Down to Roanoke, up to Toronto
I spent another week on the beautiful campus of Hollins University last month, teaching “Starting Your Writing Journey” at the Tinker Mountain Writer’s Workshop. There were workshops every morning, and a seminar after lunch. There are faculty readings, student readings, and much evening revelry amongst participants in the common rooms! The faculty readings were first-class, and mine from The Turkish Connection was well received. The student readings on the next two nights, showed enormous breadth of talent.
My “Sleuthing With Mortals” series is running on schedule. Book 1, The Turkish Connection, will launch in September—the e-book is already available for preorder. The Witch of Tut—which will come out in December—has gone through the editing process, and I’m eagerly awaiting the cover. The designer did such a great job on the first book, I know it’s going to be another winner. I’m slogging away at Book 3, The Knight, the Gnome, and the Fox, which should be published in February.
We flew Toronto at the end of June to attend my granddaughter’s high school graduation, and enjoyed a lovely boat tour of the harbor. No more travel until September for the “Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity” conference in Columbia, Maryland. That always entails serving on a couple of fun panels. There’s a stellar list of speakers this year.
My first European trip since lockdown takes place at the end of October. I will join fabulous landscape and portrait artist Gavin Glakas as he leads a group of artists on the Greek island of Naxos. The island looks beautiful in the pictures, so I look forward to bringing back lots of watercolor landscape studies. I paint in other mediums, but don’t like to load my luggage with bulky, heavy, items. The TSA tends to think metal tubes of goo look suspicious, too! It means I have to submit The Knight, the Gnome, and the Fox early, but I am determined to get to the finish line!
Because of my October travel, I will have to cut my fall critique workshop in two. I have a feeling that my students won’t mind the break, though!
As I write this, I notice that one of the baby foxes has emerged from the den its mother has made under our garden shed. Fortunately, my dog Sam is fast asleep on the sofa next to me. The family should have left by now. There’s so much construction going on in our Northern Virginia area, perhaps they have nowhere to go. They are beautiful animals, although the kits are rather destructive. They think tearing into my bags of soil and fertilizer is great fun. The vixen sometimes scavenges take-out bags that are tossed away with food left in them. I sometimes find them shredded all over the garden. But—they’re hungry. And I can’t help noticing there aren’t as many squirrels as there used to be.
I think we will leave for our place on the Chesapeake Bay in Southern Maryland again soon. On Father’s Day weekend, and my son, who lives in Richmond, joined us there to celebrate. The Bay is my favorite place to be. There’s nothing like the sound of waves lapping the shore to smooth out one’s tension, even in winter. I couldn’t resist including the Bay in my series, so my readers can enjoy it vicariously.
Well, back to the grindstone
Ciao for now!