Mardi Gras Part Two: Riding with The Krewe of King Arthur

Imagine this: You’re clipped to the side of a Mardi Gras float with a three-foot harness (six-feet, if you’re on the second floor). Stacked all around you are bags and bags of beads, pendants, and toys, so while a meter-square area seems like it’s manageable (especially to an archaeologist—meter squares are our jam), there’s nearly no room. You even have to be careful of how you arrange your throws—some are on hooks on the railing in front of you, some are hanging from hooks in the ceiling—and you need to keep spaces clear so others can get safely loaded onto the float—some of the chains I bought could have taken your teeth out, if you’d walked into them the wrong way. After the door is shut, you can arrange things to be a bit more comfortable.

The riders on the top of this float indicate that they have their harnesses ready to wear.

Beads are staged and ready to be thrown.

You plan bathroom breaks carefully, going when you can before you get rolling, and using the porta-potty on the float when you must. I’ve used porta-potties all through my archaeological career, but this was new, going while moving, when you can see the road passing beneath you.

It’s every bit as glamorous as you imagine.

I loved my throws. Riders pick them because they want to make someone else happy with them.

Everyone in the Krewe buys their own throws. I went a little crazy, because I love shiny things, but they all got tossed. There were pallets of bags of beads being loaded onto the floats before we left. Preparing for the parade was exactly like launching a military maneuver: everyone had to be in the correct position, all the riders had to have their harnesses and masks on, and there was a lot of camaraderie, and sharing of mimosas and snacks.

My fellow riders: Jude, Bryan, and Erica in back.

I rode with The Krewe of King Arthur. There were about fifty floats and 1600 people in our parade, the seventh largest to ride in Mardi Gras. We rode on Family Sunday, and it was really a family event, much like a block party. The route is about five miles long, and the weather was perfect (having been soaked by a torrential downpour the night before, we’d earned it). The theme was “And The Arthur Goes To...” because it was Oscar Night as well. Our float had a pinata, so we were called “Coco,” after the animated film.

“Coco” was our float; Flat Stanley was visiting from Massachusetts.

I really loved the masks we had on our lieutenants’ floats. I thought it would be harder to connect with people in the crowd, but oddly, it didn’t. And connecting is the key—I asked how you know who to throw to, and the answers generally boiled down to you like someone’s t-shirt. You like the little shimmy they’re doing to get your attention. You think someone is cute. You make eye contact, and then throw the beads to them. If it’s something special, you make sure to point to them, so that others won’t try and steal their prize away.

Our tunics mark us as Krewe of King Arthur; our masks tell you who’s in charge of our particular floats.

It’s a bit overwhelming: you have a DJ on the float, you can hear the music from the bands and the other floats around you, and the crowds are screaming. People hold up there kids, which can be disturbing when you suddenly see a toddler’s head eight feet off the ground. You dance around and dangle trinkets to see who will make the most effort to get one. Bryan gave me a grail (one of the most sought-after throws) to toss to someone: I chose a little girl whose face absolutely radiated surprise and delight when she saw it. And despite feeling exhausted after the parade, it was exactly as glamorous as you imagine.

And then we all went home, ordered pizza, and collapsed to watch the Oscars.

Mardi Gras Part One: Watching the parades

A few strands of beads, just for a souvenir, I thought. I don’t need more than that.

My resolution fades in a heartbeat, I’m caught up in the frenzy, yelling and waving to the riders on the Mardi Gras floats, trying to catch coins, cups, toys, and ropes of shiny, shiny beads. All I can think is: It’s all about the competition with those around me. It’s participation in an event that has almost mythic dimensions. My anthropological mind is coming up with analytical answers, but they’re only rationalizations. I want the damn beads! I’m not actually throwing elbows, but my friends and I sheepishly admit, we’re in it to win it.

It’s my first Mardi Gras parade, and I’m already caught up in it.

Two weeks before, and my friend Bryan, whom I met through the good folks at Crimespree Magazine, texted me: “It’s short notice, but we have room on our float for Mardi Gras. Do you want to ride with us?”

Mardi Gras is something I never thought I’d encounter. I had the image everyone did, of drunken mobs on Bourbon Street, a debauched frenzy, not at all my cup of tea. I don’t like rowdy crowds and I prefer to sit and talk with friends while I sip my cocktail. But the idea of seeing it with local friends, and the chance to actually ride a float pushed aside any hesitation I might have had. I was looking up flights even as I messaged my husband: “So…I have the chance to go to Mardi Gras…”

Kids get great views…and parents hold their kids up to the floats to try to get good throws.

My mistaken notions were quickly dispelled. Most of Mardi Gras—the local Mardi Gras— is a family celebration, a block-party atmosphere. There is etiquette (how close you set up next to the people next to you on the parade route, you don’t run after throws obviously intended for someone else) and there are laws (riders must be masked while visible on the float or risk a fine, no obvious drunkenness).

They kept marching despite the rain…

The Muff-a-Lottas.

The Krewe parades had floats as well as local high school marching bands and dance troupes. Watching them dance and perform over a route that is miles long is impressive, and even more so when you’re watching them in a downpour. You clap all the harder, knowing you’re sitting at the mid-point of the parade, and they have a long, drenched and shivery way to go.

