Looking Back and Looking Forward

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Answering Debra’s message
from Friday: yes, there is still time for resolutions! Also, there’s time to
celebrate last year’s accomplishments.

In 2021, I was pleased to
make progress in my writing. My short story “Cosway’s Confidence” won second
place in the Bethlehem Writers Group annual contest and was featured in their
quarterly online publication, the BWG Roundtable. Another of my stories,
“Hollandaise,” received honorable mention in the South Carolina Writers
Association, Surfside Chapter’s short story contest and appeared in its
blog. 

Finally, three of my stories were published in
the Red Penguin Books Collection (a group of anthologies) (one twice!):
“Beloved Husband,” a monologue based on Norman Baskin, Majorie Kinnan Rawlings
second spouse, in An Empty Stage;

“The Fairy Godmother’s Christmas”
in Once Upon a Time and Stand Out: Volume Two; and

 “No Legs” accepted for The
Robot and Me.

The robot story had to be
about the interaction between humans and technology. My story involved Nella
Bella, who existed in a fortune telling box and dispensed cards while providing
security for her facilitator, a human fortune teller. Without legs, Nella had
to find a way to get rid of a spectral being draining her facilitator of all
energy and life. A friend of mine called it “a coming of legs” story. I really
like that description!

Since October, I’ve been
putting some words on paper each day. I’m not as far ahead with some projects
as I would like to be, but I’m making progress.

That’s my New Year’s
resolution: to keep moving forward and finishing work. What resolutions have
you made?

I wish for all of you the
very best in this New Year, in reading and writing. May you reach all your
goals!

Resolutions? by Debra H. Goldstein

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Resolutions? by Debra H. Goldstein

January
14. Two weeks since 2022 began. If you are like me, two weeks is more than
enough time to have broken every resolution you made or contemplated making.
That’s why, this year I didn’t make any resolutions. Instead, I decided to roll
with the flow.

 

How’s
that going? I’m not sure. I seem to be weaving down a lot of different paths.
Some of them are fun to explore, but many are dead ends. Of course, even when I
know which way I’m going, there have been many unforeseen obstacles ranging
from the soaring Omicron numbers to realizing my new sneakers look pretty but
don’t fit my orthotics and feet well for extended walking.

 

My
writing seems to be following the same pattern as my life. Instead of resolving
to write a set number of words a day or so many stories a month, I’ve been
letting the muse guide me. How’s that going? Not well. I’m playing a lot more
solitaire than I should be. What’s worse, I’m repeatedly surfing the net to see
if there are any unread news stories, touching human interest articles, or
exciting things reported by friends.

 

The
latter makes me happy for them; but, if they are writers, it also prompts a
little jealousy. Why are they getting things accomplished and I’m not? I guess they
made resolutions that they are carrying through. There are still fifty weeks in
2022. I think there’s still time for me to make and act on a few resolutions.
What about you?

 

Gay Yellen: Name That Car!

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Does your car have a name? One that captures its true personality? I’ve named some of mine. After all, boats get names. Why not cars?

By my mid-twenties, I’d already owned two really fun cars: an azure blue Impala convertible and a Corvette Stingray. They were so cool, they didn’t need any other identity.

But for reasons best left unexplained, I sold the Stingray and bought a Ford Pinto. I drove it just like I’d driven the ‘Vette, fast and furious, up and down the freeways and the canyons of Los Angeles. That little car didn’t know it wasn’t sporty. I gave it an identity upgrade and named it Penelope, after the wife of Odysseus, because she had spunk.

Fast forward to the 21st century, when my decades-old Mercedes was on its last wheel. Facing a total overhaul, I opted for a new car. At the time, most new designs looked all the same to me. I wanted something I could easily spot in a crowded parking lot, one that wouldn’t have me trying to unlock a stranger’s car that I’d mistaken for mine. I’d owned some really nice cars by then, and my husband still had his. I only needed a scoot-around-town car. Nothing fancy.

On a fluke, I discovered the Nissan Cube and bought it the same day. I named it Roobix, a play on the name of the guy who invented that other famous cube. Matter of fact, I placed one of his on top the of the little circle of factory-installed shag rug on its dashboard. Roobix is neither sexy nor aerodynamic, but it looks like no other car, and turns out to be one of the most fun cars I’ve ever driven.

