Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 22

Blogs for You, for Me – What Shall it Be?

Blogs – For You, For Me – What shall it be? by Debra H. Goldstein

Do blogs make a difference? Do people still read them? I personally think so, but I’m not sure. The reality is we are all inundated with blog messages. How do you pick and choose which ones to follow or read?

During the past few months, my writing efforts have been devoted to blogs. I wrote forty-four leading up to the recent launch of One Taste Too Many, the first book in my new cozy series. Some were straight blogs about writing, some were responsive interviews where I explained my thought processes or motivation related to writing One Taste Too Many, and some were from the viewpoint of either my protagonist, Sarah Blair, or from RahRah, her pet cat.

It was interesting to see how my mood impacted what I wrote and how I employed different styles if the piece was intended to be serious or to have a funny or whimsical nature. Sometimes, I discovered writing in the third party, as RahRah, was completely freeing. He had no filter!

I enjoy It’s Not Always a Mystery because it lets me share personal thoughts, as well as writing related topics, and gives me an opportunity to introduce authors you might not otherwise be familiar with. Most importantly, it permits me to have a forum to say thank you to you for your support and friendship. I love what blogs let me do, but what do you want from them?

The post Blogs for You, for Me – What Shall it Be? appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blog: Sneaky Interviews Debbie De Louise

Sneaky Interviews Debbie De Louise for It’s Not Always a Mystery

Sneaky the Library Cat from the Cobble Cove mystery series here interviewing my author, Debbie De Louise, about our books and her other writing.

Hi, Debbie. Thanks for agreeing to this pawsome interview. Even though I’m one of your characters, there’s a lot I don’t know about you. May I ask how you came up with the idea for our books and how you created me as one of the characters?

Hello, Sneaky. That’s a great question. I’ve always loved animals especially cats, and I like to read and write about them. When I came up with the idea for A Stone’s Throw, the first book of the series, I created Alicia, the librarian, as the main character and thought it would be fun to pair her with a feline sidekick. Even though Sneaky doesn’t live with Alicia, she sometimes keeps him at her house when the library is closed. They’ve also formed a special bond throughout the four books of the series as Sneaky has helped Alicia in various ways in solving the mysteries or being involved in them somehow.

Regarding how I came up with the idea for the series, it’s hard to explain. It just all seemed to come together. I actually didn’t plan on a series with the first book, but I grew fond of the characters and, like you, they seemed to take on a life of their own and inspired me to continue their story.

That’s pawsome, Debbie. What are your plans for the next book in the series? I know you haven’t started it yet, and I’m curious. I also really want to know if my role’s going to change at all. I realize you introduced a female kitty in the latest book, Love on the Rocks. I didn’t like her at first, but then we worked together on that nasty kidnapping and murder case.

Well, Sneaky, it’s true I haven’t started the next book yet, but I have some ideas. If you recall, Alicia was offered the position of Director of the Cobble Cove library at the end of Love on the Rocks. I don’t want to give any spoilers because some people haven’t read all the books yet, but there’s never a shortage of mysteries in Cobble Cove. As for your role, I don’t plan on changing it much. You’ll still be top cat in the series, so don’t worry. The only change I may make is to have Fido, Mac’s dog, have a larger role in at least one upcoming book.

Sounds good. I like Fido. He’s a cool dog. Is there anything else you’d like to say about the books or about me (I love compliments)?

I’d just like to mention that the four books of the series are all available as eBooks and also print copies. They are also free to subscribers of the Kindle Unlimited program. They’re nice, clean reads with a touch of romance and a bunch of quirky characters and pets. You can find them on Amazon, and the paperbacks are on sale from a variety of sellers.

Thanks for that info. I hope more people will try our books. They won’t be disappointed. Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about the Cobble Cove mysteries or any of your other books, Debbie?

Yes, Sneaky. I have a character chat group on Facebook that’s hosted by one of the characters in my books each month. The January host is Oliver the cat from my mystery, Reason to Die. People can join the group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/748912598599469/

I also have a monthly author newsletter that I email with updates about my writing. This month, I’m featuring a newsletter survey for a $10 amazon gift card. Subscribers just need to fill out the survey before January 31. Here’s the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3ZZWZ2N

To subscribe to my newsletter, readers can complete the pop-up form on my website: https://debbiedelouise.com

Last, but not least, you will be helping me host a special Valentine’s Day Paw-ty on Facebook with other cozy mystery authors. The paw-ty will take place on Friday, February 8 from 12 noon to 9 pm EST. The event link to RSVP is: https://www.facebook.com/events/542490769487750/

That’s purrfect, Debbie. Thanks for sharing our paw-ty. It’s been sweet as catnip chatting with you. I can’t wait to be in your next book. Maybe you should list your social media links so more readers can follow you.

