the baddie, drops to the pavement where it becomes stickier than the strongest glue. I wish you could see what happens when the runner hits it and comes to an immediate and painful halt.

Pavement Pounders are like a surreal combination of your Energizer Bunny and a bloodhound. Imagine a moving mist that can sense DNA, gunpowder residue, blood, hair follicles and thread in quantities too small for the human eye to detect. This one saves an incredible amount of time and even saves lives by scouring dangerous neighborhoods for vital evidence.

My personal favorite is the Perpetraitor. I created it when I was in a Jimi Hendrix listening phase, so when released, it often appears as a purple haze with his image flickering as it moves off to do its job. Once released, it seeks out hidden subjects and when it locates them, settles on their head causing them to speak loudly while confessing to whatever crime(s) they’ve committed. One unexpected benefit is that they often confess to things that are utterly hilarious.

These are just a few of the almost one hundred we have created for use by Commonwealth law enforcement. I hope you find them as intriguing as I do.

What “Everyone Knows” About Authors …. But Isn’t True

Yes — this is Lea Wait, and this is a “golden oldie” blog post. I first wrote it several years ago, but over the years many readers (and other writers) have commented on it, and I decided that it was time to revisit the subject, with a few additions this time around.

So …

All authors are rich.
Authors get as many copies of their published books as they want, free, from their publishers. Just ask them — they’ll give you one. If they don’t give you one, they’re not really your friend. (They’d also love to give copies of their books to any charity that asks. The more giveaways the more readers! And all authors want are readers, right?)
Authors get their ideas from a) their dreams; b) the lives of their friends and relatives; c) their characters, who come to them in visions; d) the daily news; and d) complete plots handed to them by strangers. They’d love to hear your ideas for their next book!
Authors have a lot of spare time. All they have to do is write down those stories people tell them. So any author would love to a) watch your children; b) walk your dog; c) serve on your organization’s board; or d) organize a benefit for your worthy cause and call all his or her writer friends to come and support it. (Remember: they’re all rich!)
Authors do very little editing. That unpleasant chore is delegated to their agents and editors. After all, editing squelches the joy of personal expression.

Author’s Assistant & Muse

Authors have staffs to take care of their scheduling and itineraries, book their tours, answer fan letters, design and update their websites, post on social media, write blogs, keep their mailing lists up-to-date, and do research for their next books. (Many also have personal trainers, chefs, and people to clean their houses, wash their clothes, run their errands, and take care of any garden or yard work necessary.) All authors have to do is write, and sometimes read speeches written for them. Their publishers, agents, and personal staff take care of the rest.
An author may get some rejections at first, but after his first book is published anything he or she writes will be published.
Authors always choose the titles of their books, design the covers, decide what format their books will be published in, and set their prices. If you don’t like any of those things, be sure to tell him or her.
Authors spend a lot of time flying around the country, staying in fancy hotels, being wined and dined, talking with Oprah, and signing their books. The publisher pays for this, of course. If an author is NOT doing this, it’s because he or she has chosen not to.
Not all authors smoke, the way they used to, but most of them still drink pretty heavily.  Alcohol fuels their creativity. They also drink because they’re lonely, sitting in front of their computers all the time. Do your author friend a favor by dropping in unexpectedly several times a week to

Lea’s book about an author’s life

cheer him up. (And bring wine.)
No matter what they say, authors really are their major characters.
Therefore, of course, romance writers have hot sex lives, picture book writers think like preschoolers, mystery writers want to kill people, and science fiction writers want to blow up the planet. Authors who write about vampires .. well .. you can guess. College professors write literary fiction for other college professors to analyze.
Authors will be really pleased if you tell them you loved their book so much you loaned your copy to twenty of your best friends. They’ll be even more pleased if you tell them that, to save trees and money, you bought it used to begin with.
Now that authors can self-publish, only old-fashioned writers work with agents and traditional publishers. They can make a lot more money putting their book up on Kindle or Nook themselves. If your author friend doesn’t know this, do him a favor by telling him.

Lea Wait writes the Shadows Antique Print series and the Mainely Needlepoint series, as well as historical novels set in nineteenth century Maine. She keeps a bottle of champagne in her refrigerator in case there is something to celebrate, and loves editing sea food of all types (except shark) and listening to the voices in her head. She invites you to friend her on Facebook and Goodreads.

