The Cheese Guy by Lynn Chandler Willis

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Several years ago, i was invited to participate in a book festival sponsored by a local, glossy magazine named after O’Henry. The festival was being held at a high-dollar, swanky hotel, also named after the famous writer.

I was still riding pretty high with my win for Best First Private Eye Novel given by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America. I was super excited to participate and still a little unbelieving that my work had won a major contest.

I happily accepted the invitation and got busy ordering bookmarks, and postcards, and posters for the big day. I worked with the publisher to make sure I had copies to sell. I sent out all kinds of announcements to my growing list of newsletter subscribers. I emailed cousins and uncles and aunts and friends from elementary school to high school.

When the big day finally came, I loaded my books into my rolling purple suitcase––which by the way, I still use––and headed to the premiere hotel in the area. When I got there, I was shown by a guy in a tux to the room where we’d be set up. The guy probably had some kind of title I couldn’t pronounce anyway so I just referred to him as the guy in the tux.

The room was filled with other authors and for a moment I felt right at home. And then I noticed I was the only one who wrote mysteries. In fact, me, a children’s book author, and guy who wrote fantasy were the only three authors present who didn’t write literary. I’m talking Faulkner literary, or better yet, O’Henry literary.

I knew the guy who wrote fantasy. And I knew his work. We had belonged to the same local writing organization and were members of the same critique group. Fantasy guy wrote about dragons. Thirty of them to be exact. All with names containing 20-plus letters no one could pronounce. And they were all introduced in the first chapter of the 300 thousand words book. That’s right. Three. Hundred. Thousand. Words. It was the first book in a trilogy.

He was notoriously smug about his work and wouldn’t accept constructive criticism no matter how gentle it was given. I don’t think he would have accepted it if a gang of 30 dragons held him down and blew fire in his face. He published his book himself back before any kind of standards existed. He worked the crowd and arm-wrestled a few into buying his book which they needed a hand cart to get it to their car.

Aside from him, the day was pleasant enough. I sold quite a few books. I chatted with lots of people who tended to gravitate toward my table for some good ‘ol genre fiction. The day wasn’t bad at all, until the cheese guy dropped by.

At book festivals, signings, readings, and any other type of event, it’s common practice for the author to have a bottle of water, maybe a bag of Skittles, tucked behind their table display. Out of sight of those in attendance. My publisher just happened to have sent along two table posters on foam board which was perfect for concealing a drink and maybe a snack. I had them on either end of the table while I stood in the middle.

I had a bottle of water tucked behind one but no snacks. Then I noticed uniformed waitresses delivering wood platters filled with nuts, and fruit, and mounds of different cheeses to the other authors. I quietly asked one of the waitresses if I could order one. She was happy to bring me what could only be described as a magnificent charcuterie board before they became a thing.

Toasted almonds rolled in sugar? Oh my word. I was living the dream!

I slipped the board behind the other table poster and continued chatting with eager readers, taking a quick sample of the deliciousness in between. And then some guy, a well dressed guy at that, comes up, steps behind my table and whips out a pocket knife and proceeds to cut off a hunk of my cheese. He shoves a few green grapes into his mouth then grabs a handful of my toasted almonds and goes on about his merry way.

I was too stunned to protest or even ask him what the h%$* he was doing.

We all have that one book event that left a lasting impression. What about you? What’s yours?

Lynn Chandler Willis comes from a journalism background as the former owner/publisher of a small town newspaper and prefers to make stuff up. She now writes mystery/thriller/suspense and crime novels along with the occasional snarky comment on social media. She’s the current President of SEMWA, the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, a member of International Thriller Writers (ITW), and a past-president of Sisters in Crime––Murder We Write chapter. She’s a Shamus Award finalist, A Grace Award Winner for Excellence in Faith-based Fiction, and the winner of the St. Martin’s Press/PWA’s Best 1st PI Novel — the first woman in a decade to win the award. She has a new series debuting in November 2022 and another in May 2023 with Level Best Books.

WHICH IS MY FAVORITE?

