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by Sharon Marchisello I’ve always loved animals and have been owned by cats most of my life. At age four, I acquired my first kitten. My mother warned me not to grab her, to approach gently. I didn’t listen and got scratched. Nevertheless, I was not deterred from loving cats, but I learned right away to respect them. About twenty years ago, I found my tribe at the Fayette Humane Society (FHS), a local all-volunteer, foster-run animal rescue group supported solely by donations and fundraisers. I fostered cats in my home, worked at adoption events, and later, was asked to become the organization’s grant writer. In 2011, they invited me to join the Board of Directors. I learned that, although we rescue and rehome cats and dogs, it’s not enough to make a difference. Sadly, three to four million healthy, adoptable cats and dogs are put to death in animal shelters around the country every year, simply because they don’t have homes. We can’t adopt our way out of this problem. Spay and neuter became our mission. Not only do we ensure that all pets we adopt are fixed before they go to their new homes, we reach out to pet owners in the community and offer assistance with spay/neuter surgery. I’ve obtained numerous grants to fund this effort. One of the programs I write grants for is TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return). Or more accurately, TNVR (Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return). Before I became a rescue volunteer, I assumed all cats were potential house pets, like most of the cats who appear in cozy mysteries. I didn’t realize there are millions of unowned, unsocialized cats who call the outdoors their home. My town, like most communities all over the world, supports multiple colonies of free-roaming cats. They populate wooded areas, trailer parks, and shopping centers, especially properties that house restaurants. Free-roaming cats might be lost pets, strays, or truly feral felines, born outdoors and never socialized to humans. Unfortunately, they reproduce exponentially. A kitten can have a litter before she’s six months old, sometimes as early as four months. And most of her surviving kittens will have litters of their own before she’s a year old. In a state like Georgia, where the winters are mild, cats breed all year; a couple of abandoned, unaltered pets can quickly grow into a huge colony. Fortunately, volunteers from rescue groups like FHS are passionate about TNVR. They set humane traps to catch these free-roaming cats, transport them to a low-cost clinic to be spayed or neutered and vaccinated, then return the unsocialized ones to their outdoor homes, where they can live out their natural lives but not reproduce. While the cat is under anesthesia, the veterinarian clips a corner from the left ear; if the cat gets trapped again, the ear tip saves everyone another trip to the clinic. Since feral cats are mostly nocturnal, our trapper volunteers must work at night, usually in deserted locations. A perfect set-up for danger… or finding a dead body. Hence the premise for my new mystery, Trap, Neuter, Die. I figured most readers would be as clueless about TNVR as I was before I joined FHS. So, how could I educate them on the program without a big info-dump? Our organization has a revolving door for volunteers: high school students who need hours for Beta Club, empty-nesters or new retirees biting off more than they can chew, and of course, court-ordered community service. I decided to make my protagonist, thirty-year-old divorcee DeeLo Myer, a new community service volunteer. Thus, the reader learns about TNVR along with the heroine. The story opens with DeeLo’s first night on duty. A newcomer to the fictitious Georgia town of Pecan Point, she’s paired with seasoned trapper Catherine Foster, who’s not ashamed to admit she likes feral cats a whole lot better than human beings. And she’s particularly intolerant of DeeLo when she finds out the reason for her court-ordered community service. Needless to say, their working relationship gets off to a rough start. The night gets even worse when they discover a dead body. And Catherine won’t let DeeLo call 9-1-1. From my involvement in procuring grant funds, I learned that many communities, including the county where I live, have animal ordinances that do not support TNVR, so volunteers operate in the shadows. These ordinances treat free-roaming cats the same as pets, with leash laws as well as ownership and abandonment restrictions designed for pet owners, not feral cat caretakers or rescue volunteers. A few years ago, a group of FHS volunteers attempted to work with the Fayette County Board of Commissioners to get the animal ordinance updated—let’s just say there was a lot of drama and hidden political agendas. Maybe fodder for a novel… These draconian ordinances are rarely enforced; in fact, most people don’t know what’s on the books. But in my story, a cop with a grudge against Catherine Foster has read the county’s ordinance and found the loophole giving him the authority to arrest her for practicing TNVR. When DeeLo sees Catherine arrested (and subsequently held under suspicion of murder), she’s amazed at the law’s stupidity and vows to change it. How hard could that be? She enlists the help of her boyfriend, owner of the law firm where she works. DeeLo’s job at the law firm gives her intimate knowledge of the business affairs of key Pecan Point residents. And in her efforts to enlist support for her ordinance reforms, she comes in contact with some of the town’s most prominent citizens—including those who have motives for murder. Even though I’ve been a rescue volunteer for years, I was never a trapper. As part of my research for this book, I went out trapping with FHS volunteer and TNVR guru Marcia