Maine Crime Writers

Rich in Books

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Brenda Buchanan

I’m rich in books, always have been and suspect I always will be. This truth is never more evident than during the holidays, when my family and friends come through with enough new reading material to get me through the winter.

This year’s book haul is particularly wonderful.

I already devoured Dervla McTiernan’s THE UNQUIET GRAVE, because she’d not written a Cormac Reilly book in five years and I’d been missing his brains and heart. The engrossing story starts with a body being discovered in a Galway bog and uncovers, along with his mutilated limbs, the lies used to obfuscate the facts that led to the killing. If you’ve not read the earlier books in the Cormac Reilly series, it’s well worth seeking them out first (THE RUIN is the initial one), especially as an important recurring character is a key to this story.

I’m eager to read THE BONE THIEF by Vanessa Lille, the second in her series featuring archaeologist Syd Walker. Set in Rhode Island, it’s a story about found remains and a missing teenager, and at a deeper level, the historic exploitation of Native people. Lille is a member of the Cherokee Nation who weaves into her stories the ugly history of injustice that is not really historic at all, actually. To start from the beginning of the series, BLOOD SISTERS, which came out in 2023, will lay the predicate for you. Trust me, Vanessa is one compelling writer.

Maine’s Morgan Talty has followed his impressive collection of short stories, THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ, with his debut novel, FIRE EXIT. He again draws on his Penobscot heritage in this novel, which is the story of Charles Lamosway who lives across the Penobscot River from the tribal community of which he is both a part and not a part. Echoes of his youth thrum in the background of his adult life, and it’s time he must make choices that will have impact well beyond himself.

THE FROZEN RIVER by Ariel Lawhon also is set on another of Maine’s most powerful and historic rivers, the mighty Kennebec. It’s a fictionalized tale of a real person, Martha Ballard, whose diary was the subject of the non-fiction book A MIDWIFE’S TALE, for which Laurel Thatcher Ulrich won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991. In THE FROZEN RIVER, set in 1789, Midwife Ballard helps solve the case of a man found frozen in the river ice, and in the course of her investigation, links his death to a rape that occurred before winter set in.

Peter Swanson’s KILL YOUR DARLINGS also focuses on a past crime, the memory of which has haunted the 25-year marriage of a couple living on the North Shore in Massachusetts. Structurally inventive, it recounts their relationship from the current day, when they are turning fifty, backwards to when they met, and to the event that has colored the rest of their lives. As in so many crime novels, lies and self-deception have star turns.

Not to be outdone in the lying department is the marvelous Scottish author Denise Mina, whose newest book THE GOOD LIAR features blood spatter expert Dr. Claudia O’Sheil. The forensics expert identifies an error made on a case she worked years ago, but the stakes for changing her determination have far reaching implications for herself and those dear to her. If you’ve not read Denise’s novels be warned, they will keep you reading deep into the night, so best to read when the next day doesn’t involve an early alarm.

Speaking of keeping one up long after it’s time to turn out the light, the inimitable Val McDermid has released a book #8 in her Karen Pirie series, SILENT BONES, in which a brilliant cold case cop and her terrific sidekicks in the Historic Cases Unit work two unsolved murders. One victim is a journalist who covered the Scottish Independence campaign in 2014 whose body is found in an unexpected location. His untimely passing turns out to be related to the death of a hotel executive, whose tumble down the Scotsman Steps in Edinburgh was no accident.

Lou Berney is a must-read author for me, and I cannot wait to dive in to CROOKS, subtitled “A Novel About Crime and Family.” From what I understand this does not mean a crime family of the sort that runs the Mob, more the type that the Mob runs. Set in Oklahoma City, his home turf, it promises to be insightful and hilarious at the same time. If you’re not familiar with Lou, dip into his oeuvre, especially THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE, one of my favorite crime novels of all time.

