Perry Mason, You and Me by Debra H. Goldstein

Perry Mason, You and Me by Debra H. Goldstein

Looking back, I can identify many people who made me the person I am.  There were family members, teachers, and people who passed through my life for a moment, but one “person” stands out. Perry Mason.

During junior high and high school, my routine was to attend class, participate in after school activities and plop on our den’s couch at five p.m.  That’s when Perry Mason went on.  During the first commercial, I’d empty the dishwasher; at the second commercial, I’d set our dinner table; my dad got home from work during the third commercial and our family sat down for dinner when the show ended.

I thought Perry Mason/Raymond Burr was perfect.  He creatively thought outside the box, was considerate, had cute dimples when he smiled, treated Della, his secretary, well, and had an office and décor that appealed to me.  Perry Mason influenced me to become a lawyer. Of course, reality was different.  I don’t have dimples. Although I was a litigator for twelve years, a secretary neither physically shared my desk all day nor sat at counsel’s table with me, and my witnesses didn’t consistently confess.

The original and in my mind “real” Perry Mason show was on from 1957-1966.  Considering my age and the time of day I watched it, the episodes I was glued to were re-runs. Recently, I discovered Perry Mason running twice a day on an oldies channel.  Using modern technology, I set my DVR to capture “first run” episodes. This has allowed me to binge watch it from its beginning episodes.  To my surprise, the show holds up.

Maybe it is the fact that I’m not used to seeing television shows in black and white.  Maybe it is the simplicity of the sets, but I think the real reason is that it is written to a formula. Because characters, conflicts and a relationship to Perry are introduced in the first few minutes, I am engaged by the first commercial.  By the second commercial there is a dead body, an accused party who Perry knows isn’t telling him everything, and some fancy footwork between Perry and Lt. Tragg.  The next segment takes place in the courtroom.  Things look bad for Perry’s client, but a word or a scene triggers something in Perry’s mind that results in him figuring out the real culprit.  Through spectacular questioning (which might be considered leading), he elicits a confession from a witness on the stand or a bystander sitting in the courtroom (and the judge never cuts that person off). The final moments are the weakest of the show – it is always a scene where Della and Perry or Perry, Della, and investigator Paul Drake discuss how Perry figured it out and go over the motive and unseen actions that explain the murder. 

From a writer’s perspective, the show’s formula almost works.  Scene 1 – set up the conflict and the murder; scene 2 – the deadly middle where everyone becomes suspect; scene 3 – the solution. The only weak point is the final segment. It is always the writer’s sin of being a contrived dump of information. Still, there are plenty of things for a writer to take away from each Perry Mason episode.

1) Write a good story.
2) Set up the plot and then have pacing ups and downs in terms of scenes with conflict, and tension.
3) Make characters realistic, but give them traits that when the character comes back on the scene, the reader or viewer immediately associate a positive or negative feeling with them.
4) Keep dialogue on point.

In retrospect, I realize there also were many subtle things I took away from the show. 

1) Common curtesy can exist between characters – even when Burger and Mason were on opposite sides of an issue, they might get sarcastic, but they did it with a tone of respect.
2) Women could be anything they want – Perry always went up against a male lawyer, but if one watched carefully, one realized the sex of the judges was evenly divided between males and females. In a way, this was radical.  In real life, women were barely represented in law school classes until the mid to late 1970’s.  When I became a judge in 1990, it was still a novelty. (ask me the stats sometime)
3) Precise use of language is key to effective communication – and sometimes omission of words can be the friend of a mystery writer.

There is no question that Perry Mason played a big role in my life.  Were you influenced by any TV shows or books?  How?

Clicking Our Heels – Should Sex, Politics, and Scandals be dramatized or even factually incorporated into our writing?

Cathy Perkins – A craft book I’m studying discusses the importance of incorporating what you’re passionate about into your stories to bring them to life and serve as a driving force. If you’re excited by an issue or topic, that intensity will transfer to the page. Family, for example, is always central to my stories, although it may not always be a traditional family. Other issues which are important to me – and to my readers – bring depth and focus. The challenge is adding tose elements without preaching and instead making them a natural part of your character’s reality.

