SleuthSisters, Movies, and the Bechdel Test: Part II

The last time our beloved SleuthSayer buddy John Floyd, who everyone agrees watches way too many movies, listed his favorites, fellow SleuthSayer Melodie Campbell and I both commented, "You are such a guy, John!" What did we mean? What does John's love for Casablanca, The Godfather, and The Big Lebowski have to do with gender? Aren't they all great films? Yes, but. Melodie gave me the best way yet to explain why many women may admire these films but not necessarily adore them when she told me about the Bechdel Test.

The Bechdel Test, created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who now says she was only kidding at the time but thinks it's cool that it's worked so well and come to mean so much to women who love movies, is a simple three-part measure to apply to any movie.

Does the movie have at least one scene in which (1) two women characters talk (2) to each other (3) about a subject other than a man (or men)?

I grew up in a household in which the women—me, my mother, and my sister—outnumbered the lone man, my dad. Add in a gaggle of loquacious aunts, maternal and paternal, on holidays—I've recently learned that the linguistic technical term for the constant interrupting in any New York Jewish gathering is called "overlapping" and is a feature of our "dialect"—and the men could barely get a word in edgewise. At age 92, my mother, who by then called herself "the oldest living lawyer," made friends with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was twenty years younger. The first time they had lunch together, we asked Mom, "What did you talk about?" "Everything!" she said. And that's what I want women in movies to talk about too.

In Part I, my SleuthSister Melodie discussed why it's important for all of us to have movies that pass the Bechdel test: for some, characters that we can relate to and admire; for others, frequent reminders that women have more interesting things to talk about than men, men, men.

If you missed Melodie's post, you can read it here.

Now, here are some examples: 26 (a double baker's dozen!) wonderful movies that pass the Bechdel Test (in no particular order):

1. Enchanted April

Four women seeking respite from their lives in dreary post-World War I London are unexpectedly transformed by a month in a castle in Italy.

2. Hidden Figures

Black women's work as mathematicians at NASA was crucial to America's success in the Space Race; their story is finally told.

3. The Help
The women who work as maids to the young white wives of Jackson, Mississippi just before the Civil Rights movement risk their jobs and their safety to tell a woman journalist the truth about how they're treated.

4. Nyad
A woman in her sixties comes back from repeated failures to swim from Cuba to Florida, with the support of the woman friend who coaches her.

5. Fried Green Tomatoes
Two pairs of women form enduring friendships: a modern housewife in need of empowerment with an old woman in a nursing home and an independent woman in the 1920s with an abused wife in need of an escape route.

6. Little Women

Four sisters share dreams and ambitions in Civil War-era New England. Seven movies have been made of the novel that more American women still read for pleasure than men read Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn.

7. Erin Brockovich
A single mother fights environmental crime and corporate greed in a small community.

8. Norma Rae
A millworker finds her voice when she leads a fight to unionize.

9. Made in Dagenham
Women strike for equal pay at a Ford plant in Britain.

10. Songcatcher
A woman in the 1930s goes to Appalachia to collect folksongs and learns more than she expects to.

11. Beaches Two very different women's lifelong friendship begins and is renewed on beaches.

12. Marvin's Room
A dying woman seeks a bone marrow transplant from members of her dysfunctional family.

13. Howard's End

Two Edwardian sisters devoted to each other, culture, and their independence diverge on issues of class and how to use their privilege for good.

14. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
A group of aging British women and men relocate to India in hopes of a more satisfying life in their later years.

15. Still Alice
A brilliant woman facing early onset dementia struggles to connect with her daughters while she can.

16. Monsoon Wedding

The prospect of a wedding stirs up secrets in a prosperous Indian family.

17. National Velvet
A little girl with an eccentric but loving family dreams of winning the Grand National on a horse she won in a raffle.

18. Nine to Five
Three women friends plot revenge against their abusive boss

19. Girl, Interrupted
Two girls in a locked psychiatric institution become friends.

20. After the Wedding
The birth mother and adoptive mother of the bride meet, and their complicated history is revealed.

21. Calendar Girls
A group of respectable British women raise money by posing nude for a calendar.

22. Bend It Like Beckham
Two girls from different backgrounds become friends after being rivals at football (soccer to Americans).

23. Boys On the Side
Three young women join forces on a road trip that becomes a trip on the run.

24. Julia
The writer Lillian Hellman tries to help her friend Julia, who works against and is ultimately killed by the Nazis.

25. Outrageous Fortune
Two actresses who hate each other become friends in a mashup of buddy, spy, and caper movie.

26. Steel Magnolias
The women in a small Louisiana town shares their joys and sorrows at the local beauty salon.

How many of these have you seen?

In for a Penny, In for a Pounding

If nothing else, check out the video at the bottom of the page. It’s worth the trip.

What, you want an engraved invitation?

You’re a guy standing against a wall, wishing you could quietly leave the party. Hours ago, the needle of your Reject-O-Meter™ fuel gauge bottomed against the Empty peg so hard it wrapped around the pin.

A bevy of girls floats by. Their queen bee in the impossibly tiniest dress pauses before you and holds out her hand. “No excuse you can’t phone.” She drops something into your palm and stretches up to your ear . “Here’s a dollar to pay for the first call.” Giggling, she and her cortège disappear into the crowd.

