A Mind Unhinged

May 27, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / 2 Comments

Posted by Kathy Waller

So you start writing your post about the incomparable Josephine Tey’s mystery novels two weeks before it’s due but don’t finish, and then you forget, and a colleague reminds you, but the piece refuses to come together, and the day it’s due, it’s still an embarrassment, and the next day it’s not much better, and you decide, Oh heck, at this point what’s one more day? and you go to bed,

and in the middle of the night you wake to find twenty pounds of cat using you as a mattress, and you know you might as well surrender, because getting him off is like moving Jello with your bare hands,

Elisabet Ney: Lady Macbeth, Detail (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Attribution: Ingrid Fisch at the German language Wikipedia. GNU_Free_Documentation_License

so you lie there staring at what would be the ceiling if you could see it, and you think, Macbeth doth murder sleep…. Macbeth shall sleep no more,

and then you think about Louisa May Alcott writing, She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain,

and you realize your own brain has not only turned, but has possibly come completely unhinged.

And you can’t get back to sleep, so you lie there thinking, Books, books, books. Strings and strings of words, words, words. Why do we write them, why do we read them? What are they all for?

And you remember when you were two years old, and you parroted, from memory, because you’d heard it so many times,

The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat,

because happiness was rhythm and rime.

And when you were five and your playmate didn’t want to hear you read “Angus and the Cat,” and you made her sit still and listen anyway.

And when you were sixteen and so happy all you could think was, O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!, and you didn’t know who wrote it but you remembered the line from a Kathy Martin book you got for Christmas when you were ten.

And when you were tramping along down by the river and a narrow fellow in the grass slithered by too close, and you felt a tighter breathing, and zero at the bone.

And when you woke early to a rosy-fingered dawn and thought

By Dana Ross Martin, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

I’ll tell you how the sun rose,
A ribbon at a time,
The steeples swam in Amethyst
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –

And when you saw cruelty and injustice, and you remembered, Perfect love casts out fear, and knew fear rather than hate is the source of inhumanity, and love, the cure.

And when your father died unexpectedly, and you foresaw new responsibilities, and you remembered,

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise.

And when your mother died, and you thought,

Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!-
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

Fentress United Methodist Church. © Kathy Waller

And at church the day after your father’s funeral, when your cousins, who were officially middle-aged and should have known how to behave, sat on the front row and dropped a hymnbook, and something stuck you in the side and you realized that when you mended a seam in your dress that morning you left the needle just hanging there and you were in danger of being punctured at every move, and somehow everything the minister said struck you as funny, and the whole family chose to displace stress by laughing throughout the service, and you were grateful for Mark Twain’s observations that

Laughter which cannot be suppressed is catching. Sooner or later it washes away our defences, and undermines our dignity, and we join in it … we have to join in, there is no help for it,

and that,

Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.

And when you fell in love and married and said with the poet, My beloved is mine and I am his.

And when, before you walked down the aisle, you handed a bridesmaid a slip of paper on which you’d written, Fourscooooorrrrrrre…, so that while you said, “I do,” she would be thinking of Mayor Shinn’s repeated attempts to recite the Gettysburg Address at River City’s July 4th celebration, and would be trying so hard not to laugh that she would forget to cry.

And when your friend died before you were ready and left an unimaginable void, and life was unfair, and you remembered that nine-year-old Leslie fell and died trying to reach the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia, and left Jess to grieve but also to pass on the love she’d shown him.

And when the doctor said you have an illness and the outlook isn’t good, and you thought of Dr. Bernie Siegal’s writing, Do not accept that you must die in three weeks or six months because someone’s statistics say you will… Individuals are not statistics, but you also remembered what Hamlet says to Horatio just before his duel with Laertes,

There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.

And by the time you’ve thought all that, you’ve come back to what you knew all along, that books exist for pleasure, for joy, for consolation and comfort, for courage, for showing us that others have been here before, have seen what we see, felt what we feel, shared needs and wants and dreams we think belong only to us, that

Photograph of Helen Keller at age 8 with her tutor Anne Sullivan on vacation in Brewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

everything the earth is full of… everything on it that’s ours for a wink and it’s gone, and what we are on it, the—light we bring to it and leave behind in—words, why, you can see five thousand years back in a light of words, everything we feel, think, know—and share, in words, so not a soul is in darkness, or done with, even in the grave.

And about the time you have settled the question to your satisfaction, the twenty pounds of Jello slides off, and you turn over, and he stretches out and leans so firmly against your back that you end up wedged between him and your husband, who is now clinging to the edge of the bed, as sound asleep as the Jello is, and as you’re considering your options, you think,

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
   In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
   And sang to a small guitar…

and by the time the Pussycat and the Elegant Fowl have been married by the Turkey who lives on the hill, and have eaten their wedding breakfast with a runcible spoon, and are dancing by the light of the moon, the moon, you’ve decided that a turned brain has its advantages, and that re-hinging will never be an option.

***

20 pounds of cat. © Kathy Waller

***

Sources:

http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_58.html
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1315.Louisa_May_Alcott
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171941
http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykidloves.com/2009/06/angus-and-cat.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182477
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithets_in_Homer
http://biblehub.com/1_john/4-18.htm
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2002/10/15
http://www.twainquotes.com/Laughter.html
http://biblehub.com/songs/2-16.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Man_(1962_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_to_Terabithia_(novel)
http://www.shareguide.com/Siegel.html
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_320.html
http://www.shorewood.k12.wi.us/page.cfm?p=3642

***

“A Mind Unhinged” appeared on Austin Mystery Writers on February 25, 2016.

***

Kathy Waller [M. K. Waller] writes crime fiction, literary fiction, humor, memoir, and whatever else comes to mind. Her latest story, “Mine Eyes Dazzle,” which appears in Dark of the Day, was mentioned by Robert Lopresti as “The best mystery story I read this week” (Little Big Crimes, May 12, 2024).

Other short stories appear in anthologies: the Silver Falchion Award winner Murder on Wheels, Lone Star Lawless, and Day of the Dark, as well as online. She is co-author, with Manning Wolfe, of the novella STABBED,

Memories of growing up in a small town on the San Marcos River in Central Texas, and life in a large extended family, inspire much of her work. She now lives in Austin.

She blogs at Telling the Truth–Mainly. Find her on Facebook and on Amazon.

Closely Observed

May 6, 2024May 6, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / Leave a comment

by Helen Currie Foster

When you read a passage and experience words that strikes home forcefully–so forcefully that you almost gasp–what did the writer do that moved you so?

