Monica Ferris

Monday, April 23, at 4 pm, Ellen Kuhfeld, Joan Marie Verba, and I (as Mary Monica Pulver) will be at the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis bookstore in Coffman Union for a reading and discussion.

On Tuesday, April 24, at 2 pm, I (as Monica Ferris) will come to a book club at the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park to talk about the Betsy Devonshire series. The members have decided to open the meeting to the public.

On Saturday, April 28, from 1 to 5 pm, St. Peter, Minnesota, will hold a Book Festival at their Community Center. Put on by Gustavus Adolphus College, the event will feature readings, panels, and appearances by more than a dozen area authors – including me.  St. Peter is a pretty little town on the Minnesota River, once proposed as the capitol of Minnesota. I used it as the scene of a murder in Thai Die.

Saturday, April 7, is the tenth annual Write of Spring at the wonderful, Mystery Writers of America Raven Award Winning, mystery book store, Once Upon A Crime. Minnesota crime authors will attend in staggered blocks all day long. My group’s session starts at 1 pm. There will also be on sale a new anthology, Writes of Spring, put together by Pat and Gary, owners of Once Upon A Crime, and featuring stories by authors who have come to the annual event. I’ve got a short story in it, written as Mary Monica Pulver. I have my author’s copy of the book, and am pleased to be in such terrific company. The bookstore is donating the proceeds to the Memorial Blood Centers. The event will also mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the bookstore.

Mary Monica Pulver is my maiden name and the name I used when I first turned pro. My father was dying of bone cancer and I wanted to get something published under the family name. I made it, but barely, selling a couple of stories to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Later I sold five mystery novels under that name, and more short stories. My husband and I sold some short stories we wrote together as Al and Mary Kuhfeld. Then a friend and I started a collaboration as Margaret Frazer, writing six novels in the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series – she continued the series on her own when the collaboration broke up and is currently writing a spin-off series about a set of wandering play-actors. And I am writing the Betsy Devonshire needlework mysteries as Monica Ferris. It sounds a bit complicated, but it all evolved naturally.

In late developments, Monica Ferris and Carl Brookins will not be at the Book Fair on Sunday, March 25.

Saturday, March 24, from one to five: Bloomington Book Fair, at the Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN. I’ll be sitting at a table with Carl Brookins, senior member of my writer’s group, and we’ll both have books for sale.

April 14, from 10 am, I’ll be at Nordic Needle needlework shop in Fargo, ND. I’ll also have a role in Nordic Needle’s retreat, which begins the 11th.

I’ve just been in the news again. The people at the Lake Minnetonka Patch saw the video interview, and sent a reporter to interview her at a reading at Excelsior Bay Books. That interview is now online. (Excelsior Bay Books was also the scene of the crime for Hanging By A Thread.)

The talk at the Textile Center (3000 University Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414) went over very well. Their exhibition of my hats will be taken down on January 3rd, 2012 — check the Textile Center website for holiday hours. I bought another hat while I was there, of course!

I seem to remember something about a video interview? The nice people at LMCC Community Video have edited the raw takes down and put the finished program on Youtube.

Yesterday the Lake Minnetonka Communications Commission came by with a tv camera and interviewed me and some of my hats for forty-five minutes.  They are going to edit it into a five-minute bit to be broadcast on local cable and then will release it as a You Tube video.  I read part of the opening scene of Threadbare in the video, but don’t know if it will make it into the final cut.  I wore my new lavender straw hat and then they did a series of cuts of me wearing different hats.  Again, I don’t know if any of the latter will make the cut. I’ll link to the video when it’s out.

On November 21 I will do a telephone interview with a reporter for the New Ulm Journal and will do a signing at Nadel Kunst down there in January (date not yet determined).  I have signings scheduled for December 10 at Once Upon A Crime and on the 17th at Excelsior Bay Books and will give a talk December 20 at the Textile Center of Minnesota in Minneapolis (they are asking to borrow some of my hats for a display for a week ahead of time).  I am working on setting a joint radio interview with another Minnesota mystery author for a station in Chicago, details still a bit fuzzy.

Upcoming Talks and Signings:

Thursday Oct. 13, 2011, 7 pm – Talk and signing at the Shakopee Public Library, 235 Lewis St. South, Shakopee, MN 55379. Books will be available for sale.

October 28-30, 2011 – I’ll be at Magna cum Murder, a mystery convention in Muncie, Indiana. I’ll be talking and signing there, but the schedule is not yet set. Come for the whole convention – there are a dozens of authors, hundreds of fans, and (since it’s put on by Ball State University) a scholarly track.

December, 2011 – Display of Monica’s hats at the Textile Center, 3000 University Ave, SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Check web site for hours and days.

Saturday December 10, 2011, 1-3 p.m. – Signing, Once Upon A Crime Bookstore, 604 W 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55405. 612-870-3785. Latest book, Threadbare, will be available.

Tuesday December 20, 2011 – Speech, Textile Center, 3000 University Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Discussing And Then You Dye, the 2012 Betsy Devonshire book.

Saturday, February 25, 2012 2 p.m. – Talk, Rum River Library, 4201 6th Ave, Anoka, MN.

A quick warning: I’ve been hacked. My AOL address is sending out spam. I changed my password around 0930 CDT on Saturday the 23rd; be very cautious for a day or two.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Let us all praise the public library in Brainerd, Minnesota! They and the Friends of the Library have a “brown bag” speaker program, in which an author comes over the noon hour on a Monday, and to which the local citizens are invited. They must work hard at it because there were more than forty interested people attending my talk yesterday. I think that’s the best turnout I have ever had for a daytime weekday talk. They were a fine crowd, too, laughing at the right spots and asking interested questions after. Plus we sold some books.

Public appearances are chancy things. You may do your best to publicize them, try to make your talk as clever as you can, dress up (or down) for it, and still be disappointed. Or you may casually agree to turn up for one, and be surprised at the enthusiastic turnout. I don’t think there’s a formula that guarantees a success – unless it’s getting a reputation as a gangbuster speaker. There’s a group of four mystery authors in my area that calls itself the Minnesota Crime Wave, who have an intelligent and hilarious routine they’ve taken on the road. If they ever turn up in your area, be sure to go see them.

Rita was there also. She’s the owner of the cabin on Thunder Lake that figures so prominently in Buttons and Bones. Thanks again, Rita!