Agatha Christie and BBC Maestro

 by Sybil Johnson

I’ve been a big Agatha Christie fan ever since I discovered her books in junior high. So when I saw that BBC Maestro had a course featuring Christie “talking” about writing, I decided I would buy it as a Christmas present to myself. That was a year ago. Since then I’ve gone through the course and read through the notes and the workbook.

I felt a little uneasy about buying it. After all, she died in the 1970s so I knew the figure talking to me wasn’t really her and that AI had been used to simulate the appearance of Christie talking about her books and writing process.

I felt better when I read that all of the advice was her own words, taken from interviews, articles and books where she talked about her writing process. Plus the Agatha Christie estate had given their blessing to the project. 

The AI part wasn’t as I expected either. It wasn’t a complete AI simulation, but an actress, Vivien Keene, who sat at a desk and spoke the words. AI was then used to put Christie’s face over hers. The effect was believable and not at all disconcerting

I found the course, consisting of 10 lessons on plot, characters, process etc., very interesting and useful. In some ways I think we are kindred spirits and that our attitudes toward writing are similar. Although, she was much more prolific than I am. Her thoughts on endings helped me finish the short story I was working on. 

I also had the opportunity to sample some of the other BBC Maestro courses including a few lessons from Lee Child and Harlan Coben. BBC Maestro isn’t all writing courses. There are also ones on Art & Design, Food & Drink, Wellness and Lifestyle and more. Overall, the experience was fun and worth my time. 

Have any of you watched any of the BBC Maestro courses? What did you think?

Forbidden Words

By Catherine Dilts

When are restrictions on word choice censorship? When are they appropriate?

Editor-in-chief hard at work

The comedian famous for his satirical wit, George Carlin, had a stand-up routine declaring the seven words you can’t say on television.

That was 1972. Television is no longer controlled by a few networks. It’s kind of the Wild West, receiving entertainment in your home via the internet. I’ve heard all of Carlin’s words, and then some. And that was just while watching The Landman.

Profanity is not what I mean by “forbidden words.”  I’m talking about editorial preferences and stylistic choices in fiction writing.

I write cozy mysteries, short stories, humor, and occasionally write-for-hire novels. The reader expectation is for low to no profanity. The write-for-hire language restrictions are explicit: no drugs, alcohol, or bad language.

This is not censorship. I may write all the naughty words I want to, in the roughest language I deem fit. But not if I want to appeal to my chosen audience. And especially not if I want to work for a particular publisher.

With that restriction firmly in place, what other forbidden words can there possibly be?

The publisher for my write-for-hire project included a list of fifteen overused or often closely repeated words in their author guide. I was certain I couldn’t be guilty of any offenses, until I did a painstaking search of my manuscript for each of them.

“Just” appeared a shocking number of times. On one page, I had used it four times. (Notice how I didn’t write “on just one page” – I learned my lesson!) Although painful, searching for the listed words revealed an embarrassing quantity of other overused words, or words repeated in close proximity.

Enter the thesaurus!

While trying not to be too creative or cutesy, I replaced repeated words where appropriate. Sometimes, “just” is the best word for the sentence! I’m guessing we all catch really, very, and just. What about up and down? Do you need to say a character stood up?

Dialogue is a different matter. Characters should speak like real people. I’m more forgiving of redundancies and sloppy word choices, depending on the type of character. Because of the fiction sub-genre I write, even a bad guy or girl won’t let loose with a string of profanity on the page. I handle that by letting the protagonist react to the language without listing the specific words.

The restrictions I choose to enforce on my own writing are motivated by stylistic choices and reader expectations, not censorship. There are plenty of options for readers who like their fiction spicy.

Was the search for forbidden words in my manuscript worth the effort?

Yes. Selecting alternate words led to rewriting entire sentences. The language became more active and descriptive. I began to recognize my own lazy writing.

Are you curious about how to apply this to your work? Do an internet search for “overused words in fiction” to find lists of words.

Fall colors in Colorado 

How to Work A Room

 I had the extreme pleasure of meeting the Louise  Penny and her husband Michael at my local public library several years ago. I sat next to Michael and we had a lovely and funny conversation about what it's like to be a writer’s spouse. He had on his usual bow tie and treated me as though he'd known me for ages.

If you don’t know Louise’s work (and if you are a regular mystery reader, I can’t imagine that you don’t), please go forth and familiarize yourself tout suite. I had read them all, and loved them all, so I went to see her, just as I’ve gone to see many many authors.

Now, I’ve been very impressed by how a number of authors handle themselves at events, but I must say that Louise blew me away. She is a true human being in the best sense. Even if I had never read one of her books, after listening to her, I would have given myself whiplash in my rush to buy them all. I’ve done many events myself, and do not consider myself an amateur at the game. However, I learned quite a bit from Ms. Penny on how to make a crowd love you.

Allow me to share :The moment she walked in the door, she went around the room, big smile on her face, shaking hands with and speaking to every attendee.

When she shook my hand, I said, “I’m Donis Casey…” intending to introduce myself since we have mutual acquaintances, but lo and behold, she knew my name! “Oh!” she exclaimed, “Let me give you a hug” Her pleasure appeared so genuine that I would now take a bullet for her.

When she spoke, her joy in her craft and love of her characters and setting washed over the audience. To tell the truth, when she was finished, I felt a desperate desire to regain that feeling, which is easy to lose in the everyday struggle of life. I vowed to rediscover the pleasure of storytelling, and to remember why I chose to become a writer in the first place.

However appealing and lovable a person Louise is, the bottom line is that she writes great books, full of heart and warmth, and true human frailty as well as strength, ugliness as well as beauty.

If you want to be a successful author, you have to write wonderful books. Its quite a bonus to be a wonderful person as well.

Good-bye Black Cat Weekly, Hello Black Cat Mysteries

 by Sybil Johnson

About a year ago my short story, Mini-Mart Sleuth, appeared in Black Cat Weekly, a digital magazine that features stories of mystery, suspense, adventure, fantasy, and science fiction. I was so pleased I did a little Snoopy happy dance in my head. Since then, they announced that Black Cat Weekly would be closing at the end of October 2026.

Luckily, Level Best Books stepped up and acquired Black Cat Weekly. They will be publishing it as Black Cat Mysteries. From what I can tell, it will only publish mystery, suspense and crime fiction. No science fiction, fantasy or adventure. While I’m sad to see BCW go, it’s nice to know some of it will live on in BCM.

Black Cat Mysteries will be a monthly publication. A new issue will come out on the 13th of the month starting with Nov 13th. Stupid me, it wasn’t until I was typing this that I got the significance of the 13th. Black cats, 13, bad luck...

The info on how to submit and subscribe ($60 per year, $5.99 per issue) is on substack at https://blackcatmysteries.substack.com/ Yes, substack.

When I saw the information was on substack, my immediate thought was noooo. I know nothing about the platform. I don’t really want to know anything. Okay, this might be colored by the continuing heat wave we are experiencing here in Southern California. It’s been 90 degrees inside the house the last few days. Add to that the construction that’s been going on next to us for a little over 3 years. So, yeah, I’m a bit cranky. And, no, we don’t have air conditioning because we live near the ocean and usually don’t need it.

