Shhh! Don't talk about that!

Sandra Parshall

The publicity, complete with dollar figures, that greets deals by Big Name Writers might make you think publishing is a business where money is openly discussed. Not so. The book business is so secretive that many authors with major publishers have no idea how their advances and income compare to those of others with the same imprint.

Below the stratosphere inhabited by such luminaries as Grisham, Patterson, and Cornwell, ordinary writers dwell in a far different world where mum’s the word. Publishers don’t want their writers comparing notes about money. Experienced authors warn newcomers that they must never reveal details of their contracts and incomes. Or their print runs, for that matter. The reasoning is that this could cause jealousy and complaints. Writers who feel slighted might start demanding more of everything, and that would annoy publishers, something none of us wants to do. It’s best to treat such professional information as a taboo topic.

Writers comply because we tend to be insecure by nature, many of us have struggled for years to break into print, and midlist writers (and lower) are valued so little that they never feel safe. I know a lot of writers who are so afraid of inadvertently offending their editors that they wouldn’t dream of picking up the phone and calling them for any reason. (She doesn’t like being called. I might interrupt something important! And we’ve heard dark tales of writers having their contracts dropped because they phoned their editors too often.) I also know people who are afraid to call their agents. They’ll send polite e-mails and wait days or weeks for a reply rather than risk being branded a pest for telephoning even once.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that most writers accept without question the injunction against sharing professional information, especially about money, with other authors. You’d think the internet would have changed all that, but no. We seem as alone and puzzled as we ever were, afraid to ask questions, not knowing who to trust. So it’s a revelation – a shock – when any published writer offers reliable facts and figures that can help others decide which path to pursue.

Marie Harte wrote on her blog about her unrealistic expectations and the published writer who took pity on her and set her straight. Harte was planning to quit her day job, start writing romance novels, and quickly work her way onto the bestseller lists alongside Nora Roberts. She adjusted her expectations after a helpful author told her she might make $2,000 to $5,000 per book, and the money would come in over several years, not instantly. Now Harte is heavily into e-publishing, produces seven to 10 new ebooks a year, makes a satisfactory but less than extravagant living, and doesn’t mind being candid about money. See her recent informative post on the subject.

J.A. Konrath has always been outspoken about most aspects of publishing, and now that he’s moving into e-publishing in a big way, he’s talking with his customary openness about the kind of money he has already made and expects to make by going digital with his thrillers. Almost anything Konrath says is bound to generate controversy – that’s what happens when you make a little noise on the internet and you’re not afraid to share your opinions – and plenty of people are scoffing at his claims. I hope he’s right, though. I hope he has great success in e-publishing and continues to share the details with the world.

E-publishing is challenging a lot of ingrained practices in traditional publishing and making us rethink what it means to be a "published" writer. Is it possible that e-publishing will also shake up the culture of secrecy that keeps so many of us ignorant about the very profession we pursue? Is this a good development or a bad one for authors? What do you think?

(Writer graphic (c) Martin Green/Dreamstime.com)

Time in a Battle, Part 1

Sharon Wildwind

No, that’s not a misquote of song lyrics by Jim Croche. It’s about the battle all writers fight: too many things to do, too little time.

When I talk with writers about time management, I start by acknowledging that some people face horrendous time battles. “I’ll get to writing when my addiction is under control … when my health is better … when my parents’ don’t need so much of my time … when I’m out of this abusive relationship … when I know if my son is going to jail.”

I don’t pretend to deal with that problems of that severity, other than to suggest that people seek whatever help they can accept, and to do that as soon as they can.

“I am so busy … work … commuting … taking kids to soccer, ballet, music lessons, play dates … the housework … chairing the home/school committee … walking the dog … going to the gym. I’m not getting anything writing done, but I promise I’ll start being a better person next week.”

Can you spot the flaw in that logic? How about those words “better person?” Being consumed by daily life is not a moral failing or a question of being a good, bad or indifferent person.

How about these little gems?
Busy people find the time to do what really matters.
If you want something done, ask a busy person.
The more things you do, the more things you can do.
You never saw a very busy person who was unhappy.

They all imply that if you pull up your socks, stop complaining, and start working you will accomplish tons more than you’re do now. After reading quotes like that what I feel mostly is tired.

