SUMMER IN THE CITY

Public Library, Newark, NJ

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city

The Lovin Spoonful sang those lyrics back in the summer of 1966. For those of us who grew up in the city, the song certainly rang true.

Today marks the first day of summer, and as I thought about a topic for my Inkspot post, my thoughts drifted to those hot summer days of my childhood.

I grew up in Newark, NJ back before community pools or recreational centers. Swimming involved families either sending their kids to camp, driving down the shore, or paying to belong to either a private swim club or the local Y. My family had no money for any of these luxuries. Six of us were crammed into a tiny two-bedroom apartment. My parents slept on a sofa bed in the living room. My sister and I shared one bedroom; my brothers shared the other.

Summers in the city were brutal. Fans were nearly useless. All they did was blow around hot air. Eventually, my parents bought a small air-conditioner for the living room, but it did me and my siblings little good since we were all sent outside first thing in the morning and only allowed back in the apartment for lunch and potty breaks.

What I remember most about those summers were the hours and hours I’d spend at the library. The library was such a magical place for me that I never thought twice about having to walk over a mile in 90+ degree heat to get there. Once I arrived, I was transported to far away places, sometimes wonderful, sometimes not so wonderful, but always an escape from the realities of summer in the city.

What did I read? Everything. Back then the librarians ran summer reading programs and kept track of the books we read. After finishing a book, we’d give a brief oral report to the librarian. She’d record the book and hand out certificates at the end of the summer. I don’t know what happened to my certificates. My parents probably threw them out when we finally moved to the suburbs. What I do remember, though, is that every summer I read the most books of anyone taking part in the summer reading program. Perhaps those long ago summers of reading at the library played a role in me becoming an author. I’d like to think so.

How did you spend the summers of your youth?

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. The first book, Assault With A Deadly Glue Gun, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist and has been nominated for a Book of the Year Award by ForeWords Reviews. Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series, was released in January. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

25 QUOTES ON THE WORTH OF READING

seen on the NY subway: stranger reading Lois Winston's ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN
 from Underground New York Public Library

by Lois Winston

While I was pondering what to write for today’s blog post, I received an email that contained a group of quotes about the value of reading. I needed to look no further for a blog topic. Here are some of the quotes sent to me, along with some others I’ve come across. Let’s hear it for reading!

1. You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. -- Paul Sweeney

2. Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.  -- Charles William Eliot

3.  What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. -- J.D. Salinger

4. In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -- Mortimer J. Adler

5. Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. -- Anna Quindlen

6. You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. -- James Baldwin

7. The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours -- Alan Bennett

8. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. -- Margaret Fuller

9. A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.  -- Chinese Proverb

10. Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.  -- Abraham Lincoln

11. So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall. -- Roald Dahl

12. To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -- Edmund Burke

13. A house without books is like a room without windows. --  Heinrich Mann

14. A truly good book teaches me better than to read it.  I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.  -- Henry David Thoreau

15. To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one.  -- Chinese Saying

16. Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books, and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three, and you give me a dangerous enemy mind. -- Anne Rice

17. The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade. -- Anthony Trollope

18. We read to know we are not alone. -- C.S. Lewis

19. No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. -- Confucius

20. The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries. -- Descartes

21. The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. -- Dr. Seuss

22. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested. -- Francis Bacon

23. Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. -- Frederick Douglass

24. Read in order to live. -- Gustave Flaubert

25. A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. The first book, Assault With A Deadly Glue Gun, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Death by Killer Mop Doll was released this past January. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

So...What Are You Reading These Days?

-- Beth Groundwater

Writers, good writers at least, must first of all be readers. Of course, we need to read widely in our genre, to see what kinds of voices, plots, characters, and settings are selling these days, and to see where our own work fits within the genre. We read to study the craft, to understand better what works--and what doesn't work. But, we also read for pure pleasure, and that reading may or may not occur within our own writing genre.

