Kathy Lynn Emerson's Blog, page 65

Two Days Until Publication

Lea Wait, here, announcing that Friday, September 9, is publication day for my SHADOWS ON A MORNING IN MAINE.

You might think that by this time (my seventeenth book) that would be no big deal.

But if you had seventeen kids, wouldn’t you worry about number seventeen as much as you worried about number one?  (Well, maybe not QUITE as much!)

Almost exactly a year ago I sent Shadows on a Morning in Maine to my editor. Edits and copy edits followed, through several months, while I was busy writing another book. This book is the eighth in the Shadows Antique Print mystery series, and may be the last. (I reserve the right to bring the characters back, though!) I was careful to tie up loose ends left from other books in the series, although I did open a couple of doors in characters’ lives that hadn’t been opened before.

Maggie, my protagonist, has come a long way from being a thirty-eight year-old new widow with a day job (teaching at a community college) and an antique print business. In series terms, that was two years ago. In the book publishing world, it was 14 years ago. (Shadows at the Fair, the first in the series — an Agatha finalist! – was published in 2002.) From my perspective as the author, Maggie and her world came to life in 1996 — twenty years ago. She and I have both changed a lot since then, and so have our lives.

But that’s another blog. The past year’s focus has been on this latest book.

My editor and publisher had edits and suggestions, and they were appreciated and incorporated within the manuscript. Shadows on a Morning in Maine had to stand by itself. Once edited, it couldn’t be changed.

Sometime last spring I saw the cover art for the first time. (Yes – it’s a Maine lighthouse; the one in Camden Harbor.)  I hesitated a moment — there were no lighthouses in my book — but I loved that the cover captured the feel of summer, and the beauty of the Maine waters – which are important in Shadows on a Morning in Maine.

I ordered postcards (if you’re on my snail mail list you’ll be getting one within the next week) and edited my mailing list (email and snail mail). I printed out labels,  and ordered 4,000 postcard stamps. (And if you’d like to be on one or both of my mailing lists, send me a note at leawait@roadrunner.com. My next mailing will be in late October, in honor of my next Mainely Needlepoint book – DANGLING BY A THREAD.)

During this summer’s hot evenings I listened to political conventions and labelled and stamped. One of my daughters and two of my granddaughters helped during the week they were vacationing in Maine. Postcards are ready to go.

I volunteered to guest blog in September, hoping to let more people know about the new book, and then wrote the blogs. I started getting calls about signings and talks for the fall, and scheduled as many as I could.

I wrote three prequels to Shadows on a Morning in Maine — each one a different moment from a different point of view, but all three providing hints about what would happen in the book. (One prequel is linked to my website — http://www.leawait.com— and one was posted here at Maine Crime Writers about two weeks ago. A third will appear on Dru’s Book Musings, another wonderful blog, on Friday – publication date.)

So. I’ve done what I can. On Friday Shadows on a Morning in Maine will make its debut in the world. I wish it well. I hope you’ll read it. If you enjoy it, I hope you’ll tell your friends, and post a review. Perhaps suggest your book club read it. (I Skype with book groups!)

But those things are up to you. I’ve done what I can for Maggie and Will and their friends.

Now … I have to get back to writing the book that will be published in November of 2017.

Shadows on a Morning in Maine is on its own.

I wish it well.

The Fish and the Bicycle

It’s been a wonderfully sociable summer here at Chez 28 and in the wake of a splendid visit from old good friends from the other Portland (and my Medicare birthday), I’ve been considering the nature of friendship. And then because my mind is never too far from the work, I’m thinking about the uses of friendship and sidekicks and relationships in crime fiction.

There are plenty of examples of the sidekick in crime fiction: Watson and Holmes; Inspector Morse and Lewis, Rebus and Siobhan Clarke. You choose your favorite.

Having just reread Charles Willeford’s Hoke Moseley series, I happened to be thinking about Florida, since my earliest dip into reading crime fiction—leaving out the Hardy Boys, who count for me mostly as an introduction to what was possible—was John MacDonald’s Travis McGee series, which I’ve written about elsewhere.

Travis McGee is a big rough man of action, physically imposing (though occasionally thoughtful). He is smooth with women (by 60’s standards) and prefers solving things in a straight-on way. But McGee’s best friend, sidekick, and fictional foil is a hairy economist named Meyer who lives on a houseboat named after John Maynard Keynes (at least until it was blown up).

One of the things I appreciate most about the McGee novels is how MacDonald uses Meyer’s character as a fictional device.