Hendershot, who is nothing like Catherine Foster (apart from her TNVR expertise). Marcia was kind enough to be one of my beta readers and help me correct my mistakes. What do I hope to accomplish with this book? I want to create awareness about the tragedy of pet overpopulation and show how some people are working to help solve it. And of course, give readers an entertaining mystery. Sharon Marchisello is a long-time volunteer and cat foster for the Fayette Humane Society (FHS). Because she earned a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, her fellow volunteers tasked her with writing grants for FHS, including procuring funds to support Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return. She’s the author of two mysteries published by Sunbury Press--Going Home (2014) and Secrets of the Galapagos (2019). Sharon has written short stories, a nonfiction book about personal finance, training manuals, screenplays, a blog, and book reviews. She is an active member of Sisters in Crime, the Atlanta Writers Club, and the Hometown Novel Writers Association. Retired from a 27-year career with Delta Air Lines, she now lives in Peachtree City, Georgia, and serves on the board of directors for the Friends of the Peachtree City Library.
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By Julie Bates Want to add more punch to your prose? Sometimes a little research into the setting of your story is what’s needed. Research adds depth and authenticity to novels. It can be the defining feature between a work and a work of art. As a historical fiction writer, I have to make my readers feel at home in Eighteenth Century Colonial America. In order to do that requires a great deal of delving into the details of daily life in this time frame. How did people dress? What did they eat? What were the social norms? People did not wear underwear in the 18th century. Underneath their clothes they were remarkably well ventilated. Modern underwear did not come into being until later in the 19th century. People and societies evolve over time. What was commonplace in one time period would be flat out weird in another. One example in the Western world between the mid 16th century and the late 19th century young boys and girls dressed alike in gowns between the ages of two and up to eight. The gowns were seen as gender neutral and made toilet training easier among other reasons. The goal of a good historical writer is to propel their reader back in time so that they feel they are walking those streets and living in that era. A well-developed setting creates the perfect framework for a story to take place. Getting the information wrong jars the reader and casts doubt on the reliability of the author. It’s been several years ago that I was reading over a friend’s manuscript set during the American antebellum period. I was lost in the sultry south until the scene shifted to an airport. Airport? Yes, she had absentmindedly put an airport in the 1850’s. My mind was hit with a situation I knew could not be true unless the story was about time travel-which it wasn’t. The most important component of research is using credible resources – places you can rely upon to be factual and true. The reference desk at your local library can help you discover many reliable resources for your writing project. It’s also important to realize that if an event really happened it will be recounted by more than one source. For example, Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Day 1776 is recounted in many places. Washington chopping down a cherry tree – one. Mason Locke Weems was an early biographer of our first president who made up the story to show demonstrate the president’s honesty at an early age. I like primary sources for my research when I can find them. These can be letters, memoirs, maps and newspapers. Colonial America had quite a few newspapers many of which are online. Reading them gives tremendous insight into the minutia of daily life some of it is funny, some of it is tragic The advertisements seeking information on runaway slaves never ceases to break my heart even if it was normal for this time period. I utilize period maps as well as Google Earth to get a sense of a place. The beauty of Google Earth is that it utilizes satellite technology to put you in a precise location. You can walk the streets of a city or neighborhood utilizing the street level option. Period maps tell you what was there in that time period and what they considered relevant. For my current WIP I have located a few maps of Valley Forge at the time of its occupation so I know where all the barracks are, Washington’s headquarters and all of his generals. I can easily locate the roads, the artillery and geographic features such as Mount Joy and Mount Misery. The encampment was between the two. Taking time to learn about the time and place you write about enriches your story in a multitude of ways. It enhances the narrative and provides a note of authority that you know what you are talking about. I love learning the details of life in time periods in which I write because it not only tells me what they did but gives me insight into why. Julie Bates’ first novel Cry of the Innocent, premiered in June 2021. The Eight book Faith Clarke series is set in the America Colonies during the Revolutionary War. Needless to say she is an avid history buff – some would say nut. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Triangle Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Southeastern Mystery Writers of America (SEMWA) and The Historical Novel Society. She enjoys doing crafts, working in her garden and experimenting in the kitchen. When not plotting her next story, she spends time with her husband and son, as well as a number of dogs and cats who have shown up on her doorstep and never left.
