Dear Anonymous-Read my Bumper

Posted on December 6, 2024 by John Clark

John Clark looking at a couple recent anonymous comments on the blog and figuring it’s time to address them. This pair of Chinese curses are in full array right now; “May You Live In Interesting Times,” and “May You Find What You Are Looking For.”

Right now, I’m creating my entry (I may do more than one) for a proposed anthology called Retribution and Revenge https://bcubedpress.moksha.io/publication/retribution-and-revenge The recent election not only shattered democracy (checks and balances have been turned into a bad joke), it created so many possibilities for horror, dystopia, and even mystery, both in short stories and full length fiction.

Looking into the dark crystal known as the future, I see nobody willing to harvest crops, work as hospital aides, or housekeeping staff (ditto hotels and motels) Are you ready to get up right after surgery to empty your own catheter? Think 2024’s weather was a shit show, what will it be like after ‘drill, baby, drill’? Got ocean front property? I hope it’s at least 20 feet above the high tide line. All the political gesturing in the world isn’t gonna hold back a storm surge, Category 5 hurricane, similar tornado, or wildfire.

Homeless, pregnant, on the LGBTQIA spectrun? Too bad, you ain’t got no rights in the MAGA world, but we’ll still include you as characters in our books and stories…That is until the (not so) supreme court decides that the current administration has the right to ban any books considered seditious. (Better get used to reading the bible)

Here’s a bit about a book I’m currently reading that is where the future of YA fiction will head, IMHO. Unbecoming / Seema Yasmin ‎ Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (July 9, 2024) 9781665938440

In a not-too-distant America, abortions are prosecuted and the right to choose is no longer an option. But best friends Laylah and Noor want to change the world. After graduating high school, they’ll become an OBGYN and a journalist, but in the meantime, they’re working on an illegal guide to abortion in Texas.

In response to the unfair laws, underground networks of clinics have sprung up, but the good fight has gotten even more precarious as it becomes harder to secure safe medication and supplies. Both Laylah and Noor are passionate about getting their guide completed so it can help those in need, but Laylah treats their project with an urgency Noor doesn’t understand—that may have something to do with the strange goings-on between their mosque and a local politician.

Fighting for what they believe in may involve even more obstacles than they bargained for, but the two best friends will continue as they always have: together.

As much as I support a free press, the number of requests I got this month, asking for contributions to keep Maine newspapers going, is depressing. Maybe get ready to tune in to Faux News; After all, they’re fair and unbiased.

I did a couple keyword searches in MaineCat, the online library database here in the state. Searching for politics and mystery netted 293 gits. Granted, some are duplicates (different editions/versions of the same item), but when I used political and mystery, the number jumped to 699.

I have this dark vision that shortly after Trump deports everyone he thinks is here illegally, the reality that no one’s left to do agricultural labor will cause considerable unrest. That’s when J.D. Vance steps forward with his New America plan which will fly through the house and senate. Imagine a new conscription of everyone still owing college debt. Heads shaved and wearing Trump inspired orange jumpsuits, they’re bussed around from crop to crop, picking for years until their debts are paid (at minimum wage, of course)

I can see John Nance Garner, somewhere in the afterlife remarking as he did about the vice presidency nearly a century ago, only this time muttering that the Trump administration is “not worth a bucket of warm spit.”

What’s your take on all this, good readers?

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My Evergreen December Post

Posted on December 5, 2024 by Brenda Buchanan

December 4, 2024:  I love a good evergreen tree, and there’s a beauty tucked in our garage right now, hauled home today from our local holiday tree seller’s lot before tonight’s snow/sleet/rain. Inhaling that memory-evoking balsam scent inspired me to once again go evergreen with my December blog post. 

This first was published on December 19, 2019, and I reprised it once already, in 2021. It still feels relevant to me. I hope you agree, and that you’ll  forgive me for not coming up with something fresh, but we’re still finishing up the Thanksgiving turkey, and somehow, three weeks from tomorrow is Christmas and the first night of Hanukkah.

I wish everyone in our wonderful community a holiday season and a new year filled with love and hope.

