​I was very pleased to see a four page spread in the January issue of Zócalo magazine about the Art Trails Spring Open Studio Tour, Saturday and Sunday, February 2-3. The Zócalo ad has an excellent map of studio locations on the tour which covers the northwest and west sides of Tucson stretching from Oro Valley to Tucson Estates. We also see listings of the artists and photos of their work. You can get the same information on Art Trail’s website. https://www.arttrails.org/
 
Also good to know is that Art Trails has survived the assault on local arts groups. By “local artists’ groups,” I refer to Art Trails and Heart of Tucson Art (HotArt). The assault has come from arts administrators in SAACA (Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance) and Arts Foundation of Tucson and Southern Arizona. Despite a clear promise to support these groups, SAACA instead demanded obsequious compliance and when SAACA didn’t get this compliance in the fall of 2016, SAACA set up its own fall studio tour. Rather that support, SAACA completely undermined Art Trails and HotArt.

To repeat ad nauseam (I’ve written about this on the Editor’s Page of Sonoran Arts Network), here’s what is wrong with SAACA’s fall tour.
 
1. SAACA created a two weekend tour but stupidly divided the city into two parts: a northern, less populated part, and a southern highly-populated area in which both downtown and mid-town artists are lumped into one tour. To add insult to injury, SAACA extended the tour to all of southern Arizona (Bisbee and Tubac included!). Obviously there are too many studios to visit in this second weekend tour. In response, tour visitors go to clusters of studios where they can see as many studios as possible in a smaller area. This mainly means downtown. So mid-town artists got screwed despite paying the same fees as all other artists. That’s why a division north to south, not east to west, is needed. Art Trails takes the west and HotArt is in the east and mid-town.
 
2. Tour materials produced by SAACA are decidedly inferior. Last fall (2018), SAACA produced a map and guide to studios with no images of artwork and in print so tiny that a magnifying glass was needed to read it. Both Art Trails and HoT Art produced far better, colorful guides and maps. Unfortunately, we won’t see any decent fall tour guides and maps anymore because SAACA has completely taken control over the fall studio tour now. Art Trails and HotArt have been pushed out.
 
3. Ominously, Arts Foundation sent out a survey to artists asking them how much they’d be willing to pay to participate in the fall studio tour. The survey listed several levels of payment at more and more expensive levels. What the artists would get for all this money was not made clear at all. I won’t be a bit surprised to see artists being forced to pay higher and higher participation fees for various services of dubious quality.
 
5. The arts administrators don’t get what the purpose of a studio tour is. The purpose is to make it possible for artists to get as many visitors to their studios as possible. The purpose is not to brag to your fellow arts administrators that you signed up more artists than ever. It’s not about quantity. It’s about quality.
 
I wish the best of luck to Art Trails artists and also to Hot Art artists for its spring tour. You will need it. 

Introduction:
P.S. Meraux is a writer based in Georgia. Her Luminary series is the recipient of a Silver Readers’ Favorite Book Award.  Her most recent novel, Without Merit, received a Gold Readers’ Favorite Book Award. In this interview, P.S. uses the terms YA which refers to Young Adult, typically teenagers, and NA which refers to New Adult – readers who are older teens up to about age 30. As many of you know, I spent several years working as a college reference librarian. I’ve always been a fan of YA literature. Some of these books are the best written and well-worth a read, no matter how old you are!  
 
 
You describe yourself as a writer of YA (young adult) paranormal romance novels. What drew you to write for this age group? What’s the attraction of the paranormal to you and your readers?
 
