Makiki Library Accepts Sisters in Crime Grant Money for Books

ALOHA EVERYONE, Thank you for joining us today for a short but exciting event. One goal on most everyone’s wish list of accomplishments is to be “A WINNER.” Few people set goals without having a desire to accomplish that goal.

The main goal of the organization Sisters in Crime is to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition, and professional development of women crime writers.

And they LOVE LIBRARIES!

SinC/Hawaii members Dawn Casey, Gay Gale, and Kent Reinker 

socializing with Makiki Library staff, Lani and Julie. 

Libraries within the U.S. can enter a monthly drawing for the Sisters In Crime ‘We Love Libraries’ grant by submitting an entry form along with a photograph of one or more staff members holding up three books by Sisters in Crime members in their collection. The grant money must be used to purchase books for the library, in any genre by any author, at the library’s sole discretion.

In February, 2013, as president of Sisters in Crime/Hawaii, I approached the manager of The Makiki Community Library, to suggest the library submit an entry for the Sisters In Crime ‘We Love Libraries” grant. I took a couple of pictures with four of the library’s staff members holding up Sisters In Crime novels. The library submitted the entry and we all crossed our fingers that Makiki Library would become A WINNER.

Our local chapter, Sisters in Crime/Hawaii meets at The Makiki Community Library once a month, usually on the third Wednesday. Library staff member Nicole kindly volunteers her time to watch over us on those evenings. Thanks to efforts of the library, works of several SinC/Hawaii members who are also members of Makiki Library are displayed on the “Local Authors” shelf.

Laurie Hanan’s mystery series features protagonist Louise Golden, a Kaneohe mail carrier who oftenfinds herself in the thick of a murder investigation. Events in Louise’s personal life and her subtle sense of humor keep the reader engaged in Laurie’s stories from beginning to end.

Rosemary Mild, Dawn Casey, Laurie Hanan

Sisters in Crime/Hawaii booth

Hawaii Book and Music Festival 2014

 

Rosemary and Larry Mild are Sisters In Crime/Hawaii’s Partners In Crime. They have two mystery series available to readers; and a stand-along novel, Cry Ohana, set in Hawaii. Rosemary also writes non-fiction, including a memoir entitled Miriam’s World - And Mine; and her latest work: Love! Laugh! Panic! Life with My Mother.

Kent Reinker publishes under the pen name of Alain Gunn. His latest novel, If Pigs Could Cry, is a medical thriller. In A Tale of Two Planets, he tells of a realistic trip to Mars and back, giving readers the feeling they are actually traveling with the space crew.


Gail Baugniet’s Pepper Bibeau mystery series is also included on the shelf, the stories set in places like Chicago,IL; Wisconsin; and Hawaii.

Several members also participated in contributing to and publishing the mystery short story anthology MYSTERY IN PARADISE 13 Tales of Suspense. Everyone who is a member of Makiki Library is welcome to check out any of these books. The books are also available in ebook format on the Internet.

Each month, Sisters In Crime, Inc. draws a winner of their ‘We Love Libraries’ grant. For the month of May, 2014, as you know, THE MAKIKI COMMUNITY LIBRARY met their goal to be A WINNER of the grant. Library President Suzanne Ivey, will graciously accept this award for the library today.

It is the special honor of Sisters In Crime/Hawaii to offer congratulations and to present this check to you today, for The Makiki Community Library, in the amount of $1,000.00.

Congratulations to Suzanne Ivey and Makiki Library.

Sisters in Crime Loves the Makiki Community Library!

(Honolulu, HI) – Sisters in Crime, Hawaii chapter, is pleased to announce The Makiki Community Library was selected as the May 2014 winner of the Sisters in Crime “We Love Libraries” grant.

The Makiki Community Library staff
holding up books of Sisters In Crime members

Sisters in Crime is an organization dedicated to promoting the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers. Libraries within the U.S. can enter a monthly drawing for the grant by submitting an entry form and a photo of one or more staff members with three books by Sisters in Crime members in their collection. 

“We’re thrilled to receive this generous gift,” said Suzanne Pioahu, Makiki Community Librarian. “Libraries provide direct support to authors by circulating their books, introducing readers to their works, and encouraging love of the written word. It’s an honor that Sisters in Crime recognizes these efforts and reciprocates that support.” 

On Sunday, June 22 at 1pm, members of the Sisters in Crime Hawaii chapter will present the library with a check for $1,000 to purchase books for its collection. The books purchased can be in any genre. The presentation will be held at 1pm at the library located on 1527 Keeaumoki Street in Honolulu. 

“It’s so exciting to have a winner in my backyard, especially a library staffed by such loyal volunteers dedicated to promoting reading,” said Gail Baugniet, president of the Hawaii chapter. 

Sisters in Crime has 3600 members in 48 chapters world-wide, offering networking advice and support to mystery authors. They are authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers and librarians bound by an affection for the mystery genre and its support of women who write mysteries. 

Sisters in Crime has completed its fourth year of its We Love Libraries project, awarding more than $48,000 to libraries to buy books

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FRIGGATRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA

A dark and stormy Friday
overlooking the Pali

No, this is not a game show cuss word, but the defining word for a person who, according to The Skeptic’s Dictionary (Skepdic.com) has a “morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th.” 

Everyone knows superstitious people consider Friday the 13th an unlucky day. Several stories or ‘old wives tales’ describe the reason behind the superstition of Friday the 13th. Not everyone is superstitious, though. You may enjoy a good campfire story, as long as it doesn’t scare you half to death (Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs rather than Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street or Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th.) 

