U.S. PRESIDENTS AND THEIR CATS! by Yvonne Saxon

 

 Of all the pets that have come with Presidents to the White House, I believe the cats have stolen the show! Martin Van Buren's tigers really did until Congress made him give them to a zoo, and Coolidge's lion cubs for a time, but the real stars were the domestic cats!

The first president to have a cat in the White House was Abraham Lincoln. Because the Lincolns left their dog in Springfield, Illinois when they moved to Washington, Secretary of State William Seward gave them two cats. Tabby and Dixie took up residence in August of 1861. Mary Todd Lincoln, when asked by a reporter about Lincoln's hobbies, commented with one word: cats. Lincoln was said to have quipped once that Dixie was smarter than all the members of his cabinet!

Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Hayes were given a Siamese cat in 1878 by the American Consul in Bangkok. Siam, according to records, was the first Siamese cat in the United States. Unfortunately she fell ill within nine months, and even though the President's personal physician was called in, his treatment of fish, oysters, cream, duck, and chicken didn't help, and she didn't recover.

Perfect Starts by Maria Hudgins

 

My favorite English mystery writer is Peter Lovesey so I was saddened by his recent announcement that his newest novel, Against the Grain, would be his last. His first was the prize-winning Wobble to Death, and it was published 50 years ago! Wow! He will at least continue writing short stories and I look forward to reading them. It was his novel, The Vault, that first taught me the value of a great opening line.

"Some weird objects are handed in at Bath Police Station."

I don't know about you, but I cannot stop there. Like what? What sort of weird object? Is he going to give me an example? He had better, because I feel like I HAVE to know! It can't be a gun because it's a police station and a gun would not be a weird thing to hand in there. A purse? That's not weird either. A set of false teeth? Weird, but why would you take them to a police station? I have to know more.

I read further, of course, and learn that a man wearing the uniform of a guide at the city's main tourist attraction, the famous Roman Baths, is standing in line at the front desk and holding a pizza box with a lump in it. The lid won't go all the way down.

What's in the box? I'll pause while you think about that.

I read on until I found out what was in the box but by that time I was hooked. I had to read the rest of the story.

Another Lovesey story--and I can't remember its name--starts with the single word, "Naked?" I thought about how I couldn't stop reading there and was inspired to start my first Dotsy Lamb Travel Mystery, set in Italy, with "Strip-search?" It worked. A lot of people read the book.

First lines are important. First lines in a mystery are especially important because there are so many mysteries out there. The writer is facing stiff competition. Nobody has to read past the first line if they don't want to. You have to make them want to. Here are some of my favorites:

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier. This line is often quoted as a great first sentence.

"I have done this before." Poirot's Last Case, Agatha Christie

"Death is my beat." The Poet, Michael Connelly

"Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write." A Judgement in Stone, Ruth Rendell. 

A first line like this one, or the one from The Vault can be used to spark the reader's curiosity or it can be used to set the mood for the whole story. It can help the reader decide if he wants to spend a few hours living in the world you have invented.

What about you? Have you ever been captivated by the first word or a first line that grabbed you and made you read the whole thing? When was the last time you felt like Tom Cruise when he said, "You had me at Hello?"

I'd love to hear your answer. Leave me a comment.

COASTAL CRIMES 2: DEATH TAKES A VACATION By Mystery by the Sea Authors

 

 March 10, 2025 (Monday) 7pm Est – Zoom Meeting – Session open to the public

Topic: Coastal Crimes : Death Takes a Vacation anthology. Come hear the authors discuss their story location, characters, and story inspiration on a moderated panel.

Description: Get ready to travel to mysterious vacation destinations in Coastal Crimes: Death Takes a Vacation anthology by members of Sisters in Crime, Mystery by the Sea chapter.

The stories are set in and around Virginia. Each of the fourteen stories transports readers across a rich, unique, and deadly landscape in the Coastal Plain of Virginia, North Carolina, and east of I-95. This collection includes vacation getaways from the shores of Virginia Beach to the Eastern Shore, and the Outerbanks of North Carolina. So, pack your bags to visit premier destinations filled with mystery, murder, and a coastal view.

