Maine Crime Writers

NEW YEAR: NEW RESOLUTIONS

Posted on January 9, 2025 by jselbo

Jule Selbo

Don’t worry about making the PLOT tick every every every minute. Allow the characters to breathe, think, have opinions.
Character is plot. Plot is character. It’s sometimes hard to hold onto that mantra (that I believe in) in the crime/mystery genre. Hold onto it.
Read. Read more. In 2024 I was asked to “judge” a non-fiction category for an award. Total? 48 books – all about 400 pages. And I had friends’ books to read. And other books I wanted to read. All this got me in the habit of reading from 10 am to 1 pm EVERY DAY, after putting in some time on the latest Dee Rommel book. Then I had lunch and went back to my students or to Dee Rommel and then, with books piling up, added a wonderful bedtime read instead of a BEST OF BRITISH BAKING SHOW. Now I wake up earlier some days (than regular 4:45 am) and get to work on Dee Rommel earlier so I can start reading at 9:30 am.
Somehow combat that fear of putting oneself “out there” in the book world. Everyone’s books are singular, unique, the “voice” is different in every author’s book. Sameness is not the goal.
Independent bookstores – love them even more.
Libraries – love them even more.
Okay to have writer heroes. They have been provided by the universe for inspiration and they come in all shapes and sizes and stories.
Frustration that a book doesn’t ‘write itself’ is a waste of time. Love re-working a paragraph fifty times. Don’t worry about saving the world, just fix that damn paragraph.

NEWS: 7 DAYS A DEE ROMMEL MYSTERY (4th in the series) is now available for pre-0rder on Amazon. Paperback and Hardback available March 25. E-book available on March 19

NEWS: Tonight, January 9th at Portland Stage Theatre Main Stage – (theater’s on Forest Avenue, Portland) I am joining Tess Gerritsen, Bruce Robert Coffin and Ron Currie for Crime/Mystery Writers Night. Four Maine writers whose crime/mysteries take place in Maine. 7:30. $15.00. Wonderful actors will be reading from our work and there’ll be a talk after about Agatha Christie’s process/work as it might/might not relate to how we approach our work. All getting ready for Portland Stage’s production of an adaptation of Christie’s MURDER ON THE LINKS.

SIDELINE: I had a particularly bad line editor on 7 DAYS, but the publisher saw how bad this person was and got “me” a new one who left Dee Rommel’s voice and story intact. That was a huge learning curve for me – that there are editors out there (who want to put my book into their own preferred sentence structures and word choices – willy-nilly! – and feel that’s their job????). I am so grateful the publisher was as appalled as I was (this was a new editor for them, I guess I was the first in line for their red ink). Publisher even tried to keep the news from me – but when the publishing date was pushed back a few months and I asked why – I got the news and they showed me some of what that line editor did – we had to go back to the the latest draft I sent them and start afresh. Oh! I was fit to be tied!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Lear and Foathing in Waterville

Posted on January 7, 2025 by John Clark

How my Muse is seeing the world right now

“Jesus on a pogo stick,” she moaned when I entered the bedroom New Years day. “Please turn off the spotlight and either take those drums away from the monkeys, or shoot the lot.” She abruptly leaned over the edge of the bed and barfed before croaking, “come back in a few months, or never.”

That’s when I realized my muse was in deep trouble. It could have been worse, while she did take most of my creativity with her, I was allowed to keep my sense of humor, and ability to get out of bed each morning. But how does a writer cope when their muse/creativity is incapacitated?

In my case, I am fortunate in that I have other pursuits to fill those hours created by retirement, and I’m not talking about shuffleboard. Let’s begin with a small rant. The world seems to be wetting its collective undies over AI…Half in anticipation, half in dread. I’m pretty much in the latter camp, particularly since almost every software application wants me to rely upon AI as if my brain suddenly turned into badly made Jell-o. Case in point, When I go to list another item ov eBay, it immediately offers to use AI to write a description of the item I’m selling. I’m sure as hell not that far gone, and hope I never get there.

