News Letter



March 13, 2010

Thoughts on Sleuthfest

The great thing about going to conferences is the people you meet. David Morrell, the writer of the novel from which Rambo was created, was one of the guests of honor. He was born in Kitchener, Ontario, an hour from where I came into the world. A down to earth approachable person, we stood together at the back of the room while we were waiting for a panel to begin and had a conversation about electronic rights.

Friday night two women joined us for dinner, unexpectedly I might add. The small dining room off the bar was packed. They'd heard me speak on a panel earlier that day and asked if they could join us. It was a lively and interesting dinner. Before the check arrived one of the women got up and left without saying a word. A little strange but we thought she'd just gone to the ladies room. But she took her glass of wine with her! That should have set alarm bells ringing. When the bill came she still hadn't come back,- in fact she never came back. We never saw her again although I looked all over the hotel for her the next day. The woman who came to the table with the missing diner picked up her tab. They'd only just met at the panel.

And then there was the elegant lady I sat next to at lunch on Saturday, the day David spoke. She told me she had come down from Washington with two friends, all aspiring writers. We talked about getting published and I said that the hardest part came after you're published. First you have to write the book and then you have to talk about the book. I suggested that she might want to go to Toastmasters to prepare for the speaking part. "Oh, I don't think that will be a problem," she said. "I've done quiet a bit of public speaking. I was in Congress." Well shut my mouth! That was the last advice I gave anyone.

March 8, 2010

See the new review for "A Brewski for the Old Man"

... "The action never stops at the Sunset Bar in Jacaranda, Florida, but Sherri Travis’s past is converging on her favourite spot. Dad Tully Jenkins wants her help in an elaborate revenge, while the man who raped her at the age of 13 is in town, spotting other young girls. There’s also a lot of action in the swamp with alligator poachers. Smallman, winner of the Unhanged Arthur Ellis for her first Travis novel, is at the top of her game in this fast-paced tale."...
Margaret Cannon reviews "A Brewski for the Old Man" ~Globe& Mail~ March 7, 2010


Feb. 23/10

I woke up yesterday with the flu which seems to be turning into a horrendous cold. I've been feeling pretty pleased with myself that I've gone all winter with perfect health so I was more than due but the timing is awful. I'm going to the Mystery Writer's of America conference in Deerfield Beach on Thurs. I'm on a panel on Friday and I have a reading to do. How do I get rid of this fast? Can I pass it on to someone else quickly? Does that shorten the time? Where's Lee? Except of course he's already had it twice this winter. He's not eager to take this off my hands…or my head. In fact he's strangely absent. Still, being ill now isn't as bad as it was when I was a kid. My mother took her cures from the Marquis de Sade book of home remedies. The theory was if they don't make you suffer they aren't doing you any good. All of them included mustard plasters, goose grease, Vick's vapor rub and fried onions for your feet. Oh the stink of it! After twenty four hours you crawled out of the house claiming to be completely cured and reinforcing Hazel's confidence in her potions.

We've had two almost perfect days for weather but the cold stuff is set to come back for at least another week. I think I'll just spend the next two days in bed and hope I'm ready to travel on Thurs. We're gone for a week. After the conference we're going to Key West. I'm working on a novel set there. I need background so I'm doing a little research (that's what I call it now when I check out a bar) Key West has an incredible grave yard. Like New Orleans, the dead are buried above ground in elaborate concrete crypts. You just know Sherri is going to get into deep doo doo one night in that graveyard. Like my mother, I figure if it scares the hell out of me it has to be good.

After Key West we go back to Delray Beach for a book signing on March 3. Three weeks later we will be heading back to Salt Spring. I hear the daffodils are blooming on the island, time for us to fly off with the rest of the birds.

Off to bed, without the fried onions and dirty sock…it's true…a soiled wool sock around you neck heals a sore throat. My throat doesn't feel that bad, truly.

Feb 16, 2010

Today, I am the guest blogger on Donna Lea Simpson's
Cozy Murder Mysteries blog site.

Check it out at Cozy Murder Mysteries


February 9, 2010

Letters from home,

It's lovely to have friends that keep you amused! Here's an e-mail from my friend and fellow writer Jim Ordowich. Jim should be writing a humor column for the New York Times but instead he only gets to be on my blog.

"I read yesterday that increased sun spot activity threatens to cause havoc with the world's communications system just as the winter Olympics are getting under way in Vancouver. We can expect static on cell phones, snowy pictures on cable and the very real possibility of GPS instructions from Toronto to Burlington leading to Flyspeck, Manitoba instead.
I bring this up because I feel a certain sense of responsibility. You see, the other day I caused a cosmic shift in the universe and the ramifications are fairly staggering.
It began with an e-mail through Facebook from somebody who went to the same high school as me. She was in another grade and she thought I might have been tall. Clearly she wasn't that familiar or she would have known the correct description was tall and good-looking - a qualifier often missed for some inexplicable reason. I did know her brother however. He was in my grade 9 class and remains green in memory for his effort to turn in a book report based on a Classics Comic. The poor sap chose something by Sir Walter Scott that in the original was barely recognisable as English. When questioned by the teacher he clearly had no grip of the nuances and about 90% of the plot. It was a sobering lesson to the rest of us. We based our future submissions on movies instead.
Anyway, after sending back a chatty response about high school days - and in a moment of supreme serendipity - I went off to the local office of Works Ontario to get what I needed to file for early retirement benefits on the advice of my accountant and investment advisor. The forms were under a sign that said "Seniors". Can you imagine the shear capriciousness of reminiscing about high school days only an hour before and then confronting a sign that said "Seniors"? It was at that moment that the cosmic shift occurred!
I must have stood there lost in the implications of my new status for some time because I attracted the attention of an ancient security guard incapable of defending the place from anything more menacing than a particularly aggressive pussy willow.
"Can I help you?" he asked in a voice full of compassion. Clearly my epiphany was not uncommon to the premises..
"Early retirement benefits," I said numbly.
"Right here," he said taking down an envelope and opening it up for me. "See, it's written with big type so it's easy to read and the questions are very simple."
What else could it be when no words in the application ran to more than two syllables? No wonder the elderly are perceived as only capable of being Wal-Mart greeters and security guards at Works Ontario.
The world was a little greyer when I left. The cold bit harder and my car felt bigger as I backed it out of the parking space. I caught a glance of myself in the rear view mirror. I was wearing a hat. Old men driving excessively slow on the highway are always wearing a hat. I was one of them now.
My mood didn't lighten until I went to lunch - senior's menu of course. I sent back the sandwich because the toast was cold and the drink because there was too much ice in it. What the hell, if I'm going to walk the walk I might as well talk the talk.
I never thanked you for the column you sent me from Kevin Thornton. Funny guy and very talented. I hate him.
You asked me once about blog material. If you think it appropriate use whatever you want from here."
Best
Jim

