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We Know Where the Bodies are Buried
Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts
10 Last-Minute Easter Egg Decorating Techniques from Mental Floss
Speckled eggs. Silk-dyed eggs. Confetti eggs. See the whole thing at Mental Floss. Sign up for Frankie’s newsletter and get a free Professor Molly story Blog | Facebook | GoodReads | LinkedIn | Twitter | Mailing List Tagged: Easter, fun, Mental Floss, MentalFloss, Miss Cellania
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Spotlight and Giveaway: Sweet Pepper Hero by J.J. Cook
To win a print copy of Sweet Pepper Hero, comment on this post and tell us about a mystery that you’d recommend (preferably one that readers of this blog might not know). J.J. Cook is giving away one book per blog, so your chances of winning are pretty good! Contest is U.S. only.
Old rivalries heat up in the fourth Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade mystery from the national bestselling author of In Hot Water.
Fire chief Stella Griffin has been put in charge of judging the annual recipe contest, but Eric—her resident ghost and true culinary genius—has vanished. Before she can track down his latest haunt, she’s called in to investigate a local moonshine distillery that was set ablaze, making her realize there’s more than pies and cakes cooking in Sweet Pepper.
As rumors of a revived whiskey war ignite, Stella turns to the town’s elders to help her find answers. The past might have some clues as to what has sparked the present fires. But when following a lead lands her in buried rubble, Stella realizes she must extinguish this case fast or she might be going down in flames.
About The Author
J. J. Cook is a pseudonym for a married couple who writes mysteries, mostly set in the South, with a touch of paranormal and romance.
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from Spotlight and Giveaway: Sweet Pepper Hero by J.J. Cook
Sinful Science #1 in Kindle Worlds Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense
The next one in the series is coming soon!
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from Sinful Science #1 in Kindle Worlds Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense
Author Interview: Darlene Franklin, Gunfight at Grace Gulch
“You can’t get away with it. You’re a scoundrel and a cheat.” Penn’s face was set into deep lines, hatred aging him prematurely.
“I’m not a cheat. I arrived first, fair and square.
You have to accept it.”
Tension twisted my shoulders. I held my breath.
“That’s what you think!” Penn pulled out a Colt and fired.
A flash of light—popping sounds—two men fell to the ground.
The feud between the Graces and the Gaynors is still going strong more than a century after its inception in the 1891 Oklahoma land run. Newspaper editor Penn Hardy is murdered during the reenactment of the most famous gunfight in the history of Grace Gulch, Oklahoma. Cici Wilde, owner of a vintage clothing store, feels compelled to investigate when police suspect people close to her. She soon discovers her talent for sleuthing equals her flare for wearing period clothing. Theater director Audie Howe never expected the reenactment to end in a real murder. He cares too much for the future of the Magda Grace Mallory Theater – and the charming Cici Wilde – to let her face danger alone. Cici and Audie take a dangerous gamble to nail the killer – and lay their lives on the line.
Today we’re chatting with Darlene Franklin, author of Gunfight at Grace Gulch.
Q: Introduce us to Cici. What is it about her that appeals to you as a writer?
A: Cici is the first character I wrote in first person. The story flies out, her personality comes to life, and I know how she’s going to react. She’s is the middle Wilde sister. That should make her the peace-maker, and maybe that’s why she’s pulled between “Hurricane Jenna,” her older sister, and Dina, her younger sister who changes her hair color to match her clothes.
Cici’s an Okie, and proud of it. The longer I live in the state, the more I come to appreciate its turbulent history and its vibrant culture. She’s the kind of friend I’d like to have. She’s loyal to a fault, and will fight for her loved if she has to—and in Gunfight at Grace Gulch, she has to. Her little sister and her childhood friend are both suspects in the murder.
Q: How much of Cici is you?
A: Cici enjoys living in other times vicariously, by wearing vintage clothing from different eras. I do that, too; writing is the perfect escape from the dreariness of half of a nursing home room. She feels overshadowed, and perhaps insecure, between her two sisters. I don’t have sisters, but I know the feeling of disappearing in a crowd. But she’s more of a people-person than I am. I couldn’t stand running a retail shop.
