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Reading Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I call her my fairy godsister. Every time she’s around and everything she touches turns into something wonderful. She’s an amazing writer, and a brilliant author (she looks at everything I write, thank goodness) and a complete cheerleaders and team leader for writers across the country with her daily Facebook messages of enthusiasm and encouragement. A whole cadre of writers get to work each day with her writing sprints!

She’s a stalwart of Pennwriters, and I cannot even imagine how many books she’s shepherded to publication. Plus, she’s hilarious, outspoken and a great pal.

So now, two things.

First, she’s the brains behind Into the Woods,  a new anthology of short fiction, personal essays, original music, and one walking meditation from Mindful Writers who retreat several times a year in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. Proceeds from Into the Woods benefit the Children’s Heart Foundation. So keep that in mind! And I’m giving a copy to one lucky commenter.

Commenter about what?

Well, today, Femmes, Ramona’s got a suggestion for PBS. (Just saying.) And she wants to know what you think.

 

    My Great American Read

         by Ramona DeFelice Long

 

PBS is hosting a summer project called the Great American Read, an 8-part series discussing favorite novels. A master list of 100 books was revealed in Episode 1.

The project encourages reading so I’m sold, even though a book I’d have included didn’t make the cut: Love Story by Erich Segal.

Love Story? The tear-jerker with the sappy tag line about never having to say you’re sorry? Yes, that one. The novel is a romantic drama in the vein of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils—two people from very different worlds fall in love and tragedy ensues.

The plot has been adapted into film multiple times: Camille starring Greta Garbo; Moulin Rouge starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor; and Love Story starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal.

When I was in 6th grade at Holy Savior Elementary School, both the film and movie were hugely popular. I “borrowed” my older sister’s copy of the novel and read it in math class because…math. I got caught.

Sister Agatha slipped it out of my math textbook and said, “Come to my office at big recess.”

In her office, Sister Agatha tsked at me for reading a book inappropriate for good girls like me. To prove her point, she pointed at “f---ing Canuck” from a scene in a hockey game. I was horribly embarrassed to be in the same room as an f-bomb and a nun. I was indeed a good girl, and this traumatic moment is why I can’t watch hockey.

To get the book back, I’d have to tell my mother and she’d have to come to Sister Agatha’s office to retrieve it. I suspect Sister Agatha knew that was not going to happen, and it didn’t. Later in the day, my chagrin morphed into curiosity. How did she know that Oliver Barrett IV had cursed out a Canadian?

My developing crime writer mind had found a clue. In the time between math class and big recess, Sister Agatha must have read my copy of Love Story.

The novel is short. It’s a page turner, full of subtext about the class divide, and way more compelling than 6th grade math. I didn’t call out Sister Agatha, but my imagination wouldn’t let it go.

I pictured her in her bare nun cell re-reading my book. I envisioned her wiping her tears with her wimple when Jenny’s leukemia was diagnosed. I imagined her reading it aloud to a cluster of Sisters who said Hail Marys in hopes of a miracle. I considered her moral dilemma when she came to the hockey game scene and made the Sign of the Cross to excuse herself for reading these naughty words.

Love Story might not be great literature, but it stayed on the NYT Bestsellers List for 41 weeks. Why? Because it made readers feel and cry and wish and think. It made me want to write stories so compelling, they could move a nun to confiscate a book and speed read it between recesses. Isn’t that, after all, what a great read should do?

 

HANK: Oh, of course I remember! (I always get it mixed up with the short story Goodbye, Columbus, ridiculously. But I adore them both.)  (It's why so may girls are named Jenny now, don't you think? And that hair-do, and that sappy-sappy quote. Remember?

So Femmes, did you read LOVE STORY back then? Did it stay with you? 

And a copy of Into The Woods to one lucky commenter. Of course, that should not stop you from ordering a copy or two--great words for a great cause.  

  

 Ramona DeFelice Long is an author, editor, and online writing instructor who grew up in the
South but somehow ended up in Delaware. Her short fiction and personal essays have appeared innumerous literary and regional journals, and she’s been the recipient of multiple artist grants and fellowships. She maintains a literary website . 

Into the Woods is the title and theme of an anthology of short fiction, personal essays, original music, and one walking meditation from Mindful Writers who retreat several times a year in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. Proceeds from Into the Woodsbenefit the Children’s Heart Foundation. 

