Monday, April 23, at 4 pm, Ellen Kuhfeld, Joan Marie Verba, and I (as Mary Monica Pulver) will be at the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis bookstore for a reading and discussion.
On Tuesday at 2 pm, I (as Monica Ferris) will come to a book club at the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park to talk about the Betsy Devonshire series. The members have decided to open the meeting to the public.
On Saturday, April 28, from 1 to 5 pm, St. Peter, Minnesota, will hold a Book Festival at their Community Center. Put on by Gustavus Adolphus College, the event will feature readings, panels, and appearances by more than a dozen area authors – including me. (http://www.vita.mn/event_detail.php?event_id=130526) St. Peter is a pretty little town on the Minnesota River, once proposed as the capitol of Minnesota. I used it as the scene of a murder in Thai Die.
This past Friday and Saturday I was in Fargo, North Dakota, attending the tenth annual stitching event put on by Nordic Needle. About eighty people came, their capacity – it is so popular that they announce it and all the slots are taken literally within an hour or two. They offer lots of classes, many in very advanced kinds of stitchery. Nordic Needle was featured in my current mystery Threadbare, and I spent a couple of hours Saturday evening signing LOTS of copies sold to attendees by the store. Stitchers are among the nicest people on earth and it was an extremely pleasant experience for several reasons. One was that I met a woman who shares my interest in English history. She and I sat down later and had a wonderful gossip about the Kings and Queens past, present and future. Another was a bookmark display. Nordic Needle asks stitchers to make bookmarks for a contest, and distributes all entries to an organization that encourages children to read. There were a lot of beautiful, simple, clever, inspiring, funny, cute, amazing entries put on display at the event. It would be wonderful to think that a child who gets one of the bookmarks is inspired to take up needlework. A woman from Bermuda – did I mention that people come from all over the world to this event? – came and did a demonstration of bobbin lace. There’s a good look at bobbin lace being made in this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiTqdr38tTU. I donated two copies of Threadbare to be given as door prizes at the Saturday morning breakfast, and one winner was from Norway. She was a very sweet senior woman who, with her husband, has gone all over the world doing work for the Salvation Army. Her daughter is a physician in London. It was an honor to meet her!
My cat Snaps is having digestive problems. Normally when he throws up, the result is a pile of partly-digested food. Lately it’s been a cream-colored liquid, and it’s happening almost every day. I’ve put in a call to the vet, but meanwhile, do any of you have any idea what the problem might be? He remains lively and interested in everything.
Showing posts with label Monica Ferris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monica Ferris. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Weekend in Minneapolis
I had a lovely busy weekend, this first weekend after Florida.
Saturday was religion-based, appropriate for Lent. I had a class at my new church, St. George’s, on Lay Eucharistic Ministry.
My old church, The Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Mark, is doing a music series and offered Bach’s B-Minor Mass Saturday evening. I love classical music, Bach is my favorite composer, and his B-Minor Mass is probably my favorite of his works. I asked around and found an old friend, John Wagner, to go with me. The Cathedral church is beautiful in the Gothic style and its acoustics are wonderful. It has a large sanctuary, with rows of stacked pews facing one another before the altar. The choir sat and stood there, with the orchestra on the floor between them. To me, one of the great, stir-the-blood-with-anticipation sounds is an orchestra tuning up. Then comes that moment of silence, followed by the gentle sound of the first violin’s A. The other instruments are tuned to it, some musicians adding little flourishes. Then another silence. Then applause as the conductor enters - the Cathedral's own Raymond Johnson. Then it begins, “Kyrie Eleison . . .” Lord have mercy upon us. The Mass is long, the music repeats and lingers over passages, building and relapsing, building again. In the Credo there is the infinitely sad Crucifixus, “passus et sepultus est,” died and was buried, followed by the jump-up-cheering “Et resurrexit . . .!” The Sanctus is magnificent, the basses’ and baritones’ voices booming like mighty bells. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts! And at the very end, “Dona nobis pacem,” grant us peace. Lovely.
Sunday afternoon I went with another friend to see Gilbert and Sullivan’s silliness distilled in “Patience,” in which the pair took on the “ethereal” movement. It was a big fad in its time. Men grew thin and let their hair grow long and they wrote poetry full of weighty thoughts and big words. The women sighed after them and wore Greek-inspired clothing and played lyres and Pan pipes – badly. The play was very funny. My only problem with it was that none of the songs were memorable. No “Let the punishment fit the crime” as in Micado, or “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,” as in Pirates. Still, this production was great fun – I am a big fan of G&S, and we are lucky to have the excellent Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company in Minneapolis who put on a play every year. Next year, The Yeomen of the Guard.
Minneapolis offers Broadway road shows, we are on the regular tour of Cirque de Soleil, and we own the very excellent and nationally known Guthrie Theater, but there are also lots of lesser offerings – numerous coffee houses and clubs, and countless excellent little theater presentations: Theater in the Round, Jungle Theater, Garage Theater, Chanhassen Dinner Theater, for example. If the mood strikes, you can find something to do of that sort every weekend. If the weather permits, of course. Some evenings you look out the window and decide to settle for popcorn at home.
What’s there to do where you live?
Saturday was religion-based, appropriate for Lent. I had a class at my new church, St. George’s, on Lay Eucharistic Ministry.