The car is so distinctive that it made a CBS News Top 15 list. Okay, so the list was for the World’s Ugliest Cars. But hear me out. It’s small on the outside and big on the inside, which is a neat trick if you ask me. It gets a lot of thumbs up as I drive through the city. It has a gizmo that delivers an array of psychedelic lights inside. And the swirly ceiling has a hot tub vibe, minus the heat and the water.

I’m not the only one who’s ever been inspired to name my ride. Beyonce called her Jag Honeybee. Obama dubbed his car The Beast. Lady Gaga rolled in her Bloody Mary Rolls Royce. In my Samantha Newman Mystery Series, Sam gives her lowly little subcompact the name Ferret for its ability to squeeze into and out of tight spaces.

And, by the way, my Cube isn’t the only car of mine to make that CBS ugliest list. Coming in at #1—Ta DAH!!— the Ford Pinto. Two award-winners! Life is good.

Have you ever given your car a name? We’d love you to share it in the comments below.

Gay Yellen writes the award-winning

Samantha Newman Mysteries, including:
The Body Business and
The Body Next Door, available on Amazon.
Coming soon in 2022: Body in the News
 

Ready, Not Ready (A tribute to Cathy Perkins)

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by: Donnell Ann Bell

On December 21, 2021, The Stiletto Gang lost a blog partner and friend. Cathy Perkins passed away. She was able to celebrate her 41st
wedding anniversary with her husband, and I know firsthand how proud and delighted she was with her daughters, spouses, and grandchildren. These people were her
world.

For the most part, Cathy Perkins was a private person. In
this blogpost, I’d like to celebrate the dynamic person I knew, and why I
enjoyed her company so much. Cathy Perkins had a soft Southern drawl, a great
laugh, a terrific sense of humor, and a gleam in her eye. She enjoyed exercising and was serious about her health. Her myriad interests spanned
from finance and science (chemical engineering was her first degree), to walking her dogs,
to working with stained glass, and, of course, writing. 

I met Cathy at the start of her writing career, after
judging her unpublished entry, The Professor, in the Daphne du Maurier Award
for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. Later, we would serve on committees and a
board together, and we periodically texted or phoned to catch up on the goings-on
in our careers.

Whether close by or across the country, she loved to attend writing
retreats, places where she was in her element and her most productive. Before COVID-19, the
women in her retreat group met yearly and were very special to her.

I attended two Left Coast Crime conferences, one in Monterey,
California, the other in Portland
Oregon. Cathy and I roomed together in Portland where the staff stashed us next
to an obnoxious chiming elevator filled with coming-and-going attendees. Didn’t matter, we spent
the whole night gabbing anyway. 

Cathy Perkins on a panel at Left Coast Crime

Authors D.V. Berkom, Donnell Bell and Cathy Perkins

Authors Donnell Bell, Susan Boyer, Cathy Perkins & Allison Brennan

Cathy was not one to brag about her education or her successes. The only time I heard
her beyond excited was the night she called me from Nashville to tell me The Body in the Beaver Pond had just won the prestigious Killer Nashville contest. That was so cool
because I had beta read two versions of the book–the first draft was good—the final
version, was outstanding. “This manuscript is ready,” I told her. “You need to get
it out there.”


“Soon,” she promised, “When I’m ready.”

I also beta read Calling for the Money, book three of her
Holly Price Financial series. In this book, I discerned a better understanding
of this financial whiz behind the words and why she was the perfect author to
write this series. She traveled constantly during her financial career, and did much of her writing on airplanes. More
than once I asked her when she planned to retire.

“Working on it,” she’d say. “When I’m ready.”  

Always a planner, she and her husband had purchased a secluded
property in Washington state, they were clearing a tree-filled lot, and were
building their dream home. I never got to see the property in person, but trust
me, I saw it in my mind’s eye when I read The Body in the Beaver Pond. Cathy
occasionally described the labor-intensive maintenance and the construction woes,
mostly laughing when she relayed the drama. 

The dilapidated cabin that her
protagonist Keri Isles inherits is an exaggerated structure for the real deal.
In its place, stands the Perkins’s long-awaited home with its stunning vistas, which eventually came to fruition.

In March of 2020, the Perkins came to visit my husband and
me in Las Cruces. COVID was just starting to rear its awful head, and I’m
grateful we had these few days to spend together.

