The San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime welcomes New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle on November 12 – Hey! That’s my birthday. What a great way to celebrate. You’re in for a treat if you sign up to hear about Kate’s adventures.
Kate is a native Californian who worked in television production for quite a few years before turning to writing. She leveraged her lifelong fascination with the art and craft of bookbinding into The Bibliophile Mysteries. Her protagonist is Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills unearth some very old secrets, treachery and murder. She’s written more than twenty books and still found time to launch the Fixer-Upper mystery series. A few of her works have been adapted for television.
Join the SinC chat with Kate about her books. Besides her writing she’ll have some great anecdotes about how she once traveled the world as a Dating Game chaperone and performed strange acts of silliness on The Gong Show.
Remember this date: Nov 12, 2022 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada). Register in advance for this meeting: https://bit.ly/3NyJJzi
The Hardy Boysseries on Hulu has been cancelled after three seasons. Amazing since The Hardy Boys has been one of the longest-running series in any format. This franchise started with the novel “The Tower Treasure” in 1927!
When the series began, books were attributed to an author named Franklin W. Dixon but were actually written by a group known as The Stratemeyer Syndicate. The Syndicate was founded by children’s book entrepreneur, Edward Stratemeyer. Statemeyer was colossally prolific, having created more than 1,300 books and selling over 500 million copies. He created YA characters and book series including: The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew.
Adaptations of the series books to film began in 1956 when “The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure” was aired as part of “The Mickey Mouse Club.” Another series ran from 1969-1971, which was an animated version where the boys were members of a rock band. From 1977-1979 “The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries” appeared, teaming The Hardy Boys with Nancy Drew, another Stratemeyer-created character. Previously there was also a 1995 television series that lasted only 13 episodes.
Launched in 2020, the Hulu adaptation of “The Hardy Boys” was, according to Variety, a production based entirely in Canada with only Canadian actors. Since then, the series has scored two Canadian Screen Awards, a Directors Guild of Canada Award, and a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Young Adult Series. The final season will consist of eight episodes, an hour in length each, and will have Bailee Madison of “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” joining the cast.
Sadly after three seasons on the streaming service, Hulu has chosen to cancel the show following its third season. It seems that lack of awareness about the show may have contributed to its early cancellation.
Down for now, don’t count The Hardy Boys out. They’ve been a reappearing act for 95 years!
Each year the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) present a Writer of the Year (WOTY) award. Here are 2022’s three finalists.
Amy Rivers is an award-winning novelist and writer of short stories and personal essays, as well as the Director of Northern Colorado Writers. She was recently named 2021 Indie Author of the Year by the Indie Author Project. She holds degrees in psychology and political science, two topics she loves to write about.
Karla M. Jay is the award-winning author of When We Were Brave, It Happened in Silence, and The Puppet Maker’s Daughter. She has wanted to write books since she was seven. Originally from the east coast, she makes her home in Salt Lake City. Over the years she has written in several different genres, ranging from humor to noir.
Pamela Nowak joined RMFW in 1993. She’s been contest chair, president, chaired five conferences, was 2010 WOTY, honored with the Jasmine Award and named an Honored Guiding Member. Pam currently presents workshops, judges contest, and critiques.
The Buffalo supermarket killer live-streamed from a camera mounted on his helmet — an up close and gruesome first-person view as he fires into 10 people, some of them crawling on the supermarket floor. That’s what we excitedly hope to see on social media?
Here’s who kept the streaming going as people died and presented terror as “theater”:
Twitch
Streamable
Facebook let it ride for more than 10 hours
And just a note about #Zuckerberg – he’s quietly formed American Edge. American Edge has launched a campaign committed to fight antitrust legislation in Washington. They’re placing op-eds in regional papers throughout the country, commissioning studies, and collaborating with partners, including minority business associations, conservative think tanks, and former national security officials.
With this kind of big-money backing, we haven’t seen the last of streaming blood lust. They’re beating the drum as if regulation is a restraint of tech development – don’t be fooled. Follow the money.
In their ten-week program, International Thriller Writers Organization sponsors online programs led by a master in the craft of thriller writing. Each instructor will teach some aspect of thriller creation during a two-hour Live Zoom session, will provide written materials for further reading along with study suggestions, and will offer an entire week of online Q&A with the registered students.
If you are unable to attend each week you will still be able to view the broadcasts and review questions that were asked. If you are unable to attend an entire week you will be able to review the Q&A from the other students and that week’s instructor.
2021’s instructors: Jeffrey Deaver, Lisa Gardner, Anthony Horowitz, Liv Constantine, Alexia Gordon, Adam Hamdy, Cate Holahan, Steven James, Tosca Lee, Jaime Levine, David Morrell, Samuel Octavius, Alex Segura and Jerri Williams.
Space is limited so contact Christopher Graham at [email protected] to be added to the wait list. Date has not been finalized. Tuition is $495. Attendee requirements are Facebook and Zoom accounts.
Do we ever read the privacy policy statements of sites? How about terms and conditions? The answer is probably no – and that includes me. Courtesy of the Washington Post here are the reasons why we need to start.
You may use Turbo Tax or H&R Block online to file your taxes. It’s easy. It’s quick. But did you know that by clicking “agree” to some of their privacy prompts, you may be allowing sale of your personal data?
A Washington Post reader dug into the agreements after starting his taxes with one of the online tax services. After agreeing to the primary privacy agreement, the website requested permission to access personal data to “optimize your experience.”
This second permission stated: “If you agree to share your tax return details, after you file, we can provide many benefits.”
Your benefits were labeled as “personalized services” and “quicker product support.” It became clear that the tax filing software industry advanced from returns processors to profiteers of personal data.
The U.S. is skimpy on privacy laws, but it does have one that prevents tax filing companies from disclosing the contents of your tax return. For online processors, that means they can’t automatically use the contents of returns for purposes other than preparing taxes.
With this new add-on agreement, Turbo Tax and H&R Block Both companies are asking special permission to supersede federal protections and use your information, including your income, investments and mortgage details to help them upsell you on other financial products.
In addition, H&R Block wants your permission to share some of the content of your return with two independent companies in the Philippines that help them do customer service.
Clicking yes for the “personalized service” or “offers” request means you’re probably going to receive marketing from H&R Block or Intuit that’s eerily specific to your financial situation.
H&R Block stated it vets their partners, and to its knowledge they haven’t suffered from a data breach. But it can happen.
If you agreed to these requests while preparing your taxes and have now changed your mind, you can try to revoke access. But they’re going to make you jump through some hoops. For TurboTax, you have to email [email protected]. You must mention you’d like to revoke your “consent for use of tax return information.” H&R Block said customers would have to contact the company, but didn’t specify how.
Valerie Webster and Driven: A Rita Mars Thriller in the spotlight via Author of the Day interview.
Make your next book club event an author event with a writer who’s lived the cases, developed the crime fighting technologies. Contact Valerie Webster today.
