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1. Contact Information
2. Book Information
3. Author Bios
4. Peschel Press History
5. Public Appearances
1. Contact Information
Bill Peschel and Teresa Peschel
[email protected]
[email protected]
Peschel Press
P.O. Box 132
Hershey, PA 17033
2. Book Information
Books Written and/or Annotated by Bill Peschel
ALSO BY BILL PESCHEL
The Casebook of Twain & Holmes
Writers Gone Wild (Penguin)
Dead Man’s Casino (Brash Books)
ANNOTATED EDITIONS
The Complete, Annotated Murder of Roger Ackroyd (2020). By Agatha Christie. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Complete, Annotated Man in the Brown Suit (2020). By Agatha Christie. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Complete, Annotated Secret of Chimneys (2020). By Agatha Christie. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Complete, Annotated Murder on the Links (2020). By Agatha Christie. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Complete, Annotated Whose Body? (2011). By Dorothy L. Sayers. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Complete, Annotated Secret Adversary (2013). By Agatha Christie. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Complete, Annotated Mysterious Affair at Styles (2013). By Agatha Christie. Notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
THE 223B CASEBOOK SERIES
Anthology series with multiple authors, and with notes and Annotations by Bill Peschel
The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes (2014)
Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies & Pastiches: 1888-1899 (2015)
Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies & Pastiches I: 1900-1904 (2015)
Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies & Pastiches II: 1905-1909 (2016)
Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies & Pastiches I: 1910-1914 (2017)
Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies & Pastiches II: 1915-1919 (2016)
Sherlock Holmes Jazz Age Parodies & Pastiches I: 1920-1924 (2018)
Sherlock Holmes Jazz Age Parodies & Pastiches II: 1925-1930 (2019)
The Best Sherlock Holmes Parodies & Pastiches: 1888-1930 (2019)
THE RUGELEY POISONER SERIES
The Illustrated Life and Career of William Palmer (1856, republished 2016). By Anonymous. Edited by Bill Peschel
The Times Report of the Trial of William Palmer (1856, republished 2015). By Anonymous. Edited by Bill Peschel
The Life and Career of Dr. William Palmer of Rugeley (1925, republished 2014) By George Fletcher. Edited by Bill Peschel
NOVELS BY ODESSA MOON (A.K.A. Teresa Peschel)
The Bride from Dairapaska
The White Elephant of Panschin
The Vanished Pearls of Orlov
Escape to HighTower
ALSO BY TERESA PESCHEL
Agatha Christie, She Watched
Fed, Safe and Sheltered
Sew Cloth Grocery Bags
BY SKYE KINGSBURY
The Dictionary of Flowers and Gems
3. Author Bios
Bill Peschel: Short Biography
Bill Peschel is a former journalist who shares a Pulitzer Prize with the staff of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. He is also a mystery fan who runs the Wimsey Annotations at Planetpeschel.com.
Through his work, Bill has become an expert on Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Sherlock Holmes parodies and pastiches. The author of “Writers Gone Wild” (2010, Penguin), he publishes through Peschel Press the 223B Casebook Series of Sherlockian parodies and pastiches and annotated editions of Dorothy L. Sayers’ “Whose Body?” and Agatha Christie’s “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” “The Secret Adversary,” “The Murder on the Links,” “The Man in the Brown Suit,” “The Secret of Chimneys,” and “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.” An interest in Victorian crime led to the republication of three books on the William Palmer poisoning case.
Peschel was born in Warren, Ohio, grew up in Charlotte, N.C., and graduated with a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He lives with his family and animal menagerie in Hershey, where the air really does smell like chocolate.
Bill Peschel: Long Biography
All his life, Bill Peschel has had a passion for asking why and finding answers. It is a quest that has taken him into journalism, historical research, a non-fiction book about the success and failures of notable authors, and as publisher of Victorian true-crime, Sherlockian parodies and pastiches, and the mystery novels of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie.
Peschel was born in Warren, Ohio, the son of a steel company worker who in 1970 moved his family to North Carolina. In high school in Charlotte, N.C., Bill was enrolled in an open high school that experimented with alternative means of learning and was exposed to the works of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Tolkien, and Eldridge Cleaver. He decided to be a reporter after internships at The Charlotte Observer and The Charlotte News.
He attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for three years, taking classes in history, political science, and drinking, wrote and edited stories for the school newspaper, and launched a quarterly tabloid that published stories on politics, the university, and underground comics. He finished his education with a journalism degree at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he filed stories as a stringer for The New York Times.
Following an interest in fantasy role-playing games and computer games, he worked for The Avalon Hill Game Co. in Baltimore. He edited the company’s magazine for role-players, debugged computer games, and wrote and edited instruction manuals.
In 1990, he returned to journalism as a copy editor for the Rock Hill Herald. In addition to his editing duties, he took over the book page and wrote hundreds of reviews. He also wrote the occasional feature, such as the front-page story about the time he played an extra on the set of the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot, that was filming in the area.
In 2000, he joined the staff of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., where he shared a Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal.
Since the mid-1990s, he has run his personal website, PlanetPeschel.com, where his Lord Peter Wimsey Annotations inform and entertain fans of Dorothy L. Sayers’ murder mysteries
In 2010, Penguin published his book “Writers Gone Wild,” a collection of stories about the successes and failures of writers. About this time, self-publishing was possible through Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle. When Bill decided to annotate Dorothy L. Sayers’ first novel, “Whose Body?”, he realized that it was in the public domain outside of Great Britain and the European Union. He decided to publish an annotated edition through his newly created Peschel Press. He also annotated Agatha Christie’s first two novels that were in the same situation as Whose Body?
