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Femmes of the Past by Dean James

The Femme of the Past for this month is Dorothy Bowers (1902-1948). This young Englishwoman had a short career as a mystery writer; she died from tuberculosis at the age of 46. She published only five novels, and they are not nearly as well known as they should be. I believe that, had she lived longer and continued to produce work of the same quality, she would have been as well known today as some of her peers -- Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie.

Four of the novels feature as a secondary character Inspector Dan Pardoe, but he is never the centerpiece of the books. Her fifth and final novel, The Bells of Old Bailey, was not part of the series. The Rue Morgue Press reprinted the books, and it is thanks to these reprints that I was able to discover a writer who has become one of my favorite of all the Golden Age detective story writers.

Why do I admire Bowers so much, and rank her alongside the great ladies of the era? The quality of the writing, her ability to create memorable characters and interesting situations, and the psychological acuity she demonstrates in her portrayal of human nature -- these are the reasons I find her so outstanding. Two of the books I consider classics of the genre: the fourth Pardoe book, Fear and Miss Betony (known as Fear for Miss Betony in the UK), and her final novel, The Bells of Old Bailey (known as The Bells at Old Bailey in the UK). Miss Betony is a fascinating story of an older woman who finds herself in a difficult, even terrifying, situation, and Old Bailey is a shrewd examination of the psychology of the English village where the writer of poison pen letters is at work.

If you love Golden Age detection fiction and have yet to discover Dorothy Bowers, you have quite a treat awaiting you.

When did reading become uncool?

by Kris Neri

Long before I was a writer, I was a reader. I think I was practically born reading. Even before I understood what those marks were on the pages of my picture books, I made up stories that I pretended to read. You could also argue that was writing, so I suppose I was born writing as well. But it was also my way of expressing that, even as a toddler, I understood that reading was something I considered important, and something I wanted to be able to do.

I suppose it helped that my mother was a voracious reader, that I could see that the happiest part of her day was the quiet time she spent with a book. It wasn’t long before that was our shared reading time.

I can’t imagine a life without the pleasure of reading. Sure, I know we all have too little time. I certainly do. I’m a writer with too many day jobs — I own and operate a bookstore, I teach writing, and I edit. Still, while I’m pulled in too many different directions, just as I make time to write, I also make time to read. I breathe, I read.

For a developing writer, reading provides an amazing advantage. In addition to whatever personal pleasure a story provides, every book a newish writer reads also provides so many lessons in writing, which the aspiring writer absorbs unconsciously and effortless.

When I teach writing classes, I always ask my students to include, as a part of their introductions, the authors they read regularly, or the books they’ve enjoyed lately. Mostly, I want to know whether they’re reading contemporary mysteries or they’re more interested in the classics. While there’s plenty to learn from the authors of the crime genre’s Golden Age, it’s absolutely essential that new writers develop a sense of today’s mysteries, so they understand the expectations of modern agents, editors, and readers. Art always reflects its culture, and the crime genre has evolved enormously since the sedate days of the classics. While my job as a writing instructor is certainly to provide them with explicit instruction in the craft of writing, I also see it as my role to direct them to the authors I know they’ll benefit from for implicit instruction.

So, coming from a reading background, you can probably appreciate my shock when I report that increasingly a significant portion of my students insist to me that they have never read and don't intend to. It’s just not something that interests them.

Oh, they’re in the minority of my students — the majority are devoted readers — but the non-readers are a larger and more vocal minority than I would have ever expected.

I don’t get it. This is frankly a hard career. It’s hard to get published, and for too many, it’s hard to stay published today. Writers also have to achieve a publishable standard on their own — while we are edited, writers are no longer leisurely mentored by editors through draft after draft as they were in decades past.

 Why would anyone devote themselves to a difficult-to-learn craft and a difficult-   to-achieve career if they didn’t love the written word? And if they do love the written word, why wouldn’t they read.

If they merely yearn to see their names on a cover, a far easier route would be to simply print their names on some cover design and forget about filling all those pages in between.

I know I’m right about how much reading influences writers. I can always see the differences in the quality of assignments between the readers and non-readers. The quality of the readers’ prose is always more mature, their voices are more lively, as is their dialogue, along with their ability to weave in different types of dramatic beats.

