Are you Scripturient?

Karen Odden – every other Thursday 

Like everyone, I get all kinds of random fun-fact stuff in my in box every day. Today in History. Mastering French Phrases. O&H Kringle of the Day. (Almond will always be my favorite. Raspberry a close second.) Some of this email traffic I glance over, and if I’m busy, I don’t always look at it. 

But if I have a moment, I do like to look at the Word of the Day. This word caught me. I know I’m a bibliophile; but recently, I discovered I’m scripturient. Who knew? 

Then again, maybe we all are scripturient. We write constantly – especially if we consider typing on our keyboards writing. Think about your day. Which of these have you written recently? Emails, blogposts, to-do lists, social media posts, entries on a paper calendar (yes, I still keep one, in addition to the one on my phone), scribbles in notebooks, marginal notes in the books you’re reading, novels, short stories, poetry, a recipe for a friend, a birthday card, lists of things to pack for a weekend trip, itinerary for a conference, a signature on the credit card pad at the store, a quick text, a Post-it reminder note, a shopping list. 

It’s interesting to take a moment to consider how deeply embedded writing is in our lives, and how many kinds there are. How it’s part of our day, instinctive, almost unconscious, in a way that blinking or breathing is, and also how many different ways there are, physically, to produce written texts, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Braille to feather quill pens to Bics to keyboards. Think how quickly our fingers move on our phones when we're texting. Perhaps there, especially, our rates of speaking and writing approach each other.

"Creative writing" is, to my mind, somewhat of an artificial category. Perhaps a shopping list isn't creative writing ... but a birthday card? I'd say it is. I mean, I choose my words for the extra words I add to the message inside -- because each person is different, and I have different kinds of relationships with different people. I'll make a joke to one person that I might not make with another; I know my audience, and I write to them, with awareness of my voice and what message it's carrying. Is that so very different from choosing my words for starting a chapter? 

I think we all do more creative writing than we realize. Just something to consider. 

I’m going to leave you with a few famous quotes on writing because I like these quotes better than anything else I could say on the topic. These mostly apply to creative writing ... but also to writing generally, in some cases. Sometimes it's fun to read what brilliant, famous people have to say about writing.

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.”  — Natalie Goldberg 

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L'Engle 

“The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“There is no greater power on this earth than story.” – Libba Bray

“As for ‘Write what you know,’ I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them.” — Ursula K. Le Guin  [photo]

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” — Margaret Atwood 

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on until I am.” — Jane Austen 

“I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90 percent of my first drafts, so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in the minds of my readers forever, because there’s a 90 percent chance I’m just going to delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely liberating.” — John Green 

“On first drafts: It is completely raw, the sort of thing I feel free to do with the door shut — it’s the story undressed, standing up in nothing but its socks and undershorts.” — Stephen King

Between Hills and Pilgrims: Oviedo's quiet geography

 

Kwei - Alternate Wednesdays

Oviedo doesn’t announce its geography. You notice it gradually—on foot, looking up. The city feels contained, but not confined.

 

Routes around Monte Naranco—
where local trails intersect with the Camino Primitivo

To the north rises Monte Naranco, less a mountain than a long, steady ridge. It frames the city without enclosing it, shaping both skyline and movement.

 

Spring fields below Monte Naranco—
green, open, and deceptively gentle

Oviedo sits in a shallow basin rather than a true valley. The land rolls instead of dropping away. There are no steep walls—just continuous green slopes that soften distance and scale.

 

Cristo del Naranco watches over the ridge
—visible from almost anywhere below

These paths are not just local trails. They form part of the Camino Primitivo, one of the oldest routes to Santiago. For centuries, pilgrims have crossed this same terrain—walking the same gradients, reading the same skyline.

Layered greens—
Oviedo’s terrain never quite settles into flat.

Walking here means constant adjustment—small ascents, gradual descents. The terrain never disappears; it stays in the body.

The result is subtle but distinct. Oviedo feels held by its landscape, not trapped by it.

