NICE NEIGHBORS

by Sheila Connolly

I've been playing catch-up this week, since I've just finished the draft of one book, due to my publisher at the end of the month, and I'm waiting for editorial comments on another book, due next week.  So while I wait, I've been clearing off my desk and finalizing some things that have been pending for a while.

One of which is my cemetery plot.  No, I don't have a terminal illness, nor does anyone in my family.  But I have an unusual history with cemeteries: they are my inheritance.  I can prove ownership of at least four plots, all of which have space in them.  In some cases there hasn't been a burial in the plot for decades.

Since the world has a way of surprising you, I thought it made sense to verify what my rights are, in the event something unexpected happens.  After all, your loved ones usually aren't in any condition to make major decisions at difficult times, and they may live far away, which complicates matters.  So if I can make one small part of the process simpler, I'll feel better.

The thing of it is, I'm not talking about any old cemetery; I'm talking about Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  All right, most people won't know anything about it, or will confuse it with Washington Irving's story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (that's in a different state).  "My" Sleepy Hollow is famous for other reasons:  it's where all those authors are buried.

My family has a long history with the place.  The plot where I (or whatever is left of me) want to spend eternity was bought when my great-great-great-grandmother Sarah Durant Pratt died in 1893.  She didn't even live in Concord at that time, but that's where she met and married her husband.  She was probably a millworker, and he was a carpenter, later contractor.  They did have one son who lived in Concord in the 1890s (he had his own plot in the same cemetery).

So the family bought the plot for Sarah, and she and later her husband and a couple of her daughters were buried there.  It's a nice plot, right on one of the internal roads, on level ground--easy to get to. Lots of passers-by. But the biggest appeal is that it's right down the hill from Author's Ridge.

There was a cemetery on the site in the eighteenth century, but the better-known section was designed in 1855 by a pair of landscape architects.  Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke at the consecration.  It was one of the earlier "garden cemeteries" (Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, founded in 1831, was the first, followed closely by Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia).  Such cemeteries were intended as something like recreational sites, where middle-class citizens could pack a picnic lunch and visit to commune with the dead and enjoy the glories of nature.  They were provided with benches and strolling paths, punctuated by burbling fountains.  Maybe now it seems a bit odd to think of cemeteries as places for pleasure, but I've enjoyed more than my fair share.

To return to Sleepy Hollow's Author's Ridge...think back to the heady days of the nineteenth century, when the historic town of Concord was a hotbed of Transcendentalism, led by Emerson (whose house is not far distant from the cemetery).  Picture the marvelous dinners that gathered Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and others around Emerson's table.  It shouldn't surprise you that they chose to continue their discourse even after death:  they're all buried together in the cemetery.  The Thoreau family, the Alcott family, the Emerson family, as well of Nathaniel Hawthorne, all cheek by jowl at the top of the hill--overlooking "my" plot, passed down to me through generations.

Louisa May Alcott

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I first visited the cemetery when I was a teenager, with my mother and grandmother.  My grandmother had presided over the last interment there, in 1935, representing the dwindling family (she had married Sarah's great-grandson).  I have always remembered the visit, most notably Emerson's pink quartz stone.




Fast forward to 2003.  I was housesitting for a college friend in a town near Concord, while my daughter finished high school so we could move to Massachusetts where my husband had a job waiting.  I was unexpectedly unemployed, so I wrote a book.  It was not a wonderful book, but it was good enough to land me my first agent.  In the spring of 2003, before heading back to Pennsylvania to pack up for the move, I stopped by the cemetery to talk to the authors.  I had planned to ask them to help me sell the book.  Instead, what came out of my mouth unexpectedly was, "help me make it good."

I guess it worked.  That book didn't sell, and I fired that first agent, but eight years later I have nine books on the shelves and more coming.  Thank you, Louisa, David, Nathaniel and Ralph.  (BTW, my grandmother was a BIG fan of Emerson.)

All of these writers and thinkers were already installed on top of the ridge when my family bought the cemetery plot.  Did it affect their selection?  I don't know.  But I would be honored to take my place among the Concord titans--which is why I'm paying the back fees this week.


P.S.  If you want one more literary note, Louisa May Alcott wrote a short mystery story in 1867:  "The Mysterious Key and What It Opened." It's widely available as a free download online.

How Publishing Has Changed Since 1928

Elizabeth Zelvin

No, that date is not a typo. A newbie on one of my mystery e-lists mentioned a major publisher she used to work for. I hadn’t heard the name (which I’ll omit) for quite some time, since they don’t publish fiction, but it rang a very loud bell for me. My mother, who was a lawyer, worked for them as a legal editor from 1928 till about 1940 and as a freelance writer and editor from 1954 for another 25 years or so. One of her books, an encyclopedia of real estate appraisal, went into four editions and brought royalties for decades. I said as much on the e-list. This aroused my interest in an aspect of my mother’s life that I hadn’t thought about for ages. First, I did what comes naturally nowadays: I googled my mother and looked up the book on Amazon. Then I made the old-fashioned move: went to my bookshelves and blew the dust off the the books I still have: the 1960 first edition (1,458 pages) and the 1978 third edition (1,283 pages). Could the impulse to blog be far behind?