I write mystery novels, so of course I read a lot of mystery novels. In fact, of the 360 books that are on my Goodreads shelves right now, half (180) are mysteries. But the other half range across a variety of genres. For instance, I've recently read two romances by two heavy-weight bestselling authors, Moon Over Water by Debbie Macomber and The Burning Point by Mary Jo Putney. Both are the type of romance I prefer, concentrating on the relationship between the hero and heroine and the forces that conspire to keep them apart versus what I call "plumbing details." I often include a romantic subplot in my mysteries, and it's good for me to learn from masters of the craft like these two.

I'm in a book club that reads and discusses literary, mainstream, women's fiction, memoir, and nonfiction books monthly. I'm in this group precisely because it pushes me to read books I otherwise might never have selected. Our book this month is Room by Emma Donoghue. I describe it as a cross between The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, both books that blew me away. For the same reason, I was enthralled by Room--the voice of the narrating character. Room is well worth the read. The book we read last month was Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home by Laura and Lisa Ling. Another fascinating read, primarily because of the complex machinations of all the behind-the-scenes international politics.


I also stepped out of my comfort zone in the mystery genre into the gritter thriller genre to finally read the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, which I received as a Christmas gift. The violence wasn't as graphic as I was dreading it would be, and all three books were fascinating reads, though I enjoyed the second one the most. Back in my comfort zone, I'm starting to read the books by other Midnight Ink authors that I acquired at this year's Malice Domestic conference. The first one I finished, Bingo Barge Murder by Jessie Chandler was a fun, comedic caper and a delightful read. I've learned to trust acquisition editor Terri Bischoff's judgment in picking Midnight Ink's stable of quality authors and books, so I'm sure I'll enjoy the other MI books on my TBR (to be read) pile.

In fact, now is YOUR chance to plunge into the Midnight Ink catalogue for a minimal investment and read some of my fellow MI authors' books. For the month of June, Midnight Ink is discounting or giving away the first book in some of their authors' series in ebook form. June Bug by Jess Lourey is free. Death of a Cozy Writer by G. M. Malliet and Murder on the Rocks by Karen MacInerney are $1.99 each. And Paper, Scissors, Death by Joanna Campbell Slan is only 99 cents.

I've read most of these books, and I can tell you that you won't be disappointed! Give them all a try. For the price of a fancy coffee drink, you'll have five great mysteries on your e-reader. Hopefully one or more of these mysteries will hook you enough that you'll read the rest of the series--and check out the rest of Midnight Ink's catalog, including my own Deadly Currents. :)


Okay, enough about me and what I've been reading. Let's go back to the title of this post. So, what are YOU reading these days? Got any great suggestions for me or our blog readers?

Questions

I gave three book talks this week, plus one radio interview. Because my book is about an ex-nun, I expected to field questions about the convent at all four venues. Yet it’s surprising what people want to know, or what readers will take away from a book.

Audience questions at the first talk were all about the convent and the Catholic Church—and the state of the religious life in today’s Catholic Church. I think people were disappointed when I prefaced all my answers with a version of the disclaimer, “I’m no longer Catholic, but this is what I’m seeing…”

At the second event, the questions were all about the publishing process. The audience was fascinated by the length of time from contract to books-in-stores, and about all the steps that go into pounding a manuscript into its final shape.

At the radio interview, the super-professional host asked basic questions like “Is writing still a solitary occupation?” and “How do you keep your plot and characters straight?”

And at the last talk, the discussion was about how a live reading can still paint visuals in your head the same as reading the book yourself does. (With a slight derail on how an audiobook reader can make or break the book.)

This is what is great about interacting with readers: They all see books from a different angle. I love not knowing exactly what to expect when the questions begin. And I realize that what I bring to a book affects what I take away from it. I’m reminded of a play I saw years ago—it was a family-type drama that was quite well written. Except that the climactic scene involved a fight between the main character and her mother, which was way too close to home for me.

