A Thoughtful Review

In my traditional mystery, Speaking of Murder (published under pseudonym Tace Baker), linguistics Professor Lauren Rousseau occasionally falls back for comfort and guidance from her Quaker faith as she searches for her student's murder amid small-town intrigues and other threats.

Callie Marsh, a Friend I do not know personally, has reviewed the book for the West Branch Friends Meeting of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) newsletter. She gave me permission to share her very thoughtful review from the point of view of a mystery lover AND a Quaker. I copy the review here unaltered. Thanks, Callie!

Review of Speaking of Murder by Tace Baker

Tace Baker is a pseudonym for Edith Maxwell, a Quaker writer from New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. She chose her pen name before she knew that one of the first Quaker printer/publishers was also named Tace. She was Tace Sowle, (1666–1749), who inherited her father’s print shop and made a good busi-ness of it, an unusual feat for a woman of her time. Speaking of Murder, published in September 2012, is Maxwell’s first full-length mystery, and I am looking forward to more. She writes well. The pace is good, the characters, likable and real. Her protagonist is Lauren Rousseau, a college professor of linguistics at a small New England college in Ashford, Massachusetts. The story moves, however, from the life of academia and its own intense political ins and outs out into the wider community, including the sea front of a coastal town and the daily comings and goings of a variety of townspeople. Maxwell introduces her reader to the rich and lively world of an old New England small town without sentimentality or romanticism. She creates her novel with integrity and care.

I was delighted to see how well Maxwell navigates across social and economic differences. Her portrayal of the community is sensitive, without suffering from self-conscious anxiety about racism or classism. This is no small task. It is encouraging to see Maxwell’s writing reflect how Friends and the broader European-American views and cultural mores about race and sex can shift with work and time. The novel reflects this transition and invites us to grow with it.

Maxwell writes comfortably about her Quaker professor. Lauren is a Friend many of us might know and enjoy. Her Quaker understanding of the world is woven into who she is and how she lives without being preachy or overly theological. I felt very comfortable with her. It is fun to read a novel when one feels a bond of common beliefs and customs with the protagonist. Yet the book will read well for a general audience too, perhaps raising some mild curiosity in the non-Quaker reader.

I was fully engrossed in the story itself. The book is hopefully the first of a series, setting the stage for future books. Not unnaturally in a first book, I came away wanting Maxwell to deepen her characters, give me more understanding of why and how they are who they are. As Maxwell continues to write about these people, first she and then we, her readers, will come to know her characters more fully, developing a lasting friendship with them. I look forward to that.

Maxwell also writes the Local Foods Mysteries, in which organic farmer Cam Flaherty has to deal not only with eager locavores but also murder on the farm. A Tine to Live, A Tine to Die will be published later this spring. Maxwell promises she will get back to Lauren Rousseau and the town of Ashford, Massachusetts. You can buy Speaking of Murder at quakerbooks.org, the Friends General Conference website, or on amazon.com. It is available in electronic or hard copy. You can find Edith at her website, edithmaxwell.com. Enjoy. . .

Reviewed by Callie Marsh

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, dear readers. It's been an amazing year for me as a writer.

My first mystery novel, Speaking of Murder, was published by Barking Rain Press in September. I did as much promotion as I could--dozens of guest blogs and a half-dozen speaking events--but haven't seen any earthshaking sales or important reviews. 

I signed a deal with an agent, John Talbot, and then a three-book contract with Kensington Publishing. I wrote the first Local Foods mystery and sent it in, and have 30k written on the second one (a few thousand words more by tonight, I hope!). 

I had a short story, "Stonecutter," accepted for publication in an anthology, and two other stories were published in the Burning Bridges anthology where all proceeds went to charity.


I decided to self e-publish two previously published short stories whose rights have reverted to me, because they are actually the backstory to two important characters in Speaking of Murder, and I have formatted them for Smashwords and gotten covers done (by StanzAloneDesign - aren't they cool?). They'll be available for all ereaders sometime in the next month.

I attended a dynamite Donald Maass writing workshop, the Writers' Police Academy, and New England Crime Bake and learned so much from each event. I even plunged into the world of smart phones and Kindles.

All this went on while I was working full time writing software manuals, exercising most days, selling and buying a house and moving, and sitting with my mother while she died in April. Whew!

I'd like to thank all of you who stopped by to see what was up all year long and especially to those who commented and who read my writing. It means so much to me.

May you have a happy, healthy, harmonious new year filled with lots and lots of reading!

