Barbara Fradkin's Blog, page 39

Blurbs and Front Material

 By Charlotte HingerThe publisher of my historical novel, Mary's Place, University of Nebraska Press, needs one of my blurbs by the end of this month. Luckily, one of the persons I've asked for comments had one ready to go right away. I don't mind being asked to write a blurb, but I hate to ask for them. It used to be my least favorite kind of writing was nudging an editor to respond to a

A Cautionary Tale

 "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . ."You probably remember this opening line from A Tale of Two Cities. That was the novel that Charles Dickens published in 1859. But the description of that era might  apply as well to our own era. There is no denying that we are having another bad year. Right out of the pandemic and ready to enjoy summer , , ,but now we have climate change

The Weather Report

Watermelon pie Donis here. I live in southern Arizona, so the weather report for the end of June is always the same. It's hot. The forecast for today is 105º F (40.56º C). They say it'll be 114ºF (45.55ºC) by Sunday and drop to a more manageable 110-ish after that. The average daily temp for the end of June in Phoenix is 106º. I understand it’s supposed to cool down to 102º by early next week.

Bye Bye Safety Deposit Boxes?

 by Sybil JohnsonI read a newspaper article not long ago about how Chase bank is phasing out safety deposit boxes (or safe deposit boxes, if you prefer. We’ll get to that bit in a minute.) Customers who have them can keep them as long as their branch remains open, but no new ones can be rented. If a branch closes, you won’t be able to rent a box at a different branch.That got me thinking about

Love a Good MacGuffin!!!

  In his last blog, Mario Acevedo mentioned a story device called a MacGuffin.What exactly is a MacGuffin? The term originated with Alfred Hitchcock who said, "In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers".If you read books, watch movies, or play video games, you most certainly have encountered a MacGuffin. It’s a plot device that motivates the

My Crystal Ball Needs Adjustment

 I have good news to share as Denver Noir won a Colorado Book Award. The anthology had a great roster of writers who each contributed an amazing story. Our editor Cynthia Swanson deserves shiny accolades for doing the heavy lifting in putting this collection together.As the title Denver Noir implies, the stories were set in the Denver area. Most were contemporary and a few had a historical

In celebration of writers' retreats, writing or not

 This will be a short post because I am spending four days at a "writers' retreat" with two of my close writer friends, Vicki Delany and RJ Harlick. We have been getting together two to three times a years for three or four days. Typically we go to Vicki's 140 year-old farm house in Prince Edward County, Ontario in June, to my lakeside cottage in late summer, and Robin's cabin in the Quebec

What Happened?

 by Charlotte Hinger    I'm finally back after a long absence. So here's what happened:On a long-planned and much anticipated trip to New York with two of my daughters, I ended up in the emergency room in New Rochelle due to an onslaught of sepsis and a rare strain of pneumonia. What a shock! In more ways than one. I was in the hospital from Saturday morning until late Tuesday night and hit with

Starting Something Completely Different...

 ...and wondering what the hell did I do that for?Donis here. I've started writing a book that is entirely different from anything I've had published before, and it's rather frightening. All twelve of my previously published books have been historical mysteries, which I love. I love research, and I love going back in time and living there with the natives for a while. My new manuscript is a

CCWC 2023 Recap

by Sybil JohnsonI spent last weekend at the California Crime Writers Conference in Culver City, California. It’s a 2-day conference held every other year, put together by the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime and the SoCal chapter of Mystery Writers of America. This is the first in-person CCWC since Covid. I haven’t heard the final stats, but I believe we had 160ish people there interested