My mother graduated from law school in 1924, determined to have a career and having turned down a proposal from my dad. (The most honest lawyer ever born, he made the mistake of telling her he’d never be rich.) By 1928, she’d ascertained that it was close to impossible for a woman to get a job as a lawyer. She found an alternative niche in the legal department of the aforementioned publisher, where she and a law school friend pioneered not only as the first women, but also as the first Jewish editors ever hired in that department. They were responsible for several fat volumes fetchingly entitled Corporate Minutes, Meetings, and Resolutions. These sat on our bookshelves throughout my childhood, and I was never once tempted to open one.

Back in 1928, employees were not allowed to leave their desks, even to go to the bathroom, much less take a coffee break whenever they wanted or indulge in idle chatter when they were supposed to be working. On the other hand, benefits included profit sharing, and my mother sold her nest egg of the company’s stocks decades later at an impressive profit.

In 1935, my mother finally said yes to my dad, who’d remained a faithful swain, and a few years later quit her job to have children. But being a homemaker alone was not enough for her. In the mid-Fifties, when I was ten, she went back to the same publisher, working from home as a freelance writer and editor. This is how I learned my editing skills at my mother’s knee. For the Real Estate Encyclopedia, published in 1960, my mother solicited contributions from experts on various kinds of real estate, a topic she knew nothing about.

So far, not so different from what the editor of a contributed work of professional nonfiction would do. (I did it myself with a 1997 book on gender and addictions—a field in which I was myself a professional—communicating with my co-editor in Israel by fax, a heady new technology at the time.) But here are some aspects of publishing that I remember, now gone with the wind.

One, my mother rigorously outlined every chapter, asking the contributing authors to give precisely the information she wanted in the book.

Two, after receiving the chapters and tearing her hair over real estate appraisers’ lack of writing skills and ability to ignore her outline, she rewrote every single chapter herself. (I just opened my copy of the Encyclopedia of Real Estate Appraising, Third Edition, probably for the first time ever, and the prose is smooth as silk.)

Three, the publisher paid her an additional sum to do her own index. And that index was exhaustive. No omissions were tolerated. It was perfect. At ten, I became my mother’s apprentice, laying, yep, index cards out on the dining room table, alphabetizing them by the topics, subtopics, and sub-subtopics typed on my mother’s old Royal. No typos or errors in alphabetization ever slipped through.

What else would never happen today? The publisher reimbursed her for every penny she spent on postage, although bulky manuscripts and then galleys—the old long kind—and page proofs went back and forth several times from as far away as Hawaii, which did not become a state until 1959. I also remember her cutting and pasting layouts, using scissors and glue on the proofs. They probably paid her extra for that too. It was all in her contract.

My mother died in 1999 at the age of 96, and she was still dickering with her publisher, trying to get them to do another edition. In fact, changes in publishing and technology made her book obsolete, along with the information explosion. She really needed a staff of researchers, which an academic or an expert in a big firm would have had access to. The publisher wanted to do a “looseleaf” reference work, to which rapidly changing information could be added a lot more quickly. And once the Internet took off, it was all over.

On Amazon, I discovered that the 1978 edition of my mother’s book can still be found from third-party sellers: one new for $194.98 and one used for $11.09. It rates five stars, based on one review from a guy who said it was “the book I was looking for” and that he’d be interested in other editions. I’ve tracked down his email address and hope to find out why. Meanwhile, the book ranks 1,487,986 on Amazon—not so bad for a hardcover published more than thirty years ago.

A New Voice: Bernadette Pajer

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall


Bernadette Pajer's first novel, A Spark of Death, has just been published by Poisoned Pen Press.

Tell us a little about A Spark of Death.

A Spark of Death is an historical mystery set in 1901 Seattle. The sleuth is Benjamin Bradshaw, a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. A widower with an eight-year-old son, his carefully controlled life is shattered when he finds a colleague dead in the engineering laboratory, and as the only suspect, he sets out to find the killer.

How would you describe Professor Bradshaw? What kind of man is he?

He's a highly intelligent and deeply emotional man who protects himself by being withdrawn and avoiding society. He tends toward obsession when ideas strike. He's a practical hands-on inventor, loves the precision and absoluteness of math but finds more abstract theory challenging (this makes him an excellent teacher because he finds graspable descriptions for both himself and his students). Behind his dour exterior lurks the heart of a poet, touched by beauty, haunted by his past, and devoted to his small family.

An electrical engineering professor is an unusual choice for a hero, and electrical forensics is a previously unexplored area in mystery novels. Why did you choose this protagonist and this specialty? Do you have a background in electrical engineering?

I know it sounds cliché, but I don't feel I chose Bradshaw's profession. The idea of him came fully formed, as characters sometimes do. There he was, in my head, in my heart, this wounded, dour Professor, thrilled with electricity and its promising future. Since I am not an electrical engineer, I knew I had a lot of research and much studying to do. I should have been daunted, but I was determined to bring Bradshaw alive on the page and willing to do the work. Almost the instant the manuscript sold, I went in search of an engineer to check the technical portions, and I found Bill Beaty, a research engineer at the UW. He generously and enthusiastically read the entire manuscript and provided valuable suggestions. I was pleased that I'd gotten most everything right, and Bill helped me fine tune the detail to a level that would satisfy even an electrical engineer (such as using the term "electric discharge" in some places rather than "electricity.")

