Maine Crime Writers

Scenes from the New England Crime Bake

Posted on November 13, 2023 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: Twenty-two years ago, a regional mystery conference featuring New England writers was born in my living room when I said I thought we ought to have our own conference and the presidents for Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime immediately agreed to work together to plan one. Since then, every Veteran’s Day weekend, writers and readers descend on a hotel somewhere near Boston. The conference is always different–different themes, different players–but always wonderful. Surprising as it is, crime writers are an extremely nice and generous bunch, appropriately calling ourselves a community.

This year’s Guest of Honor was Deborah Crombie, a Texan who writes English police procedurals, and so the theme was very English, including a banquet where prizes were given for the best fascinator and the best cravat.

Here are some random scenes from the weekend, including Ruth McCarty wearing her Lifetime Achievement Award tiara. The event always concludes on Sunday with some forensics. This year: Junk Science, the Innocence Project, and what a private investigator really does. AND there was a chocolate party.

Kate, Maureen & Jule at the Sunday breakfast

Vintage Kate done up for the banquet

Photos from Diane Kenty:

An author panel

The Jungle Red Writers Blog Group hold forth

Our own Maureen Milliken

Brenda Buchanan with Conference co-chair Connie Hambley

M. Chris Fabricant from the Innocence Project

Ruth McCarty with her tiara

Kate Flora with Luci Zahray, the Poison Lady

The chocolate party:

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Weekend Update: November 11-12, 2023

Posted on November 11, 2023 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be a New England Crime Bake wrap up on Monday and posts by Kait Carson (Tuesday), Maggie Robinson (Thursday) and Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Friday).

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

Here’s a great example of how supportive the writing community is:

This coming Thursday we’re launching Clea Simon’s new book because she’s having surgery. Eight authors on Zoom. Come and see how we do it:

Here’s the registration link: https://www.harvard.com/event/virtual_event_to_conjure_a_killer/

For those of you awaiting the results of our body contest? Results will be posted next Saturday.

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 Kait Carson, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Maggie Robinson, Maine Crime Writers news, New England Crime Bake wrap-up | Leave a comment

Help the Veteran In Your Lives

Posted on November 10, 2023 by Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn Hardacker here: The month of November is a special month in my life. I was married on November 4, 1970, November 10 is the Marine Corps birthday (248th this year), November 11 is Veterans Day, and of course there’s Thanksgiving. This blog will post on November 10th, a day sacrosanct to the vast majority of Marines. The purpose of this blog is not to glorify any one branch of our military. It is, I hope, to save veteran lives.

Over the years the federal government, congress especially, seems to think that veterans’ benefits and retirement funds are an incentive and are a place where they can cut spending. Personally, I don’t know why anyone would even consider a military career. The majority of veteran benefits are services, such as the Base Exchange (BX) or Post Exchange (PX) and are only of use if you live in the proximity of an operating base. Can anyone think of an open base (other than Coast Guard Station) in Maine? At one time there were Air Force bases in Limestone, Presque Isle, and Bangor (southern Maine was a short drive to Pease in Portsmouth, NH) and a Naval Air Station in Brunswick. Today there are none. The economic impact on Limestone (Caribou) and Presque Isle was devastating. When I grew up in Caribou the population was over 10,000 (9,423 in the 1990 census). In 2020 the population was 7,382, a decrease of 22%. The loss of jobs and the money spent blasted the economy. If I had to list all of the businesses that crashed it would fill this blog.

There is one government agency that has, in my opinion, done what it can to assist veterans: The Veterans Administration (VA). Over the years the VA has been plagued by a reputation for being at best slow, bordering on incompetent. Whenever I talk with a veteran who has issues with the VA it always comes down to one thing … the bureaucrats who run the organization, not the medical care that the dedicated doctors, nurses, and technicians deliver. Especially those who work locally.

There are a couple of things that you should know about the VA and Maine. First, the first VA hospital was located in Togus, Maine. Second, the first Customer Based Out-patient Clinic in the country was in Caribou. But, I digress. Recently we fought against the closing of the Maine Veterans Home in Caribou (and won). The homes are run by a non-profit chartered by the state government. They listed several reasons why they felt that they had to close the home, paramount of them was that the veteran population in the area was diminishing. We took exception to that argument. If you cross any parking lot in Aroostook County you will be astonished by the number of veteran license plates and decals for all branches of the military. Still (and keep in mind the adage: Figures don’t lie; but liars figure) an indepent study showed an overall decline in the veteran population. I founded and chair a group called the Aroostook Veterans Advocacy Committee. We spearheaded the movement to save the Caribou home. We have looked closely at the study and immediately saw the problem. Their only source of data was the VA. Remember I mentioned the poor reputation the VA had? We are human and for humans being negative comes easy, being positive takes work.

