Coming of Age at Age 62

People who know me, know I cannot shut up about something once its tweaked my interest.  I rattle on and on and expect everyone else to find it every bit as interesting as I do, and just don't "get it" when they don't.  Well, that's not true. I do "get it," but don't have enough sense to just let it be.

Except recently when I announced at DorothyL that I had just discovered Amanda Cross. I was tickled pink to be welcomed with a volley of on-list and off-list conversations from a host of people who also love her (and one person who doesn't), but were lucky enough to have discovered her many years before I did.  

I was on page 15 of SWEET DEATH, KIND DEATH when I read this:  " . . .  She had a theory about middle age.  She thought of it as a time quite different from the earlier years, cut off from the ghosts of the past.  One might recall those ghosts; most people, she thought, recall them too often.  But they need no longer haunt one.  You have the sense she spoke of, of life able to begin again, if one will but let it."

Hooked.  I was hooked.  I loved every word of this book, and in the meantime have become quite besotted with Amanda Cross.  

From Amazon.com - - - "Amanda Cross is a pseudonym for Dr. Carolyn G. Heilbrun, the revered Columbia University professor whose WRITING A WOMAN'S LIFE and other nonfiction volumes are recognized as ground-breaking classics in literary criticism and feminist studies."

Note:  Dr. Heilbrun died in 2003.  An apparent suicide, a note was found nearby which read  "The journey is over.  Love to all."

As I mentioned at DorothyL, it seems serendipity had a hand in my discovery of a book that's been in my "to be read" stacks for . . .  well, I have no idea for how long.  That I should run across it when I did strikes me as one of those little  "fortuitous accidents" that just happen.  Fortuitously.  This is a book which, aside from the mystery story, delves quite deeply into theories about how women age, obviously written by a feminist.  A book of fiction, written in a style that I find quite lovely and gently, subtly, humorous.  And written in an environment of higher education.  Having worked as a secretary in two different universities for the past 30 years, it just felt like home.   And moved me to reflect a little on the fact that since turning 60 a couple of years ago, I have, without giving it thought, started doing "new to me" things.   To say that SWEET DEATH, KIND DEATH struck a nerve is understating the impact.


Bear with me, please and sit back while I tell you a tale.

The summer of '08 I took an art class at Cheap Joe's Art Stuff.  Cheap Joe's is pure heaven for artists, and for dabblers like me.  Heaven!  The class I took was one in mixed media collage, taught by the talented Cathy Taylor.  The class was a week long, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for five days.  Just like a work week, only not.  Entering the studio with a group of people of varying levels of talent and experience, but all feeling that urge and/or need to scratch a creative itch was quite an experience.  I loved every second.  I'm hoping to be able to do this again, in the meantime, I'm also hoping to use some of what I learned and do some more collages here at home.  I have a fascination with them, and what can be done is just never-ending.  Tapping into my imagination to see what I come up with is going to be a lovely little adventure I'm anxious to get on with.

In July '08, I was asked by the lovely, fun and talented women at The Stiletto Gang to write a piece about my smoking and trying to quit.  That was the first piece of writing I ever did.

Next thing I know, in September I was  invited by another lovely, fun and talented woman, JT Ellison,  to do a guest piece at Murderati.  This one about the "Internet Water Cooler."

Then in October I went to Baltimore for my first ever mystery conference.  And, of course, I chose to start this little mystery con adventure off with not just any mystery con, but the biggest of 'em all.  And, oh my, I am so glad I did.  Saying that it was a life changing experience might sound trite to some, but to many others, you know exactly what I mean.   Bouchercon was so special, and filled me so full of things I wanted to share, nothing would do until I wrote about it.  And, so.  Meanderings and Muses was born.

And then in November 2008, I turned 60.

Not until just the past week or so have I put all those events together.  Had I given conscious effort to turning 60, determined to do things I'd only thought about doing, it's doubtful I would have done them with as much joy and freedom.  It would, I think, have felt forced and contrived.  I would have been focusing on the "doing" instead of the "experiencing," I think.  Instead, I now realize I've been living my very own "coming of age."  

But wait - there's more!  

(Oh, what picking up one little thread can lead to.  A spider's weaving is the best analogy I can think of.)

I happened upon a notice in Kathryn Stripling Byer's blog about submissions being accepted for a regional anthology.  Long story short, I had a piece accepted and was published in the oh so wonderful CLOTHES LINES, edited by the incomparable Celia Miles and Nan Dillingham.   A few weeks later, "Western North Carolina Women's Magazine" chose some pieces from  CLOTHES LINES to showcase in their magazine to help promote the book.  I was over the moon happy that my piece was one of those chosen.  Whod'a thunk?!  To say I'm proud of the experience is understating the obvious.  I was the proudest woman you have ever seen when I first saw my copy, and that joy has not diminished the teeniest bit. 

