Barbara Fradkin's Blog, page 19

Black Friday Thoughts

Margaret Mitchell at workSeveral years ago, a plot for a short, Black Friday story popped into my head. I don’t write horror or Die Hard type action fiction, but we don’t actually get a say in what ideas coalesce out of the amino acids of the ol’ mind soup. This idea was something like: An innocent bystander witnesses a murder in the parking lot of a mall on Black Friday and spends the next ten

Words of the Year 2024

 by Sybil JohnsonIt’s that time of the year again. No, I don’t mean Thanksgiving, though it is tomorrow. I’m busy prepping for that. No, I mean the time when the words of the year start rolling in. Here’s what’s going on so far. Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary, has been selecting a woty since 2003 when it chose democracy. They choose based on which words were most frequently

On Epilogues

By Charlotte Hinger In this blog I've complained about novels that have a beginning, a middle, and a middle. That's it! No end in sight. My husband once said he thought the author simply got tired of writing. It's a common enough phenomenon in literary short stories. Such tail-less tales are frequently published in a magazine I'm too cowardly to name. It specializes in absolutely

Watching People

 By Steve Pease / Michael Chandos   Our stories are about people. Not about the setting, the action, or the clues, but about the people living in the setting and involved in the action and creating the clues. About how the story affects them, and forces them to make desperate choices and bad decisions. Makes them consider Murder as a viable solution to their problems. The story is

In Memory

Friday I attended the Celebration of Life for Christine T. Jorgensen (1941-2024). I met Christine during my first Colorado Gold conference in 1994. She was incredibly gracious, poised, and welcoming to a wannabe writer like me. Christine was one of the founders of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and its first president. Over the course of her writing career, she published seven mystery novels.&

Rewrite Time

 I've finally finished the first draft of my new book, and have begun the rewrite. We've all heard many times that writing is rewriting, and anyone who's ever scribbled a page knows it's true. At least I've never met a literary Mozart, whose first draft is so perfect that it doesn't need any alteration. In fact, most authors I know, even very well known and accomplished authors, think of

A novel way to connect with readers

 This is a very quick post because I am already late with it and many other things need to be done. But I want to report on a very interesting a successful experiment that a group of local Ottawa authors tried yesterday. The first ever Ottawa Christmas Book Fair. It was the brainchild of enterprising Ottawa author Peggy Blair who pitched the idea in September and within a couple of days

I Hired a PI - the conclusion

 By Catherine DiltsMy previous post on Type M for Murder (11/5/24)described the events that led to hiring a real-life private investigator. Quickrecap – when my father passed, we needed to find his estranged step-son (let’scall him James, to protect his obviously highly treasure privacy), whowas included in the will. June 25 - First contact from me: “Hello Steve, I mentionedto you

It's the People You Meet

What’s the best part of this crazy writing life? It’s the people you meet. Way back in college in the 1980s, I met my friend, Mary Ann. She, too, wrote stories in notebooks. She, too, wanted to be a writer. We encouraged each other. We read each others’ work. When graduation day arrived, we stayed in touch. Almost forty years later, we are both still writing. We still read and encourage each

Thanksgiving Mysteries

 by Sybil JohnsonHalloween is behind us. Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is only a couple weeks away. Yet a lot of retailers are focusing, as usual, on Christmas. Poor Thanksgiving. It doesn’t get its due. In the cozy world, holiday themed mysteries are common. You’d think there would be more Thanksgiving themed ones than there are. After all, families get together, arguments ensue, etc.,