Tag Archive for: women’s liberation

#MeToo and My Second Mystery

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By Kay Kendall

When I began to write
my second mystery, I placed the crimes to be solved in a revolutionary setting.
I wanted to reflect on my participation in the radical movement now known as
Second Wave Feminism. Back then we just called it women’s lib.

My book Rainy Day Women came out in 2015,
slightly wrong for the era. This was a time, for example, when most young
Hollywood actresses eschewed the title of feminist. The term was derided for
being anti-men and it was dangerous to be seen as that. It annoyed me—no, it
made me just plain mad—to read these women’s comments. Most of them were under
thirty years old, and few knew how things had been in prior decades—how constrained
the roles of women really were.  
While the plot of my
mystery is completely fictional, the feelings my amateur sleuth Austin Starr as
she attends consciousness raising groups parallels my own. I provide a record
of what it was like, the stages I went through, as I learned how women were
subjected to men for millennia—forever,
really—and discovered ways to go about changing that.
Back then I thought it
would be an easy fix. Oh my, how young I was. How naïve. I thought equality was
a reasonable thing to strive for and that most men would be rational and say, “Yeah,
sure, ladies. Whatever you want.” I thought things would be “fixed” in a decade
or two.

And so here we are
today. Six months after #MeToo became A Thing. Two days after The New York Times and The New Yorker reporters shared the Pulitzer
Prize for Public Service. Their expose on sexual harassment included the
predations of the film mogul Harvey Weinstein. Their reporting unleashed a
storm of  fury that built upon the anger
of hundreds of thousands of women who had aleady taken to the streets across
America—and also around the world—the day after the presidential inauguration in
January 2017.

I am woman, hear me roar. In numbers too big to ignore. And I know too much
to go back an’ pretend . ‘Cause I’ve heard it
all before. And I’ve been down
there on the floor. No one’s ever gonna
keep me down again.
So wrote and sang Australian-American performer Helen Reddy in 1971 on her debut album. The song “I Am Woman” hit at just the right time to become the anthem of us libbers. We wanted equal opportunity for jobs, decent
childcare, help with the housework (HELP?!), reproductive freedom, and serious
treatment as a member of the human race. Sexual exploitation and abuse was not
mentioned much, if at all. Women kept their sad, sordid stories of abusive
bosses, strangers, and relatives mostly to themselves.
Flash forward to today. Now we know. Boy oh boy, do we
know. With Weinstein leading the parade, many powerful men followed. Famous men
in entertainment and the arts, restaurant chefs, and politicians keep being
called out, making headlines, and falling like dominoes. Some hit the skids and
lose their jobs for small sins, others for egregious ones. But still, Weinstein
remains the rotten gold standard of this type of horrible male behavior. This
new climate of women’s awareness has caused actresses who formerly would not
call themselves feminists instead to brand themselves as such. Now the pretty
young things walk the red carpets together in solidarity. 
And if, after you have read about all this agitation,
after you have seen it in the streets and on television, perhaps you want to
understand where it sprang from. If so, take a look at my mystery. Yes, Rainy Day Women shows what it was truly
like for one twenty-three-year-old woman in 1969. And besides, why were those
two leaders of women’s groups in Seattle and Vancouver murdered anyway? And who
done it?



Meet the author


Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of
historical novels and now writes mysteries that capture the spirit and
turbulence of the sixties. A reformed PR executive who won international awards
for her projects, Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house
rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to her bunnies, she loves them
anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff. In 2015 Rainy Day
Women won two Silver Falchion Awards at
Killer Nashville.

Visit Kay at her
website < http://www.austinstarr.com/>
or on Facebook <
https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor>

 

 

 

My First Four Chapters…and a Giveaway

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By Kay Kendall

Yesterday was my birthday, and I had a lovely time. I got to feeling so buoyant I decided that today I would give a present to someone. Two presents, actually.

I have written two mysteries, and the latest one is RAINY DAY WOMEN. If you haven’t yet read it, check out the first four chapters online for free.
Go here http://austinstarr.com/
Then click on the link on the upper left to open a PDF file containing the beginning of the book. That is the first present.

 If you’d like a chance to win a free copy of this mystery, then leave a comment below and include a few words about why you’d like to read it. That’s the second present a lucky person will win.

