T.E. MacArthur's Blog

Fun, Fun, Fun, in TOO MUCH Sun!

The Sacramento Book Festival is quickly becoming a destination author market and hang-out. Having started with 12 writers huddled under a couple of pop-up tents in a farmer’s market to 140 names and well over 1500 (we’re guessing more like 5000) attendees, the event has grown. This is where I released Book #3 of the Praetorius Agency Files: The Vessel.

Mamma Nature however didn’t want the organizers to get too uppity, though, and gave us 103 degrees of slightly humid, no wind, no-clouds-in-the-sky, blistering heat. Even the coffee cart refused to sell regular cups of Joe and only offered iced versions of their usual fare. When I went to pick up my car at 4:30 PM, off in the assigned parking area, my temp gage read: 109. I should have had an oven mitt to touch the steering wheel. The 70 outdoor author tables were given umbrellas or tucked into the shade. My writing partner and I got lucky, we were indoors, which wasn’t entirely cool and climate controlled due to the vast number of folks. It was, however, survivable.

Despite this once-off (I hope!) weather challenge, The Big Tomato showed up in droves. Indoor, Outdoor, sitting under a “readers tent,” dashing in and out of the building, listening to panelists talk about the writing business and genres in particular – they came to the Festival. Did I mention the tweens and teens? Lots of them and all hungry for books. Yes! Touchable, readable books. One thing I genuinely love about book gatherings are the kids that buck the so-called statistics and prove that younger generations truly want to read.

Am I going back? Heck yeah! Taking into account the costs for gas and meals (I live 2 hrs. from the site,) wear-n-tear on me, and the cost of the table (which should go up if they move to a larger location as they are planning – not unreasonable,) it is absolutely worth it on every level. Hoorah for the Sacramento Book Festival.

Some quick photos from the event. A couple of fellow former Coloradoans plus an interior and exterior shot. To be honest, all my plans to photograph and interview went right out the window with the constant flow of people. It was wonderful!

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Upcoming Event!

May 18th – Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA
Sisters in Crime – Spring Showcase
Live and via Zoom (please register for Zoom)
Upcoming Meetings – Sisters in Crime Northern California

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Scribbling (wandering thoughts from April 22)

My perfect morning:
Awake sometime between 7am and 8am. Make the bed? No, but smooth out the covers and leave things tidy. Who knows, maybe the cat will want to snooze there. Making the bed every morning seems so time consuming and purposeless.

Dress for the weather. Make coffee and breakfast. Feed the cat. There must always be a cat, because cats are the center of the Universe and they take it with them wherever they go. They are liquid wisdom, plotting your increase of experiential knowledge at any moment, ready to purr an I-told-you-so. One cannot be fully human without a non-human to keep one humble.

Outside of my home, because my perfect morning requires a home, I will sit and take in the atmosphere of beginnings. I’m not too greedy: my livings can be small, economic, and most of all, possible to clean. I have neither need nor longing for a mansion. A porch will be appropriate, complete with swing or rocking chair. Here I can sit with my coffee and notebook, setting my intentions for the day by listening to the wind blowing through the trees. Like all intentions, they are meant but sometimes not achieved without judgement. Intentions are allowed to be hindered by realities and unexpecteds. Hard goals are too often failed — must-dos missed are judged pathetically. Intentions guide — Promises demand.

I will need to do some creative furniture making. If the weather is expected to be warm, and I can sit outside to do my morning’s intended work. I’ll need a solid chair, desk, access. I can write as the sun climbs up past the canopy of the trees. Or I can go inside. In my perfect morning, in my perfect small space in the universe, I will of course have a library / office. A den. A true Living Room for me. Inside will be a work area built to satisfy every imagination-needy braincell I have. Either place, I will wave at any passersby and chat with neighborly visitors.

My den will be oriented to a window. I base this on a memory: I used to walk to my commuter points down a particular street, returning the same way in the evenings. Every evening, I would pass a craftsman house, white, with a well-kept front lawn. In the window, at a desk, sat a lady of accomplished years. We would wave to one another. I always imagined her as a writer, connecting with the world through that window. After a while, she wasn’t there anymore, because time moves us grudgingly on. Yet, she lives, if only slightly, through my memory and it has stuck with me as a hope that someday I too can touch someone without a single word but only a glance and a wave, sitting at my writing, sharing hope that there is more to life than treading on the wheel of others’ fortune making.

