Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Sarah Smith--Telling Stories in a Plague Year


DEBORAH CROMBIE: How quickly things have changed! Our perspective is so different than it was a month or six weeks ago. But we are valuing friends, and stories, more than ever. Wonderful writer and Jungle Red friend Sarah Smith tells us just what both mean to her, with a new book and an altered world.
TELLING STORIES IN A PLAGUE YEAR

Sarah Smith
When JRW asked me to do something for them, about a month ago…thousands of years ago, in plague years…I talked about the experience of publishing a book independently, after having published previous books traditionally. I felt sad because I didn’t have my previous group of publisher friends; I felt happy because I was connecting with new friends.


How much more true that is now. 
Independent publishing means connecting with people in new ways. Your editor, your cover designer, your interior designer. Your publicist. Most of all, your readers. 
And publishing in the time of coronavirus is a time of special connection. 
In the last couple of weeks, we’ve been physically distancing—but emotionally close. Zoom meetings help us share everything from the location of toilet paper and Tiger King watch parties, to the state of friends’ health and the publishing industry.
And those of us who write have been sharing stories. 
All the writers in the world, all the artists and singers and musicians, are being moved by a single impulse: We want to share our art.
Of course we do. Art is a gift. It’s a gift to be able to do it; it’s a gift to be able to give it. This wonderful thing we can do, to tell a story. We do it for ourselves as much as for our audiences. Like an opera singer singing from his balcony, we sing, we tell stories, we celebrate ourselves and each other and the wonderful fact of our being together, in the face of worldwide sickness and death.
Someday we’d like to be paid for this again. Those of us who live through this will get paid again. But whoever we are, whatever we write or sing or do, we’ll remember what it was like to hand our art to another human being and say “Here. This is the best thing I have to give you.”
While we do that, we’re alive together. 
In my new book, the heroine is a survivor of Titanic. She feels terribly guilty. She survived; children died. She wonders, what if she hadn’t left the ship? What if she could have shared those last moment before the ship sank? For her those last moments are a kind of moral touchstone:  with all the lifeboats gone, what love and care people must have had for each other. 
Her art is music. She decides to take music on as a responsibility, as a way of expressing her love and care, the best she has to give away. It changes her life and the lives of those around her. She connects; she learns how to survive.
We are connecting. We are telling stories. And through that we will survive. 

Sarah Smith’s Titanic mystery, Crimes and Survivors, comes out April 15. Visit her and celebrate at her online publication party:  .
DEBS: This gave me chills! I'm going to be pondering Sarah's words as I write. And the idea for Sarah's book seems eerily prescient now. I'm going to be wondering what it would have been like to have survived a catastrophe like the Titanic. What would I have done?
What would you have done? How will we view what we are experiencing now?
Stop by and chat with Sarah, celebrate her book, and celebrate our daily sharing of stories!

61 comments:

  1. Happy Book Birthday, Sarah! Your book sounds fascinating . . . .

    I’ve never before thought about what it might have been like to have survived some massive catastrophe like the sinking of the Titanic . . . gratitude, grief, and guilt all must surely play major parts. I hope I would have been brave . . . .
    Thank goodness for wonderful stories to take our minds off our current situation for a little while . . . .

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    1. Thank you, Joan! I had the privilege of meeting Isidor and Ida Straus's great-grandson at the 100th anniversary. He was still asking himself, "What would I have done?"

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  2. Congratulations on your new book, Sarah! I've long been fascinated, like so many others, with the Titanic, and I have tried to imagine what it would have been like scrambling in the chaos to get to a lifeboat and finally reaching one to survive your worst possible nightmare. I've also tried to imagine what it must have been like to know that you were doomed to go down with the ship. I think about the older couple who lay down on their bed together to meet their end (or was that just a movie thing?). The brave band members who played on until they couldn't have always impressed me as incredibly brave souls. Would I have been calm when I knew the end was nigh, or would I have been hysterical? If I survived, would I forever be grateful, or would I gradually start taking life for granted again?

