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Carolyn Mulford

Carolyn Mulford

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  • Show Me Mysteries
    • Series Overview
    • Show Me The Murder
      • Show Me the Murder Chapter One
      • Discussion Topics for Show Me The Murder
      • Ordering Information
      • Excerpts from Reviews
    • Show Me the Deadly Deer
      • Show Me the Deadly Deer: Chapter One
      • Discussion Topics for Show Me The Deadly Deer
      • Ordering Information
      • Excerpts from Reviews
    • Show Me the Gold
      • Show Me the Gold Chapter One
      • Show Me the Gold Discussion Questions
      • Ordering Information
      • Reviews
    • Show Me the Ashes
      • Show Me the Ashes: Chapter One
      • Show Me the Ashes: Discussion Topics
      • Show Me the Ashes: Ordering Information
    • Show Me the Sinister Snowman
      • Show Me the Sinister Snowman – Chapter One
      • Show Me the Sinister Snowman: Discussion Questions
      • Show Me the Sinister Snowman: Order Information
    • Talks and Workshops
    • Blog: Writing Mysteries
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  • The Feedsack Dress
    • The Feedsack Dress
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    • Historical Background
    • Chapter 1: The Feedsack Dress
    • Discussion Topics for Students
    • Discussion Topics for Book Groups
    • The Feedsack Dress Blog
  • Thunder Beneath My Feet
    • Thunder Beneath My Feet
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    • Historical Background
    • Chapter One: Thunder Beneath My Feet
    • Suggestions for Students
    • Discussion Topics for Book Groups
    • Blog: Historicals
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      • “An Aura of Death”
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Category Archives: Mysteries

Mysteries

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Giveaway of Show Me the Gold

Carolyn Mulford Posted on November 21, 2016 by CarolynNovember 21, 2016

Even if you’ve already read Show Me the Gold in hardback, you may want to sign up for a chance to win an autographed copy of the new paperback edition on Goodreads.com. A book makes a good Christmas gift.

To enter the giveaway, go to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22945313-show-me-the-gold-3. smtg-box-img_0326

Gold is the third book in the series, the story that starts with Phoenix and Annalynn staking out a country graveyard to catch vandals. By the end of the first chapter, the women take part in a shootout with bank robbers holed up in an abandoned farmhouse. You can read the first chapter on my Show Me Mysteries page.

The paperback edition is a Worldwide Mystery selection for December. It’s sold only from the Harlequin website: http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=68332.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, Show Me Series

Preview of Book 5: The Sinister Snowman

Carolyn Mulford Posted on November 20, 2016 by CarolynNovember 20, 2016

This week I proofed the galleys of Show Me the Sinister Snowman, the fifth in my series. That prompted me to add a page for the book under Show Me Mysteries and post the first chapter.

This book starts right after Annalynn Carr Keyser completes her extended appointment as acting sheriff of Vandiver County, Missouri. She and former covert operative Phoenix Smith expect to build up their new Coping After Crime foundation, which Phoenix created to give Annalynn a job while she prepares to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Phoenix intends to leave the boring applications for assistance to Annalynn, but Phoenix goes into high gear to help a young woman hiding from her abusive husband.

To complicate matters, Phoenix must play deputy again when Achilles, her K-9 dropout, sniffs out a murder weapon at the scene of a congressman’s “accidental” death. She suspects either a corrupt political insider or the young wife’s jealous husband caused this death.

The investigation compels Phoenix to go with Annalynn, who hopes to run for the vacant House seat, to a political gathering at the late congressman’s isolated ante-bellum mansion. A blizzard traps the women there with a bevy of suspects.

Advance reader copies will go to reviewers soon. Cave Hollow Press, which took over the series after Five Star dropped its mystery line, will release Show Me the Sinister Snowman next spring.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, News, Show Me Series

Show Me the Gold Now in Paperback

Carolyn Mulford Posted on November 4, 2016 by CarolynNovember 4, 2016

To help you with your holiday shopping, Harlequin Worldwide Mystery has released the paperback edition of Show Me the Gold for sale on its direct-to-consumer website, http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=68332.