The non-readers, by contrast, will often insist to me that their non-reader friends tell them they don’t need descriptions of places or characters, and they seem to find it annoying when I insist they do. If they read, this wouldn’t come as a surprise to them.

I don’t mind beating a very dead horse, so I expect to keep repeating what I’ve written here for my non-reading students. I even bring in bigger guns to sway them. My favorite quote is one Stephen King wrote in On Writing: “You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

Hey, maybe I should just stop reading their assignments.

Trick-Or-Treat

by Joelle Charbonneau

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  There are no gifts to buy.  No cards to send.  (Well…I guess you can send them, but people don’t expect dozens of envelopes stuffing their mailbox.)  No halls to deck or hundreds of errands to run.  You just need a costume, a few scary movies, a couple of bags of fun-sized candy and you are ready to celebrate.  If you were to rate holidays based on preparation to fun ration, Halloween would come out on top every time.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that the performer in me loves a holiday that involves costumes.  During my childhood, my mother would ask me and my brother what we wanted to dress up as months before the holiday.  No matter what strange or crazy thing we dreamed up, she would find a way to make it.  Over the years, I was Strawberry Shortcake (shocking, right?), a nun, an English bobby and, perhaps my favorite costume, a monkey trainer complete with a stuffed monkey who was dressed in a costume that said he was a people trainer.  Every year, we’d don our costumes for school and stay dressed in them until long after the candy was counted.  We would join forces with our friends, ring doorbells, eat snacks and even watch a scary movie or two.  We laughed.  We screamed.  We had the time of our life. 

Now that I’m a mom, I have found the joy in watching my son experience the thrill of Halloween.  His costume choices thus far have been fascinating—Mickey Mouse, a Blues Brother, and this year a Wiggle.  He approaches the choosing with great joy and can’t wait until its time to race around the neighborhood ringing bells and shouting Trick-or-Treat. 

Unlike most kids, however, mine doesn’t want the candy.  He collects it in his bag because he knows that’s what kids do.  Once he gets home, he pulls out the pretzels and Goldfish and the fabulous mini-containers of PlayDough and ditches the rest.  He has no interest in the Snickers and Toostie Rolls that are given away in droves.  He’ll freak if you attempt to give him an M&M.  (But he’ll happily take broccoli from you….don’t ask.  I don’t know how this happened!) 

Perhaps it is my son’s lack of interest in all things candy that makes me fully appreciate the holiday that is Halloween.  Yes, a lot of kids love the candy, but I would argue that they would enjoy themselves if everyone handed out stickers and PlayDough.  Because even though Halloween is supposed to be filled with all things scary, what it is really filled with is fun.  And fun is something we can never have enough of.  It’s no wonder, as adults, Halloween still holds magic.

So…in the spirit of Halloween I ask—what is your favorite part of Halloween?  The candy?  The scary stories?  Or the costumes?

Waiting for Frankenstorm

by Donna Andrews

Today was curiously peaceful.  I've been spending a lot of time over the last few days glued to the Weather Channel, watching the evolution of Frankenstorm. Maybe too much time--it was a relief to get up early today and head out to the ballpark to watch my nephews' Little League playoff game at 9 a.m.  Alas, they lost--though only by one run--but it's a double elimination tournament, so they get another chance . . . sometime.  Supposed to be Monday, but unless the forecasters are seriously off base, I don't think anyone's going to be playing baseball Monday evening.  But you never know.  Our plans are on hold until we find out.

On the way back from the game, I dropped by the garden store, and bought some plants.  Pansies, to refresh the planters.  Some Allegheny spurge and sweet woodruff for areas in the yard where I need more ground cover.  But should I plant them tomorrow?  Even if I finish my pre-Frankenstorm preparations, maybe I should wait until I see the state of my yard before I plant anything.  Just my luck to plant my plants and have a tree land on top of them.  No, I think I'll wait till after the storm.  Tomorrow, I'll just concentrate on battening down the deck and yard.  My gardening plans are on hold.

A lot of people's plans are on hold until after the storm arrives.  I hope people are taking the need for preparations seriously.  I hope the storm falls short of being the catastrophe we've been warned about--but not so far short that people become complacent about storm preparations.

And I find myself wondering if people were happier back in the days when we didn't know for a week or more than a storm was heading our way.