I’m collecting examples. For my husband it’s John Steinbeck’s tide pool in Cannery Row:

“…When the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals…Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock…”

I’ve never seen a Monterey tide pool. Yet Steinbeck made me feel I have. I want to sit at the edge of the tide pool, hear “the snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly” and see the “black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey.”

Why? Steinbeck’s description is so closely observed…it’s as if my own eyes and ears saw and heard.

What about food? Proust’s memory of a madeleine crumb dipped in his aunt’s tea didn’t initially resonate with me (a madeleine seemed too bland; I would’ve preferred a buttery, crunchy, tender croissant!)–until I read his analysis.

When Proust discovered that his second and third bites of the madeleine lacked the same impact–“the potion is losing its magic”–he stretched his mind further. He writes that the source of memory was not his sense of sight (though his description of the scalloped pastry is charming). Instead, his memory came from taste and smell: “But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment,…and bear unfaltering…the vast structure of recollection.”

No French bakery in my grandmother’s small Texas town, Itasca. But the memory of her kitchen still comes back when I smell lavender, or yeast–my grandfather’s lavender talc, my grandmother’s ineffably delicious yeast rolls.

Here’s another powerful example from The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright, about a young man, kidnapped from his home in India, then sent to a dishonest orphanage which places him for adoption in America where he rejects any Indian heritage and suppresses all his memories that aren’t “American.”

As a student in England he’s taken to an Indian restaurant where–reluctantly–he smells, then tastes, what’s offered:

“The scent that swirled around his neck had started rubbing his shoulder, reminding him softly that once, a very long time ago, they had met….[He] took his first bite. The spices in his mouth grabbed hands and began dancing in rhythm across his tongue–cumin, garlic, peppers, ginger, tamarind, cinnamon, and more. They weren’t just dancing–they were cheering, clapping, celebrating, singing, reminiscing. They were pulling out wallets and showing each other pictures of their kids….The mingling spices, the familiar taste, it felt like a whisper arriving with the wind, more message than memory.”

Curry, of course. Just reading this made me long for mango chutney! And I thought it a powerful description, because closely observed, and particularly because until this moment we know the protagonist has been stubbornly resistant to anything Indian.

In A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, do you recall the bouillabaisse scene? The three conspirators have carefully gathered the ingredients–hard to come by in Moscow; have picked up their spoons; and have taken their first taste. Count Rostov closes his eyes “to attend more closely to his impressions”:

“One first tastes the broth–that simmered distillation of fish bones, fennel, and tomatoes, with their hearty suggestions of Provence…One marvels at the boldness of the oranges arriving from Spain and the absinthe poured in the taverns. And all of these various impressions are somehow collected, composed, and brightened by the saffron–that essence of summer sun…[W]ith the very first teaspoonful one finds oneself transported to the port of Marseille–where the streets teem with sailors, thieves, and madonnas, with sunlight and summer, with languages and life.”

Bouillabaisse! Your memories may differ. Were you reading Julia Child and launching a kitchen experiment? Were you visiting Marseille, and were there still sailors, thieves and madonnas?

The Count has shared his memories, aroused by fish bones, fennel, tomatoes, shellfish and saffron. But your memories are your own. Also, the scene is powerful not just because it is closely observed, but also because it reminds the reader forcefully that at this point the Count has only his memories–he can’t leave the Moscow hotel, much less travel to Marseille.

I’m puzzled not to find food more “closely observed” in novels. A favorite moment: Virginia Woolf famously describes the boeuf en daube at the dinner party which is a central feature of the first half of To the Lighthouse. Mrs. Ramsay is thinking the cook “had spent three days over that dish,” as she prepares to serve it to her guests:

“…An exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice rose from the great brown dish as Marthe, with a little flourish, took the cover off. …[Mrs. Ramsay] peered into the dish, with its shiny walls and the confusion of savoury brown and yellow meats, and its bay leaves and wine, and thought, This will celebrate the occasion…”

Cookbooks, of course, intend to awaken our senses as we peruse the recipes. But the description of boeuf en daube in To the Lighthouse, with the mouthwatering anticipation it creates, has a different impact. It places us in the scene. It almost makes us, as readers, feel like guests sitting at Mrs. Ramsay’s table, alongside the odd characters Woolf has already introduced. Or possibly we also feel a bit like Mrs. Ramsay, the hostess, hoping to delight and reassure her houseguests, who are a difficult lot.

I’d love to hear other examples from readers. A “closely observed” passage can make us do just what the author wants: turn the page and keep reading! Right now I’m engrossed in Someone Always Nearby, Susan Wittig Albert’s fascinating novel about two real people, Georgia O’Keefe and Maria Chabot. I’m finding this a daring literary adventure about two daring and adventurous women, the artist you know and the woman who wanted to be indispensable to her.

It’s May–bluebonnets are gone, summer approaches. What tastes and smells bring back your summer memories? Grape popsicles, melting on the tongue? The clean bluegreen smell of Austin’s Barton Springs, mixing creek water and artesian spring water? The faint smell of chlorine from a pool crowded with splashing children? A mountain trail in the Rockies, with the cool green odor of aspen groves rising up from a creek? Dust blowing at the ball park, freshly mowed lawns, the faint rubbery smell of a sprinkler on a hot day? The smell of a roasting marshmallow just before it bursts into flame?

Good news from where I write: Ghost Bones, Book 9 in my Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series set in the small town of Coffee Creek, Texas, will soon be out! With mystery, legal drama, and matters of the heart.

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 prehistory, and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. Ghost Daughter, Book 7 in The Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series, was named Finalist in the 2022 Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize Short List. Follow her:

https://www.helencurriefoster.com

and

https://facebook.com/helencurriefoster/

I’ve Been Waterin’ the Yahd

April 22, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / Leave a comment

By M. K. Waller

The following post appeared on my personal blog, Telling the Truth, Mainly, in April 2022. But the story of my writing process is always worth a retelling. Please read on.
*************

Sometime back in the 1930s, my grandmother picked up the telephone receiver just in time to hear the Methodist minister’s wife, on the party line, drawl, “I am just wo-ahn out. I’ve been waterin’ the yahd.”

To those not in the know, the statement might not seem funny, but my family has its own criteria for funny. And so those two sentences entered our vernacular.

They were used under a variety of circumstances: after stretching barbed wire, frying chicken, mowing the lawn, doing nothing in particular.

My father would fold the newspaper, set it on the table, and announce, “I am just wo-ahn out. I’ve been waterin’ the yahd.”

I am wo-ahn out now but not from waterin’ the yahd.

Putative novel 2022

Last night David, the family’s official printer, printed the manuscript of what I’ve been calling my putative novel. It runs to over two hundred pages, 51,000 words. It isn’t finished—far from it. There’s more to write, scenes to put in order, clues and red herrings to insert, darlings to kill. All that stuff. And more.

