Virginia Woolf, Vermont's Alison Bechdel, and ... Me?

Mom and me ... way back when.

My mom died suddenly, at the appallingly young age of 53, not quite done with child-raising. So in a real sense, I didn't get to see who she might have grown into as an independent woman. I picture her taking up oil painting seriously, and going to amazing lectures, and expanding the new career she'd started, creating recreational crafts at a local nursing home.

I imagine now things we might have started to do together, too: She would have adored 12-Step group meetings, for instance, I'm sure of it! (All those stories ... ) Schmoozed excitedly at Sisters in Crime gatherings. Hosted a book club (or two!). Maybe we would have taken some trips as "just the two of us," too.

Most of all, I wonder how she would have adapted to today's feminism. She was always, at heart, a woman who didn't stand for discrimination. But in her time (she was born in 1927), marriage was WAY different, and so was employment.

Still, I am certain she'd be calling (and e-mailing and Facebooking) all her friends near and far about the "Break the Bechdel with Strong Female Characters" badge that landed on my mystery, ALL THAT GLITTERS, this winter. I'm elated that this "syndicate" on Inkshares chose my teen sleuth mystery set in Vermont for the honor. Here's the reason:

All that Glitters hooks you in the first paragraph and doesn't let go! Beth Kanell has crafted a main character who feels real from the first page, and has already introduced a mother whose voice is all her own-- and certainly someone to reckon with! We can't wait to follow Lucky as she tracks down the person who shot her father, with the help of her two friends who also already show great potential for fully developed roles!

(Pre-order link at end.)

With my eager, curious mother in mind, I've been trying to figure out how to explain this award. It's about a "test" named for Vermont graphic artist Alison Bechdel (who's said she wished it were the Bechdel-Wallace Test, because it came up on conversation of two people). And in turn, she was thinking about Virginia Woolf's comments in Woolf's 1929 essay A Room of One's Own:

All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. ... And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. ... They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that...

To run the "test" today, you look at a film or novel this way, which originally applied to a movie in Bechdel's comic strip:

1. The movie has to have at least two women in it,
2. who talk to each other,
3. about something besides a man.

 Well, yeah. I mean, sure. I mean, isn't that a big part of what a "girl sleuth" is doing, in the best books? Nancy Drew didn't talk with her sort-of boyfriend Ned much -- she confabbed with her "chums" Bess and George (both of them young women like here). And although Flavia de Luce, my favorite recent "girl" sleuth, depends on her dad's assistant to help her think through how to use her amazing science skills, her most important discussions are with the other women in her home.

It's not that we sleuth typed don't enjoy all of life -- but, as the Grand Sophy emphasized in a Georgette Heyer novel that I adored in my younger years ... there's a time and place to pay attention to some things (like what you're going to wear). And another time and place to focus on what needs to be solved.

Come to think of it, when Sherlock Holmes focused on "that woman" in his life, his detecting skills weren't quite as good, right?

Mom would have completely understood.

PS - Ready to pre-order your first-edition copy of ALL THAT GLITTERS? It's the first in a series of eight, and I bet each of them will make a good run for the Strong (and Smart and Sassy) Women category. We need to line up 750 orders to get this into print, so it really matters when you opt for a copy (or the special for three, which puts you into the published book as a sponsor!). It's easy to pre-order, just click here.

Cover Design, Teen Sleuth in Vermont - Updated! ("Young Adult Crossover")

When I started writing ALL THAT GLITTERS, my Vermont teen sleuth mystery, I knew a cover design would be critical to how I'd present the ongoing chapters on some online sites. I took the issue to my sister-in-law Cheryl Minden, whose graphic design career extends from gorgeous paper items and tags, to elegant signage (in some of the loveliest Montclair and Caldwell, NJ, structures), to art shows (she's #bravitasart on Instagram).