She’s given you a dollar to make a call, but without a number, you wonder how to ring her… Wait, the dollar. You inspect it carefully. Ah, clever girl, extra points for ingenuity. There along the edge are numbers: 201-032-5… On anniversaries decades later, you’ll take out that greenback and gaze at it fondly.

Making Change

You visit the county fair. In the arcade are machines, some antique, some modern, but they have one purpose. For only a couple of dollars, you can drop in a coin and these gadgets will flatten it into a bangle, a pendant, a charm for a charm bracelet.

In other words, you can pay to watch a press ruin your pocket change, rendering them unspendable. Your friends had claimed they’d placed pennies on railroad tracks† to achieve the same effect, but you weren’t sure you believed them.

Meanwhile, the barker’s buddy in the next tooth practices a different art. You give him two banknotes, a $10 bill and a $1 bill, and he folds the tenner, creating a ring for your girlfriend, or a tiny heart, or an origami bird, flower, or beast. When he finishes, you can see $10 peeking through the paper windings.

As you turn away, Mr Fancy-Folder Fingers pockets not the $1 payment, but your ten-spot minus one corner. After he starts folding, he switches your ten dollars and continues with a $1 bill.

Ties that Bind

In the late 1800s, a distant great-something-grandfather put his young wife aboard a train to travel by herself across the great land. He took out a ten-dollar bill, a veritable fortune at the time, and tore it in two. He gave one half to his wife and handed the other to the Pullman porter.

He told the railcar attendant, “Kindly take good care of my wife. She’ll give you the other half on arrival, and I thank you.”

Financial Crimes

These scenes have one thing in common– the commission of a crime. Like that tycoon trope of the magnate lighting cigars with a $5 bill, the vignettes above feature a federal violation of law, specifically Title 18 USC, Chapter 17, §331-333.

The subject is damaging, defacing, debasing, and destroying money. It’s an offense rarely prosecuted, but of the examples mentioned here, only one party might find himself under arrest. Which one do you suppose?

The reason defacing or destroying money is seldom prosecuted is a matter of intent, specifically an intent to commit fraud. Thus the one character in the opening scenes who is vulnerable to prosecution is the origami expert, the guy who switched a ten-dollar note for a one-dollar bill.

Penalties, Fines and Times

The same USC law specifies fines and prison sentences for violating the law. It’s particularly harsh regarding fine metals. Crooks and swindlers have shaved valuable coins since ancient times, much more difficult with e-currency.

type	Bills	Coins	Gold
fine	$100	$100+	$250k
term	6mo	5yr	10yr

I’m not aware of a definitive resolution, but legal experts have debated whether free speech supersedes currency law. In theory, you could dump a basket of bills in the public square and light a match with mainly your spouse and fire marshal to object.

It’s not well believed, but the law applies to legal foreign currency as well. If you foolishly shred a €10 note or run a Canadian coin through a penny press, the same law applies, except you open yourself to loonie ridicule. (Mary and Melodie are presently rolling their eyes.)

^† Riding the Rails

In case the law hasn’t sunken in, consider the laws of physics. Here’s a very expressive video of why you shouldn’t flatten coins on a railroad. Video © Landon’s Animated Wheelhouse.

 

 

 

 

© www.SleuthSayers.org

 

SleuthSisters, Movies, and the Bechdel Test: Part I

John has inspired us!  A few months ago, John Floyd made a list of movies he really enjoyed which might have been overlooked.  This inspired Liz Zelvin and me to start talking about movies we loved, and why they might be different from those on John's list.

To that end, we decided to write joint posts.  Mine follows, and Liz's will be on Monday.

Thanks for inspiring us, John!

SleuthSisters, Movies, and the Bechdel Test

Many readers of this blog know that I taught fiction writing at college for over 25 years, going back to the early 90s.  The dialogue below happened so often in class, I could phone it in.

Me to adult male student:  "There are no women in your book.  Over 60% of books are bought by women.  You might want to put in someone they can relate to."

Student:  "Yes there is!  See?" (pointing)

Me:  "She's the victim.  You kill her off on page two."

Then much of the class sat dumbfounded, as I pointed out the "Campbell factor," as they called it.

If you want to sell books to 60% of the market, write real women into your books.  Women we can relate to.

 

HOLLYWOOD DRIVES ME CRAZY

The same applies to Hollywood.  In so many movies released in the past twenty years, and by my count, the majority of action movies and thrillers, there are perhaps two women present in supporting roles.  The victim and the babe.

That's it.  Not surprisingly, a lot of thriller books sport the same two female supporting characters. 

(To be fair, sometimes the babe is a villain.  Groovy.  I am encouraged to relate to a victim or a villain.  Or - worst of all - the only supporting female character is a goodhearted prostitute.  Please save me.)

Which is why the Bechdel Test came to be so famous.  Do you know it?

To pass, a film must have:

*Two named female characters

*Who talk to each other

*About something other than a man.

You would be shocked at how few films pass the Bechdel Test.

 

THANK GAWD FOR AGATHA

I cut my reading teeth on Nancy Drew, and then moved on to Agatha Christie.

When I was a teen, Christie was my favourite author.  She's still up there in my top ten.  It's no surprise to me that she is the best-selling fiction writer in the world.

By why, you ask?  Surely there are other greats from the same period, even other female authors - Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh etc - who wrote terrific mysteries.

Curious about that, I decided to look at what I liked about the Christie books and movies, as opposed to other great writers.