By Tom Coffey I never intended to write a series. The thought of going to the well too often was off-putting, and I feared getting stale. I wanted to write standalones; I believed they would test the limits of my creativity. Then I wrote PUBLIC MORALS. Loosely based on a real-life corruption scandal in the New York City Police Department, it's told in two parts. In the first part, set in 1982, a crooked cop named Terence Devine is convicted for killing a sex worker. In the second part, which occurs forty years later, his daughter, Sheila, a documentary filmmaker, investigates the crimes that he and other people committed -- in the process unearthing startling new evidence. As I put the novel through multiple drafts, I discovered that I really liked Sheila Devine (I do not always feel this way about my characters; in reviewing my novel MIAMI TWILIGHT, the mystery impresario Otto Penzler said that "Coffey has a genius for creating antiheroes"), and I wanted to extend her journey. For a number of years, I've also kicked around the idea of writing a book based on the Central Park Jogger case. I wouldn't say that I had a "Eureka!" moment, but after finishing PUBLIC MORALS, and not wanting to let Sheila go, I decided that she could be the vehicle that would allow me to write about the jogger case. The result is SPECIAL VICTIM, the second novel in what I am immodestly calling The Devine Trilogy. Thirty-five years after it happened, the Central Park Jogger case still resonates in New York. I got a sense of that on Nov. 2 when I read from the book at a Mystery Writers of America event at a library in midtown Manhattan. Perhaps it's my imagination, but as soon as I began reading I felt I had the rapt attention of the two dozen people in attendance, all of whom were familiar with the story. The air seemed to leave the room, in a good way. When I was done, and the moderator Hal Glatzer asked for questions or comments, instead of the typical non-responses from the audience, many people waded in with pointed questions and comments. I was happy for the strong reactions, both pro and con, and after the session, I talked to a retired NYPD detective who had taken part in the interrogations of the five young men who were first convicted, and then exonerated, in the assault. It turns out that some of the people close to the investigation had doubts about their guilt from the start -- doubts that were memorably aired by Joan Didion in an essay in The New York Review of Books two years after the attack -- but groupthink prevailed, both in law enforcement and the news media. Much as I'd like to pin the blame for this miscarriage of justice on police and prosecutors, I cannot. I was a journalist in New York City for many years, and this was one of my former profession's worst moments. The presumption of innocence may seem like a quaint and no-longer-relevant idea, but it was established for a reason. In this case, as soon as the young men who became known as the Central Park Five were arrested, they were convicted in the court of public opinion. Blaring headlines in the tabloid press assumed the defendants' guilt and wondered why they hadn't been put in prison for life already, placing an incredible amount of pressure on the police to arrest somebody, anybody, really didn't matter who it was. The overwhelming desire in New York was for vengeance, not justice, and inconvenient facts were ignored. Even after DNA established the identity of the real attacker, many people who were involved in the investigation, and who wrote stories about it, refused to admit that they had made mistakes, or had gotten anything wrong. As a result, many people in New York City still believe that the members of the Central Park Five were involved in the attack. (To be fair, some of those guys were in the park that night, and they weren't doing outreach to the homeless; they were beating up the homeless.) Now I'm on to the third book of my trilogy, which I hope will complete the journey of Sheila Devine and her family. The book is tentatively titled STOP AND FRISK, and I'm reluctant to say anything about it because I haven't finished writing it yet. While it's not based on a specific event, it does deal with the all-too-frequent deadly encounters in this country between the police and young men of color. And in writing this trilogy, rather than writing each novel as a standalone, I've discovered that I've been able to delve even more deeply into story, into character, and into the state of the human condition. Which means, I guess, that I may have to start another series.
