The Orphan Scrivener: 2016

Thursday, December 15, 2016

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # ONE HUNDRED AND TWO -- 15 DECEMBER 2016

This all-holiday edition of our newsletter is composed as fog-like snow squalls howl about the towers of Casa Maywrite. Wordsworth declared winter loved a dirge-like sound, which could well be the reaction of our subscribers when this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener appears on their virtual door-step, shakes snowflakes off its shoulders, stamps its feet on the doormat, and comes barging in....

ERIC'S BIT or MERRY MITHRAS

It's a rather well known little known fact that Jesus shares his birthday with the Roman God Mithra (or Mithras) and the later Roman emperors appropriated the celebration of the unconquered sun for Christmas to match their religious leanings.

The detective Mary and I write about, John, Lord Chamberlain to the sixth century emperor Justinian I, is a secret Mithran. He needs to keep his religious beliefs hidden because the Eastern Roman Empire was officially Christian. Justinian wasn't tolerant of Christians who didn't agree with orthodox views on such matters as the nature of Christ, let alone pagans.

A historian might quibble over whether a Lord Chamberlain -- we use the term Victorian translators employed to describe the position -- could have been a secret Mithran, but we're writing fiction and it's useful to have a protagonist who's somewhat of an outsider. Besides, our own high officials today get up to all sorts of antics in secret, to judge from the few we find out about.

There's also been doubt expressed as to whether the Mithraic religion survived until the sixth century, there being no record of it by then. To which we reply that it was a mystery cult which purposely left no record even during its heyday a few hundred years earlier.

Mostly it's the physical artifacts that survive -- the cave-like underground mithraeums where followers worshipped and the statuary and bas relief depictions of the god. There were no writings, no recorded liturgy. What little information we have is gleaned from church fathers who mentioned Mithraism in order to criticize it.

Mithras is usually shown slaying a bull and so bull sacrifices have been postulated to be part of Mithraic ritual, although few surviving mithraeums would have been large enough to accomodate such a ceremony. The mithraeum beneath the grounds of the Great Palace in Constantinople had room, however, as rather graphically depicted in One For Sorrow.

We were chided about that scene once, told that the Mithrans had got a bad rap. They weren't so horrid as to kill bulls. That was just a myth. They probably sacrifice nothing larger than a chicken. As if chickens don't bleed!

Sacrifices aside, Mithraic virtues such as loyalty, bravery, and self sacrifice could pass for Christian. One of our conceits is that John, as a practicing Mithran who takes his religion seriously, acts in a more Christian manner than many of the Christians he encounters --people who call themselves Christians simply because it is the state religion.

John's elderly and devout servant Peter worries about his employer's soul, but insists, if pressed, that John merely chooses to call the Lord by a different name. Peter believes, as Mary and I do, that a person defines themselves by the way they live rather than what they say or how loudly they say it.

Merry Mithras!

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

Due to technical difficulties, the previous Orphan Scrivener may not have reached some of our subscribers. However, it's now online and may be consulted on our website at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/tos101.htm Meantime, here's the latest goings-on at Casa Maywrite....

RUINED STONES or GRACE BAXTER'S NEXT ADVENTURE

Since the last newsletter Ruined Stones, the sequel to The Guardian Stones, was trundled off to Poisoned Pen Press and is currently poised at the top of the slipway for publication in July next year.

It is December 1941 and Grace Baxter, now a member of the Women's Auxilliary Police Corps, is living in Newcastle-on-Tyne in north-eastern England. Living in the grimy industrial city is about as great a contrast to life in her home village as it is in its distance from it, and she has hardly set foot in Newcastle when she's involved in solving a death in the blackout...and that's just the beginning.

YET MORE GOLDEN AGE REVIEWS or FROM THE ALBERT GATE TO AN ANGEL OF TERROR

Since the October issue of Orphan Scrivener more reviews of Golden Age mysteries have been uploaded to our blog. This latest batch includes Edgar Wallace's The Angel of Terror, From Whose Bourne by Robert Barr, R. Austin Freeman's The Stoneware Monkey, and The Albert Gate Mystery by Louis Tracy. Last Sunday's review dealt with Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries. Edited by Martin Edwards, the collection offers a helping of the murder and mayhem so popular during the holiday season.

http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/2016/12/review-crimson-snow-winter-mysteries.html

AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION or HOW WE BECAME CURIOSITIES

The recently redesigned Poisoned Pen Press website features in-depth articles on writing and related topics as well as mysteries in general. There's also a section dubbed Curiosities, so it was inevitable a reprint of our poetic explanation of how we write together would appear there on October 28th. We've been asked about our method on more than one occasion and yes, this short piece really does describe the way we co-author fiction. With renewed apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan, then, here it is:

https://poisonedpenpress.com/how-we-write-mysteries/

MARY'S BIT or AND A PENGUIN IN A FIR TREE

This is the time of year when those who celebrate Christmas will be setting up and decorating their festive tree.

Many of our ornaments are, well, not your usual manufactured baubles, although we do have some plain glass globes now elderly enough to be losing their colour. But as in many families there are particular favourites and these are a few of mine.

Two of these ornaments travelled with me to America. Made of plastic resin of some sort, they arrived in the family well before I did. One's a flat silhouette of a blue antlered deer and the other a three-dimensional decoration created by slotting two red star-shaped pieces at right angles to each other. It always reminds me of the star on the iconic label of Newcastle's famous brown ale. There's another and much larger star -- or more precisely an attempt at one which came out more resembling an amoeba -- crayoned on a piece of paper by a young relative thirty years or so ago.

Then there's a small v-shaped basket made from two pieces of paper. Decorated with depictions of sprigs of berried holly, this basket was made by folding the pieces, cutting parallel lines into them, and interweaving the results. This somewhat arcane skill was one I learned as a youngster, along with making little handbags or tanks from dad's empty cigarette packets. Happy days!

I must not overlook a couple of shells picked up from the Florida beach opposite the building where I lived my first year in this country. They hang up on thread passed through holes made by the sea, but the hook for a penguin ornament is a bent paper clip. Creating it was one of my more ambitious craft projects. Imagine a red and white striped ball with lengths of silver cord attached to it supporting a small gondola represented by a basket originally holding dishwasher detergent. The 'guin in the gondola is about an inch high and stands daringly loose in his aerial transport, so he has been known to occasionally fall out.

