Crime Writers in Shorts

Posted on August 18, 2017 by mainecrimewriters

Ha! We know you were hoping for pictures of our knobby knees, but they are mostly hidden beneath our desks. This post is really about short story collections, either compilations of our own work or collections in which we have stories. Perhaps even some comments on collections we are reading. Do you read short stories? A lot of people tell us that they don’t, but short stories are a wonderful way for us to hone our craft, and you to get a snapshot of the kind of writing we do. They’re also great for carrying with you to read while waiting for the child at sports practice, or your doctor, dentist or during other perpetually delayed life events. NOTE, however, much as we love to be read, please don’t read at traffic lights.

Kate Flora: I am extremely excited to be included in a wild and crazy anthology that is a homage to the Obama era, called: The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir http://amzn.to/2uQNiv3 

My story is called “Michelle in Hot Water.” You’ll have to read it to find out why. It is quite a departure from most of the other crime stories that I’ve written, and was tremendously fun to write. It’s also exciting to be in the company of writers like Gary Phillips and Walter Mosley.

I just learned that my story is the first one in the collection. Don’t know if this means I’m the band that opens for the main act, or if hooking the reader falls on my shoulders. I guess you’ll have to read it and decide for yourselves.

 

Kathy Lynn Emerson: I’ve had a pretty good year in short stories. Not only did I have stories in the Level Best’s Windward and Malice Domestic’s Mystery Most Historical anthologies, I also had a collection of my stories published by Wildside Press as Different Times, Different Crimes. You can find it at https://www.amazon.com/Different-Times-Crimes-Kathy-Emerson-ebook/dp/B071F9NLJF/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501280126&sr=1-1&keywords=Different+Times%2C+Different+Crimes This is my second collection of short stories. The first was Murders and Other Confusions, published by Crippen & Landru back in 2004. That one included only stories related to my Face Down series, set in sixteenth century England. This new one has stories from many eras, starting with medieval times in “The Reiving of Bonville Keep” (originally published in the Murder Most Medieval anthology) and going right up to the present with two previously unpublished stories (“Calendar Gal” and “Death in the Dealer Room”) featuring Valentine Veilleux, a character spun off from The Scottie Barked at Midnight. One advantage of putting together a collection of my own stories is that it can be a combination of previously published short stories and stories that were never able to find a home. In Different Crimes, Different Times, ten of the stories have been in print before, five of them in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and three are seeing print for the first time. The third of those is set in 1888 and features a minor character from my Diana Spaulding Mystery Quartet in “The Curse of the Vampire’s Ghost.” All this is quite miraculous to me, since it usually takes me as long to write a short story as it does to write an entire novel. The record is held by “The Boston Post Cane.” The first version was written in 1987. It didn’t make the cut for Level Best’s Red Dawn, but I tried again the next year and it was accepted for Windward. It is also in Different Times, Different Crimes. In this version, the protagonist, in 2015, is telling the story of events that took place in 1987.

Joseph Souza: Ha! Short stuff. Strawberry books decided to publish this crazy little book of shorts. As you can tell from the cover, the opening short story, which is actually a long short story, is about a crazy bunch of tornado chasers. But you’ll be surprised what they’re really searching for. If you like Kurt Vonnegut or George Saunders, you’ll most likely enjoy the story “Fujita’s Itch”. The second story is a crime tale called “The Stone Walls of Lebanon” and it received runner-up for The Al Blanchard Award at Crime Bake. It’s tells of two mobsters who travel from New York to New Hampshire in order to take apart and steal a historic old stone wall for a corrupt Wall Street executive. Seems this wall has quite a murderous past. The third story takes place during a terrorist attack. A young couple honeymooning in England have been quarantined during a chemical attack that turns the male population gay. Needless to say, the two struggle to consummate their marriage under the considerable weight of the attack, and because of that their true differences emerge.  Check it out if you’re looking for something funny and completely different. And don’t forget to order THE NEIGHBOR, my twisty domestic thriller that comes out April 24th, 2018. https://www.amazon.com/Neighbor-Joseph-Souza-ebook/dp/B074DGFKS8/ref=la_B0083J9IZ8_1_9_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502730996&sr=1-9

 

Bruce Robert Coffin: I will admit that I haven’t had as much time as I would like to continue crafting short stories, although I keep squirreling away ideas for the future. My most recent published short was a devilish little tale titled Bygones. It appears in the Level Best Anthology Busted: Arresting Stories from the Beat. https://www.amazon.com/Busted-Arresting-Stories-Dames-Detection-ebook/dp/B071DMTFDL/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1502972993&sr=8-2&keywords=Busted+stories Busted is a great collection containing stories from many of my accomplished writing friends. Be sure to check it out!

