An ad in the Santa Cruz Chamber Players program:
Read MoreThis week’s Throwback Thursday takes us to a place that no longer exists. Spirit Lake was spectacularly beautiful, a church summer camp smack on the top of Mount St. Helens. Remember Mount St. Helens? Blew up in 1980, taking a lot of people and this lake with it? It was so beautiful…and the lake was…
Read MoreGiveaways! Two of them! The first is a Goodreads giveaway for IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, now through October 20: Kirkus says: The range of the 15 new stories here is remarkable. One of the best, Sara Paretsky’s “The Curious Affair of the Italian Art Dealer,” is the most conservative, taking true delight in…
Read More29 September 1914 Catastrophe has struck. It is the end of everything. And I have no one to blame but myself. On Saturday afternoon, at long last, the Parents took Levi and me into their confidence. Too late. The letter Papa received from the War Office concerned his intention to enlist in the American army.…
Read MoreThe Laurie R. King web site has dozens of corners and byways that, if you haven’t gone exploring there in a while, you may not have seen. For example: If Watson were a Woman—not by Laurie King, but by guest author Fred Erisman, who explores an assertion made in 1941 by Rex Stout, that Watson was…
Read More“Cute” may not be a word that comes immediately to mind when you think of Laurie R. King. But Laurie Richardson? On a Throwback Thursday? Oh, why not? This was taken in 1966, when I was fourteen, about the age of Mary Russell in Monday’s ongoing Mary Russell’s War. I was living in Saratoga, CA, and remembering the…
Read MoreThe proof, or galley stage of a book is when I receive a stack of printed matter that shows what the book will actually look like. This is always a surprise: Wow, it’s a real book! With margins! And pretty stuff!—since the publisher’s art department loves to contribute their little extras to the reading experience, whether it’s…
Read MoreYoung Mary Russell’s journal of the Great War, which began on August 4, 1914 continues. Her previous entries are here. 22 September 1914 Disaster! Calamity! Oh, how I loathe dogs! Who’d have expected a German spy to have a poodle? Father shouted at me—shouted!—and said that I was fortunate it hadn’t been an Alsatian, which might have…
Read MoreCrime and Thriller Writing: one part autobiography (half mine, half that of Michelle Spring), one part nuts-and-bolts writing manual, and one part guest speakers imparting a whole lot of wisdom. The middle of the book is a series of essays, on topics of their own choosing, from twenty-six other world-rank crime & thriller writers. Like Val McDermid: do I…
Read MoreSherman, let’s hop into our Wayback Machine for another Throwback Thursday, this one from 1972. The quilt, which I first pieced, then quilted (hence the frame) illustrates that the devil is in the details, whether for quilting, cooking, or plotting a story. Any of you out there have time to quilt?
Read More