Kids...
...write the darndest things.
But first.
A salute to those chroniclers of all things Chicano at
La Bloga--Manuel Ramos, Rudy Garcia, and Daniel Ramos-- for their continued support of Marta Acosta’s and my books.
And second, big congratulations to
Shari Caudron for the great interview on
NPR Sunday Weekend Edition. Shari is a fellow author from the
Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She was interviewed for her newest book
Who Are You People? where she discusses the growing trend for Americans to search for new communities that seem a little outside society’s boundaries.
Learn about Barbie collectors, Mayberry fans, and Furries.
And now, back to our regular programming.
This week at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop I taught a mystery-writing class to middle and high school kids. The class broke into age groups and I took the 11-13 year olds, ten girls and one boy. We started an exercise where we examined a photo with crime-scene tape in front of a house. We were given a list of clues. Peanut butter on a doorknob. A black glove. Barking dogs in the middle of the night. A footprint.
Expecting a mystery from Encyclopedia Brown--something to do with stolen marbles, a broken vase, etc.,--this is the scenario the kids surprised me with. A rich 45 y.o. dad had been stabbed to death by the jealous boyfriend of the dad’s 28 y.o. ex-wife. “Blood everywhere,” one of the girls said. “I want him cut open. It has to be a real tragedy.” Plus, the 18 y.o. daughter (from a previous marriage) was stealing money from the dad, which was a red herring detail (as was the peanut butter on the doorknob). The footprint was from a size ten and a half high-heel shoe which the boyfriend wore because he was a cross-dresser. The boyfriend dumped the clothes and the knife in a dumpster and washed up. (These kids were familiar with CSI.) But for some reason the boyfriend kept the high-heels (The girls insisted that he really liked these shoes.) and the police found carpet fibers and blood on the soles. Mystery solved. Case closed.
A gruesome murder. Lies. Cross dressing. Embezzlement from a loved one. “This was fun,” another of my girl students said. “I like writing mysteries.”