THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # EIGHT -l5 APRIL 200l

A couple of weeks ago we heard an unearthly yelping, heralding the passage of a flock of geese hidden in the fog. It was one of those very misty mornings with dew still hanging in beads on the grass and the sun rather lazy about getting to work. We thought at the time that the invisible birds -- those annual harbingers of the arrival of spring -- were passing north on their migration from their winter quarters but given the cold and windy days we've had ever since we now tend to suspect that it's more likely they were the small flock that lives on the river having a little avian April Fool's Day joke at the expense of local residents.

Yet time flies by even faster than geese and on its wings our newsletter comes a-flapping once again. Still, if nothing else, we scriveners don't make much mess and won't eat crusts put out for deserving sparrows.

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ERIC'S BIT or IT'S NOT YOUR RUDYARD KIPLING'S IF

Two For Joy was published less than six months ago and although it's been great reading all the kind notices it's gathered, Mary and I have already turned our attention to telling a rather different sort of story in Three For A Letter.

Making up stories is something I got hooked on even before I could read -- as soon as I could wield a crayon, in fact -- and there's never been a time in my life when I haven't been in the midst of imagining some tale, often when I probably should've been doing something more sensible. In grade school I progressed from picture books to cartoons and illustrated magazines. Later on my friends and I experimented with Super-8 movies and claymation. It's amazing the effects you can get as plasticene figures gradually melt and mutate under hot floodlights. Even after I'd ostensibly grown-up I just couldn't resist making up stories, from inept science fiction to photocopied mini-comics. And I have to admit even co-authoring novels isn't enough.

Lately, in addition to writing about John the Eunuch, I've dabbled at computer games. Not modern games with beautiful graphics -- I'm not a programmer. My efforts are nothing but text, the sort of thing that was briefly popular in the eighties before home computers developed sufficient memories to handle pictures. Some might recall, for example, Adventure where you explored a cave and battled trolls by typing commands like:

>North,
>Attack troll with sword
>Take gold

Today the stories tend to be more sophisticated and aficionados refer to modern text games as Interactive Fiction or IF. The main virtue claimed for IF by its supporters is that the reader/player doesn't just read passively but interacts with the story by deciding where to go, what to look at, what to do and so on. Thinking about this, I realized one thing that makes mysteries so interesting and sets them apart from other literature is the high level of interaction the reader can engage in. All writing is interactive compared to, say movies, in that readers supply their own audio and visuals, choose their own pace, and can take as much or little time as they desire to reflect on what's happening. But mysteries go a step further by including a puzzle to be solved. In this aspect a mystery novel is a game.

In our mystery stories Mary and I have always been careful to include a puzzle. There's certainly nothing wrong with stories where you can't play along with the sleuth but they aren't, strictly speaking, what I would call mysteries. Mary is much better than I am at concocting these puzzles and she's the one who keeps a running list of clues and where they appear and makes sure each is finally explained and accounted for. I'm afraid we're coming to the clue-checking stage now with Three For A Letter and a few days ago I remarked to Mary that her clue list looked about as long as the novel itself! But then games aren't much fun unless they're fair.

If you're like me and enjoy the interactive aspect of mysteries, you might also like Interactive Fiction.About.com mystery guide Cathy Gallagher has a page devoted to mystery IF at http://mysterybooks.about.com/arts/mysterybooks/cs/interacti ve/index_2.htm and you can find out more about IF in general from Stephen Granade's About.com site http://interactfiction.miningco.com/games/interactfiction/ Mark Silcox' IF pages at Suite 101 http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/interactive_fiction or Reviews From Trotting Krips http://members.dencity.com/petro/reviews.html Not to mention at our own site http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/game.htm Once you've learnt your way around, I suggest you try out Irene Callaci's Dangerous Curves, in which you pretend you're a Sam Spade type character tracking down a killer in seedy and corrupt LA, at http://www.wurb.com/if/game/507 or another LA based private eye yarn, Kent Tessman's Guilty Bastard at http://www.generalcoffee.com/

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NECESSARY EVIL OR THE BSP TICKER

The BSP Ticker has of late been chattering nigh as much as the proverbial trunk full of monkeys. Here's a quick rundown.

