Surviving the Storm

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Ever heard of a derecho?

I hadn’t, until recently. It’s related to a tornado, and can be just as deadly. Instead of twisting up everything in its path and tossing it around, a derecho’s furious winds wreak devastation in a straight line, like a giant hundred-mile-an-hour freight train.

Last May, one barreled through two hundred miles of Texas, including our neighborhood. It tore through swaths of open landscape and mowed down houses and other buildings, leaving hundreds of thousands electricity customers in the dark.

People died from falling trees. If you want to know what our derecho was like, these videos from the Houston Chronicle pretty much gives you a taste. Yes, it was scary.

In our neighborhood, it was mostly the trees, those majestic century-old oaks in our urban forest that suffered the greatest damage.

And then in July…

Hurricane Beryl hit us with howling winds and high water. Thousands of homes were ravaged. Thousands of businesses lost power—many, for weeks. People lost their lives from the sweltering heat.

After two previous summers of drought, the May derecho, and July’s hurricane, many more stately trees succumbed. Some, still standing, are leaning at ominous angles over homes and streets and sidewalks. Others are stripped down to mere skeletons of their former lushness. So many sad sights where once there was beauty and abundance.

We’re used to summer storms around here. The Body in the News, Book 3 in my Samantha Newman Mystery series, revolves around the aftermath of one of the worst hurricanes to hit these parts in recent history.

Clean-up and repairs from the May derecho weren’t completed when the July hurricane hit. We’re now two months beyond Beryl, yet a walk around the neighborhood still bears sad reminders of the destructive forces of nature. And now…

Here comes another one!

As I write this, the weather service is serving us updates on Francine, the tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico that’s expected to become a hurricane today. It, too, is headed our way, or somewhere between us and New Orleans. In case it arrives ahead of schedule, and we lose power again, I’ll wrap this up and get it posted. But before I sign off, there’s one more thing… 

I’ve come to understand the therapeutic benefit of immersing oneself in a leafy retreat, which is why I mourn losing so much of the neighborhood greenery. However, in the larger scheme of things, life can hit us with more serious hardships at any time, so, it’s important to keep this in mind:

Trees can be replanted. Lives lost are irreplaceable.

Instead of wringing our hands over what is lost, or what may happen next, let’s celebrate the people and things that bring beauty to our lives today.

Let’s appreciate what we have with with renewed attention and open affection.

And, if the mood strikes, while you’re hugging those dear to you, it might also help to hug a tree. Turns out, they can be as fragile as people.

Have you ever weathered a scary natural disaster?

Please leave your comments below…

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series: The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News.

 

 

 

Clicking Our Heels – Where We Would Live if Money Was No Object

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If Money Was No Object – Where Would We Live?

Have you ever wondered what you would do if a fortune fell into your lap? Today, we share where in the world, if money was no object, each of us would live in the world?

Barbara J. Eikmeier – I’m pretty happy living right where I am in Kansas. However, I’d love living in a charming little craftsman style home with a big front porch. I have a floor plan I’ve kept for over 35 years and every time I come across it, I still think I could totally live in that house!

Saralyn Richard – Possibly New Zealand? But I already live in paradise.

Dru Ann Love – Paris, France.

T.K. Thorne – In a warm land with a small garden surrounded by trees on a mountain overlooking the ocean … with no mosquitoes. (Let me know if you find such a place.)

Lois Winston – Manhattan! That was the plan. It never happened. And now I’m living in Tennessee!

Gay Yellen – I’d have three houses: one on a lovely beach somewhere, one near Glacier National Park, and for the third, a cozy pied-à-terre in Paris.

Donnell Ann Bell – Oooh, I’m finding I really like warm weather. I’d probably stay where I am part of the time, and when the weather wasn’t cold, live in Colorado closer to my kids and grandbabies.

Debra H. Goldstein – The beach! I’d like an air-conditioned place big enough for guests that overlooks the water so that I could stare at the waves for hours without sweating.

Debra Sennefelder – Such an interesting question. I think I’d stay in the town where I am. I love it here. But I would love to have a summer house in Wyoming or Montana.