Helping Authors

Now that Speaking of Murder is out, I'm thinking a lot about how readers can help authors. I know others have covered this, but here's my list of suggestions.

• Ask your library to purchase the book. That way it reaches many readers for a long time.

• If you read the book and liked it, write a short review on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and assign it a handful of stars. That will let prospective buyers know it's a book worth reading.
• If you're in a book club, suggest they read the book. I'd be happy to come and talk if you're within driving distance, or could visit via Skype if you're not.
• If you travel in twitterdom, Facebook, or other social media, first follow me or click Like on my two Author pages, then post a quick note about the book and what you liked about it. Our overlapping circles can ripple outwards into the world, and your circles certainly include some people mine don't.
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If you have mystery-loving friends, consider buying copies of the book to give as holiday or birthday presents. One very cool friend of mine just told me he ordered TEN copies from our local independent bookstore to give to family members as Christmas presents. That was a great piece of news for a writer! Supporting independent bookstores is also a great practice (you can order a discounted signed copy of the book from the New England Mobile Book Fair if you haven't already purchased it).

• And above all, talk it up. Word of mouth is a great marketing tool. If you'd like me to send you some bookmarks to send out, just ask. I have a few thousand. 

Of course these ideas apply to how readers can support all authors, not just me!

Do you have other ideas on how to support an author? As a reader, which of these suggestions are you likely to implement? Authors, what has worked for you?

Box of Books

I came home Friday to the most fabulous sight: a box of books. MY books!


It was an amazing feeling to hold the book in my hands, to leaf through it, to read the wonderful blurbs on the back cover. I started writing this book almost four years ago. This is a dream come true.

Here's one of the blurbs: "Debut author Tace Baker combines convincing, diverse characters, a vividly described setting, and a plot that picks up speed until it reaches a surprisingly intense confrontation. Who knew linguistics professors led such interesting lives?" -Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of the Orchard Mystery series and the Museum Mystery series.

Thanks, Sheila! 

Both of my parents have passed away, my mother just last April. But I dedicated the book to them. I wrote, 

This book is for my late parents, Allan Maxwell, Jr. and Marilyn Muller. They always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. And now I'm an author, exactly what I want to be.

I have a couple of launch parties scheduled, as well as a dozen guest blog posts, so I'll probably be pretty scarce around here this fall. I hope you'll drop by some of the blogs, though. Watch my facebook pages for news. And if you wanted to pick up the book, Barking Rain Press is selling it for half off during September.

Guest Blog Schedule:
Dru's Book Musings - September 19
Mysteristas - September 20
Jungle Red Writers - September 26
Chris Redding, Author - September 27
Lisa's Book Critiques - September 28-29
Auntie Em Writes - September 30
Schooled in Mystery - October 2
Poe's Deadly Daughters - October 6
Kristi Belcamino - October 10
Novel Adventurers - October 12
Writers Who Kill - October 13
Buried Under Books - October 16
Examiner.com - October 17
Marilyn's Musings - October 18
Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews - October 22
Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers - November 2
Cindy Carroll - November 7
Mystery Lovers' Kitchen - November 24

Speaking of Murder!

My alter-ego, Tace Baker, has a book coming out! 

The pre-order page for  Speaking of Murder  by Tace Baker on Amazon is now live. You can also sign up for a free preview of the first four chapters on www.TaceBaker.com. 

This is very, very exciting news. I started writing this book in the winter of 2009. I finished the first draft a year later, and then took a year to polish it. I started trying to find an agent in winter of 2011 with no luck. 

Those of you following this blog know that we had a couple of close calls with small presses before Barking Rain Press decided to take a chance with Tace. We've been through a full editing pass and this morning the editor, Betty Dobson, and I received the page proofs (as a PDF) from the publisher, Sheri Gormley. Whee! We have a cover, ISBNs, and more. It's finally real.

 I've set up a book launch party and invited all my 936 Facebook friends both near and far as well as a dozen more local friends. Come on down to the Book Rack in Newburyport on September 27 at 7 pm and help us celebrate. 

The Quaker book catalog has agreed to list Speaking of Murder, and my new local bookstore in Amesbury, Bertram and Oliver's, will stock it, too. I'm even arranging to have an independent bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana stock it, since it features a linguist and I hold a PhD from IU in linguistics. I'll be out there two weeks after the book comes out to help market it.

Now it's back to final polishing on A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, and then I need to get started on the detailed synopsis for Till Dirt Do Us Part, all mixed in with promotional activities and a full-time job. Who needs sleep?!

