Sherry Harris's Blog, page 32

Welcome, Lucy Burdette!

by Barb, who enjoyed a happy weekend making Christmas cookies with my granddaughter

The Wicked Cozies are thrilled to welcome Lucy Burdette to the blog. We’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating: Without Lucy, there might not have been a Wicked Cozies at all. Sherry, Edith and I were all members of Sisters in Crime New England, but our friendships were cemented on the weekend we spent at Seascape, the writing boot camp Lucy (in her alter ego disguise as Roberta Isleib) ran with Hallie Ephron and S.W. Hubbard. Even more important, that’s where we got to know Liz, who hadn’t even planned on attending that year, until Lucy talked her into it. We all knew Julie and Jessie from SinCNE, and it took off from there.

Lucy has a new Christmas book out in her Hayley Snow Key West Food Critic Mystery series, and I’m chatting with her about that today.

About Death with All the Trimmings:

It may be Christmastime, but thoughts of peace on earth, good will toward men, don’t seem to extend to the restaurant business. Food critic Hayley Snow has been assigned to interview Edel Waugh, chef/owner of Key West’s hottest new restaurant. But off the record, Edel reveals that there’s been sabotage in the kitchen and asks Hayley to investigate. Things heat up fast when the restaurant is set on fire—and a body is discovered in the charred wreckage. Is someone out to destroy the chef’s business—or actually kill her? Amid holiday festivities like the lighted boat parade, and visiting relatives who stir up mixed emotions, Hayley needs to smoke out an arsonist and a killer before they turn up the heat again…on her!

Barb: One thing you and I have in common is Key West. Lots of adjectives spring to mind when I think of Key West, but “cozy” isn’t one of them. What was your inspiration to set a cozy mystery in Key West?

Lucy: Such a good question Barb! I suspect the Disney cruise ship was wondering the same thing when they docked for a day during Fantasyfest (the Halloween week celebration that involves a lot of body paint and not much else, LOL.)

But Key West makes a good setting for a cozy because of its many layers. A great mystery setting becomes a character of its own–a place that readers yearn to visit. A place on the precipice of something happening. A place filled with secrets, and conflicts, and places to hide. A place like Key West, with its delicately balanced development, and its conflicts between old-time Conchs and newcomers, between the richest of the rich, the homeless, and the millions of partying visitors. Underneath its fashion-model looks, magical, whimsical, bizarro Key West has so much more. On the outside, warm weather, tropical plants, happy tourists, Sunset celebrations…and on the dark side, competition over money, space, and what kind of town we’ll become.

Barb: Oh, that’s so true! In Key West, it looks like it’s all hanging out, but there’s so much beneath the surface. I love Christmas cozies, which Death with all the Trimmings is. But Hayley is in the tropics, where the writer can’t rely on a snow-covered New England town square to set the mood. Can you give us a sense of the holiday season in Key West?

Lucy: Hayley and I are getting adjusted to Christmas in our Key West paradise. Though we miss the snow and the snappy cold air and our friends and family most of all, there’s something pretty magical about lights on a palm tree. But Key West goes a whole lot further than that. The town sponsors a lighting decoration contest, a lighted boat parade, and the hometown holiday parade, with elaborate floats from local organizations. And don’t let me forget the Winter Wiener Wonderland, which is a parade of costumed dachshunds. (I marched in that last year with my husband and our Australian shepherd—we all wore hot dog costumes.) It was so much fun to work all of those events into the book!

Barb: One reason I love the Key West Food Critic series is because your protagonist Hayley Snow seems to be growing up before our eyes. She’s very young and pretty naive in the first book, An Appetite for Murder, but she’s had a lot of experiences both good and bad since then. How do you think about Hayley as a person? Do you think about a personal arc for each book? Across the series?

Lucy: Thank you for that observation, Barb! I did get a lot of feedback on An Appetite for Murder about Hayley’s immaturity and self-absorption. To tell you the truth, I don’t think she’s much different than a lot of young adults in their early to mid twenties. She knew she needed to get out of her mother’s house, but how? The whirlwind romance gave her the perfect ticket out. Readers meet her just as that relationship has blown up. She’s in Key West, she’s panicked and desperate, she doubts herself, she’ll do anything to stay on the island. The good news is that leaves her room to grow! And understanding how the characters will grow and change is my favorite part of writing. There was so much I didn’t know about these characters when I started writing–they’ve evolved on the screen before my eyes. So yes, I think about what might happen in these relationships over the course of each book. And I have a bigger, more general idea for the series.

