The Freedom to Read

~ Margaret Lucke ~ 2 Comments

by Margaret Lucke

When I was twelve and in the seventh grade, I read On the Beach, by Nevil Shute, a grim novel about people facing death from radiation in the aftermath of a nuclear war. I chose it for the best of reasons—a cute guy in my class was reading it and I wanted to impress him.

A friend of my mother’s who was visiting saw me with the book and said to Mom, “Are you really letting her read that?”

Mom’s reply: “I don’t worry about what she reads. If a book is too adult for her, she won’t really understand what it’s talking about. And if she does understand, it’s already too late.”

When it came to my sisters and me, my parents set firm standards for behavior but not for ideas. While they urged us in the direction of certain attitudes, opinions and beliefs, they let us read whatever we liked. They understood that books can fire a child’s imagination and give her an experience of ideas, cultures, and aspects of the human experience far beyond the boundaries of her own family and community. They knew that books are a good investment yielding lifelong benefits.

Not everyone understands this. I’m all for parents being aware of what their children read, of discussing with them the books and the ideas they contain, even sometimes making them set aside a particular book until they are older. But too many people, afraid of the power books have to change lives, feel they have right to dictate what others can read—not just their own children, but other people’s kids. Other adults too.

This week, October 5-11, is Banned Books Week 2025, sponsored by the American Library Association, and today is Let Freedom Read Day, when the ALA asks everyone to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available. Every year the ALA compiles lists of hundreds of books for which people have filed written complaints requesting that the book in question be removed from schools and libraries. The reasons cited: the books have too much sex or violence or bad language, or they depict lifestyles or beliefs with which the complainant disagrees. Too often, the jurisdiction in question agrees and pulls the books off the shelves.

According to the free-of-expression advocacy group PEN America, this sort of book ban happened almost 7,000 times between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. The Washington Post reported that during this period, the author who was subject to the greatest number of bans was Stephen King.

This is in the U.S., where free speech and freedom of expression have traditionally been dearly held principles. In many countries it’s the government that steps in to ban books, afraid of what its citizens might do if they had unfettered access to ideas.

I don’t know if On the Beach was ever banned or challenged anywhere, but a book I read and loved soon afterward made the list: Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Here’s a random selection of a dozen other favorites (among many) that have been so “honored”:

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss
Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 10th edition
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah

Banned Books Week is an opportunity for librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, writers, and readers come together to celebrate the freedom to read and draw attention to attempts to restrict that freedom. You can learn more about it here.

A good way to celebrate? Find a book that has somewhere, at some time, been challenged or banned. Read it. And pass it on.

Who’s In Charge Here?

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 2 Comments

by Janis Patterson

Every so often one of my writers’ groups will conduct a workshop on ‘how to create a character.’ I’ve taken a few of them and the methods range from a half-dozen point checklist to a six page questionnaire that goes into such depth as the character’s favorite flavor of Jello, the schools he attended, what kind of pet he had as a child…. You get the idea.

I’ve tried them all, and each time created a deep, multi-faceted character. A completely dead deep, multi-faceted character. They had all the proper points, but they never came to life on the page. Working with them resulted in all the joy and sparkle of Silly Putty. Oh, they moved from Point A to Point B when I directed them, and spoke the words I put in their mouths, but they were reminiscent of nothing so much as Gumby or King Kong – their movements were obviously stop-animation instead of really coming to life.

So I quit taking classes and went back to what I’ve always done – letting the character come to me. Almost every writer has snorted with disbelief when I tell them about the birth of my characters, but – other than my occasional forays into how-to-create-characters classes – it’s always worked for me.

So what do I do? Nothing. My characters simply walk in, tell me their name, and start fitting into the vague storyline that I’ve started with. And yes, they tell me their names. Once I really didn’t like a character’s (the hero!) name and changed it. He didn’t like it, so he shut up and refused to speak to me again until I changed it back to what he wanted some three weeks later. Then the writing simply flowed because of his cooperation.

Who said writers had complete control in their own world?

I know this technique (technique? maybe dictatorship?) wouldn’t work for all writers. Huh, it may not work for any writer besides me, but that’s the point. Even if I’m the only one it works for, it does work for me. I know the character’s-favorite-Jello system works for some people. It doesn’t work for me, but I’m glad it works for them.

What I’m trying to say is that there is no one singular this-way-only technique for writing a book. The only thing that we all should do is write a good book. How we write that book is up to us. There are many good techniques, probably some I’ve never heard of. The important thing is that each writer has to find the one that works for him. Or which ones work for him. There’s no rule saying you can only use one technique. As long as you turn out a good book, it doesn’t matter.

