Catching Up with Friends

I drove from Southern California to the Bay Area last week and had a chance to visit with old friends. I stayed with a college friend, saw two friends from my working days and visited a cousin I hadn’t seen in a number of years. All in all, it was a very enjoyable trip.

Another Enjoyable Left Coast Crime Conference

Last week I attended the Left Coast Crime Conference in Bellevue, Washington. I was on a senior sleuth panel with Arthur Coburn, Susan McCormick, Paula Charles and Ellen Kirschman:

I also moderated the Meet the New Authors Breakfast, introducing 31 debut authors whose first mystery/thriller/suspense/thriller novels was published in 2023 or early 2024.

I caught up with old and new friends including two fellow authors with Encircle Publications: Sharon Dean and BJ Magnani:

Judging Writing Contests

I’ve been a judge a number of times for writing contests. In 2013 I was a judge for the Mary Higgins Clark award for Mystery Writers of America. I received over 130 books to judge. The criteria were a suspense novel in the tradition of Mary Higgins Clark:

·       "The protagonist is a nice young woman whose life is suddenly invaded.

·       "She’s self-made and independent, with primarily good family relationships.

·       "She has an interesting job.

·       "She is not looking for trouble–she is doing exactly what she should be doing and something cuts across her bow.

·       "She solves her problem by her own courage and intelligence.

·       "The story has no on-scene violence.

·       "The story has no strong four-letter words or explicit sex scenes."

 

Of the books I received to read approximately one hundred were cozy mysteries with a female protagonist, not a suspense novel. After reading a few pages, I could determine that these were not consistent with the guidelines. Over the next year, my wife and I read all the cozy mysteries and started chuckling about the cozy tropes. This inspired me to write A Mystery Yarn that will be published later in April and is now available for pre-ordering. It’s a parody that includes these tropes:

·       The protagonist is a woman who runs a craft store

·       She had a bad previous relationship

·       She has a sort-of relationship with a man in law enforcement

·       She finds a dead body and becomes a suspect

·       She has a dog

·       She has a cat

·       There’s a ghost in her store

·       Her best friend is a gay guy

·       There are recipes at the end of the book

It was an enjoyable exercise to write a humorous cozy. As an example, the protagonist can’t cook. Her recipes include toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, and s’mores.

Jokes

Every day I email jokes to three friends and often post them on Facebook. Since I write humorous mystery novels, I’m a big fan of what I call “dumb dad jokes,” jokes we dads tell to our kids and grandkids to make them groan. Here’s one example of this very sophisticated form of humor: Which bathroom fixture is most likely to be submerged? The sink. Groan and bear it.