A KILLER BAND of HOBBYISTS

by Leigh Lundin

I find myself chasing down mystery blogs and I came across a criminal group of seven called Killer Hobbies. Pray tell, I thought, what is this about? One entry mentioned ‘rubber-stamping’. I suspected the topic dealt either with rainwear, bizarre sex, or a government job, but if the last, shouldn’t it have been called Killer Lobbies? Who wouldn’t want to murder their favorite lobbyist?

Despite a salacious article on octopussy sex, their blog was indeed about hobbies. Still suspicious, I checked it for any mention of glue-guns. I confess, I am in favor of glue-gun registration. Visit any flea market, and you’ll see more crimes committed with glue-guns than almost any other weapon. Why Michael Moore hasn’t filmed an exposé on glue-guns is probably due to a left wing (or right wing– I’m not picky) conspiracy. At least that’s what my cockatoo thinks, who’s both left and right wing.

One of the members is a mathematician, physicist, and past president of Sisters-in-Crime. That appealed to the puzzler-geek in me. I notice an inordinate number of the Hobbyists are from Indiana. March Madness may have a whole ‘nother meaning.

Killer Hobbies got its start when Deb Baker (doll mysteries) and Joanna Campbell Slan (scrapbooking mysteries) met at Love Is Murder two years ago. They started chatting about their books, their hobbies, and their plans for promotion. Soon they cooked up an idea to start a group blog for hobbyists; they invited Monica Ferris (needlepoint) and Linda O. Johnston (pets and petsitting) to be part of the crew. Attempting to lose weight has become a hobby for many of us (let’s NOT go there), so they asked Kathryn Lilley (dieting and exercise) to pile on. Camille Minichino (writing as Margaret Grace) joined with a huge talent and a tiny focus (miniatures). Terri Thayer was a two-for-one special: quilts and rubber stamping. Deb had to drop out, but then they were lucky enough to find Betty Hechtman (crocheting). Now Killer Hobbies covers every day of the week with everything from scissors and needles to paws and claws, with a rice cake thrown in. Mix in a generous dollop of guest bloggers, and Killer Hobbies is a real crockpot of energy these days.

	NAME	Betty Hechtman
	CITY	Chicago / Los Angeles
	HOBBY	Sunday : crocheting
	BOOK	Hooked on Murder
	ADDRESS	http://www.bettyhechtman.com/

In Hooked on Murder, Molly Pink solves the mystery of who killed her late husband’s partner, while solving the mystery of how to crochet.  Granny squares figure into the book a lot.  Molly learns how to make them, one of the clues is a messenger bag made out of them and there are directions how to make a classic granny square included at the end.

Betty says:

I joined the group late. Terri Thayer invited me and we share an editor and an agent and met at Malice a couple of years ago.

I was born and grew up in Chicago and still spend a lot of time there, though my permanent home is in the Los Angeles area.

The idea for the series came out of my desire to learn how to crochet.  I thought if I wrote about crochet, I would figure out how to do it. 

Dead Men Don’t Crochet comes out in December.

	NAME	Joanna Campbell Slan
	CITY	St. Louis
	HOBBY	Monday : scrapbooking
	BOOK	Paper, Scissors, Death
	ADDRESS	http://www.joannaslan.com/

When I conceived my series, I decided that not only would my books be set in the world of scrapbooking, but that scrapbooking would be the special ability my sleuth would bring to solving the mystery. I made a rule for myself: Kiki Lowenstein would have to figure out who dunnit based on scrapbooking, or use a scrapbooking tool/technique to corral the villain. At the same time, I was cognizant that many of my readers might not care about scrapbooking, so part of my challenge was finding that Goldilocks sweet spot: not too much, not too little, just right! Last, but not least, I also wanted scrapbooking (my hobby) to provide part of the theme for my books. You see, scrapbooking is about writing love letters to life. It’s about focusing on what we want to remember, on what we’ve learned on our journey. So the characters in my book work through life’s ups and downs by scrapbooking, and the hobby reflects what matters to each of them.

Joanna Campbell Slan was born with a pair of silver scissors in her mouth. (Uh, not really!) Growing up in a small town in Indiana without good television reception, she quickly turned to crafts. (GREAT RECIPE: Mix one part cold water to two parts flour, stir well, thin as desired, and use as glue.) When she wasn’t creating ‘masterpieces’, she was reading in the public library.

