My Weblog

It's not unusual...

by Toni L.P. Kelner

Most people tend to assume that being a mystery writer consists of sitting at my computer all day long, with the occasional trip out of town to attend conferences or sign books, and there's a lot of truth to that. But today, as I sat in the garden of soon to be published mystery author Hank Phillippi Ryan, I realized that when you decided to be a mystery writer, you're opening yourself up for a lot of unusual experiences.

For instance, the local meetings of Mystery Writers of America can be unpredictable. I've watched an arson dog at work, met a convicted murderer, and managed to avoid holding a stranger's hand. It wasn't that I was shy, just squeamish. The hand was mummified and no longer attached to a body.

Shopping has become an adventure because of the items I need for research and promotion. I've bought countless books, of course, ranging from biographies of bank robbers and psychics to a history of 16 MAGAZINE. Then there's the pair of socks for a time capsule at Kate's Mystery Books (socks and violence!), the set of wedding trolls (bride, groom, flower girl, and ring bearer) to promote WED AND BURIED, and a rubber lump of coal for MAD AS THE DICKENS.

And while I expected speaking engagements, I never quite expected to be have to explain to a class of kindergarteners how I plot a murder or show a Cape Cod television interviewer exactly what Eastern North Carolina pulled pork barbecue looks like. Once I got a nice fee for speaking at a college, and was gratified by the turnout until one of the audience members mentioned that it was a class requirement to attend at least three outside lectures.

But today, at least, was a lovely August day to be sitting with friends in a garden. Did I mention why we were there? It was a photo shoot for a calendar being put together for the New England Sisters in Crime. My group was posed around my seemingly deceased husband Steve, ready to bury him in Hank's garden.

When you're a mystery writer, the unusual is just business as usual.

I Wanna Change the World

I'm worried about the state of the world today. Leaving aside the larger issues facing all of us (Mostly because there's not a darn thing I can do to impart wisdom to the leaders who actually make the decisions...) I focus in on the issues that affect me on a daily basis.

Like Reading.

People don't, as a general rule, and I find this incredibly sad.

How can people not dive into a world that will change them?

I am currently reading The Freedom Writer's Diary, a story of the tremendous journey a group of English students and their teacher took through high school in Long Beach, California. The teacher, Erin Gruwell, took a different approach to her teaching, and it paid off for her students. The kids assigned to her during her first year teaching were kids who were "failed" students., the kids deemed high risk due to lack of previous academic achievement and/or behavior issues. This was not your typical highly-motivated AP class.

Gruwell then did something good teachers do. She took the material in the classroom and invited the kids to come out and play -- to discuss what resonated with them about the assigned material. More than that, where so many had given up on these kids, Gruwell expected them to achieve. From what I can see in the journal entries the kids did, she didn't just encourage, she demanded that they strive to find their potential.

She did this with the usual suspects of high school literature classes -- then added a few extras. The Diary of Anne Frank. I remember being incredibly moved by the story when I first read it, and yet some kids do not connect to it because Anne lived so long ago and far away and was of a different ethnic group. Gruwell took that assignment and talked with the kids -- not at them, but with them -- about the similarities between the small space in which Anne was confined and the dangerous streets that surrounded many of their homes. About the similarities between how Jews and other groups were portrayed and treated during the Holocaust and the way different ethnic groups are portrayed and treated in our modern society. Both Anne and the ethnically diverse group of students in Gruwell's classes lived in conditions that trapped them.

Gruwell then moved on to a new diary, Zlata's Diary: A child's Life in Sarajevo, the story of Zlata Filipovic who experienced an abrupt shift from childhood to premature adult life due to the conflict in Bosnia.

I loved that Gruwell was able to take something so geographically and socially far removed from these kids actual life experience and bring it home to them.

Bringing it home. What a concept.

