Kathy Lynn Emerson's Blog, page 14

My Comfort Animal

Dear Friend,

You ask about my experience with a comfort animal.

As you’ll recall, there was a lot of talk around the place during our brief institutionalization about the value of comfort animals. Frankly, I was inclined to see it as propaganda, aimed at making us believe there was a better life out there. Could a connection to another species really make such a difference in the quality of one’s life?

But, in spite of my misgivings, I went for it. Everyone said it was important to choose wisely, to go for one that was calm, devoted, apparently ready for attachment. I was surprised by the one I fell for. I’d been thinking small, dark and long-haired, but he was a big guy with salt and pepper hair, close-cropped. How often the objects of our affection are different than we expect.

[image error]I have to admit, he’s particularly adept at managing my anxiety. I used to be terrified of riding in the car, but with him by my side, I’m adjusting. At first, we had to stop at the Diary Queen for vanilla ice cream cones every time we went for a ride, but now he has me down to stopping only once a week or so.

I did have to spend a lot of time training him. In the beginning, he seemed barely aware of the continuous attempts to breach our defenses. Now he gets it. “It’s only the UPS guy,” he will say. “Or, it’s Cousin Roy, dropping off the beer.” The explanations don’t do much for me, but since these phrases are often accompanied by a treat and a belly rub, I let them go.

[image error]And, he’s great at handling the worst of my triggers, continuous loud noises. He puts me in the heavy vest and murmurs, “It’s only thunder,” or “It’s only fireworks.” I don’t know what comfort it’s supposed to provide, knowing whether the world ends by a natural cataclysm or one that is self-inflicted, but the distinction seems to make him feel better, so I calm down, too.

Doctors visits were a nightmare for me, but with him there, I can manage, though last time he let the doctor do something very, very unmentionable, for which I haven’t quite forgiven either of them.

[image error]But in general, we get on well. We both love pizza, popcorn, and lying on the couch watching TV.  Each of us pushes the other to make sure we get plenty of sunshine and exercise, though he can be a little lazy. We work in some time to socialize with our own species, too.

In sum, I’d say, if you have a chance to get yourself one of these loving, generous creatures, you should go for it. Your life will only improve.

Yours Very Sincerely,

Spots

A Time, and a Place

Lea Wait, here, working on two books. Both are set in Maine: one on an island (the second in the Maine Murder Mystery series,) and one in a small harbor town with a working waterfront (the ninth in the Mainely Needlepoint series).

If you think those settings are very similar, you’d be right about a few basics. Both places have access to, and a view of, the sea. Both books include fishermen, visitors from away, and Mainers who make their living from the tourist industry. Herring gulls and barnacles and rockweed; rocky beaches and lighthouses; and, of course, the omnipresent (at least in books) lobsters, are in both books.[image error]

But my descriptions of the settings of each book will be very different.

First, the book set on an island takes place in mid-June, and the Mainely Needlepoint book takes place in late July. Perhaps only a six-week different on a calendar, but in-season vegetables, fruit, and fish are different. Late July temperatures can be twenty or more degrees warmer than in June. Hurricanes could be brewing in August. What wildflowers will be blooming at each time? What birds and butterflies will be in residence, and which traveling through? How many days will be rainy? How high will the temperature and humidity rise? What about fog? When it is more likely?

Before I begin a book I take a little while to check all my natural history books to make sure I have it right. I’ve written books set in places as divergent as Edinburgh, Scotland, and Charleston, South Carolina, so researching those areas makes sense. But two books set in Maine should be a cinch, right? After all — I live there! Of course I’d know what the natural world looked like around me.[image error]

But, still, I check. Two books are especially helpful — Naturally Curious: A Photographic Field Guide and Month-by-Month Journey through the Fields, Woods, and Marshes of New England, and even better for my purposes, A Natural History of Camden and Rockport by E.C. Parker. Published by the Camden-Rockport Historical Society in 1984, that second book isn’t easily available (I found mine in a second-hand bookstore in New Jersey) but I love it because it includes historical changes in wildlife and a detailed analysis of the physical geography. Of course — global warming has changed some time frames since 1984, but most of the information is still good.[image error]

I also have several shelves of books on nature, from rocks to birds, mammals, sea life, ferns, snakes, insects — whatever. I want my readers to smell the salt on the kelp they see on the beaches or mud flats, recognize the dragonflies or bats or butterflies whizzing past them, and be able to identify the periwinkles and sea urchin and limpet shells they pick up on beaches while they’re looking for blue or red (rare colors!) sea glass.