Of course, it’s worth it to watch parades in the pouring rain. Those more fainthearted leave, and you’re likely to get much better throws. Not that I needed them...but I wanted them. It’s part of the experience.

Doubloons, krewe pendants, and a pig…from The Krewe of Pygmalion, of course.

I was really happy with the throws I caught during my first parades. Plenty of basic beads, a handful of doubloons (coins marked with the stamp of the Krewe, a new design every year), krewe specific toys and pendants, and a grail. Every krewe decorates grails to hand out to parade watchers who make an especial impression. There is even a “grail of grails” handed out by the royalty of the krewe to an especially impressive onlooker. I think it was the mask that I made that got me a grail from the Krewe of Cleopatra.

I figured I’d make a mask, and it was fun, if hard to keep on over my glasses.

It’s an opportunity to celebrate community, eat good food, and share the event with friends. I fell in love with Mardi Gras, and this was even before I rode with The Krewe of King Arthur.

NEXT: Riding on a Mardi Gras float

The archaeology of werewolves

Archaeologists and werewolves have a lot in common, even beyond the way that both groups have a reputation for tearing through the underbrush, and doing inscrutable activities that confuse and concern the neighbors. Both groups have rules.

In older movies and fiction, werewolves generally were depicted as loners, only constrained by the state of the moon and metallic silver. More recently, werewolves have been written as living within the hierarchy of the pack, with alphas, betas, and all the strict, sometimes harsh, traditions of any culture. This is certainly the case with Rhiannon Held’s werewolf packs, divided into regions, and bound by rules of courtesy, history, and strength.

These days, werewolves can’t just go running around, doing whatever they want.

Lady’s Children is out today!

And neither can archaeologists. Popular representations would have you believe that we go wherever we want, pillage whatever treasure is the current object of our obsession (and it’s always obsession, in fiction—seldom the adventure of scientific inquiry with its rigorous application of methodology), and then either save the world from an unspeakable doom or sell the artifact to save (fill in the blank).

If you’ve read my Fangborn books or my Emma Fielding books, you know my take on it: It just ain’t so. Rhiannon Held is also an archaeologist, and she brings her expertise to bear in her new collection of urban fantasy/werewolf stories.

One of the fun things in Rhiannon’s latest collection, Lady’s Children (stories from the world of Silver) is to watch a werewolf pack deal with the frustration of archaeology’s real-life rules when they ask human archaeologist Faith to examine a property to determine whether werewolves lived there long ago. In “Contested History,” Faith has to explain to them that there are legal restrictions on what she can do at her level of expertise, and how carefully they must work—the rules of her scientific “pack.” Yes, she explains, we look for artifacts, but if we don’t record exactly where they were found, and with what, we won’t get the answers we’re looking for. It’s the information, with the artifacts, that tell the whole story. Faith encounters all of the problems of a contract archaeologist: dealing with the landowners, working with a demanding (and carnivorous) set of employers, and struggling with an inexperienced crew, new to the dirt and tedium and personnel conflicts--just like real archaeology.

(One of my favorite scenes was an example of what we used to call “aerial archaeology.” Instead of describing a site that was surveyed by plane or satellite, we used it sarcastically when a new crewmember pulled an artifact out of the ground (losing its all-important context), and ran around, waving it in the air. There’s a skill involved in to trying to teach a new student, and it’s even harder when the student is an impatient and belligerent werewolf.)

There are significant pay-offs in each group learning the other’s culture—and I won’t give any spoilers—but they are as real and subtle as any real-life excavation. You don’t always find what you expect, but you need to be open to all the interpretations suggested by the data. Even if you’re a werewolf.

Every Story Has Monsters

I’ve recently found a copy of the book I mention below, and have been playing around with the ideas in this essay for a while. Reading essays of a similar nature by John Langan, Laird Barron, and Megan Abbott (here and here) nudged me to sit down and do it.

A long time ago (nearly half a century past), in a galaxy far, far away (okay, maybe not so far away), I had a book. I say “had” because I know I didn’t buy it and I don’t remember who gave it to me. The Tall Book of Make-Believe (selected by Jane Werner, illustrations by Garth Watson) still haunts me, so much, that I recently conducted a search to find a copy and see if it still freaked me out the same way it did when I was a kid.

Oh, dear...

TL; DR: It does.

Let’s start with the cover. The children’s faces remind me of the kids on the planet Camazotz, in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Blank, unblinking eyes, zero facial affect, ostensibly playing but going...nowhere. It’s supposed, I think, to look whimsical and engaging, but I found it chilling. Creepy. Unsettling. The stories...the stories.  The book wasn’t meant to be a horror collection—it’s aiming for imaginative or silly—but I was obsessed with it. I read the stories over and over again, because I wanted to know if they would still be as alarming the next time.

Their eyes. Their eyes...

They were. Every time.

