Ready, Not Ready (A tribute to Cathy Perkins)

by: Donnell Ann Bell

On December 21, 2021, The Stiletto Gang lost a blog partner and friend. Cathy Perkins passed away. She was able to celebrate her 41^st wedding anniversary with her husband, and I know firsthand how proud and delighted she was with her daughters, spouses, and grandchildren. These people were her world.

For the most part, Cathy Perkins was a private person. In this blogpost, I’d like to celebrate the dynamic person I knew, and why I enjoyed her company so much. Cathy Perkins had a soft Southern drawl, a great laugh, a terrific sense of humor, and a gleam in her eye. She enjoyed exercising and was serious about her health. Her myriad interests spanned from finance and science (chemical engineering was her first degree), to walking her dogs, to working with stained glass, and, of course, writing. 

I met Cathy at the start of her writing career, after judging her unpublished entry, The Professor, in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. Later, we would serve on committees and a board together, and we periodically texted or phoned to catch up on the goings-on in our careers.

Whether close by or across the country, she loved to attend writing retreats, places where she was in her element and her most productive. Before COVID-19, the women in her retreat group met yearly and were very special to her.

I attended two Left Coast Crime conferences, one in Monterey, California, the other in Portland Oregon. Cathy and I roomed together in Portland where the staff stashed us next to an obnoxious chiming elevator filled with coming-and-going attendees. Didn’t matter, we spent the whole night gabbing anyway. 

Cathy Perkins on a panel at Left Coast Crime

Authors D.V. Berkom, Donnell Bell and Cathy Perkins

Authors Donnell Bell, Susan Boyer, Cathy Perkins & Allison Brennan

Cathy was not one to brag about her education or her successes. The only time I heard her beyond excited was the night she called me from Nashville to tell me The Body in the Beaver Pond had just won the prestigious Killer Nashville contest. That was so cool because I had beta read two versions of the book–the first draft was good—the final version, was outstanding. “This manuscript is ready,” I told her. “You need to get it out there.”

“Soon,” she promised, “When I’m ready.”

I also beta read Calling for the Money, book three of her Holly Price Financial series. In this book, I discerned a better understanding of this financial whiz behind the words and why she was the perfect author to write this series. She traveled constantly during her financial career, and did much of her writing on airplanes. More than once I asked her when she planned to retire.

“Working on it,” she’d say. “When I’m ready.”  

Always a planner, she and her husband had purchased a secluded property in Washington state, they were clearing a tree-filled lot, and were building their dream home. I never got to see the property in person, but trust me, I saw it in my mind’s eye when I read The Body in the Beaver Pond. Cathy occasionally described the labor-intensive maintenance and the construction woes, mostly laughing when she relayed the drama. 

The dilapidated cabin that her protagonist Keri Isles inherits is an exaggerated structure for the real deal. In its place, stands the Perkins’s long-awaited home with its stunning vistas, which eventually came to fruition.

In March of 2020, the Perkins came to visit my husband and me in Las Cruces. COVID was just starting to rear its awful head, and I’m grateful we had these few days to spend together.

Author Cathy Perkins in Monterey

In closing, Cathy Perkins did more living in her six decades of life than many people do who are granted an additional thirty. She loved, lived, traveled, and gave of herself to numerous volunteer organizations and charitable causes. I still have her text messages and I confess I’ve saved her last voicemail. At some point I’ll probably delete it. Maybe . . . when I’m ready. For now, I’m not ready. Rest in Peace, Cathy.

Donnell Ann Bell is an award-winning author, including finalist in the 2020 Colorado Book Award, and the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for her first straight suspense Black Pearl. Book two is on her editor’s desk and she’s working on Book Three. You can learn more about her other books or find her on Facebook, Twitter, or BookBub. Sign up for her newsletter at www.donnellannbell.com

 

 

 

International Beaver Day!

April 7 is International Beaver Day, a day aimed at celebrating and raising awareness of these furry, dam-building rodents. (Bet you didn’t know that!)

Photo Credit: Michael S. Quinton National Geographic

I swear I’m not quoting my BeaverSav protesters, but beavers really are remarkable creatures. (BeaverSav is a completely made-up organization protesting the destruction of beaver habitat by the archeologists in The Body in the Beaver Pond. I might’ve had a bit of fun with one of the protestors in the story, but they really are dedicated to restoring the beaver’s habitat.) 

Anyway, given a chance, beavers could serve an important role in solving many of our planet’s major environmental problems. Their dams help create one of the Earth’s best life support systems. The dams flood the land upstream of the dam, restoring wildlife habitats for a number of species, protecting and filtering our drinking water, storing flood waters to reduce property damage, and maintaining surface water flow during drought periods.

Sadly, beaver numbers declined—the current population is roughly 10% of what it was before European settlers moved in—and the majority of wetlands were drained, disconnecting waterways from their floodplains. Eventually, rivers became more like canals—or sewers—contributing to our current problems with water pollution, erosion, and escalating damage from regional floods and droughts. 

Really bad photo by Cathy Perkins

Beavers have made a remarkable comeback over the last century. I can personally attest to several families in our neck of the woods. They keep trying to turn our river and its side streams into a giant wetland, but the river floods every spring, sweeping the dams away. Industrious critters, the beavers simply gnaw down more trees and start over.

Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife or BWW (a for-real group dedicated to protecting the species) declared April 7 International Beaver Day to honor Dorothy Richards, also known as the “Beaver Woman,” whose birthday fell on that day. Before her death in 1985, Richards studied beavers for fifty years, had two consecutive beaver families living in an addition to her house (that might be taking your passion a bit far) and wrote a book called Beaversprite: My Years Building an Animal Sanctuary.

Okay, she kinda mighta been the inspiration for the woman from BeaverSav, but I’m sure Ms Richards is much more fun to hang out with.

To celebrate International Beaver Day, here are seven facts about these industrious rodents provided by globalanimal.org:

1. Beavers can stay underwater for 15 minutes without coming up for air.

2. The beaver is Canada’s biggest rodent and the second-largest on the planet.

3. Beavers’ transparent eyelids work like goggles, by protecting their eyeballs as they swim underwater.

4. The beaver has been Canada’s national symbol for more than 300 years.

5. Beavers’ ear openings and nostrils have valves that can be closed when underwater.

6. The world’s largest beaver dam is 850 meters long and located in Wood Buffalo National Park.

7. Beavers sharpen their incisors (teeth) by grinding them against one another.

Ever see a beaver where you live? 

An award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark suspense and light amateur sleuth stories.  When not writing, she battles with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure. She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd.  Visit her at http://cperkinswrites.com or on Facebook 

Sign up for her new release announcement newsletter in either place.

She's hard at work on sequel to The Body in the Beaver Pond, which was recently presented with the Claymore Award.