Florida Feb. 8/12

Are we having fun yet?
This is the winter of our discontent. The ditches are full of water and the beaches are empty. Lee went out this morning to play golf. He was wearing a toque, gloves, and a down vest under his jacket. To bad he didn't have his handsome snowmobile suit with the droopy bum and inch of grease covering it. That's what he really needed. The weather is not improving and it's hitting a damaged economy hard, plus there's the toll the weather is taking on the natural world, turning what one newspaper article called "the everglades into burial ground for scores of wildlife. " Every pond and lake is surrounded by dead fish and the cold weather has created an "ecological disturbance equal to a fire or hurricane." One wildlife official reported seeing over 60 dead manatees, an animal that is already endangered. One bright spot is the report that the severe cold has killed lots a pythons, Florida's newest invasive species. For anyone feeling sorry for themselves that they didn't come down this year, you made a wise choice.

On Saturday we took a little road trip down to Pine Island. You have to want to get to Pine Island to get to it - it isn't on the road to anywhere, in fact it is the end of the road and very undeveloped. You take Burnt Store Road West, through Matlachaa to Bokeelia. Aren't those great names? I wish I could make up names like that.

West of Punta Gorda, this area is a place where developer's dreams ran ahead of reality and there are many partially finished housing estates out in the middle of nowhere, a really freaky place to buy a home with boarded up houses and everything for sale, and only about one in three houses occupied. And then come acres of deep underbrush and woods. I saw three wild pigs in a deep ditch. Having wild pigs in the neighborhood wouldn't be all bad, could be better than some of the neighbors. Checking out houses for sale on the internet can't tell you what really happens on the ground. I hope people aren't dumb enough to buy these places without looking at them - although we bought our van, a mighty nice used vehicle, on the internet without ever seeing it. But don't buy a house that way.

When we got to Bokeelia and parked outside a little restaurant there, the waves were coming over the retaining wall and hitting the van. Cold, cold , cold. We said, "Yup, it's pretty," and ran for the warmth of the building. The island is mostly nurseries, the kind that grow plants for sale, not the human kind. It doesn't have the great beaches of Venice but it is a great place to fish the Gulf…except for this year.
Stay warm and stay well!

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Living the Good Life in Matlacha Florida on a Saturday afternoon

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Why mysteries?

When I was asked why I write mysteries it didn't take me long to come up with a dozen solid reasons. To start with, writing is the most fun you can have with your clothes on, and mysteries are the most popular form of fiction in the world. But more than that, I love mysteries, love to read them and love to write them. The often reluctant and unprepared hero or heroine goes on a quest - often a life and death struggle, taking us with them on an epic adventure to right wrongs, to see justice done or to discover truth. Stories of crime explore the dark side of human nature; greed, anger, jealousy and even love when it's beyond control. All of these emotions are at the heart of a good mystery. Cautionary tales, they tell us what happens when our emotions get out of control. Mysteries hold up a mirror to society, showing it without its make-up on, revealing all its warts. Mental illness, drugs, and the social problems we have to deal with in our neighborhoods, workplaces and yes, even our families are examined. We see how ordinary people deal with extraordinary circumstances, how they cope with what life sends them. And all this wrapped up in a puzzle.
Stories about crimes spot-light our fears. Each of us feels as vulnerable to crime as we do to disease. All those little security signs in flower beds are the new crosses over doors to tell misfortune to move on.
And how many of us think human beings are becoming less moral and more violent? Remember the first crime stories appear in the bible. Cain murdering Abel, Joseph being sold into slavery, the bible is full of tales of theft and murder and even tales of the slaughter of babies. And you think identity theft is new? Think of Jacob stealing Esau's birthright. Human nature flows through crime books, entertaining us, frightening us and even educating us. That's why I love a mystery.

Jan. 19/10

The weather is still cool here after the big freeze but the sun is shining. On the golf course yesterday hundreds of dead fish had washed up around the ponds where the birds were busy pecking away. Ibis and Wood Storks worked along the banks. The Wood Storks were eating the fish while the Ibis flipped them up on the bank into a pile. Everywhere you look you see dead plants, from citrus trees to flowers to vegetables. There is some talk that the citrus growers will not replant. Brazil has become the biggest grower of oranges in the world and is undercutting the price enough that growing oranges in Florida is no longer financially viable. Who would have thought the day would come when Florida did not lead the world in producing orange juice? Aren't Florida and orange juice one word?

We've been talking about playing bridge, joining the Tuesday bridge club but there's a problem and it goes like this …if we play together a domestic will break out worthy of UN intervention. I can't understand why a perfectly intelligent man loses all his marbles when he picks up a deck of cards. And bridge is where the weakness of his positivity shows its cracks - when living with hope and expecting the impossible turn out to be fallible.

I'm a cautious player which doesn't allow for brilliance or what looks like brilliance which occurs when hope and stupidity get lucky. The luck often happens because the opposition can never believe things are as bad as they appear. Apologetic, as they put us three down, they always look befuddled, wondering how we could ever have expected to have made it with the hands we held.

And I hate it when my partner says, "It's only a game." It's not only a game, its life and death. It was never just a game when I played cards with my Dad for nickels as soon as I was able to tell a heart from a club. I kept myself in nickels from a pretty young age because my father, like my husband, lived with great optimism that things would magically work out. So don't tell me it's only a game. My attitude has always been, don't play if it's only a game….oh, wait a minute…Tues night bridge…playing with strangers…not a good idea. The week after I joined they'd disband.

Computer scrabble was invented for people just like me who shouldn't be around other humans when there's winning and losing to be done.