RAINY DAY WOMEN is rated 4.7 stars (out of 5) on Amazon, and people have enjoyed it a lot. It tells the story of Austin Starr, a young married woman with an infant who chooses to fly across the continent to help out a dear friend in trouble. So much trouble that she is accused of murder.

The time is 1969, and Austin Starr stumbles into the budding world of women’s liberation because both the victim and the prime suspect (Austin’s pal) belong to a women’s consciousness raising group. The historical details are accurate, but not heavy-handed. Women who lived in that era have told me how surprised they were at the memories my book brings back, saying they had forgotten how different it was, way back then. Younger readers express shock at some everyday happenings.

I hope you’ll take a look at the free pages and be enticed to read more. Deadline for comments: Sunday evening, 6 pm central time, February 21.

~~~~~~~

Kay Kendall

Kay Kendall’s historical mysteries capture the spirit and turbulence of the 1960s. Kay’s degrees in Russian history and language help ground her tales in the Cold War, and her titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. DESOLATION ROW (2013) and RAINY DAY WOMEN (2015) are in her Austin Starr Mystery series. Austin is a 22-year-old Texas bride who ends up on the frontlines of societal change, learns to cope, and turns amateur sleuth. Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. In her former life as a PR executive, Kay’s projects won international awards.

Motherhood and Murder

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By Kay Kendall
Author Kay Kendall and bunny Dusty

When
I conceived of my mystery series featuring Austin Starr, amateur sleuth, I knew
she would become a mother by book two. My heroine would have the temperament of
Nancy Drew, if only she had grown up, gotten married, and—wait for it—had a
baby. And so it came to pass. That book launches next week on July 7. In Rainy Day Women, Wyatt Starr makes his
first fictional appearance. He is three months old.
Sad
to say, his gestation and birth were not easy. Even though I tried to make him
an integral part of the story, when I took new pages to writing group on Wednesday
nights, one member invariably asked, “Where’s Wyatt?” Sometimes the woman said,
“Doesn’t Wyatt need a clean diaper now?” I admitted it was difficult caring for
a child—even a fictional one—while solving the murders of  women’s liberation activists. Eventually after
many sessions like this, I internalized the voice of that group member. She
seemed to sit beside me as I typed on my PC. “What’s Wyatt doing now?” she
whispered in my ear.
A
man in our group once pounded his fist and asked, “Can’t you get rid of Wyatt?
Austin Starr doesn’t need to be a mother.” I replied, “Yes, she does. Her
pregnancy is announced at the end of book one, and she will not miscarry.” All
group members agreed we had come to comprehend more fully why so few children are found running through
murder mysteries.  
Determined
to retain baby Wyatt, I needed to ensure I didn’t make any missteps about him on the page. After all, my own child was now in his forties. What did I recall
about the day-to-day care of an infant? Visits with my two darling
grandchildren weren’t enough to refresh my mind sufficiently.
Houston writers Cathy (l.) and Emily
That’s
where two budding novelists came into the picture.  I met Cathy and Emily at a
previous writing group I attended. Cathy was married and had children who were
four and seven years old, and Emily’s children were even younger. As we all
became good friends, I saw how much they had to juggle in their lives. Viewing
their unending childcare duties refreshed my memories of how my own life had
once been that hectic too, when my son was small. Both women were kind enough
to read through my manuscript before I sent it to my editor and found a few details
to tweak that related to Austin Starr’s baby. For their diligence, Cathy and
Emily earned hearty thanks in the acknowledgement section of my book.
But
one last read-through was required. My college friend Regina had earned

Dr. Regina Miller

her
Ph.D. in child psychology, and she agreed to read my manuscript looking for
missteps too. In fact, she did triple duty. Her command of the Russian language
is better than mine so she checked my occasional uses of Russian. Similarly,
being of Jewish faith, she reviewed my references to several characters who
were Holocaust survivors. Regina is also gratefully thanked in my
acknowledgements section.

I
encourage you to read Rainy Day Women
and decide for yourself if Wyatt’s welfare is adequately tended to. Just keep this in
mind. The mystery takes place in August 1969—so long ago that no laws existed
to require the use of car seats for children. Austin Starr was following the
custom of the day—and would not have been considered negligent—when she cuddles
her son while she is a passenger in a car. Children have come a long way, baby!
*******
Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of historical novels and writes atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit and turbulence of the sixties. She is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to her bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. RAINY DAY WOMEN publishes on July 7–the second in her Austin Starr Mystery series. The E-book and paperback are available for pre-order now–for purchase on July 7th. The audio-book will be soon. 