Erica Miner and Lori Robbins took a similar path, from the stage to the page, when they drew upon their real-life experiences as inspiration for their books. Erica’s Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series and Lori’s On Pointe Mysteries take readers on a backstage tour that’s equal parts glamour and intrigue, even before the first murder victim takes a literal swan dive. The two authors interviewed each other to explore the connection between fact and fiction for them and their amateur sleuths. Lori’s Questions for Erica:
Many. I focus on the most dramatic elements possible, since that is what makes opera such a compelling subject for murder mysteries. Opera stories are among the bloodiest, most violent ever written. That’s why composers often choose novels, and the plays of Shakespeare, as the basis for their operas. It’s all about great stories, made even greater by setting them to music. The parts I leave out tend to be the more mundane aspects of my performing life, although I do touch upon those to make my protagonist, Julia, as believable as possible. She does have to deal with the daily routines of being a performing musician, but I think readers are more interested in the conflicts, the jealousies, rivalries and backstabbing that occur behind-the-scenes. A big part of Julia’s arc is to morph from starry-eyed neophyte to savvy survivalist. It’s the intensity of the operatic drama that gets her there.
I like to say only the author knows for sure! But I also admit that my fictional portrayals, of the characters who work at the opera and of the atmospheres of the opera houses, are extremely authentic. In my first Opera Mystery, Aria for Murder, which takes place at the Met Opera where I was a violinist for 21 years, I drew upon my experiences about what goes on backstage there and my knowledge of the dark corners and hidden stairways in that huge opera house to create authenticity and an environment fraught with danger. It’s a very mysterious place; so mysterious that creating motivation for murder seemed natural to me. When it came to the opera houses in the sequels, Santa Fe and San Francisco Opera (Prelude to Murder and the next sequel, Overture to Murder), I had to do a great deal more research to build a realistic world of mystery. I was fortunate in that I had connections with people who worked in those places and gave me on-site tours from top to bottom, which I used to fabricate stories that are very true to life. (Just FYI, San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, built in 1932, is the creepiest place ever.) But since I never performed in those opera theatres, I used my wicked imagination to create stories that would be believable.
In Aria for Murder, most of the characters are based on a combination of traits of different people I worked with at the Met. Sometimes I would give certain attributes to certain characters but create them as different genders than they actually were. The exception was one key character who is entirely based on a real person. One of my colleagues who read the book immediately recognized this person who, sadly, is no longer with us. The protagonist throughout the series, Julia, is much like me when I first started out at the Met: naïve, unaware of the political machinations that go on behind the scenes. She becomes smarter fast, and I give her great courage and fortitude. That’s the beauty of fiction: you can give a character similar to yourself qualities you only wish you had. In Prelude to Murder, I also based characters on people I met in various departments throughout the opera house, but I extrapolated certain nationalities and traits of people who worked at the Met to create new and compelling characters who figured importantly in the Santa Fe plot.
For me, yes, when I’m writing about performing and performers. I’m constantly thinking of recreating my own feelings and remembrances of my performing life as I move these characters around in their performing world. I also am visualizing a performing milieu and feeling the deep emotions of performers as I write. The two elements are inextricably linked for me.
I’m not going there!
Most readers don’t have any idea what goes on behind the scenes at an opera house. They tell me they’re constantly amazed at the intensity of relationships between the multifaceted groups of people who work there. I try to make the descriptions of those conflicts, as well as of the many different locations within in the theatre, as vivid as possible. Many of those who have read Aria for Murder tell me the story and its descriptions of the Met brought them back to the times they’ve been to performances there. Others who have read Prelude to Murder have told me the descriptions are so intriguing they feel like getting on the next plane to Santa Fe!
I honestly can’t remember what it was initially, but I think it seemed the natural thing to do in order to further open up the world of opera to my readers. In these Opera Mysteries, the worlds of musical drama and real-time murder collide. The opera quotes that head the chapters give a hint or taste of what’s to come in the context of those bloody opera stories I mentioned above. Having the quotes first in the original language gives a flavor of the opera from which they come, and adding the English translation clues the reader in as to the subtleties of meaning. My readers tell me they love this feature of my books. Short bio: Award-winning Seattle-based author, lecturer and arts journalist Erica Miner believes opera theatres are perfect places for creating fictional mischief! Drawing on her 21 years as a violinist at the famed Metropolitan Opera, Erica’s fanciful plot fabrications reveal the dark side of the fascinating world of opera in her Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series (Level Best Books): Aria for Murder (2022), finalist in the 2023 CIBA and Eric Hoffer Book Awards; Prelude to Murder (2023) (‘A skillfully written whodunit of operatic proportions’--Kirkus Reviews); and Book 3, Overture to Murder, just released last month. Erica’s debut novel, Travels with My Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. She is an active member of the Puget Sound chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Northwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Buy links, Overture to Murder: Amazon Barnes and Noble Third Place Books Erica’s questions for Lori:
I saw a production of Swan Lake when I was sixteen and fell in love with ballet. The next day, I signed up for my first lesson. Most girls my age were getting ready to audition for professional companies, and I knew my dream of one day joining that elite group was unlikely to come true. But, like my protagonist, dance was the only thing that mattered. Three years after I walked into the studio for the first time I signed a contract with a modern dance company in Miami. Ballet remained my first love, and I went on to dance in a number of regional companies, as well as with Ballet Hispanico. I still take lessons several times a week, and ballet remains an important part of my life.