However, for the first time it feels like I can stop calling it putative. No longer supposed, alleged, or hypothetical. It’s looking more like a potential novel. Possible, Even probable.

Now, about being wo-ahn out.

Last night I started putting the manuscript, scene by scene, into a three-ring binder. That required using a three-hole punch.

I hate using three-hole punches. I hate fitting the holes in the paper onto the binder rings. They never fit properly. Getting them on the rings requires effort. It’s tiring.

When I went to bed, I was all the way up to page 37.

Then I woke at 5:30 this morning. Instead of turning over and going back to sleep, I got up. I just couldn’t wait to get back to organizing my manuscript.

But I didn’t organize. I managed to drop the whole thing onto the floor and then couldn’t pick it up. (I’d had knee surgery and wasn’t quite up to bending over that far.) I had to wait for David.

Putative novel 2022-2024

By the time the notebook and manuscript were back in my possession, I was sick and tired of the whole thing. I played Candy Crush.

If I’d had any sense at all, I’d have gone back to bed. I was sleepy. I felt awful. I needed to sleep.

But did I go back to bed? Noooooooooooooooooooooo. That would have been the act of a rational person.

I stayed up added to my sleep deprivation.

I could go to bed right now. I could conk out and tomorrow feel ever so much better.

But will I? No. Because I’m too tired to stand up, too tired to put on my pajamas, too tired to pull down the sheets.

I am just wo-ahn out. I’ve been waterin’ the yahd.

***

Things have changed since 2022. Some days, the novel has reverted to putative, but on most days, it’s still possible. Thanks to extensive revision, the current draft bears little resemblance to the one in the notebook. I have given up three-ring binders and three-hold punches.

***

M. K. Waller’s latest story, “Mine Eyes Dazzle,” appears in the eclipse-themed anthology Dark of the Day, edited by Kaye George (Down and Out Books, 2024). Other stories appear in Day of the Dark (Wildside, 2017), Lone Star Lawless (Wildside, 2017), Murder on Wheels (Wildside, 2015), and online on Mysterical-E. She is co-author of the novella Stabbed (Starpath, 2019), written with Manning Wolfe. She also writes as Kathy Waller. She lives in Austin and blogs at Telling the Truth, Mainly.

THE NAME OF THE ROSE IS—wait, how do you pronounce that?

April 1, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / Leave a comment

BY HELEN CURRIE FOSTER

April 1! It’s spring, with a riot of bluebonnets this year.

Plus paintbrush! Winecup! Verbena! Prairie celestials (so lovely)!

And within the fence, safe from our marauding burros, the roses are opening their petals and sharing their beauty. Humans have been growing and hybridizing roses for millenia. I favor those with deep rose fragrance. This year the sniff prize goes to Madame Isaac Pereire,

but Zephirine Drouhine is a strong contender as well—sweet perfume, but no thorns!

Blooming with pride are Cramoisi Superieur, fun to pronounce, and dainty little Perle d’or, below.

Yes, the French have been busy. But I’m waiting on the spectacular Star of the Republic, which is covered with buds that will become exquisite cream and pink roses, and is almost as tall as Texas.

Thanks for human ingenuity and the deep love of beauty and fragrance that resulted in these roses. We humans are so able to produce beauty—and yet we mystery readers and writers know how gripped we are by the companion question: why do humans commit the primal sin of murder?

I’ve been reading a riveting book called How the Mind Changed, A Human History of Our Evolving Brain (2022), by neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli, who studies the genetic history of the human brain. I’ve had to put stickers and checks on so many pages!

Jebelli says that, starting about 7 million years (or 230,000 generations) ago, when humans split from chimps, our brains were only 350 cm3 big. Then 3.5 million years ago, when our ancestor Lucy came along, we got a new uniquely human gene that gave us a folding neocortex and nearly doubled our brain size to 650 cm3.

Later, he says, our brains bloomed to 900 cm3, when we began cooking (maybe 2.7 million years ago), then to 1000 cm3, about 2.5 million years ago, then to 1500 cm3 500,000 years ago, and then grew another 25% by the time, 300,000-400,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens appeared.

Later research shows—the bigger the brain, the bigger the social group. Id., 69.

And lucky Homo sapiens came along when our planet was in extreme ecological instability: “African megadroughts depleted the land’s fresh water; vanishing grasslands diminished the number of animals available…” Homo sapiens spread across the planet, interbreeding along the way with the Neanderthals (who went extinct around 40,000 years ago), and the Denisovans, Neanderthal cousins from Asia. Most humans outside Africa carry around 2 percent Neanderthal-derived DNA while today humans in Papua New Guinea and Australia possess up to 6% Denisovan DNA.

Now we have tools of advanced microscopy and molecular genetics to use “the mosaic of neurons, the constellation of synapses and the tributaries of molecules to learn the age of the brain and the transformations it has seen.” Îd., 21.

But it’s Jebelli’s discussion of brain research on “fair play” that I find most fascinating – whether the experiment uses rats, vampire bats, or humans. “Our minds intuitively draw a distinction between unfair equality (all students receiving the same…grades regardless of merit) and fair inequality (the doctor earning more than the cleaner). When push comes to shove, humans nearly always prefer fair inequality to unfair equality.” Jebelli goes on to explain that when we humans engage in fair play, we experience a surge of neural activity in our brain’s reward centers, releasing dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. Id., 68.

Watch out: scientists are identifying gene mutations that explain amazing things. “Non-monogamous brains tend to have a special kind of dopamine receptor gene called DRD4, which is linked to promiscuity and infidelity.” Id., 78. Use that in a plot, mystery-writers!

But I was thrilled by the focus on the link between strong imagination and intelligence in our “default network, a brain system that participates in daydreaming, mind wandering, reflective thinking and imagining the future….People who engage in these cognitive practices…have greater access to the states of mind necessary to solve complex problems.” Id., 115. Jebelli says our default networks are only active when we’re not focused on a task, “when the brain is cycling through thoughts not associated with the immediate environment.” In other words, the default network contrasts with our executive control network. Jebelli makes another leap: compassion also stimulates the default network. “Compassion requires imagination. ‘Climb into his skin and walk around in it,’ Atticus tells Scout.” But imagination also requires compassion. Id., 119.

Why has this book grabbed me? As a mystery writer I wrestle with why some humans will run into the street to save a child from a bus, and some will just watch; and why and how some humans invent gripping new imaginative worlds (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Slough House, Yoknapatawpha County, the Forest of Arden, Hat Creek and the saga of Lonesome Dove) that tell of human struggles and victories, tragedies and comedies. Yes, writers who stimulate our “default networks”!

