MY HOLIDAY BOOK HAUL

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Brenda Buchanan

This holiday season my loved ones came through once again, gracing me with a delightful assortment of books with which to ring in the new year.

I revel in unwrapping every telltale square gift, the only suspense being the sort of book I’ll find.  Fiction or non? Mystery or history? Novels or short story collections? I love them all and am grateful to the family and friends who seek out titles they know I’ll enjoy.

Taking it from the top, here’s a summary of this year’s wonderful book haul:

Brenda’s holiday books

The Best American Mystery and Suspense Anthology, edited this year by Lisa Unger in conjunction with series editor Steph Cha. The 20-author lineup is rich with superb writers, and I look so forward to a long-afternoon immersed in stories by S.A. Cosby, Margaret Randall, Leigh Newman, Joseph S. Walker, the always great Walter Mosley, and more.

Happiness is A Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter, is an anthology I’ve been particularly eager to read. Brilliantly conceived, it contains seventeen stories, each using as a jumping off point a Beatles song from one of the seventeen studio albums released by the Fab Four between 1964-1970. Friends Kristopher Zgorski and Dru Ann Love, known to many of us as talented and hardworking reviewers of crime fiction, wrote a story called “Ticket To Ride” from the Help! (1965). I turned to it as soon as I opened the book and was so darned impressed by their collaborative debut.  Great story, Kris and Dru Ann!

the wren, the wren by the estimable Anne Enright, is about three generations of women scarred by an arrogant, self-reverential poet who leaves Ireland to seek fame in America, leaving them bruised and reeling in his wake. Their mutual connection and love for one another is the focus, not his careless cruelty. Having heard so much praise for this book, and having loved Enright’s 2015 novel The Green Road, I cannot wait to read it.

This Other Eden by Paul Harding, a finalist for the National Book Award, is about fictional Apple Island, based on a real island off Phippsburg. Malaga Island was home to a multi-racial fishing community from the late 1700s until 1912, when its residents were forcibly removed by the State of Maine as the eugenics movement took hold. While praised by many, Harding’s  novel has been criticized by others for incorporating into his novel the same powerful, despicable lies that were told about the real-life residents of Malaga Island to justify the state’s brutal action.  I don’t expect The Other Eden to be an easy read, but I look forward to it, and feel sure it will lead me to other books about the tragic history of real-life Malaga Island.

The Plinko Bounce by Martin Clark is about a public defender in rural Virginia assigned to defend a violent career criminal charged with murdering a wealthy businesswoman. Technicalities offer the lawyer a way to get his client acquitted, but it sounds to me that this novel is going to be about when a win isn’t really a win.  My current WIP is about a criminal defense lawyer here in Maine who is often faced with ethical dilemmas, so I’m especially keen to read this one.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is a novel inspired by Martha Ballard, the Maine midwife whose quiet, dogged heroism was illuminated by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in A Midwife’s Tale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991.  In this historical novel, Lawhon imagines Martha Ballard investigating a terrible crime during the winter of 1789, when the Kennebec River is frozen, and secrets (and evidence) lie under the ice. I loved A Midwife’s Tale, and feel sure I’ll need an entire weekend to read this novel.  The challenge will be not to speed through it, because an early peek left no doubt that Lawhon’s prose is beautiful.

Dark Hollow and The Woman in the Woods are two thrillers in John Connolly’s Maine-set Charlie Parker series I’ve not read. He’s a master at keeping his readers up deep into the night, and winter is the perfect time for that, no?  I hope we get a good snowstorm soon so I can dig in to these novels before digging out the walkways.

Time of Wonder, written and illustrated by the amazing Robert McCloskey.  Last Christmas I received new versions of One Morning in Maine and Burt Dow, Deep-water Man, so a McCloskey for Christmas is something of a tradition. I so enjoyed last summer’s McCloskey exhibition at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick (read more about that here: https://mainecrimewriters.com/2023/10/05/hanging-out-with-imagined-friends/

VEG-TABLE is a marvelous vegetarian cookbook gifted by a niece who also is a big fan of creative vegetable cookery. I’ve perused it already, and yep, it’s going to be a fun way to eat healthy in the new year (which we’re all trying to do, right?)

