Tag Archive for: amateur sleuth mystery

Anastasia is Back, and This Time the Crime is Real!

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By Lois Winston

Most mystery writers and readers are fascinated by true crimes. Even if our reading doesn’t branch out beyond cozy mysteries, many of us watch everything from Murder, She Wrote reruns to each iteration of the Law & Order franchise. Some of us have even become hooked on true crime podcasts. 

 

Me? I’m a news junkie. All my books have been inspired in some way by actual events, or human-interest stories. Inspired is the key word, though. For instance, in A Stitch to Die for, the fifth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I wove in a thread about Munchausen by Proxy Disorder after reading about several high-profile cases.

 

However, I’ve never incorporated an actual crime into one of my plots—until now. For Guilty as Framed, the eleventh book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I’ve centered the plot around a yet unsolved crime that took place in 1990. 

 

For years I’ve been fascinated with the burglary at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It’s still considered the largest art heist in history, and to this day, not only haven’t the perpetrators been caught, but none of the artworks have ever been recovered. Worst of all, many of the suspects have since died.

 

But how do you incorporate a true crime cold case into a cozy mystery, especially when that crime might one day be solved, no matter how the likelihood diminishes with each passing year? I certainly couldn’t have my sleuth find the paintings or unmask the actual perpetrators. I don’t write alternate-reality fiction. In addition, the crime was committed in Boston, and my amateur sleuth resides in New Jersey. Besides, Anastasia is in her mid-forties. She would have been an adolescent at the time of the theft.

 

This was the puzzle I set for myself. Like my sleuth, I can be extremely stubborn when I set my mind to something. I may fail at a task, but I rarely give up and walk away. It helps that I’m a pantser and not a plotter. So I started out by reading everything I could get my hands on about the theft, watched a few documentaries, then just started writing, allowing my brain free rein. After writing myself into a few corners, backtracking, and beginning again…and again…and again, I came up with a story that uses various events from the actual crime, making them plausible within the pages of my story. Of course, I had to take authorial liberties along the way, but hey, I’m writing fiction. I can do that. 

 

I invented several characters for the purpose of advancing my plot. I’ve also changed the names of suspects and their relatives, whether they’re still alive or not, to protect the innocent, the not-so-innocent, and yours truly. But in the end, I stayed true to the major events of the crime but found a way to involve my sleuth.

 

It’s just too bad that Anastasia couldn’t solve the mystery of what happened to all those missing artworks. There’s still a huge reward outstanding for any information leading to their recovery, and anyone who knows anything about Anastasia knows she could really use the money.

 

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?

 

Guilty as Framed is currently available for pre-order and will be released September 6th. Find links here.

 

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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.

Writing as Catharsis

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Who would think this cute baby would grow up to be the inspiration
for the woman who makes the Wicked Witch of the West look like
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm?

By Lois Winston 

During an interview recently, the interviewer told me she loves Anastasia Pollack, my reluctant amateur sleuth, but the character she really, really loves is Anastasia’s communist mother-in-law. “You write the best antagonists!” she said, then asked me where I came up with the idea of giving my protagonist a communist mother-in-law.

 

This is a conversation I’ve had many times since Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, debuted in 2011. Lucille Pollack is the character my readers love to hate. Is it because so many of my readers have mother-in-law issues? Perhaps. 


Or maybe it’s because Lucille is such an over-the-top unbelievable character. I’m sure many readers think so, but here’s a little secret: Unlike all my other characters, Lucille didn’t spring from my imagination. The woman who makes the Wicked Witch of the West look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is based almost entirely on my own communist mother-in-law.

 

Yes, you read that correctly. My mother-in-law was a card-carrying commie. Beyond that, though, she was nasty, really nasty, especially if you dared to have an opinion that differed from hers. This was a woman who always knew everything, an expert on every subject. And she was always right—according to her. No one else’s opinions mattered because everyone else was always wrong. You didn’t have conversations with my mother-in-law; you were subjected to lectures—on every subject under the sun. She wasn’t perfect, though. She did fail at things, but when she did, it was always someone or something else’s fault. Never hers.

 

A couple I knew and whom my father-in-law had befriended, once called me the day after they had dinner with my in-laws. They wanted to know how I put up with “that woman.” This was a pattern throughout the years I knew my mother-in-law. Friends never lasted long because she was so insufferable.

