All in the family?

 By James M. Jackson

Later this year, I will publish Niki Unbound (Niki Undercover Thriller #3). It will be my eleventh novel. In addition, I have written one non-fiction book and two novellas—a reasonable output for someone whose first book wasn’t published until his sixties.

However, that oeuvre does not make me the most prolific author in my family. And I am far from the most notable. Here’s the scoop:

Dr. James C. Jackson

My great-great-great-grandfather James Caleb Jackson is the most notable. He was a well-known abolitionist speaker in the 1840s; in the 1850s his attention turned to health, and he founded a “health resort” focused on good water, exercise, and a vegetarian diet. He invented the first “ready-to-eat cereal,” Granula. (You know granola because the Jacksons sued the Kelloggs for patent infringement and won, and Kellogg had to change the name of his product.)

In addition to his work as editor and owner of various anti-slavery newspapers, he published 11 books (per Wikipedia), all nonfiction, including titles such as How to Treat the Sick Without Medicine, and Dancing: Its Evils and its Benefits. Some of those books, like Dancing are quite short.

In the Jackson line, we skip four generations to the next published author, my father. His textbook, A User’s Guide to Principal Components, published by Wiley in 2003, is still used for graduate-statistics courses. He also published a variety of historical pamphlets and the book, The Castles on the Hill, which detailed the history of the Jackson Health Resort and its subsequent lives.

Dr. Albert Tracy Leffingwell

Looking at my family writ large, I have prolific cousins as well. Dr. Albert Tracy Leffingwell was James Caleb Jackson’s nephew; therefore, my first cousin four times removed. He founded the American Society for the Regulation of Vivisection and served as president of the American Humane Society. Pertinent to this article, Wikipedia attributes twelve publications to him. I have Rambles Through Japan Without a Guide, but none of his other books (which include Vivisection in America, Does Science Need Secrecy, and American Meat).

The grand prize for number of publications goes to Albert Tracy’s son, Albert Fear Leffingwell—my second cousin three times removed. He published a book of poetry while still a Harvard student. After graduation, he became a New York advertising executive. He wrote three early nonfiction works, and then, starting in 1939, he published thirteen noir crime novels under his name and the pen names Dana Chambers and Giles Jackson.

That’s seventeen published works. He died at age fifty-one. I didn’t have my first book published until I was sixty-one! Such a sluggard, I am. In fairness to me, his novels are less than half as long as mine, so I might have the family record for the number of published words!

His novels are being republished by Stark House Press. Last month, Curtis Evans, who wrote the introduction to the republication of the first two novels, contacted me. Curt is a retired history professor, specializing in the antebellum US and post-Civil War era. He found the link between the Leffingwells and the Jacksons, ran across a blog I had written about James Caleb Jackson, and discovered I wrote crime fiction.

Long story (somewhat) short: he’s invited me to write an introduction to one of the future republications. Details remain to be worked out, but that’s one way to keep it all in the family.

Writers: do you have a history of authors in your family? Readers: is this kind of information interesting, or TMI?

* * *

James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite, including the Niki Undercover Thriller series and the Seamus McCree series. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read Low Tide at Tybee, a novella featuring Seamus, his darts-throwing mother, and six-year-old granddaughter, Megan).

Marilyn Monroe: A Life in 100 Takes & Years by Teresa Inge

If Marilyn Monroe had lived to see 2026, she would have turned 100 on June 1—a milestone that invites us to look beyond the platinum hair, camera flashes, and famous white dress. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles in 1926, she entered the world with little security. Her childhood was marred by living in 10 foster homes, an orphanage, and, at age 16, marriage to her next-door neighbor, James Dougherty, to avoid returning to foster care. Dougherty later recalled that although he knew Norma Jeane Dougherty, he never knew Marilyn Monroe—the star she would become, to escape her early life.

I first learned about Monroe as a child, watching her movies with my mother. Years later, after reading her biography, I understood why fans remain fascinated by her life. It’s not only her beauty, but vulnerability, screen presence, and the star she carefully crafted to interest people.  

Becoming Marilyn Monroe 
After divorcing Dougherty in 1946, Monroe’s transformation from factory worker and model to Hollywood legend was not simply luck. She studied acting, the camera, literature, and music, while critics underestimated her. By the 1950s, films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot made her the most recognized performer on Earth.

Marriages & Production Company 
Monroe later founded a production company to seek serious roles in an industry eager to package her as fantasy. Her marriages to Joe DiMaggio in 1954 and Arthur Miller in 1956 did not survive, strained by jealousy, pressure, and the glare of fame.

