MY FULL CIRCLE JOURNEY

 by Korina Moss

Some of our WWK members at Malice Domestic

‘Tis the season for Malice Domestic, an annual mystery fan convention that takes place in Bethesda, MD the last weekend in April. 

My Agatha Award for Cheddar Off Dead

This conference has a special place in my heart because it’s where I get to meet readers who love mysteries as much as I do, hang out with my writing friends, and get to know some of my author idols. It’s also where I won an Agatha Award for Best First Novel for Cheddar Off Dead and was nominated the following two years for Best Contemporary Novel for Case of the Bleus and Fondue or Die. Being among the writers I admire in those categories and being recognized by the mystery community was an honor.

Selling and signing at the Little Falls Cheese Festival

As every published writer knows, behind the fun stuff like accolades and meeting readers, lies the hard work of writing and marketing your books. I keenly felt the pressure of having my first series published by an imprint of Macmillan, a big-5 publisher, along with then having to launch a new book every six months. By book six, I was pretty burnt out. 

Event poster and my books on display at Barnes & Noble 

When the series ended, I couldn’t imagine jumping into another book or series right away. However, I wanted to remain in the mystery writing community while my muse decided when to resurface. So about 16 months ago, I shifted my focus from cozy mystery author to freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy mysteries. I enjoy the work, and I get to revel in my clients’ successes: finding agent representation, receiving publishing contracts, and independently publishing their mysteries. And at this year’s Malice Domestic, I get to cheer on one of my clients whose book has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. (In February, it won the Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery from Left Coast Crime.) 

Adrian Andover's lauded debut mystery

Expanding my role in the mystery community has been a balm for my burnout. Witnessing the determination and excitement of new writers has reminded me of my writing roots. It’s taught me to set aside the business aspects of being a published author to get back to what really matters—creating a story I want to tell.

Readers & Writers: If you’ve been to a mystery writers conference or convention, what has it done for you? If you haven’t, what would you hope to get out of it?

If you’re attending Malice Domestic, please find me on Saturday, April 25th at 2:00 PM on the panel titled Served with a Side of Murder: Food-Related Mysteries, with fellow authors Mary Lee Ashford, Jennifer J. Chow, Raquel V. Reyes, and moderator Debra Klein. I’ll be featuring my sixth book, Bait and Swiss. At 4:00 PM, you can find me in the book seller’s room signing my Cheese Shop Mysteries.

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series, which includes the winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, as well as 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 mysteries. To learn more or subscribe to her free monthly newsletter, visit her website korinamossauthor.com.

In Which I Solve a Mystery of My Own by Nancy L. Eady

It is a dark and stormy night here in Alabama; thunderstorms are rumbling through periodically. Both my dogs are on high alert—they go to opposite ends of the house to hide once they hear thunder—and my well of topics has run dry for the month, so I thought I would, on this blog by writers who write mysteries, share with you a story about a mystery I solved in my own kitchen. 

If you have never had to raise a fourteen-year-old girl, count yourself lucky. My mom raised three, and she always said that girls at that age should be marooned on a shrinking ice floe. I am sure there is the rare girl-child out there with a uniformly calm, sweet, and helpful demeanor through her early teens, but I wasn’t one, and neither was my daughter. 

Our mystery opens when my child is fourteen and in her bedroom. I am in the kitchen, staring at several round white spots, maybe two inches in diameter, along with a long smear of white between them, that mysteriously appeared on the floor three weeks earlier. Both my daughter and I tried mopping and vacuuming them in the intervening weeks with no luck.

Tired of looking at them, I sat down on the floor and started working on getting those spots up. The spots were made by a thick, hard substance, and the only way to remove them was to scrape the substance off with a knife. It was too thin, too uniform, and not stretchy enough to be gum, but it was too tough to be something like sugar or icing.

After a while, Kayla surprised me by joining me on the floor to help. Volunteering at home and fourteen-year-old girls rarely appear in the same sentence. She wanted to know if I knew what the spots were. I told her I wasn’t sure, but I was beginning to think I might be better off not knowing. Realizing I was talking about substances deposited by unwanted critters, she said, “Eeee-youuuuuuuuuu!” We live in the South, so imagine that word spoken with twenty separate syllables and diphthongs.

We continued to scrape together in silence. Many mystery books mention that silence can be a good interview technique. 

After a while, she said, “These spots look exactly like someone got mad and slung the stove top cleaner bottle around without realizing that it wasn’t shut good.”

I sat back to look at her, and she added, “Not that I did anything like that!”

I had enough for a conviction, but I let her off on a technicality. 

Have a great weekend! 

An Interview with Jennifer K. Morita

This has been a busy week for Jennifer K. Morita. Her debut mystery novel, GHOSTS OF WAIKĪKĪ, released on Tuesday, November 19. Jennifer’s protagonist Maya Wong, an out-of-work journalist, has returned to Hawaii to ghostwrite Parker Hamilton’s, a controversial land developer’s, biography. When Hamilton dies under suspicious circumstances, Maya finds herself investigating with her ex, Detective Koa Yamada, the very person she was determined to avoid.

Welcome, Jennifer, and thanks for joining us at WRITERS WHO KILL!

                                                                                                                Paula Gail Benson

 

Jennifer K. Morita

Does your protagonist share any of your characteristics?

I drew bits and pieces of my own life to create Maya - my experience working in the newspaper industry and what I remember from the years my family lived in Hawaiʻi. A lot of her inner thoughts are similar to my own, which is why I chose the first-person POV. Maya has a perspective and opinions as an Asian American woman that she wouldn’t necessarily say out loud.