Moving Bradshaw into electrical forensics as the series progresses was my idea (and Bradshaw is cooperating), because I wanted to give him a legitimate reason for being involved in future investigations. Like Brother Cadfael in Ellis Peters' series, Bradshaw's ability to solve puzzling crimes will bring murder often to his doorstep.

Why did you decide to set your story in early 20th century Seattle? What does the historical setting offer you as a storyteller that you might not have in a modern setting?

Distance. Seriously. I like that filter of time. It frees me to write honestly of subjects I wouldn't feel comfortable addressing in a contemporary setting. I'm a bit of an odd duck for a writer – I don't like to journal or keep a diary. When I try to write about here and now, I censor too much, am too aware of an audience. I wrote a contemporary mystery a couple years or ago. My agent was going to send it out to make the rounds, but I decided at the last minute to shelve it for awhile. I don't know whether aspects of that story are too honest, or not honest enough.  Probably some of each. But I knew it, and I, weren't ready yet. But my historical with Bradshaw was ready, and my wonderful, supportive agent resubmitted A Spark of Death, and this time it sold.

Is this the first novel you’ve written, or do you have others stuck in a drawer, the way many writers do? Tell us about your development as a writer.

Oh, goodness. Well, I dug into my old files and here's the scoop. I submitted my first manuscript to an agent in, gulp, 1988. A contemporary romance, the typical first-novel coming of age sort of thing. The agent said I wrote “with warmth if not yet with sufficient discipline,” which was generous of her. I had no idea, really, what I was doing. She kindly put me in the care of a new agent, and I thought I would soon be published. Hah!

Another ten manuscripts (three never left home) and at least sixty-three rejections later, I was still unsold. I was writing historical romance by then, and some time-travel romance, and the editors were saying very nice things, and I was feeling confident in my work. I'd gotten a few revision letters, and worked once with an editor for a year on a proposal she ultimately didn't buy. I went through a bit of a crisis at that point, both professionally and personally. Besides pursuing writing, I was pursuing motherhood, and not succeeding there either. I decided to make a fresh start with everything. I left the literary agency I'd been with all those years with thanks for all the support they'd given me, and took some time to rediscover my joy of reading and writing.

That's when I wrote A Spark of Death, with Professor Bradshaw, who I'd first written about years before. It felt like coming home. I loved being in his world, doing the research, exploring old Seattle, learning about life and love and electricity through him. By now my craft was solid (although one never stops learning), and I believed whole-heartedly in the manuscript. I found a new agent, Jill Grosjean, who luckily felt the same way. It took about ten years, two revisions, an interim manuscript (that contemporary never sent out), and 22 rejections before I finally got a yes. There's more to that story, but this answer is long enough. Oh, and in that time, I returned to college and got my degree, and most wonderful of all, my son was born.

What draws you to crime fiction, as opposed to mainstream or literary writing?

It took me years to figure out, but this is where my voice belongs. I enjoy reading literary works, but I don't have a literary voice. I'm a commercial fiction writer. I love a good story, I love escaping into another world, and I like a happy or at least satisfying ending where the good guy wins and I get a sense of closure. I like to read books where every word serves a purpose, either to move the plot forward, heighten tension, or ground me in the setting, and I try to write in that same way.                     

What writers have influenced you and served as role models? Whose books do you rush to read as soon as they’re published?

Dick Francis for his tight writing, P.D. James for her depth of characters and detailed settings, Ruth Rendell for her haunting emotions, and some of the classics like Josephine Tey, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Sayers for their clever plots and distinct voice. I'm not a rush-out-to read sort of person, and I'm as happy discovering a book at the library that was published twenty years ago as I am seeing a favorite author's new title released. So many books, so little time!

Has anything about the publishing process surprised you? Do you feel ready to become a published author?

I feel like Dorothy walking out of her house into Munchkinland. For so many years, I was in that black-and-white world on the other side of the publishing door. And then it opened, and nothing's been quite the same since. Well, I still have laundry and dishes to do – why don't publishing contracts come with housekeeping clauses? 

I've been surprised at how time-consuming promotion is. Website maintenance, writing blog posts, contacting bookstores, joining writing and reading groups and interacting with them. I must confess I waste a fair amount of time searching the Internet to see where my book pops up (after decades of reaching for this goal, I figure I'm entitled to a little self-indulgence). The first time I saw my title and name online, you should have heard my squeals. That's when it felt most real. I had an ISBN!

A year ago, when the manuscript sold, I didn't feel ready for the public aspect of being a published author. Good thing it takes so long to get a book out! I've learned so much since then, and while I'm nervous about beginning my tour, I'm also eager. This is my dream come true!

Visit Bernadette’s website at http://www.bernadettepajer.com.

Canada Day All Summer Long

Sharon Wildwind

I grew up knowing two invincible rules about summer: never wear navy blue shoes between Memorial Day and Labor Day and, even though they were illegal, always shoot off firecrackers on July 4th.

July 4th is such a tidy holiday. Watch a parade. Have a barbecue. Wave the flag. Listen to political speeches and John Phillip Sousa music. Ooh and ahh over the fireworks, and bang (okay, pun intended) back to the lazy, hazy days of summer.

