My Weblog

Heaven, Hit TV Shows, and Digging Cemeteries

By Elaine Viets
I’m still unpacking from my "Board Stiff" book tour, but I wanted to give you some of the highlights.

The tour got off to a rousing start at the Festival of Mystery. Each year, Femme Marcia Talley drives three writers to the festival in Oakmont, a pretty Pittsburgh suburb.

This year, the hilarious and very British Ann Cleeves and Frances Brody were Marcia’s other guests.

Frances Brody writes the Kate Shackleton mysteries, including "A Woman Unknown." "The series began," Frances says, "with a picture in my head of a man trapped behind a high wall, unable to return home. Someone needed to discover who and where he was. Along came Kate Shackleton, sleuth extraordinaire. She stepped from our family album like the genie summoned from the lamp."
Ann Cleeves has the hit TV series, "Vera." (Order it on Netflix. I guarantee you’ll love it.) Her Vera Stanhope novel, "Silent Voices," finally made its US debut. Ann talked about taking the film crew around Northumberland.
Ann and Frances made the four-hour drive fly by. We stopped for lunch at the historic Jean Bonnet Tavern, which is supposed to be haunted. No ghosts, but a substantial lunch.                

 

 Then we went to writers’ heaven. That’s the Festival of Mystery, where about 40 authors are invited to sign their books each year. This annual event attracts busloads of mystery readers, who  around the local church hall, pay $8 to go in, and fill huge shopping bags with books. These serious readers have checklists for their favorite authors ("I didn’t get ‘Final Sail’ last year, but I’ll buy it today," one woman told me.) They’re adventurous and love new authors, too.

Laurie Stevens, the new owner of Mystery Lovers, is continuing the tradition.

Best of all, I get to see old friends like Karen Pietsch – a.k.a. Peach – and her daughter Julia, Peach Blossom. This year, Peach severely tested my marriage. She gave me a jar of homemade strawberry jelly. It’s as good as my grandmother’s, and that’s saying something. I hid the jar in my socks so Don wouldn’t find it. He squanders half a jar on his toast. I like to savor the experience and make it last.

 
St. Louis was my next stop, with six events, including a benefit signing for the local ALS chapter. My good friend Diana Wunning has eleven family members with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. She chooses not to know if she has the gene. Diana had just flown back from Washington, D.C., where she talked to our lawmakers about funding research to cure this terrible disease. St. Louisans are so generous. Thanks to you, ALS got more than $800.
After the benefit, I had a high school reunion at the Ferguson Brewing Company. I enjoyed talking to my Aquinas High School classmates (from left) Pat Helbling Davis, Mary Kunz Brock, Richard O'Keefe, Deb Dower Potter, and Rick’s wife, Jan O'Keefe.

Here’s the best part about impromptu reunions: no dieting or shopping for something to impress my classmates. We enjoyed good food and good conversation.

There was more – lots more, including a standing room only crowd at Barnes & Noble in Ladue. But the most unforgettable moment was when reader Connie Zuk Nisinger presented me with this unique handmade pin. You can see the big white pearl and the delicate filigree, but I bet you can’t read the writing on the tiny gold shovel. It says, "I Dig Bellefontaine"
That’s Bellefontaine Cemetery, a historic burial ground in north St. Louis. Connie works there.

"Thank you, Connie," I said. "But I’m trying to stay out of cemeteries."

"I know that," she said. "I thought you’d get a kick out of it."

I do. As long as I’m on the right side of the grass.

 

                                                            ****

WIN A COPY OF "FINAL SAIL" today. My publisher is giving away three copies of my Dead-End Job mystery, FINAL SAIL, Friday from 9 a.m. to noon EST. Just follow @penguincozies on Twitter  and retweet our tweet about the giveaway for a chance to win.

Galactic Expo!

from Mary

 

Last weekend, I did something fun. Yes, me, the one who stays inside, safe in her cozy little box, rarely venturing out into civilization. 

