Sandra Parshall's Posts - CrimeSpace2024-03-28T14:40:37ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshallhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/60985232?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=SandraParshall&xn_auth=noCharacters Who Haunt Ustag:crimespace.ning.com,2009-11-12:537324:BlogPost:2196102009-11-12T21:55:04.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br />
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I can’t get the girl out of my mind. I worry about her. I want to know what happened to her after the book ended.<br />
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Throughout most of Elizabeth George’s <i>Missing Joseph</i>, I found the 13-year-old character Maggie Spence exasperating in the way a lot of teens are. Lying to her mother, sneaking out to rendezvous with a boy she was forbidden to see, engaging in sex long before she was capable of dealing with it emotionally. I wanted to shake some…
(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br />
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I can’t get the girl out of my mind. I worry about her. I want to know what happened to her after the book ended.<br />
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Throughout most of Elizabeth George’s <i>Missing Joseph</i>, I found the 13-year-old character Maggie Spence exasperating in the way a lot of teens are. Lying to her mother, sneaking out to rendezvous with a boy she was forbidden to see, engaging in sex long before she was capable of dealing with it emotionally. I wanted to shake some sense into her.<br />
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As the story threads came together, though, and I saw the full horror of this girl’s situation, I began to fear for her. How on earth could she emerge whole and healthy from the tangle of deceit created by the adults in her life? She couldn’t. My last glimpse of her in the book was one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I’ve ever read. George made the girl so real, her predicament so disastrous and her emotional response so raw that I will never forget her.<br />
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I want Elizabeth George to bring her back in another book and tell me what has happened to her. I suspect the news wouldn’t be good, but I still want to know. This character will haunt me until I learn her ultimate fate.<br />
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It may be a form of torture, but I have to applaud writers who can make me care so much about their fictional characters that I worry about them after the books end or mourn the loss when they’re killed off. I can’t help contrasting my feelings for the girl with my reaction when Helen, wife of George’s detective Tommy Lynley, was shot and killed. For some reason, Helen never seemed quite real to me, and I never liked her. I was, frankly, glad to see her go. Helen’s ghost, in designer shoes, does not haunt me.<br />
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Another character who won’t let go of my imagination is also a teenager, but several years older than the girl in <i>Missing Joseph</i>. Her name is Reggie, she’s an orphan who pretends her mother is still alive so she can maintain her freedom and self-reliance, and she is the emotional center of Kate Atkinson’s <i>When Will There Be Good News?</i> Reggie’s stoic perseverance in the face of catastrophe, and her determination to find out what has become of the woman doctor she’s been working for as a child-minder, drive the story, and Reggie all by herself kept me turning the pages. At the end, her fate is uncertain. I know what I want to see in her future, but even if I’m guessing wrong I hope Atkinson will bring Reggie back and let readers share her life.<br />
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I’ve created one character of my own who haunts me: Rachel’s mother, Judith Goddard, in <i>The Heat of the Moon</i>. I gave her a terrible background and more pain than anyone should have to bear. A lot of readers have told me they hated her, and my impulse every time has been to defend her. I’m grateful when someone says they felt sympathy for her and understood why she clung so fiercely to Rachel and her sister and tried so hard to remain in control. Her awful childhood, and the heartbreak she endured as an adult, are very real to me and so is her emotional distress. Although I wouldn’t have had a story without all those events, I find myself wishing I could have made life a little easier for her.<br />
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The legacy of a haunting character is something I take away from very few novels, but every book offers the possibility of encountering memorable characters. That’s the reason I read fiction. The characters, not the plot details and certainly not the blood and gore of murder, make a book memorable.<br />
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What characters have continued to haunt you long after you finished reading the books? Do you want the writers to produce sequels that will show you what has become of those characters?Who makes money on Kindle books?tag:crimespace.ning.com,2009-05-26:537324:BlogPost:2001532009-05-26T13:41:00.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
<i>Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters.</i><br />
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The Amazon Kindle has broadened the market for books, and Kindle rights are making the same amount of money for publishers, and in many cases the authors, as the print editions. So why are publishers worried as they watch Amazon conquer the e-book market?<br />
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I’ve read a lot on this subject lately, but an article by Rachel Deahl in the May 11 Publishers Weekly did the best job of explaining the conundrum publishers face.<br />
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Amazon’s goal is to sell…
<i>Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters.</i><br />
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The Amazon Kindle has broadened the market for books, and Kindle rights are making the same amount of money for publishers, and in many cases the authors, as the print editions. So why are publishers worried as they watch Amazon conquer the e-book market?<br />
<br />
I’ve read a lot on this subject lately, but an article by Rachel Deahl in the May 11 Publishers Weekly did the best job of explaining the conundrum publishers face.<br />