The dance world is filled with inherent drama, which makes it the perfect vehicle for a murder mystery. The competition is fierce, the careers are short, and the pressure is intense. Ballet offered a range of vivid possibilities for characters, as well as for plot and setting. Leah Siderova, the protagonist for the On Pointe mysteries, defies expectations, both fictional and factual. Yes, she’s embroiled in a murder mystery, but she’s also a ballerina on the wrong side of thirty and the stakes are higher for her than they would be for someone facing a less uncertain future. Those challenges make her observant, wary, and more than a little cynical. In other words, the perfect amateur sleuth. In my Master Class series, the protagonist is an English teacher who on the surface is very different from Leah. But she too is facing an uncertain future. There’s something deeply satisfying about writing, and reading, about amateur sleuths, no matter what world they inhabit. They show ordinary people, who, when challenged, find the strength and courage to do extraordinary things.
It’s rare for a movie or book to capture how intense and exhausting life as a performer can be. Many fictionalized portraits depict dancers indulging in nonstop sex, drugs, and barhopping. In real life, they rarely have the time, money, or energy that would enable that kind of lifestyle.
The descriptions of a dancer’s life are all grounded in reality, but the stories and characters blend fact and fiction. The murders are works of my imagination, as are the characters, although both are inspired by real-life events. Murder in Third Position, for example, was inspired by problems the Metropolitan Opera had with the mechanical parts of an elaborate set that caused several minor injuries. In my book, the set design kills someone.
Most are composite characters. Some, like my protagonist’s mother, are pure works of fiction, but I feel I know them! Barbara, in particular, is so vivid and commanding a figure, I think I’m going to have to give her her own book. Or at least, a short story. It’s not only the characters individually but their relationships with each other that interest me. Professional dancers remain students for as long as they’re dancing. They take class every day, and their interactions with teachers and choreographers are a rich source of real-life and fictional tension. The dynamic between a grown daughter and her mother also offers continuing opportunities for both drama and growth. But not too much growth, or the exchanges between Leah and Barbara wouldn’t be nearly as funny.
Dancers talk with their bodies. We don’t often get to hear their words, although many are remarkably eloquent speakers and writers. I added the quotations to give them a voice. In my Master Class mystery series, however, the quotations serve a different purpose, as they provide clues to solving the murder. Not all clues, however, are created equal. Some are genuine leads and others are designed to deceive. I love puzzles, and those quotations reflect that. Short bio: Lori Robbins writes the On Pointe and Master Class mystery series and is a contributor to The Secret Ingredient: A Mystery Writers Cookbook. She won the Indie Award for Best Mystery and two Silver Falchions. Short stories include “Leading Ladies” which received Honorable Mention in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. A former dancer, Lori performed with a number of modern dance and classical ballet companies, including Ballet Hispanico and the St. Louis Ballet. Her commercial work, for Pavlova Perfume and Macy’s, paid the bills. After ten very lean years onstage she became an English teacher and now writes full time. Lori is a co-president of the New York/ Tristate Sisters in Crime and an active member of Mystery Writers of America.