Great idea, Sneaky. Here they are:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.delouise.author/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Deblibrarian

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2750133.Debbie_De_Louise

Amazon Author Page: Author.to/DebbieDeLouise

The post Guest Blog: Sneaky Interviews Debbie De Louise appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Anne Louise Bannon – Covering Up

Covering Up by Anne Louise Bannon

I’ve always been a dialog kind of woman. When I’m writing, the conversations between characters always come first, and then the visual descriptions. In fact, I have two main characters that I’ve never actually described. So, while I have learned how to add the visual elements into my stories, there was one other visual that I’ve needed to be on top of – the cover.

You see, I’m what we’re calling an indie author these days. That means self-published, which also means I have to put a cover on anything I write. For a non-visual person, this has been quite a challenge. Even those covers I pay (and I do pay for some), I have to have a clear idea of what it should look like so that my cover designer has an idea of where to start.

For the covers I have to do myself, what I mostly need is a single image that can stand for what the book is about. It’s kind of like writing your elevator pitch, but only with a single image rather than a single sentence. And I have an additional challenge since most of the covers I do myself are for novels that I serialize on my blog, I also have to turn my cover image into a header that has a completely different aspect ratio.

For example, a book cover is generally narrower than it is tall – I make mine for a paperback that will eventually be eight inches tall by five inches wide. A header is way wider, say about six inches wide by an inch and a half tall. It can really throw your composition off, let me tell you.

As it happens, I’m starting the serial for the fourth novella in my Operation Quickline, my cozy spy series. Yes, I wrote a series of cozy spy novels/novellas, as in novels about a pair of spies that focuses on their lives and relationship and does not have a lot of graphic sex or violence. Okay, there is plenty of sex, but it all happens off-screen, so to speak.

The novel is Fugue in a Minor Key. My characters, Sid Hackbirn and Lisa Wycherly, bring Lisa’s nephew Darby to live at their place because Darby’s having some serious problems. Then an old girlfriend of Sid’s surprises him with a son he never knew about. Oh, and there’s a sting they’re trying to run on a bunch of guys stealing secrets from a local defense plant. Yeah, a lot going on.

For this particular series, I hit upon the idea of creating a rubber stamp effect on the title, kind of like a Top Secret stamp on a manila envelope. I used the envelope for the background of the second book in the series, Stopleak, and featured a box and strapping tape for the third book, Deceptive Appearances.

In Fugue, apart from the title, Sid and Darby are both musicians and that’s how they bond, so while there were plenty of manilla envelopes flying about, there were also several scenes where Sid and Darby are playing music together. So that’s how I decided to feature the envelope and some sheet music that I, uh, may have played around with. So the cover was mostly getting the text on in a balanced way, then laying out the envelope and the music.

The header was a bit harder. Truth be told, I’m not entirely happy with it, so it might change. But you didn’t hear me say that, right?

Learning how to do all this has not been easy, but it has been fun. And it’s also helped with how I see my writing. Beginning on January 18, I’ll be starting a new serial on my blog. Check it out at https://annelouisebannon.com/fiction .

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Anne Louise Bannon is an author and journalist who wrote her first novel at age 15. Her journalistic work has appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Wines and Vines, and in newspapers across the country. She was a TV critic for over 10 years, founded the YourFamilyViewer blog, and created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog with her husband, Michael Holland. She also writes the romantic fiction serial WhiteHouseRhapsody.com, Book One of which is out now. She is the co-author of Howdunit: Book of Poisons, with Serita Stevens, as well as author of the Freddie and Kathy mystery series, set in the 1920s, and the Operation Quickline series and Tyger, Tyger. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters.

The post Guest Blogger: Anne Louise Bannon – Covering Up appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Bryan Gruley – My Road to Fiction

My Road to Fiction by Bryan Gruley

I have wanted to be a novelist for as long as I can remember. I started dreaming about writing chapter books when I was reading Hardy Boys mysteries in second grade. But I didn’t publish my first novel until I was 51 years old.

That was ten years ago. Do I wish I’d started making things up earlier?

Flag me for rationalizing but, looking back, I want to think that things happened the way they should have. The truth is, I never lost sight of my dream. I just took a detour into journalism. Without it, I doubt I ever would have written any serious fiction (wildly assuming, of course, that you consider my made-up stuff serious).

When I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1979, I knew that I wanted to write. I had some fanciful ideas about writing short stories but neither the experience nor discipline to actually put them on paper. A friend of my mother’s gave me the David Halberstam book, The Powers That Be. It glorified journalists who were covering the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Pentagon Papers. I started applying to small newspapers, finally landing a job at the Brighton Argus, a weekly outside of Detroit.