There is one thing I’d like technology/AI to develop for me. I want a chip implant that can record and edit my dreams. I’d kick Fellini to the curb the first night. Imagine being able to rewatch your dreams while fully awake and then edit the best ones into short films. I’d have the mother of all Youtube channels and be rolling in dough. Best of all, there are no actors to pay, or set designers for that matter.

I do have one glaring example of where AI is shooting itself in the foot. Amazon is so reliant on AI bots that selling on the platform as a small business person has become so frustrating and unproductive that I’m gradually removing my books, music CDs, and movies from it. It’s so bad that I can’t even find some of my own listings ion there any more.

I decided to pony up the $21.00 monthly fee and expand on eBay to have my own store and sales have already jumped big time. Perhaps the biggest plus in doing so is having the ability to list an item nobody else has on there. Take a couple photos, add publication details, create a decent description, and add a price. I’m writing this on January second and will ship eight orders to start the new year. I can’t complain about that. It should keep me busy until my muse recovers. I can’t wait to run my latest story idea by her, It features Mary Magdalene, a trapeze, forbidden lust, and a group of slightly inebriated Hobbits playing accordions.

On a slightly more serious note, it’s been a while since I did a book review here, but I picked up a dandy British mystery at Bullmoose the other day. Deadly Animals is Marie Tierney’s first published novel and it’s a dandy.

Ava Bonney is fourteen and lives with her mother and younger sister Veronica in a rundown flat. Money’s tight and Mom is a somewhat narcissistic whiner, leaving the sisters to take care of each other. Ava is not only very bright, but inquisitive, and has developed an unusual interest in the macabre, notably a fascination with the speed and manner with which animals decompose. She’s completely unfazed by death, to a point where she sneaks out late at night to collect road kill which she places in a hidden boneyard. Her fascination has made her quite the expert in how death happens, what affects decay, and pretty much all there is to know about anatomy and physiology.

She’s gone so far as to read everything she can get her hands on about homicide and in particular, serial killers. When she slips out one night to check on a dead fox she’s been studying for a while, she smells another decaying entity nearby. It turns out to be Mickey Grant, a boy her age who is most assuredly dead. What strikes Ava as odd are the wounds that look like bite marks. She knows the boy was a bully, but that he was also kind to stray animals.

It’s this discovery that sets her on a very unusual and at times scary journey. After disguising her voice to sound like an older and more posh woman, she calls in the location of the body. By the time the very toe-curling climax has been reached, three more boys have been abducted, two of them found deceased with bite marks like the first victim, and Ava has become an integral part of the investigation, thanks to Detective Seth Delahaye figuring out just how smart and observant she is.

While readers know who the killer is well before the end, the why and how that propelled that person are revealed in a very adept manner. While there’s gore aplenty in the story, it (at least to me) never rises to a gratuitous level. I suspect many readers of this blog will find it extremely satisfying.

How I want my Muse to see things.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dark humor, Deadly Animals, Drunken muses, John R. Clark, Loss of creativity | 3 Comments

My Holiday Book Bounty

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Brenda Buchanan

I’m a fortunate woman for many reasons, not the least of which is that every holiday season, my family and friends present me a bounty of books to enjoy during the coming months. This year brought a boatload of wonderful and much appreciated gifts, pictured below.

My 2024 holiday book bounty

I could barely wait to crack open History of the Rain by Niall Williams, a 2014 novel I put on my wish list after my friend, the brilliant writer Eleanor Morse (White Dog Fell From the Sky; Margreete’s Harbor) sang its praises last fall. A contemporary novel set in the imagined village of Faha, located precariously close to the north bank of the River Shannon in County Clare, Ireland, it’s about family love and endless rain, salmon fishing and poetry. As Eleanor promised, I was carried off to Faha for several days, wrapped in Williams’ beautiful prose and marvelous sense of humor. Even when I wasn’t reading History of the Rain, I was thinking about it. It’s that good.