CARNEGIE’S MAID, by Marie Benedict, the pen name of a Pittsburgh lawyer, was recommended by a friend who knows my grandmother worked for a prosperous family as a laundress after she emigrated to the US from Ireland in 1901. The protagonist in this novel is an Irish immigrant who became a lady’s maid to the mother of Andrew Carnegie. Her influence transformed him from a capitalist robber baron into a well-known philanthropist. As readers of this blog likely know, Andrew Carnegie’s money built 2,500 libraries worldwide, including 1700 in the US and 20 in Maine 18 public and two academic.

Finally, that’s an i-pad on top of my book stack because that’s how I’m reading a manuscript titled FLYNT & STEELE, A MAINE ISLAND MYSTERY (not yet a book yet, but it will be) written by friend of the blog Sandy Emerson. The spouse of MCW founder and stalwart Kathy Lynn Emerson, he’s a fine writer himself, as entertaining as all get out. Leavened with humor and insight into life in rural Maine, I’m enjoying this book, which features a somewhat unlikely pair of private investigators. So far, so good, Sandy!

Brenda Buchanan sets her novels and short stories in Maine. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories 2021 and received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Her story Assumptions Can Get You Killed appears in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023 and her newest, “Cape Jewell,” was published in the 2025 edition of the same anthology, Snakeberry.

Posted in Brenda's Posts | Tagged holiday books | 10 Comments

Sometimes We Get Lost in the Weeds

Posted on January 5, 2026 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: It’s been on the calendar, right? Blog for MCW on Monday. Also on the calendar are too many other things, including getting my car repaired from where I got rear ended during the holidays. So suddenly I looked at the clock and dammit! It is late morning and I am still working my way through the paperwork for the car, a first cup of coffee, and all the other “stuff” of Monday.

So. Apologies. At least I am thinking about writing. About how you take some casual thing you’ve seen or a quick story someone tells and the little authorial flag goes up: there is something there that I can use. And so the brain is off and running.

A lot of the time, when we do group library talks, one question that gets asked is whether we outline before we write or just start writing and it’s kind of like we’re reading the book as we’re writing, as eager to learn what happens as our readers (hopefully!!) are. I always say that I don’t outline, but I am a cooker. I tend to carry the story around in my head for a few months before I start writing. By the time I sit down to actually write the story, I will know a lot about the crime scene: who was killed, how they were killed, why they were killed, and who did it. I will also know who my other suspects will be–why other people wanted them dead.

I will also know who my protagonist will be, what their connection to the crime is, whether as a professional or some other reason to be connected, such as Thea’s work on private school campuses. I will also have sorted out some of the antagonists–those characters who will oppose the solution of the crime for reasons of their own, not all of which will relate to the commission of the crime. Some people have other reasons to lie, as we know. Some people just like to mess with the police or anyone in authority.

I will usually know some of how my protagonist will reach the final conclusion and disclose the identity of the bad guy.

Naturally, over the course of the story, some of those things will change.

Right now, I’m coming into the end zone of the Thea I’ve been working on for the past year. A turtle-like speed for me but the year has been busy. And once again, I am distracted by a story. So on New Year’s Day, a house guest told a story about a friend of his who rented a car, only to discover a 45-caliber handgun under the driver’s seat. Sorry, friends, but this is a major distraction. Like any author worth her salt, I’ve immediately started wondering who put it there and why, and then why someone who has that rental car might find a reason to use it.

So there we are. Distraction central. I always say that story is everywhere if we’re just willing to listen, and now I am totally distracted and for the next few weeks I’ll go around bumping into things and being forgetful because I’m cooking up a story about that rental car.

Can you blame me?

Here is a visitor who was on my back deck this week. Isn’t he or she gorgeous?

Posted in Kate's Posts | 5 Comments

Weekend Update: January 3-4, 2026

Posted on January 3, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kate Flora (Monday), Brenda Buchanan (Tuesday), Jule Selbo (Thursday) and Joe Souza (Friday) with a writing tip on Wednesday from Kait Carson.