Then again, I don’t look a thing like Cici. My hair is fine and straight, nothing like the “dandelion seed” that describe her struggles with her hair. I also don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a town where everyone has known each other for a hundred years.
Q: Do you expect to keep your characters unchanged throughout the series, or will they develop and change circumstances?
A: Oh, I definitely expect them to develop and change. That comes from my background in writing romance. The basic theme and conflict always include personal change. The original publisher for the Dressed in Death series stipulated that our stories should be 50/50 romance and mystery. I had to learn to rein in the romance at times, but at other times, I got caught up in the mystery and forgot the romance.
Q: If I didn’t know in advance that this was a Christian novel, would I figure it out by reading it?
A: I believe you would. Cici is quite outspoken about her faith and brings God into her life on a regular basis. Her hero, Audie Howe, quotes the Bible as often as he quotes Oscar Wilde.
Q: Your author bio says that you write full time from a nursing home. How does that work?
A: People find the subject fascinating, so I always mention it. It’s really not that different from finding a way to write around other obstacles—working full time, raising children, housework, etc. Exchange those obstacles for uncertain health, unpredictable schedules, limited space, and you get an idea of my life here.
Q: How realistic is your setting? Do you take liberties, or are you true to life?
A: As realistic as I could make it. I took a trip through Lincoln County, Oklahoma, and took plenty of pictures. I saw a spot that looked like a gulch and that’s why I named the town Grace Gulch. I used real, historical, restaurants in the story—and then they were blown away by a tornado. That’s Oklahoma. I’ve also been told that OU’s colors aren’t red and white but crimson and cream. During the trip, I reached a point where which red clay changed to common brown dirt. The literal transformation inspired me to make the physical environment an element in the story. I didn’t include this in my story, but I also spent time in the town that served as the model for the animated movie Cars. A restaurant had memorabilia signed by crew members. I believe that was the restaurant torn down by the tornado.
Q: When the movie or TV series is made, who plays the major parts?
A: Ryan Gosling for Audie Howe and Kristi Wiig for Cici Wilde. And if we can add Meryl Streep for Magda Grace Mallory, that would be marvelous.
Q: What’s the worst advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
A: I don’t know if I’ve had any terrible advice. I had one miserable encounter with an editor at a writer’s conference who said I was writing like a beginner—when I had won awards and been writing for ten years. That left me very shaken.
This isn’t bad advice, but it’s overused: write what you know. In writing nonfiction, that might be relevant. But my rule for writing fiction is write what you’re (a) passionate about and (b) what interests you. I considered writing a mystery series about a team of storm chasers, but decided I didn’t want to do the research required to make it believable. My next series, however, Murder on the Case, features a home health aide. After receiving help at home and living in a nursing home, I know a lot about the subject. But I’ve written about steamboat pilots, apple orchards, vintage clothing—all things I had fun learning about.
Q: And what’s the best advice you’ve received?
A: These are the simplest but the most basic of all weapons in the writer’s arsenal:
- Read, read, read—everything. Bestsellers. Your genre. Other genres. The classics.
- Write, write, write—There is no substitute for writing to improve in the craft. Of course, today there are a zillion online tools to speed up the process that I learned by trial and error.
- Get involved with a critique group, in person or online.
Author bio: Best-selling author Darlene Franklin’s greatest claim to fame is that she writes full-time from a nursing home. She lives in Oklahoma, near her son and his family, and continues her interests in playing the piano and singing, books, good fellowship, and reality TV in addition to writing. She is an active member of Oklahoma City Christian Fiction Writers, American Christian Fiction Writers, and the Christian Authors Network. She has written over fifty books and more than 250 devotionals. Her historical fiction ranges from the Revolutionary War to World War II, from Wyoming to Vermont.