**

December 19, 2019

Our neighborhood is especially bright with holiday lights this year, a reflection, perhaps, of a shared yearning to lessen the darkness in our world.

Before the recent snow, we strung some white lights around the yard, but it was far too early to hang the garland around the front door.  Now I’m hoping it’s not too late, because the greenery around the entry makes the house look so festive. We’ve done the ladder-on-ice thing once or twice in the past, but we’re getting smarter as we age, so here’s to a couple of warmish days ahead.

This weekend we’ll get our tree. The ritual around that has changed as well. Up to and including the year I had knee surgery in early December, we cut our own at a tree farm a few miles west of our home. I say “we,” but that year I ventured out into the field and picked out an absolutely perfect tree (I was walking okay by then, albeit with a crutch) but Diane had to kneel on the frozen ground and cut it (the doctor would have frowned on me doing that).

She also had to drag it back to the car, which turned out to be a fair distance away. She was a good sport about it, but let’s just say I was convinced by the following December that there were easier ways to proceed, and since then we’ve bought a tree at a local nursery. They have a nice selection. The helpful staff gives the stump a fresh cut. They tie it on the roof of the car. It costs a little more, but aching knees have their own price, so off to the tree store we will go.

That night or the next, we’ll haul the lights, garlands and ornament boxes up from the basement and transform the tree into the most beautiful one ever.

Here are some of the ornaments we will hang:

A Claddagh, the Irish symbol of love, loyalty and friendship.

A precious, retro ornament from Diane’s childhood.

We love bird ornaments. Here, a snowy owl visits with a goldfinch, while another owl spies from the background.

Oh, Canada! We were married there nearly 15 years ago, so this one always has a place of honor on our tree.

Many readers of this blog have one of these, am I right?

A very fancy bird, indeed.

But of course.

I wish you happiness this season and a joyous, peaceful, healthy new year.

To the readers of this blog: What are your favorite holiday traditions? Please let us know in the comments.

Brenda Buchanan is the author of the Joe Gale Mystery Series, featuring a diehard Maine newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. Three books—QUICK PIVOT, COVER STORY and TRUTH BEAT—are available everywhere e-books are sold. She is writing a new series that has as its protagonist a Portland criminal defense lawyer willing to take on cases others won’t touch in a town to which she swore she would never return.

 

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Illuminations for the Season of Dark

Posted on December 3, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: I’ve probably said this here too much, that for my writing, when I’m looking for fresh images, fresh language, or a new way of illuminating my scenes or my characters, or to create a mood, I will turn to poetry books. (I also turn to them for titles when a book refuses the name I’ve given it.) Sometimes there will be so many books scattered on the floor around my desk that I have to practically hop on one foot to get out of the room.

Right now, as a treat for the holiday season, I am reading Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Days: 12 stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days. So far, I’ve learned a lot about Christmas that I hadn’t known. That the Puritans banned it. That the reason Santa’s suit is red is because of a coca cola ad. That the Christmas tree, which I always assumed was a long time continuation of pagan solstice celebrations, became popular in 1848 when Victoria and Albert posed beside their holiday tree. I haven’t even gotten to the stories yet, but I’m hoping for inspiration there, since I write a Christmas story every year and the clock is running.

But I said this was about illuminations, didn’t I, which also brings us in touch with the darkness. So here are some poems for this season to read and ponder on.

To Know the Dark by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Snowy Night by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—Listen!!

All the long echoes sing the same delight,

This shortest day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

Approaching Solstice by Patricia Monaghan

Yes, friends, the darkness wins but these

short days so celebrate light:

today, the lemon sunrise lasted a few

hours until sunset, all day the snow

glowed pink and purple in the trees.

This is not a time of black and white.

My friend, outside us, among us too,

let’s sing what winter forces us to know:

Joy and colour bloom despite the night.

We measure warmth by love, not by degrees.