Thirty years later, I was working at The Wall Street Journal in Washington, D.C., and feeling the itch to try novel-writing. My late pal, the writer Brian Doyle, told me that what I really wanted was to just sign books at my first reading. It was a jab; Doyle didn’t think I was serious about fiction. But I had a decent idea and wrote 25,000 words that my agent didn’t much like. There was a glimmer of hockey in that unfinished tale. My agent said, “Why don’t you write me a story about these middle-aged guys who play hockey in the middle of the night?” I immediately had an idea that would become my first novel, Starvation Lake.

It took me four years to write it. After twenty-six rejections, I had given up on getting that book published and was beginning to think about writing a different one. Then Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint offered me a three-book deal. I was on my way.

Reporting and writing non-fiction taught me a lot that I use to tell my imagined stories: Discipline. Deadlines. Organization. Research. Word economy. Dialogue. Narrative. Observation (not just sight and hearing, but smell and taste and touch). And respect for the wishes of readers who would prefer to have me blow up a car rather than ponder the meaning of life (or, for that matter, hockey).

More important, I spent a lot of years living before I even attempted my debut. Reporting stories gave me an extraordinary opportunity to interact on a deep level with a huge variety of different people on an equally diverse array of subjects. In retrospect, I don’t think there’s any way I could have written a coherent novel with the slightest trace of maturity when I was in my 20s or 30s. Not to mention that I was a little busy helping my wife Pam bring up our three children.

After my first three novels were published, I was starting my newest, Bleak Harbor, when my friend Doyle wrote me another note. “Maybe I am one of the few who can well imagine the thousands of hours of work that led to this – the thousands of pages, the thousands of hours of listening and poking and trying – the thousands of hours of dreaming and then carpentering the dream as best you could,” he wrote. “We wanted to be Writers, and then as we got smarter we wanted to be writers, and we damn well became writers, and this is a salute to the thousands of hours of carpentry.” I treasure those words.

My journalism career is winding down after nearly 39 years. I see that as a chance to crank up the truly fake news of my novels, using all the skills I learned writing non-fiction stories. For the record, I have yet to blow up a car in any of my novels. But I’m writing a new one, so who knows?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bryan Gruley is the critically acclaimed author of the crime fiction novel, BLEAK HARBOR (December 1, 2018; Thomas & Mercer), and the Anthony, Barry and Strand Award-winning author of the Starvation Lake mystery trilogy (STARVATION LAKE; THE HANGING TREE; and THE SKELETON BOX). A lifelong journalist, he is now a staff writer for Bloomberg Businessweek and is the recipient of numerous journalism awards including a shared Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks during his tenure with The Wall Street Journal. You can visit him at www.bryangruley.com.

The post Guest Blogger: Bryan Gruley – My Road to Fiction appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Angela M. Sanders – What Cozies Are About for Me

What Cozies Are About for Me by Angela M. Sanders

Until recently, I valued cozies as what they aren’t. They aren’t too disturbing or cruel. Even the murders are easy to stomach, especially surrounded by such warm and engaging characters. Cozies allow me to get away from the pain of the real world, which—in my view, anyway—worsens at a scary pace.

Recently, I had one of those “duh” moments, something so obvious that I called at least three friends to talk about it: I read not just to put the real world behind me, but to indulge in my id. Light mysteries are literary cupcakes. They’re packed with pleasure that resonates on a gut level. And, like cupcakes, I can’t get enough.

So, what do I mean by “id”? I mean more than simply the pleasure of a well told story, although that’s great, too. No, I mean all those goofy, wonderful details that fill light mysteries. I mean English manors, secret compartments, girls’ boarding schools, and attics full of Victorian dresses. I mean friendly dogs, mouthwatering scones, covens of protective witches, wise grandmothers, sassy grandmothers, and handsome sheriffs. Mean girls who get their comeuppance. Mousy women who undergo makeovers and become sirens. Bizarre hidden talents.

Then I looked at my own novels and realized I’d instinctively packed them with id. In the five Joanna Hayworth vintage clothing mysteries I have not only loads of beautiful old dresses, I’ve included a hidden stairwell, nuns, carnies, identical twins, possible ghosts, drag queens, old film stars, and many, many icy martinis.

In the Booster Club capers, action centers on a retirement home for petty criminals. (Why this stokes my id, I don’t know, but I love it.) The cast includes an ex-priest getaway driver, a nightclub singer turned blackmailer, a few safe crackers, an art forger, rescued Chihuahuas, and a cook who churns out a five-star beef burgundy in the cafeteria.