I got over the crankiness long enough to get the information about what they’re interested in. So, yeah, not hard.

What they’re looking for:

• Stories up to 8,000 words
• Mystery, suspense and crime fiction in all subgenres. Stories should emphasize mystery over graphic content.
• They do not accept horror or erotica.

So, basically, the kind of stories I like to write. 

Pay is $25 per story.

I do have a story that I just finished that fits their requirements. Once I look it over a little more, I shall submit it. 

They are taking submissions right now. So, go ahead, submit!

Beta Readers=Test Audience

 The deadline for sending my newest manuscript, Exit Signs, was quickly approaching.  I needed a test audience to tell me if this story was any good. I needed beta readers.

What is a beta reader?

A beta reader is a volunteer who reads over a rough manuscript and offers feedback on what’s working and what’s not. This feedback can range from a general reaction to a full-on critique.

Why is a beta reader important? I can give you an example of how beta readers helped me with my latest manuscript.  

I’m extremely lucky that I mentor a group of writers in a critique group that meets nearly every week. Over a glass of wine, we read excerpts from our WIPs (works in progress) to each other and talk out what we like and what we don’t like. 

When I finished Exit Signs and readied it to go to the publisher for editing, I asked our group to read the manuscript and give me their feedback.  They caught a lot of things I hadn’t seen when I edited the manuscript myself. Some of what they pointed out were typos, of course, but they also flagged questionable dialogue and action. They pointed out where I’d used the same word or phrase way too many times.

All of it was easily fixed.  But what became increasingly evident was the troubling ending.  

I’d kept waffling when I wrote the ending; I’d changed it multiple times.  The group's take was mixed.  Some liked it, and some didn’t. My agent disliked the ending, but a professional editor who had looked at the book liked it. 

Hell, I was uneasy about how the book ended, but wasn’t sure why.

I had one more beta reader that I hadn’t heard from, so I cornered her before a meeting we were both attending and asked her what she thought.  I had asked her to read my work because she’s a fan of my past books and she reads constantly.  She was brutally honest.  She hated the ending.  

In one simple sentence, she asked a question that showed me the problem. “Where is the character arc?”

It was like a flash of light.  The protagonist had gone through hell but essentially ended up in exactly the same place he started.  He hadn’t grown.  He hadn’t learned anything.  

I added a few pages to the ending, changing it completely, and it was infinitely more satisfying. 

I asked that beta reader why she’d waited so long to talk to me.  She said, “I was afraid to criticize your work.”

That’s the whole idea of a beta reader.  Tell me what you think.

Why have beta readers?  When a company rolls out a new product or advertisement, they’ll test it with people they hope represent their customer base. For a writer, beta readers are your test audience.  

If you can, find someone who enjoys the same genre that you’re working on.  I had a mix of writers and readers look at Exit Signs, but they all enjoy mysteries. 

My advice is to find readers who don’t mind criticizing your work.  Writers should have a thick skin.  If you want to be a writer, you’d better be able to hear someone say that they didn’t like what you wrote and why.  

It’s the why that’s most important. You can’t fix a problem unless you know what the problem is. 

Look for the release of Exit Signs, due for publication in May 2027. 

More Than Nuts and Bolts

 I'm a nuts-and-bolts type of writer, meaning I adopt a blue-collar approach to putting words on paper as opposed to getting all woo-woo about the process. Some writers consider where they write as an enchanted space and often light candles, set up talismans, recite prayers to attract the Muse. Whatever works for you. I, on the other hand, imagine my writing space as the sausage machine. Sit my ass in the chair, flip the switch, and get busy.

 

Scout judging my life choices as he sits in my writing space.

Since I write fiction, my guiding ethos is to make entertainment. No one wants to read a boring book. When writing fiction, we're asking the reader to suspend disbelief and then step into a narrative which is nothing but a lie. As I build the story I ask myself, are the characters making logical decisions given the rules of their world? Are they asking the right questions about their situations? Which extends the story beyond it developing simply as a chain of action->reaction because characters act on motivations, which are in turn based on their values and principles. Otherwise, why not follow the path of least resistance and bail when confronting any difficulty? A compelling motive keeps readers invested emotionally in the characters and elevates the story above an artless this happened, then that happened.

Over the years I've contributed to numerous horror anthologies and since this year marks the twentieth anniversary of my debut novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, I decided to commemorate that milestone with a book, my previously published short fiction in a new collection, Tales From a Broken Cosmos. 

 

Available from Amazon. 

Cover by Colin Graham at Mark Graham Communications.

Being horror, lots of bad things happen, most often from making the wrong decisions, which derive from the protagonist's motives. At times these motives are noble--an astronaut surgeon on a mission to repatriate fellow astronauts who are prisoners-of-war, learns too late that she's been duped. However in most of the stories, the characters are thoroughly rotten and get the cosmic justice they deserve. But behind these choices are motives that draw us into the protagonist's minds: a desire for validation, the need for security, a yearning for love, the search for justice (however twisted). For your reading pleasure I give you hoodlums, police detectives, delusional lovers, vampires, cryptids, extraterrestrials, Mayan gods, all neck-deep in stories that careen off the rails.

Dog In The Manger

 By Charlotte Hinger

The story of "A Dog in The Manger" is ancient and comes to us from Aesop's fables. It refers to someone who has no use for something but prevents others from enjoying it. The dog in this picture can't eat hay, but he barks and snarls and snaps and keeps the cattle and the horses having access to their food.

It's an attitude. I can't use it. I don't need it. But I'm not going to let you have it either.

A while back I gave another writer access to my research about Nicodemus Kansas. It was the pits to dig up all of this information. It involved hours of microfilm and on-site physical searches for documents buried in small town Kansas historical societies. I put this research to good use and was richly rewarded for my efforts. My academic book, Nicodemus, was published by Oklahoma University Press and took second place in the International Westerners' best book competetion. My novel, The Healer's Daughter, was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, second place in the Will Rogers Competition, and won a Kansas Notable Books Award. Award winning articles and short stories also evolved from this research. 

You would think that would be enough reward to satisfy the greediest of writers. 

But no! Deep in my heart I knew the biggest ultimate book was one I was not qualified to write. It would be an biography about E.P. McCabe, an African American who played an outsized role in shaping Nicodemus. I lacked the training, the skill, the brains, and the confidence to write a book about this early settler. 

A man got in touch with me. His name was Caleb Gayle. He wanted to write an biography about E.P. McCabe. It was hard for me to part with my information. Information I could not use. I was ashamed of my dog in the manger attitude. I overcame it because I knew Caleb was from Oklahoma and that was the heart of McCabe's life. My research about Nicodemus was a minor contribution to the real story. The most important aspect of McCabe's life was in Oklahoma.The man wanted Oklahoma to be an all-black state and believed he should be the governor. 

Caleb Gayle's book, Black Moses, was long-listed for the National Book Award. 

My Dog in the Manger attitude is only one of many undesirable traits I've discovered I possess in my long journey to become a writer. One of the heartbreaks of characterization is the realization that I understand all too well peoples' flaws that drive plots. 

HEY GANG! LET'S GO TO THE MORGUE!

