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Makin' Mayhem 2010

by Donna

I spent the last few days doing something I wish a few more of you would do: attending Mayhem in the Midlands.

Seriously.  It's capped at 200 people, so some years you couldn't have gotten in, but this year, what with the economy and all, there was room--a little too much room.  And it's one of my favorite conventions, and I don't want the organizers to give up on it, so here's my invitation: Meet me in Omaha, Memorial Day weekend, 2011. 

Did I mention that the guest of honor will be Laurie R. King, with S. J. Rozan as toastmaster?  If you're a big fan of either--or like me, of both--this is your chance to see them in a much more intimate setting than you'll find at, say, Bouchercon.  You never know--you might actually get a chance to buy S.J. a drink, in the bar, or sit at Laurie's table at the Sisters in Crime buffet dinner.

And if you have ever envied those lucky people who manage to win a chance to be a character in a favorite author's book--envied them, or perhaps shaken your head in amazement at how much they've paid for the privilege--Mayhem's for you.  Several well-known writers donated character names.  And while it's my job as long-standing Mayhem auctioneer to raise as much money as possible for the cause--in this case, the children's collection of the Omaha Public Library--there's only so high the price will go at a small convention.  Several people went home very happy that they are now going to appear in books by Kent Krueger and Kathy Lynn Emerson. (At left: Deborah Crombie, Steve Hamilton, and Marcia Talley at the signing table.)

Except for a couple of tracks, like the guest of honor interview, there are always multiple panels going on.  So you might have a few tough choices--ooh, shall I go to "Living Here, Writing There" with Deborash Crombie, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Lee Killough, and Sharan Newman?  "Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Murder," with Carl Brookins, Steve Hamilton, Alex Kava, and William Kent Krueger?  Or "The (Not So) Glamorous Life of a Writer" with Michael Allen Dymmoch,. Nancy Pickard, Anthony Rainone, and David J. Walker.  The good thing is that at least this year, most writers got more than one panel, so you didn't have to miss seeing one of your favorites entirely. (At right: Nancy Pickard, Sean Doolittle, Shannon Baker, and William Kent Krueger in the "Murder Close to Home" panel.)

If you get paneled out--it happens to the best of us--you'd be surprised how many distractions Omaha can offer.  The convention hotel is at one end of the Old Market section of Omaha, where you can find much of the city's best dining and shopping.  The Durham Museum is only a few blocks away, in the fabulously restored Art Deco Union station.  The hotel shuttle will gladly take you to the Henry Doorly Zoo--be sure to check out the newly opened Madagascar exhibit, where you can actually walk through the lemurs' habitat.  (Just be careful not to take in any edibles.  The lemurs are omnivores, and they're not shy. That's a couple of them on the left.) 

Or you could just hang around the hotel and talk to your fellow convention-goers.  It's a nice group.  I should know; this was my eleventh Mayhem in the Midlands.  Right now, I'm the only writer who has attended all eleven Mayhems.  Kent Krueger has only missed one, and he's trying to bribe me to stay away one year so he and I will be even. (At right: the Durham Museum.)

Hmmm.  Laurie King and S. J. Rozan.

Sorry, Kent.  Maybe some other year.

p.s.  If you live on the east coast and Omaha's a little far . . . well, try Malice
Domestic, April 29-May 1 in Bethesda, Maryland (outside Washington, DC).  Also a good cast, with guest of honor Carole Nelson Douglas, lifetime achievement winner Sue Grafton, and yours truly as toastmaster.

Yeah, I know it's a tough choice.  So do what I do.  Go to both!

Real pets and written pets

by Kris

My friends, the Sirens of Suspense, asked me to ring in on the subject of animals in mysteries on their blog recently, and I thought I’d bring the subject here and expand on it.

While I know animal sleuths are popular with lots of readers, I draw the line at pets that solve crimes — too cute for me. But as both a reader and a writer, I like the presence of animals in mysteries.

I’ve included animal companions in the books of my Tracy Eaton mystery series. In the latest, Revenge for Old Times’ Sake, Tracy has both a cat, Harri Houdini, and a dog, Buddy. If I enjoy sharing my life with my pets, why shouldn’t my characters? I’ve actually modeled Harri and Buddy after my own departed cat and dog, Morgan and Jake. While the fictional versions reflect my passed-on pets in appearance, the personalities and traits we see on the page aren’t entirely the same. I think of my own pets as actors in my books, playing the parts of Tracy’s pets.

Some people might find the idea of my dead pets being actors in my books as strange. Is it possible to have actors on the printed page? But I’m totally nuts about my pets, even after they’re gone, and this is my way of keeping them with me. Then again, since I believe this, maybe I’m just plain nuts.