In my alter ego Clover Tate’s kite shop mysteries, I couldn’t resist a seaside setting and few big wind storms. I love reading and writing about thunder and lightning. Rock Point’s coffee shop spins jazz albums on the turntable, and the owner makes a fine tuna melt, because—you guessed it—buttery, toasty tuna melts appeal to me at my core. Finally, I adore a good fire, and I’ve burned down a few buildings in my novels at key dramatic moments because of it, including one in a kite shop mystery.

So, I’ve started a list of things that delight me on a gut level, with the hope that they’ll delight readers, too. Paris is on it, and so is a stolen bottle of rare perfume, a stubborn Siamese cat, and a nightclub in Paris’s catacombs. But that’s a story for another time.

What is on your id list? What things, situations, or characters do you always love reading about? Come on, I know at least one of you has a thing for characters with one blue and one brown eye….

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Angela M. Sanders writes the Joanna Hayworth vintage clothing mysteries and the Booster Club capers. As Clover Tate, she’s the author of a series of Kite Shop mysteries set in the coastal town of Rock Point, Oregon. When Angela isn’t at her laptop, she’s rummaging in thrift shops, lounging with a 1930s detective novel, or pontificating about how to make the perfect martini. www.angelamsanders.com.

The post Guest Blogger: Angela M. Sanders – What Cozies Are About for Me appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Angela M. Sanders – What Cozies Are About for Me (click here to leave or read comments)

What Cozies Are About for Me by Angela M. Sanders

Until recently, I valued cozies as what they aren’t. They aren’t too disturbing or cruel. Even the murders are easy to stomach, especially surrounded by such warm and engaging characters. Cozies allow me to get away from the pain of the real world, which—in my view, anyway—worsens at a scary pace.

Recently, I had one of those “duh” moments, something so obvious that I called at least three friends to talk about it: I read not just to put the real world behind me, but to indulge in my id. Light mysteries are literary cupcakes. They’re packed with pleasure that resonates on a gut level. And, like cupcakes, I can’t get enough.

So, what do I mean by “id”? I mean more than simply the pleasure of a well told story, although that’s great, too. No, I mean all those goofy, wonderful details that fill light mysteries. I mean English manors, secret compartments, girls’ boarding schools, and attics full of Victorian dresses. I mean friendly dogs, mouthwatering scones, covens of protective witches, wise grandmothers, sassy grandmothers, and handsome sheriffs. Mean girls who get their comeuppance. Mousy women who undergo makeovers and become sirens. Bizarre hidden talents.

Then I looked at my own novels and realized I’d instinctively packed them with id. In the five Joanna Hayworth vintage clothing mysteries I have not only loads of beautiful old dresses, I’ve included a hidden stairwell, nuns, carnies, identical twins, possible ghosts, drag queens, old film stars, and many, many icy martinis.

In the Booster Club capers, action centers on a retirement home for petty criminals. (Why this stokes my id, I don’t know, but I love it.) The cast includes an ex-priest getaway driver, a nightclub singer turned blackmailer, a few safe crackers, an art forger, rescued Chihuahuas, and a cook who churns out a five-star beef burgundy in the cafeteria.

In my alter ego Clover Tate’s kite shop mysteries, I couldn’t resist a seaside setting and few big wind storms. I love reading and writing about thunder and lightning. Rock Point’s coffee shop spins jazz albums on the turntable, and the owner makes a fine tuna melt, because—you guessed it—buttery, toasty tuna melts appeal to me at my core. Finally, I adore a good fire, and I’ve burned down a few buildings in my novels at key dramatic moments because of it, including one in a kite shop mystery.

So, I’ve started a list of things that delight me on a gut level, with the hope that they’ll delight readers, too. Paris is on it, and so is a stolen bottle of rare perfume, a stubborn Siamese cat, and a nightclub in Paris’s catacombs. But that’s a story for another time.

What is on your id list? What things, situations, or characters do you always love reading about? Come on, I know at least one of you has a thing for characters with one blue and one brown eye….

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Angela M. Sanders writes the Joanna Hayworth vintage clothing mysteries and the Booster Club capers. As Clover Tate, she’s the author of a series of Kite Shop mysteries set in the coastal town of Rock Point, Oregon. When Angela isn’t at her laptop, she’s rummaging in thrift shops, lounging with a 1930s detective novel, or pontificating about how to make the perfect martini. www.angelamsanders.com.

The post Guest Blogger: Angela M. Sanders – What Cozies Are About for Me (click here to leave or read comments) appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Lois Winston – An Interview Anastasia Pollack of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series

An Interview With Anastasia Pollack of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series by Lois Winston

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

Some people crave the spotlight. Me? I’m a private person who would prefer to live a quiet middle-class life on my quiet middle-class street in a quiet middle-class suburban New Jersey town. My name is Anastasia Pollack, and I’m the magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth of Lois Winston’s Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. I suppose I should be honored that I have a series of books written about me, but given that Lois continually drops me into the middle of murder and assorted mayhem, I would have preferred the option of telling her to pick on someone else.