Gruwell clearly understands the purpose of reading. Connecting with readers is exactly what writers strive for. We struggle for months to get our stories on paper (or on the computer screen) and then pull it all apart to rework the words, the action, the emotions evoked by the passages to make the maximum connection with our readers. We have a story to tell and we want it to change you. Perhaps not in the larger way that Gruwell's approach changed her students, but to bring something good into your lives nevertheless. A turn of phrase that brings to mind Uncle Jim and his odd habit of spitting on the right side of the sidewalk every time he left the house, making you connect with that character and caring what happens to them. Perhaps bringing a larger understanding of Uncle Jim in the process.

Reading can teach you, exhilarate you, or give you a moment's respite in an otherwise lousy day. Sometimes within the same page.

So read folks.

Escape. Learn. Connect.

Thank a teacher for the gift they gave you when they got you within the pages of the first book that really changed you.

Happy reading,

Julie

Offpissing BSP

When BSP--blatant self promotion--first emerged on the scene, people considered it a way to stand out from the pack--to get a bit of an edge over the hundreds of other authors competing for the reader's attention and dollars.

Now, most people consider BSP a necessary evil. If you don't do any, you just might be the only person out there who doesn't, and (so the conventional wisdom goes), you'll get left behind eating everyone else's dust. So anything goes, right?

Wrong. There's BSP that works, BSP that's useless but does no actual harm, and BSP that pisses off a significant number of potential readers. A writer's goal is to do only BSP that works, though most of us secretly fear our BSP is actually useless. And there's nothing worse than beginning to suspect that those mysterious bullet holes in your best shoes were self-inflicted, by your own BSP.

And of course, offpissing BSP is in the eye of the beholder. What pisses me off doesn't bother someone else. So there's no objective standard. No, that's not fair. Life rarely is. It's like pornography--you can't define offpissing BSP, but you sure as hell know it when you see it.

For example: on lists. There are people whose books I have read because I came to know and like them on lists. People who contribute their wit or expertise to the list, take part in discussions in an enthusiastic but civil manner--people who seem to enjoy being on the list and interacting with the other list members. There are other people--perhaps equally good writers--whose behavior on lists has created a resistance to reading their works. People who never post a single thing that's not related to their own books, their own signings, their own reviews. . . never go near the list except for BSP purposes. I'm probably not the only one who eventually learns to tune them out. It's like watching network television--the commercial comes on, I get up to go to the bathroom and get another soda.

And there are a few people whose behavior on lists really gets my goat. People who flame and insult other list members. People who make wisecracks that carry more veiled hostility than humor and feign innocence if someone calls them on it--or worse, claim the person who is offended is over sensitive and has no sense of humor. People who confuse vitriol with debate. Rude people. Arrogant people. And what really ticks me off is that some of them are doing it on purpose.

Yeah, sometimes they're simply rude people, but more and more, I see people deliberately being contentious on a list just to get their name out there. To make a stir. The theory is that it sells books. Maybe. But I bet I'm not the only one who gets so ticked off at rude list behavior that I vow never to read the offenders' books even if I get signed first editions in my Bouchercon goodie bag.

Even if everything you say is inoffensive, you can lose potential readers if you say too much of it.  One of the lists to which I belong has been experiencing the list equivalent of a filibuster. One member--we'll call him Joe Blow--has been posting so often and at such length that those of us who have been discussing it off the list have renamed it the JoeyB list.  Though I recently surveyed the recent digests of the JoeyB list and determined that it's not true that half the posts were coming from him. Only ten percent--49 posts out of 491 in twenty digests. Still, with several thousand list members--I'm glad they're not all posting so profusely. And I bet I'm not the only one who is starting to think I've already read a book's worth of postings by Joey B., and feel no need to actually buy his work. Maybe Joey's only posting for self-expression, not BSP--but I doubt it. He's following the typical advice to get out and make a noise in the world. And it's backfiring.

And that's the definition of offpissing BSP.  It backfires. Don't try this at home, kids.