The third book in the series, Gold literally starts with a bang and presents new personal problems for Phoenix. Reviewer P. J. Coldren wrote, “There are several sub-plots to hold the reader’s attention; this is one of the hallmarks of a seasoned mystery writer. Nobody’s life has only one thing going on in it at any given time. People in mystery novels need to have more in their life than a mystery to solve. The setting is rural Missouri, although any rural community would probably work just as well. There is enough back story to move the reader along, and yet not quite enough—this makes most readers want to go back and read the first two in the series.”

Here’s how HWM describes the plot on the back cover.

 

UNDER SUSPICION 

Former CIA agent Phoenix Smith is on a stakeout with acting Laycock, Missouri, sheriff Annalynn Keyser, when Keyser is called to a neighboring county. A gang of bank robbers are holed up in an abandoned farmhouse and the local cops need all hands on deck. After a harrowing shootout, a man is dead, another wounded, and the FBI thinks Phoenix—the only one with a gun but no badge—took off with a fortune in gold bullion.

Three members of the notorious Cantree clan were wanted for a previous bank heist in Ohio. Now the lone survivor is out for revenge. As Phoenix fights to clear her name, an old friend solicits her help in a shocking case of elder neglect. Can Phoenix stop the abuse, find the precious South African coins, and elude a stone-cold killer who’s got one last bullet with Phoenix’s name on it?

 

HWM also offers the paperback edition of the second book, Show Me the Deadly Deer, at harlequin.com. The hardcover editions of all four books (published by Five Star/Gale, Cengage) remain available.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, News releases, Show Me Series

Judy Hogan Makes Community a Character

Carolyn Mulford Posted on September 23, 2016 by CarolynSeptember 23, 2016

A mystery series must have a strong protagonist. For Judy Hogan’s Penny Weaver series, that’s a middle-aged poet/teacher and activist who marries a Welsh police officer and moves back and forth between a Welsh village and rural North Carolina.

In the latest book, Nuclear Apples?, Penny remains the point-of-view character, but the real protagonist is the diverse community of activists fighting dangerous practices in a local nuclear power plant.

nuclear-apples-front-cover-jpg-lo-res-5-18-16

Almost anyone who has taught has seen a class take on a collective personality without submerging the individuals. The author shows this same collective personality in her activists, who include a toddler eager to break all his parent’s rules on healthy eating, teenagers finding love in an apple orchard, and an ingenious deputy determined to protect the activists during demonstrations.

The collective and individual personalities stand out in scenes in which they gather to plan—and to eat. Writing a scene that the reader follows without pause is easy when you have only two or three people. Portraying a group of people sharing a meal takes considerable skill. Picture those grand Downton Abbey meals where the camera shows a wide shot and then focuses on speakers in turn in a seamless scene. The author accomplishes the same feat without visual aids.

She gives a cast list at the beginning, and I groaned in anticipation of having to refer back to it to keep so many people straight. To my surprise, I didn’t. Several times I had to stop to think which wife went with which husband, and I lost track of who was older or younger and who was black or white. But that’s part of the point. It doesn’t matter.

The most memorable interactions are those between family members caught up in personal crises as they link lives to fight for the community. Penny stays in the middle of it all.

Nuclear Apples? is available in Kindle and print editions.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, Writing

What Makes a Mystery Memorable

Carolyn Mulford Posted on September 22, 2016 by CarolynSeptember 22, 2016

What are your favorite mystery series and why?

I posed that question on Facebook and a Sisters in Crime list to confirm my own observations and help me prepare a session on writing a mystery series. Eighteen mystery lovers responded, most women and most naming two or three favorite writers or series. Few of them said why.

One who did was author Eleanor Cawood Jones. She wrote, “I look for in-depth characters and amazing settings. Carolyn Hart’s Henrie O, Blaize Clements’ catsitter mysteries, Mary Daheim’s Alpine, Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles series. The lead characters in each of those have a past and a story to tell. Maybe even a dark story.”