As if that weren’t enough, she also pulled the carpet out from under my comfortable middle-class existence. Before Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, even opened, she killed off my husband. After he dropped dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas I discovered he’d been lying to me for years. He left me in debt equal to the GNP of many a Third World nation and with his loan shark breathing down my neck.

That’s awful! Let’s move on. Tell us about your family:

I have my author to blame for that as well. Without bothering to ask me, she moved my communist mother-in-law and Manifesto, her French bulldog, into my home. (I ask you, who names a dog after a communist treatise? I’ve taken to calling him Mephisto or Devil Dog, more apt monikers for the beast.) My teenage sons had to double up to give the commie a bedroom. That was bad enough, but author Lois Winston also gave me a much-married, self-proclaimed Russian princess for a mother and moved her into my home in-between each of her marriages. Mama came with her own pet, an enormous Persian cat she calls Catherine the Great. Needless to say, Mama and my mother-in-law get along as well as their pets. Luckily, thanks to events that unfolded in A Stitch to Die For, Book 5 in the series, Mama and Catherine the Great are now ensconced in their own condo. However, that doesn’t prevent Mama from constantly dropping in at mealtime.

Any other members of the household?

There’s also Ralph, the Shakespeare-quoting parrot I inherited from my great-aunt. Although he’s good for comic relief, there are days I wish I’d inherited her Royal Doulton china instead.

Why do you think that your life has ended up being in a book?

I blame it all on a conversation my author’s agent had with an editor several years ago. The editor was looking for crafting-themed cozy mysteries. At the time Lois was a published romance author, but she also worked as a crafts designer for publishers and kit manufacturers. So her agent thought she’d be the perfect writer for such a series. Can you imagine how different my life would be had Lois decided to keep writing romance?

You’ve certainly had it rough. Has your author given you any reason to get out of bed in the morning?

What?!? Avoiding eviction and the fear of ending up living in a cardboard box on the street isn’t enough of a reason to drag my butt to work each morning? However, I do have to admit, Lois isn’t a total sadist. She did allow hunky Zack Barnes to rent the apartment over my garage when she could just as easily have rented to a couple of rowdy college kids. So I do have to thank her for that. Zack and I have developed a relationship that grows with each book in the series. My kids are pushing us to get married, but after the fallout from my first marriage, I’m a bit of a commitment-phobe. Besides, Lois Winston being Lois Winston had to complicate matters. I seriously suspect that along with being a photojournalist, Zack is also a government agent, and the photography gig is merely a cover for his spy work.

Did you have a hard time convincing your author to write any particular scenes for you?

I’ve begged her for some steamy love scenes featuring Zack and me. I know she’s capable of writing them. I’ve read her romances. But she keeps denying my request. She says it’s all about reader expectations and the differences between the romance genre and the mystery genre. In cozy and amateur sleuth mysteries readers are more interested in the solving of the mystery. They don’t want mushy love scenes getting in the way. So Zack and I are limited to the occasional passionate kiss before Lois slams the bedroom door. And she’s made it clear she’ll continue slamming that door.

Is there anything you like about your author’s writing style?

As bad as I have it, thanks to Lois imbuing me with a sense of humor, I’ve been able to survive everything she’s thrown at me—at least so far. Can you imagine what my life would be like if she’d decided to write a series of dark mysteries?

If your story were a movie, who would play you?

Tina Fey, hands down. Publishers Weekly even compared me quite favorably to her Liz Lemon character from 30 Rock in their starred review of the first book in the series.

Tell us about your newest adventure:

Drop Dead Ornaments

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 7

Anastasia Pollack’s son Alex is dating Sophie Lambert, the new kid in town. For their community service project, the high school seniors have chosen to raise money for the county food bank. Anastasia taps her craft industry contacts to donate materials for the students to make Christmas ornaments they’ll sell at the town’s annual Holiday Crafts Fair.

At the fair Anastasia meets Sophie’s father, Shane Lambert, who strikes her as a man with secrets. She also notices a woman eavesdropping on their conversation. Later that evening when the woman turns up dead, Sophie’s father is arrested for her murder.

Alex and Sophie beg Anastasia to find the real killer, but Anastasia has had her fill of dead bodies. She’s also not convinced of Shane’s innocence. Besides, she’s promised younger son Nick she’ll stop risking her life. But how can she say no to Alex?

Buy Links

Amazon https://amzn.to/2MBo1xS

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/drop...