 

What got me out of the house was a special event at our fairgrounds called the Galactic Expo. Basically, it's a huge New Age party in a really big building. Booths lined the walls and ran up the middle, with hundreds of people milling about, checking out the vendors' wares. 

Beautiful jewelry, rocks, crystals ...

 

Clothes, purses, incense, tapestries ...

 

And my favorite ....

 

... the book booth, of course, which had nothing but super-interesting titles. Well, besides a few Erich Von Danikens. But otherwise, so many I wanted. Most exciting purchases: two books on medicinal herbs and one brand new just-released book on a specific relatively unknown Native American research topic for my next book. Squeee!!! Couldn't believe it when I saw the title. Nearby book buyers didn't seem to mind my loud unintelligible enthusiasm nor the rapturous quasi-tribal dance. They understood.

Most folks came out to the Expo for the BIG draws, naturally, the psychics and readers and other spiritually attuned earthbound beings. Of the 100 booths there, I'd guess about 40 to 50 of them offered readings or counseling. That's a whole lot of mind melding going on in one place! It's a wonder the building didn't levitate.

I'd checked the directory beforehand and saw one booth I wanted to be sure and find called Tena's Tea Leaves. I had no idea what a tea reading was like. It was FUN! Besides the interpretation about future events, which was great, what I loved was seeing Tena's amazing intuitive skills at work. The girl has got it.

Tena's a writer herself. And get this - she's the TRUE BLOOD and VAMPIRE Examiner on examiner.com!!!! I couldn't believe it! The ultimate Charlaine fan, no doubt about it. You can check out her many other skills at her website here.

On the other side of the room, I had one more reading. Sharon Wilkerson is a spiritual coach and astrological consultant. She read my horoscope, though that sounds very small compared to the actual worth of the session. Her many years of spiritual/religious work, of counseling others, made this another fantastic experience full of understanding and good advice. Read more about her on her website here.

Okay, now I'm officially PSYCHED! If you ever get a chance, check out a New Age expo for yourself. Don't be afraid. Go on down to Madame X and let her read your mind. You might like it!

 

 

Writers have to be prepared to take their knocks when they put their work before the public, and some of the knocks are pretty hard. Some of them are sucker punches. There’s a line (and it’s not so fine) between constructive criticism and rabid attack.
I don’t intend to keep harping on the controversy surrounding the last book in the Sookie series, because I’m gradually putting the tension behind me, but I am thinking about issues that arose. I wonder if it’s even possible to offer constructive criticism about a 13-book series that’s at an end. Surely such criticism would only have been helpful if it had been offered earlier, so that if I felt it were valid I could implement it. I’ve read comments about past books that I really found insightful and helpful . . . but not this time, not about this book.
I tried to read the Facebook comments on my professional page, and I’m still trying to thank readers who were nice enough to say they read the book all the way through before they disagreed with me . . . because what really rankled was the hatred expressed by some readers who hadn’t read the book. They didn’t care about the thought process or the plot points that led to the conclusion of the book. All they wanted was an ending they had chosen. They ignored all the signs I’d planted so carefully to indicate where I was going. Then a vocal minority declared that the whole series was worthless if Sookie didn’t end up with the suitor they favored.
And an even smaller group demanded I explain and defend myself.
I considered that for 30 seconds.
Nope. Not gonna happen. At some point, I realized that nothing I did or said would even make the most virulent haters pause for a moment in their hating to consider any words of mine.
In the end, my sales went up. I would rather not have had to endure what I did, but did the controversy really hurt the book? No, it didn’t. It hurt my pride, and it hurt my feelings, and it provided me with some moments of anxiety. But I’m a grownup. I’ll recover.
So, friends and readers, onward! New books to write, new projects to consider, and new characters to create!

Charlaine Harris

How the Other Half Lives

Readers of this blog are used to a literary feast from the wonderfully talented Femmes et Frere. This week: hotdish surprise.