THE CASE OF THE DEFUNCT ADJUNCT
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from Author Interview: Darlene Franklin, Gunfight at Grace Gulch
Giveaway and Author Interview: Lida Sideris, Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters
“A smart caper with a heroine to match.” –Kirkus Reviews
Corrie Locke belongs behind a desk, not behind a Glock. She should be taking VIP calls, not nosing around a questionable suicide. Instead, she’s hot on the trail of a murderer.
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Paperback: 408 pages
The Wild Rose Press, Inc (September 30, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-1509202409
ASIN: B014BVSWTE
Q: Lida joins me today to talk about her debut romantic suspense novel, Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters. Can you tell us a little more about the book?
A: Aloha Frankie! Thanks so much for hosting me today. My book is about a newly minted lawyer who lands a dream job in a Hollywood movie studio, only to be blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a co-worker.
Q: What kind of research did you do for your setting?
A: Very little. I set the book where I lived and knew well, in Southern California. I did revisit some of the places mentioned in the book to be certain I’d gathered all the details needed. For instance,
when my heroine, Corrie Locke visits a jewelry store in Newport Beach, she hides out in some bushes near the store. I traveled to where the store is supposed to be to figure out the best hiding place, and inserted Corrie behind some banana trees. Also
in a subplot, Corrie investigates a kidnapping of a lucky charm in Bel Air. I happened to walk the street where the action takes place. It’s near the Playboy Mansion, and I got to view the street on a Sunday morning, after a big party at the Mansion. That was used
to describe what my heroine saw.
Q: Tell me about something unexpected that happened when you when you were writing this book.
A: I completed it! No one was more surprised than I was when it was finally finished. The whole way I wondered and fretted whether I could type “The End” with some degree of confidence. It happened! Yes!
Q: Like your heroine, you worked as an entertainment attorney. Is there anything from real life that made it into the book?
A: Yes. There is an f-bomb tirade that occurs on my heroine’s second day at work. That happened to me. I picked up the phone, as Corrie did, and someone unleashed a slew of expletives. Someone I didn’t know, a talent agent of a client, and had had no interaction with, but who needed to express himself. It unnerved me. I was able to calm him down…as did Corrie.
Q: Lawyers have to read and write a lot. Did you find that any skills or habits from your legal career transferring to your fiction writing?
A: Absolutely. The words we pick are important. One word or a sentence could shift a viewpoint. The right word or sentence, that is, and I tried really hard to make sure the words and sentences I used fit well. It’s a learning process. I’m still learning.
Q: What’s one great piece of advice for any aspiring writers reading this?
A: Never ever, ever, ever give up. The only magic behind success in any endeavor is persistence. If you find the writing is not flowing, put it aside. Come back when you’re good and ready.
Q: What do you read for pleasure?
A: I really enjoy the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and love the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.
Q: What’s next?
A: I’m working on Book Two in the Corrie Locke series. Corrie’s best friend/possible love interest is implicated in a homicide, and it’s up to her to save him.
About The Author
Like her heroine, Corrie Locke, Lida Sideris worked as an entertainment attorney for a film studio. Unlike her heroine, she did not get blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a co-worker. Lida resides in the northern tip of Southern California with her family, their rescue shepherds, and a flock of uppity chickens. She was one of two national recipients of the Helen McCloy/Mystery Writers of America scholarship for mystery writing.
Author Links
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from Giveaway and Author Interview: Lida Sideris, Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters
Interview: Lea Wait, author of Thread and Gone
When a priceless antique is stolen, murder unravels the peaceful seaside town of Haven Harbor, Maine…
Angie Curtis and her fellow Mainely Needlepointers know how to enjoy their holidays. But nothing grabs their attention like tying up loose threads. So when Mary Clough drops in on the group’s Fourth of July supper with a question about antique needlepoint she’s discovered in her family Colonial-era home, Angie and her ravelers are happy to look into the matter.
Q: Aloha Lea, thanks for stopping by! Angie Curtis, of the Mainely Needlepointers, has some history. Tell us about her.
