Mother's Day Gifts for Everyone!

I plan to spend the weekend reading the page proofs of The Money Bird, my second Animals in Focus Mystery, which will be out in September. It's the sequel to Drop Dead on Recall and features many of the same characters. Fifty-something photographer and animal lover Janet MacPhail is back, if course, with her Australian Shepherd, Jay, and her orange tabby, Leo. Professor and major hunk Tom Saunders and his black Labrador Retriever, Drake, are busy training for a retriever event along with a bunch of other water-loving dogs. Goldie and Mom are back, and Giselle, and the twins.... Well, you'll just have to read the book, I guess!

In the meantime, here are a couple of free short stories featuring Janet and Jay, and quirky Alberta Shofelter. Jay wears his tracking harness and puts his superpowers to work in both stories. Okay, normal canine powers - but he isn't a protagdog for nothing!)

Tracks

 "It all started when Alberta Shofelter asked me to shoot her dog. She offered triple my usual fee plus expenses and said that Jay could come along, so of course I agreed. Then the whole project whirled out of my control, and I found myself headed for an overnight ordeal in a Speedway motel."

 

Click here for the rest of the story.

 

 

"Tracks" appeared originally in Racing Can Be Murder, an anthology published by the Speed City Sisters in Crime (Indianapolis).

Missing Gypsy 

 

 

"Someone is out to get Alberta Shofelter. They’ve egged her new SUV and sprayed 'crazy cat lady' across her garage door. The diminutive calico she took in three weeks ago has been missing since last night, and Alberta is sure “they” have escalated to catnapping. I shove my cell into my pocket and watch Jay try to comfort Alberta. She isn’t quite weeping, but the little noises she makes are heart-rending."

  

"Missing Gypsy first appeared on Victoria Dougherty's "Cold" blog - click here for the rest of the story. 

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Have a terrific weekend, and come back on Monday to find out how my guest, Gerald Elias, combines music and mystery. You won't be sorry!

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Autographed copies of my mysteries, Drop Dead on Recall and The Money Bird (pre-order), as well as Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals are available from Pomegranate Books in Wilmington, NC.

 Click Here to Order.

 

 

 

Heaven is Rescuing Older Dogs - Guest Author Monica Agnew-Kinnaman

I'm delighted for a whole slew of reasons to welcome author Monica Agnew-Kinnaman to "nonfiction Wednesday" today. First, her book So This Is Heaven: How Rescuing Old or Unwanted Dogs Provided a Touch of Heaven on Earth is about two subjects dear to my own heart -- animal rescue, and "mature" or otherwise unwanted dogs. Beyond that, Monica is 95 years young and, as you'll see when you read her bio, could undoutbedly write another couple of fascinating memoirs of her well-lived life. And just look at these lovely and loving dogs! (More on adopting older dogs below.) I'll leave it there - welcome, Monica.  ~ Sheila



I already have two "rescues" and today I am waiting for another canine victim to arrive. The year is 2009 and my latest guest, the one I am now waiting for, is an aging Old English Sheepdog. I know little about her except that she has spent her life caged in a "puppy mill", giving birth every six months. Countless pregnancies have taken their toll and now, at eight years old, she is no longer able to produce healthy puppies. Consequently, useless to the breeder and taking up valuable space, she was slated to be destroyed. A concerned sheepdog rescue group learned of her fate but their facility, already overcrowded with unwanted dogs, had no room for her. They called me.
 



As I stand at the window, gazing out at the Colorado winter landscape, I think of the many dogs I have loved, now all long gone. Little snowflakes are drifting lazily down, heralding a storm to come, and the van bringing the dog is past due. The long wait is getting tedious and my mind starts to wander. While I reminisce fondly about the past I find myself being transported back in time to another century, another place, another dog.

 

 

 It is now the late nineteen twenties and I am ten years old, standing on the steps of a mansion on Duchy Road, the closely guarded bastion of the super-rich in Yorkshire, England. A tall figure in a butler's uniform is gazing down at me, no doubt wondering what business this small person, who had arrived unannounced, could possibly have with his employer.

 

"I hear you are going to kill your dog. I have come to take him," I blurt out, with no preamble.

From So This Is Heaven, Chapter 1

 

 

Jess, 11 years young, doing what Border Collies do!

More from Monica

 

I have had an assortment of animals all my life, and over the years have taken in many abused and abandoned dogs, but it is only within the last fifteen years or so that I have concentrated on OLD dogs. I found that most people adopting from rescue operations, such as the pound, wanted only young dogs and puppies. The old dogs, however sweet and loving, didn't stand a chance. They invariably ended up being "put down."  So I started to look for old abandoned dogs that no one wanted, and who had never known any love or kind treatment. This was not only at the Humane Society but wherever I found them. That is what "So This Is Heaven" is all about.