Catriona has stepped aside for a one week (not-so-) special and allowed me, Neil, her husband, to give an up close and personal view of what it's like to be hitched to one of these writer types. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 But why  have you got me this week,and not her indoors?  Catriona is working like a demon, editing and drafting a Dandy Gilver novel, which will appear at some point in the future. She mentioned that she was a touch on the busy side what with the manuscript, guest-blogs and group-blogs looming. I, jokingly, offered to write the blog with the most pressing deadline and much to my horror she said "Go on then.  Femmes on Friday, please".  

You'd think the man who once ended up doing an exhibition Cha-Cha-Cha as part of a talent show at a literary festival, because of a mistaken belief that offering to help wouldn't lead anywhere awkward, would have known better.  You'd be mistaken.  I am that dumb. 

So (getting back on track) what's it like being married to one of these writer types? It's brilliant. Of course I had to say that. If for no other reason than because Catriona spends a lot of time imagining how to murder people, we live in a fairly isolated house, and even the distant neighbours we do have are used to the sound of power tools. I might not be the brightest button in the box but I know how to butter-up with the best (Boy, B got a bit of an outing there). 

So, it's brilliant, but it's not what I thought it would be. Back in the grim, dark days of the late 1990s when Catriona was contemplating leaving academia behind to give writing a go, I thought... I thought...

Well, the truth is I thought there'd be more wafting, more staring into space, more sentences that trailed off half-finished (no such luck. Joking, hon.) and I expected that I'd have to make way for a new house guest called The Muse. I thought I might have to push The Muse to one side on the couch (ever so gently, of course) if I wanted to sit beside my wife in the evening. 

But it turns out that Catriona's Muse likes a well organized environment, has a work ethic that makes me ashamed any time I complain of the long hours involved in being a professor, and keeps her at her desk eight hours a day when literally outside the door is all that California has to offer. 

What I've come to realize is that this discipline provides the anchor point that allows a writer's imagination to float free and become completely immersed in the world being created. It's quite something to be around while it's happening.

Which is not to say that all is calm during the creative process. At some point in the birth of every story there comes "the big early wobble", or BEW. Now, I've spoken to the partners of other writers (there are a fair few around the Davis area) and they all knew what "the big early wobble" was without me having to explain. As the name implies it usually happens near the start of a new book.

Catriona is a beginning-to-end kinda writer so the BEW usually sets in around chapter 3 or 4 and it goes something like this:

C: This is terrible.

N: Oh?  What is? {Uh-oh, looks like the BEW}

C: This story. It's rubbish. Dandy's not Dandy, it has no colour, no life. It's thin.  I don't know where it's going, and it's just awful.

N: Hmmm, that *does* sound bad. Are you sure? {Yup , it's the BEW.}

C: Yes. Certain. It's never been this dreadful before. Never.

N: Not even the last time, when you said exactly the same thing? {I wonder if I can jog her memory?}

C: I've never said this before, because it's never happened before.

N: {Nope} OK. Well we better get our thinking heads on and come up with a solution. How about you read me what you've got so far and I'll tell you whether it's any good? {What a brilliant idea! And without precedent, apparently}

C: OK, but it's really rubbish [starts reading and begins to get a sense of deja vu...] 

And so the BEW comes on, shakes things up a bit, and passes off without breaking anything, leaving no trace of having ever been there. Again.

Eight Dandy Gilver novels have been through the BEW so far.  Next month's new book AS SHE LEFT IT went through one that registered on the Richter scale and caused new legislation in California's central valley.  All writers have to have quake-straps on their laptops now.  She did that.

But the book's the thing and the book survived.

April Showers & May Flowers

by Kris Neri

“It was a nice late April morning, if you care for that sort of thing.”
— Raymond Chandler, Pearls are a Nuisance

Okay, it’s not April now, it’s May. Not too different, though. What I mean is that it’s spring. Spring! A great time of the year.