Barb: What are you working on now?

Fatal Reservations is due mid-January–yikes! One of the trickiest parts of writing a cozy mystery is figuring out the heroine’s stake in solving the crime. Why in the world would a food critic be involved in puzzling out a murder? I realize that readers are willing to suspend disbelief to a certain extent, but when I’m reading, I want to feel convinced that the characters are behaving reasonably. So I spend a lot of time figuring out that ‘why.’ In Fatal Reservations, which will hit bookshelves next July, Hayley’s dear friend the Tarot card reader, Lorenzo, is accused of a brutal murder. He’s been supportive of her since she arrived on the island and he’s clearly afraid to talk to the police. For these reasons, she has to step up to sort out what really happened.

Thanks so much to the Wicked Cozies for hosting me on your blog!

Readers: Do you have questions or comments for Lucy?

Lucy’s bio

Lucy Burdette (aka Roberta Isleib) is the author of 13 mysteries, including the latest in the Key West series featuring food critic Hayley Snow. Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She’s a past president of Sisters in Crime.

Lucy Burdette’s fifth Key West food critic mystery, DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS, was published on December 2. She blogs about food and mysteries at Mystery Lovers Kitchen (www.mysteryloverskitchen.com) and Jungle Red Writers (www.jungleredwriters.com). You can also find her on Facebook (www.facebook.com/lucyburdette) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/lucyburdette) and Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/robertaisleib).

Buy the Book: http://www.penguin.com/book/death-with-all-the-trimmings-by-lucy-burdette/9780451465900

Filed under: Guest posts Tagged: An Appetite for Murder, death with all the trimmings, Hallie ephron, Key West Food Critic Mysteries, s.w. hubbard

Opening Lines

It’s Tagged for Death week! Write an opening line for this garage-sale-themed picture:

Jessie: Ellie was a literally minded woman. When she said she was holding a garage sale she meant it. She took it as a good sign that the first thing to go that morning was the garage door.

Julie: Leave it to Ted. “I can open a time vortex and bring Uncle Chet back.” “That’s nice, sweetie.” “Don’t believe me?” “No, no I don’t.” The next morning the car, sans Uncle Chet, shows up at the garage sale. And I can’t find Ted anywhere. The car could probably help get him back. But who could turn down $1000?

Edith: Man, doing surveillance at a yard sale sucks. All these people coming and going. But I know the guy who left that wad of drug money in the pile of clothes last week is going to show up looking for it. And then he’ll be looking at a nice long stay in prison.

Liz: I hoped I was a good enough shot to pick off my target; otherwise I was going to ruin some poor innocent schmuck’s Saturday morning bargain hunting.

Barb: The fourth time the red Corvette cruised by, I got my hopes up. He was cute and blond, though his face was obscured by his sunglasses. By the fifth time, I was worried, and when he was still doing it, long after we’d shut down the sale and picked up the lawn, after night had fallen and my parents had gone home, I began to panic.

Sherry: I put a “price firm” sign on grandpa’s old truck. If one more person asked me to lower the price they were going to be hanging upside down from the rope in my neighbor’s tree.

Readers: Add yours!

Filed under: Opening Lines

Wicked Love

By Sherry Harris

Grateful in Northern Virginia

A launch week can become a bit “all about me”. You end up writing blogs, posting links to your book, and checking the three “r’s” ranks, reviews, and ratings. But I wanted to put that all on hold for a bit today to talk about the Wickeds and other friends.

In June 2013 I wrote about how we (the Wickeds) met in a blog about the importance of networking. In mid-March of 2013 I realized going it alone as an author terrified me and reached out to Barb, Edith, Jessie, Julie, and Liz saying something like,

Seascape 2009 where I met Liz, Edith, and Barb. (And our lovely Australian friend Christine)

“Anyone interested in doing a blog?” I still have whiplash from what happened next. Liz’s first book Kneading to Die released in May 2013 and the group said let’s start the blog the first of May. As often I tell the Wickeds, the blog would still be an idea I was thinking about if it wasn’t for them.

