According to author Lois Winston, who writes about all
of us here at American Woman in her Anastasia
Pollack Crafting Mysteries, one of the most common questions authors are asked
is, “Where do you get the ideas for your books?” She says her ideas for
characters, scenes, and plots often bloom from actual people and events. Often
something will happen in her own life, or an event will occur that she reads
about in the newspaper or see on the news, and she stores it away for future
reference, knowing it’s too good not to use in a book.
Case in point: March 6, 2011. Lois and her husband were
watching “Sunday Morning” on CBS. Bill Geist was interviewing a woman by the
name of Laura Bell who creates paintings out of dryer lint. Her masterpiece is
a 14-foot x 4-foot replica of Leonardo daVinci’s “The Last Supper,” which took
her 7 months of lint collecting and 200 hours to create. “Ripley’s Believe It
or Not!” bought the piece for $12,000. Really. I’m not making this up. You can
see a video of the interview here.
Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first
book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, had debuted two months prior
to this interview appearing on television. Lois had already turned in Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second
book in the series and had begun work on Revengeof the Crafty Corpse.
In Revenge of
the Crafty Corpse, Lyndella Wegner, a 98-year-old resident of an assisted
living facility is a consummate crafter with a penchant for anything X-rated.
The moment Lois saw Bill Geist’s interview of Laura Bell, she knew Lyndella had
to create lint paintings. Her piece de
resistance is a three-foot tall, two-dimensional reproduction of Michelangelo’s
masterpiece, “David,” down to every anatomical detail, minus any censoring of a
certain body part.
Now, some might read Revenge of the Crafty Corpse and scoff at the idea of anyone
painting with lint. Some readers might think Lyndella is a totally unrealistic
character. Painting with dryer lint does sound kind of absurd, doesn’t it? But truth
is often stranger than fiction. Laura Bell and her $12,000 check from Ripley’s
certainly proved that.
Fast forward to the present. Paris Fashion Week
wrapped up a few weeks ago. Designers often like to push the envelope with
their runway shows, featuring fashions that will never take up residence in the
average woman’s closet. Some push the envelope more so than others. This year no
one pushed that envelope more than the designers of Comme des Garçons. When Lois
saw photos of the fashions they presented in Paris, she had to wonder if they
had read about Anastasia’s adventures in Revenge
of the Crafty Corpse and taken the idea of lint paintings to another level,
moving the dryer lint from the canvas to couture.
What do you think?
Revenge of
the Crafty Corpse
Book 3 of
the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries
Anastasia Pollack’s dead louse of a spouse has left her with
more bills than you can shake a crochet hook at. Teaching craft classes at her
mother-in-law’s assisted living center seems like an easy way to supplement her
meager income. But when Lyndella Wegner—a 98-year-old know-it-all with a
penchant for ruffles and lace—turns up dead, Anastasia’s cantankerous
mother-in-law becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Upon discovering that
Lyndella’s scandalous craft projects—and her scandalous behavior—made her
plenty of enemies, Anastasia sets out to find the real killer before her
mother-in-law ends up behind bars.
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