Terrifying things about mice who were kid-grade mischievous but were swept out the door or tied to a fence to be eaten by an owl as punishment. Stuffed animals who fought and...ate each other.  The kid who dragged her sister under a door and made her flat and rubbery, forever. A lollipop that grows and grows and takes over a boy’s life and home. I could go on. And on...

I understand I was reading into the stories, filling in blanks on my own, or inserting my own dark imagination, but they certainly left a mark.

I soon became addicted to fairy tales of all sorts. Encountered the darker, older versions of the Grimms’ stories, and then omnivorously devoured mythology. Every culture had monsters, untrustworthy creatures, dangerous beings. There were sides to fairy tales grown-ups didn’t talk about and that Disney didn’t bother to mention.  Didn’t we need to know about these hidden, dark worlds? Why weren’t we being prepared for this? If “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” had been around then, I would have trained as a Slayer, just in case.

All of this reading eventually confirmed something for me: Every story has monsters.

That led to a lot of confusion as I grew up. Why were some tales with monsters okay, and some not?  Shakespeare, Homer, the Bible, Poe, Shelley = good. Lovecraft, Tolkien, King = bad (though these divisions are radically different these days, they persist).  What made the difference between “trash” and “classic?” Why was mythology important to study, whereas The Gigantic Book of Real Ghost Stories or Strange True Tales of Vampires (or whatever) would rot your mind?  

More confusing to me still was that I knew it wasn’t just the books with a gory cover and a vampire or sea-monster on it: There were human monsters, too.  All the aforementioned, and all the other canonical “classics” had monsters, to my mind. Oliver Twist—monsters who steal and abuse children “for their own good.” The Witch of Blackbird Pond—monsters of ignorance and superstition.  Monsters existed in non-fiction, too. The Diary of Anne Frank left me cold for hours after, as of course it should, and so did a lot of history and memoirs.

Sometimes the monsters look like us.  Sometimes the monsters are within us, a personal fight for self with an intangible enemy.

Crime fiction was the next link for me, I think.  It gave me insight into identifying monsters, as well as the notion that they could be vanquished, within or without the law. The more I write crime fiction, the more I write noir, which is, to me, a genre filled with human monsters and no good choices for those who face them.

Tied a white ribbon around him so the owl could find him!

Writing horror—like any genre fiction—allows a writer to talk about big subjects in a safe, abstract way, while still conveying the terrible emotions involved. Writing horror lets me explore how to overcome my monsters or at least, survive them—an inoculation, if you will—and it lets me explore what happens when the worst comes to pass and the monster wins.

Writing horror lets me be the monster. I’ve discovered how very satisfying that can be. It’s a whole new perspective on the world, and some days...tempting.

Given my response to a mild dose of the macabre as a kid, I’ve surprised myself by writing horror as an adult, and now, I know why.  Because sometimes when the world seems more than usually terrible, we need to deconstruct what’s haunting us and from that, learn how to defeat that which we find monstrous.

PAST MALICE: AN EMMA FIELDING MYSTERY—TONIGHT!

I’ve been away at The Baker Street Irregulars and Friends Weekend since Wednesday, and it’s a special treat to come home from a gathering of Sherlockians of every kind, lovers of mysteries and puzzles and history, to the premiere of the second installment of the “Emma Fielding Mysteries.” "Past Malice" starts at 9pm tonight on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries!

If you haven’t seen the first movie, “Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery” (based on my novel of the same name), you can watch previews and go behind-the-scenes on the Hallmark Movie and Mysteries Channel website.

Although it's the second movie, it's actually my third Emma Fielding mystery!

In a recent interview about "Past Malice,"Courtney Thorne-Smith, who stars as archaeologist Emma Fielding, said: “I loved the idea of an archeologist who’s also a sleuth. I just thought it sounded like a wonderful project and a great idea.” Obviously, Emma is near and dear to my heart because she let me talk about my love of archaeology (my previous career inspired Emma’s!).  So you can imagine I was thrilled to hear when Thorne-Smith said: “I thought Emma was a great, ballsy character. I liked the idea because I thought she’d go on different adventures to different places, and I liked the idea of history being a part of the stories.”

Another thing I’m very excited about: Phoef Sutton wrote the screenplay. He is extraordinarily talented, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with his work on this project.

I need to get ready for the evening’s event. I’ll be live-tweeting, so check me out on Twitter. Enjoy Emma’s TV adventures, everyone!

"Past Malice: An Emma Fielding Mystery" is coming to Hallmark Movies & Mysteries!

Wow, it’s almost time for the premiere of “Past Malice: An Emma Fielding Mystery” on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries: January 14, 2018 at 9pm! If you want to brush up on who Emma Fielding is, how I came to start writing mysteries, what it’s like to work as archaeologist, how archaeologists are like detectives, or how to host an “Emma Fielding Mystery Viewing Party,” check out the links provided.

Good news: the first Emma Fielding mystery, “Site Unseen” is now available to watch, for FREE, on the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel! That means, if you don’t get the Hallmark channels, or if you want to watch Emma’s first film foray again, you can see the movie here.

Past Malice was actually the third Emma Fielding mystery published—Grave Consequences came out before that. In Past Malice, I wanted to show how the past means different things to different people, as a source of personal or civic pride, an escape from the present, or as significant contributor to a local economy. And that’s just a start.