During all this, I got to know a number of incredible women who have written some incredible things.  And have been doing it much longer than I, and possess enormous talent that I only wish to have a smidgen of some day.  One of those women is Marlisa Mills.  Marlisa, besides being a psychologist in the Asheville area, is one of these super talented writers, who was a part of CLOTHES LINES.  And she writes a monthly column for (guess?) "Western North Carolina Women's Magazine."  In March, the topic of the magazine is to be "Coming of Age."  And guess who Marlisa has asked to be the monthly profilee?  Why, that would be me!  Ha!  Coming of Age.  It can, indeed, happen right around retirement age, I reckon.

Who knew?!

Next week will be my last week of work.  When I leave my office on Friday, I'm officially a retired person.  I am thankful beyond belief to know that I have a wealth of fun things to look forward to doing.  And even more to discover.

Life is good.

This coming of age event is being marked by some fun events.    I'm having dinner one night next week with gal pals (The "Nutz") in my book group, my office is having a small, quiet (as I requested) send off for me, and my neighborhood (the BEST neighborhood on God's little green earth) is having a little party also.  How lucky can one woman be?

In addition to the "real" parties, I'm throwing a "virtual" party.  It'll be held in two "virtual venues" on January 28th.  Here at Meanderings and Muses, and at Facebook -  I hope you'll drop by!

Love, Mystery, and the Love of Mystery by Pattie Tierney

Pattie Tierney of St. Louis, MO, has a passion for travel, dining, photography, and mysteries, and writes about them all. She has published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Personal Journaling Magazine, The Diarist's Journal, and Ink & Ruminations. Her art has appeared in The Rubber Stamper, Signatures: The Art Journal Collection, ATCs: An Anthology of Artist Trading Cards, Somerset Studio and Stamper's Sampler magazines. 

Love, Mystery, and the Love of Mystery

by Pattie Tierney

When Kaye asked me to be a guest blogger, I panicked.  I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say.  I'd already blogged about my love for mysteries, how it came about and has become an integral part of my life on Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare blog (http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2010/10/pattie-tierney-guest-blogger-mystery.html).  

I’ve written about my online mystery jewelry shop (ptierneydesigns.etsy.com)  
 

and my mystery paper goods shop (mysteriousjottings.etsy.com), what else was there to say about my life and mystery?  And then a miracle occurred; Christmas came, and Nancy Drew showed up.

The story actually begins16 years ago as I was readying to marry for the second time.  I was in the process of selling and packing my 9-room modern house in the country; my intended was packing up his three-story 9-room house in the city. Together we were to converge midway between the two in a 7-room, 100+ year old Victorian with my two boys.  As anyone who's ever moved can tell you, houses hold a LOT of stuff.  My mother volunteered to help with the packing process, and was nothing if not efficient.  She bubbled-wrapped, packed, stored, and boxed twice as quickly as I did.  She organized, tossed, donated, trashed, and arranged for a garage sale, all in her loving efforts to help me every step of the way. Three months later, when the dust had settled, I was married, in a new home, and struggling to find everything.  Little by little items emerged, but when all of the boxes had been emptied and everything organized I sadly found the set of Nancy Drew books that I'd cherished as a child was gone!

An only child, I spent many an afternoon curled up with Nancy, whom I often viewed as my contemporary and best friend.  I ran down the batteries in many a flashlight, reading her adventures while hiding under the sheets of my bed.  So, a loss that may have seemed inconsequential to my mother struck me to the core.

In the years that followed this continued to haunt me.  Once, when visiting my aunt I could have sworn that I saw a set of Nancy Drew books, MY books, on the shelves of her bookcase.  Neither a lover of mysteries, nor a collector of children books I figured I was mistaken and that my obsession was causing me to slowly, but surely, lose my mind.  I’d confided this to my youngest son who listened intently.  Having been surrounded by mystery books and paraphernalia since he was born, having had Sherlock Holmes quoted to him ad nauseam, and having watched hours of Midsomer Murders with me, he knew the significance.

This past November I was similarly tormented while attending a birthday party at the home of my cousin. I saw the books again, this time on her bookshelves.  Therapy! I thought, I need therapy!  None of these people read mysteries.  Neither cares one whit about Nancy Drew.  I told myself to get a grip as I put a double shot of whiskey into my Irish coffee. 