But she’s also more daring, more independent and less old-fashioned than I am. And she’s a runner, and I don’t run.

Have you ever been a ghostwriter? How is Maya drawn into that world?

Back when I first thought up the Maya character, I was a rookie reporter working for a weekly newspaper in Northern California. I was reading Naomi Hirahara’s Mas Arai series about a Japanese gardener in Los Angeles and Jan Burke’s Irene Kelly books featuring a city reporter in a fictionalized Long Beach. I really wanted to read a mystery series with an Asian American journalist, much like the real Naomi Hirahara herself.

By the time I sat down to plot my book, newspapers were dying off. I remember watching drone footage of an empty newsroom before the building was demolished. It was no longer viable to have a working journalist as a main character, particularly one who would come back to her home in Hawaiʻi.

Years ago, I wrote a profile story about an elderly man, who liked the article so much he wanted to hire me to ghostwrite a biography of his life that he would self publish. He wasn’t a rich developer trying to leave behind an Ozymandian legacy, but rather a man who wanted his children and grandchildren to know his story and their family’s history.

Maya takes the ghostwriting gig from Parker Hamilton out of desperation. It’s her last chance to salvage her writing career before taking a state desk job.

Tell us about some of Maya’s family and friends. Are they connected to the death? What advice are they giving Maya?

Maya has lost touch with her old childhood friends Lani and Willa over the years, but reconnects with them when she returns to Hawaiʻi. Lani — who was really fun to write because she doesn’t suffer fools and never shies from expressing her opinion — is struggling to keep her clothing boutique afloat amidst pressures from developers and big chain stores. She has a tangential connection to the case and helps update Maya on the current state of affairs in their home which has implications in the investigation. She also disapproves of Maya’s latest career choice, and frequently lets her know.

Prior to your novel, you had a short story published in the Capitol Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crimes 2021 anthology CEMETERY PLOTS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. What is “Cranes in the Cemetery” about? What are some of the differences you found in writing a short story and writing a novel?

I wrote “Cranes in the Cemetery” while I was querying GHOSTS OF WAIKĪKĪ in the spring of 2021. I had just joined Capitol Crimes, which is the Sacramento chapter of the national Sisters in Crime organization (as well as one of the largest and most active SinC groups.) I wanted to beef up my bio because: (a) I didn’t have any published fiction to my name, and (b) I wasn’t expecting any success with the first round of queries.

As soon as I heard about the anthology’s theme - Northern California cemeteries - I knew exactly which cemetery I was going to use in my story. I believe it’s the oldest cemetery still existing in Sacramento, dating back to the Victorian age, and it’s kitty-corner from the Sacramento Buddhist Church.

“Cranes in the Cemetery” introduces readers to Maya Wong, who is visiting her baachan, or grandmother, in Sacramento. It’s the eve of the annual Bazaar, and Maya has been recruited to help make futomaki when a woman from the church is found dead in the old historic cemetery. The only clue is a trail of folded paper cranes.

I wrote the story after the Bazaar had been canceled because of the pandemic. It was inspired by one of my fellow Girl Scout leaders whose troop organized an origami paper crane “fold in” as part of Tsuru for Solidarity’s protest to end U.S. immigration detention camps.

“Cranes” is the only short story I’ve published, and I found it incredibly challenging to write a fully developed mystery in 5,000 words. I’m hoping to hone my short story writing skills and maybe publish more.

What are you writing now?

I’m currently about halfway through Book No. 2 in what I hope will be my Maya Wong series. Not gonna lie - it’s hard writing the second book. It was the pandemic when I wrote the early draft of GHOSTS OF WAIKĪKĪ, and so I had more time at home. But it was also easier psychologically because in the back of my mind I thought, “It’s not like anyone’s ever gonna read this.”

I also have ideas for other books, including a culinary mystery about a woman who runs a mochi shop with her grandmother in Sacramento’s declining Japantown, and a standalone about a San Francisco bartender in Chinatown whose customer reveals a terrible secret and ends up dead in Portsmouth Square the next day.

Many thanks, Jennifer, and best wishes to you!

BRIEF BIO:

Jennifer K. Morita is a former newspaper reporter, who juggled freelance jobs with being a stay-at-home mom for several years before becoming a writer for the communications department at a local university. She spent the first six months of the pandemic purging and baking with the rest of the world before giving her lifelong pipedream of being a mystery author a chance. She is a past president of her local Sisters in Crime chapter who continues to serve on the board and recently edited the 2024 Capitol Crimes anthology FARM TO FOUL PLAY. She lives in California with her husband and two daughters. Her website is Jennifer K. Morita, Author – mystery author.

Bibliophilic Friday: The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (Review by Nancy L. Eady)

Over three thousand years in the future, a New York City police detective named Elijah Baley is charged by his Commissioner with solving a politically sensitive murder. But the politics of the Cities, huge concrete and steel caves that exist mostly underground and support between 10 to 20 million people each, differ vastly from the politics of today. 

There are over 800 Cities on Earth.  In Elijah’s world, families live in community facilities with private rooms for the family, but shared bathrooms and kitchens that are more like cafeterias. Earth’s inhabitants no longer live in open spaces, but in the confines of the Cities’ steel caves. For many Earth people, walking outside under an open sky is unthinkable and uncomfortable, if not debilitating. In the less distant past, because of the pressures of expanding population, Earth colonized space, but the colonies grew in isolationist directions and limited immigration from Earth to the barest trickle. (Colonists are called “Spacers” by Earth people).  The colonies have vastly outpaced Earth technologically—for example, they have robots that are almost indistinguishable from humans. Earth, on the other hand, adamantly opposes the use of robots in the Cities because they fear they will take away jobs from humans who need them. 