Creative Control
During that period, Monroe clashed with Hollywood studios over typecasting, low pay, lack of creative control, suspensions, and contract disputes. Her reputation for arriving late to set, keeping crews waiting, and reliance on acting coach Paula Strasberg after each take, made it hard for studios to take her seriously. Yet those struggles show how she was fighting to be understood, respected, and shape her own career.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President 
In May 1962, Monroe sang "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. Shortly after, 20^th Century-Fox fired her in June 1962, due to her absences from filming Something’s Got to Give, and the studio’s frustration over her going to New York for Kennedy’s event, despite production issues.

Death
Marilyn Monroe died on August 5, 1962. Her death was officially ruled a probable suicide from an overdose of barbiturates.

Legacy 
At 100, Marilyn Monroe remains a cultural icon. She stands as a symbol of beauty, ambition, vulnerability, and reinvention. A self-made artist who understood the power of image and celebrity long before the modern world had language for it. Her performances, photographs, and public persona continue to invite fascination because they hold radiance and mystery. 

 

Diet Killers: Recipes for Readers and Writers – Day Late Firecrackers

 

Photo by Trevor 205 from Pixabay

 Welcome back to Diet Killers, my series that’s become a bit sporadic and doesn’t always (as I’d originally intended) spotlight a chocolate dessert. This month I have a 1970s recipe for a fruity, icy, slushy, refreshing drink called a Firecracker. It gets Its bang from a bit of rum.

My husband and I were introduced to Firecrackers at a 4th of July picnic in Abilene, Texas. Abilene is hot and dry, and if you have cats they bring lizards and horned toads in the house. Snakes, too, if they can wrestle them through the door. The wind blows so much red dust you can taste it in the air—in your living room. It’s the kind of place where you can really enjoy a drink like a Firecracker.

We lived in Abilene for four years and I’ve only made Firecrackers once since then. Without the wind and the snakes and the dust they seem frivolous. Try them yourself, though, because your mileage may vary.

Mileage varies when it comes to books, too, so take what I’m about to say with a pinch of salt. Margarita salt if you’re so inclined. All Shell Breaks Loose, my latest Haunted Shell Shop Mystery, came out this past week and I think it’s a real firecracker of a story. The series takes place on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. Ocracoke is a real place with a real history as a pirate haven.

The series is about Maureen Nash, a shell scientist, who finds a new life running a shell shop in Ocracoke. She also finds herself solving murders with the help of the octogenarian Weaver siblings, Glady and Burt, and Emrys Lloyd, the ghost of a Welsh pirate. In the new book, all shell breaks loose when the island’s eccentric doctor claims he’s bought a haunted sword. It takes Maureen, Emrys, Glady, Burt, a bulldog named Ben, and the ghost from the haunted sword to set things right.

So here’s my recipe for a spot of post-holiday relaxation. Stir up a pitcher of Firecrackers and sit back with a copy of All Shell Breaks Loose. It’s available in print, e-book, and audio editions and also at your local library.

Firecrackers

Ingredients

1 small can frozen orange juice

1 small can frozen lemonade

32 once jar cranberry juice

4 shots rum (more or less, depending on how piratical you’re feeling)

7-Up (chilled)

Directions

Mix all the ingredients, except the 7-Up together and freeze in plastic container you can scoop from. The mixture will freeze into a slush.

For individual drinks or a pitcher, mix equal parts slush and chilled 7-Up.

 

 

Molly MacRae writes the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, the Highland Bookshop Mysteries, and the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest, connect with her on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky. 

 

The End Is Just The Beginning by Mary Dutta

Sometimes a story begins at the end.

Not usually for me. When I write a story, I start at the beginning and develop the plot until I reach a satisfying conclusion, usually one with a twist.

Other writers do it differently. Some write the ending they want, then craft a story to get them there. Some start with an inspired bit of dialogue and build a story around it. Some have a scene in mind, then work out the story that best supports it.

A recent local news story, though, gave me an end complete with a twist. A motorist reported a pickup truck parked on the side of the road, driver’s door open and engine running. When the police arrived to investigate, they followed drag marks from the pickup bed into the woods where they discovered two bodies, a man and a woman.

I could easily imagine a scenario where a murderer wants to dispose of his victims where they wouldn’t be found. But how to explain the idling truck? Did a co-conspirator spirit away the driver, leaving the truck because it could be traced to him or her? Why leave it running then, rather than abandoning it in the woods? Did another car come along, causing the body dumper to leap into his partner-in-crime’s vehicle and flee? Or did that other car contain an inadvertent witness, whom the criminal then forced to drive away at gunpoint to be disposed of?