On Christmas morning, my son put a package into my lap.  It was heavy and I just knew it was the Williams-Sonoma pie making machine that I had lusted after one day when we spotted it in the window, and smelled the unmistakable aroma of pie wafting from the store.  It was, and I was delighted.  Then he put another box into my lap.  Again, heavy. So my suspicion was that it was the ingredients needed to make pies.  I opened up the box without giving it much thought and stared down at its contents.  There among the layers of tissue were 7 yellow-spine Nancy Drew books.  MY books.  Nancy had come home!  Tears stung my eyes then as they do now.  The smell of those old books took my breath away.  Suddenly, I was 12 years old and back in the room where I spent so much time solving mysteries with my best friend. I looked at him with love and wonder. 

As it turned out, the books I had been seeing over the years were indeed mine.  My mother, it seemed, without my permission, had sold them to my aunt for a dollar a piece during the purging process of my former house.  Only now will she own up to this.  My aunt, having no particular interest in them, later passed them to her daughter when she had a little girl of her own thinking they might be of use one day.  Andrew, my son, had called my cousin and courageously inquired about the books.  When he learned they were mine he respectfully asked for their return.  The “drop” was made when we all gathered at our house for Thanksgiving.  

I had no words to thank him.  How could I possibly thank someone for returning such a beloved part of my history?

The books are now proudly displayed on the shelves of our living room.  I view them daily and occasionally pick one up and read a chapter or two. No one really knows the impact of their return, but to me it is significant, and for this I will be forever grateful.

Linda Fairstein

LINDA FAIRSTEIN, America's foremost legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, led the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan for twenty-five years. A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, she is a graduate of Vassar College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Her first novel, Final Jeopardy, introduced the critically acclaimed character of Alexandra Cooper and was made into an ABC Movie of the Week starring Dana Delaney. The celebrated series has gone on to include several New York Times bestsellers. The 13th in the series, Silent Mercy, will be released in March. Her novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her nonfiction book, Sexual Violence, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives with her husband in Manhattan and on Martha's Vineyard.

There is a wonderful grace period between the moment I finish the very last copy edit of my latest novel and the day it appears on shelves in libraries and bookstores.  I can’t do another thing to change the story or to correct words, down to the last typo, and no one has yet had a chance to post a snarky review or unpleasant comment.  I’m in that wonderful time warp right now, until SILENT MERCY bursts out of its boxes on March 8^th, so I am delighted to be back with Kaye and friends to reflect on one of my favorite aspects of the series I write.

There was never any doubt when I started to create characters that my protagonist would mirror the work that I did in New York City, where I was a sex crimes prosecutor for thirty years.  And I knew that I had a phalanx of great partners from the office and the NYPD with whom to surround her.  The other thing of which I was certain, as a lifelong devotee of crime novels and mysteries, is that I never liked stories that were simply shoot-outs or car chases.  I love closing a book after time well spent with interesting people having learned something as well – from Agatha Christie’s intense research into poisons or places to Michael Connelly’s dead-on depictions of police procedure.

I was well aware that one of the gifts of my long prosecutorial experience was the opportunity it provided to me to get beyond the façade of some of the most interesting places in the city.  The job often took me behind the scenes, helping me understand that even the most glittering and glamorous venues had some dark doings behind the fancy fronts, if one only scratched the surface.

My eyes were opened wide when a young woman doctor was murdered while working late one night in her office in a large city hospital, and I realized that the population of patients, staff, visitors, and vendors (food, laundry, supplies, florists and so) passing through Bellevue on a single day was larger than the populations of most towns in America.  That became the impetus for LIKELY TO DIE.   When one of the most upscale art gallery owners in the world was implicated in two gruesome murders – and his gallery was on the same floor of a building as my hair salon (!) – the grittier side of the art world became my learning curve for COLD HIT.  The most beautiful landmarked ruins in the city stand at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, and I drove past them on the way home from my office every night, where they were so elegantly back-lit against the dark sky.  Designed by the same architect who created the soaring St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue – James Renwick – most of us assumed they had been the palatial home of a wealthy baron a century ago.  A bit of research under my belt, I learned the stunning building had been a smallpox hospital, to which many New Yorkers were shipped across the river, never to return.  Instead, they wound up in THE DEADHOUSE, as the small morgue behind the grand structure was known.  And when I learned that there were 50 million human bones collecting dust on shelves in the fabulous Museum of Natural History – the first place almost every child in the city is taken to see dinosaurs and animal dioramas – I couldn’t understand why those people hadn’t been buried in their homelands, with their families.  The terrible history of our 19^th century obsession to collect and study the remains of ‘other’ cultures is what gave birth to such museums, originally called cabinets of curiosity.  And getting to tour four stories below the street, where there are endless shelves of jars full of insects and reptiles I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, the idea for THE BONE VAULT came to life.  When a violinist was killed between acts during a performance of the Berlin Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House, it seemed hard to believe that she could disappear with four thousand people sitting in their seats in front of the curtain.  Beverly Sills allowed me to come backstage to learn the ins and outs of Lincoln Center, which became the centerpiece of Coop’s sixth adventure in DEATH DANCE.