            I stumbled into it actually. One day I read an interview that Stephanie Meyer's muse was an image from her sleep. Well, the green-eyed monster was upon me. My dreams are so predictably boring with topics like; Did I pay the phone bill? Was the chicken in the marinade? Or sometimes I go to the gym in my sleep -- nothing remotely inspiring as a vampire-werewolf-human love triangle.
            Several weeks went by with me being grouchy at my dreams for their lack of creative input. You may scoff at this but I really was. Then I awoke in the middle of the night with a full bladder, not only were the dreams not stepping up but drinking wine before bed didn't help either. Or did it?
            I had this image dancing behind my eyelids of an immortal, a witch and an animated candelabra rushing down this amorphous corridor that was being created as they went forward by the candelabra's lively attachment. I didn't understand where it came from. I couldn't recall seeing anything online, on my phone, on the big screen or small -- that could have been the root of it. I wondered where they were going? Why the rush? Why were these different character types in this cluster?
            I jotted a note to myself and went back to bed, wondering if more would be revealed in my sleep. It wasn't. Oddly enough, I didn't need the note. When I awoke I remembered the images in vivid detail. Over a morning cup of coffee. or perhaps half a dozen, I sat at my desk and found myself outlining the story of these characters. That initial image, while similar to one in Luminary, actually led me to reverse engineer this epic story. That 'dreamed image' is actually something in the last book in the series.
            I suspect that I write for YA and NA readers because that's where my mindset is. I might try my hand at a more mature story someday. I have an idea for a series, but I don't have the character firmly set up in my mind; how she speaks, what her motivation is, what ticks her off -- and I need to get that set so she'll be authentic.
            I think people like to believe in magic and the paranormal. Maybe it's not the bib-bidi-bob-bidi-boo kind, but unexplained things happen all the time. Running into that cute guy a second time on the subway, meeting a new friend who will talk straight to you-- just when you need it, or getting insight into how to write a better novel -- from strangers you meet online.  Sometimes the stars align and presto -- you get just what you need.
 
Do you have a favorite author in this genre? or a favorite author in another genre?
 
            Asking me that is like asking if I have a favorite pair of shoes. And if you'd ever seen my closet, your eyes would pop in absolute shock -- and you'd know that I have more than one pair. Much more.  I have eclectic tastes and like: Cassandra Clare, Richelle Mead, Lauren Kate, in addition to the above mentioned Stephanie Meyer -- all are great paranormal romance authors. I also read: J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, J.R. Ward, Diana Gabaldon, Sara Donati, Agatha Christie, Laurie King, Robert Ludlum and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 
 
Your most recent novel, Without Merit, is described as a “supernatural, mystery thriller.”  The teenage girl in the story wakes up in a hospital with near-total amnesia. What gave you the idea for this story?
 
            I was sitting in Gatwick International Airport (London) waiting to board a plane for home. I'd been in Scotland visiting my relatives and castle hopping. A guy sitting next to me was playing a Liam Neeson movie, "Unknown," on his iPad.  It's basically a derivative of the Jason Bourne series.  There are so many books about "amnesia victims searching for their identity" it's almost a trope by now.  
            I remember thinking, "What if the amnesia victim wasn't human?"  Suddenly a whole bunch of possibilities opened up for a story.  I pulled out a notebook (yes, I travel with one) and outlined the first book before I boarded the plane. 
            The protagonist in Without Merit starts out thinking that she's this ordinary teen without a memory or parents. And as she learns the disturbing details of Merit's life, she has to wrestle with acceptance because Merit is not a nice person.
 
Without Merit seems to be essentially about her search for self-identity. She’s looking for a lot more than just learning her name and where she came from. Do you think this is a central issue for most teens – trying to figure out who they really are?
 
            No matter your age, we all get bombarded with all kinds of messages every day from television, social media, magazines, coworkers, friends and family. This is especially true for kids and teens. It takes a while for each of us to figure out who we are, what we stand for, and how we want to live our lives. Until a person has all of that sorted out, it can be easy to be influenced by outside voices.  Some of those voices are benign; some have ulterior motives.
            I intentionally let the protagonist in Without Merit make some mistakes, believe in people who shouldn't be trusted, and have her ideas about people blow up in her face. It was my way of testing her mettle and making her real.  I wanted her to fail, fall and get back up, which she does. She learns that she's stronger than she knows.
 