My old church, The Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Mark, is doing a music series and offered Bach’s B-Minor Mass Saturday evening. I love classical music, Bach is my favorite composer, and his B-Minor Mass is probably my favorite of his works. I asked around and found an old friend, John Wagner, to go with me. The Cathedral church is beautiful in the Gothic style and its acoustics are wonderful. It has a large sanctuary, with rows of stacked pews facing one another before the altar. The choir sat and stood there, with the orchestra on the floor between them. To me, one of the great, stir-the-blood-with-anticipation sounds is an orchestra tuning up. Then comes that moment of silence, followed by the gentle sound of the first violin’s A. The other instruments are tuned to it, some musicians adding little flourishes. Then another silence. Then applause as the conductor enters - the Cathedral's own Raymond Johnson. Then it begins, “Kyrie Eleison . . .” Lord have mercy upon us. The Mass is long, the music repeats and lingers over passages, building and relapsing, building again. In the Credo there is the infinitely sad Crucifixus, “passus et sepultus est,” died and was buried, followed by the jump-up-cheering “Et resurrexit . . .!” The Sanctus is magnificent, the basses’ and baritones’ voices booming like mighty bells. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts! And at the very end, “Dona nobis pacem,” grant us peace. Lovely.
Sunday afternoon I went with another friend to see Gilbert and Sullivan’s silliness distilled in “Patience,” in which the pair took on the “ethereal” movement. It was a big fad in its time. Men grew thin and let their hair grow long and they wrote poetry full of weighty thoughts and big words. The women sighed after them and wore Greek-inspired clothing and played lyres and Pan pipes – badly. The play was very funny. My only problem with it was that none of the songs were memorable. No “Let the punishment fit the crime” as in Micado, or “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,” as in Pirates. Still, this production was great fun – I am a big fan of G&S, and we are lucky to have the excellent Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company in Minneapolis who put on a play every year. Next year, The Yeomen of the Guard.
Minneapolis offers Broadway road shows, we are on the regular tour of Cirque de Soleil, and we own the very excellent and nationally known Guthrie Theater, but there are also lots of lesser offerings – numerous coffee houses and clubs, and countless excellent little theater presentations: Theater in the Round, Jungle Theater, Garage Theater, Chanhassen Dinner Theater, for example. If the mood strikes, you can find something to do of that sort every weekend. If the weather permits, of course. Some evenings you look out the window and decide to settle for popcorn at home.
What’s there to do where you live?
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Florida!
Yesterday we went to Sanibel Island to swim and sunbathe. The weather was spectacular, temps in the lower 80s, stiff onshore breeze. We found a parking place, paid the fee and walked along the narrow beach until we found a nice place, not too crowded. Though it's Spring Break, there were no college-age kids (possibly because it costs six dollars to take the beautiful white bride to the Island). The water was almost warm, but there were lots of waves crashing at an angle onto the white sand, which had a band of white shells marking the high-water mark. But once into the water we noticed a powerful current pulling us parallel to the beach. It was difficult to stand upright, and almost impossible to walk against it. The waves were irregular, some high, some not, and they seemed at times to split in half as they came in. Soon we were laughing because, as my sister exclaimed at one point, "it's like being in a washing machine!" We had to come in to rest after about twenty minutes, and then I realized we were the only ones in the water; everyone else was either sunbathing or walking along. some picking up shells. Still, after a rest, we went back out. My sister tried the experiment of lying on her back, butt down and feet up, and the rip current grabbed her and moved her surprisingly swiftly down along the shore - fortunately not outwards. It was amazing.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Florida!
This morning, for the first time this year, a sparrow erupted in chirps outside our bedroom window. A sign of spring. I envy those of you who live farther south who are already seeing the pale yellow wash on the bushes of forsythia. We still have snow on the ground.
I’m going to Florida! My sister Dolores owns a home in Fort Myers and has been asking me to come down for a visit. I finally agreed, and will be gone from Minneapolis from March 13 to the 21st. I’m taking my laptop with me, and so should be able to continue blogging. We’ve been exchanging e-mails about where we’ll go: to various beaches, to the Ding Darling (isn’t that an interesting name? He was a famous boat designer) bird preserve, to play golf, to just sit in the sun, shopping, etc., etc. Any suggestions? I've been there before, it's a very pretty area. I remember the row of huge banyan trees on the Henry Ford and adjoining Thomas Edison estates. And the shells on the beaches of Sanibel Island.
Today I’m going to interview some people who work at the Courage Center. I want to pick their brains about therapy pools and how they are set up and run– and how their security systems work. I am, of course, going to mess with the security system in the book I’m about to write. I have a friend – more an acquaintance, actually – who is designing the facility, and she’s come up with a pretty good idea for the flaw.
We have two cats, Panzi and Snaps. Both of them occasionally throw up – Panzi especially will stop eating her favorite snack, turn away from the bowl, and throw it up. Five minutes later, she’s back, wanting more of the same snack. But lately Snaps has been throwing up a lot, especially at night. It’s not a fur ball, there is little fur in it, though some. And there’s not any partly-digested food in it, either. I’m thinking a call to our vet is in order. We’re lucky to have a home-visit veterinarian. He’s a very nice man, very gentle with the cats. Do any of you have suffered a similar problem with your cat? What turned out to be the problem?
Advance notice: Saturday, March 24, from one to five: Bloomington Book Fair, at the Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN. I’ll be sitting at a table with Carl Brookins, senior member of my writer’s group, and we’ll both have books for sale.
I’m going to Florida! My sister Dolores owns a home in Fort Myers and has been asking me to come down for a visit. I finally agreed, and will be gone from Minneapolis from March 13 to the 21st. I’m taking my laptop with me, and so should be able to continue blogging. We’ve been exchanging e-mails about where we’ll go: to various beaches, to the Ding Darling (isn’t that an interesting name? He was a famous boat designer) bird preserve, to play golf, to just sit in the sun, shopping, etc., etc. Any suggestions? I've been there before, it's a very pretty area. I remember the row of huge banyan trees on the Henry Ford and adjoining Thomas Edison estates. And the shells on the beaches of Sanibel Island.
Today I’m going to interview some people who work at the Courage Center. I want to pick their brains about therapy pools and how they are set up and run– and how their security systems work. I am, of course, going to mess with the security system in the book I’m about to write. I have a friend – more an acquaintance, actually – who is designing the facility, and she’s come up with a pretty good idea for the flaw.