It’s not that simple in Canada. Yes, we have Canada Day on July 1 where we watch parades, have barbecues, wave the flag, listen to political speeches, and ooh and ahh over fireworks. The music is likely to be a little more eclectic: bagpipes anywhere a police band marches in a parade, Trinidadian steel drums in Toronto, fiddle music in Quebec and the Maritimes, and traditional South Asian music in Vancouver.

As a country we also have a sense that between Victoria Day and Labor Day, multiple pageants have to unfold before we have truly celebrated who we are as a country.

Victoria Day is the official start of summer in Canada. For those of you not familiar with Canadian holidays, Victoria day is the last Monday before May 24 because Queen Victoria was born May 24, 1818 and we’re celebrating her birthday. To celebrate the “auld queen” (and the arrival of summer, finally, finally, finally) people
• have elaborate teas, which is why this is one of my favorite Canadian holidays
• close the ski resorts, and yes, this year there was skiing in Banff right up to closure day
• open cottages and tourist attractions for the summer
• plant gardens

If you’ve got any sense about gardening in Calgary, you know that rule about never planting until after Victoria Day is as invincible as the navy shoe rule. I offer these two photographs of my balcony several years ago as all the explanation needed.

The first one was taken the day before Victoria Day; the second one was taken the day after Victoria Day





Most years the weather change isn’t that dramatic, but those late May frosts can sure sneak up on plants at night. Yes, on Victoria Day we celebrate the contributions that British-oriented culture brought to Canada, but we’re also celebrating hope. This year might just be the year that the weather cooperates, the September frosts arrive late in the month, and the garden flourishes. It’s that hope that fills gardening departments to the brim with both plants and hopeful gardeners.

Treaty Day is a movable holiday celebrated in different parts of Canada on different days. In western Canada it’s usually in June. Treaty Day commemorates several treaties signed between 1871 and 1876 by Aboriginal peoples and the newly formed Government of Canada.

By invitation, I’ve attended two Treaty Days. Two Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in full red serge uniforms, sat at a card table set up on the reserve. Everyone from the oldest resident to babes in arms formed a long line and came to the table one-by-one to have their names checked and be handed their traditional $5 payment. The kids immediately took off for the convenience store to buy candy, chips, and pop. Later that evening there was a huge meal and a dance.

As an outsider I was uncomfortable with the whole idea. What was going on here? Why were these people allowing this hollow reminder of something that happened two centuries ago to continue? But everyone else seemed to have a good time. It was a day full of jokes, laughter, good food, and music. I still haven’t “gotten” Treaty Day in the same way that a First Nations person understands it, but maybe it has something to do with home comings, promise-keeping, and recognizing that a contract is a contract.

Quebecers, who enjoy being different, don’t wait until July 1 to celebrate. They celebrate St. Jean Baptiste Day on June 24. Depending on the political climate, it’s a day to declare either joyously or in rage that French culture is here to stay in North America. Fortunately, the past few years have been more joyous than raging and the bonfires have burned brightly along the St. Lawrence River, accompanied by music, dancing, parades, fireworks, and bells ringing forth from the churches.

As a woman who comes from bilingual Louisiana and has a foot in both cultures and languages, I understand the joy and the rage. Both say that French culture is here to stay in North America and we intend to honor what made us who we are. Come to think of it, maybe there’s something of that in the Treaty Day celebrations. And in the ethnic—for lack of a better word—celebrations that have proliferated in the past few years.

There was a Greek festival in Calgary last weekend and a Turkish Festival happens this coming weekend. Before summer ends, people will have celebrated being Canadian-African, -Caribbean, -Chinese, -Hispanic, -French, -Latino, -Nigerian, -Mexican, -Scottish, -Tibetan, and -Ukrainian. For those who still need more celebrations, there are summer events revolving around Calgary history, classical guitar, cooking, dragon boats, folk music, garage bands, international blues, reggae, Shakespeare in the park, street theater, and a finale GlobalFest celebration of multi-culturalism and diversity, just in case anyone was missed along the way. And I bet you thought that Calgary just had the Stampede.

By the time we get around to the actual Canada Day on July 1, we’re already looking over our shoulders. Six weeks have passed since that last great snow storm before Victoria Day. If we’re really lucky, we’ll have twelve more weeks until the first frost, but we all know that it could come as early as the long weekend in August. All too soon; all way, way too soon the leaves will start to turn colors and it will be time to take down those gardens and batten the hatches for fall and winter.



But for now, let summer roll. Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music.

What are We Celebrating Again?

by Julia Buckley
According to the list of 4th of July facts here, 1/4 of Americans answering a Marist poll did not know the name of the country from which we won our independence on July 4th.

I suppose it can't be avoided--that gradual evolution of a great event into something (for some) of no importance at all. But for me it also raises questions about one of America's greatest rights: the right to an education. Like everything that is free, knowledge can be taken for granted. My teacher colleagues who have taught in far-off lands could not believe how grateful those students were for education; how rooms full of 60 and 70 students would sit in absolute silence, hanging on every word out of their instructor's mouth, because this was their only chance at education.

And while many American students (including mine) are respectful of both education and teachers, I'm sure all teachers, at one point or another, have experienced one of THOSE classes--the ones with students who mock the very idea of education, reading, homework--and who take for granted the very gifts which America has guaranteed them.