Soon Sheila Connolly joined us for a monthly column. I love her way of looking at the world. Not to mention she has this awesome “dump” (or archeological dig) under her house where she’s found tons of china fragments among other things. Sheila also shares my love of chairs and collecting things.

Catching up after Crime Bake.

Last January Kim Gray joined us with her monthly column “The Detective’s Daughter.” She had told us many of her stories over glasses of wine at various conferences. Kim can make me laugh even during the grimmest story — honestly, I was almost crying I was laughing so hard when she was describing getting robbed. I’m so thrilled she’s sharing her stories with us each month.

The Wickeds are so much more than blog mates. They hold my hand, cheer me on, slap me up side the virtual head when I need it (I tend to be a worrier). Barb recently gave up a day and a half of her busy life to help me with a bunch of computer stuff. We send each other a lot of emails. Here is a sample of our topics: Huge News, This Just In, Aargh!, Checking In, Boiled Over in Woman’s World, Title, ARCs!, Shh! Gift for Liz, Hermit Like Behavior, Ups and downs,Killing trees, By Golly It Works!, Goodreads Etiquette, Ready for Parole, Being Silly. I couldn’t be associated with a better group of women and I love you all.

Chessie Members: Barb Goffman, Me, Shari Randall, Ellen Crosby, and Donna Andrews at a library event.

In 2010 my husband and I left Massachusetts and moved back to northern Virginia. I missed my writing community and my many friends from the New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime. I knew there was a Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime in this area. Every couple of months I’d look at their website and think, I ought to join. Finally, in 2012, I did. Walking into a room full of strangers is always a bit scary but fortunately Barb Goffman, Logan, and Carla Coupe were there to welcome me. As I continued to attend meetings I met more and more of the members and am so fortunate to have a wonderful writing community here too.

Some of the Wickeds (before we were wicked) with other New England Sinc friends singing the now famous (not) song Agatha Christie, Sweet Queen of Mystery

What would an author do without all the reviewers, bloggers, and commenters out there reading and reporting? If authors were super heroes, reviewers, bloggers, and commenters would be our sidekicks. I’m afraid I’ll forget to mention someone so I’m not going to list you individually. But these people read books and post reviews on their blogs or comment on blogs. They don’t get paid, they do it for their love of books. But they are a huge support to authors and help by spreading the word about our books.

Then there are my Delta Zeta sorority sisters. I know that the word “sorority” turns some people off because of stereotypes. I went to a small college in Missouri, we weren’t rich, we weren’t all blonds, and we weren’t snobby. What we were and are, is friends who can laugh at the stupid things we did when we were young and enjoy our limited time together as adults. Last September over fifty of us gathered in St. Charles, Missouri for a weekend of fun. I was overwhelmed with how happy my sisters were for me — I’m humbled by it. I use some of their names in different combinations for some of the characters in my books. And maybe I even borrow bits and pieces of their personalities but shh, I don’t want them to know.

And last but far from least are all the wonderful friends we’ve met in our moves around the country. Every move was hard but I don’t regret any of them because of the great people who came into my life. Also a big thank you to my family who supported my dream for years — oh so many years.

My heart is full today because of the many people that touched my life. Thank you.

Photo by Meg Manion Silliker

Filed under: Sherry's posts Tagged: Barb Goffman, Bloggers, Carla Coupe, Commenters, Delta Zeta, Kim Gray, Meg Manion Silliker, New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime, Reviewers, sheila connolly, Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter, Wicked Cozy Authors

Yard Sales We Have Known and Loved–Or Hated…

This week we’re celebrating the launch of Sherry Harris’s Tagged for Death. Which brings me to the question Wickeds, have you ever held a yard sale? With family, neighbors, a common group like your kids nursery school? Did you love it or hate it? Were you enriched or depleted? We want to know…

Jessie: I’ve never held a yard sale or a garage sale. We simply place things out near the side of the road with a sign stating “FREE” and that usually gets us all cleared out. I haven’t been to a lot of garage sales as an adult but I did go on many trips to the flea market as a child and I always loved it. I think the sense of adventure and that it is really a sort of treasure hunt is a big part of the appeal.

