KB Inglee
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The Family Business

5/19/2015

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A couple of years ago my daughter and I were going to set up a website together. We both write, but very different things. I write historical detective stories and she writes supernatural hockey romances. It made sense to share a site. We were going to call it The Distaff and the Damsel.

Not only do we both write, but we both work at the same museum. Newlin Grist Mill is a 1704 water powered grist mill and nature preserve.

A damsel is a young woman, sometimes known to be in distress, but it is also part of the grinding system of a mill. A distaff refers to the female half of a family but it is also a staff that holds flax to be spun for linen cloth. I’m not sure which of us was supposed to be which piece of equipment.

We liked the idea a lot but in the end went our separate ways. She did, or is still doing a fascinating series on the use of horses in fantasy fiction, which turned into a dissertation on which breed to give your protagonist and why.

I have taught beginning riding and run a boarding stable but there are few horses in my work. I finally realized that the only fictional animals I had were a cat I had consciously put in the kitchen of my protagonist’s mother and a carriage horse named Benjamin who appears once to take everyone to the courthouse.

Actually I haven’t seen too many horses in my daughter’s work either, though she does have a "Box of Cows".

I decided I was letting a bit of experience slip though my fingers so several years ago I started a story with a horse. Medusa is an all-purpose sturdy horse who (horses are all “who” and not “what” to me) serves as mount and companion to my character, Iccarus Norton. The horse came first. Medusa stumbles over a body in the snow as Iccarus dozes on her back. She came into my head as her own fully formed character. Dark bay, with no white markings, stocky, steady and kind. Far from beautiful. Not the race horse, but the trustworthy fellows who pony them to the starting gate. She never goes lame, eats whatever is at hand, stands patiently when required to do so. Iccarus takes good care of her, seeing to her needs before his own, because he knows exactly where he would be without her. She doesn’t have a big part in any of the stories, but she is always there waiting.

Perhaps she needs a story of her own. “Medusa Saves the Day.”

 

Notes:

Meet Iccarus and Medusa at: http://darkhousebooks.com/

 

Newlin Grist Mill: www.newlingristmill.org

A Box of Cows can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Box-of-Cows-ebook/dp/B004IK94T6/ref=la_B004KJ04PI_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347465855&sr=1-1

 

Bodge's web site is here: http://elizabethingleerichards.blogspot.co
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The Family Business

5/19/2015

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May 12th, 2015

5/12/2015

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Picture
Years ago I realized that some awards are given on the merit of the work, and some on the taste of the reader. Since Malice is a convention primarily to allow fans to meet authors, it is only fair that the fans get to pick the Agatha winners.

Two years ago it occurred to me that anyone who wants to can give an award for something they like, so I instituted the Cadaver.

I am a knitter of doo-dads. I long ago gave up knitting sweaters, or anything useful, in favor of short projects that are cute, animals, flowers, small decorative things. For many years I have knitted a Crimebake lobster called Hardboiled.

The Cadaver is a knitted naked body with a Y incisions stitched up with red and black thread. I was knitting a fairy and had set the naked body on the table waiting for wings. Glancing down at it trying to figure out how to do the wings, I realized it was more dead body than mythical creature.

What does one do with something like that? If I displayed all the silly things I knit I would need dozens more shelves. Better to give them away. To whom? What for? When I finished it I knew the little guy on my table had to go live (or be dead) at the authors house. It would have to be someone who's work I loved, and someone I knew would be honored and not grossed out, or puzzled by my weird sense of humor. Why not turn him into a mini award? I made him a drape so the recipient doesn't have to leave his gruesome self on display at all times.

About that time I read Death in the Time of Ice, by Kaye George, a mystery novel set in a community of Neanderthals, I had read a short story that was the practice piece for the novel, and couldn't wait to get my hands on the book. I knew Kaye had to be the first to be awarded a Cadaver.

The next question was how to deliver it so it was more than just an odd piece of kitting that arrived in the mail.

I wanted to present him in person and in a public setting. I very much didn't want his presentation to take anything away from the Agathas or appear to mock them in any way. So Kaye was awarded her Cadaver over lunch with the Guppies (a Sisters in Crime on line chapter).

This year the now coveted Cadaver went to Edith Maxwell for her as yet unpublished historical about a Quaker midwife in the late 1800s. I was honored to read the manuscript before it went to the editor.

I knew both Kaye and Edith would receive the Cadaver in the spirit in which it was given, from a true appreciation of their work but with a humorous and slightly irreverent twist.

While I bask in the glow of buzz over my knitting skill, the important thing here is that I get to show my appreciation of writers who are important to me.

The little guy is a tangible expression of my joy without costing lots of money and only a bit of time. It is also a way of using up the dreadful pink yarn that should last for another 10 cadavers.

I will cast on next week while I contemplate who gets next years' award.

I hope that you who are reading this find a way to let your favorite authors know how much they are loved.


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After Malice

5/5/2015

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I got home late Sunday afternoon from Malice Domestic. I have had little time to process anything that happened there. Too busy greeting my dog and making sure nothing bad had happened to her while she was under the care of the rest of the family. I spent an hour or so tracing down all the stuff that didn't make it into my suit case, like my black shoes that I found in my suit case (how do things like that happen?) and my daily meds which were on the dining room table.

So here are a few of the things that stand out.

I went with the intentions of meeting Yrsa Sigurdardottir, the Icelandic Mystery writer. I am an Icelandophile if there is such a thing. I am very proud of the fact that I can say the name of that volcano that disrupted air travel a couple of years ago, better than any of the news people on the radio or TV at the time.

I attended the panel she was on, which, as luck would have it, was not at the same time as my own panel, then I went to her signing table to get her John Handcock in the front of two of her books.

As I always do, I signed up to be a time keeper/general helper at one of the session. I didn't pay much attention to what it was. I simply chose a time slot that was convenient for me. The first thing I saw when I entered the room was that the hotel staff had not removed the water glasses from the previous panel. I tore down the hall to get new ones. One of the conference staff was right behind me. Together we set the glasses on the table and as I was pouring water into the first I looked up to see who the author was. Do you ever say things you wish you could call back just after you have dropped them into the air in front of you? I said. "I'm pouring water for Sara Paretsky!!" People who know me know I rarely use exclamation points and I am not usually overwhelmed by meeting greatness.

Three people from my Sisters in Crime local made my stay most pleasant. My roommate, Sandy Cody, made life easy. I am an early riser. She didn't seem to mind at all that I got the bathroom all wet and dropped towels on the floor. She even invited me to a Kentucky Derby party her friends were giving. The operative word is party. The Derby was just an excuse. So I got to be the horse expert in the room. Every Derby party should have one.

Lunch with Jane Kelly at a family pizza place near the hotel was the perfect interlude. She had lived in the neighborhood and knew this place that no one else from the conference could ever find. White pizza wine and good conversation were restful and appreciated.

June Gondi came down for Saturday and I got to introduce her to a few of my non-local friends. I hope she found the trip fun and useful.
 
The people at Wildside Press (they have the best covers, and the contents are wonderful too; you should look them up) referred to me as "one of our authors." They have published three anthologies with my short stories in them.

 

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    Author

    The best advice anyone gave me about writing historicals was that you need to experience what you are writing about. The result has been not only more believable settings but a wonderful job teaching history to kids at living history museums.

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