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I’m often asked which of my books is my favorite, and I can never answer directly. It’s like picking one of your children over the others. I love every book for its unique qualities, its characters, its relationship to my own life. BAD BLOOD SISTERS is my first book set in my hometown, on an island on the Gulf Coast. The main character, Quinn McFarland, struggles with issues of identity, friendship, and betrayal. The whole story is told through Quinn’s point of view, so we get to know and care about her deeply. Also, I wrote the book during Covid lockdown. Quinn’s story occupied my whole life, day and night, for almost a year, and I still think of her often. Quinn might be my Scarlett O’Hara.

NAUGHTY NANA, a children’s picture book, is narrated by my real-live Old English sheepdog, Nana, whose puppyhood was fraught with mishaps in the extreme. My first foray into the world of writing, NAUGHTY NANA introduced me to an illustrator, an audience, public appearances, and all the joys of connecting with readers. Having Nana by my side throughout this adventure has been a spectacular privilege. Nana could be my Curious George—in the book and in real life.

 

A MURDER OF PRINCIPAL might be my most personal novel, since it is set in an urban high school in the Midwest. I served as an educator in several such schools—they were my homes away from home. I do a lot of research for all of my books, but I did the least amount of research for this one, because my own experience and expertise carried me through most of the story. Assistant Principal, Sally Pierce, who resembles me in a few ways (but is overall purely fictional), is a fascinating amateur sleuth, and R.J. Stoker, the renegade principal who brings unwanted changes to Lincoln High School, is one of my favorite all-time characters.

 

And then I must consider the three books in the Detective Parrott Mystery Series. MURDER IN THE ONE PERCENT, A PALETTE FOR LOVE AND MURDER, and CRYSTAL BLUE MURDER. Each of these is also my favorite. Set in the elite countryside of Brandywine Valley, where many of America’s wealthiest and most powerful live, each story is different (and can be read as a standalone), but each brings a new slant on human nature, particularly as it’s affected by money and material things. The main character, Detective Oliver Parrott, is an outsider in the community, which gives him the unique ability to see through the roadblocks thrown at him by the one percenters, who protect their secrets and their turf at all costs. Detective Parrott, despite being young and inexperienced, is a fully-realized agent for truth and justice, and his personal life, including relationship with fiancée (and later wife) Tonya, adds depth and humanity to the stories.  Parrott is a wonderful human being, someone who whispers in my ear, commenting on social issues, even at times when I’m not writing him. Parrott is my Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, or Harry Bosch.

Is there a book you’ve read (or written) where you felt galvanized by the main character?

 

Galveston Author Saralyn Richard

Visit my website here for more information, to order autographed books, and to subscribe to my monthly newsletter,

The Legacy of Angela Lansbury

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by Paula Gail Benson

Angela Lansbury from Wikipedia

On October 11, 2022, just five days before what would have been her 97th birthday, Angela Lansbury passed away at her home in Los Angeles. She did not appear at the 75th annual Tony Awards ceremony on June 12 to receive a lifetime achievement recognition; but, according to Wikipedia, over her career, she won 5 Tonys for acting and, in the 1960s, the New York Times referred to her as “the First Lady of Musical Theater.” My first appreciation of her work came from listening to her voice on the cast albums for Anyone Can Whistle, Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd. I also delighted to hear her interpretation of Madame Armfeldt in the 2009 Broadway revival of A Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones as Desiree and Ramona Mallory (daughter of Victoria Mallory and Mark Lambert, who played Anne and Henrik in the 1973 production) playing the role her mother had originated.

Some will remember Lansbury’s work from Hollywood’s Golden Age, when with her mother and twin brothers, she came to America to escape the Blitz, and was signed by MGM to play the maid in Gaslight, Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister in National Velvet, and a tavern singer and early love of Dorian Gray in The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the 1960s, she played the mothers of men only a few years her junior, Elvis Pressley in Blue Hawaii and Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate. She received three Oscar nominations for supporting actress and was given an Honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement.

For American audiences, she may be most recognizable for voicing and singing the role of Mrs. Potts in the animated Beauty and the Beast and for her performance as retired teacher and mystery writer Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote. I actually learned about her passing from a retired friend who regularly watched Murder, She Wrote reruns each day. He sent me a message that the station had interrupted the program with the breaking news.