Writer’s don’t know everything about everything, but they like to pretend they do. 

As mostly a short story and article writer, I really enjoy the wide scope of topics offered by those forms of writing. My stories have been about private investigators, sweet middle aged gardeners who kill with a purpose, gangsters in the 1930’s, business men who channel ghost energy in Victorian Scotland, robots at the 19XX Chicago World’s Fair, incompetent bank robbers, serial killers, conversations between the body cells of a recently murdered man, real life PIs in Denver, Odessa, Cherokee lands in North Carolina, the Mississippi Delta and West Texas, and an obsessive movie memorabilia dealer who cheats his customers. 

The writing is revealing and exciting, sometime hard work, often an opportunity to learn. Speculative fiction writers will tell you to be careful with your research. The gathering of information is addictive and world-building can consume all your time so that little writing ever gets done.

I enjoy reading private eye stories, especially Raymond Chandler, Samuel Dashiell Hammett, Micky Spillane and Dr. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyne. Of course, I tried it myself, and my stories were failures. They were stuffed with cliches from bad TV shows and B movies. I decided I needed to do some self-education, so I began to read books and to view Youtube videos. Don’t laugh, some of those are pretty good. Yes, some surrender to the cliche too, but many are right on the money.

I recommend The PI Guy, who I know personally, PI Education and Private Investigator Advice. Bypass all videos where the presenter thinks he’s on Miami Vice or he/she is wearing sunglasses indoors. Watch videos by female PIs too; top investigators are often female. That’s Not just another cliché, Kinsey. 

PIs are licensed to operate by the States, so I looked into what States listed for licensing requirements. Many States have extensive websites for PI licenses. At the time, Colorado even published a booklet on the steps anyone (except convicted felons) could follow to earn a license. Some States have a complex licensing structure with different licensing requirements for your intended business: armed, or not, security guard, a license for the agency if there were more than one PI in the office. Some States had huge requirements, and extensive education and experience requirements. 

Which States are the toughest? Remember the cliché, the paradigm built on decades of dime novels, black and white movies and cheap TV shows. The toughest are California, Nevada, Florida, Illinois and New York.  Where were all those PI stories based? LA, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago and NYC.

So, I studied, learned, took the open-book test and passed. I bought insurance and shazam! I was a PI. I rented an office, bought a computer, got licensed in New Mexico too, and ran my one-person office for almost 8 years. The variety of cases still feeds my stories. The problems people have! You can’t imagine. I belong to the State PI Association, Senior Member, and I still pay attention to the craft, which finally circles back around to the Morgue. 

I joined a tour co-sponsored by my Association and the Sisters in Crime Chapter. Massively informative, Nothing like you see on TV. And when the tour walked into their operations room, there were three of the recently passed. The group was really quiet, as you might imagine. Routine autopsies are amazingly quick. I absorbed data “not in books”. The sound of the rib cutter, for example.  I won’t go into further detail, unless that’s what you want to read about.

In my working life, I’ve been an Air Force Officer, Intelligence Officer, satellite operator, film & stage actor, commercial actor, forest fire fighter, janitor, PI, pilot and amateur race car driver.        Writers need an imagination.  Experience feeds that.    STEVE PEASE

Bartz v. Anthropic Update

 by Sybil Johnson

Last November I wrote a post about the Bartz v. Anthropic class action lawsuit. You can read it here.

Before I continue let me note that I am not a lawyer nor do I know much about the law. So I’m not an expert in this. This is my take on the subject. 

Basically, there are two parts to this lawsuit: (1) use of works without publisher’s or author’s permission to train AI and (2) use of pirated copyrighted works to train AI. A settlement was reached for the pirated portion. The judge deemed use of works that were bought as fair use, even if they didn’t have the publisher’s or author’s permission. I don’t really agree with that, but I’m moving on. We’ll see what happens with the other same or similar lawsuits currently going on. Maybe some other judge will decide differently.

As I noted before, I’ve been keeping tabs on this not only because I’m an author but because three of my books were used in training.

Things are starting to move. I received an email recently with a link to an online portal and passcode where I could verify the distribution of the money between me and my publisher. I viewed, I verified it was 50-50 (the standard), I gave them my SSN. And now I wait. Rumor has it that they’ll be starting to send out checks in November. We will see. The estimates for payouts seem to be $3000 per work minus fess and costs. I saw one article that estimated that would come out to about $2200 per work. We’ll see what actually happens.

My claim fell into the No Disagreements category so I didn’t have to do anything special. Phew.

There are, however, a lot of claims that fall into the Disagreements category where there is some disagreement about claim distribution between authors and publishers. Some publishers are allegedly claiming 100% of the settlement. An article from Writer Beware noted that some of these disagreements may actually be mistakes so an author should check with their publisher if they fall into this category. Authors can contest the distribution. 

Also note that if you’re published with a University press or textbook publisher, things can get more complicated. And, even though some of them would like to be, agents are not part of the settlement.

The Authors Guild and Writer Beware have good articles that go into more detail about what’s currently going on. 

Authors Guild: https://authorsguild.org/news/important-information-regarding-anthropic-copyright-settlement-claim-notices/

Writer Beware: https://writerbeware.blog/2026/09/04/anthropic-copyright-settlement-publishers-are-making-incorrect-claims-on-authors-payouts/

Obsessed With Small Towns

Catherine Dilts

The only time I’ve been pepper-sprayed was a few years ago when I was in the Black Hills at the beginning of the Sturgis motorcycle rally. Thousands of bikers – and a preponderance of biker wannabes – swelled the population of tiny western South Dakota towns temporarily. I was glad our August vacation was ending before Sturgis officially began. The biker culture is not my cup of tea.

More to my liking was crewing for a RAGBRAI bicycle team this July. Thousands of cyclists pedal across Iowa, from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River. The week-long event travels through Iowa farm country in a peculiar caravan of bicycles, buses, and RVs. Entire tent cities pop up for a brief moment in time, housing cyclists and crew, until pulling up stakes the next morning. I was enchanted by several of the overnight and midpoint towns. My daughter and her husband, riding their bicycles across the entire state of Iowa, visited many more tiny towns the support crews did not get to see.

RAGBRAI bicyclists invading Dyersville, Iowa

Surely this is a peculiar phenomenon. Thousands of people descending on small American towns for unusual events?

The third experience sealed it for me. These are not isolated incidents. Especially considering the longevity of the Sturgis motorcycle rally (over 85 years) and the RAGBRAI bicycle tour (53 years).

The Mesa Verde Literary Festival is new. 2026 was only the second year for the event. It followed a sold-out writers’ conference in Mancos, Colorado.

With a population 1,282, I was doubtful the remote town could attract enough literature fans to make the trip worthwhile. Instead, I was delighted to witness yet another small-town takeover.

What is this obsession with small towns? As a cozy mystery writer, I understand fans craving stories set in charming villages, burgs, and hamlets. The world is insular. The clues promise to be attainable. While the protagonist risks rubbing elbows with the criminal – or murderer – she or he also has access to law enforcement and reliable cohorts eager to solve the mystery. Preferably best buds, book club members, or unassuming little old people.

