Is Grandma addicted to Facebook?

by Sandra Parshall

Somebody on the Murder Must Advertise e-mail loop for writers recently wondered if it’s possible to reach older readers – who buy a lot of fiction – on the internet. “Do people over 50 use social networking?”

The rest of us found the question amusing, because virtually everyone who actively participates on that list is over 50 (or over 60 or 70 or, in at least one case, 80), and we’re all pretty much addicted to social networking.

We’re mystery writers, though. Maybe we’re more connected to the cyber world because we do research online, look for advice from other writers online, and reach out to readers through social networking. Are we representative of older adults in our internet use?

As it turns out, we’re beginning to look typical for our age group, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

This year, for the first time, more than half – 53% – of U.S. residents over 65 are using the internet or e-mail. In the 50-64 age group, the number is higher: 77%. About 70% of the internet users over 65 go online every day, and 76% of those between 50 and 64.

They do it in style, too. “It is also now the case,” the Pew report states, “that once seniors start using the internet, they most often have access to high-speed connections at home.”

In the overall adult population, including everybody over 18, 82% say they use the internet or e-mail at least occasionally, and 67% do so every day. Ownership of computers, particularly laptops, by older people has been growing rapidly over the past few years. 

Furthermore, 70% of all adults over 65 own cell phones, and 56% of those over 76 carry them. However, this age group is less likely to go for expensive, multi-tasking smartphones, with only one person in ten owning one. As retro as it may sound, older Americans want nothing more than a device that will let them make and receive calls.

But what about social networking, which many writers see as the avenue to readers? As of February 2012, the Pew report says, 50% of people aged 50-64 and 34% of those aged 65 and older use social networking sites. Those numbers represent a significant and rapid increase. While younger people are still the most likely to use social networking, the report states, “from April 2009 to May 2011, social networking site use among internet users 65 and older grew 150%.”

The hitch, as far as writers are concerned, is that most adults over 50 say they use social networking primarily to stay in touch with family. Those under 50 are more likely to be accumulating thousands of Facebook “friends” and chatting up strangers.

So does social networking bring writers and readers together? What do you think? If you’re a writer, have you sold any books because you use Facebook, Twitter, etc? (I know I have.) Have you bought any books because you “met” the authors online? (Again, I have.)

Computer Green

Sharon Wildwind

This past week I listened to audio books while I did a lot of hand sewing. I learned some helpful things about social media and a lot of disturbing things about computers and the environment.

Computers are not green: mining raw materials, manufacturing first components and then devices, packaging, around-the-world shipping distances create a large carbon footprint. A huge amount of electronic waste not only ends up in landfills, but is turning landfills toxic.

What really surprised me is that the number one ecological impact is not from machines. It's from data storage.

I’m talking about every video, TV show, movie, digitized book, electronic news story, map, drawing, photograph and document ever posted on the web. Close to every e-mail and social media interaction sent on the Internet.

Who needs that much data? Apparently we do. Every time we search for 10 Easy Avocado Recipes, a kid does homework on-line, a scientist does research or we click on a link to see grand baby photos, get directions, or any of the millions of other things we do on-line every day, that request ends up at a data farm. Search engine have to have access to stored and indexed files.

So much data is being collected that new measurements had to be invented. The data storage for my first computer, a cassette-tape fed Radio Shack, was measured in kilobytes, a unit so tiny that, like the penny, it’s too small to be of use any more.

Increases in data storage capabilities are not neat like having a 1,000 unit jump each time. Each jump is a 1,024 unit increase.

1 megabyte (an average novel manuscript) contains 1,024 kilobytes

1 gigabyte (a small library of about 1,000 books) contains 1,024 megabytes

1 terabyte (a 1,500,000-book university library) contains 1,024 gigabytes

1 petabyte is 1,024 terabytes

1 exabyte is 1,024 petabytes

1 zettabyte is 1,024 exabytes

1 yottabyte is 1,024 zettabytes

There are people who say that the “yotta” is not big enough, and that new terms will be created in the near future.