By Paul Barra The Historical Novel Society of North America, our version of the original HNS in the UK, has announced its first-ever short story contest. Your submission must be no longer than 4,000-words and must be set in or around historical Las Vegas (i.e. before 1975). Sin City is the site of the 2025 HNSNA conference. Those are easy parameters to digest and opens the contest to everything from Wild West gunfights to mobster influence in casinos to desert life to the tragedy of gambling addiction. It promises to be a popular contest, especially since HNS is a venerable organization. The winner gets $250 plus free registration at the conference (value: $550). A couple of things about the announcement caught my attention. One, the rising date of a story considered historical. Most book publishers want to label any fiction setting in the 1960s or earlier as historical. As we get further into the 21st century, the date will continue to rise, but the HNS may be already moving the standard up by capping their eligible submissions setting at 1975. It was not unexpected. After all, Americans alive today who can reasonably be expected to remember 1975 in a first-hand manner would have to be at least 65 years old. That age would make them a mid-teen when the dismaying videos of the fall of Saigon showed up on our TV sets, or when Margaret Thatcher rose to political prominence in Britain. Folks who are at least 65 today probably recall the first breakfast burrito, Billy Jean King’s 6th Wimbledon title, Billy Martin’s move from punching other players to creating great havoc as a manager, or even the founding of Microsoft. Too bad hardly any of them will recall buying any Microsoft stock in those days, although their memory banks will contain many interesting tidbits about life back then. If you writers want to mine those memories for your stories, you had better get a move on. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 55 million of those geezers are still alive. That’s 16.8% of the U.S. population. And they’re dying fast. The second thing about the HNS announcement that interested me was the cost to enter the contest: $25. There will undoubtedly be hundreds of entries, so the organization will bring in thousands of dollars—and will award $800 in cash and attendance fees. They will also produce an anthology of the top stories and will award the writers of those published stories “a small honorarium.” That honorarium could be your entry fee returned, or it could be 50 bucks. I could even be as much as $100. If it is $100, that would be a gratifying figure for a short story writer to earn on one story. The best mystery magazines pay twice that amount for a story, but the competition for sales in those few existing magazines is fierce. Most members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society sell their work for a wretched $25 or $50, hoping for recognition and/or evolving quality of sales in the future. It takes hours to write a 4,000-word short story, hours more to edit it and tighten the prose, hours more to rewrite portions of it and to submit it until it sells. Fiction writers don’t get paid on an hourly basis; we should know how much our work pays compared to other vocations. But that’s the theme for another blog. What concerns me most about the HNS writing contest is that it’s a money machine for the conference; is it also a worthwhile investment for the writer? The Historical Novel Society has many expenses, as do all writing organizations, and those organizations do a lot of good for the writers of our country. They support and defend novelists and short story writers, promote the work of their members, educate them, sometimes insure them, and offer them an opportunity for fame in their annual award presentations. Writers’ organizations are an integral part of a writer’s career path. They are supposed to support themselves by the annual dues paid by members. Other writing conferences besides HNS make money by charging for award competitions. Crime con Killer Nashville, for instance, charges a writer $80 to enter a book for a Silver Falchion, although if he or she attends the conference itself, the award fee is included in the tuition charge. For his $80, the winning writer gets a plaque. Promoters who organize and produce a conference deserve to make money for their efforts. That’s not the question, not for writers. The question for writers is: should I pay to have my work judged by someone? Prestigious writing contests, such as the Edgars offered to members by the Mystery Writers of America, charge nothing to enter. Besides the Edgars, others that charge nothing include the Thriller awards from the Thriller Writers of America and the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers (North America branch). Publishers who wish to enter their authors’ works send copies of novels to the judges of a contest category. That’s it. No fee. No money-making. It’s a service. The value of a writer’s work is marked by the awards it wins, the reviews it receives, and the money it makes. It shouldn’t rely on the writer buying a chance to win a prize. Writing fiction is a gamble where you wage your time and effort and talent; it should not be a lottery where you pay to play. paulbarra.com/Paul A. Barra’s novel, “Sgt. Ford’s Widow,” published by The Permanent Press, was called “an extraordinary story” by NPR. Joan Baum wrote (NPR, 9/24), in part: “…compelling, suspenseful and moving novel, Sgt. Ford’s Widow – an unusual narrative that links the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and Casper, Wyoming in the late `60s, early 1970s, each place invoked with rhythmic sensual detail.” Barra has had seven other novels published, plus many short stories. He is a former naval officer who was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor "V" and the Combat Action Ribbon for his service on the rivers of the Mekong delta, was a reporter for local papers, and the senior staff writer for the diocese of Charleston. He and his wife, the former Joni Lee, have eight children and live in Columbia, SC. His second children’s adventure novel (Samson and The Charleston Spy) will be released by Level Best Books in the spring, 2025.
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