Further investigation of the real-life incident revealed that the woman had been strangled. The police believe that the man found with her had killed her and intended to hide her body in the woods. Only he had a heart attack and died while executing his plan, never to return to the truck he had left running to make his escape.

Now that’s a real-life plot twist, one that has inspired me to begin writing a story at the end for a change. I know who died and how, now it’s up to my imagination to lead the reader back to the beginning.

 
How important are beginnings and endings in your own reading and writing?

Our National Pastime — Baseball and Witches? Guest Post by Lynda Allen

Given the holiday we’re celebrating tomorrow, let’s talk about our National Pastime. I’ve been a baseball fan all my life. I grew up in South Jersey as a Phillies fan, but my loyalties shifted years ago to the Washington Nationals (long story). I knew I wanted to incorporate my love of baseball into one of the books in my Liv Wilde Mysteries series. But baseball and menopause? Not exactly a natural fit. 

Or, so it seemed at first. Yet, when I thought about how superstitious baseball players are, I realized it was a perfect complement to a storyline that featured a witch hunt in book three, Flashes of Fire and Fury. 

Superstitions are found in all aspects of baseball, from the players on the field to the fans to the announcers. Heaven forbid a TV or radio announcer mentions a no-hitter or perfect game in progress. Their words will immediately cause a shift in the momentum of the game. If their team is behind late in the game, fans will turn their baseball caps inside out, making them “rally caps”, in hopes it will help the team make a comeback. Players have been known to wear the same socks for many games in a row or eat the same food before a game every day in order to keep a streak going. You’ll see players go through the same motions when they step into the batter’s box, whether making the sign of the cross or making a mark in the dirt with their bat. And don’t dare say the word sl*mp when a batter isn’t hitting well, or you will only prolong the unmentionable situation. It’s worse than saying Macbeth inside a theatre.  

So, it seemed only logical (at least in my mind) to have a player from the local Washington Nationals minor league team, the Fred Nats, show up on Liv’s doorstep begging for her help to break a curse that’s keeping him from hitting. He’s tried everything to end his sl*mp and Liv is his last hope. She’s been asked to help people find a lot of things, but never someone’s lost mojo. Being a fan of the team and the game, she agrees to try to discover the source of the curse, even though she’s not sure she believes in curses. She knows that if he believes it’s true, then it will keep impacting his abilities on the field.

One of the joys of writing about our local team is that it gave me a reason to reach out to the general manager of the team, Robert J. Perry, and tell him about the book and ask for a tour of the stadium. He took my husband and me on a two-hour tour. We have been to many games there before, but it was such fun to see behind the scenes and in the locker rooms. We even got to see the “baseball mud” which was a whole new aspect of baseball for me. Apparently each ball has to be rubbed with a very specific mud – from New Jersey of course – before it can be used in a game. It’s the same mud across the minors and the majors. These are the tidbits I learn when I dig into the research for a book, that whether or not they make it into the book, make the story richer and more authentic. And all I had to do was ask. Now I’m looking forward to having a table at an upcoming game right after the launch of Flashes of Fire and Fury.

As the title of the book indicates, there is a darker element to the story. There is also a darker connection between baseball and the book. You can’t write about witch hunts without touching on the persecution of and violence inflicted upon women during the intense witch hunts in North America and Europe when an estimated 60,000 people, mostly women, were executed. While obviously not as dire as the witch hunts, athletics in the United States have long been an obvious area of inequity between men and women - and it was pretty damn dire for the young women and girls who were sexually abused in the U.S. gymnastics system. But you also need look no further than the recent debates about pay scales for the winning U.S. women’s soccer team vs. the not-so-winning (hopefully that will be different by the time you read this) men’s team to see the imbalance. In terms of baseball, a few women are finally playing at the collegiate level, but it wasn’t until 2025 that a woman umpire worked a game in the major leagues in the MLB. What reasoning could be offered for why a woman can’t be just as good an umpire as a man is beyond me. And there are more women announcers, women coaches, and women in the front office in management positions. Slow progress is being made.

Why is this all important to the Liv Wilde Mysteries? Because women and the relationships between them are the heart of the stories. In Flashes of Fire and Fury, the struggles women face to be accepted for who they are and the danger of blanket judgements made against them for who they are, are integral elements of the story. Liv would not be the woman she is and would not have been able to embrace her superpower without the support of her circle of friends and the solidarity of strong women she meets along the way. Looking around at the strong women who make up this blog, I’d say you all know just how important the women in our lives are.