Then there's a couple of green felt ornaments stuffed with cotton wool and decorated with sequins. They date from the same period as the ballooning penguin, as do several painted balsa wood ornaments. Yes, I was a fiend with a glue gun in those days! Notable examples of the woode oornaments include flat children riding three dimensional sleds and a Santa whose hands emerge at right angles from his sleeves as if in surprise or horror at realising he was about to be run over by the aforementioned sleigh. After all, when we get down to it do we really know what happens on Christmas trees when everyone is abed and darkness shrouds the house? Our cats always got the blame if ornaments tumbled off the tree overnight but what if they were not the culprits?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once talked about night hovering all day in fir tree boughs, and this was certainly the case in the Reed household. We did not have tree lights as long as we lived at home. Instead when the big marmalade tin holding decorations came out of the sideboard small candle holders were clipped onto the tree's branches. Made of tin, they had scalloped edges and they held tiny twisted candles little bigger than the sort decorating birthday cakes, but much to our childish disappointment were never lit for safety reasons.

There's also a small fairy doll who may not have been among Shakespeare's moonshine revellers but is certainly one of his orphan heirs of fixed destiny, given she's topped Reed trees in one house or another for decades. Despite losing one tiny red shoe at some point over the years and being forced to wear a greying tattered net skirt decorated with gold paint being as it's glued to her, as is her small wand topped with a battered gold star losing its glitter, a few glorious days are still hers each year.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of shoes, a week or two hence will see Time put its best foot forward and shoo the new year in. May it be a good one for all our subscribers! Meantime, the next Orphan Scrivener will arrive in subscribers' in-boxes on February 15th next year.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a bibliography, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Our joint blog is at http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/ Intrepid subscribers may also wish to know our noms des Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales Drop in some time!

Saturday, October 15, 2016

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # ONE HUNDRED AND ONE -- 15 OCTOBER 2016

Bonfire Night is traditionally the busiest night of the year for British fire brigades but the past month or so at Casa Maywrite has given November 5th a run for its money, given it was largely spent stamping out assorted conflagrations sparked by 'Orrible Technical Problems after a computer conked out.

As might be expected with anything connected with the Internet -- assuming you are able to connect to it -- there were times we found ourselves agreeing with Goethe, who declared that the solution to every problem is another problem. But as you see, we finally wrassled the situation to the ground and here we are again.

With our newsletter having passed its hundredth issue, we decided to celebrate with a bit of nostalgia. We therefore present a Golden Oldie edition featuring reprints of a couple of its earliest essays -- Mary's appeared in the first Orphan Scrivener back in 2000 and Eric's followed an issue or two later. Somehow Longfellow's description of memory's leaves making a mournful rustling in the dark seems somehow appropriate....

MARY'S BIT or PLEASE DO NOT SEND ELEPHANTS

Imagine, if you will (shades of Rocky Horror) the Innocent Scrivener sitting in the basement, steaming mug of coffee in hand, mulling over the next bit of golden prose, when...without so much as a by-your-leave or a warning creak, the light fixture falls off the ceiling, swinging in a graceful Pit-and-Pendulum arc bringing it less than a foot away from Innocent Scrivener's arm in a budget recreation of the famous chandelier scene in Phantom of the Opera. With liberal amounts of coffee distributed around the domestic scenery, of course.

The light fixture in question is trough-shaped and sports two light sabre type bulbs. Fortunately neither exploded. But there it was, swinging gently in the draught from Scrivenerâ€™s surprised shrieks, as visions of the entire ceiling coming down began to dance through assorted heads. Swift remedial action was needed. So while one party held the thing up at arm's length out of harm's way, another raced off for the stepladder. Soon the rogue light was precariously propped up on a stack of reference books pile precariously on the stop step of the ladder, thus keeping its not inconsiderable weight off its wiring and terminating its graceful meanderings.

Upon closer examination, the reason the light had fallen was discovered. The thick wooden board to which it was attached had been fixed to the ceiling material, not an actual beam. Much sage nodding of heads and agreement that it was amazing that it stayed up there as long as it had. A handy relative spent an hour or two re-installing the light but unfortunately the necessary measuring and drilling and hammering upset the cat, whose conniption at the rapid descent of the light had caused it to take cover under the sideboard. After a noisy few moments, it took itself off upstairs in a huff, arriving at the upper floor just as the dinner guests arrived. With their young and rather excitable Pomeranian. So the cat fled back downstairs and hid somewhere in the false ceiling, to emerge some hours later looking very disgruntled and not a little dusty.

Not surprisingly after all the excitement, dinner was served a little late, but at least it was available to be eaten, since luckily it was not until the following day that the water supply was lost for several hours. But we could see quite well to look for it, as by then the light fixture was firmly back in place with several extra screws attaching it to the beam for additional security. In fact, said its re-installer, it was now so well attached that we could hang an elephant from it without it falling down again.

But please don't send us elephants to test his hypothesis. The shock might be too much for the cat.

http://kingsriverlife.com/category/kings-river-reviewers/terrific-tales/

MIDCENTURY MODERN or IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH FURNITURE

The spotlight continues to shine on Eric! His latest appearance on the literary stage deals with the difficulties of dial-up Internet access. Talk about irony, it ran in Midcentury Modern Magazine less than a week before his computer crashed and access problems ensued.

https://midcenturymodernmag.com/a-dial-up-lament-b00843a2bbf9#.hf9n14389

A NEW LOOK or WRITING ON WRITING

Poisoned Pen Press recently reorganised its website, at the same time unveiling its new logo. The site is now publishing in-depth articles about the process of writing, mysteries in general, and the business side of writing fiction. Point your clickers to

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com

PHLOX OF MEMORIES or NOT YOUR USUAL GHOST STORY

Meantime, Eric's nostalgic essay about his grandparents' garden and what was rustling among the phlox was reprinted last month in Texas Gardener's Seeds newsletter. Interested parties, point your clickers at

http://conta.cc/2eemlVY

ERIC'S BIT or A QUEST ENDS

A few weeks ago I was walking at dusk listening to the sounds of the countryside, the hum of the mile-distant highway, the chirp of crickets, the mournful groaning of cows in an unseen pasture and perhaps the most typical background music of warm evenings in the eastern part of the United States, the trilling of peepers.