    I hope that the crisis we're experiencing now will leave its mark upon us in a positive, good way. That we check on each other more, share more, and make the effort to be with friends and family more when we are once more able to. I love what you say about art, Sarah. I've missed two shows and will now miss the Rolling Stones concert I was so excited about. I'm hoping that Bouchercon will still be held in October. But, I think it will be a long time before I take for granted being able to go to plays, movies, concerts, out to eat, or any entertainment I did so casually in the past. And, I hope that artists of all sorts and nurses and doctors and all medical personnel and teachers and grocery workers and warehouse workers and postmen/women and cleaners and sanitation workers and truckers are all appreciated more. I'm sure I've left some out, but it is late and I am getting ready to go to bed, so forgive me. Thank you all my wonderful authors for giving us so much pleasant diversion during this time.

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    1. Oh boy, what a disappointment to miss the Rolling Stones! I too hope we all come out in a better way at the end of this

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    2. Amen, amen, Kathy. I'm haunted by the "essential workers". Many of us can socially isolate, but they can't, and they're getting sick and dying. We need to appreciate and honor them (with PPEs, a decent living wage, and health insurance!).

      The Strauses were real. Ida Straus gave her place in a lifeboat to her maid, put her coat around her maid's shoulders, and stepped back to be with her husband, who'd also been offered a place in a boat. They had wealth but gave much of it to charity, and Ida still darned her husband's socks. Their memorial service drew a crowd of at least 25,000, so many that part of the street collapsed under the crowd. (The scene's in my book.)

      And I'm SO sorry you are missing the Rolling Stones for the third time. H'm, why don't you write their publicist and tell the story, and say how sad you are? Maybe they'll do something nice for you. At least they'll know they have a fan, which artists always love to hear!

      Thanks for writing.

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  3. Congratulations on your latest book, Sarah!

    One positive from this pandemic is that the mystery fiction community is being creative in using technology to connect authors with readers.

    As I mentioned in my comments yesterday, I really enjoyed the virtual Boston Noir at the Bar event on Monday night. You were a new author (to me) and it was great to meet you and listen to you read a passage from your new book. Living in Ontario, I would not have been able to attend the live event in person, and I think it was great that over 170 attendees came to listen to you and the other authors.

    Good luck with your online publication party, Sarah, and congratulations on publishing your book independently.

    I am signed up for Bouchercon in October and hope to see many authors and friends in person again. Are you planning on attending any mystery conventions (when we are freed from quarantine and self-isolation)?

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    1. Hi Grace-- I'm hoping to be at Bouchercon too. Crossing my fingers that we'll all be able to attend. Introduce yourself there if we make it!

      A promise: If we're all at Bouchercon, there will be a cake! With a sinking Titanic on top!

      Cross your fingers. And stay well, Grace.

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    2. Sarah, I am all in for a Titanic cake at Bouchercon! Fingers crossed.

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    3. Unfortunately, Bouchercon is being held in the California state capital. Events there even in November have been cancelled. Bouchercon is a large, multiple day event, very unlikely it will be held there this year. If it were being held in another area of California it might be allowed.

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  4. Happy book birthday, Sarah! Deep questions, indeed. How would I have handled the sinking - either with others or escaping? I'm not sure any of us can say.

    I too have registered for Bouchercon, and was very much looking forward to visiting with my Northern Californian uncle, cousins, and college friends afterward. Now? I have my doubts as to whether it will happen in person.

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    1. And I have cousins and a daughter-of-my-heart actually in Sacramento. I really want it to happen. Crossing fingers for both of us.

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  5. Publishing in the Time of Coronavirus. It requires creative thought, that's for sure. Thank goodness for the many authors who are plugging away, and continuing to be hopeful right now. It helps, let me assure you. The least we readers can do is support you back by buying your books.

    The mere thought of being in the middle of the ocean plunges me into panic, so I have my doubts about my own ability to deal well with a Titanic-type disaster. The only time I've been on a boat in open water was in the Galapagos, and I was so seasick the whole time (20-bed boat, so pretty small), and not really capable of thinking clearly. In retrospect, I'm grateful for the seasickness, because my imagination didn't run wild, for once.