If McGee is the action character, Meyer is the thinking one. He’s a world-renowned academic, a gentle soul, and McGee’s opposite in many ways. Most notably, though, because MacDonald casts him as both thoughtful and verbal, the writer can use Meyer to explain things. If there’s exposition to be done, Meyer can do it believably in the context of his character. Long speeches out of McGee would sound forced but from a character used to thinking out loud and teaching, the speeches flow through without and bring us information we need without force-feeding us.

MacDonald also uses Meyer’s scenes with McGee for relief between action sequences. Readers and writers of crime fiction both understand that you can’t have all action, all the time, that the after the most intensely violent scenes, the reader needs a breather. Many of the quieter scenes with McGee and Meyer take place over dinners or in bars or in McGee’s houseboat, The Busted Flush, where previous action is reviewed, plans are made, Plymouth gin is drunk, and philosophies batted about. Without these breaks, which incidentally help deepen the characters, the headlong action would tire the reader out.

There’s also the way the protagonist and sidekick can change each other, especially over the course of a series. Meyer’s more passive and thoughtful character, like that of other sidekicks, contrasts with the active, physical, and violent character of McGee. As protagonist, McGee’s job is to carry the story’s action. But as a recurring character, Meyer changes McGee over the course of the books, as McGee does Meyer. Meyer occasionally takes an active solution to a problem at hand; McGee becomes more reflective about what he does and the way the bodies can pile up. They do not become each other so much as come closer to each other, and in the process, create character development, which is character interest.

And too, with a first-person narrator like McGee, a writer needs an extra body to go out into other parts of the fictional world where the narrator is not or cannot be at the moment and bring back news and information necessary to drive the plot. Having an extra character connected to the protagonist in that intimate way is an invaluable accessory.

Relationships—sidekicks and otherwise—make strange bedfellows. Witness the circus of relationships in our electoral  process, playing out in terms of who supports whom, who’s friend and who’s enemy, today and tomorrow. We may or may not elect our first woman President but it is certainly obvious by now that a protagonist needs a sidekick more than a fish needs a bicycle.

(I’m sorry. Really. Blame my age . . .)

Good-bye Summer, Hello Fall

by Barb, writing probably her last blog post from her front porch in Boothbay Harbor for this year

Today is Labor Day, and even in this, Maine’s warmest summer on record, there’s a nip in the air in the evenings that tells us fall is just around the corner.

The ingrained years, not just of my own schooling, but also packing up and going home so my kids could start school, are telling me it’s time for clean notebooks, new pens, and renewed vows that THIS is the year I’m not going to get behind in my work. (As if…)

The summer was a wonderful one. The weather in Maine was exceptional, and even our drought meant many sunny days for tourists who could boat and beach and buy to their hearts’ content. Our little town was crowded this year, as was much of the Maine coast, and whether that was because of our dazzling weather and many attractions, or because people were afraid to vacation in Europe, or in big cities generally, we do not know. We are happy you thought of us, and happy to take your cash–or Visa, or Mastercard.

Our summer began with a wedding and a graduation continued from there. We made good on our vow to do more touristy things, and enjoyed a photography cruise, Pemaquid Light and Fort William Henry, a visit to Monhegan Island, an oyster-tasting cruise on the Damariscotta River, a visit to an ice house museum (more on this on a later blog post in the fall), a week with family at the Jersey shore, and just last Tuesday, a day in Portland, a city we kind of, sort of know, with old friends, acting like tourists. (The photos on this blog are from that day, all taken by Bill Carito.) We had lots of house guests this year, and we loved it.

I handed in book 5 in the Maine Clambake Mystery series in May, and though I spent the summer reviewing copy edits and then galleys for two books, and writing a synopsis for book 6, I had a short and much needed break from writing new words every day. I updated my website and actually got to the end of my to-do list. That is, my to-do list of business-y things, not my to-do list of physical things that need to be done around both our houses, which I barely touched. But none-the-less, the bottom of the to-do list, which had on it things that had been moldering for months and months, felt great.

What’s up for the fall?

Coming 10/25

Well, I’m back to generating new words for Maine Clambake Mystery #6, Stowed Away, coming December, 2017. And I’m launching two new books, Eggnog Murder, a holiday collection of three novellas by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis and me, coming October 25, and Iced Under, coming December 27.

We’re leaving Maine this week, a little early, because we’re going to Bouchercon in New Orleans.

Coming 12/27

If you’re there, I’ll be appearing on the panel SMALL PLOT OF LAND, small town mysteries, THURSDAY, 3:00PM-3:50PM in room Mardi Gras ABC, with signing immediately after. Also at the Kensington Librarian luncheon, and I’m attending the Sisters in Crime class Writing Our Differences–Doing Diversity Right with Keynote speaker Walter Mosley on Wednesday.

Also–this. Since the conference is big, and it can be hard to find one another, a few of us are making a point to get together on Friday. The location is TBD, but it will be near the Marriott. All are welcome.