Character Building: A Novel Approach

 

By Elaine Viets

Describing characters is hard – ask any writer. We try to get past the surface descriptions that say nothing – "pretty woman" or "balding Vietnam veteran." Actually, those last three words say more than we intended. "Balding Vietnam veteran" is often a code for a harmless old man.
But the best way to describe a character was in Robertson Davies' "World of Wonders," the third book in the Canadian writer's Deptford trilogy, following "Fifth Business" and "The Manticore." If you haven't read these three books, do yourself a favor and get them now. You're in for a treat.
In "World of Wonders," Magnus Eisengrim, the magician who may or may not have been a killer, explained how he honed his skills. He roamed the world with a carnival, and learned to observe people at a fair, in what he calls "a mitt camp" -– a fortune teller's tent.
This section is a text book example of how to build a believable character for your novel.

"You have to learn to look at people," Magnus said. "Hardly anybody does that. They stare into people's faces, but you have to look at the whole person.
"Fat or thin? Where is the fat?"
Now there's a sensible question. Some people are round as apples. Others have fat stomachs or wide hips.
"What about the feet? Do the feet show vanity or trouble?"
Is she wearing sky-high Manolos? Or comfortable shoes cut to relieve the ache on his bunions?
"Does she stick out her breast or curl her shoulders to hide it? Does he stick out his chest or his stomach? Does he lean forward and peer or backward and sneer?
"Hardly anybody stands straight. Knees bent, or shoved back? The bum tight or drooping? In men, look at the lump in the crotch; big or small? How tall is he when he sits down?"
An interesting observation, that last question. I'm six feet tall, and when I sit down, I'm still taller than some people who are standing up.

"Don't miss the hands," the magician warns.
As for the face, which we writers often start with, the magician has this caution:
"The face comes last. Happy? Probably not. What kind of unhappy? Worry? Failure? Where are the wrinkles? You have to look good, and quick. And you have to let them see that you're looking. Most people aren't used to being looked at except by the doctor, and he's looking for something special.

"You take their hand. Hot or cold? Dry or wet? What rings? Has a woman taken off her wedding-ring before she came in? That's a sign she's worried about a man, probably not the husband. A man – big Masonic or K of C ring? Take your time. Tell them pretty soon they're worried; why else would they come to a mitt-camp at a fair? . . ."
Author Davies has given writers a blueprint for building a character. It's almost magic.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Win Elaine Viets' new collection of short stories, Deal With the Devil and 13 Short Stories. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

by Toni L.P. Kelner and Leigh Perry

Okay, it might not be to the day, but roughly twenty years ago, the Femmes Fatales published one of our newsletters. On paper, which we then sent through the mail. Does that sound as old-school to you as it does to me?

The fact is I've been thinking a lot about my years in writing these past couple of days because next month--June 2018--will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Down Home Murder, my first novel. Ideally, I'd have dug up the newsletter issue from June of 1993, but we didn't put out our first issue until Fall of 1995, so I figured twenty years was far enough to go.

The topic of the issue was "Murder Most Fun." Our able editor Megan Bladen-Blinkoff asked each of the Femmes of that time to discuss the book that was the most fun to create. My piece was as follows:

Toni L.P. Kelner

"My definition of fun is probably different from other people's," admits Toni L.P. Kelner. As a writer, she enjoys sitting at the computer for long periods of time and reading books about arson. As a mother, she can't wait to go to McDonald's and eat all by herself. As her readers know, Toni also can make words fun and funny. (Ask to read her limericks sometime.)

Fun? Writers have to suffer, and I defy anyone to say I'm not doing my job. I pour my blood onto every page, baring my heart for all to see. Do you honestly think that's fun?

Perhaps there was a moment in Country Comes to Town that the torment of my artistic soul eased. I based a murder victim on my ex-boyfriend, and it was oddly satisfying to writ about bumping him off. Especially when I mentioned his receding hairline and his awful blue jean jacket. But I had to live through dating him to write about it.

Just like I exposed myself to the stultifying computer industry to glean the essence of that world Could anybody begrudge me the small pleasure I took in killing off the nitpicking head of quality assurance who'd dared to criticize my work?

Okay, maybe I giggled once or twice while writing Tight as a Tick. I wasn't merely enjoying myself--I was responding to the human oddities that inhabit flea markets. How could anybody listen to my mother's stories of eccentric dealers, compulsive collectors and the collisions between them without nothing the way they reflect our tortured society. They were cynical giggles, I assure you.

Writing must be approached with solemnity and sincerity. Fun? Don't make me laugh!

