Writing from Experience by Pat Kennedy

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm particularly excited about today's guest--you'll see why. Pat is one of my good buddies in the Friends of the Key West Library, and she is an old friend of Hallie's. When I heard she had taken Hallie's writing class at the Studios of Key West, I asked (begged) her to blog about it. Welcome Pat!

PATRICIA (PAT) KENNEDY:  Hello to all you fascinating Reds!  It has been quite awhile since I’ve chimed in here – July of 2022 to be precise when I complained about the never-ending presence of “piles” at my home -– papers, shoes, electronic devices, grocery bags, stuff.  Since the piles never seem to diminish, I just gave up and moved to Key West for the winter.  

I spend my time in sunny Florida participating in and supporting the arts. Recently, I participated in a “Writing from Experience” workshop at The Studios of Key West, led by Jungle Red’s Hallie Ephron. I had never taken a writing workshop being somewhat shy about sharing my work with strangers – and Hallie too. I’m an amateur and she’s definitely a pro. 

I had an interesting childhood as both my parents were profoundly deaf so we four siblings (none deaf) grew up in a signing household.  Recently my sisters and I were interviewed by StoryWorth on their national podcast about the challenges of growing up in a different family life. It was an emotional experience for us. More so when we heard the final 18-minute podcast.  I can’t listen to it without getting weepy.  

This experience rekindled my desire to write more about my parents – especially our mom.  Our dad was tall, handsome, gregarious – a real star shine kind of guy.  Our mother was shy and very angry.  And she had good reasons to be that way. We learned by dribs and drabs how challenging her life had been at a school for the deaf run by the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis, Missouri. And the challenges of being a deaf mother with un-sympathetic in-laws who lacked confidence in her ability to be a suitable “mother.” She fought back.

As Hallie said to me, “you have a deep well of experience to write about.” My reluctance has been how to write about HER experience but write in a way that reflected her lack of traditional English composition skills. She was an American Sign Language user so her English was rudimentary. 

As you probably know already, Hallie is a superb teacher.  And a kind one too.  Fourteen of us produced short essays for each of the three classes – some were absolute stunners which left me intimidated. I passed on reading aloud during the first and second sessions but knew I had to come up with something for the third. Hallie’s teaching and comments about my classmates’ work were precise and spot on. She emphasized the importance of “voice” and how it drives the whole trajectory – and authority – of a piece of writing.  “It must be authentic. Obviously if one is writing about one’s experience, then one must use the first-person voice.”

I had been trying to write about a life-changing experience my mother had as a four-year-old child, but I was using third person omniscient. I could see that the piece was stilted and false, but I didn’t know how to fix it.  Suddenly, with Halie’s simple “change the voice” instruction, I saw another way to write the story but as I experienced it.  An hour later I was doing final edits and ready to read to the class. My sisters and I are now moving forward on collaborative pieces to add to this first piece. 

If you want to hear the StoryWorth podcast that so influenced me to get going on writing, here is the link.

Are any of you writing teachers?  Any pearls you want to share with us?  And it would be fascinating to hear from you, dear readers, how a teacher has changed or improved your writing.  

Patricia Kennedy is a retired marketing consultant for healthcare organizations. She lives in Plymouth, MA and Key West during the winter.  

How to Host a Murder Mystery Tea @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE:  for those of you who may not have seen this on social media, the Friends of the Key West Library had the very good fortune to host Ann Cleeves as the guest of honor at our fundraising gala in early February. Once we knew she was coming, I realized that we also had an opportunity to put on a murder mystery tea at the library. Ann is a huge and generous supporter of libraries, and she often gets asked to visit and speak. But she can’t go everywhere, so she came up with the idea of writing some short mysteries for libraries to perform. You can find those here.

We chose the Shetland mini mystery called Bannocks and Blood. I was able to round up four suspects, the Friends agreed to help with the tea, and the wonderful library staff in Key West contributed in every way. We decided to structure it so that the first part of the program would introduce the suspects and highlight their protestations of innocence. Then we took a break for tea, and the attendees voted on the murderer. Finally, the murderer was revealed and hauled away by a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy. Winners were chosen for five copies of Raven Black and three friends of the library ball caps.

This mini mystery was written upon the publication of Cold Earth, Ann Cleeves’ 30th book in 30 years. It started out like so: This evening we’re not in Key West, but in Shetland at Sunday tea. This is a community meeting that brings people together across Shetland once a week to catch up on local news, hear music, and sell homemade items. This Sunday began like any other as the Shetland tea committee met early to set up today’s tea until the body of committee member Minnie Laurenson is found. In the tradition of the golden aged detective novel, only the people at the Sunday tea committee could’ve committed the murder – they were the only ones present in the hall and nobody else had access.

Here was poor Minnie Laurenson, stabbed by her own knitting scissors and arranged by the library staff, with Ann and me investigating.

Here was our playbill, designed by fabulously talented Samantha Blee.

Here's Ann with our wonderful librarians, Michael and Kim.

Here were some of the many delicious tea treats, prepared and delivered by Friends and some local bakeries.

Here are the very suspicious looking suspects, and the author herself!

Here is the murderer getting her comeuppance. 

The event was a huge success, drawing almost 150 audience members, including a number who had never been into our library. We were also able to add members to our Friends of the Library roster, and introduce lots of new readers to our amazing guest. Possibly the hardest part of the planning was finding clothes suitable for Shetland in Key West. The murderer is wearing a hand-knit Fair Isle hat that Ann brought with her from England.

Red Readers: What’s the most fun you’ve had at an author event?