 

The rest of the fall will be busy. In addition to finishing the first draft of Stowed Away, here’s the line up.

Friday, September 30, through Saturday, October 1, 2016

I’ll be appearing with a host of other Maine mystery authors, including many of the Maine Crime Writers, at Murder by the Book

Jesup Memorial Library

34 Mount Desert Street

Bar Harbor, ME 04609

Saturday, October 8, 2016, from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm

I’ll appear with a host of other mystery writers, including Laura Lippman, Stephen Carter, Susan Elia McNeal, Liz Mugavero, and Lucy Burdette at Mysterium: The Mystery Novel Conference.  (Registration required.) I’ll be teaching a course in Revising Your Mystery and moderating the cozy mystery panel.

Wesleyan University

Usdan University Center

45 Wyllis Ave

Middletown CT, 06459

October 26, 2016 at 7:00 pm

I’ll be appearing with Maine authors Kate Flora and Lea Wait in “Death and Desserts.”

South Berwick Public Library

27 Young Street

South Berwick, Maine 03908

Phone: 207-384-3308

Saturday, November 5, 2016 at 1:00 pm

I’ll be speaking and signing with author Lea Wait at

Sherman’s Maine Coast Bookshop and Cafe

158 Main Street

Damariscotta, ME 04543

Phone: 888-563-3207

Friday, November 11, through Sunday, November 13, 2016

I’ll be at the New England Crime Bake (Registration Required)

Hilton Boston/Dedham

1-781-329-7900

25 Allied Drive

Dedham, MA 02026

Would love to see you at any of these!

Readers: How about you? Any big plans for the fall?

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Weekend Update: September 3-4, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Barb Ross (Monday), Dick Cass (Tuesday), Lea Wait (Wednesday), Susan Vaughan (Thursday), and Brendan Rielly (Friday).

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

Kate Flora and Roger Guay will be at the library in Ellsworth this coming Thursday, September 8th at 6:00 p.m. to talk about the challenges of a writing collaboration and their book, A Good Man with a Dog. We’re giving away this lovely pillow to someone who buys the book from us this month, or lets us know they’ve bought it by posting a review.

Kate also reminds our readers that this weekend (through Tuesday) is your last chance to leave a comment and be eligible for our end of summer bag of books and Maine goodies. You know you want it, and we love to hear from you–about what you’re reading, what you’d like to see on the blog, or just as part of our on-going conversation with readers.

Lea Wait is excited to announce that Friday, September 9, is publication day for her SHADOWS ON A MORNING IN MAINE. It’s the eighth in her Shadows Antique Print mystery series, and Maggie is making major changes in her life. She’s moved to Maine, started a business with Will and, yes, she has a referral for the daughter she’s been dreaming of adopting. But making all her dreams come true is going to be more complicated, and more deadly, than she hoped. Available in trade paperback and e-book formats.

 

 

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

 

What my dogs taught me about writing. Yes, I’m gonna be that gal.

When I first got a dog 15 years ago, I worried that he wouldn’t like me.

That tells you how much I knew about dogs.

Now that I’m dogless for the first time in 15 years, how much I learned about dogs in that time has become really clear. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those gloppy posts people write after they put their dog down — “How I learned to be a good person from my dog” or “Everything important in life I learned from my dog” or “Waaahhhh my dog is gone and no one will ever love me again.” No, all that’s been said. There’s nothing I can add. I don’t want to be that gal.

This is about writing.

Emma and Dewey in 2009.

So back to the dog. Or dogs, rather. Because after I got Dewey on Aug. 10, 2001 from a rescue in Oklahoma that specialized in corgi mixes and flew him to Boston’s Logan Airport, I got Emma on Nov. 25, 2002 to keep him company.

Dewey, always going for the big laugh.

It was nuts to think Dewey wouldn’t like me. Despite several years of abuse and neglect, dodging death in a Texas kill shelter and languishing at the Oklahoma rescue for months waiting to be adopted, he loved everyone. Everyone. Without exception. A corgi-Australian shepherd mix, he looked like something Disney would invent and he bounced through life with a joyful devil-may-care attitude that made me laugh every day.

Emma’s stop writing and sit with me on the couch look.

Emma, a corgi-sheltie mix, was a little more nervous. A little more suspicious of the world around her. Very very sweet, but very smart and stubborn. She had a way of getting what she wanted just by staring.

So I didn’t know a lot about dogs, but I learned a lot in 15 years. Dewey was put down at 17 in April 2013 and Emma last week, also at 17. Don’t feel bad, it was time. And anyway, this is about writing, not dogs.

