ANTHOLOGIES

With the Thanksgiving turkey all gobbled up, the Christmas tree decorated, and holiday shopping nearing a fever pitch, it might be a good idea to wind down in a quiet corner with a good book. For a change of pace, this issue I'm talking with authors who have stories in several new and holiday-themed anthologies. Perfect for gift giving! Grab two, one for a friend and one for yourself. Enjoy!

CAROLS AND CRIMES, GIFTS AND GRIFTERS

This new anthology from Wolfmont Publishing, http://wolfmont.com/ features 15 short mysteries with a holiday theme. Proceeds from sales of the book benefit the Toys for Tots Foundation. See the publisher's site for details

For her story, “Santa and the Poor Box ,” Gail Farrelly found inspiration in writing about a small town much like her own village of Bronxville, New York, located 15 miles north of New York City.

In the story, a 9/11 widow and her teenage daughter come to the defense of an A&P Santa accused of stealing from the poor box of a neighborhood church in New York City's suburbs.

For Farrelly, a former university accounting professor turned full-time writer, inspiration came faster than a visit from the jolly old elf on Christmas Eve. But be forewarned; despite her affinity for the film, the story is no “Miracle on 34 th Street" (despite it being a favorite of hers.)

“I love Christmas in New York and its environs, and I also love the movie… and I thought it would be fun to create a puzzle that combines these elements,” she says. “His beard is the only thing that's lily-white about the Santa in my story. Innocent until proven guilty is a tenet of our justice system; but it's easy to disregard that and jump to conclusions, especially when the accused doesn't have a lily-white past.”

Farrelly's story "Even Steven," published in Mouth Full of Bullets Winter 2006, was a finalist in the 2007 Derringer Award competition. She is the author of Beaned in Boston (named to the 1997 Washington Irving Book Selection list), Duped by Derivatives, and Creamed at Commencement, and is working on her fourth novel. First chapters of her and her sister/fellow author Rita’s mysteries can be read at http://www.FarrellySistersOnline.com.

Story Quote:
“They have Santa Claus in jail, and I'm sure he didn't do anything.” - From “Santa and the Poor Box,” By Gail Farrelly, Edited by Tony Burton, CAROLS AND CRIMES, GIFTS AND GRIFTERS, Wolfmont Publishing, October 2007, 260 pages , ISBN-13: 978-1-60364-002-2, $11.95.

Also in CAROLS AND CRIMES, GIFTS AND GRIFTERS, long-time author Gay Toltl Kinman proves that the seemingly tame world of ballet is anything but in “Ballet Exercises,” where a ballerina fights crime – her way.

This Agatha-nominated writer and multi-published author of children's and adult mysteries found her inspiration in, of all places, the restroom. Well, make that a story she heard about someone being locked in the ladies' restroom on the last evening of classes before the Christmas vacation.

“Luckily, another classmate heard her yelling, and found the janitor who unlocked the door,” she says. “Scary.” That inspired her to come up with a tale that is “different, because there's a possible revenge element in it.” (Who wouldn't want revenge after being locked in the restroom?)

Find out more about Kinman's latest books, Death in Covent Garden and a young adult gothic, Wolf Castle from Hilliard and Harris at http://gaykinman.com .

Story Quote :
"Jette!" - From “Ballet Exercises,” CAROLS AND CRIMES, GIFTS AND GRIFTERS.

HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME

This anthology, edited by Robert J. Randisi, features 14 stories of old and new Hollywood, with famed intersection Hollywood and Vine as the common denominator. It features a who's who of mystery writers including three Mystery Writers of America Grand Masters Stuart Kaminsky and Bill Pronzini, and MWA two-term president Michael Connelly, along with Robert S. Levinson, Max Allan Collins, Dick Lochte, Terence Faherty, and others.

In “And the Winner Is…” Los Angeles writer Robert S. Levinson gives what Publisher's Weekly calls “a wicked portrait of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper” involving her lackey's efforts to stop a Nazi sharpshooter at the 1960 Academy Awards.

Writing the story was a natural for Levinson who says, “o f all the authors, I may have the longest-running relationship with Hollywood, dating back to when I was a kid autograph hound spending a lot of time in the shadow of the Hollywood and Vine intersection and, years later, representing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in public relations. The story provided opportunity to rekindle memories and walk those streets again, as well as replay elements of an Oscar show from an insider POV...”

