On Monograms

 LUCY BURDETTE: I’m not quite sure why this topic came to me, other than as a card carrying member of the Jungle Red blog, one must always be alert for possibly interesting subjects! Maybe these spoons caught my imagination when we’d been getting ready for a party and polishing the silver? Anyway, they got me thinking about monograms. I’ve never been the kind of person who wanted to put her name on sheets or towels or articles of clothing. In fact, a number of years ago, John bought some silver knives on eBay to fill out our set. They had somebody else’s initials on them and I never liked using them. We sold them back not long after. I do like these spoons because they are a blast from the past, monograms from my maternal grandmother, my mother, and then John’s baby spoon. Don't you love the one with the little windmill?

Here’s another one that I love, because it was the class ring belonging to my grandmother, Alice May Hunziker Isleib, who attended the Patterson Normal School.

I also got a kick out of coming across this briefcase which my father presented to me when I graduated with my degree in clinical psychology. I haven’t used it in years, but it makes me smile to think of him choosing it.

Are you a monogram person? 

HALLIE EPHRON: I have a friend who was divorced twice, and her maiden name and both married names started with the initial H. So her monogrammed towels conveniently lived on, marriage after marriage and continue on now that she’s once again single. 

I always hated my monogram. HE. I’m not a HE. It’s even worse with my middle name: HEE. It’s not funny. So I would rather NOT have my initials emblazoned on anything I own.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The only thing I can think of that I’ve ever had monogrammed was a lovely decorative stationery stamp–which if I ever managed to write cards and letters to people, I would still use. But no monogrammed sheets, towels, or silverware here. My maiden name initials were fine–DLD–and those from my first married name (which is still my legal and professional name) are fine, too–DLC. I have had my husband’s initials, RW, engraved on some cocktail glasses, come to think of it, although I’m not quite sure why since he’s not much for drinking cocktails!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Aw, well, no, I guess. Do I have anything emblazoned (such a good word)  with H? Just an Hermes bracelet, thank you very much, which is all the monogram I need. :-) Someone gave me rocks glasses with an H on them, that’s fun, but whatever. My initials are HPR, in some worlds, which is fine. And I do have that monogram on my suitcase, which I have to say is helpful. But it’s tiny. I wish I had things with my grandmothers’ monograms, I’d love that, but I don’t. Or my mother’s.  I am not at all anti-monogram though, I think they can be very sweet.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Debs, I love the fact your initials are also the Roman number 590! I do love monograms, and I have several things of my mother’s that had hers - although since she married three times, they aren’t always the same! However, having a hyphenated name is tricky, especially if, like me, you’re a stickler for the proper form. For instance, my married name is Julia J. Hugo-Vidal, so a PROPER monogram should be J H-V J. Try fitting that onto a glass! Most places don’t even offer that level of customization. 

I do have, however, the family writing paper! I got a copperplate engraving of H-V from Crane Stationery shortly after I got married, and every five or ten years I have another batch printed. Each of the kids now has a box of their own, so if they aren’t writing proper bread-and-butter notes, they can’t blame it on a lack of paper.

JENN McKINLAY: No. Monograms have ALWAYS bugged me. WHY is the last name initial in the middle and bigger? It’s maddening to me. I just don’t like it. It makes me itchy. LOL.

RHYS BOWEN:  I live in a house full of other people’s monograms and family crests. That’s what you get if you marry into a frightfully posh English family. So the silverware has crests or monograms, the serving dishes etc. there is no space for another monogram even if I wanted one, which I don’t. I do wear the family crest signet ring. 

Lucy again: LOL on Jenn! Rhys, your story is the most interesting--now we want to see the ring!

The Key West Woman's Club Cookbook for National Retro Day!

LUCY BURDETTE: Did you know that today is National Retro Day?? I thought this would be a perfect day to talk about the Key West Woman’s Club Cookbook, including the new edition which I edited last year, and is now out in the world!

The first iteration of the cookbook was published in the 1949. It’s a wonderful piece of history even if you wouldn’t go anywhere near most of the recipes. (Turtle steaks anyone?) It’s all written in the handwriting of various women who worked on the book and contributed recipes, and it has wonderful drawings like this one:

As we mulled over the new edition, we knew we wanted to retain the spirit of both the book published in 1949 and the one published in 1988. Although some of the recipes were the same in 1988, the handwriting was replaced by standard typing, and many of the quirky drawings were also removed.

My job was to figure out what should be retained from both versions and then to add in some modern day recipes from current members of the woman’s club. Luckily, I didn’t have to do the work of scanning or anything else technical. I had to choose, organize, and send it off. Here is T-bone helping me with the layout:

My suggestion was to use some of the hand written introductions and actual recipes as intros to each section. For example, we couldn’t possibly leave out this quote:

I had a spare copy of the second cookbook into which I could sandwich photocopies of the old sections that we did didn’t want to lose. I thought we would be overwhelmed with new recipe submissions, but luckily the number was manageable. I included the banana cream pie that I used in Key West food critic mystery number 12, A DISH TO DIE FOR. I wrote that before I got involved with the Woman’s Club, though there are several scenes that take place there. In fact, Hayley finds clues to the mystery in a box of old drawings that has been stashed at the back of a drawer for years and years.

