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Book 5 Finds New Home

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

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

Killing Chickens

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I wrote The Feedsack Dress to portray life as the era of the unmechanized, pre-electricity family farm ended. Readers view late 1949 through the eyes of a 13-year-old farm girl called Gail. Like the nation, she is making a major transition, in her case from the small one-room school to the much larger junior high in town and from the homemade feedsack dress to ready-made clothing.

Saturday the Sullivan County (MO) Historical Society invited me to help celebrate a special exhibit of clothing made from patterned cotton sacks. I read a scene in which Gail and her mother perform a then familiar and unforgettable chore: chasing down, killing, and plucking chickens to fry.

Gail’s mother, like mine, used the chop and toss method. She held the chicken down on a stump, cut off the head with a hatchet, and threw the blood-spurting chicken a few feet away to jerk around until the heart stopped. Then Gail picked it up by the legs, dunked it in a bucket of hot water, and held the carcass at arm’s length to pull out the stinking feathers.

Several women shared some of their childhood memories, including the following.

*** One’s mother killed a chicken by putting a sharp-edged coffee can over the head and stepping on it.

*** A common killing technique was holding the chicken by the head and swinging it round and round until either the head came off or the neck was wrung.

*** One person always put the chicken’s neck between two nails driven into a board to hold the head in place for the hatchet.

*** Some people hung a beheaded chicken from the clothesline while the blood ran out.

*** Another mother refused to kill a chicken. The father always did it.

*** A nauseating odor greeted you when you cut open the chicken and disemboweled it.

*** The rural letter carrier delivered big boxes of baby chicks in the spring. By mid summer, families ate fried chicken several times a week.

*** Strong odors, including from the necessary place (outdoor toilet) and cow manure, were more common and less remarked upon then. One woman recalled milking a cow by hand each morning and sometimes going straight from the barn to catch the school bus.

*** The sacks in which you bought sugar or flour were a finer weave than those in which you bought chicken feed. Underwear made from coarse feedsacks was scratchy.

*** All of us farm girls learned to drive a tractor—often having to stand on the clutch or brake to make it work—years before we drove a car.

*** In the 1930s and 1940s, almost everyone used feedsacks to make clothing, tea towels, and quilts.

Most farmers had a small flock of hens up into the 1950s. They provided fresh eggs to eat and to sell, meat to fry in the summer and bake or stew in the winter, and chores for kids all year round. As a fringe benefit, the feed came in pretty sacks now treasured by collectors and quilters.

—Carolyn Mulford

Double Book Launch May 21

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

A few years ago I was discouraged because I couldn’t find a publisher for my mystery series. I decided to take a break and write the kind of a book I loved as a kid, a historical novel.

I considered several ideas, including a book on the Civil War in Missouri, but that depressed me. I chose to write fiction about a topic I’d written about as nonfiction, the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812. I loved writing the book, Thunder Beneath My Feet, but no one rushed to publish it.

Then I sold Show Me the Murder, the first of my mystery series. I put aside marketing my historical novel. I sold three other mysteries before I went back to my middle grade/young adult novel and found a publisher.

Tomorrow Columbia (MO) Books will host a joint book launch for Thunder Beneath My Feet and Show Me the Ashes, my tenth and eleventh books.

If you’re in or near Columbia, drop by Columbia Books (1907 East Gordon) at 2 p.m., Saturday, May 21, for a short talk/readings, refreshments, and conversation amid new and antiquarian books.

—Carolyn Mulford

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

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.

Why Readers and Writers Love Mysteries

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

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

Book Talks: April-June 2016

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Most of these events feature one of my two new books, Thunder Beneath My Feet, a historical middle grade/young adult novel set during the New Madrid earthquakes, and Show Me the Ashes, the fourth in my mystery series featuring a former CIA covert operative solving crimes in rural Missouri.

April 7, 7 p.m.: An Evening with Local Authors, Barnes and Noble, Columbia (MO) Mall

Marlene Lee, Cathy Salter, and I discuss writing and read from our new books.

April 24-25: Missouri Association of School Librarians Conference, Tan-Tar-A Resort, Osage Beach

As an exhibitor/vendor, I’ll be chatting about Thunder Beneath My Feet and The Feedsack Dress for students and the Show Me mysteries for librarians.

April 29-May 1: Malice Domestic, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Bethesda, MD

10 a.m., Friday: Malice Go Round

Authors will move from table to table to give a two-minute sales pitch for their books. I’ll focus on Show Me the Ashes.

3 p.m., Saturday: Start ’em When They’re YAs

A panel discusses capturing middle grade and young adult readers. Other panelists are Sarah Masters Buckey (moderator), Shelly Dickson Carr, Kathleen Ernst, and Nina Mansfield.

May 7, 2-3:30 p.m.: Reading/signing, Hastings, 1800 North Baltimore, Kirksville, MO

At 2:30 p.m., I’ll speak briefly about why I write both mysteries for adults and historical fiction for young readers and read short passages from Thunder Beneath My Feet.

 May 14, 9:30 a.m.: “Writing Your Own Novel,” AAUW Independence Branch Brunch, First United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 400 West Maple, Independence, MO

I’ll give tips on drawing on life experience and developing new skills to write a novel.

May 28, 1:30-3:30 p.m.: Reading/signing, Old Timers Reunion, Sullivan County Historical Society, 117 North Water Street, Milan, MO

At 2 p.m., I’ll speak on why I wrote The Feedsack Dress, read short excerpts, and answer questions about that and my other books.

June 4-5: Authors’ Booth, Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers’ Guild, Art in the Park, Stephens Park, Columbia, MO

I’ll read from one or more of my books (specific time and place not set).