For decades data storage increased while physical storage space decreased. If my 3 gig chip was pulled from my current machine, I could balance it on the tip of one finger.

We have this mistaken idea that as memory capacity goes up, storage space always goes down. It ain’t so. By the time we reach petabyte level—we are already there with some university libraries now building storage systems capable of holding a petabyte of information—we’re talking multi-story buildings with huge energy requirements. Those requirements continue all day, every day. The lights are literally never off.

Actually the lights are off because these buildings don’t require much human intervention, so they are kept dark, but the cooling systems, and the banks of data storage machines suck power constantly.

So much power that local governments are being asked to build new power plants to service one building. Not only are many of these data storage buildings in rural areas, they are often in rural areas already facing water shortages, and most power plants use water in some way to make power.

Smarter, more powerful people than me are going to have to make the big decisions about how much data storage is enough and how many resources are going to be devoted to data farms, but we might want to do a little detective work and see what’s being built close-by. It might surprise us.

If we want to act locally, really locally, like on our own desks, here are some things we can do.

Considering upgrading or buying new electronic devices? Check out energy consumption requirements and expected life span before buying. The fewer peripherals, the more energy saved, so making choice like buying a combined scanner/printer may be a better ecological choice than buying two separate machines.

Here’s a biggie. If we’re going away from our computer for a brief period, like a coffee break, set the power saving features to turn off the monitor after 10 minutes and the hard disks after 20. If we plan to be away from our computer longer than 20 minutes, turn it off. All the way off. Turn the monitor off, too. Turn the power bar off.

Screen savers do not save energy. Sleep cycle saves some energy, but not as much as we think. The idea that there is less wear and tear on a machine by leaving it on 24/7 is ancient history. In fact, because internal components are now packed so tight, heat generated by being on all the time isn’t good for the machine.

Use the power saving features on both computer and printer, if it has one. Turn the printer on to print and off immediately afterwards.

Plug all computer equipment, including peripherals into a power bar or surge protector. A computer that is just sitting there, turned off, still leaches energy from the electrical socket. I have no idea where this electricity goes. Perhaps Dr. Sheldon Cooper, of The Big Bang knows, but he’s a busy man and I don’t want to bother  him by asking.

For more practical tips check out

British Columbia Hydro Green Computing Guide 

Discarding electronic gadgets? Here are 11 Facts about Electronic Waste.

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Quote for the week:

The environment is where we all meet; where all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.

~ Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson (1912 – 2007), first lady, environmentalist, co-founder along with actress Helen Hayes of the National Wildflower Research Center

Meet My Writing Friends

by Julia Buckley

These nice women are Kathi and Martha.  We meet every month or so in a local eatery in order to discuss our writing: what we are working on, what we plan to do with it, how successful we've been with our latest projects, how much support we need to keep on plugging away.  These women are crucial to my writing life, because only they understand the particular joys and sorrows associated with writing novels.

We first met back in 2000, when we all took a writing course under the tutelage of a local university professor.  That class morphed into a writing group, and four members of that writing group (and a fifth who came later) still meet today, twelve years later, to critique each other's manuscripts.

But our weekend breakfasts are independent of the writing group; they provide psychological support in the form of  good friends, good food, good advice (and afterward, some retail therapy). It is a chance for three women either nearing fifty or past fifty to share the view from mid-life, and to laugh about the things that once made us cringe.

Why are they such good influences for me?  Because no one understands a writer like a writer.

Kathi, who recently published her first YA novel, does extensive research in her genre.  She got her MA in creative writing with an emphasis on young adult fiction, and I've never seen someone work so hard on honing her craft.  She is my inspiration with her willingness to revise, revise, revise.  She pursues excellence and achieves it.  At the same time she has a career as an occupational therapist, and works to provide support for her son, who is midway through his studies at DePaul University.