The remarkable thing about Murder, She Wrote and Lansbury’s portrayal of Jessica Fletcher was that it started about the same time as Sisters in Crime organized and began focusing attention on women mystery writers, who often had been overlooked by reviewers. Jessica Fletcher became a symbol for several causes: (1) that middle-aged and older women could be protagonists; (2) that women could thrive in second careers; and (3) that women wrote excellent mysteries.

Terrie Farley Moran and me

I contacted my friend Terrie Farley Moran, who now co-writes (with Jessica) the Murder, She Wrote novels (a task previously taken on by Donald Bain, his wife Renee Paley-Bain, and Jon Land). So far, there are 56 books in the series. Terrie began with Book 53, which takes place in Columbia, S.C., where Terrie came to participate in the Mystery in the Midlands conference.

Terrie was a wonderful choice to continue the series due to her devotion to and familiarity with the television program. I hope she will continue for many more years and I’m sure fans do, too.

When I contacted her to offer sympathy, Terrie told me that “the torch had been passed” to a new generation to enjoy mysteries from the Fletcher family. Just this month, Scholastic Press published Stephanie Kuehn’s By the Time You Read This I’ll Be Gone, the first of a new Murder, She Wrote series featuring Beatrice Fletcher, who like her great-aunt Jessica, lives in Cabot Cove and is drawn into solving mysteries. Hopefully, this young adult series will introduce a new group of readers to the Jessica Fletcher legend.

Personally, I’m grateful to Angela Lansbury for crafting such a memorable character in Jessica Fletcher, who continues to be an inspiration to mystery writers.

Mint Chocolate Wordplay

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by Shari Randall/Meri Allen

Do you Wordle? Do crossword puzzles? Enjoy Words with Friends?

I love word games, so when I was asked to make an anagram from the words in the title of my latest Ice Cream Shop mystery, MINT CHOCOLATE MURDER, I jumped at the chance. It was a fun to do – but challenging. So many O’s! But it was an enjoyable exercise and it made me think about my book in new ways.

M – Mysterious supermodel with a royal secret

I — Ice cream social to die for

N  — New England village of your Hallmark dreams

T — Teashops and treachery

 

C — Crafty clues and red herrings

H — Haunted Scottish castle

O — Obsessions turned deadly

C — Cat who needs therapy

O – One hot veterinarian

L — Locked room mystery

A – Art world gossip

T – Tantalizing twists

E – Enemies and frenemies

 

M — Malicious suspects

U – Unrequited love

R — Race against the clock

D — Danger in the dungeon

E – Extra sprinkles!

R — Riley Rhodes, my main character, an ice cream shop manager and former CIA librarian with plenty of secrets of her own

 

Readers, I hope you’ll find something here that intrigues. Writers, give it a try with one of your titles!

Do you enjoy word games? What’s your favorite?

Meri Allen is the pen name of Shari Randall, who loves playing Scrabble. She lives in New England, where she’s looking forward to the fall foliage.

 

 

A Spark that Inspires a Novel

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A miniscule thought that crosses my mind or an article I’ve read in a newspaper can light up like a distant sparkling star and inspire a story. If the spark grows and gains momentum, the concept might become a novel.

The spark in Revenge in Barcelona (my Nikki Garcia Mystery #3), was the city itself, its unique architecture, colorful history, rich culture, physical beauty, and its independent-minded people. The spark grew in my mind until I knew that Nikki should experience action, mystery, and danger in Barcelona.

The process of following a spark of inspiration is similar for many writers. Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, was inspired by a trip to Pamplona, Spain, to witness the running of the bulls and bullfights at the week-long San Fermín festival. He’d intended to write a non-fiction book about bullfighting, which had become a passion for him. Instead, the book became fiction based on Hemingway and his friends. In it, he explored the themes of love and death, a total reversal of what he’d originally intended.

This reversal of original intention happens to many authors of fiction, me included. The spark starts out with one concept, and it morphs into a totally different one. Yet the original spark, such as Hemingway’s bullfights, are often woven into the novel either as a theme or subplot, while the full storyline becomes much broader, richer, more scintillating.

Last week, I started my 5th Nikki Garcia mystery. The spark that lit up my imagination was a belt buckle that a man was wearing. It featured a mule.

I knew at that moment that I had to weave a mule or two into Nikki’s next novel. And where can I put a few mules? In a wilderness adventure, of course!

