Grand Central Noir

I have a post up at Women of Mystery announcing a new short story of mine, "A Primal Force," that appears in Grand Central Noir, an e-book compiled by Terrence P. McCauley, which was published by Metropolitan Crime in June 2013. It's currently available on Amazon for Kindle and Kindle Apps. All proceeds go to the charity, God's Love We Deliver.

Visit Women of Mystery to read all about it!

The 2012 Academy Awards

I'm thrilled that Woody Allen won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award for Midnight in Paris. I blogged about my admiration for the film on Women of Mystery in January.

How wonderful that Christopher Plummer finally gets to take home the Oscar. I loved his acceptance speech the most. Such class!

I'm glad I got to see The Artist, the Best Picture winner. I took my teenage daughter to see it ~ we absolutely loved it. After it ended, I asked her, "Well ~ what do you think for Best Picture? Midnight in Paris, Hugo, or The Artist?" since we had seen and loved all of them, and we knew it would be a tough decision. We were stumped.

A theatre patron on the way in as we were heading out asked if we liked it. Her hesitation, as I've heard from so many others, was that it was a "silent" film. We reassured her that she would enjoy it thoroughly. When you think about it, there is no other way to honor the silent film era but to make a silent film, and in black and white.

During the Oscar telecast, my husband keenly noticed a cameo of Jim Parsons, the extremely talented, multi-award-winning actor who portrays Dr. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, during an extremely brief video clip of the winning Best Original Song, "Man or Muppet." If you're a fan of the show, you'll love the video -- it's awesome.

Available for a limited time, you can watch the Oscar-winning "Best Animated Short Film," The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. 

For a complete list of winners, click here.

Did you watch the Oscars? Did any of your favorites win? Didn't Angelina Jolie look ridiculous as she awkwardly stood with her right leg sticking out of the slit in her dress while presenting? It didn't take long for @AngiesRightLeg to pop up on Twitter (which currently has more than 13,000 followers).

A Day That Will Live in World History

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Below I have included a clip from The Pacific Historic Parks' DVD, Pearl Harbor: A Landmark of History. Over 2300 lives were lost that day.

(U.S.S. Arizona photo source here)

In 1994, my husband and I traveled to Hawaii. Part of our journey included an emotional, haunting visit to the U.S.S. Arizona memorial.

Last year, I visited Washington, D.C. for the first time. I blogged about it for a "My Town Monday" post at Women of Mystery. As a writer, one of the highlights of my trip was seeing a replica of FDR's typewritten draft of his Pearl Harbor address -- with edits -- posted in the Smithsonian, in the National Museum of American History (I took the photos of the draft, and they are unclear; if you visit here, click on the draft photo and you can zoom in).

FDR had crossed out "World History" and replaced it with "infamy."

My grandfather, Edward Welsh, who died from a heart attack at age 47, was born on this day, 101 years ago. On December 7, 1941, my grandparents went out to celebrate his 32nd birthday, and when they returned home, they continued celebrating. My mother was conceived that night; she was born the following year -- on September 11th.

Last year, to commemmorate my grandfather's 100th birthday, I accompanied my mother and two of her siblings to attend mass in his honor at St. Joseph's on Pacific Street, Brooklyn (the church is still undergoing renovations, as evidenced by the scaffolding in the background). My grandfather, the youngest of nine, was born on Pacific Street.

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St. Joseph's has a Facebook page, and so does the National Museum of American History. You can follow @WWIIValorNPS on Twitter.

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Veterans Day 2010

Today is Veterans Day, the day we honor the men and women who have served and currently serve in the Armed Forces of the United States. I am grateful to each and every veteran for the freedom we enjoy because of the sacrifices they have made.

I am proud to know several authors (fellow members of Sisters in Crime and the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and my blog-mate at Women of Mystery, Terrie Farley Moran) who have donated their stories in the recently released crime fiction anthology, "Murder to Mil-Spec." The publisher of this fine collection of stories that involve veterans or current soldiers, Tony Wolfmont, is donating all its profits to Homes for Our Troops, a charity that assists severely disabled veterans by either retrofitting their homes so the vet can use them (elevators, wider doors, etc). or building them a new home.

Why not purchase several copies to give as gifts this holiday season?

Considering today is Veterans Day, and there's no time like the present, I know of one more incentive for you to make your purchase now. Blogger and author Karen Cantwell of "Fiction for Dessert" has offered to personally donate an additional $5 to Homes for Our Troops for each copy purchased through her site this week. In this post, she interviews one of the contributors of Murder to Mil Spec, the two-time Agatha award-nominated mystery short story writer, Barb Goffman.

Karen is also giving away a copy of Murder to Mil Spec this week; just leave a comment on this blog post and either a link or email address for her to reach you in case you win.

If you've arrived at this site well past the date of this blog post, you can also order Murder to Mil-Spec via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and The Digital Bookshop.

The Homes for Our Troops site contains several inspirational stories, videos, and articles about the fine work this organization does. You can follow @HomesForOurTrps on Twitter and Facebook. Remember to thank a veteran ~ each and every day!

My Town Monday @ Women of Mystery

It's Monday ~ and I have got a "My Town Monday" post up over at Women of Mystery about my recent trip to Bar Harbor, Maine.

Come on over for a visit and see some of the photos I took.

I learned about the mystery of the missing Tiffany Lily stained glass window.

Here's the link: Women of Mystery: MTM: Bar Harbor, Maine