New York City is also the location of “Spacetown,” a space port where those few Spacers who have business on Earth land. 

Elijah is tasked with solving the murder of a prominent colonist, Dr. Sarton, a task he is reluctant to undertake especially when he is told one condition of the task is that he must partner with R. Daneel Olivaw, one of the humanoid robots Earth (and Elijah) are so opposed to. 

In The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov wrote a brilliant novel blending two popular genres, science fiction and mystery, that rarely get a chance to mix. The novel is even more fantastic when you consider that it was written in 1959, a world where PCs and the internet were every bit as much science fiction as the world Asimov created in his novel. 

Every good story has more than one subplot, and without diminishing the mystery one iota, Asimov also explores the reactions and social consequences living in the Cities has created for the people of Earth, and the social interaction between his two dissimilar detectives, Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. 

Without giving it away, the solution to the mystery is both believable and satisfying, as is the resolution of the other plots in the book. If you like mysteries, or science fiction, give The Caves of Steel a try. Who knows? It may encourage you to explore whichever of the two genres you are less familiar with. And even if it doesn’t, it’s a fun book to read. 

The Vintage Bookshelf: Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart

By Shari Randall

 

Welcome to another edition of The Vintage Bookshelf. Today we’re getting swept away by the remarkable Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk? 

 

“The whole affair began so very quietly.

 

When I asked my friend Louise if she would come with me on a car trip to Provence, I had no idea that I might be issuing an invitation to danger.”

 

Honestly, who could resist these opening lines?

 

British writer Mary Stewart is well-known as the author of 1970’s mega-selling Merlin trilogy that began with The Crystal Cave, but before that blockbuster she wrote novels that were a tasty gothic blend of mystery and romance. One of my favorites is Madam, Will You Talk (1955). I still find it difficult to believe that Madam was Stewart’s first book – her evocative opening lines, mastery of setting and characterization, gorgeous prose, and breathless plot are enough to make some writers (ahem) green with envy.

 

Let’s look at the book as writers, shall we?

 

Are there issues? A few teensy ones and one antiquated trope but …let’s start with the good stuff.

 

Her New York Times obituary quotes Melanie Reid of Glasgow’s Herald: “Mary Stewart sprinkled intelligence around like stardust,” and it’s true. The chapter headings in Madam, Will You Talk are from Chaucer. This fan felt smarter with every page turn of the book.

 

Stewart’s prose and descriptions of her setting are nonpareil. Yes, I’m throwing in some French terms. Reading Mary Stewart does that to you. (see above.) Her lavish prose does more than justice to her glamorous settings – it makes one long to visit. If there’s one word for her prose, it is seductive. You cannot resist. Don’t even try. Just sink in.

 

Here’s her description of Avignon (page 26):

The city is dominated from the north by the Roche des Doms, a steep mass of white rock, crowned by the cathedral of Notre Dame, and green with singing pines. Besides the cathedral, taking the light above the town, is the golden stone palace of the popes. The town itself is slashed into by one main street, the Republic, which leads from the main gate, straight up to the square. 

 

“Green with singing pines!” Magnifique!

 

Her characters and characterization are well done, and are definitely from the romance world. Here’s one character: 

 

His clothes, his air, no less than his voice, were unmistakably French, and he had that look of intense virility and yet sophistication – the sort of powerful, careless charm, which can be quite devastating.

 

Devastating indeed! Swipe right!

 

Madam’s main character, Charity Selborne, a young war widow, is bilingual and knowledgeable about architecture, art, literature, and fashion, plus she can handle a sports car, something her deceased war hero husband taught her. She manages all this without being “sympathetic,” “feisty” or irritatingly perfect. 

 

Is the plot irritatingly perfect?

 

One plot element, the enemies to lovers trope, had me tearing my hair out, but it is a staple of Vintage Bookshelf ™ romance novels. There were plenty of overheard conversations. Were there too many coincidences? Perhaps. All right, yes. However, the bold actions the heroine takes, which would make her TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) in lesser hands are the result of an admirable emotional motivation and clever plot.

 

No matter. The setting and characters are so finely drawn you won’t mind any bumps in the road to Avignon. Revel in the beauty of the prose. Resistance is futile. Few writers can cast a spell like Mary Stewart.

 

Have you read any books by Mary Stewart?

Shari Randall is the author of the Agatha Award-winning Lobster Shack Mystery series and, as Meri Allen, the Ice Cream Shop Mystery series. 

 

 

 

 

 

A Gathering of Authors

by Paula Gail Benson

When a book fair in Aiken, South Carolina, had to be rescheduled, I spoke with three of the participants and asked if they would be willing to come to Columbia for a similar event. They agreed. Consequently, the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime will be hosting a multi-genre, mini-book festival on Saturday, October 21, from 1:30 until 4:00 pm at All Good Books. We are fortunate to have this very accommodating, relatively new, independent bookstore. All Good Books, which is providing space for our program and sales for our authors, is located at 734 Harden Street, Columbia, S.C. 29205.