Your ability to write suspenseful action scenes and to create a sense of mystery is very impressive.  What do you think is the key to creating suspense and making your readers want to keep turning pages?
 
            Wow, thanks for the compliment, I really appreciate that.  I read a lot of books! I think about what intrigues me in a story. 
            I'm not afraid of having a character go off in one direction -- the wrong one -- if I can use the action to drive the story forward later on. I've been told that I write with a great deal of detail -- this from readers who like my work. (Smile). 
            I find that if I make a sequence of events believable, the reader will be carried along with the main character and when something happens or is 'about to happen' that heightens the reader's response.  
            I invest in my characters' emotions; fear, hope, ambition. I've written chapters where I began weeping while I was typing out the story.  There are some particularly heart-tugging scenes in my book, Flare, the final book in the Luminary series.   
 
What are you working on now?
 
            To be honest, I am quite shocked that I've written eight books so far. I didn't know that I had that many words in me. Right now, I'm outlining the second book in the Vessel series. Without Merit was book one of what will be a two-book series.  And I'm writing my first vampire novel at the same time. It's weird to be doing both but the vampire's story is entrenched in my head and he won't some bugging me until I get it finished. Hopefully that will be done by the first of the year.
 
 
Extra:  What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
 
            There's something uniquely self-satisfying about writing a story. Whether you're looking at a blank sheet of paper or a blank document on a computer screen, the act of creating a new universe, a country setting or a single character on that flat surface and making that place, person or thing become real and three dimensional, is just so frigging cool! 
            Corralling all those words is like rounding up wild colts, who insist on bucking and jumping about. Then I strap on a saddle and allow the characters to take me for a ride as I figure out where the story goes. Maybe it's a commentary on the way my mind works (or perhaps doesn't) but I find it absorbing, fulfilling and invigorating at the same time. 
            If what I write makes someone laugh or cry or think, then all the better. I've done my job. Giddy Up.
 
Learn more about P.S. Meraux at https://psmeraux.blogspot.com/

 ​Reviews by readers are always fun for me as a writer to read, and sometimes they are very informative as well. Some reviews are unhelpful. Saying “Oh, I love this book” is nice but doesn’t tell me much. Why did you love it?  That’s what I want to know. One Australian reviewer gave my Letty Valdez Mystery, Desert Jade, only two stars. The unhelpful comment was, “I just couldn’t get into the characters.”  Okay. Why not? What does that mean?
 
Then occasionally a review comes along that requires me to do some serious thinking about what I am trying to do when I write fiction. What is the goal? I come from a background in nonfiction writing so perhaps that question arises naturally.
 
I’m under no illusion that I’m writing great literature. Mysteries are genre fiction. I had been thinking that I just want to tell a good story and provide some fun and some relief from the madness we see around us now. Recently I received a review from a fellow named Thomas Hiller (a pseudonym). Hiller gave me some great things to think about so I’m very appreciative of his review. I’ve had to rethink the question of what I’m trying to do when I write fiction.
 
Elements of Fiction
First, the elements of fiction are: character, plot, setting, point-of-view, theme, and style. Most of these are self-evident except maybe for point-of-view (is the story from the point of view of “I”, “you” or “he/she?).
 
Theme is worthy of consideration. Here are some quotes about what a theme is: “The theme is the main idea the writer of the poem or story wants the reader to understand and remember.” “Theme in fiction is rarely presented at all; it is abstracted from the details of character and action that compose the story. It provides a unifying point….” “The theme in a story is its underlying message, or 'big idea.' In other words, what critical belief about life is the author trying to convey …This belief, or idea, transcends cultural barriers. It is usually universal in nature.” An example is the children’s book Charlotte’s Web with its theme of friendship.
 
Mystery Subgenres:
The mystery-suspense genre I write in has several subgenres:
private investigator; cozy mysteries (the most popular); amateur sleuths; police procedurals; forensic, legal, medical and historical mysteries, culinary, animal mysteries (includes dogs, cats, zoo animals, etc.), culinary, thrillers including international spy thrillers, and romantic suspense. And there’s the “noir” mystery often associated with the hard-boiled dick/private investigator story.
 