Teresa Inge is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Mar 10, 2025, 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://sistersincrime-org.zoom.us/j/5192298030...

Meeting ID: 519 229 8030

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SENDING VALENTINES: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE by Penny Hutson

Ever wonder how the current Valentine’s Day card-sending craze in the United States got started?

How did we become so obsessed with sending cards in the first place? We have a card for everything these days. They used to be only for special occasions, a few holidays and for getting well. Now, there are cards for retirees, as well as those getting their first job or those simply changing to a new job. We have cards for friends, lovers, and those somewhere in-between. There’s hello, goodbye, sorry, and a whole host of other messages we used to write in letters to people, or we called them on the telephone and told them. Amazingly, we can even buy blank cards to write our own messages!

And no other holiday, aside from Christmas, do we feel the need to give cards more than on Valentine’s Day. Elementary students make them at school for all their classmates, parents, siblings, and other family members.

So, how did all this get started? Well, you can thank or blame (depending on your view) the current obsession of giving Valentines cards on the Victorians or at least, in part, for setting the stage. In the 1830’s, the London stationary firm of Joseph Addenbrooke discovered how to make paper that looked like lace. They used it to embellish practically everything, including what was soon to become all the rage in Victorian culture – Valentine cards with cutouts of hearts, cupids, flowers, and of course, lace paper.

Then, in 1847, a young woman named Esther Howland created the very first American paper Valentine card after receiving a commercially made English one from a friend. Esther’s father, who was a stationer, had supplied her with the special lace paper to make them. However, it was her traveling salesman brother who came back with an order for five thousand, after showing them to his customers on the road.

Esther wasted no time. She and a few friends began the first assembly-line production of American made commercial valentines in a spare room of their house. These creations were so popular, despite their high price, that in 1880 she sold her business to the George C. Whitney Company (an American Valentine competitor) for over $100,000.

Miss Howland is now credited with being the “Mother of the American Valentine.” So, whether you love or hate the tradition, perhaps she is the one truly responsible for our national infatuation.

ADVICE TO AUTHORS: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, AND... By Michael Rigg

No doubt you’ve heard advice for authors to “write what you know.” I also follow this related suggestion: “write what you want to know.” For me, that means that I write stories set where I live, i.e., Virginia Beach and its environs. And, it also means that I write stories set in New Orleans, which I visit as often as I can, strictly for “research,” of course.

Despite recent events, New Orleans is probably best known for Mardi Gras. Well, it’s that time of year again. But Mardi Gras is not just a date. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday in French. In addition to referring to a specific date (March 4th, this year), "Fat Tuesday" represents an entire season of Carnival celebration. Every year, Mardi Gras season begins on Twelfth Night, which is January 6. Twelfth Night represents the Christian holy day of the Epiphany. The season, which represents a time of celebration before Christian Lent, lasts until Fat Tuesday. Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras Day, is March 4, 2025.

On January 6th, the merriment begins with the Krewe of Joan of Arc, a walking parade through the French Quarter, and three "parades" along various streetcar lines—Phunny Phorty Phellows,  Funky Uptown Krewe, and the Societe Des Champs Elysees (French accents omitted). For more about parade routes and schedules, check out this website:

https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/.../www.../parades/ 

In the meantime, Laissez le Bon Temps Rouler—Let the Good Times Roll!

 

MY PRODUCTIVITY HACKS, PART THREE: WAKE UP TO SOMETHING YOU LOVE by Max Jason Peterson

Snow Kitty by Max Jason Peterson

Earlier works in this series:

Part One: Multiple WIPs

Part Two: These Are Our Tools 

Wake Up to Something You Love

If the thought of getting out of bed is a chore, the rest of the day often drags, too. Everything you have to do feels harder when you're thwarted by not having enough time to do something you love. 

