Kathy Lynn Emerson's Blog, page 72

Weekend Update: June 18-19, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Bruce Coffin (Monday), Jessie Crockett (Tuesday), Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett (Wednesday), Lea Wait (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:

Maureen Milliken is thrilled to announce No News is Bad News, the second in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series, will be released June 28. She’ll have copies available to sell and sign, along with the first in the series, Cold Hard News, at the Belgrade Lakes Fourth of July extravaganza, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., 78 Main St. (right next to the gyro stand!), in Belgrade Lakes village.

Vaughn Hardacker and Kate Flora also plan to be on hand at the Meet the Maine Crime Writers tent, so come on up and say hi!

Go to maureenmilliken.com for details and other events.

Kate Flora, with Roger Guay and a clever canine named Saba will be at the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor on Thursday the 23rd. Hope you will stop in to hear this fabulous storyteller share his adventures with the warden service, and what’s really involved in the lives of Maine’s off-road traffic cops, wildlife enforcers, and search and rescue champions.

Kate Flora, Roger Guay, and Saba

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate, Lea Wait, Kaitlyn Dunnett, and Barb Ross spent a lovely three nights and four days at a writing retreat on Bailey Island. Everyone was productive and happy. Look for lots of great books in 2017!

 

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, book group, 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: mail to: kateflora@gmail.com

Hello Maine summer, courtesy of EB White

We Maine Crime Writers live in a dark place — both geographically and mentally.

Maine in all its darkness.

One of the things that makes Maine so delicious for mystery settings is its deep darkness. There are a lot of short days, a lot of dark hours, dead trees, bare vegetation. Lots of cold, rain, ice. Even with the winter that never came this year, the darkness is there.

And we write about death and evil. We have to, or we wouldn’t have anything to write about as mystery writers.

But one of the great things about Maine, one of the things you don’t fully get unless you live here, is that there’s a payoff to the darkness. A day like this.

After all the gloom and gray and cold, dead trees and dead earth the state explodes into a riot of high definition greens and blues. Uncontrolled and unmanicured, warm and good-smelling. Bright and very, very alive.

On a day like this, it’s impossible to write anything dark, or even contemplate darkness.

As writers and readers we love the written word. One of the masters was the great E.B. White. As a child. White spend summers in Belgrade Lakes. Later in life he moved to Brooklin on the Blue Hill Peninsula and left the Lakes behind. But in 1941, he brought his 10-year-old son to Belgrade to experience the kind of summer on Great Pond he himself had as a boy.

I’m lucky enough to live in Belgrade Lakes now, and a couple years ago, after I’d moved here, I stumbled upon his beautiful essay “Once More to the Lake” about that visit with his son. I’d read it in college, but now, living here, it resonated.

The fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable…forever and ever, summer without end

Every summer, I write about E.B. and his ode to youth, growing old, mortality, the Lakes and, most of all, Maine summer. It may not be summer yet. We still have a few days until it’s official. But, boy it feels like it. And it feels good. Well, let’s let E.B. say it:

Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible,

the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable,

the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever,

summer without end.

 

Maureen Milliken’s second novel in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series, No News is Bad News, will be available June 28. Follow her on Twitter: @mmilliken47, on Facebook at Maureen Milliken mysteries, and sign up for email updates or get her latest news and events at maureenmilliken.com. Maureen will have copies of No News is Bad News, as well as her debut Cold Hard News, available for sale and signing at Belgrade Lakes Fourth of July celebration, find her at 78 Main St. and say hi!

A Graduation in Maine

Hi. Barb here.

I graduated from a small private school with about 100 other sweaty teenagers. The tradition at my school was boys graduated in suits, while girls wore white dresses. But in my class in 1971, there was a major feminist uprising about this blatant display of gender roles. There were also strong objections to the expense involved, because while it was a private school, plenty of parents were making major sacrifices for their kids to be there. It was assumed the boys would wear the suits again–but the white dresses?