Caffeinated, fed, and motivated, I will then write. Or draw. Or paint. Or bring that old piece of furniture back to life. Perhaps today is the day I set aside the artistic and do the practical in my garden, fending off weeds and encouraging bees? Maybe it’s the day I go on a brief adventure? Or join friends for a familial meal, full of grace and good feelings? Or maybe … something I haven’t even thought of yet.

That is my perfect morning.

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February 2025 Newsletter

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IT’S ALIVE!

My Darlings, at last, The Skin Thief has been released into the wild.

Agent Tessa Lancing believes she knows all about death – until she meets Death itself.

Accused traitor Jack de Sombras is already as good as dead.

And an ancient evil is coming for them.

The Skin Thief is an enthralling paranormal thriller set in the haunted canyons of Southwest Colorado. If you like ancient secrets, terrifying ghosts, and nail-biting action, then you’ll love T.E. MacArthur’s gripping novel of thrills, betrayal, and hopeless desires.

Here’s the skinny on how to get your copy:

ePub books (including Barnes & Noble): https://books2read.com/u/bwyVjy or use the QR Code below.

Amazon ebook: https://amzn.to/3xJTrrD

Amazon paperback: https://a.co/d/ia4tv4e

Check it out on https://www.Indiesunited.net

BUT WAIT … THERE’S MORE!

If you use the Books2Read link or QR Code above to purchase your ebook, you’ll find that my hard-boiled, femme-detective novel, A Place of Fog and Murder: A Lou Tanner Mystery is on sale for $0.99.

If you happen to pick up a paperback copy of The Skin Thief on Amazon, look for A Place of Fog and Murder at https://a.co/d/i2LR8dA and you’ll find it is on sale for $10.99.

A Place of Fog and Murder is only on sale until April 1st – no fooling.

Thank you so much for all your love and support. This book and change of literary genre direction took a bit of time (and one pandemic.) I’ve started on book #2. Do feel free to ask any questions — it will be a pleasure to answer.

Today, the eBook is available for pre-order.

The Skin Thief is an enthralling paranormal thriller set in the haunted canyons of Southwest Colorado. If you like ancient secrets, terrifying ghosts, and nail-biting action, then you’ll love T.E. MacArthur’s gripping novel of thrills, betrayal, and hopeless desires.

Find it here: https://books2read.com/u/bwyVjy.

March issue of Perilous Thoughts

Oh Yeah Baby — Here we go again!

I know, I know. You’ve seen me over on the VolcanoLady site. But of course, you have. I spent a decade roaming the Wild Weird West in search of Steampunk joy and I found it. I even went completely off the rails with a Dieselpunk / Noir-punk mystery: A Place of Fog and Murder.

Then came the Pandemic.

Everything changed, didn’t it?

Two and a half years of telling ourselves that we are home, few interruptions, delicious isolation. Um … sure … I’ll just take those long hours and write a dozen books and paint one hundred paintings and …

If you were like me, you daydreamed and fantasized about all sorts of maybes. None of them happened — or they started but never got finished. Oh, how I feel the frustration. But we ought to cut ourselves some slack. That wasn’t just a global pandemic, it was a global psychological gut-punch. Unless we were First Responders, most of us were luck to keep our jobs and to get out of bed most mornings. It was and still is a world-wide, shared case of PTSD. Don’t talk yourself out of thinking of it that way. You don’t have to be a soldier in the battlefield to suffer trauma. If you are here, reading this, you survived, and you likely have some trauma from having your world turned upside down and forcefully changed forever.

That’s how it is for me, too.

Enter a new phase of writing. I joined a group called the Sisters in Crime, and connected in ways I didn’t know I could. I zoom-friended fellow writers all over the country and all over the globe. I learned that “networking” is fun, even when not in person. The introverted me found where she put her extrovert costume and put it back on, but only for limited special occasions.

And I learned that shadows and things that go bump in the night are part of who I am. You see, before the pandemic, I wore an extrovert costume and mask, designed by someone else, EVERY. DAMN. DAY! 24/7. Anything to fit in. I already had some “weirdo” hobbies, so I had to look and act “normal” all the more. During the pandemic, there was no one to act for — no one who cared it my hair was a fashionable cut, the right color, my clothes cool or trendy. No one cared if I could pull off a three-piece suit.

