Keeping Track and Making Plans

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by N.M. Cedeño

I find myself using spreadsheets far more than I ever expected when I first started writing. Back then, I had a few lists here and there in word documents and one spread sheet. That one spread sheet documented short story submissions, with stories added to the list as I submitted them.

I still have the spread sheet documenting submissions, now divided into pages by year, but I’ve created another one for published stories with a separate page for pending publications, one for unpublished stories, and one overall submission document showing all of my stories alphabetized by title, so I can easily see how many times a story has been submitted and to whom.

Cover of Black Cat Weekly issue 255 featuring a sci-fi theme with a female character in red armor and a male character holding a weapon.

The most recent addition to my collection of data is a spreadsheet tracking my private eye stories by main character. At a glance, I can see that two of my private detectives have appeared in only one story each and that I’ve written three stories featuring Dallas-based PI Cleo Jimenez, one of which, “Mirror Life Meltdown,” was published by Black Cat Weekly in issue #255 in July 2026. Another of Cleo’s cases, “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Likes,” is scheduled to be published this year in the anthology Big Tex and Suspects: Crime at the State Fair of Texas. The third is on submission. Cleo currently has about 15,000 words in her series.

My character Jerry Milam, who lives and works in Texas in the 1950s to 1970s, appears in five stories. Two went out of print with the closure of the publisher, but the editor is working to get those anthologies republished by a new publisher. One story, “The Case of the Cabochon Ring,” was published in Black Cat Weekly #258 in August 2026. Another is supposed to be published in an anthology next year. The fifth story is on submission. Jerry currently has more than double the word count of Cleo, coming in at 31,500 words.

A woman in a stylish outfit sitting at a desk in a detective agency setting, with a background featuring a city skyline. The image includes a neon sign that reads 'The Not So Frail Detective Agency 24/7 - 365' and displays various names at the bottom.

Then there’s Maya Laster, my genetic genealogy investigator. Maya beats Jerry and Cleo, appearing in eight stories so far. Four have already been published: in Black Cat Weekly #79, #110, and #242, and one in the anthology Crimeucopia: The Not So Frail Detective Agency (which was a finalist for the 2026 Derringer Award for Best Anthology and First Runner Up for a Silver Falchion Award for Best Anthology). Of Maya’s other four stories, one is pending publication in an anthology sometime next year, one is on submission, one needs to be resubmitted, and the other is in final edits. Maya’s stories currently total 49,875 words.

My investigative crew in the Bad Vibes Removal Services series, however, needed their own spreadsheet. That series beats Maya by more than double, with sixteen short stories and two novels. The short stories alone total almost 106,000 words. The most recently published story, “Wedding Vibes,” appeared in Black Cat Weekly #145. The next story is pending publication, and the word is that it will be published in the fall this year.

So why do I track this information, and what do I do with all this data?

I make plans.

The data tells me I have enough word count that at some point I could create a short e-book of Jerry Milam stories. Or that if I write five or six more stories, I’ll have a book length manuscript ready to create a collection that would work in a print or digital format.

I almost have enough short stories featuring Maya Laster to make a collection of her stories. If I write another two stories, I’ll have over 60,000 words, enough to create what’s considered a novel-length print book. The word count that I have right now would work well enough for a novella-length e-book, but would be too slim a volume in print for my taste.

Book cover of 'The Walls Can Talk' by N.M. Cedeño with a ghostly figure and an eerie house background.

The word count tells me that I could collect my Bad Vibes Removal Services short stories into a print book. Most of those stories only appear in digital formats right now and many readers prefer print. Having a print option available might be worthwhile. I have to decide if this is something I want to pursue right now.

The data suggests goals for me to reach, stories for me to write, and a path forward in time. Some writers worry about facing a blank page and not knowing what to write next. With this data at my fingertips, if I’m casting about for ideas, I can always write the next story for one of my detectives and move closer to the goal of completing a collection.

A final note: As mentioned above, I have several stories coming out soon. When I have publication dates and covers, I’ll post them here. Right now, only one of my non-PI stories has been scheduled for publication. “The Mocking Ones,” a story I wrote for Cryin’ Shame: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Lyle Lovett, is scheduled to be released in digital formats on December 8, 2026, with the print version to follow in early 2027.

Book cover for 'Cryin' Shame', featuring a cowboy hat and red teardrop graphics, with the subtitle 'Crime fiction inspired by the songs of Lyle Lovett' and 'Edited by Josh Pachter' prominently displayed.

A Killer Time At Killer Nashville

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VP Chandler

I had a wonderful time at Killer Nashville this year. From the moment I walked in, everyone I met was warm and welcoming. One of the things I loved most about this conference was how easy it was to strike up a conversation with a total stranger and walk away with a new friend. I exchanged business cards and swapped stories with more people than I can count, and every one of those conversations reminded me why I’ll probably return.

One of the higlights for me was speaking on my panel, “Feisty Women Protagonists in Historicals.” I was in great company: Nancy Herriman (1800s San Francisco), Nina Wachsman (1600s Venice), Joy Allyson (historical French romance), and Nancy Locklin (nonfiction books about women and violence in 1700s France), plus me, mostly mucking around in the American West. Different centuries, different continents, same throughline: women have always been feisty, using wit and guile to work within, or around, the systems of their time, and sometimes using those systems to their own advantage. I also made a point of reminding the audience that a quiet woman, doing exactly what society expected of her, is no less brave for it. Women have held families and communities together through hard, unglamorous work since the beginning of time. That’s feisty too.