A: Angie Curtis, my protagonist, had a rough childhood in Haven Harbor, Maine. She never knew who her dad was, and her mom had lots of boyfriends. When Angie was ten her mother walked out … and never came back. Angie’s more conventional grandmother brought her up, but people in town expected Angie to take after her mother. She had a rocky adolescence, and headed west, as far away from Maine as she could get, after high school. In Mesa, Arizona, she got a job working for a private investigator, learned how to “follow and photo,” and bought a Glock. When she was twenty-seven her grandmother’s call, “Angie, it’s time to come home. They’ve found your mother,” brought her back to Haven Harbor, where she has to confront her memories, and possibly find her future.
Q: How much of you is in Angie? How would you feel about her if you met her in real life?
A: Although, like me, Angie loves the sea and the sea coast, she is younger than I am, braver, has less education, and is still figuring out who she is. She drinks a little too much, trusts too little, but is “street smart,” and a hard worker. I like her.
Q: Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series?
A: Some of my younger characters, especially Angie, change as the Mainely Needlepoint series progresses. But, even more important, all my characters have secrets and pasts, and in each book Angie (and my readers) will find out a little more about who they are. Few people are as they appear on the surface.
Q: You mention in your author bio that you left the corporate world a few years ago. Have you ever thought of going back to your old workplace and killing someone–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean?
A: So far I have no desire to go back to the corporate world – fictionally or in person. But that doesn’t mean some of the people I knew there, and things I learned, won’t pop up in various books!
Q: How realistic is your setting? Do you take liberties, or are you true to life?
A: Haven Harbor is a fictional seaport, but it’s very realistic. It has a working waterfront, seafood restaurants, antique stores and art galleries, a bakery and a small police force. The postmaster and minister know everyone in town. In the summer the town is flooded with tourists. Mainers who live there year ‘round respect each other’s privacy (and secrets) and may work three or four different jobs during the year to support their families. People from away might describe Haven Harbor as “scenic” or “quaint.” But they don’t see what goes on in the rooms behind those wide porches and green-painted doors.
Q: When the movie or TV series is made, who plays the major parts?
A: That’s a tough one! I see Angie as a younger Angie Dickinson. Her Gram could be Helen Mirren or Angela Lansbury. As for the other characters … I think the readers should picture them.
Q: What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
A: Worst advice? “Write what you know.” I think it should be, “Start with what you know.” Research and imagination will take you the rest of the way. Best advice? Be productive. Keep reading. Keep writing. And know when it’s time to write “The End” and move on.
About The Author
About The Author –
Lea Wait lives on the coast of Maine. A fourth generation antique dealer, and author of the Agatha-nominated Shadows Antique Print mystery series, she loves all things antiques and Maine, and she’s learning to do needlepoint. She also writes historical novels for young people set in (where else?) nineteenth-century Maine. Lea adopted her four daughters when she was single; she’s now the grandmother of eight, and married to artist Bob Thomas.
Keep up with Lea
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from Interview: Lea Wait, author of Thread and Gone
Author Interview: Sybil Johnson, Paint the Town Dead
The Ocean Painting Society invites you to join the painting wave…
It’s June in the quiet Los Angeles County city of Vista Beach, the place computer programmer and tole-painting enthusiast Aurora (Rory) Anderson calls home. Decorative painters are flocking to the newly built Akaw hotel to attend the Ocean Painting Society’s inaugural convention.
During the week-long event, Rory plans on shopping the trade show floor, working in her mother’s booth, taking classes and connecting with other decorative painting fans. She doesn’t expect to witness her childhood friend collapse in class and die. When the police find no evidence of foul play, Rory embarks on her own investigation. Can she brush aside the lies to uncover the truth and bring the killer to justice?
Q: Can you tell us what the book is about?
