ROSEMARY HARRIS: Today Jungle Red welcomes one of the terrific writers and teachers from MWA University and she claims that despite the calm, efficient, brilliant demeanor she displays at those events - she's really a little crazy.


I am a catastrophic thinker. I'm not saying I'm a worrier, or that I have an overactive imagination. I’m saying I’m crazy. Here’s an example:

My kids and I attend Tae Kwon Do classes every Tuesday and Thursday, and every Tuesday and Thursday, we return to our little house in small-town Minnesota at 8:30 pm. This particular Thursday in early April, we’d arrived home to find a potted begonia on our back step. The temperature was hovering around 12 degrees above zero, but that begonia was green and fresh in its brown paper bag. Somebody knew exactly when we were returning home and had timed their flower-leaving accordingly. Five more minutes, and it would have been frozen solid.

My kids thought it was a nice gesture, and I encouraged that. In my head, though, I was thinking: We've recently moved to town. We don't know anyone here. All my friends and family live at least 30 minutes away. No one I know would leave a flower on my back step without a note. Clearly, a serial killer has been tracking me and my babies for weeks, he has learned when we come and go, and he's leaving his calling card--the orange begonia--right before he murders us in our sleep.

That night, I slept on the couch with a knife. It was my chef's knife without the tip, which I had broken off a couple years earlier in a pound of frozen ground turkey that wasn't thawing fast enough. It was the sharpest one I had, but that's hardly the point, is it? SOMEBODY LEFT ME A FLOWER AND IT MADE ME SLEEP WITH A KNIFE.

And there's something about having kids that super-revs the powers of catastrophic thinking. I have to travel to conferences and out-of-state signings about seven times a year, and I leave my kids, ages 10 and 13, with my parents. Every time I go, I say the same thing to my mom: "Don't forget you're watching them."

And she always says the same thing back. "Don't worry. I raised you, remember?"

I might not be her best reference. I remember how many times she let me walk to the store alone when I was five, or how she encouraged me to miss two weeks of 5th grade because we didn't like the politics of the long-term sub. But I get her point. I survived, and my kids will too.

Still, when my plane leaves the ground or my wheels cross the state line, my catastrophic thinking kicks in. What if one of my children was kidnapped? Would I be able to find them? Could I go on living if I didn't find them? Or if they were in the hospital, how long would it take me to get back to them? What do you even think about when you're waiting to catch a flight back to your children in a hospital? Should I call and make sure they're okay? Or should I wait until I've been gone five minutes?

Ack. And don't even get me started on public speaking. You know how people say, "It was an honor just to be nominated?" I mean it. I like staying in the audience. I'm pretty sure that if I ever had to stand and speak in front of a crowd of people I respected in any capacity other than teaching, I'd start bleating like a sheep right before my bowels relaxed. (Ro's note...so hard to believe as Jess is a wonderful speaker!)

So there you have it. The true confessions of a catastrophic thinker. I imagine there’s a medication for it, but I think the same part of my brain that takes these wicked spirals is the part that loves reading and spinning stories. All it takes is a spark, and I can run with it. Also, the superstitious part of me is sure that thinking about all the bad stuff that could happen is protection AGAINST it happening. Sorry, author of the The Secret.

p.s. An old college friend who lived 35 miles away and had heard I'd moved back to town was the one who left the begonia. She was dropping it off on a whim and didn't leave a note because she didn't have a pen. See? All my worrying scared off the serial killer.


Jess Lourey writes the Lefty-nominated Murder-by-Month Mysteries.

In a starred review of November Hunt, her latest, Booklist writes, "It's not easy to make people laugh while they're on the edge of their seats, but Lourey pulls it off!"

Jess’ first in a young adult fantasy series, The Toadhouse Trilogy, Book One, hits bookshelves in early July. The Toadhouse aims to do for classic literature what Rick Riordan did for Greek mythology. You can visit her at www.jesslourey.com (mysteries) or www.thetoadhousetrilogy.com (YA).

Read an excerpt of The Toadhouse Trilogy here http://www.jesslourey.com/toadhouse/ToadhouseIntro.pdf

MWA University: A Labor of Love

ROSEMARY: On August 13th, MWA is holding another session of MWA University, this time in my home chapter of New York and featuring - not only two of our very own Jungle Reds - Hank and Hallie - but award-winning mystery writer Reed Farrel Coleman.
I asked Reed to tell us how this incredible opportunity got started.

RFC: About five years ago, right after my term as Executive Vice President of MWA ended, I began teaching mystery and genre writing at Hofstra University on Long Island. I teach an accelerated summer term during which the students attend class for four hours a day, five days a week for two consecutive weeks.

It struck me during my second year at Hofstra that there had to be a way to accelerate the process even further. This was also during a period when new writing classes and workshops were sprouting like weeds. For me, the sad part of these new classes and workshops was that they didn’t actually focus on writing at all … not unless you consider composing a query letter writing.

I have always believed and continue to believe that the vast majority of a writer’s energy needs to be spent on the writing itself. That finding an agent, finding a publisher, and developing a marketing strategy are concerns to be tackled after a writer produces the best work possible. Unfortunately, I found that even many of my own students were more concerned with agent hunting, marketing schemes, and ideas on how to spend their millions than on writing. I began to develop an idea for a one- or two-day event to be held at Hofstra that, for the most part, would focus on the writing skills necessary to produce good work. I went to then-EVP Harry Hunsicker with the idea of MWA co-sponsoring the event and calling it MWA University. He was enthusiastic about the concept. Then, at the time we were ready to move ahead, the economy went south.

About two years ago, Larry Light, the current EVP, and I had a conversation. He remembered my MWA U concept and asked me to revive it, to make it something MWA could offer to the chapters as a benefit, a recruiting tool, and, more importantly, as a program in keeping with the spirit of MWA. I agreed to co-chair the Education Committee with Hank Phillippi Ryan who was as enthusiastic about the idea as Larry and I. Hank, Jess Lourey, Dan Stashower, myself, and the rest of the committee worked at it for many months and came up with a proposal for the board. With little alteration, that proposal is what MWA U is today: six hours of college-level writing instruction for the nominal fee of $50. These six innovative sessions are not your grandma’s writing classes. New and original techniques are employed to make the best use of the time. The classes include instruction on the process of developing an idea into a novel, on setting, on plotting, on character, and on editing. The last class is usually taught by Hank, and is less writing instruction, per se, than inspiration to write. If listening to Hank doesn’t make you want to run through walls to get home and go to work, I don’t know what will.

Our goal is not to make money. It is to give people with a dream a chance to take one step closer to reaching it without bankrupting themselves. Dreams shouldn’t be held prisoners of a bad economy or tough circumstances. MWA U is a way for us to give back to the mystery community, to let people know we’re all in it together and that we want you to be successful.

There’s room for all of us. Do yourself a favor by joining us on August 13 for what promises to be a great day. MWA members and non-members alike are welcome. Your dreams are welcome too.

ROSEMARY: Hank, Hallie and I will be there. What about you? Register at http://tinyurl.com/445rhma

Reed Farrel Coleman has been called a hard-boiled poet by NPR's Maureen Corrigan. He has published twelve novels—two under his pen name Tony Spinosa—in three series, and one stand-alone with award-winning Irish author Ken Bruen. His books have been translated into seven languages.

Reed is a three-time winner of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year. He has also received the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards, and has been twice nominated for the Edgar® Award. He was the editor of the anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn, and his short fiction and essays have appeared in Wall Street Noir, The Darker Mask, These Guns For Hire, Brooklyn Noir 3, Damn Near Dead, and other publications.

Visit him at www.reedcoleman.com and look for his latest release Hurt Machine, 10/2012 from Tyrus Books.


Today's music quiz -
"It was still September when your Daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls in the county jail"

Guess the title and artist and you'll win a signed copy of Dead Head. Good luck!!

Runaway Bride, Murder Victim or Hero?

ROSEMARY: I first heard about Dr. Sneha Anne Phillip a few days after 9/11. She was my friend's doctor and she was missing, believed to have been a victim of the World Trade Center attack. Like thousands of others her distraught husband put up flyers and searched hospitals until the worst possible news became reality. No survivors would be found.

Over time more details emerged and it was discovered that Sneha had actually been missing since the evening of September 10. Her doctor husband believed suggesting she was a 9/11 victim was the only way anyone would care about what happened to one woman in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks and the only way anyone would look for her. He was probably right.

Sneha Anne Philip was last seen on September 10, 2001 by a department store surveillance camera near her Lower Manhattan apartment. Due to the proximity of the World Trade Center and her medical training, her family believes she perished the following day trying to help victims of the terrorist attack. (She and her husband were on different working schedules so he claimed it was not unusual for them to go for many hours without being in touch - this was 10 years ago, before people tweeted their every move.)

An investigation into her disappearance by the New York Police Department revealed a very different possibility as evidence of a double life including drugs, alcohol abuse, a troubled marriage and a sexually adventurous lifestyle suggested it was equally possible she may have intentionally disappeared or been murdered by someone she met on her frequent nights out.

What does my friend think? He's Scottish so he doesn't reveal much, but I was reminded of a conversation not long before 9/11 when he told me his doctor had flirted with him rather aggressively.

No evidence has ever been found of her having perished in the Towers, but that's also the case with many other known victims. And there's nothing that prevents someone from behaving heroically even if their previous history might suggest otherwise.

From time to time articles appear in local papers and magazines, but the mystery remains.

For her sake I hope she ran away - but then I'm an optimist.

Today's music quiz - "...and you're sorry for what you've done..you should never been playing with a gun..." Guess the song title and artist and you'll win a signed copy of Dead Head.
Stop back tomorrow for a visit from award-winning mystery writer Reed Farrel Coleman who'll be telling us about his labor of love - MWA University