I also got some news at the awards ceremony: For Every Evil Under the Sun, a short story collection I contributed to, was nominated for the Silver Falchion Award for Best Short Story Collection. We didn’t take home the win, but we placed third, and honestly, that felt pretty good. It’s always nice to be noticed. (Fellow AMW member, Laura Oles was a contributor, as well as Alexandra Burt.)

But at the end of the day, what I’ll remember most isn’t the panel or the awards, it’s the people. What stayed with me is how much Killer Nashville is about writers helping writers: swapping craft advice, cheering each other on, and generally leaving each other a little more inspired than when we arrived. Conferences like this have a way of turning strangers into friends over the course of just a few days, and this year was no exception. I left with a stack of business cards, a handful of new stories to tell, and a lot of new friends I’m already looking forward to seeing again.

Below are photos of me harassing interesting people.

J.E. Weiner, Jim Nesbitt, and Karen Coffin.

J.E. Weiner
Good buddy, Jim Nesbitt
Karen Coffin

TOO DARN HOT!!!

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By Helen Currie Foster

Molly Ivins—always a truth-teller—described the state this way: “Texas! Land of wretched excess!”

Yes, I also quoted her in a March 2025 blog. But I was describing sustained icy weather.

This time? Austin weather persons say it has not rained here this August!

And as you’ve noticed, temperatures continue to spike above 100 degrees. Outdoor house plants? In a fit of mercy, maybe you brought some back inside.

That’s what we did today for five jasmine plants, acquired in grad school, that we’ve cosseted for decades. Decades! Usually they live indoors in winter, or on the deck in summer.

But this week, walking past them, I felt a disturbance. Even with daily water, even with blossoms, I felt warning signals.

Was that just my…overheated…imagination? Plus the fact that, as eloquently sung in Kiss Me Kate, “It’s too darn hot!”?

Or was it more? I’m reading Michael Pollan’s A World Appears (2026), about today’s ongoing scientific debate over the nature of consciousness—a topic humans have wondered about for millennia. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-consciousness-science-faces-its-hardest-problem-yet/\; https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260729043829.htm

Per Pollan: “A great many mammals, several bird species, and octopuses are now generally thought to be conscious, and there are scientists and philosophers who believe that some rudimentary form of consciousness, or sentience, reaches much further, all the way to insects and, possibly, beyond the animal kingdom.” (Id., at 1.)

Beyond animals? Yes, all the way to plants!

So, are plants sentient? One plant scientist points to “all the volatile compounds emitted by a succession of plants, from poplars and tobacco plants to peppers and olive trees. Plants emit volatile chemicals for a range of purposes: to signal distress, to alert neighboring plants to threats, to thwart or poison herbivores, and possibly even to soothe themselves (many plants emit ethylene, an anesthetic gas, for reasons not well understood.” Id., at 20.) (Please to note Pollan has inserted plants in the middle of the cover.)

So maybe our jasmines emitted a volatile alarm chemical. Was the alarm intended for humans? Who can tell? But the plants made it inside…

It’s a “hard problem,” the whole “consciousness” debate that Pollan’s book describes, and we’re in for a fascinating scientific journey.  

Query for you mystery readers: would you agree that it’s premature for the unraveling of a murder mystery to depend on warnings from plants? For one thing, the science is evolving. But also, to provide a real fact-based clue in a mystery, should the plant’s warnings alert not just perhaps other plants, but a human? The detective, a witness, the victim—or the reader? The jury will be out on that for awhile.

But I ask because, in the oppressive heat, I took refuge in Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train (also titled Heart of Fire) (1928).

Woe! The author appears to have committed the sin of presenting to the reader (who, like all mystery readers, is determined to solve the mystery based on available clues) information about what appears to be a mere notion on the part of a character.  Poirot reveals, at book’s end, that Miss Grey (a sensible character) “firmly believes that she felt your daughter’s presence beside her one day in the Casino Gardens at Monte Carlo, just after she had been having a talk with Knighton. She was convinced, she says, that the dead woman was urgently trying to tell her something, and it suddenly came to her that what the dead woman was trying to say was that Knighton was her murderer!” (Ch. 35.)

What? Is this a ghost story? What actual fact, what actual clue, was revealed by an already dead person to Miss Grey? Could this apparent ghostly concern, this ghostly attempt at communication, convey a real clue? Yet in the last chapter that’s how Poirot treats Miss Grey’s interpretation of the ghost’s concern––as an actual clue.  

I’m not sure this accords with the sacred collaboration between the mystery writer and the mystery reader, where (as the 1930 Detection Club rules insist), every clue must be instantly produced to the reader.

And the notion of a character thinking she hears a dead victim trying to whisper the name of her murderer? What’s your reaction?

Still, given the (possible?) messages from the jasmine, I’m hoping we won’t relive the worst Texas drought, the drought of the 1950’s, so vividly described in Elmer Kelton’s classic The Time It Never Rained (1973).

Kelton’s dedication: “In a broad sense this book is dedicated to the old-time Western ranchman, whose life style gave him an inkling of Heaven and more than his proper share of Hell.”