Stay well.

Venice Florida, Jan. 16/09

Venice has a wonderful downtown with a main street divided by palms. On one side of the street are unique shops selling everything from clothing to wine and cheese. If it's something you don't need for survival you'll find it there. On the other side is a huge parking lot with flowering trees and a band shell, not much like a normal parking lot at all. On Saturday they close off part of the lot for a farmer's market.

It's a rag tag little market, with the usual bread to vegetables, plus a woman who sells a line of pet clothing. Now why a dog or cat living in Florida would need a jacket I'm not sure but she has them. Then there's a woman selling orchids, hanging orchids, trailing orchids and upright orchids, an amazing and beautiful display. But Lee and I were on a hunt for orange blossom honey. There's nothing like it.

Strolling through the vendors, maybe picking up a fresh crepe is not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning and after we got our honey for our toast we went over to Milan Street, you see all the streets in Venice have Italian names. Milan Street is full of restaurants, one that spills over the sidewalk so you're walking among the tables and jostling the waiters, never mind the huge cage with the green parrot. Milan Street also has many second hand stores. We went in and out of junk stores they way we'd gone in and out of the restaurant tables. In one of the charity shops we found a lovely little wicker table and a bed tray, not so lovely nor so little but it was only ten dollars and maybe one day I can talk Lee into serving breakfast the way it should be delivered, on a whapping great tray with a flower in a vase.

On the way home we stopped at the nursery and picked up some flowers to replace the ones taken by the frost. A simple little day, nothing important or very interesting happened. But how blessed we are to have the simple days, when nothing is more important than a little honey for your toast. Reading the paper while I eat that toast, looking at the pictures of Haiti, I realize how blessed I am that there is nothing big or important in my life - to need, nor want, anything more important than honey and a few flowers. I always knew that life wasn't fair but it never seemed more so than it does now.

Stay well.

Jan. 4/09

Cold here in Florida. All of the tender plants are wearing bed sheets. I look around the neighborhood and see some very strange combinations. Why would anyone ever buy sheets with purple and yellow flowers? Of course, mine are wearing pink and green sheets from the eighties to keep warm. It's too cold for that morning walk, but the sun is shining. All over the north people would think this was a perfect day, think we're just whiners.

Looking forward to many things in 2010: SEX IN A SIDECAR comes out in paperback in Feb. and I'm hoping to get the cover for A BREWSKI FOR THE OLD MAN later today. I don't have much say in the cover design, which is just as well. Tania Craan is a brilliant designer. I'll put the cover up as soon as it arrives. I'm really excited about this book.

Other New Books
PD James has just written a book out called Talking About Detective Fiction. Basically in this book she says that it's a reassuring form of fiction because mysteries make order out of disorder. If that's all there was to crime fiction we'd watch it on HGTV and not on Law and Order.

Mysteries are epic adventures, life and death struggles to right wrongs, to see justice done and to discover truth. Often reluctant and unprepared, the hero or heroine goes on a quest, taking us with them.

Stories of crime explore the darker side of human nature, greed, anger, jealousy and love…all of these emotions are at the heart of a good mystery. More than this, stories about crimes explore our fears. One of the things we all fear is being the victim of crime. Each of us feels as vulnerable to crime as we do to disease. Money doesn't protect you from crime…nor does education…nor culture… and while we know how dangerous the world is without mysteries to tell us, our fear holds us enthralled.

From the Bible to Star Wars the fight against evil goes on. In fact the first crime stories appear in the Bible…Cain murdering Able... Joseph being sold into slavery…the bible is full of tales of theft and murder…tales of the killing of babies. And you think identity theft is new? Think of Jacob stealing Esau's birthright. These stories tell us things are not getting worse, they were always like this and for me this is a comforting thought. We may not be winning but we're not losing either. It is a struggle that goes on day after day and generation after generation.

P.D. James was asked in an interview about her book why so many women write detective novels. This was her answer, "Murder arises from strong emotions, and we're particularly interested in strong emotions, rather than the guns and the messes". Well, perhaps…but I think women write and read mysteries, the most popular form of fiction, for the same reasons men do…for the adventure, for the puzzle and because we can identify with these stories more than any others.

Happy reading in 2010!

Notes from Florida from Nov. Dec. Friends are better than jewels and all I want for Christmas!

I haven't written anything since I came to Florida except to do the rewrites on A Brewski For The Old Man on my neighbor's kitchen table. Thank God for friends. They're better than jewels and I really counted on them these last two months.

Our kitchen floor had turned into a trampoline, lovely and bouncy, over the last few years. Lee was very concerned about it, well he would be wouldn't he as he's always been the sensible half of the pair, but I rather like having a floor that spoke back. I could weigh myself in the waves I made in front of the fridge without the hard numbers between my toes -depressing news made easy. But Lee, well he decided this fall something had to be done. When the carpenter pulled back the flooring and promptly fell through even I had to agree that something had to be done. And when the kitchen cupboards all but fell off the wall because the pressboard flooring under them had turned to sawdust, well I even agreed to that as well. Depression set in when they followed the line of rot. It seems that the water lines for the plumbing had been notched into the boards below the floor and then when the floorboards were nailed down they had nailed into the plastic water lines. Now, thirty years later, the nails had rusted away and water under pressure was spraying up onto the floors, returning them to the sawdust from which they'd sprung.

The floors had to come out right through the house. That meant all the furniture had to come out and all the rugs were gone. We dragged our belongings out onto the front porch just in time for the rain and wind. Everyone commented how unusual it was to have rain in Nov. and Dec. Somehow this did not make me feel better. Oodles of plastic were found to cover everything and pots and pans were set on top of bundles to hold down the plastic. I started bailing out the water gathering on the plastic where it slumped onto the seats. A tin pie plate worked well for this chore and heaven knows when was the last time it actually held a pie.

Before this all started I'd asked Bettie and Carl if I could use their house to do the rewrite because I knew the work would be noisy. They weren't coming down to well after Christmas and generously agreed. They were also agreeable when we moved into the Pink Palace, or maybe they realized it was just too late to say no…hard to get sitting tenants out, even ones that don't pay rent.