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Amazon’s goal is to sell the hardware, the Kindle itself. To make it more attractive than the Kindle’s chief competition, the Sony Reader, Amazon has more than 265,000 titles available for download and is charging less for most of them than Sony’s e-books cost. In many cases, Amazon is taking a loss on the books themselves.<br />
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Deahl reports in PW that Amazon pays publishers the same discounted amount, around 50% of cover price, for Kindle rights that it pays for printed books. Amazon sells printed books at just enough to make a profit on each copy. But they’re charging less for many e-book downloads than they pay for the rights.<br />
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For example, the cover price on Jim Butcher’s current bestseller, Turn Coat, is $25.95. If Amazon purchases each copy from the publisher at a 50% discount, they’re paying $12.97 for it. Amazon sells the print version for $17.13 – $4.16 more than they paid the publisher. But the Kindle download costs only $9.99 – $2.98 less than Amazon paid for it.<br />
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Right now, Amazon’s willingness to take a loss, or merely break even, on downloads in order to push Kindle sales and build its share of the e-book market is not affecting publisher profits. According to the Authors Guild, writers are also being paid – depending on how their contracts are structured, they receive either 15% of the book’s original list price or 25% of net receipts from e-book sales. According to PW, though, some agents are unhappy because publishers don’t have to spend any of their profits from e-books on manufacturing and shipping and are making a disproportionate profit on each sale, while the writer’s income remains the same.<br />
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It’s a vision of the future that’s giving publishers nightmares. What will happen when Amazon has driven its competition out of business or into a tiny and almost meaningless corner of the market? Publishers, Deahl reports, are afraid Amazon will exercise its power to demand much lower prices for digital rights that it pays for printed books. That effortless profit will vanish for publishers, unless they lower the author’s royalty on e-books. We all know how writers and agents would feel about that approach. As noted above, some grumbling is already being heard about a split of e-book profits that is perceived as favoring publishers and penalizing writers.<br />
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Amazon, with its worldwide marketing network that is visited by millions of users every day, is ideally positioned to push a product like the Kindle. According to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, 35% of all Amazon sales of titles available in print and digital formats are Kindle editions. Just a few months ago, that figure was 10%.<br />
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Amazon has just introduced the Kindle DX, a larger version of the reader designed to display newspapers and college textbooks. Amazon will soon launch a pilot program at six universities, but this effort faces significant obstacles in the education market. The DX is big, it’s clunky, it’s black and white only, and it costs $489. Students who already have access to full-color digital references through their schools, and are accustomed to using laptops and miniature netbooks to retrieve information, may not be enamored of Amazon’s latest version of the Kindle.<br />
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One thing seems certain, though: the original Kindle for popular books is here to stay. What it means for publishers and writers is an open question. Stay tuned, and if you’re a writer, you might want to have a talk with your agent about it.Readers in a Ruttag:crimespace.ning.com,2009-05-08:537324:BlogPost:1976182009-05-08T17:59:15.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
[Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters.]<br />
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“I stopped enjoying her books years ago, but I still buy them and read them.”<br />
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“His last half-dozen books have been poorly written and boring – but I can’t seem to stop myself from buying them, even though I know I’m going to hate them.”<br />
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How many times have you heard people say this sort of thing? How many times have you seen similar statements posted on DorothyL? How many times have you admitted to buying books by authors you should have given up…
[Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters.]<br />
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“I stopped enjoying her books years ago, but I still buy them and read them.”<br />
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“His last half-dozen books have been poorly written and boring – but I can’t seem to stop myself from buying them, even though I know I’m going to hate them.”<br />
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How many times have you heard people say this sort of thing? How many times have you seen similar statements posted on DorothyL? How many times have you admitted to buying books by authors you should have given up on years ago?<br />
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I’m trying to understand why readers buy, and read, then complain about books they know in advance they won’t like. Do they have such ecstatic memories of an author’s first few good books that they keep hoping she or he will suddenly start writing well again when all the evidence points to a permanent decline? Any author can be forgiven one weak book – no one is consistently brilliant, after all – but I have so little time to read that a writer who disappoints me repeatedly has to do something spectacular to win me back. I feel very much alone in taking this hard line, though.<br />