The heat was indeed hellish. Corsicana, northeast of Austin, experienced 82 days of temperatures over 100 °F or 37.8 °C, peaking at 113 °F or 45 °C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s_Texas_drought

The seven-year drought finally broke in 1957. Per NPR, “Rural Texas never fully recovered. Between 1950 and 1960, the state lost nearly 100,000 farms and ranches, and rural residents who had made up more than a third of the population dwindled to just a quarter of the population.” https://www.npr.org/2012/07/07/155995881/how-one-drought-changed-texas-agriculture-forever

Out in the pasture the grass is tan, not green. The three donkeys are disconsolate. They come to the gate to pester us for carrots.

For continued green, I’m counting on the live oaks. Cedar elms. Redbud. Peach trees. Other plant treasures—basil, sage, geraniums, lantana, plumbago, bay tree, mint––are faring okay so far. But what about the poor suffering stuck-in-the-dirt rose bushes? Water? More mulch? Crossed fingers?

I’m working now on Book 11 in my Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery Series set in the hill country…Ghost Music. No drought involved, so far! But as always in this series, water is an important character!

Helen Currie Foster lives and writes north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. She’s drawn to the compelling landscape and quirky characters of the Texas Hill Country. She’s also deeply curious about our human history and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party! She’s active in Heart of Texas Sisters in Crime and also Austin Shakespeare. Follow her at http://www.helencurriefoster.com

Find her books on Amazon and also at BookPeople in Austin, Texas.

A 9/11 TRIBUTE – 25 Years Later

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By

Francine Paino

In 25 days, this coming September 11th will mark a quarter-century since the United States was attacked by evil in a way we’d never imagined.  For those of us who lived it, it’s as fresh in our memories as if it happened yesterday.

There was only one color in New York on September 11, 2001: Ash Grey. There was only one fragrance in the air: toxic fumes, sharp and acrid, as far as 25 miles away.

No one was black, white, or brown. We reached out for each other’s hands, without regard for race or ethnicity. Together, we watched in horror close up and from local distances, praying that our loved ones would somehow be spared a horrible end—but not all were.

On that day, the sun shone in a bright, clear blue sky, not common over the skyline of New York. It was as if God wanted everyone to see, without confusion, malevolence in action, and the heroism that battled it.

But who, exactly, were the heroes that day? Were the heroes those who like to stand above us and preach, like Hollywood stars? No. Did overpaid, spoiled-brat athletes run in to try to save those trapped and praying for rescue? No. Did the fascist/socialist fist-pumping, Hate-and-Steal-From-Those-Who-Have-More mobs try to get near those buildings to help? Certainly not. And make no mistake, they existed in New York 25 years ago. In our nation’s capital, D. C., did the feckless Congress ask to be transported to the Pentagon to help rescue those trapped inside, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did? Again, no!  Were Pennsylvania’s politicians first to the crash site of Flight 95 and the brave men and women on board who chose to die fighting? No.

The rescuers that day, who rushed into danger, were the fire, rescue, EMT, and police departments. And some civilian volunteers tried to help, even without training. They didn’t ask if it was safe. They knew it wasn’t.

On that day, 25 years ago, 343 New York City firefighters, including one chaplain and two paramedics, died. Thirty-seven police officers of the Port Authority of NY and NJ perished, as did twenty-three police officers of the NYPD and one New York Fire Patrol officer. Emergency medical technicians and paramedics of private emergency services also gave their lives to help others—and their sacrifices didn’t end that day.

Since 2001, 400 additional FDNY members have died from 9/11-related diseases, caused by toxins spewed into the air that day, and the number continues to grow.

More than 8,000 people have died from 9/11-related illnesses, surpassing the total number of lives lost on September 11, 2001. According to data and public awareness campaigns highlighted by The Mesothelioma Center, the long-term health consequences—including cancers like mesothelioma and lung cancer from Ground Zero toxins and asbestos exposure—continue to claim lives 25 years later. (The Mesothelioma Center) Just as devastating, over 40 percent of the victims still have not been identified—that’s about 1,000 people. An additional agony for their families.

And here we are, 25 years later, with obnoxious, hateful people trying to say we deserved that attack. Tell that to the families of those who died trying to save others, and to the victims armed with coffee cups and pencils, who were virtually pulverized, and those who did manage to get out alive, but damaged for life.

And now we watch our less-than-illustrious city councils, mayors, and governors prostitute themselves, bending over to the criminal insurrectionist mobs. They shout Defund the police, a service without which no civil society can exist. By doing so, they dishonor the memories of all who died on 9/11, the rescuers, and the victims waiting and praying that police or firefighters could reach and save them. No one that day prayed for or expected a politician or community activist to rescue them.

Indeed, these politicians have despoiled and rendered meaningless the actions of the officers who worked so hard to rescue so many and maintain law and order in the aftermath—again with no regard for the risk to their own health, working in the heart of the poisoned air of New York City and its suburbs.

But our political leaders are put in power by us—We, the people. Thus, we are a nation in disgrace. Unlike the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which remains in the minds of Americans even to this day, we’ve ignored the sacrifices made by so many who serve law and order, allowing us to live and work in a safe society, and 9/11 is one of the great failings of our public school systems. It is not taught. “Only 14 states explicitly require public schools to teach students about the events of September 11, 2001, leaving the topic up to local districts or omission in the remaining 36 states.” (Rep.  A, Garabino)

The police, fire, and EMT services are the real stars in our lives, not the tinkling fake glitter of those who hide behind their private security guards and walled communities, then dare to lecture us. Or, the athletes who choose to kneel, bow, and scrape to those who would rather see our country perish—rather than stand up and say, “NO. Destruction is not the way.” And to the ethics-free Democrats and spineless Republicans masquerading as politicians, who allow our cities to be burned down and our law-abiding citizens to be attacked so that they can maintain their privileged positions and wealth and power—let’s defund you.