About a week into our home rebuild, Lee's father had a heart attack and died the following Sunday. We went back to Ontario on Monday. Al Smallman was a lovely man, a true father to me. Kind and gentle, he cried at soppy father's day cards and cuddled children, rocking them to sleep on a generous belly. We will all miss him but at 91 it was time for him to go. Life wasn't fun anymore. Still, no matter what his age was or our own, it's a loss.

When we got back to Florida, Scott and Fred, the two men contracted to replace the floors, were almost done. Because everything was such a mess, I'd decided to knock out a wall and move the fridge. They'd done a brilliant job on this and even painted the new wall board. What they didn't do was the wash down the walls, closets, and cupboards. Everyone disappeared when that work started. The new kitchen cabinets went in, without doors but they should arrive today. They've been promised since last Friday but they said for sure that they would arrive today and hey, we all know contractors don't lie.

There will be a Christmas after all, Virginia. Nicole is making a wonderful French Canadian dish of turnips, potatoes, parsnips and carrots all mashed together with cream. Lou and Jim are bringing dessert and wine and Andrelle has the Christmas crackers. We are supplying a Kosher turkey, (don't ask how come it's Kosher because that's another story).

And Bettie and Carl will have the Pink Palace back just in time for their arrival the day before New Year's eve and just in time to celebrate with us. Having friends to share Christmas, New Years and houses with is better than having jewels. Hope the coming year is full of gems for you as well! Happy Holidays!

Dec. 22/09 - ONLY IN FLORIDA

A Florida T.V. station decided, as a public service, to show how dangerous it was to deep fat fry the Christmas turkey. So out they went into the parking lot with a nice big turkey, gallons of cooking oil and a deep fat fryer. They explained that they were prepared for a small fire so they took the office extinguisher with them. It wasn't enough for the fire they got. Unfortunately, they didn't move the station van to safer ground. After the fire, burst out of the cooker and ran across the pavement it burnt up the van. That's when the fire department was called. One fireman was injured and the T.V. station was given a fine. Do you think those reporters are looking for a new job? And will it stop other Floridians from trying this at home? One of our neighbors has a deep fat fryer that he uses on his car port and another couple I know take theirs on camping trips. Bring it on!

The ladies drop in - Notes from Florida Nov.11/09

Ida came to call. Saturday the wind started. Lee and I went out in the afternoon to play golf and chase our hats. When we had no trouble getting a last minute tee time and there was no one else on the course we should have been warned but we're Canadian, eh, what's a little weather? Two wonderful sand hill cranes were also ignoring the weather. Standing on the path, each on only one leg, they weren't intimidated by the golf cart bearing down on them so we took to the rough and the palmettos to get around them.

Sunday there was an art show in Venice. The winds were even worse. One vendor, a painter, hung on to the cross beams in the centre of his tent to hold it down while his paintings lifted six inches off the wall before settling and lifting again. It was a very moving art show.

Monday the palms were bent sideways and by Tues it was boring. Around supper time the rain came. Up and down the street people backed their cars out of their carports to get a Florida carwash. Rain in Florida, driven by a tropical storm, is pretty much like a car wash. It rained like that most of the night - all from a storm that missed us on its way up the Gulf to Alabama.

And another lady dropped by, this one from Montreal. My friend Nicole is French but her English is excellent. It has to be because my French is non- existent. She lost her husband recently and I called her to see how she was making out. She told me that she was not doing well but she had her husband's urine and it gave her great comfort. More than that, she informed me, she had started talking to it. Did I think it was strange? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did think it was strange to talk to someone else's urine, I don't even talk to my own, but I didn't want to upset her. Heaven knows I've been told often enough that I'm crazy so I know how it feels. I said, "If it helps you, what harm can it do?" Subtext, check yourself in immediately. But Nicole went on happily talking about these conversations with urine until I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked, "What exactly does it look like?" "Oh," replied Nicole, "It's just a urine with his ashes in it."

Nicole was coming down from Montreal this week, driven by a man who said he loved to drive, no problem to get her here. He called her on Saturday to say he'd changed his mind. Late that night she phoned us to say she'd decided to drive herself down, fourteen hundred miles alone for a woman that went several years of not driving at all before her husband died. Lee answered the phone, and not being one to tell another human being what to do, he just told her to be careful. Now isn't that the most useless piece of advice you've ever heard? Who in hell sets out to be reckless? I was not happy with him. At six on Sunday morning I called Nicole to tell her not to come but there was no answer.

Every day I expected a call to say she'd seen sense and turned back. Tues evening we were sitting on the lanai, having a drink before dinner and waiting for the rain, when a car came around the corner, horn tooting and with an arm waving wildly out the window. Nicole had arrived. She says if she can do that she can do anything and I'm inclined to believe her. Maybe inside all of us is more potential than we will ever know or realize…we just have to want it enough. Stay safe and well.

Manasota Beach November 4, 2009

Beaches are living, changing entities and each year when we return they've transformed themselves. One year we came back to find the swimming pool of the motel hanging in the air where the Gulf had rushed in and eroded all the sand around it. The beach has grown since last year, broader and somehow steeper. Walking down the shore only the roofs of the houses were visible beyond the sea oats. At eight this morning the tide was out, leaving tidal pools where the beach ended last season. We splashed through the trapped water to the sand bar beyond and into the surf, amazed at how warm the Gulf was, warmer than the air, hurricane warm. There's still a month to go before we are safe from those monsters and at the moment there is a storm forming down in the Caribbean but the weather here, soft and sultry, is too beautiful to worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn't exist on a beach. When you walk to near exhaustion and turn to come back your tracks are already gone. It puts life in perspective; a foot print on the shore that disappears with the next wave is how important we all are.

No turtles nests, perhaps it's too early. I'll have to check.