Why would they do it? For one, they are assaulted by media images of young people who are oversexed and undereducated. They are fed the visual rhetoric that teen moms and porn stars are the new American heroes, and that fame is necessary for self-esteem ("fame" being a nebulous term which includes being on television for any reason). They are given this shallow, un-nourishing diet of pap, and if they are not given the analytical tools, they will think that this is the world and that these people are what they themselves should be.

"Reality" tv is nothing like reality, and an uncareful viewer might not see the neediness, the narcissism, the affectation and posturing. And unless that viewer occasionally read a book, he or she might not realize how poorly these television stars speak and think.

Remember this footage of poor Miss Teen South Carolina?



Not only can she not explain why Americans can't recognize their own country on a world map, but she can't string together a coherent sentence. But somewhere along the line she was swayed by the visual rhetoric of pretty hair and make-up, of fakery and feigned composure, and by the idea that if it looks good, it must be good.

She's not the only one. Check out this blog, which reveals that more American teens can name the Three Stooges than can name the three branches of government.

No, I'm not trying to depress people on the 4th of July. I am suggesting, though, that the date will cease to have any meaning unless we continue to invest it with some, and to demand more from our cultural representatives in all forms of media.

Let's celebrate America by asking Americans to think--something our founding fathers did very well.

What Fourth of July means to the Deadly Daughters

Elizabeth Zelvin

This is the holiday that has my husband flipping over hamburgers and hot dogs, an annual event. (He grills, but usually prefers a good steak or such elevated fare as jumbo shrimp and alder-smoked salmon.) For me, the essential element of the holiday is fireworks, the more spectacular the better. I like to sit as close to the source as possible so that the bursts blossom right over my head and I can feel the bass thumps in my chest. Do I wax patriotic? No, I’m too much of a historical relativist. After researching my book about what really happened when Columbus “discovered” America, I’m keenly aware of the ambiguities in any such event, the American Revolution included. But overall, I’m glad it happened—and bring on those fireworks!

Julia Buckley

For me, the 4th of July used to look like this:




These are scanned right out of my family scrapbook (which I abruptly stopped doing about five years ago because it was SO time consuming. My sons will think that one day I just stopped loving them. :)

Yes, the 4th was once about face paint and patio-chalk-flags and excited little boys. I remember one magical fourth, on the evening of which we went to the biggest town park with our blanket and some provisions and waited, with what seemed the entire village, for the fireworks to start. One of my college friends had joined us, the new godmother of my youngest son, and 11-month-old Graham seemed to sense their bond, because he spent the evening crawling on her and occasionally biting her toes.

The fireflies were out, and my older son (the one in the pictures) skipped around and thought everything was SO exciting!

Now they are 16 and almost 13, and seemingly young existentialists. The most exciting thing in life these days is the never-ending array of video games that they have in their collection, and it is indeed hard to pry them away.

But they still love the fireworks, Liz--just like you and every good American. :)

Jeri Westerson

When I was a kid, it was all about the fireworks. But less about big park displays and more about our neighbors getting together with those streetside stands of purchased fireworks: sparklers, Whistling Petes, those whirly things that spun on the ground. We'd pool our resources and have a safe and sane fireworks show all our own.

We can't buy those anymore as they have been outlawed in many California counties so we have to travel to outlying cities to seek out those city park fireworks displays. I like putting together gourmet picnic baskets of wonderful little salads and grilled chicken on skewers, cheeses and fruit. Wine. You also don't get embarrassed about being a little extra patriotic and get the opportunity to just reflect on the past and what brought us to today, appreciating the freedoms we have that even some of the freest democratic countries don't quite enjoy.

Sheila Connolly

I lived in the Philadelphia area for twenty years total, at various times in my life, including elementary school.  Yet somehow my suburban Quaker school never offered us a tour of Independence Hall, although I have a dim memory of sitting in a bus and watching the Liberty Bell go by.

When as an adult I worked in Center City, within walking distance of the site, did I ever do the tour thing?  No.  Maybe I'm a history snob and prefer obscure places to tourist Meccas.  It took a visit from out-of-state relatives to force me into the building.

We all probably know the bare bones of the story--representatives of the colonies locked together in a room, the windows closed so no one could eavesdrop on them as they hammered out the Declaration of Independence.  One wonders if they were allowed to remove coats (probably wool) and wigs, and roll up their shirtsleeves, to get the job done.  Let me tell you, it gets hot in Philadelphia in July!

So when at long last I saw that chamber, I was struck almost viscerally by how small it was.  Crammed together, hot, tired, and in equal parts frustrated, exhausted and exhilarated, a small group of men drafted a single document that changed the history of the world. Being in that space made them human for me.

If you're ever in Philadelphia, it's worth the visit.


Postscript:  I'm a member of the DAR, which celebrates the role that our Revolutionary War ancestors played in the founding of the country.  So far I can list thirteen of mine who participated in some way, and mainly they're in Massachusetts, where I now live.  I visit them regularly.  Here is one of my ancestors, alongside his brother.  The house they were raised in was the inspiration for the Orchard Mystery series.

