Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 9

Kirkwood by the River – July 28, 2023

“From Kid to Judge to Author” – a book talk at 3:30 p.m.

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Guest Blogger: G.P. Gottlieb – Have You Always Wanted to Write a Book?

Have you Always Wanted to Write a Book?  

I could never get above a B in Honors English. My family had moved to a ritzy suburb, and I’d transferred from a rougher, less prestigious high school into a swanky one where girls wore matching shoes and purses. I wore army fatigues and boots. The kids weren’t mean, but they weren’t friendly. I was so swept up in having my own bedroom, I could usually forget about not fitting in at school, but nearly every day, I was derailed by the English teacher’s disdain.

That honors English class was comprised of the school’s elite, the ones who knew they’d go on to run companies, dazzle juries, amass fortunes. They came from a rarified world in which I clearly didn’t belong. My one friend would listen to me grumbling on the way to the next class, and scheme to help me write a comment of such depth and perception for the required discussion, that the English teacher would be forced to acknowledge me.

That never happened, but I didn’t write anything for years. After high school, I went to college and grad school, married, had kids, got divorced, met someone wonderful, remarried, and went back to work. When my 9-year-old daughter went off to her first sleepaway camp, I wrote long letters in which she was the heroine in an exciting, ongoing adventure.

In each installment, she was being shuffled around the country by kidnappers who made her perform in their traveling theater company. I’d show up to rescue her by the end of each letter, but just as we were about to escape, the kidnappers would snag her back so they could exploit her huge talent (In the story, she could sing and dance like Shirley Temple, whose movies she adored).

We moved to another state, and while raising kids and working part-time, I continued writing songs and poems, stories, and complaint letters. I was particularly good at those. I also began writing a novel and spent several years creating a nearly incoherent mishmash of unnecessary characters with a plot that resembled overpasses on a congested superhighway. It was a mess because I kept detouring into unimportant side stories that had nothing to do with the story’s arc. Maybe my high school English teacher had been right, and my writing really was just mediocre.

Then, one day in 2016, I read an astounding editorial in the Chicago Tribune by S.L. Wisenberg, author, and teacher. She’d taught writing at several of the city’s most prominent universities, knew how to make sure every word was precise, every chapter pushed the story forward, and every story flowed in a giant arc. With her help and several years of rewriting, my manuscript transformed until it was ready to be submitted, accepted, and published.

I needed less help with my second book, because my editor had already taught me so much, and by the time I began writing my third book, I knew what I was doing. S.L. Wisenberg had given me back the confidence that the high school English teacher had knocked out of me.

When aspiring authors ask me how I managed to write three novels this late in life, I tell them that I try not to let naysayers stop me anymore. I tell them that if they’ve always wanted to be an author, then find a good editor, be prepared to learn something, and keep at it. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t write, or who won’t give you above a B.

G.P. Gottlieb is the author of Charred: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery (D.X. Varos Publishing 2023), the third in her culinary mystery series. She is host for New Books in Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network, and has interviewed nearly 200 authors. You can read more about her at gpgottlieb.com.

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It’s Not Always a Mystery – But it’s Always a Puzzle! by Valerie Burns

Debra, thanks for inviting me to “It’s Not Always a Mystery.”

 I’ve loved mysteries since I read my first Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew books many moons ago. When I picked up my first Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Akroyd, I fell head over heels in love. I jumped into the deep end of the cozy mystery world and never looked back. What is it about cozies? Good question.

First, what’s a cozy mystery? Cozies are a subgenre of crime fiction. These books typically feature a female sleuth who is solving a crime. Think Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. Cozies are usually set in a small town (although this is changing). They don’t have graphic violence, explicit sex, or bad words. Seriously, can you imagine J.B. Fletcher dropping the F-bomb? Me either. Typically, cozies are lighter and are often themed. There are culinary cozies, bookshop cozies, library cozies, cat cozies, dog cozies, and pretty much any theme you can imagine. But, the heart of a cozy, just like all crime fiction, is the puzzle. A crime is committed, and our sleuth needs to sift through the clues and red herrings (false clues) to figure out Whodunit.