Edith: While I was a farmer and home with my kids, money was tight for a while. We lived on a busy state route, so we held a yard sale (which we call garage sales in California) one Saturday. We made a few hundred dollars off the stuff we no longer wanted or needed and it did help the coffers. I put out some “hippie” skirts from an earlier era in my life, and my husband at the time put out a few African shirts he no longer fit. The high school girl across the street snapped them up. Perfect! The down side is the end of the day: getting rid of what doesn’t sell. As Sarah is so good at in Sherry’s book! The FREE sign is useful.

My town holds a town-wide yard sale at the end of June and my Friends Meeting participated for a few years, but it ended up just being too much work so we stopped. Sherry, come up on up next June! I avoid shopping at yard sales now, because I have too much stuff as it is…

Liz: I’ve held a few yard sales over the past couple of years, not because I love to do it, but because I couldn’t think of a better way to get rid of years of accumulated stuff that was just too nice to be tossed in the trash. I have to admit, I got kind of into it – the setting up, the bartering, and best of all the sales! The worst part? Having to pack up what’s left after a long day. And every time I do one, I swear whatever’s left is going to charity, but there’s this little voice that says, Maybe just one more…

Julie: When I moved out of my old house into a condo, I planned a yard sale to get rid of stuff. Of course, it rained, so I had to have the yard sale inside. A challenging day, mildly put. At the end of it, I had a friend come by with a van, and I donated everything I hadn’t sold to a charity she worked with. In my theater life, yard sales help fill prop lists and furnish actor housing. And, of course, I’ve been to Brimfield, which is worthy of its own post.

Barb: Every year we used to have a yard sale with my husband’s brothers and sisters and their families. We lived on a busy street, so it was always at our house. My sister-in-law was an artist’s agent, and just like our agent gets copies of our books, she got copies of everything her artists licensed. It was a treasure trove of china, table linens, stationery, trays, waste paper baskets, rugs, all brand new. She drew people in, who often then bought from the rest of us. Her stuff was so popular, sometimes when I’d be working in the yard, people would pull up and ask me when that year’s sale was.

We’ve moved since then, and we try to be better at culling stuff throughout the year instead of saving it for the yard sale. I look back on those days as long and exhausting, but very happy, leading to a treasure trove of family stories.

Sherry:  I would have loved that yard sale, Barb! I’d love to go to your town’s yard sale, Edith! Brimfield sigh — I’ve never been but want to go, Julie. I grew up in a family that donated our old stuff instead of selling it. But when I was in second grade my best friend’s family had a yard sale. I went and soon ran home to grab some things to sell. I quickly sold a jar of marbles and some comic books and I was hooked. I confess, going to them is a lot more fun than throwing them. I try to collect small things now like the “H’s” in the picture but I have a hard time resisting small tables and chairs.

Readers: Have you held a yard sale? What was the best or worst thing about it? And as an aside–what do they call them in your neck of the woods? Tag sale? Yard sale? Garage sale? It’s all fodder for Sherry!

Filed under: Wicked Wednesday Tagged: Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries, Sherry Harris, Tag sales, Tagged for Death, yard sales

Happy Book Birthday-Tagged for Death!

Virtual champagne and fireworks are flying around Wicked Cozy World today as we celebrate the birth of the first book in Sherry Harris’ Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery series–Tagged for Death!

Here’s a description of the book.

Tagged for Death

Sarah Winston’s happy life as an Air Force wife crashes around her when her husband, CJ, ends up in the arms of his subordinate, 19-year-old temptress Tiffany. Forced to move off base, Sarah’s self-prescribed therapy involves hitting all the garage and tag sales in and around her small town of Ellington, Massachusetts. If only she could turn her love for bargain hunting into a full-time career.

After returning from a particularly successful day searching for garage sale treasures, Sarah finds a grisly surprise in one of her bags: a freshly bloodied shirt that undoubtedly belongs to her ex, CJ, who now happens to be Ellington’s chief of police. If that’s not bad enough, it seems Tiffany has gone missing. Now it’s up to Sarah to prove that her cold-hearted ex is not a cold-blooded killer. But finding that treasure may be murder.

Starting your life over at age thirty-eight isn’t easy, but that’s what Sarah Winston finds herself facing when her husband CJ runs off with a 19-year-old temptress named Tiffany. Sarah’s self-prescribed therapy happily involves hitting all the garage and tag sales in and around her small town of Ellington, Massachusetts. If only she could turn her love for bargain hunting into a full-time career.