 

Even my father-in-law, who had always seen his wife through rose-colored glasses, eventually woke up to her true nature. When he needed her most, she was too selfish and self-centered to be bothered.

 

The thing about antagonistic people, though, is that although they’re insufferable in real life, they make for great antagonists on the page. My mother-in-law grew increasingly nastier the older she got. However, instead of letting her get to me, I brought her doppelganger to life in the form of Anastasia’s mother-in-law Lucille Pollack. Whether it’s a matter of “don’t get mad, get even” or turning lemons into lemonade, all those years of putting up with my mother-in-law paid off in the end when I created the characters my readers love to hate. 

 

My one regret? My mother-in-law didn’t live to see my literary revenge, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She was too highbrow to waste her time reading fiction and certainly wouldn’t have read anything written by her stupid (her word) daughter-in-law. Twenty novels, five novellas, and a children’s book later, revenge is sweet.


Meanwhile, Anastasia’s mother-in-law Lucille winds up wreaking havoc yet again in Guilty as Framed, the 11th book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, now available for preorder.

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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 where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

The Story Behind the Story – Part 3

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By Lois Winston

The Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries take place in Westfield, NJ, the town where I lived for twenty-three years until my recent relocation to Tennessee. Westfield is famous for being the home of cartoonist Charles Addams of The Addams Family fame, as well as the infamous John List, who murdered his entire family in 1971, then disappeared. The hunt for List made international headlines, but it took eighteen years and an episode of America’s Most Wanted before he was finally apprehended.

 

In 2014 Westfield once again made headlines when both the national and international press descended on a stately, historic street a few blocks from where I lived. The mystery that drew this unwanted attention centered around a Dutch Colonial built in 1905. The house had recently sold for 1.35 million dollars.

 

However, shortly after the new owners took possession of the house, they received a very disturbing anonymous letter from someone who called himself The Watcher. Subsequent letters followed, threatening the new owners’ children. The Watcher knew the children’ nicknames and mentioned having seen their young daughter painting at an easel, asking, “Is she the artist in the family?” Fearful for their safety, the family never moved into the house, although they continued to make extensive renovations to the property. 

 

Since the family received that first letter, they’ve sued the former owners, claiming they knew of The Watcher prior to the sale of the house. The former owners counter sued. Home disclosure laws vary from state to state. In NJ, even if the former owners had previously received letters from The Watcher, they wouldn’t have had to disclose that information.

 

The new owners tried to sell the house several times, each time reducing the price, but the home’s notoriety kept buyers away. They tried to have the house demolished but failed to get zoning approval to divide the property into two lots to build two smaller houses to recoup their losses. 

 

In a bizarre twist, at one point the husband admitted to sending nasty anonymous letters to some of the neighbors.

 

In 2016 the house became the inspiration behind a Lifetime movie and toppled the Jersey Devil from the top New Jersey’s creepiest horror myths. 

 

Extensive investigations over the years have failed to unmask the identity of The Watcher. Suspects have included the schizophrenic son of a neighbor as well as the owners of the house. 

 

In 2018 the family sold the rights to their story to Netflix in a 7-figure deal after a bidding war that included Universal, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Amazon, and Fox. This gives credence to those who believe that the family concocted the entire story, and there never was a Watcher.

 

BuzzFeed’s Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej of “Unsolved” profiled the Watcher House in the first episode of their fifth season. You can watch it here.

 

The Watcher House eventually sold in 2019 at a $400,000 loss.

 

With this real-life mystery unfolding in my own backyard, how could I not incorporate it into one of my books? In a subplot in Scrapbook of Murder, the sixth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, The Watcher becomes The Sentinel, and his first letter arrives shortly after food editor Cloris McWerther and her husband sell their house. Although the police haven’t been able to solve the mystery of The Watch after eight years, Anastasia solves the mystery of The Sentinel.

 

Scrapbook of Murder

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

 

Crafts and murder don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but normal deserted craft editor Anastasia Pollack’s world nearly a year ago. Now, tripping over dead bodies seems to be the “new normal” for this reluctant amateur sleuth.

 

When the daughter of a murdered neighbor asks Anastasia to create a family scrapbook from old photographs and memorabilia discovered in a battered suitcase, she agrees—not only out of friendship but also from a sense of guilt over the older woman’s death. However, as Anastasia begins sorting through the contents of the suitcase, she discovers a letter revealing a fifty-year-old secret, one that unearths a long-buried scandal and unleashes a killer. Suddenly Anastasia is back in sleuthing mode as she races to prevent a suitcase full of trouble from leading to more deaths.

