Category: writing fiction
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Looking for Old Kansas City, Part 2
Inside the New England Building (See my blog post of August 25, 2016, for Part 1.) When I began researching and writing my calendar mystery series set in Kansas City around a hundred years ago, I decided to place the detective agency my heroine Minty Wilcox works for in the historic New England Building, a…
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Almost Done Doing Mischief
WiP Report # 19 This morning—I’m very pleased to say—I finished the current draft of Mischief in March, the third in my Calendar Mystery series featuring mystery and romance in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago. January Jinx, Fatal February, Mischief in March, nine other novels…
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Calling Long Distance in 1900
Making a long distance telephone call in 1900 was pretty complicated. For instance, in Mischief in March, the third in my Calendar mystery series, when Minty Wilcox wants to make a call from Kansas City to her uncle Charles in St. Joseph, MO, she can’t just grab her cell or even pick up her home…
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Dare I Say Bah Humbug?
WiP Report # 18 What I’ve named “my week from H3LL” threatened to turn me all Scroogish as I began the annual trek through the holidays this year. You see, during the first week of every month, I usually have four meetings and a lunch in addition to my usual weekly activities of attending an…
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Kansas City’s New England Building
Looking for Old K. C., Part 1 Checking out sites for my calendar mysteries, set in Kansas City around 1900, can involve quite a bit of sleuthing. Take the New England Building at 9th Street and Wyandotte in Kansas City, MO, for instance. While working on January Jinx, the first in the series, I decided…
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Making Progress
WiP Report # 17: Mischief in March Shown here is the working cover for the third book in my Calendar Mystery Series. (I’m keeping what the actual cover will look like as a secret for now since it’s a spoiler.) I’m happy to report that I recently completed the draft of Mischief in March, well…
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Marching On
WiP Report # 17 Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the pun in my title. You see, the current Work in Progress, the third in my Calendar Mysteries, takes place in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago, in March 1900 and it’s called Mischief in March. One…
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Encouraging Feedback on Fatal February
My dear friend and fellow writer Anne Bauman recently wrote me this letter of praise for Fatal February, the second calendar mystery. (I’ve omitted or rephrased here and there to avoid spoilers.) Dear Juliet, Congratulations on Fatal February, another terrific read. Yes, I enjoyed it immensely, both as a reader and a writer. Between the…
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Phenomenal Flavia
A Guest Post by Diann Markley On Saturday January 16, 2016, at the meeting of the Mystery Writing Group of the Border Crimes Chapter of Sisters in Crime, my friend Diann Markley presented a thorough and very insightful analysis of Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Here are highlights of her…