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We Dig her the Most! Femme Dana at Malice

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Nothing stranger than the Monday after Malice. I woke up this morning, exhausted, but missing everyone!  One of the joys of this year's conventions--and there were many--was watching and listening to Femme Dana rock the place as Toastmaster! (She also won the Agatha for Best Short Story...hurray.)

I did the official interview with her--here's a lovely photo via the fab Elaine Naiman. (Dana's husband took many many photos--and I can't wait to see them!)

But there was also a terrific essay about her by Femme Toni. It's so perfect--and was in the official program book. But just in case you weren't in DC--here's a chance for you to read it.

 

Digging Below the Surface
By Toni L. P. Kelner

 
I’ve known Malice Domestic Toastmaster Dana Cameron for years, and can honestly say that she’s one of the best friends I could ever wish to have. She’s generous, loyal, a great conversationalist and enormously fun to spend time with. She is also, as her readers and fans know, an amazingly talented writer, and I admire her greatly. But here’s the fascinating thing about being friends with Dana – I learn something new about her every time we get together. There is so much more to her than you see on the surface.
 
Of course, that’s appropriate given Dana’s former life as an archeologist. She’s often told the story of how she was talking to a friend about some of the incidents that happen on site. Once she was working at a dig in New England when a pot hunter with a metal detector showed up, and when he was challenged by one of her colleagues, he actually pulled a gun on them. Fortunately, it all ended without bloodshed, and the friend said, “You should write a book about this stuff!” Dana usually concludes with something like, “So I wrote a mystery.” As if any archeologist could put just down her trowel and write mystery novels as exciting and layered as the Emma Fielding series!
 
This is where you have to dig below the surface to find out what really happened between that eureka moment and the publication of Site Unseen. In fact, you have to go back before then, to realize that Dana had already written a nonfiction volume. But there’s a big difference between scholarly work and mysteries, and Dana tackled this new task with everything she had.
 
She wrote the first draft in secret, not even telling her husband James. She then edited the heck out of it, with James’s able help. At the same time, she was reading mysteries and attending lectures and events to learn more about the nuts-and-bolts of crime fiction. (She even showed up at one of my talks, bless her heart. Fortunately, I didn’t scare her off.) That amount of effort would be enough for most aspiring authors, but Dana went even further. She submitted her manuscript to the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and was accepted – to give you a hint of what that means, in a recent year, only twenty-two percent of applicants got in, and very few of those were genre writers. Dana was determined to do everything she could to learn her craft, but she’s too modest to say how hard she’s worked.
 
Dana’s first foray into urban fantasy shows a similar pattern. When she talks about her first Fangborn adventure, “The Night Things Changed,” she describes how writing the story was a revelation because for once, she didn’t need to start with research. She could just make it up. As if just any writer could come up with a completely fresh take on vampires and werewolves.
 
Again, you have to dig to find out what else she did. Despite her admission that she didn’t have any references to consult, she did check out anthropological studies on cross-cultural views of vampires and werewolves. She also read vast amounts of modern urban fantasy and paranormal romance to see what other writers were doing. Only then did she devise the Fangborn. And of course, she neglects to mention the fact that an intriguing background was only the start of what became an award-winning short story. (“The Night Things Changed” won the Agatha and the Macavity and was nominated for the Anthony.)
 
Her approach to writing “Femme Sole,” her first piece of noir fiction, was just as thorough. She’ll tell you she went historical for the Anna Hoyt stories because she already knew the era, but as you could guess by now, that’s only part of the tale. Dana doesn’t talk about the extra research she did, or her efforts to create a character who was true to her time, or the analysis of what noir means in terms of tone and world-view, rather than just using the hard-bitten private eye trappings. And again, she needed a plot and such to go with all that to get her those four award nominations. (Those would be the Edgar, the Agatha, the Anthony and the Macavity.)
 
Then there’s what Dana does to prepare for author appearances. If she’s participating on a panel, she’ll hit the web for information about her fellow participants, and if she has books by any of them, skims them to refresh her memory. If she’s moderating a panel, you can be sure she’s done even more in-depth research: reading at least one book by each participant, visiting participant’s blogs and web sites, and writing out her questions well in advance. I cannot imagine how much work she’s done to make sure she does a good job as Toastmaster this weekend and I suspect she’s reread every one of Jan Burke’s books and as many of Jan’s stories as she could get her hands on.
 