 

 

 

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December on a Maine Christmas Tree Farm

Posted on December 2, 2024 by kaitlynkathy

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today with an updated version of a post that first ran way back on December 2, 2011. At the time, one of my husband’s two retirement businesses was a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm. We were open for eight years and probably would have continued to grow and sell our trees longer if it hadn’t been for escalating liability insurance rates and the fact that we were starting to slow down as we entered our seventies. Since it’s that time of year again, here’s a look back. Enjoy!

December on a Maine Christmas Tree Farm

During the month of December, I don’t get much writing done. ‘Tis the season, which in our case means Christmas tree season. My husband and I run an organic cut-your-own Christmas tree farm.

 

they start at $45 these days

A decade before he retired, he decided to plant balsam fir trees on part of our twenty-five acre lot in the Mystic Valley. You probably won’t find Mystic Valley on a map, but it runs along U. S. Rt. 2 between Wilton and Dixfield and we’re right in the middle of it.

baby trees in foreground

Growing Christmas trees is a ten-year plan in the truest sense, because it takes ten years for one to grow big enough to sell. Two years ago, our first crop was ready. At the same time, my third mystery in the Liss MacCrimmon series, A Wee Christmas Homicide was published. It had a nice Christmas tree on the cover. It seemed only natural to open up my box of author copies and offer a free autographed book to the first twenty-five customers to purchase a tree. We also lured folks in with complimentary hot cocoa and candy canes.

That first year, we curtained off the front of one side of the garage and called it our “gift shop,” offering the books, the treats, and an assortment of the handcrafted wooden objects my husband makes in his post-retirement second career as a custom woodworker, everything from battery-operated clocks and decorative little keepsake boxes to cradles and chessboards. We had a good season, but it was darned cold in that gift shop. The second year, we smartened up and curtained off the front half of my husband’s heated workshop instead. The inventory expanded, too, since he had begun to specialize in two specific wooden items, magic wands and cat-and-child-proof jigsaw-puzzle tables. We also began to sell another local product, produced by neighbors in the village of East Dixfield, Mystic Valley Maples—real Maine maple syrup.

Of course we mostly sell Christmas trees. Our entire season lasts less than a month, from the Saturday after Thanksgiving until the Sunday before Christmas. Hours are daily 10 A.M. until 4 P.M. or it’s too dark to see (There are no lights out in the fields).

good thing we have a big dooryard for customers to park in

There’s a lot of setting up to do besides the shop. There’s the motion sensor attached to a buzzer to alert us when a vehicle pulls into the dooryard. There’s a hand-cranked netting machine, to make it possible for the tree to actually fit into the trunk of a car or the back of a truck. There are signs to put up, both informative (cash or checks only; no credit cards) and to keep little kids from falling into Moosetookalook Pond, which isn’t yet frozen solid. It measures a whole six feet in diameter at its widest point but it’s deep enough to be dangerous to small fry.

My husband swears it isn’t why he grew his beard when he retired, but he does now bear a certain resemblance to jolly old St. Nick, especially when he comes out to greet customers wearing a red sweatshirt and a Santa Claus hat. I wear a green sweatshirt with Christmas trees on it. I pretty much stay in the gift shop to write the receipts and collect the money. Did I mention that it’s cold outside? I do venture out when our favorite type of customer shows up—parents taking their children to cut down a Christmas tree for the very first time. I wish I could bottle that excitement. Little kids get a real kick out of picking out the tree, helping to cut it down, and dragging it back in on a tarp. We let them run the netter, too.

When we shut down just before Christmas, the season is over for another year, except, of course, for the next round of planting, pruning, and mowing between the rows. The husband does all that. I go back into my office to write more books.

Author’s note: One of those books was a second Christmas mystery in the Liss MacCrimmon series, Ho-Ho-Homicide. It should come as no surprise that it is set on a Christmas tree farm. This blog was also reprinted in I Kill People for a Living: A Collection of Essays by a Writer of Cozy Mysteries (2021).

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.

 

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Weekend Update: November 30-December 1, 2024

Posted on November 30, 2024 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Brenda Buchanan (Thursday) and John Clark (Friday).

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

In case you missed it, a slightly snarky Thanksgiving story was published on Thursday, answering the question: What do you do with an impossible family?