Here’s what we learned. The negatives are still flowing around. When younger veterans first leave the military, they are mainly in their early to mid-twenties and are still immortal. They are for the most part in good health and medical care is the furthest thing in their mind. However, they won’t be healthy for ever (I’m living proof of that.). Let me tell you a short story.

It’s no secret that we Marines stick together like flies to flypaper. I was visiting with a veteran, several years younger than me (and who isn’t?). In the course of the conversation he mentioned that he has been battling bladder cancer and had several operations. I asked Larry (not his real name) how long he’d been on active duty. He answered four years. My next question was how much time at Camp Lejeune? Two years. Larry had been using his own health insurance to pay his medical bills and was struggling financially. I now asked him the important question: Have you heard about the Camp Lejeune water? NO.

A few years back the Marine Corps announced that anyone, military or civilian, who had spent more than thirty day at Lejeune and was suffering from a number of diseases (Bladder cancer and Parkinson’s are high on the list) might be eligible for a settlement. I asked Larry if he’d registered with the VA when he was discharged. He said No. Should I have?

The Marine Corps announced that the drinking water on Camp Lejeune had been contaminated. If you served there for thirty days or more between the years 1953 and 1987 the government had set aside more than a billion dollars to settle lawsuits. The next thing I said to Larry was, Get your butt down to your congressman’s office and ask for Kim. She will register you and help you do the paperwork.

That was this past April. Larry pulled into my driveway last week and I knew something was up by the smile and look of relief on his face. “Read this,” he said and handed me a sheet of paper. It was from the VA assessing him at 100% disabled and he will receive a monthly pension just under $4,000. “And,” he said, “there was a seven thousand dollar check with it!” I replied, “Wait, they’ll owe you backpay to the date you applied you should get six months back pay. You should see if they will reemburse some of the medical bills you paid.” “Should I get a lawyer?” he asked. “Why,” I answered, “do you want to give some ambulance chaser one-third or more of the money? The VA will handle this for you at no charge.”

Let’s return to the title of this post. What can you do to help the veteran in your life? HAVE THEM REGISTER WITH THE VA! Larry appeared healthy when he left the Corps more than forty years ago. Just because you don’t think you need the VA now, wait about thirty or forty years and see.

Posted in Vaughn's Posts | Tagged Maine Veterans, Veteran's Administration, Veteran's Day. | 8 Comments

LESS THAN A MONTH OUT

Posted on November 7, 2023 by jselbo

by Jule Selbo

8 DAYS, the third book in my Dee Rommel Mystery series, will be released December 6, 2023. The publisher tells me the paperback and hardback will be out a bit sooner, but the digital version will ‘drop’ that first week of December.

This is the time when I start hoping people will read what I worked on for a year and start wondering how all those bookreaders out there are divvied up.

According to UrbanWriters.com: the most popular genres (most books sold, did not specify where/how they got their data): number one is ROMANCE. Wish fulfillment, escapism, a lot of people like to think true love exists. Number two is CRIME and THRILLER: the site reports that this genre stays neck and neck with Romance. Instead of the warm and fuzzy and hopeful (where the conflicts are usually overcome), crime and thriller readers like to dig deep into the darker and more disturbing side of life where ‘bad’ people do face consequences. Number three is RELIGIOUS AND SELF-HELP books. Number four is HUMOR and CHILDREN’S BOOKS. Number five is SCI-FI and FANTASY.

8 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery is a straight-forward crime mystery, it’s got a female protagonist, there’s a small hint of romance, a bit of humor, no religious overtones and it’s not suitable for children. And I wouldn’t dare to write ‘self-help’ – there are mornings when I decide to not get out of bed.

A few sites picked FANTASY as the number one genre for readers right now. Others focused on the fact that the number of sci fi and fantasy readers continues to grow at a leaping pace. An article in YES magazine (originally in Mindsite News) is titled: “Young Readers Find Hope – and Escape – in Sci-fi and Fantasy Books”. The essay, written by Hermes Falcon and Kendall Covington, includes: “Fantasy fiction book sales increased dramatically in the past three years just as teen depression, anxiety, and focus on mental illness skyrocketed—parallel trends that may be both a symptom of the (past?) pandemic…”. Some reports even anoint fantasy literature as ‘health benefit’.