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If you doubt that American readers are creatures of habit, just take a look at last year’s overall bestsellers list, as reported in a recent issue of Publishers Weekly. Among the top six books of the year – those that sold more than a million copies each – is only one by a new author: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, which came in second with 1.3 million copies sold even though it wasn’t published until September of 2008. The other books at the top are (1) The Appeal by John Grisham, (3) The Host by Stephanie Meyer, which is still near the top of the bestseller lists after 48 weeks, (4) Cross Country by James Patterson, (5) The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks, and (6) Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich.<br />
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Moving down the list, to books that sold more than 600,000 but fewer than a million copies last year, we find (7) Christmas Sweater, a first novel by conservative media personality Glenn Beck, who was already a known quantity because of his books of opinion on social issues; (8) Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell; (9) Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz; (10) Plum Lucky by (again) Janet Evanovich; (11) 7th Heaven by (again) James Patterson; (12) Sail by (again!) James Patterson; (13) A Good Woman by Danielle Steele; (14) Divine Justice by David Baldacci; and (15) The Gate House by Nelson DeMille.<br />
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One new writer in the entire lot -- and Wroblewski was blessed with Oprah’s imprimatur, which drove sales of Edgar Sawtelle.<br />
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A total of 155 novels sold more than 100,000 hardcover copies each last year. Of those, four were by James Patterson, three by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, four by Iris Johansen, three by Danielle Steele. The following authors all had two bestselling hardcovers each in 2008: Janet Evanovich, Patricia Cornwell, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (they co-authored one book), Dean Koontz, David Baldacci, Laurell K. Hamilton, Jonathan Kellerman, Stephen King, John Sandford, Clive Cussler, Debbie Macomber, Stuart Woods, Robert Parker, Jeffery Deaver, and Jack Higgins. Twenty-one authors wrote 47 of the 155 novels that sold more than 100,000 copies.<br />
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In paperback, these same authors sold even more copies of more novels, some of them reprints of books originally published years ago. Roberts/Robb had the most paperback bestsellers in 2008 – nine in mass market pb and six in trade pb. James Patterson had a total of nine.<br />
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Almost all of the other books on both hardcover and paperback lists were written by long-established authors.<br />
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I’m not saying these people produce bad books, or that their fans are automatons who buy blindly even when they don’t anticipate enjoying the novels they purchase. All of the top-selling writers have legions of devoted fans who love every word they write. I realize that the millions of books they sell are helping their publishers stay in business. But the sameness of the names at the top of the bestsellers list, year after year after year, does suggest that many readers lack a sense of adventure and would rather buy a book with a familiar name on it, whether it’s a good book or not, than try something new. Publishers know that, and count on it when they put out multiple books by the same writers each year.<br />
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In addition to Wroblewksi, one other newcomer stood out last year: Brunonia Barry, whose The Lace Reader sold more than 160,000 copies. I refuse to believe that only two new writers published novels last year that were good enough to engage the minds and hearts of a broad range of readers. I think a lot of wonderful books fail to sell in large numbers because the publishers don’t promote them and habit-bound readers are reluctant to spend money on books by writers with unfamiliar names. Yet those same readers will automatically buy a familiar writer’s book – even when they expect it to disappoint them.<br />
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Will somebody please explain this quirk of human nature to me? I am sincerely baffled.<br />
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Do you buy books by writers you no longer enjoy? Why do you do it? What would it take to persuade you to spend your money instead on a new author’s book? Have you discovered any new authors in the last couple of years whose books are now on your automatic-buy list?"Ripped from the headlines" plots & peopletag:crimespace.ning.com,2009-04-09:537324:BlogPost:1924642009-04-09T14:06:20.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
Sandra Parshall<br />
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[Cross-posted from the Poe's Deadly Daughters blog]<br />
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I know a woman who could be transferred to the pages of a novel exactly as she is, to become a marvelously twisted character. She would be a plausible killer because of her unmatched talent for holding a grudge and her relentless vindictiveness. She would make an even more believable victim because everyone who knows her longs to be rid of her.<br />
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I’ll probably use her in a book sooner or later. But regardless of how accurately…
Sandra Parshall<br />
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[Cross-posted from the Poe's Deadly Daughters blog]<br />
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I know a woman who could be transferred to the pages of a novel exactly as she is, to become a marvelously twisted character. She would be a plausible killer because of her unmatched talent for holding a grudge and her relentless vindictiveness. She would make an even more believable victim because everyone who knows her longs to be rid of her.<br />
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I’ll probably use her in a book sooner or later. But regardless of how accurately I try to portray her, the minute she hits the page she’ll begin to morph into something else, a fictional woman. A character. She will live in a world the real woman has never known, and respond to events and pressures unique to the story she’s in. As the pages and scenes and chapters wear on, she will become less and less the real person I know and more a creation of my own imagination.<br />