PLEASE ACCEPT ENCLOSED APOLOGY

Due to the horrible machinations of Internet gremlins, we could not get through to our Talk City chat in March. Ever optimistic, we'll be arranging another attempt in a month or two but meanwhile extend our apologies for our unavoidable absence.

A RIFF ON THE GLYPH

Speaking of absences, the Arizona Book Publishers Association held its awards dinner the night before the Oscars. We were not in attendance and so it wasn't until early on Oscar Day that we heard we'd been highly honoured ourselves since Two For Joy had run off with the ABPA's Glyph Award for Best Mystery. We are, of course, thrilled to bits -- the more so as Twofer also received an honourable mention in the Best Book overall category.

There's more! Poisoned Pen Press also took home Glyph Awards for Best Historical/Biographical work (Ross Macdonald: A Biography by Tom Nolan) and a Best Mystery honorable mention for Nora Kelly's Old Wounds -- not to mention a special award for Rob Rosenwald and Poisoned Pen Press for Publishing Excellence.

Congratulations to the press and our stablemates there-at!

THEY WON'T TWIST YOUR ARM TO READ IT

But on the other hand One For Sorrow has been chosen as May voluntary read for the Crime Thru Time online discussion list. Its membership (made up of both writers and readers) is lively, well-mannered and enjoys talking about history, culture and favourite historical mysteries. For details about the group, point your clicker to their web page at http://pages.about.com/crimethrutime/info.html or visit their community page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CrimeThruTime

GOODNESS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, JUSTINIAN

Speaking of Onefer, we recently heard that it's part of an exhibit at the library of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It: Wicked Women Through the Ages or The Bad and the Beautiful features books about such notables as Livia, Cleopatra and Olympias. Theodora is in the category of women to whom history has given a bad -- and not necessarily deserved -- reputation, to which view (alas) our fiction has added, but you must admit that Onefer's bold scarlet cover certainly suits the theme of wicked women through the ages.

CURSE YOU, LORD CHAMBERLAIN

April l5th being Pay Your Taxes Day in America (and thus the date on which more bad language is heard throughout the land than any other) strangely leads us to "And All That He Calls Family". It's the sixth John the Eunuch short story with nothing to do with deductions for dependents but rather takes place on an estate where curse tablets are at work and seemingly extremely effective at doing their nasty job. Family will appear in a new Mike Ashley anthology to be issued in late summer. Like its illustrious predecessor, this Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits (Volume Two) will be published by Robinson in the UK and Carroll and Graf in the US. Fans of historical mysteries will be happy to hear that (alphabetically!) Margaret Frazer, Susanna Gregory, Ed Hoch, Michael Kurland, Steven Saylor, Peter Tremayne and Marilyn Todd plus many others have contributed to this collection.

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MARY'S BIT or LET ME TAX YOUR PATIENCE A LITTLE LONGER

Speaking of today being Pay Your Taxes Day, since misery loves company it occurred to me to take a break from struggling with those byzantine tax forms for a quick glance at Roman arrangements on this method of raising funds. This foray turned up some fascinating trivia -- for example, at the time of Augustus sales tax was l per cent on everything except slaves, whose new owners paid 4 per cent tax on their purchase price.

Another form of taxation that fortunately the current government does not seem to have considered yet was collective taxation. Under this system, a set amount was levied upon a community as a whole, its residents deciding who paid what portion of the total sum due. Needless to say, it was not at all popular for a number of reasons and became even more reviled once assessments came to be (as now) widely considered to be excessive.

Augustus eventually replaced this communal tax with a poll tax plus direct taxation based upon individual wealth. This in turn meant censuses were held at more regular intervals -- a practice that continues to this day -- in order to find out who owned what and how many folks there were around to tax. Doubtless this led to much dark muttering around rural dinner tables about jumping out of the cooking pot into the brazier, but it was too late by then. Isn't that always the way?