We have two cats, Panzi and Snaps. Both of them occasionally throw up – Panzi especially will stop eating her favorite snack, turn away from the bowl, and throw it up. Five minutes later, she’s back, wanting more of the same snack. But lately Snaps has been throwing up a lot, especially at night. It’s not a fur ball, there is little fur in it, though some. And there’s not any partly-digested food in it, either. I’m thinking a call to our vet is in order. We’re lucky to have a home-visit veterinarian. He’s a very nice man, very gentle with the cats. Do any of you have suffered a similar problem with your cat? What turned out to be the problem?
Advance notice: Saturday, March 24, from one to five: Bloomington Book Fair, at the Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN. I’ll be sitting at a table with Carl Brookins, senior member of my writer’s group, and we’ll both have books for sale.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
A New Contest
Someone wrote to ask me a very interesting question: What books is Godwin reading? That question – which I could not answer, at least not right away – got me thinking. Character building is one of the really interesting parts of writing fiction. It’s the telling little details that make a character real, and inventing them is great fun. I dare say most authors know far more about their characters than they tell. (For example, the hero in my first series, Detective Sergeant Peter Brichter, had a bronze star hidden in the back of his sock drawer, a souvenir of an incident that happened during his Navy service aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. I never had a chance to work the story of his heroism into a book. He didn’t like to talk about it.)
I have in mind a contest: What does one of the characters in the Betsy Devonshire mysteries want for Christmas? Enter as many times as you like for as many characters as you like. I’m hoping to be surprised and amused and edified. The deadline is Monday, December 26, 2011. I will be sole judge. The prize is an autographed hardcover copy of Threadbare. Good luck!
This past Saturday I did a signing at Excelsior Bay Books. There was a steady stream of book-buyers – and a reporter from The Patch, an on-line news organization. She interviewed me between customers and asked some intelligent, thought-provoking questions. She had one of those tiny, flat cameras and took a picture of me in my Christmas hat, a gold net concoction with sparkles caught up in the wires. If it comes out, I’ll see if I can get a copy of it to post on Killer Hobbies.
Sunday I baked six loaves of Vanocka, an Austrian Christmas yeast bread which is made with grated orange peel, almond slivers, and two kinds of raisins. The apartment smelled fantastic while they were baking, and we ate the smallest loaf with butter as soon as it was cool enough to handle.
Today, from twelve to one, I am to address a gathering at the Minneapolis Textile Center. They borrowed twenty of my hats to make a display, but I’m supposed to talk about my books, with an emphasis on the one I’m currently writing, And Then You Dye.
Merry Christmas – or Happy Chanukah, or Joyous Solstice, or Cheerful Holidays or whatever makes you smile during this time of year!
I have in mind a contest: What does one of the characters in the Betsy Devonshire mysteries want for Christmas? Enter as many times as you like for as many characters as you like. I’m hoping to be surprised and amused and edified. The deadline is Monday, December 26, 2011. I will be sole judge. The prize is an autographed hardcover copy of Threadbare. Good luck!
This past Saturday I did a signing at Excelsior Bay Books. There was a steady stream of book-buyers – and a reporter from The Patch, an on-line news organization. She interviewed me between customers and asked some intelligent, thought-provoking questions. She had one of those tiny, flat cameras and took a picture of me in my Christmas hat, a gold net concoction with sparkles caught up in the wires. If it comes out, I’ll see if I can get a copy of it to post on Killer Hobbies.
Sunday I baked six loaves of Vanocka, an Austrian Christmas yeast bread which is made with grated orange peel, almond slivers, and two kinds of raisins. The apartment smelled fantastic while they were baking, and we ate the smallest loaf with butter as soon as it was cool enough to handle.
Today, from twelve to one, I am to address a gathering at the Minneapolis Textile Center. They borrowed twenty of my hats to make a display, but I’m supposed to talk about my books, with an emphasis on the one I’m currently writing, And Then You Dye.
Merry Christmas – or Happy Chanukah, or Joyous Solstice, or Cheerful Holidays or whatever makes you smile during this time of year!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Threadbare, Charlie Chan
December 10 is suddenly very close. That’s the pub date of Threadbare, the fifteenth Betsy Devonshire needlework mystery. I think it’s a pretty good story, about the murder of two homeless women. The murderer obviously thinks they were throw-aways, but they were people with dreams and hopes like anyone, and they had families who cared about them. It was interesting doing the research on the homeless. And sad. Some of them are people fate ganged up on, but others seemed to set out to make themselves homeless and no amount of intervention or aid could stop them.
I keep having to get out a bookmark listing the needlework titles and counting them, as I find it had to believe this is number fifteen. It didn’t seem all that long ago I was working on number seven. But number seven was Cutwork, and now I think again, that was a long time ago.
Meanwhile I’m still struggling with And Then You Dye, though it is moving, if reluctantly. I got a one-month extension of the deadline, for which I am grateful.
I keep a book on my headboard to read a little before I go to sleep. Right now I am reading a marvelous book: Charlie Chan, the Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang, who was born in China and who is currently a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara. I have loved the Earl Derr Biggers’ novels, which I read after enjoying the Charlie Chan movies, particularly the ones in which the title role was played by Warner Oland. I never thought of the Charlie Chan stories as racist – Charlie was brighter, more honest, and had more integrity than any of the other characters. Some of the other characters were racist about the Chinese and were always shown as seriously mistaken in their attitudes. The racist element in the later movies involved an irritating black caricature played by Mantan Morland, who played him as excitable, stupid and cowardly – nobody like him appears in the novels. Considering that these novels appeared at about the same time as the Fu Manchu stories, which were very racist, Charlie Chan is even more remarkable. What’s interesting is that Charlie Chan was based on a real Honolulu police detective named Chang Apana, whose extraordinary life story is told by Professor Huang in the first half of the book. I can hardly wait for bedtime to continue reading.