It's a sound I've heard since I was a child, coming sometimes from an obvious direction such as a marsh, at other times seemingly from everywhere as if the chorus were emanating from the surrounding air. The tree frogs that produce this magical and mysterious sound are, however, things I've always taken on faith, like Tibet. On a few occasions during the day, I've glimpsed tiny amphibians making their way silently across the forest floor and wondered if these could be those unglimpsed peepers. But at night, whenever I've sought to approach the source of their singing, whatever is making the sound has fallen silent, leaving me to search dark branches in vain.

On this evening the sun had already vanished behind the low rounded mountains. Houses on the hillside opposite my path glowed dimly. The dirt road I was walking still held some light from the sky but deep darkness had puddled along the edges of the fields and under the trees beside the road. As I passed a tree that was little more than a silhouette against the sky I thought I could make out that distinctive trilling, distinguishable from the night blended sounds coming from all around.

I left the road and went a few steps into the knee-high grass in front of the tree. Predictably, the frog ceased abruptly. I took a few more steps toward the tree anyway and stopped to scan the inky confusion of branches, barely discernible against the sky. Maybe I've become more patient than I used to be, because rather than resuming my walk I decided to wait for awhile. To my surprise, after a few minutes the frog resumed its serenade.

Where, I wondered, might a frog perch? I ran my gaze down the tree trunk, checking where each shadowy branch joined it, and finally, not much more than a yard from my face, I saw a movement -- a tiny frog's white neck pulsing in time with its singing. The peeper was no larger than the end of my thumb and I could make out little more than the pale neck but the sight amazed me more than anything I'd seen in a zoo, let alone on any television nature show. For years I had listened to this sound and now, finally and unexpectedly, I was looking at its source.

A lot of things had gone on in the world that day. I'd checked the news on the Internet. Politicians had emitted a lot of words that might have been important if any of them could have been believed. There had been heinous crimes, tragic disasters and horrific accidents that had been of paramount importance to those involved but which, sadly, had not taught me anything I did not already know about human nature and the fragility of life. Glimpsing the tree frog had, for me, been that day's most important event. Usually, it is the non-newsworthy events that are most important to us.

This is why I will always defend fiction against those who claim that it is inferior to nonfiction, because it does not deal with "reality." Fiction, I think, is best when it illuminates those things that are important to us personally in a way that nonfiction, or fact-based fiction, cannot. We don't live in the news headlines or in the lives of people in the news. The fiction writer, in describing the small things that he or she finds important, can shed more light on what readers find similarly important than any network news reader could.

Which is maybe just my excuse for writing about seeing a tree frog.

But maybe not.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of frogs, we'll hop off into the aether after a brief reminder the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will leap into subscribers' in-boxes on December 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Monday, August 15, 2016

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # One Hundred -- 15 August 2016

A disturbance in the Force on 1st February 2000 indicated transmission of the first Orphan Scrivener, issued while we were in the middle of writing Two For Joy. Now the newsletter has reached its centennial, we shall engage in that fine old tradition of marking such events by engaging in a wee bit retrospection. For, as Dante said, oft times that will delight the mind. We give no guarantees on whether it will do the same for subscribers.

Thus to accompany a favourite old essay from Eric's solo blog we're also going in for something new, to wit some very nice offers, including freebies, from fellow Poisoned Pen Press authors. Can't beat that with a big stick!

ERIC'S BIT or ALWAYS ON SALE

"The paper towels were on sale," I told Mary when I got in from the grocery. We'd been getting low on paper towels and we don't like the usual grocery store price so this was some cause for celebration.

"It just like Caldor. Remember, whatever we wanted was always on sale."

She was right. The Caldor department store had been good to us. No matter what I showed up at the door to buy, be it a vacuum sweeper or a can opener, it turned out to be on special. Like magic.

I should've checked their ad in the Sunday paper to see what household item was going to break during the week.

"I wonder if Caldor's still around?" Mary asked, as she admired the bargain towels.

That particular store had closed, but that was a long time ago in another place. I didn't know the answer so I asked Google. It directed me to Retailers from Woolworth to Wal-Mart .

Caldor failed to answer the Christmas bells after 1999.

Checking the list of departed chains I noticed that its predecessor at the same location, Hills, was also gone. I never cared for Hills. It felt dingy. The lighting was dim. Up front they did feature give-away snacks, though. Fifteen cent hot dogs and ten cent sodas, or round about those prices. You could have a meal, of sorts, for less than a half dollar.

A lot of other places I'd shopped in are gone. Service Merchandise, Hechinger, Ames, Woolworths, Zayre, Lechmere, Gold Circle. I'd guessed they were gone but couldn't be sure. Considering how little I spent over the years, I suppose I contributed to their demise.

A name I hadn't thought about for years caught my attention. Arlens.

Few chain stores have inspired me as much as Arlens, and I only happened to stop there once. At least I think it was Arlens. It was in a shopping center I could never find again, already run-down in the late sixties. As I always did back then I went straight to the bargain record bin. Among the dollar closeout albums were half a dozen by a band I'd never listened to -- the Kinks.

I've listened to a lot of Kinks music over the years. It's beginning to look like my all-time favorite rock band is as dead as the store I discovered them in but the music remains. In fact, I still have the albums themselves stored someplace.

Vinyl. Needless to say.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A shorter length of ticker tape is unspooling this time around, but it's All Good Stuff!

A NEW REVIEW or SHADES OF THE CRUCIBLE

We recently stumbled over an Historical Novel Society review of The Guardian Stones, in which the writer made an observation well-received at Casa Maywrite -- a point also hinted darkly in our header -- because it touched on what we were attempting to convey within the context of the story.