I figure someone’s going to come to one of these events with a large chip on their shoulder from a bad experience in Catholic Grade School. Or, perhaps, a band of irate nuns with torches and pitchforks. )I rather like the latter possibility: Think of the news coverage. Think of the sales!)

As readers and writers, what books have you liked because of what you brought to the read? What books turned your expectations on their heads?

How Do You Get Your Books?

Cricket McRae

Between e-readers, the closing of Borders, and the surge of self-published authors there has been a flurry of discussion about where the publishing industry is going. Keith posted recently about the future of independent bookstores, an excellent examination of what’s been going on with e-readers and the instant downloading of ebooks.

I’m not looking to enter into the debate about e-readers or whether reading on paper is better or not. I don’t think print books will vanish altogether, and I love, love, love them. But electronic books and their green delivery (sans fuel oil) are here, and they ain’t going away. It seems it would behoove those in the publishing industry to figure out what comes on the other side of the current ebook trends in order to leap frog ahead instead of playing reluctant catch up. What that new thing may be is beyond my ken right now, though. I feel as if I need a workshop  class advanced degree in what’s already going on with different formats and new marketing before I could venture a guess about what comes next.

But looking at the various books I’m currently reading, I realized their sources are widely mixed. And note that I don’t have a Kindle or Nook or any other e-reader, so that influences where I’ve obtained these books.

• The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball  was recommended on a blog I regularly visit called Cold Antler Farm. And there I also found a link to Farmbrarian, which lists tons of other books about small scale farming, livestock, real food, and local eating – subjects which float my boat to an unreasonable degree. I bought it immediately online from Powell’s Books. 

• I’m making a point lately of catching up with mystery series that I’ve fallen behind on or missed one in the middle. So when I saw our own Jess Lourey’s Knee High by the Fourth of July at the library, I grabbed it and headed for the checkout desk. What a fun read! At the library I also picked up Laurie R. King’s The Language of Bees .

• And even though I don’t have a Kindle, I do have the Kindle app on my I-Phone. So when one of my critique partners who keeps an eye on YA trends suggested I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins I downloaded it for $5.00. So far I’ve read the first two in the series, on my I-Phone of all the crazy unintuitive places, and am nearly done with the third in the trilogy. This is my middle-of-the-night, can’t-sleep, don’t- want-to-wake-up-my-partner-but-want-to-stay-under-flannel-sheets read, and I can easily see downloading another book when I’m done with this one.

• Also on my I-Phone is Die Trying by Lee Child in audio form. This I dip into when I’m cleaning, walking, or whiling away my time on the elliptical if there aren’t any good cooking shows on television.

• In honest-to-God hardcopy, I’m reading Heather Lende’s If You Lived Here I’d Know Your Name which is a collection of essays by an NPR contributor about living in small-town Alaska. I bought this book at Third Place Books in Seattle after hearing Heather speak. I’ve had it in my TBR pile for a few years but only got to it recently. Since starting it I’ve gone to her website and see she’s written another book. I’m enjoying the first, and will probably pick up the second, too.

• And then there’s Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, which I’m rereading in part because I’m blogging on occasion about the series’ influence on my weird fascination with colonial home crafts. My parents gave me this book 37 years ago, and it’s gone through three cousins before coming back to me. Still in pretty good shape, too.

• And finally, I’m regularly referring to three books I bought for background and research for my current writing projects. These I bought via Amazon because of ease, time efficiency and free shipping, despite the fact that I’m pretty unhappy with Amazon after they dumped all their Associates in Colorado over a tax issue. 

How do you read? A mix? How do you find books? Does the targeted marketing Amazon sends to your inbox or Google pushes at you work? Do you go with recommendations from friends, Goodreads, or particular websites?

The Slippery Slope

by G.M. Malliet

Like most readers and writers of this blog, I LOVE books. Actually, it has become obvious to me as well as to my loved ones that I am addicted to books. If it were possible, I would probably snort books up my nose. I might even attempt some version of bathtub books, knowing it was illegal and the results almost certainly toxic.