One of the questions I’m always asked in bookstores on tours is whether I worry about running out of material.  I’m quick to say that I can’t imagine that’s the case, in this city that is so rich with history, even in the few short centuries of its existence as a metropolis.  The more I write, the more someone points me in the direction of some other treasure with roots to the past, and a bit of evil I can probably uncover.

I have always been fascinated with – and respectful of – the great religious institutions of New York.  There are hundreds of them here, of every denomination, and it’s hard to walk a block or two without passing something – whether a very grand structure or a tiny neighborhood church.  I decided to explore some of those in SILENT MERCY.  The book opens on the steps of Mount Neboh Baptist Church, which is a well-established congregation in the heart of Harlem.  Once, when I was investigating a crime on a nearby street, I paused to walk inside the church.  I was startled to see a Star of David in the stained glass windows high above me, and inscriptions in Hebrew.  It didn’t take much to find out that like many other churches in Harlem, Mount Neboh was originally constructed as a synagogue, at a period in time when Harlem –before the 1920’s was a Jewish neighborhood.

As soon as I told friends the direction of my research, everyone had ideas of places for me to visit – some well-known, others more obscure.  I had often been to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but never new that was an ‘original’ St. Patrick’s, built 200 years ago, when the center of the population of New York was way downtown, not far from the courthouse.  The old cathedral has been gloriously restored and was just dedicated as a ‘basilica.’  One night while speaking at an event for Sisters in Crime, when I mentioned the theme of the novel, a young woman raised her hand and asked me whether I knew the story of the stained glass windows at the old Cathedral.  (By the way, her name is Hilary Davidson – and she writes a wonderful crime novel herself – the first one just out last year is THE DAMAGE DONE).  Of course, you’ll have to read SILENT MERCY to find out exactly what Hilary told me.

So I’m back to scratching beneath the surface to find out more about New York’s buried treasures.  Wherever I go, I can’t stop plotting ways for Coop and Chapman to get the real story, above or below ground, and weave some interesting history into a lively tale.  I hope Kaye invites me back to tell you what I find.  Happy reading to all in 2011.

The 2011 Edgar Award Nominees Announced

Mystery Writers of America has announced (on the 202nd anniversary of the birth of Edgar
Allan Poe), its Nominees for the 2011 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2010. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at our 65th Gala Banquet, April 28, 2011 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

BEST NOVEL

 
Caught by Harlan Coben (Penguin Group USA - Dutton)

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

Faithful Place by Tana French (Penguin Group USA - Viking)

The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books)

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
 

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)
 

The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)
 

The Serialist: A Novel by David Gordon (Simon & Schuster)
 

Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
 

Snow Angels by James Thompson (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
 

Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House - Bantam)
 

The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn (Henry Holt)
 

Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski (Minotaur Books)
 

Vienna Secrets by Frank Tallis (Random House Trade Paperbacks)
 

Ten Little Herrings by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)

 

BEST FACT CRIME
 

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity
by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (University of Nebraska Press – Bison Original)
 

The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in Jim Crow South
by Alex Heard (HarperCollins)
 

Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery
by Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
 

Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the International Hunt for his
Assassin by Hampton Sides (Random House - Doubleday)
 

The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science
by Douglas Starr (Alfred A. Knopf)
 

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
 

The Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez (Grove Atlantic – Grove Press)
 

Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making
by John Curran (HarperCollins)
 

Sherlock Holmes for Dummies by Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder (Wiley)
 

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendevouz with American
History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)
 

Thrillers: 100 Must Reads edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner (Oceanview Publishing)
 

BEST SHORT STORY
 

"The Scent of Lilacs" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)
 

"The Plot" – First Thrills by Jeffery Deaver (Tom Doherty – Forge Books)
 

"A Good Safe Place” – Thin Ice by Judith Green (Level Best Books)
 

"Monsieur Alice is Absent" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
by Stephen Ross (Dell Magazines)
 

"The Creative Writing Murders" – Dark End of the Street by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)
 

BEST JUVENILE
 

Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press)
 

The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)
 

The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee (Feiwel & Friends)
 

Griff Carver: Hallway Patrol by Jiim Krieg (Penguin Young Readers Group - Razorbill)
 

The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
 

BEST YOUNG ADULT
 

The River by Mary Jane Beaufrand (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
 

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf)
 

7 Souls by Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)
 

The Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price
(Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)
 

Dust City by Robert Paul Weston (Penguin Young Readers Group - Razorbill)

 

BEST PLAY
 

The Psychic by Sam Bobrick (Falcon Theatre – Burbank, CA)
 

The Tangled Skirt by Steve Braunstein (New Jersey Repertory Company)
 

