Space/Time Continuum

by Kait Carson

Way back when in the Stone Age, before YouTube or even MTV, there was a TV show named The Twilight Zone. It was hosted by Rod Serling, who had one of those fantastic announcer’s voices that made you see his words. That was the first time I heard the phrase space/time continuum. I didn’t understand it until I became a writer. 

Because we write on deadlines, our backs are always to the wall. Add in day jobs, family commitments, general life, and it becomes apparent that twenty-four hours in a day are simply not enough. Honestly, neither is thirty-six. Maybe seventy-two would be adequate. Every writer handles the time drain differently. Some carry notebooks or keyboards to all of their appointments. Using the waiting time to outline, write, polish, draw characterizations, study people and take notes (makes ‘em nervous I can tell you). Others set aside a sacred writing time and warn their families that if it ain’t bleeding, broken, or on fire, don’t interrupt. That doesn’t work at my house. As soon as I hang out the “do not disturb” sign, my family beats a path to my door. It's frustrating, but there's nothing to be done about it short of murder. That won't work, it's my family, and I love them. Besides, my research suggests there isn’t much writing time in prison either. 

How do I solve the problem? Dark of night. I’ve always been a night owl. I can do fine with six hours of sleep and get by with four. And something about the dark sparks my creativity. It may be the absence of outside stimulation. We live in the country, so night is…night. Few cars pass, no party noise, no street lights. Just deep, buttery darkness that is broken by the occasional moon or meteor shower. Images flow across my imagination in the night. I can turn myself inward and watch the movie of my book unreel in my mind. Characters speak, scenes unfold, situations deepen—every move or word draws on all the senses, and the book almost writes itself.

Bring on the dark.

What about you? Do you have a favorite time to work? If you could, would you rearrange your life schedule to accommodate your preferred schedule?

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries, set in the Fabulous Florida Keys, and is at work on a new mystery series set in her adopted state of Maine. Her short fiction has been nationally published in the True Confessions magazines and in Woman’s World. Kait’s short story, “Gutted, Filleted, and Fried”, appeared in the Silver Falchion Award Finalist Guppy Anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker. Her nonfiction essay was included in the Agatha Award-winning book Writing the Cozy Mystery. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, a member of Sisters in Crime, and Guppies.

Complementary Legal and Fiction Writing by Nancy L. Eady

As I explained in a post in 2023, the writing I do as an attorney creates problems for my fiction writing, such as over-explaining matters, overuse of dialog tags, overuse of the word “that” and the dangers of “grocery store syndrome.” However, there are ways in which my legal writing and my fiction writing complement each other, including the use of Microsoft Word, perseverance and engaging summaries. 

Word “secrets” learned in one sphere carry over to the other. The first thing to understand about Word is that it comes loaded with default settings in place. Unfortunately, the person who chose those default settings was most likely a software engineer rather than a writer. The second thing to remember about Word is that it prefers to think for you, so unless you turn certain defaults off, Word does things you never expected or wanted. The third thing to remember about Word is that most of the stuff you want to do with it will never show up unless you click the “more” button. On the toolbar, the “more” button is a boxed in arrow in the lower right corner of each tool bar section, or an upside-down arrow next to a rectangular box or below a label such as “Styles,” “Editor” or “Compare.” The fourth thing to remember about Word is that most functions are never where you expect them to be. 

An example of this is the way you get new sections in a longer work to begin page numbering at “1.” Go to the “Layout” tab, click the little upside-down triangle besides the word “Breaks” and click “Next Page” under section breaks. Doing so places a “section break” in your document, which tells Word it is okay for the numbers to start over if the author wants.

Of course, that information is useless unless you know how to put page numbers in to begin with. Page numbers are under the “Insert” tab about two-thirds of the way across the toolbar in the “Header & Footer” section. Click on the upside-down arrow beside the words “Page Number” and a menu opens up that lets you choose where you want the page numbers to go. 

Another trick you won’t find by accident is centering pages vertically, which you might need for the title page of your manuscript. Click the little arrow symbol in the bottom right of the “Page Setup” box on the “Layout” tab. A “Page Setup” box pops up on your screen with three tabs. Choose the “Layout” tab in the little box, then look towards the center of the box, and you will see the words “vertical alignment” with a box beside it. Click on the little upside-down arrow on the box. One option is “center.” Choose it, and your page will be centered top to bottom. Remember to go back to that tab to reset the vertical alignment when you move on to the next page. A piece of cake, right? Or maybe not. 

Perseverance in writing is something else my legal writing taught me. When the choices are get thrown out of court or get words onto a page, you learn to keep slogging along regardless of your inspiration level so you can meet the deadline. In fiction writing, the words don’t always fly from my fingertips to the keyboard; sometimes each sentence slumps forward at a glacial pace. The perseverance I learned writing briefs is useful then. I usually feel after such a difficult writing session that I have done the worst writing of my life, only to discover days or weeks later that what I wrote was acceptable. 

There is a way in which my fiction writing has helped my legal writing as well. I almost never begin a brief now without giving the judge a few sentences about the case he is deciding in the most professionally dramatic way possible. I do this to help them understand why this case differs from the dozens (or hundreds) of other cases in front of them, and to help them care more about what happens to my client because of the brief. These summaries have benefited greatly from the same skills I learned to create a synopsis of a novel or story. 

Unless you are one of the lucky people who can pursue this profession without a “day job,” how has your day job helped you with your writing or vice versa? 