I’d love to! In PAINT THE TOWN DEAD, computer programmer and tole painting enthusiast Rory Anderson attends a painting convention at a newly built hotel in downtown Vista Beach, the California beach city where she lives. The hotel is embroiled in controversy. Protesters picket outside the main entrance and generally make life miserable for its owners and guests. Rory herself is targeted because she wrote software for the hotel. Even with all that’s going on in the city, she’s looking forward to shopping the trade show floor, taking classes, working at her mother’s booth and connecting with other decorative painting fans. She’s not expecting to witness a childhood friend collapse in class and die. When the police find no evidence of foul play, Rory launches her own investigation into her friend’s death.
Q: What is tole painting?
The term tole painting is traditionally applied to the art of painting on tin but, when I started taking classes in the 90s, it was used in a broader sense to mean the decoration of objects using various painting strokes and techniques. These days the term decorative painting is more commonly used, though I tend to use the two terms interchangeably. Folk art such as Norwegian Rosemaling, German Bauernmalerei and Russian Zhostovo fall under this umbrella. Today there’s a broad range of pattern books and packets available for the painter to choose from or you can come up with your own designs. Don’t tell my husband, but I’ve got a whole closet full of wood and other surfaces to paint. So many projects, so little time!
Q: How does your own painting experience inform your writing?
From all of the painting projects I’ve done over the years, I’ve learned a lot that I apply to my writing.
• Be patient with yourself, you can only paint/write based on your ability at the time. With regular practice comes improvement.
• Don’t constantly compare yourself to others, thinking everyone writes or paints better. Just do the best you can.
• You won’t know what a project will look like until it’s finished. The intermediate stages often seem ugly both in painting and writing. Don’t fret over it. Don’t give up. A painting project looks better after it’s varnished. A writing project looks better after it’s polished.
• Nothing is written in stone. You can always start over. Wood can be sanded. Paint can be removed from most surfaces. Characters can be changed, plots restructured, sentences reworded. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that, just because you’ve written something down, it can’t be modified.
• You don’t have to do everything the way the instructions say. Paint colors can be changed. Parts of a design can be omitted. Writing rules can be broken as long as you understand what those rules are and why you’re ignoring them.
Q: Your covers are so cute, who designed them? Who came up with the idea?
They are great, aren’t they? I really love them! Both of them were designed by the same artist, the talented Stephanie Chontos, in collaboration with my publisher, Henery Press.
Q: Being a writer seems like a big shift from working in computer science. How did you make the decision to leave tech?
I moved from the software development world into writing mysteries because I was looking for a new challenge. At that time, I was working freelance and my contract had ended. One morning I woke up with this vision of a young woman finding the body of her painting teacher in her garden so I decided to try writing. From that germ of an idea my first book, FATAL BRUSHSTROKE, was born and published many years later. I was lucky enough to be able to quit my day job and devote myself full-time to writing.
There are more similarities between programming and writing mysteries than you might think. The approach to writing a mystery and writing a program is fairly similar. In both, you start with an idea and a set of requirements. For a mystery it’s what a reader expects to see in the story; in programming it’s a list of features. They also both involve a period of design. At least that’s true for me since I’m an outliner not a pantser. In writing, I’m plotting the storyline and “designing” characters; in programming, I’m designing algorithms and deciding how to structure the code. There are also artistic aspects to writing code. An elegant piece of code can take my breath away just like a well-written/well-plotted book.
Q: Writing can be very solitary. How do you balance the need for solitude with the need to get out and be with people?
Even though I do enjoy being around people, I’m pretty content with staying at home for long periods of time so I try to schedule regular outings. I study Ancient Egyptian and Coptic with a group I’ve been a member of since the 90s, so that gets me out of the house on a regular basis. And I plan lunches with friends and attend Sisters in Crime/LA’s monthly meetings.
Q: Give your fellow writers one great tip–productivity, craft, marketing, anything!
Take time to celebrate your accomplishments. This is something I know I don’t do enough. With all the deadlines and writing one book while finishing up another, I think writers sometimes forget to take time to acknowledge what we’ve accomplished. Taking a germ of an idea and fashioning it into a finished novel is a huge achievement.
Q: What’s next for Aurora?
A heat wave, a little romance, a trompe l’oeil painting class and, of course, a murder to solve.