One of the other things I wanted to do with the book—besides have Emma solve a murder mystery!—was to show how even when you have the chance to excavate a site that was inhabited by prominent people, who were literate and left lots of documents behind, you still end up with a lot of questions. The archaeological record is not just a corroboration to the historical record: It gives us insight into the lives of people who weren’t well represented in written documents. It’s one of the best ways to learn about people who weren’t active in the business or politics of a community: women, children, Native people, servants, enslaved people, or people who weren’t literate. So even though my fictitious Chandler family was important in the history of Stone Harbor, and Emma is able to answer some questions about them—there are always more puzzles in archaeology.

And don't forget: there's an all-new Aurora Teagarden mystery, based on the books by Charlaine Harris on January 7! A new series, "Morning Show Mysteries," premieres on January 21.

A very archaeological vacation—Ireland to Norway, part one

Okay, most every vacation I take is going to feature some kind of archaeological content; you can take the girl out of the field, but… This year’s vacation featured loads of prehistory and archaeology, from the northwestern European Neolithic to the Viking period. Mr. G and I have always wanted to visit Viking period sites in Ireland, Britain, and Scandinavia by water, and this was chance to do it.

Glencoe, Scotland, which was lovely even when it started raining.  This is right before.

We started in Dublin, to visit friends and revisit a city we haven’t seen in twenty years. The highlights for me were the National Museum of Ireland (for the prehistoric and Viking collections) and the Chester Beatty Library (if you have any interest in the history of books or writing, this is one of the most amazing collections in the world. I’m not exaggerating.). From there, we flew to Glasgow, where we met up with our tour. First, through the Highlands, where the weather promptly turned Highland-y, that is, wet and cold. We took The Jacobite, a steam engine, from Fort William to Mallaig, and I’m told the scenery was gorgeous—it was cloudy and rainy, and we could only see bits. What was really cool was that, being a Sherlockian, it was great fun to travel as Holmes and Watson would have. Getting genuine train soot in my eye was less fun, but very period-accurate.

Okay, yes, it was also used as the "Hogwarts Express."

From Mallaig, we cruised to Orkney (Mainland). This for me was one of the big goals of the trip, because I’ve always wanted to see Skara Brae, a Neolithic village site that is older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids, with the origin of the settlement dating to about 3180 BCE. It’s fascinating to see the adaptations to a place where the weather is brutal and wood is very scarce: the stone walls survive, and it’s conjectured that the roofs were made of hides. When we visited Turkey in 2011, we had the privilege of sailing on the Euphrates River, so it was fascinating to see one part of the world, where agriculture probably began, and an example of a settlement where agriculture caught on, millennia later.

Skara Brae.  It looks small and unimpressive, but with a little imagination and some research...

...you can get an idea of what it was like to live here, from this reconstruction.  Note the roof of hides. 

The Ring of Brodgar was nearby, a Neolithic henge (a circular ditch and mound) monument and stone circle, probably erected between 2,000 and 2,500 BCE. Twenty-seven of the original sixty stones are still standing. There’s a lot of archaeological work still to be done to discover whether there were standing stones in a center ring, whether there were wooden structures, etc. It was such a beautiful site; if we’d stayed any longer, I might have run away to join the crew working there!

The best shot i have of the Ring of Brodgar.  The cows make it official. ;-)

After we returned to the ship and set sail for Shetland, I set my alarm to wake up around two a.m., so that I could live Tweet during the premiere of “Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery.” Two in the morning isn’t really my cup of tea—is it anyone’s?—but thanks to a good satellite system, I was able to hang out with friends, readers, and viewers from the middle of the North Sea!  

You can see more pics from this part of my trip on my Facebook page:  http://tinyurl.com/ycld8efc

Next: Shetland and Norway

Behind the scenes of "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery"

One of the things that was important to me when I wrote the Emma Fielding mysteries was that I be as true as possible in describing the work of archaeologists. So many books and films (not just mysteries) use archaeology as an excuse to incorporate an exotic setting, obsessive characters, or a link with the fantastic: I bet you can name three movies right now where archaeologists “unleashed forces best left undisturbed.” Some notable exceptions to this include work by fellow archaeologists-turned-novelists Aaron Elkins and Elizabeth Peters.

It's the crew talking about the shot of the units, but it looks like pretty much every dig ever!

I think it’s the same in filmmaking, where the popular perception is shaped by notions of glamour and fame, but from what I saw when I visited the set of “Site Unseen,” there were many more similarities to archaeology than I expected. I saw this in the minute attention to detail, the inventories of props and equipment, the planning that includes every shot the director wants plus contingency plans in case of bad weather, the individual tool kits of each crewmember, the discussions about the script, and a thousand other things (including feeding and moving a huge number of people).

Victoria Harbor.  British Columbia is one of my favorite places on earth!

Each scene took a tremendous amount of time to shoot, but it was fascinating and I loved every minute of being on the set. Frankly, if I’d stayed any longer, I would have wanted to start shadowing the crew, to learn their jobs. Here are a few shots from my trip out to the set in Victoria, B.C.