The Sixties as Background for Murder

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By Kay Kendall
T. Jefferson Parker, the bestselling author of 20 crime
novels, once confided to me that his two mysteries that touched on the Vietnam
War had “my readers staying away in droves.” He explained, “Needless to say, I
never mentioned the war again.” Our paths intersected two years ago at a
thriller writers’ conference, shortly after the publication of my debut
mystery,Desolation Row. He believed
that his readers avoided the subject of a war that Americans know we didn’t
win. Were the sacrifices worth it? Let’s just not think about it.

T. Jefferson Parker and me

I knew the subject matter wasn’t popular, but it was a
book I had to write. I had to get that one out of my system so I could work on
the next subject I felt “called” to discuss, the women’s liberation movement of
the late sixties and early seventies. So, the bottom line for me is that even
if T. Jefferson Parker had warned me ahead of time to stay clear of the war
that many have compared to a quagmire, I would not have paid his advice any
heed. The story of Desolation Row had to come to light. I had to write that book
so that the others that were waiting in line behind it, more or less patiently,
could have their turn too.
The British statesman and philosopher Edmond Burke wrote,
“Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.” As well, how can you
hope to understand how we got where we are now when you don’t understand where
we came from? Events that happened in the sixties and early seventies still
echo down the decades today. Just as some describe America’s battles in the
Middle East as “the Vietnam War in the sand,” the upheavals of women’s
liberation have not ended. If anything, the subject of women’s place in society
is even timelier than ever.

Rainy Day Women launches on July 7, and I can hardly wait. In book two of her saga, this time intrepid
amateur sleuth Austin Starr searches for a killer of female activists in 1969,
a year after the first mystery took place. A murderer stalks the members of women’s
consciousness raising groups at the University of Washington and the University
of British Columbia. During the week of the Manson murders and
Woodstock, new mother Austin bundles up her infant son Wyatt—just three months
old—and flies with him across the continent to help her dear friend Larissa
during her personal crisis. The Mounties have fingered her as their chief suspect
in at least one of the murders. More trouble ensues.  
I have waited decades to write this book. The women’s
movement played an enormous role in my life, and it’s not an exaggeration to
say that it underlines everything I do to this very day. Getting the fervor and
excitement of the time period right is important. Showing the raw sexism that
was exhibited by many men without any hesitation is also vital. Clearly I believe
in serving up a little history with my murder and mayhem. Just think–no VCRs, let alone DVRs, no cell phones or personal computers, no Kardashians! A long ago time indeed. 
I wonder if any of the other writers in the Stiletto Gang
(those of the right age, that is) participated in women’s liberation groups. Did
any of you readers? If so, I hope you will leave comments here about your experiences.
 I’d love to know how they compare with
mine.
 *******   
Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn’t murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay does for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 1930s–present atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too.

Cameron Diaz and Women’s Liberation

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 by Kay Kendall                              

                                                                               

I don’t know about you, but I feel relieved. Various TV morning shows and
a plethora of online sources that follow celebrities’ doings say I can check
one thing off my worry list. Movie actress Cameron Diaz “is not going to die an
old maid.”
Really? In this day and age, wouldn’t you think that opinion was old hat?
What is this—the 1950s?
Lest you taunt me for being frivolous, I assure you my musings are quite serious
about the wedding of Ms. Diaz (42) and rocker Benji Madden (35). For the last
two years I’ve thought a good deal about how far we women have come, baby, as I
developed my mystery set against a women’s liberation background. Rainy Day Women takes place in 1969. Those
were early days in what is known now as Second Wave Feminism. (First Wave took
place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, keying on legal issues,
primarily women’s right to vote).
From the vantage point of 2015, looking back at the sixties, you could assume
the women’s movement had changed many attitudes about appropriate behavior for
women. And then you slam into nasty offhand comments about poor Cameron Diaz. Believe me, this actress is no wallflower. Her dalliances with celebrity
boyfriends are the stuff of legend. To name only a few, there were heart throb
Justin Timberlake, Oscar winner Jared Leto, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and
even P. Diddy  AKA Sean Combs.