Author Grace Topping also stressed the importance of character, saying, “My favorites are Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series and Anne Perry’s William Monk series. I particularly like these two series because of the depth of the characters and the wisdom that each of the authors imparts.”

Beth Schmelzer reads for various qualities. She likes the humor in books by Marcia Talley and Elaine Viets, the fast-paced plots and fascinating dialogue in both of Hank Ryan’s series, the relationships and frightening plots in Julie Spenser-Flemings’ books, and “the twists of a dog narrating” in Spenser Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series. Beth also named a series I want to explore: “Arianna Franklin’s unique protagonist who solves crimes in Great Britain with the knowledge of forensics in the time of the Crusades when women weren’t allowed to be doctors, nor did they receive respect.”

One of the most frequently mentioned characters, of course, was Sherlock Holmes. Author KB Inglee spoke for many: “I discovered Sherlock Holmes when I was in High School, and can’t get enough. I watch every remake and take off I can find.”

Another writer, Nancy Eady, said, “Sherlock Holmes runs neck and neck with P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh novels. P.D. James has a lot more substance and depth in her novels but Sherlock simply rocks!” Nancy’s all-time favorite, however, is Nero Wolfe.

Writer Carrie Koepke reported that her teenage daughter loves Sherlock, but Carrie said, “I get lost in Ruth Rendell—the way she tackles the mental side of her stories is fascinating.”

Among the other series mentioned were Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache, Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti, Elizabeth Peters’ Jacquelyn Kirby, Margaret Maron’s Bootlegger’s Daughter, Dick Frances’ horse racing, Dorothy Gilliam’s Mrs. Pollifax, Lillian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who, Anne George’s Southern Sisters, Ann B. Ross’ Miss Julia, and Laura Joh Rowland’s samurai-era Japan.

Other authors included Marjorie Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, Sarah Caudwell, Dennis Lehane, Janet Evanovich, Dorothy Cannell, Dianna Mott Davidson, and Deborah Crombie. Oddly enough, no one brought up Agatha Christie.

This short list undoubtedly includes and excludes authors that would appear on a scientifically balanced survey—and on my own list. High on it are Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody, J. A. Vance’s Joanna Brady, Tony Hillerman’s Navajo series, Carolyn Hart’s Death on Demand, Joan Hess’s Maggody and Claire Malloy, William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor, and Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski. These present great characters, fascinating settings, and good writing.

You’re welcome to chime in with your own favorites and reasons for liking them.

I’ll talk about five reasons readers like mystery series in my presentation September 23, but the most important one is compelling characters, ones we want to visit again much as we do good friends.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, Mysterious Ways, News, Uncategorized

Book 5 Finds New Home

Carolyn Mulford Posted on August 11, 2016 by CarolynAugust 11, 2016

The fifth book in my Show Me series has found a new home after being orphaned. Cave Hollow Press, an eclectic small publisher, will release Show Me the Sinister Snowman next spring.

In this book, former CIA operative Phoenix Smith must play deputy again when Achilles, her K-9 dropout, sniffs out a murder weapon at the scene of a congressman’s “accidental” death. Who tried to hide a homicide? She suspects either a corrupt political insider or an enraged abusive husband and puts herself at risk to prevent more murders. Phoenix goes with her friend Annalynn, an aspiring U.S. House candidate, to a political gathering at the late congressman’s isolated antebellum mansion. A blizzard traps them there with multiple suspects inside and a sinister snowman outside.

Going to a new publisher wasn’t a frivolous decision. Midway through 2015 I became aware Five Star, which published the first four books, had serious problems. With little advance notice, the parent company delayed the release of mysteries (Show Me the Ashes from December to March) and stopped issuing contracts. In January 2016, authors received notice that only those manuscripts already under contract would be published before the mystery line died.

Publishers usually don’t want to take on a series when they don’t own the rights to the preceding books. A dozen or so Five Star authors decided to self-publish their completed manuscripts, preferring hiring editors, designers, etc. to searching for a new publisher. From what I’ve heard, most writers focused on a new mystery series or another series coming from a different publisher.

I submitted my manuscript to the good editors of Cave Hollow Press, which published The Feedsack Dress in 2007. Show Me the Sinister Snowman has begun the long process of becoming a book.