The fact the movie didn't really hit me until I saw the Maine state flag and the U.S. flag over this Island municipal building!  I knew something was up, then.

Both days, I got copies of the sides and watched filming from video village.

The set from a distance.  They knew they had it right when people started talking about the dig taking place on the beach!

Working on the lighting for Emma and her crew.

Hello, transit, old friend!  The site tents were also great hiding places for cameras and crew.

On set with Courtney Thorne-Smith.

It was a pleasure to watch Doug Barr, the director, at work.

Warming up with tea at the Empress Hotel after the set visit. The cakes didn't last long.

Countdown to "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery:" Throw a viewing party!

Just three days to go! “Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery" premieres this Sunday, June 4, 9/8c on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries!  As promised, I've made some suggestions for throwing a viewing party.

The Set-Up

Make sure there are plenty of seats for everyone—pillows on the floor work, too!—with a good view of the television screen!

Provide food that isn’t too difficult to eat picnic-style and set it up in easily-accessible places. Have plenty of soft-drinks and water on hand. I chose several menu suggestions that would fit the characters in Site Unseen.

If you're feeling super ambitious, you can brush up on your early American historical archaeology by reading James Deetz's In Small Things Forgotten or leaf through Ivor Noel Hume's A Guide to the Artifacts of Colonial America.  (I know I'm not the only one who loves a reading list!)

These fun cakes from Digventures.com probably should be saved for the after party.

Grad Student: At that stage of my career, a party was my excuse for salty snacks from the corner store, though my friends had much better nutritional instincts. Pizza or burger sliders would work here. Hummus—someone always brings hummus and crudites—or salsa, or maybe even guacamole, for a big treat. Popcorn and chips are always appropriate, and cheap beer was a staple. (Full disclosure: I still love salty snacks, but try to be well-behaved. Mostly.)

Untenured Professor: Emma might let loose and order take out for a special occasion. But something healthy because adults now, but not salad or tacos—too messy to eat on the floor. Craft beer, or inexpensive bourbon, for drinks.

Senior Faculty/Civilians: Pauline had pretty awesome taste and a budget to match. I think she’d choose a really gorgeous wine, to evoke thoughts about sun and soil and passing time. It's always an option do a variation on these foodie themes.

Always a good idea to watch out for seagulls when you're eating...

If you don’t have cable:

1. Find a friend with cable, and offer to bring treats!

2. Sling TV is a good option to stream the Hallmark Channel online without cable TV.

Tweet during the show!

If you're into live tweeting, @hallmarkmovie is Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and I’m at @danacmrn. Don’t forget to use the tags #EmmaFielding and #Sleuthers (if you’re a regular follower of Hallmark mysteries like featuring sleuths like @RealCharlaine ’s Aurora Teagarden mysteries or @katecarlisle ’s “Fixer Upper Mysteries.”

The most important tip: HAVE FUN!

Countdown to "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery:" archaeologists as detectives

Just a little over a week until the premiere of "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery," on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries!  Tune in June 4, 9/8c.

I was disappointed the first time I visited a state police lab. It was a trip with the local chapter of Mystery Writers of America or Sisters in Crime (and if you don’t belong to these groups, and you write crime fiction, you should definitely consider membership). The reason was that it looked almost exactly like the conservation lab I trained in as an undergraduate: same fume hood, glassware, brown chemical bottles, black work surfaces. Even the sample and evidence bags looked similar, either a variety of poly bags or paper bags with context information on them (in this case, the chain of evidence, rather than the location within a site’s stratigraphy).

My response wasn’t fair, of course, and it was only because I expected something more exciting than what I have had occasion to do. But that was the first time I really grokked the similarities between what detectives and archaeologists do, and the reason it made such sense that my main character, Emma Fielding, had the skills to be a plausible amateur detective: She was already trained at recreating past events from material, documentary, and interview evidence.

Courtney Thorne-Smith as Emma Fielding and James Tupper as FBI Agent TIm Conner.

Artifacts are the most obvious example of the similarity between these two jobs. Discovering the artifacts’ context—where they were found on a site, and with what other things they were associated—tells us the time of deposition, whether it happened all at once (someone filling in a hole left from a planting) or over time (the gradual accumulation of artifacts and soil on a site over centuries), and how the objects were used.

Sounds like the clues on crime scenes you’ve seen on TV, right, with the construction of timelines and the examination of possible bullet trajectories, for example?

Documents serve the same purpose, whether they are maps that showed the house and outbuildings on a property at a given moment, or telephone records that indicate someone’s location. For the historical archaeologist (like me or Emma) wills and probate inventories tell what someone owned, long after the furniture and finishings have been handed down, sold or given away. Diaries are the best of all, because they may express emotion and intent, something that is very difficult to tease out from artifacts and stratigraphy. Or they may be disappointingly bland, nothing more than a series of entries about the weather.

Surprisingly, archaeologists find interviews of people who had connections to a site useful, even if the site is hundreds of years old. For example, if someone visited a grandparent who lived nearby a site, they may have heard stories from them about neighbors and events from almost a century back. Like a detective taking a witness’s statement, however, interviewees may misremember details or have heard a version of a local story that is incorrect. It’s a game of telephone, distance from the source (in this case, distance in time) obscures the message.