 

Maureen Milliken: I don’t write short stories (too hard!) but I do read them. Actually, I’ve been heard to say that I don’t enjoy reading them because they’re too short. But, I actually do enjoy reading them.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is my all-time favorite short story. Would love to credit this photo, but can’t find the source.

As an English major at Holy Cross, I took a course, “American Short Story,” which spurred by love of Flannery O’Connor. She wrote my all-time favorite short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It’s a classic, not only for those who love crime (creepy serial killer The Misfit!), but for those who love literature.

If you haven’t read “A Good Man is Hard to Find” you’re missing out. Among other things, it has one of the best closing quotes in all of literature. Do yourself a huge favor and read it, or better yet, listen to Flannery O’Connor reading it, which can easily be found online.

I’m also a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe, the patron writer of all of us mystery writers.

Which is not to say I don’t also read my colleagues’ short stories! I enjoy them, too and look forward to checking out all the new offerings in this post!

Barb: I haven’t written many short stories lately because I’ve been writing the Maine Clambake Mysteries, but this year “Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody,” was published in Noir at the Salad Bar, a new book from the new editors at Level Best Books. It introduces a new character and setting for me. More on that to come!

For my money, the best mystery short story is “The Woman in the Wardrobe,” by Robert Barnard from Death of a Salesperson and Other Untimely Events. My favorite literary short story is “The Horseman,” by Richard Russo, because it is perfect. It’s recently been re-released in Trajectory, a collection of four of Russo’s long shorts. Plus anything at all by Alice Munro.

John: I’m in two this summer. My story “With Great Relish” is in Noir at the Salad Bar, while I have a dandy one called “Relatively Annoying” in Day of the Dark-Stories of Eclipse edited by Kaye George.

And if you are the type of reader who likes goodies…leave us a comment and some lucky sort will win an arc of The Obama Inheritance. So keep those cards and letters coming, crime fans.

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Maine’s monuments aren’t going anywhere

Posted on August 17, 2017 by Maureen Milliken

There’s been a lot of talk the past week — and for some time — about monuments, statues, their worth, what they mean.

I’m not going to get all political here, but man-made statues, memorials and monuments tend to have a certain meaning for those who put them up, may have other meanings for others, and are actually simply blocks of stone or cement that have to be looked at with a certain perspective. I’ve heard them referred to as history. They are only history in that they represent a certain philosophy or sentiment, good or bad.

History is the stuff that actually happened, not the stuff the winners (or in the case of some very prominent monuments, the losers) put up to mark their territory.

That said, around the time things were heating up in Charlottesville last week, my sister Liz and I were on our annual camping trip to Baxter State Park.

Baxter has no man-made monuments. What is has is better.

I’ll let Percival Baxter, the former governor who bought the original land for the park say it:

Man is born to die. His works are short-lived. Buildings crumble, monuments decay, and wealth vanishes, but Katahdin in all it’s glory forever shall remain the mountain of the people of Maine.

The same can be said for the entire 200,000-plus acres now. Baxter knew that the whims of people change, that people can destroy the beauty around them out of greed, ignorance or short-sightedness.

The park is famously rigid and limited about how many people can stay there and what  you can do when  you’re there (no RVs, no motorized boats, carry-in carry-out, etc).

On our way out after a few days camping, we took the time to drive the loop road at the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. That was Saturday afternoon, around the same time Heather Heyer was breathing her last breaths.

While it’s really weird for a piece of beautiful land to become a political football, somehow this gift to the people of Maine, and the nation, has.

Roxanne Quimby, one of the cofounders of Burts Bees products, bought up the land piece by piece and (yes, I’m simplifying) donated it to the federal government. President Obama made it a national monument last year. Now it’s being “reviewed” by the current administration, with an eye toward possibly stripping it of that designation.