Sybil Johnson’s love affair with reading began in kindergarten with “The Three Little Pigs.” Visits to the library introduced her to Encyclopedia Brown, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and a host of other characters. Fast forward to college where she continued reading while studying Computer Science. After a rewarding career in the computer industry, Sybil decided to try her hand at writing mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mysterical-E and Spinetingler Magazine, among others.
She’s the author of the Aurora Anderson Mystery series, set in the world of decorative painting. The first in the series, Fatal Brushstroke, will be released by Henery Press November 18, 2014.
Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Southern California where she enjoys tole painting, studying ancient languages and spending time with friends and family. Visit Sybil at http://bit.ly/1Oay8Fc
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from Author Interview: Sybil Johnson, Paint the Town Dead
Sinful Science, A Miss Fortune Kindle Worlds Novella, is now available on Amazon.
A graduate student from Hawaii comes to Sinful, Louisiana to finish his fieldwork. He’d planned to spend a peaceful few weeks studying swamp rats. Instead, he discovers something that leads to Sinful’s darkest secret.
I hoped my protective feelings toward Deputy Sheriff Carter LeBlanc weren’t too obvious. Against all of my training and better judgment, I’d done the one thing an undercover operative is never supposed to do: I’d gotten romantically involved. Things hadn’t progressed very far yet. Just a couple of dates, an innocent kiss, and me saving his life once or twice. On the plus side, Carter was handsome, goodhearted, and apparently attracted to me. On the minus side, I was living in Sinful under someone else’s identity, so our entire relationship was founded on a lie.
I’m grateful to Jana DeLeon for opening her hilarious Miss Fortune world to other authors via Kindle Worlds. I had a lot of fun in Sinful, Louisiana and I’m already planning to go back.
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from Sinful Science, A Miss Fortune Kindle Worlds Novella, is now available on Amazon.
Beyond Lutefisk: Richard Audry, author of the King Harald Canine Cozies, on what you don’t know about Norway.
When springtime arrives in picturesque New Bergen, so do the tourists and antiquers. This year, though, there are some unwelcome visitors. Extortion. Arson. And murder.
After his business tanks and his wife leaves him for a Pilates coach, Andy Skyberg flees the big city for the peace and quiet of his hometown. All he wants is a decent job, a steady girlfriend, a plasma screen TV with a hundred-plus channels, and one loyal dog. But fate has something else in store for Andy, when his big mutt KingHarald starts sniffing out crime.
King Harald’s Heist chronicles King Harald and Andy Skyberg on their second adventure.
As the leaves begin to change color in New Bergen, Andy Skyberg wants to turn his full attention to his sister’s new café and art gallery—and to the beautiful Finnish architect who’s managing the project.
But the good-natured, go-to guy can’t seem to catch a moment’s peace.
His next-door neighbors—two elderly sisters—want him to fend off a pushy historian who thinks they had a scandalous past. His parents enlist him to entertain a narcissistic, boring couple they would like to ditch. And his ever-scheming Aunt Bev tricks Andy into seeking an improbable new gig that could land him in the hot seat.
A Norwegian Rhapsody
Guest Post by Richard Audry
“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year,” wrote Emily Dickinson to a friend in 1864. Given that she rarely left home, Dickinson no doubt based her impressions on a stereotypical Norway—a snowy, dreary country of fjords and piney forests. I’d like to think that, if she were alive today (and willing to hop on an airplane), she might hold quite a different opinion of this Scandinavian country.
I don’t claim to be an expert on all things Norske, but I do have Norwegian blood in my veins. And I grew up in Minnesota, the state with the highest number of Norwegian-Americans. It was only natural, then, that the town where my cozy mystery series is located would be called New Bergen, and the characters would have last names like Skyberg and Engebretson and Hofdahl. And then there is my sleuth Andy’s sidekick, a jumbo mutt with a nose for crime, who coincidentally has the same moniker as Norway’s monarch—King Harald.
