Lea Wait's Blog, page 45

Yes Indeed, We Are What We Read

I was delighted to be asked to participate in this month’s edition of the terrific video blog WE ARE WHAT WE READ.

The episode was released yesterday. The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhsZxFPN18k

WE ARE WHAT WE READ is a gratitude project of award-winning book reviewer Kristopher Zgorski, who’ll be honored with the Amelia Award at the Malice Domestic Mystery Convention this coming spring for his countless contributions to the crime writing community. In addition to his must-read blog BOLO Books, Kristopher and his reviewing colleague Dru Ann Love recently became published authors themselves when their co-written short story Ticket To Ride was published in Happiness Is A Warm Gun, an anthology of stories inspired by Beatles songs.

The co-host of WE ARE WHAT WE READ is Shawn Reilly Simmons, an award-winning author of nine novels, more than twenty short stories, who also is president and managing editor of Level Best Books.

Kristopher and Shawn invite a group of crime writers to gather on Zoom each month to discuss a book that moved them. The only rule is that the book must have been written by someone else.  Otherwise, the writers have complete freedom to choose a book to recommend to viewers.

It’s been fascinating to see the variety of books folks have chosen over the eight episodes of the vlog. Historical and contemporary, traditional mysteries and thrillers, long or short. Some presenters talked up a book they first read 25 years ago. Others have highlighted one they finished last month. The only requirement is that they loved the book and would like to share it with friends.

The other writers who participated in the December episode would make anyone’s all-star team: Anjili Ferris Babbar, Alafair Burke, Vicky Delaney, Carol Goodman, Kate Jackson and Gigi Pandian. They talked about wonderful books, some of which I’ve read, others I’ll be seeking out.

If you’re looking for holiday gift ideas, this episode of WE ARE WHAT WE READ is rich with ideas.

As for my book, I chose LIGHT ON BONE by Kathryn Lasky, which won the 2003 Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Set in New Mexico in the 1930s, it features painter Georgia O’Keefe as an amateur sleuth.

You’ll have to tune in to hear more about why I chose this book, but I recommend it, and the video blog WE ARE WHAT WE READ, without reservation.

 

Brenda Buchanan brings years of experience as a journalist and a lawyer to her crime fiction. She has published three books featuring Joe Gale, a newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. She is now hard at work on new projects. FMI, go to http://brendabuchananwrites.com

 

Such a Good Man

Kate Flora: It’s serendipity, given the way our monthly blog post schedule works, that I get to blog today. The timing is perfect, though, because tomorrow my eighth Joe Burgess police procedural, Such a Good Man, debuts. It’s kind of amazing to me that the series has reached Book 8, with another one in the plotting stage.

My original plan for the series was a quartet with one book set in each of the four seasons. Playing God begins on an icy February night. The Angel of Knowlton Park opens on a hot July morning. Redemption begins on Columbus Day weekend, and And Grant You Peace takes place in the spring. While I was planning to move on to something new, my readers had other plans. They wanted more Joe Burgess. I said, “But the four seasons,” and was told that Maine had lots of seasons: black fly season, tourist season, hunting season, mud season. I didn’t need to stop.

The truth was that I wasn’t ready to move on. For many of us who write series books, our characters become part of our lives. Sometimes we spend so much time with them we feel bereft when the book is done. I believe it was for The Angel, that I had had two different plots in mind–one for a Thea Kozak mystery and the other for a Burgess. Since I couldn’t decide which one to write, I decided I would sit down at the keyboard on January 1st and see which book demanded to be written first. The Angel won. Spurred on by a frequent remark by patrons at library events that “I’ve always wanted to write a book, and sometime, when I have a free weekend, I’ll write one,” I decided to see how fast I could write a book.

I spent four months doing little besides writing. I’d write eight to ten hours a day. I used up so many words that when I was done, I was useless for conversation because my store of words was depleted. And then, when I was done, it was as though my characters, who had become my closest friends,  suddenly abandoned me. I missed them so much I had to start the next book to bring them back again.

Knowing where to begin a book is a perpetual challenge for writers. I often tell my students “begin as close to the action as possible.” Don’t waste time on the set-up unless you can do it fast. The goal is to pull the reader into the story with a mystery, a situation that piques their curiosity, a character who intrigues them, and then hold them there. Such a Good Man begins:

For once, the call hadn’t come in the middle of the night or in foul weather. It had come in on a sunny, end of September morning at a civilized hour when Burgess had already had his coffee. A homicide detective learned to be grateful for small things. As he stepped through the door into the neat and airy condo, he had something else to be grateful for: the place didn’t reek of  decomposition, and the air wasn’t buzzing with flies. 