It was immediately clear.  I could see myself in her books!  I could relate, as there were several females, young and old, in all of her books.  Far beyond the victim and the babe, Christie wrote female sleuths as well as female village characters (Miss Marple and Tuppence Beresford, for starters.)  Real women of all ages, not just gorgeous young ones that needed to be murdered or rescued, or sat around waiting to be a reward for some hero.

 

WE MADE OUR LISTS

So when Liz and I decided to make our lists of films that passed the Bechdel test, the first ones I thought of were all the Agatha Christie films that have been released in the past 25 years.  And while I might not prefer the way Kenneth Branagh's recent films deviate from the books, they still pass the Bechdel Test with flying colours, so they're on the list.  Here's a sample:

Death on the Nile

Crooked House

Murder on the Orient Express

The Secret Adversary

And Then There Were None

Murder in Mesopotamia

Why Didn't They Ask Evens?

4:50 From Paddington

Murder is Easy

Endless Night

The ABC Murders

The Moving Finger

All of the Miss Marple films (too numerous to list here)

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Why is it important to see characters you can relate to and admire on the silver screen?

As someone who went to business school in 1974, and had no female profs for the entire four years, I can tell you the following:

Not only do you have no role models, but if you aren't seen, you aren't heard.

Everyone wants to be seen and heard.  Everyone of all ages and gender.

Now let's see what Liz has to say about the subject on Monday!

 

Melodie Campbell's books always pass the Bechdel Test, but with a large dose (some might say overdose) of humour.  The Merry Widow Murders is out now.  Look for The Silent Film Star Murders, second in the series, arriving next winter.

 

 

 

Mr. Swartwood’s Marvelous Box of BOGO Swag

My wife runs a monthly authors-in-conversation series at a local watering hole. She started it just before Covid hit, went virtual during the pandemic, and returned to the live event format when that sad business was over and done with. Now she’s got a steady stream of regulars who show up each month to hear her chat about the writing process with authors who probably would not have considered visiting our town if she had not sought them out (and we did not live in a place that calls itself Beer City, USA).

One of the recent authors was my longtime pal Robert Swartwood, a successful hybrid author who had recently branched into the traditional pub world with the launch of an unusual thriller, The Killing Room (Blackstone, 2023).

Last October Mr. S. trekked to North Carolina from his home in Pennsylvania for the weekend. When we arrived at the venue, he popped the trunk of his vehicle and pulled out some boxes, which contained stacks of large-format bookmarks, chunky attractive magnets, and tons of books.

Magnets, as they appear on my file cabinet.

Yes, he was well aware that our local indie bookstore was handling sales. But Robert had another idea in mind. The books he had flagrantly transported across five state lines represented a chance to do some marketing—and house cleaning—at the same time.

Most authors have a ridiculous number of their own books on their shelves. If you’re traditionally published, your contract stipulates that your publisher will send X copies of your hardcover, and another X of your paperback when that format drops. You may have bought additional copies direct from the publisher using your author discount, and you may have gotten a freebie box from your editor or agent when they tidied their office. If you’re self-pubbed, you certainly have a stash too.

At the end of his talk with Denise, Swartwood announced to the crowd that anyone who bought the new traditionally published book from our local bookstore’s on-site table could take their pick any of his previous titles for free. (While supplies lasted, of course.)

He had no idea how this Buy-One-Get-One-Free gambit would play out, but he was curious to try it. As a Big 5 publishing exec once told the New York Times, when asked to comment on the proliferation of free ebooks on the ’Zon, “Free is not a business model.” True, but sometimes it makes strategic sense.

Yes, paperbacks of Swartwood’s indie print-on-demand titles represented money out of his pocket, but those copies were a sunk cost. Copies of books he had written under a pseudonym for an Amazon imprint had cost him nothing, as they were provided under the terms of his contract. Regardless of the source, he was tired of all these books taking up space at home. And he really wanted to show his new publishers that he could move sales of the new title under the Swartwood name. So why not offer free books as giveaways?

Well, it worked! Many people that day bought more than one copy of The Killing Room, enticed by the freebies. I saw people leaving with a mix of four to six books, which confirmed my long-held theory that at any given time people at book events would probably buy multiple copies to gift to friends or family, but are holding back due to cost. (They certainly do during the Christmas season.) But in the other 10-11 months, if you gave them an excuse to spend, they go nuts.

The freebie hit of the afternoon was the short-but-sweet Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer (Norton, 2010), which Swartwood conceived and edited. The 188-page volume contains 125 short stories—no, I did not type that figure incorrectly—by modern writers such as Ha Jin, Peter Straub, James Frey, and Joyce Carol Oates that take their inspiration from the tragic Hemingway short “story” about baby shoes.

At a book event this past weekend, I too pulled a Swartwood. Ages ago, when I first taught myself how to format POD print editions of my indie fiction titles, I ordered a stack of paperbacks I had designed of four of my short stories. Back then, I mostly wanted to see what they looked like, and to judge if doing short stories in print was feasible. I had given most of them away, but I found a few stragglers on my office shelf a while ago.

Turns out, people last Saturday loved the freebies. When I asked which one of the four titles they would like, many people told me to choose for them. One guy humorously quipped, “After all, you must know my tastes pretty well based on meeting me five minutes ago!” Everyone expected me to sign those copies as well. Might well be the first time I ever signed a 23-page “book”!