Our governor has called it a “gave injustice” for the people of Maine and a “mosquito area.”

He and opponents have given a lot of reasons for it not to be there — it will take away from Baxter (really?), the tourists who visit the coast won’t go there (so what? plenty of Maine for everyone), it’ll cause too much traffic, recreational uses now allowed won’t be (there are areas designated for hunting, snowmobiling, etc.)

The bottom line, it seems to me, is that he wants it preserved so that when the forests there that have been hacked away by the timber industry mature again, the timber industry can have at it.

It’s hard to believe that the people of Sherman, Patten, Staceyville and Millinocket, towns that have seen some really hard times, wouldn’t welcome the boost — the non-polluting, feel-good natural boost — this 87,500- acre wilderness area would give them.

It’s also hard to fathom why people who would be the first to jump on landowners’ rights feel the need to criticize a landowner for doing what she wants with land she owns.

There is still a lot of emphasis in Maine on trying to keep the life-support system on for fading industries (timber being one), instead of looking ahead to how Maine can gain economic footing in the 21st century while not destroying what makes Maine so great. Timber gave us a lot, but in some ways also has taken away. But it’s never going to once again be the industry that sustains communities in the deep impoverished rural pockets of the state.

I understand why Weyerhaeuser, the timber company that owns huge chunks of the state’s land, may not want hundreds of thousands of acres to be out of its grasp, but I find it hard to fathom why someone living on the edge of poverty wouldn’t want a positive economic injection into their community. One that preserves, doesn’t destroy.

But I wasn’t going to get political, was I?

It’s hard to find, because he ordered the signs that lead the way to it not be put up.

We found it anyway.

This monument, despite all we people can throw at it, whether it ends up no longer being “a monument,” will be here long after we’re gone. It doesn’t commemorate political views that many find abhorrent, or even ones we don’t. It doesn’t commemorate death and destruction, as so many do.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we are very, very lucky to live in Maine.

Now for the pictures:

It’s always a great feeling to drive through the entrance to Baxter. This is the north entrance, at Matagamon Gate.

The wild blueberries at Baxter, these ones are along the Middle Fowler Trail, are tart, sweet, delicious, and free for us and the bears.

Sister Liz atop Barrel Ridge after a nice hike.

One of the views from atop Barrel Ridge, off the Middle Fowler Trail, at Baxter State Park.

We stumbled upon the Patten Pioneer Days Bean Hole Dinner at the Lumberman’s Museum after we left Baxter.

There are no signs leading you to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, but this is the intersection where you turn onto Swift Brook Road from Route 11. Just look for the house with the American flag and the large “National Park No” signs.

Our new national monument.

The loop road at Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is rustic and wild. But that’s not a problem.

Liz checks out the view of Katahdin and other stuff from an overlook on the Katahdin Woods and Waters loop road.

Another Katahdin Woods and Waters view. Hard to understand how this is a “travesty” for the people of Maine. Also, I don’t think we saw one mosquito.

Private road leads into the national monument, and there’s still some resistance to it, particularly from lumber companies.

East Branch of the Penobscot on the entrance road to Katahdin Woods and Waters.

 

Maureen Milliken is the author of the Bernie O’Dea mystery series. Follow her on Twitter at@mmilliken47 and like her Facebook page at Maureen Milliken mysteries. Sign up for email updates at maureenmilliken.com. She hosts the podcast Notes from a Cranky Editor all by herself, as well Crime&Stuff with her sister Rebecca Milliken.

 

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Introducing Death Warmed Over – A Thea Kozak mystery

Posted on August 16, 2017 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: I originally wrote this book more than four years ago, and it has wandered through the world of publishing ever since. After several years of waiting for a publisher to get around to it, I decided to publish it myself. For writers of a series, as well as readers, get attached to characters. I wanted to bring Thea back, and readers told me they wanted to read more, too.

For those who are unfamiliar with Thea, here’s what Janet Evanovich says about An Educated Death:

Thea Kozak is a terrific, in-your-face, stand-up gal in the moving and compelling story of a grown-ups who fail the students in their care. Stephanie Plum and Thea Kozak would have a lot to say to each other.