Hiller made it clear from the beginning that he’s a noir fan, especially he looks to Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlow as a model of what a good mystery really is. Chandler wrote hard-boiled fiction which is defined as: “… a tough, unsentimental style of American crime writing that brought a new tone of earthy realism or naturalism to the field of detective fiction. Hard-boiled fiction used graphic sex and violence, vivid but often sordid urban backgrounds, and fast-paced, slangy dialogue.” The photo (above) shows Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the classic noir book, then film The Big Sleep.
 
Hiller was clear in his review that Desert Jade failed as a noir detective story. His comments emphasized plot as most important, and he was not impressed at a plot that he viewed as too slow and with too much exposition to satisfy him. Yet, he was rather taken by other elements in the story – particular the landscape and the characters. He described the interactions between two characters, Esperanza and Eduardo, as “touching and poetic.” For these aspects, he gave the book five stars which he averaged out with the three stars given for the detective story to come up with a four-star rating.  
 
I’m going to set aside the problematic business of approaching an artwork with a pre-set view of what a work is  supposed to be, rather than what it is. This is sort of like going to the art museum, looking at a Mark Rothko painting, and then complaining that it doesn’t look like a Renoir or Frido Kahlo.
 
The real value of Hiller’s review is to look at what he thought worked and why, not at what didn’t work.  After reading his review, I realized that I never intended to write an action-packed, plot-oriented story, much less one defined as noir starring a hard-boiled dick.
 
So what I am doing? Clearly Letty Valdez makes a living as a private investigator. She’s not hard-boiled and she’s not “iron woman.” Yes, she can take you down with her Chinese martial arts and she can use a gun if she has to. But she’s a vulnerable and even fragile at times – like most of us human beings.
 
Setting is a key factor in the Letty Valdez Mysteries. I’m an environmentalist. I believe we are deeply impacted by our physical environment. Desert dwellers think about water and heat, a big sky, a starry night, and critters like coyotes and rattlesnakes. Letty is a child of the desert. She’s at home in the Sonoran Desert and she will never live anywhere else.
 
Theme:
This turned out to be the biggest factor for me. So what are the themes that come across in Letty Valdez Mysteries? (I hope they come across because that’s what I seek as a writer.)

• The value of ethnic diversity: Letty is Chicana-Native American (Tohono O’odham). Our multiplicity of ethnic groups contribute greatly to American life and culture. Let’s don’t forget that.
• The value of family and friends: What would Letty do without her pals and her brothers and sister and her uncles? She’s got her posse and they’ll go to the wall for her, as she will for them.
• The struggles of the underclass and the challenges they work to overcome: I’m convinced that money-oriented class is the root of most American problems. Until the more affluent can see and respect the struggles and achievements of the poor, we’ll continue to have problems.
• War and the effects of war: Letty came home with Iraq with PTSD. She experienced more than any human being should have to experience. Our vets need our understanding and support. And we need to end the endless wars.

 
Hiller wrote: “It may be a somehow comforting surprise when you expect to read a frightening mystery, and it turns out a kind of poetic narration of good feelings.” I find this comment to be rather delightful. True, you won’t be in a constant state of fear in a Letty Valdez Mystery but I’m happy to report that a “poetic narration of good feelings” could very well happen instead!
 
An example: Several people have commented about being captivated by the Esperanza-Eduardo subplot. That’s partly because we’re seeing the initial stages of a romance. But more important, we come to understand that being a poverty-stricken 17 year-old migrant seeking a job so her little brothers and sisters can have shoes and enough to eat is a potential contributor to American life, not a threat. Esperanza is not a drug smuggler or a member of MS-13. She’s young, scared, lost in the desert, out of water, and here comes an angel on horseback named Eduardo who finds her and rescues her.
 