Now you might think Dana’s thoroughness only applies to her writing life, which is, after all, informed by her training as an academic and a scientist. Except that if that were true, how would you explain her approach to Christmas presents for my daughters? Like many people, she often gives gift cards, which is great. Kids love gift cards. But here’s the below-the-surface part. She didn’t just grab a card at whatever store she was in. She found out that the girls are big into art and which art store in the area was the best so she could make a special trip to get the gift cards. Then she planned a day so she could take them to lunch and then to the art store. She even got them ice cream. It wasn’t just a present – it was an event!
 
Now that I think about it, you could say that Dana herself digs below the surface in everything she does, so I guess it should be no surprise that we have to dig below the surface to fully appreciate her and her work. 

HANK: Yay, Dana! Who else was at Malice? Did you have fun? Any special  memories? (And thanks, Toni, for letting me swipe your essay!)

 

 

 

The Femmes do Malice

by Donna Andrews

This weekend, Malice Domestic, the annual mystery convention celebrating the traditional mystery, will be held in Bethesda, Maryland--and many of the Femmes will be there, including Dana Cameron, who is serving as toastmaster! If you're there, watch for our fabulous basket, featuring goodies from each of the Femmes, in the Friday night auction.  Don't forget that some of the Femmes are nominated for Agatha awards:

For Best Novel: Donna Andrews, The Real Macaw

For Best Nonfiction: Charlaine Harris, The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

For Best Short Story: Dana Cameron, "Disarming," Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Watch for us at the Saturday night Agatha banquet.  In fact, watch for us all weekend long--here's a rundown of what everyone's doing.

Dana Cameron

It's a busy weekend of Toastmastering!  Friday at 1:00, our own Hank will be conducting the Toastmaster Interview with me.  Then at 3:00, "You've Got Fan Mail," is where Jan Burke, Simon Brett, Lee Goldberg, and I will discuss our most enthusiastic, funniest, and craziest comments from our readers.  The Opening Ceremonies begin at 5:00, and I get to officially welcome folks to Malice. 

Saturday is jam-packed, as well, starting off with "Make It Snappy:  Our Agatha Best Short Story Nominees" at 9:40.  The Agatha Awards Banquet starts at 7:00pm, and I'm really looking forward to hearing from the Guests of Honor.  Sunday finishes with the Closing Tea at 2:30, and we look forward to Malice next year. 

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank at Malice! Friday afternoon I’m interviewing the fabulous Malice toastmaster—our very own Dana Cameron! (Whoo hoo.) That night, I’ll be auctioneer for the live fundraising auction with Katherine Hall Page—and one of the wonderful items is a basket of goodies from the Femmes! Saturday I’m a panelist "What We Do for Research"-I’ll tell all my secrets. And then Saturday night at the banquet—we’ll see! Sunday: the Sisters in Crime breakfast..hope to see you there! (I’m president of national Sisters in Crime next year—what an honor!)

Toni L.P. Kelner

I'm on a panel at 9:45 on Sunday--Dirty Little Secrets: An Inside Look at the Writer's Life. The moderator is Aimee Hix, and the panelists will be Elizabeth Lynn Casey (aka Laura Bradford), Jeffrey Cohen, Kate Gallison, and Robin Hathaway. And me, of course. This panel will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the authors' life and writing style. Do you have to write with certain music on? Do you have weird deadline rituals? Do you write in your pajamas or, perhaps, in the nude? What's your craziest fan story? This is a chance to let the audience know the real you. I'll be signing after the panel.  And I'll be around all weekend, and will be attending the Agatha banquet to cheer on our Femmes nominees.

Elaine Viets

Final Sail, my May Dead-End Job mystery set aboard a luxury yacht, makes an early debut at the Malice Domestic Convention. I'll be at the banquet, cheering on Toastmaster Dana. I'm hosting a table at the banquet, and hope you'll sign up to sit with me.

My Malice panel is at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. It has some of my favorite authors -- Femme Hank Phillippi Ryan, Sophie Littlefield, Sarah R. Shaber, Mary Staunton/Claudia Bishop and me. Molly Weston, the queen of moderators, is sure to deliver some surprises.

If you're in the area Sunday night, I'm signing at the Annapolis Bookstore, 35 Maryland Ave., Annapolis, Md., at 5 PM with mystery authors Marcia Talley, Tracy Kiely and Hallie Ephron. It's part of a Sisters in Crime celebration. Stop by for free champagne and cake. For information call the store at 410-280-2339.

Charlaine Harris

I'll be on the panel called Just The Facts on Saturday at 2:30. The panel also includes my fellow non-fiction Agatha nominees: Leslie Budewitz, John Curran, Michael Dirda, and A.B. Emrys, with Steve Steinbock moderating. I'll be signing at 4:20.