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I was thinking about all this a few days ago while listening to Laura Lippman talk about her books, which she said were all inspired by actual events. When one book, What the Dead Know, was published, Laura felt she had to publicly acknowledge that the story was inspired by the disappearance of two young sisters in suburban Maryland in the 1970s. I’m not sure she had to address the issue at all. Children disappear every day. There have been other cases of young sisters disappearing together. At the time of the case Laura had in mind, the sisters’ disappearance was little known outside the Washington-Baltimore area where it happened. But what’s most important is that, other than the disappearance itself, her story had absolutely nothing in common with the actual events, or the lives of the real girls and their parents.<br />
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Today, of course, 24-hour cable TV would make the simultaneous disappearance of two young sisters an international story, and the whole world would hear about it, day after day, every hour on the hour. In far-flung locations, TV viewers would stare at photos of the smiling girls and grow teary-eyed when contemplating their probable fate. The voracious news machine would scoop up every scrap of information or gossip and put it on the air within minutes, without bothering to verify it. Crime stories, as reported on round-the-clock cable, can become so detailed and sensational that no writer’s imagination could envision anything to top them. Drawing inspiration from today’s news might mean laboring for a year on a story that will be stale by the time it appears in book form. Even if you change significant aspects of the crime and its solution, the story may still seem overly familiar to readers -- and the real people involved won’t look kindly on your creative endeavor.<br />
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The folks who put Law & Order’s “ripped from the headlines” shows on the air can snatch up a sensational story and turn it into fiction much faster than a novelist can, and an episode may go on the air while the horror of the real crime is still unbearably raw for the victims and their families. In a few cases, L&O has come up with its own version before the real crime was even solved. The “characters” are eerily like the real people, with no effort made to disguise them beyond name changes.<br />
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A recent Washington Post story – which you can read here -- reports that many people whose worst nightmares show up on L&O feel “blindsided and used” and find the experience, on top of the tragedy they’ve suffered, deeply disturbing. “We’re trying to heal,” said a man whose young son and housekeeper were murdered in a still-unsolved case, “and to have it constantly dredged up is painful.” No one from the program or network contacted the family or alerted them that the show would be aired. The older brother of the murdered boy called the program “sick.”<br />
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Law & Order and its spinoffs have used hundreds of real cases over the years, loudly advertising them as “Ripped from the headlines!” while simultaneously claiming that they’re pure fiction, depicting no actual person or event. Such a claim is usually enough to protect creative work from libel and slander charges, but that might be changing. Since 2004, L&O has been fighting a lawsuit over a program that aired in late 2003, and despite efforts to have the suit dismissed, it was recently cleared for trial. The eventual outcome could make a difference in the way television crime shows are written.<br />
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Will it make a difference to novelists? Combined with the over-exposure many crime stories receive now, would a judgment against Law & Order be enough to make writers stop combing the news columns and cable networks in search of inspiration? I almost hope so. Unless we have Laura Lippman’s ability to take the germ of a situation and turn it into something brilliantly original, maybe we’ll write better books if we stop trying so hard to be topical and rely on our imaginations to provide us with material.<br />
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I’ll go on using real people as the starting points for characters. I’ll probably put the awful woman I mentioned earlier in a book someday, but I know she'll be someone else, a fictional person, by the time I'm done. I hope no one ever reads something I’ve written and exclaims, “Oh my god, that’s me. She stole my life!” I don’t want that kind of guilt – and I don’t want the lawsuit.Why are so many people in prison?tag:crimespace.ning.com,2009-04-02:537324:BlogPost:1912572009-04-02T14:24:19.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
Sandra Parshall<br />
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Did you know that one out of every 31 adults in the U.S. is either in prison/jail or on supervised release from incarceration?<br />
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That startling statistic is in an article by Senator James Webb of Virginia that appeared in last Sunday’s Parade Magazine. I don’t usually regard this newspaper supplement as a source of sociological wisdom, but Webb’s piece is worth every citizen’s attention. Reform of the criminal justice system and our overburdened prisons is one of his keenest…
Sandra Parshall<br />
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Did you know that one out of every 31 adults in the U.S. is either in prison/jail or on supervised release from incarceration?<br />
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That startling statistic is in an article by Senator James Webb of Virginia that appeared in last Sunday’s Parade Magazine. I don’t usually regard this newspaper supplement as a source of sociological wisdom, but Webb’s piece is worth every citizen’s attention. Reform of the criminal justice system and our overburdened prisons is one of his keenest interests, and he has the facts, supplied by the Department of Justice, to back up his call for change.<br />
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The prison population in this country is up to 2.3 million. Another 5 million adults are on probation, parole, or other correctional supervision. The U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of its prisoners – 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, almost five times the worldwide rate of 158 per 100,000. As Webb says, “Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different – and vastly counterproductive.”<br />