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/drop...

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/drop...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romanticsuspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Website: www.loiswinston.com

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter at https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Newsletter sign-up: https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/l...

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-...

 

The post Guest Blogger: Lois Winston – An Interview Anastasia Pollack of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Lois Winston – An Interview Anastasia Pollack of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series (click here to leave or read comments)

An Interview With Anastasia Pollack of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series by Lois Winston

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

Some people crave the spotlight. Me? I’m a private person who would prefer to live a quiet middle-class life on my quiet middle-class street in a quiet middle-class suburban New Jersey town. My name is Anastasia Pollack, and I’m the magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth of Lois Winston’s Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. I suppose I should be honored that I have a series of books written about me, but given that Lois continually drops me into the middle of murder and assorted mayhem, I would have preferred the option of telling her to pick on someone else.

As if that weren’t enough, she also pulled the carpet out from under my comfortable middle-class existence. Before Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, even opened, she killed off my husband. After he dropped dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas I discovered he’d been lying to me for years. He left me in debt equal to the GNP of many a Third World nation and with his loan shark breathing down my neck.

That’s awful! Let’s move on. Tell us about your family:

I have my author to blame for that as well. Without bothering to ask me, she moved my communist mother-in-law and Manifesto, her French bulldog, into my home. (I ask you, who names a dog after a communist treatise? I’ve taken to calling him Mephisto or Devil Dog, more apt monikers for the beast.) My teenage sons had to double up to give the commie a bedroom. That was bad enough, but author Lois Winston also gave me a much-married, self-proclaimed Russian princess for a mother and moved her into my home in-between each of her marriages. Mama came with her own pet, an enormous Persian cat she calls Catherine the Great. Needless to say, Mama and my mother-in-law get along as well as their pets. Luckily, thanks to events that unfolded in A Stitch to Die For, Book 5 in the series, Mama and Catherine the Great are now ensconced in their own condo. However, that doesn’t prevent Mama from constantly dropping in at mealtime.

Any other members of the household?

There’s also Ralph, the Shakespeare-quoting parrot I inherited from my great-aunt. Although he’s good for comic relief, there are days I wish I’d inherited her Royal Doulton china instead.

Why do you think that your life has ended up being in a book?

I blame it all on a conversation my author’s agent had with an editor several years ago. The editor was looking for crafting-themed cozy mysteries. At the time Lois was a published romance author, but she also worked as a crafts designer for publishers and kit manufacturers. So her agent thought she’d be the perfect writer for such a series. Can you imagine how different my life would be had Lois decided to keep writing romance?

You’ve certainly had it rough. Has your author given you any reason to get out of bed in the morning?

What?!? Avoiding eviction and the fear of ending up living in a cardboard box on the street isn’t enough of a reason to drag my butt to work each morning? However, I do have to admit, Lois isn’t a total sadist. She did allow hunky Zack Barnes to rent the apartment over my garage when she could just as easily have rented to a couple of rowdy college kids. So I do have to thank her for that. Zack and I have developed a relationship that grows with each book in the series. My kids are pushing us to get married, but after the fallout from my first marriage, I’m a bit of a commitment-phobe. Besides, Lois Winston being Lois Winston had to complicate matters. I seriously suspect that along with being a photojournalist, Zack is also a government agent, and the photography gig is merely a cover for his spy work.

Did you have a hard time convincing your author to write any particular scenes for you?

I’ve begged her for some steamy love scenes featuring Zack and me. I know she’s capable of writing them. I’ve read her romances. But she keeps denying my request. She says it’s all about reader expectations and the differences between the romance genre and the mystery genre. In cozy and amateur sleuth mysteries readers are more interested in the solving of the mystery. They don’t want mushy love scenes getting in the way. So Zack and I are limited to the occasional passionate kiss before Lois slams the bedroom door. And she’s made it clear she’ll continue slamming that door.

Is there anything you like about your author’s writing style?

As bad as I have it, thanks to Lois imbuing me with a sense of humor, I’ve been able to survive everything she’s thrown at me—at least so far. Can you imagine what my life would be like if she’d decided to write a series of dark mysteries?

If your story were a movie, who would play you?

Tina Fey, hands down. Publishers Weekly even compared me quite favorably to her Liz Lemon character from 30 Rock in their starred review of the first book in the series.

Tell us about your newest adventure:

Drop Dead Ornaments

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 7

Anastasia Pollack’s son Alex is dating Sophie Lambert, the new kid in town. For their community service project, the high school seniors have chosen to raise money for the county food bank. Anastasia taps her craft industry contacts to donate materials for the students to make Christmas ornaments they’ll sell at the town’s annual Holiday Crafts Fair.