 

Fiddler on the Roof at the Cincinnati Opera

 

by Margaret S. Hamilton

 

“Every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck.” Tevye, Act One.

 

In addition to the standard repertoire, in recent years the Cincinnati Opera has performed Gershwin’s opera, “Porgy and Bess,” McCartney’s “Liverpool Oratorio,” and a comic operetta, “Pirates of Penzance.” This year it was “Fiddler on the Roof.”

 

Bringing the first full scale Broadway musical to the Music Hall stage was an ambitious and successful project for the opera company. Levi Hammer, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, was the outstanding choice as conductor. Hammer recommended Max Hopp, a German opera singer who had performed the lead role in Germany, as Tevye, the milkman and father of five daughters.

 

And the rest of the magic followed: singers from the worlds of both opera and musical theatre joined the cast, in addition to the Cincinnati Opera Chorus and Children’s Chorus, members of the Cincinnati Ballet augmented by additional dancers, including the six talented men who danced in the wedding scene with bottles on their heads.

 

The fiddler on stage was Charles Morey, a member of the Cincinnati Symphony, who stood on the rooftops of the sets during the show, playing fiddler’s tunes characterized by musical intervals of a fourth, an element of Jewish and eastern European music.

 

The libretto of “Fiddler” is based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem, a Yiddish writer who wrote about Jewish life in the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly the stories of Tevye the Milkman. The events in “Fiddler” take place in 1905, when many Jews were forced from their homes and emigrated to other places, including America.

 

“Fiddler on the Roof” first appeared on Broadway in 1964, followed by the movie in 1971.

 

Tevye works long hours hauling milk cans from the local farms. He had an arranged marriage to Golde. After raising five daughters, he and Golde admit that they do, indeed, love each other.

 

But Tevye’s daughters prefer to marry for love: Tzeitel marries the village tailor; Hodel becomes engaged to a dissident student; and Chava marries a Christian. Tevye bans Chava from the family but whispers a quick blessing before she leaves the village. Golde, in full operatic soprano mode, tells her they are leaving for America.

 

The familiar songs still echo in my mind: “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a Match,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” “Tradition,” and “If I Were a Rich Man.”

 

The image of the fiddler, balanced on the peak of a roof, sawing away on his fiddle, is still with me. Life in an Orthodox village in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century was fraught with economic and political tension. Every day was a balancing act: enough food, wood for the stove, and avoiding the local police. The fiddler has one foot in traditional religious ways, and the other in a more modern era. This is Tevye the milkman’s struggle. It becomes a universal struggle when the police evict the entire village from their homes and they emigrate to other parts of Eastern Europe and America.

 

Readers and writers, have you seen a stage production of “Fiddler on the Roof”?

 

Margaret S. Hamilton’s debut amateur sleuth mystery, What the Artist Left Behind, is on submission.

 

https://margaretshamilton.com/

 

 

 

A Shell of a Lot of Fun by Molly MacRae

 

 

Retail Murder, the summer 2025 issue of Mystery Readers Journal, is out! The issue is packed with dozens of entertaining and informative articles and essays talking about mysteries of all kinds that involve retail in one way or another. Mystery Readers Journal is the quarterly thematic journal of Mystery Readers International, the largest mystery fan/reader organization in the world. The journal and the organization are the brainchildren of Janet A. Rudolph, a tireless supporter of the mystery community. My essay from the Retail Murder issue is shared here with permission.

 

A Shell of a Lot of Fun by Molly MacRae

 

Right off the bat I’ll agree that working retail can be hell. Batty, too. Been there, have wanted to run screaming from it. Luckily for me, I can pretend I remember more of the good times than the stressful or wretched. Or I’ll whitewash the stressful and wretched times with a coat of humor. Call me a shop half full kind of person rather than half empty. Call me opportunistic too, if you want. I treat my retail background as compost and happily shovel bits of it into my stories as they grow.

Like my mysteries, my experience in retail sits firmly at the cozy end of the spectrum. I landed my first retail job in 1970 at the Chalet Food Shop, owned and run by Chuck and Judy. Why “Chalet” in a small northern Illinois town surrounded by farms? Because Chuck’s sister painted a picture of a Swiss chalet on the shop’s wall clock. The Chalet was a deli/grocery smaller than the gas station convenience stores you find along interstates today. Chuck and Judy said they hired me because they’d see me pass by every day on my way home from school and they could tell how cold out it was by how red my nose was. When I applied for a job they said they felt like they already knew me.

Chuck and Judy were two of the hardest-working, most good-hearted people I’ve ever known. Stir those two good people together, in one of their large cooking pots, and you get café owner Mel Gresham in my Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries. Step into Mel’s café in Last Wool and Testament (or any of the books in the series) and you’ll smell the fresh cinnamon doughnuts Chuck made every morning, the slow-roasting beef Judy slipped into the oven, and the pot of bean soup simmering on the stove. You might meet a few of the Chalet’s more memorable customers, too.

The yarn shop in those books has a secondhand name—the Weaver’s Cat—borrowed from a small shop my parents had for a few years. The yarn shop is also based on a shop my grandmother had, from the late-30s through the early-50s, called the Little Wool Shop. I never saw Granny’s shop, so the Weaver’s Cat in the books is very loosely based on it. That’s part of the fun of writing. Some writers are into world-building. I go for shop-building and small town-building.

