Time just flies. I can’t believe two months have passed since my last newsletter, yet here we are at the beginning of summer. If you’re new to my newsletter, thank you for signing up. If you’ve been reading all along, thank you for sticking with us.
Bill and I had a very busy couple of months doing shows, and we did well. We sold books (always important since it lets us pay the bills) and met many wonderful new people. We did local shows and we went out of the area: North Bethesda for our first Malice Domestic, and back to Baltimore for the Sherlockian Scintillation of Scions.
Malice was amazing. There were about 550 writers and fans in attendance, all of whom are devoted to the cozy mystery genre. If you are a fan of that genre, Malice – supported by Sisters in Crime – is the place to be. It’s very intimate. You get to talk one-on-one with a writers at every step of the ladder. Many first-time writers were present, along with much bigger names like Misty Simon, Parnell Hall, and Donna Andrews. They were all happy to talk and have fun with the fans.
We had never been to Malice before. We had such a good time that we will most likely return next year. But we’ll do one thing differently. We’ll arrive on Thursday when the convention opens around 2 p.m., rather than getting up at 4 a.m. to drive to North Bethesda from Hershey.
We also attended ‘A Scintillation of Scions’; an annual Sherlock Holmes symposium. This was our second year meaning I was actually able to recognize people from last year! A very nice experience all around.
We were able to debut our newest books at Scintillation. Bill finally finished the 223B Casebook series. We brought with us (hot off the printing press) volume 7, “Jazz Age II: 1925-1930”, and ‘The Best Sherlock Holmes Parodies and Pastiches.”
The Casebook series is a comprehensive collection of vintage Sherlock Holmes fanfiction, including pieces from Punch magazine, covering the period from 1888, when the first Holmes parodies appeared, to 1930, the year of his death. In all, including ‘Punch’, there are eight volumes.
We should be done with the ‘Casebook’ series. We probably are. We go back and forth, discussing one last volume, a very special one. This book would include a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches that have not been reprinted since they were originally published in 1923. They are written by an author not normally associated with Sherlock Holmes. He wrote a number of them as a very young journalist.
If we do this last, extra-special volume, we’ll announce it at the beginning of 2020 and will debut it at Scintillation of Scions in June of 2020.
In the meantime, our attendance at Malice Domestic brought another project to the forefront.
Bill has always been fascinated by Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. Ms. Sayers is rightly remembered for her dazzling stories about Lord Peter Wimsey. Ms. Christie doesn’t get nearly as much respect for her own prose, although she should. Bill published the complete annotated “Whose Body?” by Sayers, adding hundreds of footnotes, with maps, essays, and timelines to better explain the book. Then, he did the same with Christie’s first two mysteries: “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” and “The Secret Adversary.”
That’s where we stood. We assumed we were done. We could produce annotated editions because those books, due to quirks in the copyright law, were out of copyright in the United States.
Then the Mickey Mouse protection act (a law enacted by Congressman Sonny Bono to help his constituent, the Walt Disney Corporation, preserve their intellectual properties) expired.
That expiration meant that many more books were suddenly entering the public domain, Christie’s and Sayers’ among them. While at Malice Domestic, we had many conversations about how much people liked and appreciated our annotations since they helped clarify so many points about the books. Were we doing more?
We hadn’t considered it, but Malice showed us there is a market. So, expect to see Agatha Christie’s second Hercule Poirot mystery soon: ‘Murder on the Links’. Bill is annotating it even as you read this newsletter.
Then, in January of 2020, Christie’s “The Man in the Brown Suit” comes out of copyright within the United States. We plan to be ready with Peschel Press’s complete, annotated edition.
After “The Man in the Brown Suit,” we’ll be annotating each Christie novel as it enters the public domain, year by year.
Dorothy Sayers’ “Clouds of Witness” enters the public domain a few years from now. When it does, expect to see our annotated version. Then, as with Christie, we’ll be producing an annotated version of each of her classic novels, year by year.
More Books, More Books!
Expect to see “Sew Your Own Cloth Grocery Bags” prior to the end of the year. I’m heading down the homestretch now, having worked in all my beta sewers’ corrections. I’m currently wrestling with the drawings demonstrating the origami-like wings on boxed bags.
We will also publish “The White Elephant of Panschin” this year. I wrote ‘the end’ a few days ago. I wrote 230,000 some words to tell the story of Veronica Bradwell and Airik Shelleen, I’m so glad I’m done. “The White Elephant of Panschin” is in the hands of my beta readers and, when it comes back, Bill will edit the novel and we’ll publish it.
In the meantime, if you don’t want to wait, you can read a new chapter from “The White Elephant” every week on Wattpad or at AO3.
Since I’m done with “The White Elephant” for now, I’m starting on my next book in the Steppes of Mars series. It’s called “The Vanished Pearls of Orlov.” This novel can be read as a stand-alone since it does not contain any characters who appeared in “Bride” or “White Elephant.” Mars is a huge world with plenty of room for stories about people who don’t know each other; just like the real world, in fact.
In “Pearls”, you’ll meet Londa and Fenrick. She’s escaping an arranged marriage that would pay off her family’s debts whereas he sees a chance to make some serious coin for his family. Londa doesn’t tell Fenrick the entire truth, but eventually it all comes out. They’re being pursued because of the pearls she stole.
Pearls on Mars are immensely valuable and rare. Every last one of them was imported from Olde Earthe. It’s assumed by most people that most pearls are fake. Not these pearls, which explains why Londa’s family and would-be husband are so hot on her trail.
I’ll get to explore a different part of Mars than I had been to and I’m looking forward to the journey. Eventually, when I build up enough of a backlog of chapters, we’ll start serializing “Pearls” on Wattpad and AO3. When that happy day arrives, I’ll announce the serialization in the newsletter.
In other current news, Skye is still slaving away on her book about divination. We really want to see that book by Christmas.
Bill’s working on “Man Out Of Time” and “Career Indie Author” when he’s not running the business, editing me, or writing annotations for vintage Agatha Christie novels. Barring accidents and medical emergencies, we have a fighting chance of getting both books published by the end of the year.
So, two months of work since the last newsletter and we’ve got two books to show for it. If all goes well, we’ll have two more books to show for our effort by the next newsletter: “Sew Your Own Cloth Grocery Bags” and, well, who knows?
Thanks again for joining us here at Peschel Press; the history behind the mystery.