Dead Zones, Cell Phones, and the Strange Perceptions of “Folks From Away”

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. I have a new Liss MacCrimmon mystery coming out at the end of July. In fact, at the end of this post, you’ll see how you can win an advance reading copy even before that. But first, there’s this blog, the result of a pretty good review in Publisher’s Weekly that contained one very strange caveat. Here’s the entire review of Kilt at the Highland Games:

“The Highland Games come to tiny Moosetookalook, Maine, in Dunnett’s enchanting 10th Liss MacCrimmon mystery (after 2015’s The Scottie Barked at Midnight). Despite the influx of trade and tourists, Liss still finds time to do some sleuthing, including finding the dead body of Jason Graye, Moosetookalook’s most despised town selectman and a shady realtor. Suspects abound, and the police are swamped between providing extra coverage for the games, searching for missing persons, investigating Graye’s murder, and looking into a break-in at the post office. Could all these events somehow be connected? Liss enlists the aid of a PI friend to get to the bottom of things, but it’s Liss who ends up facing off with a crazed killer, who’s ready to take out more victims. An implausible lack of cell phone usage undercuts credibility, but otherwise this is an enjoyable cozy from start to finish.”

The funny thing is, there are probably more references to using cell phones in this entry in the series than in most of the previous ones. Liss and Dan use a cell phone to call the chief of police’s cell phone to report the murder. Later, when Liss is rushing toward a dangerous situation, she uses her cell to contact both the police and Jake Murch, her friend the private investigator. You’d better believe she wants backup! There are also references to cell phones in use by a couple of teenagers, one of whom has a “stupid phone” rather than a smart phone because he’s saving every penny he earns for college. And the “missing person” referred to also uses a cell phone of the throwaway type, to avoid being found. I’m really not sure how much more cell phone usage there could have been, especially in rural Maine.

my personal “dead zone”

Why is rural Maine less likely to rely on cell phones than other places? Ever hear of a “dead zone” where you just can’t get a signal? We’re in one here at my house. No way are we ever going to be able to give up our land line. Cell service is iffy in many areas of Maine, some of them much closer to cities than we are.

I spent a few days earlier this month on Bailey Island, where I was warned not to rely on being able to get a signal. Hikers at this end of the Appalachian Trail receive a similar warning, and ignore it at their peril. Those who make the mistake of thinking they can call for help on a cell phone if they are injured or lost while out in the wilderness are in for a rude awakening. Hikers, climbers, and even skiers have learned this the hard way. A few end up losing their lives as a result of this miscalculation.

I do have a cell phone. Like one of those in the novel, it’s a “stupid phone” that has no bells and whistles. I keep it charged and carry it in my purse for emergencies. It costs me under $15 a month. It’s so old that it flips open and has an antenna. It would be no use at all if I needed help in a “dead zone” but when I got a flat tire on the Maine Turnpike on my way home from New England Crime Bake one year, I used it to call AAA and my husband.

As usual, I’m old fashioned and behind the times. Lots of Mainers do have cell phones and use them for all the things folks from away do—texting, checking social media, looking things up at IMDb. Sometimes they even use them to make or take phone calls. I see shoppers in the local Hannaford with phones to their ears, no doubt checking to see if there’s anything else they need to pick up for supper. I see a good many damn fools using cell phones while driving. But they are not everywhere, and not everybody owns one, or even wants one.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION—WIN AN ARC!

I’ve been rambling on the subject of cell phones for some 800 words now, and I don’t know if I’ve said anything particularly significant, but I’d love to hear what those of you reading this think of the whole issue of cell phones and, in particular, whether you would find a mystery novel less believable simply because there isn’t a lot of cell phone usage mentioned in it.

Leave your comment on this subject below and you will automatically be entered in a drawing to receive an advance reading copy of Kilt at the Highland Games. I’ll wait till the end of the month to draw a name, so if you’re reading this up to eight days after it’s posted, you still have a chance to win.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of over fifty books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award 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 for “The Blessing Witch.” Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (Kilt at the Highland Games ~ July 2016) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in the Merchant’s Hall) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” series and is set in Elizabethan England. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com

 

 

Giveaway- Whispers Beyond the Veil

Jessie: Delighted to be breathing the salty air on the coast of Maine.

Several years ago my family started spending summers in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Almost immediately, I thought of an idea for The Change of Fortune mysteries series set there in 1898, the year the original pier opened.  One thing led to another and before long the book sold.

I just loved working on this book and writing about life in such a magical place at such an exciting time. I also adore the cover pictured at left. Here’s the publisher’s description of the story:

First in a dazzling new historical mystery series featuring Ruby Proulx, a psychic with a questionable past who suddenly finds her future most uncertain…

Canada, 1898. The only life Ruby Proulx has ever known is that of a nomad, traveling across the country with her snake-oil salesman father. She dreams of taking root somewhere, someday, but, until she can, she makes her way by reading tarot cards. Yet she never imagined her own life would take such a turn…

 

After one of her father’s medical “miracles” goes deadly wrong, Ruby evades authorities by hiding in the seaside resort town of Old Orchard, Maine, where her estranged aunt, Honoria, owns the Hotel Belden, a unique residence that caters to Spiritualists—a place where Ruby should be safe as long as she can keep her dark secret hidden.

