Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 96

WW: How Did You Celebrate The Last Day of School?

June is an interesting month. The beginning of summer, but also a time of finishing for those of us who are at all influenced by an academic calendar. So this month we’re going to talk about “finishing” and what that means.

This week, let’s talk about that great passage–the end of the school year. Wickeds, did you celebrate the last day of school? Were your graduations great celebrations? Do any of your characters go to school or celebrate the end of it?

Edith/Maddie: I remember that glorious feeling of the last day of school in elementary school. A long lazy summer seemed to stretch out ahead, filled with swimming, fresh peaches, milkshakes, and non-stop reading. I was a goofy kid, and my most memorable last day was in fifth grade. My sister had had Mr. (Ed) Aguirre for sixth grade that year, and I already knew I’d be in his class the next year. In an era where kids never called adults by their first names – and ESPECIALLY not teachers – I stopped by the open door of his classroom, yelled, “See ya next year, Eddie,” and sprinted away laughing. I’m still embarrassed…

Jessie: Fun question, Julie! Once I had a driver’s license I celebrated by going to such at a Chinese buffet with friends. As an adult I have celebrated the end of the school year by moving to the beach for the summer. I adore it!

Liz: My favorite way to celebrate was always to hit the beach with a book. You could say I’m kind of predictable…and that’s still my go-to!

Barb: On the last day of elementary school every year my grandmother would show up in her 1959 Thunderbird. (Not the famous 1957 one. This one was a four-seater, but it had the same shape and look.) She would drive my brother and me to my grandparents’ summer home in Water Mill, Long Island, where we would stay for two weeks. We would swim in the ocean and “the cut” (the place where Mecox Bay met, and occasionally opened to, the ocean). Then, we would go to the pool at my grandmother’s friends, The Allens house and dive for pennies, which would be redeemed at The Penny Candy Store on the way home. My grandmother’s father, my great-grandfather, was usually there at the same time, so I got to know him well. It was a glorious time to be a kid.

Julie: Edith, you made me laugh! And Barb, what wonderful memories! When I was in elementary school we lived in Duxbury, MA so we’d go to the beach for a cookout. We spent a lot of time at the beach those days. I LOVED the feeling of the last day of school. This week I’m going to two high school graduations, and last month I watched my nephew graduate from college. I will say, to date, my college graduation was one of the happiest days of my life.

Readers, how did you celebrate the last day of school?

A Wicked Welcome to Ginger Bolton

by Julie, who thought about turning the heat on this past weekend!

I’m delighted to welcome Ginger Bolton back to the blog! Ginger has a new book–BEYOND A REASONABLE DONUT came out May 25. She was also inspired by our “8” conversations last month–specifically about being eight years old.

THE QUESTION THEY ALWAYS ASKED

by Ginger Bolton

Do adults still ask this nearly every time they see a small relative? “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

By second grade, I had heard it many times.

What did I know besides my hazy idea of what the adults I knew were doing when they were grown up?

Kids were (and are) kept busy with various forms of the arts. I had tried a few of them, so that’s what I knew about. Well, more or less . . ..

Dance

My so-called tap-dancing on the tile hearth in the living room, while satisfyingly clattering, was not something I pictured myself doing as a grownup.

Music

The music teacher did not invite me to join the second grade chorus. I was devastated. I begged for, and received, piano lessons. That didn’t work well.

Visual Arts

My worst grades were due to my inability to color within the lines.

Theater

Aha. Finally, we were getting closer to something I could, I thought, do. At the end of the year, I was given a minor part in a play put on in the high school’s cavernous gymnasium for the entire school plus our extended families. I had two lines to speak! And I spoke them. I was told afterward that no one could hear me.

Literature

I had learned to print and spell (well, mostly.) That meant I could do something that I thought was really fun—write. I started with a poem that I proudly passed around to the aunts and uncles at a family gathering. They laughed. I had meant the poem to be serious. It was about my kitten. I did not have a kitten and did not know much about kittens. Or about anything else. I thought the aunts and uncles laughed because I had used the contraction for “he will,” and they mistook “he’ll” for “hell.” Years later I realized that the line that amused them was “Then he’ll have kittens.”