The Fall of the House by Robert Ford (Alabama Shakespeare Festival)
 

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
 

“Episode 1” - Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)
 

“Episode 4” – Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)
 

“Full Measure” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by Vince Gilligan (AMC/Sony)
 

“No Mas” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by Vince Gilligan (AMC/Sony)
 

“The Next One’s Gonna Go In Your Throat” – Damages, Teleplay by Todd A. Kessler,
Glenn Kessler & Daniel Zelman (FX Networks)
 

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
 

"Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
by Evan Lewis (Dell Magazines)
 

GRAND MASTER
 

Sara Paretsky

 

RAVEN AWARDS
 

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, Forest Park, Illinois
 

Once Upon A Crime Bookstore, Minneapolis, Minnesota
 

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2010)

 

Wild Penance by Sandi Ault (Penguin Group – Berkley Prime Crime)
 

Blood Harvest by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)
 

Down River by Karen Harper (MIRA Books)
 

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
 

Live to Tell by Wendy Corsi Staub (HarperCollins - Avon)

# # # #

The EDGAR (and logo) are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

Martin Luther King Day, 2011 by SJ Rozan

photo by Marion Ettlinger

SJ Rozan, a native New Yorker, is the author of twelve novels. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. She's also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award. BRONX NOIR, a short story anthology SJ edited, was chosen NAIBA "Notable Book of the Year." SJ has served on the National Boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is ex-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. She speaks, lectures and teaches, and she runs a summer writing workshop in Assisi, Italy. In January 2003 SJ was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 2005 Left Coast Crime convention in El Paso, Texas made her its Guest of Honor and she was Toastmaster at Bouchercon 2009. A former architect in a practice that focussed on police stations, firehouses, and zoos, SJ Rozan lives in lower Manhattan.

Martin Luther King Day, 2011

by SJ Rozan

When Kaye invited me to do a guest blog and asked me to choose a date, I chose Martin Luther King day specifically because I wanted to muse about the relationship between what I and my pals write -- crime, including violent crime -- and the darker aspects of American culture. Crime writing, and even bleak, dark, unredeemed crime writing, isn't unique to the U.S. -- look at all those Scandinavians -- but the idea of that bleakness, that nihilistic vision, as something to strive for, not against, was born here. It's been exported now -- those Scandinavians outdo us in their joy of it, as do the Japanese and sometimes the French -- but we were first to tire of murder-as-puzzle and start thrashing around for meaning and consequence.

I was going to talk about that, about why that was, and what it meant; but that was before the shootings in Tucson. Now I want to speak about something different, something less well thought out, but it's my way of groping toward an answer, trying to find something positive to say about who we are.

Here's what I think: as Sam Spade once said, there are such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. I blogged about this myself, about the Second Amendment problem; one of my commenters convinced me that the solution lies in the world of the founders. They didn't have or anticipate automatic weapons, so maybe it doesn't contravene the Second Amendment if we ban them. Fine with me. The easy availability of guns is a big part of the problem. It's really, really hard to assassinate someone with a knife. And two hot-heads mixing it up in the schoolyard are thousands of times more likely to both survive if neither can draw on the other, no matter how much, in the moment, they want to taste blood.

But it's not the guns, it's the brains, that are the real issue.

Not that there are actually so few. Americans on the whole are no dumber than any other humans -- though as architect William McDonough said recently, "It took our species 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage. We're not that smart." But whatever we have for brains, it's what we have. Why do Americans, more often than other people, insist on blowing each other's out?

I think it's this image we have of ourselves as, in the end, alone. The good news is, it's that sense of ourselves, each of us singly and us collectively, as the backstop, the superhero, the court of last resort, that's enabled us to do things like go charging into WWII on two fronts. And win. Deep in our hearts is embedded the idea that if anyone comes to help you it's your good luck, but don't sit and wait. If it needs to be done, you'd better be able to do it yourself because you're all you can count on. This almost desperate idea has pushed us -- singly and collectively -- to great things.

That's the good news. The bad news, we've all seen, and quite recently. If we don't find some way to rein in the idea that the ability to Just Do It confers, immediately and without the use of those brains, the right to Just Do It, we'll descend on an ever-faster spiral into millions and millions of tiny, armed camps, all of us waiting behind bunkers to blow the bad guys -- meaning, the other guys -- away.

My thoughts on Martin Luther King Day. Peace be upon you.

Eat, Dash—Hesitate . . . by Leslie Wheeler

An award-winning author of biographies and books about American history, Leslie Wheeler  now writes the Miranda Lewis “living history” mystery series. Titles include MURDER AT PLIMOTH PLANTATION, MURDER AT GETTYSBURG, and the recently published, MURDER AT SPOUTERS POINT.  Her short crime fiction has appeared in five anthologies published by Level Best Books, including the current anthology, THIN ICE, to which she is now a contributing editor.  A member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, Leslie serves as Speakers Bureau Coordinator for the New England Chapter.  Visit her website at http://www.lesliewheeler.com. 

