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Many found 2022 to be anno horribilis, with war and pestilence carrying on big-time. Personally, 2022, turned out to be not too bad.  The best part was returning to the real world and reconnecting with friends, family and fellow authors.

Our first big step: Left Coast Crime held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from April 7 to 10th.  Ironically, Ed and I were attending LCC in San Diego in 2020 in defiance of dire reports about a mysterious pandemic.  We’d had a great time in LA, seeing friends and touring LA’s amazing public library and my childhood memory, Knott’s Berry Farm. More and more worrying reports were appearing in the media.  After only half a day, LCC San Diego shut down.  I barely had enough time to say a quick good-bye to friends, Kate Thornton and Grace Koshida before catching our flight back to Toronto.

Three years later, we were B-A-C-K, immunized against COVID and armed with the vaccination papers to prove it. Terrific conference! Well, over 200 in attendance.  I was honored to be on the panel, Let’s Keep it Short: Cozies to Noir, hosted by Lisa Q Matthews and to moderate the panel on noir, What’s Noir Got to Do With It, with distinguished authors, Andrew Bourelle, Corey Lynn Fayman and Jo Perry.  At the banquet, we were delighted to sit at the table hosted by Steve Brewer, who writes darkly comic mysteries about crooks – dumb ones especially.  If you’re in Albuquerque, do visit his family’s bookstore, Organic Books.

More good news: award-winning mystery writer, Mike Martin and his team created The Maple Leaf Mystery Conference and revived a national crime writers conference for Canadians. (Read my interview with Mike on Cyber Cafe at this website.)

MLMC was virtual  with hopes that it’ll go live in 2023. Several of the Mesdames of Mayhem moderated or participated on panels. I was very happy to be on the short story panel, The Big Short, moderated by friend, Merrilee Robson.

Toronto’s Word on the Street also returned to life, moving back to its old location at Queen’s Park. Unfortunately, the date conflicted with The Ride to Conquer Cancer, but I supported our Mesdames of Mayhem booth financially and in spirit. This was my 15th consecutive Ride to Conquer Cancer – and the first real world ride after COVID. I managed to pull off the full distance – and to enjoy the champagne reception for 15 year riders. Read about my adventure on this website.

In June, the Toronto International  Festival of Authors, recognized crime writers for the first time, through their program, MOTIVE.  My dear friend and brilliant author, Lisa De Nikolits, was moderating a thriller panel. She invited me to be her guest at the welcoming reception.  I had a lovely time chatting with friend, Maureen Jennings and meeting crime writers from all over the world.

The Crime Writers of Canada booth was located in a tent set up outside the Harborfront Building. Weather did not cooperate:  high winds threatened to blow the tent, our books and us away. Little promotion, but my friends, Blair Keetch, Sylvia Warsh and I sold some books and entertained a few hardy souls at our collective reading. All in all, not bad for a first real world foray.

When Words Collide, the Calgary-based multi-genre conference, was virtual again in 2022 from August 12 to 15th . For 2023, there’s good news and bad news: WWC is back in the real world, but this will be its final year.

Running a virtual conference is an enormous amount of work. Several genre writing societies, including Crime Writers of Canada, pitched in to run the panels. I was delighted to be on the cross-genre crime fiction panel, Crossing the Line, moderated by friend, Therese Greenwood.  Later that day, I moderated the crime short story panel, Coming Up Short, with friends, Jayne Barnard and Kevin Thornton.

The highlight of 2022 was the launch of In the Spirit of 13, the fifth anthology for the Mesdames of Mayhem, in celebration of our 10th anniversary. For this outing, many of us wrote tales tinged with the supernatural. I wrote “Amdur’s Ghost”,  the second story with my beleaguered civil servant, Dr. Ben Amdur. He’s pressured by the new Minister of Health to find her missing ex-husband. On the trail, he encounters devious small town politicians, a mysterious medium and a rabid coyote!

Our launch was a real world event held in my favorite bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street on Sunday, October 30th. We were overwhelmed by the terrific attendance. Everyone wore Halloween-inspired masks and we signed and sold lots of books. A special highlight: we made Marian Misters, co-owner of Sleuth’s and the host of all our five anthologies, an Honorary Mme of Mayhem!

But the year wasn’t over yet! My darkly comic story, “Must Love Dogs – or You’re Gone” was accepted by UK publisher, Red Dog Press, for their noir anthology, Gone.  I was blown away by the quality of stories, including “Eyes the Brightest Blue” by editor Stephen J. Golds.  To make the cut was an honor – and it’s my first British publication.

After I had the good news from England, I had more good news from Mystery Magazine here in Canada. They loved my thriller short story, “Last Island”, featuring Danny Bluestone, the hero of my novel, Windigo Fire. And they made it the cover story for their November issue! I especially love how beautifully artist Robin Evans captured Danny’s brutal struggle in the wilderness.

Great way to wind up the year. More news soon about what’s happening in 2023!

Welcome back to Cyber Café, Judy! So much has happened since we last got together here. You now have two mystery series, The Marketville and Glass Dolphin series. You’ve published three anthologies and broken into audiobooks!