Spring has been slow in coming to Northern Arizona. Our March was outright cold with frequent snows, and April was also cooler than usual. But now the pleasant days are finally here, and they were worth waiting for. Not too cold, not too hot. With soft breezes and a warm and welcoming sun.

For those unfamiliar with the high desert, you might imagine that we wouldn’t see much in the way of color. The arid, rocky soil here does seem unfit to grow anything other than some rugged cacti willing to wait eons for a few drops of water. But if you think that, you’d be wrong.

Every spring, whether wet or dry, high desert or low, the wildflowers return. In rainy years, the carpets of color are absolutely staggering. Rich yellows, pinks, purples, oranges and other tones stretch as far as you can see under an imaginably clear blue sky. They’re a bit more restrained in drier years, but I actually like those better. Instead of blanketing vast acreage, wildflower plants seemed to have been placed more selectively in perfect harmony, by what you’d think to be the world’s most talented landscape designer. Every year I’m continually amazed that this brilliant placement could possibly happen on its own.

Wildflowers aren’t our only gift from Mother Nature. Delightful little white flowers fill the huge cottonwood trees that proliferate here and other parts of the West. At a certain point in spring, those trees shed their petals. In neighborhoods heavy with cottonwoods, breezes carry those petals, tossing them at windshields in a show that looks remarkably similar to a winter blizzard. But instead of snow, they’re truly a shower of flowers. In some spring weeks, I’ve been treated to that flower shower for days on end. Magical!

Spring desert days aren’t all perfect, though. With flowers come allergies for many of us. Some desert plants produce staggering pollen levels. Juniper trees are especially bad. If you’re unfamiliar with them, the junipers we have in Northern Arizona aren’t anywhere near as showy as the wildflowers. They’re small, slow-growth trees that produce tiny berries. Varieties of junipers show up in lots of places around the globe, but this is my first encounter with them. If you’re a gin drinker, you’d probably welcome them, because those berries produce your gin. Since I’ve never been able to tolerate gin, I don’t have to.

But I do admire junipers. With their rugged bark and rough dull green needles, with their sometimes misshapen growth patterns, they make a much more lasting statement about high desert conditions than the gaiety of our seasonal wildflowers. Some Native Americans respectfully refer to them as “Grandfathers,” because many Southwestern junipers can easily be six to eight hundred, or even a thousand years old. A thousand years! They were here before us, and they’ll be here after. Perhaps the levels and particular virulence of the pollen they release is their reminder to us of that. 

Thankfully, they don’t kill me. I’m able to control my reaction to them with OTC antihistamines. But I know people who, despite every possible prescriptive prevention, can count on at least one trip to the emergency room each year, where they beg for help from punitive sinus headaches and the sinus infections that invariably result.

There’s probably something where you live that’s just as much a mixed blessing. Doctors say that, throughout the world, allergies are getting worse. Some blame climate change because it has brought about new growth patterns, and even new plant life in areas that were never hospitable to those varieties before.

Okay, so nothing’s perfect. But spring comes pretty close. It was cold yesterday, and it’ll be hot tomorrow. But for now, even if it means keeping the Claritin or Zyrtek close at hand, it makes me wish I could play hooky everyday.

What’s your favorite season where you live?

Remembering Mom and Dad

For many of us, I know that Mother's Day and Father's Day can be tough. My mom passed away in December of 2001, my dad in Feburary 1990. I still feel both those losses keenly, even after much time has passed. I was an only child, and I think that if I'd had siblings, some things might be easier to bear.

This year, though, I was determined not to be sad and instead to focus on more positive things. I thought about what traits I inherited from my mother. One in particular has served me well all my life, but particularly as an adult. My friends have often heard me refer to my mother as the stubbornest woman the good Lord ever created. "She could out-stubborn a mule," I've been known to say.

