The Philatelist
Since the publication of my debut humorous cozy mystery, Death by Sample Size, I have been asked by many readers how events, interests, and people in my life have influenced my writing. Since my stories all take place in the Los Angeles garment center, my career as a sales exec in the ladies’ apparel industry certainly had a significant influence on my writing. Customers, colleagues, bosses, family, and friends have all played a part. But the question deserved a look beneath the surface to the collateral events, interests, and people that came into and out of my life but played a much bigger role in defining who I am and how I write than one would ever think.
I have been an avid philatelist since I was twelve years old. What, you may ask, is a philatelist? It’s a fancy word for a stamp collector. My introduction to stamp collecting came with a birthday gift of an album filled with stamps from one of my mother’s cousins. The pictures, colors, and shapes of the stamps fascinated me, but other than licking one and attaching it to an envelope to mail, I didn’t know much else about stamps. There was a coin-and-stamp store next to the take-out pizza place my mother frequented, a few miles from our house. I took the album to that shop to see if the proprietor could teach me what stamp collecting was all about. The first time I walked into that store, a magical world opened up to me, one that would impact my life in more ways than I could ever have imagined.
I credit my lifelong love affair with stamps and the influence it has had on how I write to Mr. Milton Albin. Generous, knowledgeable, and patient, Mr. Albin was a bespectacled, wiry, balding, wonderful middle-aged man who was the proprietor of that stamp and coin shop. Every Friday after school, I went home to collect my weekly allowance and my stamp album and then rode my bicycle to Mr. Albin’s store.
Always wearing a jeweler’s loupe and a magnifying glass on a lanyard around his neck, Mr. Albin was so willing to answer all your questions, teach you everything you wanted to learn, and exuded so much enthusiasm about his chosen field that even the most skeptical customer couldn’t help but become a fan. He was a wonderful teacher who taught me the proper way to handle the stamps and evaluate their quality. Mr. Albin suggested that for a novice collector like me, the best way to start learning about stamps was to buy canceled ones instead of more expensive mint-condition copies. Good thing too; canceled stamps were all a pre-teen’s allowance could afford. That said, my visits to Mr. Albin’s store always began at the huge wall on the right behind the entry, which was covered with envelopes containing canceled stamps clipped onto it.
After making my selections, I’d bring my envelopes to Mr. Albin to ring up. He would open the envelopes and carefully take the stamps out with a pair of tongs, and that’s when the magic began. He had a story for every stamp, and his vivid descriptions brought the stamps to life. With one commemorating the casualties of our Civil War, his eyes filled as he whispered, as though praying in a Chapel. With another commemorative that celebrated the end of slavery, his eyes lit, and he spoke with the fervor of a preacher. No matter what the Stamp’s story was, he told it like a novel with a beginning, a middle, an ending, and a point of view. He told each story his special way, taking his time, slowly building up to the cliffhanger, and dramatically pausing right before the climax. Talk about pacing and how to build tension up to the finale. Mr. Albin had it down pat. He was my tour director on weekly adventures around the world and through every era of history, with stamps in every color and shape imaginable serving as the tickets for the ride.
How I look at the world, and the people in it, plays a major role in the writing style I learned with help from a diminutive, unassuming, marvelous man every Friday afternoon, who led me by the hand on the continuing adventure of a lifetime through stamps. I honored Mr. Albin in the most appropriate way that an author can by including him as a character in Death by Jelly Beans, my award-winning cozy mystery.
Mr. Albin is long gone to that great celestial collectors’ corner up above, but if I piqued your interest in stamp collecting, check out the website of the American Philatelic Society to learn more about this fascinating hobby that can take you everywhere and anywhere, while never leaving your living room.
Death by Jelly Beans
Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik discovers the Bainbridge Department Store Easter Bunny slumped over dead, and obnoxious swimwear buyer Sue Ellen Magee is arrested for the crime. Despite her differences with the nasty buyer, Holly is convinced the Queen of Mean didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But the trail has more twists than a pretzel and more turns than a rollercoaster. And nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
Buy Links:
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Amazon.com : Death by Jelly Beans
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-jelly-beans-susie-black/1145804565
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212700868-death-by-jelly-beans
https://www.bookbub.com/books/death-by-jelly-beans-holly-swimsuit-mystery-book-5-by-susie-black
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and ardent sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
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