MALICE DOMESTIC - WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME by Teresa Inge

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending Malice Domestic, an annual convention that celebrates traditional mysteries, with a focus on Agatha Christie-style storytelling. Since its inception in 1989, this event has brought fans and authors together for a fun and friendly experience. Currently held each April in Bethesda, Maryland, it offers a mix of author panels, book signings, and engaging mystery-themed activities.

My own journey with Malice began twenty years ago, accompanied by my husband, daughter, and mother. Although I was initially nervous—surrounded by so many accomplished writers and knowing no one—I was warmly welcomed by Malice volunteers, members of Sisters in Crime (SinC) an organization dedicated to supporting female crime writers, as well as other authors and fans. I then realized I had found a place where I truly belonged which reminded me of the Cheers show theme song.

Fast forward to last month, and Malice Domestic still exudes the same heartwarming “family reunion” vibe, complete with cheerful hugs, laughter, and enthusiasm shared with old friends and new ones. Over the years, this convention has had a profound impact on my writing career. It has helped me forge connections with fellow writers, build lasting friendships, discover publishing opportunities, and hone my writing craft. Now, I take pride in welcoming newcomers, just as I was embraced all those years ago.

This year's highlights included Malice Go Round Speed Dating, New Authors Breakfast, an annual lunch with the Short Mystery Fiction Society, a SinC gathering featuring an "Agatha signature cocktail" and appetizers, a captivating Sherlock Holmes play, the Agatha Awards banquet, an after-party, and panels like "Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys" and "Living in a Modern World: Women Take the Lead." There were fabulous interviews with the guest of honor Marcia Talley, lifetime achievement honoree Donna Andrews, and toastmaster Gigi Pandian as well as a book room overflowing with literary treasures, rounded out an unforgettable experience. 

SANTA'S JOURNEY THROUGH TIME by Teresa Inge

Any kid can tell you where Santa Claus is from—the North Pole. But his historical journey is even longer and more fantastic than his annual, one-night circumnavigation of the globe.

Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure who embodies the spirit of Christmas. His story is a blend of history, folklore, and popular culture, making him one of the most beloved characters during the holiday season.

Origins and Evolution

The origins of Santa Claus can be traced back to Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek bishop known for his generosity and kindness. Saint Nicholas was famous for his secret gift-giving, which laid the foundation for the modern image of Santa Claus. Over the centuries, his legend evolved, incorporating elements from various cultures and traditions.

In the 19th century, the modern image of Santa Claus began to take shape. The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas," written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823, played a significant role in shaping the contemporary depiction of Santa. The poem described Santa as a jolly, plump figure with a white beard, dressed in a red suit trimmed with white fur, and driving a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

Washington Irving's 1809 book Knickerbocker's History of New York first portrayed a pipe-smoking Nicholas soaring over the rooftops in a flying wagon, delivering presents to good girls and boys and switches to bad ones.

Cultural Impact

Santa Claus has become a central figure in Christmas celebrations around the world. He is often depicted as a cheerful, benevolent character who brings joy and gifts to children on Christmas Eve. The tradition of Santa Claus visiting homes and leaving presents under the Christmas tree has become a cherished part of holiday festivities.

Santa's image has been popularized through various forms of media, including literature, films, and advertisements. The Coca-Cola Company's 1930s advertising campaign featuring Santa Claus in a red suit helped solidify his modern appearance and further embedded him in popular culture.

A modern Santa

Today, Santa can be tracked on Google Tracker alternating between traveling and handing out presents in cities on Christmas Eve. Numerous movies and books have been made about Santa. And television ads portray a modern Santa in the Capital One commercial with John Travolta strutting his stuff in a Santa suit to the Bee Gees ‘Staying’ Alive.’  While Target features a hunky Santa Claus depicting the jolly man as Kris K, a team member at the popular department store.

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED DURING A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT by Teresa Inge

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist best known for her groundbreaking work, Frankenstein. Born in London on August 30, 1797, Shelley was immersed in the literary world from a young age.

Early Life and Influences

Mary Shelley’s parents were Mary Wollstonecraft, an advocate for women's rights, and her father, William Godwin, a political philosopher. Tragically, Wollstonecraft died shortly after Mary's birth, leaving her to be raised by her father.

As Mary grew, her father's home became a hub for intellectuals. This environment, mixed with a vast array of books, fostered her literary talents, and introduced her to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom she would later marry.