However, the Big Thing that happened in second grade was finding out that books didn’t just appear. People wrote them. They put their pencils down on the paper and painstakingly drew each letter and spelled each word and created these wondrous worlds for other people, like me for instance, to enjoy. I discarded my previous career ambitions. I no longer aimed to be a cowgirl or astronaut. The aunts and uncles laughed at my desire to write books. Long after they were gone, I did it.

What were some of your earliest dream careers?

Bio: Ginger Bolton

Ginger Bolton writes the Deputy Donut mysteries—coffee, donuts, cops, danger, and one curious cat. As Janet Bolin, Ginger wrote the Agatha-nominated Threadville Mysteries—murder and mayhem in a village of crafty shops.

BEYOND A REASONABLE DONUT came out May 25, and DECK THE DONUTS comes out October 26.

Website: https://gingerbolton.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorGingerBolton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ginger_bolton

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16834862.Ginger_Bolton/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/ginger-bolton

Memorial Day

World War II Memorial Washington, DC

Remembering the women and men who died while serving their country with a poem this Memorial Day.

Do Not Stand By My Grave and Weep

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Opening Lines

Wickeds, add an opening line to the photo below. Readers, add yours in the comments!

Jessie: Lyle’s heart hammered in his chest as he waited to see if anyone besides his own mother would recognize the sketch artist rendering of him in the national paper.

Sherry: The sniper’s hands shook as he realized his shot was way out of line. The red dot wasn’t lined up. If he didn’t complete the job he’d be the one dodging red dots.

Liz: Paul dreaded reading the name he knew he would see in the top story of today’s paper. Prolonging the inevitable, he smoked one last cigarette before he could face making the simple move to open the box and unleash the dreaded news.

Edith/Maddie: My heart nearly stopped. I hadn’t seen him for the entire decade he’d been incarcerated, and now he was free. But not for long, not if I had anything to do with it.

Barb: “Hey, you! What’s the news?”

Julie: The Doctor wasn’t convinced of the size of the new tardis, but he tried to have faith. His new assistant was determined to guard it, so he set out in search of Mrs. Christie who was most definitely out of her time, and wreaking havoc as only she could.

Finding a Way to Subvert Cabot Cove Syndrome by Debra H. Goldstein

Welcome back, Debra Goldstein! We met Debra years ago when we were standing in line waiting to register at Malice Domestic. What a fortuitous event that turn out to be! Debra is doing a giveaway–look for details at the end of the post.

Debra: One of the best and worst of things writing a continuing cozy series is dealing with Cabot Cove Syndrome. The fictional syndrome, which is attributed to the television show, Murder She Wrote, describes the finding of bodies repeatedly in the small town of Cabot Cove, Maine. Because the show ran for twelve years, not to mention the books and movies it spawned, the BBC once calculated its murder rate at 1490 per million, which translated to about two percent of the residents of Cabot Cove.

Numbers like that, if the town truly existed, would either strain reality or make one leery of ever visiting. The concept holds true when writing a continuing series. Readers want to identify with a cast of characters found in every book, but at the same time, they want the character roster to expand enough each time that the dead body and the culprit aren’t the only new faces in town. To keep the reader satisfied and coming back, the author must use different methods.

The easiest way to avoid Cabot Cove Syndrome is have the protagonist take a trip. That can work here or there, but in a cozy the small town setting itself becomes a character that readers look forward to visiting. What would Louise Penney’s books be if they didn’t, for the most part, take place in Three Pines? Rather than ignoring Cabot Cove Syndrome, it is better to embrace it through the workaround of introducing minor characters whose roles grow in subsequent books.

For example, in One Taste Too Many, the first book in my Sarah Blair series, I introduced Grace Winston as a culinary student interning with Sarah’s talented Chef sister, Emily. She has several scenes in One Taste where readers learn about her personality, health, and history. Mentioned again in Two Bites Too Many, but in a minor role, Grace remains in the reader’s mind. Her scenes become important in Three Treats Too Many, where she now is the sous chef for Emily’s restaurant. In fact, the title of the book comes from an idea she raises with Emily, Sarah, and Emily’s boyfriend, Marcus, during a brainstorming session. Although she still is a secondary character, the reader learns about Grace’s partner and sees Grace caught in a culinary job dilemma between restaurant rivals.