Anita Carter – I’d love to live in Australia! If for some reason if that couldn’t work out, I’d consider Portugal.

Mary Lee Ashford – If money were no object, I’d move nearer to the beach. I would need a lot of money though, as I’d have to move the whole family. Because though a lovely beachside home would be perfect. I couldn’t be that far away from my grandchildren.

Donalee Moulton – Nova Scotia will always be home. But a villa in Tuscany sounds wonderful. I would be okay with Portugal. Or Hawaii.

Bethany Maines – Hm… I really like where I’m at, but I guess I would like to try living in Greece for awhile.

New Lessons from High School

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Hard to believe that the public school year opened here yesterday, especially when we’re still inside the blast furnace that is August. I remember sweating through those first days. It was pretty brutal.

My own high school reunion happened just this past weekend, which made me wonder what the children returning to class will be learning, and what they’ll need to figure out on their own after they graduate.

As grown-ups, we know it’s impossible to escape high school as fully-formed adults. There are too many new lessons to be learned as years go by. Matter of fact, I caught up with a few new ones at the reunion.

If you plan to attend such a gathering, it’s common to question whether or not you have measured up to expectations. Maybe we feel we haven’t aged well, or weren’t successful enough, or didn’t meet our own hopes in some other way. Mercifully, most of my classmates at the party seemed to overcome those useless notions and decided to be there just for the fun of it.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Right off the bat, I ran into a couple of people I’d long remembered for having been cruel to me. The first was the grown-up version of a girl who had very publicly humiliated me my freshman year.

We managed to have a cordial conversation, but as I walked away, I couldn’t help noting that she would make a good villain in a mystery some day. Come to think of it, that long-ago betrayal may have fed my subconscious as I created E.B. Odom, the villain in The Body Business. So, here’s a thank-you to her!

Also at the party was a person who, in elementary school, had a nasty habit of kicking my shins until they bled.

I remembered him as a little devil. But at the reunion, he went out of his way to talk to me, and spoke so kindly about my mother that I instantly changed my opinion. As mystery readers know, sometimes an apparent villain in a story turns out to be a hero. Something like that occurs in the third book in the The Samantha Newman Mystery Series.

Recaptured Memories

The absolute highlight of the evening was being able to reconnect with old friends, many of whom I hadn’t seen since graduation. Remembering with them what we were like back then and sharing our life journeys since those sweet days was a priceless gift. It left me longing to connect with others who hadn’t made the trip.

There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing memories with people who knew us when. Most special was excavating the hidden treasures of experiences we’d long ago forgotten. And feeling so very grateful for the new lessons, too.

Have you ever attended a class reunion? How did it go?

Please leave a comment below…

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the  Samantha Newman Mysteries include The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!  Now available on Amazon.

Contact her at GayYellen.com

 

The Case of the Pink Tattered Coat

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By Donnell Ann Bell

Look down. What are you wearing? Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be a pornographic blog. I’m just curious if you’re like me.

I don’t stay in my pajamas when I start my day, but I do slip into my most comfortable “grungies.”  It’s hot where I am and as I write this, I’m wearing a sleeveless top and my once-favorite capris, which sadly I ruined by spilling Clorox on them. My point, it would take an emergency for me to leave the house in my current attire.

Which brings me to one of my favorite stories about my daughter-in-law. Well, this story takes place before she was my DIL. She and my son attended the same university, and on winter break, he asked if he could bring home a friend. This was his first year of college, mind you, which caused my husband and me to raise an eyebrow or two, especially when the friend in question turned out to be an attractive young woman.

I recall reacting in a way any reasonable mother might. “Who is this girl? Is it serious and you do intend to finish college, right?”

“She’s a friend, Mom.”

Uh-huh.

As kids tend to do at that age, they were coming and going, catching up with their peers. I was busy writing and didn’t pry too much, even though I was intensely curious. I did learn the basics. She was studying to be an R.N. and at the top of her class. Okay, neither she nor my son appeared to be on the verge of becoming college dropouts.