Martha is a natural writer with an impeccable sense of timing and character. Like all good writers, she gets inside the skin of her characters and lives their lives as she writes them.  I'll be very excited when she publishes her first book, because it will be a hit. She too has a very busy professional life that has her working long hours and even leaving the country now and then.  She finds time to write, though, because she says writing is more entertaining than watching television.  Her three children are either just out of college or in graduate school, so she's finding a bit more time to perfect her craft.

We laugh together, at least once a month, about the way writing becomes a sort of disease within us--we sometimes become angry about its hold on us, but we'll never get "over" it and stop writing.  So we've given in, knowing that we can rely on each other to help us through the adventures that a life of writing brings.

They are two of my best Muses, and I'm grateful for them.

Who are your Muses?

Standalone vs Series

By Vicki Delany

There are, basically, two types of mystery novels: standalones, in which characters appear once, never to be seen again, and series, in which characters feature in book after book.

Some authors like to write standalones, some like to write series books. Me, I can’t decide.

So I do both.

You can’t beat a series for getting to know the characters: the details of their personalities, their quirks, their families and relationships, lovers gained and lost, parents dying, children born. As well as the lives of their families and friends and enemies and the community in which they live.

But when it comes to real personal once-in-a-lifetime drama, you need a standalone.

After all, how many times can one person have a life-changing experience?

A standalone novel gives the protagonist that one opportunity to achieve great things; to have that grand adventure; to meet the everlasting love of their life; to conquer evil, once and for all. In a standalone, the characters face their demons and defeat them. 

Or not. 

My first books were standalone novels of suspense. In Scare the Light Away the main character confronts, for one last time, the debris of her traumatic childhood. In Burden of Memory, the protagonist faces down the ghost of a past that is not hers, but is still threatening what she holds dear.

In a series book, the central character, or characters, confront their demons, but they do not defeat them. Their weaknesses, all their problems, will be back in the next book. In each story the series character stands against, and usually defeats, someone else’s problem or society’s enemy, but she or he moves only one small step towards the resolution of their own issues, if at all.

After the two standalones, I began work on the Constable Molly Smith series. I like that the series format allows me to slowly and gradually explore all of those people’s complicated relationships while at the same time the police are working to find a killer. But series novels present difficulties to the author. The books in a crime series mustn’t flow into each other so much that new readers will be lost as to what’s going on. It can be a balancing act, to create a plot that’s self-contained within each individual book, but still allows the characters to grow and to change over time. To give readers who’ve come into these people’s lives in book five enough information that they know who’s who and a bit of their history, but not so much the long-time reader gets bored at the repetition.

It can be a challenge to keep the main character interesting and growing and changing but to do it so slowly that the reader’s interest in the character can be maintained over several books and several years. I can think of several series that I abandoned because the character kept on doing the same old, same old, and I think of Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks, who’s now in his twentieth book and as fascinating a character as ever. Perhaps realizing that Banks might grow stale, Robinson cleverly introduced a secondary protagonist, Annie Cabot, but Banks still is the heart of the books.

I deliberately made Molly Smith young when the series begins with IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLACIER – she’s twenty-six – hoping to be able to watch her grow as a police officer and as a woman.

After five Molly Smith books, for my newest book, MORE THAN SORROW, I went back to a standalone. All new characters, a new setting, a different style of writing.  MORE THAN SORROW is a contemporary thriller with a historical background, using the dual narrative format – two storylines running throughout that merge at the end.

The protagonist in MORE THAN SORROW is Hannah Manning, once an internationally recognized journalist but now a woman suffering from traumatic brain injury that occurred during an IED explosion in Afghanistan. Hannah is an ‘unreliable narrator’ as her brain injury has left her in pain, confused, lethargic. When she begins experiencing visions of a woman in a long dress emerging from the icy mist of the root cellar, Hannah doesn’t know if the woman is real. Or the product of a damaged brain. And, she wonders, which would be worse?  She finds comfort in the quiet company of Hila Popalzai, an Afghan refugee living on an adjacent farm, a woman also marked by war. When Hila disappears, and Hannah can’t account for her time, not even to herself, old enemies begin to circle.