Meanwhile I’m working on a new series and considering some short stories (maybe one told from Achilles’ point of view?) and novellas featuring Phoenix and friends.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, Show Me Series

Guest Blog: Judy Hogan on Trusting the Muse in Writing Mysteries

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 19, 2016 by CarolynApril 19, 2016

Judy-HoganPoet, novelist, memoirist, writing teacher, and activist, Judy Hogan draws on life experience for everything she writes. To see the range of her writing and sign up for a chance to enter a giveaway of her latest mystery, Haw: The Second Penny Weaver Mystery, visit her page on GoodReads.com. The giveaway ends April 26.

My main guide to all my creative writing is from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own:

“As long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters, and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its color, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea bite in comparison.” (P. 110)

That advice has stood me in good stead since my twenties. I find it elsewhere, too. Elizabeth George, in her Write Away, says much the same thing. Louise Penny tried for five years to write a novel, and then decided to write the kind of book she loved, the traditional mystery. And she created a world she wanted to live in. She had trouble getting published until she was short-listed for the British Crime Writers best first mystery novel. She now hits The New York Times Best Seller lists.

I write what I wish to write, always have. I began reading mysteries in 1980, at age forty-three. Mysteries then seemed to be at the opposite pole from writing poetry. They do take different approaches, but in both cases I trust the Muse, or the Deep Unconscious, once I’ve worked out my characters and scenes, to give me first lines.

Quite a few well-known authors say they don’t plan, but I like George’s approach to fleshing out the characters first, learning their world, then drafting my way through all the scenes–in rough fashion, i.e., who’s in them, what the conflict is, what they are doing, sometimes a bit of dialogue. This is the hardest part, but I find, as I’m developing the characters and scenes that, if I ask myself questions, I get answers. That might come from years of writing poetry and diary, and going deep into my feelings. Then, as I write, I learn what I know about people that I didn’t know I knew.

All my life experiences go into my writing. In one way everything I write is autobiographical, though in fiction I take off from what I experienced into what I can imagine might have happened had the conflicts gotten even worse.

I also like taking up community issues which disturb me and which I’ve worked on myself. When you’ve sold at a farmer’s market, you learn about the behind-the-scenes conflicts, or in local politics, how the good guys can get power-hungry, and also how reluctant people are to change their views, especially about politics and religion.

I like to see stereotypes drop to the ground. Mine have over the years as I’ve come to know how much variety there is in people, and I try to get that into my characters. I like to read authors who explore people’s attitudes and behavior, and give us real people. What does motivate people who abuse power and try to control others? What causes some to find courage or persist when their cause seems hopeless?

I have had a few students in my novel classes writing mysteries, and I tell them they have to share on their page their characters’ inner feelings, the knowledge of which comes from knowing their own. The more you have access to and acceptance of your own feelings, the more you can create characters people care about. Then your readers keep reading, because you’ve generated suspense, i.e., they have to know what is going to happen.

I find you need to have interruptions every so often, to keep the pace going. To me, as a reader, good pacing doesn’t mean rushing and interrupting the flow with new events all the time, but it does mean that things happen to cause the plot to move in a new way before the reader gets bored. It should feel seamless, though a surprise, and still, not entirely unexpected. Some new difficulty for the sleuth might in the end help the plot toward resolution.

Elizabeth George is so conscious of everything she does, but even she says, “Trust your body,” which for me is trusting the Muse, trusting those impulses that come out of the blue. Maybe sometimes you start to feel bored and ask yourself what interruption can I have now, to jog the plot along better, and you get an answer.

You can learn these things and so many others by reading gifted writers of the past and present. Sometimes you can’t begin to imagine where you learned what to do with the plot or the characters in conflict. Some comes from stored experience and some from wide reading of the best possible models. With mysteries, go back to the Golden Age, Josephine Tey, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Michael Innes, Ngaio Marsh, But also read Trollope and Jane Austen, Henry Fielding and Lawrence Sterne. You’ll write better when you’ve read those classics. I’ve seen it happen, and it amuses me to learn that George reads a little Jane Austen or equivalent before she starts to write.