Looking back at this piece, I notice a lot of changes, even in the introduction. First off is the name. Yes, that's still my real name, but I've been writing as Leigh Perry for the past five books. (Though I do have a short story coming out from Toni later this year.) Not only was I still writing as Toni, I was writing my first series. Country Comes to Town and Tight as a Tick were the fourth and fifth books of the Laura Fleming mystery series.

And those kids I wanted to escape for a quiet lunch alone? One of them has graduated from college and moved to Atlanta. The other starts college in Ohio in the fall. I'm going to be able to eat lunches alone all I want, and naturally, the idea is no longer particularly appealing.

In terms of research, I left the computer industry so long ago I wouldn't dare to use a modern office as a setting. And sadly I no longer hear stories about the flea market from my mother. She passed away in 2012.

The ex-boyfriend I killed off in effigy? I had a chance to tell him about the book when we spoke at one point. He agreed that he'd been a jerk in those days. And he really did have that receding hairline, I feel a little guilty about offing the quality assurance guy. These days, I've come to treasure the skill of a good copy editor. Which that guy wasn't, but maybe he'd have gotten better.

Least important of all, this may well be the one and only time I used stultifying in a piece of writing.

Not everything has changed, of course. I do still sit at the computer for long periods of time, and I still glean stories from everybody around to use in my books. I set The Skeleton Paints a Picture in an art school so I could share what I'd learned wile my elder daughter was attending SCAD-Atlanta. For The Skeleton Makes a Friend, I bugged both daughters for details about the world of MMORPGs--including what MMORPG stands for. (It's massively multiplayer online role playing game, yet another thing that didn't exist twenty years ago.) I also still kill off people who annoy me. I file off the serial numbers, so to speak, so the targets are unlikely to recognize themselves, but I know--and am immensely entertained by--the truth.

The best part. I'm still having fun doing this writing thing. Look me up in another couple of decades. I'm pretty sure I'll still be having fun.

 

On the road.

by Catriona McPherson of the Femmes Fatales.

Bit of a trek coming up this summer as I head out on a twenty-nine state excursion, driving from California to Massachusetts (OMG - it just took me seven count them seven pre-coffee attempts to spell Massachusetts (and that one took two. I'm stopping)) to Florida and back to California. Or maybe it won't be twenty-nine. Maybe, in the interests of a round number, I'll swing through Iowa on county roads on the way to Minneapolis or go for lunch in Michigan. But either way. ROAD TRIP!

I always meant to drive across the country at least once. It's got a romantic air about it from so many films and novels. (I try not to think about the fact that most of the plots centre around disaster and I won't be streaming any banjo music.) This'll certainly be the longest road trip ever attempted achieved by my driving buddy and me.

We drove from Laramie WY to Deadwood SD once (to put flowers on Calamity Jane's grave) and came back down through Thunder Basin National Grassland. It was like crossing the moon! 

And we regularly did the ten hour drive from Cornwall to Scotland, back when that felt like a long way. It usually happened at night because we couldn't leave the beach. We'd be sitting there, eating a pasty, looking at the waves, going "We've got a ten-hour drive. And work tomorrow."

The worst road trip ever was also the best one. The car broke down on the way to the Channel tunnel. Cue two nights in Paris, all-expenses paid by the trip insurance, while someone fixed it.

The most disappointing road-trip ever was up Highway 1 from SoCal to NorCal, when instead of Big Sur, Hearst Castle and posh hotels, it was a stinking cold, mud slides, and tucked up in bed at eight in the posh hotel, with soup. (That's my take on it. It was Neil's most unexpectedly wonderful road trip because he'd agreed to Hearst Castle and then dodged it because I was ill. His favourite thing about moving from Scotland to California is, and I quote "I'll never have to look round another stately home in my life." Philistine.) 

I found this photo in my collection. have no idea which castle it is. He's maybe got a point.

Definitely the funniest road trip ever was one from Oregon back to California when we were both knackered and a bit bored and Neil pointed out that if we were having an argument, we'd have better energy levels (good old adrenaline) and the time would go past quicker.

Me: An argument about what?

N: Have you got anything in the bank?

Me: Ha!

N: We could have a fake argument. 

Me: Eh?

N: Make up something to say that's bound to start one.

[Now most people at this point would have realised they'd just stumbled on the worst idea ever, in the history of bad ideas. Not us.]

Me: Okay. Let me think.

[Long pause]

N: I've got one.

Me: Go on then.

N: When are you going to start dressing like someone who owns a mirror?

I'm just going to let that sit there, without comment. Far be it from me to nudge any reader of this blog towards any view of the rights and wrongs of the situation.