At the fair Anastasia meets Sophie’s father, Shane Lambert, who strikes her as a man with secrets. She also notices a woman eavesdropping on their conversation. Later that evening when the woman turns up dead, Sophie’s father is arrested for her murder.

Alex and Sophie beg Anastasia to find the real killer, but Anastasia has had her fill of dead bodies. She’s also not convinced of Shane’s innocence. Besides, she’s promised younger son Nick she’ll stop risking her life. But how can she say no to Alex?

Buy Links

Amazon https://amzn.to/2MBo1xS

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/drop...

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/drop...

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/drop...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romanticsuspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Website: www.loiswinston.com

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter at https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Newsletter sign-up: https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/l...

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-...

 

The post Guest Blogger: Lois Winston – An Interview Anastasia Pollack of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series (click here to leave or read comments) appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger – Pat H. Broeske: ‘Tis the season to give it up for Frankenstein

‘Tis the season to give it up for Frankenstein by Pat H. Broeske

As a longtime Hollywood journalist with special interest in genre films and TV, I’ve gotten to interview a slew of famous frightmeisters – Vincent Price, Stephen King, George A. Romero, John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis instantly come to mind – so when Debra asked if I might like to contribute to her blog, I said, “Fangs!” Or rather, thanks! See, I couldn’t pass up the chance to give a shout-out to a supernatural mystery character who is a staple of the season, and one of the most compelling literary creations, ever. I’m talkin’ Frankenstein, who this year celebrates his 200th birthday.

Hard to believe that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was just 18 when she and her poet-philosopher companion-BF Percy Shelley (whom she later married), and friends including the poet-politician Lord Byron, famously gathered at Lake Geneva, where they competed to see who could author the scariest saga. Four years later, in 1818, Mary anonymously published “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.”

(Attesting to the power of the writing “prompt,” another attendee of that soiree, physician John William Polidori, went on to publish the short story “The Vampyre,” the great-granddaddy of vampire literature.)

Over the years Mary Shelley’s life and writings, including essays, short stories and biographies, have been celebrated and analyzed; she herself has been the subject of biographies, even feature films (including a recent dud). But if Mary, daughter of a philosopher and pioneering feminist, remains a woman of intrigue, her legendary creation towers over her. And not just because he’s eight-feet tall.

In fact, Shelley’s Gothic novel doesn’t actually give a specific name to the creature re-animated from dead body parts. The title refers to his scientist-creator. It was only with the passage of time that “the monster” came to be known by his master’s surname. Likewise, interpretations of the story have varied with the decades, during which he has emerged ubiquitous.

He’s been depicted as sensitive and eloquent, as a rampaging killer, as a haunted outcast rejected by his creator. Thanks to those crazies Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, he’s even donned top hat and tails to sing and dance to the irresistible tune, “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” (The latter via 1974’s “Young Frankenstein.”) You can find him and/or references to him in comics, graphic novels, video games, music videos, the toy industry, even breakfast cereals. (Franken-Berry, anyone?) Then there are all the books and short stories starring Frankenstein/Frankensteinian creations. And that’s just a short list. Heck, he’s even a verb! Ever find yourself “Frankenstein-ing” something, to alter its original make-up?

The enduring Frankenstein-fest owes much to Hollywood, and most influentially to Boris Karloff’s affecting performance in the 1931 classic, “Frankenstein.” (You might be surprised to know that the monster’s film debut came years earlier, in a 1910 short film from Thomas Edison starring Charles Ogle.) At an antiquarian book fair held earlier this year in Pasadena, Karloff’s daughter spoke about the fan letters sent to Universal Pictures by kids who identified with Karloff’s creature. “They knew what it was like to want to be accepted,” said Sara Karloff.

Boris Karloff went on to reprise his role in two more films (“Bride of Frankenstein” and “Son of Frankenstein”), while other actors stepped into those giant shoes in subsequent features including “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Yeah, filmmakers have been decidedly inventive when it comes to re-animating the creature for the screen. Consider: “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein,” “Frankenstein’s Daughter,” “Frankenstein Created Woman,” “Dracula vs. Frankenstein,” the sexy “Flesh for Frankenstein” (aka “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”) and the charming “Frankenweenie,” in which a grief-stricken boy resurrects his dead dog, Sparky. And there are lots more where those came from.

Same with the monster’s many manifestations – too numerous to count – on TV. (Gotta give a nod to the pater familias of “The Munsters.”)

Parodies, satires, romance, serious drama. The big guy has done it all. And he’ll doubtless continue his popular rampage. And to think it all started with a book, and a little inspiration. Who knows, maybe a bolt of lightning was also involved.

