Cozy up to a Good Mystery

(photo by OokamiKasumi, http://ookamikasumi.deviantart.com/art/Fireplace-157530084)

Driving to a work site two hours away in a ground blizzard, I was thankful to reach my destination safely and check into my motel. The lobby fireplace was flanked by wingback chairs and bookshelves. "That looks cozy," I said at the check-in desk.

In my room, I enjoyed another kind of cozy--a mystery novel. The definition of a cozy mystery varies, but it usually includes an amateur female sleuth. Her occupation gives her skills that she uses to solve the mystery. These books are usually set in a small town with the usual small town goings on--but no sex!

My cozy in this case was debut novel Debits and Credits by Lyn Fraser. Fraser used the axiom "write what you know," and fortunately, she knows a lot! As a Texan and Coloradan, a teacher, business woman, hospice chaplain, spiritual writer, and golfer, Fraser gave Grace Edna Edge many of those traits. Grace's occupation is an unusual one--forensic accounting. In this book, Grace snoops into the sudden death of her aunt's friend on behalf of her aunt and the deceased's nephew. As usual in these books, the police are skeptical of Grace's suspicions, but one detective is interested in finding out more--about Grace herself. Fraser populates the book with a gamut of characters from all walks of life to make an interesting story containing laugh-out-loud lines. I hope this is the first of a series.

( By Club-oracle (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

True confession: I have to be in a "cozy" mood to enjoy these, as there often seems to be so much "side story" (those small town goings on) that the main action sometimes seems shoved into the background. Other cozies I have liked include the Goldy the Caterer series by Diane Mott Davidson, the Hannah Swenson series by Joanna Fluke, and the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter by Susan Wittig Albert.

(photo by Mark Larson, http://www.flickr.com/photos/marklarson/6826864102/, Creative Commons)

Full disclosure: Lyn Fraser is a friend who kindly gave me her book for Christmas. Would I have liked the book anyway? Yes, I would! Grace Edge seems to lean more toward the Edge than the Grace, which leads to laughs. She is also smart and unafraid.

What cozies do you like? With or without a fireplace?

Winter Solstice

(photo by Todd Ehlers http://www.flickr.com/photos/eklektikos/3231838631/)

It's Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere--the shortest day, and this year, a very cold one. It's 2 degrees F as I type this. I join many of you in being thankful that the days will start getting longer. Gimme sunshine!

To mark the occasion, I share with you a poem based on riding the school bus to school for 6 years through the countryside.

(photo by Bjorn Watland, http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjornwatland/6014216259/in/photostream/)

A Rural Ride

Cold winter mornings,

The yellow school bus

bumps along gravel roads,

loading children,

one farmstead at a time.

The sun pinks the sky,

Sheens the snow,

Steams the lake.

In the pastures, cattle’s breath

Rises like prayers.

copyright 2013, Jane Heitman Healy, all rights reserved

(photo by ed_needs_a_bicycle http://www.flickr.com/photos/omcoc/8315302454/)

Please share your winter memories in the comments section!

This poem also lives on poet David L. Harrison's Word of the Month blog, where everyone is invited to try writing and posting a poem based on a word that changes each moth. Come and play! 

(Internet Explorer 11 seems to have hijacked my Thanksgiving post. If any of you have experience in dealing with IE11 and blogger, let me know. So, I'm trying this on Chrome and hoping for a better result.)

The Journey of a Lifetime

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step~Lao-Tzu, Chinese philosopher

Life is a journey, not a destination~Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet.

And so this month, I am participating in the journey of PiBoIdMo (picture book idea month), the brain child of author Tara Lazar. The purpose is to record a picture book idea (or ideas) each day. At the end of the month, the more than 1,000 participants will cull their best ideas and set to work, turning it into a manuscript worthy of submitting to a publisher.

We have a Facebook group where participants can encourage each other, and Tara has invited well-known guest bloggers to her site to encourage inspiration, creativity,and productivity. And we're half-way through!

Different people use different methods to record their ideas. Here's my notebook on the cusp of Day 1:

We are focusing on writing, with the understanding that much of a picture book story is told through the pictures. One new book getting a lot of attention is a beautiful wordless book, Journey by Aaron Becker. Here's a review from Kirkus and from Horn Book.

My amateur cover photo gives an inkling of the book's grandeur.

I love this wordless book because each reader can bring him- or herself to the story, a story that the reader can create and tell, a story that changes with the age and circumstances of the reader. It's a story unique to that reader at that time. In this book, a girl uses a red marker to "draw" herself out of her situation, which gets her into other situations that require drawing out. Well, isn't that just like life?



Find the book at the library or bookstore and see what story Journey tells you--and then continue your own journey.

Goodbye, Daylight Savings; Hello, Standard Time

Puppy Watson and I are still on Daylight Savings time. An extra hour of sleep? I don't think so! He wants to play at 4 a.m. and needs to go out at 5 a.m.

(photo: By Matteo Ianeselli (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Trento-Mercatino_dei_Gaudenti-alarm_clocks.jpg)

Not all of our clocks got changed, so I am wandering around trying to orient myself, and asking the question the group Chicago asked all those years ago:


How is your household adjusting to the time change?

Life's a Peach!

(photo copyright 2011, Jane Heitman Healy)

It's peach season! Fortunately, our local supermarket is selling lugs of peaches from Talbott Farms in Palisade, Colorado, my old stomping grounds in the Grand Valley. They were expensive, but worth it for more than just their flavor. A taste of a Palisade peach is, well--

This Peach

This peach glows
Like a gold nugget,
One side red-orange, sun-swiped,
One side shaded
Yellow.

This peach overflows.
Bites of flawless fruit slip
From the red stone. A flavor fountain
Of juice glazes my chin, my
Hands.

This peach goes
A thousand miles, tucked
In a lug and trucked, to meet my lips
And bring the taste of
Home.

(copyright 2013, Jane Heitman Healy)

(photo copyright 2011, Jane Heitman Healy)

What flavors make you think of home?

For more peachy goodness, see this post from last August.

The Dog Days of Summer

It's been months since I've posted here due to a number of things, but I'm baaack!

Here we are in the dog days of summer, that sultry time in July & August before the crisp snap of fall. In our case, the weather is temperate, but we are in the dog days literally, having gotten a new puppy.

Watson (named for Sherlock's sidekick and the five-time British Open winning golfer, Tom) is 1/2 Golden Retriever and 1/2 English Cream and full of puppy playfulness.

A visiting friend said, "He looks like some storybook dog."

I had already thought of this--Biscuit of the series by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.

What do you think? Is there a resemblance?

The children's lit world is full of wonderful dog characters--Clifford, Wishbone, and Carl, to name three. Which dog characters are your favorites?

Here's a list by Publisher's Weekly blogger Elizabeth Bluemle.

Enjoy your dog days!

Book Spine Poetry--National Poetry Month

The above photo shows my first Book Spine Poem. I don't know who invented Book Spine Poetry. It's a version of "found" poetry, I suppose, looking at your bookshelf and deciding what titles could go together in what order to make some kind of sense. In any case, it's fun!

Is it real poetry? Hardly ever. Could it become a good poem? Possibly. You never know what phrases might spark an idea, a metaphor, or a line.

Here's another:


Look around your bookshelves and see what you come up with. Post your results in the comments!

For more Book Spine Poetry, see children's poet, Kenn Nesbitt's page.