Four Cuts Too Many begins a few days after Three Treats Too Many ends. Grace’s dilemma is the impetus for a meeting between Sarah and Grace. Within pages, the reader sees Grace’s role expand as now, besides being a sous chef for Emily, Grace is teaching a knife skills course at the community college. After she has a run-in with her department head, he is found dead from a knife wound to his throat. And, voila, Grace becomes the primary suspect.

The importance of Grace being the suspect in Four Cuts Too Many, or any of the primary suspects used in the other books in the series, is that their characters are known to the reader and are people the readers want Sarah to help. Although the corpse may be someone new to the community, there is enough familiarity for the story to feel like a continuous extension of a discussion between friends. For my books, the developed continuity and affection for the characters is what lets the reader transcend and suspend any impact the Cabot Cove Syndrome might have.

Readers: For a chance to win a print or e-book copy of Four Cuts Too Many (U.S. only), tell me, how do you feel about Cabot Cove Syndrome in the books you read?

Four Cuts Too Many

Sarah Blair gets an education in slicing and dicing when someone in her friend’s culinary school serves up a main corpse in Wheaton, Alabama . . .
 
Between working as a law firm receptionist, reluctantly pitching in as co-owner of her twin sister’s restaurant, and caretaking for her regal Siamese RahRah and rescue dog Fluffy, Sarah has no time to enjoy life’s finer things. Divorced and sort-of dating, she’s considering going back to school. But as a somewhat competent sleuth, Sarah’s more suited for criminal justice than learning how many ways she can burn a meal.
 
Although she wouldn’t mind learning some knife skills from her sous chef, Grace Winston. An adjunct instructor who teaches cutlery expertise in cooking college, Grace is considering accepting an executive chef’s position offered by Jane Clark, Sarah’s business rival—and her late ex-husband’s lover. But Grace’s future lands in hot water when the school’s director is found dead with one of her knives in his back. To clear her friend’s name, there’s no time to mince words. Sarah must sharpen her own skills at uncovering an elusive killer . . .
 
 Includes quick and easy recipes!

Four Cuts Too Many by Debra H. Goldstein, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Bio: Judge Debra H. Goldstein writes Kensington’s Sarah Blair mystery series. Her short stories and novels have been Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Silver Falchion finalists. Debra is on the national board of MWA and is president of SEMWA. She previously was on SinC’s national board and was the Guppy Chapter president. Learn more about Debra at https://www.DebraHGoldstein.com .

Eight Minutes

If you had a sudden eight minutes of free time, what would you do?

Jessie: I love small pockets of time to read a few pages of a book, listen to a short podcast or do a quick meditation session.

Barb: Unfortunately, I am terrible at using small periods of time. Always have been. I have the kind of brain that takes awhile to climb in and out of tasks. So I would probably end up frittering the time away on the internet.

Edith/Maddie: This question has me stumped! I guess I’d go out and sit on the deck, where our antique dogwood is having a spectacular bloom this year. Or just play with the cat.

Liz: I would probably go sit outside in the sun, play with the doggies or maybe sneak in a few minutes of reading. Or, like Barb, bring my phone and get sucked into Instagram or something.

Sherry: So this might sounds nuts, but I read an article about all the things you can accomplish in small amounts of time. When I find myself with some free minutes I often do some quick cleaning. Breaking cleaning into small tasks makes it much more palatable to me.

Julie: Sherry, I’d love you to share that article with me! If I’m home, I’d probably have the gap between meetings, so I would check email. If I’m waiting somewhere, I will read a book or listen to one. Or I may just sit and meditate. I need to get better about breaks between tasks.

Readers: What do you do when you have eight minutes of free time?

Morning People

By Liz, loving the hot weather that’s finally arrived in CT!

For one of our recent Wicked Wednesdays, we talked about what we are usually doing at eight in the morning. I actually really liked this question, and once I started my list of the things I’ve done by then, I was sort of impressed.

It included cleaning (my cats are messy overnight), journaling, meditating, walking and feeding dogs, and sometimes even getting some words in on my latest book. And mind you, I don’t like to get up super early, so in most cases this doesn’t start before 6:30.

I’ve been working through my relationship with mornings most of my life. I used to think I was more of a night person. Then again, I also used to think I was an extrovert. One thing I knew with certainty was that I was not like my parents, who both got up at the crack of dawn regardless of the day of the week. My mother was famous for getting up at four a.m. to clean the house before everyone else got up. Shoot me now, I used to think about that.