 

But Ruby’s plan begins to crumble after a psychic investigator checks into the hotel and senses Ruby is hiding more than she’s letting on. Now Ruby must do what she can to escape both his attention and Aunt Honoria’s insistence that she has a true gift, before she loses her precious new home and family forever…

The book won’t be available until September 6, 2016 but I have just received a box of advance reading copies and would love to celebrate their arrival by giving away one of them to a commenter.  So, share a memory in the comments below about Old Orchard Beach, a visit to Maine or something you love about history and you’ll be entered into the drawing for a copy. Good luck!

 

A Write of Passage

On a mild clear day in April I mowed my lawn for the first time this season. As I suspect it is for others, this is always a day I look forward to. An annual marker as profound as New Year’s Day, a birthday, or an anniversary. A major event signaling that winter has finally passed, mercifully releasing us from her frigid grasp.

Now don’t get me wrong, mowing is a bit of a chore, especially with the three acres of grass I have to mow, and by season’s end I’ll be over it. But at this early moment in the spring, following another daylight-shortened, snowy Maine winter, I relish the task and the chance to circle the lawn while my mind wanders freely and the sun warms my face.

For me, mowing the lawn is always a bit of a trip down memory lane to seasons past. Returning are sights and smells, nearly forgotten, once buried beneath January’s blanket. I spy a red breasted robin bobbing along, monitoring my progress and stopping occasionally to unearth a tasty treat. Swallows and finches dart back and forth between the trees like excited shoppers scouting new locations for homes. And a wary band of turkeys watch my progress with interest from a nearby field, their necks swiveling like periscopes above the undergrowth.

Budding birches, maples, and oaks portend the coming of summer’s green. While carried upon a cool nearly imperceptible breeze are the scents of freshly cut grass, lake water, and the earthy decomposition of last year’s fallen leaves.

Years of country living have taught me to abandoned my fruitless attempts at preventing nature’s botanical interlopers from inhabiting my lawn. Inevitably, the coming months will signal the arrival of all manner of color and aromas. Wild strawberries will come creeping, filling the air with their sweet smell. My lawn will be spotted white with clumps of flowering clover, the lavender of violets, the orange and yellows of the Indian Paintbrush, and a bounty of dandelions. And as the infamous yellow blossoms turn, becoming no more than seed balls on a stem, I’ll mow through them amidst a blizzard of white fluff.

I’m constantly on the hunt for the occasional rogue thistle, too. A weed infamous for wreaking havoc on bare feet, in spite of those glorious purple blossoms. Ever vigilant, I’ll do battle, refusing to allow this spiny guy safe passage.

But there’s so much more to this seemingly mindless chore than simply manicuring blades of grass. There’s a symbolism to the act. This first mowing signals the coming of cookouts, family gatherings, and bocce. Leisurely afternoons spent lounging outside with a tall frosty, as clouds pass overhead and Joe Castiglione transports me down to Fenway Park. Evenings on the deck as brilliant crimson sunsets transform into night and fireflies appear above the field, flickering like wandering stars.

As I turn a corner, overlapping my previous row, it occurs to me how very similar tending the lawn is to the act of writing a novel. Editing the first draft is akin to cutting the grass. There may be thin spots in need of watering or a sprinkle of seed to thicken, or a few thistles to remove. Alternating shades of green reflect the directional pass of the blades like the continuous thread of a well told tale. Wild and unkempt at the start, becoming an unbroken expanse of something special once finished. Which reminds me, I’ve got another book to write.

Happy mowing!

Weekend Update: June 18-19, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Bruce Coffin (Monday), Jessie Crockett (Tuesday), Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett (Wednesday), Lea Wait (Thursday), and John Clark (Friday).

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

Maureen Milliken is thrilled to announce No News is Bad News, the second in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series, will be released June 28. She’ll have copies available to sell and sign, along with the first in the series, Cold Hard News, at the Belgrade Lakes Fourth of July extravaganza, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., 78 Main St. (right next to the gyro stand!), in Belgrade Lakes village.

Vaughn Hardacker and Kate Flora also plan to be on hand at the Meet the Maine Crime Writers tent, so come on up and say hi!

Go to maureenmilliken.com for details and other events.