My mother grew up in Seaford, an unincorporated community in York County, Virginia.  Seaford was originally Crab Neck, until the U.S. Post Office decided the name was too inelegant and told the local postmaster--one of my great-uncles--to find something more suitable.  And as you can guess by both names, Seaford is a waterside community.  Most of the industry was, and still is, based on seafood.  And it's flat--pretty much at sea level.

Mom still recalls living through a record-making hurricane on August 23, 1933, when she was eight years old. The custom of naming hurricanes didn't begin until 1950, and at first the weather service used the old World War II phonetic alphabet--Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, etc.  (Alpha/Bravo/Charlie/Delta/Echo didn't come along until 1957).  In 1953, they started using women's names, and in 1971, the current system of women's and men's names.  But back in 1933, there wasn't a system.  The history books tend to call that year's whopper The Chesapeake and Potomac Hurricane. Our family preferred The Great Storm of '33, or just "The August Storm."

Mom doesn't so much recall the power outages, although I'm sure they had them--but electricity was far from universal back then, and probably a lot more unreliable.  Most people probably considered it a luxury, not the necessity we find it today.  Mom recalls the flooding that covered so much of the flat, level peninsula Seaford was built on. Fishing boats were stranded far inland, and the Civilian Conservation Corps had to be called in dig trenches and haul them back to the river.  Outhouses were washed away, and while Mom hasn't mentioned it, I wonder if her uncle, the local general practitioner, wasn't kept busy with a few nasty post-flood diseases.

(You can see one of those stranded boats in a rare photo from 1933 at the Daily Press website.)

And nobody in Seaford knew a week or more in advance that a monster storm was headed their way.  They were country folk, or water folk.  They could probably see the signs, a day or two ahead of time--how the sky looked, and the river, and what the birds and animals were doing.  They knew something was up.  They made what preparations they could. But the fact that it was something far more than an ordinary hurricane--that they found out the hard way.

I wonder if they were calmer about it than we are.

I hear from Femme Fatale Elaine that Sandy has been pounding Fort Lauderdale for several days now.  In Annapolis, Marcia has already voted and is battening down for the wind and rain that could start any time now.  Toni, Dana, and Hank, in New England, are bracing for snow on top of the wind.  I think the rest of the Femmes (and our Frere Fatale) are probably safe from this particular storm, but they're worrying from afar.

I still have a lot of final preparations.  Hunt down the cooler--during the derecho, I filled it with the contents of my freezer and took it all to Mom's place--the assisted living has a generator, and my frozen goods stayed fine in her freezer.  I need to finish moving inside all the small yard things that the wind might turn into projectiles.  Get some cash, in case the ATMs are out.  And stock up on those comfort foods Marcia was talking about--at least the ones that don't require cooking. The car's already gassed, and I know where my first aid kit is, and the bottles of water are in a row in the basement.  I have my little LED headlamps, and plenty of the AA batteries they take. I should make sure I've stashed one in everyplace I might be when the power goes.  I picked up a new battery operated radio to replace the one that didn't do so well during its last outing--need to set it up and test it.  Should I move the gas grill inside?  What about the concrete planters--inside, or just flat to the ground outside?  I should make sure I know where my can opener is. And position the car at the mouth of the driveway, to minimize the possibility of it getting trapped behind a fallen tree--after the derecho, phone service was so lousy that the only way I could confirm that family and friends were okay was to drive over to see them.  And there's the laundry, so I won't run out of clean clothes.  And charge up the laptop, and for heaven's sake, save the writing works in progress on a flash drive--two flash drives.  And upload them.  And--

We have a lot more information about the coming Frankenstorm than Mom and her family had about the August Storm.  But the one critical bit of information we all want to know--will we be all right, my family and friends and I?--that we don't know any more than they knew back in 1933.  So we fret and scurry through our preparations and watch the maps on the Weather Channel. I wonder if, when we hear the first gust of wind, or see the first flicker in the power, some of us won't feel a curious sense of relief, because now, at least the waiting is over.

Stay safe, everyone.

Esther Diamond

by Laura Resnick

Years ago, when I was a recovering romance writer looking for a new genre, I wrote a proposal for an urban fantasy series that I felt was exactly what I should be writing: A comedy series set in New York City and featuring Esther Diamond, a struggling actress (I was also a recovering aspiring actress) who gets involved in supernatural misadventures via her career.