Sandra Parshall

For me July 4 means the height of the blooming season for the hundreds of daylily plants in my garden -- a glorious sight, prettier than any fireworks display. At least it used to mean that, until the deer in the nearby woods discovered how delicious daylily buds are (they're sweet and tender and are used in some Asian stir-fry recipes). For the past few years we've waged a battle throughout June to protect the precious buds that should burst into gorgeous bloom around the 4th of July. And we've been losing. But this year things are looking up. We've been extra diligent in applying revolting repellent spray, and although we've lost some buds to the deer, the plants have plenty left. Some have already survived to the point of blooming, and others are fattening up, waiting their turn. The countdown begins. What will I find when I walk through the garden on July 4 -- the sad snipped-off stalks that once held flower buds, or a riot of colorful blossoms? Will this be the Independence Day we liberate our garden from the tyranny of the deer?

STUFF

by Sheila Connolly

I was planning to write a post about how we accumulate Things in the course of our lives, and then become stymied with what to do with them all.  Then a couple of weeks ago I came upon an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine written by Carina Chocano ('Underneath Every Hoarder Is a Normal Person Waiting to Be Dug out'), and she said many interesting things about hoarding, its history, and our cultural fascination with it.  Plus she said them well, and I'm not going to repeat all her points here.  However, I think she missed two important aspects of Keeping Things.

I live in an 1870 Victorian house, that most people would consider large--you know, twin parlors with sliding doors, nine-foot ceilings, spacious entrance hall with sweeping mahogany staircase.  There's one problem, though:  a dearth of closets.

Or, I should say, a conspicuous absence of clothing closets.  On the ground floor there is a walk-through butler's pantry with a china closet, and in the dining room there is another china closet with a glass front--I guess that was for the "good" stuff.  There is a pantry closet in the kitchen, and I think there was once a second, long since converted into a powder room. 

But clothes?  Ha!  Coat closet?  Nope, only two rows of wall hooks by the back door.  Bedrooms?  One has no closet at all.  Two have very shallow closets flanking the chimney flue (lined with hooks, but not deep enough for a modern hanger), and the last has both a closet and a linen closet.

To put it simply, the storage in this house is lousy.  Or at least, the easily accessed storage.  We have a full basement--damp.  We also have a full attic--which is either freezing or broiling, may have a mold problem, and is not easy to access, especially carrying anything larger than a breadbox. 

I have a lot of stuff, and I've filled every closet, and a lot of the attic.  In my own defense, let me say that it is not stuff that I acquired; mainly I inherited it.  My grandmother, a fiercely independent woman, lived for the last twenty-plus years of her life in an exquisite studio apartment facing Park Avenue in New York.  Everything she owned was encompassed in that room, plus a walk-in closet and a storage closet on another floor.  She chose carefully and cherished each item she kept.

My mother shared her mother's taste, and kept many of the things that my grandmother relinquished.  One of the first purchases my mother made when she married was a matched pair of glass-fronted corner cupboards, to display "nice" pieces.  I still have them (yes, they're full).


And I inherited all of it.  When my mother died, my sister and I divvied up what we wanted, and sold the rest.  There were still two trucks' worth that we carted away.  The furniture was nicer than anything I had managed to acquire by then, so I was happy to have that.  But it's all the other stufff...and I find it almost physically painful to part with something that carries memories.

Someday my daughter (our only child) will inherit most of this stuff.  Much of it won't mean anything to her, since she doesn't have the memories that I do.  How do I pass those on?  What about the collection of demitasse coffee cups that my grandfather--who I never met--collected and enjoyed, as my mother told me on more than on occasion, cradling the cup in her hand?  What about the pink jade Buddha with a removable fan?  I remember playing "hide the fan" in my grandmother's apartment in the 1950s (we always found it, as you can see).  None of these will mean anything to my daughter.  But how can I get rid of them?  I haven't come up with any answers yet, but I pity my daughter in advance.

The other topic that Chocana didn't address is collecting books.  I've always loved books.  I truly believed that our local library was giving me books to keep (so I hid them under my bed).  My grandmother and my mother read books, usually hardcovers.  I had the full set of Nancy Drew before I was ten.  I started on science fiction in college, then shifted to mysteries, and never looked back--and all this was long before I ever thought about writing myself.  My husband and I collected mysteries when we were first married, and inherited more from his father.

So I have thousands of books, and those are only the ones I chose to keep.  I'll admit up front:  there's not enough time left to me to reread all of them, especially if I want to keep reading new books as they come out, and now I have to read the ones that my many writer friends are producing.  And yet...it's painful to part with a book that I love.

How do you handle it?

Mental Health, Therapy, and Psychopathology: Busting Some Myths

Elizabeth Zelvin

As an experienced psychotherapist, I frequently wince over errors on issues of mental health, mental illness, and related topics. The mystery community is well aware of some of these. For example, everybody seems to know that everything about the CSI TV shows is wrong. Crime scene and forensic scientists don’t interview witnesses or confront suspects. DNA results come back from the lab in months, not hours—except, of course, when the case has global high priority, as we saw following recent events in Pakistan. But some myths are extremely persistent. Giving life to them in fiction perpetuates them further.

Here are some of my pet peeves:

Myth: If you want therapy to deal with, say, relationship or family issues, you need a psychiatrist or psychologist. Reality: More “talk therapy” is done by clinical social workers (like me) than by psychiatrists and psychologists. Psychiatrists can prescribe psychotropic medications and get patients admitted to hospitals, so a competent therapist would refer a patient with severe symptoms of anxiety, depression, or a thought disorder to a psychiatrist for evaluation. But once they’re stable, the talk therapy could continue.
Psychologists are trained to evaluate a patient or client’s cognitive and emotional functioning, so they might be called in for psychological assessment testing.