Morgan was actually a tiny cat — only six pounds — but she had the biggest personality I’ve ever encountered. I plan to gradually introduce more of her traits into Harri, as the series goes on. Such as the fact that she seemed to sing to herself when she was alone, and when she seemed to feel particularly content. I’ve never met another cat that sang.

Buddy is also a more assertive dog than Jake was. Jake had a beta personality. His companion-for-life, Amanda, who passed on shortly after he did, was a wolf-hybrid and a total alpha who ran that relationship.

Jake dreamed more than any dog I’ve ever known, and let’s face it, all dogs are great dreamers. Jake would have dozens of dreams a day, and they’d go on for such a long time. He talked up a storm while asleep, and his paws ran the whole time. We used to joke that when he dreamed, he went to Jake-land, a parallel universe where he was king, and where everyone else was subservient to him. Basically, I’ve brought a greatly toned-down version of Jake-land to Buddy’s life in my Tracy Eaton mysteries.

My late wolf-dog, Amanda, lent her appearance to the darker wolf-hybrid, Bob (named for singer, Bob Seeger — the real people I’ve named characters for would make another good blog.), who played a role in my Zoey Morgan story, “Sentence Imposed.” Here’s how I introduced Bob in that story: “Several weeks earlier, I'd found him tied to a post outside the drugstore along with a sign that read, ‘Mean wolf-hybrid free to good home.’ Truth in advertising. Beneath a magnificent coat of rust and silver and snow, lived a surly brute.  If we'd bonded at all, I probably blinked and missed it.” The coat of rust and silver and snow was Amanda’s, as were a number of the wolf-traits I came to know and love through her, and which I brought into the story. But her sunny, exuberant nature would never have worked with the plot, so her appearance had to grace a darker animal who would be slow to trust humans.

Now I’ll need to decide how I’ll introduce animals into my magical series, the first book of which is High Crimes on the Magical Plane. I suspect pets as sleuths might actually work in that realm, so I might have to backtrack on that. Hmmm…a dog with the power to actually create something like Jake-land…I’m not sure my characters are ready for that. I’m not sure I am!

As a reader, I also enjoy pets in mysteries. Since I like sharing the lives of characters I’ve come care about on an on-going basis as a series develops, it’s only natural that I would enjoy meeting up with those characters’ animal companions in new books as well. My favorite mystery-animal is the Mrs. Fierce character in the now out-of-print series by Arizona author, Sinclair Browning, partly because I can’t help but wonder about the wedding we can presume she’s had. I guess I’m not the only author who’s a bit eccentric when it comes to our real and imagined pets.

How about you? Do you like to see pets in mysteries? Writers, how do you make use of animals in your books? 

Today for Knight

 “A medieval Sam Spade, a tough guy who operates according to his own moral compass.”               

                                          

                    ***The Boston Globe on Veil of Lies

HANK: Noir and hard-boiled fiction seem to be in Jeri Westerson’s blood. Reporter, would-be actress, graphic artist, she was born and bred on the mean streets of Los Angeles--but then created the  hardboiled detective, Crispin Guest. He's an ex-knight turned PI, solving crimes on the mean streets of fourteenth century London. Ah. Fourteenth century...ex-knight. Ah. You see Jeri's challenge.

 

JERI: How do you write a fourteenth century ex-knight detective and make him sympathetic to today’s audiences?

Whoa. A what? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See what I mean?

In many ways the century doesn’t matter. We share the same emotions, the same fears and longings as medieval people. Losing all you have and suffering a very public humiliation is something we, as twenty-first century people, can certainly relate to, perhaps particularly at this time when proud men find themselves with pink slips in hand and navigating the foreign land of unemployment.

My hero, Crispin Guest, is like that manager who gets sacked. But worse. It’s as if the CEO of your company can also blackball you and make sure you don’t work for anyone else, either. He takes away your company car, your business suits, your portfolio, your cell phone, your ability to network, even your golden parachute. You are completely screwed.

And so is Crispin. He made the wrong choice, backed the wrong horse. The ten-year-old Prince Richard (to become Richard II) was to take the throne and Crispin felt that the prince’s uncle and Crispin's mentor the duke of Lancaster was clearly the more qualified statesman. It was jumping the line of succession, but Crispin loved the duke like a father and threw in his lot with some conspirators set on putting a crown on the duke’s royal noggin. Unfortunately, they were discovered and all were executed in the usual nasty way for a traitor. Only Crispin was spared because the duke begged for his life.