However, neither urban fantasy nor comedy were popular in the fantasy genre at the time. This meant that selling the series would take persistence. But, alas, I was letting my work be represented by literary agents back then. (See my previous Femmes Fatales blog for a fuller account of why I stopped working with literary agents.)  Running true to form, my then-agent sent the proposal to three editors, they all rejected it, and the agent promptly declared the series unsaleable, refused to send it out ever again, and thereafter bit my head off whenever I raised the subject,.

A few years later I fired the agent, and then I sent out Esther Diamond on my own. Within weeks, I got a good multi-book offer for her.  (The many reasons I ceased working with literary agents can be summed up as: I need to earn a living, and in my repeated experience, agents impede that.)

Unfortunately, although well-intentioned, the house did a poor job of publishing the first book, it sank like a stone, and they canceled my contract. The agent (my fourth) whom I had hired to "represent" me after I got that book deal on the table had never taken any interest in my career beyond collecting 15% of that deal. And now that I had a career problem, I was clearly as welcome at that agency as, oh, a corpse at a banquet.

After leaving that agency, I (foolishly) queried some other agents. They were all negative about my plan to find a new publisher for Esther Diamond. So I once again researched the market and submitted Esther on my own... And, once again, within a few weeks, I got a good multi-book offer for her.

The editor who took a chance on this canceled series was the inimitable Betsy Wollheim of DAW Books—who won a well-deserved Hugo Award this year as the Best Editor in our genre (science fiction and fantasy). We subsequently signed for more Esther books, DAW has also done a great job of releasing a new edition of the series' AWOL first book, and Esther Diamond is currently scheduled through book #6 in 2013, The Misfortune Cookie—with many more books to come after that, I hope!

In the first book, Disappearing Nightly, Esther is performing in an off-Broadway flop called Sorcerer! when the leading lady really vanishes during the disappearing act. After several more performers around the city mysteriously disappear during their magic acts, Esther joins forces with Dr. Maximillian Zadok, an elderly mage who specializes in unraveling mystical mayhem. She also butts heads with Detective Connor Lopez, a skeptical NYPD cop who finds Esther attractive in green body paint—or anything else.

In Doppelgangster, as New York faces the threat of a mob war, the trio find themselves dealing with double the number of wiseguys there should  be. In her next mystical misadventure, Esther experiences the effects of Unsympathetic Magic when she and Max investigate zombies in Harlem, while Lopez tries to trace the owner of a decomposing hand left on 121st Street. And in Vamparazzi, while performing in a sold-out vampire play, Esther discovers that everything Bram Stoker taught us about vampires is wrong...

Deep into writing this series now, after years of trying to get it off the ground, I still feel that this is exactly what I should be writing, so I'm in this for the long haul. And I hope that readers will be, too!

Laura Resnick is the author of the popular Esther Diamond urban fantasy series, including the upcoming Polterheist (November 2012). She has also written traditional fantasy novels such as In Legend Born, The Destroyer Goddess, and The White Dragon, which made multiple "Year's Best" lists. She began her career as the award-winning author of fourteen romance novels, written under the pseudonym Laura Leone. An opinion columnist, frequent public speaker, and the Campbell Award-winning author of many short stories, she is on the Web at LauraResnick.com.

The Great California vs Caledonia Spook-Off

by Catriona McPherson

Now, being a huddled mass, I don’t usually go in for much mine’s-bigger’n-yours/yours’s-better’n-mine when it comes to my two countries.  It’s unseemly.  I’ve moved to the US and the only thing to say is “Thank you for having me.”

Also, most issues are beyond debate: BBC beats PBS; USPS beats Royal Mail; British cheese doesn’t come in an aerosol can; US plumbing totally rules. (And California just nudges into first place above Scotland when it comes to weather, Mexican food, hummingbirds, watermelon juice, and sequoias.)
But here comes Halloween and I’m up for a friendly debate. 

Round 1: turnips or pumpkin
Here in the new world where pumpkins abound, growing in their dozens at every gas station and Dollar Tree from sea to shining sea, little children can make Halloween lanterns with a spare half-hour and a bent spoon. 


Back in the old country, where the only pumpkins we ever saw were papier maché and had Cinderella inside on her way to a party, children carve lanterns out of turnips.  Swedes.  Rutabagas.