 

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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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No One Ever Promised Life Would Be Fair

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By Lois Winston

I graduated college (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, if you believe my kids) with a degree in graphic design and illustration and went to work as an art director at a small ad agency. Big title. Tiny paycheck. I was the one and only artist on staff, so I really didn’t direct anyone.

 

One day I was complaining about the unfairness of something to our office manager, and she said, “Lois, no one ever promised life would be fair.”

 

That conversation took place so long ago that I don’t even remember the names of all my coworkers, but her words have stuck with me. Over the years I’ve had some hard times while others around me have had great success. I have a relative who I’ve often said could step in caca and have it turn into gold. Some people have that kind of luck. Me? Well, let’s just say I’ve never won more than $7 on a lottery ticket. Get the picture?

 

I’m constantly reminded of that coworker’s words when I look down the long and winding road of my life as a published author. No one ever promised life would be fair. The outside world (those millions and millions of people who know nothing about publishing) thinks every published author is pulling in the kind of big bucks that James Patterson, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling make. Friends and relatives expect you to give them free books because after all, you’re a published author and can afford it. (I can hear the laughter coming from all the published authors reading this blog post.)

 

The hard truth is that most published authors can’t afford to quit their day jobs. And that includes many authors I know who have hit the NY Times bestseller list. Factoring in the hours most of us devote to crafting each novel, then promoting it, we’d make more money per hour asking, “Do you want fries with that?” 

 

So why do we do it?

 

We write because we can’t not write. (Pardon the double-negative.) Yes, it’s hard work, often filled with disappointment: You can’t sell what you consider your break-out book. Your last royalty check was less than three figures. Your publisher drops you. Your foray into indie publishing has resulted in sales that might sustain your Starbucks habit—if you’re lucky. 

 

And still, we continue to write. Because you we can’t not write.

 

No one ever said life would be fair–or easy, but the struggle makes us stronger. And better. We keep writing. Keep honing our craft. Maybe someday luck will be on our side, and we’ll reap the rewards of all that hard work. One thing is for certain, though, if we give up, we’ll never succeed.


As a gift to my readers, for a limited time the 2-ebook set of Christmas-themed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, featuring Drop Dead Ornaments and Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide, is available for only .99 cents. Click here for Buy Links.

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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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How a “Perfect” Marriage Led to a Writing Career

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By Lois Winston

Many authors mention in their bios that they always wanted to be a writer. Not me. I wanted to be an astronaut. Thanks to a right brain that quakes at the sight of anything requiring math skills, not to mention a body prone to motion sickness, that dream never came true.

My urge to write came as a result of a dream I had while on a business trip. Eventually, that dream became Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, a story about secrets and revenge and the steps some people will go to in order to protect the former and achieve the latter. 

 

I’ve always been fascinated by both secrets and revenge. Who among us doesn’t have secrets? Who among us hasn’t harbored revenge fantasies? Is it possible to get through junior high school without a hefty dose of both? I doubt it. 

 

Years ago, I knew a woman who went to great lengths to project the ideal marriage. She constantly bragged about how much her husband loved her and what a perfect marriage they had. Then I learned the secrets behind the lies. She was carrying on an affair that he discovered by tapping his own phone. Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Marriage were anything but. Although Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception isn’t about that marriage, it got me thinking about public persona versus private reality.

 

I’m also fascinated by the way the “common” folk act around celebrities. In Six Degrees of Separation, the playwright John Guare called it “star f****ing,” that annoying, name-dropping habit of those who need to brag about their connection to someone famous, no matter how tenuous the link: They once shared a plane with George Clooney, or they went to the same high school as Brad Pitt, or they played tennis with Pierce Brosnan’s third cousin’s wife’s uncle’s accountant. Of course, they fail to mention that George was sitting in First Class while they were stuck in Coach or Brad graduated a decade after they attended the school. And let’s just forget about Pierce and the accountant. That’s really taking six degrees of separation a bit too far. However, for many people being able to show some connection between themselves and a celebrity makes them more important, if only in their own eyes.