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

The winner of our December “bundle of books” is Monica, who will be receiving Lea Wait’s Shadows on a Maine Christmas, Lethal Legend by Kathy Lynn Emerson, Well, Hell by Sanford Emerson, Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe by Kathy Lynn Emerson, and Crime & Punctuation by Kaitlyn Dunnett. To enter the drawing for January’s bundle of books (titles and authors unknown at this point) just leave a comment on any of our January blogs. If you come through as “anonymous” please add your name in the body of the comment so we will be able to contact you if you win.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Posted in Sunday Updates | Tagged Brenda Buchanan, Joe Souza, Jule Selbo, Kait Carson, Kate Flora, Maine Crime Writers news, writing tip wednesday | 1 Comment

One Gigantic Project

Posted on January 2, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today writing as Kathy to report that the biggest writing project of the year (decade? my life?) may finally be complete. After three solid months of proofreading and revising (no additions, just making the entries read more smoothly) the three volumes (A-F, G-O, and P-Z) of the print edition of A Who’s Who of Tudor Women, containing over 2300 mini-biographies of women who lived at least part of their lives between 1485 and 1603 and providing starting points to learn more about them, is now available in print-on-demand and the e-book edition (all entries) has been updated to match the revised texts.

This whole thing started a lifetime ago when I developed an interest in women of sixteenth-century England by reading the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books version of the novel Young Bess and followed that up with a biography of Elizabeth the First in what was probably a Landmark series book for young readers. I was twelve or thirteen. By the time I was in high school, I had discovered a fascinating family of Tudor women, the Cooke sisters, who were given the same education as boys of their era received. Three of them grew up to marry prominent Elizabethan statesmen and a fourth was renowned as a scholar and even consulted by (gasp!) University-educated men. The fifth, sadly died young.

one of my favorite depictions of a Tudor woman

In college and grad school, my fascination with sixteenth-century women continued, expanding to include depictions of strong women in the plays of William Shakespeare and John Webster. Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is considered Jacobean drama, but he grew up during the reign of Elizabeth, and I’m a strong believer that what goes on during one’s formative years influences everything that comes after.

During the next few years my interest in Elizabethan women continued, although the only thing I did about it was take notes on sixteenth-century women’s fashions at the library. It wasn’t until I was nearly thirty that I decided to “go for it.” Instead of looking for a job after I gave up on teaching at the junior high level, I sat down in front of my manual typewriter and started to write fiction, most of which I set in sixteenth-century England with real sixteenth-century Englishwomen as my protagonists.

Unfortunately, those early attempts were pretty pitiful and none of them came close to tempting an editor to offer me a contract. However, in addition to a large pile of rejection slips, I was also accumulating a ton of information on real sixteenth-century women. Never one to waste material, and having had a couple of short pieces published (for no pay) in scholarly publications, I decided to see if I could sell a nonfiction book about Tudor women.

I worked on my first attempt, titled Spinners in the Sun, from mid 1977 to early 1979, ending up with a book that ran 198,000 words. I was hopeful of success because there was a strong push back then to establish Women’s Studies as a discipline. Unfortunately, the Feminist Press didn’t think I was sufficiently liberated. Another publisher rejected me for being “too scholarly” while a third said that book was “not scholarly enough.” In all the proposal was rejected forty-seven times between 1978 and 1980, at which point I had the bright idea to revise it into a “who’s who” format instead of one with chapters. I arranged my entries alphabetically by the maiden name of the subject or by married surname if her birth name was unknown. Each entry was cross-referenced by married surnames, of which there were often four or five.

Back then there were many more publishers and small presses to submit to, but I’d already tried most of those who published biographies and/or books about English history. One that was left was Whitston, the small, scholarly press that had published a book that included an essay I wrote on Maine author Gladys Hasty Carroll. They offered me a contract in December 1980. There was no advance. In fact, it was a very bad contract, but I was too much of a newbie to realize that. All that mattered to me was that it was my first book sale.