In Byzantine times, that venomous-tongued gossip Procopius recorded in his Secret History that in addition to huge amounts of public taxes, Justinian also received an immense annual sum known as "sky tax". According to Procopius, the sky tax was so-named not because (as we might suppose) the sky was the limit -- although by all he says, to all intents and purposes it was -- but because the money was said to have come unexpectedly to the emperor by falling from the sky, or in other words was publicly at least described as what we'd call a windfall. Of course, its regular appearance might give most of us pause but then again doubtless the wiser residents of Constantinople soon became adept at expressing convincing surprise that, good heavens, the emperor had been extremely fortunate yet again!

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AND FINALLY

Speaking of convincing surprises, we've just finishing up the draft of Three For A Letter and as is traditional the last couple of chapters are devoted to neatly tying up all the clues, red herrings and loose ends. While it's true that at the moment the closing few thousand words rather resemble a skein of wool after a catnip-crazed feline has finished fighting with it, by the time the next Orphan Scrivener slinks into your email box on June l5th the manuscript will have been burnished up and trundled off to the excellent hands of Poisoned Pen Press. We'll talk a little more about Threefer in the next Orphan Scrivener, but for now we'll admit that it's very different from Twofer and that a couple of hitherto lesser-seen characters come into the spotlight after John is called upon to solve a murder discovered during a banquet given by Anatolius' elderly and eccentric uncle Zeno -- a banquet at which, unfortunately for Zeno, the guest of honour is Empress Theodora.

See you in a couple of months!

Best wishes
Mary and Eric

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # SEVEN -l5 FEBRUARY 200l

This issue of Orphan Scrivener reaches you a day or two into Parentalia, which the ancient Romans observed between the l3th and 2lst of February in honour of the Manes, or souls of the departed. Temples were closed during this period but families made simple offerings such as bread, wine or flowers at ancestral tombs, especially those of parents.

This quiet, reflective festival fits well into a time when the greyest month of the year is not yet over. However, fairly soon we'll be hearing the first returning geese honking as they pass overhead in those long v-shaped skeins that spearhead the changing season. And while there is no other mention of geese in this issue of Orphan Scrivener, we do refer to sheep, a whale, a lizard-like thing and a large black bird, so without further ado, we'll better get going before the menagerie gets any bigger.

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MARY'S BIT or COMMODUS VON TRAPP

Remember the days when you didn't go out to the mall to see a film at a multiplex -- and hear half of what was going on in the next screening while you were at it? Those days when -- if you lived in England, at least -- you'd sit on the edge of a shabby plush (but somehow prickly) fold-up seat in the local fleapit, craning your neck this way and that to see around the heads of the people sitting in front? When the interval between Pearl & Dean's string of crackly ads for local businesses and the main feature heralded the arrival of the lady with the discreetly lit tray of ice-cream and the subsequent dash along your row, falling over patrons' feet and knocking coats off the backs of seats in a mad rush to get the last orange-flavoured ice lolly? When you kept scrapbooks made from brown paper and filled them with three-colour studio portraits of the stars, snipped from weekly film fan magazines and glued in with flour and water paste?

The recent announcement that Gladiator has been nominated for twelve Oscars reminded me of those days, or actually nights, when we went to the pictures every Friday and/or Saturday, depending on how much pocket money we had left after buying licorice whips, gobstoppers and packets of Spangles. It was at one of those local cinemas, small but with suitably baroque architecture, that I first saw the retelling of The Fall of the Roman Empire. Alec Guinness played a grave Marcus Aurelius and Christopher Plummer a rather sinister but well-spoken Commodus and whereas Rome was proverbially not built in a day, the Empire managed to crumble around statuesque Sophia Loren in the space of a mere three hours. Not that we noticed its extraordinary length, for we sat enthralled, overlooking even the usual jumps and changes in depth of colour as the reels changed, not to mention that irritating occasional patch of light that spilled over the screen as patrons entered or exited through the main doors at the rear, behind the not-quite-tall-enough curtain hanging on a brass rail running along behind the back row of seating.

Every evening's presentation ended with the playing of the national anthem, during which the audience stood -- or at least those who had not rushed out as the credits began to roll so they could catch their last bus home or start the brisk walk back through cold, smoky night air or perhaps just to avoid having to stand there feeling like a lemon as most of the audience slunk off through the exit before the anthem was even half done.

We all went to the pictures at least once a week, no matter what the film happened to be. The fact that they arrived locally years after they premiered was neither here nor there. If they showed it, we would come. At least, if we could get in. Occasionally there was a problem when the film had been rated A by the Board of Censors, whose certificate prefaced all films. The sight of a hand-written title set within their florid printed declaration that the film in question had been judged suitable for a particular audience, as sometimes shows up when old films are presented on late night TV, must bring nostalgic tears to eyes that originally saw the same certificate in a cinematic setting.

There were three rating categories: U (Universal, considered suitable for all audiences), A (Adult, judged too mature for children) and X (reserved for horror films). However, younger persons were admitted to view an A film if they were accompanied by an adult and so we guttersnipes would hang about in the foyer asking "Will you take us in, missus?" should we arrive to find that the poster for the feature of the week displayed the dreaded, if not scarlet, A. Thus many a courting couple began a romantic evening by agreeing to escort three or four children -- unknown to them or for that matter to each other -- into the cinema. Needless to say, the ticket-seller in her glass-fronted mini-fortress turned the proverbial blind eye when the "offspring" peeled off into the lower floor and their temporary parents went upstairs to the balcony, a favourite haunt of amorous duos. Well, after all, it was a bit more private and certainly less expensive than that other popular destination for the working class weekend date, the Palais de Dance, recalled so nostalgically in the Kinks' Come Dancing.

However, the Saturday morning matinees for children were a different business entirely. With most of the audience stamping their feet, whistling, cheering and booing and (I regret to say) occasionally running up and down the aisles, these screenings were much more raucous and lively affairs. They were attended by very few adults -- and that was just as well considering that most of the boys perched in the balcony so they could lob small missiles of various sorts over its edge (scrunched up bits of paper were particularly popular) in the hopes of hitting one of the girls sitting far below. Not that they entirely got away with it, as there was a fair amount of hair-pulling when the matinee was over and it was a wise boy who got away quickly as soon as the house lights came up after our weekly ration of a newsreel, a cartoon or two and the next episode in the serial. It was fortunate indeed that a snack I hear was on sale in later years at the Bensham, another cinema we patronised, was not available in those days. One shudders to think what those wretched lads would have got up to with helpings of soup.

Our much-loved picture houses were not exactly from the Grand Electric Kinematic Palace mould. If you've seen The Smallest Show On Earth, you'll have a good idea of the sort of cinema we went to, although I will admit that I never encountered a ticket-seller quite as eccentric as Margaret Rutherford's character. Even so, imagine my surprised delight when I recently stumbled over a photograph of the Coatsworth, a particular favourite when we lived in Gateshead, displayed in the council's local history page.

Looking at that familiar soot-stained facade again after so long, I could almost hear the shouts of "See you at the flicks!" as we rushed down the back lane after school, anxious to gulp down our tea and get going. We could hardly wait. It was Friday and that meant a new film was showing! Even the Academy Awards just don't seem to generate the same sort of excitement and perhaps we're all the poorer for it.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

We don't have much news to impart this time around, so we'll leap straight into it.

ONE FOR JOY or THE RAVEN HAS (ALMOST) LANDED

Speaking of awards, as Kaspar Gutman possibly remarked of the Maltese Falcon, "It would be an honor, sir, a fine honor indeed, to own a large black bird such as that." And so it would be, if he happened to be talking about the Raven Award. Thus it is with great delight that, just in case you missed it, we mention here that the Mystery Writers of America recently announced that it will be presenting a Raven Award to our editor Barbara Peters. The Raven is described on the MWA website as recognising "outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing". So congratulations to Barbara and all at Poisoned Pen Press!

RETURN OF THE SCRIVENERS or A TALK, NOT A TABBY

And speaking of matters mysterious, how about a chat? No, not a cat but rather a chin-wag. Poe's Raven may have croaked "Nevermore", but Talk City is not so fortunate since we are returning to darken its virtual doorstep on March 7th when Stephanie Shea hosts a chat for, and with, us and whoever else decides to drop in.

