Welcome back, dear readers. Here comes 2022! I’m sure it will be a much better organized and positive year for all of us than the last two years have been. One can hope.
I’ll start with my father. He’s still with us. We’re still coping. What else can be said when someone is 87 and medically fragile? As you expect, my dad’s health affects everything we do here at Peschel Press. God knows, I’ve been unable to do much more than keep my head out of the raging tides. I haven’t been writing new fiction at all these last few months.
I’m happy to report that Bill and I have been keeping up with the Agatha Christie movie marathon, watching the films and writing reviews. We’re just past the halfway point in our goal to watch all 200 or so movies. The projected end date (subject to change without notice as is everything around here these days) is November of 2022. That is, we’ll have watched all the Agatha adaptations and I’ll have reviewed them all. My reviews get posted every Tuesday and Friday at our website so you can read as we go. We also post Bill’s mini-reviews and clips of the film on our Instagram account so you can see what he has to say. We don’t always agree.
What does this mean for the future? Bill has been editing my reviews and building pages as we go. We may be able to press [publish] on Murder, She Watched in spring of 2023! Maybe.
But that’s a long time from now, so I’m sure you’re wondering what we’ll do for the year of 2022. One of the vagaries of indie writing is that you are the product and the producer of the product. If you don’t produce, you have no product. Since I haven’t been producing, my books haven’t been getting published. As always, life gets in the way. When you read those inspirational, “you can do it!” posts, they never seem to admit that sometimes, you just can’t.
But we have hope and we keep plugging. We’re pluggers. We’ve got a very tentative publishing schedule and a tentative event schedule.
We’ll do events first.
Love Is In the Air
Saturday, 12 February 2022 from 11am until 3pm. Ashcombe Farm and Greenhouses in Mechanicsburg, PA is hosting Love is in the Air.
This is a gathering of Central Pennsylvania romance writers. We’ll have a writers’ panel and answer any questions you might have about writing and publishing from 11 a.m. to noon. At noon, we’ll have tables set up in the greenhouse and chat and sell books. I’ll be there as Odessa Moon. We’ll have a range of writers, so whatever your taste in romance, someone is sure to have what you like.
Malice Domestic
Thursday, 21 April through Sunday, 24 April 2022. We’ll be at Malice Domestic in Bethesda, Md. with all our books. If you’ve been waiting for a signed copy of The Cases of Blue Ploermell, The Complete, Annotated Man in the Brown Suit, or, possibly if the stars align and we’re working hard to make it happen, The Complete, Annotated Murder of Roger Ackroyd, your chance has arrived.
Hershey Arts Festival
Saturday, 7 May 2022. We’ll be at the Hershey Arts Festival from about 9am until the usual May thunderstorm washes us out. We’ll be somewhere in the sea of canopies surrounding the Cocoa Beanery next to the Hershey Medical Center.
Chocolatetown Book Festival
Further out in the future is the Chocolatetown Book Festival. It’s Saturday, 1 October 2022 and right here in beautiful, downtown Hershey. That’s a long way from now, but it’s already on our calendar.
Other Events
After that, I don’t know. We’ll apply to the Pittsburgh Book Festival (Saturday, 14 May) and the Gaithersburg Book festival (Saturday, 21 May). They have yet to open applications and they may not accept us. If we’re accepted, we’ll tell everyone via the newsletter, our website, and our Instagram feed.
The Complete, Annotated Man in the Brown Suit
Wait. Back up. You wrote The Complete, Annotated Man in the Brown Suit? And, gasp! The Complete, Annotated Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Why, yes, I did.
Bill has pressed publish on “The Complete, Annotated Man in the Brown Suit!” Amazon hasn’t approved it yet (it happened only yesterday), so we’re not out of the woods yet. This book has been a long time coming but it will be a beauty. Agatha wrote it after her world tour in 1922. Incidents from the cruise ship and visiting southern Africa show up everywhere in Anne Beddingfeld’s adventures. It’s loaded with footnotes, essays, pictures, and memorabilia of Agatha and Archie’s one-in-a-lifetime cruise as well as the complete text.
After that, the plan is to have Roger Ackroyd ready in time for Malice Domestic 2022. If all goes well, we will. If not, it will take a little longer.
223B Sherlock News
When we published The Cases of Blue Ploermell, I thought I was finished with the series, but you can’t keep a good Sherlock parody down. It looks like we have one more round in the chamber.
A few years back, when I was in the middle of the series, I had assembled material from one of the more prolific writers of parodies into its own book, then set it aside. I don’t remember why, except that it was a huge book, so I set it aside.
Finding it again, I realized that most of the work is done, so why not send it into the world? The only question is when.
I’ll have more information for you once that’s settled, including the identity of the mysterious author.
Odessa Moon News
We’re also slowly making headway on getting The Vanished Pearls of Orlov and Escape to HighTower finished. I’m processing Bill’s editing notes on Pearls but it’s slow. My mind is occupied elsewhere. I’d like to say that I’m slaving away on War Dogs of Barsoom but I’m not. I can’t focus.
When life gets in the way, make lemonade. I’ve been working on our Instagram feed instead and sewing cloth tote bags and cloth bookmarks for upcoming appearances. And traveling to Delaware.
Finally, thank you all for your kind attention. We’ll keep you posted of our activities and newly published books via our monthly newsletter. For more up-to-date news, check the front page of our website or our Instagram feed.
We couldn’t do it without you, dear reader. We appreciate you. Remember to tell the people you love how much you appreciate them. We only get a short time on this earth so make the most of it.