My favorite retail experience was managing a small independent bookstore in an old grocery store in northeastern Tennessee. The bookstore was owned by another hard-working, good-hearted couple named Gary and Marie. They believed in getting books into people’s hands, supporting local authors, and giving back to the community. People LOVED that place, appropriately enough named The Book Place. The day Gary and Marie made the hard decision to close the store was one of the saddest ever. It was two years after Amazon caught on with the public and at the same time that every single big box store moved to town—with their oodles of wares and deep discounts—and opened their doors in the weeks before Christmas. The Book Place hung on as long as it could but in the end the shiny, the new, the big, and the cheap won out. That was thirty-six years ago and I still hear from people who mourn The Book Place. I mourn it, too.

Spot the Dog (Molly) and a young reader coloring at The Book Place May 27, 1995

But that brings up another good thing about writing—it can soothe the mourning soul. Still missing The Book Place, I built a new town, put a thriving little bookshop in it, and let four women pool their money to buy the shop. The catch for the women? The bookshop is in a town on the west coast of Scotland and the women live in central Illinois so they’ll have to uproot their lives. But it’s Scotland! The Highlands! A bookshop! What could possibly go wrong with such an idyllic opportunity? Quite a lot, it turns out, including murder, but the women sort it all out in Plaid and Plagiarism, the first book in my Highland Bookshop Mystery series. That series is my way of returning to bookselling and to Scotland where I lived in the mid-70s.

My newest retail/writing adventure is the Haunted Shell Shop mysteries. These books are set on Ocracoke Island, a real place, one of the fragile Outer Banks barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. Ocracoke is known for its pristine beaches, pirate history, wild ponies, historic lighthouse, the resilience of the people who live there, and the village dating back to the early 1700s. When we lived in Tennessee, my husband and I took our boys there every summer. We’d walk to the lighthouse, walk down our favorite street—single lane Howard Street paved only with sand and oyster shells—eat lunch at the Jolly Roger on the harbor, and always, always stop in the shell shop.

That shop is gone, but don’t worry. I’ve built a shell shop of my own, called the Moon Shell, and put it in an old Ocracoke house on Howard Street. Recent widow Maureen Nash owns the Moon Shell. She’s a storyteller and a malacologist—a scientist who studies shells and the creatures who make them. You can visit her and the shop in Come Shell or High Water and There’ll Be Shell to Pay. If you’re lucky, you’ll also meet Emrys Lloyd, gentleman, pirate, and ghost.

Real-life retail is hard work and, quite often, a heartache. Writers can make life a bit easier for their shopkeeper sleuths, but those sleuths do have real-world problems. They have bills, inventory issues, staffing problems, problematic customers, murder. And then there’s the sad fact that they can’t always drop everything and run after clues during business hours. A writer’s workaround for that problem is to give the sleuths sidekicks of one sort or another. Ghosts, for instance. It turns out that ghosts aren’t all that different from the other characters in a book. They just happen to be dead (which has its own set of problems).

I like small things. I’m not all that big myself. And ever since learning about microcosms in a long-ago high school English class, I’ve liked them, too. Hearing the definition – a larger world or society illustrated in the form of a small world – flipped a light bulb on for me. That world-made-small construction is exactly what I love about stories and it’s probably why I gravitate toward mysteries in small towns with small shops. A shop, whether it’s selling books, sliced cheese, or seashells by the seashore, can give us the world in a compact package with all its friction, drama, failures, and triumphs. Throw in an unexplained death or two and retail mysteries can be a shell of a lot of fun.

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She writes the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries.

 

 

 

From "Machine for Transcribing Letters" to Word Processors by KM Rockwood

The first word processing device (a "Machine for Transcribing Letters" that appears to have been similar to a typewriter) was patented in 1714 by Henry Mill for a machine that was capable of "writing so clearly and accurately you could not distinguish it from a printing press.”

In the late 19th century, Christopher Latham Sholes created the first recognizable typewriter, which was described as a "literary piano".

Many of us remember old manual typewriters. When I’m concentrating on writing, I sometimes still expect to hear that distinctive “ding” at the end of a line.

Using those typewriters well was a skill. The pressure on the keys had to be reasonably even or the letters might be incomplete, skewed, or show up in varying shades of gray.

Early keyboards were laid out alphabetically, but when two letters near each other, like ST, were hit in quick succession the typebars—those long metal arms that swing upward when a key is pressed—jammed.

So the QWERTY layout of the keys, which at first glance may seem to make no sense, was designed to keep letters which tended to be used together spaced far part.

In 1874, Remington adopted QWERTY for its typewriters, and that became the industry standard. We still use it today, although we seldom have typebars to jam.

Those of us with clumsy fingers worked manual typewriters with a bottle of white-out or a correction tape easily accessible, since we knew we were going to make mistakes. Making corrections took care, especially with the white-out. If it wasn’t completely dry before typing was resumed, it would leave big white smears over the page.

I was always in awe of the people—almost always women in the “typing pool”—who could produce page after flawless page of typed documents, often while talking among themselves. Once I asked an expert typist how she did it, and she just shrugged. “The text goes from the paper through my eyes into my fingers. It doesn’t stop in my brain. I don’t know how it works.”

And when we needed copies! Messy carbon paper could produce several copies, each with less sharpness and precision than the previous one.

Photocopiers eventually eliminated that problem.

Then, in the 1960s, IBM Selectric typewriters appeared. They were an amazing advance over manual typewriters. Each letter struck the page with precisely the same force and moved on to the next one. Eventually they were even available with an included correction ribbon. Backing up and retyping a wrong letter would cover it so the right one could be added.