Author Cathy Perkins in Monterey

In closing, Cathy Perkins did more living in her six decades
of life than many people do who are granted an additional thirty. She loved,
lived, traveled, and gave of herself to numerous volunteer organizations and charitable causes. I still have her text messages and I confess I’ve saved her last
voicemail. At some point I’ll probably delete it. Maybe . . . when I’m ready.
For now, I’m not ready. Rest in Peace, Cathy.


Donnell Ann Bell is an award-winning
author, including finalist in the 2020 Colorado Book Award, and the 2021 New
Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for her first straight suspense Black Pearl.
Book two is on her editor’s desk and she’s working on Book Three. You can learn
more about her other books or find her on Facebook, Twitter, or BookBub. Sign
up for her newsletter at www.donnellannbell.com

 

 

 

TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL CHANGE THE WAY STORIES ARE TOLD

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By Kathryn Lane

Houston hosted Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience.
Not to miss an important event, Bob and I attended with friends from Angel
Fire. So many exhibits are hyped up that we did not know what to expect. Then we
left talking about what an amazing show we’d witnessed.

First, you glimpse blowups of Vincent’s paintings that come
together though electronic enhancement as you watch. Another room provides
photo ops were you can sit in Vincent’s
bedroom in Arles and have your picture taken. 

Watch as Starry Night comes together electronically

Then comes the exceptional
“Immersion” room where you witness, feel, and become part of Vincent’s
paintings as 90,000,000 pixels are projected in a 360° space, while you relax in a beach
chair.

Immersion Room with waiting beach chairs.

.

In the Immersion room, don’t sit where the train will roar through.

The show’s real clencher is the interactive historical journey that virtual
reality takes you on as you travel through Vincent’s fields, towns, and cafés.
This visually fabulous trip takes ten minutes. At times I had to remind myself
I was not flying. I was merely sitting on a sturdy chair as we swooped past
cafés and buildings, fields, country roads, and chapels. It’s a combination of
cinematography, art, music, and history where you are the observer.

The author, her husband, and friends with virtual reality headsets.

Now that I’ve exuberantly told you about the Immersive experience,
I must also tell you I’m not getting a commission for tickets sales. But you
should definitely attend if it’s showing anywhere near you.

The real reason that I’m recounting the visit is that this show
gives you an incredible ride, but where it might fail is to engage your brain
actively, where your own imagination, intellect, and creativity work together
to connect the dots.

Maybe by experiencing projections of virtual reality in the future, the
human brain will be liberated to create even more sensational innovations. At
least that is my hope.

At times, it’s easy for negative thoughts to surface. Thoughts that younger
generations are not reading much and that the coming metaverse will create a
world where people will not have to solve issues; instead they might only
passively partake the virtual world placed before them.

Shows like Van Gogh’s Immersive, social media, and virtual
meetings using avatars are the beginnings of the metaverse. These phenomena will
change the world.

AVATAR

We are on the cusp of changing how people learn, communicate, and
interact. These innovations had been on the horizon yet the isolation and
social distancing caused by the pandemic sped up the introduction and use of
these tools. Similar to the (almost instant) popularity of the world wide web
and the massive adaptation of mobile phones a little more than two decades ago,
we will soon grapple with metaverse technologies in everyday life.

Harry Potter Book

As a writer, I think the coming technologies are both exciting and
scary. The creative opportunities promised by the metaverse seem exciting. On the
other hand, the metaverse will deliver powerful tools that will change how
stories are told. Will children in the future want to read Harry
Potter when they can experience it through virtual reality? Will people know
what their co-workers look like when all they see at virtual meetings are avatars?
And what about nature lovers? Will they don a headset to enjoy virtual nature
or will they commune with nature the old-fashioned way?

***

What do you think about the metaverse?

***

Kathryn’s mysteries – The Nikki
Garcia Mystery series:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B08C7V2675/ref=dp_st_1942428944

Kathryn’s short story collection – Backyard
Volcano and Other Mysteries of the Heart

https://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Volcano-Other-Mysteries-Heart/dp/1943306044

 All available on Amazon

About Kathryn

Kathryn Lane started out as a starving
artist. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked
on a career in international finance with a major multinational corporation.
After two decades, she left the corporate world to plunge into writing mystery
and suspense thrillers. In her stories, Kathryn draws deeply from her Mexican background as well as her travels
in over ninety countries.