Hours of grinding effort, paring away rock-hard flesh a sliver at a time, losing fingers, losing days of school, losing the will to live.  And what we ended up with was something that looked like Hannibal Lecter with his mask on.


And smelled like the armpit of his straitjacket after the long journey to Anthrax Island.

Character-building toil and a smelly beige mess, or orange abundance and no work ethic at all.  Who wins this one?  You tell me.

Round 2: guising vs trick-or-treating
At first glance, guising (literally “going in disguise”) and trick-or-treating sound exactly the same.  Little children dress up as Casper or a pirate and bug their neighbours. 

But in America all they have to do is ring the doorbell and hold out their hand (and in it an enormous reinforced orange bucket) to be showered with goodies.  In Scotland they have to perform.  We used to do a dance, sing a song or recite a poem. 

These days, I hear they get away with telling a joke.  But that threatens to undercut the point of guising.  Teenagers are too embarrassed to join in.  And so guisers are all small, manageable and grateful for what they’re given.  A good thing, since what they’re given, often, is money.

So ritual humiliation in return for hard cash or demanding sugar with menaces.  Which is better?  Who can say.

Round 3:  candy vs fruit
When we weren’t out guising at Halloween in Scotland we were kneeling on the kitchen lino undergoing the water torture known as dooking.  Mum filled a tin bath with water and floated apples and monkey nuts in it, then we held our breath, put our hands behind our backs,  submerged our heads and tried to get them out again.  The nuts were easy; you can Hoover up quite a cache of them even in a little rosebud like mine, but the apples were a challenge, I have to say.

Whether you did it with suction while inhaling water or pushed the apple to the bottom and bit into it while inhaling water, you inhaled a lot of water.  If we had known that in other parts of the world wee kids were knocking on people’s doors and being given Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for doing precisely nothing, there might have been a riot.

Snack-sized confectionary by the bucket-load, got by strolling, or apples and peanuts with a side order of your sisters’ saliva, got by choking?  I think, in this case, the answer is pretty clear.
Happy Halloween when it comes, everyone.

Help, Femmes! What to Wear?

  by Hank Phillippi Ryan

So I had to come to the source. Who better than the Femmes Fatales (and friends) to help me with my Femmes Fatales outfit?

 You know CrimeBake, of course, the fabulous wingding (shindig?) thrown by MWA and Sisters in Crime just outside of Boston. The event is always around Veterans Day. And that’s soon.

 I’m fine on the panels, they’re all good and interesting. And I’m fine on doing manuscript critiques, I always enjoy that.

 The problem—the challenge!—is the banquet.

 In recent years the CrimeBake moguls have organized a fabulous Saturday night party where people dress up in costume. There’s a theme. One year it was—your favorite mystery character. (Jonathan and I were Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. Jonathan was very elegant, and I got to wear fur and a cloche. (Hey, it was fake.)

 Another year, when our own Charlaine Harris was guest of honor, it was…paranormal costumes. We were all vampires.  Eyeliner. And fake blood. And fangs, lots and lots of fangs.

 But this year, with financial thriller bestseller Joe Finder as Guest of Honor, the theme is Femmes Fatales and Lady Killers. So I have to think of a Femme Fatale.  I mean, one who I can dress up as, with the usual caveat that it has to be from something I already have at home since no way I have time to go shop for anything. I’ve got to go with what I’ve got.

 This is where you come in, femmes and friends of femmes. Who’s a good femme fatale?

I figure everyone is going to be Mata Hari, that’s the first FF we think of. I could get some tights, and a leotard, and a bunch of scarves. Right?

People might think I was Salome, of course, but that wouldn’t be bad either. I could have a platter with a head . Ooh. Possible.

 I’m a storyteller, so I could be Scheherazade. (Although first I’d have to figure out how to spell it.)  Strangely, though, this costume also seems to call for tights and lot of scarves and eyeliner.

Theda Bara.  Scarves. And eyeliner.

Cleopatra. Scarves and eyeliner. And a snake. Could work.

Wait—I’m missing the obvious. Bridgid O’Shaugnessy, in The Maltese Falcon. Hmm. She’s platform shoes and a little curvy suit, right?  I could carry a Falcon. Okay. Possibility.