The cookbook team is still working on marketing. As of today, there is no way to buy the cookbook online. However, there are copies available through our local bookstores, Key West Island Books ( 305-294-2904), and Books and Books Key West (305 320 0208). If you are a local or a visitor looking for a copy, they are also available at the Key West Art and Historical Society, the Woman’s Club, and also will be available at the brand new cooking school.

With fellow cookbook teammate, Marlene

We're so glad to have helped save this bit of Key West history. What would you feature for Retro Day?

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?

Fame!

 RHYS BOWEN:  It's Sunday and I'm in contemplative mood, wondering about FAME.  What a strange thing fame is, isn't it? The way we humans idolize another human simply because THEY ARE FAMOUS.

Look at the Kardashians. They have no achievements, they have not painted the Mona Lisa, or written Great Expectations or won the world figure skating championship and yet they have a TV show that has been running for years and people watch it BECAUSE THEY ARE FAMOUS.  If they wear certain clothes people rush out to copy. Why, for goodness sake?

When did the cult of fame begin? Certainly before Roman times. Gladiators were idolized by women, but at least it was for their skills as much as their beauty.  I suppose fame started when a warrior protected the tribe from invaders and he was big and strong and handsome too. Look at Saul in the Bible.  He had that kind of fame.  But God chose David, the opposite, young, frail, a nobody.

Fame today is incomprehensible to me. Donald Trump was elected simply because he was a reality TV tar. He was famous. 

And yet the concept of idolizing the famous must be somewhere in our psyche.  When I was in my early teens we heard that Joan Crawford was coming to London for a film festival. Joan Crawford!  A real movie star! My best friend and I took the train up to London and lined up for hours on the sidewalk, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. She arrived, got out of her limo. She was this old woman with so much orange makeup she looked like a pumpkin. A bright shiny orange face. Bright orange unnaturally colored hair and eyelashes a mile long. Hideous, absolutely hideous.  And yet our hearts beat faster. We pushed forward and got her autograph. Joan Crawford's autograph. We were in heaven. Why? Because she was famous.

\

As writers we have our own small share of fame. I remember one convention when a woman was brought to meet me. Her companion said the woman was too shy to approach me alone. I turned, smiled and said hello and the woman burst into tears with emotion.  It was horribly embarrassing for me and also mind blowing that anyone should be so overawed by me!

My most famous writer friends are all so incredibly friendly, the opposite of stuck-up and some are quite shy. This fame thing is hard to take for them. At least we writers are not recognizable outside our little sphere.  I love going to conventions and meeting fans but it can be overwhelming. I remember standing in the line in the women's bathroom, waiting, rather desperately, to pee. And a voice down the line said, "Oh, is that Rhys Bowen?" And the whole line peered at me, trying not to dance up and down! 

At another convention I was trying to have a meal with my good friend Louise Penny. We were stopped at every bite by someone wanting to take a selfie with us. I would hate to be Tom Hanks or another really recognizable star. Imagine every time you sat down in a restaurant to enjoy a meal there would be whispers and stares from all over the restaurant.

I have had enough reality checks to keep me humble. Recently a woman stopped me and said, excitedly, " I think I might know you."  This has happened before, so I smiled, and said "Oh yes? Do you read mystery novels?"  She looked confused and said, "No, weren't you working at the hairdresser when I lived over in Scottsdale?"

I remain humble and loveable,

Rhys

Really Silly Extreme Sports.

  RHYS BOWEN:  It's time for a Sunday chuckle after a stressful week.

I come from an island nation full of eccentrics, strange traditions and mind-boggling accomplishments. Anyone who has watched cricket or Morris Dancing knows that the English are not quite sane.

Until recently almost every English village had some kind of weird and wonderful sport or tradition. Some still exist. There is the cheese rolling event in which giant wheels of cheese are rolled down a hill, probably crushing half the competitors. There is wife-carrying (you'd better marry a small slim girl if you want to live in that village). And don't forget pancake tossing on Shrove Tuesday. Every village summer fete has the classics: egg and spoon race, sack race, three legged race. I grew up doing all of these.

Recently a new class of absurdity has arisen: Extreme sports.

There is bog snorkeling. The competitors put on snorkel and mask and try to swim/crawl/slither down a length of muddy ditch or bog.  No, that wouldn't be my Sunday afternoon activity.

But the most recent one I have discovered sent shivers down my spine. EXTREME IRONING.

Those of you who know how I feel about ironing in a warm, safe kitchen will know that I am never never ever going to sign up for this. What is it, you ask? Participants carry an iron and ironing board to an absurdly dangerous location then proceed to iron a shirt. (I should point out that there is no electricity in any of these locations so the shirt won't be properly ironed, so the whole task is for nothing... AND they don't even have the spray bottle of water to get out the worst creases)

Then they photograph themselves doing their ironing. Why? 

And this makes me wonder what extreme sport will come next. What could I invent?  Reciting the Ancient Mariner through a long tube while diving among sharks?

Painting a picture while hanging upside down from the North Face of the Eiger?

Doing needlepoint by touch only in a deep cave?