Hannah would not work as a series protagonist. In MORE THAN SORROW she has to confront her enemies: human as well as her own medical condition.
  
If she fails to defeat them, she will not get a second chance.

Series or standalone? Ultimately it is up to you and me, as readers, to decide.
 
I suspect we’ll vote for both.
********************************
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most varied and prolific crime writers.  Her popular Constable Molly Smith series (including In the Shadow of the Glacier and Among the Departed) have been optioned for TV by Brightlight Pictures.  She also writes standalone novels of psychological suspense, as well as a light-hearted historical series, (Gold Digger, Gold Mountain), set in the raucous heyday of the Klondike Gold Rush. Vicki’s newest book is More than Sorrow, a standalone novel published by Poisoned Pen Press.  In a starred review, Library Journal called the book, “a splendid Gothic thriller.”

Having taken early retirement from her job as a systems analyst in the high-pressure financial world, Vicki is settling down to the rural life in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario where she rarely wears a watch.
Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com, www.facebook.com/vicki.delany, and twitter: @vickidelany. She blogs about the writing life at One Woman Crime Wave. 

September Redux

by Sheila Connolly

In the past few years I've become addicted to my Google calendar.  I don't know how I survived before I discovered it (well, actually I do:  I used to buy yearly calendar books, Month at a Glance), but now the electronic one is front and center in my daily life.  And I do mean front:  I print out a monthly version and tack it on the corkboard literally at eye level in front of me.  When it changes, which it does with alarming frequency, it's easy to print out the updated version. I can also keep an electronic archival copy. And, miracle of miracles, I even found a way to put the app for it on my smart phone!

 

September's calendar looks like spaghetti (I like to print activities and appointments in red).  I'll confess that I've always felt like the year begins in September.  It's a holdover from the days when school started in September, and I guess that I liked school.  There's also a physical response to cooler temperatures after a long hot summer. More energy! I'm guessing that a lot of other people feel the same way, which is why the September calendar is so full.

 

But this year it's become ridiculous.  Of course there are fairs—the 4-H fair this past weekend; the town-owned organic farm's annual harvest fair, where there is actually an apple-pie competition (and I also love the place because I borrowed their barn for the Orchard Mysteries—and their goats); the Brimfield Antiques Fair, arguably the largest in the world, and a never-ending source of entertainment, and, yes, I buy stuff, even though I'm terrible at haggling.

For some reason, September this year is also filled with book-related events—there's a great crop of new books out.  I've penciled in launch parties for new books by several friends, at different locations.  I've been asked to give a talk at a long-established private club in Philadelphia, about my Museum Mysteries.  Since one of their former speakers was Bram Stoker, I figure I'm in good company.  My local Sisters in Crime chapter has arranged for a tour of the Mark Twain House in Hartford CT, one of the things on my bucket list. And I might include the mystery conference Bouchercon, which falls in the first weekend in October this year, so a bit of September is taken up with planning for that.

 

The Daughters of the American Revolution events crank up again as well.  The fall state conference takes up one weekend.  I'm a member, and since most of my books feature genealogy in one way or another, I definitely need to be there (in fact, something I learned of at the last state meeting provided the starting point for the book I'm working on now—you never know where you'll find inspiration).

 

And there are all the ongoing tasks associated with writing and publishing:  blogs, newsletters, updating the website, miscellaneous promotion.  Oh, and writing a book, which is due October 1 (and I don't even have a title for it).  I have a draft, but that's not the same as finished, or even ready to show my editor.  But, fittingly, the next Orchard mysteries are both due to the editor in the fall, and will be released in the fall.  That feels right.