I turned in a manuscript of 110,000 words by February of 1981. Now titled Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth-Century England, it contained 570 entries. When I was told to add illustrations, I got permission to reproduce portraits by contacting the owners, mostly in England, and paying for the rights myself. I’m not sure when it was that I realized I would not see royalties until after the first 500 copies sold and that the first print run was . . . 500 copies. I know it was much later before I understood that there would be no royalties on those first 500 sales.

The book was published in July 1984 at a price of $45. There was later a trade paperback edition. I didn’t get my rights back until the publisher went out of business in 2009. By that date I had earned a whopping $413.79 in royalties.

But it was my first book sale. And it garnered reviews, if not massive sales. The best one was written by a former professor of mine at Old Dominion University: “An invaluable reference tool for scholars of the Renaissance, as well as for librarians, genealogists, and Women’s Studies specialists.” The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger Star

Between 1981 and 2009 I wrote a great many more novels set in the sixteenth-century, most of which were published, and accumulated a lot more material on the real women of that era. Some of it contradicted what I’d said about several of the women I’d included in Wives and Daughters. New information turns up all the time, so that was to be expected, but I wanted to make corrections. I revised. I added. I put the result up for free online at the A Who’s Who of Tudor Women website. Between 2010 and 2020 I kept adding entries. Every time I researched a new novel I ended up finding more real women who deserved their own. Finally I just had to say STOP!

During Covid lockdown I took down the Who’s Who website in favor of an information page at KathyLynnEmerson.com and produced the first e-book edition of A Who’s Who of Tudor Women, publishing it through Draft2Digital for $7.99. It included a list of “Titles Used in Tudor Times” and “Lists of Women at the Tudor Court.” I put a master list of entries on my webpage. Before long, I had requests for a print edition, but given the length of the book, that wasn’t something I could easily produce. That project went on the back burner until this past year.

And now this gigantic project is complete, or so I sincerely hope. I am no longer writing new novels. I read very few new biographies of Tudor women (there are many of them and more coming out all the time) and I’ve declared myself semi-retired. I’m pleased with the result. Even if the rather expensive print-on-demand editions never sell, they exist. Individuals and libraries can buy them. Best of all, even those with no particular interest in the Tudor era may find the books and discover that the women who lived back then had fascinating lives, and have quite a bit in common with the women of the present century.

If you have read this far and are intrigued, here’s how you (or your library) can find copies. For the e-book ($7.99 ISBN 978-1-393-38350-5), click here: to find links to buy

For the print-on-demand volumes, check your usual online bookstore. For brick and mortar stores, you’ll need the following details: Vol. 1: $29.99 ISBN 979-8-232-68666-6, Vol. 2: $26.99 ISBN 979-8-231-71244-1, and Vol. 3 $29.99 ISBN 979-8-232-41569-3

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

Posted in Kaitlyn's Posts | Tagged A Who's Who of Tudor Women, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kathy Lynn Emerson, print on demand, sixteenth-century women, women's studies, writing life | 14 Comments

What’s Ahead for 2026?

Posted on December 30, 2025 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: I have bold ambitions for 2026. Find a publisher for the romance featuring a match-making dog. Get my second true crime, Death Dealer, back in print and perhaps find someone to do an audio book. Finish the next Thea Kozak mystery, Until Death Do Us Part, and get it to the publisher. And then settle in to write the next romance, one I’ve been “cooking” in my head for nearly a year, the story of a match-making cat. It’s going to be called Emily and Mr. Rogers. First, I’m going to recline on the sofa, sip hot cocoa, and read the books I expect I’m getting for Christmas. One year I didn’t get a single book and I was both shocked and disappointed. This year will not be like that.

Rob Kelley: Working on finishing my manuscript for Critical State (Olivia Wolfe, Book 1), the first in an at-least three book series planned for fall 2026, 2027, and 2028. Also hoping to finish editing then shop my first Maine-based thriller, From Away (Bedford, Maine, Book 1), also the first in contemplated series. Finally, I have some short fiction written in the world of my recently published debut, Raven, that I hope to get out in the world!