The authors will be available for signings and appear in panels, moderated by Paula Gail Benson and Carla Damron. Here is the schedule:

1:30 - 1:35       Welcome

1:35 - 2:05       Romance fiction with Paula Gail Benson, Elaine Reed, and HM Thomas

2:10 - 2:40       Mystery fiction with Paula Gail Benson, Candace Carter, and Carla Damon

2:45 - 3:15       Historical and Speculative fiction with Mary Beth Gibson and Steve Gordy

3:20 - 3:50       Poetry with John Starino and Arthur Turfa

If you happen to be in Columbia on October 21, come join our gathering and meet our participating authors:

A legislative lawyer and former law librarian, Paula Gail Benson’s mystery and romance short stories have appeared online and in print anthologies. She is a proud member of the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Lowcountry Romance Writers.

From growing up in a one-horse town (literally) to working for the National Park Service, Candace J. Carter has walked many paths in life. She's always shared a love of western movies with her father. Muddy Waters is her first traditional mystery, featuring former range detective Henry "Whispering" Smith. The novel received a Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Award and was a finalist for the 2020 Indies Today Awards. Candace is now retired, and reconnecting with her inner cowboy.

 

Carla Damron is a social worker, advocate, and author whose novel, The Stone Necklace (about grief and addiction) won the 2017 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award for Best Novel and was selected as the One Community Read for Columbia SC. Damron is also the author of The Orchid Tattoo (which delves into the disturbing world of human trafficking), and the Caleb Knowles mystery novels (the latest is Justice Be Done), and has published numerous short stories, essays, and op-eds.

 

Mary Beth Gibson writes the award-winning DUNCULLEN SAGA that follows two Irish families through four generations of struggles. It is a haunting trilogy of love, murder, and betrayal. You’ll be swept up in this fast-paced saga based on actual events that rocked eighteenth-century Ireland followed by an emotionally powerful story of the Revolutionary War along the Savannah River’s frontier.

 

Steve Gordy is a retired educator and a long-time member of the South Carolina Writers Association. In addition to his writing, he is an active volunteer in several local and regional organizations and an aficionado of travel, particularly to foreign countries. His current works in progress are a dark novel about a small town under the control of corrupt big-shots (Town Behind a Veil) and a tribute volume to a championship athlete who died young after a valiant battle with cancer (Meredith's Song). He and his wife live in Aiken, SC.

Robert McCready has a MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in Charlotte, N.C. He interviews authors in a podcast called Evening Magic.

Elaine Reed lives in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. When she isn’t writing contemporary romance, she can be found exploring Charleston, taking in live music and searching for shark teeth on the beach with her family.

John M. Starino is an award-winning published and performance poet. He has four books. They are Onion Season Pt. 1, Onion Season Pt. 2, They Are Only Spoons, and Full Circle. He can be heard during local and regional Open Mic programs, especially during the month of April, National Poetry Month. Like many of his Activist Friends who have won awards, he appreciates the recognition and there is so much work yet to be done.

 

HM Thomas grew up in a southern town creating worlds bigger and more dramatic than her own. She credits her dad’s nightly story times for her love of the written word and her mom’s devotion to Days of Our Lives for her love of dramatic fiction. After graduating from Clemson University, HM got her own Happily Ever After and decided to start writing them for her characters as well, focusing on romance, most often mixed with suspense. When not writing, HM enjoys traveling and hiking with her husband, three children and rescue dog.

 

Arthur Turfa is a poet/writer living in Lexington, SC. His writings are inspired by his native Pennsylvania, places where he has lived and traveled, people he has met, and his careers. Arthur is an adviser to the Board of the South Carolina Writers Association. He has six books of poetry, one novel, and one short story in national and international print and on-line publications. 

The Mysterious Missing Socks by Nancy L. Eady

I don’t divide my laundry by color, but by disposition—the hangables (the clothes that get hung directly from the dryer or which need to hang dry without going into the dryer), the ironables (the clothes that need to be ironed), and the foldables (yep, the clothes that need to be folded). Under the normal laws of physics, you would expect a simple equation. Socks in hamper = socks out of dryer. 

It doesn’t work that way. A black hole periodically appears and disappears in the dryer, taking a sock with it. One oddity of this phenomenon is that it is sock specific. I’d expect any self-respecting black hole visiting a dryer to vary its diet with shirts, jeans, or underwear, but not mine. It transports socks. I’m not sure where the black hole takes them, but by now, it has a vast collection of athletic socks, compression socks, pants socks, knee socks and any other sock you can imagine. 

I take it in stride. If the dryer didn’t get a sock occasionally, the dogs would, still leaving me short. My husband, however, is much more careful with his clothing. We have gone on safari before to locate his missing clothing. The black hole must know this, since my socks disappear at a far faster rate than do his. But whenever the black hole takes male socks, Mark and I have the same discussion. It always starts with “What is happening to all my socks?” He hasn’t bought into the black hole theory yet. 

The dryer has help from my 19-year-old, who refuses to wear socks bought for her.  Instead, she seems to believe my socks possess magic properties, requiring her to snatch them from my drawer. Today, I mentioned to her that my socks are disappearing at an alarming rate. Her response? 

“I put them in your hamper when I was done with them.”    

The urge to thank her for her consideration warred with the impulse to suggest that if she’d drop the rest of my clothes that she borrows in the hamper also, I’d at least get to visit with them. She likes to “borrow” my size XXL T-shirts, which she says drape comfortably and artistically around her size XS frame. But I know the socks aren’t her fault, especially since she has no use for Mark’s. 

I often wonder where the black hole sends the socks. It’s not the other side of the world, since I checked the “antipodes map” at antipodesmap.com. Antipodesmap.com is a website showing what is on the exact opposite side of the earth from you. In my case, if you dug a tunnel straight through the globe from where I’m sitting, you’d end up somewhere in the Pacific Ocean about 2/3 of the way east between Madagascar and Australia, not a very propitious site for socks. It’s possible that the black hole is part of a secret government experiment that transports objects to Tuttle, North Dakota (pop. 77), but why socks? Why North Dakota? Why Tuttle? The list of questions continues. 