What are you reading right now?
I keep having to get out a bookmark listing the needlework titles and counting them, as I find it had to believe this is number fifteen. It didn’t seem all that long ago I was working on number seven. But number seven was Cutwork, and now I think again, that was a long time ago.
Meanwhile I’m still struggling with And Then You Dye, though it is moving, if reluctantly. I got a one-month extension of the deadline, for which I am grateful.
I keep a book on my headboard to read a little before I go to sleep. Right now I am reading a marvelous book: Charlie Chan, the Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang, who was born in China and who is currently a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara. I have loved the Earl Derr Biggers’ novels, which I read after enjoying the Charlie Chan movies, particularly the ones in which the title role was played by Warner Oland. I never thought of the Charlie Chan stories as racist – Charlie was brighter, more honest, and had more integrity than any of the other characters. Some of the other characters were racist about the Chinese and were always shown as seriously mistaken in their attitudes. The racist element in the later movies involved an irritating black caricature played by Mantan Morland, who played him as excitable, stupid and cowardly – nobody like him appears in the novels. Considering that these novels appeared at about the same time as the Fu Manchu stories, which were very racist, Charlie Chan is even more remarkable. What’s interesting is that Charlie Chan was based on a real Honolulu police detective named Chang Apana, whose extraordinary life story is told by Professor Huang in the first half of the book. I can hardly wait for bedtime to continue reading.
What are you reading right now?
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
YouTube, Christmas Spirit
Well, they did a great job! The YouTube five-minute version of my interview is up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHkIyRz_pIY
I’m trying to get as wide a distribution of the video as I can, so if any of you want to send it to friends, please do so. I know it’s not splashy or funny or spectacular, but it is well done and I do make a point about the traditional mystery being a “comfort read” sorely needed in today’s scary world.
Besides, that lavender straw hat is something special.
Monday I took a friend to lunch then we went to a store with the curious name Missal Leaflet. It is a Roman Catholic supply store that caters to both clergy and lay people. It’s in a nondescript building in a middle-class neighborhood not far from downtown Saint Paul. No big display windows, and a modest glass door in the side of the building marks the entrance. A life-size statue of St. Francis releasing a bow of doves from his upstretched hands greets you inside the door. That and the scent of incense. Ann and I go there once a year to buy a new Fontanini piece for the really big collection I donated to my church a few years ago. (When we moved from our townhouse to our apartment, there was no longer room to display it.) Bless St. George's kind hearts, they put me in charge of setting up the display every year, so I still get to play with it. The collection is so huge it takes two eight-foot tables to display it. It’s not just the Stable with Mary, Joseph and the Babe, and the shepherds with their sheep (and a multitude of angels descending over them), it’s Bethlehem: the green grocer, the rug seller, the baker, the carpenter shop, the street musicians, etc., etc. With shrubs and palm trees. And Leaflet Missal is the only store in the area that carries so many Fontanini pieces I can generally find one not already in the collection. And that I want. I don’t have Santa Claus kneeling at the Manger, for example. Or the Little Drummer Boy. This year I bought the blacksmith at his anvil and the smithy. And a new camel for the Three Kings’ train – one of the old ones developed a weakness in an ankle and could no longer stand.
This past Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of Pentecost – the end of the church year. That makes this coming Sunday the First Sunday of Advent, and the display should be ready by then. It will stay up till January 6.
I thought I wasn’t going to get in the Christmas spirit very easily this year, but walking into Leaflet Missal did it for me. How do you inspire the spirit within you?
I’m trying to get as wide a distribution of the video as I can, so if any of you want to send it to friends, please do so. I know it’s not splashy or funny or spectacular, but it is well done and I do make a point about the traditional mystery being a “comfort read” sorely needed in today’s scary world.
Besides, that lavender straw hat is something special.
Monday I took a friend to lunch then we went to a store with the curious name Missal Leaflet. It is a Roman Catholic supply store that caters to both clergy and lay people. It’s in a nondescript building in a middle-class neighborhood not far from downtown Saint Paul. No big display windows, and a modest glass door in the side of the building marks the entrance. A life-size statue of St. Francis releasing a bow of doves from his upstretched hands greets you inside the door. That and the scent of incense. Ann and I go there once a year to buy a new Fontanini piece for the really big collection I donated to my church a few years ago. (When we moved from our townhouse to our apartment, there was no longer room to display it.) Bless St. George's kind hearts, they put me in charge of setting up the display every year, so I still get to play with it. The collection is so huge it takes two eight-foot tables to display it. It’s not just the Stable with Mary, Joseph and the Babe, and the shepherds with their sheep (and a multitude of angels descending over them), it’s Bethlehem: the green grocer, the rug seller, the baker, the carpenter shop, the street musicians, etc., etc. With shrubs and palm trees. And Leaflet Missal is the only store in the area that carries so many Fontanini pieces I can generally find one not already in the collection. And that I want. I don’t have Santa Claus kneeling at the Manger, for example. Or the Little Drummer Boy. This year I bought the blacksmith at his anvil and the smithy. And a new camel for the Three Kings’ train – one of the old ones developed a weakness in an ankle and could no longer stand.
This past Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of Pentecost – the end of the church year. That makes this coming Sunday the First Sunday of Advent, and the display should be ready by then. It will stay up till January 6.
I thought I wasn’t going to get in the Christmas spirit very easily this year, but walking into Leaflet Missal did it for me. How do you inspire the spirit within you?
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Threadbare
I wrote this last night and forgot to post it this morning. I apologize.