In summary, once again I’ve been blessed with book riches, and I’m filled with gratitude for those who keep me entertained, challenged and inspired.

Happy reading in 2024, 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. An attorney since 1990, Brenda currently is writing a series about a criminal defense lawyer who takes on cases others won’t touch in the hometown to which she swore she’d never return. 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Wintry Mix of Words

Posted on January 4, 2024 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora:. I love words. Growing up, we always had a dictionary near the table so we

And somehow, the necessary words are found

could look things up. No cell phones or Alexa back then. Part of the fun was discovering what other words were on the page beside the one we were looking for. We played word games. My brother John punned until everyone screamed. We were readers. Mom was a writer. We couldn’t get away from words, nor did we want to.

This week, well, for the past two weeks, when I’ve been able to escape from holiday tasks, I’ve been engaged in a job that makes me hate words: cutting 5000 words out of a manuscript so that an editor will read it. This isn’t the “cut out those boring passages” or the “this scene isn’t necessary to the plot’ editing. This is word by word, sentence by sentence, tightening things up. It has been excruciating. Now the end is in sight, and I’m seeing my writing differently. So I admit it has been a good exercise. Just painfully slow.

But today’s blog isn’t about cutting words. It’s about choosing them. It’s fun to choose the right word for a description or a scene. Winter’s first real storm on the horizon is a good time to think about words for winter. So I dig out my trusty Rodale’s Synonym Finder (a book no writer can be without) and begin to read.

I am looking for the word “Winter.” It isn’t here. Happily, I find “Wintry.” It leads me to delicious choices like hibernal. Hiemal. Brumal. Cold. Frigid. Freezing. Ice-cold. Shiveringly cold. Icy. Frosty, snowy, arctic, glacial or hyperboreal. Then on to Siberian, inclement, stormy, blizzardly, windy, bitter, nippy, sharp, piercing, biting, cutting, brisk, severe, rigorous, hard, and cruel.

Does this make you want to pick up your pen? Are you, like me, a writer who loves lists of words? Who thinks it would be fun to create a character who actually uses words like hyperboreal, brumal, or glacial?

If I read on, the book offers me lovely dark words appealing to a crime writer, particularly one who is writing during the dark months in a cold New England landscape. Here are some tasty words to sample over your morning coffee: bleak, desolate, stark, cheerless, gloomy, dismal, dreary, depressing, unpromising, somber, melancholy. How about dark, gray, overcast, sullen, or lowering? These words pretty well fit the woods behind my house, which are textured shades of browns and grays and have been since the leaves fell in November.

When I go looking for “hibernal,” it isn’t there, but “hibernate” pops up at me, the perfect thing to do during the month of January. Hibernate leads to: lie dormant, lie idle, lie fallow, stagnate, vegetate, and estivate. Perhaps more fitting, for those of us who find these winter months perfect for sitting at our desks and listening to the voices in our heads, there are these: withdraw, retire, seclude oneself, go into hiding, lie snug, lie close, hide out, hole up, sit tight.

I am pretty much holed up, lying snug, and secluded. But I love the almost song-like rhythm of:

Hide out

Hole up

Sit tight.

These six words would be an excellent writing prompt.

The grays and browns of winter

Which leads me, since playing in dictionaries and thesauruses is part of a writer’s fun, to the far more positive word: snug. Try these lovely words on for size: cozy, intimate, comfortable, easeful, restful, relaxing, quiet, peaceful, tranquil, serene, informal, casual, warm, friendly, inviting.

I am reminded of the snug in an English bar. Snug also suggests secret, private, covert, secluded, well-hidden, screened off.

So while you are reading this, I am secluded, screened off, and well-hidden at my desk, a space which is cozy, warm, and inviting. And once the delicately eviscerated manuscript has been laid to rest, I shall turn my back on the hibernal, bleak, stark, cheerless landscape outside. I will call up a new project that suits the new year. I will:

Hide out

Hole up

Sit tight.