Source: Pixabay

But because I had so little to go on, I formed the wrong impression. Because my son was so adamant that they were just friends, I built it up in my over-imaginative brain that she’d come home with him because she was poor and had nowhere else to go. I mean the first time I met her; she entered our home wearing a pink coat that was so ripped in the armpit, the tear revealed the facing. Moreover, when she came for a visit a second time, she wore it again!

That was it. It was Christmastime and the mystery writer/amateur sleuth in me was no longer buying the “We’re just friends,” angle.  I said to my daughter, “We should buy Dave’s girlfriend a new coat for Christmas. My daughter thought it was a stellar idea and the two of us went to work searching online.

Still, we didn’t know much about her, just that she might be partial to pink.  Log on to the internet, enter pink + coat, and you’ll be smothered by an avalanche of that color. We wanted to get her a new coat but were at a loss to choose a style she might like.

“I know,” my daughter said, “Let’s ask her mom.”

“You know her mom?” I asked.

“Sure,” my daughter said.

Obviously, my son had confided in his sister, or unlike my daughter, I had medaled in not prying.

So, when we called my future DIL’s mother to ask her opinion, she was horrified. Not at us for wanting to buy her daughter a new coat; she thought that was sweet. But the conversation went something like, “I can’t believe she’s still wearing that thing!”

Needless to say, I learned something about making assumptions that day. My DIL could afford a new coat; she simply loved the one she wore.

In fiction, authors enjoy creating characters in which we sometimes share (and sometimes don’t) personality traits, odd quirks and deep dark secrets. Often, we let the reader know about these perceptions, while our protagonists or secondary characters are left stymied.

The case of the tattered pink coat stymied me.

P.S. These two married two years after they graduated and are the proud parents of three beautiful children. At least I got one perception right. I didn’t buy for an instant they were just friends.

How about you? Do you have something in your wardrobe you refuse to give up? Have you ever had to walk back a mistaken impression?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has Spring Sprung for You?

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Exactly when is Spring supposed to begin? I looked it up, and here’s what I found:

The vernal equinox in 2024 arrived on March 19, but that date varies year to year. It hovers somewhere between the 19th and 21st of the month, and is marked at the moment the sun is directly facing Earth’s equator. This is also known as Astronomical Spring.

But, because science allows the date to vary, I’m thinking it’s okay if Spring starts for people like you and me whenever we are able to feel it.

We’ve enjoyed the new season around our home for a few weeks now. Gardens are in full bloom. A multitude of songbirds greet us with their cheery melodies every morning, just like the ones Samantha Newman hears when she visits Serenity Ranch.♥

Spring is also when our cherished bluebonnets and other dazzling wildflowers begin to blanket our empty fields and rolling hills.

This past weekend made Spring feel official for me, with opening of the annual Kite Festival that takes place in our favorite public park. There’s something wonderful about a day when people of all ages gather on vast green spaces to share a picnic and fly kites.

A live band played upbeat music while children ran around, testing how far they could roam free. They squealed with delight. You couldn’t help but smile at the joy of it.

Those icy winds are gone. Gentle breezes flow. We’re unencumbered by winter coats and jackets, scarves and gloves. The world is refreshed.

Hooray!

What is the first sign of Spring where you live? And, when was the last time you flew a kite?

Here’s wishing you a very HAPPY SPRING, full of sunshine, flowers, celebrations, and laughter!

 

Gay Yellen is the author of the award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series including: The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!

Find her on Amazon, BookBub, Facebook, or contact her at GayYellen.com

 

 

 

 

 

Let the Good Times Roll!

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Even after the extra day for leap year, February is the shortest month. But that doesn’t stop these 29 days from being chock-full of things to celebrate. Especially this week.

Due to a quirk in the 2024 calendar, there’s a danger of overdosing on special occasions. I live in what’s often described as the most diverse city in the U.S., where owners of all kinds of businesses (bakers, costumers, bars, restaurants, and delivery services) are working overtime to cash in on money-making opportunities.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Thriving Asian communities and hundreds, if not thousands of restaurants, are serving that continent’s exotic cuisines to the rest of us for Lunar New Year. The exact official date can vary from culture to culture, but highly enjoyable ceremonies abound, including special foods, fireworks, music, and the boisterous Lion Dance.