And a quick description from the Camden Herald: 

“Maybe it’s because Flora’s books are so thoroughly grounded in reality and accurate in detail that Thea Kozak never really slips the surly bonds of real life –though she sure pushed the envelope. Her exploits smack of the superhuman, but her emotions, thoughts, feelings, reactions and responses are instantly recognizable to the rest of us ordinary beings.” – Carolyn Marsh, editor of the Camden (Maine) Herald

And here, because I am so flattered by their comments, I share some of quotes from writers I admire:

“If you like your heroines smart, brave, tough, and exuberantly aware of the possibilities of the human heart, look no further than Thea Kozak.” S.J. Rozan

 “Kate Flora does what all the great writers do: she takes you inside unfamiliar territory and makes you feel right at home; you climb in and are along for the whole ride.” Michael Connelly

“I’ll follow Thea Kozak anywhere. She is simply one of the most refreshing and original heroines in mystery fiction today. And Kate Flora is the rare, graceful writer who pays close attention to how long it takes the body and the heart to heal.” Laura Lippman

And now, without further ado, an excerpt from Chapter One of Death Warmed Over:

I retraced my steps through the dining room and the entry hall and shoved back the heavy pocket doors. The huge, bright, front-to-back living room was painted a soothing, soft gray-green. Light streamed in through a wall of windows at the end. In the center sat a single chair. The chair was surrounded by a circle of space heaters, each of them glowing fiery red, connected to outlets by long orange tails of extension cords. Our realtor, Ginger Stevens, was tied to the chair, a thick strip of shiny silver duct tape wrapped around her head and her mouth. Her skin was blackening red and blistered. Her clothes were charred and smoking.

As fresh air whooshed through the door with me, her clothes burst into little tongues of flame and her long russet-brown braid caught fire. Above the smoke and flames, her eyes, wide with pain and terror, fixed on me. She mumbled behind the tape as I stood and stared, frozen in place, trying to process what I was seeing. The horror. The incongruity. The utterly incomprehensible nature of what was happening. Ginger was being cooked. I stood in the doorway, paralyzed.

Then I dove into action. I sprinted toward the circle. Heat and hot metal seared my ankles as I kicked the nearest heaters out of the way. I grabbed the back of the chair, the paint blistering hot under my fingers. As tongues of flame licked at me, I dragged her into a cooler part of the room. I tore off my jacket, balled it up to protect my hands, and used it to smother the flames from her still-burning clothing and her hair. Then I tore at the tape that covered her mouth and nearly covered her nose, gagging from the smell of burned flesh and singed hair and the horror of realizing that I hadn’t smelled barbecue at all. I’d smelled this woman, Ginger Stevens, my kind, sweet, sometimes too chatty realtor, being burned alive.

As I pulled out my phone and dialed 9-1-1, Ginger tried to speak.

“Hush,” I said. “Hold on. Hold on. I’m calling for help. I’m going to get someone here to help you. We’re going to get you to a hospital, Ginger. It’s going to be okay.”

I wished I believed what I was saying.

Her mouth moved. Dry split lips. Her swollen tongue trying to form words. I bent down so my mouth was close. There was a faint mumble I could barely make out, a few sounds that seemed like words.

“Don’t try to talk,” I said, because the effort was so clearly painful. But her effort was extreme. There was something she had to tell me.

“…airy,” she gasped. “Bobby.” Her blackened hands clawed at the air. “So long. Safe.” A grasp for the strength to go on, and then, “Sorry.”

As the operator answered and went through her spiel, this call is being recorded, blah, blah, I tried to give her the details. My name. The address of this house. The awful scene, a woman being burned alive. Our need for an ambulance and EMTS. Our need for cops, for a crime scene team because this was no accident.

Now that the tape was off her mouth and she’d delivered her incomprehensible message, Ginger’s muffled sounds had become a ceaseless high-pitched scream, a primitive, animal cry of agony. Most people know what a burn feels like. Multiply that times a thousand and you wouldn’t even come close. Her eyes had a dulled glaze that made me fear she was dying. That she’d die here before help could arrive.

I am now hard at work, and 200 pages into the next Thea Kozak mystery. So if you like Thea, you won’t have to wait so long next time.

Leave a comment and you might win a print copy of the book.