Visit
my website at https://www.Kathryn-Lane.com

Photo
credits:

All
photographs are used in an editorial or educational manner

Starry Night by Van Gogh – public domain

Two Immersion Room photos – taken by the author

Four people with virtual reality headsets – taken with an iPhone

Avatar and Harry Potter book – public domain

 

A Morning Routine For Real People

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New year, new habits, new routines, new goals. It’s that time again to re-evaluate everything in our life. Happy New Year! I thought I’d share with you a routine that I’ve been struggling with since March 2020 (you all know what happened back then, no need to rehash, right?). Up until that month, my morning routine was operating on auto-pilot and it worked for me. So when it got derailed, I was left scrambling finding a new morning routine. So, today we’re going to talk about morning routines.

You’ve seen You Tube videos, read the books and scrolled past Insta-perfect photos of idyllic mornings. On your search for help improving your mornings, you fell down a hole that left probably feeling inadequate and wondering how the heck can you do all the things that you’re supposed to do each and every morning?

Your AM To-Do List:

Meditate. Write in your Grateful journal. Write your morning pages. Yoga. Hot water with lemon. Make your bed. Light candles. Exercise. 

Got it? 

I really don’t think your morning routine should exhaust you or stress you out. It should ease you into your day and set you up for success. 

But, all those successful authors, CEOs and influencers have amazing morning routines that start at 5am. 

I know. I hear you! But, what I know is that you need to find what works for you. And it’s okay not to do everything every single morning. 

Keep in mind, you’re probably responsible for someone else or several people in your household and you’re probably juggling a job outside the house. Those things are time sensitive. Your kids need to be at school at a certain time, your mom needs to be at her physical therapy appointment at a particulate time and you need to get to your day job by nine o’clock. 

Do you really want to do what feels like a full-days work between 5 am and the time you clock in?

No!

But you want to do all the morning routine stuff. Okay. Create a schedule and rotate the tasks. It’s okay to have an uncomplicated morning routine.

Mondays are for your journaling.

Tuesdays you’ll do yoga and meditate.

Wednesday do your three morning pages.

Thursday do more yoga and meditation.

Friday journal.

Every morning have your hot water with lemon, make your bed and light a candle. 

Find what works for you and don’t compare yourself to someone else. I’ve been there and it’s not a comfortable place to be. I tried to do all the things for a morning routine that would lead to success, book sales, best seller list domination. What did I end up with? A half-filled journal, a feeling of failure and too many lemons.

Leave a comment letting us know what does your morning routine look like.

 

 

 

Debra Sennefelder is the
author of the Food Blogger Mystery series and the Resale Boutique Mystery series.
She lives and writes in Connecticut. When she’s not writing, she enjoys baking,
exercising and taking long walks with her Shih-Tzu, Connie. You can keep in touch
with Debra through her website, on Facebook and Instagram.

The Grinch Grows a Heart

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Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        New places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

 

 

What a year it has been, scowls my Grinch.

Covid has wielded a scythe among us for the past two years now, cutting down the elderly like dry wheat. Omicron is coming/here. Even if it proves to be less deadly, we could end up with higher deaths due to pesky math. (If the death rate is lower, but still occurs, and the increase of infections is significantly higher, a bad number times a decent number equals more deaths.)

And this question looms larger than I ever thought possible in my lifetime—Will America’s 200+ year experiment in democracy survive?

And the planet. I know scientists have set a degree limit on how warm we can get before things get “really bad,” but I wonder if the Earth knows to stop after it gets “really bad” and what happens after “really bad.”

Wait, I’m suppose to be bringing cheer and jollies on the night before this sacred buy-buy-buy holiday.

Humbug. Bah. Grrr.

What’s to bring to cheer? Which family members are missing around the table? How many families have no food, much less a table?  

What hypocrites we are. We are not worth surviving. 

My Grinch stomps out into the doomed world, turns a corner . . . and encounters this:

 

This man, Anthony Cymerys, is an 82-year-old barber. Every Wednesday he brings his equipment to a park and gives free haircuts to the homeless . . . charging only a hug.

My Grinch freezes.

Maybe . . . .?

This young man in the hospital bed has had multiple, painful surgeries. He is Anthony Borges. He was shot five times while holding open a door for other students to escape at the Parkland School shooting.