Technically a pilgrim—just the short-form version

One feels friendly, open skies.

Back to where it all began, in several ways

I've organised 125+ library events in New Zealand; recently I got
to attend my second-ever, in person, at 'Miscreants in Motueka'

Craig on some Tuesdays

Kia ora and gidday everyone,

I hope that you’ve all enjoyed a lovely Easter holidays - for those that got them - and are having a good start to Spring, for those in the northern hemisphere, or Autumn, for those in the Southern Hemisphere. For me, I'm kinda getting to experience both, as I've spent the past two and a half weeks 'back home' in Aotearoa New Zealand, visiting with family and friends and packing in as much as possible on several fronts, during a long-overdue visit. 

Flying back to London tonight, all too soon. But very grateful for the time here. 

I don't know about you, but I've often found there's something pleasantly grounding or resetting about visiting my hometown and surrounding region, even though I haven't lived there full-time for decades. Life can seem so hectic and in flux, going from project to project (many of them fun and challenging in good ways, don't get me wrong) alongside various life events good and tough - not to mention all the added global uncertainties and upheavals - that its really wonderful to reconnect with something that has deeper roots in my own life story, and people who've known me for decades (or places I've known/experienced decades ago), often across and through various things, rather than solely because of a single shared activity, passion, or workplace, etc. 

I realise not everyone had a good or great childhood, so revisiting old haunts and long-term friends won't be the same largely positive (while at times jarring) thing for some others as it is for me, but for me it's always been a bit of a 'battery recharger' on several fronts, especially when I've been based abroad. 

It's all too rare that I'm in New Zealand to nab print copies of the papers
and magazines I contribute to, so it was lovely to yesterday get a copy
of the latest NZ Listener, completed with my April thrillers roundup

We've been visiting national parks, wildlife preserves, and scenic areas, gone wading and swimming at local beaches even though it's autumn (some nice sunny days and mild weather, the recent tropical cyclone aside), had lots of catch-ups with family and some old friends, eaten lots of steak and cheese pies and boysenberry ice cream, visited local artisans (from Höglund Art Glass to the makers of the Lord of the Rings ring), and had all sorts of of fun. 

Plus a few bookish things thrown in for good measure. 

To kickstart April, I even got to participate in an author panel at the Motueka Library, as part of the nationwide Mystery in the Library series of free/koha library events. I helped kickstart that series in 2015, and have been organising it from afar in London the past decade plus. We've now held 125+ events at 50 libraries across Aotearoa New Zealand, featuring 200+ different Kiwi storytellers, over the past decade or so. Crazy how wee ideas can grow into rather big things when people care and give their time. Thanks to amazing librarians, authors, chairs, and thousands of local readers, Mystery in the Library has become a fixture in the New Zealand literary calendar. 

With science teacher and film/TV actor
Doug Brooks, a high school pal - we used to
do Shakespeare competitions as teenagers

It has been a bit of a strange thing, if I'm honest, organising so many events that I never get to attend myself, but I have enjoyed the ongoing connection to my home country and the local books community there, and my parents raised me to serve and give back, so I've felt good about that too. At a distance. But there was something a wee bit special getting to attend 'Miscreants in Motueka' on 1 April - with my mother, daughter, and old schoolteacher and a couple of other mates in the audience, along with plenty of people I didn't know or hadn't met yet. It was the first time too that I've had a New Zealand event where some of my own books (the Dark Deeds Down Under anthologies) were onsale. I got to sign some copies for readers who bought them, plus some old friends. Which was cool. 

It was a nice, rather tangible reminder of what we've built with the Ngaio Marsh Awards and Mystery in the Library, but also where it all started, with my parents and schoolteachers cultivating and encouraging my love of reading, and how local libraries were a cool part of my Nelson-Tasman childhood, alongside local sports fields, outdoors areas, and friends houses. 

