What a Week - Panic and WHEW

What ever led me to schedule three shows in one week? There's the live show every Friday morning, of course. But then I went and booked two pre-records, both of them on Wednesday. Ahhh! It was April Fool's day. That must have been it.

When I started the radio show, I committed to read at least two (usually three) of each writer's books. That meant nine books in one week. Luckily I thoroughly enjoyed all of the books, and hated to have to read so fast. I love to soak up books, absorb them, relish them, wallow in them.

Denise Swanson (her show will air on April 24th) writes cozies about a school psychologist named Skye Denison. Jeanne Dams (May 8th) has two cozy series, one modern, one set in South Bend in the very early 1900s.
After the reading, I had to get three lists of questions together. There are always the usual questions, but then I have great fun digging deeper to find out who this writer really is - and why I should ask my listeners to spend their time (and their money) buying the books. I do hope you'll buy books. Preferably from an independent bookstore. We need to be sure those stores stay afloat!

The live show was Cassandra King - all right, she's not exactly a mystery writer, but I love the mystery (true sense of the word) that weaves through her book The Same Sweet Girls. Friday April 3rd wasn't April Fool's Day anymore, but the joke was on me - I'd just started on the morning meditation I do every weekday morning by phone with my friend Kathi Moon, and I glanced over at the file folder where I keep the Friday morning "script" (I use that word very loosely indeed) for the show. Nothing there! I'd forgotten to compile the questions. PANIC ! ! ! !

Needless to say, there wasn't much meditation going on for the next hour and a half. Luckily I got it done with a few minutes to spare. Called Kathi to tell her the world had not come to an end. Listened to her tell me to take a few deep breaths. Took them. Called in for the show. And had a great time talking with Cassandra. WHEW!

Speaking of WHEW - If you're in the vicinity of Lawrenceville Georgia this coming Thursday evening (the 9th) I'll be teaching a one-hour class on Overcoming Negativity for the "W.H.E.W. 50 Thursdays" program at The Singin' Bean http://www.thesinginbean.com/ W.H.E.W stands for Women Helping Educate Women, and it was the brainchild of Cindy Pitts Gilbert, the Bean's owner. Every week, a bunch of women get together at the Bean from 6:30 to 7:30, and learn about something interesting. The last class I taught there was on composting, something that Biscuit McKee, the librarian in my cat mysteries, does a lot of. Hope to see you there . . .

Talking with Linda Barnes

It's funny that the people I think I'll have the most trouble interviewing on Mystery Matters are the ones I end up truly comfortable with. Maybe it's because I write cozy mysteries with a librarian and a cat - so the idea of speaking with someone who writes about a hard-boiled, former-cop private investigator leaves me wondering where I'll ever find a heart-to-heart connection.

But that connection certainly happened right in the middle of my conversation with Linda Barnes about her Carlotta Carlyle mysteries, when Linda said, after a listener emailed a question about Carlotta's mob-connected boyfriend Sam Gianelli, "A lot of my friends are smart women who've made dumb choices about guys."

Soon after that, she said that one of her greatest accomplishments was that readers in Germany started a Big Sisters program there after learning about Big Sisters through Linda's books. In those two moments I felt Linda reach across the phone line and grab my heart. I knew we were connected as people, as women, as fellow-writers, and in that ineffable bond of reader and writer. Count me as a proud Linda Barnes fan, for more reasons than just her good books.

Friday the 13th and Biscuit McKee mysteries

I'm not a superstitious person. In fact, Friday the 13th has never posed a problem for me. Until this morning. My mystery author guest each week is supposed to call the station at five minutes before show time. Well - that didn't happen this morning, and I was left having to "wing it."


It's live radio, and I suppose I've known that something like this might happen at some point. I just wasn't expecting it quite this soon. This was only the 11th show, after all. In the two minutes I had to think about it - and then the half-minute of commercial intro, I decided to read from my own books and call the show "The Evolution of a Mystery Series." I figured I could answer a lot of the questions I get asked when I speak at book clubs and writers groups. How did you get the idea for Biscuit the librarian? and Where did Marmalade the orange library cat come from?


Luckily two listeners emailed questions -- they're both going on my gratitude list tonight! I made it through the show. Listen to it on the archive for February 13th http://www.tinyurl.com/a2f3s6 and let me know how nervous you think I sounded on a scale of one to ten.