It’s fun to give away free stuff. Swartwood’s lovely magnets were a hit too. Author Ben Wolf says in his book, Power Author: A Quick Guide to Mastering Live Events, that magnets are a pricy but smart giveaway at live events. Unlike bookmarks and other easily discarded paper items, magnets end up stuck to someone’s fridge or office file cabinet. They’re the gift that keeps giving—to authors. Month after month, year after year, they’re advertising your name and book—if done right.

Yes, I’m aware that all of this stuff costs. But for most of us, they are a reasonable tax deduction. The question then becomes how little do you have to spend to make people deliriously happy, and have them walk away thinking that they have gotten a bit of a steal? I was delighted to see that free short stories in print were greeted with the same enthusiasm as full-size novels. Depending on page count, the wholesale price of a POD novel costs me about $4-$7. A 60-page paperback “Bloody Signorina”—an AHMM short that was a Derringer finalist—costs me $2.30. That’s not free, but it’s a nice giveaway for friends, buyers, editors and other high-value contacts you encounter at conferences.

A 60-page paperback still has enough
 of a spine to stand up. Who knew?

In a certain sense, this little book of mine serves as a nice “business card.” In one volume, people get a sense of my crime writing style, a list of all my books, my website URL, my newsletter sign-up info, contact info, and sample chapters to another book. A nice package overall.

Some other stuff I bring to book events in my handy tote bag:

QR Sign-up: Passersby “shoot” the code, and are directed to the newsletter sign-up at your website. (It also alerts them to the fact that you have a website.) Buy a plastic “Stand-up Sign Holder” at your stationery store. (This one is the 5-x-7 inch model.) Design a 5x7-inch image on Canva with your details. Use a QR code generator that isn’t spammy; the free one by Kindlepreneur is perfect. Make sure that people can easily find the newsletter sign-up form on your web page. You don’t want them scrolling and getting lost. Optimize your website for mobile devices. If they are going to sign up, they will do so on their phones within a minute of seeing your sign, not on their desktops at home.

Clipboard & Sign-up Sheet: Besides the QR code sign-up, I still offer a hard copy sign-up sheet, because typing on phones is still too fiddly for many people. I design the sign-up sheet with book cover art, and ask for two details only: name and email address. It gives folks something to do while you sign their book. Bear in mind that hard-copy signups mean you must now transcribe everyone’s chicken-scratch accurately and upload the deets to your mailing list. Check details before they depart the table to make sure you can read their writing.

A "chunky" bookmark, with full-bleed cover image.

 

My wife's stash of bookmarks and postcards.

Swag: You already know that I am not a fan of bookmarks. I feel the same way about stickers, postcards, and the like. They’re often money thrown down the drain. That said, if you or your publisher have invested money in this stuff, by all means set it all out neatly on your table. Readers who are not ready to buy, or who prefer to buy ebooks or print books online, will grab ’em because they’re free and an easy way to remember your book or byline. Place swag on your table where it will not interfere with the business of signing books or your sign-up sheet. Set out a few pieces of swag at a time, and replenish them as you go. (This will reduce the chance of some whack job swiping your entire inventory.) Swartwood told me that he doesn’t love standard bookmarks because book covers have to be the size of a thumbnail to fit on them. Far too small, in his opinion, to make an impact. If you’re going to print your book cover, he says, go big. His bookmarks (and Denise’s postcards) offer large images of their book covers. As for the magnets, he ordered in such quantity from PureButtons that his price-per-piece was $1 each. Personally, I would keep nice swag like that hidden and offer them to buyers only.

Writing Tools: You will need a fistful of ballpoint pens for sign-up sheets, and Sharpies for signing books. Always bring more than you think you’ll need. They are sucked into black holes.

Mr. Swartwood takes the dais at ThrillerFest to accept his award.

Congrats! (The ebook hit online retailers
 before the print edition hit stores.)

Lest you think I have dropped the thread on Mr. Swartwood’s writing, fear not! At ThrillerFest 2024, he accepted the ITW Thriller Award for Best E-Book Original for The Killing Room. The second book in the series is up for pre-order, and wouldn’t you know it, if you order the new book, you can get one of his old titles for free, while supplies last. (Order via the indie bookstore in his area for a signed copy, or discover your online options in his recent post.) Everyone loves BOGO, baby!

Book 2

* * * 

See you in three weeks!

Joe

josephdagnese.com

Happy Juneteenth (Plus One)!

You have heard the saying about how a seventh son of a seventh son is a lucky man indeed, right? Special, and possibly imbued with magical powers to heal and ward off evil? No? Well, it's mostly an Irish thing, so is it any wonder that with a name like "Brian Thornton," I practically grew up on stuff like this?

The connection between fathers and sons, the things they carry in common beyond the genetic, is part of what I'm writing about today. You see, I was born on a holiday. So was my son. Not the same holiday, but a holiday, nonetheless.

The holiday with which I share my birthday? April 1. Yep, April Fool's Day (Spare me the jokes. Trust me. I've already heard them!). My son? Well....

Here's a niiiiice subtle hint for ya!

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger, new commander of all U.S Army troops in Texas, issued General Order Number 3, and directed that it be read out as a proclamation on the main street corners and in the public squares of the newly captured city of Galveston, Texas:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

This proclamation officially brought to an end the institution of slavery within the borders of the United States in fact as well as in legal code. With the Trans-Mississippi section of the states rebelling against the government of the United States having been surrendered to Union troops by Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith a mere seventeen days earlier, it was close to a sure thing that many enslaved residents of the area had no idea that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 had already (legally and technically) set them, and every other slave in the states then in rebellion against the Union, free.