As an avid reader and mystery lover, I loved pitting my wits against that of the sleuth to figure out Whodunit. When I eventually decided to try my hand at writing a cozy mystery, I didn’t realize that there were rules that the cozy mystery author is expected to follow. What rules? Well, the most important rule is that the author must PLAY FAIR WITH THE READER. What does that mean? It means, all clues must be revealed. Not only must all clues be revealed, but the clues must be revealed to the reader at the same time that the sleuth discovers it. No finding an important clue in chapter two and holding it back until the big reveal at the end of the book. Nope. That’s not playing fair.

Another important rule that are unique to cozies is that in cozy mysteries, JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL. Does that mean that the killer will always be caught and punished? Usually, but not necessarily. Justice may mean that the killer goes free. I realize that may be hard to accept, but I recently saw an episode of Murder, She Wrote where the killer was a dog who had been trained to push a button that caused the death of the bad guy. Should the dog be punished? I think not. Or, the ending of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. No spoilers, but justice isn’t always black and white. Sometimes, there’s a lot of grey. Of course, these are extreme examples, but you get the picture.

So, if you like solving puzzles, sorting real clues from red herrings, and figuring out Whodunit, chances are good that you’ll enjoy a cozy mystery. In fact, I just might know a few cozy mystery authors that you might enjoy reading.

 

MURDER IS A PIECE OF CAKE

With small town New Bison’s Spring Festival just around the corner, the pressure is on Maddy to continue her late great-aunt Octavia’s legacy. That means scoring the top prize and transforming Baby Cakes into Southwest Michigan’s must-visit bakery, even though her inexperience in the kitchen brings nightmares of humiliating tagged photos and scathing reviews.

There’s another reason for lost beauty sleep. A second bakery is opening in town under the ownership of CJ Davenport, a shrewd investor with a reputation for sabotaging anyone who gets in his way. And savvy, flashy Maddy tops his list. It’s a sticky spot to be in—more so when Davenport turns up dead with a Baby Cakes’ knife stuck in his back.

Maddy’s whole life just went from #thriving to barely surviving. Now, supported by the crafty Baker Street Irregulars and her new boyfriend, she must find the courage to face off against a killer who could very well get her name trending for the first and last time . . .

Buy Links: Amazon, Nook, Bookshop

BIO

Valerie (V.M.) Burns is an Agatha Anthony, and Edgar Award-nominated author. In addition to the Baker Street Mystery, she is also the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, RJ Franklin, and the upcoming, Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series writing as Kallie E. Benjamin. Valerie is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, and Dog Writers of America. She is also an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in Northern Georgia with her two poodles. Readers can keep up with new releases by following her on social media.

Website: http://www.vmburns.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vmburnsbooks/
Instagram: https//www.instagram.com/vmburnsbooks
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/v-m-burns

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Atlanta Chapter of Sisters in Crime – Writing the Mystery Novel: Writing is Not a Crime Workshop – November 11, 2023

Debra, Sharon Marchisello, and Kathy Nichols will participate in a “Pacing and Building Suspense” panel moderated by Angela Costa at 2:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Decatur Library.

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Killer Nashville – August 17-20, 2023

In addition to being the Killer Nashville Friday Lunch Keynote speaker, Debra will teach her “Conflict” workshop and present a special short story workshop with Robert Mangeot. She will also appear on several panels. Check the schedule for times and room locations

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Sleuthfest – July 6-9, 2023

Debra will be featured on the “How to Write Back Copy,” “Writing Your Own Newsletter Content,” and “The Importance of Strong Secondary Characters (Sidekicks)” panels during the July 6-9 conference being held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, Deerfield Beach-Boca Raton.

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Story Fodder by Susan Van Kirk

Recently, I read a blog post by writer Annette Dashofy in which she mentioned an idea that gave me pause. “As writers,” she wrote, “we tend to mine the emotional moments in our lives for story fodder.” This thought certainly rang true with me, but I hadn’t connected it to my most recent mystery series.