Forensic Linguistics - What?

I picked up my New Yorker magazine this week and browsed the table of contents. Whoa! An article from the "Department of Linguistics" titled "Words on Trial." Really? (Note: you might have to be a subscriber to read the whole article.)

How cool is that? Solving crimes with linguistics. But wait, that's what my alter-ego's first mystery revolves around! Tace Baker's Speaking of Murder will be out from Barking Rain Press on September 18. It features a Quaker linguistics professor who...well, let's just quote her web site: 

"The murder of a talented student at a small New England college thrusts linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau into the search for the killer. Lauren is a determined Quaker with an ear for accents. Her investigation exposes small town intrigues, academic blackmail and a clandestine drug cartel that now has its sights set on her."

So I drilled deeper into the article. I knew this from prior research, but it was cool to be reminded of how linguists can solve crimes by analyzing consistent patterns in text messages, voice mail message, or written notes. 

For example, Professor Robert Leonard matched certain elements in the emails of an accused murderer with the text scrawled on the wall at the murder scene. Things like using "U" for "you," which is commonly seen in text messages but not in emails, and misplaced apostrophes in words like "doesnt'" and "cant'." (Oh, be still for a moment, you Pet Peevers, you...) This case had no physical evidence, and the accused was condemned to three life terms in prison based on the forensic linguistic evidence.

I encourage you to read the entire well-researched and well-written article. It's given me more than one idea for Book Three in Tace Baker's Speaking of Mystery series. In Speaking of Murder, Lauren Rousseau uses spoken accents, both domestic and foreign, to identify and eliminate suspects. But she's fully capable of doing text analysis or of determining, as Leonard did, that the suspect used contractions only in negative statement ("I can't") but not in positive ones ("I am"), evidence that resulted in conviction. 

Have you read mysteries solved by a linguist or investigator with linguistic prowess? Or heard of crimes with language-related evidence?

Contract for Speaking of Murder!

I am delighted to announce that yesterday I signed a contract with Barking Rain Press to publish Speaking of Murder, featuring Quaker Linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau. I am so very excited. I am using the pen name Tace Baker (my Local Foods Mystery contract with Kensington Publishing stipulated that I couldn't publish a different book or series under my real name during the term of the contract). Tace is an old female Quaker name.

The print book will come out mid-September, with e-formats following in October. Although Barking Rain is a fairly new small press, I am impressed by their professionalism and response time. I'll be jumping into the editing phase shortly.

I started writing this book after I was laid off a job in the late fall of 2008, and finished the first draft in February of 2010. I started trying to sell it in January of 2011, so this has been a path requiring perseverance.

Now I totally have to get busy building my 'brand' of Tace Baker: URL, web site, Facebook author page, twitter (AND finish the first draft of the first book in the Local Foods series. AND work full time. And so on...). Makes my head spin a bit, but first I'm going to have some champagne and chocolate!

Publication Date!

Trestle Press says Speaking of Murder will release for Kindle, Nook, and other ebook formats on December 21 of this year. I'm excited about this, and am scrambling to think of marketing opportunities.

Bookmarks. Business cards. Guest posts on other people's blogs. Scheduling readings at bookstores and libraries. Contacting linguists and video editors who might be interested in how I used those fields to help Lauren Rousseau solve the crime. Of course, keeping up with tweeting and facebooking news of the release. And all that while trying to keep writing, holding down the day job, and, oh yes, celebrating Christmas.

Some of it I can postpone. For example, I'm not going to order bookmarks until I have an ISBN number and a web address where people can order the ebook version. I'm not going to do in-person readings until the book is out in print (the publisher says 60 days after it is out digitally).

I was interviewed by Trestle Press on blog talk radio last week, and the interview is available anytime on this archived show, which is cool.

I did sign up for Malice Domestic, the largest reader-oriented conference for the traditional and cozy mystery genre held in the Washington DC area at the end of April. With luck they'll include me as a panelist and my books will be for sale there. At the Saturday breakfast all the authors travel (in a highly orchestrated way) around the dozens of tables, pitching their books in under five minutes, handing out bookmarks or postcards, hoping to interest readers.Can you think of other promotional activities I should be focusing on? What works for you as a writer or a reader? How do you find out about books you want to read, and what kind of marketing annoys you most?

Machine Translation: Potential for Crime?

My friend Karin posts on Facebook in Swedish. This makes sense. She's Swedish. I amuse myself by reading her posts out loud and trying to figure out what she's saying. I've studied German, which is, if not a sister language, then certainly a kissin' cousin of Swedish.