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-guardian-stones/

OPERATION PIED PIPER or HISTORY REVISITED

Operation Pied Piper was not the best name to pick for the 1939 mass evacuation of British city children to safer lodgings in the country, but it was the topic of a contribution on 21st June to Suzanne Adair's Relevant History. As she says, for many, high school history was boring and extraneous. In this feature on her blog, guests show just how non-boring, non-extraneous history is to people in the 21st century.

http://www.suzanneadair.net/2016/06/21/operation-pied-piper-the-evacuation-of-british-children/

LATEST GOLDEN AGE REVIEWS or A SCREAM AND A WHITE FACE

Continuing the wartime theme, novels reviewed on our joint blog since last we met include A Scream in Soho by John G. Brandon, set during the blackout in 1940s London. The protagonist and a bobby on the beat arrive on the scene within two minutes of the titular scream. There's no body, but a bloodstained stiletto and a woman's lace-edged hanky have been left behind...

http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/2016/08/review-scream-in-soho-by-john-g-brandon.html

Then there's J. Jefferson Farjeon's Mystery In White: A Christmas Crime Story, a surprise best-seller last Yuletide in the UK. Travellers take shelter a country house during a blizzard. The door is unlocked but nobody is in residence, yet the kettle is boiling, fires have been lit, and tea is laid out in the drawing room. There are also thoughts on White Face by Edgar Wallace, featuring a man with the nasty habit of concealing his face with a white cloth and going about robbing people, not to mention a real stumper: how can a man be fatally stabbed without his assailant being seen by people close by? These and other reviews may be read via links at

http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/

SPEAKING OF BLOGS or SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

Shrouded In Mystery would be a good title for a novel, but the fact is we have no idea of the topic of Mary's next contribution to the Poisoned Pen multi-author blog. There's a simple reason: it hasn't been written yet. Why not wander over there on the 18th and see? Meantime, subscribers may care to browse blogs by our fellow Poisoned Pen authors starting at this page

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/news-and-blog/news/

MARY'S BIT or MERCI BOUQUET

Continuing with the theme of shopping and as a thankyou to readers for their interest in our novels, here's a bunch of attractive (mostly free) offers from fellow Poisoned Pen Press authors which subscribers may find of interest.

Jeff Siger's Murder in Mykonos is currently available free on Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mykonos-Inspector-Andreas-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B003UV8XHS/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1470857029&sr=1-6&keywords=jeffrey+siger+kindle+books

His latest title, Santorini Caesars, will be published next month.

Charlotte Hinger is offering a free print copy of Deadly Descent to the first reader who contacts her at charlottehinger@comcast.net Charlotte's forthcoming novel is Fractured Families (March 2017)

Mitchell Lewis has several copies of Murder in the 11th House to give away to readers. Contact him at mitchastro@aol.com His current title is Evil in the 1st House.

Ken Kuhlken has a free copy of The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles for the first person to email him at ken@kenkuhlken.net Ken's latest novel is The Good Know Nothing.

Priscilla Royal's Wine of Violence is currently 99 cents on Kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Violence-Medieval-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/1590589653/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471191414&sr=1-1&keywords=Wine+of+Violence

Her forthcoming title is The Proud Sinner (February 2017)

Triss Stein has three pocket sized paperbacks of Brooklyn Bones to give away as well as a couple of hardcover copies of Brooklyn Graves and Brooklyn Secrets free to the first five readers who contact her at trissstein@nyc.rr.com and specify where they live. Her current title is Brooklyn Secrets.

S. K. Rizzolo will send a free hardback of her current title On a Desert Shore to the third reader to contact her at skrizzolo@gmail.com.

Jeanne Matthews has two hardcover copies of Bones of Contention and two hardcover copies of Her Boyfriend's Bones to offer the first two readers who contact her at swdljm@comcast.net before the end of this month. Her most recent title is Where the Bones Are Buried.

Donis Casey will donate a copy of her latest title, All Men Fear Me, to the fifth person who leaves a message on her website at www.doniscasey.com by September 1st.

Tim Maleeny will send a signed copy of his novel Jump to the first reader to contact him at tim@timmaleeny.com His most recent title is Stealing the Dragon.

Ann Parker offers two copies of the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award winning Mercury's Rise to US-based readers picked at random from those who contact her (see her website www.annparker.net for contact information). Winners will be chosen August 30. Her forthcoming book, What Gold Buys, will be published next month.

Joining in the jamboree, we are offering an e-ARC of The Guardian Stones to the first two subscribers who get in touch with us at maywrite@earthlink.net Review or not as you wish!

AND FINALLY

According to Shakespeare, time's footstep is inaudible, and it's now time to remind subscribers the next Orphan Scrivener will slip silently into their in-boxes on October 15th, by which time the weather should be more reasonable, given this was composed with the heat index standing at 104*, which is good for neither man, beast, nor computer.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # NINETY-NINE -- 15 JUNE 2016

Since our views are now restricted by thick foliage in all directions we can declare June has officially finished busting out all over. We struggled mightily to tried to keep this issue of Orphan Scrivener locked up, but it managed to break its fetters, bust out, and is now making for subscribers' in-boxes. Looks like it just arrived in yours...

MARY'S BIT or UKULELE REGRETS

We all have talents but yet regret skills we should like to have mastered but somehow never got round to it. If subscribers had world enough and time, which would they strive to obtain?

Since I ask, it's only fair I should start the ball rolling. So, skills I would like to master include the ability to...

...play the Ukulele. I see it as a musical instrument that presents itself as friendly and funny, and just playing it would be a real cheerer-upper on those dark days that come into every life. My second choice: the accordion. Accordionists are welcome in Pennslvania, where polka reigns and an accordion is de rigueur as accompaniment. It was my younger sister who got all the musical genes in the Reed family. Hence the old joanna in our scullery, not the sort of artefact commonly found in Victorian artisans' dwellings as they advertise old terraced housing these days. Come to think of it some instruments have reeds, but not this one. I can however play the kazoo.

...read music. I can generally manage to get fairly close to getting to grips with it to be able to follow those round things with tails if someone hums the first few notes to give me a start at it. Not that this sad lack of erudition has held me back, for I can manage to carry a tune without a bucket and despite this desperate lack of musical knowledge I still somehow wound up in a choir serenading a royal personage visiting Tyneside.

...climb a rope. I was a dead duck right from the start when the class played pirates in the gym at the end of each term. Girls remaining in the game to the end were always those perched up high on the parallel bars or at the top of ropes hanging from the ceiling. Fortunately I have no ambition to join the crew of a tall ship, much as I love the sight of them under sail. Watching crew members on the Onedin Line casually working along a spar at a nose-bleeding height while engaged in manning the yards was close enough for me, given I don't care to have my feet too far off the ground

....speak fluent French. While I was the despair of Madame Dunmall at grammar school, like my classmates my pronounciation was considered not too bad for, as she told us, the Geordie accent's rolling rrrrrrsss gave us a head start on acquiring a decemt l'accent franÃ§ais. The only time I used my fractured French after leaving school was in addressing the house cat, a half-Siamese tabby named Jean-Paul. I don't think he really understood what I said, though, as most of the time he ignored my requests. On the other paw, since as Eric has remarked, cats like hectographs have minds of their own and it may have been disgust at my awkward francais.