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What we’re doing differently is putting a lot of people in prison for relatively minor and nonviolent offenses. According to the DOJ, fully one-third of all prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses. Almost half of all drug arrests in 2007 involved only marijuana. Almost 60% of those imprisoned for drug offenses have no history of violence or involvement in major drug sales. Four out of five drug arrests are for possession; only one in five is for dealing. While marijuana users are serving prison sentences, the Mexican cartels that bring drugs across our borders and into our communities, at an estimated annual profit of $25 billion, flourish unimpeded, and gangs from other parts of Latin America, Asia, and Europe are getting in on the action. Imprisoning users does nothing to stem the drug trade.<br />
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Our prisons are overcrowded and dangerous. People who commit offenses that other countries would treat as medical, mental, or social problems are thrown into institutions where violence is a constant threat and diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis are rampant. Being caught with even a small amount of an illegal drug is enough to ruin a person’s entire future, if he survives prison. According to the DOJ, more than 350,000 adult prisoners are mentally ill. This is some of what we’re getting for the $68 billion we spend on corrections in this country every year.<br />
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Some state governments are beginning to realize that their corrections systems have to be fixed – if only because state budgets can’t continue to fund ever-increasing prison populations. Last week, Gov. Patterson of New York announced plans to roll back harsh sentences for nonviolent offenses. Across the country, politicians are pushing sentencing reform to reduce prison populations and costs. Of course, opponents claim that this amounts to coddling criminals and that we should be building more prisons.<br />
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Senator Webb proposes a national commission that would take a comprehensive approach to corrections reform and provide guidance to states dealing with overburdened prisons and court systems. Like so many other problems we face in this country, the chaos in our prisons seems overwhelming, and plenty of people will throw up their hands and say it can’t be fixed. But it must be fixed, whether at the federal level or state by state. We can’t look the other way and allow this mess to get worse.<br />
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What approach do you favor? Do you believe nonviolent offenders should be given lighter sentences, or probation and community service instead of prison terms?<br />
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Do you believe nonviolent offenders should be incarcerated with those convicted of violent crimes?<br />
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Do you think drug use should be treated as a crime or a medical problem?<br />
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Do you believe marijuana use should be decriminalized?<br />
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Read Senator Webb’s article here: http://tinyurl.com/dx3c2gThe Things We Keeptag:crimespace.ning.com,2008-01-11:537324:BlogPost:1138112008-01-11T18:48:46.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
Sandra Parshall<br></br><br></br>(cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br></br><br></br>On my desk sits a small brown pottery jar, crammed full of pens and pencils. It’s not much to look at, but it has been on every desk I’ve had for many years and unless it somehow gets broken into a million pieces, it will be on my desk for the rest of my life. On the bottom of the jar is the amateur potter’s name, scratched into the surface, the last three letters tiny and cramped because her name was long and she ran…
Sandra Parshall<br/><br/>(cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br/><br/>On my desk sits a small brown pottery jar, crammed full of pens and pencils. It’s not much to look at, but it has been on every desk I’ve had for many years and unless it somehow gets broken into a million pieces, it will be on my desk for the rest of my life. On the bottom of the jar is the amateur potter’s name, scratched into the surface, the last three letters tiny and cramped because her name was long and she ran out of space. She was a dear friend of mine, and she died more than 30 years ago at the age of 28. <br/><br/>Most of us possess objects that mean far more than their physical properties would suggest. We hold them in our hands and remember someone who is no longer with us. We look at them and remember a moment that will never be equaled. They are talismans, symbols. The Agatha Award teapot assumed this magical aura the moment it was placed in my shaking hands. It represented the end of a long and painful struggle to get my work into print, to reach a point where I could truly call myself a writer. I will never part with it. But which means more to me, the teapot or the little brown jar made by my friend? I don’t think I could choose.<br/><br/>When a writer gives a character an object with special meaning, the reader understands and is drawn into the character’s emotional life. Think of all the soldiers in novels and war movies who carry mementoes of loved ones into battle and bring tears to our eyes simply by taking these precious objects out of their pockets and looking at them. And who could ever forget Citizen Kane and his sled named Rosebud? In the novel I recently completed, the main character, a young woman named Erin, receives a necklace with a ladybug charm on it as a gift from her parents. The day she receives it, the day she stops wearing it, and the day she fastens it around her neck again are major turning points in her life. <br/><br/>What objects do you own that have special meaning? Can you recall a fictional character whose attachment to a memento helped you understand his or her emotional life?<br/><br/>Whose book is it, anyway?tag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-08-29:537324:BlogPost:679782007-08-29T19:48:52.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters <www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com)<br></br><br></br>Writers hear a lot about their “contract with the reader” -- the obligation to deliver a good story and to follow through on the expectations they’ve created. <br></br><br></br>For mystery writers, that unwritten contract requires that we obey the conventions of the various subgenres. Readers of humorous cozies would feel betrayed and angry if their favorite writers shoved their noses into the realistic gore of…