With that dating background, Cameron Diaz needs a better commentary on
her marriage that took place on January 5. She deserves to be compared to
Warren Beatty, famous playboy who settled down with wife Annette Benning when
he was all of 55. They wed, had children, and are evidently living happily ever
after. When that happened, no one proclaimed he had been saved from a life of sad
bachelorhood.
This blog topic was thrust upon me when a longtime pal shared her ire
over media jabs at Ms. Diaz. My friend said, “A woman has many other ways to
fulfill herself or prove her worth than through marriage. Why hasn’t everyone
gotten beyond that narrow, old-fashioned opinion by now?”
Why indeed? Great question.
When I began writing Rainy Day
Women, my intent was to show the kinds of issues bedeviling women
45 years ago. They flooded into consciousness raising groups with senses of
despair over choices offered them in life—and then left those meetings
emboldened to follow their own paths. Despite being called unfeminine or
derelict of their familial duties, they set out to take control of their own
destinies.
Clearly there are still some people who want women to remain in
traditional roles no matter what. Female emancipation still scares many.
My husband likes to tell about the time he was traveling in Asia for
business and a male executive delivered a stunning view. “There are three
sexes in the world,” the man said. “There are men, women, and American women.”
My husband did not find that amusing. Rather, he shakes his head when he tells
the story, disturbed at such prejudice.
Okay then, I will now proudly place myself in that third category. If being
an American woman means I stand up for my rights as a person then, yes, I will
do that.
And as for Cameron Diaz, who has often gone on record as being uninterested
in marriage, I would tell her this: “Honey, you just go right on living as you
choose. Unmarried, married, or divorced—it is all up to you.” In short, you go,
girl! 
*******   

Kay Kendall set her
debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows
her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn’t murder
women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical
mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear
accomplishes for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture
the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive
who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills.
Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show
she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 
 *******

A Sneak Peek at My New Mystery

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By Kay Kendall

Today
marks a red letter day for me. I sent the manuscript of my second Austin Starr
mystery to my publisher, Stairway Press of Seattle. Part of my celebration is
sharing with you a short excerpt from the book, RAINY DAY WOMEN, to be
published in June 2015.
The
tale is set in 1969, when my amateur sleuth Austin Starr is now the harried
young mother of a three-month-old son. Despite her family duties—to husband and
son—and the demands of her grad student career, she rushes to the aid of her
best friend, Larissa. She is a prime suspect in the murder of the leader of her
women’s liberation group in Vancouver. Soon another member of a women’s group
in Seattle is killed. Austin must find the real killer before her friend is
jailed for murder.
In
the excerpt below, Austin questions Mia, a friend of the dead women’s
liberation leader, Shona. I hope you dig
the sixties atmosphere, when in my book the Pacific Northwest is drenched in
blood, not rain, for a change.

 *******
 “I’m busting to
know what you think of him. Tell me.” I guess my voice got loud because two
passersby gawked at us.

Mia rolled her eyes to the heavens. “More questions.” A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Jack always said I was ballsy. Of course, I took that as a
compliment. He doesn’t like wimps. The problem with Jack and me, however, was
that we were competitors.”

“At
what?” I said.

“We
competed for Shona’s time, attention, and affection. Jack and I never talked
about it, but my sense is we both knew what was going on. He worked at getting
under my skin, and he succeeded. Jack belittled everything I did, called me
‘poor little rich girl.’ He was jealous of my wealthy family, but I wouldn’t let
Shona tell him how I’d been sexually abused.”

“Sounds
tricky for you to put up with. What happened when he succeeded in getting under
your skin. How did you react?”

She
ran her hands through her short hair and gazed across the street at the tall
trees on campus. I let her drown in her own thoughts for a while, hoping she’d
come out with something useful in solving the puzzle of two deaths. Or, at the
least, one—Shona’s.

After
a few moments, she turned to me and took off her sunglasses. “Once Jack and I
came to blows at a party, and I was the one who ended up throwing the first
punch. He was a drinker, and I did dope. In my experience, our two types don’t
mix well. That night he was ragging on me about being rich, and I had reached
my limit. I drew back my arm, aiming for his arrogant mug, but Shona jumped
between us. I pulled the punch, and it hit her shoulder instead, but not a hard
blow. Jack cackled in triumph and started pushing my buttons again, making
