Next week at Maine Crime Writers we’ll be featuring posts from Barb Ross (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday), Dorothy Cannell (Wednesday), and Kate Flora (Thursday), and on Friday we’ll have an interview with Little Sebago Lake resident, and Edgar nominee Al Lamanda. He is the author of the mystery novels Dunston Falls, Walking Homeless, Running Homeless, Sunset, Sunrise and First Light (Release date summer 2014.) He is an avid weight lifter, boxer and slave to his Maine Coon Cat.
In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:
Lea Wait, Kate Flora, Barb Ross and Vicki Doudera at the New England Mobile Book Fair Gala Mystery Night, December 5, 2013
Barb: We skipped last week, so I have lots of news. First of all, thanks to the Mainely Murders bookstore in Kennebunk for recommending Clammed Up as a great stocking stuffer. You can read their full December newsletter here. You’ll see books by Kaitlyn Dunnett and LOTS of other familiar names.
If you haven’t succumbed to Clammed Up‘s charms yet, the Nook version is on sale for $1.99 from now until Christmas Eve here. As of this writing the book is also $1.99 for Kindle here.
And finally, my short story “Home Improvements” is included in the anthology Someone Wicked, along with stories by twenty other fantastic writers. To learn more about it, click here. There’s also a Kindle version here.
Kaitlyn: Good news from my editor at Kensington on two fronts. They’re already working on sketches for the cover of next year’s Christmas book (Ho-Ho-Homicide), the one set on a Christmas tree farm. Guess what? There will be Christmas trees! Even better, he has approved the outline (actually a two page synopsis) for Liss #9, as yet untitled, the 2015 book in the series. The plot revolves around a Scottish Terrier, so if any of you folks out there are Scottie owners, I’d love it if you’d share anecdotes. I’m especially interested in knowing how a typical Scottie would react to temporarily sharing a house with Liss’s cats, Lumpkin and Glenora.
An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.
And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business.
Charlene D’Avanzo 
Now I have added another newsletter to my list. You always give great book recommendations and have added considerable to my mountainous t-b-r list. Thanks.
well, I don’t have news but I do have a point of view and a consideration to be considered. Speaking from the reader side of my brain, one thing I really miss in modern publishing is the list of characters at the beginning. Which brings me to the consideration – with post-modern publishing hitting it big in the ether-www.world, I think it is an opportunity for the virtual return of the list of characters. Which would also open up the world of Jeopardy-ish games of knowledge of favorite mystery series. What do you all think of this idea? Potential or ‘stop-bothering-me’?????
Hi, Jule,
Thanks for leaving your comment. I can’t answer for all of us, but I know I’d love to put lists of characters in my mysteries. Usually it’s the publisher who doesn’t like the idea. The last three Face Down mysteries I wrote (as Kathy Lynn Emerson) were published by a small press and the editor there was all for the idea. If the publisher keeps the ebook rights and the original book didn’t have a list of characters, then the ebook won’t either (that’s the case with my Liss MacCrimmon series) but I could have added lists when I made ebooks of the first seven Face Down novels available. I just didn’t think of it. Sometimes writers need readers to remind us of things like that. Thank you.
Kathy/Kaitlyn