MYSTERY AUTHOR BARBARA EMODI ON HOW SEWING A GARMENT IS LIKE WRITING A BOOK

Gasper's Cove

Barbara Emodi writes sewing and craft-related cozy mysteries and sewing how-to books. Often when she sewed, she thought of the people she’s known and the stories she could tell. So now she writes mysteries. Learn more about Barbara and her books at her website and on Substack at How to be an Older Woman for Beginners.

Before I started writing fiction, I published two how-to sewing books, SEW…the garment-making book of knowledge and Stress-Free Sewing Solutions: a no-fail guide for the modern sewist.

 

With such a practical background, some members of my family were surprised at the switch from how to put-in-a-zipper to murder and mystery in the fictional (but extremely real to me) community of Gasper’s Cove, Nova Scotia.

 

It is interesting that not one of my sewing, crafty, or creative friends questioned my new direction. For them, as for me, the worlds of making things and solving crimes use parallel skills. The transition from non-fiction to fiction in my world has been seamless.

 

Let me show you what I mean. Let’s profile a typical sewist or crafter who:

· Could probably buy whatever she needs but prefers to make it herself, despite the cost, effort, and occasional frustration. She can’t help herself.

· Is a non-linear thinker, very good at making connections or at seeing potential in things other folks miss. That old sheet you were going to throw out? It’s really a rug, just rip it into 2” strips and get out the loom I happen to have in the basement …

· Never misses a detail. Did you use a twin-needle on that hem?

· Works best, is most creative, when faced with adversity or restrictions. A Depression era Dresden plate quilt?  I rest my case.

· Likes to solve other people’s problems. Your mother-in-law’s here. Where’s the mending?

 

The real question for me is how does anyone write a mystery, particularly a cozy mystery without crafty characters? Obviously, we are all born investigators and detectives.

 

Writing these stories has also given me a place to locate the many bits of interesting information I have picked up in the sewing classes I have taught for more than thirty years. The student whose pastor was a young seaman in a U-boat off the Nova Scotia coast in WWII? The one who looked up a periscope and thought to himself “What a beautiful place. If I ever get out of here alive, that’s where I am going to go and start a new life?”

 

The real crime would be if that bit of shared information was not allowed to inspire a mystery story. And it did. Book four of my Gasper’s Cove Mysteries, due out later this year is called Crafting a Getaway. 

 

A lot of my own life is in my books, too. Once I had a job as a press secretary for a senior political leader. (How I got that job is still a mystery to me.) In that position, I had to travel on the campaign bus during several elections. It was a strange experience that I survived only with the help of the sewing machine I kept hidden in my computer bag. The relationship of a crafty woman in that world gave me the material and the humor of my next release, coming out this month, Crafting with Slander. I had such a good time writing that book.

 

Gasper’s Cove is my own getaway, a place where I go to visit and see what the locals are up to. In addition to the four books so far in the Gasper’s Cove Mysteries, I also published four seasonal novellas in 2023. These are Spring – Panic in the Pansies, Summer – Inspection Deception, Fall- Potions and Notions and Holiday – Last Stitch Effort. I wrote them because I was so in love with some of the minor characters in the larger series that I wanted to have a place to tell their stories, too.

 

The theme of everything I write is that there is nothing ordinary about ordinary people. I would love for you to visit Gasper’s Cove with me. If you do, please drop me a line. I write for my readers.

 

Crafting with Slander

A Gasper’s Cove Mystery, Book 3

 

Corruption, chaos, and murder―Valerie Rankin is faced with a killer as crafty as she is.

 

Valerie Rankin is back in Gasper's Cove as a mayoral election brings chaos to the small town. A corrupt political scheme controls the town, and Valerie's cousin, Darlene, an ex-hairdresser, decides to run for mayor. With the help of Valerie and the Gasper's crafters, the group crafts a successful campaign. However, false rumors quickly spread about Darlene. Valerie moves to confront mayoral opponent Mighty Mike Murphy only to find him dead with one of her own stenciled campaign signs next to his body. Afraid that she or Darlene could be framed for his murder, Valerie must hunt down a killer before it's too late.

 

Preorder (available May 25^th)