What can you be besides a writer?

I dreamed of being an archeologist.
Daddy insisted on secretarial school.  (Yes, this was back in the dark ages when fathers did that.)  The dream died.

Fast forward thirty-five years.  My husband and I chucked city jobs in Tulsa, Oklahoma and moved to the hills of northern Arkansas.  I soon discovered I was meant to be an Ozarks-dweller.  I began writing about the area I loved, and before long was a regular contributor to regional, national, and international publications; as well as an Ozarks-based reporter for radio news.

Then I decided to try my hand at mystery writing.  The “Something to Die For” series was born.  Two books into the series I was doing research for a third novel set in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, when the park curator mentioned she’d been cataloging artifacts for Dr. Caven Clark, Staff Archeologist at Arkansas’ Buffalo National River.

Archeologist?  I knew the Buffalo area as a three-county-long landscape with a wild river known to offer canoeing, fishing, and hiking amid spectacular scenery.  I knew the river had cut deep canyons like a mini-Grand, but…archeology? Timidly I picked up the phone and called Dr. Clark.  Yes,
he was willing to help me.  I was IN.

After repeated discovery trips to the Buffalo, after exploring bluff shelters with Caven Clark, after many questions and interviews, I now know that the Buffalo National River area rivals the canyons of Arizona and New Mexico for archeological wealth.  Ten thousand or more years ago Paleo Indians hunted and camped along the river, leaving chipped points.  Centuries passed, and families began accompanying their hunters.  The family groups spent more and more of the year here, learning to scratch soil and scatter seed gathered from wild food plants.  They stayed during the winter, living in dry bluff shelters and caves along the Buffalo and elsewhere.

The word dry is important because, just as happened in the American Southwest, even fiber objects like woven garments, nets, sandals, and cradle boards survived inside the dry shelters.  More commonly preserved throughout were chipped stone hunting points and tools, as well as pottery. (Pottery making began about 500 BCE.)  A legacy of life, a cultural heritage, was collecting.

Then Europeans came.  Spaniards passed through the area during the 16th century, including a party led by Hernando de Soto.  By the early 1800s, white settlers were moving into valleys near the river.  Children and adults enjoyed exploring the world around them, often picking up curious-looking objects they found in caves and shelters or dug up in their fields.  This collecting by individuals continued, year after year.  A cultural legacy began vanishing.

Such “looting” was not yet a crime.  But, by the beginning of the last century, the cultural heritage found in Arkansas had been recognized, and archeologists came to collect artifacts for museums in the East.  The struggle to preserve what was left had begun.  As Dr. Clark now writes: “My job as an archeologist is no longer the digging of square holes for the extraction of scientific data, but the struggle to leave as much in the ground as is possible, to preserve what remains of the past for future generations…(and to) responsibly interpret these remains.”  (Epilogue, A RIVER TO DIE FOR.)
It’s not easy.  There isn’t enough staff to patrol the 36,000 acres of the Buffalo National River.  In recent years, due partly to the ease of advertising and selling objects on the Internet, as well as to the hunger of European clients for American Indian artifacts, looting at the Buffalo and elsewhere has become big business.  It’s often linked with the production and purchase of methamphetamines and other drugs.

Finally, after years of “slap on the wrist” law enforcement, some looting cases have been successfully prosecuted under the 1979 Archeological Resources Protection Act, which bans the removal and sale of artifacts from public land.

You can see where I am going with this.  Radine, now an archeologist by proxy, was on her way to creating a mystery novel about archeological looting.

Challenging?  Yes.  Fun?  You bet!  Caven Clark let me poke my fingers through the dusty floors of remote bluff shelters, identifying such things as the tiny shells of river creatures that long-ago people used for food.  After one hike I sat in a now well-known Buffalo destination, the Indian Rock House, imagining (as does Catherine King in my novel) what living there might have been like several thousand years ago. Then, stuffed with atmosphere and information, I returned to my office to dream like an archeologist, and to write.  A RIVER TO DIE FOR is the result.

I never worked as a secretary but, by golly, I have brushed the life of an archeologist.  And I was right.  It would have been a great career.

The danger of teaching “You can’t….”

We’ve just been discussing the dictum of a well-known and (previously?) respected author who stood before an auditorium full of budding and established writers a few weekends ago and laid down a number of her rules about point of view.  Most had to do with the idea that you can’t write from a POV that you haven’t experienced, as, for example, a man should never write from a female point of view.