Fantasy tales, of course, can include systems of magic, mythical or out-of-this-world creatures, new forms of society, an acceptance of gender diversity and absolutely individual-istic goals. One essayist noted that the fantasy worlds are different from the ‘real’ world readers find themselves in (at least on Earth). Earth-Psychologists note that fantasy gives teens (in particular) a relief from a daily dark, dangerous, uncertain reality – a break from the “reality overload” of war, genocide, suicides, disease, mass shootings, climate change, reversal of women’s rights and more. (Or if we’re not going to the darkest, from the bully sitting across from them in Geography class, from the teacher with snout on his nose hairs, or the neighbor lady with twelve cats who watches you through her binoculars.)

Another site reported that more adults are reading sci-fi and/or fantasy. One adult reader mentioned that she didn’t want to read anything ‘real’. What she wanted was escape. “That ‘life’ today was painful enough.”

No sci-fi or fantasy in 8 DAYS. A little science maybe. I am very interested in new tech robotics, so that does find its way in but it’s science-reality, not science-fiction…

Crime/mysteries (including thriller, cozy, spy etc.) are also listed as “mental health” enhancers. Today’s readers, one essayist purported, even more than before, want to get engrossed in a story and feel a satisfaction when the mystery is solved, and the criminal is caught. And goes to jail. In today’s world – that ‘going to jail’ seems to be a sticking point in more than a few instances, but we, as writers of crime fiction, can give that satisfaction to the reader.

I read in one essay that evolutionary psychologists say that we’re drawn to the crime/mystery tales because murder, rape and theft have played a significant part in human society since our hunter-gatherer days. What does this mean? We read what we “know” in our bones? I don’t know if I am 100% on board with that theory.

I also got Google-happy trying to figure out the popularity of book series. 8 DAYS will make the Dee Rommel series a trilogy. I plan to do 10 books – (a decology). Will I make it? Will I stop at 4 (a tetralogy) – I will make it that far because I’m working on 7 DAYS now and I’m too stubborn not to finish something so there will be at least a tetralogy.

Will it be 5 (a pentalogy)? Or 6 (a hexalogy), or 7 (a heptalogy), or 8 (octology) or 9 (ennealogy). I know I love to read series; I like to stay with a character. A lot of Maine mystery writers (and those out of Maine) have created characters that stay with you – but they live in ‘stand-alone’ books. IndiesUnlimited.com reported this is a popular series approach, it takes the pressure off the reader to ‘go in order’. A writer on the NY Book Editors site says she’s a fan of series – her article pointed to reasons: an increase of possible book sales, an increase in fan base, its ability to amplify a reading culture (keep them with books in their hands (or digital readers on their laps)) and more. She asked, what is one of the big reasons readers like series? she asked. World-building. Readers like to drop back “in” to characters and locations. Less work for the reader, less set-up, more ‘straight-to-story’ stuff.

…

8 DAYS, a Dee Rommel Mystery, features an arc for Dee Rommel but remains in the “stand-alone” category. Publication date is December 6 across all platforms. The paperback and hardback will be available before the digital edition.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

And The Leaves Drift Down, One By One

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Brenda Buchanan

By Brenda Buchanan

This week I’m nursing an injured wrist, which makes typing something of a challenge. So I dug into the archives and re-surfaced this post from 2016, which features nicer foliage photos than I could have taken this year, and autumn poetry that’s a comfort to read over and over again.

I hope to see as many of you as possible at Crime Bake this coming weekend, where the marvelous Deborah Crombie is Guest of Honor, and I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all.

The below post was titled “Sights and Sounds of Autumn in Maine” when it was first published on this blog on October 20, 2016.

The turning of the leaves took us by surprise this year.

The most beautiful season

After a long summer spent watering the garden we had modest hopes.

Too dry for good color, we thought. Wait ‘til next year. (Yes, Red Sox fans, we said that about more than the foliage.)

A few days into October the show began, startling us with its vibrancy.

Red maples flank a solider at Riverbank Park on Main Street in Westbrook

The swamp maples led the pack, but that’s true even in lesser leaf years. Then the big maple in our front yard began to glow, a reddish-yellow beacon visible from the end of the street. By last weekend all of southern Maine was alight.

Red tree, blue sky

To celebrate the end of a marvelous, warm summer, here are some photos from our recent travels, with some lovely poems about the season as accompaniment.