Donna Andrews

I'll be on the Simply the Best panel at 4 p.m. Friday,  with fellow best novel nominees Krista Davis, G.M. Malliet, and Margaret Maron.  (Alas, the lovely Louise Penny was unable to join us, but will be there in spirit.)  Shawn Reilly will be our moderator.  And at 9:45 Sunday morning, I'll be appearing on Occupy Malice: When Money Is the Root of All Murder, with moderator Avery Aames and fellow panelists Mike Befeler, Catriona McPherson, and Elena Santangelo.  And I'll be missing the chance to see fellow Femmes Kris Neri and Mary Saums, who were unable to attend this year.

And now for a contest!

I hope many of you are now kicking yourselves for not coming to Malice Domestic.  Well, there's always next year.  Or do you have a really good excuse for not coming this year?  I'm offering a special prize for the most creative excuse for NOT coming to Malice this year! Post your excuses here or on the Femmes Facebook page, or email them to me.  And what is the prize, you ask?  A copy of the fifth Chesapeake Crimes anthology, This Job Is Murder, signed by me and by Elaine Viets--since her Dead End Job series has given her a unique expertise in murderous jobs, she agreed to provide the anthology with its introduction.  And don't say you already have one--this latest anthology will be on sale at Malice for the very first time, at the Wildside Press booth. And no, you don't have to be absent to win--if you're actually at Malice, you can still make excuses. So put on your thinking caps--and "The dog ate my Malice registration" is NOT available!

Oh Lord, It's Hard to be Humble

by Toni L.P. Kelner

My friend Jenny recently saw talented thriller writer Jeffery Deaver give a talk, and came away from it amazed by how humble he is, given his level of success and fame. She suggested that I might want to blog on the idea of being humble.

I immediately responded that I'm never humble about my writing.

I meant it as a joke, but it really wasn't. I'm not particularly humble about my writing

Honestly, I can't afford to be humble. This doesn't mean that I think I'm the best writer ever, or even in the Top 10 or Top 100. But I do think I'm a very good writer. Some days I even edge up toward excellent. I don't think I could keep writing if I didn't believe that. I wouldn't be able to make myself sit at the keyboard every day if I weren't convinced that I have talent.

I certainly couldn't publish my work with a humble attitude. After all, every time I stick a piece of writing out there--including this blog post--I'm tacitly stating, "It is worth your valuable time to read this." That is not a humble view of the world.

Still, there are two writing-related areas in which I am humble.

One, I am humble about the many opportunities I've been given to publish my work. There are a whole lot of very good writers out there. Some of them can't find a good publisher. I'm on my third. Some writers have success in one field or with one character, but can't sell different kinds of work. I've published two series, and have a contract for a third; plus I've been able to sell a lot of short stories; plus I've co-edited anthologies with Femme Charlaine. Some writers never get awards attention, but I've been honored with several nominations and some precious wins. So yes, I believe I'm a good writer, but I'd be a complete idiot not to recognize that I've been extraordinarily lucky, too. 

Two, I'm humble about what I can't do and what I haven't learned to do yet. I don't know how to write thrillers or screenplays, and I don't think pacing is my strongest suit. My fight scenes don't hit as hard as they could, and I've only written one sex scene and it was hard. (Yes, both of those puns were intentional. I have no illusions about my ability to pun.) I'm not particularly lyrical with my writing. In short, there's a whole lot of room for growth. So I do, humbly, try to improve and sometimes I just have to admit my limits.

So for Jenny, I can only end by quoting the Mac Davis song, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble, but I'm doin' the best that I can."

Dirty Jobs

By Elaine Viets

"Cleanliness is next to godliness," my grandmother would say, as she took down the kitchen curtains for their weekly washing.

You read that right. Grandma Vierling washed and starched her café curtains every week. She also mopped and waxed the floors weekly and attacked the dirty wax build-up in the corners with a sharp knife.

I thought I knew about clean living, until I researched "Final Sail," my new Dead-End Job mystery.

In "Final Sail," Helen works undercover on a luxury yacht while she searches for an emerald smuggler on a trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas. (That's the resort in the photo.)

Helen and I learned the rich take cleanliness to a new level. Helen has to dust the clothes hangers and light bulbs. Helen also has to vacuum "in the tracks."

What? You’ve never done that?

"We don’t run a vacuum over the carpet every which way," Mira, the head stewardess, tells her. "We vacuum the way you mow a lawn, so there aren’t random tracks."