For example, she recently wrote: "Det blir ju inget varmvatten när man har luftvärmepump! Antingen får jag elda lite för att kunna ta en dusch, eller helt enkelt gå o träna för då ingår dusch. Kan man duscha på gymet utan att ha tränat först? Kan man se matinköp som träning?"

I read it. Hmm. Something about 'wind warm pump'. 'Dusch' sounds a little like 'douche,' 'shower' in French. 'Kan man' sounds like 'Kann man...' in German: 'Can one...? Then my friend Tim M ran it through Google Translate, getting the following results:

"It'll no hot water when you have a heat pump! Either I get burned a bit in order to take a shower, or simply go o work out for the shower included.
Can you take a shower at the gym without having practiced first? Can you see food shopping as exercise?"

This is fun. I was right about the "Can one...?" and "shower." But look at the grammar and fractured English in the automatic translation. Swedish and English are pretty closely related. Can't Google the Great do any better than that?

Then imagine the potential for international criminals sending messages with machine translation, and what a forensic linguist could do with that. Ahh, says the writer, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. So much material, so little time...

Do you have experience with automatic translation gone bad, or even human-produced results misunderstood?

Inspiration

How do we get inspired to write? What experiences have planted the seed of an idea for my stories and for the various scenes in Speaking of Murder? Sure, we're advised to write what we know. For fiction that has its limits, but familiar events and scenes can also prompt the imagination to take off running. When that happens, I and my fellow writers have to race to keep up, getting as many words down in the first draft as we can.

Some years ago, I was driving home from work after dark. I saw a road crew digging a big hole in the ground to work on pipe or wires or something. Floodlights illuminated the area and it looked like a movie scene. All you could see were the workers in the spotlight. A few weeks after that I saw a man walking in Beverly, Massachusetts, who just did not look American. Italian, maybe, or Portuguese. Full head of dark hair, although he wasn't young, and pants and shoes of a cut you don't see in Macy's or Walmart. So I combined those into a story of a granite cutter from Portugal who works at night and his romance with a librarian. Never got it published, but I worked hard to craft the characters and I still feel good about the story.

My story, "Obake for Lance," which was published in Riptide (see the Publications tab), was loosely based on someone I knew when I lived in Japan. A fellow English-conversation teacher, he was deported on spurious charges. The story I wrote is fiction, but many of the scenes and descriptions stem from my experiences in my two years of teaching English there.

Melanson's Boat Shop was an Ipswich fixture. I was intrigued by it when I moved here and walked along the river. It was decrepit, strange, mysterious. I had already written it, renamed Pulcifer's, and a fictitious resident into a short story and into Speaking of Murder. Then last summer when we were in Maine for a week, my son called and said the boat shop was burning down. You can hardly make this stuff up. So the fire got written into the book, too. I don't know the actual inhabitant or anything about him, except that he survived the fire, so I felt free to continue to invent his character and subsequent events.

In the sequel to Speaking of Murder, Lauren walks on Ipswich's Crane Beach. I spent a lot of time on the beach this summer, as much as I could. And I noticed the area to the west where the wooded hill comes right down to the sand and rocks at the edge of the water. I thought, "Looks like a great place to find a dead body." And as I wrote along in the Challenge on the new book, bingo! A dead body happens along as Lauren runs on the beach.

What experiences have sent you to the keyboard to write a scene or a story? What stories have you read that you suspect have a basis in fact?

Convergence of Interests

Life brings a convergence: Fave blog LanguageLog.com posts about portraying historic and regional dialects in fictional dialog. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2554

Language Log is a group of linguists who blog on a wide variety of topics, usually in a way accessible to any educated reader, not just to linguists. But they rarely blog about writing fiction, so this was a fun read.

It's hard to write characters producing realistic-sounding dialog, contemporary or historic, without annoying the reader. For example, I have a young college student speaking to Professor Rousseau. Now, I happen to know that many 20-year olds out there use the word "like" as a high proportion of their total word counts. I wanted to get that across in her dialog. But if you have to read more than a line or two, you might be tempted to put that book down and never pick it up again. It's as irritating as hearing it in person. So I used frequent "like"s in the first line or two and then let them subside.

Because my protagonist is a linguist, she often notices how people around her say things, and uses her ear for that to identify a suspect in an overheard conversation. It's an interesting challenge to slip in language-related clues wherever I can without making it obvious.