So we, the class of ’71, graduated in caps and gowns, both boys and girls. By the next year, the brouhaha was over, and the boys graduated in suits and the girls in white dresses, and have from that day to this, according to the very specific dress requirements posted here for the class of 2016.

I was reminded of this when I attended my niece’s graduation from Boothbay Harbor High School last Friday. The graduation itself was lovely. The ceremony focused rightly on the students. All three speakers were students, so there were no politicians or other eminence grises bloviating. Even the superintendent kept her remarks short and to the point. With 49 kids, there was time for every name to be called, and for all the kids to receive their due as they walked across the stage to receive their diplomas. They wore traditional caps and gowns, a lovely shade of blue.

Then, at 7:30 pm, we reported back to the high school gym for the “grand march.” First the graduates’ parents entered the gym, as couples, dressed up and looking proud. Then the graduates entered, two-by-two, a boy and a girl. The boys were dressed in white dinner jackets and the girls in long white dresses. Each girl carried two red-and-white bouquets.

They proceeded to move around the gym in configurations that felt like a cross between high school band formations and a Virginia reel. It was stately and beautiful, and aside from an unfortunate choice of a John Philip Sousa number that somehow reminded every spectator in my area of the marching band scene in Animal House, sending giggles down the row, it was lovely.

When all the marching was done, the group turned to each of the four walls of the gym for photos, and then the kids presented each of their moms with a bouquet. The girls danced with their dads and the boys danced with their moms, and it was over.

And I felt conflicted. On the one hand, it was so old-fashioned and traditional, a link to the past. But on the other, it was clear when the bouquet-presenting and dancing occurred that some kids were coping with having two complete sets of parents present, while others had barely been able to scrape up one set. Still, I imagined the grown-ups working together selflessly to acknowledge a milestone day for their children, and the kids getting to share a special moment with an uncle or grandparent or fondly-remembered babysitter, if a parent wasn’t a part of their lives.

I was even more uncomfortable that the one gender-nonconforming kid I’d spotted at graduation wasn’t present. Had that kid truly not wanted to participate, or were the expectations for dress and gender role just too off-putting? And those white dresses brought back waves of ambivalence. Hadn’t I fought this fight 45 years ago?

We were told several times that Boothbay is the last high school in Maine to do a grand march at graduation. A little Googling tells me that the Vinylhaven School also does one, though the girls appear to be be nicely dressed, in a color of their choosing.

I walked away impressed by the grandeur and the tradition, but disturbed by the embedded assumptions about kids and families.

Readers: What do you think? Grand March–lovely tradition or relic of a bygone era best forgotten?

Murder at the Old Railway Chapel

Jen Blood here, to talk about an upcoming event I’m very excited about.

On the second Saturday of July for the past three years, I’ve been at Boothbay Railway Village for Books in Boothbay, an annual event sponsored by the Boothbay Public Library. Now in its twelfth year, Books in Boothbay features anywhere from forty to fifty-plus Maine authors housed under one roof, available to sign their books, chat with the public, and catch up with one another. Sherman’s Books and Stationery facilitates the whole shebang by providing the books, helping to organize the wayward authors, and ringing out customers. For the past three years, volunteer Sharon Pulkkinen has taken on the weighty task of contacting authors, organizing volunteers, making sure everyone’s information is current, and generally ensuring that Books in Boothbay continues to be a success. Not an easy feat, since organizing that many authors is very much like herding cats. Cats are more social, though.

This year, I’m very pleased to say that I’ve coordinated a partnership between Sisters in Crime New England and Books in Boothbay for the first time. For those unaware, Sisters in Crime is an international organization devoted to the professional development and advancement of women crime writers. They host events, provide instruction and networking opportunities, and are generally just a great organization to have in the world. This year, in partnership with Books in Boothbay, Sisters in Crime New England will have a table at the event. We will not just have a table, though… We will have a mystery to solve. The Murder at the Old Railway Chapel will take place across from the Railway Village’s town hall, and will include a staged crime scene, suspects to interview, and a couple of great prizes for lucky winners who successfully solve the crime.