I got my “first pass through” copy of my forthcoming novel, Threadbare. It’s been long enough since I read it that I am seeing it with fresh eyes. This is both good and bad news. The good news is that there aren’t many corrections to make (so far, I’m only on page 35). The bad news is that I’m no longer in love with it. I want to take it back and re-write it. But I won’t, mostly because I’ve felt like that with every novel I’ve ever written. I know that some time next year I’ll pick up the book and see that it’s not so bad after all. Maybe this reaction is because it’s now set in type and looks different on the page.
Anyway, here’s the opening scene:
RANDY Untweiler, seventeen, a tall, skinny kid with dark
blond hair, was the one who found her. He came out
of the movie theater by the back door. He’d stayed after the
last show to sweep up, and was carrying a bag of trash to be
put into the huge green Dumpster near the door. He wouldn’t
have seen her, because it was dark and had been snowing
heavily—in fact, it was still snowing. All he knew was that he
tripped over something big and hard, and fell. The trash bag
split open when he landed on it, and he began swearing as he
picked up the candy wrappers and empty popcorn and soft
drink containers by the glow of a distant streetlamp.
It occurred to him to wonder what had tripped him, and
he went over to kick at the object, whatever it was. Using his
cell phone to weakly light the area, he dislodged enough
snow to disclose the blank cold face of an old woman with
hair the same color as the snow. After an astonished few seconds,
he texted his best friend, Adam, that he’d found a
2
woman’s dead body. Adam texted back, “u r joking,” and
Randy texted, “4 real,” and Adam texted, “call 911.”
But Randy decided that such things as finding dead bodies
didn’t happen to people like him and therefore it wasn’t
real after all. Maybe it was a store dummy—he pulled off a
glove and touched the face and found it as hard and cold as
plaster. Still, he phoned his girlfriend, Harriet, to consult
with her, and while arguing with her about it, Adam arrived,
still zipping up his coat. Adam, short, plump, and intelligent,
looked at the body and declared in scatological and
obscene terms that Randy must quit acting like a fool, hang
up on Harriet, and call the police.
Which he did.
What do you think?
I got my “first pass through” copy of my forthcoming novel, Threadbare. It’s been long enough since I read it that I am seeing it with fresh eyes. This is both good and bad news. The good news is that there aren’t many corrections to make (so far, I’m only on page 35). The bad news is that I’m no longer in love with it. I want to take it back and re-write it. But I won’t, mostly because I’ve felt like that with every novel I’ve ever written. I know that some time next year I’ll pick up the book and see that it’s not so bad after all. Maybe this reaction is because it’s now set in type and looks different on the page.
Anyway, here’s the opening scene:
RANDY Untweiler, seventeen, a tall, skinny kid with dark
blond hair, was the one who found her. He came out
of the movie theater by the back door. He’d stayed after the
last show to sweep up, and was carrying a bag of trash to be
put into the huge green Dumpster near the door. He wouldn’t
have seen her, because it was dark and had been snowing
heavily—in fact, it was still snowing. All he knew was that he
tripped over something big and hard, and fell. The trash bag
split open when he landed on it, and he began swearing as he
picked up the candy wrappers and empty popcorn and soft
drink containers by the glow of a distant streetlamp.
It occurred to him to wonder what had tripped him, and
he went over to kick at the object, whatever it was. Using his
cell phone to weakly light the area, he dislodged enough
snow to disclose the blank cold face of an old woman with
hair the same color as the snow. After an astonished few seconds,
he texted his best friend, Adam, that he’d found a
2
woman’s dead body. Adam texted back, “u r joking,” and
Randy texted, “4 real,” and Adam texted, “call 911.”
But Randy decided that such things as finding dead bodies
didn’t happen to people like him and therefore it wasn’t
real after all. Maybe it was a store dummy—he pulled off a
glove and touched the face and found it as hard and cold as
plaster. Still, he phoned his girlfriend, Harriet, to consult
with her, and while arguing with her about it, Adam arrived,
still zipping up his coat. Adam, short, plump, and intelligent,
looked at the body and declared in scatological and
obscene terms that Randy must quit acting like a fool, hang
up on Harriet, and call the police.
Which he did.
What do you think?
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Cat Tales
My cat Snaps has stitches in his ear, on the backside. No, he didn’t tear it, nor was he in a fight with our other cat, Panzi. I noticed there was a very small crusty patch on his left ear about a year ago. We have a home-visit vet and he said not to worry about it. But over the next few months, it got bigger. And sometimes the crusty top would come off and it would bleed. When it got to be about the diameter of a pencil eraser, I called our vet, and he came over to take a look. He said it probably should come off. He didn’t think it was cancer – but he didn’t know for sure.
Since we were less than a month away from their annual physical and shots, he combined his visit and found that other than the spot, he was in good health. Panzi was fine.
I dug our old cat carrier out of the storage room and brought it into the apartment to get Snaps used to it. He thought it was swell, a kind of cozy cave, and was in and out of it happily the rest of the day. Panzi, who is our senior cat, could evidently remember being put in the carrier and going off on an unpleasant trip to the vet. She wouldn’t go near it, and in fact became hard to find, just in case we meant it for her.
I put Snaps into it for a visit to the clinic for surgery. He complained only mildly on the car trip over there, unlike every other cat I’ve ever owned. All my other cats cried loudly, incessantly, when taken anywhere by car. When I moved from Madison, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, one of my two cats actually gave herself traumatic laryngitis, and was reduced to a rasping whisper by the time we arrived.
Snaps continued to behave with surprising calm – he has always been a laid back creature. Anyway, the vet took another look at him and said he’d go right into surgery and could come home late in the afternoon.
He was good as gold on the trip home, despite the vet having found a much smaller spot on his other ear, which he closed with a special kind of glue. The vet said he was going to freeze the material he took off the ears and would hold it to see if the spots come back. If they do, he will send this material to a special clinic to have it tested to see if it’s cancer. The reason he’s not doing it now is because it costs something over a hundred dollars for the test.