So you might like to take a peek at How the Mind Changed—check out the chapter on that age-old conundrum––what is consciousness? And the chapter on different minds, or neurodiversity, including genetic components. And the chapter on the new field of neurocriminology: what makes humans commit crimes? Which brain regions are responsible for violence? One possibility—it’s an area of the hypothalamus called the ventromedial hypothalamus, “an ancient brain region that has been conserved throughout mammalian evolution.” Yikes!

As Jebelli notes, plots will abound from this inquiry, this research. As always, inquiring minds want to know.

Meanwhile, it’s April! So let us now praise Geoffrey Chaucer – whose compassion and imagination gave us “Whan that April with his showres soote The droughte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veine in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flowr…”

And further to celebrate—Book 9 of my Alice MacDonald Greer legal thriller series has gone off for copy-edit. Yes, again the primal crime has been committed…!

True Crime: Update on the Poff Case

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / 2 Comments

by Kathy Waller

In November 2019, a Texas woman was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for mailing explosive devices to President Barak Obama and Governor Greg Abbot. The crime had occurred in October 2016. The break: Investigators found a cat hair under the address label on one of the packages and matched it to one of the suspect’s cats. The following post, reprinted from the blog Telling the Truth, Mainly, includes facts not released to the news media at the time–the rest of the story.

*

AUSTIN — Three cats suspected of helping owner Julia Poff mail explosive devices to former President Barak Obama and Texas Governor Greg Abbott were released from custody late Thursday following questioning by federal law enforcement officers.

FBI crime lab investigators had found a cat hair under the address label on the package containing the explosives and traced it to the Poff cats. It is alleged that Ms. Poff sent the potentially deadly devices to former President Obama and Governor Greg Abbott because she was mad at them.

Muffy, Puffy, and Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud” Poff were taken from the Poff home in Brookshire, Texas, 34 miles west of Houston, Thursday around 9:00 a.m.

Muffy

FBI Agent Arnold Specie, chief of the Houston Bureau, announced in a press conference late Thursday that after intense grilling, officials were satisfied the cats had no connection to any nefarious activities.

“The only thing they’re guilty of is shedding on paper their owner later used to wrap the explosive devices. You can’t fault cats for shedding.”

He said there’s no doubt these are the right cats. “The fur of all three exhibits white hair. That’s true even of Puffy Poff, who is mostly orange but has a couple of white spots on her underside.” He assured the press that DNA testing will confirm the hair belongs to one of the Poff cats.

A reliable source, speaking on condition of anonymity, however, said he’s not so sure. “They know more than they’re telling,” he said. “It’s impossible to get anything out of suspects that keep falling asleep in the middle of questioning. And every time Muffy rolled over, Specie gave her a belly rub. Specie’s always been soft on cats.”

The early morning raid, which involved a number of federal agents as well as a Houston PD Swat team on stand-by, rocked this usually quiet community to its very core.

“I could tell something was going down,” said neighbor Esther Bolliver. “I was outside watering my rose bushes when I saw these men wearing dark suits and ties crouching behind Julia’s privet hedge. One of them was holding out what looked to be a can of sardines, and saying, ‘Kitty kitty kitty,’ in a high-pitched voice, you know, like you use whenever you call cats. I thought it was Animal Control.”

Mrs. Bolliver ran inside and told her husband. “I said, ‘Bert, come outside and look,’” she said.

“I knew they was G-Men first thing,” said Bert Bolliver. “It was the fedoras give ’em away. Animal Control don’t wear fedoras.”

Puffy

Ten-year-old Jason Bolliver, who had been kept home from school with a sore throat, added that the raid was exciting. “It’s the best thing that’s happened here since my teacher had her appendix out.”

Agent Garrison Fowle (pronounced Fole), who led the raid, said capturing the cats proved remarkably easy. “The sardines did the trick. Those cats ran right over and we grabbed them and wrapped them in big terry cloth bath sheets and stuffed them into carriers. It was a snap.”

Neighbors, however, contradict Agent Fowle’s account, pointing out that the Brookshire Fire Department had to be summoned to get Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud” out of a live oak near the corner of the Poff property. It is believed she bolted because she realized the sardines were bait instead of snacks.

Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud”

While at the Poff residence, BFD EMTs bandaged second-degree scratches on Agent Fowle’s face. They also administered Benadryl to Agent Morley Banks, who had broken out in hives.

Agent Delbert Smits was airlifted to Ben Taub Hospital in Houston. Information about his condition has not been released, but Mrs. Bolliver observed Ben Taub has a first-class psychiatric emergency room, and she thinks that’s why Smits was taken all the way into Houston.

“By the time they got Pud-Pud down from that tree, the poor man was staggering around like he had a serious case of the fantods.”

After their release, Muffy, Puffy, and Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud” were relocated to an unspecified location.

Special Agent Fowle said the initial plan was to fly them to Washington, D. C., in the care of Agent Banks, for further debriefing, but Agent Banks put the kibosh on that, saying there was no way in hell he was going to spend one more minute in the company of “those [expletive deleted] cats.” Fowle said Agent Banks has been granted sick leave until he stops scratching.

When the commotion has died down a bit, Muffy, Puffy, and Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud” will be honored for their part in the capture of their owner at a joint session of the Texas Legislature at the State Capitol in Austin and a reception hosted by Governor Greg Abbott at the Governor’s Mansion.

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron play with a cat named “Larry” at 10 Downing Street in London, England, May 25, 2011. Larry was adopted by 10 Downing to handle rodents. Liz Suggs holds the cat. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Pete Souza, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Former President Barak Obama announced that on their next swing through Texas, he and Michelle want to take the cats out for a catfish dinner.

“Let me be clear,” President Obama said. “Although totally and completely innocent of any crime, these cats surely had a positive influence on the perp. The criminal activity Muffy, Puffy, and Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud” witnessed was fair and balanced, targeting both a Democrat and a Republican, and as such is the first bipartisan effort I’ve come across since my first inauguration.”

After law enforcement officers left, neighbors expressed concern about the cats’ future welfare. The Bolliver family, noting the three felines spend most of the day sleeping on the hood of their Buick anyway, wanted to take them, but their offer was rejected.

Instead, Muffy, Puffy, and Sybil-Margaret “Pud-Pud” will make their home in Houston with Special Agent Specie.

*

For readers who don’t remember the Poff incident, I include a link to this press release from the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas, “Brookshire woman imprisoned for sending homemade bombs to state and federal officials,” dated November 18, 2019.

If anything in the U.S. Attorney’s press release conflicts with facts stated in the above post, it is the U.S. Attorney’s press release that is wrong.