It’s been a lot of fun putting together the details of the mystery for the event, and has definitely stretched my sleuthing muscles in some exciting new ways. The unfortunate victim is a (fictional) fellow author, one Eunice K. Stoneheart, author of a series of cozies featuring a talking donkey. In my premise, Eunice is found the night before Books in Boothbay is to begin, lying prone beside a bloodied copy of Kate Flora’s Death Dealer. Murder most foul indeed. Eunice, naturally, was not without her enemies. She had announced recently that she intended to sell her books only in digital format going forward in order to save trees, and it had just been learned that she planned to stage a protest on the day of the Books in Boothbay event. Knowing Eunice’s predilection for spectacle and her litigious nature, those hosting the event were not pleased.

Additionally, Eunice was lobbying to have the narrator of her series — her own pet donkey, Louise — admitted as a member of Sisters in Crime. While this might have been laughable, Eunice had already secured a lawyer fully invested in moving forward with a lawsuit that would no doubt prove troublesome for the organization, if they did not comply. She had engaged fellow cozy writer (and Sisters in Crime New England Vice President) Edith Maxwell in a war of words over an incident Maxwell insisted had never happened (“I never touched her damn donkey, and I never would — what possible reason could there be for kicking a donkey? If it kicked me back, I’d be out of commission for months.”) Eunice had charged author Dale T Phillips with food poisoning, and had just announced a lawsuit against Maine Crime Writers’ own Kate Flora, charging her with reckless endangerment after Kate unwittingly brushed against the elderly Stoneheart with her grocery cart at the local Hannaford.

Clearly, many had motive.

If you’d like to try your hand at solving the crime, we’d love to see you. This year, Books in Boothbay will take place on Saturday, July 9, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Boothbay Railway Village. Authors — including many here at Maine Crime Writers — will be onsite to sign books, and the Railway Village truly is a beautiful place to spend a summer day. I hope we’ll see you there!

Jen Blood is author of the bestselling Erin Solomon Mysteries, as well as the soon-to-be-released 5-Day Fiction Guide to Creating Complex Characters. To learn more, visit www.jenblood.com. 

Murder at the Old Railway Village

Jen Blood here, to talk about an upcoming event I’m very excited about.

On the second Saturday of July for the past three years, I’ve been at Boothbay Railway Village for Books in Boothbay, an annual event sponsored by the Boothbay Public Library. Now in its twelfth year, Books in Boothbay features anywhere from forty to fifty-plus Maine authors housed under one roof, available to sign their books, chat with the public, and catch up with one another. Sherman’s Books and Stationery facilitates the whole shebang by providing the books, helping to organize the wayward authors, and ringing out customers. For the past three years, volunteer Sharon Pulkkinen has taken on the weighty task of contacting authors, organizing volunteers, making sure everyone’s information is current, and generally ensuring that Books in Boothbay continues to be a success. Not an easy feat, since organizing that many authors is very much like herding cats. Cats are more social, though.

This year, I’m very pleased to say that I’ve coordinated a partnership between Sisters in Crime New England and Books in Boothbay for the first time. For those unaware, Sisters in Crime is an international organization devoted to the professional development and advancement of women crime writers. They host events, provide instruction and networking opportunities, and are generally just a great organization to have in the world. This year, in partnership with Books in Boothbay, Sisters in Crime New England will have a table at the event. We will not just have a table, though… We will have a mystery to solve. The Murder at the Old Railway Chapel will take place across from the Railway Village’s town hall, and will include a staged crime scene, suspects to interview, and a couple of great prizes for lucky winners who successfully solve the crime.