I’d love to be Gilda. I have a strapless dress..and long white gloves. And sing Put the Blame on Mame. But I don’t have the right Rita Hayworth hair.

Marlene Dietrich, somehow? With a tuxedo, and a cigarette?  Hmm.

Kathleen Turner, in Body Heat? (Funny how the “tights and scarf” motif vanishes as time goes by.)

As time goes by?  Oh! Ilse! I could get a slouchy hat and a trench coat. And practice my liquid eyes and Hungarian accent.  Possible.

Nicole Kidman, in To Die For—remember she did the weather? Pink lipstick and a boucle suit (lipstick, check, Boucle suit, no). And hey, sisters, I loved Sharon Stone. I loved her in Basic Instinct, but now you’ve gone too far. As she did.

There’s Monica Lewinsky. But she’s a FF wanna-be. And she’s not funny, anyway. But it’s an easy- peasy costume, with a beret and a blue dress. (And um, a cigar...)

Wallis Simpson? That would work. Hey—I could just wear my last year’s Harriet Vane outfit, except a tiara instead of a cloche!

 Hey. Waitaminit. Catwoman. Or—Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 GOT to find a costume. Any ideas?

 

 

 

Win $100 in Books in My Bridesmaid Dress Contest

By Elaine Viets 

Ladies, did you ever have to wear an ugly bridesmaid dress?

Me, too.

Nothing can take away that feeling of shame when you wore that horror in front of all those people. Worse, it’s in a photo!

Now, I can make you feel better.

You can enter my Bridesmaid Dress Contest and win $100 in books. Think of it -– hours of soothing reading to take away the sting of that dress.

Enter the "I Can't Believe I Wore This Dress.  It’s outrageous" category.

I’ve heard rumors that there are women who liked their bridesmaids dresses. In fact, those dresses were so good-looking they wore them again.

If you’re one of those fabled creatures  -– and I suspect you’re rarer than unicorns -– enter it in the "I Can't Believe I Wore This Dress -- it's gorgeous" category.

I'm really excited about my new Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mystery, "Murder Is a Piece of Cake." Josie gets married in this novel -- after she solves a murder.

 
That’s why I’m celebrating with the Elaine Viets Bridesmaid Dress contest.

First place winners in both categories will win a $100 gift certificate to the bookstore of their choice for e-books or tree books, and an autographed copy of  "Murder Is a Piece of Cake."

  Second place is a $25 gift certificate and an autographed copy of "Murder Is a Piece of Cake."

    Third place is an autographed copy of  "Murder Is a Piece of Cake."

That peach bridesmaid dress in the photo?  My maid of honor, Sue Brandt Schlueter, is wearing it at my wedding in 1971. Sue is still my friend. I’m not sure which category the dress belongs in, but the style was cutting edge in Florissant, Mo., back then.

Only photos of bridesmaid dresses that you’ve worn may be submitted. Photos of dresses from other weddings or magazines are not eligible. Submit as many times as you like, as long as you’ve worn the dresses.

You may enter both the National Bridesmaid Dress Contest and the St. Louis Bridesmaid Contest. However, if you win in any category of the St. Louis Contest, your photos are not eligible to win the National Contest.

Enter now through Nov. 1. Click on the bridesmaid photo at elaineviets.com and upload your picture.

 

If you live in the St. Louis area, you’re doubly lucky.  You can enter two Bridesmaid Dress Contests – the National Contest and the St. Louis Contest one.

The St. Louis contest has cool prizes including a VIP beer tasting party for ten at Schlafly Bottleworks, a chocolate tasting party at Kakao, dinner for two at the Fountain on Locust, a Gooey Louie cheesecake and autographed copies of "Murder Is a Piece of Cake."

Check out the St. Louis contest here: http://elaineviets.com/new/Events/default.asp

The St. Louis contest judging is 7 PM, Thursday, Nov. 15, during my talk at the St. Louis County Library, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, Mo. 63131. E-mail your photo to Carrie Robb, adult services librarian, St. Louis County Library at [email protected].

Better yet, wear the dress to the library. A free autographed copy of "Murder Is a Piece of Cake" will be given to the first three women who wear their bridesmaid dresses to the St. Louis contest.

Hurry! Upload your photo at elaineviets.com.

Winning is a piece of cake.

