I missed being in St. Louis for this year's Bouchercon.
OH my, did I miss being there!
There were tales of people hearing sobbing in the hotel bar and rumors quickly circulated that there was a ghost haunting all the mystery writers and readers.
Naah, that was me. The cries were coming from Boone, but they were loud.
My blogger buddy, Lesa Holstine, has done her normal fine job of telling us who the winners were in the award ceremonies - stop by here to see who they were:
Gail Sheehy said "If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living."
Well, I am all for "really living."
Well, okay - so I tend to exaggerate. This kind of "really living" is too much living for me, I'm afraid. I'm basically a weenie. That is not me riding that wave just in case you were wondering. Pfft.
Each of us have, I think, spent some period of time just existing, and those of us who are lucky enough to finally discover the difference between just existing and really living are the lucky ones. But even then, it's pretty easy to allow ourselves to fall into a rut and "just live" as opposed to "really live." There's a huge difference. And that difference can help you find joy in life or you can just mark off the days till you're surprised to learn there aren't that many days left.
(Today's my day for quotes; here's another favorite: "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." ~ Carlos Castaneda)
But - enough philosophy for now. We'll do lots of that in the future. We can have a virtual pajama party and pretend we're back in our earlier years with a bunch of friends drinking bad chianti just to be able to drip candles down those cool bottles while pondering "Life" (with a capital "L"). Speaking of which - have any of you read Keith Richards' LIFE? I loved it.
Anyhooooo . . . .
This little piece of scribbling is just to let you all know Meanderings and Muses is going to go through a little bit of change next year. Nothing drastic. We're still going to have guest bloggers, just not as many.
If you've been following Meanderings and Muses for awhile, you've probably seen the occasional comment from my friend Hank Phillippi Ryan when she says to me, "remember when you worried that no one would come?!"
(wish i had thought to put on some lipstick here! dang. Hank, remind me next time, ok??!)
And she's right - I did. Worried and fretted. But, I should have known better. (Psst! Did you hear?! Hank has a new series coming out next year - Yay!!!! I "borrowed" this from her webpage: "THE OTHER WOMAN, the first in Hank's new series, will be published next year by FORGE Books. Sequel in 2013. A Boston reporter on the trail of an ex-governor's secret mistress...a Boston cop on the trail of a suspected serial killer. What happens when they realize they might be hunting the same person? As one character says: "You can chose your sin, but you cannot chose your consequences."'Can't wait!!
The mystery community is every bit as generous as I've said here and all over the interwebs oh so many times. And almost every single person I invited from that community to come play and share a little about themselves said yes.
They've written about their writing, and shared photos of where they write. They shared photos of their pets. They've shared personal stories that have made us laugh out loud, and some have shared some stories that made us cry. They've made us think.
And, if there's one thing I am so proud of I can hardly stand it, it's that we've introduced writers and readers who may not have discovered one another without the loveliness that is Meanderings and Muses. I wish I had kept every email I received from every reader telling me thanks for that. We're going to continue doing a lot of that, but for at least this upcoming year I'm going to scale back.
Instead of the three guests a week that we've had most weeks this year, we're going to only have one guest a week. Or, at least I hope we are! I haven't sent out invitations yet. Who knows, everyone might be sick to death of us and turn me down flat. Lord - pray that isn't so, y'all!
After wondering how I could possibly choose a small group of people from the very large group of people who have been gracious enough to take the time to participate in the past is a tough one. Very tough, to say the least.
So, the only fair way would be to draw some names out of The Magic Willie Nelson Baseball Cap.
But, frankly, I don't really want to do that for all the names I'd like to see on next year's schedule. There are some folks I very much would like to have back, so I'm first going to choose names of a few people I feel especially close to - readers and writers. And a few writers who always manage to ring my "Fan Girl" bell.
Like this guy! Lee Child! Yeah, he'll be here! (Well, okay, so that was lie. He's probably not gonna show up here, but a girl can dream, can't she?)
Sigh. otay - back to business . . . .