Archaeology even directly overlaps criminal investigation, with specializations in forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology. These both focus on human remains, in either modern forensic or ancient settings.

The most important similarity in both fields is in the practitioner’s patience and ability to apply scientific principals to the evidence. The work is painstaking and oftentimes is incredibly dull, but with both, there is, one hopes, the satisfaction of solving the puzzle at the end.

NEXT:  How to have a "Site Unseen" viewing party!

Countdown to "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery:" How I came to write SITE UNSEEN

I didn’t have plans to write fiction. I got the idea as a kid (I don’t know where) that writers had to have adventures, like running with the bulls or getting into fights, and that did not sound like fun—I was happier in a library! So by the age of ten, I decided to become an archaeologist. It had everything I loved: historical research, languages, science, travel, and intellectual puzzles. It was really a great fit, and I loved every minute of it. In fact, I still refer to myself as “a recovering archaeologist,” because once you’ve worked in that field, you never really look at the world the same way again.

The cast of "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery" on site!  Check out the premiere on June 4, on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries!

And then…

Many years later, a looter with a metal detector appeared on a site where I was working with a colleague. We protested; he pulled a pistol on us. My boss was closest; I’d been using the transit. There’s not a lot to hide behind, with a transit. It’s basically a small telescope on top of a tripod, used for surveying. Not a lot of cover.

My choices were: run (and maybe he shoots us) or wait (and maybe he shoots us). I decided to memorize what I could about him, his friend, and his truck, and if things started happening, I’d run into the woods to find a ranger.

Eventually the guy left, but at the time, it was really scary. We reported the incident and I thought that was that. The rest of the season, though, I dug pretty fast. I wanted to have a nice deep hole to hide in, if he came back.

Months later, I told a friend about this, along with some other “interesting” things that had happened to me and my colleagues in the course of doing fieldwork: the cement mixer that went off the road and landed on the site where we’d been digging.  The time another friend was shot at, for digging too close to a still in the woods. You know, work stuff.

She said, "you need to write this down!"  Boom! I knew I had to do it. I had a pot-hunter with a gun, and an archaeologist. I’d read mysteries all my life (still do!), and so a mystery novel made sense.  I started to write what would eventually become Site Unseen. It’s not such a stretch, though, to go from historical archaeology to fiction. Archaeologists make up stories—based on evidence—about people in the past.

That makes it sound very easy, but it actually took a number of years, and maybe twelve drafts of the novel (once I’d finished a first draft). I went to a writing class, and then to a writing group, where we’d critique each other’s work. From there, I attended Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, where, in addition to getting amazing critical feedback, I found my first agent. She sold Site Unseen, and then the next five Emma books.

Next:  The similarities between archaeologists and detectives

Woohoo! A preview from "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery!"

The premiere of "Site Unseen" is coming up fast!  June 4, 9-11pm EST on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries! 

Countdown to "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery:" What It's Like to Work on a Dig

Just a few weeks until June 4, and the premiere of "Site Unseen" on the Hallmark Movie & Mystery Channel!  Last week, I wrote about my protagonist, archaeologist Emma Fielding.  This week, it's a little glimpse into what it's like to work on a dig. 

Generally speaking, working on an archaeological dig has all the glamour of working on a road crew, with the added benefit of lots of meticulous recording and paper work. Whether you are digging test pits before the construction of a power line, or working on a remote site that’s been studied for decades, chances are that the work will be backbreaking. You’ll have to deal with extremes of weather, bugs and other animal life, poisonous plants, and the like. Don’t forget that there may be issues related to the natural or cultural environment affecting you as well. I’ve worked outside a state prison, on a waste treatment facility site, and on a wharf site that was affected by the tides. That last one was in the middle of winter, on the Atlantic coast, and the cold was...Dantesque.  

Removing the soil, centimeter by centimeter.

The work is painstakingly slow. Often, you work with the smallest of tools—brushes, trowels, spoons, and dental picks. This is done to observe the layers of soil and features (such as walls, wells, pits, etc.), and to understand their relationship and how they fit together. That’s called the “context,” and it helps you understand what happened, and when, on a site. You spend a lot of time looking at, and arguing about...dirt. You spend a lot of time looking at trash people threw out three centuries ago.

Did I mention the paperwork? Recording what you learn on a site, and being precise about it, is of the utmost importance. You use every sense to describe what you see, because once a site is excavated, it’s gone: Only your notes, photos and videos, and maps will remain for you and others to study. There’s a lot of redundancy, lists of lists of artifacts and photos, because you only get one chance to excavate a site.

Given all that, I’d be a fool to recommend such a career. And yet…

This dig was on a cliff overlooking a harbor town in Turkey. I didn't make it over there, but I was dying to know what they were looking for!