One day, I will discover the closet holding every missing sock and open it, only to die buried in an avalanche of socks. What a way to go!

Genre Swapping by Kait Carson

I’ve been a published author for a long time. Back when the earth was cooling, I sent a letter to the editor of my local paper. I was thirteen at the time, and the paper published it. That led to my receiving a letter from a literary agent. Times were different then. Agents came looking for writers. I knew a good thing when I saw it, and I signed. My parents weren’t involved in the contract, and the agent never knew my age. I had no idea that the arrangement was less than binding.

 

That contract led to my writing short stories and being published in the teen magazines of the day. Seventeen, Ingenue, and others I can’t recall. All featured what I called my pink and white stories. Why pink and white? They were romances. I was an avid mystery reader, but a prolific romance author. I had a blast. I wish I could find copies of those stories today. They were written under multiple pseudonyms. Not because they had to be, but because that was part of what I thought an author should do at the time. To this day, I’m not sure why my agent never questioned my multiple personalities.

 

My agent passed away when I was in college. It was also about that time that I stopped writing for publication. It was the 1970s. Change was in the air. Living life was a more immediate need than writing about it. I didn’t put pen to paper for another twenty years. When I did, I discovered two things: short story writers did not need agents anymore, and writing novels was far harder than it looked. At this point, I was reading romances. My first attempt at a novel was a romance. It’s titled Caribbean Knights and it lives under my bed. I visit it occasionally. It’s right next to Circumstances of Death, a romantic mystery. There’s a trend here. The novels never sold. Nor should they have. They were definitely training attempts.

 

Computers and the Internet were gaining traction at about the same time. Although Facebook and other platforms were still in the future, writers’ groups were developing. It was through a writers’ group that I learned about True Confession magazine. Romance stories with happy, or at least satisfying, endings. Five thousand words or less, please. What, you thought those stories were true? Well, they were, for someone, somewhere. Those that I wrote were all based on at least a kernel of fact. They were fun because they were not bylined. There is something freeing about anonymous authorship.

 

Now that I was writing again, it seemed that every time I passed the seven thousand word mark, someone died. And not in a good way, either. This romance short story writer had morphed into a mystery/crime novelist. The transformation was handy, since that’s what I was reading. When I learned of NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month), I decided to try my hand. I wrote the requisite fifty-thousand words during November and refined it for the next three years. The book finally became Death by Blue Water and Henery Press published it in 2014.

 

There have been a few more books since 2014. Some published, some not. Although they qualify as traditional mysteries, I haven’t forgotten my romance roots. Each of the books features a romantic interest and subplot. These days, I’m considering seeking a literary agent. Very different to my first agent experience. I’m also toying with the idea of writing short romances again. Although the Trues are long gone, there are lots of anthology opportunities. Sometimes it’s fun to explore the joy and wonder of new relationships and bring them to a happy-ever-after ending without anyone dying.

ESCAPES by Nancy L. Eady

I love mysteries, of course, or I wouldn’t want to write them. I read some mysteries for the fun of solving the “whodunit” puzzle. But I read series for more than that. The series I most enjoy create places and people so vivid that they become friends I can drop in on whenever I want.

It’s hard to say what makes a series magical to me. One of the first series I fell in love with was the Nero Wolfe mysteries. Archie Goodwin, Mr. Wolfe (only his best friend, Marko Vukcic, would ever call him “Nero”), and their supporting cast, which includes Fritz, the cook and butler, Saul Panzer, private detective extraordinaire, and a few others are very real to me. The brownstone building with the orchid greenhouse on the top is one of my favorite haunts. I was in New York City on business once and tracked down the address where Nero Wolfe is supposed to live. The address is nothing like Nero Wolfe’s habitat. That’s okay with me. The New York City Archie moves around in is a New York City I will never see but visit constantly.

Two of my newer series favorites are written by co-bloggers here at Writers Who Kill:  the Sarah Blair series, by Debra Goldstein, and the Haunted Library, by Allison Brook, aka Marilyn Levinson. Debra’s series takes place in a contemporary suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. I recognize the places and people which remind me of places and people I see in the real world. And who can’t love a “cook of convenience,” whose highest culinary achievement was the recipe, “Jell-O in a Can.” Top that off with the fact that Sarah is an animal lover with both a Siamese Alpha cat named Rahrah and a dog named Fluffy. Now there is someone I can’t help but enjoy getting to know. My only beef with Sarah is the fact that she refuses to even consider her friend and boss, Harlan Endicott, as a potential dating partner. But since the series continues, I can hope!

The librarian main character, Carrie, in Marilyn’s series is someone I relate to differently. Until book 1, she had been an itinerant wanderer, but with the help of the library’s resident ghost, Evelyn, she has settled down in one place as the librarian in charge of programs. Book by book I enjoy watching her rebuild her life and many of her relationships. And the idea that small towns exist in Connecticut fascinates me. I tend to picture the Northeast United States as one big city from Washington D.C. up to Boston, except for bucolic Vermont.

I am a little OCD with series. When a new book comes out, I start at book 1 and read through the end of the latest book. It can be quite time-consuming when reading series like Donna Andrews Meg Langslow series and Bobbi Holmes’s Haunting Danielle series, both of which have over twenty books in them. It’s worth it to escape to the worlds created by each of my favorite series’ authors.