Kate Flora is thrilled with her new author photos, taken by Ali Ria photography at the recent New England Crime Bake. What do you think?

Some of our bloggers publish with Encircle Publications. If you’d like to snag a copy of new books by Kate Flora, Matt Cost, or Dick Cass, you can get get 20% off until Dec. 31st with the code: 20 Encircle24. https://encirclepub.com

Kate Flora recently got the rights back to her romantic suspense novel, Wedding Bell Ruse. It has been republished as an ebook and a paperback.

 

 

 

For the past six Christmases, Kate Flora has written Christmas stories and posted them on her website. Stay tuned for 2024….

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

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The Thanksgiving Story

Posted on November 29, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

Charlene D’Avanzo: As a kid growing up in Massachusetts, I believed the Thanksgiving story taught in school – friendly Indians welcomed the Pilgrims, showed them how to live in the new land, enjoyed dinner with them, and left the picture.

 I was too young to recognize serious problems with this myth – that peaceful Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcomed Pilgrims to America, taught them how to live in this new place, sat down to dinner with them, and then disappeared.

The core idea of course is that “Indians” handed off America to white people who would then create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity, and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit. That’s the story—it’s about Native people conceding to colonialism. It is bloodless and in many ways an extension of the ideology of Manifest Destiny.

Some of the most poignant inaccuracies of this story:

History only begins for Native people when Europeans arrive. In truth the Americas had been populated for at least 12,00 years.

The arrival of the Mayflower was a first-contact episode. But when the Pilgrims arrived at least two and maybe more Wampanoags, spoke English, had already been to Europe and back, and knew the very organizers of the Pilgrims’ venture.

The Wampanoags reached out to the English in Plymouth not because they were friendly but rather because they were decimated by epidemic disease and desperate for help.

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Hurrah for the Pumpkin Pie!

Posted on November 28, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: Bit of holiday whimsy for you today. A Thanksgiving short story

 

I had exactly thirty minutes to buy everything I needed to cook dinner for twenty, so naturally, navigating the store was like playing bumper cars. As I snatched items off the shelves and shoved my overloaded shopping cart past two tarted-up moms blocking the aisle while they consoled about hair color gone wrong, their sleek heads bobbing and voices cooing like pigeons in the park, that famous line from Tolstoy popped into my head: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I don’t know anything about happy families, but I know plenty about unhappy ones, and one thing I’m certain about is that holidays bring out the worse in mine. In them and in me.

I didn’t even need to be there to script the whole thing. It was consistent every year. Mom and Dad would arrive together but not speaking. She would bustle, tight-lipped, into the kitchen and proceed to get in my way, while Dad would pop his first beer and sit down on the couch to watch football. Baby brother Jesse, who’s living with us since he lost his job, would already be on the other end of the couch, and his silent, cadaver-white girlfriend, Alyse, whose life work is either sleeping or painting her nails black, would be sitting at his feet. Next to arrive would be the “successful brother,” Jared, with his wife Molly and their three barely housebroken children, followed shortly by my oldest brother Jason, his wife Sheryl, and their two hostile teenagers.

Molly and Sheryl would come into the kitchen and unload their offerings onto the counter. Molly’s was always, and only, wine, and her first helpful act would be to open a bottle and pour a glass for herself without offering one to anyone else. Sheryl was toying with being a vegetarian, and she’d take up much of my small counter space with the containers of her own special food—only enough for herself, of course. As dinner grew imminent, with a loopy smile and a “you don’t mind, do you?” she’d move in and start her own personal prep, ignoring the fact that I was making gravy, cooking the peas, and mashing potatoes on the crowded stovetop.

By then I would have asked Sheryl if she’d have Ariel and Jonah set the table, a request she’d blithely ignore, so I’d be rushing back and forth trying to do that while not cooking the peas to mush, occasionally tripping over mom, who liked to stand in the middle of the room, muttering darkly about my dad.