*

Kathy Waller has been a teacher, a librarian, and a paralegal. Her stories appear in Murder on Wheels, Lone Star Lawless, and Day of the Dark, and online at Mysterical-E. She co-authored the novella Stabbed with Manning Wolfe.

Her story “Mine Eyes Dazzle” will appear in the eclipse-themed anthology Dark of the Day, to be released on April 1, 2024. She lives in Austin.

A Little Burro Therapy

February 27, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / 2 Comments

By Helen Currie Foster

The three burros who live with Alice MacDonald Greer, lawyer/amateur sleuth protagonist of my Texas Hill Country legal thrillers, bear a strong resemblance to the three burros who rule our patch of the Hill Country.

We manage our small piece of the planet for native grasses and birds under the county Wildlife Management Program. Today I received our spring box of blue grama and buffalo grass seed, for re-seeding bare patches with native grass. (More below on bare patches.)

The burro idea sprang full-blown into life at a wedding on the banks of the Blanco River years ago, when we were enchanted to see docile and well-behaved burros with panniers on their backs full of cold bottles of water and beer, being led to the guests by docile and well-behaved teenagers. Immediately I envisioned myself trekking up and down our fields leading a burro bearing panniers of grass seed which can be (believe it or not) heavy. As a bonus we knew the burros could help keep down tall dry grass–a concern during fire season.

**The Platonic Ideal? Belle, a lovely donkey painted by Helene Feint.**

So just before Christmas we bought two smallish burros from the wedding venue, with certificates attesting to their conformation, heritage, and names (Amanda and Caroline, mother and daughter). Both were elegant, with classically lovely faces, straight legs, and dainty hooves.

Per Random House Unabridged, “burro” is “a small donkey, especially one used as a pack animal in the Southwestern U.S.” (We use donkey interchangeably.) Let me say for the record that the “pack animal” concept went nowhere with Amanda and Caroline–they were deeply insulted at the idea of any burden on their backs. They made it crystal clear that they had not signed on to work. Still–they were decorative, and they ate down the grass.

But on Christmas morning when we looked across the pasture, my spouse asked, his voice disturbed: “How many donkeys do you see?” …Three.

The newcomer was shorter, pudgier, and male–well, an “altered” boy. Knock-kneed, chipmunk-cheeked, he seemed to keep a chewable cud in each cheek. He’d climbed through a fence to visit. We found his owner and bought him. Given his appearance (and the snootiness of Amanda and Caroline) we gave him a new and more dignified name: Sebastian.

While Amanda and Caroline are ladies of leisure, Sebastian has taken on two jobs. First, he’s our designated greeter. He brays a loud greeting as you drive through the gate. He brays again to salute the dawn (or pre-dawn).

Second, Sebastian has declared himself the official guard-donkey. In particular, he’s hell on canines. Pre-donkeys there were cows on the property–and coyotes. But no coyote dares invade Sebastian’s turf. He’d be happy to kick a coyote into the next county. Donkeys are shockingly fast on their feet and could easily catch a coyote. Earlier this year I found Sebastian standing triumphant and motionless in the middle of the dirt road, ears back, head up, posture stubborn, hooves planted–a picture of victory. Visible in the dirt? Tracks of a mama coyote with one pup, who’d erroneously strayed into forbidden territory. The tracks indicated a frantic exit. As he stood in the road, surveying his domaine, Sebastian was announcing, “I’m walkin’ here.”

Random House Unabridged includes a definition of “donkey” as “a stupid, silly or obstinate person.” Donkeys are not stupid. They are curious, persistent, intelligent, and acute of hearing. Are they silly? Well…Amanda and Caroline are aloof and standoffish, but Sebastian wants to play. With a bucket between his teeth, he’ll run over and whop Amanda on the hindquarters with it, then stand there. He so wants her to join in his favorite game, which is apparently called “I’ve got the bucket, now you come bite the bucket and yank it away, then you can hit me with it, then I will chase you, and then…?!?!?” So far, the girls steadfastly refuse to cooperate. When whopped with the bucket, Amanda chooses to bite Sebastian instead of biting the bucket. Maybe that’s a different game?

Obstinate? Oh, yes. They are persistent in searching for ways to get past the gate into the yard and eat the roses. They’re also very hard to stop when they want to go somewhere, and very hard to move when they intend to stay put.

Re-seeding bare patches? These three donkeys pick a spot, then take turns rolling on their backs until the grass gives up and a circular bare spot remains. Then, after rain, they race to the soggy bare spot and roll on their backs until they’re thoroughly muddy. Hence my constant race to re-seed bare patches.

Donkeys model companionship. Indeed, they need it. Despite their occasional spats, Sebastian, Amanda and Caroline spend their days and nights together, never more than about 100 feet apart.

Writers have to take breaks, or go nuts. I’m in that boat right now, because I’m almost but not quite finished with Book 9 in the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series. As is well known, writers in such circumstances can be subject to breakdowns–small rages, or tears, or snappishness, or overdosing on Cheezits.

I can recommend burro therapy. As I stand next to Sebastian, stroking his neck, and he leans back against me, I feel my heartrate slow and my breathing relax. Maybe that’s how burros feel too? Maybe this is their secret advantage, a resource that helps explain their long presence on the planet? Here’s how Alice puts it in Ghost Cat:

“Donkey hugs meant leaning into their sides, stroking their necks. The donkeys instantly settled, leaning back against her. The weird thing, Alice thought, was how the donkeys settled her. They weren’t dogs, loyal and needy, or cats, neutral and non-needy. Donkeys were ancient residents of the planet, tough, independent, curious herd animals with their own inner life.”

And in Ghosted: “Finding herself needing a little burro therapy, …Alice stood in her driveway surrounded by the three. At the moment she was brushing Big Boy. He leaned against her; the warmth felt good in the late morning chill. Those eyelashes, those soft ears, Alice thought. No wonder Titania fell in love with Bottom.”

Indeed, Queen Titania, seeing Bottom with his head magically changed to an ass’s head, says,

“I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.

Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note;

So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;

And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me

On the first view to say, to sweat, I love thee.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene II.

So if you’re in need of burro therapy, fellow writers, come on out. Bring some carrots!

***

Author: Helen Currie Foster

I live north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. I’m deeply curious, more every day, about human history and prehistory and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. I’ve loved the Texas Hill Country since my first sight of it as a teenager. Artesian springs, Cretaceous fossils, rocky landscapes hiding bluegreen water in the valleys. After law school (where I grew fascinated with water and dirt) I practiced environmental law and regulatory litigation for thirty years––then the character Alice suddenly appeared in my life. I’m active with Austin Shakespeare and Heart of Texas Sisters in Crime. And I’m grateful to the readers who enjoy the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series!