Since then, Peschel Press has published a series of books about Victorian poisoner William Palmer, and has embarked on the 223B Casebook Series, reprinting nearly all of the Sherlockian parodies and pastiches that appeared during Arthur Conan Doyle’s lifetime, until his death in 1930.
Peschel lives with his family and animal menagerie in Hershey, where the air really does smell like chocolate.
Teresa Peschel Biography
Teresa Peschel lives with her family, her dog Muffy, and two mostly useless cats in the Sweetest Place on Earth. She has long been interested in sustainability, resource depletion, and finding a balanced life, not too much and not too little. Why take more than you need when other people and animals need lives and space too?
Odessa Moon Biography
Odessa Moon has at various times painted, sewed, served in the Navy, worked as a sales clerk and cashier, taken care of her family, and gardened with enthusiasm. She reads extensively, especially on subjects like medieval history, the class struggle, colonization, and resource depletion. While growing up, she read piles of science-fiction and fantasy and often wondered what the authors hand-waved away about how difficult it really would be to terraform another planet. The series, “The Steppes of Mars” is her attempt to combine all those interests.
When Ms. Moon is not writing, she is working on improving the soil in her own garden and planting trees in her municipality.
Visit Odessa at her website.
Skye Kingsbury
Oh, hello, you’ve reached the part of this website with my “bio.” Yes, that’s in quotes for a reason. I’m a bit of a private person and also very shy, so don’t expect too much.
My name is Skye, and no, it’s not my real name, but it’s the one I go by more often than not. If you’ve noticed that it’s somewhat familiar, it’s probably because you’ve stumbled across my Tumblr. If not, then don’t worry too much about it.
I’m twenty-one, though not for long if the passage of time has anything to say about that, and I enjoy many hobbies, which range from reading and writing, to drawing and crocheting random stuff. Currently, I live in a town in somewhat southern Pennsylvania with my dog and cat who I love very much, even if they do have the tendency of driving me nuts.
4. Peschel Press History
Bill Peschel and his wife, Teresa Peschel, founded the Peschel Press in Hershey, Pa., in 2011. He was a part-time book publisher until 2013, when he lost his newspaper job.
It started with British mystery author Dorothy L. Sayers and her amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. Bill is a Sayers fan and for years annotated her novels and stories for the Annotating Wimsey section at Planetpeschel.com.
As he prepared to tackle Sayers’ debut novel, Whose Body? (1923), Bill discovered that, because it was published first in the United States, it was in the public domain in most of the world. As a longtime reader with a love for editing, cover design, and typography, Bill decided to publish the novel with his annotations.
In 2011, The Complete, Annotated Whose Body? became the first book issued from Peschel Press. This was followed by two annotated editions of Agatha Christie’s early novels, three books about Victorian murderer William Palmer, and at least eight anthologies of Sherlock Holmes parodies and pastiches.
The Press sells its books through many retail sites online, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Kobo, Lulu, and Smashwords. Bill and Teresa also sell their books at arts festivals in the Hershey area.
Today, the Press has published at least 17 books and added new subjects such as self-help (Suburban Stockade by Teresa Peschel), reference (The Dictionary of Flowers and Gemstones by Skye Kingsbury), and contemporary fiction (The Casebook of Twain & Holmes by Bill Peschel).
5. Public Appearances
Bill and Teresa have made many appearances across the country. Bill has spoken about the works and lives of famous writers, including Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Teresa has spoken about sustainability (for “Fed, Safe, and Sheltered”), sewing (for “Cloth Grocery Bags”), and Agatha Christie movies. She has been interviewed for her book “Agatha Christie, She Watched” by numerous podcasts including Shedunnit, episode 1, season 2 of Tea and Murder, Clued In Mystery, and the Dark and Stormy Book Club.
Learn more about Teresa, including her lectures, on her own page.
Bill has given talks on
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* How to be more creative
* The craft of book reviewing
* How to be an effective writer and editor
* How to market your books
* The advantages and pitfalls of self-publishing.
He has given PowerPoint shows on Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie and even appeared on television in “Mysteries at the Museum.”
On YouTube, Bill spoke with Gabby Allen (aka Misty Simon)
Multiple interviews as part of “Mechanicsburg Mystery Presents” podcast.
Interviewing his wife, Teresa, about her Agatha Christie movie adaptation project: “Agatha Christie, She Watched.”
Other events
International Agatha Christie Festival (2024)
Gaithersburg Book Festival
Chocolatetown Book Festival
Hershey Public Library Author’s event
Cupboard Maker Books (multiple signings)
Interview Ellen Crosby at Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop
Scintillation of Scions
Hershey Culturefest (Hershey)
Murder As You Like It / Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop (con host)
White Rose Irregulars talk on Sherlock parodies
Hershey Public Library Local Author’s Day
Art on Chocolate (Hershey)
York Book Expo
Hershey Winter Arts and Crafts Show
Mechanicsburg Mystery Convention
Cupboard Maker Books (signing)
Art on Chocolate (Hershey)
Mechanicsburg Mystery talk on Sherlock Holmes
Midtown Scholar March Mysteries
“Mysteries at the Museum” – the disappearance of Agatha Christie
Hershey Winter Arts and Crafts Show
York Book Expo
Agatha Christie lecture, private group (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)
Mechanicsburg Mystery talk on Agatha Christie
Derry Twp. Historical Society Art Show
Hershey Public Library 100th anniversary festival
Pennwriters, seminar on self-promotion
Bouchercon 29, panel appearances
Bouchercon 30, panel appearances