Why Should I Trust You? a guest post by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: You have a middle-grade kid in your life, and you want to give them a terrific book for the holidays. They're your grandchild, or a nibling (I love that neologism!) or a friend's child or your neighbor's delightful fifth-grader. I got you, fam. Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, author of STEALING TIME, has a new adventure out with her co-writer, Norman Birnbach. WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU? is rooted in the 2020 pandemic--

Wait, come back!

Along with hoarding TP and washing groceries, the pandemic shut down inspired a LOT of creative work.  Tilia is here today to tell us about how it affected her life - and her writing.

 

 

   

         Why Should I Trust You?, my most recent book (co-authored with Norman Birnbach), is the tale of an unlikely friendship that leads to creative problem-solving, set against the backdrop of a pandemic or two. 

            So is the story behind the story.

            In February 2020, I had just started working on a new novel.  My wont was to leave the house to write; my favorite spots were coffee shops and/or public libraries. (Cue uproarious laughter.  That book is still unfinished.)  The following month, of course, the Covid-19 virus pounced upon an unsuspecting and unprepared world, altering it in ways we will doubtless feel for generations to come.  My family and I were among the fortunate, in that we had a safe and loving home to retreat to, complete with a dog, a backyard, and an internet connection—none of which was conducive to my completing my work-in-progress.  Those early pandemic days were suffused with fear and bewilderment as we confronted the unavailability of masks and sanitizer; the breakdown of supply chains in ways modern Americans had not had to consider before; and graphs showing local and national death tolls spiking ever upward, impervious to our best efforts to flatten the curve.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously said, “When a man is unhappy he writes damned bad poetry.”  Similarly, I found that when a novelist is consumed by existential dread, she writes poorly and little.

            Then two friends who didn’t know each other combined to get me back to the keyboard.

Illustrations by Robert Thibeault

            First there was Elaine, who was a year behind me in high school.  In 2020 she was teaching fifth grade, and even after her school shut down due to the pandemic she contrived to keep in touch with her students, emailing assignments and asking volunteers to post videos of themselves reading aloud from age-appropriate books so the kids could watch them and feel safer.  It happened that a few years previously Elaine had shared my middle-grade fantasy book, Casper and Jasper and the Terrible Tyrant, with another of her classes, and this gave me an idea.  I wrote to her, saying, “I just had a thought.  Since your kids liked Casperand Jasper, might they enjoy it if I wrote something new for them?  ...You could solicit ideas, and I could weave them together.”  Elaine and her students jumped on this proposal, and soon I had a spreadsheet of their suggestions:

            “An enchanted sword.”

            An evil, terrifying person named Jeff—and “nobody even knows his name is Jeff.”

            “A quest.”

            A “demon creature [with] giant wings...and her name is Rose.”

            “The main setting is at Bridgeway High School where it’s old and rusty.”

            A “very talented and smart man named Mr. Timothy but he is a greedy, forty-year-old man...and he has a pet roach living in the school’s janitor room.”

Illustrations by Robert Thibeault

            This was all great stuff, no question, but I struggled to find a throughline.  The demons and the secret identities seemed to lend themselves to fantasy, and it seemed likely I could set all or most of it at the decrepit Bridgeway High; but beyond that I was stuck.  Any plot lurking in this crowd of fantastical notions had a serious case of stage fright and simply refused to come out and chat.

            Cut to another corner of New England, where Norman and his family had holed up to ride out the pandemic.  Norman was a successful writer, having published over a hundred op-ed pieces and articles in newspapers and magazines, but he had never penned a book.  Now that Covid had hit, he determined to use his free time productively:  he and his wife adopted their first dog, and he settled down to write a novel. 

            Writing is far more collaborative than people give it credit for, so on the advice of a mutual friend Norman reached out to me to ask if I could recommend any critique groups for his project.  (Short answer:  no.)  At this point I should mention that Norman and I had known each other but glancingly in college, where he was an editor for the campus newspaper for which I wrote one article before deciding journalism was not for me.  The fact that either of us even remembered the other is surprising, but we did; and were soon chatting about writing, kids (his and mine are about the same ages), dogs, and more.  Eventually I had a duh moment and asked him if he’d like to work together on something—say, a story for a fifth-grade class?  Happily, he said yes.  Here’s how aggressively 2020 our first collaboration was:

            We only ever met by Zoom.

            We were joined every day by Norman’s pandemic puppy, Taxi, whom we decided was our muse.

            We wrote a story about two kids suffering through two pandemics, separated by a hundred years but united by friendship forged in terrible danger. 

            Maybe it’s all in the timing, but Elaine and her students really enjoyed it.  We do, too.  Despite its grim ingredients, or perhaps because of them, Why Should I Trust You? is a sparkling tale about good versus evil, and friendship overcoming all kinds of odds.  It is, in short, the kind of story that kids like reading, and, happily, that lucky authors enjoy writing. 