Working on a dig is the best puzzle in the world. Everything from repairing the artifacts themselves to piecing together evidence across the site to learn about its inhabitants is part of a mystery. You may also be comparing your site with other sites around the world. Remember that trash I mentioned before? We learn way more about people by looking at the things they used (ceramics, glass, animal bones, seeds, tools, etc.) than by almost anything else. Add in the documents—diaries, newspaper articles, court records, legal documents, letters—and you’ve got another layer of information to fit with the material evidence. Archaeology provides a jigsaw worthy of a Time Lord, reaching across time and space.

When you work on a site, you also use your imagination, building a set of stories about the people (some of whom might not show up in legal records) who lived and worked in a place. To me, that’s one of the most exciting parts of doing historical archaeology: revealing individuals and their lives within the larger framework of history.

And sometimes the sites are in spectacularly beautiful places. For me, a great view and an ocean breeze will do a lot to mitigate the nuisance of mosquito bites and a sore back.

So never mind what I said earlier. Working on a dig is one of the best jobs ever.

NEXT:  How I came to write Site Unseen.

Even Bertram the Seagull likes an archaeological site by the ocean.

Countdown to "Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery:" Who is Emma Fielding?

Howdy! I’m starting a series of blogs to count down to the premiere of “Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery” on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries (June 4, 9-11pm). So I’m starting off with the basics: who is Emma Fielding?

Emma is an an archaeologist, and the protagonist of my first six mysteries—Site Unseen, Grave Consequences, Past Malice, A Fugitive Truth, More Bitter Than Death, and Ashes and Bones. She got her name while I was writing my first mystery, and I happened to glance over at my bookcase. There I saw a copy of Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding, and a copy of Emma, by Jane Austen, and I put the two names together. It wasn’t for a long time that I realized how appropriate that name was—it can be read as a play on words for her job, someone who spends time in the field. I had another character point out the joke to Emma in a later book, but I felt pretty silly for not having seen it myself right away!

Courtney Thorne-Smith on the set of "Site Unseen."  I think she'll make a great Emma Fielding!

And when I suddenly realized I was going to start writing a mystery (more about that in a future blog), I needed to figure out who my hero was. Since my career at the time was in American historical archaeology (studying the past through archaeology and first-person documents, like diaries or wills), that’s what Emma does, too. This turned out to be a real benefit for an amateur sleuth, because archaeologists need many of the same skills as detectives (which I’ll also discuss in another blog).

I get asked a lot if Emma is based on me. That’s a tricky question, because while her adventures are based loosely on my own experiences (very loosely—my life isn’t that exciting!), we have a lot in common. We both are academics and love puzzles; we’re both New Englanders to the bone. She’s a little more serious than I am, and she probably wouldn’t know what to make of my geeky sense of humor. On the other hand, Emma actually got me to start jogging; the great thing about a fictional character is that Emma’s knees won’t ever give out from all the fieldwork! Emma is braver than I am—she actually surprised me a number of times, by running toward trouble when I expected her to quite sensibly hide—but then, she never tried to write a novel. She’s very loyal to her friends and her family, and she never gives up on a challenge. She’s passionate about what we can learn through science, history, and archaeology—and so am I.

NEXT: What it’s like to work on a dig

Emma Fielding and Site Unseen will be a Hallmark movie!

So in case you didn’t hear me yodeling from the rooftop, my first novel, Site Unseen is currently being made into a movie of the week for Hallmark Movies and Mysteries!  Courtney Thorne-Smith is playing Emma Fielding, and filming started in British Columbia this week!  The movie is slated to show on May 21, 2017.
    But a bit of background...
    Last year was crazy and wonderful--in addition to my investiture in the Baker Street Irregulars as “The Giant Rat of Sumatra,” there was a lot of travel.  In addition to visiting central Europe in the spring (Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia) for fun, there various conventions from New York to Kansas City to New Orleans (including Boskone, NECON, WorldCon, and Bouchercon).  Part of this is because I’ve been working in so many new genres: last year, I had a Sherlockian pastiche (“Where There is Honey”) in a collection edited by Laurie King and Leslie S. Klinger, my first science fiction story (“The White Rat”) in an anthology of SF inspired by the Brothers Grimm, and an Anna Hoyt short story (“An Obliging Cousin”) in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  
    Speaking of Anna Hoyt, my 18th-century tavern owner and, shall we say...problem solver?  I spent most of the end of last year finishing a novel based on Anna’s exploits.  This is a project near and dear to my heart, drawing from my research on 18th-century Boston and having its roots in Boston Noir (ed. By Dennis Lehane). Anna surprised me a number of times, and I added a whole shelf of books to my library on the history of crime and law enforcement in the colonies.  I can’t wait for her to find a home in print!
    But I got a huge surprise late in November, when my agent Josh Getzler told me that Muse Entertainment wanted to option my Emma Fielding novels!  I was very excited about the idea of my archaeologist/sleuth Emma on the small screen, but know from friends’ experience that it’s a long shot, to go from “option” to “film.”  
    But you never know, because very recently, we found out that the project had the greenlight from Hallmark, and filming was starting.  (See the press release here.)  The official announcement was yesterday, and I’m so excited, I can barely contain myself.  It’s all happening so fast, but if there’s a chance for me to go out and visit the set, you know I’ll be there like a shot!  Another super thing is that my friend Charlaine Harris also has her Aurora Teagarden mysteries on Hallmark, so I'm in excellent company!
    This is crazy and marvelous for so many reasons.  Site Unseen was my first novel.  When I was writing it, playing with some of my experiences in archaeology and my love of mystery, I had no idea it would be published.  Of course, I hoped it would, but there were many, many times when I didn’t think it would happen.  I didn’t know there’d be five more Emma books.  I didn’t know that the Fangborn books would follow, and an exploration of urban fantasy.  I didn’t know I’d meet Anna and follow her through the dark alleys of Boston, or that I’d try writing horror or SF or delve into the world of Sherlock Holmes. 
    So thank you, to everyone who’s enjoyed Emma and supported my work!  I’m very happy to share this news with you.  And if you’re writing...keep working at it.
    You just never know.

