When Lilacs Last in thd Dooryard Bloom'd

At times of overwhelming universal sadness, as we mourn the loss of so many lives in Sandy Hook, poetry sometimes captures things best:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love....

Walt Whitman's poem, an elegy to President Lincoln, can be found in its entirety in many anthologies, and online at the Poetry Foundation.

Rube Goldberg Machine a Winner

 
The great Rube Goldberg's fantastical inventions were once a regular cartoon feature in the newspaper. Goldberg (1883-1970) had such wild inventiveness that it has lived on among engineering students everywhere, inspiring such creations as for this year's competition: a machine that was required to pop a balloon at the end, and in the process would have made "a piece of toast, juiced oranges, assembled a hamburger, inserted a CD into a CD player, shut off an alarm clock, put a stamp on an envelope, sharpened a pencil, watered a plant and more. And it incorporated multiple energy transfers, including mechanical, thermal and electrical."
 You can watch the process here, and read the full report at Wired. Also, you can visit the official site for Rube Goldberg.

Ninth Annual Write of Spring at Once Upon a Crime

Don't ask me how they do it, cramming a dozen mystery writers and fans and books galore per hour into a tiny space. Somehow Pat and Gary at Once Upon a Crime manage to do it every year. So much so, that they are this year receiving the Mystery Writers of America's Raven Award for service.
Independent bookstores like this, feed on an ongoing basis, the thirst of many a reader, and help maintain the fabric of our communities. The staff has read practically every mystery under the sun, they know what else you might enjoy, and they provide a warm atmosphere in which to explore your literary tastes. As a Publishers Weekly Shelftalk blogger just wrote, "We [bookstores] want to the store to be a place you come in when you’re sad and need to smell the books to feel better or get a hug from someone who is sad that you’re having a terrible day. We want to be the store you can call at closing and we’ll leave a book you need for a present on the doorknob for you to pick up after work .... We pay sales and property taxes that fund the schools, the roads, and the Little League field and we’re happy to do it. We bring authors to the schools and host wonderful, free events for the whole community.  We need you as much you need us."
Once Upon a Crime is just one of the many bookstores that fit this bill (and the Twin Cities is lucky to have many good bookstores of all stripes, including chains). They support authors, and we authors like to support them, in return, through events such as this.
This year, I'll be appearing with just a few of my mystery-writer buddies---forty-nine, to be exact--- Saturday, April 2, 2011, from 12–4 pm. Once Upon a Crime is located at 604 West 26th Street (near Lyndale Avenue South) in Minneapolis. Among some of the authors appearing: Monica Ferris, Laura Childs, Susan Runholt, Mary Logue, Steve Thayer, and many more. Here's the link to the store.
We'll be happy to see you!

Poe Celebrations

There are some fabulous events happening this year to mark Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday (in addition to the stamp issued by the USPS mentioned below in a previous blog entry).

Poe Conference: "The Third International Poe Conference will meet in Philadelphia Oct 8 to 11, 2009, at the Hyatt Hotel. At the conference, Poe scholars will present new scholarship, participants will attend a premier of a musical composition, inspired by Poe, and written by Augusta Reed Thomas and see a performance by Norman George as Poe." The National Park Service maintains the Poe National Historical Site in Philadelphia, where a number of additional events will be held.

Baltimore's Year-long Celebration: "The city of Baltimore will host Nevermore 2009, a yearlong celebration of the life and works of one of Baltimore's most famed residents. The year will be filled with a variety of events, including birthday celebrations, lectures, wine tastings, art exhibitions, theatrical performances, special tours and more." These events include an October reburial of Poe next to his grandfather.

Feature Articles: The New York Times has put together a slide show of images from Poe manuscripts and published works in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. The New Yorker recenlty featured a lengthy article by Jill Lepore on Poe.

Virtual Writers Conference Begins

What a terrific idea! Gayle Trent, author of Murder Takes the Cake, has put together a virtual writers conference featuring guest writers, editors, agents, and others. Topics include book trailers, plotting, publishing, social networking, and more.
The advantages: attend any time, attend everything, no expense of travel, and you don't have to get out of your pajamas.

