K.P. Gresham's Blog, page 12
April 2, 2022
Why I Go to Critique Group
Why I Go to Critique Group
by Kathy Waller
I said to my critique partner this morning, The whole project is stinky it stinks it’s fatally flawed just nothing no hope.
She said, But Chapter 13 is so good so funny Molly is so funny it’s not stinky.
I said, Yes, the first part of chapter 13 and the last part of chapter 13 are funny and very very good but there’s still no middle of chapter 13 and what there is stinks and…
March 13, 2022
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, SHERLOCK HOLMES, & DR. WATSON
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, SHERLOCK HOLMES, & DR. WATSON
by
Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 60 mystery stories featuring the man who quickly became the favorite fictional super-detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sherlock Holmes, but in his years as a medical student, Doyle’s first efforts were short stories.
The Mystery of Sasassa Valley was an adventure of two young men and a reported ghost that…
February 28, 2022
Charles Dickens and Ellen Nelly Ternan–Hidden Lives
Charles Dickens and Ellen Nelly Ternan–Hidden Lives
by Renee Kimball
“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” ~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
In 1812, eight years after Queen Victoria began her reign and the start of the Victoria Era, Charles John Huffman Dickens was born. England was the most powerful empire in the world–”one on which the Sun never set” (Royal…
February 21, 2022
What Do We…Know?
What Do We…Know?
By Helen Currie Foster
I knew so much in college. So much! I was after a solid liberal arts education. I knew biology—I’d dissected the largest dead cat ever delivered to a biology lab, possibly large enough to require a human-size body bag. I scrutinized bones and organs, ears, whatever. Articulated the brute’s vertebrae, sort of. But now…?
And geology! Of course I knew the earth had igneous…
February 15, 2022
by Kathy WallerThe definition of reading readiness is the...
by Kathy Waller
The definition of reading readiness is the point at which a child goes from not reading, to reading. ~ Sight and Sound Reading
But, Gwammy, I can’t wead.*~ Jenny, five years old, after one week in kindergarten
When I was five, my Great-aunt Ethel gave me an ancient primer. She had found it in an old school building, abandoned when consolidation sent children in my hometown to a…
February 7, 2022
The Lost Characters
By K.P. Gresham
This week I lost a very good friend and an incredible mentor. Anna Castle wrote historical mysteries including two internationally successful series: The Francis Bacon Mysteries and the Professor and Mrs. Moriarity. Her books can be found on her website at https://www.annacastle.com/books/
Writing a series of any kind requires a great deal of research. Triple that for historical…
February 1, 2022
ON THE SUBJECT OF PREQUELS
ON THE SUBJECT OF PREQUELS
By
Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte
Unlike sequels, which are straightforward continuations of possibilities that may happen after a novel ends, the prequel tries to imagine and show what happened before the novel’s story began.
A prequel attempts to provide the reader with information about what came first, what impacted the characters’ development, places where the stories occurred, the…
January 24, 2022
Writing “Nice Girls Don’t” for Groovy Gumshoes
Writing “Nice Girls Don’t” for Groovy Gumshoes
So what if I wasn’t born in the 1960s? I can do research!
In 2020, I came across a call for submissions for mystery short stories to be included in an anthology. The anthology was to be called Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties. The editor, Michael Bracken, wanted stories set in the 1960s featuring private detectives, with bonus points given if the story included a major…
January 18, 2022
Book Review: The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History by Oliver Tearle
Book Review: The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History by Oliver Tearle
by Renee Kimball
Sometimes you stumble unawares into a book and then, in total surprise, you are rewarded. That was my experience when I happened to find The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History by Dr. Oliver Tearle. This is a book a bookish reader can gobble up, each chapter one more rich tidbit that goes on and on – an entertaining, multi-layered literary…
January 11, 2022
How to Paint a Horse?
How to Paint a Horse?
by Helen Currie Foster
Like many of you I’m fascinated by prehistory, always hoping for a chance to clamber up (or down) to visit incredible cave paintings. My first mystery, Ghost Cave, was inspired by climbing to cave shelters where the Devil’s River meets the Rio Grande. Ghost Cave’s cover? The famous White Shaman…