Anything that didn't involve ironing. (I've just bought three pairs of rayon summer pants. Hand wash. Line dry. What was I thinking? I'll have to find where I have hidden the ironing board.)

Now it's your turn. Invent the most ridiculous extreme sport you can imagine and let's see if anyone is fool enough to try it!

Rhys on Characters

 RHYS BOWEN: I’m currently writing an article on secondary characters. My examples are all from Harry Potter because I think that JK Rowling has created the most fleshed out, real and rounded subsidiary characters ever. She has peopled a whole world. Think of the Dursleys, Neville Longbottom, Sirius Black, Lucius Malfoy… so vivid, so completely real.

For us lesser mortals it’s sometimes a strain to come up with characters who come across as real when we can only describe them in a few lines. Luckily we’ve all had encounters in our lives with people who are Characters with capital C. The ones that stick with us. I was thinking the other day about my succession of cleaning ladies. Starting with my mother’s house when I was growing up Mrs. Broad was a beefy country woman. She thought nothing of pulling out the clothes wardrobe to clean behind it. She also loved to pun and tell dirty jokes with this big, throaty laugh. 

Our first cleaning woman was Marilyn. What a character she was. A middle aged white woman, lpermed hair, lots of make-up, living in a house nicer than mine. She cleaned houses because her husband kept her short of money, AND would not allow her to work.  So I was supposed to be a friend she was going to visit. Eventually she divorced him and married someone richer and nicer, in fact they went first class to England at the same time we were flying coach!

She was one of those brassy, tough blondes, having had a rough childhood and then a rougher marriage. She was a terrific cleaner but she loved to talk. I’d be sitting at my typewriter (in those days) and she’d appear in my doorway telling me all the gossip she had acquired during the week. She also had the most wonderful malapropisms. When I said I’d been to a bah mitzvah she said she loved the part where they carried the torah, torah, torah.

And my favorite was when she said, “I told her she was not bringing that illiterate child here.”  She meant illegitimate.

Her one fault was she loved doing laundry and when it was dry she’d put it in the drawers where she felt it should go. Usually this was the wrong child’s bedroom, always resulting in raised tempers. “Why are you wearing my shirt?”  “It was in my drawer.” 

I haven’t put her in a book yet but I still might. But other real life characters I have used: Granddad in the Royal Spyness books, based on my own father. From humble beginnings and a sweet-natured gentle man. 

I’ve used my headmistress from school in several books as she was such a mean spirited cow. I’ve made her a butler, a nun and goodness knows what else. I'm wondering if I ever killed her off. I hope so.

So which real life characters have you incorporated into your novels?

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh I love those cleaning lady stories Rhys! Maybe it’s a requirement that a cleaning lady be a big character? Certainly ours have been. They, by nature of the job, have access to personal details that no one else would…

I borrow all kinds of secondary characters from real life in Key West. Lorenzo is based on a real tarot-card reading guy who you can find every night at the sunset celebration on Mallory Square. Eric is based on my real friend, a clinical psychologist who’s since moved away from the island. As you say though, Rhys, it’s hard to develop the secondary characters when new ones must move into the series to keep things fresh. I pay attention to what readers seem to want (more Miss Gloria! More Lorenzo!), but also who hasn’t been seen in an installment lately.

JENN McKINLAY: I killed off the Hub’s odious boss in my very first mystery. That was fun! I made my own stalker the bad guy in one of my books - very cathartic! And I use bits and bobs of people I like to flesh out my protagonists so one character has my friend Diana’s amazing hair and another friend is a gifted children’s librarian so I used her skills for that character., It’s a good thing people are so interesting, yes? 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I totally steer away from taking a whole person, but I sneak in their names from  time to time. A few of my horrible bosses (with more delight than is probably appropriate and admissible), a few of Jonathan’s court nemesis types, a judge or two. A disappointing boyfriend. It’s my little secret, and I will deny it forever. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I plead the fifth on the real people I have happily killed off in my books! I based the character of Penny in my first book on my lovely grandmother, but I've mostly stayed away from "borrowing" people I know in real life–although if I'd come across characters as eccentric as Rhys's cleaning ladies, I would be tempted!

HALLIE EPHRON: In my five books featuring forensic neuropsychologist Dr. Peter Zak, the character is based on my co-author (Dr. Donald Davidoff) who IS a forensic neuropsychologist. We had plenty of arguments about what the “fictional” Dr. Zak would drive. Eat. Wear. 

I bumped off a character based on my father in my standalone NIGHT NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT. Very satisfying. And the “sidekick” character in that book is based on memories of a dear best friend from junior high with whom I’ve sadly lost touch. I’d hoped she’d reach out (and I tried to find her on Facebook) when the book came out, but no success. I hope she’d be okay with what I wrote.

RHYS:  I also use real life people in my books--the royal family in the Spyness books, and various historical figures in Molly Murphy. But with these I try to be as accurate as possible. I can't have fun with them... or in the case of Mrs. Simpson, not too much fun!

So who has a good cleaning lady character to share? Another person who belongs in a book

Rhys Says "Don't Do this!"