Kimberly Jayne – I think anything is game. We write about all aspects of life anyway, including imaginary aspects. So yes, sex, politics, and scandals can be part of my writing. There’s a market out there for readers of everything, so if I’m interested in a controversial topic or if that topic would enhance or elevate my story, then I’ll use it and put my spin on it. As long as readers enjoy the concepts within the stories, controversial or not, then it’s all good.

Sparkle Abbey – Our books are very much escape reading. We have no problem at all with books that incorporate real life politics or scandals but you probably will never find that in a Sparkle Abbey book. We get emails from readers who share that they’ve read our books while going through difficult times, (sitting at the bedside of a loved one, after a particularly tough day at work, or simply as a get-away when they couldn’t actually get away) and this trills us. There is nothing better than hearing that your work brightened someone’s day!

Bethany Maines – Yes. A book with no sex, politics, or scandals would be pretty dang boring. I write fiction, so I don’t think those elements have to be 100% factual, but I do think they need to be present in someway.

Linda Rodriguez – I believe quite firmly in dealing with the issues of the day in the society about which I’m writing, whether I’m writing poetry, mystery, literary fiction, or fantasy. Writing that doesn’t deal in some way with these issues seems to be to be unrooted and simply lying shallowly on the surface of things, but I’m aware that other viewpoints on that matter are equally valid.

Debra H. Goldstein – Even if a book is meant to be fun, social issues can be incorporated in a manner that don’t hit people over the head. Ignoring the truth of sex, politics and scandals potentially leaves a dimension out of one’s writing.

Jennae Phillippe – Sure. I personally think that all writing is political in some way because it is asking us to relate to the ideas and theme presented. Some writing is more political than others, either by design or because it captured something the public wanted to politicize. But these things are a part of real life. However fantastical the tale, it will have elements of all of them.

Paula Gail Benson – I love how Law and Order has taken a current news story and given it a different spin by considering other ramifications. I think it’s a matter that needs to be approached carefully and with dignity, both in dramas and parodies or comedy sketches.

Kay Kendall – I have seen successful books incorporate all three of those elements – sex, politics, scandals. If other writers can do it well and you think you can too, then why not? In my first two published mysteries, I use the politics of the late 1960s as the milieu against which my amateur sleuth operates. I used the anti-war movement and second stage feminism for, respectively, Desolation Row and Rainy Day Women. Those were dramatic ties and as such they lend themselves to heightened feelings---even murderous ones.

Nikki Lanier in the Hot Seat

by Bethany Maines

In today's blog we're interviewing Nikki Lanier, the star of the Carrie Mae Mysteries and the upcoming Glossed Cause by Bethany Maines. The interview questions are selected questions from Marcel Proust's Questionnaire of 35 questions intended to reveal an individuals true nature.  So read on to find out what makes Nikki Lanier tick...

1. On what occasion do you lie?
Most occasions? Sorry, that’s an awkward question. I have to lie to most people on a daily basis. The Carrie Mae Foundation, the non-profit charity branch of Carrie Mae Cosmetics, and my employer, has the extremely simple goal of “helping women everywhere.” But the Carrie Mae founders realized early on that helping women sometimes requires a silk glove of diplomacy and sometimes an iron fist of enforcement. Basically, the Carrie Mae Foundation is part non-profit, part black ops force. And I’m part of the iron fist, but I can’t tell anyone. My boyfriend—the CIA agent—just found though… I guess we’ll see how that turns out.

Nikki Lanier

2. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A Saturday afternoon at the beach with my friends, my boyfriend, no one shooting at me and no phone calls from my mother. You wouldn’t think that would be so hard to achieve, but it’s been difficult. My friends all work for Carrie Mae, my boyfriend works for the CIA and my mother doesn’t know when to butt out, so getting a free Saturday rarely seems to happen.

3. What is your greatest fear?
That everyone will find out that I’m just faking it. I know they say imposter syndrome is a real thing for women, but I just keep feeling like everyone else has it more together than I do. I mean, yeah, I can speak five languages, but one of those is Latin. And OK, so I can shoot pretty straight and I know how to get into AND out of a bar fight and a foreign country, but I still can’t shake the feeling that other spies have their stuff way more together. Oh, and my other greatest fear is that my father will try to steal the Mona Lisa.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I have a tiny bit of a temper and sometimes something will just set me off. Next thing you know, I’m force feeding someone their lipstick. I have to say though, having a job where I get to punch people on the regular has cut back in my occasional outbursts. Mostly. Sort of. I think.

5. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Sigh. My hair. I think I’m finally at a place in my life where I’m OK with being a red-head, but there was a lot of my childhood that I hated it. And even now, it just seems to have a mind of its own.

6. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My boyfriend, Z’ev Coralles. He’s got these brown eyes and this voice that just makes me melt. How am I supposed to resist him? I know I should. My boss would be a lot happier if we broke up, but… He knows how to salsa and then there’s his derriere. Don’t tell anyone, but it should probably have a few poems written about it.

Val Robinson

7. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Does being a selfish jerk count as a trait? My father and my ex-partner, Valerie Robinson, think they can just walk into my life and mess up everything. They don’t apologize; they don’t even care. They just make messes and I’m the one that has to clean up. It would have been a lot easier for me if Val had just stayed dead after I dropped her off that bridge in Thailand. But Val never does what she’s told, even when she’s being told by a bullet to the chest.

8. What is your motto?
I never had a motto until I started working for Carrie Mae—they have quite a few little sayings. Most of them come from the founder – Carrie Mae Robart, she was a tobacco heiress, who turned down her father’s money to start Carrie Mae Cosmetics in her garage. She used to cross-stitch little sayings onto pillows. Currently, my favorite is, “Sunscreen, waterproof mascara, and a silenced .38 will take you just about anywhere you want to go in life.”

Find out what adventures Nikki is up to next in Glossed Cause!

Top Carrie Mae agent Nikki Lanier’s nemesis and ex-partner Val Robinson has returned from the dead and she wants Nikki’s help.  When Val said that Phillipe Lanier—Nikki’s long-absent father—had been kidnapped, Nikki dropped everything—friends, family, boyfriend, to fly to the rescue.  But soon Nikki realizes that her father’s kidnapping may not be what it seems and she may have just tanked her life for one of his ridiculous schemes. As Nikki and Val arrive in Amsterdam, Nikki realizes that if wants to her life back, she’s going to have to not only stop an international arms dealer, but convince her boyfriend, CIA Agent Z’ev Coralles, that she’s not the bad guy and that Carrie Mae isn’t a terrorist organization. But with Philippe refusing to be rescued, and an INTERPOL agent gunning for Val and Nikki, as well as making moves on Z’ev, Nikki is starting to doubt her own abilities. Can she do it, or is it a Glossed Cause?

PRE-ORDER GLOSSED CAUSE ON AMAZON!

Writing for Woman’s World Short Fiction Markets

by Paula Gail Benson

If you’re interested in writing short romance or mystery stories, you might want to consider submitting to Woman’s World (WW), a weekly magazine found in most grocery stores. Before sending in a story, you’ll definitely want to read the publication. Its fiction guidelines are strict: (1) romances must be contemporary and no more than 800 words, and (2) mysteries must be up to 700 words written in a “solve-it-yourself” format to allow readers to test their sleuthing skills with the resolution at the end. The pay is excellent (about $800 for romances and $500 for mysteries), but the competition is fierce. If your story is selected, you’ll become part of a distinguished group, including John Floyd and B.K. Stevens.

Several websites have been developed to help writers determine how best to hone their submissions.

The following provide guidelines:

for romances

http://womansworldstyle.blogspot.com/2012/10/womans-world-fiction-guidelines.html

and for mini-mysteries

http://womansworldstyle.blogspot.com/2013/08/womans-world-mini-mystery-guidelines.html

Until September 6, 2016, when she had to suspend her messages to concentrate on caring for her mother, Jody Lebel, a WW published mystery author, analyzed the mini-mysteries and listed other markets accepting shorts. Her blog is well worth reading to understand the type stories and formatting that WW is seeking. Here’s the link:

http://wwmysterystory.blogspot.com/

In addition, two Sleuthsayers blog messages from R.T. Lawton (“Me and the Mini-Mystery”) and John Floyd (“A Woman’s World Survival Guide”) give some excellent advice for successful submissions. They can be accessed at: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2012/08/me-and-mini-mystery.html and http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2012/08/a-womans-world-survival-guide.html.