So of course it goes without saying that as of 1865, June 19th has been viewed by many in this country as being a real mile marker in the history of our imperfect, flawed, lumbering, plodding, inefficient, frequently unfair, and yet still-the-best-option-we-have-going republic.

Think about it. 159 years ago this incredibly important event signifying the end of nearly 350 years of legalized slavery took place, and today, 159 years later, we as a nation commemorate it with a federal holiday, and what I am given to understand is a whole lotta barbecue.

Which means that not only did slavery on this continent have an official ending date, but one that none of the following could erase from collective memory:

• Racially motivated violence.
• The failure of Reconstruction.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Black codes.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Jim Crow laws.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Hundreds upon hundreds of racially motivated lynchings.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson.
• Racially motivated violence.
• "Sundown laws."
• Racially motivated violence.
• Racial segregation.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Klan.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The United Daughters of the Confederacy.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Steppin Fetchit.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Ex-Confederate post-bellum revisionism (See Germany, June of 1945 onward over several decades: "Yes, Hitler was terrible. I never liked him and I never voted for him and I was never a Nazi and I didn't know what they did to the Jews until the Allies freed the concentration camps..." etc., etc., etc. Now tweak it a bit: "The war was never about slavery. It was about states' rights..." Un-huh. Sure.).
• Racially motivated violence.
• Douglas Southall Freeman.
• Racially motivated violence.
• All those cheap bronze statues of ex-Confederate military leaders popping up all over the country in the 1920s (thanks largely to groups like the above-mentioned United Daughters of the Confederacy).
• Racially motivated violence.
• The United Daughters of the Confederacy (Again).
• Racially motivated violence.
• The "Lost Cause" hogwash.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Birth of a Nation ("Hey! President Wilson! Look! The Klan are the GOOD GUYS!").
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Civil Rights backlash (in so many ways still ongoing).
• Racially motivated violence.
• Racial profiling.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Keeping Harriet Tubman off the $20 bill.
• Racially motivated violence.
• And did I mention....
• Racially motivated violence?
• I'm sure I'm leaving plenty out.

Bear in mind that I'm an historian with an advanced degree and a specialization in 19th century America, and yet I never once heard of Juneteenth in any way, shape, manner or form until just about ten years ago. Now I know what you're thinking: "What does that say about your skills/education as an historian?" I'll tell you what it says about them. It says, "I was born white and male, raised and educated on the West Coast, and didn't hear about it until I actually did."

Now to tie it all together with a bow.

My son is 12 years old. I first heard about Juneteenth if the context of its coincidental sharing the date with his birthday. That's right. At 11:55 AM on June 19th, 2012, James Andrew Thornton came in to this world. That's 147 years after General Granger's proclamation of General Order Number 3.

The part that gets me? James is older than our collective national recognition of the importance of Juneteenth by 8 years and 364 days. President Joe Biden, the most consequential president of my lifetime (Yes, I said it, and I MEANT it. And what's more, I'm bringing receipts.), signed "Juneteenth National Independence Day" into existence the day before James' 9th birthday, on June 18th, 2021.

As i said above, our creaking, inefficient, sluggish, slow-to-change republic has been tardy on the recognition of this so very important holiday, this hallmark moment, this mile marker, this signifying that we as a nation finally get that it is WRONG to enslave fellow human beings.

The United States. Nearly always late to the party. But still the best option we've got.

So Happy Juneteenth! And Happy Birthday to James, who, at 12, is older than the holiday!

(Yes, I am aware that this won't post until the 20th. My celebration of this important day stands!)

Mark Hochberg

Courtesy of Juniata College

I read recently that Dr. Mark Hochberg passed away in December. He was one of my favorite professors when I studied at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He taught English there for an incredible forty-six years, retiring in 2017.

He was smart, dedicated, and funny. According to his obit one of the most popular courses he taught was Dirty Books, but that was not on offer while I was a student there. I took several classes from him, and even had dinner on occasion with him and his wonderful wife, Sue.

You probably won't be surprised that the course that made the biggest impression on me was The Mystery Story. I've been wracking my brains to remember which novels we read for the course. Unfortunately I'm only sure of a few:

Dorothy L. Sayers. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. Introducing us to Lord Peter Wimsey and the Golden Age mystery. I remember Mark delighting in a solicitor with the Dickensian name of Mr. Murbles. He pictured the lawyer sitting in his office murmuring "Murbles, Murbles, Murbles..."

Dashiell Hammett. The Maltese Falcon. Representing the hardboiled dick, of course. I have no memory of what we discussed about this book (I hope we covered the Flitcraft Parable) but I still have the copy I bought for the course.

James McClure. The Steam Pig. An introduction to both the police procedural and the mystery of social commentary. McClure's Kramer & Zondi novels focused on the awkward relationship between two South African cops, one White, one Black. Each novel exposed some horrible element of apartheid. This debut book for example, dealt with the laws again interracial sex.

I vividly recall Mark reveling in one sentence of the book in which the third person narrator described the detective's reaction to a murder victim's body: "This association of violent action with the violently inactive Miss Le Roux had the subtle obscenity of a warm lavatory seat." Yes, after fifty years I recalled enough of that line to find it with Google. (And can someone more familiar with formal literary terminology tell me whether the last half of the sentence is a metaphor?)