Eat, Dash—Hesitate . . .

by Leslie Wheeler

When did it begin, my love affair with Dash and Ellipsis?  Not in college, surely.  If I used an ellipsis at all, it would have been within quoted material to show that certain parts of the quotation had been omitted.  And I don’t recall any dashes in those carefully written, carefully punctuated college and graduate school essays of yore.

As I glance at my later non-fiction writing, which includes JIMMY WHO?, a popular biography of former President Jimmy Carter, written during the 1976 campaign, and LOVING WARRIORS, a more scholarly biography in letters of the nineteenth-century feminist and abolitionist, Lucy Stone, I note the occasional dash, but not in the quantity that would eventually appear in my fiction.

My first fiction was a long, unpublished historical novel.  A look at a chapter from that novel, which was published as a short story, shows a growing number of dashes as the story progresses—one in the first paragraph, two in second, and so on.  But it wasn’t until I began to write mystery fiction that I adopted a truly colloquial style—replete with dashes and ellipses.  Why?  They just seemed to appear on the page—the way characters sometimes do without  warning.  I even think of Dash and Ellipsis as characters.

Dash, after all, is short for Dashiell, a name made famous by the mystery author, Dashiell Hammett.  In the baby name book from the 1980s, BEYOND JENNIFER AND JASON, Dashiell shows up on a list of new manly names that, according to the authors, “bespeak a transformed masculine ideal—sensitized, enlightened, liberated from the manacles of machismo.”  But this doesn’t describe my Dash. No: He’s tall, handsome and—dashing.  He’s also impatient, interrupts frequently, departs abruptly and returns unexpectedly.  Dash is bold, strong, and sure of himself.

And Ellipsis?  She’s just the opposite: shy and well . . . hesitant.  Because of her name, I picture her as a figure out of Greek mythology, a mortal whose beauty attracts one of the many lascivious male gods like Zeus or Apollo.  He pursues, she flees, and is about to be overtaken and ravished when a sympathetic Diana whisks her into the ether, leaving behind a series of small, rounded, evenly spaced footprints.

Dash and Ellipsis figure prominently in my first mystery novel, MURDER AT PLIMOTH PLANTATION.  My editor for that book didn’t raise an eyebrow at their abundance, but she did insist they be done correctly. No weak, half-hearted double hyphens for him, but the long, unbroken line of a true Dash.  My galleys were red-penciled with 1/m marks lest the printer mistake my shorter, broken lines for the real thing.  Red pencil marks also revealed Ellipsis in her full glory as a series of spaced periods, instead of the scrunched-together dots I’d been doing.

I use Dash and Ellipsis most often in writing dialogue to show how people really speak with all the interruptions, sudden halts, pauses, and trailing-offs.  By my third mystery, MURDER AT SPOUTERS POINT, I’d become so enamored of Dash and Ellipsis that I could barely write a paragraph without using several of my darlings. My editor decided I’d gone too far.  “You really don’t need all the dashes,” she wrote on the manuscript.  And so, reluctantly, I changed some to commas. But those sentences seemed weak and emasculated without Dash’s force and energy. At my editor’s suggestion, I also eliminated some of my Ellipses, but again, I wasn’t happy with the result.  Instead of fading away with gradual grace, those sentences had a clipped, brusque feel.  Oh well . . .

Although I caved in a bit on that book, I remained a fierce champion of Dash and Ellipsis in THIN ICE, Level Best Books’ eighth anthology of short crime fiction by New England authors, to which I recently became a contributing editor.  The Dashes and Ellipses I fought for didn’t just appear in my own story, but in the stories of twenty-four other authors.  And I insisted that they be done right. Now I was the one wielding the red pencil and fixing every Dash that looked like a hyphen, every Ellipsis that wasn’t properly spaced—much to the dismay of the co-editor who was handling the production end of the book.  She even began referring to the correct way of indicating an ellipsis as “Leslie’s preferred method.”  Another co-editor spoke openly in a half-joking, half-serious manner about battles over ellipses that nearly led to blows.

But if you care about someone or something as much as I do Dash and Ellipsis, you have to stand up for them, right?    

 

 

 

Stories from the Sixties by Libby Fischer Hellmann

Libby Fischer Hellmann, an award-winning crime fiction and thriller author, has released her 7th novel. Set the Night on Fire, a stand-alone thriller, goes back, in part, to the late Sixties in Chicago. She also writes two crime fiction series. Easy Innocence (2008) and Doubleback (2009) feature Chicago P.I Georgia Davis. In addition, there are four novels in the Ellie Foreman series, which Libby describes as a cross between "Desperate Housewives" and "24."