I was a typical teenager who liked to sleep late, and even if I wasn’t sleeping, I would stay in bed for as long as I could get away with on the weekends. In college and early working days I’d drag myself out of bed at some ungodly hour, usually waking up to a really terrible, buzzing alarm clock, and drag myself into the day. I remember usually feeling tired before I even got started going anywhere or doing anything.

Then I heard of a phenomenal thing called the zen alarm clock. The whole idea of it was that you woke up to soft chimes that would become more consistent the longer you ignored it, rather than being blasted out of bed by a buzzing noise that sounded like a SWAT team was invading your bedroom. That was my first taste of a more peaceful start to the day.

Then I did Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and began doing morning pages consistently, which added a whole new level of centering to my day. While I fell in and out of that consistency for a while depending on circumstances, this is now a non-negotiable part of my day. If I don’t journal, I feel incredibly off.

Still, when I was rushing out of the house to get to some office or another, that zen still eluded me. For a while I managed it with a routine of journal, green smoothie, lots of coffee, and positive affirmations in the car, but I realized that rushing around and out the door in the morning is really just not for me. Especially with traffic and all those other joyful commuting nuisances.

Then I manifested the opportunity to work fully remote – which I knew was the way to go for me. Long before COVID sent everyone to their home offices, I was happily ensconced in mine with a commute of two steps from my bedroom. My transition from my day job to my writing job (or vice versa) was simply a matter of closing one computer and turning to the other. My furries are the best office mates and I get to be with them all day. And best of all, I don’t have to rush into the morning. It helps that I don’t have to do my hair and makeup anymore until I felt like it (if at all), but overall it’s lovely to be able to ease into the day, do my routine, get some word count in to make me feel successful before I start my other work, and still show up on time for my nine-thirty meetings.

If one has to “day job” while writing books, this is definitely the way to do it. And I’ve come to the realization that yes, I am a morning person.

Readers, what do you like best (or least) about mornings? Leave a comment below.

On Feeling Safe – or Not

Edith/Maddie, writing from north of Boston after a weekend of socializing with fully vaccinated friends and family, and I’m giving away an ARC of No Grater Crime to celebrate!

I can barely describe the joy of hugging someone I love deeply – and haven’t been able to even touch for fifteen months – now that we share a COVID-safe status.

Hugh and I had four get-togethers this weekend, starting on Thursday, plus a work party at the Amesbury Friends Meetinghouse to get it ready for in-person worship next week.

Miss B, now a very tall fifteen-year old, who came to dinner with her familyMy son Allan and our favorite three-year old, Miss C., working on baseball skills.A bunch of my most favorite people. Raising the center divider in the historic Meetinghouse to provide more airflow. It was SO good to see Friends in person. A few good friends, some longtime, some new, over for drinks, snacks, and conversation

These gatherings are important. They fill my heart. They re-establish connection. And feeling safe being close to people is a rusty feeling, but a good one.

But the people I trust to be with while unmasked number maybe two or three dozen, CDC guidance notwithstanding. I’m still not ready to be indoors for very long around people I don’t know. No indoor dining. No airplanes. No mystery conventions. I know many people feel differently.

After the year we’ve all had, when I’m out in public around people not wearing masks, I have no idea if they are fully or even partially vaccinated. I dread getting COVID and, worse, getting it and spreading it to others. I fear the new virulent variants.

So what does the new unmasking in public do for my writing?

Writers – especially crime writers – need to be able to capture feelings of fear, of dread, of distrust. I need my character to think, “Who can I trust? And can I really?” She needs to be afraid of that dark room. He needs to dread finding out what caused that noise or learning that someone he thought was a friend wasn’t really. I can mine the feelings I experience when I’m near an unmasked stranger.

As always with authors, it’s all material – even living in an almost post-pandemic world.

Readers: How are you feeling about being in public these days? I’ll send one of you an advance copy of No Grater Crime!

Welcome Kathy Lynn Emerson!

Edith/Maddie here, loving spring plantings – the pollen, not so much. But sneezing and itchy eyes don’t prevent me from welcoming good friend of the Wickeds, Kathy Lynn Emerson, aka Kaitlyn Dunnett, back to the blog with a new collection of her essays spanning a decade. Congratulations, Kathy Lynn. You are just amazing! And I can’t wait to read this collection.