Kate Flora, with Roger Guay and a clever canine named Saba will be at the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor on Thursday the 23rd. Hope you will stop in to hear this fabulous storyteller share his adventures with the warden service, and what’s really involved in the lives of Maine’s off-road traffic cops, wildlife enforcers, and search and rescue champions.

Kate Flora, Roger Guay, and Saba

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate, Lea Wait, Kaitlyn Dunnett, and Barb Ross spent a lovely three nights and four days at a writing retreat on Bailey Island. Everyone was productive and happy. Look for lots of great books in 2017!

 

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, book group, 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: mail to: kateflora@gmail.com

Hello Maine summer, courtesy of EB White

We Maine Crime Writers live in a dark place — both geographically and mentally.

Maine in all its darkness.

One of the things that makes Maine so delicious for mystery settings is its deep darkness. There are a lot of short days, a lot of dark hours, dead trees, bare vegetation. Lots of cold, rain, ice. Even with the winter that never came this year, the darkness is there.

And we write about death and evil. We have to, or we wouldn’t have anything to write about as mystery writers.

But one of the great things about Maine, one of the things you don’t fully get unless you live here, is that there’s a payoff to the darkness. A day like this.

After all the gloom and gray and cold, dead trees and dead earth the state explodes into a riot of high definition greens and blues. Uncontrolled and unmanicured, warm and good-smelling. Bright and very, very alive.

On a day like this, it’s impossible to write anything dark, or even contemplate darkness.

As writers and readers we love the written word. One of the masters was the great E.B. White. As a child. White spend summers in Belgrade Lakes. Later in life he moved to Brooklin on the Blue Hill Peninsula and left the Lakes behind. But in 1941, he brought his 10-year-old son to Belgrade to experience the kind of summer on Great Pond he himself had as a boy.

I’m lucky enough to live in Belgrade Lakes now, and a couple years ago, after I’d moved here, I stumbled upon his beautiful essay “Once More to the Lake” about that visit with his son. I’d read it in college, but now, living here, it resonated.

The fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable…forever and ever, summer without end

Every summer, I write about E.B. and his ode to youth, growing old, mortality, the Lakes and, most of all, Maine summer. It may not be summer yet. We still have a few days until it’s official. But, boy it feels like it. And it feels good. Well, let’s let E.B. say it:

Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible,

the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable,

the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever,

summer without end.

 

Maureen Milliken’s second novel in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series, No News is Bad News, will be available June 28. Follow her on Twitter: @mmilliken47, on Facebook at Maureen Milliken mysteries, and sign up for email updates or get her latest news and events at maureenmilliken.com. Maureen will have copies of No News is Bad News, as well as her debut Cold Hard News, available for sale and signing at Belgrade Lakes Fourth of July celebration, find her at 78 Main St. and say hi!

A Graduation in Maine

Hi. Barb here.

I graduated from a small private school with about 100 other sweaty teenagers. The tradition at my school was boys graduated in suits, while girls wore white dresses. But in my class in 1971, there was a major feminist uprising about this blatant display of gender roles. There were also strong objections to the expense involved, because while it was a private school, plenty of parents were making major sacrifices for their kids to be there. It was assumed the boys would wear the suits again–but the white dresses?

So we, the class of ’71, graduated in caps and gowns, both boys and girls. By the next year, the brouhaha was over, and the boys graduated in suits and the girls in white dresses, and have from that day to this, according to the very specific dress requirements posted here for the class of 2016.

I was reminded of this when I attended my niece’s graduation from Boothbay Harbor High School last Friday. The graduation itself was lovely. The ceremony focused rightly on the students. All three speakers were students, so there were no politicians or other eminence grises bloviating. Even the superintendent kept her remarks short and to the point. With 49 kids, there was time for every name to be called, and for all the kids to receive their due as they walked across the stage to receive their diplomas. They wore traditional caps and gowns, a lovely shade of blue.

Then, at 7:30 pm, we reported back to the high school gym for the “grand march.” First the graduates’ parents entered the gym, as couples, dressed up and looking proud. Then the graduates entered, two-by-two, a boy and a girl. The boys were dressed in white dinner jackets and the girls in long white dresses. Each girl carried two red-and-white bouquets.

They proceeded to move around the gym in configurations that felt like a cross between high school band formations and a Virginia reel. It was stately and beautiful, and aside from an unfortunate choice of a John Philip Sousa number that somehow reminded every spectator in my area of the marching band scene in Animal House, sending giggles down the row, it was lovely.

When all the marching was done, the group turned to each of the four walls of the gym for photos, and then the kids presented each of their moms with a bouquet. The girls danced with their dads and the boys danced with their moms, and it was over.