Libby has also published over 15 short stories in Nice Girl Does Noir and edited the acclaimed crime fiction anthology Chicago Blues. Originally from Washington D.C., she has lived in Chicago for 30 years and claims they'll take her out of there feet first.

Stories from the Sixties

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

When Kaye asked me to blog for her, I asked her what she wanted me to write about. I offered to put together a new quiz about the Sixties (the old one can be found here) or I could tell some of my stories about the time period.

It wasn’t even close. Stories, she said. I love stories.

So I want to tell you two stories from the Sixties. Both are true. An abbreviated version of one is in SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE, but the other has an ending I just discovered about a month ago, so it’s not in the book.

I lived in Georgetown during what I now call “The Summer of My Discontent.” I shared an apartment with four other people above a movie theater at 28^th and M. (Both are gone now). I was working at an underground newspaper, selling them on the streets, and generally trying to make sense of the world. Next door to the movie theater was a head shop run by a weird – but sweet -- guy named Bobby. He wore black all the time, before there were Goths. The scent of Patchouli oil hung in the air of the shop.

I used to drop in every once in a while. Often two of his friends, Donna and Linda, would be there. They were a couple: Linda had long brown hair and appeared to be kind of spacey. Donna had short blond hair and wore a leather jacket, even during July. They were cool, though, in the way that everyone was cool back then, and we’d smoke a joint, laugh a lot, and discuss what a shitty place the world was becoming. Then, around August, they disappeared. After not seeing them for a week or so, I asked Bobby where they went. He hemmed and hawed and wouldn’t tell me. Finally, he did.

Donna used to be Don, he said. And was going through the process of becoming a woman, but hadn’t completed it when she met Linda. They fell in love, and because of that, they jointly (no pun intended) agreed that Donna should turn back into Don. So they hustled some money from someone and were off to California to reverse Donna’s transformation.

I never saw them again. But I still think about them.

The other story is more political. As I said, I worked at an underground newspaper in DC for a summer. I was just a flunkie, not even considered staff. But there was a photographer, Sal, who was in and out all the time. He took photos at every demonstration, interview, and event that could be considered “alternative.” I actually had a crush on him at one point. (Yes, I know. Very bourgeois).

At any rate, the editor of the newspaper was very cautious about trusting people, almost to the point of paranoia. He always thought the paper was being infiltrated  by CIA or FBI types (these were the days before COINTELPRO proved the FBI was indeed infiltrating radical groups) At the time, I thought his paranoia was exaggerated. Triggered perhaps by an inflated sense of self-importance.

I left at the end of the summer to hitchhike across country (That’s a different story), but I heard a few months later that Sal had left too, and was off to Paris. He stayed there for a while, then disappeared. I never knew what happened to him.  Then, about a month ago, well after I finished SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE, I Googled some of the people from the newspaper. Suddenly a photo of Sal popped up.  It turns out he had been featured in Secrets: The CIA's War at Home by Angus MacKenzie.

You guessed it. Sal had been a CIA agent, recruited when he was in college in Chicago. The entire time he was taking photos for the paper, he was reporting to his CIA handler. Eventually, I think the editor suspected him. Maybe he even confronted him, which precipitated his abrupt departure.

It doesn’t end there. According to MacKenzie’s book, Sal went to Paris, befriended Philip Agee, himself a former CIA agent turned whistleblower, and fiddled around with the typewriter on which Agee was writing his story. Agee discovered it, and Sal fled. From what I understand he changed his name and now lives in Southern California.

True stories. Really. I mean, who could make this stuff up? Comments and questions welcomed. 

And as a bonus:  Here's that old quiz about the Sixties: 

http://www.libbyhellmann.com/60squiz.html

I'm Having a Party

In case anyone on God's green earth missed the news - I'm going to be retiring the end of this month.

AND -

Borrowing from a long and much loved DorothyL tradition - I'm going to have a "virtual party" to celebrate.  This way, some of my friends who aren't able to come by my office on Friday, January 28th to give me a real hug,  can stop by my virtual party and pass along a virtual hug.  And indulge in some virtual champagne, and some virtual chocolate cake and whatever else some of the virtual guests might bring along to share (virtually).

So - if you can - drop by Meanderings and Muses OR my Virtual Retirement Facebook page on the 28th for a little get-together. 

In the meantime - we're trying to come up with some good music for the event.

Here's a few some of us have come up with - if you have some more ideas, please share!

I'm Already Gone by The Eagles -

We've Gotta Get Out of This Place by The Animals -

and - Of course - - - -  

Working Nine to Five by Dolly Parton -

More good music suggestions?  Let me hear 'em, please!