Back to Mancos. This agricultural town has the added appeal of re-birthing itself as an artists’ colony on a miniature scale. You can see it in the sculptures and murals. The Mancos Common Press is reviving letterpress printing using the original equipment still on site. There is a bookstore. Two coffee shops.

Mural outside the Mancos Common Press

The Festival was recommended by my daughter’s friend Fleur Bradley. Because it is in our home state of Colorado, we decided to give it a try. Keep in mind that Colorado is a large state. With mountains. We talked our husbands and one granddaughter into going. The men drove our RVs. The trip took seven hours one-way.

We camped at an RV park that promised it was a short walk to downtown. I tested that claim after we were settled in at the campground. Granted, my crew is all fit. We walk and bicycle frequently. It was, as promised, a short and easy walk to everything.

The Festival opened Friday with an author reception. A meal’s worth of healthy snacks were provided, as well as beverages – soft drinks, beer, and wine. Mark Stevens gave a short welcoming speech.

Mark Stevens welcoming authors to Mancos

Saturday was fun. I especially enjoyed walking from the Mancos Community Center, where writers had books to autograph and sell, to author chats and panels. Many venues were outdoors. The weather was fabulous.

My co-author and daughter Merida Bass and I had our author chat tucked away under the pergola of a cantina. Later in the afternoon, we were outdoors at the library.

Jenny Dandy, Serra Wildheart, Antonio Farias, Merida Bass, Catherine Dilts

We were pleasantly surprised by the crowds. I did not expect much turnout, considering the remote location. The Mesa Verde Literary Festival was worth the drive.

That’s the thing I’ve learned about small towns. When they host an event, they turn out. To volunteer. To play host with accommodations, food, and drink. In this case, to participate. To buy books. Merida was anxious to see whether her newest book, Someday’s Garden, would be well received. People bought it, and her other children’s picture books.

Merida Bass with her newest release, Someday's Garden

If we’re invited back next year, I will attend the Festival again. I will try to justify the drive time by making more of an extended vacation, though. With Mesa Verde National Park only a few miles away, there's no excuse. Mancos is a great base camp for adventures. And an unexpected artists’ colony in the Four Corners region.

While other folks are flocking to huge conferences and participating in big-city literary events, I might stick to my comfort zone. That small-town vibe is where I’m most comfortable.

(I probably need to explain being pepper-sprayed. A gal in tight jeans riding on the back of a motorcycle may have accidentally activated her self-defense spray. A cloud emanated from her general hindquarters region and drifted to the sidewalk where we were walking. A painful experience I don’t care to repeat.)

Minefields in Writing

 Donis here. Glad to be back, Dear Readers. It's been a strange few months around Casa Casey, mainly due to both our elderly house and our elderly selves falling apart and having to be handled without delay. I'm still writing as best I can on a new novel which has been in production for over two years. Considering that some days I can only manage a couple of sentences, I'm not that unhappy. 

The current WIP is not a mystery, really, but a true historical novel, set in the U.S. between 1863 and about 1900. The protagonist, if you can call her that, is the child of Irish immigrants living in New York in complete destitution. While still a child, she determines her goal in life is to be rich. That's it. She figures the way to do this is to go to San Francisco. Her travels and adventures across the country turn her into ... well, that's what we find out.

 I've written about self-censorship before. It's something I have to seriously consider every time I write a historical novel set in the U.S. My self-censorship problems have to do with the mores of the times and the places I’m writing about. In the 19th and 20th centuries there were a lot of common and wide-spread attitudes that we in the 21st Century find unsavory in the extreme - casual racism, even among people of good will who would never knowingly harm another person of any color; assumptions about women and people of other ethnicities; the treatment of children. Can you imagine what would happen today if a parent took a belt to a whiny child in the grocery store?  Language, too. Words that today would give the hearer a stroke were tossed about with abandon and nobody batted an eye. And I don’t mean just racial epithets, either. My grandmother, a farm wife with the straightest laces you can possibly imagine, used all kinds of what we would now call scatological words. In her society, crude words for excrement didn’t have nearly the cachet they now have, probably because people were up to their knees in it every day of their lives.

I am Public Opinion. All Men Fear Me. 

 

There are times, though, when the story you are telling just calls for something shocking, or it won’t ring true. In my two earlier series, set in Oklahoma and California in the 1910s and '20s, I don’t want readers to judge my characters by modern standards and think less of them. Nor do I want to present early 20th Century societal shortcomings in a way that makes light of them or seems approving. 

But in those earlier series, my protagonists were people of good will. In my WIP, the protag is an amoral survivor. How to create a character you'll disapprove of and yet root for? How do I deal with the rampant misogyny and racism of the time and place? How do I show the way downtrodden, despised, and discriminated-against people coped and figured out ways to flourish? Very, very carefully, let me tell you. 

But you know, I love a challenge.

Toward the end of his life, my late great author friend Jon Talton wrote a wonderful book called City of Dark Corners, set in Phoenix during the Depression. He included at the the beginning a "Note On Language", which said: "This novel in set in America of nearly a century ago. I have generally used the vernacular of that era. But readers should be aware that this included commonly employed racial epithets that would be highly offensive today. Even polite references to ethnicity or gender in this era would sound hurtful or disrespectful to twenty-first-century ears and sensibilities."

I think that's what one has to do – a disclaimer. I don't want to whitewash the past. I want readers to see how hurtful and disrespectful it really was, and what some people had to put up with and overcome. And yet there are some words and situations I can't bring myself to put on paper, no matter how authentic they may be.

So here is an interesting question for an author - how much do you censor yourself, and why? Of course, we all keep our target audiences in mind, and try to write material that will not offend them so much that they won’t buy our subsequent books. We don’t want to be killing any kitties or puppies unless we absolutely have to for the integrity of the novel. Nor do we wish to go too far beyond the language/sex/violence parameters set by our publishers or agents or editors lest they decide no longer to publish us. 

Here is what Dan Baldwin, another prolific author friend, recently wrote about self-censorship and political correctness: 

"I feel a need to state an often-overlooked fact of the writing life today: political correctness is censorship. Sadly, for many of us it is now an accepted and even encouraged form of self-censorship. Self-censorship is by definition a denial of self and a writer’s duty to honesty. PC is a term for language designed to be the least offensive to whomever might possibly perhaps could be maybe I don’t know what do you think offended by an obvious and well-established fact of life. Observance, which these days borders on a religious movement, reminds me of Newspeak from George Orwell’s 1984. The purpose of Newspeak is to control language by using simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary to prevent people from thinking critically. A minor character, a lexicologist named Syme, sums it up brilliantly.
 
“By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of The Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like Freedom is Slavery when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
Dan Baldwin

Do you agree, Dear Reader? How far is too far, or not far enough?

What Are We Thinking?

 “Who knows what bugs are crawling around in someone’s head?”  That’s one of my favorite lines from my fourth book, Shadow Hill. 

A few weeks ago, I spoke to a group of Rotarians about writing and, more specifically, a little bit about my books. The first book I talked about was Random Road , where six nude bodies are found hacked to death on an island.  The book also goes on to talk about sex clubs and swingers. 