My mother was the fourth of ten children in a poor family. She grew up during the Depression, and they had some hard times. She faced even more challenges in adolescence and young adulthood, but she fought through them and overcame them. She met and married my dad, the love of her life, and though they had some rocky times, they loved each other so much they worked through them. After my dad died, however, she lost a lot of that spirit, but there were still sparks of it there, enough to keep her going for nearly twleve years.

My mother was a hard worker all her life, as was my father, and they imbued me with those values. Stubbornness -- or tenacity -- is a good thing for a writer to inherit, otherwise we'd be so discouraged by those rejection letters we'd never publish anything. But thanks to my parents, I don't easily take "no" for an answer. If one thing doesn't work, something else will.

Beached!

By Elaine Viets

For "Board Stiff," my new Dead-End Job mystery, I transformed my favorite true stories into fiction.

Newlywed private eyes Helen Hawthorne and her husband Phil Sagemont have an assignment in the mythical South Florida town of Riggs Beach, known as "Rigged Beach."

Competition for tourist dollars is cutthroat here. Sunny Jim, owner of a stand-up paddleboard rental company, believes someone wants to ruin his business. When an innocent tourist dies in what looks like an accident, Sunny Jim insists she was murdered. Helen and Phil, along with dozens of others, saw her tumble off her paddleboard. Now they have to solve a murder with no witnesses and no weapon.

These three stories that actually happened to me:

The Branded Roach wandered into the restroom at a posh ocean restaurant. I’m the woman in this story:

"I saw a roach in the ladies room. A big one," the woman said.

"Did you say a big roach?" the restaurant owner asked. "Not a little brown one?"

"That thing is nearly two inches long," the woman said. "You could saddle and ride it. It’s disgusting."

"Oh, that’s not one of our roaches," he said. "That’s a beach roach." He smiled as if that was an explanation. 
Helen and Sunny Jim encounter The Helpful Tourist. I actually met him on the beach:

A sunburned man in lime board shorts gingerly carried a big bluish crab to the water. The crab, big as a saucer, wiggled its hairy legs and waved its claws dangerously close to the man’s thumbs.

"That crab looks angry," Helen said. "I mean, if crabs get angry."

"That one’s pissed, all right," Jim said. "It’s a land crab. They don’t like salt water once they’re adults. Buncha land crabs live in burrows by that sea grass there. This is the third time he’s thrown that poor creature in the water. I better tell him before that crab takes a hunk of his hand."

"Hey, dude!" Jim said. "Dude in the green! Drop that crab."

"You talking to me?" the man asked. He was in his twenties, with buzzed brown hair and small features scrunched together in his red face.

"Yeah, that’s a land crab," Jim said. "You aren’t doing it any favors dunking it in the ocean. It hates salt water."

"Can I, like, eat it?" the man asked.

 "You can," Jim said. "It can eat you, too. Watch your hand!" The crab’s sharp claw lunged for the tourist’s thumb. He dropped the crab and leaped back before it attacked his bare toes. The crab scuttled across the sand to the sea grass. The tourist waved at Jim and ran into the ocean.
Not all tourists are kind. I was outraged when I saw two college boys playing with a pink football – and so was Helen:

Helen saw two guys in gray college T-shirts and black board shorts playing catch on the beach. The crewcut college boys were throwing a small, pink football with a tail.

A tail?

Helen looked closer. That wasn’t a football. It was a fish. A red snapper was gasping and flopping as it arced through the air.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Stop that!"

"What?" said the short one. He had heavy shoulders and slitty eyes and wore his arrogance like cologne. "It’s just a fish."

"Then eat it or throw it back in the water," Helen said. "Don’t torment it. It’s alive."

She glared at them both.

The taller boy with the lean runner’s body had the grace to look ashamed. He cupped the wriggling fish in his hands, carried it to the ocean and gently lowered it into the water. The fish lay on its side for a long moment, then righted itself and swam slowly away.

PI partners Helen and Phil find dark undercurrents of corruption in this cheerful beachfront town, and the trail leads them back to Helen’s hometown, St. Louis.
I’m touring St. Louis through Sunday.