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure

But after returning from a particularly successful day searching for yard sale treasures, Sarah finds a grisly surprise in one of her bags: a freshly bloodied shirt…that undoubtedly belongs to her ex, CJ, who now happens to be Ellington’s chief of police. If that’s not bad enough, it seems Tiffany has gone missing. Now it’s up to Sarah to prove that her cold-hearted ex is not a cold-blooded killer…

But finding that treasure can be murder.

Barb: Congratulations, Sherry! First pub day is the best pub day–evah! I’ve been excited about this series since I first heard the concept. I’m one of the lucky few who has actually read the book (though that will change very soon). Here is what I said. “When her husband is unfaithful, plucky Sarah Winston loses her marriage and her identity as a colonel’s wife. In Tagged for Death, Sarah must find a new life, a way to make a living, and, after all her years on the move, a home. Like the hidden gems Sarah Winston finds at garage sales, this book is a treasure.”

Liz: Sherry, I’m getting teary-eyed over here! So, so happy for you and I can’t wait to read. Have a fabulously fun launch day!

Jessie: It has been such a pleasure to watch your journey towards publication, Sherry! Pub Day is so special and I couldn’t be happier for you!

Edith: I was an early reader of this book and loved it. When I was walking in the Minuteman National Park this fall, I realized I was within yards of the base where you set a lot of the action and I could picture Sarah doing some of her sleuthing there. Sherry, you are such a great supporter of your friends, I’m delighted to see you have your day in the limelight at last and I know this series will be a big success.

Julie: Sherry, I am so, so thrilled for you! I know that this day is a dream come true, and no one deserves it more! Can’t wait to read it!!!

Filed under: Book Release Tagged: Air Force spouse, Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries, Sherry Harris

Stepping Back in Time

by Sheila Connolly

In June of 1958, my grandmother set sail for England on the Queen Mary. She worked for Lipton Tea then, and she was escorting the collection of tea-related silver on a grand tour of Europe, that lasted six weeks. I still have the postcards she sent to me and my sister at each stop. It was kind of a last hurrah for her, because she retired from the company later that year. But she went out in style!

Last month I attended the Bouchercon Conference in Long Beach, California, where a couple of thousand mystery authors, publishers, agents and fans gathered to talk about killing people, er, books.  It was wonderful—stimulating and exhausting all at once.

My stateroom

It was a long way to go for a short event. I almost decided not to bother, but then I remembered that the Queen Mary is (permanently) docked in Long Beach, and I wanted to see it. So I booked a stateroom on the ship for one night (never thought I’d say that!) before the conference started.

I deliberately didn’t do any research on the ship, because I wanted to see it with fresh eyes—and see if my grandmother’s ghost lingered. I really wasn’t prepared for the experience: it was like stepping back in time. I could believe that I was seeing it through my grandmother’s eyes.

I understand that the City of Long Beach owns

The toilet handle

it, and they’ve done the best job of doing nothing that I’ve seen in a long time. That is, they didn’t modernize or pretty up much of anything. All the woodwork, the fixtures, the accessories are intact. No plastic, no cheesy replacements. Much of the ship looks the way it looked when it was a luxury way to travel.

Hallway on B Deck

At the same time it’s weirdly empty. Maybe mid-November is not a peak tourist season, but in the 24 hours I spent going to and fro from my stateroom (I love to say that!), I met only a handful of people in the hallways. Which were surprisingly narrow: if you happened to run into Bob Hope or Fred Astaire or even the Duke and Dutchess of Wiindsor on the way to the bar, you’d have to be careful not to bump into each other. Yes, they were all passengers, once upon a time, as were many other notables.

I’ve visited a lot of monuments in my life—cathedrals, palaces, private homes of famous people. Never have I felt as though I’d been transported to another world. I found myself taking pictures of the plumbing fixtures and the doorknobs, because they were all original.

The Promenade Deck

The writing desk

As writers were are always making up things in our heads—people, places, objects. But it’s unsettling to find yourself in the middle of a setting that is not modern. No, I didn’t meet my grandmother strolling in the long and empty hallways, but I could well imagine her hanging her clothes in the narrow closets, writing a note on the pull-out desk-top, or admiring the view from the substantial portholes (which still open—I checked). I could picture her seated in a deck-chair on the promenade desk, watching the waves and the gulls, and ringing for a steward to bring her a nice cup of tea.