Williams’ 2019 novel This Is Happiness showed up under the tree as well. Also set in Faha, this time in 1958, the persistent County Clare rain has stopped (precipitation that “came in clouds that broke their backs on the mountains in Kerry and fell into Clare, making mud the ground and blind the air”) and the modern world, in the form of electricity, is about to reach the rural village. I cannot wait to read how this development impacted the lives of Faha’s quirky inhabitants.

I’m also looking forward to Long Island by Colm Tóibín, a novel about an Irish immigrant who in midlife returns home to her birthplace in County Wexford after a shocking development in her marriage to an Italian American man. But before I jump back into Irish books, I’ve started The Islanders by Lewis Robinson, who I know from my days on the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance board of directors some years ago. I really enjoyed his earlier work (Water Dogs, Officer Friendly and Other Stories) and am four chapters into The Islanders as I write this. Lewis already has taken me by the hand and pulled me in, as I knew he would.

Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts made my wish list after I heard raves from crime writer friends. Set in small-town New Jersey, it’s about PI Vandy Myrick grappling with a murder of a member of a powerful local family, a case she took only because she needed the money to pay for her elderly father’s care. This is the first in a new series by Delia, and I know I’ll enjoy it as much as I have her Ross Agency Mysteries and her fine short stories because Delia Pitts’ voice is one that grabs me from the get-go.

The God of The Woods by Liz Moore has me hoping for a snow day, though snow days don’t really exist in my work world now that I can boot up my office computer from home. But I need to carve out a period of uninterrupted time to dive in, because Moore’s 2020 literary thriller Long Bright River kept me reading waaaay too deep into the night. From the rave reviews and many best-of-2024 lists on which it landed, I know The God of the Woods is as compelling and powerful.

Daniel Mason’s North Woods is another novel I was pleased to receive. At times like these there’s something comforting about taking a trip to the past, and this book, set in and around a house in western Massachusetts, travels from Puritan times forward for several centuries, chronicling the lives of its inhabitants. The premise is strong and I understand the writing is, too.

On the nonfiction front, I’m looking forward to The World She Edited by Amy Reading, a biography of Katharine S. White, longtime (1925-1960) fiction editor at the New Yorker. As regular readers of this blog may recall from this post https://mainecrimewriters.com/2020/08/07/a-trove-of-garden-insight-from-katharine-white/ Katharine White is a hero of mine for many reasons, and I look forward to this book about her career, especially her commitment to raising the profile of women writers.

A Game of Birds and Wolves by Simon Parkin, about women who were members of a British naval unit, sounds intriguing. The women invented a board game that helped Allied Forces in World War II anticipate the moves of German U-boats, allowing critical countermeasures to be taken. Smart women helping the war effort in creative ways is a great starting place, and I’m eager to read it.

My sister-in-law Janice gifted me with Blood, Powder, and Residue: How Crime Labs Translate Evidence into Proof by Betha A. Bechky, an NYU professor and ethicist. Forensic science is an endlessly fascinating topic for me, and I expect the information and insights in this book will be helpful as I craft new plots for my stories.

Mystery writers love puzzles. That said, I’ve resisted the Wordle phenomenon because I know I’d become addicted to it and my mornings are busy enough already, but my niece Ellie has hooked me with Volume I of Murdle, by G.T. Karber, which contains problems ranging from easy to (allegedly) impossible-to-solve. This will be a great companion as I look for ways to keep myself entertained and my brain nimble.

Finally, because woman cannot live on words alone, I am eager to crack open two new cookbooks. Justine Cooks, a beautiful collection of plant-forward recipes by Justine Doiron was a gift from my niece and kitchen sidekick Joanna. And my spouse Diane gave me Down East Delicious by the inimitable Maine food historian Sandra Oliver of Islesboro, whose cooking abilities and writing skills together elevate her cookbooks like a shot of balsamic enhances a hearty soup. These cookbooks did not make the above photograph only because my holiday book stack was teetering, but they’re on the cookbook shelf, ready for action.