We know what’s not there and now need to discover what is that has called out a homicide detective.

From the back of the book:

When Dr. Eliot Spence is found dead in his pristine condo, Detective Joe Burgess and his team must delve behind his glossy facade to reveal the doctor’s insatiable desires, his wife’s mysterious death, and a cache of revealing photos.

As Burgess and his colleagues strive to uncover the truth about the man whose colleagues described as a dedicated and compassionate doctor, they unearth a web of intrigue, shocking family secrets, and hidden agendas, testing their ability to separate fact from fiction.

While the detectives try to unravel the enigmatic world surrounding Dr. Spence, their own personal lives are under pressure as demands from their  families threaten to derail the investigation, testing their determination–and ability–to bring justice to a man who seemed “Such a Good Man.”

Such a Good Man 

ISBN: 978-1-64457-254-2

A reminder: Each holiday season, I write a holiday story and post it on my website. This year’s isn’t up yet, but you can read the others at http://www.kateclarkflora.com 

I hope you enjoy them.

Weekend Update: December 2-3, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kate Flora (Monday), Brenda Buchanan (Tuesday), John Clark (Thursday) and Jule Selbo (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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

 

Nine Lords A-Leaping

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today writing about how I came to invent “the Twelve Shopping Days of Christmas” for my 2009 cozy mystery, A Wee Christmas Homicide. This was to be the third book in a three-book contract for the Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries, and my editor had requested a Christmas book. Since I had no guarantee that the publisher would want more books in the series, I was ready to pull out all the stops.

I don’t outline, but I did have to come up with a short and rather vague synopsis as a requirement for getting approval to actually write the book. Initially, I had two things in mind for the story. First was that Liss, who runs Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium in the tiny village of Moosetookalook, Maine, would discover that she has in stock the toy every kid wants that Christmas. “Tiny Teddies” are miniature bears wearing various costumes. Liss bought a supply of the ones in kilts for her shop. At the time, she had no notion how popular they would become. Or that someone might kill to possess one.

My second idea was to use “The Twelve Shopping Days of Christmas” as a way to turn Liss’s windfall into a promotional opportunity for the entire community. Two other shops in Moosetookalook also have a few of the precious toys to sell, so together they get busy organizing a parade, an auction, a pageant, and other events. I had a lot of fun with this, and found plenty of opportunities to insert humor into the tale. For one thing, Liss ends up having to keep doves, hens, geese, and “calling birds”—parrots—in the storeroom at the Emporium. One of them is a particular trial. Chapter Three ends with this sentence, still a favorite of mine: “Polly hungry,” the parrot screeched, sounding even more irritable than before. “Gimme the f—ing cracker!”

Recruiting enough (bag)pipers isn’t as easy as Liss thought it would be, either, but it does give her an opportunity to further her relationship with state trooper Gordon Tandy, pitting him against her other love interest, Dan Ruskin. I never intended to let this triangle last long, so the subplot of A Wee Christmas Homicide also sets up the idea that, when she’s with Gordon, Liss too often lets her impulses override her better judgment. In particular, a chase scene on snowmobiles has consequences.

I’ve always been fond of the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and one of my favorite jigsaw puzzles shows scenes from all twelve days. That said, I inadvertently set Liss up for a major blooper, one that, strangely, no one seems to have caught. At least no one wrote to me to point it out. I only caught it myself after the book came out and by then my only recourse was to have Liss, two books later, joke about her terrible memory for lyrics.

Have you spotted it yet? Take a look at the title of this post. Liss (and I) had nine lords a-leaping and ten ladies dancing—the reverse of what’s actually in the song! Oh, well. Good for a laugh, right?

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. 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. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

Never Waste A Word

John Clark, weighing in of an interesting insight…No writing is necessarily wasted. The story that was recently selected by the Principal Foundation and garnered me a $250.00 honorarium, was originally written for one of the flash fiction contests that are part of the Maine Crime Wave. Likewise, the story that was featured last month for Halloween Mystery Rat’s Maze podcast was one I wrote for a Halloween liquor spooky story contest a year ago.

This year, I missed the deadline for the Maine Crime Wave flash fiction contest because I was wrapped up in other projects. Therefore, I’m using it for my November MCW post. Hope you like it.

I was on my hands and knees scrubbing up blood in the entry when the doorbell rang. “Can you get it?” I hollered before remembering I’d given Lou the day off. Good help was impossible to keep, so I treated my only employee with kid gloves.

Whoever was outside the clinic entrance started banging on the door. I tossed the sponge in the pail and stood. “I’m coming, dammit.”