...get and keep the right tension when knitting. A knotty proble that always seemed to cause problems. My most ambitious project was a navy blue sweater created with very thick stranded wool on large wooden knitting needles. Due to said difficulty, it came out wider than it was long. My friends called it Mary's horse blanket, although my contention is they must have been thinking of sea horses as it had a sailor collar.

...whistle in that particularly penetratingly shrill fashion produced with the aid of two fingers. I've never been able to master this useful method for summoning taxis, attracting someone's attention, or just making celebratory noise. I can however whistle in the ordinary way, whereas my mother could not whistle by either method.

...more easily think of essay topics for Orphan Scrivener.

Oh well.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The ticker continues to click along merrily and so here's the latest news....

GRACE MOVES TO NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE or WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

We are currently writing the sequel to The Guardian Stones in which Grace Baxter, now an auxillary policewoman, has now been posted to Newcastle. Set in December 1941, dark doings are afoot and events take a murderous turn only a day after she arrives to take up her duties in the industrial city.

A SURPRISE INDEED or YOU MAY QUOTE US ON THAT

We have discovered by accident an unknown reader has erected a Wiki page devoted to quotations from from John's adventures. We have no notion who was responsible for this development but confess we were chuffed to see it! Here's the page in question:

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John,_the_Lord_Chamberlain

THE PAST RETURNS or AN AMAZING (LITERALLY) REVIEW

You never know when past endeavours will pop up on the intertubes. Just last month Amazing Stories Magazine devoted a column to a product of Eric's long ago purple finger days, which is to say when he produced on fanzine on a hectograph and dreamed of the remote possibility of getting his hands on a used spirit duplicator. Reproductions of a few coloured covers show how much can be done with a hectograph:

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2016/05/clubhouse-fanzine-reviews-hectographs-like-cats-minds/

INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY MONTH or INSPIRED BY AN ADVERTISEMENT

May was International Short Story Month and the Short Mystery Fiction Society's blog marked the occasion by announcing links to members' short mystery stories each day throughout the month.

Or Equivalent Experience, Mary's contribution to the May jamboree, was inspired by an advertisement in a St Louis paper some years ago and the SMF blog on the 5th provided a link to the story's archived page at Kings River Life at

http://kingsriverlife.com/10/20/or-equivalent-experience/

The Society was formed in the 1990s to increase publication of, and regard for, mystery and crime stories in this form. Interested parties can find more info about the Society at

https://shortmystery.blogspot.com/

HOW TO WRITE RIGHT or ADVICE FROM THEM WHAT KNOWS

The last couple of Casa Maywrite contributions to the Poisoned Pen Press blog passed on sage writing advice given by characters in fiction by John Buchan and J. J. Farjeon. From Buchan's The Three Hostages comes Plot Construction Advice From Dr. Tom Greenslade:

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/dr-tom-greenslades-plot-construction-advice/

Further light is cast on this vexed topic by Farjeon's authoress Edyth Fermoy-Jones in Thirteen Guests under the title of, well, Plot Construction Advice From Edyth Fermoy-Jones:

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/plot-construction-advice-edyth-fermoy-jones

If Golden Age mysteries or what we can only call tongue-in-cheek writing advice are not their portmanteaux, subscribers may still care to check the Poisoned Pen blog now and then to read news and blogs about and by our fellow Poisoned Pen and Poisoned Pencil authors.

THIRTEEN GUESTS AGAIN or LUCKY FOR SOME BUT...

Necessary Evil this time round is turning into a Farjeon Festival, given his Thirteen Guests was one of the most recent Golden Age reviews appearing on our blog. Other new reviews since we last darkened subscriber's in-boxes include Louis Tracy's The Postman's Daughter, The Mystery of the Thirteenth Floor by Lee Thayer, and A Silent Witness by R. Austin Freeman. The newest review is The Blue Hand by Edgar Wallace http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/2016/06/review-blue-hand-by-edgar-wallace.html

ERIC'S BIT or THIRTEEN GUESTS FOR THE THIRD TIME

Since we began writing together Mary and I have taken as our model the Golden Age detective novels of the twenties and thirties rather than the modern thriller. Agatha Christie, who exmplifies the era, provided fairly clued puzzles and little overt violence. Unlike thrillers, classic mysteries are intellectual rather visceral.

Poisoned Pen Press is the American publisher for the British Crime Classics series. Reading the 1936 mystery Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon, triggered some reflections on old style mysteries.

In Thirteen Guests, Lord Aveling, an ambitious politician, is hosting a week-end social gathering at his estate. The guests are a bag of licorice all-sorts. A cricketer, a novelist, an artist, a gossip columnist, and a â€œsausage kingâ€ among others. Varied indeed, but just as licorice all-sorts all feature licorice, these guests all seem to have a motive or opportunity for murder.

The many characters are vivid enough to be easily remembered, ranging from the comical to the sinister, several drawn with considerable complexity. In fact, the murderer is eventually revealed, not only by the clues Farjeon scatters about but also by the gradual illumination of both the characters' psychology and the shadowy relationships between them. Only people who have never read Golden Age mysteries imagine that they typically feature cardboard stereotypes.

The modern reader may be startled, or bemused, to find that the first murder doesn't occur until nearly halfway through the novel. These days it is de rigueur for the murder to occur early. (Or should I say de rigor mortis?) Someone better trip over a corpse, preferably horribly mutilated, by the end of the first chapter, or readers will give up (supposedly), bored to tears. Death in the first sentence is the ideal.

I'd like to see delayed murders make a comeback. For one thing, it allows readers to watch the characters interacting before the murder, rather than the entire book being retrospective as the detective delves into events that happened in the past. It also gives the reader a chance to guess who the victim is going to be.

Why people need to have the murder occur instantly is beyond me. If you're reading a murder mystery you already know, by definition, that a murder is going to occur sooner or later. Waiting for the murder to be sprung and wondering who will die adds suspense.

The puzzle aspect of Golden Age mysteries is a bit problematic for me, as a reader. In Thirteen Guests Farjeon offers no end of seemingly inexpicable events, simmering animosities, comings and goings in the night. Characters are in the hall, or on the stairs, or coming quietly in through the back door at this hour and that minute after the hour. It is all dreadfully fascinating.

But can I actually keep track of it and put the puzzle together to discover the murderer?

Uh...well....