Artful Travels

~ Janet Dawson ~ 3 Comments

Here’s a quote from Ian Fleming, World War II Naval intelligence officer—and author of the James Bond novels:

Never say ‘no’ to adventures — always say ‘yes.’ Otherwise, you’ll lead a very dull life.

Dull life? Not me.

Recently my life has been anything but dull. Though not the way I planned it.

When I wrote the first draft of this blog, I anticipated it would appear days after my return from two glorious weeks in Bella Italia.

Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum. Rome, the Eternal City. The Vatican museums. The Coliseum. Florence, steeped in art, the statue of David looming over all of it. Venice with its canals and gondolas.

It didn’t happen. I had to cancel the journey I’d been planning for over a year.

A week before I was due to leave, I started getting low heart rate alerts on my Fitbit. Off to the emergency room, where an afternoon of EKGs, bloodwork and doctor consultations revealed that I needed a pacemaker. The doctors didn’t advise traveling for four to six weeks. Surgery, then home, then back to the ER with a fluctuating heart rate—again. One of the leads on the pacemaker had come loose. Another surgery, this time to replace that lead and reposition the others. I came home from this second hospital stay the day I was supposed to leave for Italy.

The travel insurance claim is in the works, and I’ve rebooked the trip for next spring. I’ll get to Italy yet.

So, why Italy? It’s the same reason that led me to Greece two years ago, and an upcoming trip to Egypt in January. History and art. I have an MA in history and all those books on my shelves. I love going to museums and wandering through galleries full of wonderful art. My favorites, the Impressionists. When I was in Paris decades ago, I went to the Louvre three times and the Orsay Museum twice. I sought Monet at the Orangerie, the Marmetton and took a trip to Giverny, where he painted and where I discovered he loved Japanese woodblocks as much as I do.

I used to say I didn’t like modern art. Then some years ago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art mounted an exhibit featuring Richard Diebenkorn. I went twice. Time to take a different look at modern art and understand it a bit more.

I took an art history course. I’d always thought about doing that when I was in college and never got around to it. I enrolled at the local community college and went to classes, accompanied by the weighty tome I bought in the college bookstore. I was the oldest person in the room, including the instructor. I learned a lot.

The class broadened my appreciation of art and reignited my desire to travel. Not to the land of the Impressionists, but to the ancient world. Hence the trip to Greece. I climbed to the top of the Acropolis and marveled at the treasures in the Archeological Museums of Athens and Crete. I saw the statue of the Charioteer in Delphi. On Santorini, I went to the ruins of Akrotiri, a town destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the 16th century BCE.

I could happily go back to Greece, as there is much to see and I barely scratched the surface. Italy has been rescheduled for next spring. Now I’m anticipating Egypt. Cairo and the Grand Egyptian Museum. The pyramids and the Sphinx. Abu Simbel, Luxor, the Valley of Kings. Sailing the Nile on a boat and envisioning Amelia Peabody! I can’t wait!

Later in the year, I’m planning a return to England and France. In keeping with my interest in history, especially World War II history, I’ve signed up for an Operation Overlord tour that starts in London, with the planning of the D-Day invasion, and includes visits to Churchill’s War Rooms and the Imperial War Museum. Then to Bletchley Park, where Allied codebreakers cracked the Axis codes. From there to Portsmouth and a cross-channel ferry to Normandy and the D-Day beaches.

Of course, if I’m going to England and France, I’m spending extra days in both places. Versailles, a tour of the Paris Opera, perhaps another trip to Giverny. As for England, I’m checking to see what plays and musicals are playing in London’s West End. The Museum of London, one of my favorites. The British Museum, a must. Afternoon tea at Brown’s Hotel, of course. That’s where Agatha Christie always stayed. And it’s the scene of her Miss Marple novel, At Bertram’s Hotel.

After that? Where shall I go next? Vienna? Australia? Costa Rica? Iceland? Spain? My wish list gets longer and longer!

And yes, there’s an art history plot in here somewhere. Remember, in my latest Jill McLeod/California Zephyr book, Death Above the Line, a Vermeer looted by the Nazis appears—then disappears. What happened to it? Eventually I’ll have to find out.