And probably proceed to kill someone, or at least put them in serious jeopardy.

What are you doing on this dark and somber day?

Posted in Kate's Posts | 12 Comments

Resolutions (more or less)

Posted on January 2, 2024 by kaitlynkathy

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. 2023 was an interesting year. Nothing monumental happened chez Emerson, but one way or another, I did a lot of organizing. The blog I posted last May about the hassles an author’s estate can cause his or her heirs prompted me to do a lot of that. It’s an endless task, but I think I made a good start. I’ve always been pretty good at making lists and inventories.

My first resolution for 2024 is to keep everything I organized in 2023 up to date in 2024. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s soooo much easier to do that if, for example, I add new items to lists as soon as they’re created. Putting off that task just means ending up with an accumulation of “to be added” items and that leads to procrastination. Sometimes, the job never gets done.

Resolution number two is also a “maintenance” item. For the first time in more years than I want to admit to, I saw a number under 200 on my bathroom scale. I didn’t diet in 2023, but I did have a couple of stretches where certain items were forbidden for nibbling. I have no willpower, so that meant “not anywhere in the house” or they’d be eaten. A bag of Dove dark chocolate promises? Gone in a week. A family-size bag of potato chips? Gone in two days, max. To keep my weight down all I have to do is not buy chocolate, ice cream, pretzels, potato chips, whoopie pies, brownies, cake, pie . . . you get the idea. That still leaves popcorn, nuts, apples, saltines, graham crackers, and cereal for snacks—better than nothing but never as good as chocolate. Sigh.

Beyond those resolutions for 2024, I pretty much plan to keep on doing what I have been doing—revising older books to reissue in e-book and print on demand formats. My only deadlines will be the ones I set for myself, which means I have no excuse not to work in some daily exercise sessions and regular opportunities to get out of the house. How will I spend the rest of my time? I’ll be reading other people’s books, of course.

 

I’d love to have readers chime in with their plans for the new year, whether they are resolutions or just aspirations. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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 omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

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Weekend Update: December 30-31, 2023

Posted on December 30, 2023 by kaitlynkathy

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

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The Way You Do the Thing You Do

Posted on December 29, 2023 by kaitcarson

My first reader – Cub

Happy New Year to all. Hard to believe we are saying goodbye to 2023 and looking forward to the adventures that 2024 holds in store. This is my favorite time of the year. I admit, I’m a proponent of Marie Kondo. I love clearing out the old to make way for the new. Same goes for goal setting and planning.

When you’re a writer, goal setting includes an element of hope and luck. It takes a while to write a book. The time varies by writer, and by book. A new book with new characters can take up to a year. A deep edit of an existing manuscript, three to six months. This year, I’m planning two new books and two re-releases. Ambitious. Maybe. But I have a plan.

I was one of several authors invited to a Zoom book club meeting. After the book discussions, the moderator opened the floor to general questions. Rather than further discussion of the books, the questions veered to how we write. Who knew there would be so much interest in how we make the sausage?

I admit I’ve developed an arsenal of writer’s aids over the years. None are a substitute for research and words on the page, and none make use of the buzzword of 2023 – AI. Nope, I’m an old-fashioned writer. Curiosity, plot, plan, write, edit, despair, consider dumping the lot, revise, polish, joy. And I’ve a writer’s aid for each segment.

Every story starts with a “what if” question. There’s no substitute for that. For No Return, the first Maine Mystery, I wanted to explore Maine’s porous border and the effect on Northwoods locals. Not very exciting, but toss in a long vacant guest lodge, a body in a pottery studio, a rekindled romance, and the economic engine of tourism, and bits and pieces fall into place. So, how to take that from idea to page?

Plot comes first. For this I use Plottr. There are a million ways to plot a book. Among them, the three-act structure, the four-act structure, Save the Cat, and my favorite, Story Engines. Plug one into the program, and a visual timeline appears. The program is customizable, but I find one sentence at each plot point is enough to tell me if the story has what it takes to hold my interest, and ultimately, a reader’s interest.