Sunday, Super Bowl LVIII

Unofficially dubbed the Taylor Swift Bowl, this celebration of grit and brawn was finally played. It was a good day for grocers and purveyors of fast food. Did you watch? Did your team win? And did you appreciate any of the over-priced  commercials? The BMW/Christopher Walken spoof made me chuckle, and the Dunkin’ Donuts spot was amusing, too.

Next up: Leftovers Day

Not an official holiday, yesterday offered a little respite from the clash and clatter. It also gave us a chance to work through our leftover flamin’ hot chicken wings and Chinese moon cakes. And it was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, a nice opportunity for quiet contemplation before the rowdiest hoopla of all descended upon us today.

Today: Cue the parades!

Cue the beads, the drinking, and the debauchery! Today is Mardi Gras! Fat Tuesday, when celebrants here and around the world are encouraged to laissez les bon tons roulez. So, let the good times roll! Wear the gaudy costumes and watch people behave badly. Catch some trinkets and cheap bling from a parade float. Eat, drink and be merry, and make sure to grab some King Cake while you can, for tomorrow is all ash and penitence. Unless you prefer to keep to fun going, because…

I ♥ U!

…tomorrow is Valentines Day! If, after indulging in all of the above, you’re still in the mood for rich food and booze (and your liver can take it), you can opt for a lovely restaurant in which to ply the object of your affection with oysters and champagne, and maybe some serious, not-so-cheap bling.

TGIWSBT!

Thank goodness it will soon be Thursday, which is National Singles Awareness Day, in which we’re encouraged to celebrate the joy of being alone. After the week we will have had by then, it feels like an appropriate antidote to the bacchanal we might have endured. A good day to tend to our spiritual side. Or, depending on how well your Valentine’s dinner went, perhaps to try a new dating service.

There’ve been countless Valentine’s dinners in my life, some more meaningful than others. But I’ve never attended a Super Bowl.

I have enjoyed local Lunar New Year celebrations (lots of noise and fun). I’ve been to a Mardi Gras ball and three years of parades in New Orleans: first, among the raucous street crowd (never again), second, from a private balcony on Bourbon Street, and another atop a float, tossing beads in my homecoming queen regalia.

Here’s hoping we all have many more special days ahead to celebrate. In the meantime, let’s try to make every day a celebration.

How about you? What’s your favorite day in February?

Gay Yellen is the author of the  award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries include The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!  Contact her at GayYellen.com.

NEVER GET DISCOURAGED

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Great to be a new member of the Stiletto Gang, the most talented writers I’ve come across in a group, probably ever. As an introduction, I’ll lay out the highlights of my literary journey below.

 

In 1962, my mother registered me for a writing class that was offered in summer school after the eighth grade. Only one other girl signed up, so the class was cancelled.

 

Once in high school, we were assigned a short story. I wasn’t present the day the teacher handed them back—I’d gone to the orthodontist—but when I returned to school, kids congratulated me on my story, saying the teacher read it to the class. The next day when she returned my story, I found she’d give it a B-.

 

My parents told me I couldn’t be a writer because I wouldn’t be able to make a living. I don’t know whether that is what would have happened. You never know what the future holds. But, I was an obedient child, at least for a while, so I said ok.

 

I didn’t know what else I might want to do. Dad wanted my sister and me to be teachers, so if our husbands died or abandoned us, we’d be able to support ourselves. My sister did and ended up as an administrator in a small public school district. Me? I dropped in and out of five colleges/universities until I was finally awarded a B.S. degree in Criminal Justice.

 

I once signed up, as an adult, for a writing class at the community college in our town, excited to finally get something going. When I received my first story back, the instructor had written that I had no talent—give it up.

