Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 176

Wisdom of the (Mixed) Ages: Linda Lovely

Edith here, trying not to get whiplash from how fast and how extreme our weather has been changing. I’m happy to welcome author Linda Lovely back to the blog. She has a new book out today that looks like a lot of fun! Here’s the blurb:

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It’s been seven months since vegan Brie Hooker moved to Udderly Kidding Dairy to live with her feisty Aunt Eva, a confirmed carnivore. But tonight there’ll be no family feud over dinner entrees. Udderly’s hosting a campaign fundraiser for Eva’s best friend, who hopes to be South Carolina’s next governor. The candidate’s son, a pro quarterback, is flying home for the wingding. And Brie’s eager to get a close-up view of the cute tush she’s admired on TV, even though she’s reluctantly sworn off even more tempting local beefcake.

The campaign fundraiser promises to be a huge success until a pitchfork attack turns the goat farm into a crime scene—again. To protect her friends, Brie puts her sleuthing skills to work. Will she live long enough to find out who’s behind a vicious assault, a kidnapping, blackmail, and multiple murders?

Take it away, Linda.

How often do you spend a full twenty-four hours having no interaction with people younger or older than yourself?

The answer is probably seldom unless you’re a hermit or an author on deadline, who doesn’t find time to interact with soap and water either.

From birth through teen-hood, even the kids who have their eyes glued to electronic screens for hours at a time must deal with parents, grandparents, teachers, doctors, babysitters, and store clerks.

Likewise nursing home residents may be surrounded by other oldsters, but they still come in contact with younger medical orderlies, nurses, doctors, and, if they’re lucky, visiting family members.

Those of us in the middle typically spend some time every day with younger and older people. Out in the real world generations mix, which is one of the best arguments for populating a mystery with a cast of characters outside the hero’s or heroine’s age range. It makes the novel’s world more credible.

But there are even better reasons for giving face/page time to individuals of differing ages. These include divergent viewpoints shaped by generational life experiences and unique knowledge and skill sets that can be tapped to solve a mystery. And don’t overlook how choosing main characters of mixed ages opens up possibilities for conflict and laughs.

Among my favorites in the “Die Hard” film franchise is Live Free or Die Hard. This film pairs a crusty veteran detective (Bruce Willis) with a twenty-something computer hacker (Justin Long). The combination accomplishes all of the objectives just mentioned as the two team up to stop a digital-based “fire sale” aimed at crippling America’s transportation, communication, financial and utility networks. The plot would never have worked had screenwriters tried to pull it off with either main character acting solo. The detective was a digital simpleton, while the hacker’s skills would have been worthless without the detective’s policing knowhow.

I’m currently re-reading Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first of Alan Bradley’s delightful English mystery series set in 1950s Britain for a mystery book club. The series features Flavia, a precocious 11-year-old girl, who keeps her loneliness at bay with her passion for chemistry. She has two older sisters (late teens) with quite different interests and outlooks. But the clever plot has her interacting primarily with adults from relatively young to over ninety. Humor’s derived from her view of the world and also from adult assumptions that tend to dismiss Flavia’s capabilities due to her age.

In my new humorous cozy Brie Hooker Mystery series, I’ve yet to feature a main character as young as Flavia. (Not sure my childhood memories are anywhere near accurate.) But I did intentionally make certain that Brie, my early thirties heroine, has plenty of give and take with the older generation. Brie, a vegan, lives with her Aunt Eva, a sixty-two-year-old carnivore, on a goat dairy farm, and Brie’s parents, a lawyer and a professor in their fifties, live a few miles away. Since I’m closer in age to Brie’s aunt than Brie my casting motivation may, in part, been a desire to give older folks a voice in the series. But my main reason was to offer the reader a more textured world with greater variety. Like the world most of us live in.

Readers: What’s the age range of the people you hang out with?

[image error]Over the past five years, hundreds of mystery/thriller writers have met Linda Lovely at check-in for the annual Writers’ Police Academy, which she helps organize. Lovely finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and ad copy. She writes a blend of mystery and humor, chuckling as she plots to “disappear” the types of characters who most annoy her.  PICKED OFF is the second humorous installment in her new Brie Hooker Mystery series. Lovely is active in Sisters in Crime and belongs to International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America.

 

What Have You Done?

by Sheila Connolly

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?

Last year I wrote about meeting an accused killer in Ireland, whose story I borrowed for Cruel Winter. We still chat regularly whenever I’m at the Skibbereen Farmers Market.