 

So there I was on this business trip, and I suppose I was subconsciously thinking about Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Marriage when I had this dream. Normally, I don’t remember my dreams, but I remembered this one. And what was even spookier was that each night for the next couple of weeks I dreamed another “chapter” of the dream. Eventually, I was dreaming up chapters during the day as well as at night. Finally, I decided that to get the story out of my head, I should write it down. Fast forward a few weeks and I’m the proud author of a 50,000-word romance that spanned 35 years. 

 

Talk about clueless!

 

Of course, I didn’t know I was clueless. I thought I’d just written the greatest romance of all time. But when I pushed my baby out of the nest into the world of publishing, she flew right back with her beak stuffed full of rejection letters. 

 

However, I wasn’t about to be deterred by rejection letters or lack of knowledge. Undaunted, I handed over my VISA card to a friendly salesperson at Barnes & Noble and walked out with an armload of how-to-write-a-novel books. Between the books, joining some writing organizations, and attending writing conferences, I eventually got a clue, and nearly ten years to the day I had that dream, I had my first publishing contract.

 

I never forgot about my first clueless effort, though. I liked the characters I’d created, even if the story needed major surgery. I didn’t think Emma and Logan deserved to spend eternity under the bed with nobody but the dust bunnies and me ever getting to know them. I went back and rewrote that first book, and it became Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception. 

 

In the book, Logan Crawford is initially attracted to Emma Wadsworth because she doesn’t care who he is. At first, he’s not even sure she recognizes him, and he can’t imagine how that’s possible. After all, he was recently named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Everyone recognizes Logan Crawford, whether he wants them to or not. He’s used to a fawning public, but Emma doesn’t fawn. And that makes her both intriguing and irresistible in Logan’s eyes. 


However, Emma’s the one with all the secrets. And she’s also the target of someone’s revenge. Make that two someones. In the blink of an eye, she goes from being Philadelphia’s most beloved citizen to the city’s most notorious criminal. Think scandal. Think long buried secrets. Think murder. 

There are many paths to publication. Some people are lucky enough to find the straightest, most direct route. For most of us, it takes years of honing our craft before we’re offered the golden ticket, but it’s worth the journey. This month marks the release of Stitch, Bake, Die!, the tenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series and my nineteenth published novel.










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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Author Lois Winston Interviews Author T.K. Thorne

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By Lois Winston

Today I sit down for a chat with author T.K. Thorne. Learn more about T.K. and her books at her website.

LW: I recently read your historical novel, Noah’s Wife, and found it fascinating. Most authors start out in other careers, and those who have been in law enforcement, like you, often gravitate toward writing mysteries, suspense, or thrillers. What drew you to write the untold story of a character from the Bible? 

TKT: Hi Lois!  I’m so happy you picked Noah’s Wife because it is my first born and special to me. When I finished writing, the characters felt so real, I truly missed them being in my head saying unexpected things. It’s a joyful and magical thing to know when readers open the book because they all come alive again! 

 

I have never been drawn to the mystery/crime genre, perhaps because it felt too much like everyday work for me! My early reading love was science fiction and then epic fantasy. I wrote four books in those genres, but my dream of an agent and traditional publishing didn’t happen for those books. So, I went looking for a topic that would enthrall me and hopefully snag an agent. 

One day, I was at a poetry reading and a friend remarked that her pastor had dropped the fact that Noah’s wife was unnamed and had gotten only one line in the Bible in one of his sermons. I immediately envisioned the vast, white emptiness that was the life of a woman who played such an important role in the history/mythology of the three of the world’s major religions. Captivated by the idea that I could be the person to fill in that tabula rasa, I began researching what her world might have been like. Learning a historic flood had actually occurred around the year 5500 BCE that gave me a time frame for archeological research. (Did you know scientists can now determine what a person was eating thousands of years ago?) Then the character of Na’amah began to assert herself in my mind, where she lived for the four years it took to write the story.

 

LW: You’ve also written a novel about Lot’s wife, but your current book, House of Rose, is the first in a planned trilogy that incorporates murder, mayhem, and magic. Do you see yourself ever going back to writing more historical novels?

 

TKT: I wrote House of Rose as a gift to myself, something fun that didn’t require the research I had been doing for the historical novels and my nonfiction. I sat down at the computer with three little words buzzing around in my head (“You’re a hero.”) Those little words became three books about Rose Brighton, a police officer in Birmingham, Alabama who discovers she’s a witch. So much fun!

 

LW: I see you’ve also written a nonfiction book, Last Chance for Justice, about the 1963 church bombing in Atlanta. Do you have plans to continue crime-related nonfiction as well?