I was excited and almost overwhelmed by your responses to that blog.  Comments agreed with my own thoughts.  Her rules were “horsefeathers.”   You can probably think of many, many exceptions to her POV  “rule” beginning with childrens’ stories written from the point of view of , say, a rabbit.

Now then, here’s another rule I heard an author with nearly a hundred published novels to his credit lay down during a talk to another group of wanna-be writers:

“Don’t write in dialect,” he said. ” Too hard to understand, and editors won’t touch it.”

(I might say up front that this author, who writes westerns, has broken the  rule in some of his own novels.)

And so have I.   I did it openly in one of my most popular novels, MUSIC TO DIE FOR, now out of print but soon to be brought back to life by Wolfmont Press.   The book is set deep in hillbilly country in and around Mountain View, Arkansas, and at Ozark Folk Center State Park.  Both are in remote Stone County,  AR, where the first paved road, county-wide,  appeared in the late 1950’s.

My favorite character in MUSIC TO DIE FOR (other than protagonists Carrie McCrite and Henry King) is a one hundred-year-old family matriarch called Mad Margaret Culpeper.  The Culpeper home is deep in the forest, and contact with outsiders is rare unless Margaret’s boys are out selling some of the family’s, uh, product.   (Her oldest boy is 80, I might say.)

Here’s Margaret, talking to Carrie and Henry, who, hoping to save a kidnapped child,  have dared a hike to her home in the middle of the Culpeper compound.

“Elizabeth weren’t ’special purty  ‘n’ niver had purties to fix up in, but she done good at school.  She were good at poetry ‘n’ thinkin’ up music. Oh, my, she loved music–she had the purty things in her head. She made music all the time.”

And, later….

“Elizabeth niver had friends. She daren’t to bring young-uns home, see, ‘n’ town folks didn’t want a Culpeper playin’ with thur chillern.  She weren’t asked to parties nur other affairs the young folks had….   So she got to spendin’ all her time in the woods….”

Margaret raised her arm and waved it in a wide, circular sweep. “It were out there she met the stranger.”

——————-

Every time she opens her mouth, Margaret Culpeper speaks in dialect.  And this book has gathered praise from editors and reviewers, including Library Journal and other notable sources, across the spectrum to local media here in the Ozarks.   Margaret’s speech has often been commented on with praise.

So, what do you think?  What am I supposed to think when someone says “Never write in dialect?”

(This is one reason I never say “never” when I teach or speak about writing. I think the minute you state a rule someone has broken it…beautifully.)

Radine

Who, or what, have you been?

A highly acclaimed literary author was speaking to an auditorium full of published and wanna-be published writers who had paid to be taught by her.

“Think of all you have been in your life,” she said.  “The obvious ones–daughter or son, student, sibling, confident, friend.  You’ve been hundreds of things.  If you’ve ever boiled an egg you have been a cook.  If you’ve ever pulled a weed, you’ve been a gardener.  You, at this point in your lives, have been hundreds of things.

“Point of View,” she continued, “relates to something that must be inside you and hence relates to what it’s possible for you to put inside your character’s lives.

“First person point of view is always interior and always gut-level honest.  It must always be something you yourself have been.  Third person interior must be the same.  Don’t write inside anyone’s head that you can’t be.  You can’t cross the sex line.  A woman can not write from a male point of view, for example.”

She continued in this vein, but I was already lost, thinking about what she’d just said.  Can’t write thoughts for a male character?  In my own field, mystery, what about Agatha Christie and Hastings?  What about Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter?  And, of course, what about Radine Trees Nehring and Henry King?  And, even if they don’t cross a “sex line,” what about the many, many people who write historical fiction?

At the first break I did approach the speaker and ask her about historical fiction.  True, I have boiled an egg, but in my handy-dandy electric egg cooker and not over a wood fire.  Should I attempt to make the transition to a woman cooking at a fireplace  in the 17th century?  The speaker had no ready answer, only repeating that bit about boiling an egg making me a cook.

The rest–getting water, pouring it in the iron pot, putting logs on the fire, dodging sparks, timing the egg with what…an hour glass?–would have to be the product of my imagination and research.