Then I'm going to separate the remaining writers from the remaining readers and draw names from those two groups so we still end up with a nice mix of both.
All this to say - if you have ever participated as a guest blogger with Meanderings and Muses, please don't feel as though you have been purposely over-looked if you don't receive an invite. That's just simply not the case. Not at all. And - who knows, the next year we may go back to the three guests a week format IF you're all willing.
But let's try this in the upcoming year.
And, just why are we making the change?
Well, I thought you'd never ask!
Simply stated, as much as I love having all the guests we've had, and as much as I have sincerely loved every single blog contributed, it's just taking up more of my time than I want to give again next year. Most of you live in the real world of high speed technology, so you probably can't even begin to understand trying to do this over dial-up. Sometimes I'm able to take a nap while some photos are uploading. 'Course, on the up-side - I'm able to get quite a bit of reading done while all the uploading is going on. (With my fingers crossed that all goes well).
And there's a whole world of things I'm itching to do.
(But, not this)
I want to do a little more blogging of my own, for starters. There's still lots and lots to talk about, after all - Books to share. New authors to discover. Recipes to share. Things to rant about. Things to giggle out loud about. Memories and stories to share.
I want to doJulia Cameron'sTHE ARTISTS'S WAY on-line workshop. (Any of you done this??)
I have a new Canon G12 camera that I still don't know how to use other than just "point and shoot." And once I've learned all the features on it (and re-learned the ones Jill already tried to teach me), I'd like to take a photography class.
I took a mixed media collage class and would like to spend a little time doing more collages (and hopefully I can come up with something a little better than this which was my very first in-class attempt). What can I say, it may not be great, but I had a great time doing it.
I have a wonderful piece of needlepoint I'd like to finish. (I'm a little embarrassed about how many years this piece has been in my "To Be Stitched" stack!)
A delightful little piece of counted cross stitch that may dry rot if I don't finish it soon.
A scarf I'd like to finish knitting.
And I want to continue going to The Gym most days.
My "To Be Read" stack has grown since I retired rather than diminished (especially that stack on my iPad).
Okay, I admit it - I've just told you another little lie. Those books you see above are not part of my TBR stack, but probably will be re-read at some point, if they haven't already. I didn't post a picture of the "To Be Read" stack 'cause there were so many dust bunnies.
And, finally, who knows, I may try my hand at some fiction . . . .
I have a couple of muses who are nudging me in that direction.
I don't believe you've met Mudd. Mudd is a "Muse" who has gotten a little overly assertive from time to time. That's how he lost those fingers. heh heh heh. Mudd was a gift from one of my dearest friends ever, Michael, who is no longer with us. It's a story I want to share at some point, but it's still hard for me to talk about - and to think about.
But, you have met SissyFriss SockMoney and LouLou Skiptoo. Two more "Muses." The girls are a mess, what can I say. We'll be hearing more from them next year, for sure. They have had some serious adventures I think you'll enjoy hearing about .
In the meantime, I'm planning on continuing my scribblings here at Meanderings and Muses. I hope you'll drop by and join in the conversations, the meanderings and the muses.
( Want . . . )
I also want more time to spend with my mom.
And I want to spend more time with Donald and Harley.
I want to take more walks with them. There's always something new and magical to be found around here, and they are usually the ones to lead me right into the middle of it. I love that! I'm a big fan of magic. Sometimes we have to seek it out, but it's there for the finding.
There's a world of new things I want to try. If I hate doing them, so be it, at least I'll feel as though I gave it a whirl.
So, that's my news.
Pretty soon, some of you will be receiving your invitation to come back and do another piece next year, and I hope you'll find it in your heart (and the time in your schedule) to say yes. Probably I'll do that this weekend.CORRECTION: Why on earth would I send out invitations THIS weekend when so many people from the mystery community are kicking up their heels in St. Louis at Bouchercon?! Oy! I just wasn't thinking clearly, was I? (obviously not). So. The new plan is that I'll send them out on Thursday, 9/22/2011, along with a schedule, so those who are interested can get back with me with the date they'd like. The sooner the better, since we're only doing about 50 (possibly less) dates. And since our writers have deadlines and book launches to consider, I'll send those invites out first. And then maybe send the reader invites out the next day. I'll post next year's schedule as soon as it's complete.