In the second book, Darkness Lane, my protagonist, Geneva Chase, has a brief, tawdry affair with a lascivious actor.  

The third book, Graveyard Bay, is about escaped convicts, the Russian Mafia, dungeons, a dominatrix, and S&M.

As I spoke to this group, I could see eyes widening and looks of surprise.  You see, before I retired, I worked at a day job as the president of our county’s Chamber of Commerce. A straight-laced, conservative organization by definition. I think the Rotarians were a little shocked. 

This past Thursday night, my wife and I attended a social/business event, and one of our community leaders came up to me and told me she had read all of my books, including my latest, Whisper Room, which is about an escort service run by women.  She smiled at me and said, “You know, I held out your latest book and told my husband that he should read this. He won’t believe that this all came out of your head.”

I get that a lot, from friends, from readers, from neighbors.  Where on earth does this stuff come from?  Often, they’ll ask my wife, “Aren’t you concerned?”

Cindy dryly replies, “I sleep with one eye open.” 

Before my stint with the Chamber of Commerce, I worked for newspapers and magazines for over thirty years. I've seen some strange things, been in some decadent places, and met some scary people. So, I can draw upon that while I’m writing, but more importantly, I depend upon my imagination.  

As writers, the characters that we create might share some characteristics or bear a resemblance to people we know, but they’re figments of our imagination.  That includes the good guys as well as the bad guys.  And let’s be honest, aren’t the villains fun to write? Isn’t it a kick to be evil, even if it’s just on paper, to increase the tension and the suspense of a story? 

In my books, I’ve killed an old boss or two.  It’s cathartic.  It really is. 

The good guys, the bad guys, the peripheral characters…they're all us, the writers. In my opinion, writing fiction is about as close to being schizophrenic as you can be. As a writer, don’t you hear voices in your head?  Is the dialogue playing out while you’re driving to the grocery store? A plot twist appears when you least expect it, like while you’re taking a shower or having breakfast?

Once, a friend of ours, who also happened to be a fan, told me, “You think about death a lot.”

Yeah, crime novelists think about death a lot. I think we all have a lot of dark shadows lurking in our heads, rattling around in our skulls.  Mystery novelists just allow those shadows to slither out of our heads and onto a blank sheet of paper. And man, is that ever fun 

More UFOs

 by Sybil Johnson

Some years ago I wrote a post on Type M about my UFOs. No, not the mysterious lights in the sky, but the unfinished objects that were around the house. It was called the Year of FPIS (Finishing Projects I Started). 

I find myself, once again, working on UFOs. All of these unfinished projects that have accumulated over the years are weighing on me a bit psychologically. I really do like finishing things. I feel a sense of guilt if I’ve even temporarily abandoned a project. So I decided it’s time to get back to some of them.

I have a lot of unfinished craft projects. One of them was an afghan kit I bought probably 30 years ago. After having crocheted a number of Woobles, I decided the time was now to work on the afghan. That I knew enough to proceed. When I pulled it out a few months ago, I realized that I'd attempted to start it once before with little success. At the time I clearly didn't understand the instructions. Now I did. So I jumped right in and finished it. Here it is. 

(After taking this picture, I immediately shoved the afghan off me because it's been hot and muggy here in So. Cal., even at the beach. One of the few times I wish we had air conditioning.)

I have some painting projects and other craft projects to finish off as well. I vow to get back to those soon. I also have stories I started writing and never finished. Not because they were bad stories, but because I had to focus on something else or I was stuck on a plot point or ...(place excuse here.) 

One of those stories was Deadly Consequences, which I wrote about in a previous post. I finished it and it’s now out for consideration to EQMM.

The short story I'm working on now involves my repo twin characters and their grandfather, Gus, a former bit player in Hollywood. They appeared in 2 short stories, Cemetery Plot and Some Like It Raw, both published in Mysterical-E many years ago now. They’re still available to read for free there.

The story was almost finished when I abandoned it. I was stuck on figuring out the ending. Now I'm working on it with fresh eyes and realizing that it’s not that far off from being done. I also have a book idea that involves the twins. Just barely started taking notes on that one. Then there’s the historical I vow to get back to soon.

As I mentioned in one of my posts back in 2017, I think the hardest thing about finishing an abandoned project is making the decision to sit down and do it. I still believe that’s true. There are times, though, that I think that abandoning a project isn’t all bad as long as you get back to it at some point. That maybe, as in the case of my afghan project, the reason it’s been abandoned is it’s not the right time to work on it. That you need to learn something to help you finish it.

I suppose there are projects that should be permanently abandoned. I haven’t found any writing ones of those...yet. Probably because I like to finish things.

This isn’t the Year of FPIS like it was for me back in 2017, but I do plan on making a concerted effort to make progress on projects, particularly writing ones.

What about you? Do you have any unfinished projects you’re itching to get back to?

Oh Canada

 I'm heartbroken over this separation between America and Canada. America's stance toward our closest neighbor couldn't possibly be more abrasive. 

Years ago, I wanted to be accepted by the really cool kids who originated Type M For Murder. They were mostly Canadians. However, Donis Casey had made the cut. And although she lives in Arizona, she was transplanted from Oklahoma. I was thrilled when Donis asked me to submit a guest post. Then, overjoyed when I had to chance to join permanently. 

I've shied away from any political discourse on Type M For Murder. We try to stick to topics that will be of interest to mystery readers and writers. But this new rift does directly affect writers and in fact the whole publishing industry. 

All of our books whether self-published or a trade publication contain both American and Canadian pricing. That is a direct acknowledgement of the number of books that will appeal to readers from both countries.

 I adore Louise Penny's Three Pines series. Right now, I'm reading Barbara Fradkin's wonderful Mist Walker. It's the latest entry in her best-selling Inspector Green series. It's terrific and doubly enjoyable to me because Barbara is one of the original Type M posters. 

Books have become frightfully expensive. I recently reviewed an academic book that was priced for $75.00. Whew! Even worse was one of my granddaughter's textbooks for law school. It's $900.00. Will the prices we pay for books continue to rise? You bet. Canada is the major supplier of paper for the book industry. Paper is a huge component of publishing expense. 

If I were a publisher, in today's market, I would only publish books that were destined to make a lot of money. No taking changes on new authors. No indulging of mature authors with diminishing sales. 

What a sad situation for both writers and readers.

Murder In Space

I was working on the idea of a homicide in the cosmos when I wondered, what would make a person as well-grounded and stable as an astronaut want to commit murder?

 

AI image ChatGPT 

 

Then I remembered what happened on February 4, 2007, in what became an extraordinary, though not admirable, day in the history of the American space program. On that date, Lisa Nowak--Navy Captain, veteran shuttle astronaut, accomplished pilot and engineer--accosted an Air Force officer, her rival in a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut. Nowak was arrested with an assortment of items, including pepper spray, a hammer, a knife, black latex gloves, disguises, hundreds in cash, that pointed to sinister outcomes. She was charged with a variety of crimes, the most serious being attempted first-degree murder with a deadly weapon. As the case slogged through the judicial process, she ended up pleading guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. The Navy mustered her out with a "less than honorable discharge" and a reduction in rank to commander. It was an ignominious saga of a person who had lost her way. But it made me think about the broader implications of this sad tale. 