Many years ago, I knew a woman who was a shining light in her profession. She was constantly invited to national conferences; her publication list was longer than my arm. I just knew she would win big awards, have a building wing named after her, or become a presidential advisor.

One day I noticed that she’d gotten a very short—very attractive—hair cut. The little voice inside of me groaned, “She’s got all this talent and now she has nice hair, too. Life isn’t fair.”

When I complimented her on the new style she said, “I had it cut because I calculated how many minutes I spent each week washing and brushing my hair. With shorter hair, I can cut that time in half, and use those free minutes to write more papers.”

That was when I decided maybe I didn’t want to be her when I grew up.

How about this one: “This is the way I do things, but my way may not work for you. Do what feels right; do what works for you.”

That advice is supposed to help how?

Today and on the next two Tuesdays, I’m going to walk you through three exercises related to how to examine what “feeling right” or what “works.”

This week’s homework: Track how you spend your time

Use paper and pencil to track all of your time for at least one week. Unlike the woman above who probably wrote 0714 to 0716: brushing hair, you can group activities.

0700 Get up
0700 to 0830 Morning ritual (that covers activities like personal hygiene, making and eating breakfast, dressing, letting the dog out, making the kids’ lunches, letting the dog in, pouring coffee into travel mug, etc.)
0830 to 0915 Drive to work

Writing down all of your activities works better than just thinking about it. Write every day. Write every activity. It’s only for seven days. Deal with it.

At the end of seven days, get some colored doo-dads (crayons, pencils, or markers) or use the highlight feature on your computer and color-code the activities. There are 10 categories, so instead of a basic box of 8 crayons, you might have to upgrade to a box of 16 colors. If you’re a crayon freak like I am, that won’t be a hardship. Using any color you want, color each entry you made.
1. Sleep
2. Exercise (not going to and from the gym, but how long you spend shaking your booty and sweating)
3. Preparing food, eating, and cleaning up after eating (Coffee and tea breaks count as eating.)
4. Domestic economy (I love that old term. It means anything you do to keep the household running: cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, picking up dry cleaning, taking the car to be serviced, dealing with the hot water heater exploding, etc.)
5. Travel time (Going to and from work, taking the kids to their events, taking your mother to the doctor, going to and from the gym.)
6. Rituals, be they daily, weekly, or monthly (see the morning ritual example a few paragraphs earlier)
7. Work, school, religious/spiritual activities, and volunteer time
8. Down time (reading, television, movies, staring out of the window, playing solitaire on the computer, surfing the net. Yes, include intimate relations in this category. And no comments about that being up time instead of down time.)
9. The thing you really want to do, whether it be writing, art, dance, climbing Mt. Everest, etc.
10. Other (just in case we missed anything)

Don’t waffle. “This wasn’t a good week to do this because the hot water heater exploded and I had to deal with the plumber on two days,” or “Normally I get more exercise than this.” aren’t important. We’ll see why next week when we talk about the next great time battle: our values versus the clock.

_________
Quote for the week:
Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side.
~The Talmud

Crossing the Treacherous Bridge

by Julia Buckley
I have a work in progress. What is written so far, my writing group tells me, is good, solid. I have also written an ending--I needed to get it on paper while I had it in my head, and I knew what was going to happen to this protagonist before I wrote the first sentence.

But the hardest part happens now. I need for this woman to get from where she is now to where she will be at the end. I know basically what she must do to reach that destination. Somehow, though, I can't seem to cross that bridge. I've been putting off writing for weeks now, because I just can't figure out the best way to do it.

So here I stand, knowing where to go but somehow unable to go there. I liken it to standing before a bridge that is rickety or crumbling or on fire. The bridge is daunting, so the traveler (me) refuses to cross.

What steps does one take to cross the bridge anyway? I know that the obvious answer is to put myself in the chair and write until I find my way. But I'm avoiding it the way I used to avoid the Riverside Shakespeare in college right before the big final. It wasn't that I couldn't do it--it was that it was too big, too daunting. I fell into the habit of avoidance.

So, readers and writers, what tips do you have to help me forge into the fire? I know other people must have been in this place before--so I'll be happy to take advice from fellow travelers who have already crossed the bridge.