 

I suppose there are people who feel that September holds the first hints that the year is dying—shorter days, cooler nights.  But if it's the last blaze of glory for the year, it's worth it, and we try to cram in as much stuff as possible.

The first autumn leaf in my garden

 

Seeing Dead People

Elizabeth Zelvin

The opening session at Killer Nashville, and certainly one of the high points of the mystery conference, was “The Rocket’s Red Glare: Putting the Pieces Back Together after a Fireworks Factory Explosion.” The presenter was Dr. Bill Bass, a noted forensic anthropologist and creator of the Body Farm, otherwise known as the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Dr. Bass, with co-writer Jon Jefferson, is bestselling author Jefferson Bass. Their novel, The Body Farm, was the basis of the TV series of the same name.

The session’s listing on the Killer Nashville schedule included the following: “WARNING: very graphic slides – not for the faint of heart (or stomach).” On the other hand, Dr. Bass, an experienced public speaker who is both informative and entertaining, assured the audience that within minutes of beginning his talk, he guaranteed to have us laughing. Mystery readers know that law enforcement and other professionals who deal routinely with death often use humor to distance themselves from what to the uninitiated appears shocking and even, literally, sickening. Mystery writers tend to fall somewhere between the two. We write and talk with ghoulish relish of body counts and ingenious ways to kill people. But we’re not so sure we would react as heroically as our fictional protagonists if confronted in real life with violent death.

Dr. Bass’s talk was not the first I have attended since becoming a mystery writer at which photos of the victims were shown. I believe the photos taken by the murderer that a forensic psychologist displayed at a meeting of the New York chapter of Sisters in Crime a year or two back were the work of Jeffrey Dahmer. But a quick pass on Google indicates that he was only one of several serial killers who used a camera on his victims. And back in 2003, at a Sisters in Crime conference, a speaker from the New York Medical Examiner’s office—without warning his audience beforehand—showed at least one slide of someone falling from on of the World Trade towers on 911.

These experiences create a moral dilemma for me, and perhaps for other mystery writers who attend such events. What do my reactions reveal about how I prioritize my values? Which matters more, compassion or authenticity? Would I rather be cool like a person who can handle time in the trenches (at least the visual trenches) or repulsed and distressed like a normal person? Do I in fact have any control over my reactions? And what is the responsibility of the presenter to the audience?

I admit that during Dr. Bass’s talk, I wanted to prove to myself that I had enough stoicism to be able to look—if only briefly—at the slides. The bodies of the twelve people who died in the explosion at an illegal fireworks factory were coated in silver nitrate from the blast, a circumstance that allowed the eye to gloss over some of the extreme damage to the bodies, many of which had lost heads and limbs. I looked quickly at and then away from the serial killer photos, if I remember correctly. And I still resent the 2003 presenter who forced into my mind the indelible image of a New Yorker plunging to his or her death, after I had deliberately avoided such images on and after 911 itself, until the time of the presentation.

Mystery writers talk a lot about “getting it right,” and we do consider it a matter of integrity to present a more accurate picture of death, law enforcement, and forensics than the notorious CSI and other TV shows. I’ve heard enough talks and seen enough pictures to know that the carelessly sprawled limbs of the violently dead have no resemblance to the gracefully posed faux dead in plays and movies, on TV, and in paintings and other forms of art. This very carelessness, the indignity of violent death, arouses my compassion and encourages me to write about murder with an empathy that goes deeper than the entertainment value of a mystery.

Dangerous Instincts

by Sandra Parshall

So you think you’re a pretty good judge of character. You think you’d recognize a scam artist or somebody with a violent streak if you met them. And you believe strangers are the biggest threat, not the people you allow into your everyday life.