Surely we read other novels. but I don't remember which. I do, however, still have a textbook we used: Detective Fiction: Crime and Compromise, by Dick Allen and David Chacko. It featured some classic stories of the field by authors you could guess off the top of your head: Poe, Doyle, Chesterton, Christie, etc.

But there were some surprises, as well, including my introduction to Shirley Jackson ("The Possibility of Evil,") and Jorge Luis Borges ("Death and the Compass"). Both stories still rank among my top fifty.

The section of the book on Theory included several classic essays such as W.H. Auden's "The Guilty Vicarage" ("Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim...") and Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" (“[D]own these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.)

Conspicuously absent is the most famous attack on our genre, Edmund Wilson's "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?"

But getting back to Mark Hochberg, there is one more important debt I owe him and it involves an author his course did not cover. When I mentioned to him that Rex Stout was my favorite he noted that in creating Goodwin and Wolfe, Stout had taken a newly developing archetype, the hardboiled private eye (whose stories were usually told in first person) and made him the narrating Watson for an old archetype, the armchair detective.

What stunned me was not so much this insight but the realization that there was more to be gleaned from Stout's books than just great characters and plots. I don't think I had ever tried to analyze mystery fiction before. I had been content that the stories worked without wondering how and why they did.What stAnd thinking about that set me on the road to being a better, and eventually published, writer. So, thanks for that, Professor Hochberg.

Compiling a Multi-Author Collection

I am glad to welcome guest author Judy Penz Sheluk today, who is talking about anthologies. Take it away, Judy!

— Barb Goffman

Compiling a Multi-Author Collection

by Judy Penz Sheluk 

Mega thanks to Barb Goffman, who was kind enough to relinquish her regular spot here so that I could celebrate the Release Day of Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense. As Barb will tell you, putting together an anthology is a lot more complicated than randomly arranging a few stories together, though there is a bit of that. And while I can’t speak for Barb or other anthology editors, I thought you might enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how this editor compiles a multi-author collection. Ready?  

Step 1: Send out the Call for Submissions. I always allow 90 days. This time around, I also capped entries at 80 in the hope that authors would be less inclined to wait until the eleventh hour of the 90th day to submit.  

Step 2: Using a spreadsheet, I log every submission as it’s received with the author’s name, pen name, email address, story title, word count, and state/province/country. I ask for state/province/country merely out of curiosity. In the case of Larceny & Last Chances, there were submissions representing 29 states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada. At this point, I also notify the author that their submission has been received. 

Step 3: I read the stories in batches of two or three, usually in the same week they are received. On my spreadsheet, I’ll include a brief comment to remind me what the story is about. I also keep a column of No or Long List—these are the “maybes”—I can’t really make a final selection until all the stories are received and read. 

Step 4: Authors on the No list are notified by email, with a short note explaining why their story is not a fit, e.g., didn’t adequately fit the theme of larceny AND last chances (that, by the way, is the #1 reason a story is rejected). I do this at the time the decision is made so the author can find another home for their story. Authors on the Long List are also notified by email, just letting them know they’re still in the running. In addition to being an editor, I’m also an author. I know what waiting for word feels like. 

Step 5: After all submissions have been read, it’s time to reread the Maybes and start culling down the list. For Larceny & Last Chances, there were 38 on the long list. At this stage, I sent the stories to Andrea Adair-Tippins, a librarian at the Whitby Public Library, for a much-appreciated second opinion. Compare notes. 

Step 6: Send out final rejections or acceptances. Prepare contracts and get them signed. Spread the word. At the same time, I’m working with Hunter Martin, the graphic artist I commission for all my cover art.  

Step 7: Sort the story order. Back to the spreadsheet, alternating by narrator (male/female/young/old) and story length. 

Step 8: Format the book for digital and print (I use Vellum, which I love). Send out ARCs for blurbs/advance reviews (arranged well in advance). 

Step 9: Get the book up on pre-order and schedule promotional opportunities (like this post). 

Step 10: Celebrate Release Day. Whew! Who knew 230 days could fly by so quickly?   

About Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense 

Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s about getting even. Sometimes it’s about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, it’s your last, best, chance. Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk and featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl. Find it at: www.books2read.com/larceny 

About the editor: Judy Penz Sheluk is a former journalist and magazine editor and the bestselling author of two mystery series, several short stories, and two books on publishing. She is also the publisher and editor of four Superior Shores Anthologies. Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she served as Chair. Find out more at www.judypenzsheluk.com.

Reverse Bucket List

Things I will never do (in some cases, again):

Jump out of an airplane, with or without a parachute.

Eat an insect, even if cockroaches are more closely related to lobsters than spiders.

Drive 100 miles an hour, even on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Climb Mt. Everest.

Climb a ladder to change a light bulb more than eight feet off the ground.

Sing Karaoke.

Descend in a submarine of any type.

Pose naked in a figure drawing class.

Ever spend another minute in:

• Hampton, New Hampshire
• Camden, New Jersey
• Boise, Idaho
• Altoona, Pennsylvania
• A 6^th grade talent show

Compete in a talent show.

Celebrate New Years Day in Times Square.

Buy a lottery ticket.

Check into an ashram to find enlightenment.

Ride a Greyhound from New York to California.

Bungie jump.