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Skibbereen Farmers Market–with rainbow

I’m still regretting that I didn’t visit the Teapot Museum when I was in Wales (alas, no time). I did, however, once tour a museum in France featuring the works of the local sculptor Pom-Pom (no, I did not make that up) who specialized in sculpting small animals in plaster. I remember lots of bunnies.

When I was doing research for my dissertation, on a medieval abbey in Angers (in France—and it’s now the city’s police station), I wanted to see the 12th-century sculptures in a nearby abandoned church. There was no one from the local museum to give me a tour, so the director handed me the keys. I had an entire church all to myself. (I did wonder whether if I fell and broke my neck, someone would come looking for me.) I also climbed the freestanding medieval bell tower accompanied by a toothless custodian with a thick accent. (I survived both.)

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Apple lovers

In pursuit of apple lore, I attended a seminar given by a national apple expert, followed by a tour of an abandoned orchard. It was very funny to see twenty or so curious adult apple-lovers grazing through the neglected (but heirloom!) trees and tasting whatever they could find, on the trees or on the ground. (Yes, I did too.) What’s more, when I made some joke about writing about murders, the tour guide promptly told me about one that had taken place on the property (a former owner had come home unexpectedly to find his wife busy in bed with someone else—wife and lover died.)

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Viintage apple shucker (assembled)

Last year I went to our local 4-H fair, where they always have a “junk” booth filled with things that people bring in, hoping to sell them (or happy just to get rid of them!). I spied a hand-cranked machine lying in pieces on the ground and spent some time trying to figure out what it was used for. I was surrounded by guys in John Deere-type hats, making wild guesses, but I was the only person who figured it out: a corn shucker.

Have I used all these factoids in a book? No, not yet, but I have a mental file of them in case I ever need one, either as a plot point or to add flavor to a story. Actually, finding potential murder weapons in relatively easy. I once purchased a collection of 50-plus vintage cooking tools because I could see so clearly how to slash someone’s throat with a curved chopper (and it’s wicked sharp!). I have a feeling that could show up sometime soon.

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Choppers (or murder weapons)

What about you? Writers, what have you seen that you can’t forget and want to use in a book? Readers, what have you seen described in a book that makes you want to see one yourself?

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Oh, right, I have a new book (from the new Victorian Village series!) coming out on June 26th from St. Martin’s.

Find out who dies–and how!

 

http://www.sheilaconnolly.com

 

What we’re reading this summer

We’re heading into the best time of year for reading – the lazy days of summer! Hopefully we’ve all got some plans to hit a beach with a stack of books (I definitely do!) So, Wickeds and readers, what’s on the list this year?

Liz:  I’ve got a few things on my list – finally picked up The Handmaid’s Tale, and I’m getting caught up on my William Kent Krueger series. Also have Walter Mosley’s Little Green, in preparation for this year’s Crime Bake, as well as Harlan Coben’s Caught.

Julie: I am adding some thrillers to my TBR list, and am looking for suggestions! Especially with a female protagonist. Need to catch up with the Wickeds, and am also planning on reading Walter Mosley. Can’t wait to see him at Crime Bake this year.

Edith: Julie, I recommend Ingrid Thoft’s series, with a female protag in the Boston area. As for me, I’m excited to have Kaitlyn Dunnet’s new Crime and Punctuation and Leslie Budewitz’s As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles on the stack, and I’m also reading a book called The World as I Hear It by Lansing V Hall published in 1878. It’s about his life as a blind man and it’s research for a character I’m including in my fifth Quaker Midwife Mystery. Then I want to finally read some Ann Cleeves. Where should I start?

[image error]Barb: I also have Crime and Punctuation high on my tbr pile, like starting it tonight. In the meantime, I read R. G. Belsky’s Yesterday’s News. He’s on a panel I’m moderating at the Maine Crime Wave today. Since the panel is titled “Irresistible Openings,” I only planned to read the first scene to prepare. However, the opening must have been irresistible, because it sucked me right through and I finished the book last night.

Sherry: I just finished an interesting thriller written in 2004 called Monkeewrench by P.J. Tracy. And I’m looking forward to reading Darker Than Any Shadow by TIna Whittle. And as mentioned by others Crime and Punctuation!

Readers: What is on your summer reading list?

 

Opening Lines: Behind the Parking Garage

Add your opening line for this shot, which Liz reports she took, “when Shaggy took me for a walk behind the parking garage…”

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Edith: If I told him once, I told him a million times – don’t leave your paint rags behind the garage. And ya know what? Dried blood sure looks a lot like rust.

Julie: He bet me that he could use a pipe as a boomerang. He was wrong, and lost his shirt.