nasty taunts. With Shona there, I pulled my punches in general and just stomped
off.”

“Then
I guess you won’t have an unbiased answer to my next question.”

“Go
ahead,” she said. “Shoot.”

“Could
Jack have murdered Shona, and perhaps Bethany, too?”

“My
honest opinion?”

“Yes,
please.”

 “Jack could be the murderer.” Mia stopped and
put her sunglasses back on. “Absolutely, and there is no doubt in my mind.” 
*******
Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR
MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel is Rainy Day Women, will be out in
2015. Her amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best
friend didn’t murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and
Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what
novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 930s–write
atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an
award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband,
three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she
loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 
 *******

Learning about Power–the Lack of It–and Monica Lewinsky

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 By Kay Kendall

When I was growing up during the “Leave It to Beaver”
era, as a young baby boomer I noticed many anomalies, things that made no sense
to me. Off the top of my head, here’s a list of these things that happened for
which I had no explanation:
*Grown women suffered wordlessly through derogatory
remarks made about them by men. (Examples: All women are horrible drivers. My
wife can’t even balance her checkbook. And so on and on ad nauseum.)

*The smutty jokes men often told made women feel
uncomfortable (women got squirmy, that’s how I knew), but yet the women never objected.
*Teenage girls played dumb because they knew boys didn’t
like smart or sassy females.
               While
on the one hand I puzzled over such anomalies, on the other hand I never
questioned some other patterns that were also curious. Here are some of the
things I took in stride:
*Women cooked and served family meals, then cleaned up
afterwards while men sat in the rumpus room and smoked, never lifting a finger
to help.
*Men rarely took part in any child care.
*When a family went on an outing in a car, the head of
the family—always the “man of the house”—drove the car.
I took those patterns for granted because they were like
the air I breathed. But over and over again, I puzzled over why women did not,
as a rule, speak up when something upset them. Also, how could men be so
insensitive as to say harsh things about women as a class, as a group, when
other women were present? Why oh why didn’t women object?
I had absolutely no concept—nada, zilch, zip—of what it
meant to be part of a powerful group or class. Of how power was wielded and
kept hold of, denying others access to power.
I grew up in a sheltered, almost swaddled environment. As
a consequence I had the opposite of street smarts. My parents and four
grandparents were genteel and mannerly, and they all hid from me any conflict
that might arise.
My mother often said she wanted me to have a pleasant
childhood, and avoiding any mention of nasty conflict—or real life, for that
matter—certainly gave me a sanitized worldview. My nose was always in books. I
was an only child. I learned about life by reading the advice columns of Ann
Landers in the daily newspaper and about married relationships in the Ladies Home Journal. Its monthly feature
entitled “Can This Marriage Be Saved” helped me develop my firm opinion that
any union can be patched up, if you and your spouse just work at it hard enough
and kept your heads cool and rational. If you needed extra help, then counsellors
and shrinks were invaluable. There should be no stigma in using them.
Back then, if I had no concept of power, how could I
understand that women lacked it? How could I have known that if you have no power, then you swallow a lot of
guff, grief, anger, and just keep on going, smiling as you do the dishes, still
smiling as you get badmouthed as being part of a stupid and silly group, i.e.,
all females.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head, little lady.” It’s
all beyond you. You can’t complain.
Of course these are broad generalizations, but they hold
up if you compare stark patterns of yesteryear to those of today.
These days I often think about the role of women while writing my work in progress, set in a women’s liberation group in 1969. For some
of us it is difficult to remember what it was like, back before the women’s
movement made inroads into our social patterns. Even women who were cognizant
beings back them now have a hard time remembering. 
Here’s how I know. Sometimes
members of my writing critique group gasp when I read from my WIP a fictionalized
version of a scene I recall from my teen years, one that shows a sharp contrast
between then and now in the way women were treated and expected to toe the line.
I am making it my
job to remember. I dredge up and repurpose these memories now, every day,
as I sit at my computer and imagine a world long gone. (And then, since this is
a mystery, I throw in a murder, perhaps two. You’ll have to read to find out
how many dead bodies pile up.)

Nancy Pelosi in 2013

A few years ago I read a long interview with