Gee, and I haven't even begun to talk about how to lose readers and negatively influence people in blogs. . .by email. . . at signings. . . at conventions.  But I'll have to come back to the topic later.  Right now I'm getting over a bad cold, and don't have the energy to contemplate more than one form of offpissing BSP this evening.

Victim Central

by Kris

Lewis Buzbee suggests in his new book, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, that rather than being conscripted to serve into military service, young people should be required to work in retail. He believes it would make us a kinder, gentler country, with loads more patience, if we all had to serve time behind a counter, dealing with the public. I couldn't agree more. Except for a short stint during high school, when I worked in a clothing store, I never worked in retail before my husband and I opened our bookstore, The Well Red Coyote, in Sedona, Arizona. And really, why should I have all the fun?

As a lifelong people-watcher, as all writers are, I thought I really knew people. But boy, was I wrong! You ain't seen nothing till you've worked retail.

Just last week, for instance, a woman came in and told me the concierge at her hotel mentioned that I was a local mystery author. She gushed that she loved mysteries, and she asked if she could see one of my books. I quickly whipped out a copy of my latest title, Never Say Die, and placed it before her on the counter. Though she instantly pressed her fingers to its cover, she never picked it up, never read the blurb on the back— never really even glanced it.

All she did was ask, "Can I get it at Barnes & Noble?"

Huh? "You can get it here," I said, pointing out the obvious. Hey look, you're smearing your fingerprints on the cover. Can't get much more "right here" than that.

Seemingly perplexed by that idea, she said,  "I don't want it now. Can I buy it at Barnes & Noble?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't sell for Barnes & Noble." Hint, hint.

But that was when she moved on to another topic. Then she wanted to know how to get to the Hopi reservation in Northern Arizona. How to get to it, what hours it was open to the public, and what she might find to do there. She even wanted to know how to correctly pronounce, "Hopi," since she hadn't yet managed that.

Wait a minute. She just ended a conversation with her hotel concierge to come to see my book, only to ignore it. Then she went on to ask me the questions that it was surely the concierge's job to answer.

"Maybe I could just take you there," I said.

"Could you?" she asked eagerly.

Sarcasm — it's wasted on some people.

Don't get me wrong. In the one-plus year our store has been open, I've met the most wonderfully generous and friendly people. Some days, when I'm not in the best of moods, a visitor will make a remark that proves to be exactly what I needed to hear at that moment, and it saves the rest of my day. I've come to love discussing life with total strangers, drawing unexpected wisdom from people I'll never see again, but whom I'll long remember for the gifts of insight they've offered me. Then there are the folks away from home, who need their pet fixes. Those are the ones who cherish spending a few moments with my dog, Annabelle, or my cat, Philly, so they don't miss their own critters quite so much. When occasional visitors confide that they've just lost a pet of their own, I'm glad that we can be there for them.

I can't believe how many terrific people there are out there. And I feel blessed by some of the ones whose paths have crossed with mine. If I didn't work retail, I wouldn't have that chance.

And yet, there are still a few of the other kind.

This woman hadn't stopped speaking. "They won't expect me to take a tour, will they? Because I don't like tours, I like to roam anywhere I want."

Would she ask strangers to give her free run of their homes? Would she expect to pick through their most private areas and treasures? Come to think of it, someone as clueless as this probably would.

I still enjoy working retail, where strangers become friends, if only for moments here and there. And I look forward to all the friends I've yet to meet. Still, it's nice to know that if I ever run out of victims to bump off in my books, a small supply of them will keep coming through the door.

How Bill Fitzhugh Saved My Sanity

by Mary

It happened like this. I was surfing along, checking author websites to get ideas for my own, and I remembered Bill Fitzhugh's as being a particularly good one. You know Bill, the guy who writes great comic novels like Pest Control and Highway 61 Resurfaced. I can't even type that last one with a straight face. A hilarious mystery and possibly the funniest book title of all time.