Read how the yacht bathrooms are cleaned in this scene from "Final Sail."

"This is the on-deck head," Mira said. "We have ten heads for the guests, including their stateroom baths." This one made Helen’s bathroom look like an outhouse. The commode was a beige sculpture. The granite sink had gold fixtures. Two fluffy hand towels hung on a brass rack. 

"The heads are cleaned after each use," Mira said. "That will be mainly your job."

"Every time?" Helen tried to hide her disbelief.

"Yes," Mira said. "I’m sure you cleaned toilets when you worked at that hotel."

"Yes," Helen said. She doubted the men on the yacht had better aim than the hotel guests. If they missed on land, how steady would they be on a shifting ship?

"You’ll also clean the sink, the counter, the mirror and empty the wastebasket. The toilet paper has to be folded into points after every use. It’s stowed under the sink."

She opened the carved oak cabinet doors to show stacks of TP, towels and bars of deliciously fragrant Bvlgari soap.

"The labels on the toilet paper rolls should face out on the shelves," Mira said. "Towels are changed every time. They’re kept folded with their labels facing the same way. Most guests use the liquid soap, but if a bar is used, we put out a fresh one."

"Bvlgari is twenty dollars a bar," Helen said.

"Fifteen," Mira corrected.

"What happens to the used bar?"

"The crew gets it," Mira said. "Don’t expect to load up on fancy soap. You’d be surprised how many people don’t wash their hands."

"How do you know if a guest has used the head?" Helen was proud she’d remembered the nautical term.

"We keep in touch by radio." Mira pulled a two-way radio off her belt. "If I’m serving in the main salon and you’re doing laundry, I’ll radio you, ‘Guest X is coming back, used the on-deck head,’ and then you’ll clean it."

When Helen saw the master stateroom, she wanted to sink into the depths of the cushiony azure bed piled with dark blue pillows. "Most rich people’s homes are either fussy or gaudy," she said. "I could actually live here."

"All you need is twelve million for the yacht and another million a year to run it," Mira said.

"I’d better start buying lottery tickets," Helen said.

***

"Final Sail" will be published as a hardcover and an e-book May 1.  Pre-order your books in both formats at bn.com  http://tinyurl.com/82drqlp and amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/7dde3qe

Order signed hardcovers from Mystery Lovers Bookshop: http://tinyurl.com/6wmrhoq

I’ll sign "Final Sail" at the Malice Domestic mystery convention in Bethesda, Md., this weekend. Join me and three other mystery writers for a champagne and cake Sisters in Crime celebration Sunday at the Annapolis Bookstore. The next day I’m at the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, Pa., and then signing in Fort Lauderdale. The following week, I’ll sign in Houston and St. Louis. Event details are at http://tinyurl.com/3yyvcsd

Got 40 seconds? See the "Final Sail" trailer  http://tinyurl.com/8a77vah

Public Speaking

The Femmes Fatales welcome back S.J. Rozan (below, r), whose latest novel, Ghost Hero, not only won the 2012 Dilys Award, but was also named on the NPR and Sun-Sentinel "Best of the Year" lists.  Oh, and, by the way, her book The Shanghai Moon was listed on Oprah Winfrey’s website, Oprah.com, as one of "9 Mysteries Every Thinking Woman Should Read!"  Pretty awesome--E.T., er, S.J. take it away!

This is the second of my three guest blogs over here at the Femmes.  My subject in all three is the public side of the writing life. In the first I talked about hanging with other writers, and how no one understands you like what my people call a landsman.  Now I'm going to discuss the joys of the out-of-town gig.

I love 'em. Out-of-town gigs. I really do. I know there are writers who don't, people who took up this profession because they were hoping to write all day alone in a garret, passing pages out under the door. Others don't have a problem with speaking in public, but they have kids or day jobs or they hate airplanes and for them, traveling is a hassle.

None of that is a problem for me. I have no kids, I've long since left my day job, I agree that the travel experience has deteriorated over the last twenty years but damn, I still get a thrill when I get on a plane! (This, despite a dependable level of travel anxiety, which I've blogged on more than once back at my own place.) And Lord knows I'm enough of a ham that standing up in front of a roomful of people, all those eyes fixed on me, is something I see as an opportunity, not a threat.

Years ago, I had dinner with Sue Dunlap while I was in San Franciso on a book tour. It was one of my first tours, and I allowed as how I was enjoying myself. She said, "I love touring, too. You get to go places you might not otherwise go, stay in hotels above your station in life, eat meals someone else pays for, and talk about yourself. I know a lot of writers complain about touring but really, what's not to love?"