 RHYS BOWEN:  I suppose when you are a writer you are more sensitive to mistakes other writers make. The most obvious ones are in the ways people get murdered in TV and film. It is very rare that you can stab someone and they'll drop to the ground, dead. You'd have to be extremely lucky and go straight into the heart, and even then the victim would have to bleed out. 

Most deaths are messy in real life. The victim lies there in agony. They vomit and do other unmentionable things. I've seen people killed with arsenic on TV, eating a meal, collapsing and dying. In truth arsenic is a gentle poison, giving the person stomach troubles for days and probably needing several doses.  I saw a TV play last night in which the victim dies instantly from Thalium in face powder. No... it's a slow and unpleasant death. Hair falls out. You are sick... Even cyanide, that favorite poison, doesn't work as instantly as on the screen. Not everyone dies instantly. There would be some writhing, not pleasant to watch. 

Do you ever find yourself shouting at the screen when something really stupid happens?

Here are some of my favorite NOOOOOOO!!! s

1. LOVE ACTUALLY. :  Colin Firth loses all the pages of his novel because he is stupid enough to type next to an open window with a lake right there and NOT MAKE COPIES OF WHAT HE IS WRITING! How many people do not make at least a carbon copy? I can't bear to watch that scene.

2. ENCHANTED APRIL :  It's April, folks. I cringe when I watch the scenes of the characters swimming peacefully in the Mediterranean sea with looks of contentment on their faces. The sea is freezing cold in April. Also it's not really warm enough to sunbathe often, even in Italy. 

3: THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB:  A neighbor has been murdered. The killer is still on the loose. The heroine looks out of her window at night and sees a light on in the neighbor's house and    GOES OVER TO INVESTIGATE ALONE, NOT TELLING ANYONE ELSE WHERE SHE IS GOING.  Of course she gets hit on the head. In that same episode she puts herself as bait for the killer who comes in, points a gun at there, and then pauses to explain how and why he did it, thus giving the rest of the cast enough time to burst in and rescue her.

4: All those old Mission Impossible type of movies in which the hero arrives in Eastern Europe and convinces the natives that he is a Russian Colonel by talking with a funny accent. Do you know how long it takes to learn Russian. (I took one semester. Believe me, I can only say a few words and I don't sound like a native)

And a final pet peeve... mystery novels or films when the sleuth knows something we can't possibly know, which helps him to solve the case.  Poirot; I happen to know that she was once the wardress of a prison.. we did not know that!! Cheating.

So what are your pet peeves?

Rhys on Mountains

 RHYS BOWEN: I’ve always been intrigued with the nature versus nurture debate. Recently I’ve read some interesting things about how we carry ancestral trauma. Fascinating, right? If my ancestor was at the battle of Hastings I still bear that arrow wound? It’s hard to comprehend but I have one aspect of my life that I can’t explain otherwise:

 I was born in Bath in the south west of England. After my father came home after WWII we moved to Kent, the garden of England. Orchards, small villages, farms. A very peaceful countryside. But my mother’s family came from Wales. My aunt Gwladys was passionately Welsh and when I was about eight she took me to North Wales because I needed to know where I came from.

 It was a long journey in those days and we reached our village near Mt Snowdon after it was dark. I fell asleep, exhausted, then woke up to bright sunlight sneaking in through the gap in the drapes. I pulled them back and found myself staring at a mountain. Moel y Gest. By Welsh standards a  small mountain. But I stared at it and something inside me said, “Yes. This is it. This is where you are supposed to be.”

 My aunt and I hiked up that mountain and had quite an adventure trying to get down again, sliding down a face of scree and loose rock. Scary but exciting. 

 But the thing was that since then I have been drawn to mountains in a way I can’t explain. I now live in two places where I look out of my window and see mountains.   This is my house in Arizona and view from my office window:

And this second one is the view from my bedroom in California. Aren't they wonderful! I rejoice in them every day.

When John was transferred to Texas I was so miserable. I’d stare out at flat land and try and picture hills. I realized I need to see mountains to feel whole. 

 Isn’t that interesting. Definitely passed along from my Welsh ancestors. Nobody told me about mountains ahead of that experience with my aunt. I must have inherited some strand of DNA that makes mountains a necessity in my life, that ties me to some sort of ancestral homeland.

 

Some of my most memorable experiences have been seeing mountains. I was a student in Freiburg in the Black Forest and spent my weekends hiking there or in nearby Switzerland. When I saw the Matterhorn for the first time I just stood and stared in wonder. John had to drag me away in the end. I hiked up the path toward it and wanted to keep on going until I could touch it.

 

I love to go to Nice and gaze up at that coastline. And this summer I’m planning to go to Scotland, where I’ve set my next book.  More mountains, although not as big.

 

So I’m interested to know whether anybody else has experienced anything like this… some sort of glimpse of ancestry, some tie to the past, some trait that has manifested itself from a past ancestor?

Celebrating Black Women Inventors

 RHYS BOWEN: Since I chose not to mention that yesterday was President's Day, I've decided that today is celebrating Black Women's achievement day, since I understand that Black History month is to be removed from the federal calendar. Also women's history month. So I'm highlighting both.