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. She described how much women’s lives and
possibilities have changed since she entered politics in the 1970s. She was heavily
criticized for not staying home with her children. She was deemed an unfit
mother and selfish, and to no one’s surprise, she lost her first election. When
she ran for office the next time, however—some five years later, she won. Already
by then—thanks to the women’s movement—attitudes towards women’s roles in
society had changed a little bit.

Women had finally begun to band together and find their
collective voices. Yes, there is strength in numbers—and in sisterhood. In
strength comes power.
Female activists who had worked alongside men in the
civil rights movement and the antiwar groups had learned how to mobilize and
work to gain power.
And boy oh boy, did they learn in those previous
movements that they were nobodies. Women’s subservient roles remained the same,
even in how those egalitarian movements were run. Read the memoirs of female
activists to learn their stories. Learn how they were relegated to fixing tea
and coffee while the men argued over and made decisions, then carried them out.
Thank goodness those days are long gone.
And yet, and yet . . .

Monica Lewinsky in 2013
That old, oh-so-sexist world is still with us today. Entrenched
attitudes persist. Although men are by and large not as blatant about
expressing sexist opinions anymore, just turn over a large metaphorical rock
and then you will see, lo and behold, those same old sexist beliefs wiggling
like dirty earthworms when they come into the light.
Speaking of hidden beings, I read today that Monica
Lewinsky is breaking her silence. She has chosen to speak to a journalist from Vanity Fair about the horrible aftermath
of her affair with President Clinton. Today he is riding high, called a
talented rogue—you know, good ole Bill—while she remains the awful scarlet
woman AKA slut, driven out of her country in order to live anonymously.   
 The Lewinsky interview appears in the June issue
of Vanity Fair. It hits newsstands
May 13, with the digital edition going live May 8. I for one will not wait for
my subscription copy. I will read the digital version as soon as I can.
If a man’s
reputation can recover, then a woman’s should also be able to do so. Barbara
Walters said that Monica was the most unhappy person she knew, unable to
recover from her scandal. I have sisterly love for  Monica and hope she will be able to attain at
least a modicum of happiness.
The Clinton-Lewinsky affair remains to this day a
perfect mash up of power and sexism. 

*******

Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations
executive who lives in Texas with her husband, four house rabbits, and spaniel
Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she wants to do for the 1960s what
novelist Alan Furst does for Europe in the 1930s during Hitler’s rise to
power–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age.

Discover more about her at


http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com


Stories—Tell Me Yours

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By Kay Kendall

I write historical murder
mysteries, and my chosen time period is the turbulent era of the 1960s. My work
in progress is set in 1969, entitled Rainy
Day Women. This time my amateur sleuth, Austin Starr, gets drawn into a
murder investigation when her best friend, Larissa Klimenko, is suspected of
killing a leader in the women’s liberation movement. The action takes place in
those notoriously rain drenched cities of Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver,
British Columbia.

Like my debut book, Desolation Row, this second one takes
its name from the title of a famous Bob Dylan song. Dylan’s oeuvre is so vast
and so comprehensive that I can find almost anything I need to illustrate among
his song titles. Luckily for me, titles of creative works are not covered by copy
write law. When members of the boomer generation see the titles of my mysteries,
almost all of them will know that the books will either take place in the
sixties—or at minimum evoke them.


If you are reading this,
you may scoff when I say that what I write is historical fiction. It’s not that long ago, you may think.
Why, perhaps you yourself lived during that time. That cannot be history.

But, no, it is history.
That time is dead and gone. Five decades gone.

Last week I spoke to
classes at a community college in Alabama. Only about two in one hundred
students had heard the name of Bob Dylan. Moreover, none of them knew why the
United States was drawn into fighting a war in Vietnam. And none of them had
ever heard of the “domino theory.”

Yep, stick a fork in the
sixties. They are done.

One reason I choose to
write about that time period is to describe its importance to those who know
nothing about it. Reading fiction is an easy way to learn about history.

The other reason is to
commemorate and revivify a part of American history that has had far reaching effects.
Societal upheaval was so intense in the 1960s that the aftershocks still are
felt today. We have only to watch TV news to see the rage called forth by the
changing, broadening roles of women to realize that these ideas are not yet
settled.

While Desolation Row looks at the consequences of the Vietnam War, the