Here’s the description: In this unique compilation of 115 essays written between 2011 and 2021, Kathy Lynn Emerson, author of over sixty traditionally-published books in a variety of genres and under several names, writes about everything from how to conquer the sagging middle of a work-in-progress to the adoption of  her current cat-in-residence. Other topics highlight eccentricities—her own, a few from her family tree, and those to be found in the rural Western Maine mountains where she lives. Best known for her cozy mysteries, written as Kaitlyn Dunnett, and for historical mysteries written under her own name, Kathy Lynn Emerson has also been published in non-fiction, including the award-winning How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries. I Kill People for a Living is available in e-book and trade paperback formats.

Never Let Anything Go To Waste

Whether I’m writing under my own name (Kathy Lynn Emerson) or a pseudonym (Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kate Emerson), I’ve always been a great one for recycling. Plot ideas and bits of text that didn’t work in one project, have often been just the right fit in others. Sometimes I’m the only one who would ever recognize the connection. In other cases, successfully making use of the material was just a question of approaching it from a different angle . . . or maybe a different historical period. Because I launched my professional writing career over forty years ago, and have not (by a long shot) sold every book I’ve ever written, I’ve managed to turn lots of leftovers into new creations, but it never occurred to me until very recently that I’d mentally consigned one sort of writing to the trash when it should have gone into the recycle bin.

I’m talking about blogs. I have no idea how many of them I’ve written in all. For at least the last dozen years, I’ve done multiple guest posts every time I had a new book come out. That’s a minimum of twenty-five novels and a collection of short stories from four different publishers. I’ve also blogged at least twice a week at Maine Crime Writers since it was launched in 2011. Although I rarely thought about any of those posts once they were published, I am one of those paranoid people who backs everything up six ways to Sunday. I still had digital copies of every one of them.

It was late January when I realized that the next blog I wrote for Maine Crime Writers would be my two hundred and fiftieth at that site. That sounded like a good topic for the post, and in it I broached the possibility of collecting past posts into a book. Since I’d already been dipping my toes into the world of self-publishing (with children’s books and nonfiction), positive feedback from readers was all it took to encourage me to go ahead with the project. I even had a ready-made title, the same one I used for my very first blog at MCW: I Kill People for a Living.

I fuss over my blogs, proofreading and revising each one. I didn’t think I’d have to do much editing once I selected those I wanted to use in a collection. Boy, was I wrong! Most blogs are written in an extremely casual style, frequently containing asides and references to what is going on in the rest of the world at the time. In the distant past, I taught college freshmen how to write essays. Some revising was definitely going to be needed. Then, too, my posts about writing often dealt with works-in-progress. Did I need follow-up? Maybe add Author’s Notes? I also wondered how I was going to arrange these “essays” in the finished book and if not having illustrations, as most blogs do, would make the text less interesting.

Since I wasn’t planning to go out much for another few months and didn’t have any pending deadlines for other projects, it didn’t take me long to become thoroughly engrossed in pulling together a collection of essays. Then fate, in the person of Meredith Phillips, an editor I’d worked with in the past, stepped in to lend a hand. Meredith was going freelance and offered to copyedit a manuscript of my choosing, free of charge, as a sort of introductory offer to her services. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. Self-published books are always far better if they have been professionally edited.

The end result, I Kill People for a Living: A Collection of Essays by a Writer of Cozy Mysteries, is available now, online and through bookstores and libraries, in both e-book and trade paperback formats. I ended up sorting a hundred and fifteen blogs into nine categories, ranging from essays about writing books and short stories (Cozy Mysteries, Historical Novels, Miscellaneous Thoughts on Writing) to more personal topics (My Life in Books, Climbing the Family Tree) to pieces on people (real and fictional) and places that influenced me or my writing or both. I grouped material that didn’t quite fit anywhere else under Odds and Ends. And, of course, there was one other topic that rated it’s own section, since I do (mostly) write cozy mysteries. There are eight essays devoted entirely to cats.

Readers: Do you enjoy learning the story behind the story? If a book includes cats, is that a bonus for you?

