CyberSpeak

I have been enjoying the Desert Sleuths Zoom meetings so much that I went ahead and officially joined, as well as joining Sisters in Crime, their parent organization. For those who don’t know, SinC is devoted to promoting women authors in the crime/mystery field. Membership is open to all, and you do not need to actually be an author to join — fans are welcome too. Since I am a published author, I was able to join as a Professional member. More on this below.

At last night’s meeting I asked if anyone else had written a story based on the RV park ideas from last month’s meeting, and only one had, and that was not a mystery. So it looks like editors will not be inundated with dozens of similar stories.

The speaker last night was author James L’Etoile, who used to be a corrections officer. He told us what it was really like inside a prison. And, as he pointed out, learning did not require a felony conviction.

Since I am trying to be more active in the writing community, I have also sent in a membership application to the Mystery Writers of America. I had to register as an Associate member — to be a full member you have to have earned above a certain amount. For short stories the threshold is fairly low ($200), but I have not reached that yet. But getting there; if I can win the Mysterious Photograph Contest five more times, that would do it. 😉

That’s all for now.

A few weeks ago, I attended by Zoom a meeting of the Desert Sleuths, which is the Arizona chapter of Sisters in Crime. The topic of the meeting was Make a Mystery. They had a panel of three authors who solicited ideas from the other attendees.

Over the next 90 minutes we came up with a setting (RV park in Arizona), heroine (Felicia, park manager), a villain (Pastor Bob), and a bunch of other characters. Plus a basic plot. When we were done I asked if it was OK for us to use all this in our own story, and they said that was fine. Even with the same basics, every author would produce a unique story.

So over the next few weeks I wrote a 7800-word story called “Angels Grove.” I changed the heroine’s name, but crammed almost everything else in. Personally, I think it came out great. Last week I sent it off to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. We’ll see if they take it. Oh, and next week is the next meeting, so we’ll see who else wrote something. Stay tuned.

Since I have not posted anything since I started this blog more than 10 years ago, I thought I should start now.

Coming up: On June 25, 2025, 6:00-8:00 pm, I will be participating in the Local Authors Showcase at the Shrewsbury (MA) Public Library. The authors can set up tables where they can show their work and even sell things. Since I haven’t published any books, I won’t have them there to sell, although I may bring some spare copies of Crimeucopia: Great Googly Moo! in case someone wants to buy one rather than just borrowing it from the library. 🙂

What I will have is samples of my short stories. I printed out a few dozen of them, with an introduction for each, and put them in sheet protectors. I hope that will prevent people from walking away with them.

I will also have a sign and business cards. I’ll let you know how it turns out.