So the thing I’ve learned in the past week — my first dogless week in 15 years, first dogless week since 9/11, since moving from New Hampshire to Maine, changing jobs, writing two mystery novels and someone actually publishing them — is how much of my life has been dog-focused. Not “oh you’re so cute look at your furry face” or “have I shown you guys the latest video of my dog.” More micro. Like this: Before I go to bed, there’s that nagging feeling that I can’t just go to bed. Because I have to let the dog out. But wait, I CAN just go to bed. Same with getting up. Leaving for work. Coming home.

I can open the deli wrap on cheese for the first time in 15 years without having a wet snout poking my shin or huge wet brown eyes staring at me with longing. I can leave a sandwich on the coffee table while I go to the kitchen for a napkin without having to put it in the very middle, or up high on top of the TV. I can sleep in without one ear awake, listening for the pacing downstairs that means it’s time for someone to go outside for his or her morning pee.

Emma keeps my mom company last winter.

So the point is, it’s not the big dog things I’m noticing as much as the little dog things. The things you’d only notice if you’d lived with a dog.

Have I told you about the time I met a young woman from New York who was writing a mystery novel set in Maine, but had never been here? She was using travel guides to get her information. Yeah, I’ve written about that before.

What does that have to do with dogs? Nothing. Remember, this is about writing.

Anyway, I suppose a really, really good writer could almost kind of get Maine without living here and using guidebooks. Though there’d be a lot of lobster, antique shops and main roads in it. But that begs the question, because a really, really good writer probably wouldn’t do that.

Like the dog thing, you have to live here, or spend a lot of time here, to get Maine. As I sit here on the first evening of September after a warm day, one of many in this hot, dry summer, I can see a tinge of change in the leaves outside my window. The breeze through the window is cool for the first time in months. (AC? Come on. Why would I have that here?) It’s not fall. But I can feel it coming. Hang on a second, I’ll take a photo. There it is . Put that in your guide book.

It’s September 1, but there it is. Fall coming. Right outside my window. Right this second.

When I lie in bed at night with the windows open, I hear loons and owls. The breeze through the trees. And when an empty log truck comes rumbling down Route 27 from the north in the wee dark hours — which they do more often than you’d think — I can hear it from far away. Tell it’s an empty log truck by the way the metal stanchions rattle, hear it cross the little bridge and bounce a half mile from my house and hear it roar past a block away, then hear it disappear. Wondering which guide book you’d read about that in.

Everyone is told to write what they know, it’s one of those things that everyone who writes, talks about writing, knows about writing, knows. But how often do we really think about it? Think about what we know? The details of what we know? The things that separate what we know from those who don’t know it but are faking it? The ones who are getting it from a guide book, or worse, just guessing.

When I first read Gerry Boyle’s Deadline in the mid-90s, I knew instantly he’d worked for a newspaper. It was the little things — the way the sportswriter talked to coaches on the phone, for instance. You don’t know that unless you’ve been in a newsroom. It’s not in the guidebooks. Long before I ever got off my duff and started writing, I knew I wanted to get journalism right in my books, too. I read one mystery around the same time where all the reporters had offices and the female ones wore high heels and slept with their sources. And there I was at a 1950s-era banged up metal desk elbow-to-elbow with a bunch of people in ill-fitting clothes, sneakers and hiking boots (try covering a fire on a winter night or tromping out to a shooting in the middle of the woods in high heels and a cocktail dress). I’m not sure anyone was even sleeping with even their spouses, much less their paunchy, polyester-wearing, not-very-helpful or crazy as a coot or numb as a hake sources.

I’d had my dog Dewey for a few months back in 2001 when, one night we were on the couch watching TV. He liked to snuggle with his butt against my thigh, which was a little odd and I was still getting used to. Something hit the side of the house with a loud thwap in another room (turned out it was an egg). It was in the direction he was facing, but he turned and looked at me, ears cocked. I looked at him, too, and said “What was that?” We both kept looking at each other, question marks over our heads, until I got up to check and he bounced off the couch to follow. Later I realized that before that moment, if I were writing about a dog, I would have written that it immediately jumped off the couch and ran barking into the room where the noise came from. Shows how much I knew.

Emma telling me it’s time to get up. Dammit.

Emma, who before she went deaf was in charge of barking at things, used to throw back her head and howl like a wolf at sirens and ice cream trucks. The last few months of her life she didn’t do that (not that we get much of either up here). Didn’t even bark. She used to make anxious grunty noises at the cat, too, which made the cat purr loudly and rub against her. Not sure what was going on there, but it’s not something I would have imagined if I hadn’t had that little dog. She’d stopped doing that, too, though the cat purred and rubbed against her anyway. she was never allowed upstairs, but when it became just her and the cat, she started coming up at night, checking on me in bed, then going into the guest room. If I wasn’t up at a reasonable hour, she’d come to my bed, stand up on her little corgi legs and poke me with that soft little snout. She stopped doing that, maybe about six months ago, when she fell down the stairs a couple times because she could see them anymore.

