Messing with Easter Eggs

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

Recently a TV “news” program showed a new scientific advance—a mess-free way to color Easter eggs. The reporter—a parent—enthused over the convenience as a saleswoman placed a boiled egg in a holder, poured a liquid color into a mini tank behind it, and automated tiny brushes that made uniform blue lines on the rotating egg. She explained that the gadget offered other colors and patterns. Neat but boring, I thought. Do kids today really enjoy programmed designs more than individual creativity? Back in the feedsack days, my sisters and I relished blending colors and making each egg distinctive. Have attitudes … Continue reading →

Why I Wrote The Feedback Dress

Carolyn Mulford Posted on by

Over more than 30 years, I wrote and rewrote The Feedsack Dress, my first published novel. For the record, here are my recollections of why I began writing it and why I persisted in finishing it and finding editors smart enough to buy it. I grew up on a small farm near Kirksville, Missouri, in the 1940s and 1950s. With cows to milk morning and evening, we stuck close to home, but on Sunday afternoons my father sometimes drove us around on the gravel roads to see how the crops and livestock were faring on other farms. My world expanded … Continue reading →

An Aging Writer’s Resolutions

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In my early sixties, I resolved to phase out my career as a freelance writer/editor and ease into semi-retirement as a novelist. As a first step, I took a course on writing mysteries. I followed up by forming a critique group with other aspiring writers and writing, at night, a chapter a week. I finished the first draft of my mystery in about a year. I learned a tremendous amount and became comfortable writing fiction, which requires a different mindset than nonfiction. I couldn’t sell the manuscript even after revision, but writers learn to withstand rejection. I resolved to devote … Continue reading →

Why we needed Title IX before 1972

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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 →

Concert Jogs Memories of Vienna

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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 →

New Sinister Snowman Edition

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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 →

Memories Sparked The Feedsack Dress

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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 →

Earthquakes on My Mind

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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 →

Summer Before Air Conditioning

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Air conditioning keeps me comfortable during the current heat wave, but I remember how we tried to cool off when nothing but the movie theater was air conditioned. July and August approximated hell when I was a kid. No day was so hot that we wouldn’t work in the fields and the garden. Only the persistent breeze made the heat and humidity bearable. The steamy days heated the house, making it equally miserable. When we got electricity, fans helped a little. During the day the coolest place to be was in the shade of a big elm. (Sadly Dutch elm … Continue reading →

Mixing Memories and Research

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When I started writing The Feedsack Dress, my own memories of farm life and the ninth grade guided the plot, but I needed facts about life in 1949. I looked for them in the same places I would have if I were writing an article. At the library I wore out my eyes scrolling through microfilm copies of the Kirksville Daily Express and two great photo magazines, Life and Look. These answered such questions as the styles of dresses or skirts and blouses a fashionable ninth grader wore to school and how much they cost. Few girls wore jeans or … Continue reading →

Giveaway of New Show Me the Ashes Edition

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On May 7, Harlequin’s Worldwide Mystery will release a paperback edition of Show Me the Ashes, the fourth in my series featuring former CIA operative Phoenix Smith solving murders in rural Missouri. In this one Phoenix and friends, including Achilles, her Belgian Malinois, take on a cold case involving a coerced plea deal (far too common), a string of disturbing burglaries, and crippling bigotr The WM editors insisted on one editorial change from the original Five Star hardback and e-book editions: “Tramp” replaced “slut.” The covers of the paperback and hardback editions look nothing alike, which is also true of the covers … Continue reading →