Courtney Thorne-Smith will play Emma Fielding

The Canonical and the Criminal in NYC

My writing year started off with a real bang.  I received a tremendous honor, and was made a member of the Baker Street Irregulars.  The oldest Sherlockian literary society in the world, the BSI takes its name from the gang of street children hired by Sherlock Holmes to "go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone." He paid them a shilling a day (a guinea, for finding a truly important clue); on January 15, I "received my Irregular shilling."  

Investiture certificate: I am "The Giant Rat of Sumatra!"

First of all:  It's a real shilling.  From 1895.  That's cool stuff!

With the certificate and shilling comes an “investiture,” that is, a name taken from one of the people, places, or things from the Sherlockian canon (the 56 stories and 4 novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle).  They can even be names of the stories themselves.  Mine is “The Giant Rat of Sumatra,” which is an unpublished case Holmes refers to in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” Part of the reason I love this investiture so much is because the reference appears in a discussion Holmes has about Grimms' fairy tales, vampires, and logic (and and storytelling; the tale of the Giant Rat is “story for which the world is not ready”).  Another reason is that it is a recognizable reference, and it's curious and funny—people ask about it right away, if they don't already know about it!  

Three very happy new Baker Street Irregulars in our finery: me, Tim Greer, and Jenn Eaker.

Another reason is that there have been two Irregulars called “The Giant Rat of Sumatra” before me.  And that's really at the heart of why the BSI means so much to me: on receiving my shilling, people told me of their fond memories of he who was the “Rat” before me.  Not only have I been admitted to a group of smart, funny people with a wide range of skills and knowledge, but I'm part of a tradition going back decades.  It's a connection with the past (and you know how much that means to me) that reinforces ties in the present.

Receiving my shilling on this particular evening was even more special because it was the 25th anniversary of the BSI allowing women to become members.  Many of the first women to be invested have befriended me since I began going to BSI Weekend and other Sherlockian events; it meant a lot that I could tell them thanks for paving the way for the rest of us.  There's a terrific podcast of an interview about those members of ASH and BSI here:   If you're not misty-eyed on hearing the emotion during that first investiture...best not to tell me. 

After BSI weekend was officially over, I had one more event.  I was thrilled to be invited by Todd Robinson to a Noir at the Bar event in New York.  This makes my third--the first two were in Boston (and next week, at Boskone, I'll be participating in a special edition of N@B).  You can read about the history of this event, which has gone nationwide and global, here.  Basically, a bunch of writers read, about five minutes each, in a bar. You'll hear some amazing work, without fail.  It's fun, it's raucous, it makes you jealous you didn't write what you just heard.  If someone asks if you want to go first or second, go first.  More than likely, you'll be glad you didn't have to follow up whatever awesomeness preceded you.  

Me and Big Daddy Thug at Shade Bar in NYC ((Todd is the one on the right).

The two events appear on the surface to be very different.  One is steeped in history and tradition and the other has a modern, opportunistic, pop-up ethic.  The stories are, understandably, much grittier at N@B (though Sherlockian pastiche can go there), and the audiences are much more raucous (though Sherlockians are are just as opinionated and expressive).  But at their hearts, I found both events share an identical dedication to fine writing and scholarship, humor, and community spirit.  

N@B: l-r Danny Gardner, Jason Pinter, Vincent Zandri, Adrian McKinty, Suzanne Soloman, Dennis Tafoya, me, Todd Robinson

It was a superb weekend filled with good company and good stories.  An excellent start to my writing year.

Fall events and "Burning the Rule Book!"

It's been a while, but never fear, I've been BUSY!  In addition to the new look for the website, I've been writing like mad, including my first SF story (more details to follow), work on another Anna Hoyt colonial noir short story (and the novel ), and a couple more short stories (including another Sherlockian pastiche) I can't wait for you to read!  In addition, my first horror short story, "Whiskey and Light," appears in Seize the Night, edited by Christopher Golden, which will drop October 6.  

There's a new Fangborn short story, "Burning the Rule Book," which features Zoe's parents...before Zoe!  It answers a number of questions raised in Hellbender, so trust me when I say, it's required reading!

I've added several new events to my calendar for October and November, so don't forget to check out the "Appearances" page!

Happy Labor Day, all!