(Photo: Sunset over Lake Michigan; Ian Buckley, 2010).

Funds for Writers

By C. Hope Clark
Guest blogger

Some writers enter the profession thinking as paupers, others as bestseller authors. The two schools of thought represent opposite ends of the spectrum, with the reality of how to earn a living falling somewhere in between. FundsforWriters began ten years ago to assist creative minds to think logically about making a buck with their words.

I served 25 years with a lending/grant federal agency, approving, auditing and managing funds. I wrote creatively before I entered the business world, so when I returned to my writing roots, I envisioned writing the Great American Novel. I couldn’t stand to write for nothing, however, and pursued freelance work online, back when Internet writing was nouveau. A writer’s group saw my byline on a few items and asked me to speak about this new world. The conversation diverted to the affordability of being a writer, and I captured the opportunity to advise attendees on grants and balancing a budget.

The dam burst. Emails flooded my box, and to avoid rewriting the same guidance to a dozen people at a time, I created a newsletter. Three months later, I had almost a thousand subscribers. The rest is history. Every time I tried to revert back to my novel, more readers lined up for FundsforWriters. Finally I embraced the need for such a resource, and I haven’t looked back. Today FundsforWriters newsletters reach 32,000 readers per week.

Business aspects of writing are distasteful to most, and lack of attention to business details often lead to a writer’s demise. Most of my readers search for reliable information. New writers usually rely upon search engines to find publishers, freelance work and contests. As a result, people self-publish without understanding the existence of traditional publishing, submit to writing mills, and get scammed by unscrupulous competitions.

FundsforWriters fights hard to be a respectable source of grants, contests, freelance markets, publishers and jobs. The organization strives to:

1. Only represent paying markets;
2. Screen the writing opportunities for accuracy and credibility; and
3. Provide paying venues for writers with limited time to search.

The mission of FundsforWriters is simple: to provide an honest resource for writers. In this effort, FFW consists of four newsletters, consultations, a dozen ebooks and a fun little set of resources called Tweetebooks for those seeking niche markets. Three of the newsletters are free; one is a paid subscription, and all aid you in finding income for poetry and prose.

FundsforWriters – Posts fifteen grants, markets, contests, jobs and publishers seeking submissions. Payment equals or exceeds $350 or 20 cents/word. It’s delivered weekly free of charge. This is the parent newsletter, the oldest, and the most popular.

FFW Small Markets – This free weekly publication contains ten contests and markets, all paying, although the threshold falls below that of FundsforWriters.

WritingKid – The smallest newsletter, it still reaches 3,000 readers. It provides a short piece of advice then ten contests, scholarships and markets for kids from elementary to college level. It’s distributed no charge every two weeks.

TOTAL FundsforWriters – Our paid subscription comes out biweekly with 75 or more of the opportunities posted in the parent FundsforWriters newsletter.

FFW also specializes in grants. Difficult to find, grants are still more plentiful than expected. They just don’t exist in one place. And if you don’t understand grants, they elude you even more. With a grant background, I chose to enlighten many writers on the benefits, chances and importance of grants to a career. Grants are free money, but qualification ranks up there with finding an agent or publisher. One has to search for the perfect union between writer’s goal and grantor’s mission. By posting these calls for submissions, I attempt to educate writers on yet another funding opportunity to fuel their ambition.

I do not hesitate to brag that FundsforWriters has a personality second to few. The genuine voice of the publications attracts new and established writers, professors and professional journalists, creative writing instructors and fledgling freelancers. Many read it for the editorial alone in which the newsletter attempts to nail down a topic in everyday English with a twist of humor and a smack-down of common sense. The kick-in-the-butt flavor seems to be pretty popular with writers and the writing business. Writer’s Digest included www.fundsforwriters.com in its 101 Best Websites for Writers for the past nine years in a row.

Too many enter the world of writing and think a byline will catapult the career. Some of the hardest working people on this planet are writers, but through failure to plan, self-promote, diversify, establish a platform or organize, many of them fall by the wayside. A contest win might be the shot in the arm one writer needs to continue the novel. A freelance assignment can help promote the new book release. Blogging is excellent self-marketing, and nothing is wrong with earning a living with it while editing that nonfiction book project. A grant can provide seclusion to pound out a draft or feed income to a writer willing to present to schools.