Anyway, something new was on his website, a page about his gig as a disk jockey on XM Satellite Radio. He has his own show, Hand-Mixed Vinyl, where he plays album tracks like many creative late-night DJs used to do. He cuts and switches and nips and tucks songs into one another to make interesting medleys. In other words, he has fun. Bill concocts the Hand-Mixed Vinyl show in his own Way Back Studio where he, and possibly Sherman and Mr Peabody, transport listeners back in time to the good-old days of radio, love beads and real guitar players.

There's one catch. You've got to have a satellite radio to hear it. Gotta buy one, then pay twelve dollars a month for the satellite service. The miser in me didn't much like that. Sure, they have about 200 channels of all types of music, sports, talk, etc. but that wasn't what got me.

As I looked over their show list online, one stopped me dead in my tracks. Bob Dylan hosting his own weekly radio show? Say, what? I began checking XM's other offerings more closely. I screeched to a halt again in the classical section and did a double take. Besides a regular classical station, they have another one called Vox, devoted to vocal recordings of all kinds including my very favorite, medieval church music. Oooh. Aaahh. I stared. I thought about my bank account. I salivated and whimpered like a dog. Man, I dig those crazy Latin-singing celibates. Zzzzing. Thank you, Paypal.

My radio arrived soon after. I've been wearing it out ever since. Fitzhugh's show is smooth and brings back great memories. Tom Petty has a show called Buried Treasures, also mainly album cuts you might not have heard in a long time. The great thing about XM is that they have a channel to fit every mood. The sound quality is superb and DJ chatter isn't chatter. First, there's very little of it, but what's there is informative and is delivered by smart folks who know their stuff. Lately I've been listening to the AudioVisions new age-y channel whose tag line is 'A Place Filled With Peace.' I don't know about you, but that kind of place comes in handy for me, especially after a news broadcast.

And then there's Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. It alone is worth the costs of radio and service. He's such a natural. He puts lots of love and thought into each musical choice and in his comments on the theme of the week. It won't surprise anyone that the DJ patter between songs is entertaining, thought-provoking, sometimes poetic, always with a beautiful wit. The music ranges from the early days of recording to the present.

My favorite theme so far has been the one about Baseball. In addition to songs, he played a recording of the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading his 'Baseball Canto,' a humorous musing on race, the Giants, Willie Mays, Tito Fuentes and the national anthem. What a joy. These shows make me feel like a kid sneaking a transistor radio under the bed to hear a midnight broadcast of John R. or Wolfman Jack. Dylan has that same kind of magic, melding together the records, their histories, and giving them an extra little spin with funny, insightful comments. The shows all make you smile, make your soul jump out of your body and fly around a while. They're that special.

Of course, the medieval church guys do that for me, too, but I realize I may be in the minority on that one. But it's the same thing. Your soul still jumps out and flies around, only not in the here and now, but rather in a cathedral or cloister in the there and then. I recommend both. All the thrills of bungee jumping without the fear of imminent death, heart attacks, your skull bouncing a mere three feet above sharp rocks, or cords used one too many times.

I'm so thankful to XM for providing music that lifts me up. It makes a big difference in my day. And thanks to Bill Fitzhugh for pointing me in the right direction. I feel human again.

For more about Bill's radio show and books, here's the link: http://www.billfitzhugh.com 

Dog Days

by Marlys Millhiser

I’ve had dogs for buddies most of my life, mourned the passing of all, but not for awhile now. Our neighborhood is filled with dogs, often more than one to a house. I know most of them by name– which is nice since I have an awful time remembering their people’s names. "You know who I mean–uh Sparky’s mom, uh–" All of them bark some, they’re supposed to. They’re not in your face, these are big lots. If you yell their name and follow it with "shut up" they generally settle down, unless there’s a cat or deer in sight. It’s part of the background like birds and planes and traffic drone.