Happy reading in 2025, everyone! Commenters, what books did you receive as holiday gifts?

Brenda Buchanan sets her novels in and around Portland. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories 2021 and received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Her story Assumptions Can Get You Killed appears in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023. In 2025 she plans to stay busy with new projects.

Posted in Brenda's Posts, Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Weekend Update: January 4-5, 2025

Posted on January 4, 2025 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Brenda Buchanan (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday), Jule Selbo (Thursday) and Joe Souza (Friday).

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

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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Posted in Sunday Updates | Tagged Brenda Buchanan, Joe Souza, John Clark, Jule Selbo, Maine Crime Writers news | Leave a comment

Getting Lost in the Worlds They Create

Posted on January 3, 2025 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: When I was a kid growing up in a small Maine town, the high point of the week was the trip to the Vose Library. I would take out a great stack of books, read them throughout the week, and return the next week for another stack. Sometimes, of course, I would reread the same book many times. When I was around 12, I got to be the librarian’s assistant, checking out books, filing the cards, and shelving books. One of the greatest perks of the job was that I got to be second in line, after librarian, for the great gothic suspense novels by Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt.

Back then, although I dreamed of being a writer someday, I didn’t seriously think I could be. I thought that someone would have to be especially gifted with a magic touch to be able to transport a reader from this world into the one they created. I’m still a fan girl today. Still love those books that hold me so totally in their sway that I don’t want to leave the fictional world to return to this one.

It doesn’t happen that often anymore. I enjoy the books I’m reading, or I put them down and find something else. But while I was running around doing holiday errands, I started listening to Kristen Hannah’s The Women. And it happened. I wanted to stay in the car and listen. I needed to know that Frankie would be okay. It also took me back to those war years. My sophomore year in college, my dorm room was a microcosm of what was happening nationally. I went to Ft. Dix on weekends to see my guy while my roommate would fly to Toronto to see hers.

I had initially hesitated to read the book because it was so popular. When a book is popular, there are so many opinions out there about it that it is hard to come to the reading experience fresh and have a satisfying experience of discovery. Luckily, I hadn’t read a lot of reviews, and so I was able to discover the story without outside influences.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is traditionally a time when I set work aside, do less cooking (except for NYE) and indulge in spending as much time as I want to reading. I’m lucky that we’re a bookish family and so I always have a stack of new books to tackle. Mostly I read fiction that week, but my husband bought me a book called The World-Ending Fire The Essential Wendell Berry, so I have been digging into his essays. The experience of reading his thoughts about the land and its timelessness have reminded me of how magical it was to grow up on so many country acres. We had trails through the woods. Imaginary houses or castles along the moss-covered ledges. Two hills to sled down to the pond. Skating in the winter and swimming in the summer.

Reading the book also puts me in touch with my mother, who was a great Wendell Berry fan. She was also a country-living writer who cared passionately about the land and the soil, about observing the seasons, about watching wildlife and the sunsets over the pond. Once, when she wanted to see a turkey vulture close up, she tied a rope around a roadkill woodchuck and dragged into the field outside the kitchen window so she could watch them.

Indulging in reading both the fiction and the nonfiction also reminds me of how, sometimes, when I’m writing a book, I am so deeply into the plot that it is just like when I’m reading. I will find that I can’t wait to get back to the story to see what happens next, even though I’m the one who is writing it.

What kind of a reader are you? Do you get lost in books? Sometimes resent the fact that you have to leave the world you are enjoying so much to come back to mundane chores like doing laundry or making dinner? Or are you someone who feels guilty taking time away from work to read?

Happy New Year. And here is another gift I got for Christmas, one that made me laugh out loud.

Posted in Kate's Posts | 5 Comments

Kathy’s Rules for Commas

Posted on January 2, 2025 by kaitlynkathy

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today taking issue with style sheets.

One advantage of self-publishing in e-book and POD formats is that I am no longer bound by “house” styles, the choices on spelling, grammar, and punctuation issues that publishers used to set up, and probably still do, for their copy editors to enforce. When I was being published by traditional publishers, every one of them had preferred rules for punctuation, capitalization, and so on. If your usage in a manuscript differed, the copy editor would change it.