I'm speaking, for my part, of creative work, but this could apply to many different activities.

I’ve recently returned to something I tried years before: getting up before I have to go to work. This is a true challenge, since I’m a night owl with a morning lark's work schedule. When I’ve tried to do it in the past, my resolution didn't last long, since it was hard to motivate myself to crawl out of bed early just to do some really hard work writing and editing on my computer with an aim to churn out as many words or pages as I could. 

Yet there have been two times when this strategy did work for me, and I honestly enjoyed it. The first occurred a few years ago, while I was drafting a fantasy novel. I'd wake up but still lie comfortably in bed, writing with colorful pens in a rainbow-edged journal (my favorite way to write being by hand, especially with fun materials). 

The other time is now: pure joy, to get up before work just to draw, because I love it.

I’ve really missed my art; I'd been away from it for too long, and it's thrilling to watch my skills return. But these mornings aren’t about making up for lost time. And yes, I do have paying art assignments, but these are just pieces I'm making for the love of it. 

Having gotten out of bed because I want to, I find my mind clear, my heart relaxed as I pick up the pencil. It's fun, not a chore. Not something I'm making myself do. Every morning I give myself the choice: sleep in? Draw? I try to sleep in. I end up drawing.

And it brightens my whole day.

Try it! Get up just a little bit early to do something creative that you love, in a way that is all about you and your enjoyment of the process. It may contribute to an overall goal (my drawings will be published online eventually), but the point isn’t the progress, it’s the process. It’s a way to say yes to a deeply held dream. To get in touch with your soul while you’re still so close to your unconscious, and not yet bowed down by the pressures of the day.

Often by the end of a long day at work, I’m too tired to create—because making things from the heart requires so much mental and emotional energy. Even if I had the will to do it, I might knuckle under the stress that accumulates with all I have yet to do, with not enough time to do it. I may feel I don’t have time to play. If I engage with my creative life, it has to be solely for professional work. And in order to justify taking time to do it, I need to work hard and make it count.

This is no fun. It's a quick way to burn out. Believe me, I've been there.

When I wake up and choose to climb out of bed, I feel joy as I rise to meet my art. Obviously that pleasure, doing something I love, is both the benefit and the motivation. But I think it runs deeper than that. I'm making time for my dream first. And that’s important. 

Not only is the mind clearer, the energy fresher before you begin your daily routines, but you'll also be showing yourself that you do take your dreams seriously—that you value yourself enough to make this thing you love a priority.

Maybe the amount of time you have is small—fifteen or twenty minutes. Maybe it’s closer to an hour. Either way, just putting in the time reinforces the sense of commitment. 

Meanwhile, you'll also improve your skills and your connection to your art. Even if you find that you have to keep erasing your subject’s face (or crossing out lines of a poem), the longer you spend looking at the picture you’re drawing, the more deeply you’ll see it, and the closer you’ll be to getting it to look the way you want. 

Incremental progress only looks slow on the surface. Turn off the part of your brain that counts up what you've done and searches for an end in sight. Focus on the process, the fact that this is what you want to be doing day by day. Slowly but surely, you’re getting there. One morning you’ll find you’ve completed a striking drawing or a sonnet full of insight. And it doesn’t feel like an insurmountable effort. You were just having fun, giving yourself a moment of joy by spending time doing something you love.

Life's Vinyl Playlist by Judy Fowler

 