While there have been plenty of bumps, and some tough twists and turns, overall I think I've been a fairly lucky guy, in terms of some pretty cool chapters I've had in my life, and the great people I've got to meet and spend time with - a little or a lot - along the way. 

Given this was a very family-focused trip, I didn't get to catch up with as many Kiwi authors as I often do when I'm back home, but on top of the Miscreants in Motueka event and going for a dawn walk around the Auckland harbour with Maori filmmaker and award-winning crime writer Michael Bennett (Better the Blood, etc) this morning - a very nice way to kickstart my final day in Aotearoa for this trip - I've popped into a few bookshops and libraries while here, and been very pleased to see some good stocking and spotlighting of an array of cool Kiwi crime novels and true crime books. in most places We've come a long way since we started the Ngaio Marsh Awards in 2010. 

Ngaio Marsh Award winning authors Michael Bennett and Claire Baylis
on a spotlight shelf at the Papatoetoe Library in South Auckland

Over the weekend I even popped into the Papatoetoe Library, just up the road from where we've been staying in Auckland for the final days of our visit. As some people know, that's a key location in terms of modern New Zealand crime writing and the Ngaio Marsh Awards, even though we've never held a Mystery in the Library event there. 

In October 2008 - nearly 18 years ago! - I stopped by the Papatoetoe Library in South Auckland, having just returned to New Zealand from a yearlong OE backpacking through Latin America, North America, and Europe.

I'd loved mystery books my whole life - though had slowed down reading them while at law school and as a young lawyer at a large corporate law firm - but while travelling on that OE trip I'd read lots of crime/thrillers during 24 hr bus roads across Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, and even spontaneously attended a Crime Writers of Canada event at Vancouver Public Library in April 2008, chatting to Canadian crime writers like legendary lawyer and award-winning author William Deverell, along with Mark Zuehlke and the late, great Lou Allin (a Vice-President of Crime Writers Canada who'd later become one of our inaugural Ngaio Marsh Awards judges in 2010). 

While sorting old boxes at my Mum's house
on this trip, I came across lots of old articles
I wrote 15+ years ago, including this
feature on Neil Cross in early 2009

On a post event stroll to the bus stop, Bill Deverell had asked me about New Zealand crime writing, but outside of Ngaio Marsh, Paul Thomas, and a few one-off books from the 2000s from the likes of Simon Snow, Michael Laws, and Nigel Latta, I sadly couldn't really tell him that much in terms of recommendations. 

Later that year, browsing the Papatoetoe Library shelves in October 2008, I stumbled across CEMETERY LAKE by Paul Cleave and THE RINGMASTER by Vanda Symon not just Kiwi crime novels, but the third and second books from each author!

By chance - a lawyer not getting a book review in on time for the legal magazine I started working at, so my editor needed me to quickly fill the pages before we went to the printers - I ended up reviewing Paul and Vanda's books for NZLawyer magazine. Further reviews then author interviews followed of other Kiwi mystery writers, and international ones... fast forward to late 2010, and the first-ever Ngaio Marsh Award was won - delayed after the earthquakes cancelled the Christchurch Writers Festival that year by 'Alix Bosco' for CUT & RUN. 

And that was just the beginning. 17 years of the Ngaio Marsh Awards. More than a decade of Mystery in the Library. Rotorua Noir in 2019, the first-ever New Zealand crime and thriller festival. Kiwi crime and thriller authors appearing semi-regularly nowadays at international festivals. Would it have happened without spontaneous visits to libraries in Vancouver and Papatoetoe in 2008? Months apart, more than 7,000 miles apart... both planting seeds.

Life eh? What can you do but be grateful? 

Until next time. Ka kite anō.

Whakataukī of the fortnight: 

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I'll be ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life.

Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi

(With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive, ie everybody has something to offer, and by working together we can all flourish.)

Dozens of crime writers from New Zealand, Australia, and internationally coming
together at a local marae to celebrate storytelling at Rotorua Noir in 2019. 