Ah ha!  Imagination and research?  Aren’t both of those an essential part of the writing life?  And can’t they allow me to, at least occasionally, be what I could never be in real life?

Then why can’t I (especially with the help of men willing to read what I write and comment) be–at least in the pages of my novel, and using imagination and research–a man?

I didn’t remind her that I write mysteries and never in my life have I killed anyone though, in my novels, I have committed–let’s see–at least six murders.

What are your thoughts on this?

Radine

Mayhem in the Midlands and more….

I mentioned conventions on an earlier post and, (beforehand) talked about one of the Nehrings’ favorites, Mayhem in the Midlands, held last weekend.

Smaller attendance than usual, which seems to be happening at writers’ conventions and conferences all over the map these days.  Economy?  The availability of Internet promotion and communication?  Who knows.   One additional thing that killed our area’s Hardboiled Heroes and Cozy Cats, the annual Mystery Writers of America–Southwest Chapter June conference was the Swine Flu scare.  The Ft. Worth schools closed for a time while we were promoting the event.  In any case, there weren’t enough registered to cover the bills, and deadlines were looming for airline reservations, motel cancellations, et al.  So, sadly, we threw in the towel.

Fortunately that didn’t happen with MAYHEM.  Beautifully organized, well-promoted, many loyal yearly attendees…and, gloriously, it went on.

You know what I remember and value most, though?  Panels were great, but no.  Book sales good, but not that either.  Special mystery banquet, Sisters in Crime buffet?  Sorry, didn’t sign up for those.  (As I recall the banquet was at least $45.00 per, so for John and Radine not going was a significant saving.

None of the above.   In this case, it was meeting author and fan friends I only see once a year.  The Internet has created a new type of friendship…I have very good friends now that I’ve never met face-to-face.  But Mayhem is the best of both types of friendship.  We spend quality time with people we usually only enjoy chatting with on listservs or in individual e-mail.  Mayhem, somehow, makes all this uniquely special, partly because it isn’t so huge you can’t find your friends, and also because it’s held in the middle of the Omaha River Market district where any number of simply fabulous eat places tempt you to journey along the brick sidewalks with friends and enjoy a meal in a new place.  Hap and Marilyn Meredith (from California) and John and I went out Saturday night to enjoy a place that makes root and alcoholic beer on the site.  The huge tanks are right there.  Hap had told us about “Upstream” and the root beer like grandma used to make, and by golly we all lifted mugs to toast him over that suggestion.   Food fabulous.  Can you believe I had pot roast?  Marilyn had soft shell crab, which sounds a lot more exotic than pot roast…but then I have never been accused of being exotic.

Another thing. I made my annual visit to The Lotus…a terrific “alternative  lifestyle” shop in the River Market area.  I now have six hats I’ve purchased there over the years at Mayhem.  (In case you didn’t know, I’m called “The Hat Lady” at many conferences and conventions.  My own individuality statement.)  These hats are crocheted from hemp, a fibre not legal in the United States, even though it isn’t the same as THAT hemp.

We had fun, and gained happy memories.  I can see so many faces as I think of MAYHEM IN THE MIDLANDS and I treasure them all.

And you, dear reader,   Radine

Interested in the writing profession?

Then here’s a new book for you…a unique book for sure, because not only is it created by writers for writers, it’s a GREEN book, something unique in today’s publishing world of books printed (often with huge overruns) on chopped trees using inks with toxic ingredients.

A WRITER’S JOURNEY JOURNAL is printed on Mohawk paper made from post-consumer recycled fiber that is chlorine-free.  (Few harmful pulp mill by-products are produced.) The mill’s electricity comes from wind-powered turbines.  The cover is also created on recycled fibre.

The book was printed by Sunrise Printing of Calhoun, Georgia.  Cindy Tucker and her staff there are committed to doing all they can to minimize the impact of their business upon the earth. They offer Earth-friendly low-VOC inks (low in volatile organic compounds) on Mohawk paper.

The book’s publisher, Wolfmont Press (same publisher that creates the Toys for Tots fund-raising short story anthology each fall) presents this book to those who still love the feel and readability of a physical book.

http://www.mohawkpaper.com

http://www.sunriseprintingcalhoun.com

NOW TO THE BOOK ITSELF!  Successful authors were invited to submit essays for A WRITER’S JOURNEY JOURNAL and given these guidelines: “Write about inspiration, information, humor…whatever helped you find your way as a writer and can help others.