So, what do you think of my big road-trip plan? Any hot tips? Any dire warnings? Any hard-won wisdom from road trips of your own. I'm listening.

 

 

Holding Out For A Hero

by Alexia Gordon of the Femmes Fatales.

We live in dark times.

School shootings, restaurant shootings, nationalistic and xenophobic immigration debates. Racists, misogynists, and other bigots winning converts by leveraging the power of social media to spread their message of intolerance and fear to a wider audience than possible in any other time in history. An upswing in attacks on people because of their skin color, religious beliefs, gender, and sexual orientation. War, crime, poverty, worsening income inequality, economic and environmental injustice. With twenty-four hour news coverage and a plethora of social media platforms ever present to feed us this steady diet of violence, ugliness, greed, and hate. Dark has become the new normal.

This shift has occurred in literature, TV, and film, as well. Dark heroes, wounded heroes, broken heroes, anti-heroes, heroes nearly indistinguishable from villains, no heroes, dystopia, neo-noir. Every character has a tragic past. Every backstory is a grim litany of abuse and suffering. Every villain has an excuse; they're piteous, misunderstood products of lives filled with deprivation and torment. A history of sexual violence is de rigueur for female characters, those walking bundles of anxiety and self-doubt. Stoicism, resilience, and non-dysfunctional protagonists fighting forces of unambiguous greed, destruction, and evil are passé.

Many readers and viewers are fine with this shift. They welcome it. Art should reflect the world we live in, they argue. It should mirror the darkness back to us, delve deep into it, confirm our worst fears. It's even worse than we thought. But these days it seems as if art has moved past examining and explaining the world to accepting hate and ugliness as insurmountable, as “just the way things are". Evil is relative, life is endless suffering, there's no point in fighting the good fight because we don't know what good looks like anymore. Where anger once was righteous, now it's self-perpetuating and self-defeating. Hope is for suckers, pain is entertainment, violence is a trope, misery sells.

Enough with dark and angsty, already. Stop wallowing in the cesspool. I'm tired of it. Mentally and physically exhausted by it. The battered, despondent, fearful creature cowering in the dark recesses of my brain needs a ray of light, needs something to remind her why she should drag herself up and try one more time despite knowing what the outcome is likely to be. I need more than videos of goats in sweaters and kitten memes to keep me going. I need a reminder that good people exist, that hate is not normal, that justice isn't a quaint, outdated notion. I need hope. I need some old-fashioned heroes. 

These heroes don't have to be perfect. They don't have to come charging in on white horses. They certainly don't have to be heterosexual, cisgendered, white males. But they do have to be heroic in the James Campbell sense of the word. They must be good. They must restore order, tame chaos, and most importantly, deliver justice. I'm realistic (cynical) enough to know many people will never receive the justice they deserve in real life. I want justice to prevail on page and screen so people can experience it vicariously. A bit of vicarious fictional revenge against the greedy, manipulative, cold-hearted, intolerant jerks who always seem to come out on top in real life wouldn't be a bad thing, either. I want fiction to let the little guy win, since fact often crushes him. I want fiction to let the underdog triumph, since real life often fails him. And I desperately want fiction to let women be strong and smart and self-assured and fearless, without having to be victims of sexual violence before they can be self-actualized because such women do exist but their stories are often suppressed in service of a variety of agendas. Yes, sexual violence and gender discrimination are real and far, far too many women and girls experience it up close. But this isn't the real world. This is fiction.

In fiction, we're not limited to the world as it is. Fiction can dare to imagine the world as it should be. Fiction shouldn't just reflect the world, it should comment on it, challenge it, rail against it, rise above it. Fiction should be bold enough to explore, “What if?” What if a woman was respected for her intelligence and ability? What would she be capable of? What if she didn't have to spend her energy healing from abuse and overcoming fear? What could she accomplish? What if she thrived instead of merely survived or existed? What if people called out evil when they saw it? What if man acted for the good of the community instead of himself? What if people helped each other just because it was the right thing to do?

In fiction, hate and ugliness don't have to win. Fiction can be an antidote to a jaundiced worldview fueled by non-stop bad news. Fiction has the power to rise above the cesspool and offer us something better—loyalty, beauty, sacrificial love, strength, kindness, hope, and justice. Fiction can prevent evil from becoming the new normal. Fiction can inspire us to be better people. It can help us be heroes.

