Fish or Cut Bait: A Guppy Anthology

So how can small tropical fish have an anthology?  The Guppies are a branch of Sisters in Crime, a (mostly) female group of crime writers.  Originally, the Guppies were all unpublished writers, and usually when one was published one detached from the group, but the Guppies were actually so much fun and so supportive of one another that many writers, including moi, stayed in the group long after they reached the goal of publication.
The Guppies of Sisters In Crime

 Fish Or Cut Bait is the 3rd Guppy Anthology, with stories all vetted by judges.  The stories don't have to be about fish, but mine is.

Years ago, the CIA opened their museum periodically, and one of the wonders was a robot fish.  Don't think they ever used it, but my fertile mind thought that might make a good story, and eventually I wrote "The Insurrection"  and shopped it around and it has finally found a home in Fish Or Cut Bait.

The hero of the story is Francis, the robotic fish.  Francis is a Gaftopsail Catfish.

Isn't he lovely?    The female of the species  hatches her eggs in her mouth.  Francis gets involved with the Iranian navy, sea snakes, Somali pirates and Colombian drug subs.
This story was so much fun to research and to write.    If you need a gift for someone who likes to read crime fiction, but  is perhaps not into "dark" stories, Fish or Cut Bait would make a wonderful gift.  I like to read short stories on the treadmill, because while your body is getting a workout, so is your mind.

Here is a link to Amazon. Buy Fish Or Cut Bail at Amazon 
Take Francis and his friends home with you.  You won't be disappointed. 

Winter Is Icummen In again

Yikes! More snow tomorrow. We're going to a performance of the Seagull, done in punk modern dress with non-Chekov type sets. Rave review in the Boston Globe, so it should be interesting.

My desk is again organized and filing in done. Why did this seem to take all week? My robot Gafftopsail Catfish is swimming along and is awaiting more adventures. I must be very weird to write such a strange story.

And now an agent wants to read Festival Madness, just when I was making a major change to the beginning which will need some retrofitting in the middle. What to do? Too many things going on at once.

And Tuesday is the Inauguration. So exciting. So cold. So crazy. Well, I must confess I have nothing to wear to the ball. As a young woman, I always had several winter formal dresses and a selection of summer ones. La di dah! How times have changed. I still have the long opera gloves, white leather, yet. Once I had silk designer shoes, so lovely. Roger Vivier, I think. Hardly even wore them--worth a fortune now as vintage. The shoe in the photo sells for $600. Do I ever wish I had hung onto those shoes.

We have been suffering from a deep cold spell, and will suffer even more when the heating bill comes. Yikes! I could pawn the shoes if i had them.

May I recommend wool socks? I bought two pair at Clarks Shoe in October. At the time, it seemed a somewhat frivolous purchase, but those suckers are soft and warm and machine washable in cold water and I just dry them on the towel rack. Worth every penny. How did I graduate from ball gowns and Roger Vivier to wool socks? It just happened.

Mexican chicken tonight, with refried beans and fried corn tortillas. Tasty. I am reading an Easy Rawlins mystery and Hallie Ephron's 1001 Books for Every Mood. Drooling over the books. Lots of new ones.

Onward, through the frigid air. Ezra Pound said it best:

Winter is icummen in,

Lhude sing Goddamm,

Raineth drop and staineth slop

And how the wind doth ramm!

Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,

An ague hath my ham.

Freezeth river, turneth live

Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, tis why I am,

Goddamm.

So 'gainst the winter's balm

Sing Goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm

Sing Goddamm, sing Goddamm,

DAMM.

Grapeshot