The Birth of Frankenstein

In 1816, Mary traveled to Lake Geneva in Switzerland to spend the summer with Percy, their infant son, her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron, and Doctor John Polidori. At the time, Claire was pregnant by Lord Byron, the groundbreaking poet whose personal affairs had made him one of England’s most controversial celebrities.

After arriving in Lake Geneva, they found the area covered in fog from the Mount Tambora volcano eruption in Indonesia. The eruption killed 100,000 people. A million others starved while many died from a global cholera pandemic unleashed in the aftermath.

Some of Europe’s greatest artists created their darkest works during these dismal days. Mary Shelley was among them.

Since the weather was cold and stormy, the group stayed inside the Villa Diodati, the stately mansion Bryon had rented. They were left to entertain themselves with ghost stories and horror books. One night, as they sat in candlelit darkness, Lord Byron challenged each person to write a horror story, better than what they had just read.

Polidori accepted Bryon’s challenge and wrote The Vampyre. The short fiction was published in 1819 and is the first to include a blood-sucking hero, possibly modeled on Byron himself.

As the days passed, Mary conceived the idea of Frankenstein. She envisioned a scientist who created life only to be horrified by his creation. This concept was influenced as thunder and lightning echoed outside the villa and conversations turned to whether human corpses could be galvanized or re-animated, after death, a morbid topic of the time.

Legacy and Impact

Shelley began writing Frankenstein at age 18. She included the eerie setting of Villa Diodati and the poet’s conversations. The novel was published anonymously in 1818. It wasn't until the second edition, published in 1821, that her name appeared on the title page.

Throughout her life, Mary continued to write novels and short stories. She passed away on February 1, 1851. Of the group only, Mary and Claire lived past age 50. Polidori committed suicide in 1821. Percy Shelley drowned at age 29 in 1822. Byron took the daughter he had with Claire and sent her to a convent. She died there in 1822 at age 5. Byron died in 1824 after contracting a fever. Mary’s infant son lived to age 70.

But the book inspired by that stormy summer and, its life-after-death stories still live on today. Frankenstein is considered one of the first science fiction novels. Its impact is immense, spawning adaptations in film, theater, and other media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Do I Kill Thee? Let Me Count the Ways by Teresa Inge

While participating on the Women Solving Crimes panel at Malice Domestic this year, the moderator asked us about the different weapons we use to kill people in our novels and short stories.

Fortunately for me, the panel had received the questions in advance, which gave me time to review all the homicides I’d written and determine my methods of murder. With sixteen books, I was beginning to lose track of how I kill people!

I began my murderous review with Mutt Mysteries, a four-book series with dogwalker, Catt Ramsey, who solves crime and murder with her dogs, Cagney and Lacey. I had multiple victims and killings in these books. The weapons include a cutting board, knife, gun, pruning shears, and a dog trimmer. All of which fit right into each killer’s homicidal hands.

In Virginia is for Mysteries, a three-book series, I was on a killing spree with boards! I gave one victim a blow to the head with yet another cutting board, then used three wooden boards in various stories to kill people, smashed a killer in the face with a chalkboard, and used a glass vase to kill another.

In other books, I used different methods and weapons. These include strangulation with a lanyard lassoed around a victim’s neck, a chest stabbing with a road sign, a stab in the neck with a pink beach charm, and three shootings in three stories. I then pushed a killer over a riverboat’s balcony and shot him for good measure before lodging a corkscrew in a victim’s neck…twice. I finished the review with blunt objects to kill two victims, and a fatal allergy reaction to another.

After the review, I realized that I had never poisoned anyone. What would Agatha Christie think? That’s when I began tracking my methods of murder and vowed to use poison in my next story. Check out the attached graph to see the weapon that I used the most.

Agatha Christie - Pick Your Poison by Teresa Inge

While participating on the Agatha Christie panel at the Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem event this year, we discussed Christie’s fascination with using poisons to kill many of her characters. Thanks to her work as a nurse and a pharmacy dispenser during World War I, her knowledge of poisons was extensive.

In her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, strychnine is featured, and it is described as an ideal poison for a writer due to its rapid onset and dramatic effects. But the poison she used most frequently is Cyanide, appearing in And Then There Were None and The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. In other books, victims die from arsenic, digitalis, and morphine.