Examining the Past

by Linda Rodriguez

We are preparing for the early-August final walk-through prior to selling our big house and moving to our new, drastically smaller home in early September. I've been decluttering and downsizing my home of 42 years for months now—in the midst of final cancer treatments, multitudes of writing/ editing/ teaching deadlines, and the vicissitudes of daily life. So it's no surprise that I've been revisiting the past lately as I sort through family belongings and oh-so-many papers.

The first thing that catches my eye is that I used to do so much. It feels like I'm constantly busy now, but I've had to learn to slow down and say, “no,” because of autoimmune disease and cancer. My schedule now, packed with deadlines as it is, is nothing compared to the schedules I used to keep twenty years ago with a demanding full-time job in higher education administration, lucrative fiberart and writing commissions on the side, almost a full-time job as a community volunteer (at one point, I sat on almost 30 boards), and a grade-schooler, two young adults, and a husband to take care of at home.

I look at a week's schedule printed out, hour-by-hour, to send to my boss to show that I really couldn't take on the major project he wanted me to lead, and I shake my head at days that run from 6:00 a.m. breakfast meetings to late-night meetings after an evening event with every hour in between packed with meetings, activities, and events. (Spoiler: I gave in and added that requested project to my already bursting-at-the-seams calendar.) What I can't figure out is how I planned all the programs and wrote all the speeches, reports, and articles with days like that. Then, I read a note from one of my graduate interns, joking about a wee-hours assignment email—“Do you ever sleep?”

Suddenly, I remember that feeling of running constantly on just a couple of hours of sleep a night. That feeling of being always a few steps short of complete collapse whenever the adrenaline would run out. Those were crazy times—immensely productive but absolutely mad. It's probably no wonder that I developed a couple of autoimmune diseases, which are often triggered by constant stress for too long a period.

I'm locked in another stressful period now, as I attempt to clear my house of its decades-long collection of family heirlooms and detritus, so I can start packing for the move to the new home. It has seemed a Sisyphean task, at moments, as I've tried to fulfill other obligations at the same time, but I've made a point of trying to ensure a decent night's sleep along the way, and now, the end is finally in sight. Age brings with it some basic sense and the realization that we must take care of our bodies and minds if we don't want them to rebel against us. Now, I couldn't handle a schedule like that weekly one I found among my papers, and rather than feeling sorry for that, I'm glad I've become smart enough not to try.

Have you had crazy busy times in your life? Do you find, as you grow older, that you are much more willing to say, “no,” and set firm limits?

Linda Rodriguez's Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion, will appear in autumn, 2017. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and her books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

The Thrilling Lee Child

By Kay Kendall

When my first mystery was months away from publication, other writers suggested I should attend ThrillerFest, the high powered writers’ conference held every July in New York City. I protested that a) I don’t write thrillers, and b) that conference was pricy. Then I was told that International Thriller Writers, the group that holds the annual meeting, has a special program for debut authors that helps put newbies on the map. I was persuaded to attend, thinking I would go only once in order to participate in that program.

Janet Maslin of the NY Times interviews ThrillerMaster Lee Child.

That was back in 2013, and I have just returned from my fifth ThrillerFest in a row. Yes, I got hooked, pure and simple. The authorial fire power at ThrillerFest can’t be equaled, and contrary to its name, the International Thriller Writers do welcome authors across the full spectrum of crime writing. Whether you write cozy mysteries, true thrillers, traditionals, historicals, suspense, or whatever. It does not matter. All are welcome.

An awards banquet concludes each conference. Besides handing out six book awards, ITW honors one author who is deemed the year’s ThrillerMaster. Beginning in 2006 when the conference debuted, in chronological order the honorees were Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Sandra Brown, David Morrell, Ken Follett, R.L. Stine, Jack Higgins, Anne Rice, Scott Turow, Nelson DeMille, Heather Graham, and—this year—Lee Child. Also part of the hoopla centering on the ThrillerMaster is an hour-long interview by another notable person. This year Lee Child was interviewed by Janet Maslin, long-time film critic (1977-1999) and book reviewer (1999 on) for the New York Times.  