 

TKT: Actually, I now have two nonfiction books—Last Chance for Justice and just recently, Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days. I had to get over my retreat from research for that one! It was an ongoing project for eight years while the Rose books were also being hatched. Both of those books were unplanned. I never intended to write nonfiction, much less about the civil rights era. Living and working in a historical civil rights city like Birmingham, Alabama gave rise to the circumstances that led me to write them. I’m proud that I did and hope they have contributed to our understanding of history and ourselves. 

 

As to what plans I have, they are ping-pong balls right now. I’ve started rewriting one of those early epic fantasy novels I loved in younger days, playing with the idea of another biblical era historical fiction, and a (non-magical) crime/mystery. But to be honest, the pandemic has sucked my writing energy, and I haven’t filled my well back up yet, or perhaps the right story hasn’t emerged. Until that happens, I’m staying busy with garden projects, painting, and taking care of my rescue horses. I’ve been writing for a long time and who knows. We shall see what arises!

 

LW: The bio on your website states that as an eight-year-old, you won a ribbon for being stubborn. I think stubbornness is a trait that serves many authors well. So many of us need that stubbornness to persevere through years of rejections before we sell our first book. Tell us more about that award. How did you feel at the time when you received it?

 

TKT: It was a very hot summer day in Montgomery, Alabama. I was riding in a horse show at Little Lake Farms in Montgomery, Alabama on a bay named Duchess. I was so small, they had to tie my stirrups to get them short enough. The jumps were all barely off the ground. I could have jumped over them myself, but Duchess was not in the mood. The rule was after three refusals, you are disqualified, and we already had about ten or more (I lost count) at one jump, so there was no point in continuing. But I just wouldn’t give up. I kept circling back and aiming her, my little legs flailing against the saddle leather and finally, Duchess gave up, hopped over the crossed beams of the jump and finished the course. The crowd gave me a standing ovation, and the judge gave me an unexpected third place ribbon. 

 

At the time, I was shocked, knowing I should have been disqualified and felt guilty about it. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood the judge had bent the rules because he admired my spirit and determination. I have had other awards over the course of several years, but none of them, even the ones for my books, meant as much to me as that faded yellow ribbon I still have, because you are absolutely right. Determination and not quitting makes all the difference. I wrote six books before my first one was published and received countless rejections. It’s taken me almost fifty years of stubbornness to get here.

 

LW: You mention that you have a black belt in Aikido and Jujitsu and dove the Great Blue Hole in Belize. You sound like a woman who loves adventure. What are some of the other off-the-beaten path places you’ve explored and adventures you’ve had?

 

TKT: Well, you are right again! I love adventure and new vistas. I think that is part of what I enjoyed about police work—not knowing what was going to happen next. And a martial arts is an “art” and hence, a process of constant discovery. Travel, of course, also presents those kinds of opportunities. Visits to Israel and Turkey were part of research for Noah’s Wife and Angels at the Gate (Lot’s wife). Martial arts took me to Japan years ago. In addition to Belize, I’ve been with friends and hubby to New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Croatia, southern England, Thailand, and Cambodia. Machu Picchu and Galapagos in South America were on the menu before the pandemic, but that will have to wait. Right now, I am trying to find adventure in my backyard battling renegade wisteria and getting to know the two rescue horses I recently acquired.

 

LW: Finally, is there something I haven’t asked that you’re dying to tell our readers, either about yourself or your books…or both?

 

TKT: Lois, having just read Assault with a Glue Gun, when you say the word “dying,” I just sit up and take note of what’s in your hands!”  😂

 

Thanks for the questions. It’s been fun!


LW: As it was for me.


~*~

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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Pumping My Own Gas and Other Firsts

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By Lois Winston

It’s official. This Jersey Girl is no longer a Jersey Girl. I have the Tennessee driver’s license and license plate to prove it. And it’s a very strange feeling. For one thing, I now have to pump my own gas, something I could previously only do when driving out-of-state. I think it’s been about ten years since I last used a gas pump. New Jersey has a weird law that doesn’t allow ordinary citizens to fill their own gas tanks. Even if you happen to be the person who invented the modern gas pump, you have to leave the filling to the attendant. Oregon is the only other state that doesn’t allow you to pump your own gas. What century are we living in? 