Barb: My Clue solution is: Colonel Mustard, behind the garage, with the lead pipe.

Sherry: Apparently The Hulk was on the loose again. Such a show off bending pipes and ripping off his shirt.

Readers: Add your opening line in the comments!

Wicked Wednesday: May-December Romances

Edith here, blog wrangler for the month, happy we made it to the end of May! 

Many years ago I was chatting with a poet friend, the now-late Miriam Goodman, who was about fifteen years older than me. She mentioned that she’d had a May-December romance. I’d never heard the term, so she explained that it was when one partner was significantly older than the other. In her case, Miriam had been the older one. I saw one definition that said the gap has to be eleven years or more to be a real May-December situation. In our culture, the man being the older one of the couple is a cliche, but certainly it happens in the other order as well as with same-gender couples.

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So let’s talk about May-December romances. Do you have stories from your own life or those of friends who are/were in such a relationship? How about fictional instances in books, movies, TV shows where one partner is a couple of decades older or younger? [Because we try to avoid politics on this blog, let’s omit the current residents of the White House. Let’s not talk about celebrities, either.] Go!

Sherry: It seems like lots of classic literature has May-December romances. I haven’t read Rebecca for a very long time, but it’s hard to forget how young Rebecca seemed and how old her husband was. Although for the time period that wasn’t so unusual.

Julie: Jane Eyre was also much younger than Mr. Rochester. Lots of those romances in novels. I will admit I was always a fan of Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, both of whom had much younger screen partners late in their careers. It never really bothered me, though I will admit seeing Fred and Leslie Caron in Daddy Long Legs recently gave me a start. She was so, so young. And the story celebrates a May/December romance that doesn’t necessarily age well.

Barb: I do have a few friends in my own life who meet the eleven year definition (which I had never heard before). Shall we give a shout out to French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte?

Edith: Sure! I was in such a relationship for a couple of years, with a man more than twenty years older than me. Sweetest guy I’ve ever known. We used to go walking in a beautiful cemetery and find gravestones of couples with similar age gaps. It ended because I very much wanted to have children and he’d already had four with his ex-wife.

Readers: Who do you know? Who are your favorite May-December couples from literature or the screen?

Let’s Talk

by Julie, enjoying “spring” in Somerville.

[image error]I am preparing classes in arts administration designed to help performing artists learn/develop their administrative skills so they can produce their own work, or better understand the business side of the art. As I prepare the classes, one thing that keeps coming up is the role of the audience and the interaction between artists and audience. The importance of communication, and not assumption.

A couple of weeks ago Sheila and Barb both used the word “talk” in their blog titles. It inspired me to think about “talking” given my arts administrative lens. Let me explain, since these skills apply to authors as well.

In the arts, it is good to talk to your audience. This doesn’t mean that you change your art depending on what they say. What it does mean is that by talking to them you can make your pitch–let them know and understand why your work is worthy of their time and money. By the way, talking also means listening.

Talking to other artists is a gift. No one understands your path better than someone else who has traveled it. Ask for advice. Give it. Share ideas. Offer support. One person’s success does not mean lack for you. The work is too hard to believe that. So go ahead and talk, share, celebrate, laugh.

At some point you’ll have to talk to an agent and/or an editor (or a director or casting agent). Part of this talking may be to make a pitch about your work (or to audition). But you have to develop relationships with the folks you work with, which means you need to talk to them. Relationships matter.

The final person to talk to? Yourself. Give yourself pep talks. Practice your pitch in the mirror. Read your work aloud, especially the dialogue. Talk through plot problems with your cat.

Any other folks we should be talking to? What do you think, dear readers?

In Memorium

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a holiday formerly and still solemn for many, that once was called Decoration Day.  Its origins lie mostly in the immediate post-Civil War period with the women who decorated the graves of fallen soldiers and began a move toward a national day of mourning. According to Wikipedia, the early southern Decoration Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the dead and tend to local cemeteries. The custom spread to the north and became widespread, incorporating military parades.

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By California Historical Society Digital Collection, via Wikimedia Commons

Decoration Day, celebrated on May 30 because of the proliferation of spring flowers, was first called Memorial Day in 1882. It wasn’t officially named that until 1967, and in 1968 became one of several national holidays to take place on a Monday rather than a date certain.

More than a million military men and women have given their lives in military service to the United States of America. Wickeds and friends, who will you remember today? In which conflict did he or she die?

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Adoniram Judson Dickison. (My brother has the sword.)