One thing not to love, of course, is the empty room. Very little is as dispiriting as walking into a bookstore or library and seeing four people on thirty chairs. But early on I learned that those four people really, really want to hear you. You can't get mad or depressed about them -- save that for rest of the planet's billions, the people who didn't come. For that hour you pull up a chair, sit in a circle, and talk to those four people about books and writing. That's why you're there, right? You never know what connection you'll make for, or with, someone. And the bookstore or library people will remember you quite fondly.

Also, travel is, well, travel. I mean, it gets you places. Last week I spoke at a library in the DC area. I went down early, the better to spend time in a museum (the Freer/Sackler, in this case) and left late the next day, the better to have lunch with a friend and go to the National Arbotetum. I do this whenever I can when I'm on the road: make time to hang with whatever friends I have in the area. My work is portable, so traveling doesn't necessarily mean an enforced work stoppage; and one of the facts about being a writer -- or maybe it's just a fact about being 103 years old, which I am -- is that I find I have friends in far-flung places. Relatives, too. Since I travel more than most people, we mostly see each other when I'm in their towns.

There's one final thing. One of the reasons I'm a writer is that I find people endlessly fascinating. Sometimes horribly, like a train wreck; but as difficult, stupid, short-sighted, irrational, and selfish as our species can be (and those were only the first five knocks that came to mind: go ahead and insert your own) we're not boring. In DC, the people who'd invited me down had been a joy to work with and I was delighted to finally meet them. They put on a nice event -- about 85 people, with drinks, munchies, and books for sale. 85 people I'd never met, some of whom I had an idea about -- the inviters I'd been emailing with -- and some of whom I found out some things about as we chatted. And some of whom -- the teenagers who started out texting in the back and then got quiet and actually listened -- I had to make up stories about because they never opened their mouths. Making up stories is what I do, though, isn't it? Stories aren't made out of air, they're made of raw materials: mostly, places and people. Out-of-town gigs can be exhausting, anxiety-ridden, and lonely: I won't deny it. But though time spent at your desk and in your head produces work, it doesn't refill the raw-material warehouse.

For me, one of the things that does that is being on the road.

You Are What You Read?

The Femmes welcome Marcia Talley, the author of THE LAST REFUGE and ten previous Hannah Ives mysteries. A winner of the Malice Domestic grant and an Agatha nominee for Best First Novel, Marcia won an Agatha and an Anthony for her story "Too Many Cooks" and an Agatha for the story "Driven to Distraction." She edited two mystery collaborations, and has published more than a dozen short stories.  She lives in Annapolis, Maryland and winters on an antique sailboat in the Bahamas. www.marciatalley.com

By Marcia Talley

I'm writing this blog somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Baltimore and
Bermuda.  At a family funeral several months ago, my three sisters and I were
lamenting how we never seemed to find opportunities to get together for fun
times, so we decided right then to fix that. We found a reliable cruise line --
and by that I mean one that doesn't have the habit of running into solid
objects, like Italy -- bargain rates, and amazingly, a week in April in which we
were all free.  The only thing left was to locate our passports and pack our
bags, which for me included the iPad on which I'm typing this.

I didn't really plan to do any email while I was away -- I knew from experience how expensive Internet access can be aboard a cruise ship -- in the present instance, 65 cents a minute! -- but I certainly planned to make use of my iPad's Kindle app to read some of the mysteries on the Edgar Awards short list that I'd recently downloaded. Truthfully, I prefer real paper books, but if you spend several months of the year living as my husband and I do aboard a sailboat with about as much space as, say, your average master bathroom, you quickly realize what an advantage it is to be able to carry a whole library around with you in the shape of an electronic slab. 

My husband and I didn't entirely agree on how best to accomplish this. He has a Kindle and I, as I mentioned, have an iPad, each with advantages and disadvantages. The Kindle's screen is easier to
read out-of-doors -- on a beach, for instance -- but the iPad's backlit screen means that I can read in bed with the bedside light off while he snores away peacefully at my side. Unfortunately -- and nowhere is this mentioned in the manual -- moths are attracted to the light emanating from my screen and do
kamikaze runs against it, which has a tendency to distract me from even the tightest Scottoline plot. Falling asleep reading an iPad can be dangerous, too. I once dropped a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary on my toe, which was painful, but until my iPad fell forward, clipping the bridge of my nose, waking me instantly and drawing blood, I never thought that reading could be hazardous
to your health.