It’s out with the old and in with the new in January, and I’ve spent the past week purging “stuff” from my home. I also needed a topic for this blog post, so when I stumbled upon eight coverless records for which I have no record player, I thought staring at them might act as a writing prompt. Let's see what I come up with.    
“New World Symphony.” It’s 1964. I’m eleven and bored waiting in line with Mom at the dry cleaners. She permits me to wander downstairs, where they sell records. This album’s cover appeals to me—an orange sky over a black Russian spire. The 99-cent price tag persuades Mom to fork over a dollar. On our hifi, the barely audible opening music builds to a sudden crescendo and initiates me into a new world of emotions. 
    Verve Folkways’ “Mixed Bag.” I’m sixteen. Richie Havens moans that he’s “got the blues for my baby down by the San Francisco Bay” as Clint, Denny, and I (two learners' permits and one license strong) sit at a metal table in an East Village club. We memorized all the songs on this album before we went. We order ice cream sodas because we're underage but no less intoxicated about how amazing adult life is going to be, if sometimes painful.   
     “Joni Mitchell” on the Reprise label, produced by David Crosby. Songs like “Sisotowbell Lane” and “I Had a King,” plus Joni’s guitar and vocal style, sounded whimsical and daring.  I wished I could emulate her sense of adventure, but I only had Mondays off from my summer au pair job.
    "Songs by Debussy," with the elegant Connoisseur Society label. The label made me buy it. Dad was footing the bill for college so I could become a schoolteacher—"that," he said, "or a nurse." I wished for a part in the spring musical by senior year. One evening, an undergrad standing near my dorm room heard Debussy and decided I was the girl for him—at least until graduation when he kissed me off with a two-album set of Gershwin’s songs. Sitting in that crummy dorm room across the hall from my floor’s shower room, the two of us tearing up over tracks like “The Sunken Cathedral” had always been innocent in my memory. Just now, though, I’m wondering why my boyfriend-to-be was in that location in the first place.

"Bonnie Raitt." Her red hair on the green cover promised sultry tracks like “Since I Fell for You.” It's senior year, and I'm learning to tap dance to “You Got to Know How” after many long days of putting in my student teaching hours. Dormmates who live one floor below me see me in the spring musical and ask that I don’t forget the people who put up with tap dancing overhead while trying to sleep. I wonder where those women are now? My Debussy-loving boyfriend entered the Navy and married a redhead who resembled Bonnie. 
"L’essential Edith Piaf." I promised my father I'd teach school right after I spent a year in Paris. A job as a receptionist and sleeping in a fifth-floor garret left me a few francs to buy records like this one, and the dazzling performance of a French actor in a Moliere play got me thinking about directing theater. I had a job back home teaching tenth graders but worked as a summer intern in a stock company, so I knew how to help direct school plays. I didn't read the books I had to teach when school started.  By the end of the year, when the school didn't invite me back, I knew how Piaf felt. The summer stock company took me back with a $30-a-week job directing adult actors performing theater for children, where I met and directed my husband-to-be.
“Francesca Da Rimini.” After a series of jobs as a low-paid theater grunt I'd taken to ensure that my out-of-work actor husband and I had health insurance, this opera spoke to my mood: romantic, desperate, and overwhelmed. My grandmother left me her Steinway, and I turned to voice lessons, coaches, and sheet music. Obsessed with opera, I wrote a libretto and shared it with a young composer from my choir job. He came to our apartment a month later with a beautiful, heart-wrenching overture. A few months later, he died from AIDS. I don't know who has his music.
Lastly, I'm looking at Elly Ameling’s “Souvenirs.” I learned songs from this record to sing at recitals, but was close to the cut-off point for singers to enter contests when my parents first heard my trained voice. They said they’d never realized I had a passion for music. Maybe I’d never told them in so many words. I  began to think I ought to try writing. 
I'm putting these records back in the closet. I didn't know they'd evoke so many memories, and I’m surprised how often France came into my mind. I was fifty before I did some genealogy research and learned that Dad’s American roots came from Huguenot transplants from Normandy.  Normandy, where French friends showed me Bebussy's “sunken cathedral.” Normandy, where my father won a Purple Heart and lost many of his band of brothers in World War Two. I don't think Dad had a clue about his connection.
    Now, there’s a writing prompt! How about a story where a character like my dad fights on land his ancestors once owned, but he doesn’t know that? What genre would I use? Family Saga? Supernatural? Historical Romance? This idea has real potential. Right now, I only have time for a blog post.