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So Many Books, So Little Time

Posted on August 15, 2017 by kaitlynkathy

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. The title of this post could as easily apply to books that I’m writing as to those in my to-be-read pile, but today, while in the throes of revisions on two different projects, I’d much rather talk about other people’s novels. How do I find time to read, you ask? I’m honestly not sure, but I do know that when my own writing is going well, I also read a lot. That could, of course, have something to do with the lack of appealing shows on television. Right now the only two I’m watching regularly are Father Brown on PBS at 7 on Sundays and Charlaine Harris’s Midnight Texas at 10 PM on Mondays on NBC.

Every Tuesday, publishers release a swarm of new titles. Even if I restrict myself to books in series I already love and books written by friends, I almost always end up downloading more than one to my iPad. Sometimes I even splurge and buy a hardcover. That happened most recently with The Painted Queen, the final Amelia Peabody mystery, set in Egypt in 1912. It was unfinished when the author, Elizabeth Peters (a pseudonym for Egyptologist Barbara Mertz) died in 2013 and was finished by her good friend and fellow writer, Joan Hess. There was a lot of speculation surrounding who had been chosen to complete it. Although I only knew Barbara slightly (from Malice Domestic), I have been friends with several of her friends, especially our own Dorothy Cannell, for a long time. I guessed, long before Joan’s role was made public, that she would be the one finishing The Painted Queen and I was betting she’d do a great job with it. I’m happy to report that I was right. Whether you’ve read other books in the series or not, this should definitely be on your TBR pile.

The very next week saw the publication of Rhys Bowen’s newest Lady Georgie adventure, On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service. What can I say? When it comes to historical mysteries, I like amateur sleuths who are a little wacky. That’s not to stay that I don’t enjoy more serious takes on history. I’m very much looking forward to James R. Benn’s next Billy Boyle World War II mystery, The Devouring, which will be out next month, as will Whispers of Warning by fellow Maine Crime Writer Jessie Crockett, writing as Jessica Estevao. I loved the first book in this series, Whispers Beyond the Veil.

August 8 was also a good day for contemporary mysteries. Kate Flora’s eighth Thea Kozak mystery, Death Warmed Over, hit the ebook shelves. So did Lea Wait’s new YA, Pizza to Die For. I was lucky enough to read a draft before it was published and it’s a great read for all ages. I’m reading Kate’s book right now and am thoroughly engrossed in the story.

 

Today is August 15. Yup—Tuesday again. Curiously, no books on my “want list” are scheduled for this date, but that doesn’t mean I won’t download anything. As I read other blogs and Dorothy L and Facebook I’m sure to come across a new release or two, or perhaps a book I missed when it was first published.

What else is on this “want list” of mine? On August 29, Mary Jo Putney’s Once a Rebel comes out. It’s historical romance by an author who really knows her stuff. I don’t read in a great many genres, but I do like to vary my steady diet of mystery with the occasional well-written romance and, occasionally, with a dash of the paranormal. On the pile of recent purchases yet to be read are Beauty Like the Night by Joanna Bourne (historical romance with spies), You’ll Never Know, Dear by Hallie Ephron (a stand-alone thriller), and Bless Her Dead Little Heart by Miranda James, the first in a series spun off from the Cat in the Stacks Mysteries. Coming up in September are J. D. Robb’s futuristic police procedural, Secrets in Death and Charlaine Harris’s contemporary cozy, Sleep Like a Baby. My October list includes Donna Andrews’ How the Finch Stole Christmas, Lea Wait’s Thread the Halls, and Patricia McLinn’s Back Story.

If, by some fluke, I run out of new titles, or am in the mood for something else, I have at least fifty and probably closer to a hundred as-yet-unread books downloaded in iBook and Kindle formats. I can’t help myself: offer the first in a series I haven’t read for free on Amazon and I tend to give in to temptation. While my TBR “pile” may no longer be tottering on chairs and tables, it sure isn’t getting any smaller!

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of more than fifty traditionally published books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (X Marks the Scot—December 2017) and Deadly Edits series (Crime and Punctuation—2018) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in a Cornish Alehouse) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” mysteries and is set in Elizabethan England. New in 2017 is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com

 

 

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When Writer’s Block Becomes Fun

Posted on August 14, 2017 by bereksennebec

John Clark sharing a serendipitous moment that happened back in May and what followed. Our younger daughter Lisa was home from New York and we had gone to Waterville for Indian food. After our meal, we decided to do a bit of browsing. Beth and Lisa were still looking through a book store when I wandered further down Main Street and a poster in the window of Framemakers caught my eye.