My Art Center Mysteries have a dark connection to my life, but one I hadn’t really considered until I let Annette’s writerly thought swirl around in my brain. The second book in the series, Death in a Bygone Hue, is just out, and it continues the story of Jill Madison begun in the first book, Death in a Pale Hue.

Like me, Jill has two brothers, but in a different order than mine, and she returns to the small Illinois town of Apple Grove to be executive director of an art center named for their sculptor mother. In the first book, she is shaky, her confidence at a low ebb. An oil painter by trade, she hasn’t painted in six years because of a horrific event that permeates the entire series, and the Madison children’s lives. Their parents died in a car accident with a drunk driver who hit them head-on.

Fortunately for Jill, despite a murder and an art theft, she is slowly wrapped in the love of her brothers and niece and nephew, and by the end of the first mystery, she begins to heal and is painting again. In the second book, Death in a Bygone Hue, the deaths of the Madison parents show up again when Jill discovers her friend and mentor, Judge Spivey, murdered. He was the treasurer of her art board, and they shared a love of art and conversations about her parents because he knew her parents well. With his death, a valuable connection to her parents and knowledge of their pasts is lost. Jill is shocked when she discovers an unbelievable secret in the judge’s past that might connect to her mom and dad.

The next book, currently in progress, Death in a Ghostly Hue, will also swirl around the deaths of the parents in a more direct way. The young person who was driving the car that killed the Madisons returns to town looking for a way to atone for his actions. It becomes apparent, in a very public scene, that there will be no forgiveness from one of Jill’s brothers. When the young man is murdered, you can imagine the identity of the main suspect.

Only recently, I thought about how this emotional fodder came from my own life. While my art mysteries are quite humorous, the framework beneath this is a bit somber. The Madison family drifted for a long six years, and the whole family dynamic and relationships among the three siblings changed. Had their parents lived, this family might have stayed intact, loving, and in close contact. A watershed moment in my own life was my mother’s young death from cancer. When she died at fifty-six, my older brother’s wife and I were both pregnant with our first children. Our younger brother was fifteen. Our mother never lived to see any of her grandchildren, while my father remarried a couple of years later. The family was never the same. It hadn’t occurred to me until I read Annette’s comment that I was living through and processing that moment with the Madison family. In fiction, as in real life, dramatic events occurring in a split moment change lives forever. I’m planning to give the Madisons a better ending. That’s why I like writing cozy mysteries—I can make things whole once again.

Summary of Death in a Bygone Hue

When Jill Madison returns to her hometown to become executive director of a new art center, she never dreams unexpected secrets from the past will put her life in danger. Her parent’s old friend and Jill’s mentor, Judge Ron Spivey, is murdered. He leaves behind more than a few secrets from the past. His baffling will makes Jill a rich woman if she survives the will’s six-month probate period.

She finds a target on her back when the judge’s estranged children return. They form an unholy alliance with a local muckraking journalist who specializes in making up the news. According to the judge’s will, if Jill dies, the family inherits.

Jill and her best friend, Angie Emerson, launch their own investigation determined to find the judge’s killer. In the meantime, Jill must run her first national juried exhibit, launch a new seniors group, and move the weavers guild into the art center. Easy peasy, right?

Susan Van Kirk is the president of the Guppy Chapter, the online chapter of Sisters in Crime, and a writer of cozy mysteries. She lives at the center of the universe—the Midwest—and writes during the ridiculously cold and icy winters. Why leave the house and break something? Van Kirk taught forty-four years in high school and college and raised three children. Now that the children are launched, she writes.

Her Endurance mysteries include Three May Keep a Secret, Marry in Haste, The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney, Death Takes No Bribes, and The Witch’s Child. She also wrote A Death at Tippitt Pond. Her latest Art Center Mysteries include Death in a Pale Hue and Death in a Bygone Hue from Level Best Books. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.

