Remember summer camp? Remember reveille at 6:30? Remember the swim instructor who wouldn’t let you go to lunch until you jumped into the icy water over your head? Remember arts and crafts and the various mysteries of beads, lariats, and decoupage? Remember the communal toilets and showers? Most of all, remember those tents set up […]
Hudson Valley Hipster Watch #2: Glamping — So Old It’s New
Whenever I’m asked to describe my new Watson & Doyle series, I begin “No-one ever said ‘I want to write a detective series based on Tsvetan Todorov’s literary theories’… but I did.” So imagine my pleasure when I discovered Lawrence Block had long since beat me to it with his Bernie Rhodenbarr series. Todorov argued
What I’m Reading at Byrdcliffe: The Burglar who Met Frederic Brown
Yeah, really. That’s what it says. Destination Hamburgers of the Hudson Valley. Because who among us doesn’t crave peanut butter on their pork belly burger?r The fictional town of Morgansburg, where The Brooklyn North Murder is set, is on the other side of the Hudson from where I live in Woodstock, but neither shore has
Hudson Valley Hipster Watch: Destination Hamburgers of the Hudson Valley
Please come over to Shepherd.com to find five traditional mysteries, old and new, that inspired The Brooklyn North Murder. And while you’re there, you can preorder a copy of the first Watson & Doyle full-length adventure (hint, hint).
Come Find Five Books that Inspired Watson & Doyle
Elizabeth von Arnim was not a garden writer, but she was a writer whose garden made her famous — as well as being the source of her name. She is now most famous for her novel The Enchanted April, which was made into a 1991 movie featuring Joan Plowright, Polly Walker, Miranda Richardson, and Josie
A hedge fund billionaire dives into a lake in full view of witnesses watching a triathlon — and disappears. Can this possibly be connected to his plans to turn sleepy Morgansburg, N.Y. into a tech hub to rival Silicon Valley? It couldn’t possibly be that he was snatched by Morgansburg’s own answer to the Loch
Now Available for Pre-Order: The Brooklyn North Murder
Please come join me and my fellow MWA-NY writers for a reading at the Asbury Park Book Coop this Wednesday, July 20, at 7 p.m. I’ll be reading from my first Watson & Doyle adventure, The Brooklyn North Murder, which is slated to come out in February, 2023. And if you aren’t able to travel,
Reading LIVE in Asbury Park This Week!
This has been a fantastic year for peonies — a flower as fantastic as the stories of its origin. The flower is named for Paeon, the physician to the gods in Greek mythology, who angered his teacher Asclepius when he used an extract from the root of the peony to cure Pluto. When a jealous
Peonies: A Fantastic Year for a Fantastic Flower
This is the first year that every single Cypripedium in our garden has bloomed — and sequentially, no less, so we’ve had lady’s slippers all May. No, these were not in our garden, but well worth the mile-long hike in 94 degree heat up the trail across the road from our house. First identified in
What’s in a Name? Lady’s Slippers at Byrdcliffe
Sidney McCall (Mary McNeil Fenollosa) was one of many novelists concerned with the “Woman Question” who found her way into the Byrdcliffe Library. The most famous of these today is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a journalist whose short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is considered a classic depiction of post-partum depression. But McCall was a considerable feminist
Sidney McCall: The Breath of the Gods