In the late ‘60s and 70s, word processing began to shift from electronic typewriters to fully computer-based, although these used single-purpose hardware rather than the multi-purpose computers we use now.

Shortly before the advent of the personal computer, IBM developed the floppy disk. Recognizable word processing programs appeared, with a display on CRT screens which permitted easy editing and corrections.

To those of us who have always struggled with producing crisp, error-free work, this was a miracle. The white-out and correction tape were tucked away in a drawer. We could write with abandon, knowing that edits were just a few keystrokes away.

Word processing programs have evolved over the years. Technology doesn’t come easily to me. Each time I needed to learn a new word processing program, I spent literally weeks looking up “how-tos,” usually in a printed instruction manual.

Unfortunately, once I knew how to make the manuscript do what I wanted it to, especially in formatting, my brain hung onto that information. When I left that program behind, my brain did not, and I had a great deal of difficulty adjusting to the new program.

I went through Wordstar, Apple Writer II, Word Perfect, One Note, OpenOffice Writer, Microsoft Word, and am now struggling with LibreOffice Writer, which came installed on my new computer.

Word Perfect was my favorite.

I have not found a printed manual for LibreOffice Writer.

Most of us are aware that on October 14 of this year, Microsoft will “stop supporting” several Office versions, including Word 2016 and Word 2019, as well as Microsoft 365 apps running on Windows 10.

Word will then be on a subscription basis, with a recurring fee, unlike the previous versions where a user could purchase the program outright and install it on a computer.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve come up with a more-or-less correct template for a manuscript in the Shunn format. I’ve gotten the straight quotation marks changed to curly, managed to actually get headers and titles on all the pages except the first, although I forget how I did it and will have to look it up when I need it again. I’m presently stuck on a UK English for spell check, but I think I know how to go back and forth with that.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon how likely I am to accidentally close the instructions as I try to implement them step-by-step) I can find most of the information online. Thank goodness for YouTube.

I am, however, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I will need to just go and get a subscription to Word, rather than continuing to figure out how to use LibreOffice Writer.

So far, I haven’t figured out how to make LibreOffice Writer read text to me, which I find to be an important editing tool.

But the deal-breaker may be its apparent inability to eliminate widow and orphan control. It leaves disturbing blocks of white at the bottoms of pages.

Anybody out there have any insight?

Wikipedia contributors, "Word processor," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Word_processor&oldid=1303187632 (accessed August 7, 2025).

Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz: A Review by Shari Randall

Book-editor-with-a-flair-for-solving-mysteries Susan Ryeland is back in a fresh and witty new installment of Anthony Horowitz’s Atticus Pund book-within-a-book mystery series.

 

Returning to London from sunny Greece, Susan is tasked with editing a work of fiction that leads her into danger in real life. Pund’s Last Case is a continuation of the successful Atticus Pund series, which if you’ve read the other books in this series, led Susan into not only danger, but personal and professional disaster.

 

Her financial situation and innate curiosity, however, overcome her reluctance. Pund’s Last Case is an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery set in the south of France in 1955. In it, Pund’s friend, Lady Margaret Chalfont, begs Pund to visit her at her magnificent villa, Chateau Belmar. But before Pund can arrive, she dies after drinking her afternoon tea. Pund’s curiosity is piqued. Why was she so eager to consult with him? When it is revealed that Lady Chalfont had been poisoned, Pund wonders why the murderer killed a woman who had only weeks to live.

 

Susan’s curiosity is piqued also. Why was young, unstable Eliot Crace, author of an unsuccessful series of his own, hired to write Pund’s Last Case? When Susan visits Eliot’s family home, Marble Hall, she’s shocked by the parallels between the death of fictional Lady Margaret Chalfont and Eliot’s grandmother, Miriam Crace, author of the world’s best-selling children’s books. As Eliot’s behavior becomes more and more erratic, Susan tries to help the young author, but another murder ensues and she becomes the number one suspect.

 

Readers will delight in Horowitz’s deftly plotted dual narratives. The anagrams, puzzles, and dishy commentary on the current publishing scene pull you in like a cozy chat. 

Yes, Marble Hall has spoilers from the first two books in the series (Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders), but book three stands on its own and the book ends with the door open for more adventures for … oops not going to spoil that for you!

 

If you’re looking for an entertaining traditional mystery by an author at the top of his game, look no further than Marble Hall Murders.

Shari Randall loves a good traditional mystery. She won an Agatha Award for her first book, Curses, Boiled Again!, and as Meri Allen, she pens the Ice Cream Shop Mystery series.

 

WHAT MAKES A REAL MYSTERY WRITER?

 by Korina Moss

Winning the Agatha Award for Best First Novel

I have a confession to make. I’ve been masquerading as a cozy mystery author, but I’m really a fraud. I’ve written six cozy mysteries. I’ve won an Agatha Award. I’ve been interviewed on the Sisters in Crime podcast. Heck, I’ve even become friends with cozy icon Donna Andrews. Yet, I was never a real author. Why? I didn’t have the one thing that makes a writer—a cozy mystery writer, in particular—legit. A cat. 

Mystery author Molly Macrae with one of her editors

Frankly, I don’t know how I did it. I mean, I actually wrote all six books with my laptop on my lap! I know! Crazy, right? Everyone knows when you decide to become a mystery writer, you need three things: an idea, perseverance, and a cat. Who needs AI when you’ve got CI—Cat Intelligence? Even before writers had computers, they had cats clumping up their typewriter keys, locating where those red herrings should be with a well-placed paw. A cat is the ultimate assistant, editor, and marketing manager all rolled into one (much like a squeaky catnip toy, which they’ll make you bring them later). 

