Peg Herring, Mystery Author

    At the urging of a fellow author, I joined a site for writers a month or so back. Though it’s interesting, I don’t feel that it fits my style—not for writing, not for publishing, and not for promoting. The idea is writing books “to market” or “for market,” which means an author writes what will sell, not what she wants to write. Early on in my career I had an agent who tried to get me to do that. Her push was that I should write Amish romances, because they were big at that moment in time. Later, I had a publisher who wanted me to continue the Loser Mysteries, though I felt they'd reached a logical conclusion. At a conference once, I heard an editor for a big publishing company say that anyone who had anything… anything with vampires in it should send it to her. The market. The market. The market. Book industry people look for books that will "sell through," meaning they earn more than it cost to make them. If you’ve read my work, you know I do pretty much the

  Here are the answers to the High-brow Proverb quiz in the 10-1-23 newsletter. Did you get your free copy of The Dead Detective Agency ? You will love Seamus! 1. Prudence and sagacity are the worthier condiments of intrepid courage. Discretion is the better part of valor.      2. It is fruitless to become lachrymose because of wasted lacteal fluid. Don't cry over spilled milk. 3. Freedom from guile or fraud constitutes the most excellent principal of procedure. Honesty is the best policy 4. A rotating lithoid fragment never accrues lichen. A rolling stone gathers no moss. 5. It is not proper for mendicants to be indicators of preference. Beggars can't be choosers 6. A strong feeling of affection can cause the universe to rotate on its axis. Love makes the world go 'round. 7. Folks deficient in ordinary judgment scurry into areas in which celestial beings dread to set foot. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 8. Every article which coruscates is not fa