To all the men and women of every police, fire, and EMT department in the United States, thank you for your willingness to do jobs that put your lives in danger to protect ours.Thank you for your efforts to keep our streets safe despite the ingratitude of the public and the disgusting backstabbing politicians. Thank you for your resilience and your service.  

And once again, to all who died at the hands of evil on 9/11, including the police, fire, and EMT personnel, may God keep you in the light of His face, and give peace and comfort to the loved ones you left behind.

Why Do We Allow the Machines to Decide if Our Writing is Human?

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By Laura Oles

This piece was originally intended to examine the impact AI has on the current publishing landscape and how authors are navigating a profession in turmoil. I had several pages of notes, some annotations, a couple ponderings and some righteous indignation against tech bro billionaires that I planned to share. 

It got hot in here for a minute.

But, I’m tired and a bit defeated. 

This topic continues to be heavily covered in industry articles, on Substack and on social media. The most recent debate that has set the publishing world ablaze centers on a debut author who landed and lost a $2 million dollar book deal. Multiple outlets report that his manuscript was fed through Pangram, an AI software tool designed to spot AI generated work. Some articles report that the author has offered examples proving he wrote the manuscript. I don’t know what happened here, but I do know that letting AI software be the ultimate expert (if that’s the case here) is some bullshit. 

I can’t believe that we’re now in a position where writers must prove to an AI program that our writing is our writing. These LLM’s stole all our books and are now the arbiter of whether our writing is human enough? Programs that have falsely labeled human writing as AI generated get to be the final judge? Several writers stated that they have tested these programs by feeding their older novels into such programs, and the software claimed many were AI generated.  

To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, “What fresh hell is this?”

As a writer, I have countless files of notes, revisions, outlines, cut files and research. I am also a fan of the em dash, a punctuation that has been (unfairly) marked as a hallmark of AI. The em dash is the Swiss army knife of punctuation. I use it often and sometimes incorrectly. I now catch myself considering other alternatives for fear someone (that vast void of opinions or bots on the Internet) will accuse me of using AI in my writing. Also—why are em dashes out here catching strays when they were just minding their own business?

I don’t use AI for my writing. I’ve chosen the glorious path of mucking around with a paragraph for an hour because it doesn’t flow quite right, and I still can’t figure out why. My critique partner can attest to this madness as she suffers from a similar affliction. I understand that not everyone wants to do this. I also believe that this practice is part of the craft. I’m currently dancing around a chapter like a Grace Kelly wannabe if her shoes were too tight and possibly on backwards. It’s a little chaotic. That’s art.

And I don’t hate technology.  In my previous life, I was a founding team member of a digital imaging company in a time when Kodak was king. I’ve got two decades of experience navigating a seismic shift of an industry in flux. Our clients were photo labs, camera stores and a handful of professional photographers. We were extremely aware of photographers’ copyright protections and included education, training and specific language in all our products. We respected the artists. And we trained our team to respect the artists. It was a core part or our organization’s foundation. Granted, we were a small player on a large field, but we knew who we were and what we valued.

I wish Open AI, Anthropic and the other tech cohorts who are pushing AI enhancements on everything except breakfast cereals (Cheerios! Now with AI!) had respect for the artists’ works they crushed into concrete for their empires’ foundations. I know it won’t happen–I’d have better odds hitting the lottery or being struck by lightning.

“Focus on what you can control.” 

Stellar advice that is easier to say than do, but I believe our power lies in where we spend our time, energy, money and attention. So, I’ll continue supporting writers whose work I love and the bookstores who promote them. And I’ll let the other more eloquent voices in our field debate the best practices for how to protect authors and their work as the AI industrial complex runs roughshod over such pesky obstacles as copyright and ethical guardrails. 

I’ll end with Camille Pagán’s succinct statement on Substack:

“The Pangram problem:  AI companies stole hundreds (possibly more than a thousand) of the health articles and medical guides I wrote, as well at least seven of my novels. Now—shocking—my content is routinely flagged for AI (which I never use)…because the tools recognize style and content that was stolen.  The fix isn’t an “AI detector.” It’s to stop allowing tech cos to pirate and profit from real, human creators.”

Resources:

Cal Newport:

https://www.thedeeplife.com/listen/

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations: (Read this–you’ll love it).

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-em-dash-responds-to-the-ai-allegations

The Craft of Storytelling with Ann Patchett (I just love this interview):

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/taken-for-granted/id1554567118?i=1000775742525

Fredrik Backman’s Hilarious Speech on Creativity and Procrastination: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSuSyZ92Cjg

Dorothy Parker image copyright: Culver Pictures, 1939

Laura Oles is the award-winning author of the Jamie Rush mystery series. Her shorter work has appeared in crime fiction anthologies, consumer magazines and business publications. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Writers’ League of Texas. Before turning to fiction, Laura spent two decades as a photo industry journalist.She loves road trips, bookstores and any outdoor activity that doesn’t involve running. She lives in the Texas Hill Country with her family. (https://www.lauraoles.com).