Barb: I’m not aware of anyone in my family who has been killed in a war. My father served in Korea, his father in World War I, and his uncle and uncle-in-law in World War II. My great-great grandfather served in the Civil War. You can read some of his letters home to his niece, Alice, here. Ancestry.com informs me of many veterans before them, going back to the Revolution and beyond. It’s a long chain of sacrifice to bring us to today.

Sherry: Like Barb I’m not aware of anyone in my family who was killed in action. But my dad served in WWII. He’s buried in Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida. While we were in Florida visiting my mom over Christmas, my husband and I were able to stop at Barancas on our way to the airport. It was a cold, rainy, windy day. But It’s a very moving place and I’m grateful to the strangers who place wreaths every year at Christmas.

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Edith: My grandfather and father served in the military during World Wars I and II, and my brother is a veteran, too, but they all survived. My grandfather’s brother, Leslie Maxwell, died in combat in WWI, and my beau Hugh’s uncle Hugh William, whom he is named for, died in the Pacific in WWII. I was able to find this picture of his grave marker in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines – all I did was email his name, and they generously mailed back the digital picture. I had a print made and gave it to his youngest sibling, Hugh’s Aunt Joyce, the last living member of that Lockhart generation, who was deeply touched.

 

Liz: I don’t know of anyone in my family either who died in a war. My grandfather had an illness that prevented him from fighting in WWII, but he and my grandmother both volunteered in the war efforts. I remember hearing them talk about it when I was young. I remember my grandfather being disappointed he couldn’t be in the actual fight, and my grandmother being proud to have contributed in the ways she did.

Jessie: There are many veterans in my own family but none who died in conflicts. My mother’s paternal grandmother served in WWII and out ranked her own sons before the end of the war. She and her sister are the inspiration for two characters in my Change of Fortune series, Elva and Dovie Velmont. My maternal grandfather served in the Pacific theater in WWII and one of my uncles served in Vietnam. Another of my uncles served in the same time period in the Coast Guard. Knowing how their efforts colored the rest of their lives is humbling today and always.

Julie: One of my grandfather’s served in World War I, and the other served in World War II. My uncle served in Vietnam. One of the people I think about was my father’s cousin, David Holmes, who was shot down in Vietnam in 1966 and was declared dead twelve years later. He and my father were close, and he was the only child of Aunt Frances and Uncle Al. David’s loss is but one story about how one person loss has repercussions throughout a family. To all who served, or who have served, thank you.

Readers:  Who do you remember today?

Mindful Writing

Kim in Baltimore reading fascinating short stories.

 

A few years ago I joined a group called the Mindful Writers. Each year I attend two retreats, one in the fall and the other in spring, where I am able to write for ours in peace and take hikes and meditate. These have been some of the most glorious times of my life.

Last year the group decided to compile some of our writings into a book and the result is Into The Woods. All of the proceeds from the sale of this anthology will be donated to The Children’s Heart Foundation. I have invited Lori M. Jones, Ramona Long and Kathleen Shoop to the blog to share with our readers more about this wonderful anthology and why this foundation matters to our group.

Lori’s Story               .[image error]

In 2005, I was pregnant with what appeared to be a healthy baby girl. Then at a routine 24 week check-up, the doctor said, “I can’t find your baby’s heartbeat.” When the doctor finally did it was only at half the rate the heartbeat should have been. There are 40 known heart defects, and she was diagnosed with one of them – Complete Heart Block – which is a defect in the heart’s electrical system. She would need a pacemaker as an infant in order to survive. She is now 12, on her second pacemaker, and doing very well. But when she was a baby, I had no idea what her future would entail, or more specifically, how she’d handle being different. I dissected my emotions through writing which led to me being offered a contract for my first children’s book – Riley’s Heart Machine – about a girl dealing with being different from her peers because she has heart machinery.

I searched for a heart charity to donate some of the proceeds to which led me to discovering the amazing work of The Children’s Heart Foundation. I eventually became more involved with the charity, from chairing the Pittsburgh Congenital Heart Walk and sitting on the PA Chapter board and the national board to eventually leading the PA Chapter as its president.

Since writing Riley’s Heart Machine, I’ve traveled to schools delivering assemblies on Writing from the Heart and have published another book, Confetti the Croc, which celebrates our unique qualities. I also have written two novels, Renaissance of the Heart and Late for Fate.

One of the best gems I discovered in my writing journey was The Mindful Writing Group. Through the discipline of writing together, I was able to complete my manuscripts. More importantly, I have found my tribe!

The anthology means so much to me because it’s a full circle moment for me. This book was a chance to join forces with all of my tribe members and create one beautiful project. And then they told me the proceeds were going to The Children’s Heart Foundation, to help the very charity that was fighting to make sure my daughter and other children have a bright future.