#normalizejustice #normalizelove 

Short

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

As part of my ongoing effort to be more efficient, I'm going to reuse some research Ed Aymar made me do in preparation for our panel at this past weekend's Gaithersburg Book Festival. But before you start giving Ed a hard time for making me do homework, I should hasten to add that it was research in my own brain and bookshelves: he asked us each to name our favorite short story.

Poor Ed! How was he to know that I never have a favorite. I have multiple favorites. Squads of them. Hell, regiments. Nothing makes me break out in a cold sweat more than those desert island challenges. Which ten books would you take? Only ten? Can't we make it a hundred? Wait, a hundred won't do at all . . .

But I digress. Anyway, I was having insomnia one night—and even listening to my audiobook wasn't helping, because it wasn't normal insomnia; it was the sort of insomnia you get when you've been taking Sudafed too long for the allergies that mutated into a sinus infection, and this is the stuff they make methamphetamine out of, remember? And why do they bother, really, when Sudafed alone will have you bouncing off the ceiling.

So I started tacking my brain, and then raiding my bookshelf, and came up with the following list of short story favorites. It's not all my favorites; it's mostly well-aged favorites, many of them from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies I started reading in high school when my Dad brought them home from the library used book sales—Stories My Mother Never Told Me, Stories That Scared Even Me, Stories Not for the Nervous, etc. Stories for Late at Night was particularly influential; several of my favorites come from that.

So in rough chronological order by publication date:

Saki: “Sredni Vashtar” and “The Open Window.” Stories in two very different moods from one of my favorite short story writers. These would have been published sometime between 1900 and 1916--Saki died at 45 in World War I, during the Battle of the Ancre—killed by a sniper, and his last words were reputed to have been “Put out that bloody cigarette!”

H.P. Lovecraft: “Pickman's Model.” First published in the October 1927 issue of Weird Tales. When Lovecraft was good, he was very, very good at his own particular corner of the genre, and for me, this is him at his best. Also love anything that has night gaunts in it.

C. L. Moore: “Vintage Season.” Published in Astounding Science Fiction in September 1946. Technically published by Lawrence O'Donnell, a pseudonym used by Moore and her husband, Henry Kuttner, but it's generally assumed to be mostly Moore's work. And technically I think it's a novella, but what the heck.

Idris Seabright (aka Margaret St. Clair): “The Man Who Stole Rope from the Gnoles.” First published in 1950 or 1951 in Fantasy and Science Fiction. To really appreciate this story, you should probably also have read Dunsany's “How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles," which would probably by my main choice for a Dunsany story if I had to pick only one.

John Collier: “Evening Primrose.” First published in his 1951 collection, Fancies and Goodnights. This story was the inspiration for a 1966 Sondheim musical that I keep meaning to figure out how to see.

Jerome Bixby: “It's a Good Life.” Published in 1953 in Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2. You may have seen the Twilight Zone episode by the same name. The story's even creepier.

Poul Anderson: “The Martian Crown Jewels.” First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1959. One of my favorite Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

Ray Bradbury: “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Published in Colliers in May, 1960, and also to be found in his short story collection The Martian Chronicles. If I expanded this list you might find a few more Bradbury stories on it.

You'll notice a pattern in this: most of these stories are in the realm of science fiction and fantasy rather than mystery. I think that's because back in the day when I read more short stories I also read more speculative fiction. I should probably list a Sherlock Holmes story here, but I can't figure out which one. Same with Lord Dunsany and William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki stories.

You'll also notice that none of them are particularly new, and that's probably because in compiling this list I was going for stuff that's been resonating in in my head a while. Among the mystery short stories that resonate that way:

Charlotte MacLeod, “Rest You Merry.” Originally published as a short story, which became the first chapter of her first Peter Shandy mystery, also called Rest You Merry. If the commercialization of Christmas makes you mutter “Bah, humbug!”--read this.

Dan Stashower, “A Deliberate Form of Frenzy.” First published in Malice Domestic 7, 1998, and nominated for the Agatha Award. I want to reread this, because while I don't remember what it's about, after all these years I still remember how blown away I was when I read it. So since my copy of Malice Domestic 7 has gone AWOL, I have a copy on order. Which means I can also reread Dean James's “The Village Vampire and the Oboe of Death,” also an Agatha nominee, and also part of one of the most frustrating "damn, which wonderful story do I vote for?" moments in all my Malice-going.

I do read a lot of short stories these days, but since I'm in a writing group with Art Taylor and Alan Orloff and am a beta reader for Barb Goffman—well, it takes a lot to blow me away. And a lot of the short stories I know best come from the Chesapeake Crimes series that Barb and I coedit with Marcia Talley. If I started naming favorites from that series, I'd run out of space and probably insult some people by not naming them. Though Art Taylor's “When Duty Calls,” is still a personal favorite, and the fact that Tim Bentler-Jungr didn't get a nomination for “Last Rites” still puzzles me, and—but enough!

Clearly I need to do more short story reading. Want to share any suggestions?

 

Femme Marcia Talley

 

 

Femme Marcia Talley left me this note:

A sea gull just flew onto Femme Elaine’s balcony in Ft Lauderdale bearing an olive branch and a note from Femme Marcia who is somewhere in the Atlantic between the Bahamas and Charleston, SC. “Somewhere” isn’t precisely accurate since the invention of a gizmo about the size of a pack of cigarettes called GoSpot can pinpoint her location with uncanny accuracy. 

Stay tuned for details, as soon as she reaches dry land!!

 

Meanwhile, for a good time, read Marcia's latest mystery, "Mile High Murder," which is garnering starred review. 

Here's more information --

https://idahobluebird50.com/2018/04/01/mile-high-murder-by-marcia-talley/

 

See you soon, Marcia. 

Elaine Viets 

Interview with Tracy Grant

 It's no secret that Georgette Heyer, queen of the Regency-era historical novel, is one of my favorite writers. Between Heyer and Jane Austen, I became fascinated by the period of English history known as the Regency. This was the period when King George III of England was deemed unfit to rule and his son served as his Regent (1811-1820). This is also the era of the Napoleonic Wars, full of intrigue, danger, and suspense. Our guest today, Tracy Grant, is even more fascinated by the period than I am, and she has written over twenty novels and novellas set in this period. She started in the genre writing a series of Regency romances with her late mother, under the name Anthea Malcolm. That was how I first discovered her work.

Later on Tracy began writing a series featuring a husband-and-wife team, Charles and Mélanie Fraser, beginning with Secrets of a Lady (also published as Daughter of the Game). Thanks to the vagaries of publishing, after the first two books, when Tracy wanted to continue the books with a new publisher, Charles and Mélanie Fraser became Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch. So they have remained ever since. The latest in the series, The Duke's Gambit, is just out, and I asked Tracy to do an interview, and she graciously agreed.

[photo credit: Raphael Coffey] Tracy and her daughter Mélanie]

 What first drew you to the Regency period? And what keeps you there?

 Originally it was Jane Austen, starting with seeing the Greer Garson/Laurence Oliver “Pride & Prejudice" when I was six. I loved it and immediately wanted to read the book (or rather have it read to me). My mom said “I’m not sure you’ll like it, but we can try”. I thought it was wonderful—to me, at that age, it was a story about girls (older than me but young enough that I could identify with them) dealing with their sisters and parents, growing up, falling in love. (Every time I reread “Pride and Prejudice” I get different things from it, but I was totally hooked at the age of six). A family trip to England and Scotland the next year helped cement my love of British history. My mom and I went on to read all of Jane Austen and then my mom discovered Georgette Heyer’s Regency-set novels and introduced me to them. Even when I was reading on my own, we still tended to read the same books and talk about them. I loved the era and when my mom and I started writing together it seemed natural to write Regency-set stories. The more I’ve learned about the era, the more intrigued I’ve become. I love eras on the cusp of change, and the Regency is a bridge of sorts between the bawdier 18th century and Victorian restraint, between the classical and romantic eras, between between a more rural world and industrialization. It’s an era still reeling from the French Revolution with many political forces trying to push the ideas of the revolution back into the box, which resonates with as the child of sixties liberals who grew up in the eighties. The more I learn about it the more it intrigues me.

Your books have complex plots and rich, vivid backgrounds. Do you outline before you start a book, or do you sit down and start writing without one?

I’ve always been an outliner. I lay out plot elements and scene on index cards. I used to spread them on my dining room table. Now I write in Scrivener and use their cork board to lay out plot elements, which is great. Using Scrivener, I find it’s much easier to write as a I plot, and to write out of order. Often certain plot strands come into focus before others, so I can write those scenes while I’m mulling the rest of the plot. Then I do multiple drafts to piece everything together and smooth over the rough edges.

 Which comes first for each new book: the historical events that will be the framework, or the developments in Malcolm and Suzanne's story?