What We're Reading

 

 LUCY BURDETTE: it's that time again, the time we add to our stacks and piles of books by describing what we're reading! I've had some good ones lately, finally finished with the contest I was judging so I can choose exactly what I want. I certainly enjoyed the newest Ann Cleeves Vera book, THE DARK WIVES. (She was our Friends of the Library guest of honor so I had to be ready for my interview.) Today in fact, we have two speakers coming to our Key West Palm Garden to talk about their books, novelist and memoirist Ann Hood, and food writer Michael Ruhlman. I just finished Ann's latest novel, THE STOLEN CHILD. It has two intertwined timelines, one taking place during World War I, and the other in the 1970s. Lots of interesting detail about the characters’ lives in Italy and Paris. I also read Betsy Lerner’s THE SHRED SISTERS,  which had been on my list since I saw her speak in Connecticut this summer. This is a story about a family with one sister who struggles with mental illness and the effects that had on the point of view character and her family. Very highly recommended! Finally, I’ve just finished Michael Ruhlman’s YA debut, IF YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT, about a high school kid whose injury keeps him from returning to the football team, his great love. Instead, he stumbles into a job in a restaurant kitchen, and finds his future and his people.

How about you Reds, what are you reading?

HALLIE EPHRON: A few years back, I liked reading Andy Weir’s THE MARTIAN. So I was happy when for Christmas, my son-in-law gave me Weir’s new book, PROJECT HAIL MARY. It’s another solo astronaut, lost in space. He’s a crew’s sole survivor who wakes up on a mission to save the planet. It’s a reminder how totally different sci-fi is from crime fiction. I’m in the middle of it and hoping that Ryland Grace (and the rest of us) survive. 

On another planet entirely I’m rereading MARY POPPINS. I’ve been revisiting my favorite children’s books. It is *so different* from the movie in so many ways, I’m sure P. L. Travers was turning over in her grave when Disney made it into such a saccharine movie. Each chapter is a little nugget of spookiness and imagination, and the language is glorious. Mary Poppins is anything but sweet. Highly recommended.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Thanks to Rhys’s recommendation, I read THE SALT PATH by Raynor Winn–I should say I devoured it, pretty much in one sitting! It is a memoir, but it is as gripping as any best novel. Then I read the second and third books, THE WILD SILENCE and LANDLINES, and highly recommend those, too, especially the latter. 

On the mystery front, I finally got to DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK by Kate Atkinson, the new Jackson Brodie novel, which I adored. 

And then another non-fiction read–I’m on a roll–STOLEN FOCUS: WHY YOU CAN’T PAY ATTENTION AND HOW TO THINK DEEPLY AGAIN by Johann Hari. This is not a self-help book (or only a little,) but a very thoroughly researched look at how the forces of modern society are eroding our ability to concentrate. This book was written during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 in the UK and published in 2022, and the issues it explores are even more critical now. I found it so fascinating that I immediately recommended it to the rest of the Reds–and anyone else I could buttonhole!

JENN McKINLAY: Hallie, I loved PROJECT HAIL MARY - so good! And I’m clearly going to have to read THE SALT PATH.

 I’ve been juggling revisions and deadlines so not much reading time. I’m still finishing my January nonfiction books ATOMIC HABITS and INNER EXCELLENCE. I’m also reading ONYX STORM by Rebecca Yarros. I absolutely love this series but I thought it was a trilogy and just found out there are five in the series. Eek! I have a towering TBR so we’ll just have to see what I choose when my deadline is met.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Get ready, you all–here comes THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE AND HER JUST OK ASSISTANT by Liza Tully. It is  absolutely fantastic–voicy, funny, smart, witty, and everything we love about traditional mysteries but written in a very contemporary cutting-edge way. Preorder now, I am not exaggerating, it’s brilliant. If you love the feeling of Anthony Horowitz and Richard Osman? This is for you–but still, so different–do not miss this.

Also, FAMOUS LAST WORDS by Gillian McAllister. You know how her WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME changed my writing life–it did, if we haven’;t discussed this, but more on that later–and this is equally creative and riveting.

Oh, also, THE INHERITANCE  by Trisha Sakhlecha.  WHOA. Twists I have never seen–even though it’s Succession (with a wealthy family from India)  meets Agatha Christie on an isolated island, it is absolutely unique.

I am also reading MRS. DALLOWAY, since I am giving a presentation about it soon at the Boston Public LIbrary. Yeah, no pressure.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Another thumbs up for HAIL MARY - great science fiction that’s accessible to people who don’t usually describe themselves as SF readers. 

My non-fiction audiobook is also STOLEN FOCUS;  Jenn recommended this book to us all and she was so right to do so. I’m also echoing Hallie’s MARY POPPINS experience - I’m reading A SONG FOR SUMMER, a YA book by Eva Ibbotson, best known for her award-winning children’s novels. It’s a little bit like a fairy tale but also deals with the looming Anschluss in Austria, and is also a love song to the practice of the arts and how they can change people’s lives. 

My current mystery is YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED by Ande Pliego. You all know how I love locked room mysteries, and this presses so many buttons - a selected group of famous mystery writers at an exclusive retreat on an island in Maine… it’s delicious.

My SF read is ARTIFACT SPACE and DEEP BLACK by Miles Cameron. It’s a little bit like the Patrick O’Brien sailing novels, if you substitute a competent but traumatized heroine and an AI-enhanced xenolinguist for Aubrey and Maturin. I’m very much enjoying them.

RHYS BOWEN:  I have been reading lots of Scottish non-fiction for my new book, including rereading Lillian Beckwith’s delightful highland stories which give such a great feel for the critters and their personalities. I also reread Mary Stewart’s Wildfire at Midnight as my book is set on Skye. I did enjoy Colleen Cambridge’s The Art of French Murder , about Julia Child in Paris. Light and delicious. And I’m just starting The Beautiful Ruins about ten years after everyone else.

Your turn Reds, what are you reading?