June 11, 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Signing, Edna Campbell’s Gift Shop, 105 West Washington Street, Kirksville, MO

June 18, 9:30 a.m.: Meet the Author, Boone County Historical Society, 3801 Ponderosa Street, Columbia, MO

I’ll discuss why I wrote Thunder Beneath My Feet and how I researched the New Madrid earthquakes and the community.

June 29, 11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: “The Shocking New Madrid Earthquakes,” Wednesday Mixed Bag Series, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Moss Building, Hillcrest Community Center, Columbia, MO

I’ll share my research on the New Madrid earthquakes and life in Upper Louisiana Territory in 1811-1812 and explain how I turned fact into fiction.           

Fighting the Second-Draft Blues

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Writing the last word in a first draft brings joy to me and probably every other writer.

Dismay—call it the second-draft blues—follows the celebration. Much work remains to be done. How much? That’s almost impossible to say. Evaluating your own writing is difficult, particularly when you’ve just finished the draft.

That’s why I came up with a way to look at a manuscript objectively and judge how much revision it needs. I developed this visual assessment system years ago and have taught it in numerous nonfiction workshops.

I’ve adapted it for fiction. This week I shared the highlights on former judge and current mystery writer Debra H. Goldstein’s blog: https://debrahgoldstein.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/guest-blogger-carolyn-mulford-lookng-at-your-ms.

—Carolyn Mulford

Blanket Coats Endure

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The December weather in New Madrid is mild when Thunder Beneath My Feet begins. Betsy keeps warm by wearing shawls over her wool and linsey-woolsey clothing. (Linsey-woolsey contains linen and wool or cotton.)

By January, the earthquake has destroyed almost all the houses, and the little group camping out at the Lawton farm prepares to cope with the cold by knitting mittens, making skunk- and coon-skin caps, and lining moccasins and boots with fur.

The prospect of trekking north into a much colder area forces Betsy to deal with the need for coats. One of the simplest to make is a blanket coat like the capote (cape) that had spread from the French fur traders to American hunters and Native Americans. One of the most popular was a white blanket with short stripes in red, yellow, green, and black.

These blanket coats still live today, some made much like the originals. I write about making the old and new in Lois Winston’s Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers blog at

http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2016/03/crafts-with-anastasia-guest-author.html.

—Carolyn Mulford

Fear of the End of the World

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Many people have forgotten—or never heard about—some of the most powerful and long-lasting earthquakes to ever hit North America. One reason is the epicenter was on the frontier, on the west side of the Mississippi River only a few years after the Louisiana Purchase. Even so, the quakes and severe aftershocks shook most of the country east of the Mississippi and southern Canada.

When the New Madrid earthquakes began on December 16, 1811, the destruction on land and the Mississippi convinced many of the people living in or near the little river port that they signaled the end of the world.

Just an obscure event we don’t need to think about? Wrong. I tell why on Suzanne Adair’s Relevant History blog. Those who leave a comment have a chance to win at copy of Thunder Beneath My Feet, my novel set during the months of quakes. To read the blog, go to http://bit.ly/1pIHEov.

—Carolyn Mulford

 

Show Me the Ashes Released

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

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

Goodreads.com: Giveaways and More

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

Wondering what to read next? Want ideas for books to consider for your book club or for a gift? Like to get a free copy of a new book even before it comes out? Check out GoodReads, the giant website for book lovers.

Today and tomorrow you can sign up for a chance to win both of my new books—Thunder Beneath My Feet (just out) and Show Me the Ashes (out in three weeks). The giveaway of the advance reading copy of Ashes continues until March 12.

Go to http://www. goodreads.com and search by title. That will take you to a brief description of the book. Below that, click on the Enter Giveaway box.

If you’re not familiar with GoodReads, explore the site. Search by book titles, authors, and special-interest lists, such as mystery, history, and Missouri books and authors. Mark books you Want to Read and list favorite books you have read. Follow favorite authors.

If you’ve indicated a special interest, you may receive a notice of a giveaway in that category or by that author. Hundreds of authors and publishers introduce their books by offering a chance to win free copies for a few days or weeks. They hope giveaway winners will write favorable mini reviews or rate the books a four or a rather rare five.

And sometimes you discover great books you’ve never seen mentioned elsewhere.

—Carolyn Mulford

Thunder Beneath My Feet Is Out

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Sometimes ideas for book evolve for a long time. That’s certainly true of Thunder Beneath My Feet, my newly published historical adventure for tweens and teens and anyone who enjoys history.

The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812 have fascinated me for 30 years. That’s when, as a freelancer, I wrote a short description of the quakes for a textbook. Although I’d grown up in northeast Missouri, I hadn’t realized that some of the most powerful and long-lasting earthquakes on the continent had taken place in southeast Missouri. And may come again.

After moving back to Missouri in 2007, I started thinking about the quakes as a setting for a novel. For several months I read books, websites, and articles in my spare time, fascinated by the people living in and passing through the ambitious little Mississippi River port and how they responded to day after day of terror. Finally facts and creativity gave birth to a plot and characters.

I tell the story from the viewpoint of 15-year-old Betsy Lawton, a shy, sensible girl living on a farm near the village of New Madrid, Upper Louisiana Territory. Her mother must ride south to bring home her ailing husband. She leaves Betsy in charge of the farm and her tale-telling 10-year-old brother. Four days later, the first of the powerful quakes hits, downing buildings and trees and demolishing boats on the river. Betsy must contend with the terrifying shocks and shakes, an unknown thief, and frantic community members to save herself, Johnnie, the farm animals, and four strangers with deep secrets.

To read more about the book and the first chapter, go to this website’s Thunder Beneath My Feet page. Better still, ask your local library to order it or buy your own copy.

—Carolyn Mulford