What I am talking about here is the need to purchase and own books, especially new books, which is related to but different from the love of reading. People who simply love to read are also sensible sorts who have learned the cost-saving benefits of owning a library card. This is my downfall. I have a library card I seldom use. In fact, I have two, one for a neighboring county. No matter. If I really love a book, or even if I think I might sort of maybe like a particular book (crucial distinction), I have to buy it. 

There are telltale signs of an encroaching book-buying addiction like mine, and as a public service, I thought I would share with you what some of them are, as in one of those “Is he cheating?” articles you see in women's magazines. If any of these scenarios seem familiar to you, you may be in the first stages of a full-blown book addiction:

•    A friend asks if she can borrow your copy of Mentor, a just-released book by Tom Grimes for which you paid full price in hardcover. Intoxicated by that new-book smell, you deny having a copy or knowing anything about the book, or even knowing how to read, even though she can see you happen to be holding the book in your hands.
•    You tell your parents, spouse, or other person who cares where you will be that you are going to the library, when you are in fact again headed to the bookstore, where you will probably buy yet another book(s) you may never get around to reading.
•    Book conventions for you are the equivalent of Ben and Jerry’s for the carbohydrate deprived. You have been known to leave your shoes and heavy clothing behind in your hotel room to make room for the extra books you want to take home on the plane.
•    A box of books arrives from Amazon.com, and you sneak it into the house before anyone can say, “That isn’t another box of books, is it?”
•    You flatten the empties from Amazon.com and hide them in the neighbor’s trash bin.
•    You hide the newly purchased books in your underwear drawer.
•    You've tried to cut your book buying to an average of one a week but find you can't.
•    You pay cash whenever possible at bookstores so as to leave no paper trail.
•    You refer to your local bookstore manager as your book mule.
•    You would seriously consider trading in one of your pets or children for a lifetime B&N membership card.
•    You have installed bookshelves to accommodate your growing book collection, at a cost equal to the GDP of a small nation, rather than donate any more of your precious collection to the library.

Sound like anyone you know?

Black cats, knocking wood, and WIPs

We got attacked by two—count ‘em: two— nasty little hackers two weeks ago. My time on the computer time was limited to trying various fixes and cleans recommended by geek co-workers. Fortunately, I married a geek (WIN) and after he consulted with uber-geeks who speak a language I’m not privy to, our computers are back to their healthy selves.

One positive outcome of this odyssey through hacker hell was lots of old-fashioned longhand writing. I’m a fountain pen addict—I own one for each book I’ve written plus a couple more I couldn’t resist. I start each new book with a new pen. I prefer to think of it as ritual rather than superstition. Hey, it’s my quirk, so I get to name it.

Another positive was more indulgence in manga. When I’m writing a mystery, I can’t read one. Writing is fun but it’s also hard work, so manga is my relaxation of choice. I love the angst, the scenery-chewing, the purple prose. All the things I don’t indulge in when I write. Nowhere else can I find demons with a sense of humor or vampires who preen like beauty pageant contestants.

It’s also a learning experience—sometimes I don’t get the humor. Sometimes I do, but the timing of the joke seems off. And often I learn cultural tidbits that I squirrel away for possible character creation in future books. (Yes, that is the cover of Noah Lukeman’s invaluable The First Five Pages on the far left. It’s one of my essentials.)

So, fellow writers, what’s your new WIP ritual? Pens? A new playlist? (Adam Hurst’s amazing cello music is the soundtrack for the current book.) And as long as I’m being nosy, do you read the genre of the book you’re writing, or do you do a one-eighty like me? I love seeing how everyone else does the process.

Alexander McCall Smith and the Case of the Helpful Reader

by G.M. Malliet

Alexander McCall Smith has written an article for the WSJ that's as engaging as any of his novels. In the article, he talks about how readers can get so caught up in an author's characters they start wanting to dictate "What happens next." I was amazed to learn that one of Smith's characters, Isabel Dalhousie, formed a relationship with a younger character in reaction to a complaint the author received from a journalist. It was this journalist's opinion that it was wrong to deny these characters a romantic attachment, despite the difference in their ages, so this attachment got written into the series.