 When my husband Charlie got back from hunting with his Uncle Bob and our widowed neighbor, Tom, they’d sit down in front of the TV, too, and send one of the kids out for more beer. When I’d holler to Charlie to come take the turkey from the oven, he’d pretend not to hear me because he was tired from four hours of hunting, and anyway, a working man deserved not to be disturbed. Bob and Tom were both deaf as posts, so they really didn’t hear anything, and my brothers think my poor husband is henpecked, so they’d stay put in a gesture of solidarity.

When I would finally give up and drag the turkey from the oven, I’d find the space I’d cleared for it on the counter now was occupied by two six-packs, and I’d have to stand there, all five foot nothing of me, holding a steaming twenty-four-pound turkey. I’d holler for someone to come and move the beer. If I got lucky, Mom would stop her muttering long enough to do that; otherwise, I’d be yelling until someone in the other room finally gave up and came to my aid. More likely than not, it would be Jared and Molly’s six-year-old, Annie, the most civilized person in the whole lot.

Charlie and I had no kids, and therefore, according to family reasoning, I had fewer demands on my time, which was why everyone thought it was such a great idea for us to host the holiday dinner. Of course, I worked full time, while Sheryl had a part-time job and Molly was a homemaker, but no one seemed to think that counted for anything.

Okay. Yeah. I know. Ann Landers says that nobody can make you do anything that you don’t want to do. All I can say in response is: Ann Landers must have never met my family. As the only girl with all those brothers, I’ve been expected to wait on guys almost since I could crawl. My mom was no different, which may be why she’s gone all weird now. With her, except when she bickers with my dad, it’s like someone’s turned her dial to somewhere between two stations and she’s so busy trying to make sense out of the noises in her head she can’t hear anything that’s happening out here.

 Maybe if Charlie were on my side, that might help. I’d met him because he was Jonah’s best friend. I should have known better but at the time, I was running on hormones and not good sense and so I married him. I was knocked up when we got married, which I’ve never heard the end of, never mind that Molly and Sheryl both were, too, but I lost that baby and have never gotten pregnant since. And now here I was running through the grocery store like buying food was a 5K, when I’d sworn that last year was going to be the last time I let them do this to me.

The simple fact was that I couldn’t get anyone to listen. I’d planned it all out. Sometime around September, I’d talk with my sisters-in-law, everyone would get assignments, and we’d share the work. But even though I’d done that, and they’d all nodded and agreed, last week when I called to make sure they remembered their jobs, they’d all somehow forgotten and were just too busy add it to their schedules now. They said they were sorry.

Well, I was too busy to add it to my schedule, too, but look where I was. Back in the grocery store, making a martyr of myself because I couldn’t think how to do it differently. Maybe if I just burned the whole dinner? Or forgot to make the dressing? I’d never hear the end of that, but they were all such lazy slugs that they’d be bound to want to give me a second chance. A chance I did not want.

Once I’d loaded it all into my car, I headed for home, and it’s when I passed the CVS that I got the great idea. Everyone in my family, except the little kids, is big on stuffing. Or dressing, as my husband’s family calls it. I don’t eat it, but they’re so passionate about the stuff that they call me days ahead of time to remind me to be sure and make enough. These are the same people, mind you, who can’t find the time to do anything to help, but they’ve always got time to remind me about the dressing, which has to have cornbread and oysters. That and the pumpkin pie. There’s got to be pumpkin. And apple. And pecan. And Uncle Tom doesn’t think it’s a holiday unless there’s mincemeat. And me working late every night because we’re going into the holiday season.

I was so tired I was about in tears, trying to figure out how I’d do it all, when I passed that CVS. And it must have been the devil on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, because I found my car turning right into the parking lot and next thing you know, I was coming out with a couple family-sized packages of laxatives. They’d crush up nice in my mortar and pestle, and mix just fine in the dressing and the pumpkin pie. The way everyone gobbled, no one would notice a thing. Hopefully not until they were safely home.

I stared into my car, at all the bags of food awaiting my attention, but now I felt different. I still had a lot of work ahead of me, but for the first time in a long while, I had found my smile.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” I whispered, as I headed for home. Good thing I’d thought to buy extra toilet paper.