Matt Cost: Looking for a home for a house trained book. Bob Chicago Investigates follows Bob, a divorcee and retired teacher, who has become a mystery writer. When an employment agency crosses wires and believes him to be a PI, he takes the case of a stolen katana, which turns out to be a priceless heirloom sword originally lost at the end of WWII. Only one leg was lost in the making of this book. In May, EveryThing vs Max Creed, Book 2 in the Modern-Day Chronicles of Max Creed will publish. Max and the band are tasked upon taking down a social media mogul bent on creating anarchy and ruling the world. In October, 1955, the first in the Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mysteries will debut. Jazz is hired by the NAACP to investigate the lynching of a young Black man and uncovers a rotten underbelly in white Raleigh. I will most likely be writing a new Mainely Mystery, the third in the Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mysteries, and hopefully the second Bob Chicago. I hope to be involved in many COST TALKS, Authors in Conversation, Making Mysteries Panels, and Writers on Writers panels. Please reach out to me for more information on these fascinating presentations.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett: Since I just finished a major revision project, my first goal is some time off to read other people’s books and stream some movies and tv I missed. Next? Probably a hard look at The Finder of Lost Things. Rights are about to revert to me after five years of not-so-great sales with a small press, so I may want to do some revision and maybe give it a new title before I release it on my own. Stay tuned.

John Clark: Since my Mojo vanished after the 2024 presidential election, I’m focusing on enhanced time travel in 2026. I’m hoping to convince Sysiphus to take a hiatus from his rock gig and come along. Planned stops include dinosaur riding, interviewing the Virgin Mary to get her side of the story, watching Rome burn in anticipation of it happening again in November of 2026, and having a ringside seat when the asteroid plows into the Yucatan Peninsula. Hopefully those experiences will re-energize my writing career. I’m also continuing serializing my books on Substack.

Gabriela Stiteler: What I’m working on:

Current Project: Finish the third draft of my manuscript set in Pittsburgh in the 1980s by mid-January. Feeling cautiously optimistic about the shape it’s taking. (Fewer plot holes, stronger characters, etc.) Send it to two beta readers for reactions. Respond accordingly to feedback.
Short Stories: I have two short stories coming out in the spring. One in Alfred Hitchcock and the other in Ellery Queen. I have two more in the queue. Fingers crossed. I have the ideas for four short stories that I’m promising myself I can work on when the longer manuscript is done. I’ll reward myself with one or two of them after I finish the Pittsburgh story.
Up Next: In the summer, tackle the second draft of another longer work in progress set on an island in Maine and centered around the way a family responds to the disappearance of a local girl. Finish draft two by end of the summer. See if it makes more sense because the plot is a hot mess.

Allison Keeton: I’m eagerly awaiting the February launch of Book Two in the Midcoast Maine Mystery series, titled Arctic Green. Named after the Arctic Cat snowmobile, the story centers around the town of Secretly’s snowmobile trails and the controversies that come with them. Raven and the cast of character from Blaze Orange are central to the story again, with the addition of new troublemakers, of course. I’m also re-writing a novel that involves the Lizzie Borden story, and submitting texts of picture books, also on the dark side. I’m also looking forward to meeting more readers at libraries and bookstores.

Kait Carson: I’m looking to finish final edits on my first Maine Mystery, No Return. I had submitted it to a small press, and they asked for edits with an offer to look at it again. So, nose to the grindstone. I’m also working on finishing the fourth in the Hayden Kent Myseteries Death by Deception. The romance between Kurt and Hayden is heating up, and the diving, well, that’s as shark-infested as love. How bad can it get? Looking forward to hearing everyone’s plans. It’s a new year and a clean slate. Dream big.