How Can It Be that Last Sunday was Easter--But So Is Tomorrow?

 

Jeff--Saturday

There are two explanations for that phenomenon.  One easy, one not––but neither being that it's the movie "Groundhog Day" come to life. 

The simple answer is that Greeks and others of the Eastern Orthodox faith calculate their Easter based upon the Julian calendar while Protestants and catholics use the modern Gregorian calendar.  If you want to know precisely how wth date is determined, the explanation starrs to sound strangely reminiscent of some I've herad touted these days about where our world is headed:

“The determination of the date of Easter is governed by a computation based on the vernal equinox (the point at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator, the sun having a northerly motion) and the phase of the moon. According to the ruling of the First Ecumenical Synod in 325, Easter Sunday should fall on the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If the full moon happens to fall on a Sunday, Easter is observed the following Sunday. The day taken to be the invariable date of the vernal equinox is March 21.”

I think it best we just say that Greek Easter follows the Julian calendar (though both can be on the same date) and leave it at that.

But no matter how the date is determined, Easter is by far the main event in Eastern Orthodoxy.  It is preceded by more than a week of significant religious and cultural observations.  And on Mykonos, Easter literally brings the island back to life.

Mykonos in Springtime

In the winter, Mykonos is a sleepy island village with virtually no tourists, no business, few open bars, fewer restaurants, and no clubs.  But come Easter Week everything changes.  Red and yellow springtime poppies burst to life all over the island’s hillsides, and those and still more varieties of flowers embroider the blanket of green covering the nearby holy island of Delos.  There are Church services every day of Holy Week, as well as daily preparations for the feast to come at the end.  Breads and cookies are readied on Monday and Tuesday, baking is done on Wednesday, and eggs are dyed red on Thursday, the day Christ was put up on the Cross.

Tsoureki Easter bread

By Thursday, Mykonos is filled with mainland Greeks flocking to their vacation homes and others looking to participate in a perfect example of spiritual and temporal coexistence: Easter church rituals strictly observed during the day, followed by the island’s as nearly hallowed party traditions through the night.  But that taste of the coming mid-summer craziness is short lived, for if you don’t catch the action that weekend come by in June, because Mykonos is back in hibernation come Tuesday.

An Epitaphios in procession on Mykonos

Evening services on Good Friday start at seven in the old town’s three main churches, Kiriake, Metropolis, and Panachra.  At precisely nine, each church’s clergy and worshipers leave their church in separate processions carrying their church’s epitaphios (the painted or embroidered cloth representation of Christ on a bier elaborately adorned in spring flowers and symbolizing his tomb) along a prearranged route, winding past the other two churches before ending up back at their own to complete the service.  It represents the funeral of Christ, and Mykonians and visitors line the route, some standing on balconies and sprinkling the participants below with a mixture of rose water and perfumes, the rodhonoro used on Christ’s body when taken down from the cross. 

The same three churches serve as the scene of the following night’s Holy Saturday services.  Most generally start heading off to church around ten, but for certain everyone is there by midnight.  For that is the high point of Easter, when church bells ring out across Greece and even total strangers exchange the traditional Christos Anesti and Alithos Anesti greetings that Christ has risen, kiss each other, and light each other’s candles to share the light and joy of the occasion—a light brought to Greece for just this purpose from the Holy Flame of Christ’s nativity cave in Jerusalem.  Worshipers carry the light back into their homes or their favorite restaurants, except for the hearty souls who remain in church for the balance of a service that lasts hours more into the morning. 

Midnight in Mykonos

Mayiritsa soup

Now it is time to challenge each other with the customary one-to-one smacking of those dyed-red eggs for good luck to the winner (mine always cracks first) and devour the traditional mayiritsa soup (made from parts of a lamb you may ask me about if you really want to know), fluffy tsoureki easter bread, and salads to break the forty-day fast leading up to Easter. 