On the menu at Ansel’s Café, the restaurant where Andy works, you probably won’t find lutefisk. This Nordic delight (or disaster, according to some) is created by soaking cod or other whitefish in lye until it comes to resemble Jello in consistency. It is, to say the least, an acquired taste. Even with my Norwegian lineage, I took one taste and I was done.
But you might be able to find salmon sushi on Ansel’s menu in New Bergen. In fact, this fish was introduced to the sushi-loving Japanese in the 1980s by the Norwegians—who were desperate to sell more salmon in the Far East.
Another fun food fact about Norway is that Roald Dahl, a British writer with Norwegian parents, used a famous Norwegian hot chocolate factory, Freia, as his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen credited Freia chocolate for providing energy necessary to help him reach the South Pole in 1911, the first man to do so.
You could argue that Norway’s most important contribution to worldwide cuisine might just be a storage facility in the farthest northern reaches, on a remote archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. That’s where the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located. Known as the Doomsday Vault, it has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples and serves as a backup for other seed banks around the world. Should a worldwide catastrophe occur—such as a nuclear winter—precious seed stock from Svalbard will be available to replenish human agriculture.
Ironically, the most beloved food in Norway these days is a commercial frozen pizza called Grandiosa. A cultural phenomenon, it is also roundly despised. Many Norwegians call it their “national dish,” while others say it is “refrigerated evil.”
Given that modern skiing began in Telemark in the 19th century, it’s not surprising that Norway has won more medals in the Winter Olympics than any other country. But what may be surprising is that archeologists who have studied ancient rock carvings estimate that Norwegians may have been skiing 4,000 years ago.
When they aren’t outdoors enjoying winter sports, you might find many Norwegians reading books. Norwegians read more than any other population in the world. And the government encourages this by buying a thousand copies of any book published in Norway for distribution to the country’s libraries. As an author, I’m jealous of those Norwegian writers.
Aquivit is probably the best-known alcoholic beverage in Norway. But, beware. If you’ve had a bit too much of it in Oslo, don’t even think of getting behind the wheel. A DUI in Norway results in an automatic 30-day jail sentence and a loss of license for a year, plus fines of up to ten percent of your yearly income.
If you do get thrown in a Norwegian slammer, though, you might not mind the accommodations. Prisoners in Halden, a high-security facility, are put in cells furnished with a flat screen TV, a private shower, and fluffy towels. I’m not sure if they get regular massages and spa treatments.
And what is there to watch on those flat screens? Well, if you just want to zone out, perhaps one of the popular shows on Norway’s NRK channel might appeal. There’s the eight-hour train ride, the twelve-hour footage of a log burning in a fireplace, and eight hours of salmon spawning.
I’ll bet everyone reading this post would instantly recognize Edvard Munch’s iconic masterpiece—one of the most famous paintings ever. And sometimes you might even feel like the person it depicts.
“One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below,” the Norwegian painter recalled. “I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became ‘The Scream.’”
A pastel version of “The Scream” (one of four versions made by the artist) was sold in 2012 for $120 million—at the time the highest price ever paid at auction for an artwork.
But don’t worry. If you happen to visit my little fictional town with the Norwegian lineage, the only screaming comes from the occasional murder victim. I guarantee that you will be perfectly safe in New Bergen. Hope you stop by soon.
—Richard Audry
Richard Audry is the pen name of D. R. Martin. As Richard Audry, he is the author of the King Harald Canine Cozy mystery series and the Mary MacDougall historical mystery series. Under his own name he has written the Johnny Graphic middle-grade ghost adventure series, the Marta Hjelm mystery, Smoking Ruin, and two books of literary commentary: Travis McGee & Me; and Four Science Fiction Masters. You can follow D. R.’s musings at drmartinbooks.com
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Filed under: Author Interviews, Buy, Fun Tagged: Author Interviews, canine cozy, cozy mystery, dogs, Norway, Norwegians, Richard Audry, Writing
from Beyond Lutefisk: Richard Audry, author of the King Harald Canine Cozies, on what you don’t know about Norway.
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