Since both Beth and our older daughter Sara are into art projects, the idea of buying a block of pine for a dollar and creating something unique sounded pretty interesting. Anyone could purchase one or two numbered blocks for a dollar each, decorate them in whatever manner they chose and Framemakers would exhibit them from July 8th through September 13th.

Last Friday we went to the open house, curious to see how many were on exhibit. I chatted with staff there to learn more about how the block project came about. Four years ago, another arts group in the Waterville area came up with the idea as a way to generate funds for an arts scholarship during the Christmas season. It was extremely successful. For whatever reason, the group moved on to different projects, so the folks at Framemakers which has been part of the downtown Waterville business community since the early 1980s, got permission to carry on the project. They decided to move it to the summer season as more and more cultural events were happening in the area (things like arts at Colby and the Maine International Film Festival).

Blocks are available for purchase at $45. the artist receives $30 and the remainder goes toward funding a $500 scholarship for a local student who is pursuing a degree in some branch of creative arts. Last year, blocks sold almost covered the entire scholarship.

Framemakers buys the lumber to make the blocks locally and passes all money from their purchases into the scholarship fund. There are no restrictions regarding age or medium. We chatted with sisters who looked to be about ten and twelve. This was their second year as participants and they had both sole their work.

In addition to the block art project, pieces by other local artisans were on display and available for purchase. Abbot Meader has a collection of paintings depicting scenes in and near Baxter State Park.

While I was waiting for Beth who had gone to the Brunswick Music Theater with friends, I noticed a fellow enter who looked wicked familiar. When I looked at the black and white photography exhibit in the window opposite the blocks, I realized who he was. Bob Lane and I worked together back in the early 1980s at AMHI. He was a bit smarter and left for a career at the Department of Labor, retiring six years ago. Beth had him as a student in her basic nursing skills class while working there. We had a nice chat, catching up on people we both knew. As you can see, he’s doing some pretty cool stuff in his retirement.

We’re already looking forward to doing this again next year. This time, we’ll have a whole winter to mull over ideas. Anyone care to guess which two blocks are mine?

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Weekend Update: August 12-13, 2017

Posted on August 12, 2017 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by John Clark (Monday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Wednesday), Maureen Milliken (Thursday), and on Friday there will be a special group post about our short stories in collections and anthologies.

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Kate Flora and Lea Wait both have new books out! From Kate it’s the eighth Thea Kozak mystery, Death Warmed Over. And Lea has a new stand-alone mystery for young people, Pizza to Die For.

Bruce Robert Coffin‘s Beneath the Depths was released on August 8th. It is the second novel in the Detective Byron Mystery Series.

Bruce will be appearing at three different locations this coming week. Tuesday at 6 pm he will be at the Bridgton Public Library, Thursday at 6:30 pm he’ll be at the Gray Public Library, and on Saturday at Letterpress Books in Portland from 10 am to 1 pm.

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. Contact Kate Flora

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Giveaway-Whispers of Warning

Posted on August 11, 2017 by mainecrimewriters

Congratulations, Ruth Nixon! You are the  winner of the Whispers of Warning Giveaway! 

Jessie: On the coast of Maine, moving once more towards a September 1 deadline.

I’m not sure why it is but for some reason, over the past six years I have had five September 1 deadlines. For some people having the summer to finish up a book would be ideal. Teachers perhaps. Or students.

For me, it hasn’t been an easy cross to bear. We live at the beach every summer and my office is on the front porch of our small cottage. The sound of the beachgoers trundling past my window smelling of sunscreen, boogey boards tucked under their arms just leaves me feeling crotchety and envious.

It doesn’t help matters that the salty breeze floats up and teases me with the reiminder of all I am missing as I sit at my desk putting my head down and conconcentrating on the task in front of me.

Making things even more challenging is the fact that my kids are home from school all summer and my regular work schedule is thrown into disarray. It is hard to focus on work when your nearest and dearest are thinking only of play. Or of what is or is not available in the refrigerator.