Today, Friday, I’m at the Festus Public Library at 1 PM, then sign at a  Benefit for ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – 5:30 to 7 PM.

Saturday, I’ll talk and sign at Barnes & Noble Ladue, 11 to 3 PM.

Sunday, see you at Left Bank Books in the Central West End, 4 PM.

Details at www.elaineviets.com/new/Events/default.asp

 

 

 

 

Cooking Up A Future

HANK: Blessings on the fabulous Jesse, who was supposed to be here on Monday, but then got--well, how shall we put this--pre-empted by all the Femmes good news! (And there's more FEMME DANA is nominated for the Anthony for Best Short Story for Mischief in Mesopotamia" and my THE OTHER WOMAN is nominated for Best Novel! So we are still very very happy in Femmes world.)

But today, it's Jesse's turn. I met Jesse about a million years ago, when she gave me the best critique of five pages of my second book I've ever seen! I still think about things she told me. She used to write dark, suspenseful stories--she's written countless published novels! But then she fell in love, awwww... And now is writing more "gentle" stories about romance on a family run dude ranch. She rides, she's a science geek, and she's just--terrific.

Femmes--meet Jesse Hayworth!

Grammie George and the green chili

Tra-di-tion … TRADITION! (I figured I would share that Fiddler earworm, as it’s been going through my head ever since I started thinking about writing this blog post. You’re welcome.)

Greetings, Fatales, and thanks so much to Hank for having me here today! As you might have guessed, I’ve been thinking a bunch lately about family traditions, the sort that get passed down through the generations, helping define us and bind us together.

One of the big pass-it-down traditions in my family is the Joy of Cooking. I learned to cook using my mother’s falling-apart copy, which had been a gift from her mother, and I received my own one Christmas. I might have been disappointed that it wasn’t a model horse (though I’ll deny it if you ask in front of my mom), but I’ve kept my copy through thirty-ish years and many life changes.

These days, it lives in the kitchen of my tucked-away home, marked up with red and blue pen and puffy from the many loose papers and note cards stuck between the pages. Some day, I hope to pass on a copy to an offspring to be named at a later date, whether it be a George or a Georgia.

Though I just celebrated the big four-oh, I’m a relative newlywed, having married into a big, interconnected sprawl of a family that was best described when my then-boyfriend said, “Don’t be nervous about meeting them. They’ll love you because they love me, and I love you.” Which has absolutely proven true. And they not only welcomed me wholeheartedly, there has been a refrain of “Grammie George would have loved you!”

Grammie George, it turns out, was a shotgun-toting, English-teaching force of nature who went through several husbands and adored the written word, books and authors. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her in this life, but I have a feeling she’d be proud of the legacy she left behind. Which, since we’re talking about tradition, includes Grammie George’s Green Chili.

For our second date (thank you, Match.com), my now-husband built an amazing salsa from the ground up. And as he roasted the peppers, he told me about the family’s green chili, and how each member might make it a little differently, but it all went back to Grammie George learning the recipe in New Mexico back in the ‘fifties.

The following summer, at our wedding, I got family points not only for taking his unpronounceable last name, but also asking for the green chili recipe. Except there wasn’t one.

His brother (I got a brother-in-law, how cool is that?), who is a far better cook than I, did this sort of interpretive dance of “you take a piece of meat about this big” (makes football-size gestures) “simmer it with whatever spices look good …” His father (also an excellent cook, especially if open flames are involved) did something similar.

Unfortunately, I cook like a scientist—I need a protocol, darn it! So I emailed my mother-in-law, who teaches abroad. I think she was in Germany at the time. She responded with “I don’t think we’ve ever written this down …”

But, bless her, she sent me meat suggestions, approximate poundages, and some alternatives in case I couldn’t find everything. (She was used to making do with whatever she could get, whether it be Africa, rural China, or wherever.) Since then, I’ve put a whole lot of miles on my pretty red crockpot and made Grammie George’s Green Chili my own.

