Peg Herring, Mystery Author

Welcome to the Alpena Book Festival! All visitors who register for the ABF will receive a free Passport. At each panel or participating business they visit, they’ll get a stamp on their Passport. A completed Passport (10 stamps) enters the visitor into a drawing for baskets of prizes donated by authors, publishers, and Downtown businesses. Visitors who donate to READ* ($10.00 suggested donation) receive a tote bag filled with books and other freebies. Tickets found in the tote bags can be used to enter drawings for additional prize baskets. Tickets can be purchased separately, but the tote bags are a great deal. Sessions listed below are open to all, but space might be limited. All sessions run 50 minutes, leaving 10 minutes to get to the next one. Authors will return to the bookstore that has their books after their sessions to meet readers and sign. 10:00 Panel discussion: Stories That Inspire-Olivet Book & Gift Panelists: Christine Johnson/ Zachary Bartels/D

Every once in a while, I update readers here, because so often I get questions about "What's next?" Here's a rundown: The Loser series is finished, at least for now. The first two are out as audio books. The third is in the pipeline, but the narrator is at university and just had a baby, so she's asking for patience. The Simon & Elizabeth series will have one more installment (#5), but it's going to be a while. I'm slow and so is the publisher of this series. (To their credit, they like to get it right.) The Dead Detective series will have its final story sometime in early 2016. The manuscript is not complete, but the story's down. The Sleuth Sisters series book #4 will probably be next. It's in my head but not written down anywhere yet. My new/old standalone mystery about the death of a friendship in northern Michigan is out. (It used to be just an e-book but I rescued it, got a new cover made, and arranged for print cop

I love musicals, on stage or on video. See if you can match the character to the show. 1. Audrey                                                    ___ Guys & Dolls 2. McCavity                                                ___ Cats 3. Dodger                                                    ___ Phantom of the Opera 4. Frankincense                                           ___ Little Shop of Horrors 5. Ado Annie                                               ___ Lil Abner 6. Roxy                                                        ___ Kiss Me, Kate 7. Sarah Brown                                            ___ Oliver! 8. Lilli Vanessi                                             ___ Oklahoma! 9. Stupefying Jones                                     ___ Chicago 10. Raoul                                                     ___ Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Answers 7/2/10/1/9/8/3/5/6/4

I can't resist watching them. Last night it was Singing in the Rain , and today I can't get "Good Morning to You" out of my head. I know I shouldn't watch. I know visions of Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, and Gene Kelly will dance through my head all day long, pushing out thoughts I really need, like where the plot of this next book is going. Doesn't matter. I will stop anytime I'm channel surfing for "Summer Love" from Grease , "America" from West Side Story, "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me, Kate , "Feed Me, Seymour" from Little Shop of Horrors , or "Lonesome Polecat" from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I know they're all on YouTube, but I try to blank it out of my consciousness. If I were to start, who knows how long I'd go? And by the way, that's just the beginning of my list. You can fill in your own favorites.

Readers are smart people. We know that. Reading almost anything makes you learn things, even if they're not massively important things. Non-fiction is the most reliable source for learning, although you have to be careful whose nonfiction it is. Recent studies showed that reading fiction can make a person more empathetic, presumably because you put yourself in the place of others and see life from viewpoints other than your own. Over time we develop reading habits, and that's both good and bad. If you always read one genre and even one sub-genre, you're going to end up in a rut. Publishers encourage this, hoping and expecting that readers will buy the next book in a series by their favorite author, even if it's pretty much the same as the book before it and the one before that. Sadly, they can get sloppy if they think buyers are locked-in to the series. The last book I read by one of my favorite authors was poorly edited and so much like the rest that there was

The title says it all. I'm pretty sure it isn't a new thing, but our 24-hour, please-watch-us media makes it difficult to ignore those who pander to the camera and try to shock us with their "honest opinions". The only thing you can do is turn it off. Stop buying the magazine. Change the station. And let them know you don't intend to watch uninformed asses bleat that they have a right to their opinion. If their opinions are based on stupidity and hatred, we need to ignore them, not play to their need for attention.

THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY is free for Kindle right now: August 1st through the 4th. http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Detective-Agency-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B010MF5J9E/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= This is a re-release, so you might have read it, but if you haven't yet met Seamus, Dead Detective, and if you have a sense of humor about the Afterlife, you might enjoy this series (follow-ups are Dead for the Money and Dead for the Show . I'm working on Dead to Get Ready--and Go.) One reviewer made me giggle when she said though SHE liked the book, she wouldn't want her children to read it and conclude that this is the way heaven actually is. Really? Can you say FICTION? I had fun with what we're taught about the Afterlife as I wrote this mystery, which another reviewer says is "Sam Spade meets Quantam Leap." Not sure about that, since there isn't much sci-fi stuff here, but I think you'll enjoy the book, which won Best Mystery of