And repeating myself, those of you who have participated in the past but who might not receive an invite for next year - I hope you'll find it in your heart to understand and not misinterpret it for anything more than what it is.
And those of you who stop by to see who's here and what they have to say - I hope you'll continue dropping by and enjoying what you find.
As you know, I truly love Meanderings and Muses and I am very proud of it. But I'm a teeny bit burned out, I guess. And if I can't give it my best efforts, it's time to make some changes. I hope you agree.
Beth Anderson is a multi-published, award winning author in several genres including romance and mainstream crime fiction. A full time author, she now lives in Washington state. She has appeared on Chicago's WGN Morning Show, The ABC Evening News, as well as numerous other radio and cable television shows, and has guest lectured at Purdue University and Moraine Valley College, as well as many libraries and writers' conferences. She loves music, particularly jazz and blues. Her website and blog are at http://www.bethanderson-hotclue.com.
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RAVEN TALKS BACK by Beth Anderson
Krill Press, ISBN 978-0-9821443-9-8
Beautiful Valdez, Alaska. Home of twenty-three-inch snow in the wintertime, but in the summertime, gorgeous mountain scenery where the early morning fog rolls down the mountainside, bringing soft whispers of the past with it. And this year...murder.
Valdez Chief of Police Jack O'Banion's take:
Voices. Visions. A sadistic killer running loose, a hysterical woman, two teenagers on the verge of home-grown terrorism, everybody including the Alaska State Troopers and out-of-town media driving him crazy twenty-four hours a day. And now Raven wants him to arrest someone, anyone, because she thinks her husband is about to be charged with murder and she just can’t face it.
Raven Morressey's take:
She knows nothing she's saying to Jack makes any sense to him because it doesn't to her, either. After all, it's not every day a newly murdered, tattooed, headless and handless body is dug up in your back yard, and then you start hearing voices of your dead ancestors and seeing things that never happened-- yet. She only wants to keep her home together, at first. She's not trying to butt in and solve the murders in Valdez. She just can't help it.
Also, last but definitely not least, available at your favorite independent bookstores nationwide.
Grandma’s Swimming Pool
by
Beth Anderson
When we look back in time we tend to see things through a prism fading into darkness at the edges, as though we’re looking at a faint light through a long tunnel. I’ve seen edges surrounding my daydreams, blurring into nothingness except for the centers, still somewhat colorful although hazy, as if they were very old family photos turned brown over time.
But there’s one special daydream-memory that I see with complete clarity. Nothing is left out. The edges are clearly defined. Sound, smell, touch, feelings—they’re all still alive and well within the little girl who played in her grandma’s ditch after a rainstorm.
My grandparents on my father’s side were poor farm people. I found out only later in life that my grandfather didn’t really own his farm, he only had use of some of the land.
Sharecropping, we call it. The man who owned the farm would get half the crop as payment, and my grandfather would bring the rest home for my grandma to put up in glass jars for us to eat when the land lay fallow during the winter months.
Life was simple and safe at Grandma’s house. During my childhood I spent most of my summers there, and at one time of particular upheaval in my own family, I spent three years there while I was in kindergarten through second grade. At Grandma’s house it was always a time of peace and contentment, with only occasional boredom when my best friend was gone for a few days.
But it was never boring when it rained. Those were my favorite times, because Grandma had a large ditch between her front yard and the street.
When I lived there the street was simply dirt and rocks with spurts of grass leading down to the ditch. When I went back and saw it again as an adult, the ditch was nothing more than an almost non-existent indentation in the land next to a busy, paved street that had appeared like some kind of magic, as had the tennis courts across the street from Grandma’s house, where I drew pictures with pieces of charcoal on those lazy summer afternoons. Eventually, the tennis courts turned into a baseball field, then into a much larger one with bleachers and a hot dog stand.
