My essay "Slow Reader"  has been published at WritersCircle.net. It's an essay about why I like dawdling over the written word.

The site, WRITERS AGAINST COVID-19, was originated to provide uplifting or humorous stories for people isolated or affected by the coronavirus.  The distraction helps people cope. 

I have another story on the site, "Still Waters," which is a humorous story based on a true event that happened to me and my husband when traveling in Europe in the 1990s.

​   Over the past few weeks, I have read advice about how to help combat racism and inequality. Most recommendations involve educating oneself about the minority experience by reading, asking questions, and listening with an open mind, rather than relying on prior-held beliefs.

 Daily life for me includes writing mysteries. Using diverse characters in my books without resorting to tokenism or stereotype has always been my goal. But I haven’t experienced racism against myself or my family members, and I can’t live inside the skins of people of different ethnicities. Reading and listening to others must be my guide to creating true characters and scenes.

 Sisters in Crime, a mystery writers’ organization, recently launched an initiative to give grants to minority-owned bookstores and to promote minority mystery authors during the next year. The Romance Writers of America had a blow-up after a Chinese-American writer tweeted that a fellow writer’s novel was a “raciest mess.” The novel depicts Asian characters with “slightly yellow” skin and “slanted almond eyes,” and 19th-century Chinese women as demure, quiet, and compliant. The criticized writer sued, and the Tweeter was ousted from the RWA. Members took sides, board members quit, and chapters went under. The organization is struggling to come back with new leadership and new policies to support racial minorities.

In view of reports like these, it seems not only individual writers, but whole organizations are contending with inclusivity in different ways. During a recent Zoom writing meeting, I asked how the authors in that group deal with diversity in their books. One said, “I don’t go there.” Another told about being upbraided by another author because, in one of her books, she wrote about the “black quarter” in 1900 Kansas City. Even though it was historically correct, she cut the scene from her story. Our author of international mysteries said she doesn’t mention ethnicities and leaves it to readers to visualize the appearance of her characters. All the authors agreed we should be careful not to use clichés and to have our work checked by people with the same ethnicities or race as the characters we are creating.

A historical romance author in my writing group, Theresa Hupp, says this on her blog: “As a writer of historical fiction, one of the issues I struggle with is how to portray interactions between characters of different races. I could ignore the topic by not having characters of different races in my novels, but I think part of the purpose of writing historical fiction is to show the time period of the novel in all its facets. Race has been an issue in American life since our earliest days.”
 
Authors must ask: How do we put ourselves in the shoes of other people who are older or younger; hold political opinions that make us cringe; are violent in ways we would never be; are of the opposite sex; hold different sexual orientations/interests; grew up in circumstances totally unlike our own; or are of different ethnicities? To avoid stereotypes, an author must do serious research that involves, like a method actor, learning enough to rely on an intimate knowledge of the subject to span the gap between his/her real life and someone else’s potentially very different one. One shouldn’t stereotype even minor characters—the street sweeper is a real person, not just a chance to insert a diverse character. Authors need to listen to the opinions of beta readers, just as movie studios rely on test audiences for feedback.

Author Mitali Perkins says, “It's best to avoid socially-constructed race words like African-American, Asian-American, etc. The descriptions of physical appearances probably indicate the ethnicity of your characters even if you weren't purposeful about it.” Also, she says, don’t use food metaphors to describe skin color. Historically, the consumption of coffee and cocoa depended on slavery. It’s not only a cliché, but also offensive to use those words to describe someone of color.

In my Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mysteries, the inspiration for my characters (as well as for the cat antics) came from people (and cats) I’ve known or read about. Any stereotypes are accidental. One of the main characters in Furtive Investigation is, like my nieces, part Philippian. In Nine Lifelines, there are individuals from France, Peru, and the Ukraine. On my travels, I’ve met the people and heard stories I used as inspiration. Tailed includes reference to Latin-American gangs. I admit to never meeting a gang member in person, but I was robbed by one and did my research to try to understand what drives them. Catastrophic Connections doesn’t refer to ethnic minorities, but part of it takes place in the American Virgin Islands. I travelled there several times to do research for the book.

Plato said, “Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” As an author, I want to write those books. As a reader, I want to read those books. A book that inaccurately describes people and ideas corrupts the soul, clips the wings, throws obstacles at the imagination, and misrepresents life. It doesn’t mean we can’t describe unjust situations in history, as long as we don’t infer the people in those circumstances deserved to be there because of their inherent natures.

How about you, reader? Have you read books that stereotype a race, a religious group, an age group, or another minority? How do you think authors should learn about people who are different from themselves before creating a character?

But that's not all. The people, the food, the land and seascapes, and the animals blew me away. 

And the cats! Kitties were everywhere...sidewalks, cafes, houses, alleys...and people took care of them all. Psycho Cat and my spoiled kitties would have felt right at home.

The fourth book in the Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series has a new cover. It's also on sale for $0.99 in the e-book format to inform new readers about this funny adventure. Beth and Sylvester sure do meet up with some gnarly characters, and the crooks that follow them to Kansas City from San Antonio are two of the roughest.
https://www.amazon.com/Tailed-Psycho-Landlady-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B079VQRHL3/

Nine Lifelines has a new cover, and to celebrate, the e-book version will be on sale for $.99 for a short time. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0747SB6KJ

Book Clubs can now find discussion questions for Tailed on the author's Web Site. See the questions here.