Florida Oct 31/09

The treat is we're home again in Florida, back in the warmth… no the heat of Florida, record breaking heat. When you walk out the door you hit a wall of blast furnace temperature and humidity. We live in a community of part time residents, most of whom haven't made their way back yet. It's quiet. You feel like you can spread out, like you own it all and lovely to stroll past empty houses with overgrown gardens. These first days are busy, putting out the garden furniture, fixing the things that are broken - like the television, perfectly fine when with left last January but not working now. Lee suddenly realized it was analog. The fridge, which we empty and turn off, also has a little problem. The door doesn't want to stay shut. I suggest a bungie cord. I think Sherri would think holding the fridge door shut with a bungie cord was perfectly normal. And the phone doesn't work. I didn't realize how addicted I am to being on-line, to being constantly in touch. Halloween with empty houses all around us and no telephone and out there is…? Easy to imagine strange and eerie things. If you don't hear from me again…

The days are longer here, about an hour extra daylight between Salt Spring Island and south Florida. When it's seven o'clock at night and it's still eighty degrees out you think you have all night to barbie, at least two hours of light left but it's not a northern summer but winter in the south. Night comes as a surprise, faster than you expect, even faster tomorrow after we change the clocks. Its time to get back to writing, to sink back into my characters and polish book four before I write a rough draft of book five. But first there's the beach to check out and the stores, the neighbors to catch up with…oh, the distractions.

My orchids are beautiful. They're inexpensive orchids from Home Depot but I couldn't bear to let them die when we left for B.C. so I put them in the downspouts from the roof so they get water over the summer and it seems to work. One is healthy but isn't blooming but the other two both have two spikes of flowers each. The one looks like purple velvet. Such a nice welcome back.

Bits and Pieces from Salt Spring Island, B.C Oct21,2009

When I drive around Salt Spring I fall in love with it all over again. Steep hills, yellows, golds, and rich browns and reds climb from green valleys full of sheep, vineyards and orchards. Now that the days are cool the air is full of wood smoke and apples. If I didn't already live here, I'd move to Salt Spring immediately.

Last Saturday there was a huge yacht tied up to the dock at Ganges. It was at least a hundred feet long, berthed where normally two or three boats would be. Locals, like us, stood on the dock and tried to peer through the windows but the tinted glass gave only a hint of the luxury within. Alberta oil money, whatever that is but definitely something that we don't have, was the whisper that ran along the dock. There were lots of jokes, requests to share in the good life, perhaps a wee bit of jealousy and then we all moved off to admire the Tiki, a party boat enclosed with glass and coco matting with 2 huge alligators riding on the bow. More laughter but this time with requests for drinks. It's hard to say who was more entertained by the harbor visitors - us or them.

Monday we were in line for the ferry to Victoria and everyone was heading for their cars from the coffee shop as the car carrier entered Fulford Harbour when a woman discovered she'd locked herself out of her car. Now if you don't make the ferry it means you're going to be late, not just fifteen minutes but maybe two hours, before there's another one and going off island always means you're going somewhere important. People gathered round offering advice but like in any situation there are those who talk and those who do. A coat hanger and pliers materialize from a fellow traveler and a ferry worker who obviously had been through this before. The ferry edged closer, nosing into the dock while the two men worked furiously. At last a collective cheer went up, followed by excited joyous laughter, as the door opened and the ferry started off-loading cars. For a brief time, strangers came together for a common goal, wrapping us all in a warm feeling of communal spirit, before we ran for our cars.

One of the pieces of news in the Island Tides this week was about the ferry captain that sailed within twenty feet of a pod of Orca whales. Not only did the captain not try to avoid them, he didn't slow down for the Orcas. Keeping to his schedule must have been more important than protecting this endangered species. There are only about twelve breeding females left in our southern population.

Speaking of conservation, Oct. 24 is the global action day for climate change. What are you doing to bring climate change to the attention of the UN leaders meeting in Copenhagen? Here on Salt Spring the theme is Ganges Underwater. There's a song and everything. We are all asked to come to the harbour, wearing underwater gear, snorkels, life jackets, etc. for a group picture to be sent to the UN. I hope they like it. Transportation to the harbour will be environmentally friendly as well…decorated bikes with the theme cycling underwater. It won't be as exciting as Gay Pride day, nothing could be as exciting as thong man, but it will be a happening. Did I mention I love this silly island?

October 17, 2009

Great News!
Amazon.com #1 Reviewer Harriet Klausner has posted her 5 star reviews of both Margarita Nights and Sex in a Sidecar. They are on Amazon and Barnes and Noble,as well as blog spots such as Genre Go Round and Book Crossings. To see them, go to the review links on the "Book & Reviews" page of this website.


Thanksgiving Monday in Canada

We were in California for a week and when the flight home touched down in Victoria it was exactly 6:00 pm. There's a 7:00 o'clock ferry for Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring and another one, the last one of the day, sailing at 9:00 pm. As the plane taxis up to the terminal we're discussing the possibility of collecting our bags and getting through Canadian customs and making it to the Sidney ferry terminal in an hour. Can't be done - or can it? We shuffled down the aisle and off the plane, no accordion walkway here, and than speed across the tarmac like demented hamsters. All of which does us no good because the baggage handlers don't have a ferry to catch. They're on a more leisurely schedule than we are. And just to make matters worse, as our luggage gets to the bottom of the belt the handlers decided the wagon is full and stop unloading. They could have put another hundred bags on that wagon, or at least ours. Our luggage was thrown on the very bottom of the next wagon. We looked at our watches and scan the backup at customs. Goodbye ferry. Now we're discussing if we should go to the ferry terminal and get in line for the last sailing and eat junk food or is there time to stop in Sidney for a real meal and risk the ferry being full if we're late? But even at a snails pace things get done. The luggage comes through the little door and we get in the line for freedom where at exactly 6:30 the custom's agent says, "Welcome home."
To the chorus of clinking duty free the race is on. But there's a lot of people running somewhere and just getting out to the highway is a hassle and then we hit every red light, sitting there watching the dashboard clock, arguing if it's a minute fast or a minute slow, driving too fast, yelling at other drivers and then unbelievable, as we race up to the kiosk to buy our ticket, some woman employed by B.C. ferries is out with a broom sweeping the road in front of us. Crazy, they still discharge the toilets into the ocean but someone is sweeping the roads. That's as close to death as she ever came. They're already loading, a little late, so we latch onto the end of the line and high-five our way onboard.
Pulling away from the dock, just dark, the lights of Sidney are spread out behind us, enchanting and sparkling and all dancing on the water. Once the ferry pulls away from the dock all of the lights are turned off. In darkness now, we sit in our little cocoon and silently drift towards home. Living on an island brings blessings and frustration and amazing moments. Happy Thanksgiving!