And they did!  Thirteen authors (a lucky number) were selected.  Their essays (each a WOW) are included, along with lined blank pages where the book’s owner can insert his or her own ideas, writing snippits, and comments.  Each page is topped with a piquant quote from a well-recognized author, past or present. One of my favorites, and one I have used several times in talks and classes, is from Tom Stoppard:  “Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”

Isn’t that great?

And all for only $9.95.

Wolfmont Press is at 238 Park Drive NE, Ranger, GA 30734, or info@wolfmont.com

Enjoy!   Radine

I can’t help crowing…will you crow with me?

No matter how they are achieved–and I know there has been a bunch of discussion here about that–being nominated or winning awards for writing is a wonderful affirmation of skill and talent in the profession. Awards are sure encouragement for nominees and recipients, and I am always joyous for the winners, whether I have ever heard of them or not. (The fact I may not know their names means nothing. This is a HUGE profession.) And just think, with the possible exception of highest-ups in corner offices at the Conglomerate Biggies (probably people who oversee much more than publishing) we work with folks like us who are interested in READING and in good writing to supply readers. That is one more great thing about our profession.

Well, this leads up to the fact I have an award to announce. Each May a large umbrella writers’ organization called OWFI (with many affiliate chapters in several states) holds a very large conference in the Oklahoma City area. Two days of three-track events, talks, banquets (2) and workshops. Luncheons to honor authors and allow them to spend friendly time with a large selection of agents and editors–who also meet one-on-one with writers and present panels and talks. There are quite a few presenters in the mystery/suspense field, though the event covers all types of writing. Tess Gerritsen and Jordan Dane were two speakers this year. I have connected with one editor and one agent at past OWFI conferences.

OWFI (Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc.) draws attendees from all over the south, mid-states, and southwest, with most coming from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas. The OWFI directors now find it difficult to locate a venue large enough to hold the event.

OWFI has contests with cash awards, certificates, trophies. I am told there are between one and two thousand entries overall each year. And, WOW, oh WOW, this year my upcoming (6th) novel in the mystery category, working title A JOURNEY TO DIE FOR, earned first place. Though my work has been nominated for a number of awards and earned others in the past, today, this week, this month, the OWFI first is my affirmation, my wonderful feeling that I can write to please readers. Thank you for smiling with me,

Radine, a member of OWFI affiliate, Arkansas Ridge Writers.

Why do we blog, tweet, etc.?

If you are blogging, tweeting, meeting Facebook friends, etc. what are these forms of communication replacing in your life? Anything ?  In a finite day, where do they fit in?   I really do want to know about this.

After admitting I can’t manage any of these or similar connections easily because of our antique phone lines and access only to dial-up and I can’t hook up with some of them at all, I want to know how people feel about communicating in this manner.  How much am I missing?  (Truly…and you don’t have to sign your names. Make a nom up if need be.)

I am assuming readers stopping by here are mature, therefore many aren’t used to having ear pieces for hearing (I don’t mean deaf aids) and don’t have thumbs flying to text instead of speak.

I have books and other writing to promote or I probably wouldn’t care all that much whether you or I are Facebook Friends or display our wildly absorbing book trailers across computer screens.  However!!!  From what I read on lists for writers that I participate in, these communication methods are major ways to promote one’s work today. Probably so, but technology is rushing in so rapidly that I think all of us are still assessing the benefits of one activity when the next comes along and folks rush to adopt it instead. (I hope INSTEAD, in most cases, or the participant in one-too-many is likely to blow apart with all the activity.)

On my favorite lists I often read questions from an author like this:  “How many book sales have resulted from your…(fill in the blank), blog, tweets, book trailer, and so on ?”  No one seems to have a quantitative answer.

Perhaps more important, how do YOU balance the value of quiet contemplation against all this rushing to type into the next technology?   Is it worth it?  Is there too much chatter?

Are these answerable questions?

Let me know,  Radine

Let’s go to a convention….

There’s more fun to reading for fun than just the reading part.  (Did a professional writer really create that sentence?)

Book discussion groups, book reviewing, writers’ clubs, conventions….

Conventions.  I know they happen in most genres, as well as for poets, and for literary writers covering all areas of life.  There is at least one convention in New York specifically for women writers (and probably some for men).