 

Tilia Klebenov Jacobs is the author of two crime novels, a middle-grade fantasy book, and, with Norman Birnbach, the Silver Falchion finalist YA novel Stealing Time.  Their current book, Why Should I Trust You?, is available wherever books are sold.  Tilia is vice president of Mystery Writers of America-New England. You can find her on Facebook and Goodreads.

Julia versus the Gift Guides

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's that very special moment in the run up to Christmas today - still early enough to get the presents in the mail if you pay for rush delivery, but you've also exhausted any and all naturally occurring ideas for what to give. This is the moment for which Gift Guides are made.

I know I'm not the only person who has a love/hate relationship with "Top Ten Gifts for The Holidays" and "25 Gifts They'll Love to Receive." Not to mention the ubiquitous "50 Stocking Stuffers Under $50." $50 for a stocking stuffer?!? Girl, when I was a kid we got a pack of cards and some Pixie Stix and we were grateful.

If you're still shopping, I'm here to curate the already curated collections, and share the good, the bad and the ugly.

HGTV Magazine

 The Good:

Temperature controlled smart mug.

 At first I thought, what in the overly-online world is this nonsense? But then I started to think about the five or six cups of tea I drink every day, and about how quickly they get cold in the winter, and how depressing it is when you reach for the mug without really paying attention because you're really into what your writing and - yuch! It's gone sad and cold. Would I pay $79 to avoid that? Yes, yes I would.

The Bad:

Monogrammed socks.

 Do you have a self-important @$$hole in your life? Does he talk about venture capital and effective altruism? He is the one and only market for these.

The Ugly:

Wine bottle chiller.

 Nothing says "I love wine" in a sophisticated way like clamping a bottle into a brand-name extruded plastic container before pouring. Either invest the big bucks into an under counter wine cooler or think ahead and stick the Prosecco into your fridge like the rest of us.

Rolling Stone Magazine

The Good:

Cashmere crewneck for under $100

 Nice, soft, cozy, and if you take proper care of it (hand wash in cold, use a sweater razor to remove pills) it'll probably last quite some time. Everybody looks good in a basic like this, and unless you're living in Key West (lookin' at you, Lucy) everyone could use something warm in winter.

The Bad:

 Le Creuset Mini Coquette

First off, this is not a "gift under $50," because in order for someone to use them, you need at least four, for a total of $88. Secondly, if the recipient already has Le Creuset, you better know their color, because fans get VERY VERY picky about what's in their kitchen. (Mine is Flame, in case anyone wants to surprise me with an expensive and very heavy present.) Finally, how often does anyone really use a mini coquette? Get a four-quart casserole dish for $74 instead; that'll hold a lot of coq au vin.

The Ugly:

On Cloudmoster sneaker.

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if you strapped egg cartons to the bottom of your sneakers? Wonder no more, my friend.

Wirecutter from the New York Times

The Good:

Garden kneeler

 I'm getting this for my daughter-in-law next year. These things are great for everyone; those of us with bombed out knees, like me, those of us who want to protect their joints, and little kids, who can sit and "help" with some weeding. "No, darling, that's a carrot. Can you put it back?" 

The Bad:

Fake old sweats

 I'm sorry - almost $300 for a sweatsuit? (Yes, the pants are also $148.) Are you crazy?!? 

The Ugly: 

Outdoor color-blocked blanket/poncho

"Hello, rugged outdoorsman! I see you are wearing a color-blocked quilted poncho, which is also a groundcover you can sit on if you avoid the slit in the middle. How foolish I feel, spending all these years wearing a jacket and sitting on a padded tarp!"

And now, the grande dame and queen of all Gift Guides: Oprah's Favorite Things 2025!

The Good:

Wrist-warmer gloves

 

You can emulate La Boheme with the fingerless part, go classic with the knit gloves, and bundle up against the coldest weather with both. I can totally see my daughter Virginia in the blush pink ones. 

The Bad:

Concept2 Cross County Ski Thingy

 No, it's not the price. You get what you pay for in exercise equipment. And it's a kind of cool idea - designed for cross country skiiers, your feet (and those all important knee joints) stay stable, while you work the heck out of your arms. 

But these are supposed to be gifts. For someone else. There was a whole internet-and-battling-ads kerfluffle when a 2019 Peleton commercial showed a model-thin woman getting a stationary bike as a present from her husband. Now imagine what message you're sending when your loved one sees this by the tree on Christmas morning. "Hey, sweetheart! I've noticed your back and arms are gettin' a little flabby there! Here ya go!"

The Ugly:

Sneex. Snix. Sneakyheels.

 

I'm fortunate to know a genuinely stylish woman - Hank Phillippi Ryan. When I'm looking at some new trend, I often ask myself, "Could I see Hank wearing this?" In this case, I can see Hank getting her grill out of winter storage for the express purpose of burning these shoes.

What do you think, dear readers? What are the good/bad/ugly gift ideas you've run across?