###

Lynda Allen is the author of the Liv Wilde Mysteries in which menopause is a superpower! Since she had to put up with hot flashes every day, she figured she might as well make them useful. Lynda proudly infuses her writing with her Jersey Girl sensibilities and aims to create stories imbued with heart and humor. She lives in Fredericksburg, VA, where her mysteries are set, with her husband, their cat, and the incredible eagle friends who visit often. When she’s not writing about hot flash-induced psychic visions, she also writes poetry and is an artist. 

Purchase links:

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Bookshop.org

Mixing the Personal with Fiction by Susan Van Kirk

 

Have you ever wondered whether books you read have names, places, or happenings that are personal to the author? It’s like thinking about songs you loved and wondering how they came to be written and what they mean to the composer.

People who live in my town of Monmouth, Illinois, or in my hometown of Galesburg, only twelve miles east, often ask me if a particular place in my books is really based on a location in one of these towns. Oftentimes it is. That’s part of the fun of slipping in the personal.

Grace Kimball, the protagonist of my Endurance Mysteries, is a retired English teacher just like me. So, of course that’s personal. Her town is much larger than mine, but it shares many similarities. Like me, she is often running into adults she once had as students—sometimes two or three-generation families. Here’s a true—yes, it really happened—story Grace tells in the book Marry in Haste. She’s walking down the corridor of the Endurance Hospital when she sees a hospital aide pushing a patient in a wheelchair. She remembers: Andrew Weatherby. His locker was right outside my classroom his sophomore year. One day I heard a commotion and walked out to the hallway. It was a girl fight—the worst kind of fight. Andrew nonchalantly leaned against the wall and pointed out his twin sister Ally. “She’s the one on the top, beating the crap out of Lisa Watkins.” He leaned forward and shouted, “Hit her again, Ally!” Alphabetical propinquity. The following year, their lockers were moved to the lower junior hallway and all was quiet on my hallway again.

The town square in Endurance is more a circle than a square. No one ever knew how to drive around it because there were two lanes, and trying to change lanes to get off the square was forever difficult. Everyone taking driver’s education in our town knows what I mean. In Three May Keep a Secret, Grace explains, “No one knew the official rules for driving around the square, so defensive driving was the local custom. This was particularly true since Danny Walker, after a few beers at Patsy’s Pub, decided to cruise the square multiple times in the wrong direction and took out a fire hydrant and two signs for the Little People’s Daycare Center and Bert’s Collision Shop (‘You Scratch It, We Patch It’). The only thing Danny missed was the neon ‘Open’ sign for the Homestretch Funeral Home, but the hazy memory of seeing it go past several times undoubtedly contributed to his contrition once he sobered up.” Last summer, our square was totally renovated with lots of green space, flowers, and a new traffic pattern. It’s so much better and less dangerous, so the old square is simply immortalized in my mystery.

Finally, I should mention the huge old mansion that is in every one of the Endurance mysteries. I lived in it on the first floor when my husband and I first moved to Monmouth. It had been built right after the Civil War and was divided into five apartments by 1968 when we moved there. It has a very intriguing history, much of which I found out at the local courthouse. This scene is written almost exactly as I lived it in Death Takes No Bribes. Grace goes to the county clerk’s office and asks for the plat book for 402 W. Broadway (the actual address in real life.) The poor young girl explains that that book hasn’t been digitized yet. Grace still wants to see it. So the girl goes up to the attic and finds this gargantuan book, drags it down, drops it on the counter, and dust goes flying in every direction. Yes, that happened in my real life. The gorgeous handwriting of the various clerks from the late 1800s is beautiful to behold. 

That house is in every one of the Endurance mysteries. A diary from the 1800s is hidden there, and Grace finds it in Marry in Haste. It tells the scary story of a young woman who lived in the house a hundred years earlier. Grace’s future husband, Jeff Maitlin, buys the house and renovates it to use as a bed-and-breakfast. Now you’re up to date.

 

The town of Endurance, a small town on the edge of the Illinois prairie, built by Scotch Presbyterians, civilized by women, and containing a town square, a huge Victorian, and a local college, are not figments of my imagination. Well, okay. I did change some of the details, but that’s why we call my books fiction.

If you're a writer, do you add the fictional to the real life adventures of your past?

