Spring is finally here, with all the tumultuous, roller coaster weather so typical of Kentucky. Trees are leafing, flowers are blooming, and Derby Rotten Scoundrels is spreading its wings towards our first, in person meeting since 2020.
On May 14, we will welcome as our guest speaker, former FBI Special Agent Kathy Stearman. The Middletown Library will be hosting the event, and we will be providing some light refreshment. The event will be open to the public, and this will be our first hybrid event – we will combine the in-person with zoom, for those who can not attend. We really hope we can get good participation from our members. Louisville’s locally-owned bookstore, Carmichael’s, will be providing books for sale – both Kathy Stearman’s It’s Not About the Gun, and our anthology, Mystery With a Splash of Bourbon.
Please email me to RSVP for the event. The Middletown Library needs to know how many people will attend. We hope to see you there! I’ll send out a second email about this event, and the particulars. Stay tuned for that.
Kentuckiana Independent Authors Fair
The Kentuckiana Independent Authors Fair was held on April 9th, in LaGrange. In lieu of an April chapter meeting, a few of your fellow Scoundrels participated in the event.
On a rainy and snowy morning, Susan Bell, Lorena Peter, and Gloria Casale put on their book-seller hats (plus winter coats) and trekked out to Eastern Jefferson County. It was a cold, blustery day, which reduced crowd size, but we did have some success selling books. DRS sold six bourbon anthologies and three older Derby anthologies (for a net return of $91 + change). In addition to that, we sold one of Elaine’s Dash Hamond series books.
Thanks to Gloria Casale and Lorena Peter for participating. And special thanks to Lorena for her deft skills in wrangling customers to the table and engaging them in conversation . . . leading to sales!
And a special shout out to Karen Block, who made delectable bourbon balls – the recipe for which is in our bourbon anthology – these were a big hit with customers and also led to sales.
I didn’t count the total number of authors there, but some of our previous speakers participated: Lee Pennington, Erv Klein, and Bill Noel.
One wonders: are these events worth the effort? It’s a long day, physically challenging loading books into and out of the car, hours of sitting. But there are benefits outside the sales. First, we’re promoting the organization by attending. One gentleman there was interested in setting up a book fair in Louisville, to rival that of other cities. He took our contact information. Second, an event like this is a reminder that there is a community of writers here in the region. I enjoyed chatting with Lee Pennington and his lovely wife. It turns out Lee taught my brother Benn writing, at JCC, many years ago, and they are still good friends. Building connections with other authors has merit in its own right, but you never know where those connections may lead in the future.
We’re Growing
DRS boasts two new members: Pamela Hirschler and Sherry Youngquist. Pam is out of Frankfort, a published poet, current member of SinC, and is an unpublished mystery writer. Sherry is out of Bowling Green and is currently working on an amateur sleuth/cozy mystery. Both Pam and Sherry have joined our Critique Group – more on that below.
Critique Group
For the past seven months, a small group of Scoundrels has been meeting bi-weekly to share our manuscripts for review. Our merry band includes Elaine Munsch, Miki Reilly-Howe, Lorena Peter, Susan Bell, and our two new DRS members, Pam and Sherry.
Every two weeks, we get together via zoom and share our feedback on three manuscripts per session. We try and offer useful commentary to the author, while supporting their effort to tell their tale. I find it very useful to know, as I write content, that there will be intelligent minds reading the material, and soon. Writing is such a solitary journey, it is very helpful to remember that you are doing this to be read by others. This focuses the mind: entertain them, make them think, make them feel, don’t disappoint!
Here’s a brief blurb about each (the titles indicated are sometimes working titles):
Saving Remy (Miki): this story focuses on the murder of a single mother from Ukraine. Her orphaned son is the only witness, but his refusal to speak forces a child psychologist to work with police to find the killer.
Maud – working title (Elaine): another installment of Elaine’s delightful Dash Hammond series; this time Dash must solve events surrounding the death of his distant Irish cousin, Maud, and resolve loose ends of her mysterious past, including murders and a missing girl.
Inexplicable Dread (Lorena): Lorena explores the fevered politics of our time in a mystery melded with a little science fiction and tarot cards.
Drowning in Doubt (Susan): Hannah is a 14-year old girl who witnesses what she thinks is a murder, but which authorities believe to be a tragic boat accident. She and her cousin Luke seek to reveal the killer.
Tree’d (Pam): Quarreling neighbors lead to unintended consequences in this funny take on the hazards of living in suburbia.
Coastal Town Georgia – working title (Sherry): in this cozy/mystery, Sherry introduces us to a colorful array of small-town inhabitants, white squirrels, cheddar-bacon ranch pretzels, and murder, all set in a small coastal community in Seabrook, Georgia.
Bourbon Anthology News
A big shout out to Elaine Munsch, who has been quite busy the past several months marketing our bourbon anthology, Mystery With a Splash of Bourbon. She has cold called multiple distilleries, museums, gift shops, and traveled to Bardstown to find anyone and everyone who might be interested in stocking our book for sale. So far, we have the book on shelves at The Frasier, in downtown Louisville and at Shaq & Coco bookstore in Bardstown. The book is also on the shelf at Carmichael’s, here in Louisville.
Elaine has made contact with Old Forester, Maker’s Mark, Keeneland, Kentucky Horse Park, the Talbot Inn, the Derby Museum. We actually left a copy with Old Forester for their buyer to peruse before making a decision. We hope to make further inroads with these initial outreach efforts in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
Member News
Leisha’s Song by Lynn Slaughter is a finalist for the Imadjinn Award for Best YA Novel.
Lynn’s novel, Missed Cue, won the Florida West Coast Writers contest for unpublished work in the mystery-suspense category.
Congratulations Lynn!
In case you missed it, Carol Preflatish’s fourth Nathan Perry Mystery, WITCH HUNT, is out!
Former DRS President Beth Henderson continues to get rave reviews on her work.
The video of our February guest speaker, Erv Klein, is now available on Youtube, see link below. Erv gave a wonderful talk to our group about his latest book, Squat, hist first book, Subterfuge, an historical fiction mystery, and how he came to be a fiction writer late in life.
Lisa Haneberg was Lynn Slaughter’s guest author on her blog. Her hilarious essay, “Attention, Shoppers,” describes a book signing that didn’t go quite as planned: