The Unsettling of a Mystery Writer @EdithMaxwell

JRW: A big farmgirl welcome today to our good friend, Edith Maxwell! She's had such interesting past lives--you'll love reading about how she's woven these experiences into her mysteries...
 EDITH MAXWELL: I’m delighted to be back on my favorite blog as a guest. Since I left my day job as a technical writer a year ago, I’ve been spending much more time with my characters and my stories. This is a good thing! I’m writing constantly and living my dream. There is a down side, however. Life just isn’t the same anymore.  

When I was an organic farmer twenty years ago and turned the compost pile, it didn’t occur to me to worry about whether a body part might surface in it. But now, what if I uncovered a foot in there among the decomposing leaves, coffee grounds, and broccoli being broken down by soil micro organisms and worms? I wonder what I’d do. Run screaming, most likely. But maybe I’d snag a second careful look and take notes. Or throw up.

Back on the farm I spent long hours in every imaginable kind of weather. I knelt to press a thousand cloves of garlic into long beds of compost. I hoed out weed after weed and then hilled up the clear soil onto the potato stalks. I harvested quarts of blueberries into a bucket slung around my neck, snapped off pounds of asparagus, cut perfect heads of lettuce well into the fall. I never imagined a killer lurking in the woods just beyond my fields.  

Now, though – without a moment’s hesitation I can conjure up all kinds of mayhem on the farm, even in my small home garden. And it’s quite unsettling. I met some pigs recently at the organic farm where my son works. They’re funny and make goofy noises, and made me laugh as they poked their snouts into the dirt to get grubs or dug into some kitchen scraps. I happen to know, however, that if they were hungry, from either temporary or long-term malnourishment, I would not want to be helpless in their pen with skin exposed. You wouldn’t either. 

And then you have your basic haystack. The old fashioned ones built on a platform in the salt marsh, like still exist in Newbury, Massachusetts. Or the new ones, with the hay rolled tight into a six-foot wide cylinder and then wrapped in white or pink plastic. They look like a good place to hide a body. And what about the classic New England barn, with all manner of old horse stalls and hay lofts? Just think what you could hide up there, or find, when you least expected it. 

Even local chickens, those sweet, tiny-brained, personality-laden birds that give us rich delicious breakfasts and tasty winter stews – that tiny brain can do some serious pecking. Chickens have been known to peck at their owner’s eyes. What if a victim was unconscious and trapped with an attack rooster? Or the hens had been fed a plant that made the eggs poisonous, or their meat? You get my drift.

I’ll keep writing about murder and mayhem down on the farm, but I’m a lot more wary when I’m strolling around one of the many local farms in my area.

And you, dear Reds and Reds-fans? Do you see murderous possibilities where others don’t? What kind of mayhem do you imagine lurks at your local farm, farm stand, or farmers’ market? Or have you heard of actual locally sourced murder on a farm? (Edith will be giving away a copy of 'Til Dirt Do Us Part to one commenter today...)


The produce is local--and so is the crime--when long-simmering tensions lead to murder following a festive dinner on Cam Flaherty's organic farm. It'll take a sleuth who knows the lay of the land to catch this killer. But no one ever said Cam wasn't willing to get her hands dirty...
Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mystery series (Kensington Publishing), the Speaking of Mystery series under the pseudonym Tace Baker, featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau (Barking Rain Press), and the historical Carriagetown Mysteries, as well as award-winning short crime fiction.

A mother, world traveler, and former technical writer, Edith lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and three cats. She blogs every weekday with the Wicked Cozy Authors. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter @edithmaxwell

But I Don't Know Nuthin' About...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Yay, Edith. Is all I can say. Edith Maxwell, you know her, right? A stalwart here in the Jungle--funny and wise and thoughtful and one of the most centered and passionate people you could ever know. And now, her mysteries are out there in the world for everyone to read--look at that gorgeous cover! Are everyone here is cheering and applauding and so happy for her!

So of course, we had to invite her to tell you all about her new book--but instead, she's really discussing something...else.  Friday, we chatted about hockey here, and I said--whoa, here's something we've never talked about on Jungle Red. Well, today...something else we've never discussed.

On Farming and Birthing

              by Edith Maxwell

Thanks so much, Hank, for having me to visit! I wanted to talk a bit about how farming and attending births are related. Uh, howzzat, you ask? Well, hear me out.