Website:  www.susanvankirk.com
FB  http://www.facebook.com/SusanVanKirkAuthor/
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/susanivankirk/
Goodreads  www.goodreads.com/author/show/586.Susan_Vankirk

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Digging Up a Story: Weaving Fact into Fiction by Kathleen Kaska

I write two mystery series, one set in the 1950s and one in current times. In plotting the mysteries, I start digging—researching actual events at the time and location of my story’s setting. For example, my upcoming Sydney Lockhart mystery, Murder at the Pontchartrain, is set in New Orleans, a city rich in culture and tradition. And one of those traditions is the religious practice of voodoo. While exploring the French Quarter, I stumbled on Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo and knew I’d have to use this in the story. I didn’t realize then that Marie Laveau was New Orleans’s most powerful voodoo queen to ever reign, a coveted position passed down from one queen to the next and often usurped by a wannabe queen. For more than forty years, Laveau had the ultimate say-so about how voodoo should be practiced. She was born in 1801, a free woman of color. Her father, Charles Lavewu Trudeau, was a white man of French origin, and her mother, Marguerite D’Arcantel a mix of white, black, and Native American ancestry. Her clientele came from all walks of life, wealthy merchants, politicians, people in trouble with the law, but most were white and Creole women. Not only did Laveau believe in, and practice voodoo, she was also a devote Catholic attending Mass every day at St. Louis Cathedral. She was known to meld rituals from both religions in her practice.

Today, the House of Voodoo attracts more tourists than people seeking help and advice. So, what can you buy in the House of Voodoo?

Like any souvenir shop, you can purchase coffee mugs, shot glasses, T-shirts, tarot cards, and books, but you’ll also find amulets, talismans, voodoo dolls, and incantations to ward off evil or bring good luck. One item that caught my attention and ended up in my book was gris gris. These are small bags containing objects such as bones, beads, herbs, roots, coins, or verses. You can also customize your own. However, there are rules you should follow in making a gris gris bag.

The bag should be two by three inches, made of cloth, and small enough to carry in your pocket or worn on a chain or cord around your neck. It must contain an odd number of items between three and thirteen. Next, bless your bag with anointing oil or holy water and recite incantations over it. And finally, breathe on your bag to bring it to life. Gris gris bags can be designed for special purposes, but you must know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you might create one that is too powerful to handle and might backfire on you. 

In Murder at the Pontchartrain, my character Mildred Threadgill visits Frida Mae, the current voodoo queen, to help deal with issues surrounding her dead husband. Unfortunately, Mildred, pushed her voodoo pursuit too far, and things didn’t work out well. To find out more, you’ll have to read the book. It will be out this summer.

Here’s an excerpt from Murder at the Pontchartrain :

Mildred claimed to have had several visits from her dead husband and she wanted Frida Mae to provide a protection potion. When that didn’t work, she returned to the voodoo shop and demanded her money back. Instead of returning her money, Frida Mae talked Mildred into investing in more powerful potions. Frida Mae went on to say that Mildred was convinced her husband was coming back to life. She wanted to make sure he stayed dead because she hated the bastard. She purchased another potion made to pour over Frank’s tomb. She also hired Frida Mae to perform a ritual over it. The event took place about two weeks ago at midnight when the moon was full. The next night Frank made another ghostly appearance and this time he told his widow that he planned to drag her to hell with him.

The practice of voodoo is fascinating, but unlike Marie Laveau, who practiced both voodooism and Catholicism, I’m sticking with the latter. One religion is all I can handle.

I’m now working on book number seven. This one is set in a historic hotel in a German town south of Austin. The hotel is purported to be haunted, and I’m looking forward to what I might dig up this time.

Look for Murder at the Pontchartrain, book six, in the Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series, out this June. For everyone who preorders a copy of Murder at the Pontchartrain, I will give you a sneak preview of all the places Sydney ends up while she’s in the Big Easy. And if you know Sydney, you know she’s not seeing the sights on a streetcar with the other tourists.

https://anamcara-press.com/product/murder-at-the-ponchartrain/

Kathleen Kaska is the author of the awarding-winning mystery series: the Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series set in the 1950s and the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series. Her first two Lockhart mysteries, Murder at the Arlington and Murder at the Luther, were selected as bonus books for the Pulpwood Queen Book Group, the country’s largest book group. She also writes mystery trivia, including The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book. Her Holmes short story, “The Adventure at Old Basingstoke,” appears in Sherlock Holmes of Baking Street. She is the founder of The Dogs in the Nighttime, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Anacortes, Washington, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars.