Until a couple and their three year old moved into a house on the corner. They came from the largest city in Illinois. All three are good looking and loud. It’s as if they are still having to shout over the sounds of the city. They yell into their cell phones and to each other. I guess they want to share. Everyone talks on cells, on the street, or on their decks or patios but you can rarely hear what they’re saying and don’t wish to. Anyway, things were apparently too quiet around here so our new neighbors got a dog at the humane society. Probably asked for one that didn’t have a good chance for adoption. Because he was loud. They let him run free which riled up all the fenced dogs and taught my cat how to climb a tree. So they built a fence, which the dog was jumping even as it was being built. So they hired a trainer. Which didn’t take. So they got another dog. They have to tether the first one which makes him bark worse, which makes the second one bark, so all the dogs in the neighborhood, most of them large, are barking too. And normally quiet people are yelling at them to shut the yuck up!

Now, the temperatures have been running 95, 100 in Boulder, give or take a little worse, but the nights are cool in comparison, and probably seventy percent of us are allergic to our houses (off gassing , radon, whatever). Thus we cherish turning off the AC at night, opening the windows, and revving up the ceiling fans so we can sleep and breathe at the same time. In winter we have to close ourselves in with the furnace, humidifiers and vicious drugs. But the new family keeps the air conditioner on and the windows shut and the TV turned up and doesn’t hear what’s going on outside, mainly the rest of us yelling at their dogs, which excites them further, and any other of their brethren allowed out at the time. So the big city folks go back to it for a couple of weeks telling the house sitter not to worry because this is such a friendly crime-free neighborhood and to let the dogs out when they want, they’ll be fine. They’d no more than hopped a plane than the house behind us and next to them was burglarized.

So what does all this have to do with writing? Well, you can plot out life as you want to believe it is and expect weather, animals, birds, bees, neighbors, and burglars to conform, follow the plot line. Or you can muzzle your dogs and be still for a while. Right now I’m out on the front porch, hearing crickets and bees, far off traffic, unsettled aspen leaves, and the click of computer keys. Cicadas–I wish I could describe their chatter, clatter? And a couple of story characters (who happen to be far more real than you are right now) trying to explain why they can’t do what I think they should.

Hey, real people do that to our nation’s leaders all the time, right? I should worry? Yeah, I think I should. For the little girl from the big city who rarely hears the real sounds here, like the soft squeaks fawns make when they call for their mother, for all the critters in the yard and the night. For all the people I love everywhere. But for right now, and unlike those leaders, I think I’ll just be still and listen. God forbid I should learn something.  Hey, what the yuck.

RIP Fred

By Elaine Viets

Fred is dead.

Fred, the cat who went undercover to bring down a phony vet, was killed by a car.

Fred ran out of Carol Moran’s "back door into her yard Wednesday while Moran was attending to two dogs," a news story said. "He had to have hopped several fences to escape to the street. Neighbors found his body in the road later that morning."

Poor Fred. Everybody remembers the photos of Fred at the news conference, after he nabbed that fake vet. Fred had big green eyes, black stripes and a tiny badge on his collar.

Fred was the ultimate cat. He looked just like my striped stray, Harry. In fact, Fred looked like every stray cat. That’s why he was so good at his job.

Fred lived life on his terms. A vet once told me, "Try to keep your cat indoors. The life span of a cat on the street is two years. Indoor cats live fifteen years or more."

The problem with that advice? Some cats are born to be wild. All our cats have been indoor animals. All but one was content to roam the house killing squeaky toys, snoozing on the couch and herding us into the kitchen when the food bowl was empty.

Only Hodge fought against the soft life. Hodge, another striped feline, used to bolt for the door every time we opened it. He would physically knock us aside, fighting to get outdoors. We learned to open the door with one hand and block him with a foot. Hodge learned to wait until we were loaded down with packages or dragging out the trash, then make a run for it.

I can’t tell you how many times Don and I roamed the neighborhood bawling, "Hodge! Where are you, Hodge?"