My sisters and I were soaking in the hot tub in the ship's solarium the other day, discussing this.  We all agreed that reading a Kindle in the hot tub would be a bad idea, and if you forgot your charger on the dresser back home, you'd be up the creek when your battery ran out in the middle of the latest Harlen Coben. Debbie likes the Kindle because you can't lend books, saving you the social embarrassment of having to remember to whom you lent the new Nevada Barr that you hadn't gotten around yet to reading.

As we considered the people sprawled in the deck chairs around us, we decided that you can tell a lot about a stranger by what he or she is reading.  "Final Sail" by Elaine Viets?  I think I might like that person, while -- not being snobbish or anything -- I'd be unlikely to initiate a conversation with someone engrossed in a Jackie Collins novel.  The trouble is, when somebody's reading on a iPad, Nook or Kindle you can't see the cover, so you don't have the slightest clue what they're reading.  This would be a serious disadvantage, we decided, if you're on the prowl for guys. Hot or not?  With a Kindle, it'd be hard to tell.

The dude could be reading Danielle Steele, for all you know.  But, if he's got a Robert Crais propped up on his abs, you've got your opening. "Oh, I like Crais, too. Is that as good as his last one?"

 

I wonder what the other passengers thought about us as we sat on deck in our matching blue t-shirts emblazoned with "What Happens With Sisters, Stays With Sisters." Susan's reading No Mark Upon Her by Deb Crombie in hardback, Debbie's almost finished with Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick in the tradepaper edition, and Alison's well into Lisa See's Dreams of Joy, also in hardback, while I sit comfortably with my iPad, privately reading Mo Hader's riveting Gone, leaving my neighbors clueless.

Plain vanilla Kindle, Kindle Fire, Nook, iPad, or good old fashioned cardboard, paper and glue. What's in your book bag? And what does it say about you?

Geek website frenzy!

by Dana

Yesterday, my E(vil) T(win) and guest blogger for the Femmes, SJ Rozan posted about a website that tracks marine traffic...live.  In a tizzy of geekish glee, I shared a website I'd recently discovered, on the period table of elements.  Click on an element, get its phyiscal properties, its history, and cool facts.  It's a pretty site, too, complete with a (Chemi-)Cool Image of the day, about yes, elements.

I love that stuff!

And it got me thinking about the information we can access, enjoy, and share instantly.  And geekily...even when we don't have access to our libraries (or their guardians).  And geeky isn't restricted to the sciences; a good geeky site is dedicated to something specialized.  For example:  many are the virtues of having a website that lets you list what ingredients you have, what you don't want, and then brings up recipes.  It's like having Jacques Pepin schooling you in “cuisine economique,” making a great meal out of what's left over or in your pantry.  A site that cleans my cupboards, saves me money, and makes me food?  Love!  And sharing information is the essence of geekery, I think:  fannish, academic, or otherwise.  Lifehacker, for example, offers suggestions for how to get things done, whether business, technology, or life.  Another example of "if you need it, someone else has probably already figured out how to do it," can be found on the deliciously geeky Make.com (I'm especially fond of the "make: Projects" section, for those MacGyver moments).

Back in the nineteen-aught-nineties, I couldn't believe the magic of IMDB.com.  You could discover who is perfect for your “Fantasy Shakespeare Company” or, more importantly, solve relationship-threatening arguments over who directed which “Alien” movie.  Similarly, Femme Toni Kelner likes Songfacts, for figuring out what the song really means. 

Communication, anyone?  Femme Charlaine Harris reminded me of  perennial favorite Yahoo!Bablefish, which will translate to and from English for a variety of languages.  For example, the sign to the right tranlates as "The Wolf in Cow's Fur" (or probably "the wolf in cow's clothing").  There is also "Effingpots," the American's Guide to Speaking British, brought to my attention by the lovely Maria Lima, which is broken into sections on “Slang,” “People,” and the like.  Very helpful if you don't know your "cracking" from "dickey."

Maria also turned me on to Old Maps Online, which links to historical maps around the world.  You can specify the collection, the region, or the dates, and it will not only suggest maps, there are links to the maps in which you can zoom in!  Reference Frenzy!  I know writers out there are slavering...

Humor?  I love XKCD, a "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," even though I don't get all the math, all of the time.  Okay, most of the time. 

Design milk:  I love seeing the modern art, fashion, architecture.  Some of the shoes are great; some are scary.  They will all make you think.  There is also “House Milk,” “Dog Milk,” and...ooh, a shop!