But the big feast, the one everyone looks forward to, comes on Sunday.  That’s when all the work of the week and all the spring lambs find their purpose.  There is church, too, of course, but this day is more about celebrating with family and friends.  And eating.

The star of a Greek Easter Sunday (center)

Dieting starts Monday.  Kalo Paska 

--Jeff

Conservation and tech

 Michael - Every other Thursday

In a world where modern computer technology is becoming regarded as a threat, it’s interesting to see AI, drones, and photo recognition being put to purposes we can all agree are worthwhile and useful. What’s more, a lot of the research being done for these applications is happening here in South Africa.

We’ve become used to the idea that drones carry bombs – often aimed at civilians; AI is out to take jobs and steal books, and perhaps suck up all the electricity; and automated photo recognition is designed to spy out sites to destroy and follow people who may be troublesome to authoritarian governments.

The thing about AI is the emphasis is on it doing things humans can do well (e.g. writing mysteries) rather than on focusing on things humans can’t do.

However, a recent article in South Africa’s online newspaper, The Daily Maverick, shows how these are tools that have some very valuable roles to play. Since my own research interests were in image processing and remote sensing, I was intrigued (and a little skeptical) and so I had a more detailed look. I concluded that although it’s early days, all these technologies have promise to assist with wild life management and conservation.

A drone picture of an elephant helping himself to Sisal plants at night.
The picture is in the thermal infrared showing the animal
very clearly against the background.
Picture courtesy Conservation Through Tourism

For example, take elephants in areas where borders are lines on maps and fences are designed to keep in cattle. Probably more than lions, they are a danger to people and so indirectly to themselves. Elephants are smart and know that it’s best to break into crop lands at night while people are asleep, and a herd of 100 elephants can do an enormous amount of damage in a few hours. Electric fences with alarms are well and good. So you know you have 100 elephants in your crops. Now what?

A herd wonders through the bush - easily identified in the TIR
Photo courtesy Conservation Through Tourism

A group called Conservation through Tourism has been experimenting with drone and remote sensing technologies. The drones have cameras that take high resolution images but also thermal images. One can see the elephants clearly against the vegetation even on a dark night and through trees. Even better, the elephants don’t like these drones. They make a noise and can buzz you, so you move off. A couple of them can actually herd you. They know where you are, they know where they want you to go and not to go, and there’s not much you can do about them as long as they keep their distance. Once you start to move off, it’s just a matter of steering you back home. That can be done by a human watching a computer screen in a Land Rover, or, even better, by an artificial intelligence system analyzing the scene using GPS location information.

Another potentially valuable application is remotely counting species populations in conservation areas. This has been done for many years by people in the Kruger park area at least once a year. The technique is to use helicopters with human spotters counting everything they see. By having multiple counters on the aircraft, the data can be averaged and then a clever model predicts what’s been missed species by species. If you saw 10 Impala, you probably missed 2.3 and so on.

Gaia drone. Not one of the toy variety...
Photo courtesy Daily Maverick

How about if the whole thing could be done automatically at a much lower cost? Once again you need a drone outfitted with a high resolution camera that takes multispectral images. That means its photographs are at different wave lengths of light (some that we can’t see in the infrared) so that the AI system that afterwards analyses the images can distinguish not only between different individuals but also between different species. Because of the different wavelengths, animals could be recognized even under cover. Of course, there will still be individuals missed, but now the spotter is always the same so there’s consistency. Absolute numbers are usually less important than trends in wildlife conservation. (I’ve been one of these aerial counters, and it’s really hard to be consistent.)

Herd of buffalo drinking.
They have to be correctly separated from the hippos
Photo courtesy Timbavati Nature Reserve

That is just what Project Gaia is. In a recent survey to the West of the Kruger National Park, the drone flew 20,000km (12,500 miles) and took nearly 3 million photographs. No way humans could even imagine analyzing that, but a specially trained AI system can – first identifying the animal species and then adding it to the count.