So before I write a book I jot down what parts of the natural environment my characters are most likely to encounter. Sometimes the encounter is the basis for a scene; more often it is a passing comments. Some characters take the world around them for granted; for others, it is a new place; they notice differences from previous places they’ve lived. But in both cases, my motive is simple: to pull my readers into the place and time I’ve chosen to set my story.

 

Recipe for Murder

Kate Flora: As some of you know, I’ve been away for two weeks at a writing retreat. It [image error]was an incredible adventure at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where for two weeks, I was surrounded by writers, artists, and composers. I diligently applied my seat to the seat, and ended up writing 60,00 words in a new Joe Burgess mystery, plus a short story. I loved having someone to make the meals, and not having someone ask, around 10:30 p.m., if I was ever coming to bed. I kind of missed cooking, though.

As I ease back into ordinary life, I was thinking about cooking up a mystery. I always claim my process is neither pantser nor plotter, but cooker. I carry the plot around in my head for months, wondering the who and why about my characters, until I’m ready to write.

So here, with tongue in cheek, is a recipe for writing your mystery.

Cookbook: Use the recipe in either Hallie Ephron’s Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel or (if you can find it) William Tapply’s Elements of Mystery Fiction.

In a large brain, stir together:

1 or 2 protagonists/sleuths

3 ripe suspects

1 bad guy/gal

1 body

3-6 witnesses, depending on your taste

1 or more police officers

2 subjects who offer local color

Stir them about, then add:

1-2 crime scenes

1 weapon

a generous handful of clues

2-3 red herrings

If it seems too bland, add color with a great location or spice it up with a little discreet sex

Bake (or type) until done.

Cooks who have trouble following the recipe might try reading Elizabeth Lyon’s Manuscript Makeover or Chris Roerden’s Don’t Murder Your Mystery for advice about revision.[image error]

And if you love mysteries–reading or writing, join the Maine mystery writing community at the Crime Wave June 1 & 2 in Portland. http://mainewriters.org/maine-crime-wave/

 

Serendipity Favoring the Semi-Prepared Mind

As we move from snow season to mud season to tree-trimming and roadwork season, I found myself stuck in traffic on Route 77 yesterday thinking about serendipity.  When I attended college, the school’s President used to give a speech at the opening of the year in which he talked about the joys of serendipity. His favorite metaphoric exhortation was to tell us go to the library and instead of taking out the book we were looking for, count down the shelf a few more and take out that one. You would, he said, be surprised what that [image error]serendipity could bring you.

The fact that he gave the same speech all four years might have lessened the impact of his message, but there you are.

I drove up to Brunswick the other day to visit my old friend Gary Lawless, proprietor (with his wife Beth Leonard) of Gulf of Maine Books. [image error]I like to drop in occasionally, both to see what the two of them are up to (Gary’s soon off to a conference in Athens that will include an evening cocktail party in the Acropolis, not formal, I hope for his sake) and see what new poetry they’ve come up with. This visit was, however, a little more serendipitous than I’d expected.

As Gary and I caught up, a blocky white-haired chap in a light poplin jacket and a black T-shirt celebrating Portuguese wines walked in.

Gary says to me, “You need to talk to this guy. He comes from Boston, too.”

For reasons that will become obvious, I can’t keep the man’s anonymity. When he opened his mouth, I was pitched back decades to my years growing up in Boston by the most perfect rendition of the Boston Irish accent I’d heard in years. Pure as the Guinness at the Eire Pub in Mattapan. Pure as the mean streets of Charlestown.

We went back and forth a bit about neighborhoods, high schools, places and people we both knew and some only one of us knew. We graduated from high school the same year, during the bussing crisis and the time of Woodstock and Abbey Road and the first man on the moon, and though I toddled off to Maine and other far reaches, this fellow—call him Bobby—stayed home in Boston, starting out on the Fire Department and rising to a high position as an inspector. His knowledge of Boston was deep and broad, the way only a true insider could have it, and if you’ve read my books, you know that what I really wanted to do was mine his brain for all the anecdote and history I could steal. I did collect one story about a faintly risqué version of collecting money to buy toys for poor children at Christmas time that I assure you will find its way into another Elder Darrow story.