If you'd like to visit, you'll get there by going to http://home.talkcity.com/LibraryDr/mysteryplace and then clicking on "author chatroom", which will take you to the EZtalk page. Type in your name and password and hit "go chat". (If you haven't registered, just click on the registration link and follow the onscreen instructions. When that's done, click "continue" and that'll take you to the chat room. It sounds more complicated than it actually is in practice, honestly!

Authors appearing on the Talk City for the rest of February are Bev Connors ("Airtight Case") on the 2lst and Karen Irving ("Jupiter's Daughter") on the 28th. After our chat on March 7th, S. J. Rozan ("Reflecting the Sky") is the guest on March l4th, so tune up your clickers and grab your chance to mercilessly grill a few authors -- hope we'll see you there!

JUST WHILE YOU'RE HERE or A SMALL COMMERCIAL BREAK

We'd like to mention that, after a slight delay, the hardcover of Two For Joy is now on sale, decked out in a beautifully lush green and gold cover. Twofer received a rave review in Booklist whose ratings, we understand, are much relied upon by libraries, so perhaps you could ask your local librarian to look us up some time. Meantime, to catch up on John's earlier adventures, there's also One For Sorrow in hardcover or trade paperback edition. Three For A Letter Is Proceeding Along. More on that in due course.

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ERIC'S BIT or THOUGHTS ON A SHOCKING MOVIE

Growing up in the United States when neighborhood theaters were already being squeezed out of existence by television, I wasn't the movie-goer Mary was. My friends and I spent hours watching old Tarzan and Three Stooges movies on TV while debating who were the "real" Tarzans and Curly's and who the fakes.

My earliest celluloid recollection is of the drive-in next door to the house where we spent the summer. Just before bed time I'd be allowed to walk to the wire mesh fence at the end of our big lawn to see the cartoon shown before the movie. There was something startling about watching gigantic, garishly colored shapes flashing around the enormous screen in the soft summer twilight. From where I stood no dialog could be heard except, if the breeze was right, an occasional tinny murmur from a car speaker set up high. Aside from that, the cinematic action was accompanied only by the usual summer noises of insects and frogs.

In fact, although local movie theatres were by then dying out around the country, one still remained open a couple of minutes' walk from my house. It was owned by, and named for, my best friend's grandfather. I don't remember much except admission was l4 cents so I'd still have allowance money left for penny candy. My friends and I went to see westerns and our favorite was Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which we re-fought hundreds of times in our back yards.

But there were some disappointments. The eagerly awaited Three Stooges In Orbit starred what appeared to us to be suddenly elderly geezers, not to mention an obviously fake Curly. Moby Dick was even more disappointing. To be blunt, the whale wasn't scary. What is a monster movie without a decent monster? The makers of Reptilicus must have learned something from it, though, because their production featured a reasonably destructive giant lizard and that severed foot floating to the bottom of the sea at the conclusion, at which point you immediately knew that...whoa...he's gonna regenerate! Now that's a really dramatic ending, compared to some silly looking peg-legged puppet flapping its arm about as it vanishes underwater on the back of a artificial whale.

We lived in constant hope that one day a movie would scare us to death but (as you see) it never happened. The special effects just weren't up to it. We'd start talking about this or that science fiction feature days in advance, conjuring up the most delicious terrors imaginable. By the time we went to the theater we'd worked ourselves into a fever pitch but the monster always, finally -- and usually after the film makers had titillated us for 80 minutes -- turned out to be manufactured from painted cardboard or a tarted up bag of jello, a bigger swiz than the snake woman at the County Fair.

We were particularly gung-ho to see William Castle's The Tingler, where your seat was supposed to administer the occasional shock and scary stuff came flying out on wires, or maybe they used 3-D projections or something like that or so we figured, and people actually had died of fright, but that never came to our little local cinema. I guess my friend didn't have that much pull with his grandfather.

But I'll bet The Tingler would've been really shocking.

