Mary Kay Andrews

Good Guys vs. Bad Guys

Last night we got a bit of bad news: our daughter and son-in-law’s home about a mile from here was burglarized–while we were all sitting in our living room eating dinner and watching Jeopardy. Let’s pause here. I’m not really a sexist, but I do frequently cheer for the women on Jeopardy. Last night was no exception. The returning champion was a librarian from Athens, GA. Chances are she went to my alma mater–the University of Georgia. She was funny and cheerful. One of the challengers was your classic Jeopardy triple threat: a dweeby shut-in type dude whose hobby was performing 17th century French erotic plays. No shite! I am NOT making this up. Of course, he out-triggered the champion at every turn (I think he got every question in the Seinfeld category: need I say more?) and she was quickly over-powered. I think somebody should do a dissertation on this: guys nearly always out-perform women on Jeopardy, not necessarily because they know more useless stuff (they do though) but because they are more aggressive and willing to bet bigger on themselves. At least that’s my theory. In the 35 minutes Katie and Mark were here matching wits with the troubled loner on Jeopardy, some lowlife crackhead bandits crowbarred their way into a downstairs window of their rental house and made off with a goodly cache of the kids’ stuff: two laptops, some iPods, their brand-new video camera, and Katie’s jewelry, including some treasured pieces given her by my sister, who was Katie’s godmother. They did this with the kids’ big black lab Tybee right there–we think they used a piece of lumber they found in the house to fend him off–although let’s face it, Tybee was probably more afraid of them than vice-versa. They trashed the kids’ bedroom and office, and thoughtfully put up the dog gate and let themselves out. And took away the kids’ sense of security and well-being. Katie was too freaked to sleep in her own home last night, and chances are good it may be a while before she can feel safe there again. They have renter’s insurance, so they can replace the electronics, but the tiny diamond earrings my sister Susie gave Katie for her 18th birthday are gone. The kids are installing a burglar alarm. They will probably move from the house they loved, and Tybee has been given a stern talking-to about being a more pro-active crime dog. And oh yeah–Mark’s laptop had the video we did of me and Eddie Ross at the Scott Antique Market last month. Mark had just finished editing it and was getting ready to add music so I could post it on my blog. Bastards! I may have to just go vigilante on ’em. We spent the morning cleaning up the mess the thieves made–washing everything they might have touched so as to remove the bad ju-ju from the house. And when I got home, there was a package on my doorstep from one of my oldest bestest friends, Sue in Ohio. Sue and I have been friends since 7th grade back in St. Petersburg, and she knows well my fondness for junk, especially Floridiana themed junk, which I’m using to decorate the Breeze Inn. She’d packed me a splendid housewarming gift, including a fantastic Florida souvenir tablecloth, probably from the 1950s (mint condition), a Georgia souvenir handkerchief, and a vintage Viewmaster with lots of fun slides from around the world. Planning how to display my new treasures vanquished the bad guy ju-ju. Sometimes, the good guys (or make that girls) really do come out on top.

The games writers play

I’ve been on a writer’s retreat this week with my buddies from North Carolina. This is our fifth or sixth getaway, and it’s always an amazingly productive week. This time around we are at The Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, which is a non-profit foundation based at a beautiful old home in Southern Pines, N.C. The foundation invites working writers to have up to two weeks a year as writers in residence. The six of us; Margaret Maron, Katy Munger, Sarah Shaber, Diane Chamberlain and Bren Witchger, are old hands at this process by now. We each take responsibility for one night’s dinner, and bring groceries enough for a Trojan army. Katy and I are sharing a bedroom, but everybody else has their own little room and writing space. We started the week Monday night by setting writing or plotting goals for the week. And then each morning, after breakfast, we meet and write down our goals and post them for all to see. Because in addition to having mutual support and brainstorming, we all need some accountability. After lunch, we usually chat about what we’ve accomplished–or what’s giving us problems. Then we scatter to our corners around the house. It’s so interesting to me to see all the different ways each of us works. Sarah is working on the re-write of a historical novel, so she brought her marked up manuscript, and a huge poster, with outlines and diagrams, and Post-It notes telling her which chapters would have to be re-worked. Margaret was working on the final copy edits for her next mystery, which will be out in August. It’s the latest Deborah Knott mystery, to be called SAND SHARKS. Her manuscript was neatly spiral-bound, ready to be worked on. Katy is working on a new project, as well as an old one, so she had schematics and flow-charts to plot her next book. The fact that she types with two fingers adds to the entertainment value. Diane has a long skein of taped together file cards with hand-written notes and color-coded highlighting. Bren has her journals full of notes and ideas. And me? All I have is my wits and a yellow legal pad with some cryptic scratchings. The weather has been ideal this week, sunny and mostly warm. The mansion is set amongst the horse country of the Carolina sandhills, and there are pastures and barns all around us, so the girls have been taking walk-abouts and visiting the horses in between writing jags. Me? I just write and eat M&Ms. After dinner each night, we discuss what we’ve accomplished. And then the real fun begins. On our retreats, we don’t watch television. We pretty much limit contact with the outside world to phone calls home and emails. After dinner, we play games. But not just any games. Word games! Margaret introduced us to Balderdash on one of our first retreats, to Holden Beach. In case you don’t know this diabolical game, it consists of a deck of cards with the most obscure words you’ve ever seen on one side–and the meaning of the word on the other. One person draws a card and announces the word. The other players then write down their bluffed definition of the word. The sillier the better. Playing this game with writers–people who make a living from playing with words, is SO much fun. After we’ve warmed up with Balderdash, we usually gravitate to Taboo, sort of a modern version of Password. Great fun, especially after some adult beverages have been ingested. This week, we’ve been playing a new game, brought by Diane. It’s called Apples to Apples, or, as the box advertises “a game of comparisons.” We stayed up late many nights flinging silly words at each other–the perfect antidote to the serious word-slinging taking place during the day.

