Last night, I received news that my very dear friend, as well as my editor and publisher at Wapshott Press, Ginger Mayerson, died on March 26.
It was only in February that I learned she was seriously ill with lung cancer. She told me then that she didn’t expect to live out the year. Even so, I’m stunned that it came so soon.
I spoke to her last in February. I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk again, but I am glad we had that last conversation.
Ginger and I first became online friends in 1996. We met on alt-startrek-creative, both of us writing fanfic for Deep Space 9.
When Ginger published the online zine for the Lincoln Heights Literary Society, I wrote articles and book reviews for her. When she moved on to found the Wapshott Press and was looking for authors, I gave her a few short stories for anthologies, and later my fantasy novels and mysteries. She was always one of the most ardent supporters of my writing, and she brought a number of other writers and poets to public attention.
We only met a few times in person. She came to Maryland to visit me when other business brought her to the DC area and we met in Windsor when we were both traveling in England. We went to the castle, had tea at the Crooked House, watched a game of cricket, and walked along the Thames.
Finding the late Mrs. Taggart’s missing jewels had made Freddie Babington famous. People with problems began to come to him, hoping to engage his services as a private detective. Freddie expected his new career to involve thrilling cases such as restoring diamond necklaces to Duchesses and secret plans to government ministers, perhaps rescuing a kidnapped heiress or two. Most of his cases were more mundane–but every once in a while, a client with a truly strange and interesting problem came to his door.
“As a little girl in the early ’70s, I would come home from school every day and turn on the TV to watch reruns of what we called ‘Barnabas Collins,’ the show about the vampire.”
And 40 years later, she watched it all again from the very beginning. It started as a brief blog experiment: watch and review the earliest episodes of the 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows before the arrival of vampire Barnabas Collins… but then it kept going. In the end, Kathryn L. Ramage watched the entire series of more than 1200 episodes and wrote about the experience. This book presents the highlights of those reviews.
Where to buy: Amazon(eligible for free shipping). Not available in eBook format.
The Wapshott Press, publisher of Storylandia, is now an Amazon Charity. Yay! So if you could please choose Wapshott Press as your charity when you’re shopping at Amazon, it will help us a lot. Here’s the link to make Wapshott Press your charity, and you only have to register once.
Who Killed Toby Glovins?
Kathryn L. Ramage
ISBN: 978-1-942007-10-4
Freddie Babington has solved two mysteries. When he travels to Norfolk in the autumn of 1923 to attend the wedding of Amelia Marsh and Evelyn Tollarhithe, he doesn’t anticipate a third murder investigation. Then, on the evening before the wedding, a friend of the groom is found stabbed under circumstances that look compromising for Evelyn. Freddie agrees to take the case for Amelia’s sake. As Freddie digs deeper behind the friendship between Evelyn and Toby Glovins, and uncovers old family secrets, he learns that the question of who murdered Toby is more complicated than it first appears. And so, he discovers, are his feelings for the disappointed bride.
Kathryn L. Ramage has a B.A. and M.A. in English lit and has been writing for as long as she can remember. She lives in Maryland with three cats. As well as being the author of numerous short stories, novellas, and essays, she is the author of “Maiden in Light,” “The Wizard’s Son,” and “Sonnedragon,” novels set on an alternate Earth whose history has diverged from ours somewhere during the medieval period. All three are part of an intended series of fantasy novels that mostly take place in a dukedom called the Northlands, a part of the Norman Empire that roughly covers the north-eastern U.S. For more information, please visit her website at www.klr.wapshottpress.com.
Where to buy Storylandia 19, Who Killed Toby Glovins? At this online store; also Amazon(eligible for free shipping); and Kindle.
The Wapshott Press, publisher of Storylandia, is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Tax deductible donations can be made here: https://www.paypal.me/TheWapshottPress and thank you so much for your support!
Where to buy Sonnedragon: Amazon (eligible for Free Shipping); 10% off with this code EMZTQAQB at this website; and for the moment only as an ebook on Kindle.
Sonnedragon
by Kathryn L. Ramage
Where to buy Sonnedragon: Amazon (eligible for Free Shipping); 10% off with this code EMZTQAQB at this website; and for the moment only as an ebook on Kindle. Sample Chapter 1.