HawMainly, make yourself happy. Enjoy it. Persist, learn, read, and never give up.

Judy Hogan

Coming May 1, 2016: Haw: The Second Penny Weaver Mystery, Hoganvillaea Books, 190 pp. Paperback: $15.00, ISBN-13: 978-1518818141; e-book: $2.99.

Book description: Penny Weaver, living in a shared house to save money, finds her unsavory, sex-obsessed landlord dead the day after Christmas. An unusual snowstorm, a housemate undeterred by detective orders from moving his numerous possessions, and certified and uncertified maniac suspects (including the neighbors and both the landlord’s wives) make it difficult for Penny and her Welsh lover to find love-making time, much less solve the mystery. Despite the sheriff’s detectives keeping Penny in the dark and arresting two innocent people, she persists in collecting key information in order to stop the killer.

 

Judy Hogan brought Hyperion Poetry Journal (1970-81) to North Carolina in 1971, and in 1976 she founded Carolina Wren Press. She has been active in the Triangle area since the 1970s as a reviewer, publisher, teacher, and writing consultant. In 1984 she helped found the N.C. Writers’ Network and served as the president until 1987.

Her first published mystery novel, Killer Frost, came out from Mainly Murder Press in 2012, followed by Farm Fresh and Fatal in 2013. Under her own imprint Hoganvillaea Books, she published The Sands of Gower: The First Penny Weaver Mystery in December 2015, and she will bring out Haw: The Second Penny Weaver Mystery, May 1, 2016. She has published six volumes of poetry with small presses and two prose works. She taught Freshman English 2004-2007 at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh. She does freelance editing for creative writers and offers workshops.

Judy lives and farms in Moncure, N.C., near Jordan Lake. Her blog, postmenopausalzest.blogspot.com, often has reviews and interviews featuring contemporary mystery writers. Her website is judyhogan.home.mindspring.com.

Posted in Mysteries, News, Writing

Why Readers and Writers Love Mysteries

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 12, 2016 by CarolynApril 12, 2016

I didn’t become a major mystery fan until near middle age—the time when such writers as Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Margaret Maron were breaking through the male-dominated genre with tough but relatable women detectives.

By the time I decided to switch from writing nonfiction to fiction, the field offered many great models of writers with both professional and amateur sleuths. I chose to join them. You don’t have to write about what you already know, but you better write about what you read.

As the books in my Show Me series have come out, some interviewers have danced around the question of why I write mysteries. The unasked question is why I don’t write literary novels instead. That ignores the fact that the art and craft of the best mystery writers equal that of any other writers.

But the question has forced me to consider why so many people read mysteries—many more than read literary novels—and why I write them. I came up with three reasons.

 

  1. Mysteries challenge readers’ intellect, calling on them to solve a puzzle, analyze information, detect deception. That challenge appeals to every age, every educational level, and both sexes.

As a reader and a writer, I enjoy weaving together apparently unrelated strands to develop a complete picture and come to a conclusion.

2. Mysteries reveal the human psyche—what drives someone to kill, how individuals react in a crisis, and even how good and evil battle within the individual and the society. That sounds pretty grim, but writers often use humor to lighten the situation. On the page and on the street, people really are funny.

The standard form for mysteries is the series. Readers follow these primarily because of the appeal of the ongoing characters. I like writing a series because it allows me to develop characters, to show how crises and relationships change them over time.

  1. Mysteries satisfy the desire for justice, which we often don’t get in life. One way or another, the baddies lose in a mystery.

 

Whatever I’m reading or writing, I want an entertaining story. Mysteries offer that and, quite often, incorporate insightful observations and thoughtful questions. Don’t tell anyone, but they can be downright literary.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, Show Me Series, Writing

Show Me the Ashes Released

Carolyn Mulford Posted on March 17, 2016 by CarolynMarch 17, 2016

You won’t find Show Me the Ashes in stores or libraries for a few days, but Five Star/Gale, Cengage shipped hardbacks to distributors March 16. The e-book went up immediately on Amazon.

