Perhaps you’ve noticed that man y of my characters are amateur detectives, spy wanna-bes. Sarah quotes Sherlock holmes to Timothy and Molly writes down “just the facts” in her notebook of important things. So, it’s no wonder I was drawn to the International Spy Museum and just had to visit when I was in WA D.C.

According to the website: “The first and only public museum in the United States solely dedicated to espionage and the only one in the world to provide a global perspective on this all-but-invisible profession. It features the largest collection of international spy-related artifacts ever placed on public display.”

How can you resist information about microdots hidden betwen the paper layers of a postcard, the tunnel that Americans built under the Berlin wall that was used by both Americans and Russians to gather information. And the telephone shoe from Get Smart? Real or not? You’d have to kill me to find out.

http://www.spymuseum.org/about/index.php

 Brooklyn Bridge

There are  landscapes that stay with us, that work in our subconscious in mysterious ways. Most often, it’s our childhood landscape– the fields, streets, skies we knew growing up. Sometimes it is the landscape of our family stories–stories that we heard often enough to imagine ourselves part of. And then, there are literary landscapes. There are books that have made their landscape a part of me.A week ago I got to visit one of these landscapes, Brooklyn. Brooklyn was never my home, but it was my parents’. It was a different Brooklyn, a 1920’s and 30’s Brooklyn. I knew the stories of Prospect Park (still there) and Wallabout Market (gone). I read novels by Pete Hamill, and Betty Greene.

Brooklyn is also a more personal literary landscape. For the last nine months, I’ve walked the streets of 1919 Brooklyn with characters in my new novel, Trail of Crumbs. I felt the wind off the East River, knelt inside

Mauricio Lorence, (amazing tour guide), took us on a walking tour on a bitter Saturday afternoon. There’s nothing like walking down the same street as your characters, a street you’ve only walked in your imagination. One of the exciting things is that it all worked. Walk down Clinton Avenue and you’ll see the house where the imaginary Gossley family lived. Then imagine pigeon coops on the roof of Sacred Heart School. Listen, and you’ll hear the horse drawn carts trundling produce into Wallabout Market. 

 Winter poems. Today it’s grey and dripping in my corner of

I am honored to have poems appearing in the winter volume of two of my favorite journals The Southern Review http://www.lsu.edu/tsr/IssuesWinter08.html and Relief Journal http://www.reliefjournal.com/

The Southern Review, under the estimable Bret Lott, consistently puts out one of the finest literary venues anywhere. Relief is a new brand of literary journal for writers who grapple with faith in the midst of daily life.

Seems like most of my writing colleagues are celebrating at AWP this week in NY City. For the next three days, throw a snowball in NY and you’ll hit a writer. Haiku–2 for $5 on every street corner—enjoy!

Some friends and I have been having a discussion about our  favorite movies from 2007. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to tell if a movie actually came out in 2007 because movies take a while to make it to the Tri Cities. And good movies, anything out of the mainstream, don’t stay long.

So, it’s really been a discussion of movies we saw for the first time in 2007. For first place, I’d choose The Lives of Others–a great film about the power of beauty and art to transforms lives. It won the Best Foreign Film 2006, but I didn’t see it until 2007. Without a good car chase, it had little hope of getting to the Tri Cities its first year out. Then I’d pick Once– A small jewel of a film with great music and a refreshingly moral ending.

Atonement, Juno–I saw them both last week, and wonderful as they are, I can’t count them on my 2007 list.

Want to speak Klingon, play Sci-Fi Jeopardy, discuss Heroes-the series, learn about drinking in history or how to make the quintessential pirte jacket? Want to hear about alternative markets for your urban fantasy space romance novel? Then RadCon’s the place to be Feb 15-16th.  I’ll be there talking about inspiration and alterantive markets. But do I have to wear the pointy ears? Seriously, I want to know.

New year, new writing opportunities. So, all you student writers out there take note.

“Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” Willa Cather

The Kay Snow Writing Contest

 http://www.willamettewriters.com/1/guidelines.php poetry and fiction 

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

http://www.scholastic.com/artandwritingawards/index_page6.htm

Teen Writing Contest

 http://www.piercecountylibrary.org/kids-teens/teens/teen-writing-contest/Default.htm 

The new issue of GF is live. http://www.goblinfruit.net/winter08/

We all enjoy that delicious thrill of something scary read from the comfort and safety of our own armchairs or from the warm cocoon of our own beds. Remember ghost stories at slumber parties? That’s the only reason I ever got invited, to tell a good ghost story. Or ghost stories around the campfire? It’s okay to have an icy finger run up our spines, when we’re in the company of friends and firelight. There are definitley some poems in this issue that will bring back that thrill. And there’s some wonderful language, see Sonya Taaffe’s “Cherries in Winter” and “Night Auger” by Lucinda Lawson. Then there are a few that are downright scary. More than the delicious chill, they make me look over my shoulder and hope what I’m thinking about isn’t there!  It’s the reason I prefer cozy mysteries and procedurals to forensic stories. So “St. Lucia”  is only for those who like the details. Scares me silly! I like my eyelids whole, thank you.