Guest Blogger ~ Joni Marie Iraci

~ patyjag

How I came up with the premise for my novel, “Vatican Daughter.” Had the church scandals never come to light, I never would have had the bravado to write this novel. I witnessed first hand the holy than thou behavior of hypocritical clergy both as a child and as an adult. I was visiting St. Peter’s in Rome ten years ago and thought,  I wonder what’s going on there now. I thought what if a girl was somehow involved. The muse hit hard and I had the title, “Vatican Daughter,” jotted down some notes and put it aside while I went to Columbia University for an MFA in creative writing. In 2019, I returned to Italy, walked 88 miles through Rome and Venice. I returned home to New York and wrote and researched every day for a year. The research took me down many rabbit holes where I discovered the little known fact about the papal kidnappings of Jewish children in 1859 by Pius IX. The fictional pope in “Vatican Daughter,” is American because I never dreamed there would ever be an American elected. I did extensive research on the inner workings of the Vatican hierarchy. 

Set in Rome and Venice – with a brief stop in Magallanes, Chile, and New York City – Vatican Daughter propels the reader deep into the heart of Italy. Ensnared by its vivid descriptive language, you will be transported and immersed in this plausible, suspenseful story as it takes you through various cities, tasting their foods along the way, with different characters. At the same time, you will meander along the medieval palazzos of Rome and Venice, sip the wine, explore the countryside, ride the train, step behind the walls of Vatican City and its papal gardens, and imagine experiencing the loss of a child at the hands of men who would go to any means to avoid the exposure of Vatican corruption, papal indiscretion, and the Vatican’s long-buried secrets. A story of a young woman who relentlessly searches for her child while coming head-to-head with the most powerful entity on earth, Vatican Daughter focuses on serious female-centric issues and the Vatican’s controversial, scandalous, and hypocritical behaviors.

The link to purchase can be found on my website: 

https://www.jonimarieiraci.com

Author Joni Marie Iraci holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. Her first novel, Reinventing Jenna Rose, won The Firebird Book Award in 4 categories. She has spoken about her writing, as well as her interesting trajectory of returning to college in her later years, at Strand Bookstore.

https://www.jonimarieiraci.com

https://www.instagram.com-iraci2

I have two facebook pages joni marie Iraci and joni marie iraci author

Home at last

~ Nancy Lynn Jarvis ~ 1 Comment

My books meet the criteria for cozy mysteries: body by the second chapter; an amateur sleuth (usually female) who has a police connection like a boyfriend, relative, or friend; gory details, language, and sex implied but takes place off page; tidy ending with justice served; and there’s even a recipe for mysterious chocolate chip cookies associated with one of the series.

The amateur sleuths, a realtor in Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries and a downsized law librarian turned self-styled private investigator in PIP Inc. Mysteries do solve the crime before the authorities do and sometimes in spite of the authorities. The stories end with the murderer coming to justice…at least most of the time. Interestingly one of my most popular characters escaped and readers are constantly asking if the character will turn up in a future book, hopeful that they will.

So my books are cozies by definition if sometimes slightly kinky like good British mysteries, my covers and book titles aren’t. No witty play-on-word titles for me. I prefer real estate related titles for the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries or harsh titles like “The Funeral Murder” or “The Corpse’s Secret Life” for the PIP Inc. Mysteries.

Pets are often another element of cozy mysteries and while my protagonists do have pets: cats for Regan McHenry and a dog and cat for Pat Pirard, they are never featured romping across a cover upending a cake or anything like that. Okay, Pat’s ginger cat Lord Peter Wimsey is on a back cover of “Dearly Beloved Departed” feigning innocence in the downing of a Christmas tree, but a reader has to have the book in hand to discover that.

I didn’t consider the idea of a typical cozy cover for the first book I wrote because when I started writing, a series wasn’t in my  mind. I had a good beginning and an ending that I liked and no idea how to connect them, let alone how to follow “The Death Contingency” with other books to make a series. Later I did modify the covers for the first series, but only to add a real estate sign and make them look like they belonged together. They still don’t look like traditional cozies.

I always considered myself a bit of a contrarian and I love British mysteries, besides, I like my edgier covers which work well with my non-cozy titles. Usually, I come up with what the title will be and a basic sketch of what the cover should look like before I start writing, so both title and cover design are an integral part of the story and make perfect sense to the reader by the time they discover who did it.

Nevertheless, I’ve always felt discomfited that I didn’t look like I belonged in the cozy genre and worried readers might skip over my books because they didn’t feel right. All that changed a few months ago when I heard someone say they enjoyed reading cozy-adjacent books. Cozy adjacent. Perfect. Now I have a home and I don’t have to apologize for my covers and titles. I’m free to use a non-cozy title like “What Lucy Heard” for my latest book.

You can see all the covers of my cozy-adjacent books, the other books I’ve written, the cookbook and anthologies I’ve edited, and read the first chapters of the mysteries at my website www.nancylynnjarvis.com or check them out in print and ebook format at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Lynn-Jarvis/e/B002CWX7IQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0