In the end though, all of those summers have been memorable and satisfying. The books, and the work it took to produce them, are a large part of what made those summers something to remember. Somehow, some way, the books have all gotten written. And as difficult as it is for me to believe, in just over a month, on September, 19, the second book in my Change of Fortune mystery series, Whispers of Warning, will be released. Last year at this time I was frantically trying to finish the manusript in order to turn it into my editor by the agreed upon date.

To celebrate the journey I would love to give away a copy of Whispers of Warning to one commenter who leaves a memory of something that took a great deal of effort at the time but was worth it in the end.

 

 

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Planetary Protection Officer or Global Drinks Ambassador???

Posted on August 10, 2017 by mainecrimewriters

Hey all. Happy August to you.

During an insanely busy year, book #2 in the Michael McKeon series is finished, in which we meet The Prodigal, the world’s first private nuclear power. I’m very excited about a new book I’m writing with a whole new cast of characters and a protagonist who not only must race against an external ticking clock, but one inside him as well. More to come.

In the meantime, here are some bizarre news stories perfect for your late summer amusement.

Seven priests walk into a bar…start of a killer joke, right? Not in Cardiff, Wales, where the bouncer thought they were a bachelor party in costume and refused them service. When the manager realized the error, he bought them a round.

Scottish whisky company Grant’s is recruiting a new global drinks ambassador. The only thing better might be that NASA is now taking applications for Planetary Protection Officer.

Perhaps best of all, in response to NASA’s open application announcement, nine-year-old Jack Davis from New Jersey applied. He is “great at video games” and has watched most of the alien movies except Men in Black. Most importantly, “My sister says I am an alien.”

Courtesy of NASA

Speaking on behalf of brothers of sisters everywhere, good luck Jack! When he’s 21 and done protecting the planet, I hear there’s a global drinks ambassador opening. Just don’t dress like a priest.

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The Post Where I Announce We’re Moving to Portland

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Barbara Ross

by Barb Ross

Yes, we’re going to be full-time Mainers! Both Bill and I are excited about this next chapter. The plan (there’s always a plan) was to sell our house in Massachusetts (check–you can read about it here), and then come up to our home in Boothbay Harbor and stay until we leave for Key West mid-December. We weren’t going to rush into anything. We definitely weren’t.

But I was keeping tabs on the Portland real estate market, just to educate myself, I said. Bill and I went to a few open houses whenever we were passing through. Casually, I told people, we’re exploring.

Then, in mid-June, when our whole family was up in Boothbay for the weekend, I found a place online that seemed perfect. Our home wasn’t even on the market. It was too soon. Nonetheless, I shot an inquiry off to the listing agent, could we maybe see it on our way home to Massachusetts?

That didn’t work out and between putting our house on the market and helping our son and his family move from Connecticut to Virginia, we didn’t make it back to Maine until after July 4th, the Friday before Books in Boothbay, in fact.

We looked at the place on our way up and, surprisingly, it was even nicer and more perfect for us than the photos. Even more compelling, given all we had been through in the spring, it needed almost no work, not even paint. We drove around the neighborhood, which we kind of, sort of, knew and liked it. (It seems to be in an area of shifting designations, most recently I think it has been called the India Street neighborhood.)

I was still burbling about it the next day when I saw Lea and Kate.

By that point our house in Massachusetts was under contract, but it hadn’t closed, which meant we didn’t have the money in our pockets to go around buying condominiums in Portland, or anywhere else. So though we loved the place, we waited. But both of our thoughts kept returning to the house.

Finally, everything came together. (Knocking wood furiously. We don’t close on it until this Friday.)

Barb’s study, where the magic will happen, starting fall 2017

It’s a four story townhouse, with an elevator, handy because the kitchen is on the third floor. My favorite part is that Bill’s study is on the first floor, and mine will be on the fourth. I love him, but… No water views, sadly, though last time I was there I glimpsed a tiny sliver of Casco Bay through the chimney tops.

Bill’s study, where the magic will also happen, three floors away from Barb, a relief to them both

It all feels a little impulsive and crazy, but also thoughtful and well-considered. We’ve always loved Portland, since we started coming there in the late eighties when we used to camp at Sebago. Portland’s future was just a glimmer at the time, but we still thought it was cool. Also, we’re city people at heart. Neither of us has ever had dreams of quiet country nights.

The kitchen and dining areas. By the way, the rooms in all these photos were professionally staged. Enjoy. They will never look so polished again.