Wiping the screen for a fresh perspective

My real mystery author friends would ask me: How do you make your daily word count without those extra letters your assistant provides while sauntering over the keyboard? How do you keep from getting carpal tunnel syndrome without your assistant pulling your hand away from the keyboard for extra petting? How do you know if your manuscript is acceptable without your editor draped over your printed pages? How do you come up with good ideas without a tail swishing in your face? How do you even market your books? 

Making sure I take breaks

All valid questions. My answer is that I do know something about furry assistants. I started my cozy mystery writing journey with a cat. His name was Carl and he “helped” me immensely. Unfortunately, just before I signed my first contract with Macmillan, he passed away from mouth cancer. Somehow, I managed to write my entire Cheese Shop Mystery series with my lap cat-less. 

Carl, who worked tirelessly on my behalf

Ironically, now that my series has ended, I finally decided to become a real writer. I got a cat. We named her Marlowe (like Raymond Chandler’s detective), and she’s six years old. She’s a tortoiseshell cat, which means she has tortitude (that extra attitude torties tend to possess), which fits her position as assistant/editor/marketing manager perfectly. 

I’ve been working on a proposal for a new mystery—a pitch, a synopsis, and sample chapters. But now I’m wondering… do I really need all that? I’m a mystery writer with a cat. Surely, that says it all. 

No longer a cat-less lap

Readers: Tell me about your pets! Is it true, a cat is a must-have for a mystery writer? 

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series set in the Sonoma Valley, which includes the winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, Cheddar Off Dead, and two novels short-listed for Best Contemporary Novel. Listed as one of USA Today’s “Best Cozy Mystery Series,” her books have also been featured in PARADE Magazine, Woman’s World, and Writer’s Digest. Korina is also a freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries. To learn more or subscribe to her free monthly newsletter, visit her website korinamossauthor.com.

OVERCOMING WRITER’S BLOCK: Thanks, Mom & Dad, for the Inspiration!

 

By Lisa Malice, Ph.D.

Like any writer, I suffer from a bit of writer’s block every now and then—and not just when I’m working on a story or a novel. I’d been puzzling over what to write for this month’s Writers Who Kill blog post for a couple of days with nothing interesting, informative, or inspirational coming to mind. Granted, I wasn’t really focused on the task as I arrived at my family’s lake house (“The Cabin”), a gorgeous remote property that has been in the family for four generations. Surrounded by trees, loons, fish, cattails, sun, water, gentle breezes, and memories of happy times with family, writing was the last thing on my mind.

Still, when it came time to buckle down and write this month’s post, my message eluded me. Staring at my computer screen, I had to get some words on the page, so I started typing the file name at the top of the page—"WWK – Lisa Malice – August 9…” Suddenly, I had my inspiration—August 9 is my parents’ 70^th wedding anniversary. Both Mom and Dad played a critical role in my success as a crime writer, so much so that I dedicated my debut novel, Lest She Forget, to my parents. Their influence and encouragement in my life laid the foundation for my success as a mystery/thriller author.

This is my favorite photo of Mom and Dad from their wedding day--

both happy and excited after the reception and heading out for their honeymoon.

Like many of you, I suspect (because that's what we crime writers do—we suspect everyone), I grew up surrounded by mysteries because my mother, a voracious reader who taught me to love books, too, was passionate about the genre. Our basement shelves were jammed with books by the masters of British Mystery—Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Ngaio Marsh, and others. 

Mom reading on the dock of the family cabin (circa 1967). The look on her face suggests 

she didn't appreciate her attention being diverted from whatever tale she was reading.

But my first exposure to mysteries was listening to Sunday night radio program that Mom always tuned into during the summer evening drives home from the family cabin—The CBS Radio Mystery Theater  I loved these tales so much that I pushed my way past my three sisters and one brother to the front seat of our station wagon to hear every delicious word.

The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie, which featured a different sleuth every week, quickly replaced The Wonderful World of Disney during the rest of the year. Mom and I rooted for Columbo, McCloud, and MacMillan & Wife to catch the bad guys every week, though my favorite was—and still is—The Snoop Sisters with Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick.  

 

As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough mystery in my life without reading, so I pulled Mom’s mysteries off the bookshelves and read them all. When her library was exhausted, I fell under the spell of Sherlock Holmes's, fascinated by his keen abilities of observation and deduction to identify a murderer, his or her motive, and weapon of choice. I didn’t have a lot of free time in college to read for fun (classes, studying, and partying consumed my waking hours). But after graduation, I jumped back into reading with enthusiasm for the many American women writing bestselling and award-winning mysteries and thrillers, such as Sara Paretsky, Lisa Scottoline, Sue Grafton, and Mary Higgins Clark. My own writing is inspired by these women, especially as founding members of Sisters in Crime, an organization conceived by women to help women crime writers succeed in what was then (1984) very much a man’s world.

One of the greatest perks of being a crime fiction writer is meeting up with those authors 

whose work inspired me to follow my own publishing dreams, such as Sue Grafton. 

Although my father was a big reader, too, his taste in books didn’t mesh with mine. As an accomplished businessman, Dad was smart and goal-driven, and as such, his influence on my writing career is in the inspiration and support he always offered for me to follow my dreams. We could do anything, he told me and my siblings, as long as we knew what we wanted and worked hard to earn it. (He knew what he was talking about—Dad went off to college with only $5 in his pocket. He graduated with honors and a 2^nd Lieutenant’s commission in the United States Air Force. After his tour was over, he got an MBA, then worked his way up the ladder in business, retiring as a Senior VP for a nation-wide grocery company.)