Maybe, my Grinch considers, as Dickens wrote, it is “the best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief, the epoch of incredulity, the season of Light, the season of Darkness, the spring of hope, the winter of despair.” Maybe we have “everything before us, nothing before us. . . .”

Then my Grinch reads this:



The world is not beyond repair. There is hope. That spark of love, that potential in the human soul, maybe it is enough to light the way in the utter dark of the universe.

Maybe we can find and augment that precious, holy spark and pass it on before it sputters. 

I join all the Stiletto Gang members to wish you a season of deep joy and giving and a New Year that ignites all our sparks into a steady flame against the Darkness.

T.K. Thorne is a retired police captain who writes books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her. 

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

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Sign on a Bookstore Window

By Lois Winston 

No matter where you fall along the political spectrum, you have to admit it’s been a divisive few years. Couple that with a pandemic and various conflicts going on across the globe, and it’s a wonder we all don’t crawl into bed, pull blankets over our heads, and refuse to come out. And we’re adults. Think about how our children must feel. 

 

If you have a young child on your holiday shopping list, you might want to consider purchasing a copy of The Magic Paintbrush as a gift. Without being preachy, The Magic Paintbrush addresses the issue of differences, in this case, a kingdom that’s all pink at war with a kingdom that’s all blue for longer than anyone can remember—so long that no one even knows what started the feud. It takes two children from another land to point out to the rulers of both kingdoms how we’re really all the same inside and the benefits of everyone getting along.

 

Now if only people in the real world would do likewise….

 

I originally wrote this story for my own grandchildren, but the reception I received convinced me I should send it out in the world for others to enjoy—and learn from—because the lesson taught is one the world really needs right now.

 

Happy holidays!

The Magic Paintbrush

When nine-year-old Jack and his seven-year-old sister Zoe are snowed in for days with nothing to do, their complaints land them in every guy’s worst nightmare—the kingdom of Vermilion, a land where everything is totally pink! At first Jack is mistaken for a spy from the neighboring kingdom of Cobalt, but Zoe convinces Queen Fuchsia that they’re from New Jersey and arrived by magic.

 

Queen Fuchsia needs a king, but all the available princes in Vermilion are either too short, too fat, too old, or too stupid. Jack and Zoe suggest she looks for a king in Cobalt, but Vermilion and Cobalt have been at war since long before anyone can remember. 

 

Jack and Zoe decide Vermilion and Cobalt need a Kitchen Table Mediation to settle their differences. So they set out on an adventure to bring peace to the warring kingdoms—and maybe along the way they just might find a king for the queen.

 

The Magic Paintbrush is suitable for children eight years of age and up to read on their own. Younger children will enjoy the story if it’s read to them. You can read an excerpt here. 

 

Buy Links:

Paperback 

Kindle 

Nook 

Kobo 

iBooks

 

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.

 

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Untitled Post

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Hurray for In-Person Events

by Saralyn Richard


 

When the pandemic hit hard in March, 2020, I had just
released A Palette for Love and Murder, and I had a full calendar of
events for promoting it. Launch parties, bookstore talks, organization meetings,
book clubs—all had been carefully lined up, taking many hours of contact,
follow-up, baking, and swag-shopping.

Then, one by one, in an exorable, painful march
through the calendar pages, each event was canceled. The book came out with a
sigh instead of a bang, and it had to find its readers through different,
mostly virtual, channels.

I’m not complaining. As Bogey says in Casablanca, “It
doesn’t take much to see that the problems of [one little book doesn’t] amount
to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Like everyone else, I learned to
pivot. I jumped on Zooms, Skypes, and FaceTimes to beat the band.

                           


A Palette for Love and Murder
found its audience, and so did A Murder of Principal, which came out the
following year. Again, Zoom was my best friend, and by then I’d learned a lot
of hacks for having a successful virtual book launch.

Fast forward another year, and I’ve been vaccinated
three times. I have a stylish array of masks for every occasion. Taking baby
steps, I’ve graduated from small, masked gatherings held outdoors to larger,
masked gatherings held indoors. This week, I actually went to my first indoor
gathering where no one was wearing masks.

I thought I might freak out, because I’ve become
somewhat of a germophobe, and the threat of the omicron variant is raising
those same old fears. But when I arrived at the Bay Oaks Country Club and saw
the elaborate table settings, the skirted book-table where I was to autograph
books, and especially the fifty-one smiling ladies welcoming me as a guest
speaker, a particular joy bubbled up inside me, and I wanted the afternoon to
keep going on forever.