Levinson's lead character, Hedda Hopper's leg man, is a younger version of Augie Fowler, a recurring character in the four books in his “Affair” series, (The Elvis and Marilyn Affair, The James Dean Affair…) and has starred in several of his short stories appearing in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines. A Hitchcock story from this year, “A Prisoner of Memory” was selected for and inspired the title of the upcoming anthology, A Prisoner of Memory and 25 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories , edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. Read more about him at http:// www.robertslevinson.com .

Story Quote:
“The little guy strutted into my boss lady's suite in the Guaranty Building on Hollywood Boulevard like he owned the world.” – From “And the Winner Is….” By Robert S. Levinson, HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME, August 2007, Pegasus Books, Hardcover: 322 pages, List price $25, ISBN-10: 1933648287, ISBN-13: 978-1933648286

MURDER NEW YORK STYLE

Sponsored by the New York Tri-state chapter of Sisters in Crime, the L&L Dreamspell anthology's theme is “murder and mayhem in and around the greater New York City area.”

The 21-story anthology gives readers the chance to explore the Big Apple, work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, belly dance in a Turkish nightclub, teach at New York College, with a few crimes thrown in for good measure.

The stories involve assorted crimes and circumstances, from an 80-year-old murder, to the ghost of a Hessian soldier from the Revolutionary War, to a bass player's refusal to provide an alibi for his ex-wife's murder in “Family Matters” by Peggy Ehrhart .

Ehrhart, a former scholarly writer of medieval literature and now a full-time fiction writer, says the story was her way of exploring what it meant to keep a secret when the truth would harm a loved one.

“I'd been thinking for a long time about a mystery whose premise involved an innocent person refusing to provide an alibi because to do so would involve revealing something that seemed worse than being accused of murder,” she says.

She chose Staten Island as a setting figuring no one else would choose the borough and because it holds special memories for her. “I know Staten Island well because for years I drove there from my house in New Jersey to study blues guitar with a wonderful Staten Island based blues man,” she says. “When I decided to give my PI a musician father, I was partly inspired by my old teacher, though I made him a drummer.”

Besides publishing short stories in print and online, Ehrhart's first mystery novel, Sweet Man Is Gone , will be published in July 2008 by Five Star. Read more at http:// www.PeggyEhrhart.com .

Story Quote:
“The poster I was looking for made me giggle when I found it. It was a poster for a band called ‘The Grandmas.' The lead singer was posed like a diva with an armful of flowers, while another band member was knitting. A third sipped from a china teacup, his pinkie in the air. Yes, HIS pinkie. They were all guys in drag…” - From “Family Matters,” By Peggy Ehrhart, MURDER NEW YORK STYLE, edited by Randy Kandel, L&L Dreamspell, October 2007, ISBN-10: 160318032X, ISBN-13: 978-1603180320, 340 pages, $18.95, http://www.lldreamspell.com .

Fellow MURDER NEW YORK STYLE author Anita Page grew up in southeast Queens, choosing that as the locale for her story, “The Lie,” which takes place in 1950's-era Queens. There, a 10-year-old girl learns that the story she invents to protect her friend from his father has unpredictable and far-reaching consequences. Page says the story was inspired by a childhood incident, as well as by the words of H. Rapp Brown - “Violence is as American as apple pie.”

Page's short stories have appeared in print and online, and in the upcoming anthology, The Prosecution Rests , Little, Brown, 2009. She is working on her second dark traditional mystery set in the Catskills, while seeking publication for her first novel.

Story Quote:
"I'd never told a lie before, not to an adult and not on purpose. I was surprised at how easy it was." – From “The Lie,” By Anita Page, MURDER NEW YORK STYLE.

In her story, “The Knock-Off,” also in MURDER NEW YORK STYLE, New Jersey author Chelle Martin conjures up the feeling of an old crime novel when two friends travel to Chinatown to pick up a knock-off designer handbag, wind up being chased by Chinese hit men, find a stolen Westminster show dog, and end up in a run-for-your-life cab ride.

Martin, who's been writing since 1994, became interested in mysteries after attending a lecture by a romance author at Borders Books. She joined Romance Writers of America, published some short romances, but, “I didn't feel as though it was my niche,” she says. Then she joined the local Sisters in Crime and felt right at home: “I found that mystery writing allowed me more freedom and less structure than romance writing.”

Her first short mystery was published in Michael Bracken's Small Crimes anthology. She sold a PI story to his Fedora III anthology and has had stories published in several other anthologies.