It’s been a lot of fun putting together the details of the mystery for the event, and has definitely stretched my sleuthing muscles in some exciting new ways. The unfortunate victim is a (fictional) fellow author, one Eunice K. Stoneheart, author of a series of cozies featuring a talking donkey. In my premise, Eunice is found the night before Books in Boothbay is to begin, lying prone beside a bloodied copy of Kate Flora’s Death Dealer. Murder most foul indeed. Eunice, naturally, was not without her enemies. She had announced recently that she intended to sell her books only in digital format going forward in order to save trees, and it had just been learned that she planned to stage a protest on the day of the Books in Boothbay event. Knowing Eunice’s predilection for spectacle and her litigious nature, those hosting the event were not pleased.

Additionally, Eunice was lobbying to have the narrator of her series — her own pet donkey, Louise — admitted as a member of Sisters in Crime. While this might have been laughable, Eunice had already secured a lawyer fully invested in moving forward with a lawsuit that would no doubt prove troublesome for the organization, if they did not comply. She had engaged fellow cozy writer (and Sisters in Crime New England Vice President) Edith Maxwell in a war of words over an incident Maxwell insisted had never happened (“I never touched her damn donkey, and I never would — what possible reason could there be for kicking a donkey? If it kicked me back, I’d be out of commission for months.”) Eunice had charged author Dale T Phillips with food poisoning, and had just announced a lawsuit against Maine Crime Writers’ own Kate Flora, charging her with reckless endangerment after Kate unwittingly brushed against the elderly Stoneheart with her grocery cart at the local Hannaford.

Clearly, many had motive.

If you’d like to try your hand at solving the crime, we’d love to see you. This year, Books in Boothbay will take place on Saturday, July 9, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Boothbay Railway Village. Authors — including many here at Maine Crime Writers — will be onsite to sign books, and the Railway Village truly is a beautiful place to spend a summer day. I hope we’ll see you there!

Jen Blood is author of the bestselling Erin Solomon Mysteries, as well as the soon-to-be-released 5-Day Fiction Guide to Creating Complex Characters. To learn more, visit www.jenblood.com. 

A Question (and a Contest!)

Look, people. Let’s not beat around the bush. This September, I’ve got a new book coming out. It’s called RED RIGHT HAND, and it’s the followup to my Anthony, Barry, Lefty, and Macavity-nominated Michael Hendricks novel, THE KILLING KIND. I’m crazy psyched for folks to read it. So psyched, in fact, I’ve decided to give a signed ARC* away to one lucky MCW reader. How, you ask? Keep reading.

Hot off the presses.

*For those who don’t know, an ARC (or advance reading copy) is the early, uncorrected version of a book sent to reviewers well before the book’s release. RED RIGHT HAND’s ARCs were printed prior to copyediting, and differ slightly from the hardcover. That means a) they’re something of a collector’s item, and b) whoever wins one will get to read the version of the book I submitted to my editor, as well as mock my typos and questionable comma placements.

For those who don’t know, my wife, Katrina, is involved in the mystery community too, as a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, Mystery Scene, and Crimespree. She and I are fond of taking long walks, during which our conversations often turn to books.

The other day, our conversation centered on a question (which [hint, hint] might just come into play if you wanna win that ARC):

What book would you give to somebody who’s never read crime fiction to show them why you love the genre and what it’s capable of?

It’s an interesting question to me, because the answer isn’t necessarily your favorite book, it’s the book you think would be the best ambassador for the genre. (Some of my favorites [Donald Westlake’s Parker books, for example] are maybe too far down the genre rabbit hole to appeal to someone who’s never read a crime novel before.) And tastes vary so widely from recipient to recipient that it’s hard to choose one book with broad enough appeal.

Katrina offered two: Agatha Christie’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE and Donna Tartt’s THE SECRET HISTORY. The former was the first adult mystery she ever read, and it ignited a passion for the genre that continues to this day. The latter (which, for the record, was in the running for me, too) is a beautifully written tale that puts the lie to the idea that crime fiction is lowbrow fare.

I’m similarly torn. I’m tempted to suggest Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES because, like Katrina with Christie, I fell in love with it as a child. Or Raymond Chandler’s THE BIG SLEEP, which is as gorgeous on the sentence level as any book you’ll ever read. But instead, I’ll take the opportunity to choose a novel from one of my favorite current crime authors: Megan Abbott’s THE END OF EVERYTHING.