I prefer to play by the rules. The only problem was that I’d just get the hang of the way one publisher wanted commas done and another publisher would hit me with a different set of guidelines. I finally gave up trying to get it right in advance and just punctuated the text the way it made sense to me. I didn’t argue with a copy editor’s changes unless they altered the meaning of my sentence.

no, this isn’t real, but it’s not that far off either

Things are different now. I don’t answer to an editor or a publisher and I go by only two rules when it comes to commas. I use the Oxford comma in lists, for clarity, and I put a comma where there needs to be one to indicate a pause. This is especially important in writing dialogue.

I could stop here, but that would make a very short post, so I will go on to add that I also arbitrarily use lower case for titles like the duke of Norfolk and the queen, but tend to capitalize titles like Her Majesty and Principal Secretary. When I was writing contemporary novels I was in a constant battle over whether or not to capitalize Sheriff’s Department. Yes, I know there are style manuals, but the rules have changed over time and I’d just as soon stick with what I remember being taught back in the dark ages when I was in school. Altering those habits just seems wrong.

Spelling comes into this discussion, too. Sometimes alright really needs to be two words. I have a back yard, not a backyard, to go with my front yard. On the other hand, the area our driveway leads into is a dooryard. Maybe I’m just too lazy or too stupid to learn the “rules,” but it seems to me that when those rules keep changing, no one can keep up.

how I sometimes felt when trying to figure out comma rules

All this makes me wonder if readers care about, or even notice, a writer’s choices in spelling, grammar, or punctuation, as long as they aren’t pulled out of the story by them. That’s a serious question. I’d love to hear what MCW readers think. Please feel free to chime in in the comments section.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. 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. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

Posted in Kaitlyn's Posts | Tagged commas, copy editors, grammar rules, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kathy Lynn Emerson, punctuation, spelling, style sheets | 10 Comments

Looking Ahead to 2025!

Posted on December 31, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

In this post, we will share news about what’s coming from MCW authors in 2025.

Kate Flora: I’m optimistic that the next Burgess police procedural, Those Who Choose Evil, will be published next year. Beyond that? I’m hoping that more of those books that are languishing in my desk drawer will finally find their way into reader’s hands. And of course, I must write another Thea Kozak mystery, right? Let’s all have a great 2025.

Rob Kelley: 2025 is a big year for me. My debut novel, Raven, a historical thriller, will be coming out in late 2025 from High Frequency Press. And I’ll be working on finalizing my edits for my contemporary political thriller, Critical State, also coming out from HFP in 2026!

Maureen Milliken: Expect the fifth book in the Bernadette “Bernie” O’Dea mystery series in the fall, which gives you plenty of time to read the first four, including Dying for News, which was released in October. I also hope to release a companion book for fans, with character background, outtakes and more, sometime before spring. You can also expect to see me at a lot of author (and other) events throughout 2025. Keep an eye on my website maureenmilliken.com, for updates. You can sign up for my occasional email newsletter there as well.

Matt Cost is breaking in a new publisher, Level Best Books, in April, with the release of The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed. This also breaks new ground in that it is a straight up thriller. The second book in the series, EveryThing vs Max Creed, is written and in the final draft stages to be submitted for publication in April of 2026. Glow Trap, the sixth book in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, will publish this summer. And… I am hoping that my new historical PI mystery set in 1955 Raleigh, aptly titled 1955, will be published in the fall. Write on!