Progress, they said. But I saw it differently. Their progress had destroyed the best swimming pool in the world.
Back in those days there were no swimming pools outside of those we kids in farm towns saw only in magazines. If we wanted to play in water, our folks had to haul out a big tub, which got most of its action on Saturday bath night, and also in the back yard on Mondays. Whenever I think of that tub I have to shake my head in amazement because every Monday, no matter what the weather, my grandmother would stand out back scrubbing clothes on a corrugated scrub board (you can find them in museums today) with bars of lye soap she made herself every fall.
But every once in a while we’d have a real rainstorm big enough to fill Grandma’s ditch. Neighbor kids by the dozens would flock there to pretend-swim, since none of us really knew how until we were bigger and could sneak down to the river, where someone would toss us in, and we learned fast.
When I close my eyes, I can still smell the sharp cleanliness of the air in between raindrops, the musky, deep scent of the surrounding wet ground, droplets of cold rain sliding off the fresh green leaves and falling onto our uplifted faces, and the wonder of all that water just waiting for us to play in.
I can still feel the mud, slick on the sides of the ditch so that half the time we slid in, and I still laugh at myself for feeling so superior because I was old enough and big enough to run across the yard past my grandmother’s watchful eyes, and fly into the ditch, splashing kids too small to go in.
I can still hear myself screaming with dramatic terror when the boys would find crawdads, which suddenly appeared with the rain, and hold them, wiggling, up to our shrieking faces. Even then, little girls were aware that it wasn’t ladylike to pick one up and hold it out to the boys to scare them. It just wasn’t done.
How things have changed.
When Thomas Wolfe said “You can’t go home again” he must have had a ditch somewhere in mind. Or maybe a house he grew up in, because sooner or later we all have to realize that over time, everything changes.
I wish I could have included a photograph of that ditch, but the last time I went back, Grandma had been gone for many years and the house, to my deep sorrow, was gone also, its space filled with someone’s trailer, which almost filled the whole yard.
My mind still cannot fathom how such a big house could have been built in such a narrow space. And yet she raised six children in it, and not only that, there was a barn with a couple of cows and chickens in the back yard and an outhouse at the far end of the yard. On top of all that, she had a huge flower garden and multiple rows of corn and all kinds of vegetables in the back yard. How did all those things, which seemed so huge to me then, fit in there?
I don’t know, but they did. I saw them and I still see them in full, vivid color. I still smell those rows of corn, damp and pungent-green in the early mornings, tall pink Hollyhocks and soft blue Morning Glories with their own scents flowing out in all directions to attract the hummingbirds who hovered in the shimmering hot air, drinking of their nectar.
Today, I cry silent tears every time I pass a yard full of flowers growing every which way, because I can still see my grandmother standing alone out back every evening to look at her flowers. She never picked them and she would never allow anyone else to pick them. She let them grow because they were beautiful, almost certainly one of the few really beautiful things she ever owned.
Her life was so limited and hard, raising six children in that tiny Illinois town, that by the time she was fifty she looked very old and weather-worn, simply because she was. But she sure knew how to manage a great swimming pool.
Denise Hamilton’s crime novels have been finalists for the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Willa Cather awards. She also edited Los Angeles Noir and Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, which spent two months on bestseller lists, won the Edgar Award for “Best Short Story” and the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ award for “Best Mystery of the Year.”
Denise’s new novel, Damage Control, will be published by Scribner on September 6, 2011 and has already received a starred review in Publishers Weekly (excellent), a rave advance from Kirkus (In a novel that marries celebrity culture, surf noir and the bonds of friendship, Hamilton is at the top of her game) and kudos from James Ellroy (A superb psychological thriller).
Denise has five books in the Eve Diamond series and her standalone book “The Last Embrace,” set in 1949 Hollywood, was compared to Raymond Chandler.
Denise’s debut “The Jasmine Trade” was a finalist for the prestigious Creasey Dagger Award given by the UK Crime Writers Assn. Her books have been BookSense 76 picks, USA Today Summer Picks and “Best Books of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Toronto Globe & Mail.