All I could offer her as a starting place was the classic #NancyDrew silhouette from those blue-board books of the old days:

And of course, a shot of the classic structure of Montpelier, Vermont, where the action takes place:

Cheryl looked at the first chapter and the synopsis -- the protagonist, Felicity "Lucky" Franklin, is adept with texting and related smartphone functions, and that's how she coordinates with her BFFs Michelle and Sandy. And the further tech expertise of these teens slips neatly into surveillance cameras, Google Earth, and more.

With her teenaged daughter as collaborator, Cheryl designed a cover that clearly states "student" (Lucky is a college freshman), as well as smartphone, and "Capitol" crimesolving.

The last touch turned out to be adding the line at the bottom left, because this is book 1 of a series that follows Lucky Franklin through her college and family and crimesolving crises, to the moment she submits her application for -- well, no, we can't tell you that part yet. But it's a wild ride!


Cheryl says she's not looking for more book design work, sorry ... but watch for her projects if you're in New Jersey. And watch where the book cover shows up next, en route to being published in the spring!

New Teen Sleuth Mystery ALL THAT GLITTERS Gets First Award!

Zowie! ALL THAT GLITTERS just won its first award -- and it's not even in print yet!!

The Break the Bechdel With Strong Female Characters Syndicate just named "All That Glitters" as its February 2019 pick. Here's why: "All that Glitters" hooks you in the first paragraph and doesn't let go! Beth Kanell has crafted a main character who feels real from the first page, and has already introduced a mother whose voice is all her own-- and certainly someone to reckon with! We can't wait to follow Lucky as she tracks down the person who shot her father, with the help of her two friends who also already show great potential for fully developed roles!

Hope you are following along, on this adventure in off-the-usual-route publishing. After all -- this is OUR Vermont Nancy Drew book (and, just a whisper to you ... like the original, this is a series, with seven more books plotted out already). I always loved Nancy Drew, and was ready for an update. Now, here it is.

Here's that link for the book, and you'll see the Break the Bechdel* "badge" on the page now. Then click the pre-order button (and note the 3-copy version that puts YOUR name in the printed book, too):

https://www.inkshares.com/books/all-that-glitters-c3a600?referral_code=aa13ab43

* Many readers don't yet know about the Bechdel test -- a relatively new way to look for books with strong, independent female characters. To learn more of its history, check out this link. It's named for a graphic novelist based in Vermont, so I'm especially happy to have it applied to ALL THAT GLITTERS. We're in this together, right?

Hugs and hope for today -- Beth

"Backstage" at Montpelier's Capitol Building, Looking for Lucky Franklin

A book buddy accompanied me to the State House in Montpelier, to "suss out" the terrain for the suspense scenes in ALL THAT GLITTERS. So she took photos, while I took notes, and Vermont State Curator David Schutz walked us up hidden staircases. We learned the gold on the dome was almost worn away -- that reporters know the back passages -- that the chandeliers can be lowered on powerful mechanical winches, in order to clean their lightbulbs today, or, before electricity powered them, to light the oil lamps in them.

I wish I'd taken David's photo, but if you don't already know him, just click here. He's charming, erudite, possessive of the sensational beauty that he stewards. And he had an idea: "Can you add homing pigeons to the story?"

Why not?

And so "scuzzy Sean," one of the most memorable side characters in ALL THAT GLITTERS, was born in a moment under the golden dome.

The novel is my best guess at what a smart, brave, tech-savvy Nancy Drew would be like today -- dealing with Vermont's crime issue of legal "weed." Check it out: You can read it for free here, and if you like it, please do place a pre-order ... we need to reach 750 of those for the book to be published at last!

"All That Glitters" Leaps to Life on Inkshares Publisher

I'm thrilled to see my teen sleuth novel ALL THAT GLITTERS available on the new publishing platform Inkshares. Click here to start reading for free! 

Whenever I chat with people about mysteries from childhood, Nancy Drew comes into the conversation. Love her or not, she's iconic, the teen sleuth who solves mysteries with her two "chums" Bess and George.

I wanted to see what Nancy Drew would be like if she lived in Vermont -- today!

The story takes place in Montpelier, after Felicity "Lucky" Franklin races home from college to help her mom. Lucky's dad has been shot, and Lucky's mom got arrested on suspicion of murder. Although Lucky quickly helps her mom to "lawyer up" and get released (the evidence is clear!), there's still someone threatening to injure her family and finish off her dad.