 But everything else was forfeit, his title, his wealth, his lands. He was set loose in London with nothing but the clothes on his back. And like many of us these days in tough times, he re-invents himself, not as a new executive, but using his skills as a knight and an educated man as a medieval private eye called “the Tracker.” The thing about Crispin is his intense sense of justice and his inability to lose his chivalric code. He’s a knight at heart and he just can’t help himself, with all the prejudices and largesse associated with the class.

Now that’s Crispin. But how does a middle-aged, overweight, short Jewish woman become the dark and brooding sexy ex-knight? That’s the magic, isn’t it? It starts out with years of research into the time period, immersed in books and archives and just generally intrigued by the whole male mystique of that “band of brothers.” I’m an observer. I’m one of those people at a party, who, after a while of talking with this person and that, fades back and just watches everyone else. There is a lot to be learned about human behavior that way, a little like Jane Goodall.

And then there are the weapons.

Yes, I’m a big fan of medieval warfare and weaponry. Once a tomboy always a tomboy. I began collecting medieval weapons when I started writing medieval mysteries. Writing the mysteries was probably the excuse to collect this stuff. But no matter. I had me a sword! And then it progressed to daggers, a flail (one of those nasty spiked balls attached to a chain which is attached to a stick), a battleaxe, and a helm—someone stop me! To experience the feel of these everyday items that a man would wear on his person certainly gives you insight into the hearts and minds of the people of the period. So does wearing the clothes and eating the food and drinking the beer. I also did those things. It doesn’t matter who I am on the outside. On the inside, in the theatre of my mind, I am a medieval man down on his luck, righting wrongs, just living day to day, trying to keep my tattered honor in tact.

Ain’t fiction grand?

HANK: Yes, indeed! Questions, ideas, thoughts--so Jeri, when you're walking down the street in LA--where are you really? And how did you learn to speak, um, medieval?

 

 

Jeri Westerson plays with her weapons in the privacy of her home office when she writes her series of Medieval Noir novels. Her 2008 debut, VEIL OF LIES, garnered nominations for the Macavity Award for historical mystery and the Shamus Award for Best First PI novel. Her second, SERPENT IN THE THORNS, is also a 2010 finalist for the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award, and her third, THE DEMON’S PARCHMENT is due for release October 12. You can read an excerpt of her latest, SERPENT IN THE THORNS, on her website www.JeriWesterson.com.

 

Inspiration?

A question I'm asked over and over (and over), and my least favorite question, is this:

"Where do you get your inspiraton?"

Frankly, I hate the question because I don't understand it. If inspiration were obtainable by artificial means, as the question implies, everyone would have it. The most pertinent definition in my Webster's is "a sudden creative idea or act."

How can I explain where my ideas come from? Ideas are the product of a witch's brew of circumstances: watching the news, long thought, another book, the act of washing dishes, a single gesture in a play . . . all of these can combine to spark a train of thought that leads to something new, something I think is worth pursuing. Connections occur in my head, and all of a sudden something is happening in my book that I think is worthy of being recorded, important enough in its revelation of character or plot.

Some days it really IS like a lightbulb going on over my head -- on very good days. Other days, I sit and stare and think about my cuticles.

The inspiration is not quantifiable or one-note. It's a mixture of some stimuli combined with the particular gene pattern or brain pattern that have made me a writer. This mixture results in ideas, and ideas make the book flow onward.

Sometimes I give flip answers to The Question, like "The inspiration store!" or "Wal-Mart, when it goes on sale." Joan Hess used to say that she got hers from the The National Enquirer. Every writer develops a repertoire of glib answers to FAQs. But when I dismiss The Question, especially if I can tell the questioner is sincere, I feel a little snide. Why can't I explain? Because inspiration is such a nebulous thing, and some days it's so elusive. It's what we hope for, what keeps us going, what makes the book a wonderful entity. 

Writers always pray that inspiration, like hope, will spring eternal. Some days, you just can't get the spark to fly. On those days, everything you write will be gray and pedestrian. The story will plod along, not even interesting the writer, much less a reader. 

But on good days -- oh, the good days make it all worthwhile. One plot point leads logically and neatly to another, one character displays unexpected courage or villainy, one fight scene leads to an unexpected catastrophe . . . or triumph. And those are the days that inspiration seems like a golden thing, like something we COULD catch in a bottle and sell at a stand on the side of the road. 

But I still don't know where it comes from. 

Are they nuts or what?

Note:  Today's guest blogger Agatha nominee Joanna Campbell Slan will admit to scrapbooking hair and baby teeth, but no stitches as of yet.  Her most recent book—Photo, Snap, Shot—was released May 1. Visit her also at www.KillerHobbies.blogspot.com.  Welcome, Joanna!