You’re probably wrong, especially on the last count, according to longtime FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole. I met Dr. O’Toole last winter when we appeared together on a panel arranged by Kathy Harig of Mystery Loves Company for mystery-reading members of the Washington (DC) Academy of Sciences. She was delightful to chat with (we talked about our cats, among other things), and I was fascinated by what she said about the average person’s inability to accurately judge others. I brought home a copy of her book, Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us, written with Alisa Bowman.

After decades of working on some of the most notorious criminal cases of our time – major abductions, serial killings, mass murders, school shootings – O’Toole knows how easily we can find ourselves at the mercy of dangerous people. Maybe you’ll never encounter a serial killer, but you might hire household helpers who will steal from you or a nanny who will abuse your children when you’re not around. You might put your child in the care of a respected coach or camp counselor who is a secret pedophile. You might hire an investment broker who will rob you of every cent you’ve got. And you might let love blind you to the truth about The Perfect Man or The Ideal Woman.
 
O’Toole warns against making decisions based on emotion – your gut feelings about other people. Instead, she advises using your brain, in an analytical process she calls SMART: Sound Method of Assessing and Recognizing Trouble.

The book is rich with advice that I don’t have space to repeat here, but what it boils down to is this: practice reading people, observe patterns of behavior while also recognizing that an “out of character” negative action probably warns of a buried trait, and give up the fantasy that you’ll be able to change someone else’s bad tendencies. Be careful not to put too much emphasis on superficial indicators of normalcy – he dresses well, he has good manners and a nice smile (a description that fits Ted Bundy perfectly) – while ignoring other telling details that warn of hidden flaws.

O’Toole lists the behaviors (below) that profilers look for and that the rest of us can learn to spot in the people we deal with. Some are more obvious and dangerous than others, but they should all make you think twice about getting involved with someone. (Note to writers: This list is also useful in creating fictional characters.)

Impulsivity with little regard for consequences

Inappropriate or out-of-control anger

Narcissism – self-centered, arrogant, grandiose behavior with no concern for others

Lack of empathy or compassion for the feelings and misfortunes of others

Injustice collecting and responding to perceived injustices in a disproportionate way

Objectification of others – treating them as nonhuman or as possessions

Blaming others for failures and problems

Paranoia

Rule breaking

Violent behavior

Thoughts and fantasies of violence

Drug and/or alcohol abuse

Hatred of others because of their beliefs

Thrill-seeking

O’Toole analyzes all these tendencies to help you recognize them and assess the relative danger they pose to you. She also looks at some common myths: people can be normal one second and “snap” the next, turning violent; psychopaths don’t know right from wrong; psychopaths look and act dangerous, and you can identify one on first sight; all psychopaths were abused as children and enjoyed torturing animals; most psychopaths are violent; all mothers have the instinct to protect their children. None of these beliefs is true.

My favorite part of the book is the section on secret profiler tricks. She describes six different situations that might be used in a TV show to allow a fictional profiler to form a quick opinion about a person – then points out all the reasons why that hasty assessment would be wrong. Scenario number five: A man doesn’t make eye contact when speaking. The TV profiler might see this as a “tell” and conclude that the man is lying. O’Toole wouldn’t be so hasty. “We assume that people who look down, away, or who seem shifty-eyed are either lying or hiding something. This might be the case. But it could also be true that the person is just shy and his or her interpersonal skills are lacking.” Psychopaths, on the other hand, will have no trouble looking you in the eye and lying.

Mary Ellen O’Toole often appears on TV news shows, discussing crimes in the news, such as the recent mass murder in a Colorado movie theater. On her website http://www.maryellenotoole.com you can find links to her interviews as well as more information about her book and her FBI career as a behavioral analyst.

Revising the Deadline

Sharon Wildwind

Congratulations to Lil Gluckstern, who won the draw for the phrase to replace deadline. She gets a quilted door hanger saying "I'm nearing my due date." Lil, please send me e-mail with your mailing address.

Kaye George wins a truck pincushion for figuring out where the truck was on a military base.

Thanks to all of those who participated.

