September Issue, 2012 O R A N G E H E R R I N G ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ Terri Nolan is California born and raised. She earned a B.A. in Radio/Television from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is a freelance crime reporter and her short fiction has appeared in the anthology Murder in La La Land. Terri’s first SISTERS IN CRIME novel, BURDEN OF TRUTH, will debut in MISSION STATEMENT January, 2012. Visit her at www.terrinolan.com. To promote the professional development and advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry. MEETING PLACE Irvine Ranch Water District 15600 Sand Canyon Avenue Irvine, CA 92618 For more information: www.ocsistersincrime.org UPCOMING MEETINGS Sunday, September 23, 2012 Writer’s Forum at 2:00 p.m. Topic - Reviews: Who does them, are they reliable, and what is a sock- puppet? Speaker’s Presentation at 3:00 p.m. - Terri Nolan Please join us for our September meeting, when past president, Terri Nolan, will present a program that will appeal to both writers and readers: "Backstory: Big Bang to Publication." She'll share Reminder from Gita: If you want to have a book what's she's learned on the journey from story raffle at each meeting, please bring your gently seedling to full-grown novel. She'll also share an used mysteries to donate to the cause. We need insider’s view of the publishing industry. to replenish our supply of books for the coming year. Thank you in advance and happy reading! 1 September Issue, 2012 O R A N G E H E R R I N G ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ IN MEMORIUM MANY THANKS After nearly two years as co-editor of the Orange Herring, Gayle Brunelle is stepping down. Her demanding schedule of teaching, writing, and publishing does not allow her the time needed to work on the newsletter. Thank you Gayle for all your hard work. I’ll miss you! THERESA SCHULTZ 2012 MEETING CALENDAR OC Sisters in Crime is saddened to report the death Due to complications related to booking our regular of mystery author Jeff Sherratt on August 19th. Jeff meeting room at the Irvine Ranch Water District, wrote the Jimmy O'Brien Mystery Series, set in some of our meetings in 2012 will not be held on rd southern California and featuring a criminal defense the 3 Sunday of the month. Please be sure, lawyer. He began writing after a career as an therefore, to note the dates on your calendar. Also entrepreneur in the food industry, and approached note that some of the meetings will be held at writing and marketing with the same enthusiasm, locations other than Irvine, including a couple in often hand-selling his books at bookstores and North Orange County. So be on the lookout for author events. When his health began to decline, he changes of venue! marketed his books through Amazon, making their Subsequent meetings will be held on Oct 28, Nov bestseller list for mysteries and thrillers, selling 11, and Dec 16 (Holiday party at Mystery Ink.) over 100,000 books. He left many friends at Sisters in Crime and will be missed. *** Dec. 16th is a new date. *** Please mark it on your calendars. 2 September Issue, 2012 O R A N G E H E R R I N G ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ the help of her sons in killing two of her daughters? How did Jack Nicholson and Bob Dylan rise from humble beginnings to international fame and fortune? While he thinks the internet is a fine place to begin MEETING ROUNDUP one’s research, he cautions against pulling too much information from other writers. “Retelling a story is At August’s meeting, we listened with rapt attention not reporting; it’s one step above plagiarism.” as award-winning author Dennis McDougal shared Whenever possible, he believes a writer should visit his thoughts on such diverse topics as serial killers, the place his story is set, take in the sights, the research and the internet, the decline of the sounds, and smells of the place. And talking to a newspaper industry, and the Roman Polanski affair. source is so much better than just copying quotes He spoke about the challenge of writing biographies from the internet. Often, when conversing with a about famously private people, people who are source, a writer will get a factoid or lead he determined to control their public images and wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. unwilling to cooperate with biographers. Like Bob Dylan, Dennis works in “splendid A “recovering journalist,” Dennis worked for the isolation” in his home in Tennessee. His next Los Angeles Times for fifteen years as an project is a biography about Tom Girardi, the well- investigative reporter focusing on