I write in the mystery genre and there are dozens of fan/author conventions available to us around the United States each year. A few are huge, drawing thousands of people and offering a bewildering array of author panels, talks, and other writing-related events  for attendees to enjoy over several days. (Bouchercon, Malice Domestic.)  Most are smaller, expecting attendance ranging from a hundred or so to, maybe, five hundred. These are scattered all over the USA and most of the guests will be from a nearby area of the country.

Example?  Mayhem in the Midlands, held in Omaha, Nebraska each May.  Ever been to Omaha?  If not, you have a treat in store. It’s one of the most delightful cities my husband and I have ever visited.  The convention itself is held in an Embassy Suites hotel located in the heart of the city’s restored historic district. Brick streets lead tourists into fascinating shops with merchandise you aren’t likely to see anywhere else. (Much of it hand-fashioned in Nebraska.) My favorite is a shop carrying hand-made hats. There is a huge selection of restaurants for the hungry, and lots of entertainment otherwise. While at the convention, all of this is within easy walking distance. No struggle for parking.

A short ride will take you to a world-famous art museum, a superior zoo, and other attractions to fit individual interests.

Mayhem in the Midlands opens with a cocktail party and complimentary buffet on Thursday evening, May 21.  Make new friends and meet old ones.  There’s plenty of time to sit and chat, usually about the favorite topic– mystery writing.

The convention itself begins Friday morning with panels covering several topics. At 9:00 I’m moderating a panel titled “Not just a royalty check: What you need to know about being published.”  I’m also taking part as a panelist in “What difference does age make? Senior v. younger sleuths,” (Friday at 1:30), and “Causes and Casualties: Issue-driven fiction” at 10:00 on Saturday.

My husband John (who, thus far, has published only non-fiction) is also a panelist on “Marriage is a mystery: Meet the spouses” at 9:00 Saturday.

There are numerous special events as well, including a mystery dinner on Saturday night (actors chosen from conference attendees) and a fabulous Sisters in Crime breakfast buffet (included in registration) on Sunday, featuring Dana Stabenow and Jan Burke, both top-selling mystery authors.

What’s not to like?  Read the list of authors and all about the convention itself at http://www.omahapubliclibrary.org/mayhem

See you there?           Radine

Welcome back, Dan Krotz, from Books at Sow’s Ear

“The Ubiquitous Pig” is Dan Krotz’s witty and sometimes outrageous newsletter from “The bookstore at  Sow’s Ear. ” Anyone who helps wife Susan name an antiques shop “Sow’s Ear” has to be a wit, and then he compounds the wit (and some degree of nerve)  by adding “And Books.”  So, here’s  news from a very literary Dan Krotz at The Sow’s Ear.   ENJOY!

The Uses of Poetry

By Dan Krotz

When I was 19 years old I went to England. I arrived at Heathrow with $11 American in my pocket and great expectations. Obviously, I needed to find a girlfriend with money. As a recent graduate of the Richard M. Nixon School of Charm I was confident of abilities to do so, yet sadly, both amatory and monetary ambitions went unrealized. Imagine that.

I solved my insolvency in a time honored fashion; I became a beggar. I found a shady spot at Piccadilly Circus and propped a small sign against my upturned hat that said ‘American Poems upon Request.’

“…ere, ow ‘bout that Indian Gitchie Gume? By that whanker, Longfellow?” Ah yes, the whanker Longfellow.

‘By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

By the Big Sea Shining Waters

Stood the Wigwam of Nokomis

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis…’

“I like that Benet guy, I do. Whatcha’ got?”

Jesse James was a two-gun man,

(Roll on Missouri!)

Strong-arm Chief of an outlaw clan.

(Roll on Missouri!)

By dinner time I’d made 4 Pounds 10 Shillings and was well on my way to the price of a room. I’d probably still be buskering for pence had not a large hearted girl in a small Mary Quant mini taken pity on me and given me a job playing the tambourine in her jug band. As I recall, it was Frost’s ‘Two Tramps in Mud Time’ that won her heart. PS, I had no idea how to play the tambourine (and still don’t).