Myth: “Multiple personalities” are rare but can pop up anywhere; a variant: they don’t exist or are somehow invented or induced by the therapist. Reality: The current correct term is “dissociative identity disorder.” It’s fairly common, and it develops as a response to severe sexual abuse in childhood. An ordinary therapist treating a client with DID would be well advised to read some of the very good books on the subject and seek supervision with a clinician experienced in such cases. The therapist needs to guard against being fascinated by the different “personalities,” while engaging as many of them as possible in the treatment. The goals are co-consciousness and, eventually, integration. The biggest challenge is when a client experiences an abreaction—a flashback, like those of military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, in this case to the experience of being sexually abused as a young child.

Myth: Accusations of sexual abuse, especially when memories have been repressed but recovered, are often lies or delusions. Reality: Wrong, wrong, wrong. As the Catholic Church recently admitted, the sexual abuse of children is an all too common phenomenon. Repression of memories is a psychological defense mechanism—a survival skill—as is the dissociation mentioned above. Most sexually abused children are not lying, just as most raped women are not lying. I believe that emphasizing the exceptions has a deeply damaging effect on societal beliefs and therefore on the ability of the abused and raped to achieve both emotional health and justice.

Myth: Psychopathic serial killers can have normal relationships and can be appealed to. Reality: A forensic psychologist who worked on the cases of some of the most infamous serial killers put it best: “Dexter doesn’t exist.” There are no magic words a victim can say to change the killer’s mind.

Myth: Alcoholics can go in and out of alcoholism and can eventually drink normally. That proves they don’t really have a problem. Reality: Alcoholism is a progressive illness, and somewhere between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence is a point of no return. The compulsive drinking is just the tip of the iceberg; emotional, social, and behavioral issues are part of the picture, as are negativity, hopelessness, and despair.

Myth: Schizophrenia is the same as multiple personality and can be used as a synonym for ambivalence or mixed feelings. Reality: Schizophrenia is a thought disorder that is biochemical and to some extent genetic in origin. Symptoms include auditory hallucinations and thoughts and beliefs that depart from reality in various ways.

Myth: People who talk to themselves in the street must be schizophrenic. Reality: Sometimes schizophrenics talk back to their hallucinations, but some of the folks you hear cursing and making inappropriate remarks in public have Tourette’s Syndrome, an entirely different disorder. And even more of them are just talking on their cell phones.

Bad Casting

Sandra Parshall

Nothing gets crime fiction fans more worked up than the news that a favorite book or series is about to become a movie or TV series.

First reaction: They’ll ruin it, of course. Second reaction: They’re casting WHO in the lead? You’ve gotta be kidding!

All too often, our worst fears are borne out by the finished product. With rare exceptions, the people who make movies and TV shows have no respect for the written word and no understanding of the deep connection many readers feel with familiar, beloved characters.

The latest travesties-in-the-making are a movie starring Tom Cruise as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and an American TV version of Prime Suspect. Folks on various mystery discussion listservs are throwing a lot of insults at Cruise these days, but the worst is: He’s short. In Child’s novels, much is made of Reacher’s massive, intimidating size. Way over six feet, huge hands. The very sight of him strikes fear into the hearts of lesser men. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, is shorter than his wife. He was shorter than his first wife too. After their divorce, Nicole Kidman joked about how nice it was to be able to wear high heels again without worrying that she would tower over Tom. I happen to think Cruise is a reasonably good actor, but he can’t act his way into Reacher’s shoes.

As for Prime Suspect, I have no quibbles with the casting of Maria Bello as Jane Tennison. She’s a talented actress. What I object to is the jokey, hokey tone of the previews I’m seeing on TV. They seem to have turned Prime Suspect into one of those female-oriented cop shows where every second line is played for laughs and the little lady makes jokes while she kicks the crap out of the bad guys. Spare me. Why did they have to put the Prime Suspect title on the show and name the character Jane Tennison when neither the stories nor the character will bear any relation to the original?

Which brings me to Rizzoli and Isles. I love Tess Gerritsen’s books. I love Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles. I do not see anybody I recognize on the TV show. Again, a somber, thoughtful series has been turned into a breezy, amusing little show in which women run around solving crimes while gossiping about men and taking care (in Maura’s case) not to get their nice shoes and clothes dirty. Angie Harmon is a terrific actress, but the second she was cast in the role the character ceased to be Jane Rizzoli. Jane is frumpy and plain, and her appearance is an important element of the character. Angie Harmon wouldn’t be plain if you put a bag over her head.

Speaking of frumpy and plain, did anybody ever accept Sharon Small as Barbara Havers in the British TV version of Elizabeth George’s novels? The actress is... well, cute, no matter how messy her hair is or how sloppy her clothes are.

I can think of two movies from the past few years that did justice to the books they were based on, and both books were written by Dennis Lehane: Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone. These films demonstrate that it is possible to transfer a great story and great characters to the screen without mutilating them or doing a lot of prettying-up. Dexter, as a character, made a successful transition to TV, although the series doesn’t closely follow the books. I don’t watch True Blood, but fans of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books seem to think it’s great. This kind of success re-imagining of the source material is rare indeed.