We have to think like business people, utilizing all the avenues possible to make a career work. You might be dedicated to the novel, but at the same time you can enter it in a contest, write magazine columns about its topic and apply for a grant to assist you in final edits. We’re multi-faceted people endowed with a creative streak. Don’t waste that talent. Capitalize on all the tools of the trade and think like a business success. Writing block and busy agendas are no excuse for not pursuing your dream. You must find the time and means to accomplish what you love. FundsforWriters exists to help writers do just that . . . succeed at what they really want to do.

************************************
C. Hope Clark is editor of FundsforWriters. She writes nonfiction by day and mysteries by night from the banks of Lake Murray in South Carolina. She is also author of The Shy Writer: The Introvert’s Guide to Writing Success, 2nd edition, which continues to sell well to the tentative writer.

Dedicated readers . . . we love YOU!

By Lonnie Cruse

Recently a first-grader I know walked in with an open book in hand, reading and glancing to see where he was as he walked. I was impressed. He was immersed in that book and didn't want to put it down. I shared with him that I'm the same kind of reader, can't hardly put a good book down, snatch every chance to read. Usually to see what happens next to the characters. Same for you?

Summer is here, in spirit if not in fact. Memorial Day weekend is past, a holiday which usually signals summer for most folks, even if it doesn't officially arrive until this month. Schools are mostly out, and people are heading to the beach or the lake or wherever they can find enough water to get wet in. Many will carry books along. (Some will even pack a Kindle or other e-reader, many of which advertise that they can be read in strong sun light.)

Sooo, dear reader, if you are as dedicated as that little boy, or me, what do you take to the beach/lake/pond/puddle with you to read? Do you want summer reading, ignoring anything with snow on the cover or in the text? Do you read seasonal? Or does it matter?

Personally, I'm a seasonal reader, wanting Halloween at Halloween, Christmas books at Christmas, and lots of sun and water in the summer. Give me a dead body on a beach and I'm yours. Give me a body under the Christmas tree in December . . . ditto. Happy camper. Literally. I used to carry whole sacks of books when we camped and read my way through them while away from home. YES, I spent time with hubby and the kids, hiking, enjoying nature, etc. but if the boat was running on high speed toward the next bay to check out the fish, I'd grab those few minutes to read a chapter or two. I'd read before going to sleep (still do) and any other time I could sneak.

Do you carry books everywhere? What do you carry? Seasonal? Best seller? Doesn't matter as long as it's paper with printed words?

Enjoy your summer, enjoy your reading. And give Sandra Dallas' books a chance. Her books are great reading any time of the year. I'm currently reading THE PERSIAN PICKLE CLUB. You? And don't forget, we writers love you readers! Can't do the job without you.

Switching Hats As A Writer

Elizabeth Zelvin

After several years writing mystery novels, I’ve unexpectedly become a short story writer as well. Following up on a tip on the Short Mystery e-list, I found a small press devoted to anthologies that is seeking submissions on a variety of themes to be published over the next two years. Payment? Two copies, or in the case of the flash fiction anthologies, “exposure—this is a 4 The Luv anthology.” It reminded me of my thirty years writing poetry. Two copies was standard pay for acceptance of a poem in a journal, and even for my two poetry collections with a good small press, the “royalty” was in copies. I’ve also written numerous articles as a clinical expert on addictions, codependency, and online therapy for professional journals (payment, yep, two copies) and a book coedited with a tenured academic, who believed the publisher who told her there was no need for an advance “because it comes out of royalties anyway.” A small amount in royalties eventually trickled in, but I made more money as a poet. In fact, my one hefty check as winner of a state grant in poetry exceeded the advance on my first mystery and equaled the second. I’ve also been an on-and-off songwriter for a long time. Apart from the few bucks at the gate of various coffee houses over the decades, I’ve never made a dime from my songs. In fact, those crumpled bills were compensation for the performance, not the writing.