Confessions of an almost tall girl

by Joelle Charbonneau

They tell me that admitting you have a problem is the first step in solving it.  So here goes.  I’m mostly tall.  Yes, I’ve said it.  At 5’ 10”, I’m a mostly tall person.  Not freakishly tall, but tall enough to make me stand out in a crowd. (Especially with the red hair.)  Not statuesque enough to shop in tall girl store, but too altitudinous to shop in the average section of a store. 

Yep…I have a problem.

All my life being mostly tall has been kind of a mixed bag.  Had I been two inches taller I would have been recruited by basketball scouts or NYC modeling agencies.  Two inches shorter would allow me to wear heels without feeling silly and would have made it easier to get cast in shows.  (Do you know how many average or short actors there are out there?  Trust me, more than you’d think!) 

As a mostly tall person I’ve found that people assume I know what I’m talking about even when I haven’t a clue.  I’ve also discovered that mostly tall women are not allowed to be shy.  Whenever I stand in a corner feeling awkward or intimidated, people think I’m being snobbish.  Weird, right?

Since being tall has been such a strange experience for me, I suppose it shouldn’t come to a surprise to anyone that my heroines Rebecca Robbins (Skating On The Edge) and Paige Marshall (Murder For Choir) are both shorter than me.  They get to wear high heels without dwarfing their dates.  At times they manage to blend into the background and they never have to worry about the inseam of their jeans not fitting. 

People often say that writers should write what they know.  Well, mostly I do.  My mother was a World Champion Artistic Roller Skater so I guess it isn’t a surprise that I have plunked Rebecca Robbins smack in the middle of a roller rink.  And my professional opera and musical theater training comes in very hand as Paige Marshall solves murders while looking for her big break.  But writing also gives an author the chance to explore things they only dreamed of.  And trust me, I’ve dreamed of being all the adjectives that come with being less than mostly tall.

So today I confess: I am a mostly tall person.  And while I might wish that I could be tall enough to dunk a basketball or short enough to blend into the background when I’m feeling particularly shy, I understand that I can’t change what I am.  I’ll just have to content myself with living vicariously through the fictional characters I write.

How about you?  What confessions do you have to share and how do you deal with things about your life that you can’t change?  If this writing thing doesn’t work out for me, I’m going to need all the help I can get!

Joelle Charbonneau has performed in a variety of opera and musical theatre productions across Chicagoland.  She now teaches private voice lessons and uses her stage experience to create compelling characters in her books.  She is the author of two mystery series:  The Rebecca Robbins mysteries (Minotaur Books) and the Glee Club mysteries (Berkley).  Joelle is also the author of The Testing young adult trilogy that will debut with THE TESTING from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s in June of 2013.  Learn more at www.joellecharbonneau.com

 

The Day Job

by Dean James

Contrary to what readers sometimes think, many (if not most) writers don't make a full-time living from their writing. Among the membership of the Femmes we're fairly evenly split, I think, among those who write full-time and those who have other jobs and write "on the side."

I'm one of those who "writes on the side." In my day job I'm a medical librarian in the Texas Medical Center, the largest complex of its kind in the world. I'm the head of the department that handles the print and electronic books, journals, and databases that our library acquires or licenses. It's an interesting, sometimes challenging, job, and I enjoy it tremendously. I work with great people in a supportive environment, and the job brings excellent benefits, like health insurance and a regular paycheck.

I would love to live the glamorous life of the full-time writer (and already I'm hearing the snorts of derision from the Femmes who are full-time writers), but I'm not near that point yet, despite having published seventeen novels in the past twelve years. Someday I might get to the point where I can say goodbye to being a medical librarian and focus completely on writing, but it might never happen.

I'm actually okay with that, because I've been operating this way for the past twenty-seven years. Working full-time, having a part-time job or two in addition, and writing when I can. Two-day weekend? What's that? I'm fundamentally a lazy person, and I could happily be a kept man with the right inducements, but since no one has offered, I have to do it myself.

Every writer has to find what works, and what the budget will allow. This is my own peculiar way of doing things, and I didn't share this for sympathy or pity (although if someone wants to buy a few extra copies of my recent books, I wouldn't say no). If you keep telling yourself "well, I'll get around to writing that book when I can find the time," trust me, you can find the time.