A favorite legend is one that tells of Friday, October 13, 1307. On this day and date, King Philip IV ordered many Knights Templars simultaneously arrested and tortured. For authentication of this tale (said tongue-in-cheek) see The Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, or National Treasure.) Friday the 13th definitely proved an unlucky day for knights in France and Italy. Knights in other locales escaped torture and worse, saved by rulers influenced more by Templars’ good deeds than by Rome’s edicts. 

The collection of stories within the anthology, MYSTERY IN PARADISE 13 Tales of Suspense, contain tales that range from eerie to humorous to, as the book’s editor describes one story, “Hawaiian Gothic.” Enjoy your Friday the 13th weekend with 13 entertaining mysteries. Nothing of a superstitious nature lies between the pages, only murder suspects and red herrings. 

 

 

Have a look to decide for yourself. And Happy Friday the 13th.

http://www.amazon.com/MYSTERY-PARADISE-13-Tales-Suspense-ebook/dp/B00GYL6FEE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1391741480&sr=1-1&keywords=mystery+in+paradise+13+tales+of+suspense

 

 

INTERVIEW with AUTHOR TYLER MIRANDA

Author Tyler Miranda

Today’s guest for a MYSTERY IN PARADISE ‘Friday - 13 Authors’ interview is Tyler Miranda. Tyler is an emerging writer with over a dozen publications in local literary journals. In 2009, he was awarded Bamboo Ridge's Editor's Choice Award for Best Prose. In 2011, an excerpt from his novel was anthologized in a textbook produced by Pearson Publishing (New York). And in 2013, his first novel ‘Ewa Which Way was published by Bamboo Ridge Press (Honolulu). 

Miranda was raised on the under-developed west side of Oahu, where his stories are often set. His experiences growing up in Hawaii in a local Portuguese family have strongly influenced his writing, particularly with his Caucasian looks making him a minority in his childhood community. 

Sisters in Crime/Hawaii: Thank you for sharing with readers your short story, Frosted, included within MYSTERY IN PARADISE 13 Tales of Suspense, Tyler, and for taking time to visit with us today. Can you please offer a brief insight into something humorous, poignant, or unusual in your life that led you to a career in writing? 

TYLER MIRANDA: I began writing as a form of escapism. It was a coping mechanism that helped me deal with what was going on at home. Writing afforded me the opportunity to give order to chaos. During my teen years, I needed that. 

Sisters in Crime/Hawaii: Why did you choose to collaborate with 13 authors to participate in a short story anthology? 

TYLER MIRANDA: When I learned of this mystery/suspense anthology, the idea for "Frosted" finally crystallized. I had struggled with a "way" to tell this story for about two years. However, pondering "Frosted" as a mystery/suspense story both opened it up and gave me the vessel upon which to convey it. 

Sisters in Crime/Hawaii: In "Frosted", what is one phrase or scene that reflects something about you as a writer? 

TYLER MIRANDA: I think the point-of-view reflects something about me as a writer: that is, I like to experiment. This is the first time I wrote a story from the perspective of "we". 

Sisters in Crime/Hawaii: Every writer has a WIP (Work-In-Progress). Can you tell us a bit about your current project? 

TYLER MIRANDA: I've just finished the second draft of my second novel. It's a story about a high school teacher torn between professional duty and family obligation. The story examines the nature of responsibility in a world rife with double standards.

An excerpt from Tyler Miranda’s short story “Frosted”

FROSTED 

1 

We had been talking about Mrs. Isis Souza since 1981. Ever since that first day she ensconced herself in Wahiawa, she’d flapped an air of self-importance before her as though from the fan of a luna. And up until the moment she came, none of the neighbors had ever seen a U-Haul that long, like the shiny body of a train sprawling from driveway to the back property line. Thus began the first of the whisperings, about the...disconnect. It was Palm Street, after all, not some gold-gilded boulevard behind the Pearly Gates of Waialae Iki.

Adding to the confusion was the residence Mrs. Souza chose. There were available houses on Royal Palm Drive, the obvious choice for someone with that many personal belongings. Or she could have found a place farther up the heights. But where Mrs. Souza landed was at the Wahiawa Wah Mun Chinese School. (She clearly wasn’t Chinese, not even in the dainty pinky finger held aloft while she sipped her morning coffee.) Having struggled with low enrollment after WWII, the Chinese-language school had finally adapted, shutting its doors on education in the mid-seventies, the streetside buildings being converted into two dwellings. However, this wasn’t where Mrs. Souza lived. She occupied the back of the property where existed a huge, grassy field, ostensibly once a playground, that had on it an outhouse with working water; a stage and a large carport; and the previous groundskeeper’s two-bedroom shack. Of all the places Mrs. Souza could have chosen, she settled on a droopy, one-story, Hawaiian plantation-style house built in the 1920s. The low roofline and the quiet little portico and the vertical plank siding let the house recede into the environment as though it were meant to be there, as though peeking out from behind sugarcane long gone or as though tiptoeing through a field of pineapple. 

*************** 

Sisters in Crime/Hawaii: Where can readers find your books?

 

TYLER MIRANDA: My first novel 'Ewa Which Way can be found on Amazon.com (both hard copy and Kindle version), Small Press Distribution's website, and Bamboo Ridge Press's website. It can also be found locally in Hawaii at all seven Costco locations, Native Books/Na Mea Hawaii in Ward Warehouse, and Barnes and Noble Ala Moana.

 

 

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Ewa-Which-Way-Tyler-Miranda/dp/0910043876/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1394149856&sr=1-2

Small Press Distribution: http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=ewa+which+way

 Bamboo Ridge Press: http://www.bambooridge.com/storeitem.aspx?pid=93