Tag Archive for: Rosemary Harris

Brooklyn Book Festival 2014

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The Brooklyn Book Festival is the largest free literary event in New York City, presenting an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors. One of America’s premier book festivals, this hip, smart diverse gathering attracts thousands of book lovers of all ages to enjoy authors and the festival’s lively literary marketplace. It was begun in 2006 by Former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who wanted to showcase the “Brooklyn voice” in literature, as numerous authors reside in the borough.

Here is my photogenic look at the festival.

The entrance to the festival

I just wanted the signage

Where’s Waldo?

Crowd shot

Terrie Moran, author of Well Read, Then Dead

Tim Hall, author of Dead Stock

Mystery Writers of America booth

more crowd shots

there was a reason I took this photo

Sisters in Crime booth

the Penguin truck

Sat for awhile until the lady said she had 1 cat and 13 pythons

another chance to sit and listen.

he was drawing the young girl from memory

This is Rosemary Harris booth – selling her latest book, Bitches of Brooklyn

and that’s how I spent my Sunday.

Good News & Bizarre News

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The good news is that the third book in my Dirty Business mystery series, Dead Head (Minotaur Books) will be released next week. The bizarre news is the story of a Virginia man who bought a guinea pig in a pet store and then went home and made a hat out of it – which he wore around town until someone called the cops and he was arrested for animal cruelty.

Most writers have an idea file. Mine is filled with newspaper clippings and the printed versions of online stories like the one about Guinea Pig Man – although he may be too strange to use. Who’d believe it? GPM sounds like a character from a Carl Hiaasen novel. If anyone else had written him, I’d have said the writer was trying too hard to be quirky.

Bizarre news story number two concerns two would-be bank robbers who called the bank they were planning to rob to explain just how they’d like the bills packaged. When they arrived, they were genuinely surprised to see the cops waiting for them. These braintrusts were from my home state of Connecticut. I’m not sure my editor would let me write characters that dumb. (Perhaps by book number nine in the series…)

Dead Head had its origins in a news story too. Not as bizarre as these, but one that was even more fascinating. About two years ago an upper middle class suburban woman was arrested when it was discovered that she was a fugitive from the law who’d been living a lie for decades. None of her neighbors or family members really knew who she was and might never have known if someone hadn’t informed. I was mesmerized by the notion of walking away from one life and starting another – and with over 100,000 missing persons in the US at any given time, it probably happens more than we think. And it had me asking myself – how well do we really know our neighbors?

Whatever the facts of that real case, I was off and running with my story which has amateur sleuth Paula Holliday hired by the woman’s family to find out who dropped the dime and why.

Who knows, maybe in two years I’ll be launching a book called Guinea Pig Man. What have you seen in the paper lately that’s made it into your idea file?

Rosemary Harris

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Rosemary Harris was born in Brooklyn New York and now she, her husband split their time between Manhattan’s East Side and Fairfield County, Connecticut. A small item in the New York Times about a mummified body led to her first book, the Agatha and Anthony-nominated, Pushing Up Daisies, followed by last year’s The Big Dirt Nap.

“I love my heroine, Paula Holliday. People always ask how much of me is in Paula – some, but of course she’s the younger, thinner, more adventurous version of me. And she’s funnier than I am.”

Rosemary is vice-president of MWA/NY and past president of Sisters in Crime, New England. She’s also a member of Garden Writers of America and CMGA Connecticut Master Gardeners Association.

Visit Rosemary at www.rosemaryharris.com

Late Bloomers

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Of course, it’s all relative as to what constitutes a late bloomer. In the garden it can mean late spring, late in the season, or late in the year. Last week millions of people were introduced to the world’s most famous (at least right now) late bloomer – Susan Boyle, she of the viewed 35 million times Youtube/Britain’s Got Talent video. I accounted for four of those views myself, each time blubbering like a baby.

There were lots of reasons the video was such a phenomenon. Yes, she has angelic voice and yes, her appearance might suggest otherwise (although all she really needed was a Tweezerman and a little makeup.) And the television program she appeared on delights in embarrassing people and – for some reason I cannot fathom – people don’t mind making idiots of themselves on a global stage.

I prefer to think the reason for Susan’s success was at that the ripe old age of 47, she clung to her dream long enough to make it come true. And we got to watch. And maybe believe that some of our dreams might still come true. I don’t know anyone so cool (or so cold, really) who didn’t share in her triumph. Why should the precocious get all the attention – those scary little tykes with the oversized lungs who shriek into microphones and hope to be the next (lord help them) Miley Cyrus?

Or maybe I loved the video because I too am a late bloomer. I didn’t even start writing until I was past forty. By that time most successful writers have a few books under their belts, even if they’ve been toiling away in anonymity waiting for their breakout book to happen.

But that does not seem to be the case for mysteries. Hallelujah! Looking over the list of Agatha nominees for Best First Novel, none of us is anyone’s idea of a spring chicken. (I know all of those gals and think I can write that without getting clobbered in Arlington!) When I wrote Pushing Up Daisies, I wasn’t even thinking about publication, I just wanted to finish the darn thing. Then the other stuff came..agent, book deal.. second book deal. And now an Agatha nomination. And it’s all mighty fine. Maybe even sweeter since it’s a second act and there aren’t supposed to be any of those.

