A New Englander who knows Ashland! I lived in San Diego for 27 years and had never heard of it until 2004 when I visited. In less than 7 months, I'd moved here. It's the best kept secret in the US; reminds me of Sedona, AZ, or the way New Hope, PA was in the 70's. If you feel like it, tell me about your "novel in the works."

Librarians have a free pass into heaven. You are one of the pillars of a free society. My book, The Beatitudes, is a paranormal thriller set in New Orleans. It will be out in the fall and I am donating all royalties directly to the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. Libraries support the infrastructure of a great city, so I have started The Beatitudes Network to promote awareness of the importance of public libraries in NOLA.
The blogsite www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com describes the Network, has excerpts from The Beatitudes, recipes, and more. Merci mille fois. Lyn Lejeune.
Writers, please pass the word…..it’s for a good cause….don’t let the libraries of New Orleans or the US go the way of The Great Library of Alexandria. P.S. just posted an excerpt on my Crimespace page.

Hi Maxine,
I enjoyed meeting you at ALA.
Carrot packer, huh? Certainly there must be some way to work that into your mystery? Death as an allergic reaction to beta carotene?
I live near Long Island Sound, but it's not the same as the ocean. Have you read the Philip Craig series set on Martha's Vineyard?

Marian aka Evelyn David

Even when I lived in Boston, I was always aware of the ocean. Sometimes I could smell it, even when I was a few miles from the harbor.

Your pic makes me think of simpler times at the Shore.
Sometimes I wish I lived closer to the beach.
Chris Redding

I almost applied for a job at Northern Michigan University, but I figured the winters would ruin the perfect three months. If I had been a little younger though...

Hi Maxine,
My nieces and nephews live in the UP and wake up every day a block from the lake. It's great three months of the year. The other nine months give me pause.

Another librarian! and an academic one, to boot. We don't have an actual science librarian on my campus, but I do my best to pretend. I work with a few perfect victims - should we swap, like in that Alfred Hitchcock movie?

"As I get older, though, the number of perfect victims has grown to an unmanageable size." Love it!

Hi Maxine,
I looked at Library Thing but the task of cataloging the ~5,000 books I currently have and including all the notes I keep on them was too much. I would spend all my free time doing that without any time left for actually reading. I just couldn't quite face it. :-)

I'd love to have my feet there again, at least if it was August.

I want to be your feet.

Thanks! The picture is a reminder to me of a sweet time-- early in the morning on a beach on Lake Superior, cup of coffee, no one else up yet...sigh.
Yeah, the carrot-packer thing was short and brutal, and my hands were orange for a week afterwards. But say more about the boxing lessons!