OF GAMUTS AND GOBBLEDYGOOK AND TILTED TONGUES by Steven Steinbock I was overwhelmed with all the discussion that took place in the comment section of last week’s Bandersnatches. Comments ran the gamut from euphemized swear words to pronunciation pet peeves. Jeff Baker rightly pointed out that the expression gobbledygook is connected to the word maverick, […]

FINDING TIME TO READ by Deborah Elliott-Upton If you don’t have a young reader in your home, you may not be aware that April 12th is Beverly Cleary’s birthday. The author of the Ramona Quimby series is celebrated each year as National D.E.A.R. Day. D.E.A.R. stands for Drop Everything and Read. Many elementary school students […]

WHAT MY CATS WOULD READ if cats could read by Rob Lopresti Chloe is a tortoiseshell lady of a certain age. She is the smallest, oldest, and dominant member of the feline force. Nonfiction: Chloe is known from the attic to the very basement as the Great Commun- icator. She never hesitates to tell us […]

Leigh Lundin is our resident Puzzle Master, but I stumbled upon these “minute mystery” videos on YouTube and thought the Gentle Reader might find them amusing. —JLW THE MURDER MYSTERY GAME by Riddlenow.com                    

SOME BIBELOTS AND BAUBLES by James Lincoln Warren Here, completely free, are some nuggets of advice for aspiring short story writers of crime fiction. These are all little things, but then again, a fatal bullet is a little thing, too. Yeah, I know that free advice is worth exactly what one pays for it, to […]

The AWARENESS by Leigh Lundin I received a surprise gift, Crimes by Moonlight, the latest MWA anthology edited by Charlaine Harris. This volume is unusual in that each story combines traditional mystery with the paranormal. Terrie Moran I flipped through its contents looking for authors I might know. James knows more writers than the word […]

DREAMING OF MONEY by John M. Floyd For me, one of life’s pleasures is discovering a piece of fiction that has been around awhile but that I somehow never noticed. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s usually been as a result of the columns and comments posted at this blog. Several dozen […]