Monthly Archive for November, 2010

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25 Years Ago Today: Bogey Man Author Marja McGraw

Published on November 8, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome my guest, author Marja McGraw. Marja is originally from Southern California, where she worked in both criminal and civil law enforcement for several years. After relocating to Northern Nevada, she worked for the Nevada Department of Transportation. Marja also did a stint in Oregon where she worked for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and owned her own business, a Tea Room and Antique store. After a brief stop in Wasilla, Alaska, she returned to Nevada.

Marja wrote a weekly column for a small newspaper in No. Nevada and she was the editor for the Sisters in Crime Internet Newsletter for a year and a half. She writes the Sandi Webster series and the Bogey Man series, and says that each of her mysteries contains a little humor, a little romance and a little murder. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband.

MARJA: Twenty-five years ago, I was living and working for the state transportation department in Nevada, and I was a divorced mother raising a stubborn, rebellious teenager. (Thankfully, my daughter grew into a lovely woman.)

The thought of writing a book hadn’t entered my head at that time. I kept a journal, but eventually read it over and decided it was way too silly so I threw it away, keeping a couple of pages that marked important events in my life. I suddenly realized what potential I had to become a Drama Queen, and that was a turning point in my life. I needed to turn things around and make better choices.

During that time I noticed how much importance I was placing on humor. It didn’t matter whether it was a television show or a funny book or a comment made by a friend or coworker. If it made me laugh, it was good. Humor is what kept me going, and what eventually led me to write murder mysteries that contain, hopefully, something to make the reader laugh.

I now have four books published in the Sandi Webster Mysteries series, and the first book in a new series, The Bogey Man Mysteries, will be released before the end of the year.

Overall, I wouldn’t change even one part of my past because it was a great classroom in which to learn about life and people. Well, I might change a couple of things.

Visit Marja on her web site. Check out The Bogey Man on Amazon. Sandi Webster, a young female P.I., spends a lot of time doing boring, tedious work. However, during the early morning hours, while she’s watching an unfaithful husband, her cover is blown and the man comes after her. Before she can say boo, Humphrey Bogart comes to her rescue. Really? He’s been gone for over fifty years. Sandi continues to have Bogey sightings but no one will believe her until a well-known model and actress is murdered at a costume party – and the Bogey Man walks out of the restroom, walking the walk and talking the talk.

Watch for the Bogey Man to return in his own series in the near future. Bogey Nights will keep you guessing when a 1940’s murder rears its ugly head.

Blast From The Past: Childhood Story “The Mysterious Relatives”

Published on November 3, 2010 in Blast From The Past. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I found this short story from my childhood tucked away in a bright yellow folder, written in my careful script. I was probably about 11 when I wrote it. I hadn’t read it in years and expected to discover that The Mysterious Relatives was one of my Cathy Summers mysteries. As I flipped through it, though, I realized that it was actually a standalone about a young amateur sleuth named Amanda.

Here’s the opener: Amanda Ford, a willowy strawberry blonde quite tall for the tender age of fourteen, watched as her good friend Lavinia Blake, having aroused her curiosity, placed a small square of creamy butter and a spoonful of raspberry jam atop a golden slice of toast.

Lavinia wolfed down the snack hungrily and raised a clear crystal glass filled to the rim with thirst-quenching orange juice to her cherry red lips.

“What does your mother do? Starve you?” giggled Amanda, better known as Mandy.

Lavinia smiled also. “No, but she has us all on some new diet plan that her doctor recommended to her. Salad minus the dressing for dinner every night with a side dish of white bread.”

Mandy made a face. “Ugh! My mom sees to it that we have a full, three course dinner all-“

Lavinia shushed her pretty companion quietly and pointed an accusing finger at the front door. “Someone has been listening,” she confided in a whisper.

“Can’t be,” Mandy replied, shrugging the matter off as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “There isn’t anybody here but us.”

“Don’t you have a brother and two sisters? Mightn’t it be one of them?”

“I doubt it. Honey and Grace are taking their ballet lessons – Honey is wearing the cutest silk, rose frock…and…so what if there was somebody eavesdropping? We were only talking about your favorite subject – food.”

Lavinia mulled this over for a brief moment. Finally, she said, her wide hazel eyes widening even more in horror, “It…may have been a prowler. Maybe even an international spy wanted by the FBI.”
***
Did all the talk about food make you hungry? In case you’re wondering, Lavinia was right, a mysterious man was eavesdropping and ran off the property when chased.

Meanwhile, Mandy’s long lost cousin suddenly show up in trouble. It’s funny, I really have no memory of writing this story, but it is 33 pages so it must have taken me awhile. Check out some of my other excerpts:

The Mystery of the Stolen Art Treasure
The Fairview Treasure

25 Years Ago Today: ‘A Question of Fire’ Author Karen McCullough

Published on November 1, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome my guest Karen McCullough. Karen has written and published nine novels in the romantic suspense, mystery, and fantasy genres and won numerous awards, including an Eppie Award for fantasy. She’s also been a four-time Eppie finalist, and a finalist in the Prism, Dream Realm, Rising Star, Lories, Scarlett Letter, and Vixen Awards contests. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and numerous small press publications in the fantasy, science fiction, and romance genres.

Her most recent publication was a Christmas paranormal novella, VAMPIRE’S CHRISTMAS CAROL, published by Cerridwen Press in the anthology BENEATH A CHRISTMAS MOON. Forthcoming releases include a Gothic novella from Red Rose Publishing, which will be part of the SHADOWED HEARTS anthology, and a mystery novel, A GIFT FOR MURDER, from Five Star/Gale Group, with hardcover release scheduled for January 2011. A member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and the Writers’ Group of the Triad, she is currently serving as president of the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.

KAREN: Twenty-five years ago today, in 1985, I was learning how to write a novel. In fact, I was just finishing up the second novel I’d ever written, a romantic suspense story titled A QUESTION OF FIRE. I’d been writing short stories and nonfiction pieces for a while, but I’d only recently worked up the nerve to embark on writing my first novel. I did it, though, and I enjoyed it. But that first novel was a learning experience. Even I recognized that it had some… well, problems. Okay, to be perfectly honest…it sucked. It was really, seriously bad. That manuscript is now somewhere in a box in the attic with a sticky note on it saying, “Burn Me!”

I was pretty sure that I had a better idea how to do it with my second novel. It took me almost a year to write, and it was much better. Unfortunately ‘much better’ still meant I had a long way to go. I sent it out to editors and agents and collected a nice batch of rejections, although several of them did say encouraging things about my writing. A couple even said this was a “near miss” for them, but they didn’t think they could market a romantic mystery at the time.

Encouraged by the nicer rejections, I kept writing more novels, and submitting them, and worked through the depression of rejection after rejection, until I finally got THE CALL a few years later. It wasn’t for that second book. Or the third. The first book I sold was actually the sixth complete novel I had written. Persistence paid off.

Still, I knew I had a good story in A QUESTION OF FIRE, even though it had problems, so I rewrote. Then I rewrote it again. And again. After a couple more rewrites, the book actually sold and was published. Then after too short a period on the shelves it went out of print. I recently put it out in an electronic edition for the Kindle. More persistence paying off. In the immortal words of Jim Valvano: “Never give up. Don’t ever give up.”

Karen invites visitors to check out her web site. Also check out A QUESTION OF FIRE on Amazon. When Cathy Bennett agrees to attend an important party as a favor for her boss, she knows she won’t enjoy it. But she doesn’t expect to end up holding a dying man in her arms and becoming the recipient of his last message.

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