Joanna has been winning awards for her writing since she was in junior high. In college at Ball State University ( Muncie, Indiana) , she edited the campus magazine and wrote a column for the local daily paper, The Muncie Star. After graduation, she explored all aspects of communication including radio reporting, hosting a television show, selling advertising, and working with national media for the first FarmAid. While traveling the globe as a motivational speaker, she contributed essays for many of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and eventually wrote a college textbook for public speakers. This has been endorsed by Toastmasters International and praised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s speechwriter as one of his most valuable resources.

Since then, she’s penned ten non-fiction books, too many magazine articles to count, speeches for corporate executives, stories in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and now her first fiction series. Paper, Scissors, Death: A Scrapbooking Mystery (Midnight Ink/ September 2008/ ISBN 978-7387-1250-5) will introduce the world to scrapbooker extraordinaire Kiki Lowenstein, a down-on-her-luck widow whose decision to investigate her husband’s sudden death puts her and her young daughter in peril. Joanna lives and scrapbooks in St. Louis, Missouri, where Paper, Scissors, Death is set. On her web site in the scrapbooking section, you’ll find all sorts of tips, techniques, freebies and information including a way to sign up for her free ezine.

	NAME	Camille Minichino as Margaret Grace
	CITY	Revere, Massachusetts
	HOBBY	Tuesday : dollhouses and miniatures
	BOOK	Mayhem in Miniature
	ADDRESS	http://www.dollhousemysteries.com/

Camille Minichino has set her eight periodic table mysteries in her hometown of Revere, Massachusetts. Camille’s taste runs to the very dark (think "Dexter," "Criminal Minds," and Natsuo Kirino). She doesn’t like any of the hallmarks of cozy mysteries: pets, kids, cooking, and humor. And yet, she has written ten cozy mystery novels, with three more on the way, and her new series, Miniature Mysteries, features a ten-year-old. This is in itself a mystery.

Camille is past president and current board member of Sisters-in-Crime. A retired physicist, she currently teaches at Golden Gate U. and other San Francisco Bay Area schools and works as a scientific editor at Lawrence Livermore National Security.

Camille’s lifelong hobby is making and furnishing dollhouses and miniature scenes. How do mystery writing and building mini room boxes relate? Crafting a mystery is like putting together any other project. It takes planning, following and breaking rules, and making sure it all fits together.

The newest book in the Miniature Mysteries series is Mayhem in Miniature, due 5 August 2008, available at your favorite bookstore.

	NAME	Mary Pulver as Monica Ferris
	CITY	Minneapolis
	HOBBY	Wednesday : needlework and hat-collecting
	BOOK	Knitting Bones
	ADDRESS	http://www.monica-ferris.com/

Mary Monica Pulver (aka Monica Ferris) is an incidental Hoosier — Terre Haute, Indiana, had the hospital closest to her parents’ home in Marshall, Illinois. She spent the later part of her childhood and early adult life in Wisconsin, graduating from high school in Milwaukee. She was a journalist in the U.S. Navy for six and a half years (two in London), and later attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

She is married to a museum curator and loves to collect and wear exuberant hats. Monica learns how to do everything she writes about in her books. Her eleventh and latest book, Knitting Bones (Berkley/Prime Crime, December 2007), is coming out in paperback in August 2008.

Mary Monica is on vacation, so Kathryn assembled her info— any mistakes are totally hers. (Kathryn’s that is!)

	NAME	Linda O. Johnston
	CITY	Pittsburgh, Los Angeles
	HOBBY	Thursday : pets
	BOOK	Double Dog Dare
	ADDRESS	http://www.LindaOJohnston.com/

Linda O. Johnston writes the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime–among other things, including Silhouette Nocturnes.

Linda O. Johnston is the author of 14 romance novels, including romantic suspense, as well as the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series, with 6 in print so far and at least 3 more to come.  She also has a couple of paranormal romances upcoming from Silhouette Nocturne, plus a Nocturne Bites e-novella.  Kendra is a lawyer who lives in the Hollywood Hills with her tricolor Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Lexie.  Linda is also a lawyer who lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband Fred and her tricolor Cavalier, Lexie, as well as Lexie’s new best friend Mystie, a Blenheim (chestnut and white coloration) Cavalier puppy.  However, unlike Kendra, Linda has never lost her law license temporarily and become a pet-sitter, nor is Linda a murder magnet. 

Linda says:

I blog on Killer Hobbies because I think it’s a great group–but I was surprised, a while back, when I was invited to join and blog about pets and writing.  Pets aren’t hobbies.  They’re family! 

I love the idea of themed cozy mystery series.  People who share interests in the themes, be they hobbies like crafts, or other beloved pursuits like pets, can already identify with the protagonists. 