***

What sparks your imagination?

 

All photos are used in an editorial or educational manner.

Photo credits:

Sagrada Familia Steeples – Kathryn Lane

The Belt Buckle with a Mule – Pinterest

How to Keep a Longstanding Cozy Mystery Series Fresh

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By Lois Winston

Have you ever fallen in love with a series only to discover that the author stopped writing it? Some writers get tired of writing about the same characters and move on to writing other books. Others fall victim to the fickleness of the publishing industry. Authors are dropped if their sales don’t continue to increase or increase enough, others because the editor who championed the series changes jobs or is laid off. Lines folds. Publishing houses merge or goes bankrupt. The reasons are myriad.

Those of us who have walked away from traditional publishing to “go indie” no longer have to worry about holding our breaths, waiting to hear if our current contract will be extended or a new one offered. We’re free to keep alive the characters we love for as long as we want to write about them. The challenge that confronts us is how to keep a longstanding series from getting stale.

Guilty as Framed, my eleventh Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, will release in less than two weeks on September 6th. Keeping a series fresh after that many books (plus three novellas), is a challenge. After all, there are only so many ways the victim can die, especially in a cozy mystery where you need to keep the gruesome stuff off the page. There are also just so many ways an amateur sleuth can insert herself into a crime without readers becoming incapable of suspending disbelief.

To keep my series fresh, I decided early on that I’d periodically introduce new characters into Anastasia’s world. I began in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, Book 3, where I introduced Ira Pollack, Anastasia’s deceased husband’s previously unknown half-brother, and his brood of spoiled kids. Also, in that book readers first meet Lawrence Tuttnauer, Anastasia’s future stepfather. In the following book, Decoupage Can Be Deadly, I introduced ex-Special Forces, IT expert, and bodyguard Tino Martinelli. All three men have had recurring roles in subsequent books.

In Drop Dead Ornaments, Book 7, I gave Anastasia’s son Alex a girlfriend. She and her father also play pivotal roles in Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide and A Sew Deadly Cruise, books 8 and 9.

Not every character makes an appearance in every book, though. Sometimes only a passing reference is made to them, sometimes not even that. Other times they once again become major secondary characters in the story. It depends on the book. But these additional characters I’ve created throughout the series enable me to come up with interesting character arcs and fresh plots.

I also didn’t want my series to succumb to Cabot Cove Syndrome, something the writers of Murder She Wrotebegan to become aware of as the popular series continued. Given the size of the town and the rate of murders, eventually Jessica Fletcher would wind up the only citizen left in the tiny hamlet. So the writers wisely decided to send Jessica off on various adventures. Of course, the dead bodies kept piling up no matter where Jessica went, but at least the murders were no longer all occurring in Cabot Cove.

I’ve done the same with Anastasia. Some of the books in the series center around her workplace, others around her home. In Death by Killer Mop Doll, Book 2, the setting is a television studio in New York City. A Sew Deadly Cruise is a “locked room” mystery with the murders taking place when Anastasia and her family are on vacation. Stitch, Bake, Die! is another “locked room” mystery, taking place at a conference center during a storm.

In Guilty as Framed, the story once again centers around Anastasia’s home, but in this book, the plot involves an actual unsolved crime that took place in Boston in 1990. Not only do I need to keep my stories fresh for my readers, I need to challenge myself with each new book. As much as I enjoy spending time with my characters, I need a creative challenge to keep from falling into the same old/same old abyss.

Guilty as Framed was quite the challenge! Not only does the plot center around a thirty-two-year-old cold case, but the crime occurred more than 250 miles from where Anastasia lives, and most of the persons of interest and suspects have long since died, from either natural or unnatural causes.

Mysteries provide a challenge to the reader to figure out whodunit before the end of the book. Guilty as Framed proved a huge challenge to me as the writer. I hope readers find it as satisfying to read as I did to write.

Guilty as Framed

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 11

When an elderly man shows up at the home of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack, she’s drawn into the unsolved mystery of the greatest art heist in history.

Boston mob boss Cormac Murphy has recently been released from prison. He doesn’t believe Anastasia’s assertion that the man he’s looking for doesn’t live at her address and attempts to muscle his way into her home. His efforts are thwarted by Anastasia’s fiancé Zack Barnes.