Now we’ve established that it isn’t about the money, let’s look at how all these different forms of writing differ. I tend to return to the themes that interest me most: love, alcoholism, relationships, death. But form dictates language, so both the words I use and the overall impact of voice are not the same in a poem as in a song, nor in fiction as in an academic article, nor in what I think of as journalistic feature writing and use for blogging and pop articles. I’m not sure there’s much difference between my novel voice and my short story voice—as long as I’m writing about the same characters. But the short story allows me to explore any number of voices that I might not want to sustain for the length of a novel. My series characters are flawed but unquestionably good guys. My stories include two in third person, both of whose protagonists are killers. Make that three, if you count flash fiction. One first-person story protagonist also kills, but she has a very, very good reason.

Here’s how I write about alcoholism, for example.

Professional article:
The relational theory of women’s psychological development provides a convincing context for the gender-specific treatment of addicted women.
Affilia, Vol 14 No 1, Spring 1999 9-23 © Sage Publications

Pop article:
One big reason there is still debate about whether alcoholism is a disease is the peculiar fact that its hallmark symptom is denial. It's the problem that tells you you don't have a problem.
“When Is It Time to Worry About Your Drinking?” © Elizabeth Zelvin 2004
Available at: www.lzcybershrink.com/articles6.htm

Mystery novel:
I woke up in detox with the taste of stale puke in my mouth....I had an awful feeling it was Christmas Day.
Death Will Get You Sober, Minotaur 2008

Mystery short story:
I sat on the floor in Barbara and Jimmy’s living room...and ground my teeth. For this I’d stayed sober for 357 days and changed my whole life?
“Death Will Trim Your Tree” in The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont 2009

Poem:
he was in a blackout when he broke the fishtank
he remembers pouring one more shining cataract
fit for drunken trout to leap deliriously upstream
spawning on his lips the songs, the curses
lies, excuses, broken promises
“Hitting Bottom” in Gifts & Secrets: Poems of the Therapeutic Relationship, New Rivers 1999

Song:
My daddy was a quiet man and some would call him cold
But I know he must have loved me when I was four years old
‘Cause he’d take me by the hand sometimes and lead me up the hill
To where the white corn liquor was bubbling in the still.
“The Still” © Elizabeth Zelvin 1998

Everybody's Talking

by Sheila Connolly

Sandy's still recuperating, but she'll be back on Wednesdays by next week.

Time was, writers huddled in freezing garrets, scribbling with a quill pen, a lead pencil, or, later, pounding on a manual typewriter. They were solitary creatures, listening only to the voices in their heads (when they weren’t out working at menial jobs to support their creative habit) and trying to set the words down on paper. There was, of course, only one copy originally, or maybe a smudgy carbon copy or two once the mechanical device came along. This soon-tattered document circulated amongst editors and publishers, one at a time, gathering coffee-stains and dog-ears along the way, until it was judged too pathetic and the poor writer had to laboriously reproduce it.

I grew up with the oft-repeated tale from my parents, that when they were first married and living in New York City, they lived in the same building as A Writer (this was said in reverent tones). As I recall, it was Robert Ruark, who enjoyed some small fame in the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe he actually lived in the building, or maybe it was his New York pied a terre—it doesn’t really matter. What I remember is the attitude my parents held toward their neighbor, even though I don’t think they ever exchanged a word with him. He was A Writer; he was Special.

Writers were for centuries mysterious, enigmatic figures. But that’s not true any more, because, thanks largely to the Internet, we all know each other now, or at least, know of each other. What’s more, we all communicate with each other. A lot. We blog together, we email each other, we follow each other from list to list. There are no secrets any more.

This is a mixed blessing. On the plus side, we have a terrific support network—people who know what we’re going through and can commiserate about our rejections and celebrate our successes with us. We also pool agent, editor and publisher information (which I’m not sure those people have quite figured out yet, but that’s fine). Most of us who have books in print know that publishing houses dole out details with a small spoon. We have to fight to find out how many books we’ve sold, how many returns there have been, how our paper darlings are performing when compared to the rest of the herd. So to be able to compare notes with our peers; to get a glimpse into what “success” is; and to be able to cheer for a struggling newcomer, is wonderful and immensely helpful to us all, wherever we are in our career path.