Meanwhile Snaps has taken all this with aplomb. He had not pawed at the healing ears. We are keeping the cat carrier in the apartment because he has to go back to have the stitches removed in a few more days – and he still likes to go in there and play now and again. We have our fingers crossed in hopes that whatever it was on his ears, it is gone never to return.
Does anyone else have a cat who takes every happening calmly?
Since we were less than a month away from their annual physical and shots, he combined his visit and found that other than the spot, he was in good health. Panzi was fine.
I dug our old cat carrier out of the storage room and brought it into the apartment to get Snaps used to it. He thought it was swell, a kind of cozy cave, and was in and out of it happily the rest of the day. Panzi, who is our senior cat, could evidently remember being put in the carrier and going off on an unpleasant trip to the vet. She wouldn’t go near it, and in fact became hard to find, just in case we meant it for her.
I put Snaps into it for a visit to the clinic for surgery. He complained only mildly on the car trip over there, unlike every other cat I’ve ever owned. All my other cats cried loudly, incessantly, when taken anywhere by car. When I moved from Madison, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, one of my two cats actually gave herself traumatic laryngitis, and was reduced to a rasping whisper by the time we arrived.
Snaps continued to behave with surprising calm – he has always been a laid back creature. Anyway, the vet took another look at him and said he’d go right into surgery and could come home late in the afternoon.
He was good as gold on the trip home, despite the vet having found a much smaller spot on his other ear, which he closed with a special kind of glue. The vet said he was going to freeze the material he took off the ears and would hold it to see if the spots come back. If they do, he will send this material to a special clinic to have it tested to see if it’s cancer. The reason he’s not doing it now is because it costs something over a hundred dollars for the test.
Meanwhile Snaps has taken all this with aplomb. He had not pawed at the healing ears. We are keeping the cat carrier in the apartment because he has to go back to have the stitches removed in a few more days – and he still likes to go in there and play now and again. We have our fingers crossed in hopes that whatever it was on his ears, it is gone never to return.
Does anyone else have a cat who takes every happening calmly?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Quilt Show, Part Two
That first part got posted before I was finished with it.
I wanted to note the excitement of an event like this quilt show. There is a passing parade of every kind of adult American woman you can imagine, all sizes, ages, colors, physiques. And once in awhile, a man. Most of the men are walking puzzled or overwhelmed in the shadow of their wives, though there is the occasional male who is there because he quilts, too.
Over the mutter of voices, there is the buzz and whir of the long-armed quilters, a machine that does the fancy stitching over a quilt to hold the top, batting, and back together. They are fun to try out, you can grab the double handles of the suspended part and spell your name on the place where the fabric goes.
Most vendors sell fabric or thread (fat quarters, anyone?), but at this show there was a vendor selling sturdy, colorful baskets of many sizes. There were vendors selling clothing with a quilting theme, and one selling clay jewelry that looks like miniature quilts.
So much of what an author does is in a room by oneself. It’s refreshing to the spirit to get a look at the kind of people who are buying the kind of books you write, and ego-boosting when one stops to tell you how much she loves your books. It’s equally fun when someone stops out of curiosity and you get to introduce a prospective new fan to your work.
I wanted to note the excitement of an event like this quilt show. There is a passing parade of every kind of adult American woman you can imagine, all sizes, ages, colors, physiques. And once in awhile, a man. Most of the men are walking puzzled or overwhelmed in the shadow of their wives, though there is the occasional male who is there because he quilts, too.
Over the mutter of voices, there is the buzz and whir of the long-armed quilters, a machine that does the fancy stitching over a quilt to hold the top, batting, and back together. They are fun to try out, you can grab the double handles of the suspended part and spell your name on the place where the fabric goes.
Most vendors sell fabric or thread (fat quarters, anyone?), but at this show there was a vendor selling sturdy, colorful baskets of many sizes. There were vendors selling clothing with a quilting theme, and one selling clay jewelry that looks like miniature quilts.
So much of what an author does is in a room by oneself. It’s refreshing to the spirit to get a look at the kind of people who are buying the kind of books you write, and ego-boosting when one stops to tell you how much she loves your books. It’s equally fun when someone stops out of curiosity and you get to introduce a prospective new fan to your work.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Contest? What Contest?
Written Monday evening:
Well, here it is “next week,” and the response to my offer of a free book you named was so poor, I think I’ll hold the contest open another week. And I’ll change the terms and just ask people who are interested in winning a book to let me know, I will pick a name at random and the winner can name the book he or she wants. The choices are: Crewel World, the first Betsy Devonshire mystery; Buttons and Bones, the latest Betsy Devonshire mystery; Murder at the War, my first published mystery; or The Novice’s Tale, the first Dame Frevisse medieval mystery I wrote in collaboration with Gail Frazer. Got it? Let it run another week, and if you’re interested in making a choice of these books, let me know.
Meanwhile, I am on the road again. I’m writing this from a motel in Appleton, Minnesota, having just finished a talk in Canby. We’re on our way to Fergus Falls (isn’t that a great name?), where I’ll do a noon time talk before starting the three-plus hour journey home. There was a pretty good turnout in Canby, but it was a subdued bunch, rarely more than smiling at my funny lines, and asking only a very few questions at the end.
Anyone doing something extra-special for Easter this year? I’m going to church, of course, wearing my newest hat. Then we’re having four friends over for the traditional ham dinner, playing Scrabble into the evening afterwards. So nothing new or extra-special at our place, just a solid, old-fashioned celebration, not too different from the kind I grew up with.