I expect many of you have been equally ignorant about the achievements of women scientists and inventors, especially if they were women of color. In the book I have just finished writing with my daughter Clare we have a female scientist working on virus research, only she has to publish her papers in her husband's name.

This makes me wonder how many inventions really were the work of a wife or a daughter. But the women i'm celebrating today did publish, did get patents and did change the world for the better. Some were born into slavery, all had to fight to even get into a respectable university, but they persevered and deserve to be recognized more broadly.

I won't dwell on the ones we do know about, those three brilliant women who made the space program possible with their mathematical callculatons. All from disadvantaged backgrounds, struggling to balance family and work, battling constant prejudice and yet achieving such remarkable feats!

There are too many women for me to mention them all so I've picked out a few you probably don't know about:

Sara Goode who was born into slavery, invented the fold out bed we now know as the Murphy bed.

Alice Ball invented an injectable treatment for leprosy

Bessie Blount Griffin, while working as a physio-therapist, developed an automatic feeding system for wounded vets from WWI who could no longer feed themselves.

Sarah Boone invented the ironing board as we now know it

Alice Parker invented the natural gas furnace that enabled the central heating system

Marie Van Brittany Brown was worried about security in New York City so she invented the home video security system

In 1928 Marjorie Joyner invented the permanent wave machine for women's hair

More recently Shirley Jackson, who received a doctorate in particle physics, invented  fiber-optic cables and touch tone dialing for phones

Dr. Marian Croak is responsible for the voice system that enables us to Zoom and holds over 200 patents

Flossie Wong-Stall was the first researched to clone the HIV virus and thus lead to testing for HIV

Patricia E Bath invented a cataract treatment--the laserphaco probe that made the experience less painful for patients.

As I said, this is just a small sampling of a remarkable number of women.  If you have daughters or granddaughters then please look up these women.  If you have sons please make sure they know what women of color have achieved, often against incredible odds.

I raise my glass to them all, and to all the unsung women

Looking Forward

RHYS BOWEN: Like many of you I am finding the news really stressful these days. From climate change to Gaza to hate and division at home the world no longer feels a safe and comfortable place. Once thing I have always liked to do, for my whole life, is have something to look forward to: Only thirty five days to my birthday when I was a child, only six months until I graduate, twenty nine days to my wedding… and for the past few years, since the onset of Covid I’ve found that I dare not do this any longer.  I have had four cruises canceled in a row. I rented a house on the beach in San Diego for the entire family and half of them got Covid. I rented a huge house for John’s 90th and almost everyone got Type A Flu. And then, a week before we were due to fly to England where I was to meet up with college friends, see my British TV people and go to stay with my sister-in-law, John was in the emergency room and most of the trip had to be cancelled.  It feels like nothing is secure any more.

So I’m trying to think happy thoughts and see what I might have to look forward to this year: the big thing is that my eldest grandson Sam just got engaged. We’ve known his fiancee for four years now and absolutely love her. She fits in perfectly with our slightly crazy family. Now they are searching for a wedding venue and have just come to Phoenix to see if they want to get married at his old high school chapel and then in a venue that could be outdoors in the spring next year.  So it’s all very exciting and hopeful.

Book wise I've got the new book with Clare coming out in March: Silent as the Grave. And, in the summer, I'm really looking forward to the launch of MRS ENDICOTT'S SPLENDID ADVENTURE.  Cover reveal quite soon. We've been playing with some spectacular scenery on the Mediterranean.

The other thing I’m just starting to plan, tentatively, is a trip to Scotland. John, who has impressive Scottish ancestry, has never been there.  I am just starting to write a book set on the Isle of Skye. I was looking into tours that might not be too demanding for my husband but then fate stepped in. Clare was annoyed when she found out we’d be going away at the end of May. She was planning to come to us in California then to work on our next book. So…. Would you like to come to Scotland and drive us around? I said. We can find time to work on the book. Of course she said yes, so now we have to do some research and plan our route. But I’m feeling just a teeny bit excited.

And before that I have Left Coast Crime in Denver–are any of the Reddies going? And then the Edgars in New York. All fun events where i get to see friends and colleagues. Will I see you at one of these?

So how about you, dear Reds? What are you looking forward to this year?

JENN McKINLAY: I think you just described life as we know it now. Last minute changes and cancellations, happy events, and a lot of holding our breath as we see what happens. This year, Hooligan 1 will graduate university! Thrilling! Hooligan 2 and I will attempt a longer race (Pat’s Run in Tempe), and my first fantasy novel will be published. Fingers crossed that these events will not change!

Otherwise, summer vacation at our house in Nova Scotia is always something I look forward to and I have some inklings of a trip to Dublin and London, but I am holding my breath and waiting to see what’s what as possible travel dates draw nearer. 

LUCY BURDETTE: The Scotland trip with Clare sounds delightful, Rhys! Fingers crossed everyone continues to feel well! John and I were hoping to take an alumni trip to Scotland and Wales, but it was canceled for this year. Boo! I think I have convinced him to go with me to Brittany and Paris instead:). I do plan to see you at the Edgars in May!