It’s been so long since I pumped my own gas that on the drive down to Tennessee, I first grabbed the diesel nozzle. Luckily, they’re designed in such a way that you can’t accidentally fill your tank with diesel if you don’t drive a diesel automobile, but it took me a minute or two to figure out why I couldn’t get the nozzle into the gas tank. Then I managed to dribble gasoline on my hand and shoe. This experience will definitely go into a book at some point. It’s the author’s way of turning lemons into lemonade.

 

I’m experiencing many more firsts with this move. Our new home is the newest house we’ve ever owned, only seventeen years old. Prior to this, our newest house was built in 1939. The oldest was built in 1893. And the first home we ever bought was a Sears house kit. (No, we didn’t buy the kit from Sears. I’m not that old!)

 

This is the first house I’ve ever lived in without a basement. Even as an apartment-dwelling city kid, we had a basement. But this is also the first house with an attached two-car garage. I think I’m going to like that, if I can navigate in and out without sideswiping either my husband’s car or the garage wall.

 

There are many things I’m going to miss about living in New Jersey—being so close to Manhattan theaters and museums, living less than an hour from the ocean, being able to walk to shopping, instead of having to jump in the car for every errand. And some really good friends.

 

However, I’m certainly not going to miss snowstorms and the power outages they generally entailed. I did suffer through a four-day outage a few summers ago while visiting family in Nashville, but it was nothing compared to the nine day-outage we endured during Superstorm Sandy and the freak early snowstorm that followed, or the countless blizzards and Nor’easters that have brought down power lines over the years. 

 

If the power goes out in the summer, you can walk around the house in your underwear or a bathing suit and cook your meals outside on the grill. It’s far worse to wear seventeen layers of clothing indoors and have to shovel your way through three-foot high snow drifts to get to that grill in winter.

 

I’m also looking forward to making new friends and exploring my new state—once all the cartons are unpacked. I’m just not sure I’ll ever make the leap to saying, “Y’all.”

 

~*~

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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TO TELL THE TRUTH–AUTHOR EDITION

/in /by


By Lois Winston 

Gameshows were once a staple of daytime TV. I remember being no more than a toddler in the 1950s and watching Queen for a Day with my grandmother.

 

I’ve been a huge Jeopardy! fan ever since the show first debuted with Art Fleming in 1964. I miss spending half an hour each night with Alex Trebek. I don’t envy the producers when they finally forego the guest hosts and choose a replacement for him. As those guest hosts have shown, Alex is a tough act to follow.

 

With only a brief hiatus, Jeopardy! has been around almost nonstop since its inception. Not so for most other gameshows. However, for the past several years, many of the classic gameshows of the 50s and 60s have been revived as summer replacements on network TV. One such show is To Tell the Truth.

 

So I thought it might be fun today to play To Tell the Truth—Author Edition. What follows are ten statements about me—or maybe not. Can you figure out which ones are true and which are false?

 

1. I can name all of Shakespeare’s plays in alphabetical order.

2. I can play 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon in 2 degrees.

3. I can speak three languages fluently.

4. I graduated 32nd in a class of 803.

5. While still in college, I designed a poster for Sesame Street.

6. I hate peanut butter.

7. I run three miles a day.

8. I’m a USA Today bestselling author.

9. I own a parrot.

10. I backpacked across Europe.

~*~

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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Kill Your Darlings

/in /by

By Lois Winston 

Most writers are familiar with the phrase, “Kill your darlings.” It’s been widely attributed to William Faulkner but actually comes from a Cambridge University lecture given by English writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch about a century ago when he advised, “Murder your darlings.”

 

However, neither Faulkner nor Quiller-Couch was talking about the characters that populate a novel. They were referring to the need to be ruthless when it comes to eliminating anything that we may personally love in our writing but which has no reason for being in our stories.

 

Quiller-Couch’s full quote is, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

 

One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received is that everything in a book, whether narrative action, internalization, or dialog, must do one of two things—either advance the plot or tell the reader something she needs to know about the point of view character at that moment. In other words, rid your stories of filler.

 

However, the same is not necessarily true of the characters who populate our stories. Yes, as mystery authors we need dead bodies. Otherwise, there would be little need for our sleuths to figure out whodunit unless our mystery is about who stole the cookies from the cookie jar. And we all know the answer to that—Cookie Monster.