Salt Spring, Saturday, September 26, 2009

The harbour is full of heritage working boats, some of them nearly 100 yrs old, boats that once trawled for fish and now are homes or vacation spots for their owners. These boat owners were nice enough to open them to anyone who showed up on the dock at Ganges harbour today. Everyone was in a party mood. I met a couple from St. Catherines Ontario who now live aboard a rebuilt fishing boat named the C-Buster and spend their lives motoring through the Gulf Islands. The living space aboard their boat is no bigger than a mid size motor home but it works well for them. A surprising number of people had dogs on board. I don't even want to think of the problems that necessitates. The queen of the fleet was the Midnight Sun, a mini Titanic four stories high and 80 feet long, built in 1938. The top storey contained four kayaks, the back deck had teak furniture and a couch full of large cushions in an arc around the back. We walked around the outside of the cabin. Inside was a huge living area with a brass circular stairs probably to bedrooms below. The mahogany and brass was shining in the wonderful fall sun. I wonder how many people went home with a new item for their bucket list, a new dream to lust after.

Sunday
At eleven o'clock this morning, sounding their whistles as they cleared the dock, the heritage boats started out of the harbour. One of them still ran on steam so the whistle came with a great belch of grey steam. As the flotilla headed in a line for the mouth of the harbour I couldn't help but think of long ago women standing on a dock not much different from the one I was standing on and watching their lives leave like this, husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, going fishing in these very boats. The ocean is a risky mistress with fog and wind ready to do their worst.

Other people - other places, watching kin go off to Dunkirk to bring back the remains of the army or leaving from Portugal for the outer banks of Newfoundland to fish. At the mouth of the harbour the antique fleet, the best of the past, turned and sailed back once again to salute those of us remaining on the dock.

Salt Spring Island Sept. 22, 2009

Beautiful weather on Salt Spring, sunny and in the seventies - impossible weather to be inside - I know it won't last but oh, does it feel right.

Yesterday we caught the 8:00 am ferry for Vancouver Island out of Fulford Harbour. Waiting for the ferry, people walk up and down the dock with coffee in hand and talk to neighbors and even strangers. Deals are done, things are bought and sold, appointments and plans are made as the big white beast slowly makes its way up the narrow channel to collect us all on its back and carry us off to Swartz Bay. Yesterday, while we waited, an eagle flew past, the quintessential image of British Columbia.

We had a short meeting in Sidney and then the rest of the day was ours. We started from the University of Victoria, down to Cadboro to visit a wonderful little bookstore next to a coffee shop, and then followed the shore up to Cordova Bay. Before moving to B.C. Lee and I spent a lot of time discussing where we would like to live when we were no longer restricted by jobs. Location hunting was a form of entertainment. We visited lots of places on water all over Ontario, water being the number one requirement. One summer day we visited places along Lake Huron with Lee's niece and her daughter. We found a wonderful beach for a picnic but when it was time to move on the youngest of us refused. I tried to coax her along by telling her we were going to find a better beach to which she replied, "This beach is good enough." Wisdom from a five year old. Yesterday on Cordova Bay, the only two people sitting outside at a restaurant patio, we looked down on a sand beach with only a small boy and his mother enjoying it. The ocean was spread out before us, a small island at the mouth of the bay and Mount Baker in the background. Lee repeated those words, "This beach is good enough."

Sometimes even when we aren't on a beach we have to stop and say, "This beach is good enough."

In the air Sept 14, 2009

-4 passengers, a pilot and a dog flying down to Seattle on 9/11

Float planes that take off from the harbor can be exciting especially when you get to the dock and the pilot opens the door and jumps out while the plane keeps drifting along. You can only hope that the pilot doesn't (a) miss the dock and (b) fail to catch the rope to secure the plane to the dock.

From a small plane flying over the Gulf Islands and then down through the San Juan Islands and into Puget Sound it is staggeringly beautiful. When you leave Salt Spring you're flying over heavily treed islands with the denim blue mountains and the hills of other islands in the background and inland one jagged snow capped mountain. This heavenly view, God's view of the world, looks tidy, peaceful and orderly, nothing bad could happen down there, except on one small barren island with a lone white house and tiny out building on it. Strangely sinister, I believe the worst of things happen there.

As ZoZo the dog looked over the seat at Lee with longing in her eyes, we flew over the Black Ball ferry heading for Victoria out of Anacortes, Washington and a line of cruise ships coming out of Seattle. Flying over marinas, where masts stood up like toothpicks on a tray of canapés at a cocktail party, we skimmed the mainland of Washington with its patch work farms laid out below us.

An hour and bit after leaving Salt Spring things got weird. I was on the right side of the six-seater plane, in the tail and looking out towards the Pacific, when the plane banked and turned east. And there we were in a plane on 9/11 and heading into a forest of office towers. Thursday night I'd watched a program on the death of the Twin Towers and I couldn't help but think of that other September day. I was filled with panic. It just seemed wrong to be among those office buildings. Then our plane swept down to land on Lake Union and we were floating again, past a topless woman working on a burn and boats of all sizes and styles and people who waved, a surreal and beautiful experience.

Salt Spring Island September 10, 2009

Today I got a hole in one. A hot day, I was having a terrible game, dragging myself around and wishing I'd stayed home. On the seventh hole I teed up my ball and realized I had the wrong club. Too lazy to walk the ten feet to my bag and back again I decided I could just take a half swing. The ball hit well short of the green and scudded along the ground. Lee said, "I'm going to be pissed if that goes in." Plop… It only took twenty-five years and thousands of dollars of lessons, green fees, equipment and memberships to attain perfection. It's all down hill from here.

Salt Spring Island - September 8, 2009

The most nostalgic time of the year for me is when school goes back after the Labor Day weekend. It really is the end of summer no matter how much nice weather is yet to come, and I'm sad to see it end. This has been a long summer with dream weather - the way we remember summers used to be but the way summers never were.

Besides beautiful weather that began in April this summer was special for other things. We had lots of company, lovely people who took time out of busy schedules to visit - including friends from high school. Visitors bring the gift of memories and memories, like Labor Day and falling leaves, are the essence of nostalgia.