If you aren’t up on your thrillers, here is some background about the suave and ever-genial Lee Child, who hails from Coventry, England. Although a resident of New York since 1998, he has not lost his gorgeous British accent—or his elegant manners either, for that matter. Within the thriller/mystery writing community, his name is a watchword for bestseller-dom. In fact, his twenty-one novels starring the tall, sexy drifter Jack Reacher are so popular that I was shocked that Lee Child had not been named an ITW ThrillerMaster years earlier.

Near the beginning of his interview with Janet Maslin, Child announced that he had become eligible for the award only three months previously. There was a twenty-year rule that explained everything, one I had not known about. His twenty-second Reacher novel is due out in the fall, and two popular films featuring actor Tom Cruise as the legendarily tall Jack Reacher have been produced. I will never forget when the news first broke that Cruise would play Reacher. Much consternation ensued. Cruise is known to be well under six feet tall. Reacher is described in book after book as six feet five, weighing 220 pounds, with a chest expanse of 50 inches. To note: Child himself is six feet five, but his frame is rail-thin. .

Lee Child says he tires of being asked about the choice of Cruise, but his ire is never evident.  Which is a good thing. At the awards banquet, two thriller authors performed a mashup of Beatles songs with lyrics restyled to fit known events in the life and career of Child. The medley opened with “Tiny Jack Reacher” sung to the tune of “Paperback Writer.” This performance brought down the house. And Lee Child smiled through it all. He also gave everyone in attendance a hardback of collected Jack Reacher short stories that debuted just this month. Now that’s what I call class.

~~~~~~~

Read the first 20 pages of Kay Kendall’s second mystery,

RANY DAY WOMEN here! http://www.austinstarr.com/ 
That book won two awards at the Killer Nashville

conference in August 2016—for best mystery/crime and also for best book. 

Her first novel about Austin Starr‘s sleuthing,

DESOLATION ROW, was a finalist for best mystery

at Killer Nashville in 2014. 

Visit Kay  https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor

Heroes Vs Villians

by J.M. Phillippe

There is a saying that no villain really knows that they are a villain. We are all heroes in our own minds. But in fiction, it is also often true that heroes don't know they are heroes. They resist the title. They push back against the events that would take them to heroic destiny. The good ones, the ones we relate to most, never really feel heroic so much as overwhelmed by the circumstances they face.

I have broken the main rule of the Internet: never read the comments. In reading the comments I find, over and over again, people so opposed to each other, they resort to insults, each side assuming the other is the biased one, the stupid one, the one who refuses to get it (or is incapable of getting it). Each side has painted theirs as the one full of heroes, the other the one full of villains.

How can this be?

It is enough to give me pause and wonder how I see myself, how I live my life, even how I write my characters. How have I decided what is heroic and what is villainous? What criteria was I using and why was I so sure I could tell the one from the other?

Maybe it was just circumstance -- the heroes had the most bad things happening to them. Maybe it was just perspective. The heroes are the ones that get the most time spent on their thoughts, feelings, and motives. Heroes are the ones whose pain audiences are supposed to relate to, their reactions more justified, their mistakes made smaller with familiarity. They are allowed remorse, guilt, shame, and insecurity. They are the ones fighting for hope.

Or maybe it's just about likability. Heroes are the ones we like -- they have the charm, the talent, the special magical ability to make audiences want to find out more. 

If I can't say for sure which characters I have created are truly heroic, how can I say which people in life are truly villainous? Particularly when people on both sides are so determined that theirs is the side to be on?

After much thought and consideration, I finally came up with the only definition (and a working one at that) which could even start to help me make sense of the world: heroes are the ones that are willing to admit they are wrong, and they are the ones most likely to change and grow over time. Heroes are the ones looking to be redeemed, in whatever way they feel they need to be. Villains are the ones who aggressively refuse to change.

It's not a perfect definition, and the distinction between heroes and villains, as much as there is one, is, I'm sure, much more nuanced than can be contained in one simple line (or three). But I need some measure, some way to determine if I actually really am on the right side, something that isn't an appeal to authority or tradition. I need to know that flawed people can be heroic, and that not all villains have to stay that way.