Ｗrite of Spring

Once Upon a Crime, one of the Upper Midwest's finest independent bookstores is putting on their annual "Write of Spring" Saturday, March 28th, 12–4 pm. I'll be appearing there at 2 pm.
There'll be more than 60 authors besides me appearing that day: Carl Brookins , Gary Bush, Laura Childs, Chris Everheart, Brian Freeman, Ellen Hart, Steve Horwitz, Wm. Kent Krueger, Lori L. Lake, Jess Lourey, David Oppegaard, Bruce Rubenstein, Julie L. Schaper, Roger Stelljes, Christopher Valen, Pat Dennis, William Dietrich, Lois Greiman, Bob Gust, Camille Hyytinen, E. Kelly Keady, Jenifer LeClair, Chuck Logan, Michael Mallory, Larry Millett, Peter Rennebohm, Rick Shefchik, William Swanson, Richard Thompson, Marilyn Victor, Robert Alexander, Sean Doolittle*, KJ Erickson, Barbara Fister, William Fietzer, Jeff Foster, David Housewright, Victoria Houston, Dean Hovey, Kathryn Koutsky, Linda Koutsky, Linda Morganstein, Susan Runholt, Steve Thayer, R.D. Zimmerman, Joel Arnold, Judith Borger, C.C. Canby, Philip Donlay, Monica Ferris, Erin Hart, Pete Hautman, Judith Koll Healy, Priscilla Herbison, Kathleen Hills, Julie Kramer, Mary Logue, Sujata Massey, Scott Pearson, and Deborah Woodworth. See the website for the full schedule, or click on poster image above.

Bloomington Writers' Festival and Book Fair

Come enjoy the 6th Annual Bloomington Writers' Festival and Book Fair, Saturday, March 21, 2009 9:30 am - 4:30 pm in Bloomington, Minnesota. The keynote speaker is mystery writer William Kent Krueger, speaking on "This Writer's Life." Kent will also discuss "Importance of Narrative' in morning and noon panels.
An afternoon panel "Is It A Crime?" features authors Carl Brookins, Ellen Hart, Susan Runholt, and Gary Shulze (co-owner of Once Upon a Crime Bookstore in Minneapolis). And, the Twin Cities Sisters in Crime will have a booth.
Panels and keynote are $10 each. To register, contact the center.

National Train Day to be Held in May 2009

National Train Day will be held May 9th, 2009. Check your local papers for events!

What is NaNoWriMo and Why Did I Do It?

Here's the challenge: write, in the month of November, a novel of 50,000 words length. Thirty days. That is the simple goal of National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. Run by a somewhat ad hoc nonprofit organization, the now-annual event attracted over 90,000 of writers from every corner of the world, including a couple of thousand hardy Minnesotans. The idea is to "just sit down and write" without worrying about perfecting your work, without fussing, and without procrastination. After the month is over, then you can rewrite, revise, edit, restructure. Schoolteachers have had great success using NaNoWriMo to stimulate student interest in writing.

Why did I try NaNoWriMo? I was up for a new challenge, and wanted to try writing in a different manner than usual. Last year, I lasted all of ten minutes. This year, I was ready for it, and wrote steadily for the whole month, reaching what I thought was a very reasonable amount of 30,000 words (bear in mind that 1000–2000 words a day is for many writers an average daily output, and that most novels are actually going to be 65,000 words or more).

I prepared well for the month-long adventure. I thought through the structure for the new novel, which is a follow-up to DEATH BY THE DEPOT (the manuscript of which, almost complete, was ready for a month of fermentation).I stocked up on food, took care of winterizing chores, and warned people what I was up to just in case I got a glazed look in my eye. I filled my fountain pen, sharpened some pencils, and assembled a stack of color-coordinated scrap paper. I did some test runs with my new novel-writing software (the very wonderful Scrivener for Mac). I then opened the door for the novel's newly minted dozen-or-so characters to come in and start taking shape.

The result? A good solid start for me on a novel that has been lurking in the back of my mind for a couple of years; some new work methods for my repertoire. Some new writing buddies (the Twin Cities had just shy of 1600 people signed up, who produced 13,059,537 words, and placed 3rd internationally in number of words written, just behind Seattle and "Maryland"). Mostly, though, I had fun.

What's next? Now it's this novel's turn to ferment for a spell while I take care of other matters including DEPOT, and begin to dream up a story for next year's NaNoWriMo.