At the end of summer I'm remembering the words of my favorite philosopher, Dr. Zeus, who said, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it was."
I'm smiling.

Salt Spring Island, Aug. 29/09

Here's a tip: When the path up the mountain says 'Assault Course' don't try it carrying a purse and wearing pink crocs. Pink crocs are great for oyster shell beaches and tidal pools but are crap for mountain climbing. And if on some mad impulse you decide to see what that crazy steep climb is like, don't wait until you can't breathe anymore before you turn around and look down to see how far you've come, how steep it really is, and just how far you're about to fall. It's at that moment you know exactly how that kitten up a tree feels. It was the, "No, you can't dial 911, even if you don't care about being embarrassed," that really ticked me off. There's always someone making you do things the hard way, isn't there? So it's back down the way you came up. One good thing, the path up was so steep the person following me, the person who didn't want to dial 911, couldn't pass to let me go down first so at least I had something, or in this case someone, to stop my descent besides trees and rocks. At one point, when Lee stopped to offer me his hand, I said, without looking up, "I'm alright, keep going." I really was worried about sliding on the loose stones underfoot and wiping him out, bowling for dollars off a mountain and where are our wills? "I just thought you might need a hand here," he said. I looked up and realized why he'd stopped. The path made a sharp left turn and if I got going too fast, slid on the stones or any other little mishap like that I was going to shoot off into nothing. Sitting on my behind and inching my way down looked like the best idea of all or maybe just sitting there crying until he gave in and dialed 911. Sweat really does pop out all over you in scary moments. At the bottom, with no harm to anything but my dignity, I got a fit of the giggles…a fit of relief more like. On the way home we stopped at the fairgrounds for a sale of what the sign said was "Asian Décor." Turned out to be a truck load of beads and wall hangings that came over to the island on the ferry and set up for business in the farm building. Now that was the perfect place for pink crocs.

Salt Spring Island, Aug.22/09

One day you realize that thirty years have passed while you were doing laundry and there's nothing to show for it but more laundry. There's not even failure to show you've tried.

I was well into my forties and at a turning point in my life when a friend asked me what came next. "I want to write," I said. This was an old daydream, a fantasy to be dredged up on sleepless nights and certainly not something I'd ever shared with another human being. But having blurted out my dream some ethic made me try...and try and try and try, through reams of rejections, a whole forest of rejections.

But failure is better than never making the attempt. At least trying gives you hope. Each time you send out another SASE you think, "Maybe this time". I'll take the burst of hope followed by rejection over the emptiness life would have held for me if I'd never followed my dream. Being published was the icing on the cake but I'd still have the cake, the substance of the dream, without ever seeing my book in print. If I'd never followed my dream I'd just have the empty cake pan.

And now, on top of the whipped chocolate icing is a big red cherry. MARGARITA NIGHTS is coming out in the U.S. this September. So you see, Virginia, dreams do come true.


Salt Spring Island Aug.10, 2009

I'm trying to become leaner and meaner…doing fine with the meaner but the leaner bit is a bust…one week on a diet and I've put on a pound. What part of the word diet didn't I understand? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

My good news is that McArthur and Co. is taking the Sherri Travis series into the USA this fall. I'm looking forward to visiting book stores and doing book signings around Florida this winter and hoping to meet lots of readers. I really look forward to getting some feedback on my books so tell all your American friends to rush out and buy it...or three or four.

Our long hot summer, like the summers of memory, long and hot and lazy, is fading. Summer started here in April, record breaking and dry, and of course the days were long, literally…by five or five thirty in the morning it was light and it was after ten before night began to close in. But now, with the coming of August, the heat has backed off and we've had a little rain. The days are already closing in. I'm beginning to think of Florida.

Like a migrating goose, when fall is in the air I get restless, eager to be gone and back to my other world. Now, with a book being launched in Florida, I'm even more ready to fly south. But first I must finish the fourth book in the Sherri Travis series, Champagne for Buzzards. It's all there but it needs tidying and tying up of loose ends. Champagne feels more like a thriller than a mystery, scarier and faster paced. Well…maybe I'm wrong about that. I'm often wrong about things. My biggest wish is that each book is better than the last. And maybe a little different.


Saltspring Island, July 13, 2009

This is a cautionary tale. I've just lost the complete fourth Sherri Travis mystery off my computer…gone… everything…nothing but the header to let me know that it was ever there. We always think it can't happen but even the tech support guy I hired to retrieve it agreed it was gone. All you have to do is to try to stand up, holding the computer and not paying attention to the series of keys your hands are covering, first highlighting and then deleting, and bingo, it's all gone but the title. Anything deleted inside a document is deleted as a working change and not retrievable once you go out of that document.
The good news is I backed up this file last May so I have a rough draft left. It would be oh so nice if I had backed it up every day but that would be far too sensible wouldn't it? So do as I say and not as I do…it's so easy to prevent this pain. I wonder if the final copies of my other books are backed up? Excuse me while I check.

Saltspring Island June 19, 2009

Want a special gift for a mystery lover? Want to see your own name in print? Saltspring Island, a small gulf island off British Columbia's west coast and two ferries from the mainland, has an amazing artistic life. To support the art centre there will be a Treasure Fair, the ninth annual, along with a live auction on July 16-18.

One of the items for sale is a naming opportunity in my third book - A BREWSKI FOR THE OLD MAN - due out in the spring of 2010. This would be a great gift to help a great organization and I promise I won't make the winner the victim…you won't end up in a pool of blood from a knife to the heart.

To place a bid contact    treasurefair@artspring.ca

Ottawa, June 7/09

Well, not only didn't I win an Arthur Ellis for best first novel - I nearly got taken out by a chip wagon. How Canadian is that, eh - a loser run over by a chip wagon? A Red Green moment!

After I crawled over the curb and picked the French fries out of my hair we went to the war memorial and the tomb of the unkown soldier. I hadn't expected it to be so moving. I actually found myself crying. I found the images of the female nurses, walking along beside the men, particularly gripping. They could have stayed at home, no one expected anything of them, but they went anyway. Losing an award and being chased down by a red fry truck isn't worth a second of the misery they went through. It puts the world in proper prospective and tells us how truly blessed we are.