Kathy Lynn Emerson: In 2025 I’ll be continuing to release newly revised trade paperback editions of my Face Down mysteries, with Face Down O’er the Border (release date 1/9/25) and Lady Appleton’s World: The Complete Short Stories (release date 2/6/25), but the really big news is that rights have reverted to me on the spinoff Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries, so I’ll be giving those another read to find any continuity problems and typos and then reissuing them in trade paperback and in an omnibus e-book, probably titled The Face Down Collection Four to go with the three volumes of Face Down novels and short stories already available. Single-title e-books are also likely (for all thirteen novels), but I have to wait until the current, unrevised versions are all taken down. The only downside to all this is that there will be a short stretch when Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe, Murder in the Merchant’s Hall, and Murder in a Cornish Alehouse won’t be available at all in electronic format and will only be available in print editions if stores already have copies in stock. I promise to proofread as fast as I can and still fix everything that needs to be fixed!

P.S. For those of you who remember my posts on my other project, Treacherous Visions is currently “resting.” I’ve finished one read through/revision but it still needs more work.

Kait Carson: I’ve decided to take the plunge this year and seek a traditional publisher (and/or maybe an agent???? Where is that fingers crossed emoji when I need it) for No Return the first of a new series set in Maine. That’s not to say I’m abandoning indie publishing. The fourth Hayden Kent book, tentatively titled Death by Deception is in the works as an indie. Beyond that? Lots of ideas bubbling, but nothing has gelled in the cauldron.

Dick Cass: Having finished off the Elder Darrow series with Book 7, Closing Time, I’m working on a follow-on to The Last Altruist with the same characters, set in an unorganized town in far northern Maine. Hope to have that done and out into the marketplace in the first quarter of 2025. My novel By Violent Chance, with a female Vietnam veteran private eye, is making the rounds and I’m hoping for some movement on that. Beyond all these, I’m hoping for more short stories this year, those snacks between the big meals . . . Happy New Year!

John Clark: More short stories of a dark and humorous nature. I’m sure I can find plenty of inspiration from the daily news.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Button, Button, Who’s Got The Button?

Posted on December 30, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: I don’t think that I’ve confessed my fondness for buttons here before. I’m not a collector. I don’t have a nice stack of reference books handy to teach me about buttons–their history, materials, etc, or their value. I do sometimes think that someday I will write a mystery featuring a button collector. I’m thinking about buttons today because a kind family member who knows me well gave me a container of buttons for Christmas. (An aside here…I am always happy to take that button box you don’t know what to do with off your hands.)

What I like about buttons is two-fold. First, I like to sort buttons. Sorting buttons, like ironing, is a very peaceful activity. It’s something I can do while I’m puzzling about a plot, or when the latest book I’m reading disappoints, or when, like today, it is cold and damp and foggy outside. They can be sorted by size, or by color, or by sets, or by buttons that are very different from the others.

Second, poking around in old button boxes can spark an interesting game of: When were these popular? On what sort of garment were they worn and who wore it? On the shelf where I’ve stacked up all the boxes and tins that hold my buttons, I have my grandmother’s button box, a funny old wooden box that used to hold laundry starch. It is only about a third full now, but back when I first discovered it in my mother’s attic, it was full, and sometimes friends and I, or my sister and I, would spend a happy afternoon sorting buttons.

The prettiest ones, or the ones with most interesting shapes or designs, might get sorted into sets and sewn onto cardboard index cards. That box had a lot of black, fabric covered buttons from a time when buttons were the primary mode of fastening clothes and clothes used a lot of them. There were also a lot of small black jet buttons and many small round buttons that must have gone on shoes.

In time, I inherited my mother’s button box, a purple metal candy tin. I still search it today when I need a button for a blouse or my husband’s pants or shorts. Because it is from my childhood, I can find buttons there that were left over from my 4-H sewing projects, or the suit my mother made to wear for church. In another box, I have buttons from sewing projects I did for my own boys–tiny ducks or dinosaurs. There are also some of the small weights that were sewn into women’s suits to make the hems hang right.

In my Christmas tin, there were three tiny handprinted wooden duck buttons, and four wooden buttons with psychedelic patterns. Some odd shaped white buttons that must have gone on a dress or a blouse. A single black spangled button. It also contained a lot of buttons with eagles and other insignia suggested military, or military-style clothes. And of course, fabric covered buttons that tell me what kinds of fabrics and prints the owner wore.