Virtual meetings are great. I wrote a post about them several
months ago. They break down barriers of time and space and allow for valuable
human interaction. I taught and enrolled in classes, attended book clubs, and
went to conferences virtually. I enjoyed these so much that I truly repressed
the fact that they are a pale substitute for the real thing.

I’m grateful to Sheryl Lane of the Bay Oaks Country
Club Women’s Group for inviting me to speak at their December luncheon meeting.
We had this engagement booked for more than a year before we could actually
make it happen. Sharing book stories with people who love books is something
akin to heaven.

Of course, we all need to be mindful of and practice
healthy habits and mitigate risks wherever we go, but right now, I’m clinging
to the thought that more joyful reunions like this one will be in my future.

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and safe holiday
season and new year.

 

Award-winning and
best-selling author, Saralyn Richard was born with a pen in her hand and ink in
her veins. Her humor- and romance-tinged mysteries and children’s book pull
back the curtain on people in settings as diverse as elite country manor houses
and disadvantaged urban high schools.

A member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery
Writers of America, Saralyn teaches creative writing and literature at the
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and continues to write mysteries. Her
favorite thing about being an author is interacting with readers like you.

Visit Saralyn here, on her Amazon page here, or on Facebook here.

Holiday Story Traditions

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by Paula Gail Benson

Stories have always been part
of the holiday season. Whether from reality, like the newspaper response to
Virginia O’Hanlon’s letter from the editor of New York Sun (often called “Yes,
Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”); or Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from
Saint Nicholas,” also known by its first line “T’was the Night Before
Christmas;” or Charles Dickens’ frequently presented in different contexts A Christmas Carol; or movies like It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Christmas Vacation, and Elf.
They have all found their way into our hearts so that we long to rehear them or rewatch them during this time of the year.

1947 Version

One of my favorite stories is
Miracle on 34th Street. When
I first saw the 1947 version with Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn, and Natalie
Wood, I felt it encapsulated all the elements that had become important in my
life. The location: New York City, where I loved to travel to see Broadway
shows. The idea: a child suspicious of Santa, particularly in stores (personally,
I always preferred believing in the unseen Santa). The courtroom: since law
became my profession, it only seemed right that it should be the forum for
determining the “true” Santa. The Post Office: I come from a family of postal
workers. It seemed perfectly normal to me that the Post Office should save the
day.

I also enjoyed the 1974
televised version with Jane Alexander, Sebastian Cabot, David Hartman, and
Suzanne Davidson, and the 1994 movie with Elizabeth Perkins, Richard
Attenborough, and Mara Wilson, even though it moved the story from New York to
Chicago and deleted the Post Office.

This year, through Amazon Prime,
I located a television adaption from 1955, which was presented for The 20th Century Fox Hour,
and featured Teresa Wright, Thomas Mitchell, and MacDonald Carey. The shortest
of all the versions I’ve seen, this one is very close to 1947 film, containing
much of the same dialogue and situations. Thomas Mitchell speaks very quickly.
I wondered if that was to help fit everything into the program timeframe.

1955 version

If you are looking for more
recent stories to add to your holiday reading list, please let me recommend two
online sources. Since Thanksgiving, the authors at Writers Who Kill have presented
short stories for their readers. They include offerings from the following writers
beginning on the dates in parentheses: Annette
Dashofy (11/28), E. B. Davis (12/3), KM Rockwood (12/8), Korina Moss (12/13), Tammy
Euliano (12/18), Warren Bull (12/23), and myself (12/28). These tales have some
familiar characters and some mysterious and paranormal elements. Please stop by
and check them out.

On Saturday, December 18, 2021, Loren Eaton
hosted his Advent Ghosts 2021, where he invited writers to contribute 100-word
stories (drabble) that celebrated a scarier aspect of the holidays. He links followers
to each author’s blog or presents the stories on his message. Authors from all
over the world participate. Here’s the link to share the fun.

So, take a few moments away from the hustle-bustle,
find a favorite holiday beverage to sip, and enjoy being transported fictionally
into another place and time. Don’t forget to let the online authors know you’ve
enjoyed their work.

Happy
holidays, everyone!

1995 version