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    1. Oh Karen, that Galapagos trip sounds so hard...I get seasick, but I can medicate myself enough to still worry:)

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    2. The normal stuff didn't work, either the wrist band or the Dramamine. The steward gave me something he had under the bar, and it was amazing. But it only lasted a few hours.

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    3. Karen, I sympathize. I once went across the Atlantic on a large liner. Supposedly very stable. Everyone enjoyed themselves but me; I spent the entire voyage staring desperately out at the horizon, hoping not to barf (again).

      My sister can get seasick on a bridge.

      But at least you got to the Galapagos--I hope you remember that well!

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    4. It's one of my favorite trips I ever took, Sarah, thank you.

      Your poor sister. Can you imagine traveling across the ocean, as early settlers to this continent had to do? Yuck.

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  6. Congratulations, Sarah, on publishing your book independently and making new friends along the way. Katherine Howe, in her book The House of Velvet and Glass, has a scene in which two of her characters are sitting at dinner on the Titanic when the catastrophe begins. There is something about that scene which haunts me. And I am already experiencing a weird mix of emotions--profound gratitude that my family has so far been spared in this pandemic, terror that it isn't over yet, and a sense of guilt that I can't do anything to save the people who are afflicted--staying at home is doing my part to help, I know. But in the face of so much suffering and pain--represented by a daily list of numbers--it is hard not to curl up and weep. So, thank you again, Sarah, for sharing your art. And thanks to the musicians, too, and other artists. If anyone here hasn't heard of the piano duo Anderson & Roe, I encourage you to seek out their Halleluja Variations, which they played live via Facetime this week.

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    1. All of us writers aspire to write a book or scene that lingers in readers hearts and minds the way Katherine Howe's did for you Flora. And most definitely, it's the weirdest of times...

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    2. Flora, you won the ebook of The Beat of Black Wings. Please email me at edith@edithmaxwell.com!

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    3. Flora, thank you for the Anderson & Roe suggestion! I'm listening to it right now. I'll look up the Katherine Howe book as well--Boston, spiritualism, 1915, and Titanic, what's not to like!

      Yes, a weird mix of emotions for a weird time. Take care of yourself. One day I feel like facing it. The next I just want to curl up and make jokes.

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  7. Welcome Sarah, this sounds like a wonderful book!

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  8. Welcome Sarah and happy book birthday!

    My husband and I love live theater, so we were happy when one of our favorite local independent theaters offered a stream of a previously recorded show. It was wonderful. Not quite as good as being at the theater, but very close.

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  9. Welcome Sarah! I know how much passion you have for this book—and the segment you read at Noir was chilling. Poetic and musical and intense. (I’ll think about the Titanic later , though, okay ? :-) )
    So wonderful to see you here!

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    1. Hi Hank! It was such a pleasure to "share the stage" with you at Noir. I was taking notes while you were reading; "look, this is how a professional does it!" THE MURDER LIST is such a fine gritty thriller. Looking forward to seeing you in person again as soon as we can.

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  10. I'm always excited when there's a new Sarah Smith book out there. I met Sarah and read THE KNOWLEDGE OF WATER and ever since I've been hooked. Historically rich, character-driven fiction at its best. Hopefully we'll all live to tell our grandchildren about surviving the current disaster.

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    1. The Knowledge of Water is one of my "keeper" books, upstairs on the shelf in my office. It's brilliant.

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    2. Aw! Blush! And from two writers whose works I admire so much. Thank you both.

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  11. Congrats on your book birthday, Sarah. Thank you for this interesting and perceptive post. I will be thinking about it all day, and after.

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  12. I remember Sarah telling me about CRIMES AND SURVIVORS a few months ago - maybe Bouchercon? And I was struck by two thoughts: Oh, my gosh, this is a terrific idea for a book and WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS AWESOME IDEA FOR A BOOK FIRST.

    However, I'm dead certain I couldn't write historical novels with anywhere near Sarah's deft touch, so I've made my peace. And now I get to READ it, so I'm happy!

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    1. Hi, Julia! Bless you for those kind words!