As some of you know, I took the plunge and did the 3-Day Novel Contest this year. This is the thirty-fifth year that writers from all over the world have written, or attempted to write, a novel in 72 hours. Since 0001 on Friday, September 1 until just a few minutes ago, 2400 hours on September 3, I have been writing or sleeping, or eating, or hugging my significant other. That’s it.

Okay, I did manage one outside walk, watered the plants, assembled one quilt square, took two baths, and spent a few minutes on the treadmill, but that was it. My total life for 3 days.

Did I write a novel? Not by a long shot. I was aiming for 100 pages, the average length of previous contest winners.

I wrote 50 pages, but it was a complete story, so I am one happy camper.

In spare moments, I took time to look up the word deadline, wondering why something that is so active had the word “dead” in it. Where did “deadline” come from anyway?

Three possibilities

The American Civil War. A line was drawn seventeen feet from a military prison’s inner stockade. If a prisoner crossed that line, he could be shot without warning. Scary, but probably not related to writing.

A term referring to the removal of a military vehicle or equipment from operation because it is damaged, unsafe or would be damaged by further use. I tended to discount this possible source, except that now that I’ve finished the 3-DN, “would be damaged by further use” seem sooooo! appropriate.

My favorite, and where I think this really comes from is that in the early 20th century a deadline was “a guideline on the bed of a printing press beyond which text will not print.” (Henry, Printing for School & Shop, 1917). That meant that anything written after the deadline, would not be printed. Originally it referred to the length of the writing, but somehow it got flipped to mean the time of writing.

You know what this means, don’t you? If this is an early 20th century term, it means Shakespeare never had a deadline. Neither did Dickens, Chaucer, or Alexander Dumas. Proust might have had one, since he published in the early years of the 20th century.

In any case, it’s time we got rid of of the dead in deadline, so today I’m sponsoring a contest. Imagine you have a sign on your office door. “I’m on _____________.” What word would you use in place of deadline to fill in that blank?

It should be something fun, colorful. Something that reflects our joy of life as writers. So, think of a word to replace deadline, submit in the comments section, and I’ll put all the suggestions in a hat and draw one, who will win a prize.

I’ll also send a separate prize to the first person who answers this question:

Where is the only truck on a U. S. Army base found? (In the 1960s, this was actually a question on the test given to men and women who hoped to be promoted to sergeant.)

Shutting down now to preserve vital functions.

Reflections on September

by Julia Buckley


September is always a relief after hot August, and it's a precursor of beautiful Autumn. But our nation has some terrible memories associated with this month that may have blotted out other positive associations. So here's a quick look at some things we value about September.  ( The first few facts are borrowed from Wikipedia).

* September is the ninth month of the year on our calendar, but it derives from the Latin word "septem," or seven, because it was the seventh month on the Roman calendar until 46 B.C.

* German Oktoberfest is celebrated at the end of September.

* On the first Sunday in September, the regatta storica parade is staged in Venice.

* September in the Northern hemisphere is equivalent to March in the Southern hemisphere and vice versa.

* September's birthstone is the beautiful sapphire, and its flowers are the forget-me-not, the morning glory, and the aster.

* Many beautiful songs and poems have been written in honor of September.  Here are some tunes you might remember (from users.globalnet):

Come September                                               Nathalie Imbruglia : 2001
It Might As Well Rain Until September               Carole King : 1962
My September Love                                          David Whitfield : 1956
See You In September (Edwards/Wayne)         The Tempos : 1959
See You In September (Edwards/Wayne)         The Happenings : 1966
September                                                         Earth Wind & Fire : 1979
September In The Rain                                       Dinah Washington : 1961
September Morn (Diamond)                              Neil Diamond : 1980
September Song (Anderson/Weill)                     The Ravens : 1948
September Song (Anderson/Weill)                     Ian McCulloch : 1984