But, it will be an adjustment, no doubt. We’ve never lived in a house less than 100 years-old, this one was built in 2007. And we’ve never lived in a condominium association. Because there are some ongoing issues, we were given all the minutes of the past year’s meetings prior to close. There were some passages I found hilarious, but maybe I won’t when I’m in the middle of it?

So, we’re going to be Portlanders, or is it Portlandites? Surely not Portlandians, that’s the other coast, right? So much to learn! I’ll have to rely on my Maine Crime Writers friends to find dentists and doctors, hairdressers and mani-pedi places. Things I haven’t changed in years. It’s a little daunting. But as my business partner used to say, you should always be moving toward something, not just away from something, and that’s what it feels like to us.

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Those Visitors From Away …

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Lea Wait

August in Maine! Pardon for making a very large generalization … but August and September are my two favorite months in Maine. Not TOO hot, not TOO cold … not TOO much rain … pretty much, just right.

Other people agree. People from Texas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Ohio,  Florida, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Nova Scotia, Virginia … and those are just the license plates I saw this morning in a Damariscotta parking lot.

As my husband sometimes puts it, “They’re here.” Parking lots and restaurants and grocery stores are full. Yes, there are sometimes lines to get over the bridge in Wiscasset because of so many people crossing Main Street there. (In Maine, cars are required to stop when pedestrians are in a crosswalk.) Freeport and Kittery, outlet towns, are full to bursting. You might drive around for twenty minutes trying to find a parking space there.

Now — don’t misunderstand.  This is not a bad thing. Tourists and vacationers and those who choose to divide their years between Maine and some other state (usually more southern, but sometimes — would you believe Vermont?) also bring jobs to Maine. They buy art and crafts and tee shirts and antiques and lots of lobster rolls. They eat at restaurants. They take boat trips and visit botanical gardens and wineries and historical sites; museums and islands and beaches and parks. They shop at those outlets … and at souvenir shops and jewelry stores and book stores.

Those of us who live here all year do those things occasionally, too, of course. But many of us work in summer months (sometimes more than one job) to earn enough to winter over. And … even when there’s back-to-school shopping to be done, why hassle an outlet town in August when the same store will be there in October?

Tourism has changed since I was a child. Then summer was (almost officially) the Fourth of July until Memorial Day. Many visitors to Maine rented cottages for two weeks (the two week vacation – remember that?) You could count on traffic being heavy on the Maine Turnpike at the beginning of July, the middle of July, the middle of August, and Labor Day weekend. Those were the “changing of the guard” dates for summer rentals.

And although there were people who summered in Maine and wintered in Florida, most of the summer visitors were from New York New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and, sometimes, Pennsylvania.

Today the pattern has changed. It isn’t unusual to see a license plate from Washington State or Utah or even Alaska, and Texans definitely claim a place in the summer order, as do people from both the Carolinas. And those are just people who drive here; those who fly, and who rent cars, are more invisible.

The “two week rental” hasn’t totally disappeared, but “one week” is more common, and it’s possible to rent a house for only a few days. People take long weekends. They work from their vacation spots.  Many people don’t come to the same place every year (although, of course, some do,) but choose to “tour” — driving each night to a new town; a new motel.

The season has been extended, too. People who spend the whole summer here now may arrive as early as April. By Memorial Day the state is in full summer swing … a swing that lasts through Columbus Day.

One reason? Public schools in southern states end classes in late May, so families from the Carolinas or Virginia head to Maine then. (Schools in more northern states don’t end until about the third week in June.) On the other hand … young families from the south head for home about the first of August, because schools start up again then. New Jerseyans and New Yorkers stick around until close to Labor Day.

And then there are the visitors who plan their vacations for September and October. They tend to be people without school children. They include, but aren’t limited, to the leaf peepers – some of whom may come from as far away as Australia. Locals (quietly) call visitors at this time of year the “newly wed and the nearly dead.”

No insults are intended: these folks without young children tend to spend more money than those who arrive in July and have less frenetic schedules. We welcome them, as we do visitors who arrive earlier in the season.

Maine’s license plates claimed the nickname “Vacationland” beginning in the 1930s. Tourism is still a major industry here. Com’on down and claim your lobsters and Maine tee shirt! The state is open for business … and would love to see you!

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