Gearing Up by Debra H. Goldstein It’s coming!  Will I survive?  The hardcover version of Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery already is available for pre-order, but on April 20, 2016 the print and e-book versions will launch.  I’m excited and scared. I thought the hard work was …

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Three Ways of Looking at Austin Mystery Writers or, Why I Go to Critique Group by Kathy Waller #1   Yesterday Dominica felt faint, and Molly, my protagonist, steered her to a bench on the courthouse lawn and then dithered over what to do. She couldn’t leave Dominica there to topple off the bench, but asking …

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A Perfect Place for Murder by Tracy Weber Seattle’s beloved Green Lake Park is my dog Tasha’s and my favorite walking and squirrel-prowling destination. So it was a natural setting for several pivotal scenes in Karma’s a Killer, my third Downward Dog Mystery. The three-hundred acre park contains grassy fields, a lake suitable for boating, …

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Holiday Happiness.  Happy holidays.  One and the same? Not by a longshot.    The phrasing of “holiday happiness” and happy holidays” is the difference between a state of being versus a wish. Not everyone has the opportunity or the desire to experience either.  During the past the few weeks, everywhere I went, people told me “Happy …

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Writing a Mystery Series by Rabbi Ilene Schneider I write a cozy mystery series. They feature an amateur sleuth, Rabbi Aviva Cohen. All the sex and gore are off the page. There is humor. There is a lot of back story. There is a happy ending. They differ from other cozies in that there are …

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“Far-Flung Family Ties” by Nancy J. Cohen As we approach the holidays, we begin planning our family celebrations. These may not always be the joyous occasions we’d like. Disagreements, envy, cultural gaps with married partners, and secrets can keep families apart. In PERIL BY PONYTAIL, my recent release and #12 in the Bad Hair Day …

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What Do Teen Readers Want? by B.K. Stevens Earlier this month, I participated in an unusual panel at Bouchercon in Raleigh, North Carolina. The panel’s topic wasn’t unusual—these days, most mystery conferences devote at least one panel to young adult novels—but the panelists were. Three of them were real, live young adults, members of a high-school …

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The Need for Stories by Sandra Carey Cody “We’re always the same age inside.” Gertrude Stein The Jennie Connors/Riverview Manor mysteries are set in a retirement community and the characters are a variety of ages. The youngest is Jennie’s six-year-old son; the oldest is a ninety-pound, ninety-something, feisty southern belle who still thinks like a …

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FANS – WHETHER IN SPORTS OR WRITING, IT’S ALL THE SAME by Debra H. Goldstein When I moved to Alabama, a colleague asked if I knew who was number one in football. Not being a sports enthusiast, but reading all parts of the newspaper religiously, I replied that the polls said my alma mater, the …

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The Allure of a Mystery Series by James M. Jackson One of my great pleasures of mystery fan conferences such as Malice Domestic and Left Coast Crime is the opportunity to talk with a wide variety of readers. When I get to chatting with a reader I usually ask about favorite authors to compare notes. …

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