Susan Van Kirk, an Illinois author, was educated at Knox College and the University of Illinois. She is the author of six Endurance Mysteries beginning with Three May Keep a Secret. Her standalone mystery, A Death at Tippitt Pond, was followed by the Art Center Mysteries: Death in a Pale Hue, Death in a Bygone Hue, and Death in a Ghostly Hue from Level Best Books. Her latest is a memoir about teaching called Mr. Vonnegut and Me (And Other Incredible Tales from a Teaching Life.) Member of MWA and past president of the Guppy Chapter of SinC. Her website: susanvankirk.com

An Interview With Teresa Inge

by Grace Topping

People often complain that they want to read but don’t have much time to do so. That’s when short stories can help. Short stories, which come in a variety of lengths, offer a complete story that can be read in a matter of minutes. Teresa Inge has made a career writing short stories that have appeared in a number of publications and really knows the world of short stories. She has also compiled and published short story anthologies that include stories by other mystery authors, including several of the Writers Who Kill contributors. Teresa is also a member of the WWK blog. It was a pleasure interviewing her and learning more about the world of short story writing.

 

First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder

First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder features nineteen juicy tales of revenge, betrayal, bad breakups, and a few I dos and some I don’ts.

Each short story takes ruthless relationships to an all-new level in all kinds of places like destination weddings, riverboat cruises, wineries, bachelorette parties, creepy stalkers, cheating spouses, and sneaky friends trying for their own version of happily ever after. So, settle in for some love stories with a twist of revenge, infidelity, and murder.

Featuring the writing talents of Teresa Inge, Heather Weidner, Debra H. Goldstein, Grace Topping, Maggie King, Ellen Butler, Kristin Kisska, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Marilyn Levinson, Sandra Murphy, Mary Dutta, Diane Fanning, Libby Hall, Frances Aylor, K.L. Murphy, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Leah St. James, Sheryl Jordan and Allie Marie.

 

www.amazon.com

 

 

Welcome, Teresa.

 

When you started writing, what made you focus on crime fiction?

 

I have always been fascinated by crime fiction. During my childhood, I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. As I grew older, I was drawn to private investigators Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, and detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Later, I watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Columbo, and Murder, She Wrote. So, writing crime felt like a natural fit.

 

Why short stories? 

I’ve loved short formats since my teenage years, when I was reading Poe and other short crime stories. I also love reading a couple of short stories in one sitting and feeling satisfied that I have met the characters, entered the setting, and experienced the full story arc. The same holds true for writing them. I especially enjoy creating characters in a small town and using dialogue to move a short story forward because, in a short piece, every word, sentence, and paragraph must count.

 

I’ve heard it said that writing short is more difficult than writing long. Is that true, and if so, what accounts for that? 

 

I have been a corporate reporter for many years at a global investment firm, and those articles always came with word counts. I also wrote for a local newspaper, where space was limited. So, writing short has been in my wheelhouse for a long time, and that experience carried over into short stories. But for someone new to the format, it can be challenging because every word must earn its place. A novelist may have room to add more character and setting description, but a short story writer must suggest those details with fewer words.

 

Your short stories have appeared in a number of short story publications and anthologies, but you’ve also published anthologies yourself. How challenging was that?

Since I have a schedule and format that I follow, it is not too challenging. I create the title and theme, select the authors, coordinate the project, and edit the book. For each anthology, I keep a spreadsheet of the authors, story details, and deadlines. I then submit each anthology to a traditional publisher for the widest reach. 

 

Are all your stories in the cozy subgenre, or do you ever write darker?

 

My stories are cozy Southern mysteries set in small towns in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I create female protagonists who own businesses, such as a wine shop, beach shop, fabric store, or bookstore. Owning a business gives them a natural reason to be out in the community, which helps them uncover clues and solve crimes. This format works for me and my readers, so I plan to stay with it rather than write darker stories. 

 

You have the reputation of nurturing writers who are trying to get established, either through organizing get togethers at writers’ conferences, working with professional organizations, and including new author works in anthologies you put together. What motivates you to do that? 

 

I love working with a variety of authors on anthologies and bringing their stories into print. I also enjoy coordinating the stories into a collection, editing the anthology, and finding a publisher. There is something special about pulling all the pieces together and seeing the finished book. Of course, there are challenges, such as authors not meeting deadlines, but that’s part of the process. In addition, I plan dinners and serve in various roles at conferences and within the Sisters in Crime organization. Since my day job is as an admin assistant, I am used to assisting others, coordinating details, and helping plans come together.

 

You have written a number of short stories. Have you thought of writing novels?

 

I am editing my first novel The Bride Arrived DOA. It is set in the Outer Banks and features Cass Kennedy, who inherits a rundown motel from her brother, who died under mysterious circumstances. Cass moves there with her two adult daughters, both in their early twenties, to run the motel together. All three have catering and hotel experience, but when they arrive, Cass discovers the motel is anything but a premier venue. As she works to bring the property back to life, she also sets out to solve her brother’s murder.