Breeze Inn Update

Living room–sofa in mid-slipcover
Kitchen curtains from tablecloth–made by friend Jacky

Dining area
It doesn’t feel like I accomplished much at the Breeze Inn last week. Got some curtains hung, moved some furniture around. I wanted to hang pictures, but then I was seized up with fear. What if I ruined a wall? What if my picture was off-center? (I am notorious about never being able to center or balance anything). So I puttered around, swept the floor, and decided to let the house tell me what it wants. Geez. It’s just a house. They’re just pictures. Some paint by numbers and silly amateur paintings of seaside scenes. Maybe I’ll feel more confident next week, when Mr. Mary Kay arrives with his level and tape measure. In the meantime, I’ve moved the show up to North Carolina, where I’ll spend the week on a writer’s retreat with my writer buddies Katy Munger, Sarah Shaber, Margaret Maron, Diane Chamberlain and Bren Witchger. Hoping for inspiration, or at least some quality time writing and exchanging publishing gossip.

Drapery Hooks and Fire Trucks

I’ve been down at Tybee this week, trying to get the Breeze Inn put together. The plan was for me to get towel bars and toilet paper holders and curtain rods put up, curtains hung–12 sets of Ikea Marete drapes–and all the boxes unpacked. Mundane stuff. Except my life is never mundane. Like yesterday, my friend Jacky came over. The plan was that we-meaning mostly her, since I am a total dweeb when it comes to figgerin’–would make the pinch-pleat drapes of my dreams for the master bedroom. I’d bought all the supplies, had my sewing machine at the ready. We cut out the fabric panels, puzzled over how to do the lining and the pleater tape, and then ran into a giant roadblock when we discovered I’d bought the wrong #$%^& kind of drapery hooks. Since we are out at Tybee, and the nearest “store” is T.S. Chu’s Department Store, a funky old 1950s beach novelty shop specializing in tourist crap, with an odd hardware store tacked on, this meant a trip into town to search for the right drapery hooks. Two hours later, Jacky was back, and we settled into more figgerin’ with a little sewing. Keith, my wonderful contractor, and his helper Brian, showed up to hang the aforementioned towel bars, ect. More roadblocks. The curtain rods for my office area didn’t have any brackets. The shower rod for the downstairs bath would require a special cutting tool. Ect. Jacky went home for dinner. I made the looong trip into town to buy more curtain rods. Came back and settled into working on the manuscript for THE FIXER UPPER which has to be shipped back to NY today. Jacky arrived with a worried look. Did I smell gas? We stepped outside into the freezing cold, and yes, it smelled like gas. A LOT of gas. Went into the backyard, where our propane tanks are. A whole, whole lot of gas smell. So I called the Tybee police department, and they came out, and they smelled gas too, so they called the Tybee Fire Department, who were conveniently having a department wide training drill last night. The firemen were more than happy to make the two block trip over here with lights flashing and sirens wailing. We’re talking two trucks, maybe 10 guys, plus additional police cars. The guys poked around in the attic, and the rest of the house, and could find no gas smell inside. They poked around the propane tanks, and couldn’t find any obvious problems. The cop came inside to take my report. I’m so proud: been on Tybee three days and already my name has entered the police reports! Finally, we decided there was no iminent threat of explosion. Jacky went home. I went to bed. This morning, the gas smell is gone. But you can bet your bippy I called the gas company, and they will send somebody out to make sure we don’t get blown to kingdom come. Oh yeah. P.S. We finished exactly ONE drape panel yesterday. Out of six. Stay tuned…