Clearly, I'm just scratching the surface.  Keep the geek frenzy going!  Tell me:  What are your favorite web-places to geek-out?  

The Brain On "Story"

For our guest blog today, the Femmes welcome back author Carolyn Haines. Carolyn has got to be the hardest working woman in the book business! Thanks for being with us, Carolyn, and for this thought-provoking post .....

 

It’s Sunday afternoon, tax day for 2012, and I have just come in the door from Daddy’s Girls Weekend, which was held this year at the Malaga Inn in Mobile, Alabama. My thoughts aren’t on taxes, or even books, but on the value and joy of friendships and the remarkable bridges that reading can build.

Around my feet are dogs and cats, and the horses are grazing safely in the pasture. The weather has been perfect until today, when the mug stepped up to bump gy and we have some horribly muggy weather. Summer is here in southern Alabama. I have no complaints. For this moment, this day, I have nothing except gratitude.

Daddy’s Girls Weekend was exceptional fun. We learned and talked books and swapped author and conference stories. We drank a little and ate a lot and talked more books and authors and swapped tall tales. (The more the liquor flowed, the taller the tales grew!)

Some writers met with success in pitching to agents and editors, and some got helpful tips. Some readers met new authors and took home armloads of books.

And now that it’s all said and done I realize that I have the best blessing in life—that of good friends. I watched the attendees at DG Weekend as they met each other, some for the first time, and had a chance to talk with Dean James and Jeannie Holmes, returning faculty at our gathering, and Anton Strout, T.R. Pearson, and Mary Welk, new to DG Weekend, and agent Marian Young, editor Michelle Vega, and publisher Ben LeRoy.

It was old home week—even for those new to our quirky little Southern charms.

There was an instant bond. We are all book lovers, and I am in the insanely wonderful position of having written characters who are mutual friends of all who were at the conference.

I’d like to see some scientific studies done on what happens to a person’s brain when reading fires the imagination, and then when writer/characters/readers all come together.

For a long time I’ve understood that people who don’t read have a spot in the brain that simply has never been turned on. I grew up in a poor farming community, which meant really hard work. Reading for a lot of the young men, who knew the future was a combine or tractor, was a command performance to get out of high school. The concept of reading for pleasure was laughable. Everyone learned to read (amazing to me how the United States has fallen in true literacy) but not everyone learned to love reading.

Here are some statistics on functional literacy I recently found.

Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is doing well. According to the latest International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), between 19% and 23% of American adults performed at the top levels for each of the three literacy scales: document literacy, prose literacy and quantitative (number) literacy. Sweden is the only country that scored higher.

Yet many Americans are being left behind. The same survey found that between 21% and 24% of U.S. adults performed at the lowest level for all three scales, a figure echoed by the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).

Another report had these statistics:

This government study showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information." Further, this study showed that 41% to 44% of U.S. adults in the lowest level on the literacy scale (literacy rate of 35 or below) were living in poverty.

These are statistics that mean the difference between a “sort of good life” and terrible poverty. Without the skills to work, a person won’t be hired. Without comprehensive reading skill, a person can’t train themselves and build a better life (something many WWII veterans did).

There were a lot fewer college degrees in 1945, but a lot more educated people. I could get into a rant about what’s wrong with education, public and university-level, but I won’t. Instead I want to focus on “the poverty of the imagination.”

People who aren’t taught to love reading, to love story are impoverished in ways that are incomprehensible to those of us who love books and stories. I can go day-tripping to 1730 Greece or 2095 Mars—and I don’t need a drug to do it. Just a book and a good writer. I can suffer the joy and pain of love won and lost. Or the adventures of a young boy who must find his way in a magical world and accept his destiny to stand up to evil. Oh, the adventures I’ve had.

When I stopped and spoke with the attendees at DG Weekend, I found readers (and writers) who had fully working brains and imaginations. And the coolest thing of all was that the characters I’d created in my Bones series of mysteries had touched these readers and brought us all together for a glorious weekend of fun, mischief, books, and stories.

We are all mutual friends because of Sarah Booth and Tinkie.

Indeed, my friends have enriched my life, even the fictional ones.

 

 

Super(natural) Heroes

from Mary Saums

I'm a flipper. 

Some days, only books with hard core street-wise heroes appeal to me. The meaner, the more violent-prone, the sneakier, the better. On those days, the portrayal of the reality of gritty urban crime just can't be beat. 