 

I hope people will read about these wonderful senior citizens and go to the pound, specifically to adopt an old unwanted dog and shower it with love. Or if they are unable to take a dog, find an abused cat or even a rabbit!

 

 

 

Monica Agnew-Kinnaman was born in England and served in a British anti -aircraft regiment during WW II. She came to America sixty years ago on vacation and met her future husband. They moved to Colorado where she has lived ever since. Monica has a son and a daughter, both married. She has had dogs all her life but after her husband died she decided to take OLD abused and abandoned dogs that were destined be destroyed. She is now 95 and lives with Lilly, an Old English Sheepdog, fourteen years old, and Jess, an eleven-year-old Border Collie. Her e-book can be found on Amazon at So This is Heaven or at the publisher's website at Alpine Publications. A paperback version is currently available only by contacting the publisher, but a link to order the book in paperback will be posted on their site soon.

 

 

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Note: There is nothing like the love of an older dog, and few things quite so uplifting as watching a dog who has gone for years without basic love and affection blossom in a nurturing environment. The same is true for cats, horses, rabbits....all social animals. To learn more, I recommend that you visit The Senior Dog Project, The Grey Muzzle Organization, and your local shelters and rescue groups.

 

Alpine Publications offers a full line of non-fiction books on dogs and horses to help people succeed with their canine and equine activities. If you are interested involved with rescue, or interested in helping in some way, check out my book Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals, available in paperback and ebook formats from the publisher, and in paperback, ebook, large-print, and Audible formats from amazon.com.

 

I'm Sunny, and I approve this message.
I came to live with Sheila and Roger, and my Lab sister Lily,
last November at 11.5 years. I'm so glad that
Golden Retriever Rescue Club of Charlotte took me in
and, after almost 8 years living with people who ignored me,
found me a home where I have my own bed, lots of tennis balls,
and CHEESE. I might not be here too many more years, but
the love I leave along my path will last forever.
Do something good for your heart ~ adopt or foster an older pet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Roots of Writing

This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain

                                                Paul Simon, "Under African Skies"

I was listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album the other day. I'm also teaching a class called "Write Your Memoir," and I recently wrote a reflective "artist's statement" about my own writing career. Perhaps its the timely confluence of the three streams that has kept the refrain from "Under African Skies" (above) flowing through my head as I ponder its meaning.

This is the story of how we begin to remember. It's a story essential to all creativity if not meaningful life itself. Certain forms of writing - memoir, history, biography, for instance - are overtly centered on the past as conjured through memory and research. But that fact is that all writing, even sci fi set in the future and "pure" nonfiction, draw on memory. Unless we have profound amnesia or some other problem, we can't not use memory.

Still, some memories are slippery. Some are only partially formed, while others hide from us. And if you've ever compared your memories of events with those of your family or friends, you probably agree that some memories are shapeshifters, taking different forms for different people. That's because we are by nature story tellers, and "story" is more than a recounting of events. Story gives shape to those events, and the teller of the story selects details to include, omit, expand, pare down, change. But I digress.

So how do we begin to remember? Here are a few ideas that work for me:

• Freewrite. This is nothing new, but if you haven't let yourself go in a stream-of-consciousness freewrite for a while (or ever?), give it a try. I tell my students that any length of time is better than none, but I find that the magic begins to happen after twenty or thirty minutes for me. This is true whether I'm truly freewriting or I'm composing a piece of writing that I think has a specific focus or form.
• Walk. Or do something else that involves repetitive physical activity but leaves your mind mostly free. Leave the earbuds, the dog, and the friend/SO at home, turn off the tv is you're on a treadmill. Just move and let your mind go where it will. I've solved many a writing problem while walking. Try it.
• Look. At pictures. Pull out your old albums (or, if you're like me, the boxes of photos you will someday put into albums!) and see where the pictures take you. Make notes about memories that come to you. If you're trying to conjure a specific time period, go to the library or online and find photos from that period. Both the public images of various media and more private images that you can dig up may stir a lot of memories.
• Listen. Music is a terrific door into memory. Most of us associate certain songs with specific times, places, people, events. Find "top twenty" lists from the time you want to enter and make yourself a play list. YouTube, by the way, is superb for this - I've spent hours surfing videos of young Elvis and Grace Slick and Boy George and - oh, I could go on and on!

 

There are lots more techniques, of course - brainstorming, mind mapping, and so on - but that should get us started. Have a creative day! I'm off now to dig into the roots of my own rhythms.

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Come back Wednesday, when my guest Monica Agnew-Kinneman will be telling us about her book So This is Heaven and a subject dear to my own heart, the joys of adopting older animals.