THE END OF EVERYTHING is at once a gorgeous literary novel, a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story, an unflinching work of crime fiction, and an expertly constructed fair-play mystery. It’s not an easy read by any means, but for me, it’s without a doubt one of the most satisfying in recent memory.

So… what book would you choose? Leave your answer in the comments, and be sure to include your name. Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 9AM EST, I’ll randomly select one commenter to receive the ARC (either by placing names in a hat or sorting via Excel’s random number generator, depending on my level of laziness), and notify the winner via the comments shortly thereafter. You’re welcome to leave multiple comments, but I’ll only count them as one entry.

Introducing a new environmental mystery

(Maine Crime Writers love to introduce our readers to new authors–mostly Maine authors–and books we think our readers will enjoy. Today’s guest is Charlene D’Avanzo, talking about her new eco-mystery)

Charlene D’Avanzo: Last month I traveled to one of the most biologically diverse places in the world—Costa Rica. There were sloths, howling monkeys, alligator-like reptiles called caimans, birds galore. My buddies were super excited about an extra long, extra high zip line through the tropical forest, but I was not.

That’s because I’m terribly afraid of heights.

Despite my anxiety, I took a deep breath, clipped myself to a half dozen lines, and sped through the forest two hundred feet above terra firm. My journey to becoming a fiction writer has been kind of like that.

I call my books environmental mysteries because each has an environmental underpinning, and I think of the natural world (e.g., Maine’s coast) as a character in itself. Five years ago, another researcher’s horrific experience with climate change deniers triggered my decision to transform myself into a mystery writer. It seemed to me that scientists had failed to engage the public in this global emergency. Perhaps readers would be open to this message in a compelling story with engaging characters who happened to be scientists.

Like the zipline, it’s been an amazing ride—sometimes so scary and frustrating I screamed like a banshee, but always absorbing. I’ve held on and the first in my “Maine Oceanography” series will be published by a conservation press in June.

COLD BLOOD, HOT SEA is an amateur sleuth. Oceanographer Mara Tusconi tries to figure out who offed a dear colleague on a research cruise and why. The quest entangles Mara in a scheme headed up by powerful energy executives with much to lose by what Mara and other scientists at the Maine Oceanographic Institute are finding out. Mara and her sidekick and fellow scientist Harvey (Harville), face numerous trials, of course, including a sea kayak-motorboat chase in Maine’s icy waters at night. Mara’s flaws include one fatal for an oceanographer— she gets seasick.

 In adddition, the book is a cli-lit, eco-lit novel. Climate fiction is hot these days, but most novels are dystopian stories set in a devastated future. In contrast, COLD BLOOD, HOT SEA is contemporary, environmentally accurate with a positive message, and funny.

Charlene D’Avanzo is a marine ecologist, emeritus professor at Hampshire College, and award winning environmental educator. In 2015 she was awarded Mystery Writers of America’s McCloy scholarship for new writers. Her short stories are published in several anthologies including the eco-fiction collection “Winds of Change”. She’s a moderator on the Ecology in Literature and Arts site. Charlene lives on Little John Island in Yarmouth, Maine.

charlenedavanzo.com

author@charlenedavanzo.com

 

Weekend Update: June 11-12, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Guest Author Charlene D’Avanzo (Monday), Chris Holm (Tuesday), Jen Blood (Wednesday), Barb Ross (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:

Yes — tomorrow, Saturday, June 11, you’ll find Maine Crime Writers Maureen Milliken, Kate Flora, Lea Wait, Richard Cass, and other wonderful Maine authors at the Guilford Memorial Library in Guilford, Maine. (That’s next to Hermon, near Bangor.)  We’re looking forward to seeing each other — and YOU!