In the work realm, another Key West mystery arrives in August, which I’m thrilled about. I’m dabbling a bit in the Paris book too, though finding it hard to work on both at once. The Friends of the Key West Library season has been going so well–I had many worries about how it would all fall into place. More on that during my week for sure!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  You know, I agree– I feel as if I am tiptoe tiptoe tiptoeing through our precarious lives  these days.

Looking forward…tiptoe tiptoe…to presenting at the Edgars. Teaching at my Career Authors glam weekend writers’  retreat. Teaching a master class at Thrillerfest, and more. My grandson is graduating from UMass Amherst  with a degree in linguistics! (Adorable and brilliant.)  Oh, appearing at the Montreal Mystery Festival, that’ll be amazing.  Tiptoe tiptoe.

Eighty thousand worlds into a new book, and I'm looking forward to knowing  what happens in the plot. 

And of course ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS  will start bubbling to the surface. Tiptoe tiptoe. 

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m just back from 10 days in Key West where I got to teach a week-long class for The Studios of Key West and see Ann Cleeves get interviewed by our own Lucy Burdette at the Key West Public Library and hang out with my very best friend. And thaw out from the New England cold. 

Best of all I have not gotten sick (yet!) from the traveling (Yes, I wore a mask at the airport.) and my plane was not delayed.Mostly I stay in the moment, though Wordsworth’s line of poetry keeps going through my head: “The world is too much with us…”

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I feel like life has been smacking me lately, and I'm not sure I want to tempt it by making plans! But I'm looking forward to the first week in March, when Kayti and I are going to see La Boheme at the Dallas Opera. And, then, at the end of March we have our annual trip to Roundtop, the antiques fair down in central Texas. I look forward to this three days all year.

And I'm beginning to daydream that maybe, between finishing this book and having my knee replacement, I might just sneak in a quick trip to London. I am missing it desperately, and I'll need to be planning the next book!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m the homebody of our group, I think, because the only travel I’m looking forward to is the book tour for AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY in November, and honestly, that feels SO far away it’s hard to imagine right now. I do also have occasional trips down to DC to visit my family, which is always lovely, but it’s not exactly Venice or the south of France, is it?

I’m looking forward to spring, and to aggressively tackling the various invasives that took over my land last summer, when I wasn’t doing any gardening because of my pre- and post- surgical knee. I’m looking forward to whatever Victoria and her new wife decide on to celebrate their marriage sometime this summer. And in March, Virginia is coming back to the US on a quick visit to pick up the Million Dollar Cat - and you had best believe I’m looking forward to waving goodbye to kitty at Logan Airport! 

RHYS: Now it's your turn. What are you looking forward to this year?

Extreme Sports.

 RHYS BOWEN:  It's time for a Sunday chuckle after a stressful week.

I come from an island nation full of eccentrics, strange traditions and mind-boggling accomplishments. Anyone who has watched cricket or Morris Dancing knows that the English are not quite sane.

Until recently almost every English village had some kind of weird and wonderful sport or tradition. Some still exist. There is the cheese rolling event in which giant wheels of cheese are rolled down a hill, probably crushing half the competitors. There is wife-carrying (you'd better marry a small slim girl if you want to live in that village). And don't forget pancake tossing on Shrove Tuesday. Every village summer fete has the classics: egg and spoon race, sack race, three legged race. I grew up doing all of these.

Recently a new class of absurdity has arisen: Extreme sports.

There is bog snorkeling. The competitors put on snorkel and mask and try to swim/crawl/slither down a length of muddy ditch or bog.  No, that wouldn't be my Sunday afternoon activity.

But the most recent one I have discovered sent shivers down my spine. EXTREME IRONING.

Those of you who know how I feel about ironing in a warm, safe kitchen will know that I am never never ever going to sign up for this. What is it, you ask? Participants carry an iron and ironing board to an absurdly dangerous location then proceed to iron a shirt. (I should point out that there is no electricity in any of these locations so the shirt won't be properly ironed, so the whole task is for nothing... AND they don't even have the spray bottle of water to get out the worst creases)

Then they photograph themselves doing their ironing. Why? 

And this makes me wonder what extreme sport will come next. What could I invent?  Reciting the Ancient Mariner through a long tube while diving among sharks?

Painting a picture while hanging upside down from the North Face of the Eiger?

Doing needlepoint by touch only in a deep cave?

Anything that didn't involve ironing. (I've just bought three pairs of rayon summer pants. Hand wash. Line dry. What was I thinking? I'll have to find where I have hidden the ironing board.)

Now it's your turn. Invent the most ridiculous extreme sport you can imagine and let's see if anyone is fool enough to try it!

Are You an Albert or a Georgia?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Are you an Albert or a Georgia? Are you an Einstein or an O’Keeffe? Quickly, look at your desk or your workplace.  Recently I saw a photo of Albert Einstein's desk by LIFE photographer Ralph Morse. 

I am terrified to post it because it's probably copyrighted but here's the link.  And just imagine chaos. I will admit, mine looks very similar.  

Minus the pipe and tobacco tin, of course, and my white board certainly does not have runic and scrawled equations on it--unless, hmm,  they are equations in words, and actually,  thinking about it, that might be the case. 

Anyway, I predict his piles of papers and opened books have more numbers on them than mine does. But the volume of paper is the same.