 

After I began practicing law, I was lying around my living room once night and told my husband that if a writer could make $5,000 a pop for genre romance novels as it stated in the TV Guide article I read, I should try that. I read everything, including romances. I didn’t think it looked that hard. So, I bought some books on writing romances and sent for tip sheets and finally wrote one. I sent it off and waited for a response. The editor said no, she wouldn’t publish my novel, her rejection including some choice insults, and never to send her anything again.

 

I began writing suspense/mysteries in the 80s. My father was a criminal defense lawyer, (and later a judge), so I’d been around the law since I was little. I had been a probation officer and was at that time a criminal and family lawyer. Crime, I knew about. By the way, I heard that not long after the aforementioned editor rejected my novel, she died. Just so you know, I didn’t kill her.

 

When my editor at St. Martin’s Press, Inc. called me about MY FIRST MURDER, (my first published novel) he excitedly asked where I learned to write like that. He loved the book and said my manuscript was one of the best submissions he’d ever seen in terms of preparation, punctuation, etc. He loved it so much, a year later he rejected the sequel.

 

Enough of that. My point is, never give up. I had that first novel sale in 1988. I used the book as a political tool when I was running for office, donating copies across the county. What a great gimmick! I received free publicity and extra attention at every event, in addition to speaking engagements.

 

I was elected to the bench and took office on 1/1/91. My focus turned to being a sitting judge, modernizing practices and procedures in that court, including starting programs to help families and children. I continued to write whenever I could, though I didn’t have any other books published until after I left the bench at the end of 2002. In 2004, Eakin Press (a Texas publisher) released my nonfiction books: Heart of Divorce (which I wrote to help pro se litigants who couldn’t afford lawyers to prosecute their own divorces) and Murdered Judges of the 20th Century, which I researched and wrote over the previous six years, (and which began as evidence for the county commissioners that we needed courthouse security).

 

After that, I started submitting works I’d written while on the bench. I wanted to change my focus from the law to liberal arts. In 2015, I made the decision to self-publish. Though by then I had several mystery/suspense novels under my belt, I had grown tired of the traditional publishing process. I was aging out. The last straw was when an agent told me to cut my manuscript 20,000 words and submit it to her. I did, and never heard from her. That was it.

 

At sixty-five years of age, I was sick of the abuse most authors suffer at the hands of agents and editors. I was writing because I have to, not because I needed to. Or, as I often phrase it, I can’t not write. There was no joy, no pleasure in experiencing what they were dishing out. Where I had hoped for years to have the guidance and support of an agent and/or editor, I realized that would never happen. I have stories to tell. I’m constantly learning craft. I don’t care if I ever have huge sales. I’m having fun doing what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl with no pressure, no insults, no rejection. I love it.

 

Now, at 74, I spend a lot of my days writing or reading. I’m having fun living life my way. I never gave up. I suggest if you love to write, don’t let anyone discourage you either.

Susan has published 14 books in the last 30 or so years. Not all of them are mystery/suspense, but all of them have something to do with the law.

It’s World Hello Day!

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There are lots of things to love about November. Cool, crisp mornings. Warm, cuddly clothes. A lovely fire in the hearth. And hints of cinnamon spice everywhere.

I recently learned that today, November 21, is annual World Hello Day. At first it seemed like a made-up trifle akin to National Pickle Day (which was actually last Tuesday). But after researching the origins and purpose of this holiday, I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong.

World Hello Day

World Hello Day was created in 1973 by two young brothers, Brian and Michael McCormack, as a panacea for the Arab-Israeli war known as the Yom Kippur War. Gathering all the money they had at the time, these two bought postage and sent out letters to as many world leaders as they could and asked them to support this new holiday.

from Pete Seeger

Within the first 12 months of their campaign, the results were overwhelming. World leaders, educators, Nobel Laureates, show biz celebrities and other luminaries responded. And in the last 50 years, they have managed to gather the support of 180 countries.

It’s interesting to read the thoughts of people like James Michener, Colin Powell, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, and Whoopi Goldberg on the subject. My favorite replies are the little ditty that Pete Seeger offered, a wacky postcard from David Sedaris, and a heartfelt letter from the Idyllwilde Elementary School in Florida.