Go to Disney Land. Disney World. Birthplace of Walt Disney.

Run a marathon.

Run for political office of any kind.

Run with the bulls.

Proofread.

Dive off a ten-meter platform.

Learn Mandarin Chinese.

Complete my own federal tax return.

Program a universal remote control.

Rebuild an automatic transmission.

Hike the Appalachian Trail.

Reason with a teenaged girl.

Saw off a body part to free myself from a boulder (easier than the above item.)

Roof the house.

Paint the house.

Paint my nails.

Paint still lifes.

Perform origami. Or auto harp.

Attend a concert in a sports stadium.

Ride a unicycle.

Ride a roller coaster. Luge.

Descend into a coal mine.

Change genders.

Take up gourmet cooking.

Publish a cookbook.

Hang glide.

Drive a motorcycle.

Drive an 18-wheeler.

Ride a mechanical bull.

Drink a glass of tap water in Tijuana, Mexico.

Spend more than one hundred dollars in a casino.

Try to play a violin.

Be rude to a checkout clerk/waitress/flight attendant/bouncer.

Cut down a tree with a diameter greater than 12 inches.

Change my own oil.

Surf.

Remove my own appendix (maybe in a pinch).

Dye my hair.

Tap dance.

Juggle.

Buy bitcoin.

Spelunk.

Go to a sporting event with my face painted in my team’s colors.

Understand quantum mechanics, though I keep trying.

Sail to Bermuda.

Or across the Atlantic Ocean. Or the Pacific Ocean. Or any other large body of water without a helicopter on the foredeck ready to fly me to dry land.

Stop opposing racism, sexism, fatism, ageism, culturalism or any other ism that threatens or demeans any distinct group of people.

Stop opposing political correctness or any other curtailment of free speech.

Have cosmetic surgery.

Swallow a sword.

Eat a glass.

Watch daytime television (even worse).

Join a fraternal organization.

Affiliate with a political party.

Attend a fundraiser for a political candidate.

Assert the merits of a political position with a stranger.

Mountain climb.

Dress up in drag.

Troll.

Get a tattoo.

Travel to Moldova.

Open a retail outlet.

Teach kindergarten, or any course south of post graduate.

Compete in a hot dog eating contest.

Hunt.

Slaughter a pig, or any other animal.

It might be hypocritical, since I eat meat, but I couldn’t do the deed myself. I can’t even catch a fish or step on a bug.

Plagiarize.

Write a negative book review (if you can't write anything nice, don't write anything at all).

Darkling at Dawn

I was adopted.

No, I don’t mean I was abandoned or orphaned, although strictly speaking, most of us are as parents pass on.

Melayna as Valkyrie

My adoption happened a mere 3-4 years ago. At the time, not only was I supposedly, theoretically adult (adulterated?), but so was Layna. Words like putative, ostensible, and purported might be useful here when talking about grown-uptitude.

Before we met, Melayna told her mother not to expect her to like me, but soon my charm, my wit, and my bountiful modesty won her over.

Frankly, she won my respect and admiration. I’ve mentioned elsewhere she saved a man’s life one stormy night at no small risk to herself.

Convenience Store

While she was pursuing her medical education, she briefly worked the night shift at 7-Eleven north of Orlando’s main airport near the East-West Expressway. I worried about her safety and picked her up one night.

She puzzled me by spending a few minutes buying a hot sandwich, a cold juice, chips, a candy bar, and an apple. I knew her mother had dinner awaiting her at home, but I said nothing.

As I headed toward my car, she swerved toward the dumpsters. There she handed the food she’d bought to a homeless man, a derelict who thanked her by name. He was a man others mistreated, but not Layna. I thanked him for keeping an eye on her.

Melayna as biker chick

Grocery Store

So here’s a girl, my polar opposite in many ways, an Illustrated Woman whose fifty-some tattoos could have inspired another two Ray Bradbury novels. This photo from an earlier article shows one side, but she’s one ruff-tuff creme puff.

When she grocery shops, she enquires what I might need. She’s even careful about date stamps on milk.

On forms that ask for emergency contacts, I list her as number one. If hospitals want to pull the plug, Hell will freeze before she allows that to happen. As Erma Bombeck noted, as we age, the child becomes the parent and the parent the child.

My friend Steve is the same way. His ancient, creaking, blind and deaf dog was like a pet out of a Vincent Price reanimated movie. The line between living and taxidermied became thinner than a microtome slice.

Daddy Tissues

I’m not sure when Melayna began calling me Dad… Daddy. The first time, I wasn’t certain I heard right, but I was flattered.

I skipped the Terrible Twos and dodged the Know-It-All Nines. I didn’t suffer through those fractious teenage years. I missed all that floor-pacing at 2^am wondering where my child was. Arguably I’ve unduly benefited.

Or course when I say we’re opposites, it’s only superficially true. I admire her kindness and consideration. She loves animals. Like my brother, she knows music well beyond her decades.

We share the same twisted sense of humor. Many times, one of us will remark sotto voce. Nobody else gets it, but I catch her eye in the rearview mirror, a quiet joke shared. Her mother thinks we should DNA test to be sure we’re not related.

For her birthday, I tentatively created a tattoo for her. Her mother opposed tats and had made her promise not to increase her art count until mama was long gone. So I showed her mom what I’d created and braced for the firestorm. The conversation went,

“Never, ever! Over my dead body will I allow… Oh, my God, it’s so cute. It’s her! She’ll love it. Yes, okay this once, yes.”