Hearing that the NY Tri-State SinC Chapter opened their anthology to SinC Central Jersey members was all the inspiration she needed. “I knew I wanted to submit,” Martin says. “I used to take the train from South Amboy to Manhattan years ago to shop. I have friends who live in the city. It's a great inspiration for a story because it is so diverse.”

Story Quote:
“We'd barely reached the sidewalk when shots sounded. I saw our cabbie crouched in a shooting stance, and one of the Chinese men hit the ground. Sheri and I gasped when our driver took a hit in the arm and fell over. The gunman turned his attention on us, and we had nowhere left to run.” – From “The Knock-Off,” By Chelle Martin, MURDER NEW YORK STYLE.

For life-long New Yorker Terrie Farley Moran, the publication of the MURDER NEW YORK STYLE anthology was cause for celebration. This was Moran's first published work. Learn more about her at http://www.womenofmystery.blogspot.com/ .

Her story, “Strike Zone,” is set against the backdrop of Edgar Allen Poe's last residence. It is during a record-breaking event for the New York Yankees that a 15-year-old Bronx girl suffers the unwanted attention of a neighbor and an incident occurs that she cannot endure.

Story Quote:
"The only boys who interested me in 1961 were the M&M boys. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, the stars of the New York Yankees. Truth be told, Mantle was kind of old but that Roger Maris, now he was cute, and at fifteen, I was just old enough to notice." – From “Strike Zone,” By Terrie Farley Moran, MURDER NEW YORK STYLE.

THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT

Fire, namely the wildfires that recently raged through San Diego, destroying thousands of homes and lives, is the focus of this new anthology from Echelon Press, http://www.echelonpress/heat.htm . The anthology features short stories by 21 authors, with the common theme of fire, from fantasies, to tributes remembering historical catastrophes, mysteries, and more.

All proceeds from sales of the anthology go to the Fire Safe Council of San Diego County to benefit the survivors of the San Diego fires of 2007.

“It is important to us that these people who have lost everything know they don't have to do this alone. We may be strangers, but we care,” says Karen Syed, President of Echelon Press, LLC.

Pennsylvania author Jacquelyn Sylvan draws upon a bit of fantasy and supernatural guidance for her story, “Cait Sidhe” (pronounced “caught she”) meaning “Cat Fairy” in Gaelic in THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT.

In the story, an ordinary day turns into a nightmare for 16-year-old Jessie, who alone and disoriented in the smoky hallways of the burning apartment building, waits for rescue. Will a mysterious savior find her in time?

Sylvan, who works as a phlebotomist, is looking forward to her first novel, Surviving Serendipity , a YA fantasy from Quake/Echelon Press, which debuts Jan 15, 2008. Read more at http://www.sylvaniamania.com .

Story Quote:
"She heard a querying purr, and reached out, her hand touching soft silky fur. She grasped at the animal, trying to draw it close for solace, but the sinewy body slipped through her fingers like water." - From “Cait Sidhe,” By Jacquelyn Sylvan, THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT.

THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT includes a new story, “Fire and Magic,” featuring young sleuth Sam Carlton, the protagonist of Christine Verstraete's upcoming mystery, SEARCHING FOR A STARRY NIGHT, due out this spring from Quake/Echelon Press.

In “Fire and Magic,” Sam and her mother face a menace from the past. This time, even magic might not be able to save them. Read an excerpt at http://cverstraete.com/heatofthemoment.html .

Story Quote:
“Didn't you say dad did some magic? This stuff is awesome! Look at this!” She took out a big black top hat and set it atop her head. “There're scarves, and rings, and wow, a magic wand.”

…Her mother's throat clearing got her attention. “I haven't seen those things in a while.” Patricia's voice sounded strained. “Honey, that box didn't belong to your father...” - From “Fire and Magic,” By Christine Verstraete, THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT.

“Scars” a story from Mysterical-e editor and Philadelphian, writer Joseph DeMarco is a piece that was inspired by a news item.

“The circumstances were different, of course, but it made me wonder how a person could survive such an ordeal,” he said. “More than just survive, how does a person go on with their life, try to function in a world that has been changed fundamentally for them? As so often is the case for me, I wanted to explore the idea of vengeance and to look at whether or not forgiveness is possible in a violent world. This story gave me another opportunity to look at those things.”

Sory Quote:
“For more than a year, each time she looked into a mirror and saw the ugly, waxen scars, the face that looked as if it had come from a Hollywood horror film, she could think of nothing else but to confront Frank and make him pay. She wanted her life back, her beauty, the peace. Confronting him, perhaps she could at least reclaim something of her past.” - From “Scars,” By JRG DeMarco, THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT, December 2007, Echelon Press, ISBN: 978-1-59080-596-1, 288 pages, $14.99.

THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF DICKENSIAN WHODUNNITS

It's crime in jolly old England in this collection of stories set in, and inspired by, the world of Charles Dickens.

For Pennsylvania writing team and spouses, Eric Mayer and Mary Reed , also authors of the John the Eunuch series from Poisoned Pen Press, finding inspiration in Dickens' time was easy.

“Charles Dickens's fiction is such a wonderfully rich vein to mine, although today it might be difficult to get away with some of the names he chose for his characters, “ jokes Reed. “We thought we'd have a go at writing a more outrageous and humorous story with less noir content than our more recent fiction. It was fun to write and we hope will prove to be the same to read.”

In their story, “The Three Legged Cat of Great Clatterden, “ Messrs. Pickwick and Tupman investigate the disappearance of a woman from a Kentish village overlooked by the mysterious three-legged cat hill figure, in a countryside that has not entirely forgotten its pagan past.

Their latest sequentially numbered John the Eunuch book, SEVEN FOR A SECRET, comes out in April 2008. Find reader essays, an interactive game, a book cover jigsaw and other "authorly" offerings at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite .

Story Quote:
“Yet while Mr. Pickwick's slumber was haunted by a monstrous cat chasing him with lethal intent -- not to mention accompanied by several other creatures whose portraits adorned the walls of the inn, their shape and menacing aspect suggesting both river rats and wild boars -- these nightmares causing him to wake with a yell and disturb the innocent slumbers of Mr. Tupman and others sheltered under the roof of the Trout and Basket, we cannot in all honesty deny, dear readers, that in this singular circumstance the goats milk cheese was entirely blameless.”

•  From “The Three Legged Cat of Great Clatterden” in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF DICKENSIAN WHODDUNITS edited by Mike Ashley. US edition, Carroll & Graf, October 2007; UK edition, Constable & Robinson, November 2007; 512 pgs, *ISBN*-10: 0786719710 *ISBN*-13: 9780786719716, $13.99 .

THE MUSE AND OTHER STORIES OF HISTORY, MYSTERY, AND MYTH

In some 20 years of writing, Texas author Lillian Stewart Carl has managed to write about history in just about every possible genre, from fantasy and paranormal, to mysteries, and of course, the Carl genre: “Over the years I've been inventing my own genre, mystery/romance with supernatural/ historical/ mythological underpinnings,” she says.

In her new collection, Carl presents 13 stories that take you from the British Colonies in America and India, to medieval England and revolutionary Scotland. Notables appearing on-screen and -off include Thomas Becket and Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Bonnie Prince Charlie, Queen Elizabeth I at her height, and Ann Boleyn, her mother, at her depth. Read more at http:// www.lillianstewartcarl.com

The stories, most commissioned and originally published in anthologies, include three reprinted in “Best of” anthologies, with many works inspired by visits to the actual locations.

“I've become a firm believer in the odd synchronies of the writing life,”' Carl explains. “Soon after finishing Ashes to Ashes , for example, which is about a woman from Missouri named Rebecca working in a replica of a Scottish castle, I visited the real castle and discovered the tour guide was a woman from Oklahoma named Rebecca.”

Of note in this “lucky” collection of 13 stories is the last story, “The Muse,” which the anthology is named for and has special meaning to the author.

“The Muse" is the closest to my heart, since it was written on spec (and was eventually published in Realms of Fantasy magazine),” Carl says. “It followed on my visit to a remote hotel on the island of Skye, where I heard bagpipe music wafting down from the nearby ruins of a castle. I imagined a writer inspired by the piper -- a denim and tartan-clad, very sexy, muse. It wasn't until my second visit to the site, after the story was published, that I discovered a cairn outside the castle dedicated to a pipers' clan. It bore the legend: ‘The world will end, but love and music endureth.'"

Story Quote:
"Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen's Horses, was a fine figure of a man, as long of limb and imperious of eye as one of his equine charges. And like one of his charges, his wrath was likely to leave an innocent passerby with a shattered skull." – From “The Necromancer's Apprentice,” THE MUSE AND OTHER STORIES OF HISTORY, MYSTERY AND MYTH, By Lillian Stewart Carl, Delphi Books, August 2007, ISBN 13: 978-0-9765185-5-6, 260 pgs, $16.95.