The marvelous Kathryn Lasky, who writes a wonderful traditional mystery series starring a fictionalized Georgia O'Keeffe, had kind of an epiphany when she saw a replication of the real Georgia O'Keefe's desk. A desk, as she describes, that is quite different from her own.

(and this week’s winners and news below!)

Opposites Attract: Why Georgia?
by Kathryn Lasky

Someone recently asked me why I began writing about Georgia O’Keeffe. All I could say is ‘she is so unlike me’. 

Where to begin about this woman who was born more than half a century before me? The point was driven home when I recently attended an exhibit on Georgia O’Keeffe at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They had replicated her studio in her home in Abiquiu, New Mexico. It was the essence of an immaculate, calm and orderly environment. Everything had been pared down to the essentials. It was all harmony and not dissonance.

My own workspace in contrast, is an appalling tornado that perhaps betrays my mind. There is not a clear surface except for where my laptop sits. Post Its are stuck everywhere. Grandchildren’s photographs, pictures of owls and my kids' drawings from years ago clad the walls. There is a roll of Tums nearby in case stomach acids boil up when I’m trying to work out a plot point. Beneath my desk are some shoes that I have kicked off. Unless I remove books from chairs there is no place for friends to sit without a whirlwind clean up. That usually evokes shouts of wonder as I discover a book that I thought I had accidentally given away.

But that is not my only point of difference with O’Keeffe. My mind is disorderly. I often write too much in a scene. I need to pare it down until it is nearly skeletal for it to gain the power I seek. To me, Georgia is the very essence of pared down. She never had. to declutter. She sees to the essence of things right from the get-go whereas I continue to wander aimlessly through the debris of my own mind.

So, I am drawn to Georgia O’Keeffe. She has successfully cleared the clutter and is on a straight shot to the essence of things, be it a painting of an iris or the dawn illuminating a mesa. I am not her. I’ll never be her, but opposites attract and I shall continue celebrate her genius.


HANK: So funny isn't it, how our desks reflect something, although I am not sure what. If you saw my desk, I'm sure you would wonder how I know where everything is, but I truly do. I do the piles-of-papers system, and every pile has a purpose, and although from time to time I cull things out, and I like my piles to be small, piles they are.

How about you, Reds and Peaders? Are you an O'Keefe or an Einstein?

And a copy of Kathy Lasky's new A SLANT OF LIGHT to one lucky commenter!

A SLANT OF LIGHT

When students of St Ignatius go missing, painter and amateur sleuth Georgia O'Keeffe must infiltrate the school to figure out what's going on in this thrilling historical mystery set in 1930s New Mexico from multi award-winning author Kathryn Lasky.

New Mexico, 1936. Settling in for a harsh winter alone at her house at the Ghost Ranch, painter and occasional amateur sleuth Georgia O'Keeffe makes the most of the weather before a storm rolls in. But when she finds the ideal spot to capture a particularly nice sunset, Georgia discovers a boy - cold, exhausted and desperate . . .

Joseph Reyes is a student at St Ignatius School, and he claims that sinister Sister Angelica and Father Raphael have raped and killed his sister. And she is not the only one who suddenly went missing!

Georgia is determined to find out what's happening at this seemingly peculiar school, but as she investigates she uncovers even more disturbing machinations that link the school to the newly founded Opus Dei institution and its cult-like practices as well as Nazis and hidden spies - not knowing how much she puts herself in danger.

Lovers of historical mysteries that feature real-life people will have a blast! "Step aside Miss Marple, Eugenia Potter, and Kinsey Millhone - Georgia O'Keeffe is the new sleuth in town!" (Award-winning author Katherine Hall Page).

Kathryn Lasky is the author of over one hundred books for children and young adults, including the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, which has more than eight million copies in print, and was turned into a major motion picture, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. Her books have received numerous awards including a Newbery Honor, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and a Washington Post-Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award. She has twice won the National Jewish Book award. Her work has been translated into 19 languages worldwide. She lives with her husband in Cambridge, MA.





THIS WEEKS WINNERS!

The winner of Jacqueline Faber’s THE DEPARTMENT is Lisa in Long Beach

The winner of the JRW check in (and who gets Hank’s choice of ONE WRONG WORD) is Helen Mitternight

The owner of the Lunch Bunch book of Hank’s choice (and who gets HER PERFECT LIFE) is Margie Bunting!

Email me at Hank@Hankphillippiryan.com to claim your prize

(and we’ll announce the winner of Kathryn’s book next week!)


And don’t forget: The Jungle Red Happy Hour is this coming Thursday, February 20, at 5PM on the Reds and Readers Facebook page! And we’ll chat, and take your questions, and have prizes galore! But you have to join us to join the fun–so click https://www.facebook.com/groups/6835060499909032     on Facebook to join! And then we will see you LIVE on Thursday!

Are you In The Audience?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  First, I cannot get over how fantastic it was to see so many of you on Thursday. Wow wow wow! That was a day to remember! And I hope, I truly hope, that it will encourage first time posters to join with us more often! We absolutely adored seeing you, and learning about you, and it makes reading the blog so different, now, being able for me to imagine all of you out there.