Is it the city's added taxes or the effect of marijuana for sale? How can Lucky and her friends solve the case -- and will they have to call in Roger, Lucky's ex-boyfriend? Wow, a special risk in doing that ...

Hope you'll click on this link to Inkshares and read along. It's free and easy to read the whole book on the website (press the READ button). Better yet, pre-order a copy.

Inkshares promises that when we reach 750 pre-orders for the book, it will be released as both a paperback and an e-book. Help it reach this goal and get your own first edition this way!

More stories about the book and Lucky Franklin in the coming days. Thanks for checking in!

 

Sugaring at the Cemetery?

I'm headed into writing the last few chapters of ALL THAT GLITTERS, so as I drove to Waitsfield, Vermont, yesterday, I detoured into the downtown of Montpelier to photograph a couple of locations that are featured in the book. Then I paused outside town at Green Mount Cemetery for some quick photos. When I looked at the big maples that edge the cemetery, I paused and stared. Look closely: Can you see the galvanized-metal sugaring buckets fastened to both sides of the maple tree here?? They were on the entire row of trees along the Route 2 edge of the burying ground.

Talk about not wasting any potential for making maple syrup!

Where Plot Ideas Come From: Tracks in the Snow

Turkey track, solo ... or so you might think

Two clusters of turkey tracks crossing the stream: Look closely.

Mourning dove, "pigeon toed."

It's cold here this weekend -- bursts of snow keep arriving, and it was nine degrees when I went outside. Although the chickadees call (their two-note mating call) in early morning, the woods go nearly silent later in the day, as we all hold our warmth close, self-protection in what can still be wild winter on the ridge. Tonight's forecast threatens subzero temperatures, not unusual for mid March, although it won't last. The trees are signaling buds and more.

Silent though the woods can be, the larger birds are on the move. With the snowcover down to a fragile couple of inches, seeds are everywhere for them with just a quick scratch. How different they are from one breed to another, though. See the solo turkey track in the first photo? It could fool you if you don't follow further -- the second photo, taken not far from the first, reveals that a family of at least half a dozen turkeys passed along here, crossing the stream around the same point.

The third photo means a lot to me as I work slowly to bind all the plot threads together in my "Nancy Drew-style" mystery, ALL THAT GLITTERS. I'm in the last few chapters and it has to go "right" in order to build to the climax I want. There are homing pigeons involved in the plot -- and the tracks in photo 3 are of mourning doves, the wilder sort of pigeon here on the high ridge. I hear their plaintive calls all morning. See how the footprints angle back to each other, always crossing, as the round-bodied bird appears to waddle along? That's where we get the expression "pigeon-toed" -- to walk with one's toes pointed inward, so the right and left feet appear to leave crisscross trails.

The cold air, the photo, the reflection on pigeons, and then, breakfast with strangers at Polly's Pancakes in Sugar Hill, NH, where you often share a table as the staff packs everyone in -- that's what it took to move me to the next component of ALL THAT GLITTERS. Suddenly, I know what's coming next.

PS - You can read the chapters as they are written, at WattPad: http://www.wattpad.com/3668250-all-that-glitters-chapter-1-all-that-glitters-by.

One Book Arrives, One Book Being Written -- Mysteries!

Although today is the Big Release Day for COLD MIDNIGHT, I'm also working on three (gulp) other books. Here's one of them: Late in the evenings, I write chapters of All That Glitters, the first of eight teen sleuth books featuring Felicity "Lucky" Franklin, in Montpelier, Vermont.

You can watch the book being written -- read the chapters as their first drafts are posted! -- at WattPad. Click here to peek!

On November 5, this writing project gets featured on the blog of author and editor Penny Lockwood Ehrenkranz. Watch for a link to Penny's blog that morning!