I’ve also eaten several other versions at the big, boisterous family get-togethers that seem to spring up at regular intervals just because. And I love knowing that, like the Joy of Cooking and some version of the name George, I’ve got green chili to pass along to the next generation when the time comes.

So tell me, what’s your most famous (or infamous) family tradition? I’d love to hear about it!

HANK: we have so many! But one is: when we're going on a road trip, just at the end of the driveway we have to say-- "How do you like it so far?" like my stepfather always did. And the Femmes will give away a Mustang Ridge book to a lucky commenter!

*******************************

Jesse Hayworth is the contemporary romance-writing alter ego of NYT bestselling paranormal and suspense author Jessica Andersen. She's a farm girl from way back, complete with tractors and livestock. Now farmless and driving a Subaru named Roo, Jesse lives on the East Coast with a cranky tabby she rescued from an auto shop and a beloved husband, who rescued her from Match.com. She loves writing about wide-open spaces, animals, and true love, and she hopes you'll come along for the ride!

 

"Hayworth’s print debut, the second in her Mustang Ridge series, is a beautiful love story expressed in simple, elegant language about a vulnerable mother, her troubled child, and an enigmatic cowboy who has been scarred by love. With a solid plot and a host of sympathetic, genuine characters, Hayworth takes her time weaving a tale of love and healing, all set against the beautiful rural backdrop of the Wyoming mountains. This heartwarming story is a keeper."

4.5 stars and a TOP PICK--RT Magazine

www.JesseHayworth.com

@JesseHayworth

Facebook: authorjessehayworth

The Fabulous Femmes Week That Was!

Such fun to share good news--and the Femmes Fatales have had quite the week!

We'll do it chronologically, since we're all travely-goofy and happily exhausted:

 
First, FEMME HANK's THE OTHER WOMAN WINS THE MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD!

Whoo hoo. Here's Hank with the elegant Mary HIggins Clark herself--on the podium just after her name was announced.  Hank confesses to being one hundred percent surprised. and more than a hundred percent delighted. (Hank is not that fabulous at math.)  MHC was queenly and gracious, and so generous to say woderufl things about THE OTHER WOMAN. And about Hank, too, sotto voce to Hank. But our lips are sealed.) Here's the happy moment:

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's the fabulous award...

 

Hank says: When I went though airport security today, the TSA person said: theres a big heavy thing in your carry-on bag, ma'am. I said--I KNOW! It's the Mary HIggins Clark Award! The TSA guy said:  I'll need to see that, ma'am. Happy to show him even though, strangely, he didn't care one bit.  

We were all happy to reunite at Mailice Domestic, Frere Dean and Femme Mary and Femme Donna and Femme Elaine were everywhere, on panels and in the book rooms and posing for photos--who has one to send in?

 

 

 

 

And the good news keeps on coming! At Malice Domestic, FEMME DANA WINS THE AGATHA  FOR BEST SHORT STORY!  Here she is, celebrating with Femme Toni. Note their semi-happy expressions. Dana is --at this moment--battling the vagaries of the airline industry and attempting to get home..she'll comment in the comments! (Malice memory: in Dana's touching and heartfelt acceptance speech, she also thanked "my husband, um, um, James." We know she knows that name, she really does.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FEMME HANK was nominated for Best Novel, but Louise Penny won. Hank says--It's difficult to complain about losing to a multiple NYT bestseller, fabulous writer and wonderfully generous and delightful person!  

And then  FEMME CATRIONA WON THE AGATHA FOR BEST HISTORICAL NOVEL!  She was glowing and hilarous as you might imagine--and we can't do the speech justice if we try to repeat it! She says: 

I was breathless, with jelly legs.  The Agathas were something I had heard of and dreamed of before I ever visited America, much less moved here.  20hrs later, I'm still overwhelmed.  Or as Malice has it "gobsmacked". 