      If you buy a paper copy from an independent bookstore, go to https://tinyurl.com/YouDeserveAPostcard for a special goody :-)

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  13. Happy book day, Sarah! I have an academic interest in Titanic and wonder if your character is based on a real survivor. If so, did you have fun with the research? How did you know when to stop the research and start writing the story?

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    1. Hi Cathy!

      Perdita isn't based on a real survivor. But I read a wonderful book by Judith Geller (who's married to Arnie Geller, founder of RMS Titanic, Inc., so she knows a huge amount about the ship and its passengers). WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST tells the stories of women Titanic survivors. Terrible stories, some of them. Women heard their husbands screaming in the water. Some of them heard their own children. They were marked forever by it. "The screaming was terrible," said one of the survivors, "but the worst part was the silence after."

      Half the children in third class died.

      I wondered what it would be like for a woman with a young child. Her husband and child aren't on Titanic. She's put on a lifeboat, and she only realizes afterward that there were children left on board. She should have taken a child with her. Somehow, she should have saved someone; she should have done better than she did.

      So what does she do? How does she ever look herself in the eye ever again?

      I have a theory that we're all going to be thinking about how we treat "essential workers"... we can't just sit in our lifeboats surrounded by toilet rolls.

      How do I know when to stop the research and start writing the story? I start writing the story when I have the characters. You can always do more research; the delete key is your friend. You'll never do enough research. You'll always get something wrong, but is it important?

      I just found out how the Ismay windows on Titanic were really lowered, and it wasn't the way I had a steward do it in CRIMES AND SURVIVORS. Who cares? Some people will spot it, and I know them all. But it just isn't important.

      Get your characters and you have everything.

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  14. Great question from Kathy, and as Julia says, my first thought was WHAT A GREAT IDEA FOR A BOOK--AND WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF IT FIRST??? I'd like to know what the initial spark was for you. Were you always fascinated by the Titanic?

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    1. I bought A NIGHT TO REMEMBER secondhand at the Salvation Army in Hempstead, NY, when I was in junior high school, and I've been hooked ever since.

      What really sparked the story I wrote, though, was hearing about Jack Johnson. The White Star Line kept him from buying a ticket on Titanic--by making a rule that NO black person could go on Titanic.

      When the ship sank, as Langston Hughes remembered, "the old folks [were] talking about it and [said[ how, ‘Thank God, there were no Negroes on that ship,’ since they drew the color line and the white folks wouldn’t let them ride, so they said."

      So here's a story that's entirely different for two different groups of Americans.

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  15. Happy book birthday , Sarah, great plot idea. Kudos.

    I'm remembering the first time I saw a number tattoo on someone's wrist. It was unforgettable, brought what I had read about the holocaust to reality. Even this current plague doesn't begin to approach that horror. But please let us all survive it and do what we can to prevent it ever happening again.

    Because my reading is eclectic this month, I have several books going, Hilary Mantel, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and Camus. It's been decades since I read THE PLAGUE, but omg does it mirror our current situation. Except in the late 40s there was an anti-plague serum available. If you could get it.

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  16. Ann, your comment gave me chills. I've seen those tattoos too. Nothing that is happening to most of us now could be as bad. Have you read Elie Wiesel's NIGHT?

    I'm reading Hilary Mantel now. She is so brilliant and writes utterly unlike anyone else. That's the way to do historical fiction. Next comes Julia's HID FROM OUR EYES. What a wonderful premise for a book, and I can't wait to see what she does with it!

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  17. Congrats on your publication day, Sarah!

    I don't believe that we can know what we might do in any given moment of trauma or terror until it actually happens, because until it happens, how we might act is pure theory. In the moment itself, it becomes real and we respond somehow. For example -- and this is hardly trauma at the level of COVID-19 or the Titanic's sinking -- when a friend of mine was trying to get the BBQ lit and decided it would be a good idea to kick it up by pouring on some gasoline, of course it ended badly and the deck caught fire. I dashed out and threw the backdoor mat onto the flames. The fire died. No one was injured. It was pure instinct that made me act and do that.

    They say that courage isn't courage when you have no choice but to act one way, the right way. It's when we have a choice that courage is said to be exhibited. I think that I believe that.

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    1. Quick thinking, Amanda, and good instincts!