However, Christie was not the first writer to introduce poison in a mystery novel. She just used them with such incredible detail, that a reader could learn about a new poison and its effects instantly. This method made her novels quite sophisticated to readers during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, which is often referred to as the Golden Age of Poisons, largely due to Christie and her contemporaries who used toxins to dispatch characters in their novels.

The panel discussion continued with the methods of murder that mystery writers use today to bring about a character’s demise. These include stabbings, shootings, blunt objects, fire, drowning, and strangulation.

However, the use of poison still continues in culinary mysteries and other genres. Writers use plant poisons such as hemlock, lily of the valley, poisoned mushroom, Nicotine, and Oleander. Drugs and medicine include insulin, sedatives, Tylenol, and Fentanyl. All of which are fascinating to today’s mystery readers.

Since Agatha Christie was a "pick your poison" writer and most likely had fun with it, in many ways, poison became a personality in her stories which is almost a cliché today. But her novels live on due to her well-crafted plots, interesting characters, and realistic descriptions of the toxin's symptoms, which is why she is crowned "The Queen of Crime."

 

 

  

 

NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS by Teresa Inge

January symbolizes a new beginning and a fresh start to the new year. It also brings resolutions and a time to adopt new habits.

To me, it's the month that I set goals and view all things writing for the upcoming year. I decide which writing conferences to attend, view book signing locations and events, schedule book launches for upcoming books, and replenish bookmarks, books, and swag.  

In addition, I add a new goal during this time. So this month I plan to create writing presentations to present at events. I've been fortunate to participate on many conference panels throughout the years to discuss my books so I'm looking forward to sharing additional knowledge with audiences. I plan to start with Nancy Drew and book marketing presentations since I have vast experience in both topics.   

Another continuing goal is striving to write quality short stories and novels for my readers. Of course, scheduling writing time and submitting my work to various publishers and publications is my ultimate goal.

My last goal is to network with other authors and grow my readership by sharing updates about my books and upcoming events in a newsletter.

What goals, resolutions, and plans do you have for 2024? 

Teresa Inge is president of the Sisters in Crime, Mystery by the Sea chapter, a member of the Hampton Roads Writers, Short Mystery Fiction Society, and a contributor to the Sand in Our Shorts blog.   

She is an author in the Mutt Mysteries series, Virginia is for Mysteries series, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Coastal Crimes: Mysteries by the Sea, Murder by the Glass, Malice, Matrimony and Murder, and First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder.  

When not writing, Teresa can be found on the classic car show circuit showing her 1955 Torch Red Thunderbird. She can be reached on all social media or by posting a comment on her website www.teresainge.com  

THE HISTORY OF SWEET TEA by Teresa Inge

    

As summer heats up, Americans will be looking to cool down, and what better way than with a cold glass of refreshing sweet, iced tea.   

It’s been called "The House Wine of the South," by Dolly Parton in the movie Steel Magnolias, which was never a truer statement. Talk about the South and sooner or later sweet tea comes to mind. In the South, tea is appropriate for all meals, and all occasions, and you start drinking it before you can walk. Sweet tea makes Southerners think of home, tradition, picnics, and hot afternoons “sippin” sweet tea on the front porch. Southern girls are taught how to make it by their mama’s thirst-quenching recipes.    

First Sweet Tea Recipe - Green Tea Leaves

Until the 1900s, iced tea was made from green tea leaves rather than black tea leaves. The oldest recipe in print was when sugar was first added by a housewife and socialite named Marion Cabell Tyree from Charleston, South Carolina. Her recipe was published in the cookbook, Housekeeping in Old Virginia in 1879.  

While sweet tea remains a Southern delicacy, originally Southern-style sweet tea was made by dissolving cups of sugar in batches of boiling water in which green tea leaves were steeped. Once the water cooled and the leaves were removed, the tea was ready to be served. 

But depending on the amount of sugar dissolved, the original sweet tea of the 18^th and early 19^th centuries had a sticky—simple syrup taste that was too sweet. That’s when alcoholic “Green Tea Punches” became popular among the British aristocracy. Then southerners created a “Planter’s Punch” made of sweet green tea with pineapple, and citrus juices, and cut with near-lethal amounts of rum, whiskey, and bourbon to tolerate the sweetness.