Because the truth is that things in the world often feel very overwhelming. Life often feels full of obstacles I feel less than equipped to overcome. And I don't feel like a hero. Yet I also know my thoughts and views have easily painted as me someone else's villain. It gets murky, here the middle, in the real world, away from fiction (and non-fiction) organizing events to make one side seem better than the other. It's hard to know what side I stand on, and I suppose throughout my life I will flit from the heroic to the villainous and back again, depending on circumstance, perspective, and context. Just because I think I'm right doesn't necessarily mean that I am. 

I'm prepared to be wrong though. And I think that is a good sign that maybe, just maybe, I lean toward the heroic. At least, that's what I hope. 

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

Rediscovering Highlights for Children

by Paula Gail Benson

Wall of History at Highlights' Editorial Offices

When you were growing up, do you remember seeing Highlights for Children (a magazine for ages 6 through 12, with the motto: “Fun with a Purpose”) in your doctor’s office? I often read it there and for a while had my own subscription.

Did you know Highlights is still published monthly and has a million subscribers? It used to have two million, but the company began a new publication for younger children (ages 2 through 6), High Five, that took over one million subscribers. A third periodical (for those under age 2), Hello, comes in a form that curious hands and mouths can explore without fear of destruction.

I became reacquainted with Highlights and learned about its affiliates when I had the opportunity to attend a summer workshop sponsored by the Highlights Foundation in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, in the northeastern corner of the state bordering New York. From the experience, I came to realize why Highlights and its associated businesses represent a true American success story.

Highlights was established by Dr. Garry Cleveland Myers and his wife Caroline Clark Myers in 1946, at ages 61 and 58. Each had distinguished careers in education and had worked for another children’s publication, which they thought could be operated in a manner that would be more beneficial for its readers. Eventually, they took over that magazine and incorporated it into Highlights.

Boyds Mills Press

The business remains a family concern, with editorial offices based in downtown Honesdale, a quaint, lovely place with a railroad track running through it, located in the vicinity of many summer camps. Next door is the affiliated children’s trade book company, Boyds Mills Press, which publishes distinguished fiction and nonfiction. Nearby, in the rural countryside, the family home has been converted into a writing retreat with individual cabins, a lodge, and a “barn” where three meals a day plus appetizers are provided for visitors. The business offices for the companies are in Columbus, Ohio.

When I recently took a workshop in Honesdale, my classmates and I had the opportunity to tour the Highlights and Boyds Mills Press facilities in side-by-side buildings on Church Street. Our very informative guides (who welcomed some additional guests wanting to brag to their grandchildren that they had toured the Highlights headquarters) made it clear that the readers remain the primary focus. A single staff member answers every letter received from a child. In the main office, the replica of a skeletal dinosaur head that had been used in a promotion was on display. Above the archway leading to the hall was an appreciative message drawn by readers.

Most of us were surprised to learn that Highlights acquired all rights from the submissions it accepted. A member of our group had sold more than one hundred works to the magazine and advocated submitting. She said Highlights paid generously for the rights and, if a story was subsequently sold to another market, Highlights often sent a royalty check to the author.

When we asked how Highlights managed to maintain such high subscription levels in a digital age, the answer made perfect sense: children still love to receive something of their own in the mail. I have to admit, when I told my work colleagues where I was attending the workshop, most said that they had given subscriptions as gifts for children or grandchildren.

Obviously, Highlights has found the secret to presenting quality materials for children while continuing to develop new technologies and encourage emerging authors. It’s a true winning combination for both readers and writers. If you would like to know more about my workshop experience, check out my post tomorrow at Writers Who Kill. Even if you don't write for children, you might want to consider this wonderful facility for a possible retreat.