I was saddened to hear that Mr Smith succumbed, but the pressure on such a popular author must be intense. Everybody "owns" Precious Ramotswe; everybody "owns" Isabel. It is part of Smith's great achievement that he made them seem so real, and endeared them to us. We care what happens to them, in the same way we care what happens to a friend.

I posted a link to the WSJ article on Facebook and someone commented that this was why they couldn't bring themselves to read The Remorseful Day, in which Inspector Morse dies. That is exactly it--Morse (and John Thaw) had become so real to us throughout the series we couldn't bear to say goodbye.

Both Colin Dexter and Alexander McCall Smith have more than earned the right to let their characters do as they choose--or rather, as their authors choose. And surely, that is any author's right. What else are we here for but to either keep our characters in line or let them run wild, only to be reined in later? Someone has to be in charge, and I think it has to be the author. (If anything, I would have preferred that Isabel remain single, but I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to bend the author to my will.)

Have you ever altered the direction of a series because of input from a fan? (And have you lived to regret it?)

Photo from www.telegraph.co.uk

Fill in the Blank

Cricket McRae

The other night I indulged in something I rarely do: checking out the special features on a DVD. I’d just watched The Bourne Ultimatum, and though I generally find the behind-the-scenes information strips a lot of the magic out of a movie, I was curious about which scenes had been edited out. It quickly became clear that all the bits they’d removed, though well enough written and acted, over-explained what was going on. They told more than they needed to. Including them would have slowed the pace, but wouldn’t have added much in the way of real information.

Show, Don’t Tell. The old maxim holds even truer for novelists than for screen writers. Readers fill in blanks and make interpretations and judgments, but they also have to add sensory data, including the visual and auditory information inherent in the cinematic experience. The danger of an author telling and not showing is far greater for the simple reason that we’re painting our stories with little black squiggles … and nothing else.

We ask readers to take those squiggles and translate them into whole worlds, people, events, meaning, for heaven’s sake. I mean, that’s crazy, when you think about it. Is it any wonder that sometimes we overdo it, attempting to make it easier for those marks on paper to convey the effect we desire? To communicate our vision complete with subtlety and layers of surprise and emotion?

But a writer’s job isn’t to tell the whole story. For one thing, we can’t, and the more we try, the more we kill something vital between writer and reader. The writer’s job is to show (and sometimes tell) enough of the story for the reader to fill in the rest by himself. Our readers’ imaginations are fabulous and amazing, but perhaps more importantly, inevitable – and that makes their imaginations an essential part of our story process.

When I was in high school I was taken with a passage from Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent:

“A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudices, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home with it. Only then can he accept wonder.”

That quote has stayed with me ever since. Story as a synthesis of writer and reader. It’s mysterious, maybe a little unpredictable, and sometime disconcerting.

And so very, very magical.

Turned Off by Turn Offs

A while back, the topic came up on DorothyL about turn-offs in mystery novels. Show stoppers, those things that when you read them make you put the book down and never pick it up again. Those things that makes you dash off breathless letters of condemnation. Those things, even, that make you want to buy Author Voodoo dolls and use them for a game of Author-in-a-Blender.

Some oft-cited examples, in no particular order:
• Swearing
• Smoking
• Tattoos
• Women protagonists who blindly walk into peril
• People who won't talk to the police
• Sub-plots involving adultery
• Did I mention swearing?
• And smoking?

All this surprised me. First of all, it was a little alarming because my follow-up to Lost Dog features a fair degree of swearing and smoking (and extensive craving of a smoke) as well as people who won't talk to the police and a sub-plot involving adultery. I even have a minor character with lots of tattoos. I don't have a woman protagonist who walks blindly into peril in this one, which is my one saving grace I suppose. Oh, and I don't kill a dog, an act so heinous it doesn't even need to be listed.