 

Here she is with the preciousssssss...

 

 

 

 

SO wow--that was our fabulous week that was! Hope you had a good one, too...we are toasting you, dear Femmes readers! And thank you so much for everything. Any Malice memories to share?

 

 

 

 

I 

Her'es 

The Femmes Do Malice

by Donna Andrews

This weekend, nine of the eleven members of the Femmes (and Frere) Fatales will be at Malice Domestic.  Charlaine Harris and Kris Neri won't be there, alas, but the rest of us--Dana Cameron, Dean James (wearing his Miranda James alias), Toni L.P. Kelner (and her alter ego, Leigh Perry), Catrina McPherson, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Mary Saums, Marcia Talley, Elaine Viets, and (naturally) I will be there with bells on.

We'll be cheering on our three Agatha nominees: Hank in the Best (Comtemporary) Novel category with The Other Woman, Catriona in Best Historical Novel with Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder, and Dana in the Best Short Story with "Mischief in Mesopotamia" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November 2012).

And we'll be talking up our book.  In addition to Some Like It Hawk, which came out in July 2012, I'll be waving an arc of Hen of the Baskervilles (July 2013)  and maybe even the cover of Duck the Halls (October 2013).

Dana will be showing off her new Fangborn Novel, Seven Kinds of Hell (47 North) and talking about the two upcoming novels in the series.

Dean (as Miranda) has the latest in his bestselling Cat in the Stacks series, Out of Circulation (Berkley).

Toni (as Leigh Perry) will give us the scoop on her new Family Skeleton Mystery series, which debuts in September with A Skeleton in the Family (Berkley).

Catriona will be signing the fetchingly named Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses and in a completely different vein, giving us a sneak preview of her upcoming As She Left It (Midnight Ink).

Hank will be signing The Other Woman and filling us in on the sequel, The Wrong Girl, coming in September.

Marcia will be signing The Last Refuge (Severn House) and bringing us up to speed on what's in Hannah Ives's future.

Elaine's12th Dead-End Job mystery, Board Stiff, debuts at this year's Malice convention.

 

 

 

And here's your guide to finding Femmes and Freres at Malice

Friday

10 a.m. Several of the Femmes will be appearing in the Malice-Go-Round ("It's like speed dating with authors) in the Haverford/Baccarat rooms

2 p.m. Hank Phillippi Ryan interviews Guest of Honor Laurie R. King (Haverford/Baccarat).

4 p.m. Hank appears on the Simply the Best panel (Agatha Best Novel nominees (Haverford/Baccarat).

7:30 p.m. Live charity auction: Hank and Katherine Hall Page are auctioneers (Waterford/Lalique).

Saturday

7:30 Current Sisters in Crime President Hank Phillipi Ryan presides over the Sisters in Crime breakfast.

9 a.m. Catriona McPherson appears in Making History: Our Agatha Best Historical Novel Nominees (Waterford).

10 a.m. Elaine Viets and Marcia Talley appear in The Death Boat: Mysteries Set On The High Seas (Cabinet).

and Dana appears in Make it Snappy: Our Agatha Best Short Story Nominees(Judiciary)

Noon: Catriona, Elaine, Marcia, Dana, Hank sign in the atrium.

2 p.m. Catriona moderates Suffering For Their Art: What Authors Endure in the Name of Research (Haverford)

and Dean James (as Miranda James) in If Miss Marple Were A Man: Male Cozy Sleuths (Diplomat/Ambassador)

3 pm. Toni "Leigh Perry" Kelner in Me And My Dead Shadow: Sleuthing With The Dead (Judiciary)

and Donna Andrews in Twenty-five Years of Murder and Mayhem: How Mysteries Have Changed Since Malice Began (Baccarat)

5 p.m. Dean, Toni, Donna sign in the atrium.

Mary's not paneling this year, but she looks forward to seeing you all. And don't miss our fabulous group basket in the auction!