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Introducing Gabriela Stiteler

Posted on November 27, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

Today we’re delighted to introduce Gabi Stiteler, who is joining our blogging team. She’s a dynamo, as those who know her can attest. Gabi moves at the speed of light, doing great work for the crime writing community. We’re excited to read her posts.

 Tell us a little about yourself? What’s your background? Are you a native Mainer? If not, how did you end up in Portland, Maine?

I was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in Northeastern PA and married into Maine. My husband’s grandparents lived in Eastport. When we had kids, we knew Maine was where we wanted to end up. We landed in Portland and love it. We live on a dead end street a few blocks from the water, the kids run around with neighborhood kids playing baseball and basketball and soccer. It’s a bonus that my mother-in-law is an amazing elementary school teacher and her husband is a retired homebuilder. They take the kids for weeks at a stretch and have helped us fix up our house. (It had been vacant for a stretch when we bought it and has needed a little TLC.)

What are your favorite things about Portland?

It’s a great place for us to raise our kids, geographically beautiful, and has an amazing arts scene. I can put a plug in for my neighborhood in particular – we have some great restaurants like Tipo and Woodfords and the Great Lost Bear, and amazing local bookstore, Backcove Books, a great coffee place at Coveside Coffee. Payson Park is always filled with activities from little league to frisbee golf to sword-fighting. And, we have a pretty great neighborhood ice cream place in Sammy Scoops. I’ve also met so many other writers and people in the writing community who go out of their way to be supportive.

Now, turning to crime writing. You’ve had the amazing accomplishment of having your very first submitted story published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Tell us about that story, and about how it felt to have it chosen for publication.

So I’ll start with the caveat that I have three manuscripts collecting dust in my desk drawer. Going nowhere.

My luck with short stories has been a little different. I went to Crime Bake in 2022 and was inspired to write a short story on the Downeaster from Boston to Portland. It was about a widowed woman who goes back to her home town to help an old friend who’s been arrested for matricide. (You can actually read the full story here or listen to it here.)

I put it down for a week, looked at it again, and it held up. I sent it to a writer friend who said, “Immediately submit this to Ellery Queen.” Which I did, knowing very little about short story publications. That was in January. By March, Janet Hutchings, the Editor of EQ, purchased it for the Department of First Stories. It made it to print in the September/October edition 2023 and ended up being nominated for the MWA Robert L. Fish Award at the 2024 Edgars. (The Fish Award goes to the best crime story by a first-time writer.) It also made it into the Other Distinguished category for the Best Mystery and Suspense of 2023.

All of which is a little bananas.

What has your publication success been like since then?

I’ve experienced a bit of success since. My short stories have been accepted by publications that include Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen. I’ve also found homes for stories in anthologies like The Best of NE Crime Writing, At the Edge of Darkness: Shotgun Honey Anthology, and Dark Waters (volume 2).

I’ve learned a lot about the process. Different publications move at different speeds. For example, Alfred Hitchcock took over a year to review each of the stories I submitted, which I understand to be pretty normal for the publication. Ellery Queen is usually a little faster. Rejections come more quickly than acceptances. All three of my Ellery Queen acceptances have come between 3 and 4 months.

After a story is purchased, it can take another year for the story to make it to print. For example, I submitted a story to Alfred Hitchcock in March of 2023. Linda Landrigan got back to me in August of 2024 to purchase it. I just learned that it will come out in the March/April Ed for 2025. So that’s two years out from when I originally submitted the story.

So far, you’ve published numerous short stories. One might say you are a short story queen. Do you plan to publish long works as well? Are you working on something?

I’m definitely experiencing a lot of luck with my short stories. But royalty? Stephen Rogers, the MWA NE Chapter president has over 800 short stories floating around. And there’s Barb Goffman. And Michael Bracken. And, you know, Joyce Carol Oates.

I have a notebook full of ideas for longer stories, but am living life in little bites right now because of my work schedule and my children.