Dad worked his way through college, partly on a Air Force ROTC scholarship. As a newly commissioned officer, Dad trained in Texas on small bombers, but later flew for Strategic Air Command.

Dad put his philosophy into action with me and my softball team, a women’s league team populated with star-athletes from my high school—setting a team goal to win the state championship within four years of playing together. As head coach and manager, he put in the hours with the team as we practiced and played hard. We won our city championship that first year but were eliminated from the Minnesota State Women’s Softball Championship after losing our first two games. Each year we worked and played harder, so by year three, we finished second behind a rival team of equally young athletic teenagers. My team won the state title in our fourth year, fulfilling our team goal and Dad's vision.

That's me front row, second one on the left. Dad is in the back row, far right. 

As team manager, he scored us a great corporate sponsor, County Seat, 

a clothing company and subsidiary of SuperValu Stores, where Dad served the Director/VP of Retail Development.

So, as I set out to write my first book, I knew that it would take time and hard work. I would need to put in a lot of hours and look for support of other authors along the way—teammates, in spirit. I never gave up, never stopped pushing myself to reach that goal of being a traditionally published crime fiction author.

Sadly, Mom and Dad passed within six months of each other the year before I started my writing journey. They didn’t have the opportunity to celebrate with me when my hard work and love of mystery, thrills, and suspense paid off in a publishing contract, a successful book launch, a month-long stay on Amazon’s new thriller bestseller list, and an international award for Best New Voice in Fiction. But they were there, inside me, always with me along the way, in my heart and my mind.

So, thank you Mom and Dad for always being with me when I need inspiration, including this blog post! And happy 70^th Anniversary! Love ya always!

Let’s hear from you! Authors, what or who has inspired your writing over the years? Readers, who influenced you and your love of mysteries?

Do You Look Like Someone Famous?

by Heather Weidner

I always wanted to have a famous “twin” or a doppelganger. In the fourth grade, my mom convinced me to have my hair cut short. Much to my chagrin, if I had a red dress, I could have passed for Annie. When the movie came out, I cannot tell you how many times someone asked me if I knew that I looked like the famous orphan.

Thankfully, the Annie craze died down, and I gave up on my quest for a look-alike. Recently, one of the Millennials at work started calling me Mrs. Frizzle. I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. I had no idea what The Magic School Bus was. Thank you, YouTube for the crash course.

It turns out that I love the nickname. “The Frizz” is a teacher who makes learning science and other subjects fun, and she takes her students on some wild adventures. Mrs. Valerie Frizzle’s philosophy is to “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”

The character originally debuted in Joanna Cole’s The Magic School bus series in 1986. The cartoon ran on PBS from 1994-1997 and was rebooted on Netflix in 2017. 

The popular teacher is described as funny and mysterious. She has wild red hair that she wears in a messy bun, and her outfits always match her lesson plan. She has a pet lizard named Liz, a cat named Fred, and her school bus shape shifts for all kinds of wild rides.

I ordered my outfit (complete with dress, school bus, and a stuffed Liz) online, and I’m ready for this year’s Halloween costume contest at the day gig. So, I think I finally found my famous twin. 

Do you look like anyone famous?  

Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. She writes the Pearly Girls Mysteries, the Delanie Fitzgerald Mysteries, The Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries, and The Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries. She blogs regularly with the Writers Who Kill.

Her short stories appear in the Virginia is for Mysteries series, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Deadly Southern Charm, Murder by the Glass, First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder, and Crime in the Old Dominion, and she has non-fiction pieces in Promophobia and The Secret Ingredient: A Mystery Writers’ Cookbook.

Originally from Virginia Beach, Heather has been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. She lives in Central Virginia with her husband and two crazy dogs.

Trees, with Apologies to Joyce Kilmer by Susan Van Kirk

 

After work on Tuesday, Angie stopped by my house. We opened a bottle of Savvy B, our current favorite, sat on the deck, and stared out at the tree leaves of Naples yellow, saffron, and scarlet. Gorgeous.

“I love autumn in the Midwest,” Angie said. “It’s as if you’re on another planet. All the greens suddenly explode into vibrant color. A strange planet. I never get tired of it.”

I smiled. “This is hardly a conversation we would have had as teenagers. Trees. Sounds like my parents. We must be getting old.”  (From Death in a Bygone Hue)

 

This excerpt from my second art center mystery uses trees to underline the painter’s colors that were a constant in the mind of my artist protagonist, Jill Madison. They also reflect her love of the hometown she recently returned to. And the last line reminds me that when I was a kid, I used to think only adults noticed trees. With one exception.

 

                                                             The gingko tree in my yard

When I was in elementary school—about 110 years ago, it seems—I used to walk to school with my friend, Vicki, who lived two blocks from me. I’d walk to her house, she’d come out, and we’d have a mile—no, not just a guilt memory to use on my kids—to school. We had lots of adventures, like the day a dog bit her on the hand, and I ran all the way home to get help. (No, we didn’t have cell phones 110 years ago.) In the front yard of a house on the route was a gingko tree. I loved its triangular leaves, so gold in the fall, and I vowed I would have a gingko tree when I grew up. Strangely enough, the little house where I now live has just such a gingko tree in the front yard. And I love it.