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AND FINALLY

Alas, the dark clouds of April l5th are already lurking stormily on the horizon and for US residents at least this annual day of fiscal reckoning looms ever closer. However, some light relief for those being fleeced by the tax man may be obtained by contemplating Parilia. Held on April 2lst, it was a bucolic festival for which sheep folds were decorated and their occupants purified. Offerings were made and prayers said for the health and safety of shepherds and their ovine charges. It seems that part of the Parilian jamboree involved the shepherds leaping through small fires and apparently their flocks were also herded between two bonfires as a further rite of protection.

Fortunately our subscribers don't have to go through fire in order to receive their next issue of Orphan Scrivener, since it'll automatically arrive on April l5th. If nothing else, we can guarantee that reading it will be less taxing than ploughing through the instruction booklet for IRS Form l040.

Best wishes

Mary and Eric

whose home page lurks about at:
http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects plus more personal essays, an interactive game and an on-line jigsaw puzzle (at least for those who have java-enabled browsers) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIX -- l5 DECEMBER 2000

December's cold, grey, early-sunset days are cheered by more than one festival and of the ancient Roman jamborees, Saturnalia (whose revels begin on December l7th) is probably one of the best known -- as well as the jolliest. Commemorating mankind's long gone Golden Age, when peace and harmony prevailed under the rule of the agricultural god Saturn, Saturnalia was a time when social order was turned topsy turvy. Celebrations included gift-giving, feasting, gambling, singing and general carryings-on (sometimes of a most licentious nature). As part of the traditional reversal of roles during the week-long festival, masters waited on household slaves during meals and there's an echo of this custom even today in the British tradition whereby senior officers in the armed forces serve Christmas dinner to the ranks. Similarly, surgeons and consultants appear on the wards on Christmas Day to ceremonially carve festive turkeys (with much humorous patter about blunt scalpels and bird innards) for those patients unfortunate enough to be spending the holiday in hospital.

Although "Golden Age" means something very different to mystery fans, we believe there can never be too many festivals and since this Orphan Scrivener is bigger than usual, we'll delay you no longer -- so with the traditional shout of Io Saturnalia, let the fun begin!

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ERIC'S BIT or SOME SEASONAL MUSINGS

Did you believe in Santa Claus?

I did. I can't remember exactly what it felt like to live in a world where a bearded guy in a red suit delivered presents with the help of flying reindeer. I do know that it was a very different world than the one I'm living in now.

It's hard to understand how I could have believed such nonsense, but then I believed in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy too, and they're even more incredible than Santa.After all, how could the Tooth Fairy get those quarters under my pillow without waking me up? That had to be magic!

Kids aren't out of touch with reality, they just take a more flexible approach to it. Robert Kavanaugh, a professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, explored "magical thinking" in a test involving an assistant, children aged 4 to 6 and an empty box. The assistant showed the children the box, then talked about a fox who lived in the box. When the assistant left the room some of the children, even though they knew the box was empty, began to hear the fox inside it and expected the imaginary creature to pop out momentarily.

My friends and I sometimes made up our own reality, in similar fashion. I remember particularly the Indian who was buried in the mossy mound at the base of the birch tree we could just make out, glimmering in the twilight, at the edge of the small patch of woods behind our homes. It was safe to poke at the grave during daylight but if anyone dared approach at night the Indian's outraged ghost would come flying out, all misty and amorphous and horrible, intent on doing whatever unnamable things ghosts do to the poor, foolish kids they catch.

Or so Johnny and I told Tommy one evening. Unfortunately, by the time the three of us had crept to within a few yards of the tree which glowed spookily in the gathering dark, Johnny and I were more convinced in the reality of our made-up phantom than Tommy was. The phosphorescent fox fire from some rotted limbs near the mound brought our invention to full, horrifying reality and sent us running for our lives.