I love Farjeon's long, complex, solution which ties everything together. I admire it in the same way I might admire the gears and wheels and springs inside a clock. The intricacy amazes me but there's no chance I could have put it together myself.

If you plan on trying to beat Farjeon's Detective-Inspector Kendall, read and reread, take notes, make charts, and, most definitely, keep a timetable.

As for me, I never guess the murderer. Which oddly does not detract from my enjoyment of puzzle mysteries.

One morning in Thirteen Guests there is a stag hunt. The sporty types ride off in pursuit of the stag, hoping to be in on the kill. The less sporty types, including the sausage king and the novelist (naturally) elect to be chauffered over the back roads in a limo, hopefully to observe the hunt now and then from suitable vantage points.

I guess that's me, when it comes to mysteries. Some are in on the hunt but I'm there as a spectator.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of spectators, it's said they see most if not all of the game. At this point subscriber spectators have perused almost the entirety of this issue, so it remains only for us to remind them the next Orphan Scrivener will sport itself into your in-box on August 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Friday, April 15, 2016

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # NINETY-EIGHT -- 15 APRIL 2016

Due to public holidays in certain states, the deadline for filing tax returns this month has it seems been extended a couple of days. Hopefully this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener offers lighter reading than that dense mystery with a cast of dozens and an immense amount of obfuscation, or in other words the Form 1040 Instruction Booklet.

ERIC'S BIT or A DIRTY STORY

Our neighbors had a truckload of dirt delivered this morning. They've been filling in low spots in the yard. Their two preschoolers were on top of the pile immediately. They looked giddy with delight and indecision. Should we shovel, or climb or kick the stuff around, or just sit in it?

Dirt's a kid magnet. No one's ever invented a better toy.

By my parents' house there used to be a spot shaded by big maples, behind the leafy bushes edging the lawn, where the grass wouldn't grow. There was nothing back there but beautiful, untouched earth, ready to be dug and scraped and shaped.

My friends and I bought bags of plastic vehicles at the Five & Dime. The assorted cars and trucks in each bag were barely distinguishable as such. They were hollow, just shells really, an inch long and didn't even have working wheels. One of them would have been useless. But 120 in one bag were a marvel.

That kind of traffic required roads and roads are made of dirt. Our wide, straight turnpike stretched from stonewall to hollyhocks. Small roads curved and branched off to assorted rocks and clumps of weeds and narrower tracks twisted their way into the interior of the bushes. All these routes were jammed with vehicles.

Eventually a summer thunderstorm would wash our work away and allow us to start over again.

I'm glad I didn't grow up in a city where that sort of play would probably have been confined to short visits to a nearby park. I was lucky to grow up with dirt.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

History tells us Noel Coward once referred to destiny's relentless lamp. Since we'd rather not have it glaring in our eyes while a shadowy figure forcefully asks us for our news, it's as well that this time round the ticker is pretty quiet and our updates quickly told...

MAKING-DO FOR MAKE-UP or CAN YOU BEET IT?

Subscribers may care to consult Lois Winston's blog for March 31st for Mary's contribution on the inventive ways British women got around a severe shortage of cosmetics during the Second World War. One clever makeshift was applying beetroot juice for lip colour. Did you know there was at least one prosecution for the illegal manufacture and sale of face powder during that war? All is revealed at

http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2016/03/beauty-with-guest-author-mary-reed.html

A DIFFERENT SORT OF WRITING or SHORT, DARK, AND HEINOUS

Just for the heck of it Mary challenged Poisoned Pen Press and Poisoned Pencil authors to try a different sort of writing, or in other words â€” no pun intended â€” take a bash at writing a haiku or clerihew about one of their books. M. Evonne Dobson, Jane Finnis, Judy Clemens, and Bill Cameron took up the gauntlet and the results appeared in March on the PPP blog at

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/haiku-challenge/

Eric will be in the spotlight over there on April 18th, when he contributes thoughts on The Problem with Self Promotion. For shy authors who prefer to remain in the shadows, it's no wonder he laments if only Eric Reed were a real person who loved being a salesman.... No link yet but his blog will be reachable on that date via Poisoned Pen's page at

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/news-and-blog/news/

Meantime, subscribers may also care to check the same URL now and then to read news and blogs about and by our fellow Poisoned Pen and Poisoned Pencil authors.

MORE GAD REVIEWS UPLOADED or A FITTING PAIR

Since last we lurked in your in-box more reviews of Golden Age mysteries have appeared on our Eric Reed website. It is perhaps only fitting now spring is at least thinking of arriving that they included thoughts on Edgar Wallace's The Daffodil Mystery and The Greene Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine. John Buchan's Greenmantle is next to be considered. Some, nay many, will argue it isn't a mystery as such -- but there's certainly a mystery in it, including an urgent need to solve three terse clues to certain information. That review will go live this Sunday at

http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/

MARY'S BIT or NICE GIRLS DON'T SHOW THEIR ANKLES

It's no mystery how much I enjoy detective stories written in the Golden Age. They're not only entertaining but on occasion can also be quite instructive.

What have I learnt from them?

Well, characters with grey eyes are usually not villains, and protagonists often have a tendency to marry their second cousins. Eton, Harrow, Oxford, and Cambridge have educated more characters than readers can shake a shooting stick at, while lower class characters can be expected not to possess an haitch between them, and if they do, it was probably stolen.

Sleuths' love interests are often orphans, by the end of the book if not at the beginning. Putting aside the Baker Street resident, bachelor detectives frequently occupy rooms at the Albany or chambers in the Inns of Court, with occasional outposts at Jerymn Street, Half Moon Street, and Victoria Street -- though one at least is known to reside in Clarges Street.

Gentlemen carry handguns as a matter of course and have no problem getting them through the British customs. Such men belong to at least one London club and to be blackballed by members means social ruin. So does being caught cheating at cards. And men who talk about women while visiting their clubs are cads of the first order.

Parma violets are popular decorative wear for ladies and are usually worn at the waist, while women who dare to show their ankles should not be trusted. Any lady on the stage is almost automatically morally suspect, but this does not stop scions of noble families eloping with them.

Blackmailers get no quarter, and I say it serves them jolly well right. Cleanliness or otherwise is a sure indication of social class, unless the sleuth is in disguise.