(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters <www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com)<br/><br/>Writers hear a lot about their “contract with the reader” -- the obligation to deliver a good story and to follow through on the expectations they’ve created. <br/><br/>For mystery writers, that unwritten contract requires that we obey the conventions of the various subgenres. Readers of humorous cozies would feel betrayed and angry if their favorite writers shoved their noses into the realistic gore of murder, or stuck in a sizzling, graphic sex scene, or (heaven forbid) killed a cat. Thriller writers, on the other hand, have to keep up a brisk pace, slosh the blood around liberally, and ratchet up the suspense to nail-biting levels. Writers of noir can even get away with killing the cat. <br/><br/>There’s one thing, though, that readers in all subgenres are guaranteed to howl about: the murder of a beloved series character. When Dana Stabenow let the bad guys kill off a popular character, a lot of fans swore they would never buy her books again. When Elizabeth George did it, the shock rippled through online mystery discussion groups. Now another of my favorite writers has killed a major character in her latest book -- don’t worry; I won’t name the writer, the book, or the character and spoil it for you -- and I’m curious about the way her fans will react.<br/><br/>As a reader, I was upset with Stabenow for doing in a character I liked. George’s deceased character was one I’d detested from the start, and I was happy to see her go, but reading about it was still a jolt because of the anguish it caused other characters to whom I’m more attached. The latest character death feels like a personal loss. The murder is particularly brutal and horrifying, and I’m stunned that the author made this choice. As a writer, I’m eager to see what direction the series will take now that its fictional world has been so drastically altered, but I expect the next book to be painful to read.<br/><br/>The relationships readers form with fictional characters, especially series characters, are fascinating and more than a little weird. Look at the mania over Harry Potter and the general horror among readers when they feared that Harry would be killed in the final book. This kid isn’t a real person. He doesn’t exist. Yet millions of readers worldwide would have been more distressed by his fictional death than by the deaths of most flesh-and-blood people they know. Plenty of crime fiction readers feel equally protective of their favorite characters.<br/><br/>In one way, it’s great news for the author when this intense bond between reader and character develops. It means the character is so real and enduring that readers can’t wait to find out what he or she will do next. The flip side of that devotion is the readers’ desire to decide the character’s fate. We think only editors and agents have the right to interfere with the direction of our stories, but some readers feel they gain that right by buying and loving a series. And many readers won’t hesitate to deliver their instructions directly to the author.<br/><br/>With only two books of my own in print so far, I haven’t had time to disappoint anyone in a major way, but I’ve already had a little taste of what it’s like when readers want to dictate what happens to characters they like. It’s strangely enjoyable, but also unnerving. For writers like Stabenow and George, who receive an avalanche of complaints when they upset readers, it’s probably maddening.<br/><br/>Some authors say they’ll write what they damned well please, and readers can take it or leave it. However, if too many readers decide to leave it, the life of the series itself could be endangered. Stabenow and George, whose books are on the dark side, don’t seem to have suffered in the long term for killing their characters, but for writers less comfortably established, it might not be a wise career choice. And many cozy writers say they would never, ever dare to harm an animal -- especially not a cat -- in a story.<br/><br/>So whose book is it, anyway? Should the author write every novel, every scene, with the readers’ preferences in mind? Does a long-running series gradually become a collaboration between writer and readers? <br/><br/>I’m relatively new at this, and I don’t know what the answer is. I hope I’ll be in print long enough to find out!<br/><br/><br/><br/>Books into filmtag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-04-18:537324:BlogPost:262172007-04-18T23:58:08.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br></br><br></br> “It’s being made into a movie.” <br></br><br></br>Words to strike terror into the heart of a devoted reader. Even worse: “It’s being filmed for television.”<br></br><br></br>Sometimes it’s done right. The movie of Mystic River is almost as good as Dennis Lehane’s novel. The first Godfather film is better than the book. Showtime did a credible job of bringing Darkly Dreaming Dexter to television, and I liked it despite some changes.<br></br><br></br>More often, films…
(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br/><br/> “It’s being made into a movie.” <br/><br/>Words to strike terror into the heart of a devoted reader. Even worse: “It’s being filmed for television.”<br/><br/>Sometimes it’s done right. The movie of Mystic River is almost as good as Dennis Lehane’s novel. The first Godfather film is better than the book. Showtime did a credible job of bringing Darkly Dreaming Dexter to television, and I liked it despite some changes.<br/><br/>More often, films and TV shows based on novels disappoint me. I watch out of morbid curiosity, to see what has been done to a favorite book, and when I discover that a ravening pack of filmmakers has torn the story apart, chucked indispensable scenes out the window, added new stuff that doesn’t fit, and slapped it together in a barely recognizable form, I am not happy. Few films or TV shows adapted from books are that bad, though. Most lie inert on the screen not because of major changes but because the books’ essential energy and passion failed to make the trip from page to screen. Snow Falling on Cedars is a good example. The French version of Ruth Rendell’s The Bridesmaid is another. The movie Children of Men has plenty of energy – it’s a big, noisy science fiction action film. But it’s not the heartbreaking, thought-provoking story P.D. James wrote.