Adults shape their own realities too but usually more subtly. However, writers and readers still experience some of childhood's outright reality molding. I'm not talking just about creating a bit of fiction or simply reading the words. When I'm contributing my part of the Byzantine mystery novels Mary and I have been writing, I find, to be successful, I have to work with a divided mind. A part of me has to remain outside the story, monitoring the words critically. Will they make sense to the reader, do they actually convey what I want them to? But another part has to be immersed in the tale, has to believe that John and his friends are real, that the ancient streets they walk and the dangers they face exist. If some corner of my brain doesn't believe in the story I'm making up, in the same way as most of my brain believed in Santa Claus when I was a kid, I can't make the writing come to life. Of course, readers also have to be willing to suspend their disbelief, to act as accomplices in the game for a few hours. I guess that's part of the deal writers and readers strike with each other.

Now, if I could only believe in Santa Claus again.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The old year departs bowed down with the longest Necessary Evil thus far. Much Has Happened since the last Orphan Scrivener was issued, so, trying to keep things to manageable length, we'll leap right into it.

JOHN SPEAKS

And now for an announcement! On December l7th the first interview given by John the Eunuch will be published online in the Charlotte Austin Review Ltd John was recently grilled by the Review's Susan McBride, whom you'll know as author of the award-nominated mystery And Then She Was Gone; Overkill (second in her Maggie Ryan series) will appear in autumn 200l, by the way. Now, if you haven't seen the Review you're in for a treat -- under the guiding hand of its eponymous Editor-in-Chief, it's gained an international audience with visitors from more than 40 countries, but that's not really surprising given it already offers over 550 book reviews and more than 80 feature interviews as well as 22 columns. So do drop by to read John's thoughts on topics ranging from the life he would have led had he not been appointed Justinian's Lord Chamberlain to speculation on what society will be like in 2000.

TWO DEGREES FROM ELLIS PETERS

Never mind about six, at the end of December we'll be a mere two degrees away from Ellis Peters and it's all Sue Feder's fault! You'll know her award-winning Magical Mystery Tour website, which at last count featured over 900 mystery reviews. Having founded the Ellis Peters Appreciation Society, Sue says she then cast her eyes around for another writer to torment but they all hid. So (as she puts it) to get even with a bunch of them all at once, she organised the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society, whose website is incorporated in the Magical Mystery Tour -- you'll find a link to it from the Tour's home page at: http://members.home.net/monkshould/ The December issue of Murder Past Tense, the quarterly journal of the HMAS, brings with it an interview we did with Ellen Healey, and thus we don with pride our Two Degrees From Ellis hats. Thanks, guys!

JOHN'S BIOGRAPHERS GET ANOTHER WORD IN

Recognised by Family PC Magazine as one of its Top l00 family sites, it's only been about four years since BookBrowser, The Guide for Avid Readers, was launched but already it's reached over 5,500 "pages" with (at last count) almost 5000 reviews from 25 reviewers -- not to mention reading lists and info on series and forthcoming titles. So we were honoured to be grilled recently by well-known mystery fan and reviewer Doris Ann Norris for BookBrowser (see: http://www.bookbrowser.com/authors/interviews/ReedandMayer.html ) Appreciative thanks to BookBrowser owners Janet Lawson and Cindy Orr, as well as to Doris Ann, our interrogator.

HANGING OUT WITH MR ROGERS

And speaking of Doris Ann, her other hat is as Director of the Kaubisch Memorial Public Library in Fostoria, OH. This November the library's Youth Services Department held its annual Children's Book Week (celebrated from the l2th through the l8th). As part of the event, various officials, celebrities and authors were asked to contribute a few thoughts on a favourite book from childhood, why it was their favourite and what reading has meant in their lives and careers. Mr Rogers and a number of authors of both children's and adult books were among those who responded. We were lurking among them and our essays boldly revealed that our favourite childhood books were Little Women and The Wind In The Willows -- ah, but who chose which title? You'll have to check: http://home.epix.net/maywrite/favorite.htm to solve that particular mystery!

READERS OF THE LOST ARK

We've certainly been haunting libraries this past month or so, as One for Sorrow was discussed in December by a Philadelphia reading group, to whom thanks are also due. "Readers of the Lost Ark" has been in existence for five years now. Their particular interest is anthropological, archaeological or early historical mysteries. Meetings are the third Monday of the month, September to June, in the library of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA l9l04- 6324. Members include librarians, chemists, art historians, and teachers and cyber-members are welcome, although they'll miss out on lively discussions and the guilty pleasure of refreshments (usually candy and cookies) that are normally a forbidden activity in the library! The next meeting is on December 18. If you'd like to attend, contact Anita Fahringer at afahr@pobox.upenn.edu or (2l5) 898 l024 for details.