 Here’s the new postcard that will be going out to Seattle schools. If your school would like a copy, please email me: info@maureenmcquerry.com

 I sometimes get questions about who designed my website. It was designed by Brennan McQuerry, (the book and vine design) and Mike McCain, layout and design.  Mike, a former student, is the webmaster. He doesn’t only design web pages. He’s also a concept artist, animator and illustrator. Take a look at his gallery of work. www.mdbworks.net/mike

The featured art is “subterranean”,  from his portfolio of concept art and illustrations. Looking for a website designer? Check out his web and graphic design work.

 In my life, celebrations tend to cluster in mid-winter. My birthday falls three days before Christmas. As most “Christmas babies” know, it’s easy to get lost in the holiday shuffle. Not so this year. Late on the evening of December 21^st, Ingrid, one of my children’s’ friend, suggested we participate in the 5k

            And we did despite the bitter cold, despite the fact that only daughter is a regular runner. We joined a throng of more than two thousand runners and I learned something in the process besides not to trust the wisdom of Scotch punch. The flow of people can carry you. Every time someone smiled or cheered from the sidelines, we ran faster, we kept going.

Here’s wishing you a swift run, and crowd of cheering voices to carry you towards your goals this year.

Since my poem came out in the Journal of Mythic Arts, it has been showing up on various websites. So, I suppose it should be on  my own. But, please do check out JoMA’s exquisite site. http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/jomahome/

Shapeshifter by Maureen McQuerry

There is a moment
when the creature seems to disappear.
Nothing remains, but a quivering
in the air, the invisible finger
that runs your ridge of spine

My students ask if it hurts
to become another. We’ve read
the stories of humans furred,
flesh erupting to wings, or scales,
gill-gasp of transformation.

I tell them some are stories of pursuit,
a dove answered with a hawk,
a hare with greyhound as reply.
Pursuer and pursued, their deft dance
that ended once with a grain of corn,
swallowed by a hen who birthed
the storyteller,Taliesin.

But what the students want to know is pain.
That remembered moment when
quills pierce skin, fingernails bleed
to claws. Beyond the window
winter’s first kiss startles the grass with frost.

I tell them yes,
there is always pain at birth or when,
our tent of flesh opens
like a door to the sky,
and something more, you must
lean close to hear
the single note of joy.

Today, Sam Green was named Washington State’s first poet laureate.  I’m embarrassed to say that I’d never heard of Sam until the announcement today. Sam has been a poet in the schools for thrity years. Along with his wife, Sally, he is editor/publisher of  Brooding Heron Press. They live, write and publish on Waldron Island. Okay, I’ve never heard of Waldron Island either. It’s a small island in the San Juans with few people, about 104 in 2000, and few amenities. But the island is rich in hosting the state’s first poet laureate.

Cheers to Sam and to WA State for recognizing that poetry matters.

Last night my son asked me what I thought of “cellar door.”  I puzzled over the questions for a few minutes trying to come up with any associations to cellar doors. Could he be talking about a new musical group, referring to the cellar door in the Wizard of Oz, or the scary portal where ghost stories often begin?Finally I did what any self- respecting mother would do, I googled “cellar door.” And what I found surprised me. J.R.R. Tolkien thought it the most beautiful combination of sounds in the English language. Annie Dillard disagreed, voting for “sycamore.” Is this why Stephen King has a photograph of a cellar door on the cover of his book On Writing? It is true that some words compel just by the combination of sounds like dusk, and thistle. In all of these words, the sibilant “s” is the culprit our ears long to hear.Cast your vote for the most beautiful combination of sounds in the English language here. Writers take note–perhaps titles with sibilants sell more.

My poem “Shapshifter” came out today is the beautiful Journal of Mythic Arts edited by Midori Snyder and Terri Windling. http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/jomapoetry/2007/11/shapeshifter-ma.html

It’s a wonderful journal that’s a visual and literary treat!

Apologies to Emily D., (the word should really be “frigate”), but she might agree with the sentiment. In the bustle of Christmas gifting, consider giving a signed copy of a book. Your local independent bookstore is a good place to start. They often have a local authors section. And, of course, you can order signed copies of Wolfproof, Nuclear Legacy and Relentless Light from this site. Send your request to info@maureenmcquerry.com

And if you’re like me, the next thing on your list will be bookshelves.

“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them–with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”    –Eudora Welty