And who knows? Maybe one day I will find THE enchanted bookmark or page or gizmo that will let me step into the pages of my favorite books and meet my friends in person. I think they’d be happy to see me. 

Putting a Face to My Audiobook Narrator by Susan Van Kirk

 

This past Tuesday, my first ever audiobook downloaded on my phone from Findaway Voices/Orange Sky Audio in collaboration with Encircle Publications, the original publisher of my book, A Death at Tippitt Pond. Forgive me if this sounds too gushy, but I’ve never had an audiobook of any of my novels before, and when I heard the first words of Chapter One, I’m afraid a tear or two trickled from my eyes. How astounding to hear a professional narrator read the words I wrote during the long, Midwest winter of 2018.

 

I’ve lived a quiet life in a small town in the Midwest, and my career was spent in academic institutions, not in the business world. Since I began writing mysteries, all of that changed—to my surprise. I’ve worked with cover artists in California, Colorado, and New York; a formatter in Oregon; an editor who lived during our years of collaboration in New York, Hawaii, California, and Illinois; and a publisher whose contract came from Toronto, Canada, and whose tax forms were sent from Switzerland. I hadn’t anticipated collaborating with people in such faraway places when I retired from teaching in 2011.

 

When my narrator for A Death at Tippitt Pond was kind enough to answer my email, I put a person to that name on my audiobook. It has been a joy to have her bring my mystery to life, so I asked her some questions about her own career as an audiobook narrator because I was curious.

 

Her name is Patricia (Tricia) Santomasso, and she lives in New York. She has won an Earphones Award and recorded over 150 audiobooks. Santomasso has worked with many publishers, among them Blackstone Publishing, Hachette, Harper, Harlequin, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and Simon and Shuster. She also works with independent authors. She also is an avid cook and genealogist, and genealogy is a passion for my protagonist, Beth Russell.

 

These are the kind words she said about reading my book: “It was such a pleasure recording A Death at Tippitt Pond. Beth’s journey to find out the mystery of her family’s past was something I could identify with as an amateur genealogist myself. Van Kirk set up an atmosphere of doubt and intrigue that made each day in the booth a wonderful labyrinth of twists and turns!”

 

This is where my curiosity took me.

 

How did you happen to become a book narrator, and what do you like about this job?

 I fell in love with audiobooks when I was in college. They saved me from complete boredom one summer while working a data entry job. I escaped the claims department and roamed Middle Earth in my mind while listening to Tolkien's The Hobbit. Little did I know that years later, after becoming a professional theatre actor, I would find an opportunity that allowed me to read books for a living! I started narrating in 2013 after watching a seminar about audiobook technique and ways to get started. I began doing independently published books through ACX.com and went on to work with larger publishers. I stopped performing on stage and decided the booth life was for me!

 The things I like about my job are too numerous to count. There is a beautiful intimacy in the recording of an audiobook. It's just you and the story and everything else disappears. I have the joy and the responsibility to bring these characters to life. Finding each of their voices through text work, research, and creativity is one of my favorite things. I have burst out in laughter and been brought to tears in the booth, so much so that I've had to take a breather and come back. It's magical.

 Most people don't know a thing about recording booths or equipment for freelance audio narrators. How would you describe yours to lay people?

There are many ways to set up a studio and many different mics to choose from. I started out recording with a very simple USB microphone in my 4x4 NYC closet, and upgraded to a larger space and better microphone as I started working full-time. I find that overall, simplicity can be very effective for an audiobook narrator. I know people who have recorded in nooks under their stairs, bedrooms, closets, and cars. On the other end of the spectrum, many have expensive, free-standing studios. Narrators can be very creative with their "booths.” If our home recording spaces are less-than-perfect, we rely even more on engineers to make us sound great.

 Do you think you and your husband might someday narrate a book together--or doesn't it work that way?

 My husband and I have narrated many books together. In fact, we'll be narrating one together next month! The audiobook community is a small and lovely one, and we are lucky to be paired together often. We have recorded in the same booth, but most of the time we record separately. Our booths are right next to each other in our apartment, and our audio is put together in post-production. 

 Did the pandemic affect your job like that of so many others? 

 Last March, in-person studios for the larger publishers closed, and our work increased when all recordings went to home studios. About the same time this happened, we lost our wonderful babysitter for about a month due to possible exposure. My husband and I worked full-time churning out books with tight deadlines while caring for our one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. It was challenging but we were very lucky to be so busy and able to work safely from home. Since then, our babysitter has returned, and she's been working with us exclusively this whole year, which has made our lives much easier than most. We are very lucky. 

 How did you become interested in your family's genealogy? 

 I am the fourth generation to live in our house in Connecticut, so our attic has always been filled with treasures that amazed me. Photos, documents, letters, taffeta dresses, hats, programs, and assorted ephemera from the mid-1800's all the way to the present that no one had ever seemed to take an interest in cataloguing. Well, I took up the mantle! I started by sorting the many photographs, and it led me to ask about (and write down) stories about ancestors and to collect as many records as I could find. It's a work in progress, and I constantly wish I had more time to work on it. My parents still live in that same house in Connecticut while I’ve been in New York almost twenty years.  

 Tricia’s website is here if you’d like to learn more about her work.

 Thanks you so much, Tricia Santomasso, for sharing some of your life with us and spending many hours of recording my words in your recording booth. What a joy to have you bring my characters to life!

A Chat with Becky Clark

by Shari Randall

Please welcome Becky Clark to Writers Who Kill. She’s the author of the sassy Dunne Diehl mysteries, the Mystery Writer series, and the new Crossword Puzzle series. The first crossword mystery is PUZZLING INK and it launches on November 3^rd.