By the late 1820s, America’s love affair with a “strong drink” began to cool as a growing number of Americans began identifying as “Teetotalers,” advocating against alcoholic beverages. Iced tea was at the top of that list and the South preferred sweet tea sans the alcohol.   

1904 St. Louis World's Fair - Cold Black Tea Takes Center Stage       

Thanks to the 1904 World’s Fair, there was a lift-off in the popularity of iced tea as patrons searched for a cold beverage due to the summer heat. That’s when Englishman, Richard Blechynden who was selling hot black tea at the fair realized no one was buying his drink due to the intense heat. So, he began running the tea through iced lead pipes and served the beverage to people walking through the fair. Because of this, it changed the way Americans thought of tea, thus popularizing black tea in everyday households.   

World War II - Tea Importation Cut off

A British soldier with the 2/7th Middlesex Regiment shares a cup of tea with an American infantryman in the Anzio bridgehead, on Feb 10, 1944. 

During World War II green tea importation was cut off leaving Americans with British-supplied black teas imported from India. This impacted the switch from green tea to black tea leaves.

This was due to the British government making an unusual decision in 1942 to purchase all the black tea on the European market to help their soldiers' morale and comfort during the war. With 60 million people losing their lives, soldiers witnessed more death than any human ever should and they suffered severe psychological trauma and nervous breakdowns. Since the water was transferred to the frontlines in oil cans, tea masked the flavor and brought comfort in chaotic times. It kept the soldiers hydrated, refreshed, and energized due to the caffeine in the black tea. 

Eight decades later, black tea is still the preferred version in America.  

Tea Stats - Over 1,000 Varieties   

Today, there are over 1,000 varieties of tea, most classified as white, green, oolong, and black. Tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world next to water and can be found in almost 80% of U.S. households. It's the only beverage served hot or iced, anytime, anywhere for any occasion. On any given day, over 159 million Americans are drinking tea and 75-80% of it is iced.               

        
Aside from a frosty beer, no drink quenches a thirst like a glass of iced tea. In the South, it’s served sweet and unsweetened. But in the Northeast, Midwest, or West iced tea is usually served black—meaning unsweetened.  

National Sweet Tea Day & Iced Tea Day

As we approach National Iced Day on June 10 & National Sweet Tea Day on August 21, rest assured that Southerners will be drinking it with plenty of sugar and by the gallon. Whether using black leaves or green leaves, iced tea will flow freely this summer, helping Southerners to cool down from high temperatures.

Tea Fact Sheet 

Setting SMART Goals by Teresa Inge

 

Setting SMART Goals

After the holidays are over and you find yourself in a brand new year, it's time to reflect on what you can do to change your life for the better. That's where New Year's resolutions and goals come into play. But how do you know where to start?

Goal setting is one of the most basic and essential skills you can develop. Whether it’s a career, finance, writing, or a weight loss goal, any of these can be accomplished by first setting the goal and second sticking to it. The rest is up to you to make it happen.

As an administrative professional for nearly forty years and mystery writer in twelve books, I’ve learned to set SMART goals to manage dual careers. Meaning, they’re specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Below is a breakdown of how to set each goal.

Specific goals answer the who, what, when, where, and why of the goal. To make it specific, take “I want to learn Excel” to “I will register for an Excel class to build my skills to track and manage my budget.” Or “I need to improve my book research skills” to “I will use my library resources, the internet, and the historical society to improve my research skills for my book.” This way, you know exactly what you need to do and how you’re going to do it.

Measurable is the metric or progress of where you are now versus where you want to end up. This way, at any point throughout the goal-achieving timeline, you will know how far you’ve come and how far you have left to go to reach your goal.   

Attainable ensures you have the skills and resources to accomplish within the given time frame. If you set lofty and challenging goals that aren’t attainable, you’ll end up frustrated and possibly give up in the end. Keeping bigger goals in mind and breaking them into bite-sized pieces will achieve the ultimate win bit by bit.  

Relevant is the purpose of the goal to keep you motivated to achieve it. When goals are relevant, it means you’re spending your time wisely to make progress toward the bigger picture. There are probably a lot of things you want to get done in life with all types of goals but being passionate about something requires staying focused and picky about your time.

Time-based requires a deadline so you do not lose a sense of urgency. Having a completion date in mind will set your pace along the way and hold you accountable.  

Good luck with achieving your goals. Click here to access a SMART goals worksheet to help you begin your journey.