Dear Librarian,

Every author has a story about a librarian who gave them just the tidbit they needed to inspire a story line or pointed them toward the sources that made their story sing. In this month’s newsletter, we highlight the relationship between librarians and authors with a special essay by Mary Higgins Clark Award Winner and Past Sisters in Crime President, Lori Rader-Day. 

Libraries and Authors: 

Writing Death at Greenway

By Lori Rader-Day

Three different libraries figured in the process of writing Death at Greenway, a novel but one based on a real historical moment of World War II, when ten children evacuated out of the Blitz were sent to Agatha Christie’s holiday home, Greenway House, in South Devon, England. 

Perhaps I wouldn’t have written the story at all without the library at Greenway House. I visited in 2016, a tourist nosing around to see if the story I’d heard could even be written, and by the likes of me. Greenway’s library has a crown, a frieze painted in military-grade blues and grays with scenes from the life of the U.S. Coast Guard Flotilla stationed in the house after it was requisitioned for the war. But that was history from after the children I wanted to write about had been sent somewhere else. In this room, however, I first laid eyes on a photo of Doreen, one of the Greenway ’vacs. As an adult she’d written a letter and come to visit, said the docent, who showed me the cabinet upstairs away from public view with the names of the evacuee girls still marked on the cubbies for their clothes. Once I had seen those cubbies, I had to pursue the story.

The other libraries that played a role in Death at Greenway are at two ends of the same road on opposite ends of Paignton, near Greenway. In the Paignton Library and Information Centre, Doreen’s name led me to the letter she’d written, her memories of Greenway and the war, possibly the only first-person record of Agatha Christie’s war nursery. The door to the story opened wide, at last. Three years later, having stayed as a guest at Greenway, I sat on the floor of Churston Library, a tiny branch library near the house, and paged through the local history section. A pocketful of ten-pence coins went into the copier, and then I made change again and again, not knowing how much of what I found would make it into the book but not wanting to leave a single scrap of it behind—local history, accent, or lore. I took it all home and began to write.

Doris Ann Norris We Love Libraries Winner: 

Rutherford County Library!

The April We Love Libraries winner is the Rutherford County Library in Spindale, North Carolina. The library, located in beautiful rural North Carolina, has a mission of “Empowering our Community to Read, Connect, Learn, and Share." The $500 grant will be used to purchase materials for the library’s “True Crime Club.” Per the WLL application, “Each month, members choose a real-life case or criminal. A list of resources is compiled, including books, articles, podcasts, DVDs, and websites about the case. The list of resources is distributed to the True Crime Club members. [The members research the case.] The next time the group meets, we then discuss that specific case from many points of view.”

I continued to be inspired by how WLL winners plan to use the grant money to benefit their patrons and communities. This month, I’m both inspired and jealous of the fun planned for Rutherford County Library’s True Crime Club! Does your library need materials? Do you have a great programing idea? Apply for the We Love Libraries award! Find grant details and the brief grant application on our website. A WLL winner of $500 is selected every other month.

Susan Hammerman, a former rare book librarian, is the coordinator of the We Love Libraries program. She lives in Chicago and writes neo-noir and crime short stories.

Love a Good List?

Need a list of books for a holiday display? Janet Rudolph is Sisters in Crime’s Queen of Lists. Here’s a list of mystery novels set at the holidays, from New Year’s to Boxing Day.

https://mysteryreaders.org/holiday-mystery-lists/

Mystery Maven Molly Weston

Join mystery book reviewer Molly Weston to learn about new mystery and thriller novels and authors. Each month a special guest author joins her for a virtual chat at the Molly on Mysteries program through the town of Cary, NC. Non-residents may register for these virtual programs.

https://mycary.org/mycary/s/programs

Type “Molly” in the search box. 

Thank you for all you do for your communities. Remember, Sisters in Crime loves libraries.

Happy reading,

Shari Randall

Sisters in Crime Library Liaison

Sisters in Crime hosts LIVE webinars each month. Webinars last 60-90 minutes depending on the topic and the audience questions! These webinars are open to all.

We've started to collect information about our members books. We've put it in a spreadsheet that we'll update every month, and send as part of this newsletter. This is a new feature for our members, so the list will expand. But in the meantime, we hope you find this list helpful.

Looking for diverse books? For many years, SINC has curated Frankie’s List, an extensive list of crime novels by people of color and other marginalized groups. Frankie Y. Bailey, building on work by the late Eleanor Taylor Bland, began to compile a list of published Black crime writers over a decade ago. Frankie has expanded the list to include other WOC and LGBTQ+ authors. Here’s a link: https://www.sistersincrime.org/page/FrankiesList

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is a $2000 prize for an emerging crime writer of color. Submissions are open through May15. 

Please send any eligible writers you know the link!

Sisters in Crime is the premier crime writing association focused on equity and inclusion in our community and in publishing. Our 4,500+ members enjoy access to tools to help them learn, grow, improve, thrive, and reinvent if necessary. They also gain a community of supportive fellow writers and readers, both peers to share the peaks and valleys of writing, and mentors to model the way forward.