As for what I’m working on right now? I have this brilliant idea to work my way through all of the classic tropes of crime writing. Noir. Procedural. PI. Sherlockian. Locked door. Cozy. Historical. Domestic suspense. Thriller. Traditional. You name it and I want to try it. It’s like a love letter to the genre.

Accepted but not published: AHMM has a story called “Quick Turnaround” about a “fixer” who becomes obsessed with a missing woman – out in March 2025. EQMM has two stories. “The Usual Reasons” is with Annie, the widowed divorce attorney from my first story. When her younger sister’s deadbeat ex discovers his uncle’s corpse, Annie reluctantly agrees to look into things. “A Hard Nights Sleep” is about a woman grappling with her husband’s cognitive decline. It explores parental love and, of course, murder.

On Submission: I have a little league story out that I think is pretty good. And I tried a PI story. I’m cautiously optimistic about both.

Done but Waiting: I have another PI story done because the first one was so much fun. I’m just waiting to see how things go before I send it out into the world. I also finished this creepy story about two brothers. It’s really disturbing and I don’t know what I’m doing with it yet.

In Progress: I’m working on another story with Annie, the widowed divorce attorney from my first story. It’s her third story. And I have the outline for a locked door story that takes place on a small Maine island that I’d like to be from the POV of a 14-year-old girl.

Can’t turn this brain off, you know.

You’ve been very involved in the mystery community—the Maine Crime Wave, Sisters in Crime, the New England Crime Bake. What’s that like? Is it true that crime writers really are a community, and a welcoming one?

YES! When I wrote that first manuscript and sent it out into the world, I sent emails to some of my favorite mystery writers, who all wrote back and gave me some variation of the same advice. Start working on your next project and join some writing groups.

I absolutely love the NE crime writing community. I’ve made some amazing friends and have a community of people who cheer me on and celebrate with me.

If you are a Maine-based crime writer, or aspiring writer of any kind, I’d recommend looking into Sisters in Crime and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance if you haven’t already. Both organizations offer excellent programming and support to writers at any stage in the journey.

For short stories – The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog is a great resource. You can learn more here. Membership is free and experienced writers share tidbits of wisdom, publication news, and submission details.

As for conferences – Crime Wave and Crime Bake are two wonderful conferences. They’re great ways to meet other writers, agents, and editors. And both conferences are focused on keeping prices affordable, which I appreciate. There are a lot of other great conferences out there, but by the time you factor in travel and hotels, they can get pretty expensive. And I have two kids and tight budget, so both Crime Bake and Crime Wave are great options for me to stay connected and meet people while staying within what I can afford.

The advice to aspiring writers has often been either don’t quit your day job or marry someone with benefits. Do you have a day job?

For the sake of full transparency: I’ve sold 9 stories, ranging in words from 1,500 to 7,500. 4 have gone to publications that pay professional rates of 5-8 cents a word. One sale was to a podcast for $30.00. And the other 4 have gone to anthologies that paid $25.00 a story. So my total revenue this year works out to be around $1,540.00.

So unless you are independently wealthy (I am not), I’d say don’t quit your day job.

And a family? My mother used to get up at 4:30 in the morning for some quiet writing time. How do you find the time to write?

My work schedule is very irregular. Sometimes I’m facilitating meetings at night. Sometimes I leave at 4 in the morning to drive to Connecticut or midcoast for a meeting. And my kids are really active with sports. So afternoons and evenings my husband and I tag team soccer or cross country or baseball or basketball.

So when do I have time to write?

My current routine is writing weekdays in the evening from 8:30-9:30. On the weekends I can write from 7:00-10:00 in the morning. My husband and kids are pretty good about giving me time and space.

My process?

I do a lot of my plotting when I drive, or when I’m sitting at a little league game watching the kids play or when I’m out for a walk. I like to really mull over stories for a while.

Then I start writing in a notebook. Sometimes I sketch out the whole story. Sometimes I just need the first few scenes. Writing by hand really helps me get a better sense for the characters and feeling of a story. But once I have a sense for it? I can usually move pretty quickly and knock out the full story within a few hours.