A long time ago and a few miles away, I co-owned a small certified-organic farm north of Boston. I was the  farmer. I had two little boys who attended school and preschool. I had a (now-ex) husband who worked in Boston. I planned and planted, tilled and weeded, composted and cover cropped, reaped and sold. And then started all over again. I had left a full-time career working in speech recognition for a hi-tech (Kurzweil) company to be home with my kids while they were young.

At the same time I also taught prepared childbirth classes in my living room. It wasn't strictly Lamaze or Bradley methods, just trying to get couples comfortable with whatever might happen at the birth of their baby. We practiced relaxing. They talked about those weird pregnancy dreams moms-to-be (and sometimes  dads) have about their baby turning into a rat or losing the child in some dark hallway. We went through all the kinds of procedures that a hospital stay might include and what the physiological process of late pregnancy and birth is. And then we had doll-diapering races between the dads. In addition, I worked as a doula, hiring out as labor support. 

These were sweet and challenging times for me as a farmer, as a mother, as a birth support person, as a wife, even. For the first time in my adult life I depended on someone else for much of my financial wellbeing, farming and childbirth education not being all that lucrative. I loved growing organic vegetables and fruits, and I was good at it. I loved coaching nervous couples to learn all they could about this mysterious process they were about to go through and then trust their bodies to do the work, and apparently I was good at that, too. The hardest and most rewarding work was staying home with my own babies and trying to find something interesting to talk about with my husband at dinner that didn't involve poop or play dates.

Lately I've been thinking about the similarities between growing food and attending births. It's a real miracle to watch a baby come into this world. Women go down into death and bring forth life, every single time. Smooth progress can be interfered with by overly cautious care providers, by a slim-hipped woman with a large-headed baby, by fear, by malnutrition. My job as a doula was to intermediate between the couple and the hospital, explaining procedures to the couple, making sure the medical staff knew the couple's wishes,  helping the mom and dad feel comfortable.

 (Here's a picture of me with a baby whose birth I attended. He is now twenty and just finished his second year at Brown University!)

My job as a farmer was to intermediate between the seed, the soil, the weather, and my customers. Smooth progress can be interfered with by applying insecticides that wipe out beneficial insects along with pesky ones, by rainstorms that wash out the field just after planting, by neglecting weeds until they are bigger than the crop, by trying to grow varieties that don't flourish in this temperature zone, by a drought. 

Both jobs involve a kind of midwifery as well as an element of uncertainty. I'm glad I wasn't completely responsible for the births, and I'm also glad I now have a small backyard garden instead of a one-acre intensive farm. But as farmer and doula, I strived for smooth progress. And mostly got it.

I started writing this farm mystery during the winter before my last farming season almost twenty years ago. I didn't use any of the actual writing when I got going on it again last year, but I used the world I had set up: geek-turned-organic farmer Cam Flaherty, her small farm, the fictional town of Westbury, the chef and local-foods restaurant, and locally sourced murder. I added the Locavore Club and the plucky Girl Scout volunteer, and more. So far the series doesn't include any childbirth scenes, but you never know what might pop into book three or beyond!

Readers, what kind of unusual occupations do you like to read about? Are there any that stretch the imagination a little too much? 

Writers,what's the most intriguing part of your own past that you have worked into your books? Is there anything that's off limits?

HANK: And a copy of A TINE TO LIVE....to one lucky commenter! (And did I say--YAY Edith!) (And we won't even begin to discuss the connections between birthing babies and birthing books, right?)


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Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mysteries.  A TINE TO LIVE, A TINE TO DIE introduces geek-turned-organic farmer Cam Flaherty, a colorful Locavore Club, and locally sourced murder. Edith once owned and operated the smallest certified-organic farm in Essex County, Massachusetts.

Tace Baker, Edith Maxwell's pseudonym, is the author of SPEAKING OF MURDER (Barking Rain Press, Sept 2012) featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau. Edith holds a PhD in linguistics and is a long-time member of the Society of Friends.

Edith has also published short crime fiction, most recently in the Fish Nets anthology and in Thin Ice from Level Best Books. A mother and technical writer, Edith lives north of Boston with her beau, three cats, and a small organic garden. You can find her at @edithmaxwell,  http://www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor, and www.edithmaxwell.com