 

And now that it’s at least 110 years later in my mind, I have discovered trees can play a significant role in my books. Here are a couple of examples of how I used them to add to the setting.

 

“She sat across from me at a small table I’d picked because we could see out a window. The trees were beginning to turn colors, and the soft maple and oak leaves were lovely.” (from Death in a Bygone Hue)

 

                                              photo by Valeriy Andrushko at unsplash.com

“The driveway was on the far side of the house, along with the house entrance. I kept low and ran toward a cluster of tall trees, the ground sloping upward toward the road. Once in the grove of trees, I could move from one to another. The fragrant smell of pine filled the air, and the moon provided enough light for me to see so I could keep from falling over gnarled tree roots. The ground was full of pine needles that softened my footsteps.” ( from Death in a Pale Hue)

 

The tone of a story can also be created with tree descriptions. In Death in a Ghostly Hue, I wanted to begin the story with a dark tone, a warning that trouble was coming. This description is early in the first chapter:

 

“Gazing out the front window of the art center, I stared at the public square in Apple Grove and thought about how recently the trees had been filled with color. Now, in the gloomy Midwest winter of late January, their stark limbs and thin, obsidian arms stood out against the gray sky, daring me to believe they’d be filled with green leaves once again.”

 

In Death in a Pale Hue, I used the memory of the neighborhood where I grew up to create suspense when Jill is being followed at night by a killer. She’s only a couple blocks from her home, but the trees enhance the darkness, the shadows, and her terror.

 “We had huge trees all through the neighborhood, and if anyone were to follow me, he would have lots of cover and shadows to hide in. I walked as fast as I could, my breath coming heavily, my heart pounding in my ears.

Besides the thump-thump of my heartbeat, I was sure I heard footsteps behind me. Had I imagined them? I couldn’t stop to check them out, so I moved as fast as I could. I was into the Wendover’s yard, and once I cleared the house, I took a tiny glance back. Was that a shadow moving on the side of their garage? Up to the Palmers’ house, the last yard with trees scattered throughout before our block. Even a huge weeping willow. Looking quickly over my shoulder, I saw a shadow move near the old oak in the Palmers’ yard.” (From Death in a Pale Hue.)

 

Of course, in my own neighborhood 110 years ago, those were the Conover house and the Larsons’. I could picture the trees in my memory, even the weeping willow in the Conover yard where we had a playhouse. Who knew that at least 110 years later I’d be appreciating trees as helpmates for the tone, the suspense, and the settings for my Art Center Mysteries?

 

When you write a mystery, do you mine your past for memories to add to the details?

An Interview with Ellen Byron by E. B. Davis

 

Dee Stern’s Golden Motel-of-the-Mountains promises a tranquil getaway for outdoor lovers in the scenic Californian village of Foundgold. But when Dee accidentally triggers a modern gold rush, she suddenly turns her peaceful retreat into a hotspot for mayhem and murder . . .

With the summer season looming, former Hollywood sitcom writer Dee Stern has one small goal—scrubbing her motel’s unflattering moniker as the “Murder Motel.” Dee and ex-husband-turned-business-partner Jeff Cornetta are excited to introduce a family-friendly panning activity complete with fool’s gold just in time for the peak tourist months. Except neither could have anticipated the discovery of a real gold nugget or the ensuing social media frenzy. In a flash, the viral sensation draws grizzled prospectors, wide-eyed adventurers, and trend-chasing thrill seekers to the abandoned mines scattered around the woods . . .

The instant popularity proves great for business, but it also attracts a group of out-of-touch Silicon Valley techies with dreams of striking it rich—again. Dee finds herself particularly annoyed by the insufferably smug Sylvan Burr, a retired CEO who sold his startup before age 30 and won’t let anyone forget it. But things take a sinister turn when Sylvan meets a grim fate at the bottom of a mineshaft, leaving Dee at the center of a deadly mystery that could end her days as a motelier. And while Sylvan had plenty of enemies, Dee suddenly faces adversaries rooting against her own success. Now, with her life and the future of the Golden Motel hanging by a thread, Dee must unearth a minefield of suspects and outwit a greedy killer before she finally digs herself too deep . . .

Amazon.com

 

What I love about Ellen Byron’s Golden Motel Mysteries is how she furthers the backstory seamlessly with solving the murder mystery. In Solid Gold Murder, Ellen’s second book in this series, situations she previously set up among main character, Dee Stern, and important secondary characters unfold. It provides great incentive for readers to continue reading this series!

 

Please welcome Ellen Byron back to WWK!         E. B. Davis

 

The 1848 gold rush started in the town of Sutter’s Mill. Is Foundgold located nearby? Sutter’s Mill is closer to the north end of California’s Gold Country. Foundgold is by the southern mines of the region.

 

Dee and Jeff set up a “for fun” sluice for their motel patrons to try panning for gold. Luckily, Dee’s dad Sam is there to help run the operation. The operation inadvertently set off a new gold rush. What happened? Their guests found real gold flakes in their haul! Flakes that came off Sam’s sleeves after he bathed in a stream. The heavy 2023 rains in California really did expose gold no one knew existed. Not to the extent of the original gold rush, of course. On a much smaller level.

 

Are there really a lot of Silicon Valley billionaires, like Sylvan Burr? I thought a lot of them also lost their fortunes. No!! Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, et al, are the richest people in the world. They are also generally not good people, hence how they inspired Sylvan.

 

Why do Dee and Jeff set up a jar for coinage when they say something old-timey instead of when they swear? They’re trying to avoid falling into the habit the Goldsgone locals have of talking like it’s still 1850.