One of the appealing advantages is that the drones fly quietly at 100 meters’ height and don’t disturb the animals. Helicopters are noisy and often scare animals. Apart from the distress that may cause, it may also result in the animals running far enough to be counted twice…

Of course, these are niche applications. It’s the military and the big tech companies that have the money. Regrettably, the AI, drone, and aerial survey companies will follow the money. At least other applications can pick up the scraps.

I Don't Like New Things

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

I like the idea of them and I admire (and envy) people who embrace them and plunge in (Thank you, Stan!) But when it comes to actually stepping into something unfamiliar—like this new Substack—I find myself hesitating, resisting, wanting figure it all out before I begin.

And no, I don’t like this about myself. And I don’t like things changing.

These were my darling doglets, Princess and Hermione ten years ago.

They’re gone now. For a long time I was sure I could never have another dog because no other dog could replace them. And I didn’t want to let them be replaced.

I felt that way before— When I was in primary school and they started clearing jungle and moving people out of the hillside farms in what I’d thought of as wilderness behind our home.

In those days the ‘jungle catchment area’ extended all the way across to Bukit Timah Hill. It felt like the green on granite heart at the centre of Singapore island had always been there and would always be there. It was full of jungle chickens, monkeys, snakes, and the occasional wild pig. There were treks worn to the wild durian and chempadak trees and children would compete with monkeys for ripe mangoes, bananas and rambutans. When the construction began, we used to climb up the slope and walk along the levelled earth, not understanding what it was becoming and assuming it would soon go back to ‘normal’.

Today, that stretch is part of the Pan Island Expressway.

There are no more jungle chickens and no way (for people or pangolins) to cross over on foot.

And when they opened up that stretch of the expressway I remember realising that things would never go back to ‘normal’. And that what I’d thought of as ‘normal’ was just how I’d seen things from my limited (in place and time) POV.

I’m also thinking about letting things go because we’ve just had the sea burial—

Burial urns being released into the elements.

Another reminder that we have to let things go.

Writing is also particularly challenging now because I’m trying something new there too. I can’t talk about it because of I want to figure out what I think of it on the page. I’ve got to where I have a kind of structure I like but am clearing out stuff that’s no longer useful or relevant given how the story turned out (for now) and I need to cut a lot of stuff--which always hurts.

At about 30,000 words now, possibly less tomorrow depending on how much gets culled.

I started writing for theatre and now, when shaping a book, I feel like I’m trying to be the director, scene, set and lighting designer, manage the sound system as well as act all the parts.

And now, trying to step into Substack, I feel like I’m walking into a new space with a producer I’m not familiar with.

It’s like trying to figure out characters (especially the unpleasant ones whose nonsense has to make sense to them) while hosting a complicated gathering and figuring out who gets invited into the VIP room (because Sponsors) and will they be happy with Prosecco and dim sum and how to make sure those who come because they love you (and are quietly hoping there won’t be anything too activist, alternative or otherwise alarming) are comfortable with what they find within your pages.

And I always feel I’m not ready yet.

The problem is, the expressway gets built whether you’re ready or not. The wilderness changes and the story moves forwards.

Singapore is always changing and remaking itself because we are so short of land. It’s like living in a Minecraft scenario where the landscape is always changing.

And yet the past never quite disappears either.

And maybe my discomfort and resistance to change is part of the whole process.

When Princess and Hermione died it felt wrong to even consider another dog. But now we have Sophia.

She’s not Princess or Hermione but entirely herself—but with echoes of them both.

Our Scruffy Sleepy Sophia.

And I’m coming to understand what I didn’t when I watched the roads being carved through our jungle spaces: things don’t come back, but new things come as you let go and move on.

One Thin Dime

 Sara E. Johnson, 1st Sunday

I mentioned in a previous post that I enjoy teaching my Exploring Mysteries class. One session is on the history of mysteries, and in researching that wide and deep topic, I learned about dime novels and how they caught on like a California wildfire and broke ground for many of the genres we enjoy today.