But the best story came halfway through our conversation. I like to think it was because by then I’d established my bonafides as a son of the Hub, if not of the Sod, that he felt he could confide in me about the night he was drinking in the Plough and Stars.[image error]

If you know Cambridge, you know the Plough and Stars as an Irish Pub on the corner of Mass. Ave and Hancock Street, not too far a walk down from Harvard Yard. My new friend Bobby was drinking at the bar there one afternoon, no doubt skiving off from some important Fire Department duty, and entered a conversation with a bulky man on the stool next to him. (Do I need to mention that Bobby could converse for the Irish Olympic team, if there was such a thing?)

“Bobby,” he says, putting his big hand across to shake the man’s beside him.

“Seamus,” the fellow said and pointed to the man on his left. “This is my friend Derek.”

The two men returned to their conversation about literature and the perils of teaching at Harvard as Bobby listened in.

If you infer from this that my new friend Bobby had just met Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott, you’d be correct. What you wouldn’t know was that Bobby himself would develop a decades-long friendship with Heaney, eventually resulting in this lovely poem. And Bobby himself, in a sort of homage, took years of classes at Harvard with a view to becoming a poet himself and has published widely and well since then.

All of which only served to confirm what I already knew, which was that if you hold your eyes and ears and your heart open, serendipity will favor you. As it did with Bobby forty years ago in the Plough and Stars. As it did with me yesterday afternoon at Gulf of Maine Books. And the library may have nothing to do with it.

Weekend Update: May 5-6, 2018

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will posts by Dick Cass (Monday) Kate Flora (Tuesday), Lea Wait (Wednesday), Barb Ross (Thursday), and John Clark (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Fiction and Truth. Not an Oxymoron

Fiction and Truth

Sandra Neily here, encouraging readers and authors to feel good about fiction and truth.

It’s a mystery to me why essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote these lines: “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” I’m just grateful that he did. These words are my writing mantra.

My fiction is based on an early truth I learned growing up in East Boothbay, Maine.

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Damariscotta River, East Boothbay. “Our” island.

I learned that the natural world is a disappearing world.

At age six, I saw bulldozers dump fill to bury my sandbar and island to create boat storage. Not my island and not the shipyard’s either, but it was our sibling sanctuary, our pallet for adventure, and our home away from home. (We quickly learned to read tide charts my mother never mastered so we’d be “stuck” on the island as she paced the far shore. A fine way to avoid naps.)

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The shipyard begins to bury the island to create more land for boat storage.

Over the years, the wild woods and waters around me disappeared under bulldozers or behind gated driveways. These losses are my fiction’s marrow.

My seriously unsupervised childhood grew into a career deeply engaged with our woods, waters, and wildlife assets. I’ve been a whitewater river outfitter, a licensed Maine Guide, founder of a coalition to protect Maine’s Penobscot River from a destructive dam, and the director of a conservation school. Working for Maine Audubon, I researched and authored “Valuing the Nature of Maine,” and ‘Watching Out for Maine’s Wildlife,” (reports revealing the money and jobs intact resources produce.)

I’ve penned op-eds, legislative testimony, articles, and newsletters for receptive audiences, but no more. Far too often people select reading material and media that reflect their own preferences and life stories. They are trapped in narrow, information silos that isolate them from the knowledge and compassion we need to secure a future for the natural world.

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Headwaters of the Kennebec River. Protected.

And because not enough folks from all walks of life have found Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and they aren’t reading Terry Tempest Williams, Rick Bass, Wendell Berry, or even braving Elizabeth Kolbert’s excellent The Sixth Extinction, I decided to leave non-fiction and write murder mysteries. I wanted to pile up bodies, and clues, and sleuths and have them all inhabit the very landscapes that could spawn a murder in the first place.

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Moosehead Lake seen from Maine Public Lands “Moose Mt.” Unit. Protected.

I chose the mystery genre to captivate and entertain readers, but of course I hope to seduce them toward the outdoors and have them discover some truths that “reality obscures.” My novel dives into the heart of Maine’s outdoors, its vibrant wildlife, and the reality that our forest is at risk.

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A favorite corner of the world (protected), with favorite friends.