You can read more of these interesting letters here: https://worldhelloday.org/letters/

How to Celebrate

World Hello Day is a good opportunity to express our concern for world peace. According to the organization’s website, anyone can celebrate simply by saying hello to at least ten people. Friends and family count. Extra points if you greet a stranger, or say hello in a different language. And if you’re inspired to encourage a world or community leader to settle a conflict, go for it.

It seems a bit Pollyanna-ish to think that the simple act of saying hello can lead to world peace. And, we may feel silly saying hello to a perfect stranger. But we can start by greeting the nearly invisible people we encounter in an ordinary day: the checkout clerk at the grocery store, the people we pass on the sidewalk, someone we’re sharing an elevator with or sitting next to at the theater.

Acknowledging another human being’s existence can go a long way toward recognizing that we’re all in this crazy world together. At any rate, that’s the philosophy of the McCormack brothers, and they’re trying to make a difference. Why not try it, too?

And while you’re at it, say hello to Book #3 in the Samantha Newman Series, The Body in the News. I’m overjoyed (and relieved) that it’s finally out there!

Who have you said hello to today?

Gay Yellen‘s award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries include The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!  Now available on Amazon.

Existing While Brown or Black in America

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Existing While Brown or Black in America by Linda Rodriguez

In all the turmoil around #BlackLivesMatter and the extrajudicial killings of Black men and women by police right now, I notice the inevitable outcries from parts of the White community that the police wouldn’t shoot and kill these people for nothing, that they must have brought it on themselves in some way by their own lawless behavior. Perhaps. But when we have stringent, trustworthy investigations, again and again we find that these people did nothing so major that it would have warranted taking their lives. Still, to many White, middle-class people who are never hassled and threatened by police as they move through daily life, it seems that surely all these unarmed African American, Latino, and Native men killed by police every year must have brought it on themselves through some fault of their own.

So, allow me to tell a little story from my own life. In Kansas City, Missouri, where I live, the police used to be as undisciplined and out of control as some of the worst of police forces we’ve recently seen. A crisis finally forced the city to crack down, bring in a strong police chief to rebuild the force, and reorganize the police force around the motto of “Protect and Serve.” It never became a perfect police force, of course, but for a while it was plagued by less racial profiling and unnecessary civilian deaths than most urban forces today before lamentably reverting to its old forms.

Back in the 1970s when Kansas City’s force was so much like the departments we’re seeing on the news right now, pointing loaded rifles and screaming obscenities and death threats at unarmed demonstrators and reporters, I lived with my late first husband, Michael Rodriguez. Mike was a decorated veteran of Vietnam, married to me with two little kids, working a white-collar, full-time job as manager of a printing supply company branch, going to college at night, and the most non-violent and non-criminal person anyone could imagine. He went through some of the worst fighting in Vietnam as a medic, refusing to carry ammunition in his sidearm because he could not bring himself to kill anyone.

A fire station stood on the corner of the block where his company offices were, and several of the firefighters who were also Vietnam veterans had made friends with him since this was when no one in this country wanted to hear what these guys had gone through. This fact later saved his life.

One cold evening in winter when twilight came early, Mike was the last one out of his office, as usual, since he locked up at night and opened up in the mornings. He found his car’s battery had died and called a cab to come take him home. While he stood outside his own offices, long-haired but dressed in a business suit, waiting for his cab to arrive, two policemen pulled up, got out of their police cruiser, and started harassing him. They shoved him back and forth between them, called him racial slurs, searched him, and found nothing but his wallet, keys, and a tube of prescription ointment for psoriasis in his pockets. One then told the other, “We could shoot this motherfucker and say we thought that tube was a gun.” Kansas City police had just shot a fourteen-year-old African American boy three days before, claiming they thought the comb in his pocket was a gun—and they got away with it.

Mike thought he would die on that spot, leaving me a young widow with a baby and a toddler and no way for his kids or anyone to know that he had never done anything to deserve it. His firefighter friends had seen what was happening, however, and came out calling his name and asking what was going on and if he needed help. The cops told them to go away, but the firefighter veterans stood there watching and witnessing until Mike’s cab came, and he got safely away. Clearly, they saved his life that night.