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-three books traditionally published and has self published several children’s books and three works of nonfiction. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Her next publication (as Kaitlyn) is the fourth book in the contemporary “Deadly Edits” series (Murder, She Edited), in stores in August 2021. As Kathy, her most recent novel is a standalone historical mystery, The Finder of Lost Things. She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com. A third, at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women, is the gateway to over 2300 mini-biographies of sixteenth-century Englishwomen, now available in e-book format.

Genre Hopping with Tori Eldridge

I’m so delighted that Tori Eldridge could join us today in what is a very busy week for her! Tori introduced herself to me at Bouchercon in Dallas the day I turned the Sisters in Crime presidency to Lori Rader-Day. First, she thanked me for my work with Sisters in Crime and then we talked about her upcoming book The Ninja Daughter. I’m so glad Tori took the time to do that because I love her Lily Wong books and almost did flips when I saw the third book in the series, The Ninja Betrayed, is coming out in September. I love the beautiful covers of Tori’s books!

Name (s) Tori Eldridge

Genre(s) Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Dark Fantasy, Magical Realism 

What drew you to the genre you write? I’ve always read books in multiple genres, so it’s not surprising (at least, not to me!) that I would also write in multiple genres. Characters and stories come from my imagination at will. It’s only after they appear, that I realize what I’m writing.

Although I’m best known for the crime fiction novels in my Lily Wong mystery-thriller series, I’ve also written shorter works in horror, dystopian, and fantasy. Next May, I’ll be releasing a dark fantasy standalone about a desperate mother who rises from the slums of Brazil to become a powerful wielder of Quimbanda magic. It’s a cross genre story that spans across three continents, forty years, and a mysterious incident in 1560 France. Clearly, I’m not a writer who stays in one lane!

What sets your book apart from what is out there? Well…I don’t think there’s ever been a Chinese-Norwegian modern-day ninja in contemporary crime fiction literature—or any other literature for that matter. Lily Wong is unique, as is my blend of mystery, culture, family dynamics, and authentic ninja action. Since I drew heavily from my own life experience and heritage, it warms my heart that readers are connecting with Lily and digging her adventures. 

What are you currently writing? I’m polishing up a dystopian conspiracy thriller set in an antimicrobial resistant future, inspired by a short story I wrote, several years ago, for an apocalypse-themed anthology. I wrote the first half of the novel before The Ninja Daughter was published and didn’t have time to return to it until the COVID pandemic began. It’s been strange and disconcerting to watch aspects of my imaginary world come to life. 

Do you write a series or standalones? Why? I enjoy writing the Lily Wong series because of the ongoing character development. At twenty-five, Lily is at an age where she will make great strides and astounding mistakes. It’s a time of courage, idealism, doubt, and insecurity. There’s so much for her to learn about herself, her parents, and the ongoing characters in her life. Standalones are exciting to write because I build a world for characters at the most important time of their lives. The stakes are high and I leave everything on the page.

What are you reading right now? I’m listening to Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi and reading Without Sanction by Don Bently. 

What is your favorite deadline snack? Air-popped popcorn sprayed with coconut oil. 

Do you have a favorite quote or life motto? When in doubt, choose the most empowering perception. 

Favorite writing space? I begin every day by writing at the bistro table in my kitchen where I stand on a balancing board to keep my body active and engaged. After a couple hours, I pull up a stool and sit on a spiky balance cushion. This allows me to rock and massage my thighs and glutes. From here, I either move to the patio, where I can lounge in the filtered sun, breathe the fresh air, and put up my feet. I also enjoy writing at my coffee table while sitting in the splits or kneeling on a meditation bench. This is what happens when a dancer-ninja becomes a writer! 

What do you see when you look up from writing? Bunnies sprinting across my lawn, roses in bloom, and the hills where I love to hike.

BIO: Tori Eldridge is the Anthony, Lefty, and Macavity Awards-nominated author of the Lily Wong mystery thriller series—The Ninja Daughter, The Ninja’s Blade, and The Ninja Betrayed (out 9/14/21). Her shorter works appear in horror, dystopian, and other literary anthologies, including the inaugural reboot of Weird Tales. Tori holds a fifth-degree black belt in To-Shin Do ninja martial arts and has performed as an actress, singer, dancer on Broadway, television, and film. Her dark fantasy standalone, Dance Among the Flames releases next May, 2022. Check out her book club kits at https://torieldridge.com