“I Should Write That Down…Now Where Did I Put It?”

January 26, 2024 / Austin Mystery Writers / 1 Comment

The Joy of a Commonplace Book

By Laura Oles

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a quote, an idea or something else I wanted to remember and thought, “I need to write that down.”

So I did.

Over and over and over.

In countless notebooks and journals and on post it notes.

The problem I found is that, while committing something to paper is an important first step, it is only a first step. There are many moments where I’ve written something down only to lose it amongst some ephemera, discovered only again when I’m looking for something else.

It’s like finding twenty bucks in those shorts from last summer. It’s a nice surprise, but maybe I should try tracking this information (and my dollars) a bit better.

First, I tried using a Bullet Journal…

The Bullet Journal was created by Ryder Carroll as a way to organize schedules, to-do lists and other details for work and personal life. It started as his own method of corralling his many thoughts and commitments into a central place. It’s a fantastic method for many dedicated BuJo lovers, and the premise is simple. All you need is an empty notebook and a pen.

Turns out, you also need a certain mindset. It’s a commitment.

I have so much admiration for dedicated Bujo people. And I love seeing their gorgeous daily/weekly/monthly spreads, but I could never stick with it. I do have one completed book—used over a two-year period—that I enjoy leafing through now and then. Scattered amongst those pages are several quotes, concepts and ideas that I wanted to gather in a more central location, to rescue from my failed experiment.

I still love the idea. I just stink at the execution.

This is when I discovered the Commonplace Book.

A commonplace book is simply a notebook where you record learning and information from other sources for the purpose of collecting and reflecting upon for some future time. Many notable people in history have kept commonplace books, including Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, Marcus Aurelius, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. (Image Credit: UT Austin, Harry Ransom Center, Lewis Carroll’s CPB)

Unlike a Bullet Journal, which has its own system, a commonplace book only requires that you collect your ideas, quotes and more in one location. What you choose to include is completely up to you. The most common use is for recording secondary sources, but that can take all forms. Music lyrics? Key dialogue from a movie you love? Put them all in one place. I keep my commonplace book on my desk so I can access it when I’m reading or working on a project. Others prefer to always carry one, ever prepared to catch that next inspirational idea while out for a daily walk or in a coffee shop.

Unlike a journal, with content focused heavily on personal thoughts, musings and experiences, a commonplace book is something designed to help you learn from others. These ideas may spur some new thoughts or considerations, and this is a perfect place to record those as well. It can be anything you like, of course, but it’s not the best place to record daily tasks or reminders. Keep your digital or paper planner for those purposes (and feel free to ask me about planners because I will happily engage in that topic, too).

There is scientific evidence that supports the theory of choosing to write by hand rather than typing into a digital document. A recent study from the University of Tokyo showed that graduates revealed that “writing on physical paper can lead to more brain activity when remembering the information an hour later. Researchers say that the unique, complex, spatial and tactile information associated with writing by hand on physical paper is likely what leads to improved memory.” (Science Daily).

My commonplace book has a wide variety of quotes and concepts tucked inside. Adam Grant, Anne Lamott and James Clear make regular appearances on my pages. I can tell by my handwriting how I’m feeling because my messier cursive signals I’m in a rush while my neater entries show that I’m taking time to really consider what I’m transcribing. The important part is the practice. Keeping a commonplace book encourages my love of learning, of reading and of writing. There is a quiet joy in taking time to learn something new, to consider it and then commit it to paper.

Maybe you’re already doing some form of this practice. I was, and it was only when I sought to improve my process that I learned about the commonplace book and how to better use it in my daily life. Having one location helps me gather this knowledge and, more important, keep it somewhere that allows me to reflect and learn. If you haven’t tried keeping a CPB, I hope you’ll consider it, and I would love to hear how it works for you.

Laura Oles is the Agatha-nominated and award-winning author of the Jamie Rush mystery series. Her work has appeared in crime fiction anthologies, consumer magazines and business publications.

Helen Currie Foster, January 15, 2024

January 16, 2024 / vpchandler / 1 Comment

“But at my back I always hear time’s wingèd chariot drawing near…” (Andrew Marvell, 1621-1678)

Today in pre-dawn darkness, the house quiet except for the murmuring furnace, my characters were already at me, barking orders: “More! More smells, tastes, experiences! More about me! Tell people what I’m thinking, what I’m experiencing, what I’m worrying about!”

They’re right. Readers want to know their favorite mystery protagonists. Why? Because readers are in league with them, walking in their shoes. Readers know that stepping into a protagonist’s sensory experience—smells, food, experiences, relationships—will springboard them into the setting, help them to be in the picture, ready to seize on every clue.

Resolution 1. Tastes! Flavors! Food! As Rounding the Mark, Book 7 of Andrea Camilleri’s long-running series, begins, Inspector Montalbano of little Vigáta, Sicily, can’t sleep:

“Stinking, treacherous night. Thrashing and turning, twisting and drifting off one minute, jolting awake and then lying back down—and it wasn’t from having scarfed down too much octopus a strascinasali or sardines a beccafino the evening before. No, he didn’t even have that satisfaction.”

Fortunately the recipes are described in the Notes at the book’s end. In Sicily, where seafood reigns supreme, Montalbano refers to small octopi, boiled and dressed in olive oil and lemon juice, and then sardines, stuffed and rolled up with sauteed breadcrumbs, pine nuts, sultana raisins, and anchovies. When Montalbano returns home from the police station he always races to his refrigerator to see what his housekeeper, Adelina, has left for him. In Book 16, Treasure Hunt, Montalbano “howled like a wolf with joy” when he finds “eggplant parmesan, done up just right, enough for four.”

Can’t you just smell this dish? Montalbano consumes the entire panful: “the sauce was a wonder to taste.” (50). We see how he delights in his food, how very particular he is. (And throughout the series Adelina keeps cooking – pasta in squid ink, involtini of small fish, pasta ‘Ncasciata…) https://www.foodandwine.com/pasta-ncasciata-sicilian-baked-pasta-7093847

Here’s Montalbano in Rounding the Mark after discovering a new restaurant:

“The antipasto of salted octopus tasted as though it were made of condensed sea and melted the moment it entered his mouth…And the mixed grill of mullet, sea bass and gilthead had that heavenly taste the inspector feared he had lost forever….After a long and perilous journey of the sea, Odysseus had finally found his long lost Ithaca. “(73)

Camilleri (died 2019) was writing mystery, murder, crime—but he included as major players in the setting Sicilian food, awareness of this ancient Mediterranean island culture, and echoes of classic myth.