When mystery lovers get together, the talk often turns to murder or…worse. Recently the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime grossed out an entire restaurant by sharing a medical examiner’s lecture over the public address system. Back in a “private” dining room, the crime fiction authors and fans were having a terrific time taking notes on maggots, autopsies, and how long it takes skin to slough off a corpse.

Of course, mystery lovers don’t have a corner on the weird and the bizarre. Scrapbookers can be pretty “out there,” too. As the author of a mystery series featuring ace scrapbooker Kiki Lowenstein, I attend a lot of scrapbooking events. In the industry, we call these “crops.” Used to be, scrapbookers would attend parties where they would “crop” or cut their photos. I once saw a woman “crop” her husband’s head out of a photo. As you might guess, the divorce proceedings started shortly thereafter.

At any given crop, there used to be a whole lot of slicing and dicing going on. Technology has changed that. Most scrapbookers now know how to use PhotoShop. Today the offending spouse can be removed from the page, one pixel at a time. A few savvy scrappers even have been known to use the “dissolve” function. That works a treat on chubby thighs and other overly generous body parts. One of my friends even gave herself a boob lift. I saw the results. Took off ten years and two cups sizes.

Another favorite scrapbooking activity is the inclusion of “ephemera” on our pages. “Ephemera” is a fancy word for trash. The dictionary defines it as “something that is transitory and without lasting significance.” See? We’re talking trash, people. Think: ticket stubs, receipts, programs, tags, labels, fliers, and you’ll get the picture.

Except that scrapbookers often go that extra mile. We don’t stop with paper ephemera. Glues have  gotten stickier. Manufacturers have created small plastic pockets that can be sealed tight. Now, we can add just about anything to a page. Even stuff that might later develop an odor. I’ve seen pages that feature children’s baby teeth and removed medical items, such as stitches. Actually stitches (after they’ve been pulled out, natch) are pretty common. But more common by far is the inclusion of hair. Nor is this a recent trend. Back in the mid-1800s, a man named Peter Arvell Browne actually created a scrapbook that included samples of hair from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe.

Coming a full circle here, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there are definitely things you should NOT scrapbook. Erika and Benjamin Sifrit went on a killing spree in Atlantic City back in 2002. They might have gotten away with it, except that Erika was a scrapbooker. When the police stopped them for another crime, something really silly and petty, the authorities found bullet casings in her purse.

My hunch is she planned to scrapbook them.

Edgar Week, Malice Domestic, and Romantic Times!

by Dana

Last week was long, busy, and exciting for the Femmes Fatales!  Tuesday morning, bright and EARLY, Toni and I hopped the train for NYC.  First stop, the launch of Crimes by Moonlight, edited by Charlaine, including stories by Femmes Charlaine, Toni, Elaine, and me.   Here, we see Toni as the  “book pixie,” among the stacks at Mysterious Bookshop.

Next was the MWA Edgars Symposium on Wednesday:  Toni and I were on the panel about short stories and novels, moderated by SJ Rozan, with panelists Ace Atkins and Simon Wood.  Thursday afternoon was the Ellery Queen/Alfred Hitchcock cocktail party.  And then:  the banquet.  Yes, I was excited, no, alas, I didn't win for Best Short Story, but it  was such a thrill to hear my name among the nominees!  And it was tremendous fun to see everyone all dolled up!

  Onto Malice Domestic, where a bevy of Femmes Fatales participated in sponsoring a coffee break with Jungle Red Writers!  Kris, Elaine, Mary, and Donna!  I had a terrific time hosting a table at the Agathas banquet, where our own Hank won for best short story (seen here, right, with Toni). 

Charlaine reports in on her adventures at Romantic Times:  It's great to see RT embracing mystery writers. There were lots of genre writers at RT besides the strictly romance writers, and I think it's a significant sign that RT is worth doing.

Kris writes:  My Malice adventure began a day earlier at the Columbia, MD library. Librarian and friend, Jacquelynn Morris set up a mystery author panel at the Central Library in Columbia that was really well attended. It was great getting to connect there with authors Debbi Mack, sister Femme Elaine Viets, Joanna Slan, Beth Groundwater and L.C. Hayden, and meeting so many local fans. We also had a chance to ride the Metro — always fun!

At Malice, the Malice-Go-Round event really stands out in my memory. Speed dating for authors — what a great concept! I partnered with old pal and NYT bestselling author, Kate Carlisle, who had done it before and shared some useful tips with me. The way it worked was that we each had two minutes to share news of our books before moving on to the next table. The challenging part is not losing track of what I wanted to say, especially after saying it 10-12 times. It should have gotten easier with repetition, but I didn’t find it so. The best part was greeting so many eager, receptive readers table-after-table for twenty tables.