Filed under: Conferences, Sheila's Posts Tagged: sheila connolly

Yesterday, I Ate Too Much…

Thanksgiving is over. The turkey is a pile of bones and sandwich makings. Wickeds, what’s your favorite part of the meal? What did you eat too much of?

Barb: Oh my gosh, do I have to pick? Yesterday, I ate too much of everything. I think my true affection goes to the stars of the meal, the turkey and gravy. Every Thanksgiving we say, “We should make this more often,” but then we never do, so it’s always a treat. Then there’s my great-grandmother’s recipe for yellow turnips, my mother-in-law’s amazing homemade cranberry sauce and my husband’s incredible cornbread and sausage stuffing. And the desserts…But my absolute favorite things happen today and tomorrow. Today, a fantastic turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce, and tomorrow, my father’s mother’s Depression-era recipe for corn and turkey chowder. (Note: The recipe for Corn and Turkey Chowder is here on the Maine Crime Writer’s blog.)

Jessie: I loved the turkey and the sweet potatoes cooked in cider. And the glazed onions. And there was just enough room for too much cranberry sauce, homemade and canned since I love them both!

Edith: We’re actually doing Thanksgiving today, so I’m not stuffed yet, but I will be! The pies (see Wednesday’s post) will do me in, because I have to sample each, on top of already being stuffed with stuffing and turkey and blue mashed potatoes and garlic-roasted local organic Brussels sprouts (which my son grew!) and all the other parts of the meal. But it’s all good. We can diet tomorrow.

Julie: Sweet potatoes cooked in cider, Jessie? I have to try those. I roast mine, and put them in a bourbon caramel sauce. Love them. The day was a little crazy, with only one oven and lots of food that needed to be heated up. But my favorite thing this year was the pear and horseradish sauce I tried. Every year I try something new, and hope it works. This year it did! Whew!

Liz: Vegan apple pie and raw pumpkin pie (a new recipe I found this year) and both were AMAZING! Oh, yeah, I ate real food too. But the pies were way better.

Sherry: This year we went to the Officers Club at Fort Belvoir for their buffet. It’s the feast that keeps on giving and has things we would never have at home — shrimp, a lovely spread of fruits and vegetables along with all the traditional dishes plus breakfast too. No clean up but no leftovers. Julie I want the pear and horseradish sauce recipe!

Readers: What was your favorite dish this year?

Filed under: Group posts Tagged: blue mashed potatos, brussel sprouts, corn and turkey chowder, cornbread, Fort Belvoir, glazed onions, leftovers, Officers Club, pear and horseradish sauce, Raw pumpkin pie, sweet potatos cooked in cider, Thanksgiving, yellow turnips

Crazy Thankful

It’s Thanksgiving, and we’re all out eating and drinking somewhere. We hope each of you, dear readers, is also warm and happy and indulging in the feast of your choice with the companions of your choice.

We wanted to share something with you we are each thankful for. Not the usual: family, friends, book contract. But something unexpected. An invention that makes our life easier. Or maybe a person who ISN”T in our life. Something out of the ordinary. Take it away, Wickeds!

Edith: I am thankful for my balance-ball chair, which saves my butt and my back from all these hours of sitting and writing! (And I’m thankful not to have to spend Thanksgiving with a certain unpleasant person any longer…)

Julie: I am thankful for my Galaxy Note 3. Honestly. It is a mini computer when I am on the road, it tracks so much of my life, is a GPS, and helps me when I forget a recipe and am on the road. Plus, I can read from it, so it is a portable library.

Liz: LOL, Edith! I know this will come as a surprise, but I am thankful for Starbucks bold coffee to help with those deadlines. And my iPad. Which is also all of what Julie mentions above.

Sherry: I told my husband one of my favorite things is those rubber things that help you open jars. He told me that was boring. So my newest love is being able to open my phone using my fingerprint instead of typing in a password — passwords so last year. (But I still like the rubber-opener thing best.)

Edith: Sherry, that rubber thing is called a Husband!