Prior to writing novels, Hamilton was a Los Angeles Times staff writer. Her award-winning stories have also appeared in Wired, Cosmopolitan, Der Spiegel and New Times. She covered the collapse of Communism and was a Fulbright Scholar in Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War. Hamilton lives in the Los Angeles suburbs with her husband and two boys.
When people ask how many bottles of perfume I own, I make a joke and change the subject.
It’s a little bit like my other passion – books.
My husband is a college librarian and I’m an author. We have books scattered, shelved or stacked in every room of our house – including the kitchen and bathroom – but I’ve never counted them all. Maybe I’m scared to find out.
By contrast, my perfume collection is limited to my bedroom bureau, my walk-in closet, and one bathroom shelf.
I don’t have a problem, do I?
There comes a time when all of us who collect things – from matchbooks to antique pottery to knitting patterns - begin to wonder if we’re obsessed. Do my kids need each volume of the Redwall books by Brian Jacques in hardcover? Should I buy that cultural history of Los Angeles when I’ve already got an entire bookcase of L.A. books? Would I be foolish not to snap up the Shalimar vintage parfum extrait in the crystal fan bottle from the antique shop when I already have three bottles stashed away, more than I’ll probably finish in my lifetime?
The answer, of course, is a resounding yes.
Right about now, you’re probably shaking your head and tssskking.
If so, you’ll be happy to learn that I’ve found a way to blend my love of words and fragrance.
I’ve also woven perfume into my new novel, Damage Control, which came out this month. (Sept). My heroine, a PR executive named Maggie Silver, is a budding perfumista, a hobby that will come in handy by the end of the book when she has to identify a scent that provides a clue.
I thought I’d been pretty clever, but then I learned that other crime writers were way ahead of me In Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie, a villain sprays a scarf with a heavy, instantly recognizable perfume to throw off the killer’s identity.
Dame Agatha doesn’t name the perfume, which has left me wondering madly. But plenty of other crime writers do name the perfumes their characters wear. Take Ruth Rendell. I think she’s a secret perfumista. Her books practically waft with fragrance.
As I write these words, I’m wafting a bit myself, wearing a marvelous linden and orange blossom perfume called Zeta made by Andy Tauer, who got a PhD in molecular biology and worked for years as a scientist before abandoning it all for the Quixotic goal of making perfume.
Talk about following your bliss!
Tauer’s hand-crafted perfumes use approximately 50% natural ingredients such as Bulgarian rose oil and Indian sandalwood. Believe it or not, that is a huge percentage by today’s standards. Most department store fragrances contain a much smaller percentage of natural ingredients – the balance is what the perfume industry calls aromachemicals – synthetic versions of iris, gardenia, clove, musk, cedar and whatever else makes up the ‘notes’ of your perfume.
I am extremely aware that many people today have chemical sensitivities and allergies that prohibit them from wearing fragrance and make them miserable when others over-apply scent in close quarters.
Like everyone who lived through the 80s and 90s, I’ve suffered through toxic blasts of Christian Dior’s Poison, Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium, Givenchy’s Amarige and the once-ubiquitous Giorgio of Beverly Hills.
A pox upon those over-spritzers!
Most perfumistas I know apply perfume with a light hand, though we have been known to spritz with abandon at home, when no social engagements beckon. I often apply my favorite and most soothing perfumes just before going to bed, so I can waft off to dreamland on notes of incense rose or orange blossom. Luckily my husband is a fan of most of my perfumes too.
But as more people develop chemical sensitivities, the perfume world has seen the rise of niche, artisanal perfumers that work with natural materials. These include Honore des Pres, Anya’s Garden, Mandy Aftel’s Aftelier, Roxanna’s Illuminated Perfumes, Ayala Moriel, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, La Via del Profumo and Strange Invisible Perfumes.