If you talk with people of color, you will hear story after story like this. A friend of mine who is a White mystery writer married to an African American (extremely successful) artist just went out and bought all new dress business suits for her husband who, like most artists, normally wears jeans and T-shirts to work in, in the hopes that this will keep the New York City police from stopping and harassing him as he must travel through her city from home to his workplace and back. He must dress up for the commute, only to change into jeans and T-shirt at work, and then reverse the process to go home. White people don’t face this kind of treatment by law enforcement in their own lives, and it sounds so crazy and unreal to them that they assume people of color are exaggerating or making it up out of whole cloth, understandably, but this kind of harassment, threat, and fear is a part of daily life in communities of color all over this country.

Racism is a horrible and unjust fixture of American life, but just because you are White does not mean that you are safe from its destructive consequences. If allowed to flourish openly and unchecked, it won’t stop with communities of color. With the rising militarization of the police forces of large cities and small towns, I would caution my White friends to learn from our experiences. If this kind of behavior is allowed to continue and grow, it will eventually overflow into the White communities, beginning with poor and working-class communities and eventually moving up the socioeconomic ladder. It’s a matter of power and control, even beyond the matter of race and ethnicity.

Whether we know it or not, all of us in the United States have a vested interest in this situation of extrajudicial killings by police forces. Americans need to have a thorough reorganization of every police force in this country. We also need a national discussion of the growing militarization of our police departments, large and small, and what we as citizens want to do about this growing threat. The stakes in this situation are high, and the costs of failure for us as a nation and individually will be unimaginably horrific.

Linda Rodriguez’s 13th book, Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, was published in May 2023. She also edited Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertorriqueña Poets Look at Their American Lives, The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, The Fish That Got Away: The Sixth Guppy Anthology, Fishy Business: The Fifth Guppy Anthology, and other anthologies.

Dark Sister: Poems was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Her three earlier Skeet  Bannion mystery novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart’s Migration—received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. She also published Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop.  Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, was optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Learn more about her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com or follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rodriguez_linda  or on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/rodriguez_linda.

Stop! You’re Hurting My Eyes!

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By Lois Winston

One day when my oldest son was two years old, I was singing to him in the car when he covered his ears with his hands and cried, “Stop singing, Mommy. You’re hurting my ears.”

It turns out he was born with perfect pitch, while I was saddled with two tin ears. Ever since I failed to make the cut when I auditioned for the elementary school talent show, I’ve known my singing leaves quite a lot to be desired. I’m no Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Never was and never will be. I wouldn’t even qualify as a backup singer for a third-rate tribute band. However, I never realized until that moment just how off-key I was.

Lately, I’ve felt the urge to rant at car manufacturers for hurting my eyes the way my singing had hurt my son’s ears. Have you noticed the garish colors of so many new cars? Some are the equivalent of chalk on a blackboard, shrieking and shrill, while others can only be described as homages to the scatological. What were they thinking? We’re living in a world that bombards us 24/7, causing us to yearn for anything soothing, whether it’s soft clothing, comfort foods, or escapist fiction.

The psychology of color is big business. Color experts get paid big bucks to determine which colors should be used in everything from clothing to home décor to appliances to automobiles. If you’re old enough to remember the sixties (or have a penchant for anything mid-century modern), you know that harvest gold and avocado green were the two colors that reigned supreme back then. Do you think it was a coincidence that your mother’s appliances matched your father’s station wagon? Those color choices were dictated by people deemed authorities in the field.

Has psychology done an about-face? If the screaming oranges, greens, and yellows aren’t bad enough, the other group is awful in another way. I really don’t want to drive around in a vehicle that reminds me of the last time I changed a diaper or hovered over the porcelain throne with stomach flu.

I wish some knowledgeable person would tell me what in the world were these so-called experts thinking. I’m flummoxed.

How about you? What do you think about the colors of automobiles you see on the roads lately? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free download of the audiobook version of Drop Dead Ornaments, the seventh Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery.

 

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.