Good question! Sometimes one, some times the other. With "Vienna Waltz," "Imperial Scandal," and “The Paris Affair," I knew going in I wanted to do three books about the Congress of Vienna, Waterloo, and post-Waterloo Paris, so the historical events framed each story. With "The Berkeley Square Affair," I knew they’d be in England but I also knew Malcolm would learn the secrets of Suzanne/Mélanie’s past, so that drove the story. "The Mayfair Affair" continues from on from "Berkeley Square" and I’d had the story of the Rannoch governess, Laura Dudley, in mind for a long time. So much is still unraveling in the Rannochs’ lives with the secrets about Mélanie coming to the surface and the fight against the Elsinore League, that those developments really form the framework of "London Gambit," "Gilded Deceit," and "The Duke’s Gambit." Although one of the reasons I wanted them to go to Italy was to work Byron and Percy and Mary Shelley into the story, and I do have future books in mind that hinge on historical events.

I know you do extensive research for the books. What are the most difficult kinds of historical details to verify? (This is something I'm always curious about.)

Sometimes I get all hung up on a small detail like how a group would assemble to go into dinner or the order they’d get into a carriage. Or, even though one knows a gentleman stood when a lady stood, in an intimate family group does that mean the men would constantly be jumping up and down whenever the women moved about the room? It can also be really challenging at times to verify where less well known historical figures were in a given month of a given year - in the country, in London? I’m constantly learning new things - one of the things I love about the era, going to your question above. When I’m revising I always have a list of things to double-check/verify - and sometimes, I confess, I end up writing around things :-).

How far ahead do you know Malcolm and Suzanne's story? What's next after the new book?

It’s funny, I just started a Scrivener project for the series architecture so I can lay out things I know will happen and ultimately figure out which novel or novella they’ll occur in (I do a novel every May and a novella every November). A lot of questions are resolved in “The Duke’s Gambit" but it also leaves plenty of overarching questions and challenges for the characters and really sets up the next book. There are always new twists and turns that occur to me, which is one of the fun things about writing the series (I love that the characters can still surprise me), but there are quite a few upcoming developments I know. Including one that’s as much of a game-changer as the Rannochs being forced to leave Britain in "London Gambit"…

Finally, as an Anthea Malcolm fan, I wonder if these books will ever be available again?

Actually the first three, "The Widow’s Gambit," "The Courting of Philippa," and "Frivolous Pretence," are available a ebooks from NYLA (under Tracy Grant). We hope to get the others up as well. I love that readers are still discovering these books!

 
Thanks, Tracy, for taking the time to answer my questions. Tracy's website is www.tracygrant.org. Be sure to check it out for more information about the Fraser/Rannoch series and Tracy's other books! 

Read me a story, please!

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

How do I break the news to an author that his books put me to sleep? And that it's a good thing?

I suffer intermittently from insomnia. Not as often now that I don't have the day job to get up for—somehow it's harder to fall asleep when you know you have get up in eight hours. . . seven hours . . . six . . . five . . .yikes!--maybe I should stop looking at the clock. (As if that were possible.)

Until recently the best insomnia treatment I've found is music. Not just any old music—a particular playlist I've put together. All the pieces are soothing and calming; all either instrumental or with words that aren't in English. It didn't work all that well when I first tried it, but it was stuff I liked listening to, and over time I associated it with sleeping and it started working pretty well.

But lately I've discovered audiobooks. I'm in the middle of a read/reread of all of Peter Robinson's Inspector Bank series, and of the Harry Potter books. But during certain phases of the composition process, reading—or listening to—another novel, particularly another mystery, interferes with the creative process.

Enter nonfiction. Even narrative nonfiction doesn't occupy the same space in my brain as fiction, so I can read—or listen—to my heart's content. While I'm driving . . . doing housework . . . fixing dinner.

Just not in bed. Can't tell you how many times I've thought, “I'll just listen to a little more before I go off to sleep”--only to wake up in the middle of the night or even in the morning with the bedside light on and my audiobook talking away at me. Worse with fiction than nonfiction—at least with nonfiction, I sort of know how it will come out.

The other day I dreamed that I was at the assisted living where Mom used to be, explaining to management that no, I wasn't moving into take Mom's slot—just dropping by to make sure I'd packed all her stuff. You know how dreams are—this didn't look like the assisted living, and none of the staff or residents were people I recognized, but I knew it was the place. But living there wouldn't have worked out, because the woman in the next room would have been unbearable. I liked her at first—a genial, cultured, intelligent woman, and the book she was reading was interesting—but she kept reading it aloud. All. The. Time. Was she going to keep it up all day? All night?

Then I woke up and realized I'd fallen asleep on the audiobook again.