***

A Southern California native, Pat H. Broeske is an author-journalist-sometimes TV producer specializing in Hollywood & Crime. She is the co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of the best-selling biographies, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story and Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley. Her first fiction, the short story “The Fast and the Furriest,” featuring a Hollywood protagonist, was published last year in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Her website is at http://pathbroeske.com/

 

 

The post Guest Blogger – Pat H. Broeske: ‘Tis the season to give it up for Frankenstein appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger – Pat H. Broeske: ‘Tis the season to give it up for Frankenstein (click to leave or read comments)

‘Tis the season to give it up for Frankenstein by Pat H. Broeske

As a longtime Hollywood journalist with special interest in genre films and TV, I’ve gotten to interview a slew of famous frightmeisters – Vincent Price, Stephen King, George A. Romero, John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis instantly come to mind – so when Debra asked if I might like to contribute to her blog, I said, “Fangs!” Or rather, thanks! See, I couldn’t pass up the chance to give a shout-out to a supernatural mystery character who is a staple of the season, and one of the most compelling literary creations, ever. I’m talkin’ Frankenstein, who this year celebrates his 200th birthday.

Hard to believe that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was just 18 when she and her poet-philosopher companion-BF Percy Shelley (whom she later married), and friends including the poet-politician Lord Byron, famously gathered at Lake Geneva, where they competed to see who could author the scariest saga. Four years later, in 1818, Mary anonymously published “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.”

(Attesting to the power of the writing “prompt,” another attendee of that soiree, physician John William Polidori, went on to publish the short story “The Vampyre,” the great-granddaddy of vampire literature.)

Over the years Mary Shelley’s life and writings, including essays, short stories and biographies, have been celebrated and analyzed; she herself has been the subject of biographies, even feature films (including a recent dud). But if Mary, daughter of a philosopher and pioneering feminist, remains a woman of intrigue, her legendary creation towers over her. And not just because he’s eight-feet tall.

In fact, Shelley’s Gothic novel doesn’t actually give a specific name to the creature re-animated from dead body parts. The title refers to his scientist-creator. It was only with the passage of time that “the monster” came to be known by his master’s surname. Likewise, interpretations of the story have varied with the decades, during which he has emerged ubiquitous.

He’s been depicted as sensitive and eloquent, as a rampaging killer, as a haunted outcast rejected by his creator. Thanks to those crazies Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, he’s even donned top hat and tails to sing and dance to the irresistible tune, “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” (The latter via 1974’s “Young Frankenstein.”) You can find him and/or references to him in comics, graphic novels, video games, music videos, the toy industry, even breakfast cereals. (Franken-Berry, anyone?) Then there are all the books and short stories starring Frankenstein/Frankensteinian creations. And that’s just a short list. Heck, he’s even a verb! Ever find yourself “Frankenstein-ing” something, to alter its original make-up?

The enduring Frankenstein-fest owes much to Hollywood, and most influentially to Boris Karloff’s affecting performance in the 1931 classic, “Frankenstein.” (You might be surprised to know that the monster’s film debut came years earlier, in a 1910 short film from Thomas Edison starring Charles Ogle.) At an antiquarian book fair held earlier this year in Pasadena, Karloff’s daughter spoke about the fan letters sent to Universal Pictures by kids who identified with Karloff’s creature. “They knew what it was like to want to be accepted,” said Sara Karloff.

Boris Karloff went on to reprise his role in two more films (“Bride of Frankenstein” and “Son of Frankenstein”), while other actors stepped into those giant shoes in subsequent features including “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Yeah, filmmakers have been decidedly inventive when it comes to re-animating the creature for the screen. Consider: “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein,” “Frankenstein’s Daughter,” “Frankenstein Created Woman,” “Dracula vs. Frankenstein,” the sexy “Flesh for Frankenstein” (aka “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”) and the charming “Frankenweenie,” in which a grief-stricken boy resurrects his dead dog, Sparky. And there are lots more where those came from.

Same with the monster’s many manifestations – too numerous to count – on TV. (Gotta give a nod to the pater familias of “The Munsters.”)

Parodies, satires, romance, serious drama. The big guy has done it all. And he’ll doubtless continue his popular rampage. And to think it all started with a book, and a little inspiration. Who knows, maybe a bolt of lightning was also involved.

***

A Southern California native, Pat H. Broeske is an author-journalist-sometimes TV producer specializing in Hollywood & Crime. She is the co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of the best-selling biographies, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story and Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley. Her first fiction, the short story “The Fast and the Furriest,” featuring a Hollywood protagonist, was published last year in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Her website is at http://pathbroeske.com/

 

 

The post Guest Blogger – Pat H. Broeske: ‘Tis the season to give it up for Frankenstein (click to leave or read comments) appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.