      Words to live by. I agree.

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  18. Congratulations on your new novel, Sarah!

    Deborah, great question. I wonder how we will view what is happening now --- years from now. I believe that we all do the best we can. I have been reading daily quotes by Matt Haig on Instagram and they are reassuring. I look at beautiful photos in the stories by many people I am following on IG. I surprised myself by how calm I am during this pandemic. I think it has a lot to do with staying busy around the house - cleaning up, organizing stuff, baking / cooking, and reading good books. I also get to SLEEP in! I am exercising more. Sometimes I do nothing! It is different for everyone.

    Thank you for a great post!

    Good news: I think ALL of the books that I requested from #NetGalley has been approved so I am very happy about that!

    Diana

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    1. Thank you and congratulations, Diana! It's important to do what we can. My desk is cleaner than it's ever been. But as soon as I get back to the new book, that'll change...

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  19. Sarah, congratulations on the new book. The Titanic has always fascinated me, as it has many. I'm off to order it now.

    I have no idea what the future will look like or how our present will appear once it becomes the past. What I thought just a few weeks ago has changed and will continue to change. But it is comforting to have my worldwide support system to lean on.

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    1. Amen, Annette. I've been seeing friends online I haven't seen for years. A friend from California and I have tea together on Zoom every day!

      I'm looking forward to getting together with a lot of friends this Sunday for the launch party. If you're interested and available, details are at https://tinyurl.com/TheLifeboatsParty

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  20. I have NOT watched Tiger King.
    I hope those who have realize how he terrorized the people at Big Cat Rescue and had them in fear for their lives.

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    1. I haven't watched it either, Libby. My son recommended it, in a horrified sort of way. But I don't think it's for me, for exactly the reason you say.

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    2. No! No interest in watching that!

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  21. Congratulations, Sarah, on the release your book. These days it really does feel as if we're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. I'm off to order! Thanks so much for visiting the Reds.

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  22. Congratulations Sarah! The story of the Titanic is fascinating and heartbreaking. It does seem to boil down to how people responded. Did they help others or did they hinder others to save themselves. One of our museums hosted a traveling exhibit about the Titanic a few years ago. It was wonderful. They reproduced staterooms in the different classes, the grand staircase, and other rooms, plus displayed artifacts recovered.

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    1. Wow, Pat, which museum was that? I would love to have see that exhibition!

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    2. I've been at some of those Titanic exhibits, including the very first one in Boston. So extraordinary to see articles that were actually on Titanic!

      Have you heard Titanic's whistle being blown again? It sends chills down my spine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7BLGibGUTA&list=PLIzPPJpPNpSiDqIKU77JXq3rBcthiTn53&index=7

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    3. Debs, it was the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It was probably a hundred year anniversary tour that was making the rounds. You also drew a random card with your identity of a passenger and if he/she survived. I was a lady traveling first class and survived!

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    4. It came to the Cincinnati Museum Center, too.

      That must have been over 15 years ago.

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    5. There's a museum like that in Branson. The Titanic Historical Society is planning a trip there in September. I'm hoping that it'll happen, but I'm not sure it will.

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  23. Your book sounds like something I would read, Sarah but just not today, maybe in the not so distant future, but definitely the future. I keep missing these virtual meet and greets and this is the perfect week for me to participate 'cause I'm actually on vacation. So I'm home, but I keep forgetting.

    Comfort through art is great. I've been enjoying the Facebook feeds with beautiful music and professional photos of birds. Some pictures take my breathe away with the colors that nature create. Some cause me to pause because the angle used by the photographer has provided a stop, an extra look, and comment. The real challenge is not to judge other's art, or their definition of art, when it differs from yours.

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    1. I know how you feel, Deana! I've been rereading Harry Potter.

      Do you know the app, Daily Art? A beautiful picture a day and some information about the artist. I love it.

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  24. OH! SO BEHIND! AND THE WINNERS OF ART TALYOR's THE BOY DETECTIVE AND THE SUMMER OF 74 ARE: Susan Nelson-Holmdahl and LC Rooney! Email me at hryan @whdh dot com. SO sorry for the delay!

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