You attend a number of writers’ conferences and make public appearances. Do you find them a must to promote your work, or do you get a lot of pleasure from them?

 

I find that attending writers’ conferences and promoting my work gives me the opportunity to meet both new and returning readers who support my books. I am also part of a local group that does book signings, and it is fun spending time with other authors.

 

In addition to writing, I understand that you have a thing about a vintage red Thunderbird. Please tell us about it.

 

During my teenage years, I hung out with the hot rodders, and we cruised strips like the one in American Graffiti. Since then, I have wanted a T-Bird, and several years ago I purchased a Torch Red ’55 Thunderbird. My husband also has classic cars, and we still love to cruise. 

 

Are you able to combine your love of cars with crime writing?

I give my protagonists a cool car to drive in each story. Whether it is a T-Bird, a vintage Jeep, or a VW Bug with a great paint job, I love giving them a classic car to drive while they solve crimes.

 

What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned since you started writing?

 

The most valuable thing I have learned is to join a writers’ organization, such as Sisters in Crime, and network with other writers. It is one of the best ways to make connections, learn about publishing opportunities, develop your craft, and find an overall sense of community.

 

What’s next for you?

I recently submitted an anthology to my publisher featuring mystery stories by Virginia authors, all inspired by the King Neptune statue in Virginia Beach. The anthology will be out this year. I am also finishing a short story for submission to another anthology.

 

Thank you, Teresa. I look forward to reading your first novel.

 

To learn more about Teresa and her short stories, visit teresainge.com 

 

 

Bio:

Teresa Inge is an award-winning mystery author whose work appears in collections, First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder, Coastal Crimes, Virginia is for Mysteries, Mutt Mysteries, and Murder by the Glass. She is actively involved with organizations Sisters in Crime, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and the Virginia Writer’s Club, and regularly contributes to the Sand in our Shorts and Writers Who Kill blogs. 

​

Inspired by her childhood passion for Nancy Drew mysteries, Teresa transformed her enthusiasm for both reading and professional writing into a career in crime fiction. During the workweek, she serves as an administrative assistant, corporate reporter, and notary coordinator at a global financial firm.

 

Outside of her writing pursuits, Teresa enjoys showcasing her classic 1955 Torch Red Thunderbird at car shows and makes her home in Southeastern Virginia and the Outerbanks of North Carolina with her husband AJ and their shepherd dog, Luke.

 

 

Grace Topping is the author of the Laura Bishop Mystery Series.

Burning the Boats and Booking the Cruise

By Author Kathryn Mykel

Quilter| Quilt-Fiction Author| Quilt Pattern Designer

For years I had a private reward waiting in the back of my mind. When I finally “made it” as an author, I would celebrate with a fancy cruise.

I didn’t reach that goal in one dramatic breakthrough. I got there gradually by setting small targets and giving myself reasons to continue on each day. And, in a plot twist that may surprise readers who know me primarily for my cozy mystery novels, it was quilting that ultimately made that goal a reality and paid for the trip.

In my last guest post here, I talked about how story ideas often begin in ordinary places. During sewing days with friends, through casual conversations, and how the rhythm of creative work have shaped the mysteries I write. This post looks at the other side of that process. Inspiration and creativity may have started my journey, but structure and motivation have kept it moving.

Over the past five years, I’ve written more than fifty stories. On paper, that sounds impressive. In practice, it looks like structure and a very strict schedule. Deadlines must be met, the marketing never stops, and new ideas compete with ongoing projects. Most days my desk is a hot mess, much like my sewing table. Projects pile up in various stages of completion, all demanding my attention. It’s really controlled chaos at its finest.

About two years in, I made what I now think of as my “burning the boats” decision. I stepped away from the quilting business work I’d been balancing alongside writing and went all in on being a full-time author. As you can imagine, that decision felt both practical and terrifying. There was no comfortable fallback plan and no alternate source of income. If I wanted this career to work, I had to treat it like a real one.

It didn’t take long to realize that motivation was unreliable. Some days the words came easily. Many days they didn’t.

What helped me was learning to celebrate even the smallest victories. In the beginning, the goal was simple. Sell one book in a day. Later it became hitting a certain number of page reads, reaching a ranking milestone, or winning an award. Each step forward became a reason to acknowledge progress, reward myself, and keep going.

Sometimes the rewards were small. Finishing a draft might mean a trip to the quilt shop, or taking an afternoon off without (too much) guilt. Maintaining my best-seller banner could justify a favorite meal or a quiet evening with a good audio book (someone else’s). A successful book launch might call for a weekend of quilting with friends. These incremental incentives helped turn both the daily grind and long stretches of work into a series of goals, celebrations, and rewards.