Here are some fun YouTube links of a few of these songs: I love that last song! And now I leave you with the words of William Wordworth: "Departing summer hath assumed An aspect tenderly illumed, The gentlest look of spring; That calls from yonder leafy shade, Unfaded, yet prepared to fade, A timely carolling." Wordsworth, September

Interview with Author Joanna Campbell Slan

It is my privilege to have author Joanna Campbell Slan as our guest today. Now Joanna Campbell Slan has a prejudice. She likes to write about underdogs, spunky women who refuse to give up. First came the Kiki Lowenstein mysteries, a contemporary series featuring a young soccer mom whose comfortable life is turned upside-down with the murder of her husband. Her first novel in that series, PAPER, SCISSORS, DEATH, was a finalist for the Agatha Award. Joanna is also the author of twelve non-fiction books, and many essays that appear in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Now Joanna tackles the Regency Period, by recasting that iconic heroine, Jane Eyre, as an amateur sleuth in the debut of Joanna's newest series, The Jane Eyre Chronicles, beginning with DEATH OF A SCHOOLGIRL.

 

I caught up with Joanna as she was fast at work on the sixth book in the Kiki Lowenstein series.

Jeri Westerson: Let's just put this out there first thing. Are you nuts? What possessed you to write a follow-up to Charlotte Brontë’s iconic classic? It certainly takes chutzpah to tread those waters.

Joanna Campbell Slan: Don’t I know it! Charlotte Brontë was a genius, which is probably why no one dared touch Jane. But I loved that book so much, Jeri, that I didn’t want it to end. If my series causes one or two readers to return to (or be introduced to) a beloved favorite, then I think Charlotte would approve.

As I recall, the reviewers were pretty cruel to Charlotte, weren’t they?

JCS: Yes, ma’am. They called her book “coarse” and attacked it as having a plot that was “extravagantly improbable.” Oh, and “anti-Christian,” too. Considering that Charlotte was the daughter of an Anglican vicar, that must have stung. Of course all that happened BEFORE they knew the author was a woman. Then the reviewers got nasty. Really nasty.

Does an author have the right to re-appropriate the work of another author?

JCS: Legally, yes, because the copyright has run out. Jane Eyre is nearly 150 years old. Morally? Certainly. Every work is a derivative work, a retelling of classic themes. One might argue that the highest form of praise is to want to extend the “life” of a beloved character.

How does your book differ from the original?

JCS: Recall, dear readers, that in the original, we have a very young Jane, an orphan totally without worldly resources. By the time I tapped out a new adventure for her, Jane is a wealthy heiress with loving cousins, an education, and a husband who is a member of the landed gentry. A very different situation, indeed, especially given the prejudices of the times. She’s also become a mother. Anyone who has made that particular transition knows that motherhood turns the meekest among us into Mama Bears, who will protect their young at any cost.

What did you learn about the Regency period while writing the book?

JCS: Like most of us, I grew up hearing about “Mad King George” whose failures sparked the Revolutionary War. In fact, my ancestors were landed gentry who wrote the King and begged him to reconsider his policies. But I never heard anything about George IV, the even crazier son of George III, who only ruled a short time. His dissolute ways contrast enormously with the highly ethical Jane Eyre. That gave me a lot of insight into the times. That and horsesh*t. I gather from my research that all of London was awash with horsesh*t. If you’ve ever visited a city with horse-drawn carriages on a hot summer day, you can only imagine the smell of London in the 1820s. Gag.

Okay, tell us something we don’t know about you and wouldn’t suspect.

JCS: When I was in college, I wrote a letter to Prince Charles asking him if he could behead people. I got a letter back from him.

What did it say?

JCS:  I’d have to kill you if I told you, Jeri. Maybe someday over a drink at a bar…

Death of a Schoolgirl, the first book in The Jane Eyre Chronicles (Berkley Trade) was released August 7. For more about Joanna, go to www.JoannaSlan.com But don’t expect her to tell you what Prince Charles said!