But, you know, some days, reality bites. Like the reality of your workplace, one that's maybe closer to an asylum? Or the reality of those two flat tires on your car when you had hoped to get home quickly. On days like that, my choice in reading material is, for the most part, gritless. I couldn't care less what literary critics or dark-crime-only proponents think or how much they might argue that humorous, lighter books are not to be taken seriously.

But then, what do I know. I'm just a wee lassie.

I flip back and forth across the line all the time. Sometimes, I dislike reading about cold mean handguns. Other times, I like a good shoot 'em-up and would love to be the good guy in pursuit with his hand on the trigger.

Here lately, the mysteries and thrillers are on hold on Mt. TBR.* All I've wanted to read is fantasy. Total, all-out werewolves and fairies and every other kind of Other. What I've been loving about them is the way the authors combine reality and fantasy elements in creating the heroes. Just like Flipper, Lassie and Trigger. They are intelligent, able and moral, just not 100% human.

 

 

In Cassandra Clare's steampunk YA fantasy Clockwork Angel, the young female lead doesn't know what she is. Neither do her protectors who are descendants of angel/human parents. These swordbearers have political agreements, and sometimes wars, with the rest of Victorian London's otherworld communities of vampires, warlocks and the like. All the young girl knows is she can transform herself to look like another person and hear their thoughts. She's more interested in finding her missing brother, who is the last of her family, and getting back to a normal life. I enjoyed this one and look forward to the next in the series.

 

 

Harry Dresden, a wizard P.I., walks the line down Chicago's mean streets and I do mean mean. This is the 8th in the series. By this time, Harry's work involves the wizard's council more and more. He must join forces with other regional wizards to stop a madman and his undead army from taking over the city. Very well done, written in a noir-y P.I. style that was fun. I listened to the audio version, narrated by James Marsters, he of the cheekbones, who did an amazing job with all the voices. You may remember him from the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Oh, Spike-y ..... <sniffle> <sob>

Both of the above books rely heavily on known otherworldly beings. This is good, since readers are likely to accept and enjoy those characters readily.

Author Alex Bledsoe does something different. His latest book, The Hum And The Shiver, doesn't look like a fantasy at first glance.

It's set in the foothills of Appalachia in east Tennessee where a young woman returns from her tour in Iraq to recuperate. When her unit was ambushed there, she killed 10 attackers. Now her tiny hometown is swamped with reporters who want her story.  

It's a tiny community with secrets. I loved the slow way the author hinted and revealed the story of the area and the people throughout. Most of all, I loved how realistic the characters were. Oh yes, and by the way, this book contains LANGUAGE in regard to activities between young men and women at their hormone-raging heights. It's a little more than I'm accustomed to, but I managed to struggle through. :) Seriously, this is a great book. The language and activities absolutely fit the characters and situations. I highly recommend this book, which I'm certain will be in my top five of the year.

So, what next? Have any recommendations for me? I can handle freaky. I think. To a point, anyway. And, of course, fantasy-types with super-hero animals who are good to the bone.

 

*Mt. To Be Read

 

When I Grow Up

By Elaine Viets

What did you want to be when you grew up? a friend asked a group of women.

Annie Oakley, several women said  – and many of them didn’t have a gun in their house.

Amelia Earhart. A princess, said another.

Now the career choices came thick and fast: An oceanographer. A veterinarian. A teacher. A writer.

The woman who wanted to be a teacher became one.  So did the writer. They were born for those careers.I wanted to be a Pink Sister.

That’s right – a cloistered nun who wore a pink habit and prayed all day.

Once you stop laughing, you’ll understand why that wasn’t such a wacky career choice for me.  I was the oldest daughter in a family with three rambunctious boys. At age nine, a life of perpetual, peaceful silence seemed heavenly. The sisters’ chapel had an unearthly beauty, and I looked good in pink.

Other sisters set me on a less holy path. The sisters at St. Thomas Aquinas high school  decided that I could write and steered me to a career as a newspaper reporter.

I knew all about newspapers. I read "Brenda Starr" in the comics section. Brenda had great clothes, good travel and romance. No kids, either.

Most days, I blessed the sisters for their career guidance. Newspapers gave me an adventurous life  until I started killing people 1997. That’s when I wrote my first mystery.

Sister Valeria put the ka-bosh on my last, lingering impulse to be a nun. In high school, the poor woman punished me for talking in class by making me sit with the boys.

Sister Valeria was nearly ninety. I’m sure being surrounded by rowdy young boys was her personal hell. But for a teenage girl?

That punishment was the answer to my prayers.

 

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you reach your goal or become something else?