Looking ahead to the week of the 20th (because it is important to make plans!), Brenda Buchanan will be Downeast talking about her Joe Gale mysteries, particularly Cover Story, which is set in Washington and Hancock counties. On Thursday, June 23 at 6:30 p.m. she will be at the Swan’s Island Library and on Friday, June 24 at 4:30 p.m. she will be reading at the Winter Harbor Public Library.

On Thursday, June 23rd, Kate Flora and warden Roger Guay will be at the Jesup Library in Bar Harbor, talking about A Good Man with a Dog. Here’s a photo of said “good man” with an adorable eight-week-old lab puppy named Lucy at the Bridgeton Library last Tuesday. Maybe Lucy will come to Bar Harbor with us as well?

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. And we encourage fun events like Death and Desserts, like the one last summer at the Liberty Library shown in the photos below.

Contact Kate Flora: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com

HANDS UP! GIMME ALL YOUR…

Not a holdup, but hands up and shoulders back and keep moving!

Because of years of back problems (and now osteoporosis and arthritis) and years of sitting at a keyboard, I’ve collected exercises and advice from various sources. Today I’m sharing some that can benefit writers, office workers, and others who sit long hours at desks and/or keyboards can benefit from exercises and activities aimed at preventing carpal tunnel, neck and back and hip pain, and weight gain.

PREVENTING CARPAL TUNNEL

Be sure you have your chair and keyboard so your wrists are straight rather than at an angle with the keyboard. Sit up straight like your mother told you. Don’t slump. Habitually letting shoulders slump forward can lead to “dowager’s hump” and rotator-cuff injury. A lumbar support cushion strapped to the chair back can facilitate this. The cushion’s pressure on the lower back is a great reminder to sit erect.

Train yourself to use the mouse with either hand, so you don’t overuse one hand. Even before I learned this about carpal tunnel, I taught myself to do this because of pain in my index finger from clicking and scrolling. I think the same thing could be true of using the touch pad repeatedly with the dominant hand.

This next sequence of exercises continues carpal tunnel prevention and helps keep arms and shoulders limber. Do these once and hour while you’re at the keyboard.

PRAY

Put your hands in a prayer position, pushing toward your sternum and with your elbows raised to the sides. Hold for a count of ten. Release the prayer hand position and point your fingers downward stiffly, pressing the backs of your hands together. Hold for a count of ten. Repeat that sequence three times.

Similarly, as in the photo, grasp the fingers of one hand with the other and pull back, hold for a count of ten and relax. Repeat the sequence three times with each hand.

SHAKE IT UP, BABY

Release and shake out your arms and hands. Hold your arms out straight from your sides and roll your arms and shoulders frontward, then backward.

STRENGTHENING

Remind yourself to stand straight with shoulders back as if the lumbar cushion is attached to your back, shoulder blades pinched together slightly. Get up at least once an hour and walk around, go up and down stairs, more often if possible. I set a small timer for twenty minutes.

SILLY WALK

A variation is to do gentle lunges, enough to tighten the buttocks but not enough to stress the knees. I do my silly walk down the long hall beside my basement office. When I began, to keep my balance, I touched the wall on both sides.

TURTLE

The head weighs about the same as a bowling ball, so as we age, we need strength to keep it vertical. This exercise will improve posture and strengthen neck muscles. Sit or stand straight, shoulders back, in the posture I described above. Looking forward, pull your head back, chin down, turtle-like. Hold for a count of five, then relax. Do five repetitions. Do the set three times a day. And here’s the “hands up” in my title.

WINGS OR THE BIG W 

This exercise will prevent the shortening of chest muscles and stretch your back. Sit or stand straight, shoulders down, shoulder blades slightly pinched together. Hold your arms out from your sides, elbows bent, hands pointed up so your arms form a big W, or wings. Pull your arms back and hold for a count of five, then relax. Do five repetitions. Do the entire set three times a day.

I’ve worked the Wings and the Turtle exercise into walks with my dog. Sasha doesn’t notice my nutty behavior, and neither do the birds and squirrels along our dirt road. None of these should be too time consuming and should improve flexibility and decrease risk of pain from overuse.