Jule Selbo: 6 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery will be out late Spring. This has been a long haul on this one – I am missing my one-a-year by a few months – so much storm and drang and sadness and “stuff” in 2025 – that there was a MIND-BLOCK for a bit. So I wrote some short stories (luckily some were published) and had great conversations with other supportive writers (most in the MCW blog crew) so thank you all! All that to say – DON’T toss things into the garbage. Once the cloud passed (and it was like a cloud lifted and I could “see” clearly again so whoo-whoo or not, it was a heavy CLOUD!) I was able to find my interest and belief in the 6 DAYS story again! A few more months of polishing – and then my plan is to do a STAND-ALONE. First time for me – before I go into the 6th of the series 5 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What does 2026 look like for the rest of you?

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Talking Voice

Posted on December 29, 2025 by dickcass

As much as I love the rest of the holiday trappings—the tree, the weather, the roast beast—I might love the music more than any of them. I don’t practice the religious tradition I was brought up in, but you never lose things you were exposed to in your earliest years. The familiarity of pieces like the Hallelujah Chorus or Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella (my father’s favorite carol) carry waves of memory and emotion.

Last Saturday, Anne and I sat in the magnificent Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland and enjoyed what has become an annual tradition, the performance of Portland’s Choral ART Christmas concert. The voices, individual and massed inspired awe and started me thinking about voice.
For writers, voice is the elusive and unmistakable sound he or she brings to the prose. It’s composed of word choice, tone, how sentences and paragraphs are structured. It’s the sound of the writer’s consciousness coming through.

Voice is what gives readers confidence, so that when an author says “Call me Ishmael,” they come along
There are a couple ways of looking at voice: the authorial voice and the voices of the individual characters. Authorial voice is the overall inflection and intonation the writer brings to an entire piece. A strong authorial voice identifies a writer as clearly as the name on the cover of a book. No one, for example, would mistake Elmore Leonard’s authorial voice for anyone else’s, even though he didn’t write series characters.

In a good novel, each character has an individual voice, depending on their role in the story, their interactions with other characters, their actions and their thoughts. No one would confuse Chili Palmer’s voice in Get Shorty with Ray Barbone’s.

Voice is not necessarily pleasant or congenial. The narrator William Lee in William Burrough’s Junky, for example, is not someone you want to spend time with. But it is Burrough’s voice, clearly and consistently, and probably the best expression of him in prose.

An authentic voice can’t be faked. As with Christmas music, readers have an emotional response to voice. They also have sophisticated detectors for falsehood and authorial uncertainty. Voice is an expression of a writer’s authenticity, a way of sharing with the reader, who must be able to trust it, allow the writer to tell them the story. A superbly constructed story told in an inauthentic voice can fail. A clunky piece of writing with a thrilling and engaging voice has a better chance.

How do we develop voice? It’s in the work. Jazz has the concept of “woodshedding,” where you work out the techniques of your instrument in practice, either with your peers or on your own.

Finding your voice is a function of doing that work, writing the stories only you can write, inhabiting your characters and your plot as fully as possible. It takes time, patience, and love to give voice to your story. So get yourself back in the shed.

Posted in Dick's Posts, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 23, 2025 by kaitcarson

By Kait Carson

Elvis 2007

Hi readers and fellow crime writers. I’d planned to write a learned essay about the seduction of editing this month, but hey, it’s the penultimate day before Christmas. Instead of reading about the writing life, no matter how scintillating the topic, what we really want to do is kick back in front of the fire with our favorite libation and light the tree. Or if you have kids, figure out just how to put that toy together. In which case, I hope your libation of choice is an adult beverage. Things have definitely progressed from securing item ‘A’ in slot ‘B’ and tightening the screw with the enclosed Allen wrench to instructions requiring an advanced degree in electronic engineering.

Starlight 2009

We don’t have a tree this year. Haven’t had one since we returned to Maine in 2020 and installed the woodstove in the living room. This is a small house. Pines are flammable. Common sense dictated a choice between a Christmas tree and furniture. Furniture won. That’s not to say we haven’t had trees in the past. Most cut from our property. And as most required some serious surgery to get through the front door, the cuttings made beautiful wreathes. If you’ve ever seen the Griswald Family Christmas Tree, you know what I mean. Once in the woods, the certain knowledge of an eight-foot ceiling morphs into the unshakable belief that a sixteen-foot tree will fit just fine.