A week later, a stolen SUV containing a dead body appears in Anastasia’s driveway. Anastasia believes Murphy is sending her a message. It’s only the first in a series of alarming incidents, including a mugging, a break-in, another murder, and the discovery of a cache of jewelry and an etching from the largest museum burglary in history.

But will Anastasia solve the mystery behind these shocking events before she falls victim to a couple of desperate thugs who will stop at nothing to get what they want?

Buy Links

Amazon

Kobo

Apple Books

Nook

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Holiday Novella

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by Bethany Maines

A New Holiday Novella

Oh my goodness!  COVID down time actually came through for me this year and I have finished, yes that’s right actually finished, the holiday novella I’ve been planning on getting around to for last THREE years.  Way back in 2017 I completed what I would consider a long short story called Oh Holy Night about a graphic designer and a bank robbery that goes badly.  And then I followed that up with the award-winning Blue Christmas the following year.  Blue was about a college student, an adorable French Bulldog and a whole lot of smuggled diamonds. As you can guess from the descriptions, these aren’t the traditional Hallmark Christmas stories.  But they are romantic funny adventures about people who learn to love the Christmas season.

What Christmas Carol is Next?

Winter Wonderland completes the trilogy with a story about Bah-Humbug photographer Marcus Winters and a set designer Larissa “I love Christmas” Frost who find themselves involved in a robbery gone wrong and must solve the mystery of “whodunnit” before Larissa ends up in jail for a crime she didn’t commit.  The fun part about the novella is that it let’s me get back in the mystery writing zone.  And jeez, now I remember why that was hard! The clues, the suspects, the timeline!  Every time I write a mystery, I respect other mystery writer’s even more.

What is the question?

Every book has a question in it that the protagonists are trying to answer. Whether that question is philosophical to themselves and their world or whether it’s something literal like “where’s the money” the question has to be answered in a satisfactory way order to deliver on the promise of the book.  But with a mystery, not only are the protagonists trying to answer the question of “who committed the crime” the reader is too.  And staying a step ahead of the reader and the characters in the story is hard work for a writer. Authors can fall back on several tricks to make the mystery work–choosing when to reveal information, letting information exist on the page without drawing attention to it, deliberately calling out false clues (red herrings!)–but in the end, a mystery only works if the crime is solvable and for that a writer cannot whimsically wave their hand at the end.  An author has to know how, who, where, and why and then, if your me, also toss in a romance, some character development, and hopefully a decent turn of phrase.

It has been fun to venture into the mystery world once again and I’m more than pleased to complete the story that’s been on my to-do list for three years.  I hope that readers will enjoy it too.  Look for Winter Wonderland in November of 2022.

Want to know more about Winter Wonderland?

Click Here: https://bethanymaines.com/romanticsuspense/

PreOrder Here: https://books2read.com/winter-wonderland/

**

Bethany MainesBethany Maines drinks from an arsenic mug the award-winning author of romantic action-adventure and mystery novels that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind-end.  When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

 

 

 

 

Hokey Pokey Shakespeare

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  by Gay Yellen

I was a shy child who spent a lot of time reading. At twelve, I fell in love with Shakespeare. I dove deep into the leather-bound tomes that lived on a bookshelf in our den. Comedies, tragedies, history plays. They fascinated me.

My favorite was Romeo and Juliet. I read Juliet’s balcony speech so many times, I had it memorized. Alone in my room, I would act it out over and over again.

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Fast forward to college, when I needed one more requirement to graduate: a semester of Shakespeare. Rather than take it during the school year at my alma mater, I opted for a summer course offered by a university in my home town.

That decision almost ruined Shakespeare for me forever.

Instead of teaching us about Shakespeare’s gift with language, or the political tenor of the times, or the nature of tragedy, etc., the professor went on for hours interpreting his characters through an extreme Freudian lens. In every play, he’d point out that a dagger or sword represented the male sexual apparatus, poison stood for the biological exchange of body fluids, and so on. (Please don’t ask me about Desdemona’s handkerchief.)