As a writer, I’d rather be remembered as “poetic and touching” than as “frightening,” hard-boiled, or action, action, action-oriented.
 
One more comment. Hiller wrote about Letty demonstrating “the unbreakable rule of detective’s incurable loneliness and personal grief.” Oops! Rules are made to be broken. Before these stories are completed, Letty will find some relief from her loneliness and personal grief. Of that, I am sure.
 
Thank you to Mr. Hiller for stimulating a productive line of contemplation.

Artist Christon Anderson, a native of the Florida Panhandle, took this photo of his daughter walking in The Cove neighborhood of Panama City after Hurricane Michael stormed through. I think Anderson’s photo will become iconic, similar to the little girl running away from her napalmed village during the Vietnam War. Sometimes it takes an artist to find an image that says it all.
 
Michael was a Category 4 at 155 mph. A Cat 5 is 157 so Michael was at the upper range of Cat 4. So far 29 bodies have been found in the storm-ravaged region of Florida and Georgia. A K-9 sniffer dog named Tucker found one body under the wreckage of a house. A drone unit found another. As waters recede, searchers expect to find more.
 
As of Wednesday, October 17, 1,135 people are listed as still missing. Many on the list are disabled or elderly residents. There’s still hope that many of these missing persons simply haven’t been able to make contact with relatives or they may have evacuated and have not yet reported in. Or maybe they are waiting under the rubble for Tucker to find them.

What does climate change/global warming have to do with these massive storms? Read more here:  Hurricanes and Climate Change
​See more of Christon Anderson's photography on Instagram and Facebook.

With Richard Powers’ meaningful quote in mind, “The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story,” meet writer and storyteller Larry Darter.
 
Darter is the author of two successful mystery-suspense-thriller series. First is the Los Angeles private investigator Ben Malone series with five books so far, and second, the T.J. O’Sullivan series in which T.J., a New Zealand expat, works as a private investigator in Hawaii. Darter is a retired police officer and veteran of U.S. Navy and Army Reserves. His background gives deep credibility to his fictional works.
 
Let’s take a look at his upcoming Live Long Day in the Ben Malone series which is an exploration of child sex trafficking. Larry says in his blog post about Live the Long Day, “During my career as a street cop, child prostitution was something I rarely encountered. While I did encounter prostitutes regularly, they were typically adult women, most of whom it seemed had turned to prostitution to support a drug habit.”
 
Sadly in recent years, child prostitution problem has grown dramatically. Darter says in his blog, “I learned that the child prostitution in cities like Los Angeles, the setting of the Malone Novels, is a real and growing problem. Los Angeles County law enforcement officials and the social services agencies who deal with the problem on a daily basis describe the child prostitution problem in Los Angeles as part of a growing nationwide epidemic. Young girls, some as young as 11-years-old are coerced into a life that will forever leave them emotionally scarred.” Read more at Darter’s blog about Live Long Day. 

Although Darter is writing about Los Angeles, child prostitution and sex trafficking is a problem in southern Arizona as well.  Here are two sources from Tucson.com and KGUN 9 TV to inform you of our local problem.  Tucson.com    KGUN9 TV

​In his blog, Darter introduces us to the work of Dr. Lois Lee, a leading expert in rescuing child sex trafficking victims. She is founder and president of Children of the Night, a nonprofit dedicated to “rescuing children and young people from prostitution worldwide.”

Darter wrote Live Long Day with the express intention of raising awareness of this serious criminal problem affecting our children. He is dedicating a portion of royalties earned on Live Long Day as a donation to Children of the Night.  Darter says, “My intent is not to foster a sense of hopelessness–I want us to get angry about a problem that strips hope from our most vulnerable citizens. Children are the future of our nation.”
 
That’s a sentiment we can all support. And we get to read a terrific mystery book in the process! 

Larry Darter's blog: http://www.larrydarter.com/child-prostitution-and-the-live-long-day-novel/

To pre-order Live Long Day, go to: 
LiveLongDay@Amazon

originally posted 2018-07-22

​I'm working on my second Letty Valdez mystery.  ​The title of the new book is Dragon's Revenge. It will be published November 20, 2018.