<br/><br/>A travesty of casting can blight my image of a character. I no longer see Tommy Lynley as Elizabeth George writes him – blond, with aristocratic features. Instead, I see the dark-haired, ordinary-looking actor who plays him on TV. (My enjoyment of the novels isn’t helped, either, by the decision to take the TV series in a different direction, eliminating some major characters and allowing one who has died in the series to continue living onscreen.) I once pictured P.D. James’s Dalgliesh as brooding and darkly handsome – a Timothy Dalton type. Now that I’ve seen him played on TV by two different actors, I no longer have a firm image of Dalgliesh. <br/><br/>At the moment, I’m apprehensive about the upcoming film of Lehane’s Gone, Baby, Gone, starring (gulp) Casey Affleck as Patrick. Let us pray. <br/><br/>Despite the pitfalls, many writers yearn to see their books become movies or TV shows. Why? The sale means more money, of course, and perhaps the sheer glamour of it is seductive. A writer’s work is lonely and decidedly lacking in razzle-dazzle. The very word “movie” conjures images of hanging out with stars, maybe copping a cameo for yourself. Beyond that, the prospect of seeing your characters and stories come to life onscreen is undeniably enticing. How will you feel, though, if you hate the result?<br/><br/>Sara Paretsky says she went through “all the stages of grief” after seeing the film V.I. Warshawski, starring Kathleen Turner. The movie is a mess and was universally panned. But what, exactly, is Ms. Paretsky mourning? What does a novelist lose when her work is mangled in translation to the screen? Nothing, at least not directly. Her work remains where it belongs, between covers, and a third-rate film will not alter a single word she wrote. Some readers, however, could lose a mental image of the characters and a degree of pleasure in the book. When that happens, the writer has indeed lost something valuable.<br/><br/>Okay, your turn. Which movies or TV shows based on books have you loved or hated? Did they change your perceptions of the characters? If you’re a writer, do you want to see your work filmed?<br/><br/>Riding the Review Rollercoastertag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-04-06:537324:BlogPost:189822007-04-06T01:12:02.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
<font size="2">(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br></br></font><br></br><br></br><font size="3">Now, at last, I understand my urge to publish novels.<br></br><br></br>It’s not a deep-seated desire to communicate. It’s not a need to purge my imagination of all those crazy made-up people who keep running around in their made-up world, doing shocking things. It’s not, heaven knows, a belief that publication will make me rich and famous. (I was never naive enough to believe that.)<br></br><br></br>No, it’s…</font>
<font size="2">(Cross-posted from Poe's Deadly Daughters)<br/></font><br/><br/><font size="3">Now, at last, I understand my urge to publish novels.<br/><br/>It’s not a deep-seated desire to communicate. It’s not a need to purge my imagination of all those crazy made-up people who keep running around in their made-up world, doing shocking things. It’s not, heaven knows, a belief that publication will make me rich and famous. (I was never naive enough to believe that.)<br/><br/>No, it’s masochism.<br/><br/>I just love putting myself at the mercy of strangers. I take a perverse pleasure in releasing my creative children into the world and waiting, wide-eyed and eager, for the world to shatter my fragile writerly ego with those awful-and-wonderful things called reviews.<br/><br/>As my husband and friends never tire of pointing out, I can ignore reams of praise if I find a single disapproving sentence buried within. So what if the reviewer loved the characters, found the setting evocative, enjoyed the plot right to the end? None of that counts. What counts is that she thought some of my phrasing was... gulp... clunky.<br/><br/>Despair! I will never write again. I will toss the computer out with the trash because I am clearly unworthy to be called an author.<br/><br/>But the Library Journal gave my second book, Disturbing the Dead, a starred review. That means something, doesn’t it? Certainly it does. I am worthy after all! I am an author.<br/><br/>But... but... A reviewer said DTD has too many characters. Omigod. Here is a person who believes that some of the characters I love so much shouldn’t even exist. How can I go on writing now that I know this? Where did I put the razor blades?<br/><br/>Okay, calm down, Sandy, and go reread the advance reviews. Oh, look, Kirkus -- Kirkus, so difficult to please! -- declared DTD “fast-paced, chilling, and compulsively readable.” Whew. My life and sanity saved again.<br/><br/>But... but... Yet another reviewer (they’re multiplying like wire hangers in a closet) thinks DTD has too many Melungeon characters and, furthermore, I made too many of them poor. Now I feel like an insensitive wretch who traffics in stereotypes. Forget the razor blades. Bullets are faster.<br/><br/>What one reviewer praises, another will criticize. And it’s the criticism, seldom the praise, that sticks in my mind. Every review is a source of nail-biting worry before I read it and possible agony afterward. “Don’t take it personally,” everybody says. Impossible advice for someone like me to follow. Everything is personal.<br/><br/>I would not dream of challenging reviewers, because they’re supposed to give their honest opinions and I’m grateful to them for telling readers about my books. In my rare lucid moments, I realize that my reviews have been mostly positive and I have nothing to complain about. I try not to care that at least two reviewers think Disturbing the Dead takes place in North Carolina, even though the characters never venture outside Virginia. (True to form, I’m convinced that misapprehension is somehow my fault.)<br/><br/>But I keep wondering exactly which characters I should have left out of the book and which phrases were clunky. Is it too late to recall every copy and rewrite?<br/><br/>I regard my work-in-progress with a cold eye. Maybe I should kill off Greg right now. Heck, maybe Greg should never have been born in the first place. And clunky writing? Oh, good grief, the book is filled with it. No one will ever want to read the thing. It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless. Getting two books published was a fluke. It will never happen again.<br/><br/>But if, through some miracle, I do publish a third book, I’m not going to read the reviews. Not a one. Zip.<br/><br/>I am finished with this particular form of masochism.<br/><br/>Really.<br/><br/><br/><br/></font><br/>Memories of Prisontag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-03-28:537324:BlogPost:145492007-03-28T18:32:25.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
