Vancouver in wartime is the setting for my latest short story, published in longtime UK magazine The People’s Friend. I love the illustrations the magazine commissions for their fiction.

My latest story, “Why I Left the House that Smelled of Death,” about a holiday visit with family, is free to read in the Yellow Mama webzine. A bit of a departure from my usual style but that’s what’s so wonderful about short stories – you can try new things without committing a year to the process.

Sometimes the idea for a story comes like a bolt from the blue, with a story that almost writes itself. At other times, the inspiration builds slowly over time. I describe the process for my latest short story on the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine blog.

I have a post today on the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine blog, Something is Going to Happen on how good writers can create memories of people and places that seem real to readers and stay with them for years.
https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2020/01/29/a-book-to-remember-by-merrilee-robson/
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Surrey International Writers Conference is one of the best conferences around for new and aspiring writers. They have two scholarships available this year.

The SiWC Diversity Scholarship offers a full conference pass (a $625 value) to SiWC 2019 to writers over the age of 19 who would otherwise not be able to attend the conference.

The Tan Seagull Scholarship for Young Writers is available for writers between the ages of 15 and 22.

Deadline for applications is September 15.

 

 

 

 

 

In my latest short story, published this week in Mystery Weekly magazine, the mayor was alone in the locked apartment where his family had once lived. The crowd of people outside had watched him enter and would swear no one had gone in before or after him. But he was dead.

A Locked Co-op Mystery, is another adventure for Rebecca Butler and other characters in Murder is Uncooperative, a housing co-op mystery.

 

I have a new short story, Stealth,  just out in The Desperate and the Damned, a new anthology published by Toe Six Press. In this story, a vulnerable woman struggles with the paranoia of dementia, but what if the threat is real?

I’m guest blogging today on Lois Winston’s Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers as part of series on where writers get their ideas. I talk about how a photo from my grandfather’s album inspired the novel I’ve recently finished writing and more.

I’m really looking forward to going to Left Coast Crime next week. And I’ll be happy to see so many of my fellow writers and catch up with them. I have met some wonderful people at conferences, participating in author speed-dating, chatting at the dinner table or hanging out in the bar at the end of the day.

But, for someone who spends a lot of the time alone with my computer, I do sometimes find it all a bit overwhelming and really want to just hide in my hotel room.

So I was delighted to get Jane Friedman’s newsletter today with very pertinent information on schmoozing for introverts. I found it a helpful reminder of how I really should be spending my time at conferences, so I thought I’d share it with my fellow introverts.

Maybe we’ll find ourselves chatting together soon.

#LCCYVR2019 #mystery

I’m looking forward to Left Coast Crime next week, when hundreds of crime fiction writers and readers will gather together in beautiful Vancouver. On Friday at 9 am, I’ll be on a panel on Short Fiction & Novellas, along with moderator Kate Thornton, M.H. Callway, Miriam Clavir, and DJ Wiseman. We’ll be talking about short stories and big ideas.

The conference is only open by registration but it’s still possible to register for just a day or for the whole conference. If you do, Miriam Clavir and I are hosting an author’s table at the banquet on Saturday night. I hope you’ll join us.