Setting a New Novel: Getting to Know Montpelier, Vermont (Better)

"The Sleuth of Montpelier, Vermont"

A Writer's Research Adventure

In a little “study” under the stairs, my father labored with ruler and Number 4 pencil on a single sheet of blued paper on which he could make scaled drawings. Nearby, curled in an armchair, the 10-year-old “me” read her Nancy Drew books, and understood that the secret panels and hidden rooms within the mysteries began their lives with someone else’s version of Dad’s blue pages.

There were trap doors, like the one in the floor of the wardrobe in “The Secret of the Wooden Lady,” which also included two cleverly crafted panels that Nancy discovered with her careful fingers; in “The Sign of the Twisted Candles,” the girl sleuth examines a camouflaged back stairway, then with her boyfriend Ned begins a hunt for the dead homeowner’s treasures: “Every panel in the ceilings, walls, and floorboards was carefully examined. … Ned cried out, ‘Nancy! Come here! I think I’ve found something!” She ran to his side in the rear hall. ‘Look! The grasss cloth on this wall is a little different from the rest and a twisted candle has been worked into the design.’” There’s a safe hidden behind the significant design element.

Now that I’m writing a “Vermont Nancy Drew” series set in Montpelier, I’ve tuned in to the wide range of design trends that resulted in the many-aged downtown architecture of Vermont’s capital. If I want my sleuth, Felicity “Lucky” Franklin, to discover a hidden room or secret panel, what structure will she explore? In this case, it has to be (for plot reasons) both the State House and the Blanchard Opera Block, now home to the bookstore that belongs to Lucky’s mom (the real store owner is collaborating) and once host to grand performances in the early 1900s, including the arrival of young elephants with the touring circus!

A behind-the-scenes exploration of the State House with ardent conservation curator David Schütz convinced me that the structure’s major idiosyncrasies lie in its dome, which sits atop the legislative “box” but is a unit unto itself. “My” sleuth will find clues there, among the oddly positioned timbers and scrawled graffiti. In the Blanchard Opera House, though, she’ll discover an actual hiding place.

Could Montpelier architect and sometime mayor George Guernsey, who designed the Blanchard Opera House, actually have ensured a concealed area in the building? Norwich University student Megan Morse and Putney preservation pro Lyssa Papazian tracked Guernsey’s work and life (1839-1900) in detail. The era fits that of Lambert Packard, St. Johnsbury’s major architect (1832-1906), and at least one of Packard’s buildings has a hidden panel next to a fireplace. Guernsey himself favored intricacy and Italianate detail. Although none of his documented structures in Montpelier show false walls, hidden doors, or secret panels, the grace of fiction allows me to insert one with a relative amount of believability.

But that’s not quite enough for the kind of fiction I’m writing, which always hinges on some aspect of Vermont history, as well as a puzzle rooted in the life stages of teenagers. So I have two more components of Guernsey’s real life to weave in: his local nickname of “King George,” and his death of tuberculosis.

In the process of crafting these mysteries (the first of is “All That Glitters”), I hope to also bring attention to George Guernsey himself and to his structures, which probably number in the hundreds, whether churches, houses, commercial blocks, or public buildings like libraries and schools. A little extra knowledge may yet make the difference in a decision to maintain a George Guernsey building at a valued town or city location – whether there is a secret panel in it, or not.

[Photos of details of a George Guernsey building, the Edward Dewey house, courtesy of Don Shall.] 

Research, Research, Suspense!

With enough research, the suspense starts jumping up and down and I can hardly wait to get writing the next chapter! I suppose that's the opposite of "writer's block." I love it!

The amazing Cheryl Minden designed a cover for ALL THAT GLITTERS, the first volume of the "Vermont Nancy Drew" series I'm working on. Finalizing it with Cheryl, along with the lovely change in weather -- not humid any longer -- and some gifts of time from my family have all come together into the energy to round up the research for the new chapter. And it's online. Yay!

Today's photo shows some of the in-person research at Vermont's State House, with the curator of state buildings, David Schütz, in the Senate Chamber that teen sleuth Lucky Franklin enters in chapter 26. And for an extra visual bonus today, here's the cover! Thank you so much, Cheryl!!