Day of The Dark Anthology Debuts by Debra H. Goldstein

Day of the Dark Anthology Debuts by Debra H. Goldstein

Forty years is a long time.  In this case, on August 21, 2017, it will have been over forty years since a total solar eclipse passed over the continental United States. That’s why, according to news reports, people are booking hotels, signing up for excursions and making other plans to find a spot somewhere between Oregon and South Carolina to experience the eclipse. The location one chooses is important because it can mean the difference of having a second or up two minutes and thirty-eight seconds to view the moon pass between the sun and the earth.

Of course, when mystery writers think about the word eclipse, their excitement can become slightly skewed. Twenty-four authors proved that point in the anthology, Day of the Dark, which will be released by Wildside Press on July 21.

Edited by author Kaye George, who also has a story, The Darkest Hour, in the anthology, the stories roughly track the path across the United States that the shadow of the eclipse will take. A few occur on different continents and in timespans other than August 2017. The tales range from medium to dark, traditional to supernatural, but all meet the same standard of excellence.

Of course, I’m biased. One of my short stories, A Golden Eclipse, was accepted for the anthology. It reminds us that no matter what the event, there are always people ready to use any occasion to take advantage of others.

But don’t just read Day of the Dark for Kaye and my stories. There are twenty-two other authors included in the book.  These include Margaret S. Hamilton, Toni Goodyear, Kristin Kisska, Harriette Sackler, Joseph S. Walker, LD Masterson, Paul D. Marks, Katherine Tomlinson, Leslie Wheeler, Carol L. Wright, Christine Hammar, John Clark, Bridges DelPont, M.K. Waller, Laura Oles, Melissa Blaine, Cari Dubiel, Suzanne Berube Rorhus, Dee McKinney, Nupur Tustin, Cheri Vause, and KB Inglee.  Some are well known like Paul D. Marks, a 2013 Shammus winner and 2015 Anthony and Macavity nominee while, for others, like Nupur Tustin, this is their first published short story.

Not only are the authors diverse in their writing styles and story ideas, but they also proved their diversity when, after deciding that a portion of the proceeds Day of the Dark should be donated, they agreed that the causes to be supported will include Earth and Sky, Petconnect Rescue, Natural Resources Defense Council, Science Center in Finland, DonorsChoose.org, Friends of Goldendale Observatory, Friends of the Earth, Morehead Planetarium, Texas Museum of Science and Technology, DAPCEP.org for STEM education for future astronomers and scientists in Detroit, and personal friends in need. 

Whew! And so is the book.  I won’t be able to be anywhere to view the eclipse, but I’m okay with that.  I plan to be holed up with Day of the Dark. I’m certainly not waiting forty more years for this eclipse treat.

Glossed Cause

by Bethany Maines

Today I’m excited to announce that the fourth book in my Carrie Mae Mystery series—GLOSSED CAUSE—is available for pre-order!  (Available August 8th!)

In the Carrie Mae Mysteries you’ll enter a world where the Carrie Mae Cosmetics Corporation has decided that helping women form their own home-based cosmetics sales businesses isn’t enough.  They want to help women everywhere, and sometimes that requires more than the protection of waterproof mascara—sometimes that takes a silenced .38 and the ability to kick more than a little ass.

In Bulletproof Mascara we met the red-headed, hot-tempered Nikki Lanier and followed her through training and a first mission with partner, turned traitor, Val Robinson. And in Compact with the Devil and High-Caliber Concealer, we learned more about Nikki, her staunch team of friends, and her tempestuous relationship with the drop-dead-sexy and drop-dead dangerous boyfriend Z’ev Coralles, but in Glossed Cause we’ve come full circle.  Val is back and she’s brought nothing but trouble…

GLOSSED CAUSE: Top Carrie Mae agent Nikki Lanier’s nemesis and ex-partner Val Robinson has returned from the dead and she wants Nikki’s help. When Val said that Phillipe Lanier—Nikki’s long-absent father—had been kidnapped, Nikki dropped everything—friends, family, boyfriend, to fly to the rescue. But soon Nikki realizes that her father’s kidnapping may not be what it seems and she may have just tanked her life for one of his ridiculous schemes. As Nikki and Val arrive in Amsterdam, Nikki realizes that if wants to her life back, she’s going to have to not only stop an international arms dealer, but convince her boyfriend, CIA Agent Z’ev Coralles, that she’s not the bad guy and that Carrie Mae isn’t a terrorist organization. But with Philippe refusing to be rescued, and an INTERPOL agent gunning for Val and Nikki, as well as making moves on Z’ev, Nikki is starting to doubt her own abilities. Can she do it, or is it a Glossed Cause?