But the easy availability of information also has a downside, or at least a potential one.

We all know the rules: grab the reader up front with a strong hook; if you’re writing mysteries, put the body in the first chapter; avoid backstory at all costs; show, don’t tell; end each chapter with a hook; end the book with another hook so the reader will want to buy the next book in the series. And so on. We all participate in the same online classes, for plotting, building characters, constructing the hero’s story arc. We all know which books on writing are recommended—and there are plenty of them. We all know which blogs to follow for insider information. We all know which agents are hot, and which publishers are cutting lines. In other words, we all know too much.

One of the things we know is that agents—the gatekeepers to publication—reject 98 per cent of the submissions they receive because they don’t stand out. They may be in the correct form and format, they may be competently written, polite and businesslike—but they’re all saying the same thing. Paragraph 1: please consider my time travel romantic suspense, complete at 102,000 words. Paragraph 2: Voluptuous Jane meets Hunky John on a space platform somewhere in time and they fall instantly in love. Unfortunately they both lose each other’s temporal spatial coordinates (for 287 pages). Will these star-crossed (star-crossing?) lovers find each other again without disrupting the time-space continuum? Paragraph 3: Eager writer is uniquely qualified to write this book because s/he has extensive experience in time travel, love, and IPS (that’s Intergalactic Position Systems).

And this is the norm. The swamped agent eyeballs the email query and hits delete in a nanosecond, because she’s seen it literally thousands of times before.

In short, we’ve homogenized writing. Are we better or worse off than we were when we writers labored in isolation? Or, are the books that do make it into print better or worse? We’d love to hear your opinions.

Leakage

Sharon Wildwind

For over twenty years Verso Advertising has focused on helping publishers market their books. Their initial 2010 digital survey of book-buying behavior surveyed over 9,000 people. Adults (age 18 and over), who used the Internet and who chose to respond, were surveyed.

Here’s what the survey found out about leakage. Leakage means that a customer uses services or information from one source, in order to buy goods from another source.

More than 26% of people surveyed browse at their favorite independent bookstore and then buy books they've discovered there online or at chain stores. Some 10% of customers of independent book stores do this frequently, and the phenomenon is more pronounced among book buyers aged 18-34. More than a third of this age group have browsed at an independent book store but bought elsewhere within the past year. Such sales leakage could be costing independent book stores more than $260 million in sales and 1.8% of market share.

I have to admit that, on this one, I go the opposite way. I find information on line about books, and then contact my local independent bookstore to ask if they can get the book for me.

But I don’t come up so good on a couple of other habits. I realized the other day how much I’ve started taking for granted some talented and hard-working people who help me survive as an author.

I use my local library a lot. Right now I have four books checked out, ten requested as holds, and one on its way to me through interlibrary loan. That’s a pretty typical week. In the past year, my total contribution to the library has been the cost of one library card and some odd change dropped into the “Help us buy books” box at the checkout counter.

Wikipedia? I spend more time there every day than I do eating, exercising, or exchanging e-mail with my family. My total financial support, ever, to the Wikimedia Foundation? Zero.

Shareware is computer programs available for free download, with the tacit understanding that if you find a program you like and use, you will pay the people who wrote the program in a modest sum, usually $5 to $15 for a one-function program, and $15 to $30 for larger programs. I’ve lost count of the number of shareware programs that I’m using without having paying any money to their creators.

I know the arguments. These are tough economic times. I’m on a fixed income. My taxes pay for libraries. It’s such a hassle to pay five dollars through PayPal. Those geeks created something because they like doing it, so they don’t need to be paid.

Like heck they don’t.

If I look forward to being paid when I’ve done a good job, what makes me think that I don’t owe something to other people when they do a good job?

In the immortal words of Robert Heinlein, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." I may not be able to buy the full-course meal for everyone, but I think I'll go treat a few people to a some appetizers.
----
Quote for the week:
In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.
~Dalai Lama, Head of the Dge-lugs-pa order of Tibetan Buddhists, 1989 Nobel Peace Prize

Leisure and Remembrance

by Julia Buckley

On this Memorial Day weekend, reflection seems to be in order, especially because the weather lends itself to some back yard resting. Lorraine Hansbury said, "Never be afraid to sit awhile and think," and I'm with her. I'm going to dare to sit and daydream and possibly eat some ice cream while I do it.