Well, here it is “next week,” and the response to my offer of a free book you named was so poor, I think I’ll hold the contest open another week. And I’ll change the terms and just ask people who are interested in winning a book to let me know, I will pick a name at random and the winner can name the book he or she wants. The choices are: Crewel World, the first Betsy Devonshire mystery; Buttons and Bones, the latest Betsy Devonshire mystery; Murder at the War, my first published mystery; or The Novice’s Tale, the first Dame Frevisse medieval mystery I wrote in collaboration with Gail Frazer. Got it? Let it run another week, and if you’re interested in making a choice of these books, let me know.
Meanwhile, I am on the road again. I’m writing this from a motel in Appleton, Minnesota, having just finished a talk in Canby. We’re on our way to Fergus Falls (isn’t that a great name?), where I’ll do a noon time talk before starting the three-plus hour journey home. There was a pretty good turnout in Canby, but it was a subdued bunch, rarely more than smiling at my funny lines, and asking only a very few questions at the end.
Anyone doing something extra-special for Easter this year? I’m going to church, of course, wearing my newest hat. Then we’re having four friends over for the traditional ham dinner, playing Scrabble into the evening afterwards. So nothing new or extra-special at our place, just a solid, old-fashioned celebration, not too different from the kind I grew up with.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Book Signings
One of the more pleasant duties of being a published author is doing signings. It’s a time when I actually get to meet face to face with the people who are reading my books. It’s ego-boosting – which for someone engaged in an essentially lonely profession is marvelous – and sometimes useful, because I’ll get feedback about the direction I’m taking with my stories and/or characters. Even, once in a while, I’ll be offered a story idea or book title I can actually use. So I love to do book signings.
One of my favorites is an annual event, offered by a local mystery bookstore, Once Upon A Crime. Owners Pat and Gary call it Write of Spring, and this past Saturday was their ninth annual.
Minnesota is chock-a-block with authors, many of them mystery writers. No one seems sure why, but I think it has something to do with our long, dark winters. If you’re not a skier, a snowmobiler, or an ice fisherman, what else is there to do but write?
This year there were about fifty mystery authors in attendance at Write of Spring. We came in one-hour shifts, standing shoulder to shoulder behind a long table stacked with our books. The place was crowded with visitors, who munched on ginger cookies and lemonade while waiting to speak with a favorite author, buy a book or, in some cases, offer previously purchased books they brought along for autographs. At this point in my career, I have a long backlist, so I got to talk about not just my current Betsy Devonshire series, but also the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series and even the Peter Brichter series I started with back in the 80s. One author who came in a little early for the second shift is dear friend Gail Frazer, with whom I collaborated on the Dame Frevisse series. Pat had a set of the six books we wrote together (Gail continued the series alone later) to be sent to a collector. She wanted us to autograph them, both with our mutual pseudonym and our “real name.”
That raised a question for me: What is my real name? That is, I have a legal name, the one I married into, but not many people know or use it. I have a “professional” name, my maiden name, the one I started writing under. And I have a current pseudonym, the one most of my readers know me by. I decided to go with the professional name.
One thing I noticed about the books, which began appearing in 1992 as paperback originals, is that the pages are already turning brown. Before too long, they will crumble. Now it has been my position that one problem with e-books is that, as the technology changes, the ones coming out now will be unreadable and volumes will be lost. But looking at the browning pages of Margaret Frazer’s books, I realized that time will render them unreadable, too. There’s something sad, even tragic, about that. Not that I write deathless prose, but there is value in even the common literature of a culture and its loss is real.
One of my favorites is an annual event, offered by a local mystery bookstore, Once Upon A Crime. Owners Pat and Gary call it Write of Spring, and this past Saturday was their ninth annual.
Minnesota is chock-a-block with authors, many of them mystery writers. No one seems sure why, but I think it has something to do with our long, dark winters. If you’re not a skier, a snowmobiler, or an ice fisherman, what else is there to do but write?
This year there were about fifty mystery authors in attendance at Write of Spring. We came in one-hour shifts, standing shoulder to shoulder behind a long table stacked with our books. The place was crowded with visitors, who munched on ginger cookies and lemonade while waiting to speak with a favorite author, buy a book or, in some cases, offer previously purchased books they brought along for autographs. At this point in my career, I have a long backlist, so I got to talk about not just my current Betsy Devonshire series, but also the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series and even the Peter Brichter series I started with back in the 80s. One author who came in a little early for the second shift is dear friend Gail Frazer, with whom I collaborated on the Dame Frevisse series. Pat had a set of the six books we wrote together (Gail continued the series alone later) to be sent to a collector. She wanted us to autograph them, both with our mutual pseudonym and our “real name.”
That raised a question for me: What is my real name? That is, I have a legal name, the one I married into, but not many people know or use it. I have a “professional” name, my maiden name, the one I started writing under. And I have a current pseudonym, the one most of my readers know me by. I decided to go with the professional name.
One thing I noticed about the books, which began appearing in 1992 as paperback originals, is that the pages are already turning brown. Before too long, they will crumble. Now it has been my position that one problem with e-books is that, as the technology changes, the ones coming out now will be unreadable and volumes will be lost. But looking at the browning pages of Margaret Frazer’s books, I realized that time will render them unreadable, too. There’s something sad, even tragic, about that. Not that I write deathless prose, but there is value in even the common literature of a culture and its loss is real.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Mysterious Painting
Back around 1967 in a storefront called Center of Consciousness, which was located in the area around Sixth and Portland in Minneapolis, there lived a group of hippies. One of them was an artist named Leah Peterson, or Jacobson. She took a very big canvas, about fifty by forty-eight inches and painted an abstract in shades of brown and orange – with one lavender exception. She didn’t sign it, and later, when she moved away, she left the painting behind.The person who was to become my husband moved into the Center of Consciousness (it’s hard to believe, looking at him today, but he was a hippie back then) and liked the painting. When another artist proposed to white it out to paint something new on the canvas, Al offered to buy a new canvas the same size as a replacement. The offer was accepted and Al came into possession of the original.