Emma and Binti checking out a noise down the street last fall.

Those are things I never would have thought about if I hadn’t had that dog. The fact she stopped doing them, too. That’s when I knew, one of the things at least, that it was time for her to go. If I hadn’t owned a dog, that’s a little detail that never would have occurred to me.

So writers: it’s not just what you know, but what you know about what you know. The details. That’s what will make the book authentic.

And I guess as much as this was about writing, it’s a little bit about dogs, too.

EVENT: Join Maureen and Gerry Boyle as they talk about mysteries, Maine, journalism and other stuff, as well as sign books, at 3 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 10, at Mainely Murders, 1 Bourne St., Kennebunk. For more information, go to mainelymurders.com.

Maureen Milliken is the author of the Bernie O’Dea mystery series. The second book in the series, No News is Bad News, came out in July. Follow her on twitter @mmilliken47, on Facebook at Maureen Milliken mysteries, and sign up at maureenmilliken.com for updates about upcoming events and other cool stuff.

Banned in Boston—a gift from the promo gods

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, with quite a story to tell. In the wee hours of last Wednesday morning, when I was having trouble sleeping, I went downstairs for a glass of milk and while I was there I checked my email and my Facebook page. Imagine my bleary-eyed surprise when a post containing the title of one of my Liss MacCrimmon mysteries, Ho-Ho-Homicide, popped up. What was even stranger, was that it was a link located on the Facebook page of Steven Zacharius, the CEO of Kensington Publishing Corp. Kensington publishes the series. Although I’ve been writing books for a long time, I’m definitely a mid-list author. I’m not often singled out for special attention. Then I took a closer look at the link and things got really weird. It was a clip from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Only the segment he was doing was one of his “Do Not Read” lists.

Can you say mixed feelings?

Taking a deep breath, I played the You Tube video. You’ll find a link to it at the end of this post. The good news is that there’s a quote in what he said that can be pulled and used for publicity. He really did say, while holding up my book, “It’s got two things that everyone likes: Christmas . . . and murder.” Of course, he then went on to make faces, hint that because of the “Ho” part of the title, the story focused on prostitutes, and generally imply that mixing Christmas and murder was unappealing, but since he was doing it for a laugh, and since I really like him in the movie Fever Pitch (go Red Sox!), the upshot was that I was not unduly upset by anything he said. Besides—usable quote.

I’m an optimist at heart. In the old days, having a book banned in Boston always helped sales, and in most cases, any publicity is good publicity. That’s like the theory that any review is good, even a bad one. It’s certainly true that most people remember that someone mentioned a certain book or movie but not what they actually said about it.

Now on to another clichéd saying: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It didn’t take me long to start thinking about how I could maximize the positive effects of having one of my books thrust into the spotlight. First, though, I went back to bed and slept on it. It was, after all, still the middle of the night.

When I got up again, I started spreading the news through my personal and author Facebook pages and I asked my retreat buddies (Kate Flora, Barb Ross, and Lea Wait) for suggestions. First on their list was one I’d already thought of, posting the news on the three mystery listservs I belong to—Dorothy L, Sisters in Crime, and New England Sisters in Crime. I did that, and I also asked if anyone on those lists had suggestions. By the time I went back on Facebook, writer friends were already spreading the word, including a post to “Save Our Cozies.” I spent most of that day and the next responding to emails and comments.

The responses I received were overwhelmingly of the opinion that any publicity is good publicity. The second most frequent reaction was to ask if I was getting a big bump in sales. The answer is: I don’t know yet. Ho-Ho-Homicide came out in hardcover in 2014 and was published in mass market paperback last year. Amazon didn’t have any paperbacks in stock. The ebook was already on sale for $1.99. By the time I looked at the Amazon stats, it was doing better than the other books in the series but was nowhere near hitting the top ten (or even the top hundred) in any category. On the other hand, quite a few people have said they have bought or will buy a copy based on seeing it on the Tonight Show. And my publisher has gone back to press on the mass market paperback.

Suggestions for making lemonade included sending Jimmy Fallon an autographed copy of the book, flooding social media, making Fallon the victim in my next mystery, making stickers that say “as seen on the Tonight Show,” creating a challenge for readers to read the book and vote on whether Fallon’s recommendations was right or wrong, with a Christmas-themed prize for the winner, making a poster of Jimmy Fallon holding up Ho-Ho-Homicide, volunteering to appear on the show and read other cozy titles, and writing a parody about Fallon’s obvious lack of familiarity with the genre.