Sherry: My husband is more carbon based, Edith.

Jessie: I am so grateful for the fun I have on Ravelry.com. I’m an avid knitter and for those of you who don’t know about it, Ravelry is basically like a Facebook site for fiber enthusiasts. People share patterns and photos. They offer opinions about yarns and tools. You can list your stash of yarn and the site will suggest patterns to use it. For knitters it is a cyber-playground extraordinaire!

Barb: Ravelry was founded by two UNH grads. My sister-in-law who manages a yarn shop is also a big proponent. I am grateful to UPS. Not only do they run the store where two little mailboxes allow me to run two little businesses (my writing business and Level Best), at this time of year they also bring me lovely, lovely boxes filled with gifts for family and friends.

How about you readers? What off-beat, non-traditional things are you thankful for?

Filed under: Group posts Tagged: Balance-ball chair, Galaxy Note 3, GPS, iPad, knitting, portable library, ravelry, rubber-opener thing, Starbucks, Thanksgiving

Wicked Wednesday: Thanksgiving Traditions

On Wicked Wednesday today, we’re all writing about our most cherished Thanksgiving traditions.

Barb: This year we’re having Thanksgiving at my husband’s sister’s house. She’s our most frequent hostess and experience shows in the beautiful day she always makes for us. There will be 20+ of us, most of my husband’s five siblings and in-laws, ex-in-laws, outlaws and friends. I love the way the meal reflects the way this large clan has come together. Everyone contributes something, frequently from their own traditions. It’s a long, crazy day, but somehow it always works.

Liz: That sounds lovely, Barb! Our Thanksgiving traditions have become simple over the years – stay home and celebrate. The animals are getting their own turkey this year, which I’m sure they’re hoping will become a tradition. The humans will stick with something vegetarian.

Jessie: My family has different traditions highlighted depending on which household is hosting the event. For the last several years one of my sisters has generously provided a vegetarian spread which has included things like twice baked potatoes and root vegetable pot pie. They may not be traditional for most families but they have become beloved by ours. This year we are holding the meal at my house where the menu includes an old tradition from my father’s side of the family. His grandmother always made a chicken pie for Thanksgiving using Pilot Crackers, chicken and a lot of cream. My husband added to the chicken pie tradition with a recipe for a Brazilian variety called Empadao which features onions, olives, tomatoes and a buttery crust.

Edith: Emapdao sounds fabulous – save me a piece, Jessie? On this, my favorite holiday, I always make pies. Two pumpkins, an apple, and a pecan. This tradition goes straight back to childhood, when my mother and then my older sister would make all the pie dough, and each of us girls was responsible for one kind of pie. I also brine and roast a local turkey, and the stuffing for that goes straight back to childhood too: sauteed onions and celery in lots of butter, then add a mountain of shredded stale bread, turkey seasoning like sage and rosemary, and chopped walnuts. I’m getting hungry! The best tradition is having both my sons home, of course.

Julie: Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Usually by now I am well into prep mode, but I have been/am in book jail (edits due very soon!), so every spare moment is spent writing. Nonetheless, traditions are a must. Making pie has always been a tradition that I learned from my grandmother. Now I share it with my nieces, and am teaching them her recipes. We also make cranberry relish together. Another favorite tradition is leftover day with friends. Trying to figure that out this year, but it will happen, even if it ends up being a second mini holiday.

Sherry: Since we were a military family and in different places every few years we don’t have a lot of traditions. From year to year there would be different faces at our table. One year many of our friends’ husbands were deployed and Bob was the only male in a sea of females. When we were station at Naval Post Graduate school in Monterey we had many international friends and invited them for Thanksgiving along with American friends — families from Romania, Hungary, South Africa, Brazil and Botswana. After dinner we sat outside around a fire pit a neighbor brought over. Someone asked us to sing an American song. Pretty soon all of the adults are standing and doing the Hokey-Pokey. It was so much fun.

Readers — Friends: What are your traditions?

