CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR TRISS STEIN

Today we welcome back mystery author Triss Stein who’s here to tell us about her love affair with decorative glass and the latest book in her Erica Donato Mystery series. Learn more about Triss and her books at her website. 

I'm not a crafty person at all, but I admire other people's skill and talent, and I especially admire glass. Maybe it's because my grandmother took me to the annual local antique show and the shimmery Victorian glass enchanted me.  

Maybe it's because we visited Corning and saw fragile glass that was, somehow, thousands of years old, and molten glass being blown into shapes. Talk about magic! I began to collect glass paperweights.

I fell in love with the modern perfection of Steuben crystal.

Then I discovered Tiffany. The glass, not the store.

Of course all this would have to become part of a book. My motto isn't "Write what you know." It's "Write what you love."

I can't give a  spoiler for my own book, so let's just say that many years ago, there was a crime involving Tiffany (and other) stained glass windows. And I read the newspaper articles and thought, "Wow, what a great background for a mystery."  It was a long time before I even finished my first Brooklyn mystery, let alone saw it in print, but I was thinking ahead to the next one.

Then, in 2007, there was an exhibit at the New York Historical Society. Called A New Light on Tiffany, it brought back to life the story of the Tiffany girls, an all-women glass cutting and design department of Louis Comfort Tiffany's business.   A recently discovered collection of letters from Clara Driscoll, the manager and chief designer, vividly told the story of the women who lived independent lives and established themselves as a creative force back in the days when they could not even vote. I was entranced. I knew that if I was ever going to write about Tiffany glass, this had to be part of the story.

I don't write historical mysteries, but my heroine is a Brooklyn historian whose research leads her into old and new crimes. So I gave her a scholar's mystery about what happened to a young woman who wrote charming letters when she was part of Clara Driscoll's team of designers. And then there is a problem relating to a Tiffany window at historic Green-Wood cemetery. Increasingly suspicious. And of course that leads to a modern day crime or two.

How much did I enjoy the many necessary visits to museums to look at Tiffany glass? And the purchase of a few beautiful books?  Plus some Tiffany stationery to use for think-you notes?  And a scarf from the Metropolitan Museum shop with a Tiffany design that matches my book cover, to wear for my book signing? 

What do you think?

Brooklyn Graves

A brutally murdered family man without an enemy in the world. A box full of charming letters home, written a century ago by an unknown female worker at the famed Tiffany studios. Historic Green-Wood cemetery, where a decrepit mausoleum with stunning stained glass windows is now off limits. Suddenly, all of this is part of Erica Donato’s life.

Erica is a youngish single mother of a teen, an oldish history grad student, and the lowest person on the totem pole of the history museum where she works. Arbitrarily assigned to catalogue the valuable letters for an arrogant expert visiting the museum, she is also assigned to take that same expert to see the mysteriously closed mausoleum windows. And as stressful as her working life become, her friendship with the murdered man’s family compels her to help.

Soon secrets begin to emerge in the most unexpected places. An admirable life was not what it seemed, confiding letters conceal their most important story, and too many people have hidden histories and hidden agendas. All set against the background of the splendid old cemetery and the life of modern Brooklyn, the stories of old families and old loves with hidden ties merges with new crimes and the true value of art.

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FASHION WITH TESSA - GUEST AUTHOR TRISS STEIN

Triss Stein’s first job, as a librarian in a dozen sharply different Brooklyn communities, inspired this new series about neighborhoods and history.  Her small-town youth and urban adult years give her the perfect insider/outsider perspective. But wait! Isn’t today supposed to be a fashion post? Well, keep reading to learn what writing a murder mystery has to do with sewing. Learn more about Triss at her website. -- AP

I am not a crafty person. I’ve kindly been invited by Anastasia (so to speak) to visit her blog anyway, but in fact, I am perhaps a black hole for craft ability.   My admiration for people who have those clever hands plus a good eye is endless.

I used to sew, and could make real clothes, but  looking back, I don’t think I was very good at it.  I realize now I was too impatient to take care of the little details along the way that add up to a professional looking garment. Plus, I don’t think I had the designer’s  eye. Sometimes the combination of fabric  and style really worked. (I have fond memories of a ribbed cotton orange and yellow caftan with black braid. Well, what can I say? It was the 60’s) A lot of times my work came out a little …odd. 

I never uncovered a hidden flair for drawing or painting or pottery or quilting.  I just don’t have those clever hands. In fact, I am not even a very good typist.

It’s pretty pathetic. My mother knitted, and my dad could build or fix anything. He spent World War II fixing airplanes!  Three of my four grandparents had worked in the garment industry and could sew with expertise, no pattern needed.

What I do now is go to craft fairs for a fun weekend outing. I admire other people’s work, buy distinctive  gifts for weddings, anniversaries and new babies and sometimes jewelry for myself. I am a sucker for beautiful textiles – that’s the sewing background, perhaps – and have a large collection of scarves.  Oh, yes, and we are running out of shelf space for the hand made pottery.

But wait.  I AM a craft person, because I write.  My materials are my words instead of that hand-painted silk.  My tools are my ideas, my imagination, my research. Also my word processing program.  I am old enough to remember when cut and paste meant getting out the scissors and Elmer’s. Typing skills or not, word processing is a miracle.

I do a lot of rewriting  and for me, it often feels like carpentry or furniture building. I find the story by writing it, and there’s never much of a blueprint. It’s more like a sketch on a napkin. The process is similar to building a house by starting with the bathroom tiles and the curtains. Then, I have to go back and pour that foundation, get the framework up, make sure the wiring connects.  In the mystery game, we call it creating complex characters, building suspense, planting false leads, using subplots to misdirect the reader.

And all the time, I am putting to work the lessons I ignored when I learned to sew.  Baste first. Press the seams open as I go. Measure the hem length all around. Reinforce the collars and cuffs.  Only I do it with words instead of fabric and my hands are on the keyboard instead of the cutting table and the sewing machine.

In Brooklyn Bones, a crime of the past comes much too close to home. Helping with renovation, Erica Donato’s teen-age daughter Chris finds a skeleton behind a wall in their crumbling Park Slope home. Erica – young widow, over-age history Ph.D candidate, mother of a teen, product of blue-collar Brooklyn – and Chris are both drawn into the mystery when they learn this was an unknown teen-age girl, hidden there within living memory. It’s dangerous research; there are people who know the whole story and will stop at nothing to make sure it stays buried forever. 

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