I hope you enjoy this retrospective of Christmases past. Complete with cats.

Smokey 2006

2005 Must have been feeding time for the cats

Florida with Fred and Hutch 2012

To all who celebrate, happy holidays, and may 2026 bring everything you desire.

Posted in Kait's posts | Tagged Merry Christmas | 10 Comments

Yes, books make great gifts; love of books is an even better one

Posted on December 22, 2025 by Maureen Milliken

I recently read an article about how high school kids were no longer being assigned full books to read, just snippets. Reasons ranged from “you just can’t get young people to read anything long” to whatever entity that’s dictating curriculum is not putting books on the menu. Whatever the reason, it bothered me. First of all, how are you supposed to appreciate a book by reading one chapter of it, rather than the whole thing? As an author, I find that insulting.

Second of all, of course, is the most obvious thing: Future generations just aren’t going to read books or think reading an entire book is important or necessary.

The more I thought about it, though, the less dire it seemed. I thought back to my old high school days — reading a Dorothy Sayers book in my lap as some poor kid slogged out loud through “The Pearl” or whatever book we were reading at the time. I don’t know whose idea it was to spend entire high school English classes having kids read aloud, but it was a pointless exercise. Listening to other kids stumble through a book wasn’t getting me anywhere. I know that we did more than that in English class, but it’s one of my major memories. I always had a book I was reading for pleasure with me, and that was my go-to when things got dull. Not just in English class, either. I’m not recommending this, by the way. My high school grades could’ve been a lot better.

The point is that, while I did read the assigned books in high school, that’s not where my book-reading habits began. I can probably list many of the books I was assigned to read in high school, but the ones I read on my own those same years made a much bigger impression. If high school is where the latest Gen’s book-reading habits are starting, yeah, they’re probably not going to be reading a lot of books going forward.

My sister Liz, with a book of course, around age 10.

I don’t have to tell you — loving books and reading them is a habit that starts years before high school. If there are books in the house, if the kids are read to, if they see the adults reading books, if it’s business as usual that books are something to value and reading is something to do and enjoy, that’s how it starts. That’s the house I grew up in, and I bet that most of you reading this did, too.

I also don’t remember a lot of vetting what we read. Once we could get to the library ourselves, Mom and Dad weren’t checking what we read or forbidding certain books. Part of it was that they were wicked busy. It was also the 70s, and they just weren’t paying that much attention to the little details of our daily lives. I also don’t think it would’ve occurred to them. That’s big, too. We could decide on our own what to read. It not only makes reading more personal and fun, but it’s a great way to develop critical thinking skills [another thing that’s going by the wayside, and also a blog post for another day]. We read all the time and our books were all over the house. If we were kicked outside becaues it was a nice day [do parents still do that?], books would often go with us. I can remember being a young teen and sitting in a corner reading a book on a hot summer day in one of the cool hallways of the State House in Augusta, a few blocks from where we lived.

By the time I was around 10 and my older sister, Liz, was 11, we were watching the younger ones if my Mom had to go out for some reason. This was before she went back to work full-time. We didn’t get paid, but I do remember her giving us “The Phantom Tollbooth,” by Norton Juster, as compensation one of the first times we had babysitting duty. That book was passed around among us, read by most of my siblings, and referenced frequently. I’m sure that once in a while, one of my siblings or I will still point out that if you try to jump to the Island of Conclusions, you’re going to get wet. There were many books like that, that we’d all read and they’d become part of our kids’ language.

I still have my beloved and battered copy of “The Making of the President 1968,” which I read several times as a teenager.

By the time I was a freshman in high school, my mom was working at Mr. Paperback in Augusta. Between that and Lithgow Library, I had a nonstop source of books. Mysteries were my go-to, but I’d also developed a weird obsession with politics and burned through all of Theodore H. White’s “Making of the President” books. I probably read the 1968 one four or five times.