When I am invited to speak, I suggest that authors who create nature-themed fiction might be true and trusted voices in the wilderness of modern life, helping us savor what is unknown or ignored or unappreciated. If writers help us fall in love with or marvel at a corner of the world, even as they pull us from page to page with their skill, we are already signed up to care about that corner of the world.

(I might have reservations about Carl Hiaasen’s marvelously lethal mosquito and snake infested islands, but then again they ravage the evil doers and his bird orchestras and Florida sunsets are persuasive.)

To share some of my favorite authors, I bring along a handout of quotes, and names, and reviews. Here’s some of what I share. (The full version’s on my website.)

 “A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest’s conscience, but remember, the forest eats itself and lives forever.” Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“The sigh of all the seas breaking in measure round the isles soothed them; the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep, until, the birds beginning and the dawn weaving their thin voices in to its whiteness.” Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

 “The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.” Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.” Willa Cather, My Ántonia

 “When he says ‘Skins or blankets?’ it will take you a moment to realized that he’s asking which you want to sleep under. And in your hesitation he’ll decide that he wants to see your skin wrapped in the big black moose hide. He carried it, he’ll say, soaking wet and heavier than a dead man, across the tundra for two—was it hours or days or weeks? It’s December, and your skin is never really warm, so you will pull the bulk of it around you and pose for him, pose for his camera, without having to narrate this moose’s death.” Pam Houston, Cowboys Are My Weakness

Here are more voices bringing the natural world to us: Heat and Light, Jennifer Haigh. Breaking Point, C.J. Box. Winter Study, Nevada Barr. The Nature of the Beast, Louise Penny. Massacre Pond, Paul Doiron. The Weight of Winter, Cathie Pelletier. Skinny Dip, Carl Hiaasen. The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, Christopher Scotton. The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey.

Today, when truth is under relentless assault, perhaps Ed Abbey should have the last word. “Since we cannot expect truth from our institutions, we must expect it from our writers.”

Sandy’s novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine,” won a Mystery Writers of America national award and was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest. Find “Deadly Trespass “at all Shermans Books and on Amazon. Find more info on the video trailer and Sandy’s website. Her second Mystery in Maine novel, “Deadly Turn” will be published in 2018.

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Reading and Watching

As was obvious from yesterday’s post, most everybody who is anybody was at Malice Domestic last weekend. This year I missed the fun.

It would have been great to hang out with my MCW colleagues Lea Wait, Barb Ross, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Maureen Milliken and Bruce Coffin, not to mention the hundreds of other mystery writers who converge on unsuspecting Bethesda, Maryland every spring. They’re my peeps, and I enjoy spending time with them, but the truth is I would have spent the weekend stalking Ann Cleeves and Brenda Blethyn.[image error]

If you don’t know, Ann Cleeves is a British writer who has written more than thirty novels—most of which I have read, many more than once—and Brenda Blethyn is an English actress most recently famous for her role as Vera in the BBC television series of the same name, based on Ann Cleeves’ books about brilliant, intrepid Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope.

I am a huge fan of both women. I’ve met Ann twice before, once at Malice and again at Bouchercon last fall, and both times had to work hard not to come across as a total fangirl.

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Here I am with Ann Cleeves last fall, trying not to gush.

I admire her intricately-plotted novels, which are peopled by fascinating characters. (Her Shetland series, featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, is as good as the Vera series, and also has inspired a BBC television series called Shetland, featuring Douglas Henshall.) On the performance side of the slate, the casting of Brenda Blethyn to play the role of Vera was absolutely inspired.

[image error]If any readers of this blog haven’t read Ann’s work, or haven’t seen Brenda become her characters, you owe it to yourself to binge-read the Vera books, then binge-watch the Vera series. It’s available on Acorn and BritBox, perhaps can also be found elsewhere on your entertainment dial. When you get done with the Vera series, dig into the Shetland books, then treat yourself to the Shetland TV series. If you’re like me, the books and the dramatic interpretation of them will have you dreaming of making a journey to that remote archipelago on the edge of the North Sea.

Now I have some some questions for you, dear readers.

If an author’s work has been dramatized on TV or in film, do you prefer to read the book first, or watch the show/movie first? Why?

For those of you who write crime fiction, do you read in the genre while you are writing, or no? Why or why not?