 

Becky is giving an ebook to one lucky commenter! I’ll post the winner at the top of this blog on Oct. 13, 2020, at 9 a.m. ET. 

Congratulations, Melissa! You are the winner of Becky Clark's

giveaway. She will contact you at the email you posted.

Happy reading!

 

1 DOWN: DEATH BY HOMICIDE
 
Quinn Carr wishes her life could be more like a crossword puzzle: neat, orderly, and perfectly arranged. At least her passion for puzzles, flair for words—and mild case of OCD—have landed her a gig creating crosswords for the local paper. But if she ever hopes to move out of her parents’ house, she can’t give up her day job as a waitress. She needs the tips. But when a customer ends up dead at her table—face down in biscuits and gravy—Quinn needs to get a clue to find whodunit . . .
 
6 LETTERS, STARTS WITH “M”
 
It turns out that solving a murder is a lot harder than a creating a crossword. Quinn has plenty of suspects—up, down, and across.  One of them is her boss, the owner of the diner who shares a culinary past with the victim. Two of them are ex-wives, her boss’s and the victim’s. A third complication is the Chief of Police who refuses to allow much investigation, preferring the pretense their town has no crime. To solve this mystery, Quinn has to think outside the boxes—before the killer gets the last word . . . 

 

Becky, welcome to Writers Who Kill! Your new series features Quinn Carr, a crossword constructor. I love crossword puzzles, too! We’re cruciverbalists!

 

I’m so excited to be here and I love, love, LOVE that you know that word, Shari! I put it in one of the puzzles I constructed recently, and many of my crossword-enthusiast testers didn’t know it. But that is one of the things I like about solving crosswords … learning new words!

 

Why crossword puzzles (and no you can’t say, why not?)

 

I would never say that! In fact, I’m very glad you asked this. My dad is why crosswords. I grew up in a big family (eight kids, two parents, several dogs), all of whom are big readers and talkers. We love words and games—especially word games. I know some people think that solving crosswords is a group activity, but they are wrong. It’s one of the few pursuits that should always be solitary, imho. Dad believed the same. I remember him silently working on the newspaper crossword when I was a kid. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I asked him about it. He explained it to me, gave me some tips he’d learned along the way as well as a book of crosswords of my own, and I was hooked. My dad wasn’t one to gush, but I knew he was proud when I started doing puzzles in ink. So that’s how the puzzle part comes in. But when I was mulling about another cozy idea to pitch to my agent, I knew my main character Quinn would be dealing with her Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. What better hobby could there possibly be for someone with organizational OCD than constructing crosswords? Those perfectly straight lines, that beautiful symmetry, only one right answer. Nirvana!

 

Of course, that meant I had to figure out how to construct my own puzzles, which, if you’ll allow me to whine a bit, IS CRAZY HARD! Dad didn’t live long enough to work any of the puzzles I’ve constructed or to read Puzzling Ink, but I think it would have tickled him. 

 

Tell us a bit more about Quinn.

 

Like I said, she has some OCD to contend with and she creates the crosswords for the local paper, which she has done secretly since she was in high school. (She already felt nerdy enough, she didn’t need kids knowing that too.) She always wanted to be a police officer, but when she was halfway through the hiring process, her OCD reared up and smacked her hard. After trying to regroup on her own in Denver for several years, she finally had to move back home with her parents in Chestnut Station, out on the Colorado prairie. She got a pity job at the local diner, and keeps creating puzzles in secret, which comes in handy because the police chief in town hates to admit there is any crime there so he either sweeps it under the rug, or just tosses the easiest person in jail. But the chief is an avid cruciverbalist—there’s that word again—and Quinn is able to sway his investigation (or lack thereof) by the subliminal clues she sticks in the puzzles just for him. 

 

The world of cozy mysteries is full of characters with unusual names. The main character of your Mystery Writer series has one of my favorites: Charlemagne Russo. Where did the inspiration for that name come from?

 

I’m so glad you like Charlee. I spend quite a bit of time on the names in my books. I’m always trying to find names that are memorable, lyrical, have some deeper meaning (even if it’s only deep to me), a little bit off the beaten path, and don’t share any of the alphabet with any other characters. At least to begin their names, obviously there are only 26 letters and if … oh, well, you know what I mean. It’s especially important to me for the main characters who will be spending time with readers over the course of several books. Even though there will only be two books in the Dunne Diehl series, that name comes from Cassidy Dunne and Dan Diehl and never fails to make me laugh. I guess two books was a done deal!

 

Plotter? Pantser? Something else?

 

Definitely plotter. But my theory is that every writer is a plotter. I think the difference is that some writers plot in their heads, and other have to use paper, and some do a bit of both. I’ve tried just sitting down and seeing what happens, but that is such a waste of time for me. I spin my wheels getting more and more frustrated, not knowing where to start or where to go or what to do. I hate that feeling so I had to figure out a way to create a process that guarantees I can write novels with the smallest amount of angst. Plus, my agent wanted me to write at least two books a year. I hadn’t done that before, so I needed to figure out my process in a hurry!

 

You’re also the author of a terrific writing book called Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel. What’s your number one tip for writers?

 

Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel is the story of that process I created for myself. It’s simple, really … just finding an outline template that makes sense to you, and applying some time management tips. The hard part is cobbling together ideas from so many ways of outlining—mine is a hodgepodge of several different ideas that make sense to me—and assessing your writing strengths and weaknesses to take advantage of them. Then, of course, having the self-discipline to just buckle down to do it.