Indie Bookseller Love

I’m just back from a quick trip to Salt Lake City for the American Bookseller’s Association Winter Seminar. This is a meeting for independent booksellers to attend seminars on the business of bookselling–which, in this economic climate, is no easy thing to do. But booksellers are some of my all-time favorite people in the world, so it was a great trip. Last night I was part of a group of 40 authors. The booksellers had a cocktail reception, and the authors sat at tables ringing the ballroom, siging advance reader’s copies (ARCs) or finished copies of their newest book. I was thrilled to be giving away the brand spanking new ARCs of THE FIXER UPPER. The new book won’t be out til June, but the ARCs go out now to booksellers and reviewers, so they can hopefully order gabillions of copies and start generating early buzz. Saw lots of old friends, including the wonderful folks from Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, Inkwood Books in Tampa, Rainy Day Books in Kansas City, Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pa., Books and Books in Coral Gables, and even my old friends from Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego. Bookselling is a labor of love for these folks, and in these challenging times, they have an uphill battle, but these folks are so smart, engaging, imaginative and brimming with love for the written word that it is always a treat to spend time with them. It made me want to be a better writer, and a better book lover. And, oh yeah, to pay attention to how and where I buy my books. Indie booksellers are the folks who supported me way back in 1992, when my first mystery, EVERY CROOKED NANNY was published. I’d sit in a Waldenbooks store at a mall, and the only time anybody would talk to me would be to ask me where the bathrooms were. But those indies, like the late, lamented Oxford Books in Atlanta, and Final Touch Books in Decatur, threw me book parties, hand-sold my books, and encouraged me to keep going. And now, here I am, almost 17 years later, with 17 books published. It still amazes me when I look at all those book jackets framed on my office walls. Tomorrow’s SuperBowl Sunday, but the game doesn’t start ’til 6 p.m. Why not take yourself over to an independent bookseller–either to a brick-and-mortar store, or to an indie bookseller’s online site, and treat yourself to a shiny new book? It doesn’t even have to be one of mine–although that would be nice, and yes, DEEP DISH does come out in paperback in February. Browse around, let the book-loving clerks give you their recommendations for a great new read, or pick up a new release you’ve been dying to try out.
And oh yeah, tell ’em Mary Kay sent you.

Craigslist for Dummies

Actual ad from Atlanta Craigslist under GARAGE SALE category:

GARAGE DOORS FOR SALE WITH OPENER – $325 (YOUNG HARRIS GA)
Reply to: [?]Date: 2009-01-29, 8:06AM EST
TWO GARAGE DOORS FOR SALE WITH OPENER..ONE HAS GLASS PANELS,,,ONE DONT…BOTH ARE WHITE …STANDARD SIZES ON BOTH DOORS VERY GOOD COUNTION NO DENTS OR DINGS…MOVING MUST SELL …..CALL

Yeah. See, the thing is, you don’t actually sell garages at a garage sale. And don’t get me started on grammar and spelling. Or the idea that the person considering buying this rocket scientist’s home might wonder what happened to the garage doors that came with the house.

Whew. Now I feel better. Guess I was a little cranky due to the lack of honest-to-Gawd estate sales this week….

Signing Alert: Southeastern Flower Show Atlanta

Tomorrow, I’ll be a thorn amonsgt the roses, er, camellias, when I sign books at the Southeastern Flower Show. Catch me from 2-4 p.m. Thursday at the Eagle Eye Bookstore on the floor of the show, which is being held this year at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Marietta. Yes, I know. Stop that giggling. I have about as much business at a flower show as a pig at a beauty shop, but hey, I love flowers. I love gardens. I would love gardening, but every time I step into my yard mosquitoes swarm my lily-white Irish flesh. And I get backaches. Anyway, they asked, and everybody knows I’ll just about show up for the opening of a phonebook. So come out to the flower show and check out the gorgeous displays and helpful lectures, and then wander over to the bookstore and I’ll sign your books. Hell, I’ll even sign garden books.