I currently write the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime.  It’s about a lawyer who temporarily lost her law license for a while and turned to pet-sitting to support herself and her dog.  She enjoyed it, so now that she has her law license back, she has scaled down her legal practice and continues to pet-sit.  And to engage in Animal Dispute Resolution.  And to solve mysteries, since everyone she knows is either a victim or suspect in a crime.  She just wishes she understood why she is such a murder magnet!

I also write paranormal romances for Silhouette Nocturne.  My first, Alpha Wolf, will be a January release, and so will my Nocturne Bites, my first e-novella.

The “hobby” that I blog about is pets, but I still say that pets are family.  I’ve been owned by Cavalier King Charles Spaniels for longer than I’ve known my husband, and we’ve been married for over 30 years!  I also still practice law on the side, but I guess it’s not a hobby, either. 

Her latest book,  Double Dog Dare, is the sixth Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery. 

	NAME	Kathryn Lilley
	CITY	Los Angeles
	HOBBY	Friday : food, dieting, exercise
	BOOK	Dying to be Thin
	ADDRESS	http://www.kathrynlilley.com/

Kathryn Lilley is the author of the Fat City Mysteries set in Durham, North Carolina, the self-proclaimed “Diet Capital of the World”.

Kathryn says:

As a pre-teen, I had two passions: Nancy Drew mysteries and Pralines ’n Cream ice cream. So it was perhaps inevitable that I grew up to write a series called the Fat City Mysteries. After graduating from Wellesley College and Columbia Journalism School, I became a reporter, and then a YA mystery writer under a nationally known pseudonym. The Fat City Mysteries is the first mystery series that I’ve launched under my own name.

Like my journalist sleuth, Kate Gallagher, I  understand the Battle of the Bulge all too well. I once lost 90 pounds at a Durham “fat farm” to land a job on camera as a TV reporter. And even today, I avoid the street that goes past 31 Flavors…

I’m the “odd duckling” on the Killer Hobbies blog. I couldn’t do a craft project if my life depended on it. So when Joanna asked me to join Killer Hobbies, I wracked my brain for something I could contribute. Then I thought about dieting and exercise—I’d  been doing it all my life, I had to keep doing it, I knew a lot about it—that qualified as a hobby, right? Well, the ladies bought it and let me in. They also put up with my habit of frequently going “off hobby” in my choice of topics. For example, recent headings from my posts are Sex and the Single Octopus, Corpse Brides, and Bigger is Better in the Land Down Under. (But, hey, sex is exercise, isn’t it? It should qualify!)

Kathryn’s latest book is  Dying to be Thin, the first Fat City Mystery. 

Her next book,  A Killer Workout, available now for preorder, is due out 7 October 2008.

	NAME	Terri Thayer
	CITY	New York, San Jose
	HOBBY	Saturday : quilting, rubber-stamping
	BOOK	Wild Goose Chase
	ADDRESS	http://www.territhayer.com/

Terri Thayer is a New Yorker transplanted to San Jose, CA and blooming happily where she has planted herself. Snow and ice have given way to fire and drought, but a sunny day trumps all. She has been sewing for forty years and quilting for twenty years. Writing a mystery has been a lifelong dream and the reality is just as good as the fantasy.

She set out to write the quilting mystery that she couldn’t find on the market. The quilters she knew were not sweet little old ladies, but active women who were funny, irreverent, and creative. They were women with real problems, problems that weren’t easily solved. I wanted to write about those quilters.

Terri’s first book in the Quilting Mystery series, Wild Goose Chase, came out in February. The second in that series, Old Maid’s Puzzle, will hit the bookstores September 1^st. A new series, the Stamping Sisters series, will be released in September as well, beginning with the first book, Stamped Out.

Terri says:

I came to the Killer Hobbies blog after meeting Linda and Joanna at Malice Domestic. I loved the name—Killer Hobbies. We had crafting in common, so it seemed like a good fit.

As readers we like to read about new places in our mysteries. For me, the quilting in my books is the setting, the milieu for our mysteries.

Kurt Vonnegut’s advice for a happy life is to ‘Get a Gang’. In other words, surround yourself with people you like and who will support you. Women who quilt find it easy to find a gang. A craft mystery extends that gang to the characters between the pages. The reader finds people she’ll recognize, identify with and find support in their antics.

Not only that, but sewing, quilting, scrapbooking engenders deep bonds among women. These connections lead to deep discussions about family, life, art. Those revelations and secrets make for good drama in a mystery.

Personalized copies of her books can be ordered from Always Quilting in San Mateo. Look in their online catalog under quilt fiction.

Thanks to Kathryn for pulling everyone together.