Kathleen Shoop on why the anthology is titled Into the Woods.[image error]

Into the Woods was a natural outgrowth for us, The Mindful Writers Retreat Authors. We write together a lot – in person and online. After years of retreating together we decided it was time to create something, a sound bite of the variety of voices that make up the group.

An anthology is a fabulous way for authors to pool their energy into a project while maintaining independence in what each person produces for the book. The collection creates a unique and vibrant body of work that can be read in short spurts or in its entirety. The theme – Into the Woods – seemed like the perfect idea for The Mindful Retreat Authors’ first collaboration since so much inspiration, ideas and wonder has grown out of our times in the lovely woods.

Ramona Long on why she wanted to be the editor of this anthology.

I volunteered to edit Into the Woods because I wanted to support The Children’s  Heart Foundation and this was a way I could do that. Like any anthology, working with a group of authors is always a learning experience, but I was particularly happy to work with this group because we are so closely bonded as Mindful Writers. We are all a part of one another’s stories, in a way.

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for joining us today. Please share with us any of your stories about a group or organization that is close to your own heart.

Those Crazy National Days

Jane/Susannah/Sadie here, looking forward to two fun weekends in a row–Memorial Da y with family, and a writing retreat next we ekend with seven friends, where at least eight new books will be plotted…

These National (fill in the blank) Days are fun, aren’t they? I’m not sure who comes up with these things, but I am proposing National Cozy Mystery Day! Until that’s a thing, here’s what’s what for today, May 24, according to National Day Calendar:

National Brother’s Day: Okay, I’ve got one brother, and today’s as good a day as any to tell him he’s still a pain in the butt. Rob, Happy Brother’s Day!

National Wyoming Day: I’ve never been, but I’d like to go someday. It looks like a beautiful, wide-open place. Have you been?

National Scavenger Hunt Day: Well, what’s more fun than that? OK, everyone, staying within the confines of your house, find the following: a book by one of the Wickeds; a coin that is somewhere it shouldn’t be; and something in your fridge that you forgot you had. Post your results in the comments, if you’re so inclined.

National Escargot Day: I LOVE escargot, properly prepared (which is to say, “prepared by someone else”) with lots of garlic and wine. Do you love it, hate it, or would never try it in a squillion years? Super bonus points if you have some in your fridge you forgot about (see National Scavenger Hunt Day, above).

And finally, Red Nose Day. I am NOT buying one of those silly clown noses, but I do appreciate the cause of reducing child poverty. So I’ll send a few bucks here. You know that spare coin you found on the scavenger hunt? Why not send it and a couple of its brothers to the cause of your choice today?

So, Wicked People, I’m kind of serious about proposing National Cozy Mystery Day. What day do you think it should be? Agatha Christie’s birthday (September 15)? The day the first episode of Murder, She Wrote aired (September 30)? Any other ideas?

Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone!

 

 

 

Wicked Wednesday: May Flowers

Edith here once again, on the fourth Wednesday in May, a lovely month in New England. It doesn’t snow – mostly – and finally warms up enough to let the flowers pop up and the leaves pop out. And the month also includes Mother’s Day, which traditionally is the weekend the lilacs bloom.

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So let’s indulge in some pretty today. What are your favorite May (or spring, really) flowers, Wickeds? Pictures would be lovely, but we’re writers, so lovely word pictures are fine, too.

Jessie: As an avid gardener I love most flowers but in spring I have a special place in my[image error] heart for peonies and for bleeding hearts. Peonies come in so many varieties and often have an enchanting fragrance. Bleeding hearts have a quiet, fleeting charm and a whimsical quality I adore. [image error]

Julie: I’m a lilac gal. I love the scent, and the bursts of purple. Going to the Arnold Arboretum for a lilac walk is always a favorite spring past time!

Liz: I love lilacs too. And I used to have a bleeding heart bush at my old house – so pretty. I do love daffodils, though – so sunny and happy![image error]

Barb: When I lived in the mid-Atlantic states, with their long, beautiful springs, I loved rhododendrons. Their deep colors and near-ubiquity meant spring to me. Since moving to New England, where spring is a day and a half between cold and rainy and ninety-eight degrees, I’ve switched my allegiance to hydrangeas. They bloom in the late spring and go all summer, and the colors are amazing.

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Edith: Jessie, I love peonies, too. My plants have bunches of buds on them, and I can’t wait. We have lovely showy rhododendrons near the front door that are about to burst out, too.

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And these gorgeous gold irises bloom at the end of my driveway.

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Readers: Share your favorite May blooms!