Breeze Inn Sneak Peek

The Breeze Inn–Almost there!
Master bedroom–with $10 Baptist yard sale bed

Katie and Mark’s room–$10 Episcopal thrift shop headboard

Andy’s room–$50 Craigslist twin beds
I finally dragged my whipped butt home Friday afternoon. Or should I say Katie dragged it home, becuz I have come down with a case of the crud and she had to drive us home. Still, I feel like we really are in the home-stretch now. After a series of mind-boggling hitches, we finally got our certificate of occupancy on the Tybee cottage Friday morning. What kind of hitches, you ask? Let’s see. On Tuesday, I decided to run a load of linens in my newly-delivered washing machine. The next thing I know, a large puddle of water is spreading on my newly finished heart-pine floors. An SOS to Billy the plumber brought the news that there was a leak behind the wall. Oh yeah, the recently painted, plank wall. Washer and dryer pushed aside, wall ripped up, where we discover that a nail had been driven through the PVC water line. Oy. (Is it okay for Catholics to say oy? gotta check that.) New pipe installed, wall nailed back in place. We’re ready for the inspectors, who pass us on all the mechanical systems, but are gazing suspicously at the brand new windows. Are these hurricane impact-rated? We all look at each other and scratch our heads. We know they’re energy efficient, but impact-rated? A call to the building supply that sold us the windows revealed that they are NOT impact-rated. This means that to get our CO we will have to order sheets of plywood and have each one cut to the size of the windows and labelled, and then call the inspectors back. And did I mention that my antique schoolhouse lamp globe got dropped and busted? Oy. (I’m giving myself permission to use it.) In the meantime, there was plenty to do. I attacked the kitchen sink with a can of Bar Keeper’s Friend and got out most of the rust stains. I set up my kitchen. Katie, the organizational genius, fine-tuned it. With the genius help of Jane Coslick we set up the beds in the bedrooms, hung curtains, put down rugs, made up beds, arranged furniture, took up rugs that weren’t working, removed the furniture that was too big. See, I have a thing with numbers. They make me cross-eyed. I’m number dyslexic, I think. I always have an idea of how things should look in my head, but the scale throws me off. A measuring tape would help, but I’d still foul it up. So it’s a matter of give and take. So here are a few preliminary sneak peeks. There’s still art to be hung, curtains to be hung, the living and dining rooms to arrange, drapes to be made–oh yeah, stay tuned for MKA’s foray into drape-making, and much more to come. But before we left Friday, I got to fold my pretty blue and green towels and place them in my dreamy new master bath, and gaze out my non-impact rated windows at a gorgeous sunny Tybee day. Not a bad week’s work. And when I stop whining long enough, I really do know how blessed we are to have this place of escape and relaxation. Now, if I could just get rid of this case of crud.

Savannah Book Festival–Y’all Come!

Please join me in the most beautiful city in America, Savannah, Ga., for the second annual Savannah Book Festival, Feb. 6-8. Last year’s debut festival was so much fun it shoulda been illegal, and the organizers have even better stuff up their sleeves this year. You can hear Southern humorist Roy Blount (author of my favorite poem about broccoli) at a Friday night keynote concert. I’ll be winging it Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Trinity Church sanctuary–I guess that means I’ll have to watch my phraseology–and more than 40 other wonderful authors of fiction and non-fiction will be speaking throughout the weekend. And did I mention that you can still buy a ticket to the Sunday brunch catered by The Lady & Sons and featuring as guest speaker a little lady known as Paula Deen? Lawd! Can you stand it? Go here for all the details. and tell ’em Mary Kay Andrews sent you.

Duke’s Mayo is the Spread for Me!

And now, as though life isn’t exciting enough, comes word from our friends at Duke Mayonnaise that they want our help in choosing the winner of their jingle contest! Here’s the email I received this weekend:

Hi Mary Kay,
Thanks so much for sharing the news about Duke’s jingle contest on your blog! We’ve narrowed it down to two finalists and would like you and your readers’ opinions on which best describes “The Secret of Great Southern Cooks.” Can you help us out?

You can listen and vote at http://www.dukesmayo.com/jingle.asp .

Of course, I wrote them back immediately and told them where to send my case of Duke’s Mayonnaise–the secret of Great Southern Cooks.

If this payola scheme of mine works out, look for future blogs about Godiva chocolates, Kate Spade handbags, Mercedes-Benz, Mitchell-Gold sofas and Talbott’s.