I assigned the Lil Darkling baby vampire copyright to Melayna to share or not as she wishes.

Follow the Bouncing Balls

Melayna came with a couple of hatchlings of her own. Her XY offspring recently adopted an infant. I sketched a cartoon for the happy couple. Before giving it to them, I asked others to critique and comment in an effort to nail the humor. To my dismay, no one got the joke.^† I began to consider adding a caption, when someone sent a draft to the parents… and they got it immediately. They’re the ones who counted. Yay, win!

And me, I’ve leapt from zero kids to a multi-generational great-grand-something. And that’s great-great.

---

^† Just in case you have a life outside of texting on your phone, many message apps, sensing the person on the other end is preparing a message, display an indicator of three dots rotating on the screen. For this article, I animated the dots, an advantage my poor test subjects didn’t have.

Go Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well

For those who are wondering what kind of instruction that might be, my title today is a quote by the goofy character Hedley Lamarr, in the goofy movie Blazing Saddles.

What made me think of it was a post I saw on Facebook the other day from my friend and former Criminal Brief colleague Melodie Johnson Howe:

"Blazing Saddles has just been edited for television. It will air tonight from 8:00-8:07 PM."

The point, of course, was that cutting out the offensive parts for network TV did away with most of the movie. And if you doubt there were a lot of those parts, watch it again sometime, intact. Remember, Blazing Saddles came out exactly fifty years ago--I saw it with several buddies during my first class with IBM (a six-week course on the West Coast in '74)--and we thought it was HILARIOUS. I still think so. But that was a far less politically-correct era, back then, and movie directors, like authors, were able to more freely do that voodoo they do so well.

We all know that moviemakers and writers have to be more careful these days about what they show or say in the course of the story. Sometimes it's about offensive content, but it's also about plain old mistakes in logic or continuity or geography, etc., which I think were more often forgiven in the past than they are today. Most movie addicts know about the gas canister in Gladiator, the bulletholes in the wall in Pulp Fiction, the hands-over-the-ears before the gunshot in North by Northwest, the snow-capped peaks in Arkansas in True Grit, and many others, and mystery novel fans still complain about Raymond Chandler's chauffeur-murder plot hole in The Big Sleep. 

I myself make plenty of mistakes in my stories, in the plot and elsewhere. I've usually been fortunate enough to find and correct those during the writing process, but sometimes the editor discovers them, for which I'm always grateful but always embarrassed. Especially if the editor is also a friend, like Barb Goffman or Josh Pachter or Michael Bracken. I should know better, and they know I should know better. On a very few stories, I've made mistakes and editors did not catch them, and I found out about those screwups only after a reader told me about them or I spotted them myself in the magazines after publication. That's really embarrassing. 

I hate to admit this, but in one of my stories in the print edition of The Saturday Evening Post, I mentioned that a certain horse was a mare, and then, two thousand words later, said one of the characters "led the horse over to a fencepost and tied him to it." Tied him to it, not her. I can picture Mr. Rogers now, smiling in his sweater and sneakers and saying, "Children, can you say, 'proofread'?"'

For those of you who write shorts, have you ever committed that kind of error? (I'm referring mostly here to plot mistakes, factual mistakes, continuity mistakes, switching tenses, switching POVs, etc.--serious flubs, not grammar/style errors or typos.) If so, did the editors catch them? When editors find problems of any kind and recommend changes, do you always welcome their suggestions? Have you ever refused them? Can you list any examples?

In closing, I recall a piece of unrelated advice given to me long ago by an old friend from Alaska. My wife went with me on one of my IBM trips to Anchorage in the 1980s, and while we were there, a co-worker of mine took us with him for a week on his boat to some of the wild and seldom-visited islands in Prince William Sound. As we were trudging through those woods one day after sighting a bear in the distance, he told us there was a rule hunters follow if they're ever in a situation where they're forced to shoot a grizzly to defend themselves. He said, "You shoot him as many times as you can, then shoot him again, and when you're sure he's dead you shoot him again. Then, when you're positively, absolutely sure, beyond all possible doubt, that he's dead, you shoot him one more time.

That sounds brutal, but it ensures that you won't be dead, which should be your top priority. And that kind of thinking can also apply, in a far less serious way, to one part of writing. When you finish reading your final manuscript and you're convinced it's free of mistakes, read it again, and then when you're absolutely certain it's free of mistakes, before you submit it anywhere, read it one more time.

Now, if only I could make myself do that.

So damn tired of politics

Turn off the TV. Get online and mute everything about politics.

Try this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

Best parts:

Cowboy rolling yarn.

Cowboy – "Anybody can herd cattle."

Cowboy – "His face is just ripped to shreds."

Cowboy – "I'm livin' a dream."

And this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtKQbM9laC8

So many good parts:

"Duel Bag."

"Not a big fan of that look."

"All I did was tell my wife that her mom looked hot in a bathing suit."

"Trick question."

Another one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K44DriPrLUk

Can't stop laughing:

"Don't feed him yet."

"This is sand. You know what its gonna be in a hundred years from now? It's gonna be sand!"

One more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaCPlKlFqXg

Just watch it. Every second is spectacular.

This last one is a Kristen Wiig skit from Saturday Night Live.

I should get back to blogging about writing next time.

That's all for now, folks.

https://www.oneildenoux.com/