anti-war movement, and personal outcomes from military service…in Rainy Day Women, I explore the hopes for
female improvement held by early members of the women’s liberation movement.



Participating in that
movement was one of the most important intellectual endeavors I ever undertook.
The magnitude of changes that the movement made in me cannot be underestimated.
In my daily life, I speak occasionally about this, but I seldom hear others do
so.

I know that there are other women whose lives
were changed as mine was. I would love to hear your stories.

In my first book I used one
real military tale from World War II. I felt it was almost a sacred experience
that I didn’t want to disrespect by making up events…although I certainly fictionalized
them enough so that no one can tell whose stories they were.

Similarly, in my new
book, Rainy Day Women I would like to
include a few real memories from real women who participated in women’s
liberation groups.

Whatever you’ve got to
share, I am eager to listen. Rest assured, I will not incorporate your words
into my writing without asking your permission. I hope you will let me hear
from you. 

*******
Kay and her bunny Dusty
Kay
Kendall is an international
award-winning public relations executive who lives in Texas with her husband,
five house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she wants
to do for the 1960s what novelist Alan Furst does for Europe in the 1930s
during Hitler’s rise to power–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the
spirit of the age.

Discover more about her at 
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com




The Oldest Web Mistress in Captivity!

/in /by
By Kay Kendall
Once upon a time—let’s
say 1994—I directed public relations for a science institute that developed the
second website in all of the great state of Texas. The scientist who designed this
strange bird was proud, knowing it was The Future. However, try as he might, he
could not get the other scientists to understand how important it was, this new
wave of communication.
Finally, at long last, a
second scientist got with the program and complained in a Faculty Meeting,
august body that it was, how sad this institute’s website was, how deplorable,
how it needed so much work to become great. Yada yada yada. Ego being what it
is, scientist #1 got furious, said, “Fine Then you run the danged thing. I quit.” And so he did.
Suddenly the scientists
realized their website was indeed a precious commodity and needed tending…but
who was to do it? Certainly they
could not do the work. They were far too important for such a mundane chore. So
the scientists looked around and found, lo and behold, the PR lady, beavering
away in her office. She only wrote news releases and newsletters, such silly
little things. Surely SHE had time to do a website, even though SHE was not at
all technically inclined. (Yes, of course there was an IT department, but those
folks also were far too busy and important to manage a website.)
And that is the tale of
how I—a liberal arts person to the core with nary a technical bone in my body–got
dragged kicking and screaming into the digital world. The journey was arduous
and the climb to competence was steep, but eventually I learned to develop and
maintain this website. I confess I knew all along in my
non-technically-inclined bones that this endeavor would be good for me. What I
never suspected, however, was that it would turn out to guarantee my job
security.
Soon I began to joke about my web work. I called myself…The Oldest Web Mistress in
Captivity. I often wondered how many other aging baby boomers were handling institutional
websites circa 1995. Not many back in the day, I bet.
Recently I got to musing
about my dalliance with all things digital as I fiddled with my author
homepage, placed ads for my mystery DESOLATION ROW on my Facebook page, and
Tweeted about an online interview I’d done. If I had not been forced into the
digital world almost twenty years ago, how would I be doing today? Would I be
like so many of my friends and age-mates, scared of All These New Things?
I am reminded of my
mother and how she never learned how to operate the new hi-fi that my father
brought home as a surprise for her one day in the 1950s. If she wanted to
listen to a 33-rpm LP, then she had to ask him or me to do it for her. Now, she
was not a stupid woman, far from it. Yet she would just throw up her hands, say
“I can’t do things like that” and add “Please do it for me.” I believe some of
that wariness towards all things technical rubbed off on me, made me scared. Alas,
I’m sure I lost many decades of growing competence that way.
Now of course I thank my former scientific colleagues who insisted I do the institute’s web work. And thank heavens I’m
comfortable in this digital new world order.
And my mother? Shortly
before her death at age 91, she confided to me that it had all been an act,
pretending not to understand how to use various machines. Grinning, she told me, “That
way, I could always get someone to do it for me.” But, as for me…well, I’d rather do
it myself! 
Kay Kendall is the author of Desolation Row–An Austin Starr Mystery. You can view the book’s trailer on YouTube or catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook,and Goodreads. Kay blogs here with the Stiletto Gang every first and third Wednesdays of each month.