Fifty years later I continue to find poetry useful. One of the poems I read often is David Zimmerman’s ‘Nautilus:’

A strong man comes to love

Towards the end of time

And brings with him the power of his age,

Each tender feeling amplified

Through all the chambers of the years,

The ardor of an ancient, well-worn heart.

The usefulness of this poem is that it reminds me that the old person my wife is married to—yes, the one with hair spouting out of unfortunate and misaligned locations—can still remember what it felt like to be 19 years old, and in England.

I also like Ann Carter’s ‘Since I Swore off Romance,’ for obvious reasons:

Since I swore off romance, the full moon’s rise

Is tonight’s big event, a celestial floor show

Where a Mae West moon shoulders out in

Barely decent orange, and then lets those clothes

Drop for the snow-white skin she’s in.

I’ve gotten Ann’s poem a bit wrong (your handwriting is illegible, darlin’), but the idea of Mae West as Moon is absolutely hot and bothered, stunning and right, and I can hardly wait for this October’s late night burlesque.

Every time I check into a hotel, I think of Auden’s very funny book, Academic Graffiti:

John Milton

Never checked into a Hilton

Hotel

Which was just as well.

About the only thing poetry isn’t useful for is selling. I’ve got yards of the stuff lying around and I’m confident that it will be lying around years from now, a bit like the Unknown Soldier—much honored but, well, unknown. I don’t care. It makes me happy. 

____________________________________

Book Night: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

Grandview Hotel

April 16th, 2009

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Moderated by Eddie Keever and John Turner

6:30 PM to 8:00 PM

Sow’s Ear

April 23rd, 2009

http://www.eurekaspringsantiques.com

JOIN A GROUP!

Around fourteen years ago, not long after my first book (DEAR EARTH: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow) was published, I was hired by the Chamber of Commerce in Gravette, Arkansas, (pop: 1800) to teach a writing class. They were beginning a community school for adults, and I was to be part of that. When the class was completed, my little group of about ten students didn’t want to quit meeting. I suggested we form a writers’ club.

We all lived in the Spavinaw Creek area, so the group acquired the grand name,  “Spavinaw Authors Guild.”  (At that time none of us had heard of THE Authors Guild.) We began meeting one evening a month in the Gravette Public Library.

Over the years membership changed.  Folks moved away or lost interest.  Others came in.  Today, the Spavinaw Authors Guild has eight active members, and a few more inactive who come when they can.  Our meeting format consists of work-in-progress read-alouds while members follow the text on print copies of the manuscript provided by the author.  All jot down notes while the author is reading aloud, then the problems/strengths are discussed by all the group. We now meet at the library every other week from six to eight in the evening.  Our time is always full. We do not chat about families, politics, or anything but WRITING.  Occasionally a member shares information about new publishing opportunities, conferences to attend, and so on.

One of our currently inactive members just had his first book, which was vetted through our group over ten years ago, published.  Yes, submission persistance pays!  We had a big party/book signing for him in the library last Thursday.  (He is still one of us though he had to stop attending when he took a job teaching evening classes .)  Others have been published in magazines or newspapers.  All currently active members are working on novels, though, thus far, only two of us have published books.  (I’m working on my seventh book,  the sixth mystery novel in my “To Die For” series.)

This group has been wonderful for me and, indeed, one of my novels is dedicated to them.  BOY can they find problems I missed, and it’s so much more than “take out or add a comma.”  They make plot suggestions, tell me when a scene or idea doesn’t work, offer ideas for word or dialogue changes.   The day after our meetings, I line up their print copies of my chapter-in-work they critiqued across my desk and go to work on changes.  Do I make every suggested change?  Of course not.  But all of us are so much in tune now that we can critique each other without hurtful comments or any changes to a writer’s unique voice.

Spavinaw Authors Guild is a wonder and a marvel.  Groups like this are jewels without price for any writer.  Look for such a group if you aren’t in one.  If none are in place, form one.

Other helpful groups may be found on line.  As a mystery writer, I am an active member (submitting posts) to:

DorothyL@listserv.kent.edu  (Named for Dorothy L. Sayers, premier British mystery author)

MurderMustAdvertise@yahoogroups.com

SeniorSleuthsForum@yahoogroups.com

mwasw@yahoogroups.com (Mystery Writers of America, Southwest Chapter)

SistersinCrime@yahoogroups.com

Now, go and join something!              Radine

http://www.RadinesbBooks.com