Reviewers Recommend Novel for All Ages

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Who are the readers for Thunder Beneath My Feet? Reviewers have recommended it for tweens through adults. Just what I wanted to hear. When I planned a story set during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812, I chose to tell it through the eyes of a teenage girl who must grow up overnight and make judgment calls few adults face. I pictured readers as young as fourth graders and expected most to be sixth to eighth graders. I hoped anyone who likes history would enjoy watching the major characters, who range in age from ten to mid twenties, deal with … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

Double Book Launch May 21

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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. … Continue reading →

Quakes Brought Death on the Mississippi

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Mark Twain wrote of the glory of piloting steamboats in the mid 19th century in Life on the Mississippi, but in December 1811, the crew of the first steamboat on the river feared death on the Mississippi. The New Madrid earthquakes turned the journey of the New Orleans from an adventure into a nightmare. Designed by Robert Fulton and built in Pittsburgh by Nicholas Roosevelt, the New Orleans and its crew carried the burden of proving a steamboat could navigate the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. A clever engineer but unreliable businessman, the great-grand-uncle of … Continue reading →

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

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Poet, 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 … Continue reading →

Why Readers and Writers Love Mysteries

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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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

Show Me the Ashes Released

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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, … Continue reading →

Goodreads.com: Giveaways and More

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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 … Continue reading →