Lastly, pay attention to the body’s reactions, the movements and stretching of various muscles, and on your breathing. Focusing on the present moment and on the sensations created by the various exercises can reduce stress and increase the benefit of the activity.

I invite commenters to suggest additional activities or exercises to add to the repertoire.

Baseball is Life; Life is Baseball

By Brenda Buchanan

Baseball is reassuring.

It makes me feel as if the world is not going to blow up.

Pulitzer prize-winning poet Sharon Olds said that, and she’s right. Especially in this crazy political summer that we all know is going to get waaaaay crazier, it’s gives me deep comfort to turn on NESN and watch my Red Sox at the end of a long day.

It helps that they’re winning, with Big Papi hitting the cover off the ball in his final season and a cluster of bright young stars who not long ago ran the bases and swung for the fences at Hadlock Field in Portland. But win or lose, the Sox are my team, and have been since they almost won the World Series in 1967, when I was eight years old.

Last Sunday we made our first foray of the year to Fenway Park . It was a gray-sky day, a sharp contrast to my usual Red Sox weather karma, but we were under the grandstand behind first base, so the occasional showers didn’t matter a whit.

The view from our seats, June 5

As you can see, a post blocked my view of home plate, obstructed view seats being the price we pay to watch our team play in a one-of-a-kind of a ballpark built more than a century ago. But I did have a perfect view of the pitcher, who, with the exception of Big Papi, usually is the most entertaining player on the field.

In his essay collection Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion, the great Roger Angell illustrated this truth with this sublime description of Red Sox Hall of Famer Luis Tiant, who also attended Sunday’s game:

El Tiante, in his heyday

Tiant, noted for odd pitching mannerisms, is also a famous mound dawdler. Stands on hill like sunstruck archeologist at Knossos. Regards ruins. Studies sun. Studies landscape. Looks at artifact in hand. Wonders: Keep this potsherd or throw it away? Does Smithsonian want it? Hmm. Prepares to throw it away. Pauses. Sudd. discovers writing on object. Hmm. Possible Linear B inscript.? Sighs. Decides. Throws. Wipes face. Repeats whole thing. Innings & hours creep by. Spectators clap, yawn, droop, expire.

These days a clock is supposed to keep pitchers from such antics, but the game still unfolds at a leisurely pace. Sunday’s game featured the anomaly of every hit by both teams from the first inning through the eighth being a home run, every single one of them over the Green Monster.

How often does that happen?

Going into the bottom of the ninth the Sox were down 5-1.  Then Hit!  Hit! Hit! Hit!  All of a sudden it was 5-4 and there were two guys on base and two out and (sigh) a rookie pinch hitter struck out. Final score 5-4, Toronto.

What does my devotion to the Red Sox have to do with crime writing? Did you not just read my account of the game?  It was a tutorial in suspense and a primer on human emotion. As the late Joe Garagiola, former player and play-by-play announcer, once said:

[The game of baseball is] drama with an endless run and an ever-changing cast.

Former baseball commissioner and one-time president of Yale University Bart Giamatti, who knows his way around literature of the English Renaissance, made a similar observation:

B aseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience.

The front pages from the Boston Globe for the three World Series championship wins in 2004 (such a rush) 2007 (we did it again!) and 2013 (really?)

For those of you who may not be baseball fans, consider the words of fellow crime writer Harlan Coben. Instead of comparing baseball to writing, he compared writing to baseball:

I like to see the difference between good and evil as kind of like the foul line at a baseball game. It’s very thin, it’s made of something very flimsy like lime, and if you cross it, it really starts to blur where fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair.

Isn’t that what we do every day? Place some of our characters on the right side of the line, others on the left, and the most intriguing of them with one foot on either side?

I started this post with a poet’s words so I’ll end it with this trenchant observation by former Maine poet laureate Baron Wormser who said of the greatest game:

It’s the keenness of conflict that appeals.

True of baseball. True of crime writing.