(Cross-posted from my group blog, Poe's Deadly Daughters <www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com>)<br></br><br></br>The Maryland House of Correction in Jessup is closed at last. The 129-year-old building is empty of inmates, and its long history of riots, attacks on correctional officers, escapes and violence among prisoners has come to an end.<br></br><br></br>Years ago, when I was a young reporter on the Baltimore Evening Sun, I visited Maryland prisons to report on health care for inmates. I had been…
(Cross-posted from my group blog, Poe's Deadly Daughters <www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com>)<br/><br/>The Maryland House of Correction in Jessup is closed at last. The 129-year-old building is empty of inmates, and its long history of riots, attacks on correctional officers, escapes and violence among prisoners has come to an end.<br/><br/>Years ago, when I was a young reporter on the Baltimore Evening Sun, I visited Maryland prisons to report on health care for inmates. I had been inside a prison before -- the federal facility for women in Alderson, West Virginia, made famous recently by Martha Stewart’s brief residence there. I realized that not all prisons were like Alderson, with its lovely campus in the mountains, pleasant buildings, and semi-private rooms, but I was completely unprepared for the reality of places like the HOC at Jessup.<br/><br/>I knew that I would be leaving whenever I wanted to, but the sound of doors clanging shut behind me, locking me in, brought on a rush of panic. When I was escorted past a row of locked cells where inmates were segregated from the general prison population, I felt like a visitor at a particularly grim zoo. A couple of the men caught my eye through the bars of their cell doors, and I had to look away because I felt ashamed and embarrassed that they were being shown off for my benefit.<br/><br/>Jessup was the dreariest of the institutions I visited, but the penitentiary in Baltimore made an equally deep impression. I can still see the tier upon tier of cells, and the only color I remember is gray, although I doubt the walls were actually painted that color. My strongest memory is of the noise, an overwhelming drone punctuated by shouts and the clank of metal on metal as doors opened and closed. I would have gone out of my mind from the racket alone if I’d stayed there more than a couple of hours.<br/><br/>I was allowed to speak to individual inmates, question them and record their complaints about medical care in the prison. The men were polite, respectful, and voiced their opinions in reasonable tones. One young man apparently hadn’t seen a female in a while, and he asked personal questions about my life, but I never felt threatened. When I began receiving letters from him shortly after my visit, I was sorry I had to wound his feelings by telling him I couldn’t visit or write to him.<br/><br/>At the prison near Hagerstown, where I ate lunch in the cafeteria with inmates, I perceived the atmosphere as markedly different. The noise level was low, the buildings appeared well-maintained, and the setting was beautiful. I thought this was a “good” prison. Yet it has also been the scene of violence and riots, and charges of brutality have been made against the guards. I was there for part of one day. I saw what I was allowed to see. In other prisons, despair couldn’t be hidden. I felt it before I walked through the doors, and I saw it all around me when I was inside. In Hagerstown, for some reason, I was blind to it, yet the history of the place proves it was ever-present.<br/><br/>Our nation’s prisons are overflowing with inmates, and the closing of one antiquated, unsafe facility in Maryland isn’t the hopeful sign it might appear to be. All of the Jessup prisoners had to go somewhere. Hundreds were transferred to distant parts of the state or to prisons in other states, without notification to their families beforehand. Now separation from family will add a new layer of frustration and loneliness to the inmates’ lives.<br/><br/>I’m not a Pollyanna who wants all the prison doors flung open and the inmates set free. I want dangerous criminals locked up, and I am appalled when anyone receives a light sentence for killing or maiming another person. So how am I to reconcile my desire for justice with the terrible sadness I feel when I think of people shut up in massive, dismal institutions where enforced idleness and loneliness destroy what’s left of their humanity? Why is our society incapable of addressing the underlying causes of crime? How long will we go on building more and more super-max prisons and believing that if we lock up our problems we have solved them?<br/><br/><br/>My Bookstag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-03-07:537324:BlogPost:23782007-03-07T15:16:33.000ZSandra Parshallhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/SandraParshall
I'll introduce myself shamelessly with a little blatant self-promotion. I'm thrilled that my 2006 book, The Heat of the Moon, has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. My second book, Disturbing the Dead, is just going on sale now. I'm still fairly new to the world of published authors and haven't had time to become jaded and blase. With any luck, I never will.<br/>
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Thanks to the creator of this site -- it's a welcome alternative to the kid-clogged MySpace.<br/>
I'll introduce myself shamelessly with a little blatant self-promotion. I'm thrilled that my 2006 book, The Heat of the Moon, has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. My second book, Disturbing the Dead, is just going on sale now. I'm still fairly new to the world of published authors and haven't had time to become jaded and blase. With any luck, I never will.<br/>
<br/>
Thanks to the creator of this site -- it's a welcome alternative to the kid-clogged MySpace.<br/>