 

Bud, the bear, roams the forest nearby the Golden Hotel and sometimes ventures into the pool and around the hotel. What type of bear is Bud? He’s a California black bear. Not all of these bears are black. They can be brown, cinnamon, etc. There are only two subspecies of bear in the state, Northwestern and California. The latter is the most common.

 

How did Sam earn his living? Sam was – and still is, when he gets work – a voice actor. He provided voices for animated series. He mostly voiced cartoon characters, offering a wide range of accents and goofy voices.

 

When word gets out about the found gold, Dee had a foreboding of greedy people. Does she often get predictive feelings about events? I don’t think she does on a regular basis. But when she saw her guests run off to buy panning equipment, that was a big “Uh oh” for her.

In what ways is Dee transforming from a Valley girl to a Mountain girl? She’s less afraid that some backwoodsman is going to jump out from behind a tree with an ax and chase her around! And she falls more in love with her spectacular surroundings every day – which also means she’s missing her old life less and less.

 

How did Dee’s friendship with Williker’s general store owner Elmira help Dee in the community? Elmira’s acceptance of Dee is like a seal of approval to the Foundgold locals. If Elmira likes her, she musts be okay.

 

Why is it that some innovative technology wipes out the acceptable and nonharmful careers, like graphic

art and tax preparation, but it never seems to get rid of horrible, lethal careers, like coal mining? That is SUCH a good question!!! I wish I had the answer, for the betterment of our country and planet.

 

What is sarsaparilla? What did they make out of it? Wasn’t there a drink like birch beer made out of it? Yes, sarsaparilla is generally made from birch oil. It’s very much like root beer, which I despise.

 

When Dee is excluded from the Goldsgone Crafts Fair because she doesn’t live in Goldsgone, how does she get around the rule? At first, she finds a spit of land on her property that’s actually within the boundaries of Goldsgone, and camps out there. When that fails, she starts her own festival.

 

Dee wrote scripts for TV, but we find that she also is a talented artist. Has she always had that ability?
Yes. She learned it from animators she met when her dad voiced their shows, but she also has an innate talent.

 

I’ve never heard of compostable plates, napkins, cups, and utensils. Really? Doesn’t it encourage littering? No, because you throw them away with green waste and they compost themselves like food scraps.

 

You explained the Hollywood acronym WAG. Are spouses of “talent” denigrated in this way? Yes, particularly the women. If they’re attractive and younger, they get labeled “trophy wives.”

 

How did Dee meet Jonas Jones, her not quite significant other? They met when he helped here out at the Goldgsone hardware store when she was being ignored by the staff because her nemesis Verity Donner Gillespie spread the word not to help her.

 

NO—are there really drones that deliver takeout? How widespread is that and how far can the drones fly? They absolutely exist. I don’t know the exact details of the distance they cover, but I really hope they don’t catch on!

 

Can families in the area trace their lineage back to the original stakeholders? Are there still hard feelings? There are absolutely families who can trace their lineage back to the original stakeholders, in real life and fiction – my book. I don’t know if hard feelings still exist in real life – but they do in my plot!

 

When Dee creates cartoons based on Bud’s antics, Serena’s agent husband, Callan takes one to Hollywood animator companies to contract for a show based on the character. She finds that to sell a show compromises have to be made that she finds unacceptable. Is this a surprise to Dee? It’s absolutely not a surprise. But I think all of us TV writers hope it will be different with every single project. And while she’s written for animation, this is the first pilot she’s sold based solely on her own drawing.

 

When Elmira finds out the truth about her horrible pastries, how does Sam help her forgive her deceitful friends? He works with her as a team to create more edible treats.

 

Is the increased mayhem due to the gold rush the only reason why local policeman Raul allows Dee and Jeff to investigate the murder? He also appreciates that they had success in the past – see A VERY WOODSY MURDER – and since his substation is understaffed and mostly handles touristy situations, he welcomes some help on the side for serious cases like murder.

 

What is cryogenics and how is it used to preserve bodies? (and why?!) Cryonics is the process of freezing the body of someone who’s died with the plan of trying to revive them in the future. Cryogenics is the “production and application of low-temperature phenomena.” You need one for the other. In retrospect, I should have used the term cryonics in my book, but I felt people were more familiar with the term “cryogenics.” As to the why, I think it’s an ego thing. Like, you’re so brilliant, you must be brought back to life someday!

 

Why did murder victim Sylvan Burr start buying up properties in Goldsgone? Because he could! It was a way of one-upping other billionaires. He does have a personal connection to the village and general area, since it’s where his family launched their fortune. There are abandoned and semi-abandoned towns all over the world people can buy, billionaires or not. But how many people can buy a functioning town with a community of citizens?

 

Softhearted Dee gives away freebies to needy guests. Does Jeff approve? How do they make a profit? They balance the occasional freebie with their paying guests.

 

Of all the revolting developments, Jeff takes up with Verity Donner. Will we find out if it lasts in the next book? What is next for Dee and Jeff?  Jeff and Dee are besties. Even though they were briefly married after college, they totally are better off as friends. Jeff is insecure. On the surface, he’s flirting with Verity because he thinks it can help make her less hostile to Dee and the Golden Motel, which she sees as a threat to Goldsgone’s dominance. But beneath that, he’s flattered that she finds him attractive. Dee puts up with their casual relationship because it does relieve some of the pressure Verity puts on her. But she sure doesn’t want it to get serious.