 

(And your Valentine stories were great! Also, we had some winners throughout  this week, too, and I will announce those all on Sunday.)

 

Also! You know how we love a THEME! And maybe the wonderful (I’m not exaggerating one bit, take a look at her bio) Christine Murphy might have read Carter Wilson’s advice-to-readers blog on Wednesday—although maybe not—and today she has more ideas about being a good citizen of book world. And you can tell just by reading them what a terrific writer she is!

 

And make sure you look at her bio and info on her debut novel at the end of the page. Amazing!

 

One Author's Plea to Prospective Book Event Audiences 

          By Christine Murphy

Book events are strange affairs. Populated with family and friends, strangers off the street with nothing else to do that day, or people who genuinely think warm cheese and Q&As about which pencil an author uses are interesting. As I embark, for the first time, on a series of events where I will be on stage, instead of in the audience, I consider what I would love to have from an audience.

 

1. Show up.

Our publicist tells us we’re not going on tour because events don’t sell books.

We do not believe them.

We are convinced they’re lying, because the household name we follow on social media just returned from a seven-month world tour (#grateful he posts next to an announcement for the next book he sold) and he sells books.

So we preen and prep before our single event at the bookstore where our friend works, convinced the room will be packed with adoring fans.

We arrive and say hi to our parents and long-suffering spouse (who we forgot to mention in the acknowledgements- amazing, really, that they showed up at all) and ask the helpful clerk behind the desk where the stage is and she points to the empty space between the history shelves, where the teenagers are making out because no one ever looks at the history shelves.

 

Please. Attend the event. Attend any book event for any author, for any book. We are a weak and neurotic people. We are desperate for attention. Please show up. Buy the book. Speak to our family (easy to spot- they’ll be the only other people there). Lie and tell them you read a review and you are so excited to meet us. Let us feel like the decade we spent on something that earned us, after taxes, enough for three sodas, means something to someone. You can return the book tomorrow.

 

2. Ask a question

Please ask a question. Any question. Much like a fortune cookie with “in bed” at the end of it, just add “while writing?” to whatever is on your mind and make that your question.

 -What did you have for breakfast (while writing)?

 -What do you think about modern politics (while writing)? (Maybe not, actually. Never mind. Stay away from politics.)

 -Did you really film a video in your bathtub on Instagram (while writing)?

 

We don’t care. We stare blinking into your generous eyes, shaking like a chihuahua with a bladder infection at the thought of someone other than our mothers showing an interest in our work. It’s pathetic. We know that. You know that. Ask a question anyway.

 

3. Ask us to sign it.

Please do this. We’ll be so excited.

Daydreaming about signing novels is how pretentious intellectuals daydream about signing autographs.  Tell us to write something ridiculous, so we can huff and have a story to tell our friends, a story which, ostensibly, is about the thing you made us write, but in reality is about the burdens of fame. We would love to be able to tell stories about the burdens of fame.

 

4. Tell us you are looking forward to the next book.

This one is easy to remember. We’ll be talking about our next book, even though we haven’t started writing it yet. We’re terrified. Secretly, we’re hoping that the first book will do so well we’ll never have to write another one.

Knowing that someone other than our agents and our mothers are expecting another book is a different sort of motivation. Oh god, we’ll think as you tell us how excited you are, someone actually cares. And it will remind us, even if we think you’re lying, that we care too.

 

HANK: Ohh, this is great, absolutely great! And since my new book is a thriller about book events--truly, they are front and center in so many scenes--I have been thinking and thinking about what it's like to be on the author side of the microphone.  I’d say 99% of the time, it's brilliant fabulous fantastic. But one of the time... well, there's that. And we'll talk about that later.

 

But weigh in, Reddies, tell us some things about book events! From the attendee side of the microphone, what do you think? From the author side, what do you think?

 

CHRISTINE MURPHY has lived, worked, and traveled in more than a hundred countries, including living for eleven months in a tent across the African continent and a year as a resident in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. A trained Buddhologist, Murphy has a Ph.D. in religious studies. This is her first novel.

SURVIVING THE FIRE

When Sarah’s only friend in her graduate program is found dead of an alleged heroin overdose, Sarah is forced back into the orbit of the man in their department who assaulted her. A hurtling ride of a novel—darkly funny and propulsive.

At a Ph.D. program in Southern California, Sarah and her best friend, Nathan, spend their time working on their theses, getting high, and keeping track of the poor air quality due to nearby forest fires. No one believes Sarah when she reports a fellow student for raping her at a party—“He’s such a good guy!”—and the Title IX office simply files away the information, just like the police. Nathan is the only person who cares.

    When Sarah finds Nathan dead of an overdose from a drug he’s always avoided, she knows something isn’t right. She starts investigating his death as a murder, and as the pieces fall into place, she notices a disturbing pattern in other student deaths on campus.

    As a girl, Sarah grew up in the forests of Maine, following her father on hunts, learning how to stalk prey and kill, but only when necessary. Now, she must confront a different type of killing—and decide if it can be justified.

    Notes on Surviving the Fire is a story about vengeance, the insidious nature of rape culture, and ultimately, a woman's journey to come back to herself.