Judy: Thanks so much for having me back!

Tell us about your new book, Before There Were Skeletons. How is it different from the earlier books in the Marketville series ?

Callie’s back investigating cold cases, but I would say that Before There Were Skeletons is my most ambitious work to date. It’s a complicated plot – five missing women in all, two from 1978 and three from 1995. Weaving all the threads together took some doing! As well, Callie is finally ready to take a deeper dive into her mother’s past…before her mother became a mother. Before there were skeletons.

Readers take note: Before There Were Skeletons, is available in e-book, trade paperback, and large print at all the usual suspects. https://books2read.com/BeforeSkeletons

Judy’s Marketville Mystery Books 1-3, Box Set, reg. $9.99, is available for just $ .99 on Kindle, Kobo, and Apple until the end of November in Canada, UK, NZ, and Australia.

What are the differences between your Marketville and Glass Dolphin series?

My Glass Dolphin series has a much cozier vibe, albeit without the cats, crafts, and cookie recipes. It’s also told in third person, alternating POVs. The Marketville series is first person, all Callie. But none of my books have overt violence, sex, or bad language. That said, they may be PG but they’re not boring!

You are comfortable writing both novels and short stories. Which do you secretly prefer creating?

Definitely novels though I love reading short crime fiction and I’m proud of the handful of stories I’ve written. But for a pantser like me, it’s far easier to write long and do the dipsy doodling that short stories don’t allow. Who knows though. Maybe one day I’ll be invited to become a Madame of Mayhem and then I’ll be forced to write at least one short story every so often!

In the meantime, I have edited and published three multi-author anthologies of mystery and suspense and was delighted to include your story ‘The Moon God of Broadmoor’ in Moonlight & Misadventure. I hope to do a fourth anthology, but they take tremendous energy and time, so we’ll see.

I really envy your amazing energy. You are now in audiobooks. Do tell us about your journey and should crime fiction authors venture here?

If you have the money to hire a narrator, you can use a company like Findaway Voices which distributes widely to every possible retailer as well as to libraries. But good narrators are costly (at least $2,000) and there’s certainly no guarantee of earning back your investment.

I personally used Royalty Share with the ACX route. ACX is owned by Amazon and Royalty Share is Audible, Amazon and iTunes only.  Sadly, libraries don’t use those to purchase audio. As well, ACX takes 60% of the royalties and the balance of 40% is split 50/50 narrator/author. Contract runs seven years so lots to consider.

For the narrator, it’s a risk. For the author, there’s no financial risk, but your market share is far more limited and who knows what might happen in seven years? At the end of the day, I recommend that every author do their own due diligence then decide. For me, ACX Royalty Share was the only viable option.

You recently moved to your home on Lake Superior. How has this helped your writing? Do you ever feel isolated from other authors being so far away?

We’ve had our camp (Northern term for waterfront properties) since July 2015. When Covid hit, I began spending 6 months of the year here, May-October, never once going back to our house in Southern Ontario. Last fall, my husband and I decided to move here fulltime. There were a lot of factors in our decision, not the least of which was the 8-hour drive back and forth and feeling as if we never really belonged anywhere.

I’ve now made a few friends here (it helps that I joined two golf leagues!). This summer I introduced myself to the powers-that-be at the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library. They now have all my books or are in the process of cataloguing them. In October I was invited to be part of their multi-author “Author Palooza” event, which was great fun.

I’ve met other authors there, and one of them, Sault Ste. Marie author, Katherine Walker, was shortlisted for Best First Novel in the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence for her debut novel, All is Well. I’m immediate Past Chair of CWC, so, small world, right?

There’s great support in the north for the arts. I also have my books in an amazing downtown shop in the Soo called The Artesian. (@ssmartesian on Instagram) and I was just recently interviewed in the local paper as well as on The Book Cover, a local radio program.

I think if you put yourself “out there” it doesn’t matter where you live. That said, you have to make things happen. If you sit around and wait for your ship to come in, chances are you’ll be at the airport. My mother always told me, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” It’s my mantra.

What’s next for you, Judy?

I’m working on a new project and super excited about it, but I’m very superstitious about sharing details while it’s still a work-in-process. I also have an idea for a true crime novel, which I hope to begin researching in earnest in the new year. And I’m hoping to take a course on playwriting in 2023. Never a dull moment!

Find Judy at www.judypenzsheluk.com 

A lovely surprise today, September 13th, from my friend and publisher, Donna Carrick: the first-run copies of The Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem’s 5th anthology, In the Spirit of 13! For the first time, we have a hard cover in addition to our standard paperback – it’s intended mainly for libraries.

Note goth background in keeping with the supernatural themes of our crime story collection. You can pre-order both versions on Amazon here.

But best of all on Friday, September 13, 1985 at 5 pm our daughter was born. My parents were horrified that I went into labor on such an inauspicious day – in their opinion. But our daughter was arriving no matter what: the best present we ever had. Thirteen has proved to be our lucky number.