When he was ready, Hodge would emerge from some hideout in the bushes or a basement stairwell.

Once we found him on a neighbor’s front porch, slurping a meaty bulldog on the nose. Fortunately, the bulldog looked too surprised to bite off Hodge’s head. We grabbed the recalcitrant cat and brought him inside once again. The next day, he made another dash.

Hodge lived to be sixteen, but he took several years off my life.

That’s why I’m terribly sorry about Fred, but I’m saving my real sympathy for his person, Ms. Moran. I suspect she’s beating herself up, playing, "What if –"

It wasn’t your fault, Ms. Moran. I know you wanted Fred to make appearances at schools and teach kids how to care for animals.

But Fred had other plans. He was a risk taker. It made him a good undercover cat. It also made him want to run for freedom.

Cats need their independence. That’s why we admire them. They pay a high price for it, and so do we. They have their own rules. They know what’s important. Ask any cat.

"Fred’s dead," I told my cat, Harry. "Isn’t it awful?"

Harry stared at me, then demanded dinner.

I knew Fred would have wanted it that way.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Writers

by Charlaine Harris

Since I've been in the writing business for twenty-five years, I know a lot of writers.  And I belong to a couple of organizations that gives these writers a place to vent, on-line. So, while not the most market-savvy of professionals by a long shot, I can see trends when they're right on top of me  (if someone carefully points them out).

More and more mid-list writers complain about opportunities lost by the publisher to make them bigger, better-selling. Some of them just get cut from the publisher's list, or they change series to pump fresh blood into their careers.  Since I've been there, I sympathize. I had to perform CPR on my own career to resuscitate it.

Has it been this way since the publishing world began? I don't think so. But I'll tell you why I think the mid-list is struggling so much now. There's no one reason, but there are several that are contributing to the decline of the mid-list writer. And by that, I mean a writer who doesn't make the bestseller lists, but also doesn't have sales so poor that it's a given she'll be cut.

One important reason is the decline of the independent book store. There are great people working in chains, and I've met a lot of them. They know books, and they recommend books. Unfortunately, that's not a universal rule. In some chain stores, the employees don't know the books, don't know the customers, and don't promote books personally. But in independents, the relationship between the bookseller and the bookbuyer is usually more personal, and personal recommendations can make or break the sales profile of any given novel.

Midlist writers almost all see the publishers as unwilling (though able) to back them; to help them promote the book, financially and practically. Writers all think touring will help (which I'm not completely convinced is the truth), and therefore the unwillingness of the publisher to send all writers out on the road is perceived as willful stubbornness.  I'm not sure that is true, either. Publishers are as canny as any other business people. If they spot a rising tide, they are going to jump on it to see how fast it will swell. But if they see a still pond, you can paddle your own canoe and see where it will get you. When you throw in the factor that there are actually fewer publishers, it's easy to see how frustrating this can be for the writer.

Throw these facts into the pot, too: books are more expensive now, and people have less leisure time they choose to spend reading. Television has replaced reading as a summer pastime for millions of children -- and adults. Editors are carrying a heavier work burden than they ever have. More writers to shepherd means less time per writer; writers feel slighted, and the books suffer from insufficient editorial attention.

(Some times it seems amazing to me that any books make it to the shelves at all. Cheap to create, but expensive to produce, books may be headed for the status of luxury items. People seem to read when they're imprisoned -- at the airport, for example.)

This leads me to worry about the future of the midlist as an entity. I think of the many friends I've met there, the great characters that enthralled me for a few good hours. I remember all the enjoyable books I've read that never attained bestseller status -- including most of mine! -- and I know the reading world will be much poorer if circumstances drives the the midlist out of existence.

If you're a reader who doesn't venture far off the bestseller list, you're missing some great books.

The glamorous life of a writer

 By Donna

No Nest for the Wicket is now officially out, and if your favorite bookstore does not have any copies on display, you should bug them.

I celebrated the release of this, my eleventh book, by losing my voice.