I've been thinking about language and how fraught it is with controversy these days.

Some people seem to think that telling a falsehood is perfectly okay. If called on the lie, they double down and tell a bigger lie. As a former news reporter, I am convinced that facts matter and that telling lies can undermine everything, from personal relationships to a democracy. 

On the other hand, there are those who think one should never use certain terms because those terms are not socially accepted anymore or they are not politically correct or maybe they just plain rude. These folks are willing to censor others to see their view of correct language prevail.

So what about writers who want to express a thought or words said by a character that doesn't speak in a politically-correct way. 

Here's an example. In the 1960s, women were often called "girls" or if you were a hipster, you called them "chicks."  So if I write a book about women in the 60s and 70s, it seems right to me to use the language of those times - girls and chicks - even though if someone called me a chick, they'd get an earful from me (I'm a Second Wave feminist!). 

Back to Dragon's Revenge: A substantial portion of this book is a memoir written in the 1970s by an old man who was a boy in the 1890s in Tucson. His stepfather was a Chinese immigrant. At that time, they called this man a "Chinaman" although that term is no longer used and is considered derogatory and offensive. In my book, he will be called a Chinaman in the memoir because that's what he was called in 1890. 

Accuracy and facts are more important to me than changing definitions of what is currently "correct" or "polite."

Originally posted 2018-02-15
Recently one of America’s greatest writers died, Ursula K. Le Guin. Note that I said “greatest writers,” not “greatest science fiction writers” or “greatest fantasy writers.”  Le Guin won numerous awards during her career, and sold millions of copies. Many of us believe that her books have become part of the canon of American literature. She was both wildly inventive and deeply thoughtful in how she approached her work. You leave her books both entertained and provoked to do some serious thinking of your own.
 
I’ve always thought the fact Le Guin’s parents were both cultural anthropologists was a significant factor in the imaginative worlds she created in her books. Rather than the showy heroic stories of conflict and triumph we so often see, Le Guin created characters and societies with complexity and ambiguity. (photo left: NerdPatrol, Flickr)
 
Take for example, her classic The Left Hand of Darkness. This compelling story follows a Terran (earthling) to the planet of Gethen where all the inhabitants are ambisexual most of the time. But once a month they come into “kemming” for a few days and become either male or female for purposes of reproduction. Which sex the Gethenians transform into depends on conditions they find when the state of kemmering begins. Although Le Guin refers to them as “he,” sometimes they are “she.”  The Terran, Genly Ai, finds this more than disconcerting because he comes from a place where everyone is either a he or a she, and he treats them according to this permanent state. Ai is himself always a male. Needless to say, this book, first published in 1969, had a deep influence on the Second Wave feminists of the day, and that includes me.
 
Another highly influential book was The Dispossessed. Here she creates two twin worlds. One world is rather like ours is these days. Cut throat capitalism rules, and anyone unlucky enough to not be part of the elite are doomed to suffer – homelessness and hunger abound in the shadow of extreme wealth. The other world is socialistic and authoritarian, but no one goes hungry. Le Guin called this world “an ambiguous utopia.”
 
Le Guin considered herself a feminist. She was also an advocate of non-violence and expressed a deep interest in ecology and a concern for our environment. She was influenced by Daoist philosophy, and that shows up in her writing, too.
 
Not only was she a terrific writer, Le Guin also had a wicked sense of humor. Regarding her advice for women writers, she said:  If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don’t marry and have kids, and above all, don’t die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.” For the record, Le Guin married, had three children, and did not commit suicide.
 
Perhaps her most famous quote is from The Left Hand of Darkness, a quote that is unfortunately often attributed to Hemingway, “It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
 
In December 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published her book, No Time to Spare:  Thinking About What Matters in which she ruminates on old age.  Le Guin died in January, 2018.