Stepping back from writing this year to focus more heavily on quilting reinforced the same lesson. Creative work often moves in cycles. As I spent more time designing patterns and sewing samples for magazines, that income began to accumulate. Without intending it as a writing reward, the quilting ultimately funded an opportunity that came my way unexpectedly.

Here’s that plot twist I mentioned earlier. Next month I’ll be boarding an Alaskan author-reader cruise, something I used to joke was my “when I make it as an author” reward. Now, the cruise feels less like a prize and more like a consequence of committing fully to the path I’d chosen. Ironically, it also serves as a reminder that creative work has a way of coming full circle in unexpected ways.

Tell us, have you ever turned productivity into a personal game? Do you set goals and reward yourself for achieving them? And what’s the biggest reward you’re working toward right now?

Kathryn Mykel is a bestselling author of quilting-themed cozy mysteries and a professional quilt pattern designer whose work has appeared in national quilting publications. She lives in New England with her pup, Bentley.

Find Kathryn’s work here www.authorkathrynmykel.com

 

 

Happy Fourth of July! by Nancy L. Eady

I was casting about for topics to write about for Monday, June 29, and thought about writing something for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, which will be the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In doing so, I was trying to figure out exactly what a 250th anniversary is called. According to Google, some terms include “semiquincentennial,” “sestercentennial,” “quarter-millennium,” and “bisesquincentennial.” They all sound like a mouthful to me. Being of a precise nature (at least about some things), I wanted to know which was the “official” term, and turned to my beloved Oxford English Dictionary, only to learn that the OED does not include any of these terms among its definitions. 

So now I’m stuck trying to decide what to call the upcoming anniversary. “Quarter-millennium” sounds a bit too grand for my taste, and both “semiquincentennial” and “bisesquincentennial” are too long. To be honest, “sestercentennial” isn’t much better, but it is at least a little shorter. So “sestercentennial” it is. And how will I celebrate the upcoming holiday? 

My mother, sisters and I all live in different parts of Alabama. We rarely plan activities together for the Fourth of July, and the one time we did was a disaster.  But every year, we all watch “A Capitol Fourth” on PBS, including the fireworks show afterward. The only time the show ever disappointed me was the year I learned that Jack Everly, the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, was not formerly a member of the Everly Brothers, a popular music group in the 50s and 60s. That’s my own fault, not the fault either of the show or Mr. Everly. If you think watching fireworks on television is tame when compared to the real thing, doing anything outdoors in Alabama in July is something that you do only from necessity, not for pleasure. Humidity down here abates for no man (or woman.) 

It’s not particularly logical to feel closer to someone simply because you know that they are watching the same thing on television at the same time that you are, but that’s how it works in my family. We have a good time in the days following the show discussing it with each other over the phone. I have a similar feeling over Thanksgiving if I happen to be watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The same is NOT true for the Iron Bowl (the annual football game between Auburn University and the University of Alabama.) I feel close to those members of the family who are also Auburn fans, but not the Alabama contingent. They’re rooting against my team, after all. We make up after the game is over though, win or lose. 

Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing at the time, I hope you enjoy your Fourth of July holiday as well. I’ll be thinking of you while I’m watching my show in my air-conditioned room. 

When You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know by Annette Dashofy

I’ve had an ongoing conversation with a friend of mine about inaccuracies in novels. She was pointing out little things that she knows about because of her past career. I, like the author, did not know about this particular inaccuracy. While she enjoyed the book in question, the error took her out of the story. 

Another book she was reading was riddled with mistakes. The kind where a reasonable person would know that wouldn’t/couldn’t happen in real life. I’ve heard authors use the excuse “It’s fiction!” Regrettably, I’ve used that one, too. 

The question becomes, just because it’s “fiction,” does that give authors free rein to create the world we need in order for our story to work? 

I would say, no. Yes, it’s fiction. Yes, we make sh… stuff up. But, to quote Lee Lofland, we’re creating believable make-believe. We need to do the homework and research the key topics we include in our stories. 

I have a support team that I reach out to when I have questions. Experts in various fields love to talk about their work (for the most part.) There are webinars and YouTube videos on virtually every topic under the sun. 

However… 

We still don’t know what we don’t know. I’ve been guilty of writing scenes, which felt relatively minor, without diving into the research rabbit hole. 

If you don’t know what that is, it’s when you start Googling a topic and spend the next eight hours reading up on something that will result in one sentence in your story. 