movies, known attorney (played by Peter Coyote in the television, and pop music. His books include THE movie Eric Brockovich) who argued and won a CANDLESTICKMAKER and FIVE EASY landmark case against PG&E. Unlike his previous DECADES: How Jack Nicholson Became the projects, this time his subject is cooperating. ☺ Biggest Movie Star in Modern Times. His most recent project is THINGS HAVE CHANGED: A Biography of Music Legend Bob Dylan. THERESA SCHULTZ While working on the Dylan biography, Dennis became aware of a man claiming to be Dylan’s son. Getting nowhere with Bob Dylan’s representatives, McDougal feared the young man had hit a dead end—until a woman surfaced, claiming to be Bob Dylan’s daughter. The reason Dennis got into journalism in the first place was to get to the bottom of stories like this one. He figures if he is intrigued WORDSMITHING by something, other people will be too. It’s that sense of discovery that drives him every BORROWING TROUBLE day. That, and the desire to find out what makes a person embark on a certain path. What triggered The study of poetry—even for those who don't wish Randy Kraft (ANGEL OF DARKNESS) to become to write it—invariably improves prose. Merely one of the most prolific serial killers in our nation’s reading good poetry sharpens all the senses and history? What caused Theresa Cross Knorr to enlist heightens awareness of connections that can 3 September Issue, 2012 O R A N G E H E R R I N G ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ manipulate time. Poet Regina O'Melveny repeatedly Gabriella's profession as physician and herbalist. shows just how much mileage a few words of prose They connect, too, with the story. Cicadas spend can cover, in her debut novel, THE BOOK OF most of their lives underground eating roots, MADNESS AND CURES. molting several times before emerging into the light, then singing until they mate and die. In sixteenth-century Venice, Gabriella Mondini's Historically, they've represented many things, father teaches her his trade: medical doctor. With including cleverness—eluding danger by molting— his mentorship she's been accepted into the and the numerous stages of transformation needed physician's guild, but when he doesn't return from a to attain knowledge. These foreshadow several long trip to research his book on diseases, the guild disguises Gabriella will use to escape danger, the bars Gabriella from practicing medicine. Here's the insight she'll gain during her journey, and what she outset of her journey across Europe in search of her will find at the end of it. father: I'd say that's wringing an anthology's worth of The fields on the road to Padua meaning out of 96 words. As former U.S. poet shimmered with ripening millet, and an laureate Billy Collins observed, "Poets are people army of cicadas steadily drilled the air. As a who have trouble saying one thing at a time." curious little girl I'd once brought my father Exactly the kind of trouble a novelist ought to a handful of perfectly split cicada husks and borrow. asked what happened to their bodies. Did they turn into small scorched spirits? Did LAURIE THOMAS the spirits then chafe the air in heaven? My father had smiled at these questions. Gabriella, he teased, they sing until they burst! We approached Margera in the gondola after little more than an hour, just as the midday bells began to ring out. The memory reveals both characters. Gabriella's father doesn't tell her the truth—that the husks are the result of molting—but instead paints a picture of MYSTERY INK NEWS deliriously happy insects. This glimpse of her cheerful, loving father creates empathy for Gabriella's quest to find him. And when the cicadas' Now Located at: song first triggers the recollection, we see her own early penchant for scientific enquiry. It's imbued Bridgecreek Plaza with her religious upbringing, which is echoed in 8907 Warner Avenue, #135 the pealing of the church bells that reestablish the Huntington Beach, CA 92647 present journey and time of day. No hiatus, no "Her 714 960-4000 thoughts wandered back to…." Just two seamless transitions signaled by sound. In Store Events: The cicadas function as symbols, as well. Used for both food and medicine, the insects connect with 4 September Issue, 2012 O R A N G E H E R R I N G ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ Sunday, September 16th, 2:00 p.m. – Wendy Sunday, September 23rd, 2:00 p.m. – Fullerton Hornsby Library presents Luis J. Rodriguez Rodriguez has emerged as one of the leading Wendy Hornsby will be discussing and signing her Chicano writers in the country with fifteen latest crime novel, THE HANGING.