There were two responses I particularly liked. One came from Leslie Budewitz, president of Sisters in Crime, who pointed out that Fallon was having fun with words, “something we can all get behind.” The other was from Clea Simon, who experienced something similar when she was featured in a Wall Street Journal article about an alleged feud between those mystery writers whose books feature talking cats and those whose cats don’t talk. It was “ultra-silly” she told me, but it gave her a huge bump in sales.

So what have I done besides social media? The biggie was sending a thank you email to DoNotRead@TonightShow.com in which I included a link to the first section of Mystery Readers International’s list of Christmas mysteries Christmas Mysteries A-D as proof that there are a whole heck of a lot of novels out there that combine Christmas and murder. I also mentioned that many of them have atrocious puns in the titles. If I get a response, I’ll be sure to report it in the Weekend Update section of this blog.

Meanwhile, a question: if you suddenly and unexpectedly found yourself (or something you’d created) in the national spotlight, how do you think you’d react? Here’s the link to the You Tube video: http://bit.ly/2bnfF8c

And while I have your attention, this is the newest book in the series

 Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of over fifty books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award 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 for “The Blessing Witch.” Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (Kilt at the Highland Games) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in a Cornish Alehouse ~ UK in December 2016; US in April 2017) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” series and is set in Elizabethan England. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com

How Much is Too Much?

Kate Flora: It’s Wednesday, not yet seven, and I’m already running behind. I know that many of you like to read the blog with your morning coffee, and while I’m dithering here at my desk, your coffee is probably getting cold. So what am I talking about today? That very difficult and delicate question: How much promotion should an author do, and when does it become annoying to a reader? I’m prompted to write this because in the last few weeks, several friends and neighbors have asked me if “that book about the warden ever came out?” Having spent the summer in my car, hauling crates of books and racing around to libraries, book fairs, and bookstores, I was amazed by the question. Is it really possible that there’s a single person anywhere who hasn’t heard about A Good Man with a Dog?

Roger Guay at Sherman’s in Camden

Evidently, the answer is yes. So today I’m wondering where the tipping point is between enough and too much. If Roger Guay—who IS the good man with a dog—and I haven’t been at your local library or bookstore, (along with Saba or Nilla or some other canine with a sweet face and lots of talent) I apologize, and urge you to rush right in to said local venue and get us invited. Meanwhile, check our websites, where our appearances for the rest of the summer and fall are listed.

In case you are curious about why my name is on a Maine game warden’s memoir, here’s a small sample of what you might hear us say at a book talk. http://www.wlbz2.com/mb/news/local/207/roger-guay-kate-clark-flora-a-good-man-with-a-dog/272122215

http://mpbn.net/post/good-man-dog-roger-guay-kate-clark-flora

It all began years ago when Joe Loughlin, then a police lieutenant in Portland, wanted to

The set of 207, waiting for the Kate and Roger Show to begin

write a book about a case he was working on, the disappearance of twenty-five-year-old Amy St. Laurent from Portland’s Old Port area. He was my go-to guy for police procedure, and I was his go-to gal for writing advice. That led to the collaboration on Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine, and my connection with the Maine warden service, who organized the search that found Amy’s body. When that was over, I swore I would never do nonfiction again. It’s too hard to think about someone’s tragic death and the books take years. But along came Maine warden Lt. Pat Dorian, who told me about another hidden body the warden service had found up in Miramichi, New Brunswick. That became a five year project, and Death Dealer: How Cops and Cadaver Dogs Brought a Killer to Justice.

Nilla is a book-buyer magnet. Who can refuse that sweet face?

Roger Guay and his dogs were on both of those searches. So when Roger retired and wanted to write about his 25 year career, but didn’t know how to get the stories from his head to the page, guess who he called? And when gentle advice didn’t work, I ended up in his green pickup truck, driving the back roads around Greenville, holding the recorder while he talked. I discovered that he was a good man, that his dog lore was fascinating, and that he’d probably never get a word down on the page without our unorthodox collaborating method.

Now here’s a question for you: How do you hear about authors and their new books? Should I have a newsletter? Keep an e-mailing list and send you updates? Leave you in peace? Curious authors really want to know.

p.s. Roger and I are giving some lucky reader this lovely pillow, so leave a comment, here or on FB, or visit us at one of our signings, or kindly leave a review at Amazon, and you could be the owner.