This afternoon, three of us are going for a cruise on the canal and having dinner at an Irish pub. Tomorrow we leave for Hamilton, home, and a chance to catch up with family and friends. Thank goodness Hamilton doesn't allow those silly wagons driven by maniacs.

Salt Spring Island, May 31, 2009

Yesterday was a great day at Victoria Library - panels all day on writing. I was on a panel talking about settings, a subject I'm passionate about. It really is the skeleton for the story. People seemed very interested and it's always lovely to meet people who write -plus I never get tired of talking about the art of writing. We leave Weds for Ottawa and the Arthur Ellis Awards dinner for the Crime Writers of Canada. Margarita Nights is short listed for the best first novel. Actually not looking forward to sitting there waiting for the envelope to be opened…nerve wracking, but I am looking forward to meeting everyone, some new people and some I've met before.

It's hard to leave Salt Spring at this time of year. Everything is blooming, the rhododendrons are spectacular and the ditches are full of wild roses and broom. On the golf course there are the tiniest blue butterflies hovering over the grass, no bigger than the first joint on your little finger.

I haven't been working, going through one of those dry periods but after having completed ten novels I know it isn't anything to worry about. I've just finished the rough draft of the 4th Sherri Travis book and it needs some time to settle before I start reworking it.

Tomorrow I have a radio interview from Halifax. I pray I don't go off on a tangent or say something really dumb, both possible scenarios. You never know before the interview what they are going to ask you so I always prepare a cheat sheet for myself, gives me a few things I feel confident about speaking on. So far it has worked and I've always been asked one of the subjects I've prepped.

Time to do a little gardening before we leave.

May 4, 2009, Salt Spring Island

Louise Penny has just won the Agatha best novel for THE CRUELEST MONTH. I'm delighted for Louise but there's something extra in my joy. Let me explain.

The Crime Writer's of the UK have an award called the Debut Dagger which is open to any unpublished mystery writer in the world. The only stipulation is you must write in English. In 2004 there were almost 900 entries. Two Canadians made the short-list of 12, Louise Penny and Phyllis Smallman. Louise got the honourable mention and went on to get published while I worked away on a new book.

Louise belonged to the Crime Writer's of Canada (while I didn't even know there was such a thing) and when she returned to Canada she suggested to them that they have a similar contest. In Jan. 2007 I received an e-mail from the Debut Dagger people saying, look what our runner up has done. The contest closed in two weeks. My entry was in the mail that day and in the end, I did win the first ever Unhanged Arthur Ellis award in June 2007. Along with a fellow hanging from a gallows came a reading by Louise's Canadian publisher, McArthur and Co., Toronto.

And that's how I came to be published…thanks to Louise and the CWC. I never met Louise until June 2008 and when I did I burst into tears. It was a very poignant moment for me. Louise looked mystified, as in, "Who is this crazy person?" I'm really very grateful to her and very emotional at her win. Our books couldn't be more different, our characters are from different worlds, but for Louise and I, well, I like to think there is a special connection and her success gives me hope for the future, although for me the dream has already come true.

Have a happy Spring!

April 25 - Great News

MARGARITA NIGHTS has just been short listed for the Arthur Ellis award for best first novel by the Crime Writers of Canada.

The timing couldn't be better. The second book in the Sherri Travis series, SEX IN A SIDECAR will be in the stores next week.

This makes me the poster child for never giving up on your dreams. "Yes, Virginia, dreams do come true."

Best,

Phyllis

Salt Spring Island - April 2009

On April 25 I will be conducting a workshop at Salt Spring Library. I love doing these workshops because it allows me to meet other people as passionate about writing as I am. And there are so many writers on this island. The workshop was full within 48 hours of the sign up sheet being posted so a second list was started for the overflow, a second workshop in May. Twenty writers on an island of 10,000 people - and that's only the unpublished writers willing or able to come out for two hours on a Saturday. How many people are out there writing? I'm more and more convinced the numbers are enormous. Everywhere I go I meet people who are writing journals, blogs, family history, poetry and, yes, even novels. Story telling is innate to human beings. Each and every one of us is a storyteller with our own unique voice and plot. Think of it, everything the world knows about you comes from the stories you tell about yourself or those told about you by other people - whether they're true or false. "You'll never guess what happened to me last night…" the daily rhythm of life, somewhere along the road is turned into fiction. Why some of us are content to tell our stories over dinner while others look for a larger audience, well that's the mystery. Can't wait to hear what's waiting for me on Saturday, it's never disappointing.

March 7, 2009 Salt Spring Island


Spring, hovering on the edge of winter, with geese, the sound of the changing seasons, breaking the silence of dawn on Salt Spring Island. In Duncan the marshes are filling with waterfowl, hundreds of geese, swans and ducks while around the harbour in Nanaimo the grass is sporting crocuses - spring is birthing in all colors of life in the Gulf Islands. And today there is more snow, the big fluffy kind that falls straight down, blanketing the violets.

March 29, 2009
As my friend David quipped, "Time runs away like Bernie Madoff with other people's money." It certainly did. I got distracted and never finished my post and now I can't remember where I was going with it but spring seems to have arrived without any help from me.


February 2009/ Salt Spring Island

Inspiration is the strangest thing. At the end of one long day and evening - after breakfast, golf, drinks and dinner - and more drinks on the lanai - a friend said, "Call in the dogs and piss on the fire, it's time to go home."

Those words hung around, to amuse and bedevil me, and out of that was born And A Brewski For The Old Man, the third Sherri Travis mystery. At the time I didn't have a character that might use those words so I brought Sherri's father back into her life. I was going to make those his dying words - now wouldn't they be absolutely the best words to exit the world with- but I fell in love with Tully Jenkins and couldn't kill him. Instead I sent Tully and Sherri deep in the swamp to exact justice on some very bad people.

This is my favorite Sherri Travis mystery, the one I feel closest to. It tells the story of the return to Jacaranda of Ray John Leenders, the man who abused Sherri when she was young. Back in town, he's living with a woman with a teenage daughter. Sherri doesn't want to get involved; it's none of her business - except - except she knows the woman and her daughter and it's impossible to stay uninvolved.

From murder to alligator poaching, Sherri weaves her way through people with guns and nature that kills - thank you for the inspiration, John.