My own personal pet peeve, as described in a previous post, is unrealistically great first time sex, with ubiquitous, unstoppable computer hackers running a close second. Other than that, I am pretty tolerant. We're talking about a novel here, after all. It's not like I have to hang out with these people.

Take smoking. My guy, Skin Kadash, smokes like a chimney in Lost Dog, but has mostly quit in my second novel, Chasing Smoke. All throughout Chasing Smoke, however, he's craving a smoke. I mean, he just quit, and it's hard. Sometimes he almost breaks down and lights up, but even when he's not smoking himself he's watching others smoke, and thinking about it. A lot.

Now, I'm not a smoker. I'm not even a former smoker. I'm gracious about it with my friends who do smoke, but I admit I don't care for the smell of tobacco smoke and I don't care for smoker's breath and smoker's hair. But, hey, let's face it, it's not my decision and if my friends want to smoke, it's their choice. If we're out having a beer and a friend lights up, no worries. I like my friends a LOT more than I dislike smoking. And no doubt I have plenty of habits that others don't care for.

In writing about smoking, I went to great lengths to create a character who was sympathetic, and whose need for a smoke actually accentuated his intrigue as a person. Aside from the challenge it posed to me as a writer, it also just fit in with who he is. How successful I am with Skin I'll leave for my readers to decide, but I would hope that no one would dismiss him, or the book, out of hand simply because he's a smoker.

Consider that other great taboo. Killing a dog or cat. As crime fiction writers, we can kill off untold numbers of people, but lay a finger on the fur of a single fictional pet and we're Hitler. Kids are pretty much sacrosanct too, though we're actually allowed to put children in danger at times.

True, some folks have gotten away with the killing of the innocents. Glenn Close still had a career after boiling the bunny. Steven Spielberg still gets to make movies despite T-Rex eating a dog in Jurassic Park II. And there are a number of successful books and films in which children come to a dark end. But for the most part, those are events we dramatize fictionally at our peril. "After he killed the pomeranian, I resolved to never buy another book by him, and to picket bookstores that sell his books, and to mail little ziplock bags of dog doody to his mother, and,... and,... and,..."

That's disappointing to me, and not because I want to kill a dog. I love dogs. And I love kids. And I love people, though certainly not all of them. But as a writer, I want to feel free to tell stories as they unfold, not feel constrained by lists of no-no's. And, as a reader, (and let's face it, I read a LOT more books than I'll ever write), I want authors to feel that they can tell the stories they need to tell without stressing about the Verboten!

I'm not advocating gratuitous butchery here. But let's be honest. We're killers, as writers, and voyeurs of killing, as readers of crime fiction. Even the coziest among us produce a body count that would be shocking if it weren't on the page. The distinction between a bloodless death in the drawing room and serial slaughter in an abattoir isn't all that great, even if sometimes we pretend it is. And certainly I know there are any number of topics that probably cross the line for the vast majority of us. I'm not saying there aren't valid lines. I'm also not suggesting that we have to read or write about topics that don't interest us. There are a million books out there, and none of them are for everyone. I just wonder if, considering the mayhem we do tolerate, some lines aren't a little arbitrary and unmindful of what's really going on here.

I don't smoke, and I don't have a tattoo, and I won't commit adultery. But I write about all these things, and many others that probably make it onto scold's list somewhere. I guess, in the end, if we're okay with Colonel Mustard doing it in the library with a candlestick, might it also be okay if he has a smoke afterwards, and maybe cops a feel from Mrs. White at the biker bar up the road while getting his tats touched up? We're being entertained by imaginary murder. Is a cigarette or illicit affair so awful in comparison?

Puppy Love Noir

As he later remembered it, the air under the bridge was always ten degrees cooler than the day above, summer spring, winter fall. Didn't matter. The creek ran mostly shallow, water flowing over round stones like fossilized teeth, though an eddy around the center piling had dug out a deep pool which collected branches, pop cans, and plastic bags tangled in a slick of foam. A bank of wet gravel and sand sloped down on the north side of the creek, too damp to sit on but open and flat: a blank canvas.