After I type out the draft and work through it a little, I’ll record it and then go for a walk and listen to get a sense for what works and what doesn’t. I usually share it with a friend or two for big picture feedback. Then I send it out into the world.

As for advice?

Find your community.

Put your work out there.

Ask questions and listen. Take what you need.

And keep writing.

Bio

Gabriela Stiteler is a writer based in Portland, Maine where she lives with her husband, children, and rescue lab. Gabi grew up in Northwestern Pennsylvania on a steady diet of paperback books from the Golden Age of Detective fiction, classic noir films, and Spaghetti Westerns. She’s especially partial to classic tropes reimagined and twisty plots. Lately she’s been thinking about how bad a person can be before they’re irredeemable.

Gabi’s debut short story “Two Hours West of Nothing” was nominated for the Robert L. Fish Award and was an Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense for the Best American Mystery and Suspense (2024). Her writing has since found homes in publications that include: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, The Best of New England Crime Writing, Dark Waters (volume 2) and Shotgun Honey Presents.

In her free time, she explores the coastline, walks her dog, and learns to do new things with varying levels of success.

Website : https://www.gabrielastiteler.com

Posted in Gabi's Posts | 12 Comments

Help . . .

Posted on November 26, 2024 by dickcass

OK, we’ve had some time to digest the fact that half the country doesn’t care about a President-elect’s sexual rapacity, his kooky economic ideas, his gibbering speech style, his racism and misogyny, and the likelihood he’s kissing up to one of our chief enemies in the world, as much as they care about the stock market going up and Brown people going away. If you’re thunderstruck by how badly you misread so many of your fellow citizens, join the club.

I’m going to take a long dangerous step into the quicksand—I don’t love talking politics—and ask the question that I hope is on everyone’s mind. I know it’s on mine. What the hell do we do now? Because here we are:

“. . .America is sliding back into the Middle Ages, as white supremacy exerts itself not only over Black bodies, but over women’s bodies too. False narratives rooted in antiquated religiosity and bigoted ideas from hundreds of years ago are used to justify this, and find willing audiences and believers.” Salman Rushdie (Knife)

So: can crime fiction matter in the current state? Are we only entertainers? Or is there space for us to resist things we don’t believe in? Is there still a relevance for us? Or are we still bound by our conventions to (only) “tell a good story,” to fill time for our readers without challenging them?

Fiction has a long history of social commentary. Think Dickens exposing child labor in London, Steinbeck the plight of migrant workers, Upton Sinclair the perils of letting the profit motive drive your food system.

I’d like to read more books like Razorblade Tears (Sean Cosby), where two fathers, one black and one white, team up to avenge the murders of their gay sons. It deals directly, but through character and story, with racism and anti gay violence. A book like this gives me hope we can find more ways to resist. C.J. Box, whose books treat political and cultural issues in the American West, is another writer I see working this way.

We need to write these books because the media we’ve relied on in the past, the major metropolitan newspapers, the television and cable pundits, have failed us utterly. Like Upton Sinclair’s meatpackers, they have abandoned all standards of honesty for the sake of profit and relevance. I want more writers and more books that grapple with the factual world, fewer fancies where the violence is cartoonish and the good guys mostly win.

Less fluff, less diversion, more meat. I know these writers are out there. Let’s find them and celebrate them. I’d venture to say crime fiction has a larger audience than what the gatekeepers call “literary” fiction. Drop your suggestions in the comments, please. Help a demoralized writer out.

Posted in Dick's Posts, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Gratitude and Thankfulness

Posted on November 25, 2024 by kaitcarson

This Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. A day to dine with family and friends, look back on the past year, and count our blessings. There’s no denying that we’ve been through a stressful 2024. One that’s made us search for things that bring us peace. It’s always been my practice to turn to nature during troubled times. I’m lucky to live in Maine. A state where beauty is right outside my dooryard. I’d like to share some of my happy places with you and wish you a happy Thanksgiving.

Woods in fall

A colorful corner

At the trailhead

Family Passing Through

Deer herd in the yard

The start of a winter morning

Posted in Kait's posts | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments