Buy 'em by the bagful! It's used book sale season.

The fourth weekend of June is a very special time in Mid-Coast Maine: it's the three-day extravaganza, blow-out used book sale in Brunswick, sponsored by one of the best libraries I've ever been to, Curtis Memorial. This year it will be held on Friday, June 26; Saturday, June 27 and Sunday on June 28. Check out the link below for time and details.

Photo: from Curtis Memorial


Touted as the biggest sale of its kind in Northern New England, the Curtis Memorial Sale takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with books being re-stocked all weekend long. Can't get there at the crack of dawn on Friday? (There are people who line up early to get in right at 10 a.m.). Straggle in any time. On Sunday, when things are winding down, you can fill a grocery bag for three bucks. That's right. Things might be picked over by then, but I have come away on Sunday many a time with absolute treasures. 

So what does this have to do with mysteries and Maine?

The Maine part is obvious. But the  mystery novel category, one of 45 carefully sorted categories the sale offers, is one of the biggest. For $3 hardcover and $2 soft/trade, you can stock up on all the titles and authors you've missed the year before. And there is occasionally a really old/rare book you can snatch up. I found one last year entitled Shadow Kills (Beaufort Books, 1985), written by Rodman Philbrick of Kittery. His early protagonist was a cop-turned-mystery-writer Jack Dawkins, confined to a wheelchair after a work-related accident. If you love Boston, you'll love these books.

These are contemporaries of the Spenser novels and you'll delight in a Boston before the Big Dig, where Jack recalls eating drunken late-night breakfasts at the Hayes-Bickford and drinking at The Hillbilly Ranch. I even remember this Boston. I ended up meeting Rod Philbrick after I reviewed one of the Jack Dawkins novels for Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance's Maine in Print newspaper. Rod wrote me a letter (yes, this was pre-email) to thank me for the kind review. I brought him up to MWPA to lead a workshop on writing suspense. He's still at it, but not with Jack Dawkins, whom he let go because it was difficult to get Jack out of trouble while in a wheelchair. (That's my best memory of what Rod once told me.) He went on to write the very popular Young Adult novel Freak the Mighty.

Wow, did I get off on a tangent! But I'm passionate about these sales. They happen all over Maine and the country, so ask at your local library or do a simple Google search and plug in "used book sales."

My husband and I are planning on getting there tomorrow early to get a head start. I also collect old cookbooks and have gotten a few gems there too.

Here's the link: /http://www.curtislibrary.com/annual-book-sale

And Maine writers Kate Flora and Lea Wait wrote about other types of happenings at local libraries. Read their blog post here: http://mainecrimewriters.com/kates-posts/spending-a-maine-summer-in-the-library

Mystery: How do I find a community?

Happy Monday! It's finally summer in Maine, and it's a cool one. Woke up to 57 degrees this morning.  And I just violated Elmore Leonard's writing advice: "Never start with the weather." Well, god-luv-ya, Elmore, but when you live in a place like Maine, you wake up and start with the weather. Just sayin'.

I usually try to write first, immediately after meditation. But this morning I decided to do some admin work. I was delighted to see in my Inbox a great blog post by Maureen Milliken. Maureen is the proud author of Cold Hard News, just published, and she blogged for Maine Crime Writers about how to get published. "Preparation, hard work, tenacity" are the triple gems she prescribes, but there is something more important: joining the writing community. 

Photo: Maureen Milliken at her book launch party in June

Maureen speaks:

One thing became clear when I became serious about getting to work on my mystery novel several years ago: I had no flipping idea what I was doing. So I joined the Mystery Writers of America (a couple years later I also joined the awesome Sisters in Crime). I signed up for CrimeBake, the conference held every November in Dedham, Mass., and sponsored by those two organizations.
I didn’t sign up thinking that I would network, so much as that I’d sop up information that would point me in the right direction.
I was right about the information. I learned more about what was needed and expected to write a book and get it published at that conference and from those organizations than I knew existed. But the really cool thing was I started meeting people. People who were doing the same thing I was.

Here is the link to Maureen's blog post;

http://mainecrimewriters.com/maureens-posts/whats-the-magic-bullet-to-getting-published-join-the-community
Kate again:

My personal frustration has been that I've been working on my own mysteries for so long, and had such a long hiatus when I went back to work and raised three teens, that the writing community I worked so hard to build up seemed to disintegrate. So I'm back doing exactly what Maureen Milliken suggests. I re-joined Sisters in Crime, which has a very active sub-group called Guppies, for we, the Great Unpublished. I will re-join Mystery Writers of America and I've begun attending overnight conferences, something I could never afford to do when I was parenting. (My kids are all grown now, and are doing great, my best supportive network!).

Photo: Gerry Boyle chairs a panel at MWPA's Crimewave Conference, April, 2015
From left to right: Gerry Boyle, Gayle Lynds, Paul Doiron and Lea Wait


If want to join this great Maine writing community, here is the place to begin: Maine Writers and Publishers' Alliance. Celebrating 40 years this summer, MWPA is your first stop when you write, whether it be poetry, mystery, non-fiction, essay, memoir, it doesn't matter. MWPA offers this much-needed sense of belonging to something greater than your own inner ramblings . From their website:

Founded in 1975, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization that works to enrich the literary life and culture of Maine. We are the only statewide organization solely devoted to supporting and promoting Maine’s writers, publishers, booksellers, and literary professionals. The MWPA has a membership of more than 1,600.
Our goals include: promoting an appreciation of Maine literature; creating a network of writers, readers, and publishers; creating opportunities for writers to improve writing and marketing skills; and informing members and the public of Maine literary and publishing news.

 

This Wednesday, June 26, 2015, MWPA will put on another "Gather," a get-together of writers in different locations all over Maine. I will host one in Waterville at Maine Brews (1 Post Office Square) at 6 p.m. Do join us!

Email me at kateconewrites@gmail.com or check out the other locations at the MWPA website:

www.mainewriters.org