If you don’t read crime fiction while writing, do you watch mystery/crime shows on TV?

If so, what are your favorites?

My answers:

I read the book first, without fail.

I always have book going when I’m writing, and 90% of the time it’s crime fiction. I find it inspiring to read others’ work, don’t fear that I’ll unconsciously appropriate their style or voice.

Similarly, I come away both motivated and entertained when I watch well-written crime fiction shows on TV.

In addition to Vera and Shetland, I loved Foyle’s War, became totally absorbed in Broadchurch and some Friday nights want nothing more to kick back with my pal Sheriff Walt Longmire.

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I’m always looking for new ideas, so please let me know your thoughts.

Brenda Buchanan’s Joe Gale mysteries feature an old-school reporter with modern media savvy who covers the Maine crime beat. Three Joe Gale books—Quick Pivot, Cover Story and Truth Beat—are available in digital format wherever ebooks are sold. Brenda can be found on the web at www.brendabuchananwrites.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BrendaBuchananAuthor and on Twitter at @buchananbrenda

Malice 30/Penny Plan

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Bruce Robert Coffin just back from the Malice Domestic Mystery Writers Conference. Malice is held each year in Maryland during the month of April. This year’s conference was the 30th, and although it was only the second I have attended I am told it was one of the best. The keynote author was Louise Penny, writer of the highly acclaimed Inspector Gamache series, set in the fictional Canadian town of Three Pines.

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Now, I had expected to meet Louise last fall at Bouchercon which was held in Toronto but, as you might imagine, long lines of fans thwarted my plans. This time a had a sure-fire plan to meet her. Last week I visited Ann and Paula, the owners of Mainely Murders Bookstore in Kennebunk, Maine (as an aside, Mainely Murders opens for the season today!). I informed them that I was headed to Maryland to attend Malice. As they always do, they asked that I take plenty of pictures to document the gathering, a la Charles Kuralt, only without the secret life. “Get your picture taken with her,” they said. Hmm, I thought. Perhaps this would be my in with Louise. My Penny Plan. I mean, how could I disappoint Ann and Paula? How could Louise? We’d be doing it for them, right?

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How did I fare in my Penny Plan? It worked like a charm. All kidding aside, in addition to being a talented novelist, Louise was as charming and gracious as I had imagined. She even took home the Agatha Award for Best Novel!

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Malice 30 was a huge success. I made some new friends and reconnected with others, shared a taxi with Lea Wait and Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson, cheered on my Agatha nominated friends, took part in the Malice-Go-Round, sat on a panel and book signing, co-hosted a banquet table with friend and fellow scribe Marni Graff, stayed up too late, got up too early, and did a bit of work on the next Detective Byron novel.

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Am I looking forward to Malice 2019? What do you think?

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What’s in a Name?

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, writing today about naming characters and places in mystery novels. It’s not as easy as you might think.

Take my new “Deadly Edits” series, for example (Crime & Punctuation will be in stores May 29), in which the amateur sleuth is a recently widowed retired school teacher who leaves Maine, where she’s lived for the last fifty years, returns to the small town in rural New York State where she grew up, and starts a new career as a book doctor. Although we do have some things in common, my husband is still alive and well, I was only briefly a school teacher, and I continue to live in Maine. That said, it isn’t that much of a stretch to imagine myself in my character’s situation. Would I move back to Liberty, New York if the house I grew up in came on the market just as I was feeling both nostalgic and at loose ends? Maybe.

But since this is fiction, and I’m not—repeat not—using real people or places in stories where, let’s face it, murder is at the center of the plot, it behooves me to take special care in selecting names, starting with that of my detective. My choices need to create an alternate universe.

[image error]My mother once told me that when she and my father were considering baby names, they seriously contemplated choosing Michelle for a girl and Michael for a boy. It wasn’t much of a stretch to go with Mom’s alternate choice and name my new protagonist Michelle. I quickly shortened to Mikki, and as soon as I said it aloud, the last name Lincoln popped into my head. It worked for me, and I kept it, even though I also knew why I’d thought of it. Many years ago, there was a controversial proposal for a tidal power project in the state of Maine that went by the name Dickey-Lincoln. Lincoln Place is also the street I lived on in Liberty, so that was a nice bonus. Naming things is a strange and peculiar process!