And I felt conflicted. On the one hand, it was so old-fashioned and traditional, a link to the past. But on the other, it was clear when the bouquet-presenting and dancing occurred that some kids were coping with having two complete sets of parents present, while others had barely been able to scrape up one set. Still, I imagined the grown-ups working together selflessly to acknowledge a milestone day for their children, and the kids getting to share a special moment with an uncle or grandparent or fondly-remembered babysitter, if a parent wasn’t a part of their lives.

I was even more uncomfortable that the one gender-nonconforming kid I’d spotted at graduation wasn’t present. Had that kid truly not wanted to participate, or were the expectations for dress and gender role just too off-putting? And those white dresses brought back waves of ambivalence. Hadn’t I fought this fight 45 years ago?

We were told several times that Boothbay is the last high school in Maine to do a grand march at graduation. A little Googling tells me that the Vinylhaven School also does one, though the girls appear to be be nicely dressed, in a color of their choosing.

I walked away impressed by the grandeur and the tradition, but disturbed by the embedded assumptions about kids and families.

Readers: What do you think? Grand March–lovely tradition or relic of a bygone era best forgotten?

Murder at the Old Railway Chapel

Jen Blood here, to talk about an upcoming event I’m very excited about.

On the second Saturday of July for the past three years, I’ve been at Boothbay Railway Village for Books in Boothbay, an annual event sponsored by the Boothbay Public Library. Now in its twelfth year, Books in Boothbay features anywhere from forty to fifty-plus Maine authors housed under one roof, available to sign their books, chat with the public, and catch up with one another. Sherman’s Books and Stationery facilitates the whole shebang by providing the books, helping to organize the wayward authors, and ringing out customers. For the past three years, volunteer Sharon Pulkkinen has taken on the weighty task of contacting authors, organizing volunteers, making sure everyone’s information is current, and generally ensuring that Books in Boothbay continues to be a success. Not an easy feat, since organizing that many authors is very much like herding cats. Cats are more social, though.

This year, I’m very pleased to say that I’ve coordinated a partnership between Sisters in Crime New England and Books in Boothbay for the first time. For those unaware, Sisters in Crime is an international organization devoted to the professional development and advancement of women crime writers. They host events, provide instruction and networking opportunities, and are generally just a great organization to have in the world. This year, in partnership with Books in Boothbay, Sisters in Crime New England will have a table at the event. We will not just have a table, though… We will have a mystery to solve. The Murder at the Old Railway Chapel will take place across from the Railway Village’s town hall, and will include a staged crime scene, suspects to interview, and a couple of great prizes for lucky winners who successfully solve the crime.

It’s been a lot of fun putting together the details of the mystery for the event, and has definitely stretched my sleuthing muscles in some exciting new ways. The unfortunate victim is a (fictional) fellow author, one Eunice K. Stoneheart, author of a series of cozies featuring a talking donkey. In my premise, Eunice is found the night before Books in Boothbay is to begin, lying prone beside a bloodied copy of Kate Flora’s Death Dealer. Murder most foul indeed. Eunice, naturally, was not without her enemies. She had announced recently that she intended to sell her books only in digital format going forward in order to save trees, and it had just been learned that she planned to stage a protest on the day of the Books in Boothbay event. Knowing Eunice’s predilection for spectacle and her litigious nature, those hosting the event were not pleased.

Additionally, Eunice was lobbying to have the narrator of her series — her own pet donkey, Louise — admitted as a member of Sisters in Crime. While this might have been laughable, Eunice had already secured a lawyer fully invested in moving forward with a lawsuit that would no doubt prove troublesome for the organization, if they did not comply. She had engaged fellow cozy writer (and Sisters in Crime New England Vice President) Edith Maxwell in a war of words over an incident Maxwell insisted had never happened (“I never touched her damn donkey, and I never would — what possible reason could there be for kicking a donkey? If it kicked me back, I’d be out of commission for months.”) Eunice had charged author Dale T Phillips with food poisoning, and had just announced a lawsuit against Maine Crime Writers’ own Kate Flora, charging her with reckless endangerment after Kate unwittingly brushed against the elderly Stoneheart with her grocery cart at the local Hannaford.

Clearly, many had motive.

If you’d like to try your hand at solving the crime, we’d love to see you. This year, Books in Boothbay will take place on Saturday, July 9, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Boothbay Railway Village. Authors — including many here at Maine Crime Writers — will be onsite to sign books, and the Railway Village truly is a beautiful place to spend a summer day. I hope we’ll see you there!

Jen Blood is author of the bestselling Erin Solomon Mysteries, as well as the soon-to-be-released 5-Day Fiction Guide to Creating Complex Characters. To learn more, visit www.jenblood.com.