AND FINALLY

From dirt to cleanliness is a natural progression, but as Havelock Ellis observed, what is called progress consists of exchanging one nuisance for another. Speaking of which, we'll close with a reminder the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will make itself a nuisance by its stately progress into subscribers' in-boxes on June 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Monday, February 15, 2016

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # NINETY-SEVEN -- 15 FEBRUARY 2016

Even when it snows and the landscape dons a white overcoat, February always seems the greyest month of the year. Half way through winter it may be, but the other side of the cold season seems as far off as it did at the turn of the year. Not to mention late 1099s show up to remind us tax season loometh. And now to add to the general misery, here comes another issue of Orphan Scrivener...

MARY'S BIT or DROP THE SLOPKETTLE!

Speaking of winter miseries, when the power goes out we're still able to have hot meals and warm drinks, being possessed of a gas cooker and given our coffee pot is of the sturdy metal type heated on camp fires in westerns. To prepare for lack of water when electricity to run the well pump is not available we set aside a fair amount of Adam's ale, but imagine the horror when towards the end of one winter, after some weeks of being unable to get to the shops, we almost ran out of coffee! Oh, the humanity!

Taking no notice of William Cowper's characterisation of tea as the cup that cheers but does not inebriate, we boldly cheer the pot that produces Satan's brew. But no Irish coffee for us, thanks. We drink coffee in all its black and aromatic glory without anything added to interfere with its rich, robust flavour. Not even sugar or milk, no sir! This is Liberty Hall. Naked coffee is what we like and that's what we imbibe.

At one time my family drank nothing but strong tea made from the leaf. The earliest coffee I can recall is an occasional bottle of Camp Coffee, a liquid essence sold in distinctive square, elongated bottles. It's fair to say its label has become iconic, with its less than subtle suggestion of the glory days of the British Empire. Its colourful illustration depicts an Indian servant with sash and turban, holding a tray on which are displayed a jug and the instantly recognisable bottle. He serves a Highland officer, who is all togged up in sporran, plaid, kilt, and red jacket, and taking his ease on a chest in front of couple of bell tents. These details strongly suggest, to me at least, they are on campaign where this particular type of coffee conveniently needs only a spoonful or two of the essence and the addition of steaming hot water and a quick stir with a spoon instead of all that preliminary messing about with grinders and coffee pots, especially while persons of ill hide behind boulders and take, well, yes, pot shots at you.

We got through so many electric perkers over the years we eventually moved to the plain metal type of which I spoke. Their big advantage is there no parts to go wrong -- or so you would think. However, we had one (now relegated to serving as back up) whose lid would never quite close but it did at least serve for its purpose. Then there was another whose lid bubble fell apart. It turned out to be manufactured of plastic, a foolish design decision considering boiling water would hit it regularly during the perking process. Yankee ingenuity came to the rescue: a repair kit from a local ironmonger's emporium provided us with a glass bubble and accompanying rubber sealing ring, and with a bit of fiddling about it rendered the old pot whole again. It's still going strong, literally as I type, as the merry sound of energetic bubbling floating upstairs signals it's just starting to perk the next batch.

A favourite quotation of mine is William Cobbett's advice to endeavour to free oneself from the slavery of tea, coffee, and other slopkettles such as soup or grog, asserting the daily intake of what he describes as a pint or two of warm liquid greatly injures the health. It seems Cobbett frowned upon time wasted gossiping over the cups, and further asserts the reader is unable to imbibe these drinks without a servant to light the fire and prepare the slop. To be fair, since his title is Advice to Young Men And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life his audience would not find his reference to a servant strange but all the same I cannot be the only person who wonders what Cobbett drank and if he got it himself. Since he also advised his readers to drink nothing intoxicating cold water straight from the jug suggests itself as fitting his preferences. Just don't heat it up, OK?

As for the first two beverages he names and shames, at one time Eric drank tea much more than coffee. He's since reconsidered his position so now you could say that, to paraphrase J. Alfred Prufrock, we are measuring out our lives together in coffee spoons.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

Most of this issue's BSP revolves around The Guardian Stones, written by our alter ego Eric Reed. We're happy this is the case, given we prefer to let him have the spotlight. And no, he did not demand it with menaces. Dame Rumour was ever a lying jade...

STARS IN OUR EYES or A BRITISH PAPER TAKES A BIT OF NOTICE

Being as The Guardian Stones is set in rural Shropshire, we drew our BSP bow at a venture and scribbled a line to the Shropshire Star, the biggest newspaper in the county. CHECK <------ To our amazement and delight, they've briefly mentioned the book -- and one of their reviewers is currently reading the novel. Can't beat that with a large stick! Let's hope we got the local flavour right.

HOW NODDWEIR GOT ITS NAME or IT TAKES A WRITER TO BUILD A VILLAGE

Or in this case, two writers transparently masquerading as one. Mary's guest essay for Alicia Rasley's blog on 8th January talked about the creation of the village of Noddweir, including how the village came to receive its unusual name.

http://aliciarasleybooks.com/?p=195

ER SPEAKS or TO MARKET, TO MARKET -- OR MAYBE NOT

E.B. Davis interviewed Eric Reed for the Who Kill blog on 20th January. Topics covered such diverse topics as what drew ER to write about the English countryside during WWII and, in connection with black marketeering, whether the marketplace nullifies politics.

http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2016/01/an-interview-with-eric-reed-by-e-b-davis.html

GOING FURTHER AFIELD or HERBS FOR HEALTH

Martha Roper, self-described wise woman in The Guardian Stones, gathers herbs and plants to make natural remedies for ailments and for other purposes. While she does not specifically say so, she must certainly visit the fields surrounding Noddweir to obtain some of her ingredients. On January 28th Joanne Tropello's Mustard Seed site ran Mary's guest essay touching on Martha's herbal knowledge.

http://mustardseedbotanicalsmsmg.weebly.com/mustard-seed-blog/guest-author-eric-reed-guests-today-to-discuss-the-book-the-guardian-stones-healthremedies

AND SPEAKING OF BLOGS or DID YOU FORGET THE FRUIT GUMS, MUM?

Another contribution to the Poisoned Pen Press multi-author blog will appear on February 18th, this time musing about memorable TV ads. Which have remained with you over the years?

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/memorable-ads/

Meantime, subscribers may care to read news and blogs about and by our fellow Poisoned Pen authors via this links page

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/news-and-blog/news/

ERIC'S BIT or A SLAVE TO THE SCREEN

This morning after I got online and checked my email, baseball news, and news (always in that order) it struck me that I spend more time staring at a screen than I did as a child when I started my day watching Captain Kangaroo and ended it with programs like Car Fifty-Four, Where Are You? and My Three Sons. It's ironic because I ended my long relationship with television shortly after Mary and I moved into our current house.

