PEGGY FIELDING'S NEWSLETTER
Volume 8 Number 7 September/October 2008

AT LAST!

Please go to the Archives and read the letter there to get the full impact of the geegaws and color that my webmaster puts in. That's www.peggyfielding.com

WHY I'M LATE

I've had several questions and complaints about where the September newsletter was. It was in my head and not yet on paper. All I have done recently is fool around with our new book, The Foxy Hens Go Bump in the Night. Of course, while I've fooled around, the Red Hen, Jackie King, has worked like a donkey in a mine to get my scribbles translated into readable form. Now… Hurrah! The book is complete.

Our AWOC art department has even finished the cover illustration including a wonderful blurb from the world famous author, Merline Lovelace. Her words were very kind.

Gloria Shirley is taking us to the Mystery Conclave in Manhattan, Kansas and we are expecting to sign and sell our books, especially The Foxy Hens Go Bump in the Night. Jackie and I are on a mystery short story panel there. Sounds like fun.

You can order the new book now if you wish, from AWOCBooks.com. You will be able to buy it at your local bookstore or Amazon.com soon. Tell the bookstore person that he or she can order The Foxy Hens Go Bump in the Night for you through Ingrams, which is a book wholesaler. If you ask your librarian to order it tell him or her that the book can be ordered through Brodart.

PEOPLE FROM MY PAST

Bob Inman still calls me but he hasn't sent a picture of himself so maybe he doesn't want youall to see him. I remember him as a kid, tall and good looking. Of course, to a five foot tall squab, everybody seems tall.

I've also heard from a teacher friend, Barbara, who lives in Rhode Island. We were pals when we were in Cuba. In fact, one of her children was in my class at school. She and I are the same age. It's hard for me to see Barb as anyone but the tiny, pretty little preschool teacher she was when we were at Guantanamo. I'm hoping she will send a picture of herself. If she does I'll let youall see it next month.

I'VE MADE A DISCOVERY ABOUT MY TASTE IN MEN. MATURITY IS A PLUS

Oh wow! The Unit is back on Sunday nights on TV, so I get to see my big, brawny Sergeant doing something besides selling insurance. His body shape and size really appeal to me.

One day at the Piggly Wiggly near me, I heard the pretty little cashiers talking about the "hottie" butcher. "Hm." I said to myself, "Let's go look this guy over more carefully if he's such a hottie."

I hobbled back to look at the man, (His name is Steve) and yeah, they were right. When I explored his body, (with my eyes, of course) I realized that I had always preferred the mature, slightly overweight man, paunch just beginning, to any kid or thin male beauty. Seems I like meat, and Steve has it two ways... on his body and under his knife. Going to the butcher's counter is now one of my private pleasures.

Also, I saw President Clinton on David Letterman recently and he still looks big strong, smart and handsome. You can't beat that. He has not been by my house recently.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING

I made the mistake of reading Marilyn Pappano's new romantic suspense Intimate Enemy, which deals with a woman being stalked, she didn't know by whom, back to back with Teresa Miller's Means of Transit which she calls a slightly embellished Memoir. Her book deals in part with the real story of 20 years of being stalked which she suffered. The combination of the two books caused me several moments of fright, maybe because Miller's stalker was one of her former students. Now, I've never been stalked but I've had hundreds of former students.

STALKED BY MARQUIS' WHO'S WHO

I've been in Who's Who for more than thirty years. Recently I wrote and asked them to drop my name and all mention of me. Why? They have harassed me with letters and threats via telephone calls almost every day for six months. Really mean stuff sometimes, lawyers, threats of jail, etc.

I suppose you could say I brought it on myself because I went mad and bought their 2007 edition. They said I hadn't paid for the books. So one of my bank's vp's dug up my check (both sides) and I sent the copy to Marquis. Their methods were a a lot like stalking. I rarely bought books from those people and my purchase in 2007 was a big mistake. My suggestion is that you not get mixed up with those bastards. Their stuff is only ego stroking anyway and my ego seems pretty healthy.

KEEPER OF THE BUTTERFLIES

There is one very slim, young man whom I love like a son, Steve Scoot. Can you imagine his hobby? He raises and releases Monarch and other kinds of moths and butterflies. Isn't that a great thing to do? Maybe he will send a color photograph of butterflies or cocoons or something beautiful.

CONTEST, CONTEST, CONTEST

Carolyn Leonard was first to report on my Johnny Quarles question so I'm expecting her to write with her book choice and mailing address. Which book do you want, Carolyn?

Now, for my new contest, here it is: The first five people who send in a copy of the first line from my novella, "The Legend Of Half Hollow Hill," which is in The Foxy Hens Go Bump in the Night, with their U.S. mailing address, will receive a free copy of that book, or any other of my books. Just note which book you want in your entry.

Jackie's novella in the The Foxy Hens Go Bump in the Night is a real mystery, "The Ghost Who Wouldn't Skedaddle." Good story, as her stories always are.

SEX?

Dusty hasn't sent me a Logan in ages so the answer is no, none.

Big news about Dusty...he has agreed to do a book with the HENS. We're calling it Two Foxy Holiday Hens and One Big Rooster. Our book with the rooster will be out sometime late in 2009, I think.

Now that's love of a kind, isn't it? That a big Spur Award winning cowboy would team up with two hens on writing a book?

Jackie and I love his wife, Pat, also. She is a reader and all writers love readers, don't they? But we love her because we know all the good things she does for the old boy. We went into their house once and she was ironing...and had hanging, fifty shirts she'd just ironed for Dusty! Now that's love.

HUGS TO ALL OF YOU. SEE YOU AGAIN SOON.

Love Peggy Lou Moss Fielding