It was Phil at my front door and I wondered how he’d managed to get here without Blackie. You never saw one without the other. I unlocked it and could tell he was terribly worried about something. “Blackie in trouble again?”

Phil nodded and looked meaningfully at my van.

“I’ll be right back.” I hurried to my work area, retrieving a folding scalpel and the only gun I owned. I knew something bad must have happened to my uncle, but these were the only weapons I had, so they’d have to do.

Phil followed me to my van and got in when I opened the passenger door.

“We going to camp?” I asked.

Phil nodded and I exited my driveway heading north, wondering what pickle my eighty-nine year old uncle might have gotten into this time. I thought by now, he’d run out of stupid ideas. After a forty year career as a merchant marine, coupled with so many semi-shady schemes to make a buck that I’d lost track, you’d think he would have learned to cool his heels and enjoy the oversized cottage he owned on Bristow Lake. Well, I’d soon find out.

I debated calling 911, but decided to wait. If whatever jackpot Blackie had stumbled into was illegal, the last thing either of us needed was getting hauled into the sheriff’s office. Neither my practice nor his heart would benefit from such an experience.

The closer I got, the tighter I gripped the wheel. I had visions ranging from finding the camp a smoldering pile of ashes, to his skinny frame lying broken and bloody under the attic window. At least I didn’t have to worry as much about my parents. They were safely ensconced in a fancy assisted living facility in Florida.

Phil was staring ahead as if he could see what we were about to find, but then, he already knew what awaited us.

The camp looked fine when we arrived. I hopped out and Phil climbed across to exit on my side.

“Blackie?” I hollered and heard a faint cry for help coming from inside.

The door was open, heightening my anxiety. I searched the lower floor with no success. I found Blackie with the most embarrassed look in his upstairs bathroom.

“Smartest dog you ever treated. Damn glad you let me adopt him” he said, patting Phil on the head. “My ass got too skinny and I’m stuck. Can you free me, Dr. Billings?”

My career as a veterinarian included many things, but this topped them all.

Genre Snobbery

Charlene D’Avanzo: During a Thanksgiving visit at a relative’s home I came to the conclusion that my host was likely a fiction snob. There were a hundred-odd titles in several bookcases but nary a one appeared to be fiction.

I’ve written a half-dozen mysteries so that realization came as a shock, and I’m clueless what to do about it – if anything. Maybe I’ll send them a copy of Secrets Haunt the Lobsters’ Sea or another in my Maine oceanographer Mara Tusconi series as a Christmas present. We’ll see.

A valid critique of fiction snobbery points out the obvious – weighty books such as Macbeth, The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Catcher In The Rye are all fiction. The collection of all time best selling books also includes The Catcher in the Rye (65 million copies), The Alchemist (65 million copies), and One Hundred Years of Solitude (50 million copies). Of course, the list goes on.

I’ve read that a reader’s repertoire can be called an ecosystem of books that requires a certain level of diversity to thrive. As a ecologist, I think that is a terrific analogy.

Here are a few tips on how to spot a genre snob and what to do about it. For example, the literary elitist may:

– believe genre fiction is less serious and of worse quality than literary – say things like “popular fiction entertains the masses while literary fiction challenges the mind”
– read only literary fiction – no commercial genres
– never read a self-published book or a best seller
– never read feel good books with happy endings

The response:
– The distinction between popular and literary fiction is arguably false and something of a publishers’ marketing exercise.
– I would rather see people read anything, than not read at all. Read what you like and don’t let book snobs stop you. People are entitled to like what they enjoy. It is great to read.

– On the other hand one could argue that some books are “better” than others. A good novel tells a story honestly, without falling into clichés or wish- fulfillment. It subtly changes the reader without hitting her over the head with a “message.” It makes her want to examine the book, the world, and herself more closely.

Given these attributes no genre is worthless and none is flawless.

Maine Authors for Lewiston: A way to show your support

Since the October 25 shootings in Lewiston that killed 18 and seriously injured 13 people from across central Maine, there’s been an outpouring of support. But that doesn’t mean more isn’t needed.

If you are still looking for a way to give, or already have, but still want give, more than 80 Maine authors, in partnership with 10 libraries, are hosting Maine Authors for Lewiston events through December 16.

Many of the families of those who were killed, as well as those who were critically injured, face long, painful journeys that will still be a struggle for them long after everyone else has moved on. There’s no such thing as too much support.

The events are simple — up to 20 or more authors will be at each site selling books, with each author donating a portion of their proceeds to charities that support Lewiston shooting victims and their families. As fellow Maine Crime Writer Kate Flora is famous for saying, “Books make great gifts!” And by buying one — or more! — you can also help support victims and their families Lewiston, Auburn and many other communities.