Filed under: Wicked Wednesday Tagged: apple pie, chicken pie, empadao, Hokey-Pokey, holidays, julia spencer-fleming, meals, Monterey California, Naval Post Graduate School, pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving traditions

All the Barbara Rosses

by Barb, baking pies and getting excited about Thanksgiving

Barbara Ross is my real name, though I often think if I’d known then what I know now, I would have published under a pseudonym. No, the problem isn’t shelf placement. Ross does put me on one of those very bottom shelves you can hardly peer into at Porter Square, my local bookstore in Massachusetts. But it pops me onto an excellent eye-level shelf at Shermans, my local bookstore when I’m in Maine.

The problem is there are way, way too many Barbara Rosses. I’ve been aware of this for a long time. It’s been my name all my life. I’ve never used my husband’s surname. When I was a kid, there were five Barbara Rosses registered at the local pediatric practice. In adulthood, for a dozen or more years, the local PBS station has mined some humor, and probably some dollars, but having their fundraising calls to me made by another Barbara Ross. Locally, there’s also a Barbara Ross who’s a nurse, whose class reunions I am regularly invited to, and a Barbara Ross who’s an accompanist, who must arrive at a lot of empty rehearsal halls because the calls cancelling the engagements are sitting, unheeded, in my voice mail.

As to the Barbara Ross authors, there’s one who writes for the Daily News and other outlets in New York City who has one or more by-lines every day. And there’s Barbara Ross, the modern-day adapter of the classic children’s books, including Goops and How to Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Children. Then there’s the Barbara Ross who co-wrote Anaesthetic and Sedative Techniques for Aquatic Animals and the one who co-wrote Stony Brook University Off the Record: Students Tell It Like It Is. And the one who wrote Sick And Tired Of Being Sick And Tired.

I am none of these Barbara Rosses.

Ross is the 80th most common surname in the United States and Barbara is the 4th most common given name, so I suppose this is all inevitable. Barbara has never had a resurgence, like some other “a” ending names like Isabella, Anna, Sophia, so all Barbara Rosses are between age 50 and death. I have a Google alert on my name and am regularly sent my own obituary.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Barbara Rosses is that while we are rarely famous, we are more frequently “fame-adjacent.” Here’s a run-down so you’ll see what I mean.

Barbara Ross-Lee

Barbara Ross-Lee: If you Google Barbara Ross, this is the one that will pop up. She is an osteopath and is currently vice president for health sciences and medical affairs and dean of the School of Allied Health and Life Sciences at the New York Institute of Technology. She is one of only six or seven female medical school deans and the first and only African-American woman to lead a medical school in the US. Pretty impressive, right? But even as the best known Barbara Ross, Dr. Ross-Lee is fame-adjacent. Her younger sister is the singer-actress-diva, Diana Ross.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Barbara Ross Rothweiler: Another name you’ll find Googling, Dr. Rothweiler is a licensed psychologist, with board certification in neuropsychology and rehabilitation psychology. Again, not shabby. But she is also the daughter of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross MD, who wrote On Death and Dying, and defined the five stages of grief.

Barbara Ross: Another Barbara Ross is an Illinois-based artist who is best known as the mother of Veronica Roth, the now twenty-six year-old author of the Divergent Trilogy, Divergent, Insurgent and Allegiant, which have sold over five million copies and have been made into a major motion picture franchise starring Shailene Woodley.

Sisters, mothers, daughters. I don’t know what to make of all this fame-adjacentness, except to predict that someone close to me is going to become very famous.

I’ve always had a weird, dissociated relationship to my name. When people ask, “Are you called Barb or Barbara?” I answer “both,” but the truth is, I don’t know. I respond when called without consciously processing the word. I’m told that both I and my second cousin Barbara Jean are named for my mother’s, mother’s mother, but she died before my mother was born, and I’ve never actually confirmed that even was her name, since there seems to be some debate about it.

I’ve felt a little closer to Ross, which must be why I’ve kept it. There’s a Ross in MacBeth, and a coat of arms and a tartan. But one of the things I like best about it, is that between the Scottish diaspora, and the many people who’ve simplified German or Jewish or Russian or Polish or Italian or Spanish or even Japanese names to Ross, a Ross can be anyone from anywhere in the world.

So reader, what about you? Is your name common or un? Do you love it or hate it? Would you like to see it pop up as a character name in the next Maine Clambake Mystery? Leave a comment and let me know–it just might happen.

Filed under: Barb's posts Tagged: Barbara Ross-Lee, Divergent, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Goops, Maine Clambake Mystery, Veronica Roth