K.P. Gresham's Blog, page 9
February 21, 2023
FAT TUESDAY
by
Francine Paino A.K.A F. Della Notte
Mardi Gras! The wild celebrations and not-so-good behaviors that have come to be associated with Fat Tuesday take place on the last day before the solemn period of Lent begins for Christians around the world.
In the fourth century, when Christianity became recognized in Rome, church leaders incorporated the ingrained pagan Roman festival of Lupercalia,…
February 13, 2023
Mining Family History for Characters
My father is the family genealogist. He did extensive research into both his family and my mother’s family. Dad’s family is rather straightforward—all arriving Texas in the 1870s and 1880s from what is now the Czech Republic. My mother’s mother was Irish American. Her parents arrived in the US just before 1900, so she had aunts, uncles, and cousins in Cork. While some of my Czech and Irish…
February 6, 2023
Waking or Sleeping?
by Helen Currie Foster
This week out here on the creek I was iced in, with no power.
I was sitting by the fireplace wrapped in a blanket, when I came upon an unfamiliar word: HYPNOGAGIA. “Hypnagogia is the transition between wakefulness and sleep. During this state, it’s common to experience visual, audio, or other types of hallucinations. It’s also common to experience muscle jerks and sleep…
January 30, 2023
Shattering a Vase
by Kathy Waller
[The blogger having been rendered incapable of typing with more than five fingers, she repeats a post that appeared on Austin Mystery Writers in 2015.]
*****
… it was like taking a vase and setting it down so hard it shatters … ~ Tracy Chevalier
When I taught secondary English, grading essays was my least favorite task. I was happy to read them, but assigning letter…
January 24, 2023
David Rosenfelt: Storyteller Extraordinaire
By K.P. Gresham
So there I was, getting ready to go on our Christmas cruise with my better half, Kevin, and our daughter, Bethany, and realizing that I didn’t have enough books for our vacation. My goal is to enjoy reading three books each cruise—I never have this luxury of time anywhere else. Most of the books I “read” now are on audio, which I listen to on my 3 mile walk with my Chihuahua,…
January 16, 2023
WHEN THE MUSE CALLS…
By
Fran Paino, AKA F. Della Notte
This was an odd morning. I got up, as usual at 4 a.m. (no kudos here – just my body clock), prepared to sit at the computer and work on my story. I walked into the kitchen. There, perched on the corner of the table, with her cafe e latte in one hand, and waving a recipe for a Sicilian cake I’d printed out before Christmas in the other hand, was the muse. I…
December 12, 2022
THE POWER OF THE QUESTION MARK
Happy Holidays!
Why do we mystery readers read the next line? Turn to the next page?
Some writers have the knack of persuading us–for example, Tony Hillerman. His mysteries feature Navajo police Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. Never forget that Hillerman was a journalist before he wrote mysteries. I’m betting he excelled at attention-catching ledes that made you read his news articles. An early…
November 22, 2022
FLIGHTS OF FANCY AND IMAGINATION
FLIGHTS OF FANCY AND IMAGINATION
FRANCINE PAINO AKA F. Della Notte
Thanks to Hollywood and TV-land, most of us are tired of Christmas and we aren’t even in the official Advent season. The bombardment of mostly silly movies centered on Christmas themes that have little to do with this holy Christian holiday sucks the meaning out of Christmas and starts earlier every year.
Thus, it seems a good time to reprint Flights of Fancy…
November 14, 2022
Libraries and “Merry Library Murder”
Libraries and “Merry Library Murder”
By N. M. Cedeño
The fact that the victim in my upcoming story entitled “Merry Library Murder” is a librarian is not a sign of hidden hostility or wishful thinking. Rather, the opposite is true. I set the story in a library because I spend a lot of time in libraries. Most of my reading material comes from the library, and I am a long-term library volunteer.
Of the many volunteering opportunities…
October 31, 2022
When First We Met…
When First We Met…
By Helen Currie Foster
October 31, 2022
In an online ad for her Master Class, writer Margaret Atwood (oh, what a magnificent face she has! Sardonic, wise, all-seeing…) declares this rule for fiction: “Hold my attention!”
Like Margaret Atwood, mystery lovers demand of mystery writers, “Hold my attention!”
I get tired of defending our genre. Mystery writers absolutely cater to their readers.…