Once the plot is in place, it moves to Scrivener. This is where the writing takes place. It’s another visual program. I use it to write each scene and chapter on separate “cards” and keep track of characters, settings, and plot points. I can move the scene cards around at will as the needs of the story change and grow. Best of all, it interfaces with Word and allows me to keep track of multiple versions during and after edits. Of course, Cub is very helpful at this stage of the process.

Piper – my editor and harshest critic

Editing is as close to AI as I get. My weapon of choice is ProWritingAid and I use it for grammar and comma (the bane of my writing existence) assistance. It’s invaluable at identifying misused words and spelling errors. Some of my errors are laugh out loud funny and the program has saved me from a case of chronic red-face. I save my edited work to Scrivener and then export it to Word who reads to me. It’s amazing what the ear hears that the eyes miss. Then it’s off to beta readers and ready for prime time. Piper has the final word on whether it’s ready to go. Clearly, she thought this story needed more work.

That’s my recipe for sausage. Remarkable how similar it is to other authors. Much different to the early days.

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CHRISTMAS BOOKS – A collection of holiday tales

Posted on December 28, 2023 by mainecrimewriters

Charlene D’Avanzo: When many people think of Christmas they dream of snow covered pine trees and a small cabin warmed by the wood fire on a cold December day. Since Maine was founded, people have written stories about the joys of Christmas in the state. In times of hardship and wealth, Mainers put the value of Christmas in time shared with family and friends, connections with the natural world, rich traditions, and warm wood stoves. In a collection featuring essays, stories, and poetry, All Is Calm looks at the lives of Mainers during the holidays from the mid-1800s, to the Great Depression, to modern day. Spanning nearly 200 years, these stories show that while Christmas traditions and trends may be changing, the warmth, gratitude, and humility of the Maine spirit is evergreen.

Why Christmas Trees Aren’t Perfect – Long, long ago, in a land far away, lived a perfect little tree named Small Pine. Small Pine hoped to maintain its perfect form and be selected by the Queen as her Christmas tree. But as the warm-hearted little tree gave shelter to birds, rabbits, and deer in the forest, its branches became damaged. Fortunately, the Queen had a different idea of perfection…

Young readers will want to read and reread the story of how Small Pine’s love and charity for its friends helps make it the most “perfect” Christmas Tree of all. This beautifully illustrated story of a warm-hearted Christmas tale will surely become one of the most beloved classics of future generations. Schneider’s storytelling will enthrall children and adults alike.  A Children’s Christmas Classic for Over 20 Years!

A Christmas by the Sea – Melody Carlson. When Wendy Harper inherits her family’s beachside cottage in Seaside, Maine, she can finally pay off the debts that mounted since her husband died. But the neglected property needs renovation before it can be sold, so Wendy and her young son  Jackson move in to fix the place up to sell. Soon the town makes it difficult for Wendy to resists their charms.

 

 

 

 

Slashing Through the Snow: A Christmas Tree Farm Mystery Reindeer Games Christmas Tree Farm is going into the B&B business, and Holly White is looking forward to her new role as innkeeper. Even better, Mistletoe, Maine’s sheriff, Evan Gray, has deputized his little sister Libby to help Holly wrap presents for Mistletoe’s toy drive. But a cold wind ruffles the cheery holiday decorations when a new guest checks in: Karen, a vicious B&B critic, who could make or break the new inn. And the short December days turn even darker when Evan and Libby find Karen’s dead body in the gift-wrapped toy donation box. Filled with quirky local character this is a fun murder-mystery.

The Coast Of Maine – Carl Helman “A stunning keepsake album for one of America’s favorite vacation destinations, with panoramic-style photographs of coastal Maine’s grand mountains, pristine woods, and dramatic shoreline.” The photographs capture sandy beaches and tidepools, tree-covered mountains, secluded harbors, historic lighthouses, and lobster boats along the coast.

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When Life Gives You Pumpkins

Posted on December 27, 2023 by kaitlynkathy

Today Maine Crime Writers welcome back Sylvie Kurtz, our New Hampshire neighbor. Last year, Sylvie’s guest post dealt with two Yuletide novels she set in the fictional town of Brighton, New Hampshire, Christmas in Brighton and Christmas by Candlelight. She is also the author of A Little Christmas Magic. Now she’s gone back to Brighton to celebrate a different holiday, and ventured into a new length and a new genre, as well. Here she is to tell us how all that came about.