The Crust Will Never Hate You by Debra Ginsberg

Debra Ginsberg is the author of the memoirs, Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress, Raising Blaze: A Mother and Son's Long, Strange Journey Into Autism, and About My Sisters and the novels Blind Submission, The Grift, which was a New York Times Notable Book for 2008. Her most recent novel is The Neighbors Are Watching. She has contributed to NPR’s All Things Considered and The Washington Post Book World; is a regular reviewer for Shelf Awareness and The San Diego Union-Tribune and works as a freelance editor. She lives in San Diego.

http://www.debraginsberg.com/piesandtartsgallery.html

The Crust Will Never Hate You

by Debra Ginsberg

I’ve spent $7 on a can of butane and $8 on two pints of raspberries. Combined, those items cost 5 times the price of the crème brûlée set I bought on clearance at Ralph’s. It’s possible I’ve gone too far. The torch scares me a bit. After all, I am not allowed to use Super Glue anymore (don’t ask) and managing flammable substances seems an even dicier prospect. But those raspberries were expensive and I can already see the finished product in my mind—the creaminess of the custard, the sparkle of the burnt sugar… Plus, I have some writing to do. Well, to be honest, not some—a great deal. So I’m committed; it’s crème brûlée or bust. 

I didn’t cook much—or bake at all—during the twenty years I spent waiting on tables. I was surrounded by food and served it up on a daily basis, which any waiter will tell you, is more than enough to put you off it at home. But ten years ago, after the publication of my first book, WAITING, I re-familiarized myself with my own kitchen. I was cautious about it at first—my sister, Maya, had always been the designated chef in the family and a little protective of her turf—but began to pick up steam, so to speak, when I started baking. There too, I started slowly with muffins, scones, and cupcakes. But when I discovered tarts (especially heirloom tomato tarts) and pies (how wonderful are pies?), it was true love. There are a few reasons for my love of all things baked in a crust. For a very practical one, I don’t eat or cook with eggs and it is much easier to make delicious and attractive pies and tarts without them than, say, a genoise or meringue or any number of other egg-dependent baked goods. For another, pies and tarts can be either sweet or savory (or, in the case of the tomato tarte tatin I made last night, both) and I like the flexibility. There is hardly anything you can’t bake into a crust—and only a few ingredients that you need to make a basic pâte brisée. And, oh, the accouterments… Tart pans! Shape cutters! Pie birds! I’m afraid that in addition to being banned from handling Super Glue, I am no longer allowed to hold my own purse when I go into Good News (our superb kitchen toy—I mean, cooking supply store here in San Diego). 

But perhaps the most compelling reason for my rapidly increasing interest in and output of baked goods is that they make an excellent counterpoint to writing in both process and result. In terms of process, for example, baking is every bit as creative as writing (though decidedly messier) and requires all the same planning skills. Baking, like writing, also depends on alchemy. And I say alchemy and not chemistry because there is something magical about the way flour, butter, water, salt, and a bit of sugar fuse with filling and are transformed by heat into something deliciously, beautifully different. Writing too requires alchemy—all those words need to be combined with character and theme, cooked into a plot, and emerge as something deliciously, beautifully different. The alchemy of baking, however, is much more reliable. If your conditions are less than optimal or if you perhaps become careless, your crust may become uncooperative. But your crust will never hate you. It will never accuse you, for example, of overusing a metaphor. 

Ahem. 

The process of baking also requires a short-term commitment. No matter how complicated the pie, tart, or cake, you’re in it for a few hours at most. Writing? Not so much. 

And then there is the result. Unlike a book, a pie disappears in a moment. No matter how tasty or spectacular looking, it must be consumed quickly and then it’s gone. Baked goods are wonderful for short-term gratification. Who is going to complain about a cherry pie with heart-shaped cutouts? At the risk of sounding immodest, I have to say the recipients of my pies and tarts are very happy with them. Even those who don’t taste the final product enjoy looking at the photographs (yes, styling these things is half the fun). 

Again, writing? Not so much. 

I’ll never stop writing because it is the only thing I have ever wanted to do. I began dictating stories to my mother before I even knew how to write them down and was already writing a primitive memoir by the age of ten. I’ve only been publishing books for the last ten years but I’ve been working on them for—um—much longer than that. But it’s nice to know that there is something else I can do—something that satisfies the creative urge, garners consistently positive reviews, and feeds people in a very literal way. Plus, and this is no small thing, nobody will be upset if I switch genres and move on to something like, I don’t know, crème brûlée. 

I know what you’re thinking—how does she plan to make crème brûlée without eggs? But let me tell you, after switching from memoirs to novels, that doesn’t seem like much of stretch. 

Now, to the torch.