WINDING UP NECESSARY EVIL (AND ABOUT TIME TOO)

In closing, we'll mention that Twofer has received some really great reviews, (collected for perusal at: http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/tworev.htm

Having already been asked once or twice, yes, we've begun writing the third novel, which will rejoice in the title of Three For A Letter (from the variant counting rhyme with which Mary grew up).It will be set partly on the country estate of Anatolius' Uncle Zeno. Zeno is an elderly scholar but also (as John has observed) a man of eclectic credulity. Alas, he has the misfortune to be involved in a celebration attended by the empress, during which things go very badly wrong -- and so John must undertake another investigation.

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MARY'S MISCELLANY or BYZANTINE BITS AND BOBS

Speaking of eclectic credulity, this section is devoted to what interior decorating mavens always term an eclectic mix, or as others might say, it's a cornucopia of creative conceptions.

Ladies first, then. Since Lady Jennie Churchill costumed as Theodora was mentioned last time, it's only fair this time around to see that Justinian gets his due. Tayfun Oner has created a computer-generated portrait of the emperor, based upon the Ravenna mosaics. This is the younger Justinian, looking enigmatic but there's a harder edge to his gaze as well. See if you agree -- it's at: http://www.byzantium1200.org/justinian.html Justinian's portrait is part of the Byzantium l200 website, which is devoted to reconstructions of the architectural bare bones of Byzantine buildings in Istanbul in l200. While this was several centuries after John's time, there are a number of places and edifices he knew, including the Chalke, the Milion and various forums. There are also several photos of a very impressive scale model of the Great Palace at: http://www.byzantium1200.org/greatpalace.html which gives an idea of the crowded landscape through which John, Anatolius, Felix and the others moved.

Constantinople's ever present stylites (some of whom play unfortunate although important parts in Two For Joy) were not of course able to move very far, reminding me that I was recently pointed towards Tennyson's poem about St Simeon Stylites http://home.att.net/~TennysonPoetry/stsa.htm

More than somewhat gritty, it describes Simeon's doubts as to his worthiness and along the way mentions the mortifications of the flesh he practiced before ascending his pillar. It would be interesting to discover why Tennyson wrote a poem about this saintly stylite, so if anyone has a clue, do let us know..

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AND FINALLY

200l is not far away now, with the turn of the year hoving ever more rapidly into view. As it happens, we keep up the New Year's Eve custom of first- footing, and so it has been years since my brother has actually seen the new year in indoors, for being a dark-haired man his is the mandatory foot which must be first over the threshold after the new year has been rung in. So he's always thrust outside a minute or so before midnight tolls out the old year, and then (carrying a lump of coal, a coin, and a piece of cake to represent good fortune for the coming twelve months) he's let back inside as soon as January lst has safely arrived.

But it's a good job the First Footer doesn't have to hang about outside until the first Orphan Scrivener of 200l shows up, since it will trundle into your email in-box on February l5th, somewhat late for New Year celebrations. However, February l5th was the date upon which another festival, Lupercalia, was anciently observed by the Romans. The Luperci (male youths dressed only in the skins of recently sacrificed goats) raced through the streets as part of ceremonial purifications carried out during February (februare, to purify or expiate). As they went about, they struck female passersby with strips of goat-skin in a traditional fertility ritual, apparently in connection with, or inspired by, the goat's lecherous reputation.

While this issue of Orphan Scrivener will mercifully arrive sans goats, unfortunately it cannot cross your cyber thresholds clutching coal, coin or cake. Nonetheless, it does carry with it our hopes for a good new year for you all. May it be healthy and happy -- and we'll see you again in February.

Best wishes
Mary and Eric
whose home page lurks about at: http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects plus personal essays, an interactive game and an on-line jigsaw puzzle (at least for those who have java-enabled browsers) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those who are new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

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