Should make this week's PR events very interesting.

I wish I could say that I lost my voice in some picturesque and strenuous way, such as visiting a mind-boggling number of bookstores and talking with untold hordes of readers, but the simple truth is that I let myself get run down and caught a cold.

The good news is that at moments, I sound like Lauren Bacall. At least that's what my friends have been telling me, though I suspect they care more about making me feel better than about strict accuracy.  One even said I had the perfect voice for phone sex. They usually say these things after hearing me talk, but once they experience the cough, they start edging away and telling me I should be home in bed. 

And at other moments, I have no voice at all, as if I'd accidentally hit the mute button. Like yesterday morning, when I was awakened by a call asking to speak to the owner of the business.

"This is not a business," I said. At least that's what I tried to say. What came out was "Eee!" Took me three times to make myself audible and comprehensible. Maddening, when what I really wanted to say was, "You idiot! I have a bad cold and was trying to sleep late, and you woke me up before ten to ask me if you could speak to the owner of the business! This is not a business, and furthermore, I'm on the do not call list and--"

Okay, so maybe it's just as well I couldn't say much yesterday morning. Sometimes the body knows best. Usually, when I get a cold, I figure it's my body telling me I'm overdoing it. That if I'd listened to it earlier and taken better care of myself, I wouldn't need all this Zicam and Sudafed.

I've talked with a lot of writers recently who have come to the reluctant conclusion that they're not superhuman. Writers who are turning down PR opportunities because they have to. Because they have day jobs that they can't neglect. Because their children need them, or their parents, or their significant others. Because they have responsibilities to organizations--like Sisters in Crime or MWA--that they can't just abandon. Because it's either PR or working on the next book, and they choose to spend the time making the next book as good as it can be--or maybe just getting the damned thing finished at all. Because they only have so much time and energy and eventually something's got to give.

Sometimes, the toughest thing you can do is to say, "I'm just not that tough."

Which doesn't mean I'll be missing any of the PR activities I've got scheduled this week in the D.C. area, or next week in Boston. You'll see me there.  You may even hear me.  But it does explain why I'm not about to launch the cross-country tour just yet.

As the saying goes, I can do anything; I just can't do everything.

p.s. -- don't forget the contest!  Answer all nine Femmes trivia questions right, and you could win the grand prize, a basket containing books from all the Femmes....the second prize, a slightly smaller basket...or one of the special bonus prizes just for entering, even if you don't know a single answer!

Femmes Contest!

How well do you know the Femmes Fatales?

The Femmes Fatales are holding a contest! If you're the first person to sign up for our mailing list and correctly answer nine trivia questions - one for each of the Femmes - you'll win a grand prize basket that includes signed books from all of us. We have a smaller basket for the second correct entry, and we'll be drawing five entries at random to receive special mystery bonus prizes. So even if you don't know all the answers or don't find out about the contest right away, get your entry in!

Especially since everyone who enters gets the real prize - an ongoing subscription to The Femmes Fatales Newsletter. You probably already guessed that was why we're having the contest, right? :) To get people to subscribe to the newsletter, and to make sure we have both email and snail mail addresses for as many subscribers as possible, the better to share any exciting communications we have in future. (And if you're already on our list - yes, you're still eligible to enter.)

The contest begins today! It will run until August 21, with grand prize, second prize, and bonus prize winners notified and announced August 22.

To enter, go to:

http://www.femmesfatalesauthors.com/contest.shtml

And if you just want to sign up for our mailing list - like if you're reading this on August 22 and completely missed the contest - you can sign up anytime on our website:

http://www.femmesfatalesauthors.com/mailinglist.shtml

Usual disclaimers: no, we're not going to share your email or snail mail address with anyone else; and if we got energetic enough to send out more than a couple of newsletters and a few postcards during the year, it would surprise the heck out of us; and you can unsubscribe or tell us to unsubscribe you at any time.