“As she looked into the dragon’s dark gold, black-streaked eyes, wise beyond mortal knowing, Mara heard a deep, melodious voice:
“‘Thou shalt not die here, brave Prince. Such courage and fortitude as art thine will be rewarded tenfold. Thou shalt receive a sign of thy fortune, a talisman of kings. The dragon betokens thy royal lineage. Its body possesseth great magics: The Dragon’s Tooth is a weapon surpassing all others, even the tooth of the lion. The Dragon’s Eye is prized beyond all gems. No steel may pierce the scales of its hide. No terror may quail the courage of its heart. Its blood healeth all wounds. Receivest thou these gifts, O Prince, for power lieth in their virtues. This token shalt thou bear upon thy shield. Thy foes shall flee in terror at its sight. All shall honor thy name, which hereafter shall be known as Sonnedragon. Takest thou the might of the dragon. It is thine.’
“As she lies wounded on the battlefield, Mara, warrior Prince of the Northlands, receives a vision: a dragon that promises her great gifts. With the sign of the dragon upon her shield, she achieves one astounding victory after another, but soon realizes that each success comes with a terrible price. Tragedy follows her every triumph-not only in her war against the Spanish at the Northlands’ borders, but in her disputes with her father, the Duke.
“On an alternate earth filled with wonder and danger, strange magic and courtly intrigue, Mara slowly uncovers the truth behind the inexplicable power she wields. Is the Sonnedragon real or a delusion, or is it actually a curse that has haunted her family for generations?”
About the author:
Kathryn L. Ramage has a B.A. and M.A. in English lit and has been writing for as long as she can remember. She lives in Maryland with an aging and chronically ill cat. As well as being the author of numerous short stories, novellas, and essays, she is the author of “The Wizard’s Son,” “Maiden in Light” and “Sonnedragon,” novels set on an alternate Earth whose history has diverged from ours somewhere during the medieval period. Both are part of an intended series of fantasy novels that mostly take place in a dukedom called the Northlands, a part of the Norman Empire that roughly covers the north-eastern U.S. She is also the author of the murder mystery set in the Twenties, “Death Among the Marshes,” which appeared in Storylandia 10. Her website is at www.klr.wapshottpress.com
Storylandia, The Wapshott Journal of Fiction, Issue 10. The novella “Death Among the Marshes,” a murder mystery set in the Twenties, by Kathryn L. Ramage.
Excerpt:
Death Among the Marshes
A Murder Mystery Set in the Twenties
The Great War had made many boys into old men, but in spite of all he’d
suffered, Frederick Babington still looked surprisingly youthful for his
26 years. He was a pale, intense, and solemn young man—more pale, Billy
thought, since he’d been wounded so terribly. At least he no longer
limped and the burn scars on the small and ring fingers of his left hand
were now only puckered reddish skin. His dark hair had been cropped
short during his last stay in a private nursing home over the winter
past, but it was growing out again and beginning to curl just as it used to.
Billy watched as one loose curl fell forward over Freddie’s brow as he
returned his attention to the book he’d been reading before the
interruption, a newly published mystery novel titled Whose Body? When
Freddie lifted his eyes from the page a moment later, Billy pretended an
interest in the book.
“What’s that one about?”
“There’s a dead body that turns up in a bathtub, quite starkers—not a
stitch on except for a pair of gold pince nez—and nobody seems to know
who the dead chap is, not even the people who live in the flat where the
bathtub is.”
“I don’t see how you can read such things, about dead bodies and such,
after– well– after seeing so many dead folk yourself in the trenches.”
Billy felt sure that dwelling on the subject of murder had done no good
for Freddie’s state of mind.
But Freddie responded, “This is different. It’s not real, you know. The
murders in these stories are always somewhat fantastic and never have
the true stink and ugliness of death about them, not at all like the
terrible things you and I have seen. And it’s all cleaned up in the end.
I’m quite certain the detective chap in this one will find out who the
naked body in the bath is and discover who put him there in the last
chapter. They always do. It’s quite comforting in its way.” Continue reading “Death Among the Marshes: A Murder Mystery set in the 1920s”
“The address has now been confirmed: Word Up will be at 4157 Broadway, at 175 Street, across the street from the United Palace Theater, on the same block as Malecon, diagonal from El Floridita, across the street from La Rosa, down the road from Manolo . . . my mouth is watering thinking of the month ahead.” Address has been confirmed – please and thanks for spreading the word (up)!, WordUp blog, June 8, 2011
Last night, I received news that my very dear friend, as well as my editor and publisher at Wapshott Press, Ginger Mayerson, died on March 26.