In this fourth book in the series, former covert operative Phoenix Smith divides her attention between a cold case and a hot one.

Now running a foundation to assist crime victims, Phoenix listens to a desperately ill woman’s plea to prove her daughter was sent to prison because of a coerced false confession to manslaughter and arson. The sheriff then was the adored husband of Phoenix’s best friend, Annalynn. She has served as sheriff since his violent death. Phoenix begins a preliminary investigation without telling Annalynn.

With her term almost over, Annalynn focuses on solving a series of increasingly ominous burglaries. Naturally she enlists the help of Phoenix and Achilles, her K-9 dropout. Some wants Achilles and Phoenix dead. She must solve both cases to protect them and others.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Events, News, Show Me Series

Interview on OmniMysteryNews.com

Carolyn Mulford Posted on January 15, 2016 by CarolynJanuary 15, 2016

How have your characters developed over time? What’s your writing process? How true are you to the settings in your books?

I answered these and other questions in an online interview conducted by Lance Wright, editor of OmniMysteryNews.com.

Here’s part of my answer about the setting of the Show Me series: “I created a county in northern Missouri that resembles the one where I grew up. In a fictional place, no one can complain that a business was portrayed as a crime scene or a street runs the wrong direction. In made-up Vandiver County, real regional expressions and attitudes reveal the subculture. The setting functions as a character.”

By the way, I named the county after Congressman Willard D. Vandiver, the man responsible for Missouri becoming known as the Show-Me state. In 1899, he said, “I come from a country that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri. You have got to show me.”

To read the entire interview, go to http://www.omnimysterynews.com/2016/01/a-conversation-with-mystery-author-carolyn-mulford-5F6F5130.html.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, Rewriting and Editing, Show Me Series, Writing

From Headlines to Short Story

Carolyn Mulford Posted on January 9, 2016 by CarolynJanuary 10, 2016

In December local media reported that a couple of customers in Walmarts here (Columbia, Missouri) and in three nearby towns bought out the pre-paid cell phones. No one knew what the buyers wanted with dozens of burner phones.

So the media and the audience (including me) speculated. Terrorists hiding their communications from NSA? Drug dealers foiling police trying to trace their calls? Entrepreneurs planning to resell the phones at a profit to shady characters?

We received no answers.

I was on deadline to come up with “A Day in the Life of Phoenix Smith” for a great mystery lovers’ blog, Dru’s Book Musings. Why not let Phoenix solve the puzzle of the purchase of pre-paid cell phones?

I put together the news stories on that with news stories on an illegal use of the phones in a short story. You can read it at http://drusbookmusing.com/2016/01/09/phoenix-smith-2.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, Show Me Series

Looking Ahead to 2016

Carolyn Mulford Posted on January 1, 2016 by CarolynJanuary 1, 2016

A year ago I worried that aging would decrease the speed and quality of my writing. I wondered if I had the stamina and sharpness to complete a solid 90,000-word mystery. Over 2015 I found that I wrote more slowly—partly because I don’t always work a full day anymore—and spent more time rewriting and editing. Even so, I finished my fifth mystery, Show Me the Sinister Snowman, and began rewriting an earlier mystery while new Phoenix the Spy ideas jell.

In short, going into 2016, my pleasure in writing fiction endures, and my output remains satisfactory. The truth is that I write better than I do anything else—except maybe talk about my writing. I resolve to do plenty of both in 2016. I make no promises about cleaning my house or taking care of my yard.

No one knows the future, but here are highlights of what I expect to happen in 2016.

In late January or early February, Rocking Horse Publishing will release Thunder Beneath My Feet, my novel set during the devastating New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812. This is a historical adventure with mystery elements, and I expect it to appeal to everyone from fourth graders who like to read to adults who enjoy history. (My beta readers included all ages.)

I’ll be reviewing my mounds of unused research to write blogs that offer readers, including teachers, background on the period, place, and people.

Missouri winters interfere with such scheduled events as book signings, so I’ll concentrate on writing and make few appearances until the release in late March of Show Me the Ashes, the fourth in my mystery series. May as well promote two books at once.