“Mirror Life Meltdown” Featuring Cleo Jimenez

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By N.M. Cedeño

Meet my newest character, Cleo Jimenez, a former Marine, former police officer, and now Dallas-based private investigator. “Mirror Life Meltdown,” in Black Cat Weekly #255, is Cleo’s first published appearance, but not the first story I wrote for her. That story is still awaiting publication later this year. Her third case is currently on submission.

Cleo is non-descript, with average height, average build, average looks. She’s a thirty-something, brown-hair-in-a-pony-tail, jeans-and-t-shirt kind of woman. She’s not into fancy clothes, fussy hair-dos, or make-up. Being average makes it easier for her to blend into the background when she is following a subject suspected of infidelity. The majority of Cleo’s cases involve family drama, from cheating spouses to crimes caused by addiction, mental illness, greed, vanity, and lust. In Cleo’s world, a bird that walks like a duck is usually a duck, not a whooping crane. Her cases stem from people doing stupid things and making bad choices, resulting in blow-ups in their personal lives.

Cleo enjoys romance novels, historical or modern. She studied communication at the local community college. She can handle a gun, but doesn’t usually need to carry one, since taking photos of cheating spouses, unseen, rarely leads to conflict. She drinks Shiner Bock beer and drives an older model Nissan.

When Cleo accepts a case surveilling a professor whose wife is concerned by his sudden inattentiveness and lack of communication, she isn’t expecting a deep dive into the world of university-level bioengineering and biochemistry research. She fully expects to photograph the professor in a sleazy motel, maybe with a grad student. Then her duck turns into a whooping crane, and the case takes on potentially earth-shattering consequences. Thank goodness Cleo is resourceful, even when out of her depth!

Where did the idea for this story come from?

I saw a call for a short story of any genre that included a mention of something potentially apocalyptic. As I was pondering the guidelines, I asked my neurodiverse college student son, who is currently working as an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin, if he could think of any possible causes of a man-made apocalypse, excluding obvious things like thermonuclear war or robots and AI. He spouted a list. (This is a fairly normal conversation in my house.) The creation of mirror life bacteria was on his list. I asked what that was. He defined it. Fortunately, I retained enough of the chemistry and organic chemistry classes that I took in college to understand his explanation.

Then I went to the internet and read several articles on mirror molecules and mirror life. In one of those odd quirks of coincidence, I even received a newsletter from UT Austin with an article about the work on mirror molecules being done at UT Dallas around that time.

Now I had an interesting topic and a setting: UT Dallas, where my oldest son attended college. Next, I needed some characters for the story.

I have another PI character who lives and works in the Dallas area. Her name is Maya Laster, and she’s a private investigator specializing in forensic and genetic genealogy. I considered how I could place Maya in a mirror-life case, but she felt wrong for the story. Then I remembered Cleo. Cleo was perfect for the case I was imagining.

In her next adventure, Cleo is hired to stand guard over a painting at the State Fair of Texas. That case, entitled “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Likes,” will appear in the anthology Big Tex and Suspects: Crime at the State Fair of Texas which is scheduled for release later this year.

****

For more information on short fiction by N.M. Cedeño, visit nmcedeno.com

TELL ME A STORY . . . HERE COMES THE ODYSSEY!

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By Helen Currie Foster

July 5, 2026

The Grimm Brothers’ tales, first published in 1812, are part of our childhoods—Hansel and Gretel! Little Red Riding Hood ( aka Little Red-Cap)! Cinderella! Rumpelstiltskin! Rapunzel! Sleeping Beauty! Snow White! The Bremen Town Musicians! As you well know, some tales involve grisly situations where children—to survive––must be resourceful. Hansel, caged by the wicked witch in the woods to become her future supper, sticks a bone through the bars to convince the witch he’s not yet fattened up. When the witch orders his sister Gretel to climb into the oven to see if it is “hot enough,” Gretel—no fool—persuades the witch to demonstrate—then shoves her in! The children escape!  

As folklore students in Hesse, Germany, the Grimm Brothers collected and edited (perhaps with extra moralizing) oral versions of tales from family friends. The Grimms ultimately gave us two hundred fairy tales. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brothers-Grimm. 

The Grimms’ (grim) lesson that youngsters will use every means to stay safe—including trickery and persuasion—also appears in The Three Billy Goats Gruff (one of the Norwegian tales collected 1841-1844 by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe). https://bit.ly/4vffbac

The three hungry young goats, desperate to cross a bridge to reach their grassy meadow, are in peril of becoming lunch for the ravenous troll threatening them from beneath the bridge. The two younger goats cleverly urge the troll to wait for their toothsome big brother as they race across—and then big brother defeats the troll.

Hunger! Danger! Potential betrayal! The need for ruses! For cleverness! Even disguises! Fierce lessons for children!

And for grownups? Oh, yes. Consider the perils faced by Odysseus in The Odyssey, when the crafty architect of the Trojan Horse departs for home after the Trojan War. He (like the children in the old tales) will need all the ruses he can develop, all the disguises he can wear, all the courage he can muster, to deal with the Cyclops Polyphemus… The nymph Calypso, who traps him in her cave… Poseidon, furious… Circe! Scylla and Charybdis! A tale of tales….and of a teller of tales.

Such troves of scholarship in past years!  1996 brought us Robert Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey.  Fagles tells us this epic poem (12,109 lines of hexameter verse) was “composed, probably, late in the eighth century B.C. or early in the seventh…The poem, in other words, is some 2,700 years old.”