First, a Maine poet, Knox County’s own Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose iconic The Death of Autumn captures the despair that can accompany the dying season of the year:

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,

And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind

Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned

Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes

Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,

Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek–

The leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes

My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,

And will be born again–but ah, to see

Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!

Oh, Autumn! Autumn! – What is the Spring to me?

Marshland adjacent to the Mousam River in Kennebunk

On the October 10 Writer’s Almanac, Garrison Keillor read Wendell Berry’s poem by the same name, which evokes not only the visual but the auditory aspects of autumn:

Now constantly there is the sound,

quieter than rain,

of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright

gold, the sycamore limbs

bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers

are beeweed and aster, spray

of their white and lavender

over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds

Loud – landmark – now

that the life of summer falls

silent, and the nights grow.

A tree alight

Finally, Song For Autumn, by the marvel who is Mary Oliver, a poet whose connection with nature is second to none.

In the deep fall

don’t you imagine the leaves think how

comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don’t you think

the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,

warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep

inside their bodies? And don’t you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

vanishes, and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its

bellows. And at evening especially,

the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.

Fall dunes at Ferry Beach in Scarborough

Posted in Brenda's Posts | Tagged autumn, Edna St. Vincent Millay, foliage, Maine, Mary Oliver, Poetry, Wendell Berry | 8 Comments

Weekend Update: November 4-5, 2023

Posted on November 4, 2023 by kaitlynkathy

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

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

Recently, a bunch of us did a Noir at the Bar reading in Portsmouth, NH. Great time had by all. Here are some photos of the event:

On November 15th, a group of us will be doing a virtual book launch for our friend Clea Simon courtesy of Harvard Bookstore. Here’s the info:

Matt Cost will be the featured author at a writing workshop at the Merry Barn in Edgecomb on Thursday, November 9th, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. Come listen to him read from his work in progress, Mainely Mayhem, as well as others from the audience testing out their work.

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.

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

NANOWRIMO Revisited or Why Aren’t You Writing?

Posted on November 3, 2023 by mainecrimewriters

This post appeared several years ago. As I, and many, many others, are trying again this November, I am reposting it with a few updates. Haven’t tried it yet? Why not this year? It’s fun!

Kate Flora: Permission to suck? A pretty provocative statement, yes? But an important one. Because in November, writers everywhere are trying to write 50,000 words in a month. This means facing perhaps the greatest writer’s challenge of all: turning off the critical head on your shoulder that is constantly criticizing, correcting, and getting in the way, and just letting the story rip no matter what. No matter how crazy it gets. No matter how far your characters stray from what you’ve planned. No matter that the story veers away from what you envisioned and heads in new and different directions. Whatever wants to happen, just go with it.

No one is looking.

In case there is a soul somewhere on the planet who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writers Month. Every November, writers sign up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month. Signing up means you’ll probably be put into a group where you can go to meetings if you want that for support, and you will be able to log in to chart your word counts and your progress, and get encouraging e-mails throughout the month.

Sisters in Crime sistersincrime.org is offering a month of advice and daily write-ins for writers who need the support of a group, or the structure and fun of writing with a group.

Tips for NaNoWriMo

The internet is absolutely full of advice about how to prep for NaNoWriMo, how to do pen dripping ink NaNoWriMo. So much advice, in short, that you could probably write a novel using the tips as prompts or just aggregate the advice into a short book. Or is that aggravate? Because with so much advice out there, it can be aggravating. Confusing. Overwhelming. And pretty often, those who are offering the advice are quite certain that they are right.

Should you outline in advance? Have the plot of the work all sketched out? Perhaps have it all storyboarded and taped to your office wall?

The possibilities are endless. And the bottom line, in my opinion, depends entirely on what kind of a writer you are. Or, if this is an early foray into the world of writing, what kind of person you otherwise are. Do you like to do a lot of prepping or do you like sail into an adventure and wing it and see what life brings?

On your behalf, I went out and waded through a bunch of those advicely blogs. And like a retriever, I have brought back the wisdom that speaks to me. You can snap up my thoughts and make them your own, or go atrolling for yourself.

pen-paper So here, in no particular order, are the bits of advice that I think are most useful if you are going to have fun with NaNoWriMo.

Embrace a new mindset.

Answer “YES!”

Just start and keep going.

Silence your editor, that picky little voice that tells you you’re doing it wrong. If necessary, draw a picture of your editor and stick pins in it. Be silly if you need to be. This is your adventure. Own it.

Write fearlessly.

Write “TK” for missing facts. Don’t stop to look things up. Don’t obsess over what you can’t remember. You can fix all that later.