A Day in Hartland

A Day In Hartland

Walkway connecting parts of the tannery

John Clark offering you a virtual visit to where I live. Hartland is just north of Pittsfield and forms an informal triangle with St. Albans and Palmyra which is why I frequently refer to it as the Tri-Town area. We moved here in 2003 when I was working at the Maine State Library and Beth was on the nursing faculty at U. Maine-Orono Prior to the move, I was commuting 10 miles a day to her 180, so we needed to find a middle ground. Neither of us knew anything about the town, but our house in Chelsea had sold quickly, so we needed to find a new one ASAP. Our yellow Victorian was the second we looked at and something clicked almost immediately for both of us. Maybe it was the hardwood floors, maybe the window seat overlooking the remains of the town swimming pool that was full of frogs that serenaded us while we looked it over. In any event, 70 Pleasant Street felt more comfortable in half an hour than our old home in Chelsea did after 27 years.

Rare photo of the Hartland Fair.

What’s Hartland like? Hardscrabble is a good beginning. If you read any of the history of the town, you’ll discover that at times a railroad passed through on its way to granite quarries in Harmony, there was a ferry that came up the Sebasticook River from Pittsfield. The town boasted a woolen mill, a canning factory and a furniture factory in the glory days before 1930. It was home to a lively fair from 1825 until well after the Civil War. I’m told by flying friends that the outline of the racetrack can still be seen in the fall if you look closely. Not so many years ago, there were seven gas stations in town, numerous stores, a big hotel and even a bowling alley.

Retired Psychiatric Nurse, Barbara Day, has amazing gardens and works with younger kids who want to learn to garden themselves.

Today, the harsh reality of Maine economics has hit hard and often. The tannery, the only major industry remaining, has gone bankrupt twice since 1990, leaving the taxpayers holding the bag for unpaid taxes as well as much of the tannery’s share of the cost for the wastewater treatment plant that was built primarily to serve the tannery when water pollution standards became an issue with the EPA. Numerous businesses have closed in the last couple years, both gas stations, one of two restaurants and Bangor Savings Bank just left town. Sounds pretty grim-eh?

Despite all of the above, A day, a week or a lifetime in Hartland has some neat things going for it. You know we have a good library, but what about other hidden treasures? Let’s start with Great Moose Lake. It’s big and has a lot of camps as well as year round homes dotting the shore and parts of it are in four different towns: Athens, Harmony, Hartland and St. Albans. We live about five minutes from the public boat launch. While it has signs warning against swimming, a certain family member has been known to accompany her husband and swim while he reads with his feet in the water. We’re continually amazed at how quiet it is up there, given the number of people residing on the shores in the summer. We’ve canoed while surrounded by more than 20 loons and often see eagles flying overhead. Sunsets are particularly spectacular up there.

Looking out over Great Moose from the public landing at sunset.

Like to walk, 4-wheel or snowmobile? There are plenty of trails and with two snowmobile clubs, the winter riding is a breeze thanks to their grooming efforts. Like wildlife? We’ve had bears, coyotes, moose, foxes, a bittern, raccoons, skunks, blue herons and tons of deer, as well as an abundance of birds. This year, cardinals are nesting in the trees behind our neighbor’s home.

While we don’t have a community garden spot, people often leave surplus veggies and fruit at the library, or drop it off at the Tri-Town food pantry. This has been a banner year for berries. Sites Farm, a few miles up the road, offers pick your own strawberries and high bush blueberries. There are plenty of places for those who want to pick wild blackberries or raspberries. This year, we even had an abundant crop of black raspberries. I’ve picked 5 gallons of blackberries, but that’s dwarfed by Dana Morgan’s efforts. He had to quit after picking 14 gallons when his back revolted.

We have two stores, Moose Lake Market has a deli, meat cutting room and bakery. They offer decent weekly specials. Wrights, on Commercial Street is a combination grocery/hardware store. We even have a Family Dollar store that opened last years. Looking for eats? Netties serves up a nice sandwich (I’m partial to their cheeseburger sub) and just over the line in St. Albans the Sunrise Cafe serves up a monster breakfast at really affordable prices. On Sundays, the Spauldings offer a wicked good BBQ just over the town line in St. Albans. (https://www.facebook.com/droolinggoatbbq/)

Despite hard times, we have a sense of civic spirit here. The Couples Club which meets monthly at the Grace Linn Methodist Church, is a great group of people, funny and articulate who put on two fundraisers annually to generate scholarship money for graduating seniors. We also have a Hartland historical society that has been raising money to revamp the town cemeteries. Two have been spruced up, headstones repaired and cleaned. The difference is amazing. Want movies? The theater in Pittsfield costs $6.00, $5 if you’re a senior and offers Buck night on Mondays. They generally get first run movies three weeks after the theaters in Waterville. It’s never crowded and the candy is reasonable.

Harold and Joe at the Transfer Station. Terry was taking care of his elderly mom that day.