We can only imagine Montalbano shaking his head at the food situation of private detective Cormoran Strike, protagonist of The Running Grave, seventh in the series by “Robert Galbraith” (aka J.K. Rowling). To protect his knee, Strike, a military police veteran who lost his lower leg in Afghanistan, must lose weight; he’s now lost “three stone” or about 42 pounds. “Usually he’d have grabbed a takeaway on the way home” but now, “without much enthusiasm,” he’s fixing broccoli and salmon in the tiny flat above his seedy London office.

Does the author need to describe these flavors? Aren’t “broccoli” and “salmon” redolent enough by themselves, especially broccoli? Later, as the plot roars into action, Strike’s off his diet, overcome by “the lure of sweet and sour chicken and fried rice” (767) and demanding that his partner Robin Ellacott stop at a 24-hour McDonald’s on London’s Strand (848) where, as they walk to the office, he’s eating “large mouthfuls of burger” and starting on two bags of fries. He’s back to his usual food habits––pub food, fast food––yet his mind’s on the recent attack, “as though he’d only just felt the heat of the bullet searing his cheek.” At chapter’s end, as they discuss the case, “Strike ate a solitary cold chip lingering at the bottom of a greasy bag.” There’s an urgency to his desperate hunger, to the need for enough energy to stick with an exhausting case—and don’t we all know about that solitary cold french fry in the bottom of the bag? Can’t you see him fishing it out? For Strike, food fills a need, but he’s not immersed in the culinary experience. He’s focused on his case.

What keeps Strike working as a private investigator? Challenge, curiosity, tenacity, terror—but not great cuisine. Food-wise, Montalbano’s habits differ sharply from Strike’s. But for each man, eating habits vividly highlight both personal life and setting.

Resolution 2: Human Scent! Other scents matter to both Strike and Montalbano. In the first chapter of The Ink Black Heart, Cormoran Strike has tried to find a perfect perfume for Robin’s 30^th birthday. When she sprays on the new perfume, “he…detected roses and an undertone of musk, which made him think of sun-warmed skin.”

Similarly, in Treasure Hunt, when Montalbano and his compadre, the daring Ingrid, are outside on his veranda, “The night now smelled of brine, mint, whisky, and apricot, which was exactly what Ingrid’s skin smelled like. It was a blend not even a prize parfumeur could have invented.” (175)

Reportedly one writing instructor has suggested that authors “include smell on every page.” These two mystery writers don’t obey that injunction (do you know any who do?). But why is scent so critical for us? Apparently the amygdala (a paired structure, with one in each temporal lobe) “developed from our most primitive sense—the sense of smell.” Joseph Jebelli, How the Mind Changed (Little, Brown, Spark, 2022, at 30). It’s near the olfactory nerve which is why scents connect strongly to emotions and memories. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24894-amygdala

What scents spark your own memories? If a book mentions honeysuckle on a summer day, I might remember my grandparents’ front porch in Itasca, Texas, and how we learned as kids to suck nectar from a honeysuckle blossom. What pops up for you when a book mentions lavender? Or clean sheets? Baby powder? Or iodine, rubbing alcohol, band-aids? Marshmallows toasting on a stick? Pine straw underfoot? The first ocean breeze when you hit the beach? Does a book feel richer to you when your own memories are awakened?

What about the scent of January? Today’s the coldest day of 2024 so far, here in the Hill Country. Inside – hot tea: mint, chamomile, green, or maybe ginger slices, with honey and lemon. Outside, cedar burning in a neighbor’s brush pile.

Resolution 3: Character’s thoughts (and feelings)! In Treasure Hunt Camilleri includes a hilarious italicized interchange between Montalbano (called “Montalbano One”) and “Montalbano Two” where Montalbano Two criticizes Montalbano One’s case-handling as showing signs of deterioration, of “losing his cool,” highlighting Montalbano’s own concerns about aging. (18-19)

Camilleri also uses other techniques to put us in Montalbano’s head. Here’s one from Rounding the Mark, where, again, Montalbano’s worrying about getting older:

“As he was shaving, the scenes of the previous evening on the wharf ran through his head again. Little by little, as he reviewed them with a cold eye, he began to feel uneasy…. There was something that didn’t jibe….He stubbornly played the scenes over in his head, trying to bring them more into focus. No dice. He lost heart. This was surely a sign of aging. He used to be able to find the flaw, the jarring note…without fail.” (61)

Camilleri lets his character feel. When a small boy is kidnapped from north Africa by sex traffickers and escapes on the pier in Sicily, Montalbano returns him to his “mother,” not understanding she isn’t his “mother” at all. When the little boy is killed Montalbano visits the morgue:

“He lifted the sheet with one hand…and froze. A chill ran down his spine. It all came back to him at once: the look the little boy had given him as his mother ran up to take him back….he hadn’t understood that look. Now…he did. The little eyes were imploring him. They were telling him for pity’s sake, let me go, let me escape. And now…he felt bitterly guilty…He was slipping. It was hard to admit, but true… “(84)

In contrast, Cormoran Strike is more inscrutable, more unwilling to reveal his emotions, perhaps even to himself. Galbraith describes Strike as a “mentally resilient man” who tries but sometimes fails to control emotion. One of his tools “was a habit of compartmentalization that rarely failed him, but right now, it wasn’t working. Emotions he didn’t want…and memories he generally suppressed were closing in on him…” As a consequence he was “brooding so deeply that he barely registered the passing Tube stations and realized, almost too late, that he was already” at his stop. (105) In one scene after visiting his sister Strike starts home feeling very angry at his dead mother, who died of an overdose when he was nineteen. Galbraith then uses italics for Strike’s mental attack on her: “If you hadn’t been what you were, maybe I wouldn’t be what I am. Maybe I’m reaping what you sowed, so don’t you f*king laugh at the army, or me, you with your paedophile mates and the squatters and the junkies…” (106) These passages show the reader Strike’s painful upbringing and may partially explain his need (and ability) to compartmentalize—both, ironically, key to his later success.

Strike drinks, smokes, has sex, but almost in the same way as he gulps down fast food. Food seems temporarily satisfying, but not a life pleasure. Early on we become aware that the strongest sensation Strike is described as experiencing is the pain of his stump, and the relief he experiences when he removes his prosthetic. In his compartmentalization of his emotions, has he replicated this binary condition? (No spoilers here!)

Resolution Four: The Weather! Camilleri and Galbraith’s characters don’t always focus on weather, but here in the Texas Hill Country we must take notice. It’s too cold (like today), too hot (pretty soon), too wet (spring rain bombs and dangerous low-water crossings), or too dry (like last summer’s dreadful drought). Blessings on March, which will bring bluebonnets and the ethereal prairie celestial, then wine cups, with the pink of redbud and Mexican buckeye to rejoice the eye. But weather’s definitely a factor in upcoming Book 9 of the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series. Watch for it—coming soon!