Anyway, in this particular book, I thought I knew enough about a topic, inserted the information into the story, and then had a beta reader point out that what I’d written was wrong. It couldn’t happen. 

The book was on the verge of being in print. Fixing it to meet reality would’ve meant coming up with a completely different method of murder. After gnashing my teeth for the next week, I finally came up with a believable workaround. I acknowledged the problem and gave a rational explanation for why things happened this way. 

No one else has ever called me out on that error. 

Readers need to trust that the author knows what they’re talking about. We have to sound authentic. That doesn’t mean writing 25 pages of detailed explanation on a topic. (We aren’t writing a term paper, after all.) The tidbit to give the reader faith in our knowledge is likely to be one sentence here, another sentence there. 

When I started the Zoe Chambers series, Zoe was a paramedic. I had worked as an EMT for several years, so I had a solid background to draw from. Pete, however, was a cop. I have never been in law enforcement. Granted, all these years later, I’ve done a ton of research into police procedure and psychology. But I know I get stuff wrong. 

Because I don’t know what I don’t know. If I did, I would ask! 

The point I’m trying to make is this: as a writer, do your homework. Don’t guess on the stuff that you know you don’t know. ASK. As long as you can draw your reader into your world with some level of authority and believability, they are more likely to give you a pass for those little mistakes that slip by. 

At least, I hope so. 

Fellow Writers Who Kill, how much research do you put into your characters? Or do you rely on your own know-how? Write what you know, etc. And readers, how much leeway do you tend to give to authors when you find a mistake in a story? 

DNA and Me: Solving Personal Mysteries

By Kait Carson

Last December I opened my email and discovered a message with the subject line ‘cousin’ from a Gmail account I didn’t recognize. Hello, red flags. The only reason I didn’t delete it immediately was the sender included my original family surname. One I hadn’t known existed for years. Still, something about the message arriving so close to the holidays made me think of: 1) the millions of bogus AI marketing emails that clogged my inbox daily, and 2) the bogus inheritance emails seeking either a finder’s fee or bank account numbers. I left it to marinate in my inbox, unopened, for a week or more.

As a bit of background, my family history is convoluted. My mother’s maternal side is well documented. My cousin is a genealogy buff, and she’s taken the family back to the early 1800s. Not much mystery there. Her paternal side is a different story. In a ripped from the headlines moment, my grandfather was U.S. born because my French great-grandmother visited her husband’s Italian family in the states, either because of a miscalculated due date or by design. Who knows.

My paternal grandmother’s heritage is an open book. She maintained contact with her middle-European family throughout her life. My paternal grandfather, the side of the family my ‘cousin’ represented, is an entirely different story. My grandfather never spoke about his life prior to his arrival in the U.S. On census forms he variously styled himself as German, Austrian, or Czech. He spoke German, and that was my father’s cradle tongue, so German made sense, but our family name was Hoyo, and there is no ‘y’ in the German alphabet. There was no record of him coming through Ellis Island or Castle Garden, which could have offered a clue to his origins. The only tidbit he did share was that when he came to the U.S., he went to Wyoming, where he married and had a son named John. The boy was taken from him as an infant when his wife died.

The knowledge of a potential cousin with the original family surname led me to open the mysterious email. Rather than discovering a possible cousin with a connection to the American West, I discovered a possible cousin with a connection to modern Slovakia with an insatiable thirst for genealogy. He’d compiled quite a dossier of facts and newspaper clippings about his extended family, and about my more limited one. His great-grandmother, who would have been my grandfather’s niece,shared some photos she had received from family members in the U.S. before WWII. The collection included photos I had seen in my father’s personal photo collection, and newspaper clippings that were new to me. Including one of my parent’s wedding announcement, complete with a photo of my mother. Gobsmacked doesn’t describe my feelings.

All of this, and a really great sale, encouraged me to have my DNA tested. I’d been on the fence about testing, but I took the plunge. My results have come back, and while I’m still digesting them, there were some surprises right on the first page. My results returned only six regions. As it turns out, I have no German heritage on my father’s side, and no French heritage on my mother’s, but I am 1% ‘Germans in Russia’ on her side. That was a startling development. The testing also turned up a handful of cousins in the American West. Intriguing, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with the information.

 The results were different to what I had been expecting, and exposed many of the stories I grew up with as false. Oddly enough, I think that’s part of the charm of being an American. When our ancestors came to this country, they had a golden opportunity to recreate themselves. Arguably, that was part and parcel of the Great American Dream, and their re-creations became intertwined in the fabric of their descendants' lives until the myths became reality.

Have you taken a DNA test, and did you find any surprises? Would you consider taking one?