In the silence of the pandemic, I discovered a little voice that was a child living inside of me. She’d been there the whole time. She was the one afraid of the creepy-angry energy under the stairs at the first house my family lived in, in Colorado. She was the one who heard about a shrine on the mountain, cliff dwellings of mysterious people, ancient curses, and magic — and wanted to be part of that. Adulthood and “business proper” beat her down until I forgot she was there. Even when writing my Steampunk stories, I was hounded by the “but what if your co-workers see this?” syndrome.

I stopped being afraid of that light breeze across my neck in a still room. I learned how to ask elements that didn’t feel quite right or friendly to leave, politely of course — rudeness is never an appropriate first response. I started learning about parapsychology, ghost (hunting) discovery, and human potential. And I started writing about it. Stories. Fun, dark, spooky, romantic (sometimes,) scary stories.

On March 20th, my first Paranormal Romantic Thriller will be released to the public. The Skin Thief.

Did the pandemic permanently change me? Yes. For the better? I think so. I still need to socialize more. I’m rather a homebody to this day, but then, maybe that too is just fine.

May your 2023 start off with good humor, ideas, creativity, and the chance of re-associating with that inner child we all hear about but rarely accept. Bookwise, I’m off at a running pace. Bookwise …

Wait … you want to know what that book is?

Brilliant intelligence operative, Tessa Lancing, is on assignment to find out why powerful crime lords are missing and why her fellow agents disappeared, one after another, while trying to solve the same mystery.  She knows she’ll disappear too if she works solo but the only man she trusts to help her is her former partner, Jack de Sombras – an accused traitor everyone believes to be dead.

In the desolate canyons and isolated ravines of the desert Colorado Plateau awaits the solution to Tessa and Jack’s mission, but not the answers their careers ever prepared them for.  Ancient ruins, a murderous sheriff, and a dried-up town full of deadly secrets.  If the sheriff doesn’t destroy them, or Jack’s past doesn’t catch up to him, then the dark shadows gaining power with every kill will gladly do the job.

This story has all the paranormal twisted surprises with hints of Tony Hillerman’s love of the Southwest, which I share, and Debra Cunningham’s strong female characters.  Two internationally savvy agents trapped in small town Colorado, cut off from the rest of the world, and left to their own wit and courage.  This book has humor and scares, and a twist on the old trope that the hero must save the captive heroine.

Does that catch your attention?

Old is New in the new year

What was supposed to be dead is now alive … maybe

If you’re like me, then 2020 was a blur of trying and hoping and wishing – all while not really doing. It was the rare person who made major accomplishments that year. Now, nearly at the end of 2021, many (most?) of us are looking around our yet-to-be-perfectly-cleaned homes and asking, “wait, where did that year go too?”

For me, I became a lover of Zoom, On-line workshops, Stitch-n-Bitches at a distance, and MOCs. My laptop has seen more internet time than in the previous decade. AT&T now regrets ever offering me an “unlimited” plan for service on my cell phone. And – its true – I showed insufficient reluctance once again and volunteered for a new organization. While 2020-2021 was a blur overall, the biggest step forward for me was a mystery.

No, seriously, it was a mystery – as in, I wrote a mystery ** and joined an organization that supports women (and men) mystery writers: Sisters in Crime. SinC was fun up until the Pandemic, but with everyone in lockdown and lock in, they really stepped up! With Zoom making lectures and meetings unlimited, certainly not hindered by physical location, chapters across the U.S. and Canada started opening their doors to everyone. Every weekend a plethora of workshops and resources presented their best – and they continue to do so. Boredom and lack of conversation was made impossible. I’ve met authors from all over the nation. I attend write ins and do book readings. It’s great! So much so, I’ve volunteered to be the President of the Coastal Cruisers chapter of SinC for 2022. (That’s not as impressive as it might sound, the Leadership Team is so good, I am never in the unhappy position of having to do it all which too many group leaders end up.)

Will you be hearing more about SinC. Heck yeah!

Will you be seeing ghosts and creepy serial killers and murderous phantoms? You bet!

Life has taken an odd turn and I’m loving it.

Here’s to an amazing 2022 for all of us. Be safe, be heathy, remember we don’t live in a vacuum. In the words of Pedro Pascal, actor, the Mandalorian: “Be Gentle, be kind.” I’ll just add, ” … and let me scare the socks off you.”