All Summer in a Day

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is arguably the last Monday of summer - next week is Labor Day, which is always bittersweet as it heralds the end of the season (if not, for some of us, the end of suffocating heat!) This week on JRW, our attention is going to turn to the World Mystery Conference, Bouchercon, but before we do, let’s take our traditional accounting of what summer pleasures we did and did not manage to fit in between Memorial Day and now.

What I did: Saw family. I saw SO much of my family, I’ll be happy not to spend any more time together until Thanksgiving. I love you, kids.

Went to a Sea Dogs game in Portland, with much of the aforementioned family. It was a rare perfect sunny day in what’s been a wet, cool summer here in New England, and we had a great time, even though the Sea Dogs went down 7-5.

Celebrated the Fourth of July by watching Independence Day with the Maine Millennial on Monday and had an amazing indoor (that rain again) BBQ at a friend’s house on Tuesday.

Took a mini-writing retreat with Jessica Ellicott and had the great pleasure of spending a whole day writing and talking craft and business under the shade of her gazebo in utterly perfect July weather.

Went to the movies in person, which used to be a summer standard, but has become rare for me since the pandemic. Youngest and I saw MEG 2: THE TRENCH, which was the perfect tongue-in-cheek action flick.  I even bought movie popcorn: I know it’s all oil and chemicals, but it’s so tasty.

I had a whole watermelon to myself!

What I didn’t do: It’s a long list. No trips to the beach, no grilling outdoors, no summer theater (which I managed to do even during the shut downs in ‘20 and ‘21.) No swimming at Celia Wakefield’s Lake House, or in the nearby Saco River - there was so much rain my area was closed to swimming due to bacterial contamination!! No Chamber Music Festival. No hanging out with a book and a glass of chilled rode on the patio. No garden other than what sprung up from last year. 

All I can say is, 1) this fall had better be spectacular, and 2) the next time a family member calls with a crisis, I’m pretending I broke my phone and hiding until it passes.

How about you, Reds?

RHYS BOWEN:  I always have plans for the perfect summer: picnics at the beach, a book beside the pool, an adventure once a week. And then suddenly it’s September! What happened? Our summer in Marin County had not been stellar. A lot of cold foggy mornings. And I have escaped to the beach a couple of times. But still…. Not that perfect lazy, hazy days of summer 

I must confess that five weeks of it were spent in Europe so no whining here! England, Jersey, Brittany. All good. And lots of family encounters. Also good. And a new irrigation system that now has plants covering my bare hillside. I’m off to Bouchercon on Wednesday and hoping to steal away to the beach when no one’s looking!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have no idea what I did. Yes, I do, it wrote. And was on book tour. It was great, and wildly successful, and hurray, but yikes, it’s about to be September. We didn’t grill, because it seemed to be raining all the time or SO HOT!

A new house went up next to us, so we were in a constant din–truly one day, there were TEN guys on the roof next door with nail guns. Just imagine. And they started at 7. AM. 7 AM!!

We didn’t sit by the pool, because see above. But we had so many bunnies! BUT I did do some fantastic full-house signings, really amazing, and interviewed Shari Lapena in person, taught at the Writers Digest Convention and saw Hadestown with Hallie–she mentions it below, too! AMAZING, as she says.

AND sold two more books, book 16 and 17 no under contract! So yay. Somehow, even with all the rain, it was still lovely.

JENN McKINLAY: This was not the summer to miss out on a trip to my mom's cottage in Nova Scotia but I did miss it and lived through every day that was over 110+ here in AZ. Blerg.

Instead, it was the summer to spend repainting the interior of our house, rebuilding the catio, revising the next romcom, and swimming with the dogs in the pool every single day. I also got to spend a glorious time literally up in the trees with the Hub and the Hooligans in Flagstaff, where we did an extreme obstacle course 30-60 feet up in the air which included jumping from swinging log to swinging log, climbing fishnets hanging in the tops of the pines, and zip lines. Truly, it was like something out of American Ninja Warrior. Hooligan 2 also turned 21 and wanted to visit a casino. Kid won $600 off a slot machine. We told him he could never go again because he’d never be that lucky again. LOL. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, Jenn, you were due for a good summer. Hope you’ll blog about what that obstacle course was like. Sounds terrifying.

My summer began with July 4 on Peaks Island (off the coast of Portland Maine) with family. Fireworks and barbecuing, long walks and swimming.

After that, I taught at a bunch of writing conferences, including an old favorite on mystery writing at Book Passage in Marin. And another favorite, at the Willamette Writers Conference via Zoom.  And I was thrilled to get invited back to the Writers Digest Annual Writers Conference in NYC at the Hilton in Midtown. Great meals, and I got to hang out with Hank(!) and went to see Hadestown which was AMAZING! 

Next week I go back to Peaks for a Labor Day weekend relax-athon and hangout with the spectacular Franny and Jody, my grands.

So all in all a pretty terrific summer. Oh, and I also got named my town’s Writer in Residence for 2023-2024. Which gives me lots of good stuff through to anticipate.

Life is good. A year ago I would not have said that.

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The traveling part of the summer was terrific! In early June I flew to LA for the California Crime Writers’ Conference, my first conference in three and a half years, and it was wonderful to see friends, make new friends, and talk writing again! I didn’t mind the “June glooms” a bit. Then a whirlwind week at home, then off for almost a month in London. What a great trip. Mostly nice weather other than a couple of too-warm days, loads of terrific research for the book in progress, and an unexpected side trip to Bath.

Alas, I arrived home mid-July just as the triple-digits-no-rain remainder of the summer set in, and have spent the last six weeks just trying not to melt and to keep the poor plants alive. 

One fun thing–we’ve done a lot of work on our pond and added new fish (after losing all but one of our huge koi last October) and have really enjoyed watching the little swimmers in the few minutes we can stand to be outside!

 

 LUCY: I think you've already heard about our multiple family visits and the lovely food I've been eating, so I won't belabor that. Most unusual and fun event? I played in my first ukulele "gig" last weekend. Remember the band I hired for John's big birthday bash? Turns out one of them runs a ukulele club at the Scranton Library and my pal Steve and I have been attending. Fred the leader encouraged us to play in public at a festival on the town green. It was very low pressure (read, low attendance) and super fun! Other than that, writing, writing, writing.

JULIA: Hallie definitely wins the award for "Best Spent Summer," with Debs in the No. 2 spot. How about you, dear readers? How was your June, July and August?  

 

Photos courtesy of Rebecca from Pixabay, freepix and Flagstaff Extreme