After school most days he would ride his bike down to the creek, four miles past blank, staring houses that all looked the same. The sheltered bank was a place to be alone, to mope and to long. She lived just a quarter mile away in a subdivision hidden from view by a line of trees on the creek's edge. He could sense her house over there beyond boiling clouds of gnats which rose off the water when the heat pressed down in the afternoon. He knew she came down to the bridge too. He'd seen her once from far up the road, climbing up from below, gone by the time he arrived. He thought of it as her place too. Maybe they'd even run into each other some day. An accidental meeting in a shared refuge. The start of something perfect.

As the year wore on, the bridge served more and more as his place of sanctuary, a safe place to conjure. She'd appear in his thoughts and they'd talk about the trivially significant. Somehow she always wanted to discuss whatever was on his mind. His insights always impressed her. He was earnest and wise and she adored him for it. Then there were the days he arrived at the bridge to find her already there, beset by hooligans. Aimless drifters with black, rotted teeth. Maybe there'd be a bit of rope on the bridge and he'd swing down from above. One day he'd wield a sword, the next double-fisted .45s — or more often only his own limbs. Kick one backwards, arms windmilling, into the eddy. Send another flying onto the rocks with a well-timed upper cut. An eighth grade boy against men, but faced with his fury they'd flee, bleeding and bruised. Then she'd fall into his arms in relief and gratitude. Her hero, swinging down on his rope to save the day. No wonder their passion took root in the sandy lee of the bridge across from an eddy full of trash, alone though he was.

Spring gave way to summer and school let out, cutting him off from the one place he could count on seeing her in the flesh. He found himself spending more and more time under the bridge, anxious and adrift in fantasy. The shape of her face began to merge with the reflections of light off the water, and in response she teased him in his mind that he should declare his feelings for her in some lasting way, a way that anyone could see. So he waded into the shallow water and gathered creek-rounded boulders as big as his head. He placed them on the damp, sandy bank in the shape of his desire, "I love you," spelled out in stone. He left them, validated by a syllogism of dreams, convinced that these stones would be the thing that would bring her to him at last. He returned each day after he finished his chores, indifferent to his friends, and talked his long talks with his beloved. Saved her life again and again. Then one Saturday he couldn't go, pinned down by some pointless to-do of his mother's, family picnic or some crap. But Sunday he biked out to the bridge again. Four long miles through dead air dense with vapor.

She'd been there. She'd seen the stones, knew them as hers. He didn't even have to name her name. She saw the shapes of the words, and she responded. Fossilized teeth jagged in the sand. "Stop," they now read. "Please..."

— Bill Cameron

Hearing Words

As a young child, my mother the consummate reader, would gather the four of us around and read Golden Books and Aesop's Fables to us and whatever else we begged her for. There was a particular luxury in not only hearing great stories, but having someone else do the reading.

Recently, both of the public libraries I have accounts with began participating in Overdrive, a nationwide program of free downloadable audio books. Free, that is to patrons, but libraries pay a fee to participate. With my .mp3 player in hand, I began to rediscover the joy of having books read to me. What brings me the biggest thrill is that I am able to listen to wonderful stories while doing ordinary tasks like cleaning, laundry, yard work and commuting to and from work. The only time I can't listen and absorb audiobooks is when I'm reading anything else.

I have to admit I'm becoming "narrator-sensitive," especially if the book is set anywhere in New England. I cringed while listening to Anita Shreve's Light on Snow when the narrator pronounced "Concord" like the plane with an "e" instead of its regional "Concahd."

The other curiosity I've discovered is that listening to the book read to me is a very different experience than holding it in my hands. The words reverberate dead center in my brain and seem to linger longer than when I'm reading in hand.

I'm curious if anyone has had their work produced on audiobook and what their experience has been? Is this a marketing venue worth pursuing? Does the author have any say in the narrator?

- Felicia Donovan