She Never Graduated

December 2, 2023December 2, 2023 / Austin Mystery Writers / Leave a comment

By Laura Oles

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

While there is some debate as to whether this quote belongs to William Butler Yeats, the sentiment is one that has stayed with me, particularly throughout my writing career. One of the best things about being a writer is that it requires ongoing education. I love that my job demands regular research. I’ve gone down more rabbit holes that I care to admit, but it’s this spark of learning something new that fuels my enthusiasm for my fiction.

I experienced a wonderful “lighting of a fire” during my week in Salem, Massachusetts at the Writer Unboxed Unconference. Unlike other writer conferences that I attend (and love), this one involved being solely a student for the entire week. The conference welcomes all genres, and spending time outside of crime fiction gave me some valuable insight into how others approach storytelling, structure and character development.

Therese Walsh opened with her session titled “Good Chaos: Provocation and Invitation,” and by the end, I knew this week would be one of time well invested. Susan DeFreitas is a gift to writers. Her session, “Emotional Alchemy,” was so thoughtful and packed with practical advice that I took ten pages of notes. I’ve re-read them twice since returning home. And as someone who gets excited about outlines, timelines and plotting considerations, her “Anatomy of a Novel: Create a Blueprint” session provided me with specific skills to apply to a current project.

Watching Tiffany Yates Martin stand in front of a room to discuss fiction is an experience I hope every writer gets at least once. Her passion, knowledge and enthusiasm for characters, craft, storytelling and readers rolled through the room. She’s also damn funny. I left with another ten pages of notes.

Because there were two session tracks, I was forced to make difficult choices regarding the schedule, and I know that I missed several other excellent sessions. Lunch breaks provided the opportunity to explore a bit of Salem, walking through downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. Evenings were spent sampling different restaurants, and I left with a favorite pub (O’Neill’s), sushi spot (Finz Seafood & Grill—the Lobster Maki Roll was fabulous), coffee shop (Lulu’s) and bookstore (Wicked Good Books). That I was able to experience this week with some of my favorite writer friends made it even more special.

Returning home with a novella sized document full of notes, I took my time reading through them, extracting additional gems, and analyzing how they might influence my own projects. I’m back at my desk, and the spark remains. The learning continues, and it seems I will never graduate.

If so, I would consider that success.

Laura Oles is the award-winning author of the Jamie Rush mystery series. Her debut mystery, Daughters of Bad Men, was an Agatha nominee, a Claymore Award finalist, and a Writers’ League of Texas Award finalist. 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. https://lauraoles.com

Thanksgiving–for Books Reread

November 23, 2023 / Austin Mystery Writers / Leave a comment

by Helen Currie Foster

Now and then, when I sneak a book off the shelf, glancing around to be sure no one notices it’s a children’s book…or pick up an old LeCarré…I’m grateful for the joy of rereading.

Rather like upcoming Thanksgiving dinners! Think of their literary content! Suspense, of course–is that turkey really done? Imminent peril–are the drippings sufficient for decent gravy? Strong characters–the usual suspects are arriving at the table! Ethical challenges–no comments on the burnt marshmallow topping on the yams. And, hopefully, enough whipped cream for a happy ending!

Of course an invitee may decide to bring Something New. (I refer to an aunt’s “Pumpkin Chiffon” creation, still infamous years later. I mean, it wasn’t pumpkin pie and never would be.) In the face of such unwonted (unwanted) novelty we draw back: we don’t want something new: we want…reassurance.

So many good books are out now, deserving our attention–Lawrence Wright’s Mr. Texas, Paulette Jiles’s Chenneville, Paul Woodruff’s Living Toward Virtue, and my dear friend Dr. Megan Biesele’s amazing memoir about her anthropological adventures in the Kalahari, Once Upon a Time Is Now. https://amzn.to/3MSVL7y

But sometimes I return to the old faves, craving (especially these days)…reassurance.

What sort of reassurance? How about vindication for a beloved character in trouble? See the end of William Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust (1948), a murder mystery where Lucas Beauchamp with his gold toothpick is saved from lynching with the help of two teens and an old lady. It’s a precursor to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (which has a sadder ending).

Children’s books require vindication of the hero. Lucy receives that in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when her older siblings finally follow her through the back of the wardrobe into Narnia and discover her amazing story is true.

As a Le Carré follower, I remain thrilled by A Legacy of Spies (2017). And yes, like many of his spy thrillers, it’s a murder mystery. Our first-person narrator is “young Peter Guillam” who won our hearts earlier as the man that master spy George Smiley could always count on. White-haired, a bit deaf, and back home on the Breton coast, he’s no longer protected by the now-retired Smiley, and Britain’s foreign service (the “Circus”) has hauled Guillam to England and arrested him. The Circus is plotting an unconscionable rewrite of agency history, with Guillam cast as the villain.

But this old dog still knows old tricks, and, yes, is vindicated! We rejoice, reassured, when Peter Guillam once again is strolling the Breton coast, with a furious Smiley about to descend with a vengeance on the Circus.

Other great rereads for reassurance: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin sea novels. The last pages of The Commodore (Book 17) provide classic vindication for our surgeon-spy, Stephen Maturin. After many perils, barely surviving yellow fever, and finally encountering his beloved potto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potto, Maturin learns of the death of a most vicious but hitherto unnamed enemy, who has plotted Maturin’s downfall, even his murder, for years (through many volumes). Just pages later Maturin experiences the wild joy of an unexpected reunion with his lost Diana. O’Brian’s unsurpassed powerful brevity can create the sudden turns and arouse the fierce emotions that satisfy a happy (re)reader.

My housemate reports that his rereads include The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monserrat, Cannery Row, Pride and Prejudice, certain sections of Moby Dick, and more.

This Thanksgiving I give thanks for books, new and old. Do you remember learning to read? I do. Early one morning, age five, I opened a new book titled Children’s Book of Knowledge. The long strings of separate curly letters abruptly morphed into words. Like a bolt of lightning! I could read! Words became magnetic: I couldn’t keep my eyes away. I read everything–stray magazines, newspapers, the Cheerios box. I was now independent. No waiting for grown-ups to dispense information: I could simply read for myself! (With a library book stashed inside my desk at East Elementary–unfortunately confiscated by the teacher.)

Reading sets us free, gives us resources, gives us respite, gives us independence..and reassurance. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m working on the ninth novel in the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series set in Coffee Creek, Texas, in the Hill Country. You can be sure the inhabitants insist on cornbread dressing and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. The burros will hope for leftovers.

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Author: Helen Currie Foster

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