On Saturday, February 13, fourteen of us met for our second online chapter meeting. While Zoom can never match the pleasures of meeting face-to-face, it was still wonderful to be together.
Highlights included the chance to offer feedback to Elaine Munsch on the opening of her new series centered around Annie, a recurring character in her Dash Hammond series. Talk about a wonderful premise! A celebrated mystery author sets up a demonstration crime scene for a talk he’s giving at Annie’s bookstore, only to end up as a corpse at the scene. Needless to say, we all can’t wait to read more!
Susan Bell followed up with a helpful tutorial on using tracking in Word to comment on one another’s work. Speaking of Susan, her interview on my web site went up on Saturday. Susan has had such an eclectic and interesting career, and I’d love for you to read about it at: https://lynnslaughter.com/2021/02/13/meet-susan-bell/
At our business meeting, we talked about having a one-day retreat in June to address where we want to go as a chapter. V-P Carol Preflatish is taking the leadership in setting this up and is investigating General Butler State Park as a possible meeting place.
Our delightful guest speaker was M.J. Downing, author of Sherlock Holmes, the Case of the Undead Client and The Werewolves of Edinburgh. A third book in the series will come out next year.
Unlike the original series, Mark chose to focus on the point of view of John Watson and to explore his growth as a character. He was particularly interested in showing motivation through dialogue and noted that compared to other Victorian authors, Arthur Conan Doyle’s style was more linear and relied more heavily on dialogue.
Whereas Holmes avoided emotional entanglements, Watson was interested in women, and Mark included a romantic triangle and its attendant suffering as a part of Watson’s growth. “He learns about himself through his adventures,” he explained, “and the consequences to his choices.”
He also discussed his writing process. He uses a whiteboard for plotting and looks at the ending and then plots backwards. But he also takes great joy in making discoveries about characters in the process of his writing.
You can watch his presentation right here on our website and can learn more about Mark and his other writing projects on his personal website. Go to: https://mjdowningsplace.com/
In other news, our former chapter president, Beth Henderson, has an upcoming release on
April 5th of her historical romantic mystery, Until . . ., set in the Idaho mining country in 1863. Congratulations, Beth!
That’s it for now, and I sure hope you’ll join us for our next meeting on Saturday, March 13.
P.S. Both at the meeting and in subsequent emails, we all shared information about upcoming writing conferences. They include:
Sleuth Fest
March 19-21, 2021, online this year, sponsored by Florida chapter of the
Mystery Writers of America
https://sleuthfest.com/
Malice Domestic
April 30- May 2, 2021, Bethesda, Maryland
https://www.malicedomestic.org/
Imaginarium
July 9-11, 2021, Louisville, KY
https://www.entertheimaginarium.com/
Killer Nashville
August 19-22, 2021, Franklin, TN
https://killernashville.com/
Prime Crime
formerly Magna cum Murder, October 22-24, Indianapolis,IN
https://www.facebook.com/groups/308844470155156
Legendary Book Bash
in case anyone in the membership wants to join or attend. The manager is: Michelle Areaux at: michelle@kingstonpublishing.com
When: August 28th, 20201
Where: DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Lexington
2601 Richmond Road
Lexington, KY 40509
Eventbrite Link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/readers-envy-lexington-legendary-book-bash-tickets-64420405166?aff=ebdssbeac
Author Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmMbwFvbHbqqVrmiZxZDQ4LZmdK4vRWWsk5blN4D29VI5foQ/viewform