PRE-ORDER GLOSSED CAUSE

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Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales from the City of Destiny and An Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Impact of Upcoming Total Solar Eclipse and Goat Yoga

By AB Plum

Have you ever noticed how the perfect plans you make so often fall apart? Go straight to hell in a handbasket? Turn quiet to chaos?

The end of June seemed perfect for two home projects: 

• installing new carpet in the MBR 
• painting all the woodwork throughout the house. 

Tricky to get the timing of each job right—painting first, carpet second. Packing and repurposing required a lot of planning and our sweat. But we pulled off both jobs pretty much as planned.

Thought we were home free. Paid contractors. Moved on. 

• Started making sure we grasped all the details about our trip to Oregon to view the total solar eclipse with our son and DIL. 
• Confirmed our reservation in Bend—handled totally by our wonderful DIL. 
• Double checked our airline reservations. 
• Reconfirmed time of pickup at PDX..

Feeling good. Good enough to think about getting our house back in order after the painting and carpet installation.

Then, wham! The washing machine turned on me. Died three days before July 4.The tea towels and table cloths and napkins started breeding in the laundry room. Opening the door put us at peril. 

My husband’s back also went out the same day—meaning boxes of stacked books sat here, there and everywhere but on the shelves. 

Yes, every appliance store had the stackable units we wanted in stock—somewhere in Outer Mongolia, requiring ten days shipping to Northern Cal. Call after call, online search after online search, confirmed this fact.

In the meantime, the laundry was rumbling against the door trying to erupt from the laundry room and take over our house like lava. 

Our tempers … simmered. We gave in to a rant or two. We lived in a huge metro-area. Yes, July 4^th loomed two days away. But …

What was happening? Was it the planets converging for the upcoming eclipse? How the heck does goat yoga fit in here?

Somewhere in between Internet searches for washer/dryer combos that fit in our space and didn’t require additional plumbing and/or electrical updates, a link to a YouTube video distracted my scattered attention. Watching it once, then twice more in the same setting, I laughed enough I finally corralled my “downer.”

Goats in a yoga class did the trick.

Just like in the movies, the next place I called did, in fact, honestly, truthfully, have the washer and dryer we wanted in their local warehouse. Yes, they would, absolutely on the head of the salesman’s first-born son, deliver said purchase to our home on July 4!

Uh-huh. Riiight. Yeah. I swallowed the impulse to demand the salesman’s home address.

July 4. Zoom in on me doing the happy dance when two young men arrived at 8:00 AM, installed the new appliances, gave us a demo, loaded the dead washer and companion dryer on their truck, and left by 9:15.

Whistling, I immediately loaded the washer. While it purred away, I turned on my computer, fired up the goat yoga video, and laughed through three re-runs. 

The solar eclipse was still on track (as if it wouldn’t be), and my husband’s back was better. What more could  I wish for—except my books magically back on the shelves? I'd then have time for goat yoga!

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When AB's not shelving books or washing clothes or watching goat yoga videos, she writes dark, gritty psychological thrillers. Unless the roof falls in, she plans to release in mid-August  The Lost Days, Book 2 in The MisFit Series.

Fleeting Summer

Independence Day has come and gone. Summer is half over. I hate that. I haven’t had time to sit by the pool or catch fireflies or sip wine on a night when the air is like velvet and the stars are so close I could pick them from the sky if only I could find the energy.

All too soon my oldest will take off for college and my youngest will return to high school.

How do the days pass so quickly?

If I blink, will I miss another year?

If I take a nap, will I miss their weddings?

Does every mother feel this way?

I suppose I’m lucky, their exploits are fodder for the teenager, Grace, in the Country Club Murders. 

Twenty years from now, I’ll be able to read Cold as Ice and remember the party at my house that got out of control. I’ll be able to remember their time on the knife’s edge between being a girl and a woman. I’ll be able to remember the bittersweet pain of watching them leave me.

Here's hoping the rest of your summer is filled with wonder...or at least fodder for a book.

Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders. 

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean--and she's got an active imagination. Truth is--she's an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.

Her next book, Cold as Ice, releases October 17, 2017.