Candidates for the astronaut program endure an exceptionally competitive selection process to be then subjected to comprehensive psychological examinations and intense training to determine that they won't go crackers under pressure. Astronauts are probably the most cool-headed individuals in service. Consider that aboard both the Challenger and the Columbia, the flight crews attempted to gain--futilely as it turned out--manual and spontaneous unrehearsed control of their doomed craft in the short moments before destruction. Such heroics point to the exceptional caliber of astronauts on one end of the performance spectrum and now, thanks to Lisa Nowak, NASA has to seriously consider behavior at the other end of that spectrum, in this case, the possibility of a murderous love triangle in space.

The most memorable manslaughter in space depicted in popular culture was in 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the AI brain HAL decides that the human crew will compromise the mission and so proceeds to off them, three in cold-blooded assassination by yanking the plug of their hibernation capsules, and the other by staging a Mafia-style hit using an EVA pod as a murder weapon. 

Is homicide in the heavens inevitable? Hopefully not. Keep in mind that the real-life scenarios most replicating deep-space travel are the deployments aboard nuclear submarines, where male-female crews stay submerged for up to three months at a time. A fellow writer who was a Navy submariner tells me that such prolonged isolation from the natural world and sunlight, in his words, "Really fucks with your mind," but so far, no murders at sea.

Dark Shadows Lives On

 by Sybil Johnson

A few weekends ago, I attended the 60th Anniversary Dark Shadows Festival here in Los Angeles. For those of you who don’t know, Dark Shadows was an American gothic/supernatural soap opera that aired from 1966-1971 (1225 episodes). It started out as a Jane Eyre-esque gothic soap that gradually introduced ghosts and other supernatural creatures. It was in danger of being canceled, but when they introduced the vampire, Barnabas Collins, it really took off.

I was one of those kids who “ran home from school” to watch it. Okay, sometimes a bus was involved, but you get the idea. 

According to a couple sources, 800-900 people showed up at the festival to share their love for the TV show that aired so very long ago. I’ve attended a number of these festivals over the years and enjoyed every single one of them. This was advertised as the last festival for the show, so I’m glad I was able to attend.

Our very cool coffin shaped badge

I had a wonderful time. I had some great conversations with people I met there. I also attended panels, watched some rare videos and “The House of Dark Shadows” movie, and did a little shopping. 

Bought a bunch of charms. Really nice work. Left to right (char names): Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Quentin Collins, Angelique, the year the show started, Victoria Winters, Barnabas Collins and the portrait of Josette.

It’s always fun to go places where people share a love for something, whether it’s books or TV shows or... It reminded me a lot of the camaraderie I feel at Malice Domestic.

 And it wasn’t only people who watched the initial run who attended. Probably half of the people there weren’t born then. They found it when it was in syndication or through the VHS tapes or DVDs or from streaming. (It’s currently available on Tubi, Amazon Prime and hoopladigital.) Some may have heard about it because they watched the 1991 revival series that aired in primetime. Alas, it only lasted one season, but it is extremely well done. 

I’m sure the actors and others who worked on the original show did not expect it to still be around so many years later. I think it’s rather miraculous that all 1225 episodes survived.

Dark Shadows shows no sign of slowing down. MPI has started re-releasing it on Blu-Ray. There are comic books and a podcast called Terror at Collinwood hosted by Penny Dreadful. I learned at the festival that an animated series is in the works. I’m still discovering new DS-related things.

As you might expect, a lot of the original actors are no longer with us. I was lucky to attend some of the earlier festivals and meet some of them. They were all gracious and rather astounded there were still so many fans. Lara Parker who played Angelique got her MFA many years after the show and wrote four fiction books using the characters. Those are on my TBR list. Alas, she passed away a few years ago, but I did meet her a couple times at earlier festivals. A lovely person.

Kathryn Leigh Scott who played Maggie Evans and Josette Dupres is still around and attended the festival. She’s always gracious and happy to be there. She’s written a number of books about the show plus a mystery, which is also currently on my TBR list. 

There were other actors from the original show who attended as well including Jerry Lacy, Roger Davis, Sharon Smyth, James Storm, Terry Crawford. My apologies if I left anyone out. It was great seeing all of them. Some of the 1991 cast also attended, which was fun.

The lesson we can learn from the Dark Shadows experience? Whether it’s a book, a movie, a TV show, you never know what is going to pique someone’s interest or how long that interest will last. Don’t try to “chase the trends”. Just write what you want to write to the best of your ability. Who knows, maybe it’ll be stories that will have long lives like Dark Shadows.

Living the Pajama Life

by Catherine Dilts

Can I please crawl back into my author cave now?

I participated in writing events Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Both were well-attended, fun, and fruitful.

My table at the Parker Library

The Douglas County Libraries welcome authors of all varieties, both traditionally and independently published. The Local Author Showcase on August 15^th featured fiction and non-fiction, from teen authors to seniors, and an amazing variety of subjects.

We were given five minutes to speak. I revealed the inspiration behind my first fiction sale. The audience seemed to relate. Who doesn’t dream of killing an annoying coworker?

My co-author daughter Merida Bass described her own journey from escaping teaching college-level mathematics to unwilling students, to becoming an artist, children’s storybook author and illustrator, and co-author of cozy mysteries.

We won the Colorado Authors League award in the humor category for our novel, Grandpa’s New Year’s Relocation. We think that means we can write a funny tale.

Writing and public speaking are two different things. I hope people don’t expect me to be witty in person. I’m not that interesting.

Yet when we gave our brief speeches, the audience laughed. And bought our books.

The very next day, we went to Basecamp Books and Adventure for their first annual Book Bash. We didn’t know what to expect. Neither did the shop owner, Joe. The crowds were so huge that they overwhelmed the air conditioning and the cash register.

Fortunately for us, Merida had set up a purchasing app on her phone, so we could do our own sales. She sold completely out of the children’s book, The Jelly Monster. It’s a popular picture book. Kids love it.

We gave no speeches this day. But we did pitch our books. Constantly. Over and over.

Many customers were horror and thriller fans. We pitched to them anyway. It was good practice.

Sales were respectable. We will definitely participate again.

Two days in a row were a bit much for me.

Being in public requires a certain level of decorum. Sure, I don’t have to, but I choose to dress like an adult. Wear makeup. Comb my hair. Things I don’t do when I’m writing at home.

But Monday, in the aftermath of all the excitement, I just wanted to lounge around the house.

Nope. Things to do, projects to complete, blog articles to write. I was able to partially crawl back into my writing cave. Or rather, write on the deck and enjoy the outdoors. Summer weather. The cat lunging after hummingbirds. And I worked in my pajamas.

Appearing in public is the part of being an author I have avoided. My daughter is pushing me to actually act like this is a career. So far, it’s working. We’re making progress. Getting our names and our brand out there.

As long as I can have my cave time, I guess it’s okay. Living the pajama life makes it all worthwhile.

Is that butterfly edible, the cat asks.