A Student's Rush to Christmas

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Some of you may recall I teach a class at my local community college. I enjoy it tremendously, except for… grading. However, final grades are due tonight by 10pm, so I’ll be grinding away to get through twenty-some final papers by then.

Unlike when I was in school myself, I won’t be powering through with Coca-Cola and a family sized bag of M&Ms, but I suspect a lot of students will be using whatever the modern equivalents are. I had a Zoom meeting with one student who had some questions, and the poor guy looked exhausted. Meanwhile, over in The Hague, Virginia’s communications to me have narrowed down to invitations to edit this or that paper in Google Docs. The miracles of modern technology!

This all makes me think of what this point in December felt like for so many years when I was in college, grad school and law school. The period between Thanksgiving wasn’t full of holiday spirit and preparations, but by frantically trying to catch up with missing assignments, begging professors for an extension, and all-nighters spent producing papers (that always turned out surprisingly good, somehow. This may be the origin of my writing-procrastination habit.)

The occasional glimpses of the season came from twinkle lights hanging around dorm windows and the Christmas music on blast at the pub when we went out drinking. No, the urgency of getting the last papers done didn’t preclude drinking.

It was a hard, exhausting grind, but the reward was the giddiness and relief of successfully wrapping up the term, knowing you had the whole winter break off to sleep late, eat your mom’s home cooking, and hang out with friends. I don’t know if anything else in life has matched the feeling of taking the bus back home, seeing the lights and decorations on the way, knowing my dad would be there at the station to meet me when I pulled in.

How about you, Reds? What do you remember about this time of year in your student days?

 

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What a fun question! I remember from high school that all we cared about was vacation, and that our homework and attention fell to absolute zero.  And our teachers knew it. So then this happened. My junior year, in mid-December, our Honors English class teacher Miss Godfrey assigned us to write a paper on Martin Chuzzlewit and hand it in BEFORE vacation.

 

Are you kidding me? It was about 800 pages!

 

But they didn't call us honors English for nothing. We divided up the book and each read a different part of it, and then got together and put our parts together and discussed it, and then wrote our papers based on the part we had read.

 

 I remember mine was on the scary nurse Sairey Gamp. 

 

I think the entire class clandestinely participated in this–what we thought was such a clever scheme to avoid reading the whole thing, but what, as it turned out, made us all focus on this book  more carefully and deeply than we ever would have if we weren’t being so “clever.”

 

Thank you, Miss Godfrey. You were the clever one. What a gift!

 

JENN McKINLAY: My memories are very similar to yours, Julia, but I had a liter of Coke, a pack of smokes, and a bag of Doritos. Wrote some of my best papers at two in the morning after a night of pub singing with the college boyfriend’s rugby team. Once finals were cleared, my roomies and I then hit the Chapel Square Mall in New Haven to do our down and dirty student budget shopping before we booked it home for the holidays. My memories are more twinkle lights on the city green, the warmth of the stores hitting you in the face when you entered, and then the excited drive home to see the fam, eat home cooking, and catch up to the high school buds also returning home for the holidays. In Arizona, it’s more end of the semester pool parties and barbecues. Weird.

HALLIE EPHRON: What I remember most is that for the first time in my academic life, my college classes assigned more reading than it seemed humanly possible to read, never mind to properly absorb in the time given. And giving up. I’d have asked CHAT GPT for a summary if it had been invented yet {and crossed my fingers hoping the summary was accurate).

 

 

This was complicated by the fact that my occasional trips to the library to “study” were forays to “run into” Jerry who studied in Columbia’s physics library, a spot I’d never even have known existed if it hadn’t been for him. If he was there, and he often was, we played footsie much more than studied.

RHYS BOWEN: At college I seem to remember that we had exams in January which meant studying hung over our heads for the Christmas vacation. Also I worked for the post office during Christmas break. I was a mail person with a huge mail sack slung across me, walking up and down freezing wet streets with the wind howling (at least that is how I remember it). And halfway through the route a mail truck would meet me and exchange my almost empty sack for a full one. It was heavy and tiring work but it did give me some Christmas spending money in case I wanted to pop over to Germany to see my boyfriend… which I did.

My school memory is of our lovely Christmas concert which the elite choir started by processing through the open cloisters wearing robes, carrying candles and singing Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Candles. I got chills entering that completely dark auditorium , the lights coming on as we sang Wolkum Yole. We also had a Christmas party for each grade. 

LUCY BURDETTE: I do remember looking forward to reconnecting with high school pals–in bars in our hometown when we were old enough. It was a funny time, because Christmas was beautiful and well-celebrated at home in New Jersey, but then I’d be chomping at the bit to get back to school and away from family! I think I remember the break after Christmas as waaaaayyyy too long.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I feel very boring here in comparison. I lived at home my first couple of years of college, and after that when I was in my garage apartment, I was only an hour’s drive from home. It was always lovely though, to walk into the old house, and to get my mom to do my laundry, as at college that meant going to a laundromat. 

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What are your memories of racing to get papers and projects done before the Christmas break?