When I saw the painting in 1979, I fell in love with it, too. It has survived three living quarters with us. Today, thirty-odd years after I first saw it, I still will get a glimpse of something new in it. At last count, I’m seeing up to thirteen figures swirling in its depths. We’ve never named it.
I sometimes wonder what became of the artist. We’ve never seen or heard of her, but I’d like to know what she was thinking of when she painted this. And I’d like to see what she’s painting nowadays.
Have you ever owned something you didn’t quite understand? Something you couldn’t explain your attraction to? Something that stirred an appreciation of the mystery that lives in all of us?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
News and Appearances
Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead. The fourth book in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series is Make, Take, Murder, and its release date is May 1, 2011.
Joanna will be appearing at Sleuthfest, March 3 through 6, at Deerfield Beach, FL.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. Linda will be signing Beaglemania, the first in her new Pet Rescue Mystery Series, at Bookstar in Studio City, California, on Saturday, March 26, at 3 PM in conjunction with the weekly pet adoption event by Kinder4Rescue on Ventura Boulevard.
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
A Scary Question
I was asked kind of a scary question the other day: Are you getting tired of Betsy and Godwin and the other characters who inhabit your needlework mysteries? Thank heavens I was able to answer honestly: No. Unspoken was: Not yet.
I don’t know if I’ll ever tire of Betsy Devonshire. More likely what will happen is what happened to the first sleuth I invented: when sales fell off, my publisher grew tired of buying more stories.
It also sometimes happens that the author dies, which is what happened to Donald E. Westlake. He had just finished working on a Dortmunder caper novel and was vacationing in Mexico, where he suffered a fatal heart attack. Curiously, the novel feels like a wrap-up, so perhaps he had decided not to write any more of that series.
John D. MacDonald died in 1986 after his final Travis McGee thriller, The Lonely Silver Rain, was published in 1985.
Dorothy L. Sayers left notes for a Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Thrones Dominations, when she died. Jill Paton Marsh used the notes and fragments to write the novel, which was published in 1996. (An aside: the title comes from the Fifth Century list of the nine “choirs” of angels: angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim,)
Dame Agatha Christie wrote into her dotage, as anyone reading her last-published books can tell. Interestingly, she wrote a “final adventure” for each of her two most famous sleuths, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, while she was at the height of her powers. She directed that they were not to be published until after her death.
Now and again I think I’d like to do that, but I’m too busy trying to keep up with my contracted mysteries to think of more than the title, which, of course, would be Goodbye, Crewel World.
Possibly the most well-known attempt to escape writing any more adventures was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story in which his hero, Sherlock Holmes, was thrown into the Reichenbach waterfall in Switzerland in a fight with his nemesis, Professor Moriarity. The uproar from the reading public this created caused Doyle to rethink his decision and resurrect the famous sleuth for more adventures.
Is there a series you were sorry ended - or a series you think continued after its author wore out his/her welcome?
Lots of famous mystery authors have had, after their deaths, other authors try to continue the series, some to great success. Others are failures. Is there one of these you particularly like? Why, do you suppose, no one has tried to write a new Agatha Christie?
I don’t know if I’ll ever tire of Betsy Devonshire. More likely what will happen is what happened to the first sleuth I invented: when sales fell off, my publisher grew tired of buying more stories.
It also sometimes happens that the author dies, which is what happened to Donald E. Westlake. He had just finished working on a Dortmunder caper novel and was vacationing in Mexico, where he suffered a fatal heart attack. Curiously, the novel feels like a wrap-up, so perhaps he had decided not to write any more of that series.
John D. MacDonald died in 1986 after his final Travis McGee thriller, The Lonely Silver Rain, was published in 1985.
Dorothy L. Sayers left notes for a Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Thrones Dominations, when she died. Jill Paton Marsh used the notes and fragments to write the novel, which was published in 1996. (An aside: the title comes from the Fifth Century list of the nine “choirs” of angels: angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim,)
Dame Agatha Christie wrote into her dotage, as anyone reading her last-published books can tell. Interestingly, she wrote a “final adventure” for each of her two most famous sleuths, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, while she was at the height of her powers. She directed that they were not to be published until after her death.
Now and again I think I’d like to do that, but I’m too busy trying to keep up with my contracted mysteries to think of more than the title, which, of course, would be Goodbye, Crewel World.
Possibly the most well-known attempt to escape writing any more adventures was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story in which his hero, Sherlock Holmes, was thrown into the Reichenbach waterfall in Switzerland in a fight with his nemesis, Professor Moriarity. The uproar from the reading public this created caused Doyle to rethink his decision and resurrect the famous sleuth for more adventures.
Is there a series you were sorry ended - or a series you think continued after its author wore out his/her welcome?
Lots of famous mystery authors have had, after their deaths, other authors try to continue the series, some to great success. Others are failures. Is there one of these you particularly like? Why, do you suppose, no one has tried to write a new Agatha Christie?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
News and Appearances
Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead. The fourth book in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series is Make, Take, Murder, and its release date is May 1, 2011.
Joanna will be appearing at Murder in the Magic City (Birmingham, AL) on Feb. 5 at the Homewood Library in Birmingham, AL. On Feb. 6, she'll participate in Murder on the Menu in Wetumpka, AL.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
News and Appearances
Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead. The fourth book in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series is Make, Take, Murder, and its release date is May 1, 2011.
Joanna will be appearing at Murder in the Magic City (Birmingham, AL) on Feb. 5 at the Homewood Library in Birmingham, AL. On Feb. 6, she'll participate in Murder on the Menu in Wetumpka, AL.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
News and Appearances
Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
News and Appearances
Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
News and Appearances
Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!
Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.
Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.
Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her third Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery. The first, Beaglemania, will be published in March--coming soon!
Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.
Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is celebrating the release of her newest book You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.
Visit us every Sunday--
For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!
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