Kathleen is the owner of Metaphor Writing Coach. She coaches new and emerging writers and helps them discover their unique voices, and guides them as they learn the craft of writing and the art of storytelling. Kathleen also edits manuscripts and advises writers on how to look for the right publisher.

http://www.kathleenkaska.com
https://anamcara-press.com/shop/our-newest-selections/kathleen-kaska/
http://www.facebook.com/kathleenkaska
https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B001K88UMQ
https://twitter.com/KKaskaAuthor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-kaska-942aa511/

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Something Old and Something New by Francelia Belton

Aah, who doesn't love a good wedding? The flowers, the cake, and most important of all, the beautiful bride in her gorgeous dress. But then there's the multitude of things that can go wrong on this most sacred of traditional days. The meddlesome mother-in-law, the groom still hungover from last night's bachelor party, the photographer who forgot to show up. The bride losing her everlasting mind because the flowers aren't just right. The dead body behind the altar. . ..

Wait a minute, did I just say that? Of course I did. I write crime fiction. Thinking about the best places to hide a body is what I do.

Not really.

Okay, I do. . . but only when I'm writing a story.

And that's why I was thinking about corpses with knives in their backs at weddings. Because I needed to come up with a story idea for a wedding cozy mystery anthology. To be honest, it didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to write and know which characters would be in the starring roles.

The best part about participating in this anthology is that I would be part of a Kickstarter campaign. It's a new path for authors and readers to connect. I've been a longtime fan of Kickstarter having backed 50 campaigns, with 20 of them being for fiction and non-fiction projects. Sure, some of them are with authors I already knew, but a lot were for new-to-me authors.

With authors like Brandon Sanderson bringing it mainstream, many people are discovering this option to connect with their favorite authors. Or, like in an anthology campaign like I'm participating in, to discover new ones.

But why support a Kickstarter campaign in the first place? Because there are lots of incentives and bonuses exclusive to backers. You won't find these special opportunities and rewards at any retail sites. For instance, in the anthology I'm participating in, you can get extra eBooks, and there's even an option to name a character. But most exciting of all, there's an overarching Wedding Whodunit with clues planted in all the stories that readers can solve.

So when it comes to planning a wedding, yes, thinking about the cake flavor you want could be important. Or, should there be a live band, and maybe depending on how deep the pocketbook goes, your high school nephew DJing may have to do.

But maybe what you should really think about is who you are marrying. Do you both have a lot in common, like reading cozy mysteries? Great! I know of a perfect book you can read on your honeymoon. No, not on your wedding night. For when you're lounging on the beach working on your tan. Geez, do you always have murder on your mind? Maybe you should meditate more.

About Malice, Matrimony, and Murder

Twenty-six cozy mystery and cozy crime fiction authors have teamed up to create Malice, Matrimony, and Murder, a collection of brand-new, wedding-themed short stories that will keep you wondering whodunit and what's next from the first page to the last. Between bad bridesmaids, conniving caterers, greedy guests, ill-mannered in-laws, savvy sleuths, and vengeful villains, this anthology has it all!

You can learn more and back the campaign here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marlabradeen/malice-book?ref=4oje6u

Bio:

Francelia Belton’s love of short stories came from watching old Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents television shows in her youth. She published a collection titled, Crime & Passion: Three Short Stories, and her fiction has appeared in various publications, including "Sis Knows Best" in the upcoming Malice, Matrimony, and Murder.

She is an active member of Sisters in Crime and has served as President (2019-2021) and Vice President (2015-2018) for the Colorado chapter. She is also an active member of Mystery Writers of America and Crime Writers of Color.

She can be found online at: https://FranceliaBelton.com/

You can also follow her on Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/francelia-belton

and Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15972908.Francelia_Belton

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Let’s Make a Mystery

Let’s Make a Mystery Panel Moderator for SinC’s Desert Sleuths – June 21, 2023.

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