[image error]Next up, I needed a name for Mikki’s old home town. I fully intended to use the layout of Liberty’s streets in my fictional setting, but I didn’t want to use the name because, obviously, it’s not the same place I’m writing about. I used Liberty and Liberty Falls (now Ferndale) in a couple of historical novels (Julia’s Mending, a YA set in 1887, and No Mortal Reason, the third book in my “Diana Spaulding 1888 Quartet”) but for Crime & Punctuation I decided on Lenape Hollow. The Lenape were native to the area but, to be honest, my earliest contact with the name came from the Lenape Hotel on Academy Street, where I went to take my first dance lessons.

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The Lenape Hotel

My goal in naming both people and places is to avoid using real names, especially when it comes to street names and classmates. There are a couple of exceptions. Main Street is still Main Street. And when my character has a flashback, remembering all the years when she was in home room with the same group of kids, seated alphabetically, she rattles them off from my memory. In our row we were Gertzman, Gildersleeve, Gips, Gorton, and Grant. All I did was add Mikki’s maiden name, Greenleigh, to the roster.

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lunch in the high school cafeteria–Judy, Beverly, Lisa, Wendy, and Sara

At one point, I consulted my high school yearbook and made a list of the first and last names of everyone in my class. It’s impossible to avoid using all of them. In fact, there were two girls named Michelle. All I’m trying to avoid is getting too close to any real names, especially for my villains. There were 114 individuals in the class of 1965. Although spellings varied, they included six named Michael, five named Robert, five named Patricia, and three each named Sharon, Judith, or Alan. Those are fair game, but I intend to avoid the less common names of classmates. Preston, Belen, Clayton, Edgar, Glenna, Toby, Perry, Regina, and Wendy are all lovely names, but not for characters in my alternate universe.

Last names are just as tricky, but all in all, it’s been a lot of fun finding just the right ones. I’m sure, in the real world, someone somewhere has every name I might choose, but as they say in all the best disclaimers, any resemblance to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of more than fifty-five traditionally published books written under several names. 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. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series (Crime & Punctuation—2018) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in a Cornish Alehouse) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” mysteries and is set in Elizabethan England. Her most recent collection of short stories is Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

 

Where We Write

Today, Dorothy is recovering from having fun with her friends at Malice Domestic, so instead of her gentle humor, we’re sharing photos of where we write, the view from where we write, the chaos in which we write, and other glimpses into the world of the working writer.

Kate Flora: As a writer with dual citizenship (Massachusetts and Maine) who is currently working in Virginia, where I’ve written a hundred and sixty-seven pages plus a short story in the past ten days, I have a lot of places where I sit to write. Here’s my current office and some other writing spaces. Note: they are usually covered with so many books and papers, no one can see the desktop.)

 

 

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Barb: This is my writing space in Key West. I call this photo, “On a Deadline.”

Brenda Buchanan, here. I write upstairs in our home, sometimes in a room overlooking the back yard, other times in a room with an aerial photo of Casco Bay (with Peaks Island in the distance) above the desk to remind me to get my feet off the ground.

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No matter where I write, the essentials always are at hand: Water (to stay hydrated), hand lotion and lip balm (good to use when pondering the perfect word for a particular situation) and eye drops to ease the strain of sitting in front of a screen for hours on end.

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Joseph Souza: My son is in one of my writing places right now. But since I don’t really have a writing place, let’s say pretend it is. The truth is, I write everywhere. Trains, planes and automobiles. My iPad had  liberated me. No desk. No writing place. No ball and chain to keep me tethered. No library of classics I’ve never read. Every one of my novels has been written on my iPad. Wherever I am I write. Hopper. Bar. Coffee shop. Pizza restaurants. Waiting for the doctor or dentist. Or palm reader or psychic. In between periods of my son’s hockey games or between innings of my dauhter’s softball games. I once wrote a paragraph in my car waiting for the light to turn green. I exist therefore I write. I can write through wars, riots, and the zombie apocalypse. Anyone ever tells you they can’t finish their novel because they have no writing space, tell em to come talk to me, I”ve knocked out 9 books all over Maine and beyond. My latest, THE NEIGHBOR, own now available at a bookstore near you.

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Part of Lea Wait’s study, with reference books and a Winslow Homer engraving & Red Sox cap