Fortunately both Audible and Overdrive, my library's audiobook platform, come with a timer, so you can set it to turn off after five minutes or an hour or any length between. Must start using that more diligently. Because no matter how interesting my book is, if I become horizontal while it's running, I'm out like a light. It's Pavlovian. I think it's a throwback to when my parents used to read to me at bedtime. And if you're prone to insomnia, it's a good thing.

But I can't just fall asleep to any old book. If it's boring, my mind starts wandering, and I start thinking about what happened during the day and what I'm going to do the following day, and I'm wide awake. I can only fall asleep to books that thoroughly engage my brain so I don't notice I'm . . . zzzzz.

The latest book I've been falling asleep to is Thomas Asbridge's The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. I'm fond of reading history, and this is about an era that I've been wanting to learn more about, and it's fascinating—densely, rather than suspensefully so. Well narrated by Derek Perkins, who's won a bunch of audio awards. And it's 800 pages in the paper version and 25 hours in the audio version, so it's been keeping me busy for quite a while. I'm in my second listen-through, and might go for a third—partly because there's that whole falling asleep thing; I'm not at all sure I didn't miss some good parts. And because it is so densely interesting, it holds up well to a relistening.

And I don't know how I'd have gotten through Mother's Day without it. I woke up the day before Mother's Day feeling kind of punk—sore throat, congestion; my allergies giving way to an actual cold. Spent some time basking in the sun at a couple of nephew baseball games, which was all I had the energy for. Then on Mother's Day I woke up with horrible chest congestion and didn't feel like getting out of bed. Which was fine; in bed was where I needed to be. I'm a big believer in sleeping through as much of cold as possible—there's the whole not being conscious to experience the misery, plus the fact that plenty of sleep will help me shake it sooner. But I was resigned to a boring day, and worse, a day in which my restless brain would keep me from getting the rest I needed to get better.

So I turned on The Crusades. Kept it playing most of the day. I have no idea how much of the day I slept and how much I merely lay there quietly listening. It was curiously comforting that whenever I woke up, Perkins and Asbridge were there, filling my fevered brain with erudite and interesting stuff. Also curiously comforting that if I fell asleep, I wasn't going to miss anything. I'd catch it next time around.

So I've put another audiobook by Asbridge on my wish list. The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones. Narrated by Derek Perkins, I note with approval. Hoping not to have another nasty cold any time soon. But if I do, I'll be ready for it.

 

It's May! It's May! the lovely month of--achoo!

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

It's a good thing I love the damned flowers so much. I really need to get out with my camera this week, to take as many beautiful pictures as possible of the wretched things. That will help me forget what their pollen is doing to my system.

(Hang on a sec. I know I had a box of tissues somewhere.)

I read something once that suggested that if you have allergies, you could improve your life—or at least avoid making it worse—by planting insect-pollinated plants rather than wind-pollinated ones. The insect-pollinated plants want to hang onto their pollen until an insect happens along, so they produce a moderate amount of pollen that is stick or spiky, and stays on the plant, or more likely INSIDE the plant—insect-pollinated plants often have cup- or trumpet-shaped blooms. The wind-pollinated plants, on the other hand, produce a vast quantity of very light smooth pollen, which they lay out on a flattish surface so even the slightest breeze can blow it away. But most of it doesn't reach another flower . . . it just drifts through the air, provoking the immune systems of those of us who have allergies.

(A-choo!)

I got very excited when I read this, because it seemed to suggest that I could make a difference in the symptoms I experienced in allergy season! And it wouldn't really affect the beauty of my yard, because, according to this same source, flowers that are insect-pollinated tend to be large, brightly colored, and fragrant—to attract those all-important flying visitors!

(It is just allergies, right? It's not turning into a cold, is it?)

Then I started reading the list of wind-pollinated plants. Oaks. My neighborhood's full of them. I'm in Reston, but I'm near Oak Hill, Oakton, Fair Oaks—and my neck of the woods could just as easily have been named Yes, Even More Oaks. Fat chance eliminating them. Or any of the other trees. The other main wind-pollinated plants are grasses and weeds. Try avoiding grass in suburbia. Or weeds. So much for achieving allergy relief through intelligent gardening.

Sigh.

(And sniff.)

At least I know I haven't made my situation worse with my gardening efforts. My peonies, daffodils, alliums, crepe myrtles, daylilies, and herbs aren't contributing to my spring misery.

Although going outside to take their pictures might.

Still, I should brave the pollen-infested open air for long enough to get some good pictures. I will. Soon. Really! In the meantime, here are a few from past pollen seasons . . . er springs.