When Life Gives You Pumpkins . . .

When news of my mother’s death came, I was in the middle of writing a light, summery novel, featuring a strawberry festival and a baking contest. Then I found I couldn’t write. At. All. I just couldn’t find the joy needed to write a snow globe-type of novel. For six months, I tried to go back to the story. Nothing flowed. And I was getting frustrated.

I needed something to disrupt the stuckness.

When I came across Natasha Sass’s cozy novella writing course (https://the-indie-writers-workshop.teachable.com/p/halloween-cozy-novella-workshop), something urged me to try it. I love reading cozies but never planned on writing one. I’m not sure why. A novella is short, so if it didn’t work to unstick me, I hadn’t invested too much into it. And I’d wanted to learn to write shorter for a while.

So, two stones, one course.

We all write in a different way. Some of us need to know every detail before we start. Others feel if they know the story before they write, there’s no point in writing it. I’ve always fallen somewhere in between. I need a few road signs but still want the story to surprise me. So having a novella roadmap was helpful.

Before I knew it, I had a sleuth, a sidekick and a situation that fit right into my fictional Brighton world. The skeletons and spiders and spooky atmosphere were just the thing to get me unstuck. The darker mood didn’t feel disrespectful. The words didn’t exactly flow, but there were words on the page. The more I wrote, the easier writing got. By the end, I was having fun writing again.

I’d accomplished both of my goals: I got unstuck and I wrote something shorter than my usual 80,000+ words. I enjoyed writing the cozy so much, Ellie and Page might just see another sleuthing adventure.

 

Of Books and Bones (https://sylviekurtz.com/of-books-and-bones) is the result of my unsticking experiment.

Brighton, New Hampshire, is known for its festivals and fun . . . not for murder.

Ellie Hamlin is looking forward to early retirement and travel with her chief-of-police husband. Then her world turns upside down when an expansion at her sister-in-law, Page’s, bookstore uncovers bones.

Ellie’s daughter becomes falsely implicated in the murder, and her husband has to leave the investigating to someone else. With her daughter’s freedom on the line, Ellie can’t stand back. And Page, who’s always wanted to sleuth, insists on tagging along.

With Ellie and Page’s investigation, the number of suspects rise…and so does someone’s fear of discovery.

Then a terrible accident happens, redoubling their need to find the killer.

Amid a slew of tricks and treats and things that go bump in the night, can Ellie and Page solve the crime and bring a murderer to justice before one of them becomes the next victim?

Welcome to Brighton, a picturesque New Hampshire small town steeped in family, food, friendships and festivals. And now its first cozy mystery.

 

The lesson for me in all of this is that an old writer can still learn new tricks, and trying something new can widen the horizon.

Merry post-Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sylvie writes stories that celebrate family, friends and food. She believes organic dark chocolate is an essential nutrient, likes to knit with soft wool, and justifies watching movies that require a box of tissues by knitting baby blankets. She has written 25 novels in various genres. Visit www.sylviekurtz.com for more information.

 

 

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The Holidays

Posted on December 26, 2023 by matthewcost

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens is writing about the French Revolution, but he might as well have been writing about the Industrial Revolution that was his time period, or maybe even the world of today, if he was an oracle in line with George Orwell.

All three of these eras are ages of paradox. The rich live safe and leisurely existences far removed from the realities of most of the population. The French Revolution, Industrial Age, and Now are times of extreme wealth and of extreme poverty, a polarization of the whole truth, with a middle class plunked down on the lower side of the stratosphere.

And this best of times and worst of times is also representative of the paradox of the holidays. Whether you celebrate Bodhi, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Hannukah, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or something else, it can be a wildly chaotic time. For those with money, family, friends, and love—it can be a wonderful celebration of life. For those struggling to pay the bills, it can be an enormous financial weight similar to cement shoes in a river. Many people feel alone and isolated as the world revels around them.