The libraries hosting the events should have information on their websites listing what authors they are hosting.

I will be in Ellsworth, Auburn, Camden and Lewiston. Fellow Maine Crime Writer Dick Cass will be in Gorham, and Matt Cost will be in Kennebunkport, Gorham and Bath.

Hope to see you there! The schedule is:

 

 

 

Weekend Update: November 25-26, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maureen Milliken (Monday), Charlene D’Avanzo (Tuesday), John Clark (Thursday) and Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Friday).

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

The judges had a very hard time this year picking winners for our “Where Would You Put the Body” contest and wanted to pick all the submissions as winners. It was a fabulous crop of submissions.

Here are the Winners:

From Shelley Burbank:

with the following description (and excellent writing prompt):

In the attic of this creepy house in Farmington, Maine. I would make this an old sorority house from when UMF was Farmington State Teacher’s College in the 1960s. New owners buy the house to fix it up and turn it into a crime writers retreat center…and discover a body in the attic dressed in a moth-eaten sorority sweater. Who was this girl? Why was she murdered? Will the killer come out of “retirement” to stop the investigation?

From Jeff Cutler:

In among the ruins of Fort Popham in Phippsburg, ME. The loose rocks and crumbling facade would make it easy to stuff a body in a corner where only the young eagles (pictured) could pick at it until the bones are dry and brittle.

And from Louisette Castonguay:

Once heard of a Gangsta’ fixer who said he knew of places to “hide a car” in the Maine woods where no one would ever find the body. I’ve occasionally seen cars seemingly abandoned, since then, on little side roads, and thought of this.

Congrats to our winners. Please send your snail mail addy to writingaboutcrime@gmail.com to receive your prize.

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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Thanks and Giving by Matt Cost

What is Thanksgiving? The history dates to a feast shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people in 1621. As history is merely an interpretation of the past, the exact dates and how it all went down are all a bit vague. The spirit in which it is celebrated revolves around the first successful harvest after the first difficult winter for the Pilgrims that decimated their group of a hundred to merely fifty survivors.

The first national proclamation of Thanksgiving was issued by the Continental Congress in 1777 and was observed by General Washington to honor the defeat of the British at Saratoga. The observation of this day flittered around for another nearly hundred years until the mid-point of the Civil War when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that the final Thursday of November to be day of thanks and giving, replacing Evacuation Day, which had been a yearly celebration of the day the British left America following the Revolutionary War.

In 1939, President Roosevelt changed Thanksgiving to a week earlier in an attempt to give merchants a longer period of time to sell their goods before the Christmas Holidays and a few years later Congress ratified that it would be observed on the fourth Thursday of November. Twenty years ago, we changed it to the fourth FRIDAY in an effort to gather family together outside of other commitments.

Turkey has long been a Thanksgiving mainstay, but that like everything else, is fluid and adaptable to personal preference, taste, and attainability. In the book The Martian, Mark Watney celebrates very happily with potatoes, the first real food he has had in some time. The tradition, food, and spirit of Thanksgiving is relative to each individual and their reality of the moment.

Traditions of Thanksgiving are parades and football. The Macy’s Parade dates back to 1924 and football games have been a staple of this day since the inception of the National Football League. The president has received a turkey every year since 1873, mostly for marketing purposes. John F. Kennedy was the first president to pardon the turkey when he said he wasn’t going to eat the bird. George Bush made it official in 1989 and every president has followed suit since.

The spirit of Thanksgiving is what can be celebrated by all. I believe that the day holds a different meaning for all people. It can be a religious observance, a celebration of America, or simply a nod of thanks for the gifts we are bestowed and the ability to give to those less fortunate than ourselves.

For whatever it means to you, Happy Thanksgiving.

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published five books in the Mainely Mystery series, with the fifth, Mainely Wicked, just released in August of 2023. He has also published four books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, with the fifth, Pirate Trap, due out in December of 2023.

For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. In April of 2023, Cost combined his love of histories and mysteries into a historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, Velma Gone Awry. City Gone Askew will follow in April of 2024.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.

Amateur Hour

In 1985, David Halberstam wrote a small lovely book called The Amateurs, chronicling the work and sacrifice of four American Olympic-class scullers. Given the subaqueous profile of their sport, none of these athletes had any prospect of extrinsic reward. Even Olympic medals are not real gold. The achievable end of their physical pain and dedication was exquisitely symbolic. So why did otherwise intelligent and ambitious people endure indifference, ignorance, daily pain, and all the markers of stalled –out personal and professional lives? For love.