                                                   MANY HATS
                                            By Joyce Ann Brown
 
  The nurse left work at five o’clock—a rarity.  This evening, the doctor had taken over her phone calls to patients and ordered her out the door.
"But I have two more--"
"Your health is important. Go play tennis, and enjoy."
Reaching the parking lot, she saw her friend, Lola, lumbering toward the cars.  Every morning, Lola picked up donuts and, in order to get a close parking space, got to the building and up to her reception desk half an hour early. With a quick wave, the nurse jogged on toward her own usual space at the back of the lot. Exercise. She took her own medical advice seriously.
            Abruptly, she slowed to a creep and pressed a cell phone speed dial number.  Twice she had forgotten to call her husband on tennis night, and twice, just as she hit the court, she had urgent and—not nasty exactly, but frustrated “where-are-you” calls by the after school child care providers. She was still trying to repay her neighbor for all the last-minute pick-ups.  It was her husband who had urged her to take one evening a week to play tennis.  But it was his late calls from clients, who didn’t respect his night with the kids, which made him sometimes forget his commitment. Over the phone, he assured her that in ten seconds he’d be out of the office and on his way to after-school care.

Read posts by other women authors who write fiction with strong women protagonists:
Darlene Deluca, author of women’s fiction and romance
Pamela B. Eglinski, author of suspense and historical fiction
Theresa Hupp, author of historical fiction
Juliet Kincaid, author of historical mysteries
If you like the excerpts these authors have posted, please let them know in a comment on their blogs. Writers always enjoy hearing from readers.

 I now have Psycho Cat USB drives to give away at book signings thanks to USB Memory Direct, a wholesale company that sells USB drives for businesses. Their business card drives identify the companies with their own logos and text. I love my book-shaped drive with the cat and my info, but next time I may order one of their custom-shaped drives and ask for a yellow cat-shaped drive.

Go to https://www.usbmemorydirect.com/ to see all the different options and to order your own 8-Gig drives.

A year later, but here it is--the fourth Psycho Cat & the Landlady Mystery.

Beth, Psycho Cat Sylvester, and husband Arnie are all getting older and are supposedly retired. They are on an RV vacation in San Antonio, Texas when on returning from an Alamo Museum and River Walk visit, they find their truck ransacked. The robbers' attempt to steal the truck as well as the contents has them spooked, especially when they finally get to the RV park and discover evidence that their fifth-wheel RV might have also been broken into. A day later, they find out about a murder that happened in the parking lot the day they were robbed.

Another mystery for Beth and Psycho Cat to investigate and solve? Or, will it be the end of the road for the two sleuths? Purchase the book here to find out.

Note: The truck break-in happened to the author in real life. That scary experience and the attending policeman's stories of crime in the neighbor became the inspiration for Tailed. What happens with the cat's tail and to the tailing crooks is a product of the author's noir sense of humor.

Updated and ready to read. What's going on with that guy falling from the balcony?
(Click on the image to buy print or e-book.)

New Release!
Noir at the Salad Bar
Culinary Tales with a Bite
 
Noir at the Salad Bar, Culinary Tales with a Bite, is now available in paperback and in the Kindle store. This collection of thirty stories has something for everyone, especially those who enjoy a bit of food and drink with their murderous tales. Thanks to all of the contributing authors!

Noir at the Salad Bar, Culinary Tales with a Bite authors & stories:

• “The Lobster Tank” by E.A. Aymar
• “Smoked” by Michael Bracken
  
• “Harvey House Homicide” by Joyce Ann Brown
  
• “A Murder of Crows” by Mara Buck
• “The Hearts of Men” by Karen Cantwell
  
• “With Great Relish” by John R. Clark
• “Buena Vista Sandwich Club” by Frank Collia
• “Cole Slaughter” by Sheila Connolly
• “Black Coffee in Bed” by Sharon Daynard
• “Petunia at the Tip Top” by Jenny Drummey
• “Consuming Passion” by Martin Edwards
• “Sleeping Beauty” by Gerald Elias
• “The Sandman” by John M Floyd
• “Bases Looted” by Jason Half
• “Candy” by Isobel Horsburgh
• “Beef Stew” by E L Johnson
• “The Curse of the Apertured Apiculturist” by Larry Lefkowitz
• “A Murder in Montreux” by Michael Allan Mallory
• “Deadly Dinner” by LD Masterson
• “Antipastdead” by Lorraine Sharma Nelson
• “Togas and Toques” by Alan Orloff
• “Grab-N-Go” by A.B. Polomski
• “Ragbones and the Case of the Christmas Goose” by Rima Perlstein Riedel
• “Death at the Hands of Le Fée Verte” by Verena Rose
• “Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody” by Barbara Ross
• “Family Business” by Harriette Sackler
• “Humble Pie” by Shawn Reilly Simmons
• “Fed Up” by Louise Taylor
• “Playing Games” by Elaine Togneri

“My Life in Killer Recipes” by Leslie Wheeler