April through June I’ll divide my time between writing and promoting, which includes giving talks and possibly workshops here and elsewhere, speaking at such conferences as Malice Domestic, and writing guest blogs.

During the summer I expect to finish rewriting Ancestral Plot. Late summer initiates conference season and the chance to introduce new readers to my books. On my tentative schedule are Killer Nashville, Magna cum Murder, the regional Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and our local Show Me Writers MasterClass.

Before winter comes again, I expect to celebrate the release of Show Me the Sinister Snowman, anticipate the publication of Ancestral Plot, and begin work on another book.

I resolve to enjoy 2016 and hope all who bother to read this far do the same.

Happy New Year!

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, News, Show Me Series, Thunder Beneath My Feet

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Why we needed Title IX before 1972

Carolyn Mulford Posted on July 5, 2022 by CarolynJuly 5, 2022

The fiftieth anniversary of Title IX, a landmark law requiring gender equality in schools receiving federal funds, reminded me of how little opportunity to play sports most females of my generation had. (Title IX changed much more than sports, but that’s another story.) In my one-room school with roughly a dozen students in grades one through eight, we had no organized physical education program for girls or boys. We played together at recess and noon, mostly baseball or games involving some form of tag. Our entire sporting equipment consisted of two bats, a softball, a baseball, and a volleyball (used for … Continue reading →

Posted in The Feedsack Dress, Uncategorized

Concert Jogs Memories of Vienna

Carolyn Mulford Posted on January 2, 2022 by CarolynFebruary 7, 2022

Memories interrupted my enjoyment of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s concert broadcast last night on PBS. Unlike my Show Me protagonist, a CIA covert operative embedded in Vienna, I lived there only three years, but we shared a love of the city’s music. I went to the opera, an orchestra concert, chamber music, an operetta, or some other musical performance once or twice a week. Tickets were cheap, particularly if you were willing to sit in the balcony directly above a chamber orchestra using the instruments in vogue when the music was composed centuries ago. You could usually get a … Continue reading →

Posted in News, Uncategorized

New Sinister Snowman Edition

Carolyn Mulford Posted on March 8, 2021 by CarolynFebruary 7, 2022

Covid-19 stopped printers cold last spring. Consequently, the mass market paperback edition of Show Me the Sinister Snowman missed its slot in the printing queue. With the snow gone (until next winter, I hope), Harlequin Worldwide Mystery has just released the fifth book in the Show Me series.     This one finds Phoenix and friends trapped in an isolated mansion by a blizzard. Their housemates are aspiring political candidates and potential donors, one of whom intends to lessen their number before the roads clear. Phoenix has come to the meeting with two goals: to support Annalynn’s electoral dreams and … Continue reading →

Posted in News, News releases, Show Me Series

Memories Sparked The Feedsack Dress

Carolyn Mulford Posted on March 1, 2021 by CarolynMarch 1, 2021

When I began writing The Feedsack Dress almost 50 years ago, I asked my mother and two sisters to talk about their memories of 1949. I’d chosen that year for the novel because my recollections and my research identified it as a time of transition for the country, our rural Missouri community, and our family. Our discussion evoked many forgotten details and produced a major plot point. We gathered around the kitchen table at my parents’ farm on a hot summer day. To my surprise, each of us remembered not only different movies and music but also different versions of events, … Continue reading →

Posted in Historicals, News, The Feedsack Dress

Earthquakes on My Mind

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 16, 2020 by CarolynDecember 16, 2020

2020 has been a horrible year. I hope it doesn’t end like another bad year, 1811. That year, rains brought mud and flood to Upper Louisiana. The nightly appearance of the devil-tailed Great Comet prompted rumors of destruction. The brilliant Tecumseh campaigned for tribes on both sides of the Mississippi to unite to beat back the encroaching Americans. The adolescent United States crept closer to the War of 1812. Then a natural disaster struck the middle of the newly expanded United States. In early morning on December 16, a series of earthquakes, aftershocks, and tremors began, interrupting New Madrid’s French … Continue reading →

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