Searching For a Home For a Short Story

 by Sybil Johnson

I mentioned in my last post that I was putting the finishing touches on a short story. It’s done now. The husband has read it. He said he enjoyed it and didn't give me any comments. This is very unusual. He usually tells me when he doesn't understand who is speaking, if something is confusing, if I have a typo, if a man wouldn't say that, etc. He does not hold back. The fact that he didn't have any of those comments is great, but I admit it makes me a bit uneasy. I mean, no short story is perfect. On the other hand, I did do a lot of work putting the finishing touches on it. Maybe I'm getting better at that.

I’m ready for the next phase: finding a home for my short story. 

This story started as a possible submission to a Malice Domestic anthology. I didn't get it done by the deadline, but even if I had, I think it’s too long for their guidelines. This story features a retired police detective turned library volunteer who first appeared in my story "Fatal Return" that was published in the Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles anthology, "Angel City Beat". I hadn't planned on doing another story with her until I was on a short story panel at Malice Domestic and the moderator, Barb Goffman, (who, btw, edited the anthology) asked me if I planned on doing another story featuring her. I said no, but it got me thinking. Then I thought of an idea and here we are.

The story in a nutshell: Retired police detective turned library volunteer, Michaela Franklin, organizes a talk on scams targeting seniors that starts a chain of events with deadly consequences. 

So now the search commences for a publishing home for this story. At 6900 words, it's on the long side. I've never written a short story that long, let alone looked for a market that would be interested in it. I don't think there's anything I can cut or want to cut. I believe that each story has its own natural length. For my cozy mysteries, 75,000 words is my sweet spot. Short stories, though, go all over the place.

AHMM and EQMM are my usual first thoughts. I haven't cracked those markets yet, but hope springs eternal. The problem with AHMM is that it can take a year to hear back. I don't submit a story to more than one market at a time. So my usual process is to try EQMM first since it has a shorter rejection time.

I'm a member of SMFS (Short Mystery Fiction Society) so I hear of submission calls through that. They also have a list of markets for members to peruse so I'll be checking those out.

Most of the markets I've sold to before aren't around anymore or are on their way out. Makes me sad because they were all great markets.

These days I prioritize paying markets over non-paying ones. I have certainly had my work published in online e-zines that don't pay. Especially when I first started writing. But I always made sure that they were well-respected. Another rule of mine: I won’t pay to submit a story for consideration. Doesn’t seem right to me.

I also have a shorter short story that I haven't submitted anywhere yet. I will look at places to send that one as well. 

I've written half a dozen other short stories over the years. I've managed to place all of them though sometimes it took a couple years. Writing is not for the faint of heart! 

If anybody has any suggestions about a market, let me know. Wish me luck!

The Book Contest/Book Festival Hustle

As the editor for Rama y Raíces, The Best of CALMA,  I'm always looking for opportunities to promote our work. With that in mind, I entered our book in the 2026 San Francisco Book Festival. We took first place in Compilations/Anthologies, however since there was only one other finalist in that category, I thought the competition was rather thin. As I'd never heard of this festival, before entering, I did my due diligence, noting that this wasn't the first year for this festival. I spot-checked some of the previous finalists, finding that all I looked into were self-published. Well, so was Ramas y Raíces. In fact, in many such contests and festivals, the majority of entrants have been, in my experience, self-published. What we all seek with these competitions is the validation of our efforts and a recognition of our place in the literary world.

 Source: San Francisco Festival of Books

My Spider-sense did tingle. After signing on for this festival, I started getting emails for festivals with similar names: Hollywood Book Festival. New York Book Festival. New England Book Festival. Horror Book Festival. And even during the writing of this blog post, I received an invitation to the Southern California Book Festival. All the webpages had almost identical layouts. Turns out the awards ceremony for all these festivals would be at the Los Angeles Book Festival (not to be confused with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books). Some CALMA members expressed concern this endeavor might be a scam, selling tickets to a nonexistent event, and this prompted me to do more sleuthing. The ceremony venue was listed as the Roosevelt Hollywood Hotel. I couldn't find any mention of the Los Angeles Book Festival on the hotel website and my voice mail to the hotel went unanswered. 

But more digging around led me to the The Los Angeles Book Festival's Facebook group and their webpage.  

Turns out that these festivals are hosted by JM Northern Media, LLC, and click here to read what the National Writers Union says about them. And there's more vitriol here. Not to defend JM Northern Media, but these posts were written years ago so perhaps much has changed since then.

From last year's Award Ceremony we have this group photo of JM Northern Media's finalists.

 

Source:  Facebook-Los Angeles Books Awards 

The main accusation against such contests and festivals is that they can be an awards mill hustle. An organization announces a contest with a fee of $50 per entry--100 entries means $5,000. To some, that is a nice haul. Keep in mind that $50 is on the low end of entry fees. The International Impact Book Awards asks $79 for one category entry with a sliding scale going to a five-category deal of $259. Shelf Unbound's 2026 Best Indie Book is asking $130 for early bird pricing. Some of the more prestigious awards, like the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, charge no entry fee but MWA is a large organization funded with membership dues in addition to gifts and grants.

Also, some contests and festivals sell packages offering more media exposure, tables to sell your books, etc., but that's all par for the course.

Then there's griping about paying to attend the award's ceremony. The Colorado Books Awards charges to attend their awards ceremony, in addition to their $60 contest entry fee. Hosting award ceremonies ain't cheap, especially if you add a wet bar and banquet services, even if it's simply hors d'ouerves. And hotels are notorious for pulling fast ones. (You didn't know there's a separate charge for AV setup?) 

Finally, people complain about getting their hopes up, thinking that whatever award they win will provide a life-changing leap forward, only to get a certificate to hang on the wall and another line to add to their author bio. Whether you think any award is worth your time, that's up to you. Buyer beware.

Finishing Touches

 by Sybil Johnson

My apologies for missing my last posting date. I was in Seattle for my mother’s 104th(!) birthday. I’m home now and putting the finishing touches on a short story I’ve been working on for far too long.

Whenever I work on a story, whether it’s a short story or a book, I have a process that I go through at the very end. When I think I’ve got the story down and it’s about ready for someone to read, I do a final checklist of things. Here are some of the things I do:

• Look for awkward wording and fix it. I read the story to myself out loud. That helps me catch these.
• Look over the timeline of events and make sure it all makes sense.
• Read the dialog in each scene out loud without the surrounding prose. This helps me pick out things that don’t make sense or are awkward.
• Make sure that all important questions have been answered. Check for anything I need to clarify for the reader.
• Check consistency of words. Things like “back yard” vs. “backyard” or “T-shirt” vs. “t-shirt”. I don’t much care which I use, just that’s it consistent throughout the story.
• Check to make sure there are no two spaces where there should be one. Look for missing periods at end of sentences. Run it through spell-check.

After I’ve done all that to my satisfaction and, after a final read-through, it’s ready to hand over to my first reader, usually the husband. He tells me when he doesn’t understand something or if he doesn’t know who’s talking in a dialog sequence. Stuff like that.

For the writers out there, what kind of process do you use to put the finishing touches on a story?

¡Viva la revolución!

We writers love to do research. Give us the excuse for an arcane detail in our work and we'll devote hours crawling down a rabbit hole. How did the Assyrians mine for gold? What was Thomas Jefferson's favorite wine? Why did women stop wearing pantyhose? 