Fagles says copies of the poem “were to be found all over the Greek world of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.” Fagles, at 3. https://bit.ly/4vbzDbR

The year 2014 brought us Adam Nicolson’s Why Homer Matters. Nicolson envisions Homer as recording the conflicts experienced when “the semi-nomadic, hero-based culture of the Eurasian steppes to the north and west of the Black Sea” moved south and encountered “the sophisticated, authoritarian and literate cities…of the eastern Mediterranean. Greekness…emerged from the meeting and melding of those two worlds.” At 2. For Nicolson, “Homer is a foundation myth, not of man nor of the natural world, but of the way of thinking by which the Greeks defined themselves” and “which, in many ways we have inherited.” For instance, which matters most? Individual or community? The debate continues.

Nicolson sees the poems as recording “the violence and sense of strangeness of about 1800 BC recollected in the tranquillity of about 1300 BC…written down (if not in a final form) in about 700 BC.” At 4. Nicolson says the oldest surviving example of written Greek poetry is three lines of Greek scratched onto a funeral offering, a wine cup. “The second and third lines…are perfect Homeric hexameters” but not, Nicholson says, of Homer’s poetry.

Both Fagles and Nicolson cite the pioneering work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. In the 1920’s Parry discovered that The Odyssey and The Iliad were full of prefabricated bits (such as descriptions of the “wine-dark sea”). Using those bits could allow a singing poet—the bard­­—to keep the metrical pattern of the music moving, while letting listeners hear and feel the traditional elements they’ve heard before, and anticipate hearing again. Nicolson, at 77-79. In what sounds like epic grad school work, Parry’s student Albert Lord accompanied him for two years through remote villages of Yugoslavia to hear and record over seven hundred singers, each using their single-stringed violin (the gusle) (interesting to hear online!) as accompaniment to their “long epic songs of battle and disaster.”  Nicolson, at 83, 85. Albert Lord turned those two years into his remarkable book on oral composition of epic poetry by bards, in The Singer of Tales, Cambridge, Mass., 1960. https://bit.ly/4vQM6Da

Is there a bard in the 2026 version of The Odyssey about to hit our screens? Yes!

What will we hear?

Will it be poetic?

Nicolson reminds us that “Homeric epics are essentially the music of hexameters.” At 76. Each line has six “feet.” Feet can have a long stress and two shorts (dactyl) or two longs (spondee). The fifth foot is usually a dactyl while the sixth must be a spondee. Id. Because each line has a natural break in the middle, the bard can tailor the music to the varying stresses.

The Fagles translation is in hexameter, but Fagles notes, “Turning briefly to Homer’s metrics, I would also like to hold a middle ground, here between his spacious hexameter line—his ‘ear, ear for the sea-surge’ as Pound once heard—and a tighter line more native to English verse.” So his translation “opts for a freer give-and-take between the two.” He works “from a five-or six-beat line while leaning more to six” but sometimes, seven beats, or, for stress, three. Fagles, at 492.

But wait! In 2018, Emily Wilson published a new version of The Odyssey. And hers—is entirely in iambic pentameter! Five feet, ten syllables…as she shows us in line one: “Tell me about a complicated man.” Why?

As she says in her Translator’s Note, “The Odyssey is a poem, and it needs to have a predictable and distinctive rhythm that can be easily heard when the text is read out loud. The original is in six-footed lines (dactylic hexameters), the conventional meter for archaic Greek narrative verse. I used iambic pentameter, because it is the conventional meter for regular English narrative verse—the rhythm of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Keats, and plenty of more recent anglophone poets.” Wilson, at 82.

However the dialogue sounds in the 2026 movie version, I can’t wait to see—and hear—this version of Homer’s The Odyssey. If it was 2700 years old in 1996, it’s 2730 years old now…and still bringing in the crowds. Because, all these years later, we still beg, “Tell me a story!”

Helen Currie Foster lives and writes the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery Series north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. She’s drawn to the compelling landscape and quirky characters of the Texas Hill Country. She’s also deeply curious about our human history and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. Follow her at http://www.helencurriefoster.com and on Facebook. The ten books in the series are available online at Amazon and at BookPeople in Austin.

WORDLORE

/ Austin Mystery Writers / 2 Comments

OR

Fun With Words

By

Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte

Writers love words…(talk about stating the obvious!) And there are so many words, proverbs, expressions, clichés, and idioms to choose from, it’s difficult not to fall into the trap of spending too much time in the world of etymology instead of focusing on telling stories. But for today, let’s do just that. Many online courses suggest that anyone learning a foreign language collect and learn at least some idioms to understand and speak like a native. So, here are some fun and not-so-fun expressions. Imagine taking them literally.

One of my favorites for wishing good luck in performance is the Italian “In Bocca al Lupo.” (In the wolf’s mouth.) This one requires a response – crepi il lupo (May the wolf die).  No. Italians do not try to stick their heads or other body parts into a wolf’s mouth. It’s the equivalent of telling someone in the theater to “Break a Leg,” which is the most common form of stage-show good wishes. It came from theater superstition that wishing someone good luck was bad luck, so they used reverse psychology by wishing a broken leg. But think about how a performer would react if they took it literally! Speaking of limbs, here’s one that is fun.

SHAKE A LEG – For this, we can thank the 19th-century Royal Navy. The Boatswain’s mate shouted “shake a leg, to awaken their crews. Members then stuck a leg out of their hammocks in order to prove they were awake and ready for duty.  So when someone says, “shake a leg,” do not stand still and shake one. Instead, hurry up!