Embrace Anne Lamott’s advice: it’s okay to write a shitty first draft. You can edit a draft and make it better. You can’t edit a blank page.

Embrace the word discipline.

For once, elevate quantity above quality. Don’t edit. Just keep going. Do keep track of your word count. It’s part of the game.

Keep telling yourself: The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

Remember that you’re not trying to win, you’re trying to be

Don’t let the risk of obsession scare you off

You have permission to suck. Who cares. You may make amazing discoveries in the process.

Unplug. No phone calls. No checking e-mail. No selfies.

Exception: You can make yourself, or your story, or your protagonist, a playlist. It can become part of the ritual.

Write in the same place if you can, because the ritual of place can become part of the ritual of writing.

Finally, a bit of heretical advice. The rules say you’re supposed to write something new. But you are writing for you, not for them. If you’ve got the half-finished story in the drawer you’ve never had time to get back to…you are allowed to take it out and finish it. (Don’t tell them I said this.) If you’ve been stuck in a novel for years, maybe this is your chance to finish it.

November. Your month. You’re the writer. The only thing you have to do is honor your desire to write by giving it the time it deserves. And see where story takes you.

A lot of advice is about prepping…but hey, you’re out of time, and about not bothering agents or editors with your unedited glop at the end. But you wouldn’t do that anyway.

Here are a couple of blogs I used to compile the above.

https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/nanowrimo-prep-30-tips-resources-strategies-for-writing-a-book-in-30-days

https://writers.com/nanowrimo-tips#:~:text=NaNoWriMo%20Tips%3A%20Write%20at%20the,count%20goals%20much%2C%20much%20easier.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/04/25-things-you-should-know-about-nanowrimo/

Posted in Kate's Posts | 4 Comments

Stephen Steenrod, Veteran

Posted on November 2, 2023 by kaitlynkathy

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, once again deeply engrossed in genealogical research. Veterans’ Day isn’t until next week, but this is my day to blog, so here, in honor of all veterans, I offer the story of a veteran of the War of 1812.

the Battle of Ft. George

Stephen Steenrod, my great-great-grandfather, was born August 19, 1789 in Delaware County, New York. By his affidavit of January 16, 1849, as a resident of Hancock, Dutchess County, New York, he described his service in the War of 1812. He enlisted for an eighteen-month term on July 16, 1812. The company was commanded by Captain Henry Leavenworth and Lieutenant Murdoch, part of the 25th Regiment under Colonel Cutting. It was organized in Delhi, New York, whence they marched to Greenbush, New York, thence to Whitehall, New York, and later to Champlain, Canada. There Stephen was exposed to snow and “other inclemencies [sic] of weather,” often without a tent. Even when he had a tent, he had to sleep on the ground.

The Battle of Stoney Creek by Charles Jeffreys

From Champlain he was sent to Plattsburgh, New York, where he spent two or three weeks on the lake shore “exposed to storms and suffering privations before the barracks were finished.” On or about January10, 1813, before the completion of the barracks, he was “taken sick by unavoidable exposure while on duty.” Apparently his legs were frost-bitten and so badly swollen that he was conveyed to a hospital. There his legs were cut open in several places to drain and his health “became very much impaired.” Despite still being in the hospital when the encampment broke up, he stayed in the Army as a corporal on light duty and was sent to Sacketts Harbor “and all the general routes on the frontier.” He was at the Battle of Fort George (May 27, 1813), which the Americans won and thereafter used as a base of operations to invade the rest of Upper Canada. He was also at the Battle of Stoney Creek (June 6, 1813), a loss to the British, the Battle of Cornwall (November 11, 1813; also known as the Battle of Crysler’s Farm), and several skirmishes. When his term of service expired in January 1814, he was honorably discharged at French Mills by Captain Murdoch, and paid in full to that time with an additional allowance of nineteen days’ rations to travel homeward. He arrived back in Hancock on February 14, 1814. Afterward, according to the affidavit, “the sickness and disease continued in his limbs and in his left leg so that upon favoring it, the other leg became stiff and contracted at the knee, so that he became a ‘perfect’ cripple.”

The Battle of Crysler’s Farm by Adam Sheriff Scott

Despite his condition, he married twice, first in 1815 and a second time in 1844, after his first wife’s death the previous year. He fathered eleven children.

In the 1850 census, Stephen Steenrod, age 50, farmer, owned real estate valued at $1000. In that same year, after a long delay due to the loss of his discharge papers, he was awarded a pension for disabilities suffered during his service in the war of 1812.