The point is, why let the Simon whatever-his-name-is type of person convince you it’s too late to live your dream. Unless, of course, your dream is to play shortstop for the Yankees, swim the English Channel or play guitar like Eric Clapton, in which case, it probably is too late if you’re past forty. But other than that, why not go for it?

Cheers,
Rosemary
http://www.rosemaryharris.com/

Rosemary Harris is the author of the Dirty Business Mystery series from St. Martin’s Minotaur, Pushing Up Daisies, The Big Dirt Nap, and Deadhead (2010.) She’s the president of Sisters in Crime New England, a board member of MWA-NY Chapter, a member of the Garden Writers of America, and a Master Gardener in the state of CT. She’s still over forty.

Don’t go to Dayton in February and Other Lessons Learned on the Road

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The Stiletto Gang is delighted to welcome Rosemary Harris. Rosemary is the author of Pushing up Daisies, the first in the Dirty Business series. Visit her website at www.rosemaryharris.com

First off I should say that the folks in Dayton were wonderful. All four of them who showed up for my signing at Books and Company during an ice storm that had me crawling into my rental car on the passenger’s side because the driver’s side door was frozen shut.

When my debut mystery, Pushing Up Daisies, finally came out I was over the moon. It had been almost two years between that long-awaited phone call from my agent and my launch party. That night was almost as good as my wedding night (I said almost, honey…)

The next morning I flew to Phoenix. Through Dallas. Of course there was a delay so I arrived much later than I thought I would. Lesson two, try not to arrive in a strange city late at night, especially when it’s filled with still-hungover stragglers from the SuperBowl. Of course I was smart enough to have purchased a TomTom, a GPS device. But I wasn’t smart enough to test it out a few times before I left home. To this day, Tomasina, the voice of the Tom, thinks home is Phoenix. After checking in I settled in for a few hours of work against the backdrop of Law & Order. Lesson three, wherever you go, at any hour of the day or night some version of L&O will be on television. Embrace it. Theirs may be the only friendly voices you’ll hear for hours.

Lesson four – assuming you’re not Janet E and aren’t staying in five star hotels, pick a hotel that has a free breakfast buffet. Most of the time you’ll just want to grab a coffee and a little something, not wolf down a full lumberjack breakfast.

That day I learned to use the TomTom and “dropped in” to every bookstore that Joe Konrath had visited (see Newbie’s Guide to Publishing), did a live television interview – sandwiched in between the native dancers and a hurricane expert – and was I feeling pretty good. But it was still hours before my signing at Poisoned Pen.

Lesson five – if you find yourself with a few hours in an unfamiliar city and either don’t want to work or can’t – get a manicure. Or better still a blowdry. They’re generally inexpensive and like barbershops used to be for men, beauty salons are social centers filled with women who like to chat. That first day, it was a great warm-up for me. Everyone in the salon treated me like a celebrity, I handed out daisy seeds promoting the book and left feeling like a million bucks.

By that time the free mini-poppy seed muffin I’d had for breakfast was getting lonely in my stomach so I decided to stop for a bite. Except nothing near the store was open. I peeked into the darkened Café Monarch and saw three men cleaning up. I told them I had a signing at the bookstore in 20 minutes and didn’t have time to drive around looking for another place to eat, so they turned some of the lights on, lit a few candles, and whipped up a cold chicken pesto salad which was just delicious. It was like something out of a movie. All alone in this cute café looking across the street to where I’d be having my first signing. Later on I signed hundreds of books and had a lively conversation in the round with soon-to-be fans including the fab Lesa Holstine. It was great. I thought – I love my life!

The next weekend I flew to Dayton. What can I say? Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t. The most difficult journey had to be my Philly-Chicago-Detroit-Denver-NY trip. On paper this seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And it might have been if I hadn’t lost my drivers license somewhere between the hotel in Philly and the airport in Philly.

Somehow, without being subjected to a strip search, I talked my way onto the plane in Philadelphia. I felt pretty smug about that until I looked around the airport and wondered who else had talked themselves through security. Lesson six – always carry two forms of i.d.

Once in Detroit, I couldn’t pick up my rental car, because I had no driver’s license. But that was okay because there was a blizzard and I wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway. No planes were going out either so instead of spending one night at the glamorous Hilton Garden Inn at the airport, I was there for three nights, with dozens of flight attendants who were clearly doing more than watching Law & Order in their rooms at night. The Hilton offered a full warm breakfast (not free, as I recall, but under the circumstances, I loved it.) Unfortunately there was no other food available during the day except for microwaveable burritos, and a spinner rack full of individual sized portions of dry cereals. Lesson six – bring food. I now pack envelopes of tuna, protein bars, and occasionally Cheerios, which I had never eaten before but learned to love at the Hilton Garden Inn.

My husband Fedexed my passport and I was eventually able to get out of Detroit. I thought I’d catch an earlier flight to Denver (I was getting cabin fever in my tiny room.) Lesson seven – always leave half an hour earlier, even if it’s five-thirty in the morning. Who knew so many people would be leaving Detroit at six fifteen? Was there an evacuation notice that I hadn’t heard about? No, just the vagaries of the flight schedules made the airport really busy at the ungodly hour.

I finally arrived in Denver, no lost luggage, no more drama and a few lessons learned. And I’m still learning. What lessons have you learned from the road?

Rosemary Harris
www.rosemaryharris.com