Living here is also important because of the sense of community. I stop at the post office every morning and find out what happened (we’re never in the newspapers), usually have a chat with someone I know and wave to more people as I walk home where it’s likely I’ll be greeted by loons calling from the river across the road. One of my favorite weekend stops is the town transfer station. Terry and Harold think along the same lines as I do. We hate to see stuff go to waste. They save any books dropped off so I can triage them. Sunday, for example, I went through the cardboard barrels while trading insults (good natured of course). I came away with 22 box tops for Piper’s future school in Belgrade, 276 Coke points and a box of books. I swapped five of them and sold another online for over $50. Pretty decent haul for an hour of work. In return, I swung by Harold’s place tonight and gave him and Mary fresh corn and beets.. What do you like best about where you live?

The Mysterious Elaine

It was a sultry August night in a small Maine town. A lazy breeze barely flirted with the humidity. It was too damn hot to cook.

Having showered off the grit and salt accumulated during a hike followed by a swim in the cold Atlantic, we were hungry to eat outside. A local pub with outdoor seating beckoned. We picked a choice table on the flagstone patio and perused the menu while sipping a nice, chilled rosé.

Behind a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees the sun was dipping toward the western horizon. The bugs hadn’t noticed it was show time yet, which was fine with us. The mood was sweet and so were the tomatoes in our hyper-local salads.

Life was good.

The interloper waited until a couple of other tables were occupied before she made her low-key entrance.

Ultra casual, like she belonged. Aloof, but in an appealing kind of way. Flying under the radar.  A relatively recent mom, it appeared, out on the town by herself, a little summer’s evening jaunt.

Her nonchalance told me not only had she done this before, she could have written the quintessential book on how to crash a party with style. The secret? To make everyone think you’re with somebody else.

She wandered by our table first, offered a quick hello then moved on to our neighbors. Again, a brief greeting, not looking to linger, much less share a nibble. She was far too smooth for that.

As the crowd grew, so did the buzz. Who was she? Where did she come from? Was she alone? Something in her beautiful brown eyes hinted at mischief. Was she going to cause trouble?

The servers were puzzled. She wasn’t a guest at the inn, they said, much less a member of the family.

We found ourselves unable to take our eyes off her. Such a mystery! We began to speculate. What was her name?

Diane thought she looked like a Stella, but to me, something in about her attitude−it screamed je ne regrette rien−told me she was an Elaine.

The mysterious Elaine, next to a table of strangers she pretended were friends

She never let on, just kept circulating, as though she owned the place.

 

Brenda Buchanan is the author of the Joe Gale Mystery Series, featuring a contemporary Maine newspaper reporter with old-school habits who covers the crime and courts beat. Her three books—QUICK PIVOT, COVER STORY and TRUTH BEAT—are available through Carina Press or wherever fine ebooks are sold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Update: August 27-28, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Brenda Buchanan (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Wednesday), Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett (Thursday), and Maureen Milliken (Friday).

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

From Kaitlyn Dunnett: So, I was minding my own business, checking Facebook, and what should pop up but Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show holding up my mystery novel, Ho-Ho-Homicide, the eighth entry in the Liss MacCrimmon series. This is great! Free publicity! It would have been even better if he wasn’t doing it because he was sharing the next segment of his “Do Not Read” list. You can see the video at  https://www.facebook.com/Kaitlyn-Dunnett-1490240871270635/timeline/ by scrolling down to the link. I’ll be blogging this coming Thursday about what it was like to suddenly find my book in the spotlight.

Saturday, August 27 — Maureen Milliken, Jen Blood and Lea Wait will be joining an impressive group of women crafters and several authors of children’s books at the Designing Women show at Longfellows Greenhouses, 81 Puddleduck Road, in Manchester Maine. The show is from 9:30 until 4:00, and the show supports the Sexual Assault Crisis and Support Center in Winthrop, Maine. Great place to buy crafts and books for yourself- or for Christmas gifts!

Also on Saturday, August 27th, Kate Flora and Roger Guay will be signing copies of A Good Man with a Dog at Sherman’s in Camden from 1-3. And on Thursday, September 1st, we will be at Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta at 11:00.

In case you missed it, Kate Flora, Lea Wait, and Dorothy Cannell were at the Carmel Library last week for a Death and Desserts event. We are still recovering from the amazing chocolate overload, but Maine Crime Writers are very happy to be invited to any library, whether they serve chocolate or not, so let us hear from you!!

And remember, we’re closing in on the end of our August give-away (which actually extends through Labor Day–maybe we should call it the “End of Summer” give-away?) and we know that you really want to own one of those fabulous Nancy Drew tote bags full of books and Maine goodies. Just remember to leave a comment on any one of our blogs, and you’ll be eligible.

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