Dime novels debuted in the United States during the Civil War era. Named for their cheap price, they began as lurid Westerns, and later branched to romances, adventures, and detective stories. Their straightforward plots combined sentimentality with violence and introduced readers to new vistas much like books set in a foreign locale do for me.

The first known dime novel, Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Ann S. Stephens, was published by Irwin and Erasmus Beadle and Robert Adams in 1860. It’s a tale of an interracial romance between a white hunter and Malaeska, a Mohawk woman. Their son is raised in the white culture. When the son learns of his parentage, his reaction is melodramatic, a common element of dime novels. Here’s the section when the son learns of his parentage: "Great God!" he almost shrieked, dashing his hand against his forehead. “No, no ! it can not — I, an Indian? a halfblood? the grandson of my father’s murderer? Woman, speak the truth; word for word, give me the accursed history of my disgrace.”

(No surprise: dime novels perpetuated racist stereotypes of Native Americans, Blacks and Asians.) Stephens was paid $250 for Malaeska. It reportedly sold over 300,000 copies. You can read it in its entirety; it is in the public domain.

Civil War soldiers tackled the boredom of camp life by reading and trading dime novels. According to one book historian, dime novels were “sent to the army in the field by cords, like unsawed firewood.”

Prior to the Civil War, reading was an upper class or upper-middle class pastime. Books were expensive. In the 1850s, the average book cost $1 to $1.50. The creation of dime novels slashed those prices so that virtually anyone could afford to have their nose in a book while, at the same time, literacy rates were growing.

Dime novels were mass produced on cheap paper. They averaged one hundred pages and were small: 6.5 x 4.5 inches, perfect to fit in a pocket or pocketbook. To keep costs low, the books were printed on paper similar to newsprint. Any dime novel you come across in an antique store is likely to have brittle or crumbling pages. The print was often fuzzy and with odd space breaks.

Updated shipping methods – though no comparison to Amazon’s next-day delivery – brought the dimes to almost every newsstand or dry good store. People – largely of the working class – went crazy for them. In the five years following Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, Beadle and Adams published more than five million dime novels. ‘Books for the millions’ was proclaimed on the covers. Dartmouth Libraries said, “Enormously popular and critically maligned, the dime novel was one of the first forms of mass culture in the United States.”

Detective stories soon replaced Westerns. One of the earliest was The Two Detectives; or, The Fortunes of a Bowery Girl. This was actually a nickel novel because it was short. The Bowery Detective series focused on gritty city crime. A funny aside: Typical dime novel detectives were old. Their names often reflected their advanced ages: Old Bull’s Eye, Old Sleuth, Old Neverfail, and Old Spicer.

Women became writers and readers of dime novels. The plots that attracted them dealt with romance and marriage. Many readers were ‘working girls,’ so a repeated story line was a love between a working class girl and a noble. (Sound familiar?) All for Love of a Fair Face, The Story of a Wedding Ring, The Unseen Bridegroom, and The Charity Girl are titles of dime novels marketed for women.

The dime novel’s counterpart in the United Kingdom was the penny dreadful. Subjects were Gothic – hence the name – and included tales about vampires, highwaymen, murderers, and ghosts. They were also know as penny bloods, penny awfuls or simply ‘bloods.’

The years 1870 to 1900 were the dime novel’s heyday. Not many dime novels were printed after World War I. Pulp fiction magazines nudged them aside and going to the ‘motion pictures’ was more exciting and cheaper than one thin dime.

Dime novels are a thing of the past. Today, mass-market paperbacks face a similar extinction. Remember how you could pick up a copy of Jaws or Carrie at the airport or drug store for a cheap price, and slip into your pocket? Mass-market paperbacks, like dime novels, were touted as making reading accessible for the masses, including me. Trade paperbacks, hard covers, Ebooks, audio books, and Netflix are dancing on their graves.

Which mass-market paperbacks do you have yellowing in your book case? Happy reading and I'll see you next month.

Sara Johnson, 1st Sunday