Beth Groundwater's Blog, page 67

Authors for Adult Literacy

My publisher, Midnight Ink, recently made their authors aware of ProLiteracy, a nonprofit that champions the power of literacy to improve the lives of adults and their families, communities, and societies. As of today, there are over 30 million adults in the United States alone, and 774 million adults worldwide, who are illiterate. It's much more likely that the children of these people will also be poor readers, the effects of which are felt for generations.

I have recently signed their Stat...

Two Tantilizing Placeholders

Every now and then, I type my name into Amazon's or Barnes and Noble's search box to see how sales are going on my existing titles (the hardcover and large-print editions of A Real Basket Case, To Hell in a Handbasket, and The Epsilon Eridani Alternative), even though they've all been out awhile and on-line sales have dropped off. I was gratified and surprised when two new listings showed up on Amazon.

The first is the large-print edition of To Hell in a Handbasket, which will be released on O...

Researching Colorado Whitewater Rafting

Today I did some research for my Rocky Mountain Adventure mystery series by going rafting on a section of the Blue River of Colorado north of Silverthorne in Summit County. I had heard about how much fun this section of river is, but the water level is high enough for rafting for only a few weeks each June. During this time, the May snow melt has filled the Dillon Lake water reservoir so more water is released below the dam into the Blue. I was so excited that I was finally able to take a tri...

My mystery author guest: Elizabeth Spann Craig

As promised yesterday, mystery author Elizabeth Spann Craig is is visiting my blog today to answer interview questions. Above is a cover photo of Delicious and Suspicious, the first book in her Memphis Barbeque mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime, written as Riley Adams. Delicious and Suspicious will be released on July 6th. When a food scout from a cable cooking channel is murdered, it's only natural for restaurant owner Lulu Taylor to take it personally. After all, her barbeque restaura...

Tomorrow's Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Spann Craig

Tomorrow, mystery author Elizabeth Spann Craig (aka Riley Adams) will be a guest on my blog. Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque series for Penguin as Riley Adams, the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink under her own name, and blogs daily at Mystery Writing is Murder, which was named by Writer's Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010. Her latest book, Delicious and Suspicious, written as Riley Adams, releases July 6, 2010. As the mother of two, Elizabeth writes on th...

Avoiding Flooding during our Texas Hill Country Vacation

I've been off-line from the Internet for the past 10 days while vacationing in the Texas Hill Country, and I must say that being out-of-touch felt great, really great. Feeling rested and renewed, I'm now ready to plow back into the world of my electronic friends with a summary of our trip. My husband and I spent a week at the Silverleaf Hill Country Resort at Canyon Lake, and my son and his college roommate joined us for three nights and two days of their Utah/Nevada/Texas road trip. Later, I...

Blogging about Writing Prompts

Today over at Inkspot, the multi-author blog for Midnight Ink authors, I'm talking about "My Four One-Word Writing Prompts." This is a cheat-sheet note with four words on that I keep stuck on my computer monitor to remind me of key elements to include in my scenes. Please visit and comment on what writing prompts YOU use. Also, I included a photo of my writing workspace with the post.

What is DorothyL?

DorothyL is an email discussion list for lovers of the mystery genre, which includes readers, reviewers, librarians, authors, bloggers, conference organizers, and more. It was created by a group of librarians at a July 1991 Washington, D.C. meeting of the Association of Research Libraries and named in honor of one of the world's greatest mystery writers, Dorothy L. Sayers.

I am one of the thousands of subscribers to the list, and I read it avidly. Usually I learn at least one new thing about ...

Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend

After many weeks of putting off the inevitable, my husband took our beloved dog, Blackie, to the Humane Society today to be put to sleep. She was fourteen and a half years old, mostly deaf and arthritic, had failing kidneys and liver, and was on painkillers, but what finalized the decision was her loss of bowel and bladder control. And it was at the worst possible time, when our house was on the market and had to be clean and "show-ready" at all times.

We adopted Blackie from the Humane Socie...

My Second Author Blurb for Deadly Currents

My Midnight Ink editor and I are in the process of asking authors we admire and who write similar books to my new Rocky Mountain Adventure mystery series to read the manuscript for the first book in the series, Deadly Currents, to be released March 2011, to consider giving it a blurb. On April 9th at the Inkspot blog for Midnight Ink authors, I posted an article about how difficult it is to ask for blurbs and celebrated obtaining my first one from Margaret Coel, a friend and fellow Colorado m...