Retirement–that longed-for Utopian state for which I worked for decades. Lovely, unhurried mornings, peaceful, sunny days of travel, visiting coffee shops. Plenty of time for cleaning a house and keeping it sparkling, baking cookies, taking long walks. And, oh, my goodness, all that accumulated wisdom. Just a whole headful of good advice gleaned from years of […]
Jan 7, 2015
Spider Webs and Spooky Noises
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When you were a child, did you ever sit in the living room with your family on a dark night listening, petrified, while your dad or grandfather told a true story about a really spooky happening, something that was never explained? You wanted a rational, satisfying explanation but there was none. It was just a mystery, […]
Jan 5, 2015
A Mystery Writer’s 12 Days
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This is Twelfth Night, the Epiphany, the impetus for the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. With my family’s help, I added words that might be appropriate for a writer of cozy mysteries. Thanks, Matt, Dawn, Sara, Nathan! A Cozy Mystery Writer’s Sizzling Twelve Days of Christmas On the first day of Christmas, Santa brought to […]
Jan 2, 2015
Looking Back Without Stumbling
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Sometimes, when beginning a new year, I like to look back at the old one. So, yesterday, I not only looked back at 2014, I went way, way back to 1953 and a 5-year diary my mother gave me in 1952. It was full of a young girl’s thoughts and experiences. Some of them were […]
Dec 19, 2014
The Face Could Have Been Santa’s
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As you know, while I was in Ireland, I took a bunch of pictures, 235, to be exact. One of those was of an Irishman in Dublin. As I was going through the pictures yesterday, I looked more closely at this man. If the black slouch hat were replaced by a red, furry one and the […]
Dec 18, 2014
The Mystery of the Murky Bog, Part II
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Mallory’s heart pounded in her throat as she stood and turned in a slow circle, wondering which direction to go, trying to see through the gloom. It was hopeless; never had she seen the mist so thick and dark, but panic urged her into the night, searching for Maureen and that high, keening cry. The man, that […]