 

By far the easiest and most useful tip when drafting your novel is to never stop. Only move forward. No editing, no going back. If you have an hour to write, then by golly, you WRITE for an hour. If you can’t think of the right word, then you put brackets around those boring words. My manuscripts are full of “he was [nice]” … “the sky was the color of [blue]” … “the coffee smelled [bad].” Those words get fixed in editing. You never want to slow down the momentum of your writing. Each time you change tasks to look up a word, you leave your creative happy place and it takes precious time to get back to it. When you’re finished with the first draft and you go back to describe the color of that sky, you’re going to know so much more about your story and you can foreshadow that peacock coming up in chapter seven, or that the coffee is going to smell like Clem’s boots … but you didn’t even know who Clem was until you wrote to the end.   

 

Tell us more about the new Crossword Puzzle series.

 

Well, the first one—Puzzling Ink—launches November 3rd and I couldn’t be more excited! In this one we meet Quinn and her parents, Georgeanne and Dan, both loving, involved parents who are understandably worried about their boomerang adult daughter. Georgeanne is fun to write because her thing is cooking, even though she makes some spectacularly weird food. As Puzzling Ink opens, she’s making cupcakes with red, white, and blue frosting for the 4^th of July festival. What’s so weird about that, you might ask. Nothing, except they’re cumin cupcakes and the red frosting is from paprika, the white is miso, and the blue is cream of mushroom soup with food coloring. As a joke, when I sent the manuscript to my editor, I included a recipe for one of the treats Georgeanne makes. The joke was on me, though. She thought it was so funny, now I have to do it every time! (If you want to follow my blog tour, I’ll be sharing one of the recipes at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen on October 23^rd.)

Quinn’s bestie is Rico who she grew up with in Chestnut Station and who now is second-in-command on the police force. He does most of the work, since the police chief won’t, and it’s Quinn’s secret mission in life to oust the chief and get Rico promoted. It’s Rico’s secret mission in life to get Quinn back to the police academy.

 

Quinn works in the diner for Jake, who leaves her alone one night to handle everything. Her regular customers, The Retireds, hang out there constantly, making unreasonable demands on her. Jethro, one of the town dogs, hangs out in front of the diner all day. Before she can close up, she’s got to shoo everyone out and rouse the drunk from the back booth. Unfortunately, he didn’t just pass out in his biscuits and gravy … he’s dead.

 

The second book in the series is PUNNING WITH SCISSORS (May 2021), and the third is FATAL SOLUTIONS (Nov 2021). 

 

Launch activities will all be virtual this year with a blog tour, bookstore appearances, book club appearances, and I’m doing something probably absolutely crazy this year … a 24-hour launch party! I’m hosting it with alternating hours at two different Facebook groups, COZY MYSTERY CREW, and my private reader group BECKY’S BOOK BUDDIES. There will be lots of fun and prizes but it’s not a live event so nobody will get thrown into Facebook jail because they posted too much or too fast. People can comment at their leisure, and winners will be chosen the next day, after everyone has had a good night’s sleep. One of the cool prizes I found is an absolutely adorable chiffon crossword infinity scarf. I kept one for myself and will give one away. 

Besides books and swag, I’m thinking about giving away a couple of purses I’ve made from old books. Not exactly a crossword theme, although I think I have one made from a dictionary.

 

So I’m excited about the launch, and am trying to make it fun during this pandemic when folks want a bit of escape from real life. Join Cozy Mystery Crew and Becky’s Book Buddies if you want to get in on the launch fun. (Don’t forget to answer the questions that will open the secret door!) Visit BeckyClarkBooks.com and subscribe to my “So Seldom It’s Shameful” emails for all the details … I give stuff away there too! (All the links are below)

 

What’s next for you?

 

Book #3 in the Mystery Writer’s Mysteries—METAPHOR FOR MURDER—will be released in December to go with FICTION CAN BE MURDER and FOUL PLAY ON WORDS. That’s the series with Charlemagne Russo who is a mystery writer and keeps getting real-life mysteries falling in her lap when all she wants to do is write her books and eat grilled cheese sandwiches. 

 

Before that, though, I’m updating and sprucing up my Lazy Low Cal Cookbook … portion-controlled, easy recipes for lazy or new cooks, or ones who, like me, were packing on pounds like they were preparing for the next Ice Age. I decided to revamp it because Georgeanne uses my Black Bean Brownie recipe and gives me a shout-out in PUNNING WITH SCISSORS.

 

And then I have a standalone I want to get started on, a bit darker than I normally write, so we’ll see how that goes. Even dark stuff needs humor, so I’m not too worried about freaking out my readers. Not too much, anyway. And I have another cozy series I’m chomping at the bit to get busy on.

 

All that is why I need a system to get my books written and pushed out into the world! I’m not getting any younger, amirite??

 

Here are all the links you need to come play in my sandbox with me …

• Amazon … https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004NQO14I

• My website to subscribe … https://beckyclarkbooks.com/

• Cozy Mystery Crew … to hang out with a dozen fabulous cozy authors including Shari Randall … https://www.facebook.com/groups/cozymysterycrew/

• Becky’s Book Buddies … where it’s fun, like Facebook used to be … https://www.facebook.com/groups/beckysbookbuddies

• Goodreads …  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4730815.Becky_Clark

• BookBub … https://www.bookbub.com/profile/becky-clark

• And my Costco club card number ….. oh wait.  

 

Don’t forget to comment to be entered to win an ebook from Becky! I’ll post the winner tomorrow morning on this blog. Do you enjoy crossword puzzles?

 

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