This last week, Duane Evans (an Army buddy) and I spent the week digging through files in the National Archives of Denver (the facility is actually in Longmont). We are co-writing a nonfiction book about an attempted toma (takeover) of government land in New Mexico back in 1967. Though the story is today largely forgotten, it remains a wild saga about Reies López Tijerina, an evangelical preacher turned political activist, the protagonist in an adventure that involves shootouts, kidnappings, murder, bombings, arson, FBI wiretaps, and a gunpoint showdown between the adversaries. While we have gleaned much from other published sources, to get a fresh perspective of the account, we culled through hundreds of pages of court transcripts in the archives. Particularly fascinating was the first-hand testimony recounting what had happened because until then, Duane and I had only read other writers' summaries of the same incidents. We were likewise delighted to find copies of rather bizarre pieces of evidence, such as the photo of a local Hispano reveling in the mayhem while properly decked out in a sequined charro sombrero, and a citizen's arrest warrant for Chief Justice Warren Burger.

 

Viva la revolución!

Plaintiff's Exhibit M, Case 23112 

 

 

Tijerina's arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court

Plaintiff's Exhibit 41, Case 23112 

 

Accessing the files was a unique experience. The archivist had selected file boxes based on our research criteria. Duane and I had to take an online certification course instructing us over what was and was not allowed in the research rooms. Pretty much nothing but laptops, cellphones, and our clothes. No notebooks, pens, drinks, food, staplers, knives. They provided pencils and paper. Once in the research room, we were given another short class about how to handle the documents. One page at a time, no folding or creasing the paper, and make sure to insert a place holder into the file box to mark where you had removed a file folder. An archivist remained in the room, watching and admonishing like a stern librarian. Place holder in the file box! No documents near the edge of the table!

 

 

One of the many file boxes.

Fortunately, we had access to a nifty scanner that plugged into Duane's laptop, and we were able to gather lots of material without having to take pages of handwritten notes. The challenge now is processing the material and layering it into what we've already drafted. Despite the trove of historical information, what we learned pointed us in the direction of yet more archives to pour through. For us writers, the paperwork never ends.

 

 

 

Guest Blogger Karen Odden on AN ARTFUL DODGE

I (Donis) am so happy to host my friend Karen Odden to Type M 4 Murder today. Karen is a wonderful historical mystery author whose latest release is An Artful Dodge, about a gang of female thieves in 19th century England. Great concept, isn't it? And the best part is it's based on real people and real events. Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up.

Karen Odden

 The “wait, what?” moment that sparked the idea for An Artful Dodge, my sixth book set in 1870s London, happened in December 2021. 

My daughter Julia had just finished her semester abroad at Oxford. If you remember, there was a lull during the Covid pandemic. We rented a flat and spent a week bopping around London doing Mom/Daughter things. The gray days required umbrellas; the night winds turned our umbrellas inside out. We still had a lovely time, as my daughter is game for any number of long walks, teashops, bookstores, and museums. And Harrods. Here she is in one of my favorite cafes, inside the Victoria and Albert Museum, with a scone the size of her head.

One evening, we ducked into the Great Scotland Yard Hotel in Whitehall, not far from Big Ben. It’s built on what used to be the odd-shaped cobblestoned yard behind 4 Whitehall Place, which was the official address for the plainclothes division of the Metropolitan Police, what we now call Scotland Yard, in the 1870s. The yard served as the “public entrance,” was large enough for wagons, and usually smelled of horse dung and musty hay. 

The hotel (shown here in much better weather than we had) was built in 2019, an homage to the Victorian period. It’s run by Hyatt. 

Shivering, Julia and I entered the foyer and discovered glass cases full of Victorian crime memorabilia—mug shots, police truncheons, whistles, helmets, weapons, poison bottles, and more. (Be still my I-want-to-see-the-authentic-stuff heart.) 

Afterward Julia and I went to the restaurant to have dinner, but they said, regretfully, they were “full up.” However, we could go to the Forty Elephants bar across the way and get a drink and a bite to eat.

Forty Elephants. 

The Elephant and Castle

What an odd name, I thought. Did it have to do with the British Empire, which in the 1800s was busily expanding into India and Africa, home of real, gray, floppy-eared elephants? 

We entered to find a room with a portrait of a gorgeous woman over the fireplace. 

I was madly curious. Fortunately, on our wooden corner table, there was a QR code “For more information about the 40 Elephants.” Of course I clicked.

I discovered that the “Forty Elephants” were members of an all-women thieving gang based out of Elephant and Castle neighborhood, in Southwark (pronounced “South-uck”), in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The crime-ridden area was named for an old stagecoach inn, built in the 1700s, located at the intersection of six roads coming in from Dover, Canterbury and various parts of London. 

An all-women thieving gang, in a crime-ridden part of London! Women who went into the new department stores and tucked gloves and lace and jewelry into long thieving pockets that went down to their hemlines, and into special netting in their hair! Who wouldn’t want a mystery about that?

I was finishing my fifth book, Under a Veiled Moon, so I scribbled the idea down and set it aside. When I later pitched the idea to my publisher, he gave dubious little grimace. Clearly, no interest there. And although the Inspector Corravan series had earned out my modest advance, the publisher canceled the series.

It hurt because I really loved those books. I loved Michael Corravan. (For those of you who have seen Miss Scarlet and the Duke, which came out afterward, people were texting me: “This reminds me of your Corravan.”) 

It’s hard to have a beloved series canceled. It filled me with self-doubt. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find another publisher. I didn’t know if anyone would want a book about women thieves, much as I loved the idea.

Fast forward to Left Coast Crime mystery conference in 2024, where I asked Juliet Grames, Editorial Director, of Soho Press, to sit down with me, so I could share the idea I had.

Wait. First, I should explain that I met Juliet Grames in 2019 at Bouchercon. It was my first mystery conference. I attended her panel, where she talked about her new novel, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and how she’d spent two summers researching and mulling over the characters. I felt instant sympathy! That evening, I’d approached her at the Harper Collins party to congratulate her on her book and introduce myself. (My second and third books were with HC.) We exchanged numbers and emails. Only much later did I learn she was an editor at Soho Press.

[Moral of the tale.] Good things happen at mystery conferences. And it pays to talk to everyone. You never know what will happen years later.

OK, back to the Left Coast Crime conference. I found Juliet and asked if I could pitch her an idea for a book. She said she had twenty minutes. I told her about the 40 Elephants and their skirts and how they ran dodges in department stores. Her blue eyes got large. “I want to read that book. You should write it. I’ll buy it.”

[Moral #2: A grimace from one publisher does not mean you won’t be picked up by a different one.]

I signed the contract, put my butt in the chair, and in 8 months, I wrote the book about Kit Jimeson, my heroine and 20-year-old thief, pulling off a nearly impossible and incredibly dangerous jewel heist in London. It launched two weeks ago, and I hope if you’re in San Francisco, Bellingham WA, New York City, Columbus OH, Rochester NY, or Portland ME, you’ll come to my event, so I can share the other pictures and stories behind the book.

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visit Karen's website at http://karenodden.com