The holidays are a time where it is stressed that is important to ask for help when help is needed. Whether it be money, sadness, remorse—it is essential to realize that you are not alone. And this means that it is crucial that those on the other side of the paradox, those with the means and the relationships of love, are ready to extend a hand.

The holidays should not be the worst of times for anybody, not with so many of us living the best of times. None of us should live alone on a mountain top, nor need the visit of three spirits to wake us to the true meaning of the holidays. Nobody should feel the isolation of the Grinch nor the miserliness of a Scrooge.

Let us make this the best of times and the season of light. We are all one people. Happy Holidays.

Write on.

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published five books in the Mainely Mystery series, with the fifth, Mainely Wicked, just released in August of 2023. He has also published four books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, with the fifth, Pirate Trap, due out in March of 2024.

For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. In April of 2023, Cost combined his love of histories and mysteries into a historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, Velma Gone Awry. City Gone Askew will follow in July of 2024.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.

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Weekend Update: December 23-24, 2023

Posted on December 23, 2023 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Matt Cost (Tuesday), special guest Sylvie Kurtz (Wednesday), Charlene D’Avanzo (Thursday) and Kait Carson (Friday). Happy Holidays Everyone!

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

 John Clark’s YA Christmas story is up at YAOTL. http://yaoutsidethelines.blogspot.com/2023/12/well-figure-it-out.html

 

 

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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Could November Be the Cruelest Month?

Posted on December 22, 2023 by dickcass

I know a lot of people hate the month of November, especially here in the Northeast. It is almost always gray, dark, wet and windy, often without the layer of pristine snow that covers the sins of the careless yard person: unraked leaves, mole holes, bare dead patches of lawn. The ice on the pond skims, but doesn’t harden enough to hold up a duck, and the turkeys are so stunned they can barely fly their clumsy selves up to the lowest branches when startled. It’s a liminal time, neither here nor there.

The darkness, the darkness. The earlier and earlier sunsets, right through early December, then the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year. The deer are sneaking around, trying not to get shot. The squirrels are frantically stockpiling acorns to survive whatever January brings. Teachers hold on by their fingernails for the break the holidays provide.

I love November, though I didn’t always. This is why: more soups and stews, long braises of cheap cuts of meat, more baking. Wool shirts and fleece over Hawaiian shirts and shorts. Porters and stouts over lagers and ales. Boots over flipflops. Pinot noir and cabernet over rosé and pet nat. Sunrises and sunsets of peach, rose, and gold. 

I have visited San Diego. I cannot imagine living in a mono-meteorological world, where the sun shines every day and the temperatures don’t vary much. Give me a warmish rainy day like today followed by nose-hair freezing cold. Followed by whatever happens next. Cold mist, fine as wind-blown salt scours your cheeks. Surprise me. Besides, if we didn’t have the weather, what would we taciturn Mainers have to talk about with each other?

The threshold of winter is the tease of the past season, the promise of the future. My father died in November, my mother not long after. You would think that would spoil the month for me, but instead it reminds me to engage my memories.

Two years after they died—within a month of each other—I found myself teary in public, as if grieving them for the first time. It was a Christmas concert, choral music, in a cathedral in downtown Portland. The whole first year after they died, I was closing up their estate, so still involved with them somehow. They were still there for me, if only in the paperwork and the bequests.

Now I have these memories: my mother loved the Canadian Brass; their Christmas music was a staple of our home on the season. My father left work and drove to college in November of my freshman year to pick me up, after a clumsy judo instructor dislocated my right knee. He worried out loud that, like a friend who’d had a motorcycle accident, I might be crippled for life.

This is the season when we all have to pay more attention to the externals—the wind, the sleet, the dark. Snow is the least of our worries, when we have black ice. But we know how to be safe in those things. What we don’t always know is how to navigate safely the memories that hurt and heal us. November gives us space to do that, if we’re willing, to turn inward, be thoughtful and slow ourselves down. In that sense, it cannot be the cruelest month. If, indeed, there is one.

Posted in Dick's Posts, Uncategorized | 10 Comments