Of course, Shakespeare plays can be bawdy, sensual, and full of innuendo. But that professor made everything icky. A summer (and tuition) was wasted. At least I got the credit, and I’ve learned a lot more since then, like this:

Shakespeare never meant for Juliet’s “balcony” speech to be delivered from a balcony.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, that particular architectural construct did not exist in England when the play was written. Nor did the word “balcony” exist in the English language at the time.

Well over a decade after the play was first performed, a British diarist in Italy marveled at something he’d never seen in England: “a very pleasant little tarrasse, that jutteth or butteth out from the maine building, the edge whereof is decked with many prety litle turned pillers, either of marble or free stone to leane over… that people may from that place… view the parts of the City.”

If my old professor had known his history, I’m almost sure he wouldn’t have missed the chance to mention the thing that “jutteth” and “butteth.”

It’s okay to reinvent Shakespeare’s works with spoofs and spinoffs. Many writers have done it, and still do. Shakespeare borrowed from other writers, too.

The other day, I accidentally came across Shakespearean Hokey Pokey, in which punsters attempt to set their own Elizabethan-style lyrics to the tune of the popular children’s dance.

Hokey Pokey Shakespeare could also describe my bizarre Midsummer Night’s Dream experience in that weird professor’s classroom. But if you love The Bard, that’s not what it’s all about.

How do you feel about Shakespeare?

 

Gay Yellen writes the award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series: The Body Business, The Body Next Door. Coming soon, The Body in the News.

 

Crazy About Socks?

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Recently I read that during the pandemic online shopping spree, socks became a hot item. Socks? Really? Must have taken some pretty bored people to shop for socks!

I wondered if socks had ever been written up in literature. As a mystery writer, I immediately thought of possible book titles: Murder by Socks, The Sock Strangler, or Forensic Socks.

Next, I researched books with “socks” in the title and found the expected “how to” category teaching you to knit socks. Children’s stories have a surprising number of titles with socks, starting with Dr. Seuss’s famous Fox in Socks.

In Battle of Hogwarts, the Harry Potter book/movie, Harry tricks Lucius Malfoy into freeing the house servant Dobby. Harry uses one of his socks to gift-wrap Tom Riddle’s Diary before giving it to Lucius. When Lucius throws away the unneeded sock, Dobby catches it, thus freeing himself from Lucius.

My personal experience with socks was during my corporate days when I racked up millions of airline miles flying all over the globe. At that time, business and first class gave an amenity kit that included a cheap pair of socks that were supposed to be used once and discarded. Well, I collected and used those socks. For over twenty years I never bought a pair—I had all those airline ones. And they never wear out! Though my husband disagrees; he’s thrown away the ones with the comfortable holes in the toes.

My stream of consciousness led me to research the sock market. Every theme you can think of can be printed on a pair of cotton, stretchy, or wool socks. The most expensive, so expensive in fact that the price was not listed, are those made from Cervelt, a fiber from New Zealand’s Red Deer. Only 20 grams of fiber can be collected per deer per year making it one of the most exclusive fabrics in the world.

In my search I discovered an organization in the Netherlands, Sock by Sock, whose mission is to keep overproduced socks from ending up as waste. After seeing the availability of socks on the Net, I can assure you that organization has plenty of work to accomplish.

Do you have a sock story? If so, sock it to me!

***

Kathryn Lane is the author of the award-winning Nikki Garcia Mystery Series. Nikki Garcia, the protagonist, is a private investigator based in Miami. She does work in foreign countries, including countries where private investigators are forbidden by law.

Kathryn’s early work life started out as a painter in oils. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked on a career in international finance with a major multinational corporation.

Two decades later, she left the corporate world to create mystery and suspense thrillers, drawing inspiration from her Mexican background as well as her travels in over ninety countries.

***

Photos are taken from the public domain. They are used in either an editorial or educational manner.

An Interview with Saul Golubcow

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by Paula Gail Benson

Last Monday, I introduced you to Saul Golubcow, whose Frank Wolf and Joel Gordon mysteries have just been compiled in The Cost of Living and Other Mysteries, available through Amazon and the publisher Wildside Press. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’ve enjoyed reading each new story and been bold enough to ask Saul for more! I think you’ll find his characters and situations so intriguing it’s difficult to put a story down until the end. Saul’s been gracious enough to answer some questions about his life and how he found his way to writing fiction.

Thank you, Saul, for agreeing to be with us.