 

I have a friend who loves my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, with one exception. She absolutely hates (with a passion bordering on obsession) Anastasia’s communist mother-in-law Lucille. She has begged me on numerous occasions to kill her off or barring that, ship her off to Russia. Lucille is like fingernails on a blackboard to this friend.

 

Yet, Lucille is the character many of my readers love to hate. Yes, she’s irritating, but along with providing both tension and comic relief in my series, she also provides me with some much-needed catharsis. You see, Lucille is based on my relationship with my own (now deceased) communist mother-in-law.

 

Hey, write what you know, right? So as much as my friend would prefer otherwise, Lucille will be hanging around for as long as I keep writing about Anastasia. Besides, you never know how readers will react to an author killing off an ongoing character. I remember the backlash when Elizabeth George killed off a beloved character several years ago. Now, I doubt any of my readers would classify Lucille as a beloved character, but as I’ve already stated, she is the character many love to hate.

 

Are there characters you’ve come across that you wish the author would kill off? What about characters you wish an author hadn’t killed off?

 

~*~

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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Toilet Paper Origami and Absolutely No Wastepaper Baskets Allowed!

/in /by

My Curated Bookcases

By Lois Winston 

Last month I blogged about how my husband and I were getting ready to move from New Jersey to Nashville to be closer to family. We’ve since taken another step toward that goal—our home for the last twenty-three years is now on the market.

 

In the course of my married life I’ve lived in four different houses. However, the last time we moved HGTV wasn’t part of the American consciousness. No flippers, renovators, or stagers brainwashed the public about the necessity of open-concept, tray ceilings, and hardscaped yards with outdoor kitchens. Hardwood floors aren’t enough. They have to be wide-planked hardwood. And of course, the cardinal sin these days is the dreaded popcorn ceiling. Buyers have been conditioned to take one look and immediately do an about-face, as if a popcorn ceiling is in the same category as termites and radon.

 

We’ve always lived in older homes. We love the charm of Victorian and Craftsman architecture. The oldest house we’ve lived in was built in 1891, the youngest in 1939. Our current house is a 1935 Craftsman Bungalow. It isn’t open-concept with twelve-foot ceilings. It doesn’t have a Carrera marble waterfall island in the kitchen.

 

There are forty-four photos online along with floor plans and room sizes. Any interested buyer has the ability to see the house from top to bottom and inside out from the comfort of their own home before deciding whether they want to see it in person. No one looking for a new home with an open concept plan, spa bathrooms, and huge walk-in closets would even consider an in person trip to our house. Or so you would think. Yet by some of the feedback we’ve received, that’s exactly what is happening. I would imagine the realtors are not happy with having their time wasted in this manner.

 

Nor am I happy, because each time a tour is scheduled, I have to race through my house, hiding wastepaper baskets, toiletries, bathroom floormats, and dishtowels. I have to make sure there are full rolls of toilet paper in each bathroom dispenser and that the top sheet is folded into a point a la upscale hotels. Nothing can be left on kitchen and bathroom countertops. No shampoo bottles and soap in the showers.

 

All of this and more was on orders of the house stager hired by the realtor. She walked through our home before it went on the market and handed us a homework list. Then she returned to make sure we had complied. Now, I’m all in favor of making my house as presentable as possible to secure a sale. A cluttered house doesn’t show well, but I don’t like clutter. So my house was not in need of lots of work prior to going on the market. 

 

Not according to the stager, though. She insisted I buy lemons to float in a clear pitcher of water to be put on the picnic table on the deck. She insisted the flowers I had planned to place on the dining room and kitchen tables were only white and in clear vases. She even insisted I curate my bookcases, getting rid of ninety percent of my books. I’m an author. I have a lot of bookcases throughout my house, and they hold a lot of books, most of which are now squirreled away in cartons hidden in the back of closets—along with the wastepaper baskets. (It’s spring allergy season. Do you know what a pain it is to dig through the back of a closet for a wastepaper basket every time you need to discard a tissue?)

 

I’m wondering if buyers are that gullible. Will they not make an offer on a house because there are too many books in the bookcases? Or because I forgot to fold the toilet paper into a point for one showing? Time will tell. Meanwhile, I now have all sorts of plots rolling around in my head for future mysteries. Want to guess the identity of the victim in many of those plots? So maybe all that work is worth it, whether it increases the price someone is willing to pay for our house or not. At least I now have ideas for future books.

~*~

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.

 

Website

Newsletter

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog

Pinterest

Twitter

Goodreads

Bookbub