Happy ending? That’s unclear. In 1855, Stephen was listed as a carpenter in the New York State census. Then, in the Delaware Gazette for May 7, 1856 (and again on May 28) there appeared a notice of a sheriff’s sale of “the goods and chattels, lands and tenements of Stephen Steenrod.” These were to be sold a public auction in Hancock on Monday, June 23, 1856. The notice includes a description of the parcel of land in the town of Hancock. It contained about two hundred and fifty acres and was located on the south side of the East Branch of the Delaware river (originally part of Great Lot No. 3 in the Hardenburgh Patent). The boundaries were the East Branch of the Delaware river on the north, a small creek known as the Ellware Hollow Creek on the east, Great Lot No. 2 on the south, and Benjamin Thomas’ land on the west.

Stephen afterward moved to Freemont Center in neighboring Sullivan County, where he is found in the census of 1860. He is listed as a farmer, but the value of his real estate is only $100 and the value of his personal property is listed as $290. On October 27, 1863, still living in Fremont Center, he applied for an increase in his two-thirds pension to a full pension, declaring that he’d been totally disabled for more than eleven years. When he died on May 6, 1866, his request had not yet been granted and his widow’s claim to have his pension revert to her was not allowed. She was still living in Freemont Center in 1875.

Stephen is buried in Cooks Falls Cemetery in Cooks Falls, New York, a hamlet in Delaware County that is approximately twenty miles from Hancock and about ten miles from Freemont Center. His first wife lies beside him but her marker reads only MOTHER. Stephen’s headstone honors his service as a veteran of the War of 1812.

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.

Posted in Kaitlyn's Posts | Tagged genealogy, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kathy Lynn Emerson, pensions, Stephen Steenrod, Veteran's Day., War of 1812 | 4 Comments

My Dream or Nightmare Halloween Costume

Posted on October 30, 2023 by mainecrimewriters

For our group post this Halloween, John Clark suggested we post about the Halloween costume we’d wear if we dared. So below, you will find some of our ideas. Do you have a dream costume? One you always wanted to wear? One you wore? One you will wear this year to answer the door? Please share with us.

Kate Flora: If I weren’t old and round and wrinkled, I would finally channel my inner Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys. That slinky red dress she wore as she sprawled across the piano. Maybe it’s because, like many, I’ve always had a secret desire to be a torch singer. Not very likely, since despite twelve years in the church choir I sing like a frog recovering from a cold, but a girl can dream, right?

I’m still someone who’d like princess costumes and floor-length fancy dresses. At least once, when I got the lifetime achievement award at the New England Crime Bake, I did get a tiara. That was fun.

Me in my tiara with the fabulous Walter Mosley

John Clark: Tony Bennett has nothing on me. He might have left his heart in San Francisco, but I have him beat. I took that famous chainsaw from the slasher film, cut up my self-consciousness into a dozen pieces and sold them through Uncle Henry’s. When I was the librarian in Boothbay Harbor, I marched in a parade as a hard-boiled mystery (alas no photo is available). I do have my award winning photo when I volunteered as Maine’s Porn Czar.

And I’ve been known to channel Rocky

If I could go as anything this year, I’d like to go as a banned book, maybe wearing only strategically placed copies of Gender Queer and Catcher In the Rye.

Charlene D’Avanzo: This is my dream/nightmare costume which I actually wore as a kid for one of my mother’s gigs (truly).

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: The first image that came to mind was one of myself as a vampire. Then I added in the costume worn by Elvira. There are two problems that turn this dream into a nightmare. I would be able to keep the fangs in or the dress up!

Maggie Robinson: Like Kate, I’m all about the tiaras, and I actually have a gorgeous, glittering one that was given to me last year for my birthday. (This year, I got a baseball cap. Not sure of that progression, LOL.) If I were dressing up, I’d repeat a favorite outfit from a few years ago that I wore at a conference when I went to such things. I’d haul out a heavily-beaded black cocktail dress I’ve had for years and vamp it up with a 1920s headband, gloves, and a rope of pearls. I’d pretend I was a character from the Lady Adelaide series…or perhaps someone from the new Lady May books, coming in 2024!

Matt Cost has been Barbie and Tinky-Winky in years past. This year I plan to go to a Halloween Party in the EVERY-WRITER dream role of Stephen King. Maybe in the future I will go as one of the characters I’ve created. Goff Langdon. Clay Wolfe. 8 Ballo. Late thought, but interesting.