If you haven’t already been reading his work, now is a great time to start!

(1)        What made you decide to write fiction? 

Hard question as it suggests a definable or rational causality. But here goes. I think when I was much younger, feeling inside a pulse and rhythm of the English language and resonating viscerally to so much of what I read, I thought perhaps I could bring forth life through a fictional rendering. And perhaps I thought if others can do it, why can’t I? But in the same way I try to present Joel in my stories, I was immature not so much from an impulsive or know-it-all perspective, but rather as Joni Mitchell may have put it, I couldn’t see “both sides now.” It took decades of growing up to feel comfortable with myself writing fiction. Writing non-fiction opinion pieces demands much less in its two-dimensional approach to a subject. But I realized if I wanted to really depict Holocaust survivors, I had to devise a multi-dimensional way which could only be done through a fictional world of relationships, tensions, nobility, hypocrisy, loss, and vindication. I thought I was finally ready to create lives.

(2)        How did you create the characters of Frank Wolf and his grandson Joel Gordon? 

An easier question. As I mention in the “Acknowledgments” section, for one of my drawer-kept projected stories, I thought about the life and personality of my father-in-law. He had lost his first family during the Holocaust, and he arrived in the United States in later middle age following the Hungarian Revolution. He was well versed in religious practice, history, arts, the sciences, and the technologies of his time. I was also struck by his various observations of the human condition. Although he never attempted private detective work, he often spoke of “critical analyses” as an imperative for reining in impulsive and rash decision-making, the core skill of a good detective. I back then wondered, might I create a Holocaust survivor character who becomes a private detective in Brooklyn?

But also, Frank Wolf represents that spirit of Holocaust survivors that has insisted that while they suffered horrible victimization, they would not succumb to victimhood. Even before I met my father-in-law, this response to suffering was bred in my bones. I also saw it in my own family. My parents also lost whole families in the Holocaust. Grateful for the opportunity to make a living as poultry farmers in South Jersey even though they knew nothing of farming, nor later of being hotel managers in Atlantic City, they demonstrated a resilience in the midst of enduring pain, building a new life in which my sister and I were protected and a path into our future developed. My father often insisted, “I can’t give up.” These traits are infused into my Holocaust survivors’ characters, regardless of their individual and differing personalities.

As for Joel, I think my wife and I are the models for his character. Young, sometimes over-confident, sometimes self-doubting, sometimes respectful, sometimes imperious, we wrestled with our “Frank Wolf” and learned a good deal about love, trust, and respect as we did so.

(3)        Tell us a little about Frank’s background, which is unique. How did you develop it? 

As mentioned above, I took my father-in-law’s real-life background as the blueprint for Frank Wolf’s character. Before the War, though not a university professor, he was well educated in both secular and religious studies. He may have become a professor or a Rabbi or both had he, as the eldest male in the family, not been forced to take over the family business after the early death of his father. Frank Wolf before the Holocaust was the easiest task for me. The challenge was conceptualizing his life after, and seeing him as a private detective the way I present it in the stories seemed the right way to go.

(4)      How do you determine the length of a story? What length do you feel most comfortable writing? 

Intriguing question. When I am in short story conceptualization mode, I must deal with the constraints of forums accepting just so many words. So I go into “less is more” mode, and that’s ok for that particular genre. But as it occurred for me with “The Cost of Living” which was originally published as a short story, I wanted to say so much more about Frank’s background and life story that turned it into novella length. I gave myself the same leeway with the other stories (especially “The Dorm Murder”) because I wanted the reader to understand so much more about psyche, feeling, and crime solving method that I couldn’t advance in a word limited short story. I am comfortable novella length, but it’s possible my next mystery will be even longer.

Saul Golubcow

Saul’s Bio:

When he is not immersed in the New York of the 1970s with his detective Frank Wolf, Saul Golubcow lives in Potomac, Maryland with his wife, Hedy Teglasi. His Jewish themed fiction centers on the complexity of and challenges Holocaust survivors in the United States have faced. His stories have appeared in Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and Jewish Fiction.Net. The Cost of Living and Other Mysteries is his first book-length publication featuring Frank Wolf, a Holocaust survivor. In addition, his commentary on American Jewish culture and politics appear in various publications.