Our television reception was terrible. Everything looked like the introduction to The Outer Limits. We weren't bothered because our viewing had been withering away ever since we were married. The last shows we bothered to watch with any regularity were The X-Files and Millenium (badly underrated!). Reruns of Seinfeld also, to be honest. Well, okay, I admit we enjoyed The Nanny.

By the summer of 2001 there wasn't much left to watch. Apart from occasional local weather reports, the last thing I saw on television was the incomprehensible image of planes flying into the World Trade Center. The first thing I recall seeing, while sitting in my high-chair in front of a tiny black and white screen, was Willie the Worm, a crude puppet featured on a Philadelphia television station.

Make of those strange bookends what you will.

Do you remember when everyone called television "The Boob Tube"? Back before there were any boobs to be seen, back when screens actually contained tubes. A long time ago.

Psychologists warned that staring passively at a screen would make people stupid. Did it? If the boob tube so powerfully influenced those of us growing up in the fifties and early sixties why didn't we all become cowboys? As a kid and a young adult I probably spent as much time with television and those ubiquitous westerns as the next person, but it didn't stop me from falling in love with the written word or lessen my loyalty to books.

I grew up reading when there weren't any programs on. Saturdays were typical. I spent my mornings tuned in to cartoons and then Jungle Theatre -- featuring old Tarzan movies. After that it was out to play until dark, after which, with the rest of the family, I settled myself in the living room to watch something (anything!) from the small selection offered during prime time. Still, somehow, I found plenty of time to read. Rather than becoming addicted to television my interest faded over the years.

It might have helped that my family lived next to my grandparents and my great aunt, who spent most of their lives without television and never quite cottoned to it. I only remember them having one television set, a black and white portable that sat on a metal stand, looking out of place amid the Victorian furniture in the lace-curtained living room. It must have lasted for a couple decades and was never replaced by a color set.

My great aunt feared she'd be electrocuted if she tried to adjust the mysterious dials so she kept the set on and simply plugged it in and then unplugged it as necessary. She only watched The Billy Graham Crusade and Lawrence Welk. My grandmother joined her for the latter. Despite my grandmother being a huge fan of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason novels I can't remember her following the Raymond Burr series. As for my grandfather, he liked baseball games and never missed a rocket launch. I thought it odd that a man who, as a farmer, had been so close to the earth was facinated by our attempts to get off it.

Perhaps it was my grandmother, reader that she was, who saved me from being a television casualty. She read everything from modern mystery novels to Dickens. Before I had memorized the alphabet, I sat beside her in the big rocking chair while she read me The Wind in the Willows and Heidi and Thornton W. Burgess's gritty -- relatively speaking they certainly were -- animal stories. In the dim lamplight of her living room she introduced me to magic. Compared to books played out in my own unfettered imagination, television shows were only little figures jumping around behind glass.

So here I am today, spending longer than ever in front of a screen but reading: email, news, articles, and books. Not sitting passively but writing. Even sending off mail and posting my words to be read onscreen, on the Internet, by others. I guess I have ended up a slave to a television screen, but not in a way anyone might have guessed back in the days when Willie the Worm roamed the earth.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of reading, if subscribers have persisted this far, they're just in time to see us sign off with a reminder the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will arrive for scrutiny on April 15th. If nothing else, it'll serve as an alternative to perusing the labyrinthian intricacies of the IRS Form 1040 instruction booklet.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Thursday, December 15, 2016

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

RUINED STONES or GRACE BAXTER'S NEXT ADVENTURE

YET MORE GOLDEN AGE REVIEWS or FROM THE ALBERT GATE TO AN ANGEL OF TERROR

AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION or HOW WE BECAME CURIOSITIES

AND FINALLY

Saturday, October 15, 2016

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

GEORDIE NIGHT or ALL IS NOT WELL IN BENWELL

HALLOWEEN SHORT STORY or WAITING FOR WAITING

MIDCENTURY MODERN or IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH FURNITURE

A NEW LOOK or WRITING ON WRITING

PHLOX OF MEMORIES or NOT YOUR USUAL GHOST STORY

AND FINALLY

Monday, August 15, 2016

ERIC'S BIT or ALWAYS ON SALE

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A NEW REVIEW or SHADES OF THE CRUCIBLE

OPERATION PIED PIPER or HISTORY REVISITED

LATEST GOLDEN AGE REVIEWS or A SCREAM AND A WHITE FACE

SPEAKING OF BLOGS or SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

MARY'S BIT or MERCI BOUQUET

AND FINALLY

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

MARY'S BIT or UKULELE REGRETS

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

GRACE MOVES TO NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE or WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

A SURPRISE INDEED or YOU MAY QUOTE US ON THAT

THE PAST RETURNS or AN AMAZING (LITERALLY) REVIEW

INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY MONTH or INSPIRED BY AN ADVERTISEMENT

HOW TO WRITE RIGHT or ADVICE FROM THEM WHAT KNOWS

THIRTEEN GUESTS AGAIN or LUCKY FOR SOME BUT...

ERIC'S BIT or THIRTEEN GUESTS FOR THE THIRD TIME

AND FINALLY

Friday, April 15, 2016

ERIC'S BIT or A DIRTY STORY

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

MAKING-DO FOR MAKE-UP or CAN YOU BEET IT?

A DIFFERENT SORT OF WRITING or SHORT, DARK, AND HEINOUS

MORE GAD REVIEWS UPLOADED or A FITTING PAIR

MARY'S BIT or NICE GIRLS DON'T SHOW THEIR ANKLES

AND FINALLY

Monday, February 15, 2016

MARY'S BIT or DROP THE SLOPKETTLE!

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

STARS IN OUR EYES or A BRITISH PAPER TAKES A BIT OF NOTICE

HOW NODDWEIR GOT ITS NAME or IT TAKES A WRITER TO BUILD A VILLAGE

ER SPEAKS or TO MARKET, TO MARKET -- OR MAYBE NOT

GOING FURTHER AFIELD or HERBS FOR HEALTH

AND SPEAKING OF BLOGS or DID YOU FORGET THE FRUIT GUMS, MUM?

ERIC'S BIT or A SLAVE TO THE SCREEN

AND FINALLY