Love, to love, amare, is the Latin root of amateur. And doing something for its own sake, not for profit or attention or glory of others, is the mark of a lover. An amateur craves the gift of the activity more than the outcome and the activity is somehow purified by the lack of reward. Amateurs do it, whatever they do, for the love.

I like my work, even the boring and tedious parts, and can lose myself in it with joy, but I’ve never enjoyed publicizing, selling, “branding” myself in the hope of more success. I’d rather spend the time being a writer than an author. Which leads me to suspect I might be an eternal amateur.

I come to the state honestly.

Mark Twain once said: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

From the time I established myself, my work and my passions, as separate from my father’s, I’ve appreciated the truth in that. But knowing how sons push back at what our fathers stand for, I’m surprised to see how much I resemble the man I pushed against so hard when I was a boy.

The year my parents marriage turned fifty, I took my father striped bass fishing off of Cape Cod. I knew he’d been to the Orvis School for fly-casting instruction the year before but I didn’t know how much had taken.

As I feared, watching the fly line whistle back and forth, a weighted Clouser once or twice conking our guide, he hadn’t learned much. But we were deep in a school of bass and I was too busy with my own gear to pay much attention to what was going on aft, except I was aware of the flailing and some mild curses, his, not the guide’s.

“Ha!” I heard finally and turned to look.

Terry, the guide, was helping him gingerly unhook a toothy but very small bluefish.

“Got the little bastard.”

“Emphasis on the little,” I jabbed.

But the beatific smile beneath his hat was enough to warm the cold windy ride back to Plymouth. He’d come to his fishing day without expectation of reward and been pleased. And that day I learned that being an eternal amateur was an honorable legacy, that not having to be an expert at everything meant not needing more and bigger successes every time.

If amateurism is rooted in love, it also springs from a passionate curiosity. One of my best friends built a national consulting business around athletic shoes: manufacture, styles and trends, financial and corporate analyses of the companies that make and sell them. It’s a serious business, even if it doesn’t sound like one – he’s been called the Sneaker King – and he’s the preeminent expert in his niche. He traveled a lot, found the work consuming and interesting, and it made him plenty of money.

So why, on Thursday afternoons, does he drive to a rickety white house on the edge of a university campus and broadcast a volunteer radio show presenting funk music? Passion – he may be an amateur in  the music and the radio ‘businesses,’ but he’s passionate about the music, curious about its history, its players, development.

I bring all this up because at eighty-six my father, the erstwhile fisherman, taught himself American Sign Language. For no particular reason – he didn’t want to stand up in front of his church and translate the service for members of his congregation. He hadn’t made new friends who were deaf. He wasn’t simply keeping himself busy: he had water aerobics, the food committee, the woodshop. He was doing it for the best of all reasons – he got curious about it.

As anyone who’s lived to eighty-six knows, curiosity doesn’t kill any cats – if anything, it feeds them. If anything, it’s certainty that kills things.

As a society, we revere specialty. We respect what appears to be a deep expertise in almost anything: business, financial, athletic, even romantic. But that kind of monomania requires certainty – you must always know you are on the right path, that nothing outside the path is interesting or can contribute to achieving your goals.

Curiosity is the dead opposite of certainty. It is the acknowledgement there are things we don’t already know that might be important, useful, or even just interesting. Curiosity is fed by that attitude of perpetual amateurism: what happens if I do it this way? Why is this like that? Why do we have to think this way?

Certainty takes things and people for granted. Curiosity is the daughter of doubt. We could use a little doubt, a little less certainty we know everything we need to know.

There is, after all, only one important certainty, that we die. When and what happens after, who knows? And who cares, really? And this thing we should be so certain of is the one thing we pretend will not happen to us. That itself is a strong enough argument against too much certainty.

So if we’re uncertain about what we ought to be certain of, maybe we also show too much certainty around things we cannot or should not pretend are knowable: relationships, politics, religion.

A politician is always a fat dumb easy target, but most politics is nothing more than certainty carried to a ridiculous degree, when even an individual’s positions can become mutually exclusive. Our politicians are certain evolution is a hoax, that old white men know best what women should do with their bodies, that homosexuality is an abomination (unless their son or daughter comes out).

All this certainty makes me yearn for a citizen legislature again, underpaid, supported by its own work outside the body. As messy and inefficient as it is – and I’ve seen the New Hampshire one at work, so I know – can our current governing bodies claim more success? Maybe amateurism can return some joy to the process – letting people with passion serve, the curious, the open-minded. Let’s bring back that perpetual amateur: in love with the work for its own sake, the process and the product, competent without being narrow, curious for what he or she knows and, most especially, does not.