These trained perfumers have revived an art form that dates back to the ancient Egyptians, Etruscans and Assyrians. Just don’t expect these all-natural perfumes to last all day. Without synthetics to extend their lifespan, many natural perfumes last only several hours. But their complexity certainly rivals, and often surpasses, what you can find at Sephora.
Which brings me back to a point I want to make.
We have long respected and honored composers, architects, painters, sculptors, designers and writers. We consider them artists who follow a creative path, who invent new ways of thinking, hearing, reading and seeing that inspire, please and uplift us.
Yet in the modern world, our olfactory sense is the least appreciated and recognized of our five senses. This despite the fact that humans can identify upward of 50,000 discreet odors.
The most beloved of our classic perfumes are composed by artists every bit as skilled as the Vermeers, Hemingways and Mozarts that we put on pedestals. Fragrances such as Jean Patou’s Joy , Guerlain’s Shalimar or Chanel No. 5 have stood the test of time. They are magic elixirs that plunge us immediately into the distant past or conjure up a long-gone lover’s face. Violettes de Toulouse is my grandmother sitting in her embroidered chair when I am eight, leaning in to kiss her papery cheek. Aramis cologne is swoony heartache at age 16, when I’m crushing madly on a suave, blue-eyed boy who smells intoxicating. Comme des Garcon’s Incense D’Avignon is kneeling in a 14th century French cathedral in winter as the candles flicker and cold stone echoes. I am 20 and backpacking through Europe with a friend.
Perfume is more than an art form to me, it’s a kind of magic, and I’m glad to see it getting the recognition it deserves.
This evening after I shower, I’ll spritz on a bit of Chanel’s almost extinct Bois des Iles, a lovely luxurious perfume created in the 1920s that mixes iris, rose and sandalwood. (Try it now before they discontinue it).
My mother used to wear it. She was French and Russian and she’s gone now. But each time I spritz this she comes alive like a hologram.
Her lipstick is coral red and her hair is marceled into curls, and she smells fabulous as she leans over the bed to kiss me goodnight before she and my father go out.
The babysitter waits in the living room.
I’ve got my flashlight under the covers and a stack of Nancy Drew novels.
I’m 11 years old, and I’m all set.
Even today, I get flashbacks of visceral pleasure whenever I see old Nancy Drew books at thrift stores and libraries, the ones with the beat-up yellow bindings.
Have you ever noticed how wonderful old books smell? That slightly musty, dusty sweet smell that can approach vanilla? It’s caused by the lignin in the wood molecules of paper breaking down. There are even perfumes that contain this note.
So that brings me round full-circle. Books and perfume. Perfume and books.
And of course, books about perfume.
My favorite non-fiction one is Luca Turin and Tanya Sanchez’s “Perfumes, the A-Z Guide.” It contains thousands of capsule reviews of perfumes that weave in history, biology, music, art and high doses of hilarious snark.
I don’t really blame them for getting grumpy sometimes after sniffing all those celebrity starlet perfumes.
Here’s their review of Paris Hilton’s Can-Can: “Can it, by all means.”
But don’t write off the art form.
For every fruit floral bomb, there are delicate and haunting and yes, masterful perfumes out there.
I had made up my mind weeks ago to allow this anniversary of 9/11 pass by quietly without trying to put into words how I might be feeling today.
I was a bit unprepared, I think, for exactly how I do feel today.
Surprisingly - sadder than I expected with this wild commotion of feelings rolling around in my heart and in my mind. And yes, still a bit of anger.
I have often used words to ease the feelings. But I'm afraid if I start writing about these feelings, I'll write forever. Ramblings that won't make any sense and would eventually come to mean nothing because I'm just not able to find and form the words I need for this. The feelings will still be the same feelings, momentarily eased but still living deep in my heart and in my mind to resurface. Over and over they'll resurface. I may be able to tuck them away, but only for awhile. They'll live with me till the day I die.
Often during times of sadness I turn to music. There are two songs connected in my heart and in my mind on this day. I would like to think that these two men, given an opportunity, could have become friends. Though their lifestyles may be miles apart, their hearts seem, to me, to live in a similar place.