I was a big fan of NBC News journalist Edwin Newman, who wrote a book “Strictly Speaking: Will America Be the Death of English?” I had a paperback copy of it and when I was 15, actually wrote him a fan letter and included a clipping of a newspaper story in which Gov. James Longley used a tortured metaphor about football to explain something. I don’t have the clipping, and it was 1976, so never had a copy of my letter. But imagine my surprise when a month or so later, I got a return letter from Newman! Completely with his own proofreading correction mark. I had totally forgotten about it until this summer, when I was going through an old box of stuff in a closet and found it.

Yes, I was a weird kid. Books didn’t make me any less weird, but I don’t think they made me any weirder, either. In fact, I can’t think of a better outlet for weird kids everywhere. Weird kids who read books end up becoming authors, or even doing things that can change the world.

Back to the point. It IS disappointing if it’s true that high school kids are so disinterested in reading an entire book that teachers have giving up making them try to. But by the time a kid is in high school, they’re either going to like books or they’re not.

Three generations of my family catch up on their reading while waiting for dinner during a family camping trip at Baxter State Park a few years ago.

Frequently when I’m behind my author table at some event, a person will come up to me and proudly announce, “I don’t read books.” [Why? Who knows. That’s yet another post for another day.] Or, when I launch my pitch opening, “Do you like mysteries?” they’ll shake their head and say “I don’t read.” No matter which it is, my response is always, “That’s too bad.”

It IS too bad. How lucky are we that we love books? I can’t imagine life without them. Books have been a source of joy and comfort for me even before I could read. I feel bad for people who don’t have that.

The same day I read the article about high school teachers not assigning entire books, I had a table at the Bangor Author’s Fair and Literary Festival. For more than five hours, a steady stream of readers, of all ages, fiilled the room I was in. Gee, looks like there are still people who like books enough to come out on a cold day and check out an event that has nothing but authors and their books.

The Maine Crime Writers & Friends tree at this year’s Augusta Elks Festival of Trees.

I also, for the fourth year in a row, had the honor of setting up the Maine Crime Writers tree at the Augusta Elks Festival of Trees earlier this month. We had more than 50 books underneath it, many donated by writers on this blog [thanks guys!] and our other Maine author friends. While I was setting it up, one of the women who runs the event told me how thrilled they are with our tree. How great it is that we do it every year. It’s one of the most popular trees at the festival! A little while later, her husband found me wandering around, and thanked me, too. Profusely. He couldn’t say enough about how great it is that we gather all these books and do a tree. Seriously! This is an event with a tree that has nothing on it but lottery scratch tickets [my personal favorite]. Yet, they’re so excited about the tree with all the books. I’m just the one who sets it up — it’s the fantastic group of authors and our community who make it happen.

It’s obvious that there are still people who read books and value them.

As we Maine Crime Writers are fond of saying, books make great gifts! Even more than books, though, the love of them and of reading them is one of the best gifts you can give. Happy holidays to all!

Don’t forget! One lucky Maine Crime Writers reader who leaves a comment on the blog this month will win a bag of books!

Posted in Maureen's Posts | 12 Comments

Weekend Update: December 20-21, 2025

Posted on December 20, 2025 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maureen Milliken (Monday), and Kait Carson (Tuesday), and then we’ll be taking a holiday break until the 29th.

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

Matt Cost, Maureen Milliken and Allison Keeton can be found among other Maine writers from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday [December 20] at Merkaba Sol, 223 Water St., Augusta. Signed books make great gifts! Free gift wrapping and free raffles! Downtown Augusta has a lot of great restaurants, fun stores and holiday lights. Come on down and say hi.

Coming in January Portland Stage produced excerpts from four mystery novels!

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.

Don’t forget! One lucky Maine Crime Writers reader who leaves a comment on the blog this month will win a bundle of books!