However, a part of the day's reflection always leads me to the reason for the day--the memorials that are in order for those who serve the country--enlisted people both living and dead.

I always like to ponder the words of Abraham Lincoln, whose graceful prose showed the proper respect for both the dignity of service and the pain of loss. In his second inaugural address (1865), he said:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

Happy Memorial Day to all veterans and their families, and to all American troops and the people who wait for them at home.

The Veiled Prophet Lives On

By Joanna Campbell Slan
Guest blogger

Ah, fame. It certainly is fleeting.

Most of us would scratch our heads in confusion when hearing the name “Thomas Moore.” But back in the 1800s, Edgar Allan Poe called Moore “the most popular poet now living.” His Oriental poem “Lalla-Rookh” not only inspired Poe’s “Al Aaraaf,” it also inspired a St. Louis tradition that I included in my latest book, Photo, Snap, Shot (May/Midnight Ink).

More than one hundred years ago, a businessman named Alonzo Slayback spun “Lalla-Rookh” into what he called “an illuminated nocturnal pageant,” featuring “the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,” a character from Moore’s poem. The pageant would include a lavish parade and a debutante ball. Slayback wrote in his diary, “for next year, and the year after, and so on for a hundred years, the strangers who visit our October fairs can be entertained.” Along with his goal of civic boosterism for St. Louis, he and a group of likeminded individuals wanted to create an ongoing organization, a “mysterious brotherhood.”

To build interest in their organization, the group sent a messenger bearing “information” to the local newspapers. The image you see here ran in the Missouri Republican along with information about the “carnival feature” to come.

On October 8, 1878, at 8 p.m., a crowd gathered on the banks of the Mississippi River. The air was crisp, the sun had set, and anticipation grew to a fevered pitch when someone cried out, “I see it! I see it! The barge! He’s coming!”

Rockets exploded, filling the sky with streamers of fire.

As the flat boat grew closer, onlookers could make out a lavishly costumed figure who looked much more benevolent than the image in the woodcut. The Veiled Prophet wore a white veil, a Carnival-type mask, and a deep green robe. In one hand was a mirror and in the other was a “magic scroll.” To the cheers of fifty thousand spectators, the Prophet was escorted to a gold throne on a float pulled by prancing horses. Seventeen more floats followed behind, making their way down one and one-half miles of cobblestone streets lit by more than 1,000 torches.

The Prophet had arrived to bestow his blessings on St. Louis, a city that found great favor with him. As a token of his esteem, the Veiled Prophet also made an appearance as a special guest at a debutante ball. There he chose one young maiden to rule for an entire calendar year as his Queen of Love and Beauty.

This tradition continues today. And my protagonist Kiki Lowenstein learns that a murder at her daughter’s school may have its internecine roots in the city’s century old pageantry.

Over the past 132 years, the Veiled Prophet has meant many things to the people of St. Louis. Slayback would be proud that his idea has enjoyed such a long and colorful history. Today, the Veiled Prophet (VP) is still a vital part of St. Louis high society. The debutante ball remains unparalleled in its beauty and grandeur. What was once an elitist organization has become ever more inclusive. The organization has made investments of more than $1.75 million in the city, and VP volunteers have given service projects more than 1800 man-days of sweat equity.

For my purposes, the Veiled Prophet celebration forms a fascinating diversion in a murder investigation. When I started this series, I chose St. Louis as the setting not only because I lived there (“write what you know”), but also because I think St. Louis is such an interesting and unique place.

I’m curious. What do you think about all this? Would you like to see a Veiled Prophet Parade? Have you ever attended a debutante ball? Can you imagine yourself as part of a coronation fit for a queen?

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Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of eleven non-fiction books as well as Paper, Scissors, Death, an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. Photo, Snap, Shot (May/Midnight Ink) is the third book in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. Publisher’s Weekly called Photo, Snap, Shot a “diverting” mystery that is “a cut above the usual craft themed cozy.” Joanna is a regular blogger at http://KillerHobbies.blogspot.com. Visit her at www.JoannaSlan.com.