Then, thanks to our own military, we have Bite the Bullet – a quick way to say put aside your distaste or unwillingness to do a task and get it done. This painful idiom originated on battlefields, when anesthetics were unavailable. Wounded soldiers were given sticks, or leather straps, or bullets to bite down on to endure painful procedures.

Expressions that create a more pleasant vision include “Fit as a Fiddle.”In today’s world, it means a person is in perfect health. Its origins date back to the 17th century and stem from the need to maintain violins/fiddles in good condition to achieve the best possible sound. So, close your eyes and imagine playing a fiddle or a violin while you take a run or lift some weights to stay fit like that fiddle.

Then there is the universal proverb, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Although it sounds biblical, it is not. Its concept reaches back to Babylonian and Hebrew religious texts and sentiments. It was not coined as a phrase until preacher John Wesley used it in 1778, in his sermon titled “On Dress.” In the early 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi, on a lifelong mission to help his native India, promoted good hygiene, arguing that the mind and body must be clean to gain spiritual blessings. He noted, “Only when there is both inner and outer cleanliness, it becomes next to godliness.”

From the Southern U.S., we have a treasure trove beginning with Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs, describing someone who is nervous and jumpy. The expression is rooted in Southern oral tradition and appeared in newspapers from the 1930s and ‘40s, particularly in Tennessee and Alabama. It is the original, longer form of ‘nervous as a cat.’

A new one to me was Snatch you baldheaded, aSouthern expression meaning to severely scold, discipline, or straighten someone out. The phrase is most often used as a warning from an elder to a child or younger person who is misbehaving. Its etymology likely grew from the older idea of handling someone so roughly that their hair would be pulled out. Over time, Southern speakers began using snatch you baldheaded and the related phrase jerk you baldheaded as colorful warnings rather than literal descriptions.

In the northeast, particularly in New York City, a true melting pot of immigrants, we find some of the most colorful expressions derived from foreign words. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, the largest foreign communities in New York City were Italians and Jews, thereby giving their languages and customs time to meld into the American way.

Here are a few Yiddish Words that have been incorporated into standard NYC speak and are frequently used and understood… in New York, that is.

  • Glitch: A minor malfunction or technical problem. This word moved from Yiddish into NYC tech and broadcasting circles, and then worldwide. It traces back to German glitschen (to slip, slide, or skid).
  • Klutz: A clumsy or awkward person. Another Yiddish word harkening back to its original German form. It entered American English in the 1920s.
  • Kosher: (NOT food). Something that is considered legitimate, proper, or acceptable. New Yorkers use it outside of a food context, and if something isn’t kosher, it isn’t legitimate. It derives from the Hebrew word kasher, which literally means “fit,” “proper,” or “suitable.”

And of course, there is a flood of Italian words that have been incorporated into New York City English, mostly in mispronounced forms, but totally understood.

  • Agita:  It is an Americanized pronunciation of acido or acidità (Italian for “acid” or “heartburn”), not a variation of the English word agitate, although itsounds like it might be. Its roots are in Southern Italian dialects, and it became common in NYC English in the 1970s.
  • Capisce: Pronounced ka-PEESH, in New York-ese. A direct substitute for “Do you understand?” or “Got it?” Capische (ka peesh e), with equal emphasis on all syllables, became common even among New York City’s non-Italians in the late 20th century.

Writers are always advised to avoid idiomatic expressions or use them sparingly, but there are times when including them in dialogue adds depth and color to a character.

Mrs. B, our heroine of the Housekeeper Mystery Series, favors the cleanliness proverb. She is a tiny bit OCD when it comes to cleaning and organization, but that doesn’t alter her ability to think through problems or solve crimes.

As for etymologies, there are hundreds of sites to entertain and educate anyone interested in the history and development of words. I’ve included some of them here.

So, happy reading, till next time.

Writing Wednesday: The Unexpected Stories Behind 9 Popular Clichés

https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-idioms

The Etymology and Origin of Clichés

https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/gandhian-thoughts-about-cleanliness.php

High Tech, Hustle Culture, and Hope

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Fresh Golden Threads for The Emperor’s New Clothes

By Laura Oles

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” –C.S. Lewis

If you’re in search of a dark crime story, look no further than a classic fairy tale. Take a handful of jealousy, revenge, gaslighting, theft or even murder, and coat it with the sparkling exterior of a fantastical castle or a forest filled with magical beasts, and voila!  You have a crystal ball full of comeuppance. 

From: Folio Society Classic Fairy Tale Collection

There’s a kidnap plot in “Hansel and Gretel,” attempted poisoning in “Snow White,” toxic families and unpaid labor in “Cinderella,” and several breaking and entering charges in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” 

According to the BBC, fairy tales can be traced back thousands of years. Durham University anthropologist Dr. Jamie Tehrani shared that some tales like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Rumpelstiltskin” are approximately 4,000 years old. Additionally, he told the BBC, “Some of these stories go back much further than the earliest literary record and indeed further back than Classical mythology – some versions of these stories appear in Latin and Greek texts – but our findings suggest they are much older than that.”

Ah, the long tail of crime tales…

As an avid lover of short stories, I was thrilled to be included in the recently released Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales by Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson. The opportunity to reimagine these stories in a current context was a fabulous challenge.  