Sue Grafton says she would “rather roll naked in ground glass” than see her Kinsey Milhone novels turned into a movie or TV series. Unfortunately, most writers can’t resist the glamorous allure of a film or TV option. They take the money (surprisingly little in most cases), they tremble with excitement, and in the end they see something that barely resembles what they created. Maybe they can draw the distinction – “The movie/TV series is a different animal and has nothing to do with what I wrote” – but a lot of readers can’t do that. We keep hoping for the best but expecting the worst, and the worst is usually what we end up with.

Social Media . . .

. . . ain’t what it used to be.

Sharon Wildwind

One of the things I learned at Bloody Words is that I thought I knew about social media—and I was wrong. There is so much new stuff out there.

Unlike the other two panel reports I’ve done from Bloody Words, the Social Media and Marketing was a mini-workshop of three back-to-back panels. Essentially the panelists changed and the audience stayed glued to their seats. Attribute the comments to the moderator and ten other panelists, got too bulky, so I’m just giving the gist of the discussion. If you want to know who made a particular comment, send me e-mail and I’ll tell you.

The Bottom Line
All marketing should be based on a cost/benefit analysis of how much time and money you have to spend on social media versus how much name recognition and/or sales do you expect to generate from what you do? If you are a writer, spend the majority of your time writing. Don’t jump on every technological bandwagon. You can attempt every new thing, but should you? It is more effective to spend your time optimizing the search features of 1 to 2 platforms that you feel comfortable with rather than create multiple platforms are poorly indexed. Sixty percent of your connections with other people will come from searches.

The Big Three
Provide quality posts and people will come to you for the good content. Fun comes across on the web; so will boredom. If you are doing something because you have to do it, your readers will know it. Tailor your content and your form to each platform.

Limit, limit, limit personal information. If you wouldn’t want what you’ve posted about yourself to be on the front page of a national newspaper, don’t post it on the web. Be quirky and innocent in what you post. That you have a passion for strawberry shortcake is a good thing to post; that you have two grandchildren, the city where they live, their names and photos is a dangerous thing to post.

If you make a fool of yourself on the web, the reputation sticks. Once information, tacky comments, or dubious photos are on the web they are there forever.

What is a platform?
A way that information is presented on the Internet. Different platforms have different functions and attract different kinds of audiences. Platform choices are personal preferences.Try different platforms. Give each a six-months trial and assess how well it works for you. If a platform isn’t meeting your needs, stop using it. Don’t just abandon it, close it down and remove it from the web.

Multi-platform postings often turn people off, so the content on each of your platforms should be different and geared to the function of that platform. You should build links from one platform to another.

Web Site and blog
This should be your essential go-to site. You should build one even before your book is published. Facebook makes a poor substitute for a web site. A blog can be used as a web page, but it needs to be updated on a regular basis. 1% of the blogs on the Internet have current information and are up-to-date. Blog posts should be about 600 to 800 words because blog readers are under all kinds of time pressures. Think of the word limit like short stories and poems: make every blog word count.

Facebook
Plan to post somewhere between one daily and once weekly.
Professional Page: avoid self-congratulations. Praise other people who connect with you. Readers want to be friends with an author, not fans. Some authors choose to treat their friends page as professional page. They strip the personal information from it and treat it as a fan page under another name.
Fan Page: Because fan pages don’t have back-and-forth exchanges, some people avoid them. The most popular use of fan pages is for characters. Have the characters give advice. Do a running comment on how the writing is going.

Linkedin
Think of this as a living resume. If you’re looking for opportunities to do workshops or to ghost write, this is the place you should be. Balance out how much information you post versus how much information you’re posting that could lead to identity thief.

Twitter
Far more useful than Facebook for marketing and promotion because you can build a following 140 characters at a time. Tweet at least once every couple of days. If you tweet daily, limit your tweeting to no more than three to four times a day. Don’t post exclusively self-promotion. Share resources. Build up other writers. Do mini-book reviews. Create a community feeling. You can participate in Twitter without having any followers. Use hash-tags instead. A hashtag is the # character. #books is a great place to post; #mysteries is not as good because there are far less people on it. #amwriting has a high noise to information ratio, but you can mind gold there about writing, if you spend a little time looking

Piggy-back on to book and reading sites
Use sites other people have set up. Have your own page. Do book reviews. Promote other writers. These sites are particularly good because they target the niches where the readers are. Sites you might want to check out include
Crimespace
Goodreads
Shelfari
Books N Bytes

Reading multiple sites
If you choose to participate in multiple platforms, checking them every day can become a hassle. Try Hootsuite which is a site that will let you view multiple sites at once.

Social Mention
Yes, you’re on the Internet, but are you reaching anyone? What's your reputation out there in web-land? On this site you can plug in your name, or the name of your book and get a quick scan of four areas: strength—how many times is your term mentioned; passion—how passionate are people when they do mention you; sentiment—is that a passionately good or a passionately bad mention; and reach—how much of the social network are you reaching.

Quick-response codes and Microsoft tags
These are portable hyperlinks that can be embedded in print or electronic formats and accessed by phone applications. And they are popping up everywhere.

This is (I hope) the QR tag for my web site. It tool me all of 3 seconds to create it on line.