Dear Librarians and SinC Members,

In this issue of We Love Libraries News, I am pleased to share two heartfelt entries by Sisters in Crime members Maria Jerinic and Becky Sue Epstein on their love of libraries.

 

Open call to librarians, aspiring crime writers, and readers! Do you have an interesting idea for an article for We Love Libraries News? Entries should be library themed and 350 to 400 words in length. Photos are welcome, too! Interested? The first step is to send a brief description of your idea and a short bio to: librarian@sistersincrime.org

 

A new We Love Libraries grant winner will be selected in October. Please find details and the link to apply below.

 

For many years I was a lapsed library-user.

 

Oh, not in any obvious way. As a literature grad student, then faculty member, I’ve spent hours in academic libraries. The stacks remain one of my favorite places on campus. That intoxicating book smell welcomes me when I visit the sections for the authors I regularly teach.

 

What has lapsed—those non-work-related visits to the library for my personal reading pleasure. Those personal visits marked my childhood: weekly, my mother ferried my sisters and me to the Acton Memorial Library or the Concord Free Public Library (in Massachusetts). We would stagger out with large piles, hoping we had enough material till the next trip, a particular concern in the summer.

 

At some point, those visits stopped. Blame high school demands, college, graduate school, my professional responsibilities in Las Vegas. I remained an avid reader in my private life, but I obtained those books in other ways.

 

I returned to weekly library visits when my three children were small, but the focus was on their reading needs. I never looked for myself; I was too busy containing their wild antics.

 

Eventually, my parents moved to Nevada. My mother found Henderson’s Paseo Verde Library. She joined their mystery book club and shared their titles. I was still making weekly library trips but to drop kids off for math tutoring. Mom urged me to look for those book-club mysteries while they struggled over equations. Occasionally, I did.

 

Last October, my mother died suddenly. My sisters and I helped my father shut down her life. One of my jobs—to close her library account and tell them she would no longer attend the mystery book club.

 

“She was our most loyal member,” the librarian-book-club-leader said. “I wondered where she was.”

 

I cried thinking of all those mysteries my mother would never read.

 

So, I read them. Since her passing, my library visits have increased exponentially. I rove the stacks and pile up the McCall Smith, M.C. Beaton, Hazel Holt, Jean-Luc Bannalec. I’ve asked for more M.L. Longworth. Now that summer is here, my checkout piles are higher, just like those of the little girl with her mother on the weekly library trip.

 

The first year we moved to the tiny community of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, my husband and I happened to be walking by our local library at the end of a chilly December afternoon. The small, stone building was brightly lit, open later than usual. Curious, we pulled open the heavy wooden door and walked in.

 

Immediately we were engulfed in a cheery crowd of people, filling their glasses from a groaning table of ciders and wines, and grabbing pieces of pizza as the boxes went around. (This was before Covid, of course.) Everywhere we turned, there was someone we knew, or wanted to know. It was the annual Holiday Party, and everyone contributed.

 

After a few minutes, the head librarian clinked something metallic to get our attention. She made a short speech, concluding with words I’ve never forgotten: “Woods Hole Public Library is the place that, when other librarians go to sleep, they dream of working here.” Absolutely true.

 

In this Cape Cod town of 800 permanent residents—which swells tenfold with tourists during the summer months—the library functions like an old-fashioned general store. It’s where we all go to hear our neighbors’ news, and to accidentally run into just the person we were hoping to see. You might guess this is also where a lot of unofficial volunteer committee work is accomplished for local non-profits, of which there are many, this being a town with five scientific institutions and their attendant humanitarian groups.

 

We appear regularly at the library to pick up endless books for entertainment and research—for which the librarians magically extend the length of our lending periods whenever we need it.

 

Often, we find ourselves speaking into the librarians’ sympathetic ears. They know us all: the adult and even elderly sons and daughters of the former generations, as well as current children and grandchildren. Pets accompany their owners into the library as a matter of course, just to say hi.

 

I would tell you more about the library’s myriad activities for all ages, but I just noticed my time has run out. See you soon at the Woods Hole Public Library!

 

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Susan Hammerman, a former rare book librarian, is the Library Liaison and coordinator of the We Love Libraries program. Susan writes crime and neo-noir short stories. Her stories have appeared in Mystery Magazine, Dark City Mystery Magazine, Blood and Bourbon, Retreats From Oblivion, and the Stories (Within) anthology. Website and Twitter 

 

WLL and WLB News Editor: Gail Lukasik’s latest book, White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing, was named one of the most inspiring stories of the year by The Washington Post. She is also the author of the Leigh Girard Mystery series and the stand-alone mystery, The Lost Artist. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, such as The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and The Georgia Review. Gail appeared in the documentary, History of Memory, which is available on Amazon Prime. Her fifth mystery, The Darkness Surrounds Us, a Gothic, historical mystery, will be released in Fall 2023. Website: www.gaillukasik.com

Here's a spreadsheet with our members' 2022 books. This month's releases are in a separate worksheet. Sort the spreadsheet by author name, location, title, or release date.

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.

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