My contribution, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” finds itself in the center of emerging tech hustle culture. Countless cautionary tales can be found in this world of big promises and bigger pitfalls, the brass ring always barely beyond reach for all but a few with secret access to the inside track. 

Oh, to be chosen.

 Daniel Hayes finds himself at a crossroads after his last investment goes bust. He knows he has what it takes to strike it big—he just needs one more shot to prove himself. One more chance to quiet the chorus of naysayers and to demonstrate, once and for all, that he has what it takes make it in Big Tech.  

The universe drops a golden coin in Daniel’s palm, and he knows that he’s finally found the perfect opportunity to show his family, friends, and Instagram followers that he’s made it to the top. He may need to make a few compromises, but that’s a small price to pay, isn’t it?

Wish Upon a Crime is available now.   

THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • “Hansel and Gretel” by Joseph S. Walker
  • “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” by John M. Floyd
  • “Rapunzel” by Adam Meyer
  • “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Laura Oles
  • “Three Billy Goats Gruff” by Michael Bracken
  • “Beauty and the Beast” by James A. Hearn
  • “The Bremen Musicians” by Debra H. Goldstein
  • “Jack and the Beanstalk” by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
  • “Cinderella” by Donna Andrews
  • “The Frog Prince” by Josh Pachter
  • “Little Red Riding Hood” by Barb Goffman
  • “The Briar Patch” by Tom Milani
  • “King o’ the Cats” by David Dean
  • “The Gingerbread Man” by Stacy Woodson

Laura Oles is the award-winning author of the Jamie Rush mystery series. Her work has appeared in crime fiction anthologies, consumer magazines and business publications.She loves road trips, bookstores and any outdoor activity that doesn’t involve running.She lives in the Texas Hill Country with her family. (https://www.lauraoles.com).

(Details) Ripped from Real Life

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N.M. Cedeño

I have a short story in the new anthology Detectives, Sleuths, and Nosy Neighbors III from Inkd Publishing entitled “The Assassination Game.” This is one of the few stories I’ve written that has been partially inspired by real events that happened in my community, many of the events taking place during my children’s high school years. I selected three unconnected events and assembled details from them like a jigsaw puzzle to create my story.

What were the incidents?

Senior Assassin!

Several years ago, I heard about the game of “Senior Assassin” being played at the high school while volunteering in the library. The game is generally played in the spring, not the winter, so I took some liberties by placing it over the Winter Holidays in my story. In “Senior Assassin,” members of the senior class sign up to play an elimination game, in which they tag each other, usually with water guns, vying for the honor of being the last one standing. The school building is off-limits for the game, which must be played outside of school hours. However, the parking lot is fair game. To move from the building to the parking lot, silly rules are employed to create safe passage. For example, to be protected from elimination, you might have to wear swimming pool floaties on your arms or a maybe a hat with animal ears. The game is generally in good fun, but it makes the news almost every spring because of someone mistaking a water gun for the real thing.

The second incident that I drew from happened over a summer, a time when bored high school students have been known to get into mischief. In this case, my daughter’s friend came over and told us about how her younger brother was riding his bike in their neighborhood when some stupid teens in a pick-up truck decided to take pot shots at him with a BB gun. He was struck in the back and bloodied. He wasn’t the only one targeted that day. A couple other children were also hit with BBs.

The third piece of the story came two years ago when I drove one of my kids two days in a row to visit a friend in the hospital, who was recovering from surgery for severe scoliosis. I learned months earlier, in the lead up to the surgery, that in some instances emergency surgery may be needed if the curvature of the spine worsens past a particular point. Unlike my protagonist, my child’s friend, to his parent’s relief, didn’t have to have emergency surgery. His surgery was done in the summer, when, I’m told, most scoliosis surgeries occur.

To be clear, the teenagers in my story bear no resemblance to the actual children at my kids’ high school, or to any of their friends or to their friends’ siblings. The story and its characters are fictional. I simply borrowed details from real life to build the story.

In “The Assassination Game,” my protagonist, JB, who is recovering from emergency scoliosis surgery, learns from friends that the seniors at his high school are playing an assassination game over Winter break. However, the game has gotten out of hand to the point that someone used a BB gun to shoot another player in the back to tag them out. JB hears that police are investigating the matter.

The story is also heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. From Rear Window, I borrowed the names Lisa and Jeff, who became my protagonists. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart plays L.B. Jeffries, called Jeff by friends. My character’s name is Jeff, but his friends call him JB, and only his mother calls him Jeff. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff witnesses what he suspects to be a murder while recovering from an injury that has him stuck in his room in a cast up to his waist. My character JB sees something out his window that might or might not relate to the assassination game BB gun incident while stuck in his room recovering from emergency scoliosis surgery. As Grace Kelly’s Lisa did in the movie, my character Lisa visits her friend JB and becomes the active investigator, going to look for evidence of what might have happened.

Of course, things don’t go as the teens plan in their investigation.

“The Assassination Game” was fun to write. I’m pleased it found in home in Inkd Publishing’s anthology Detectives, Sleuths, and Nosy Neighbors III, edited by A. Balsamo. Now available at Barnes & Noble at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/…/detectives…/1150214504 and digitally from Books to Read at https://books2read.com/u/38oBw6. And on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Detectives-Sleuths-Nosy-Neighbors-III/dp/B0H2RBRG22/

I’ve already read and enjoyed this anthology. I hope you like it too!