Guest Post: BACK TO LIVE CONFERENCES by Nina Wachsman

Please welcome back author Nina Wachsman back to the blog today as she shares her recent experience at New England Crime Bake. After you read her guest post below, make sure to check out her post from earlier in the month regarding an excerpt from her short story, “Laundry After Midnight”, published in the anthology, Justice for All: Murder New York Style.

 

BACK TO LIVE CONFERENCES

 

It was the last day of the conference and we were looking at bodies. Dead bodies. Murdered bodies. On a big screen at the front of the room, from a presentation by the medical examiner of the state of Connecticut. It was ghastly, but it was great. 

For the first time in more than a year, I got to sit next to real live people, to whom I could whisper, groan, or giggle with. Not a Zoom connection with an artfully organized background, but schmoozing while clinking wine glasses or coffee cups, going on and on about ourselves, our past year, and great ways to murder someone in our stories. Where else can you do all that?

Not that I haven’t appreciated all the great Zoom conferences I’ve attended in the past year. To name a few favorites: Historical Novel Society Annual Conference (my favorite), Summer Festival of Writing (Jericho Writers out of the UK run it), several sessions from Manuscript Academy and InkersCon, and of course, Tri-State Sisters in Crime monthly meetings. I still was able to meet and connect with people on those online conferences, including agents, but it was still great to get out and engage with real people.

In March 18, 2020, I contracted the corona virus, after going into my office at WeWork, and so we moved out and have been working from home ever since. This means that for more than an entire year I almost never had to wear heels, put on a dress, or wear makeup. Many days, I never had to leave my apartment, or even wear shoes.

Going to Boston and New England Crime Bake was the opportunity to put on all those nice clothes I ordered but never wore, and get all gussied up. The bonus was meeting new authors and buying great new books to read. Now, settled back into my cozy leggings and my overheated apartment, I can get back to writing.

Nina Wachsman ©2021 

Nina Wachsman is the author of “Laundry After Midnight”, published in the anthology, Justice for All: Murder New York Style, and a novel of historical suspense, The Gallery of Beauties, to be released in 2022 by Level Best Books. She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Sample Sunday: Excerpt: LAUNDRY AFTER MIDNIGHT by Nina Wachsman

Please welcome Nina Wachsman to the blog today with an excerpt from her short story in the new anthology, Justice For All: Murder New York Style 5.

 LAUNDRY AFTER MIDNIGHT 

No one believes anyone in New York, especially not a 12-year old boy. Heck, I wouldn’t have believed me either, but like many things in this city, the unbelievable turns out to be true.

“I’m going down to get the laundry,” I announced to my parents, who didn’t look up at me even though it was one in the morning. Hand on the brass doorknob, I was about to open the front door, when I heard a noise in the hall. My view was limited through the peephole, blocked by the back of a guy in a blue sweater. When he jerked sideways, I could see the lady across the hall swinging her small purse at him by its chain handle. He raised an arm to block her attack. Thunk! A sickening sound, but I couldn’t see where it came from because the blue sweater was blocking my view again. Bang! The slam of the stairwell door was so loud I jumped away from the peephole.

I blinked a few times with my hand still frozen on the doorknob. Then I placed my eye on the peephole again, expecting to see only an empty hall and closed doors. But there she was—the lady across the hall, facing me, her back against her door, slowly slinking down to the floor, her knees crumpling and her blond hair leaving a trail as it stuck to the doorpost. Not good.

“Mom, Dad!” I burst into the dining room banging the table so the laptops under their fingers bounced.

“Did you get the laundry, Neal?” my mother said automatically, not looking up.

 “Come quickly. The neighbor’s hurt. She’s lying in the hall.”

“What our neighbor does is none of our business,” Dad muttered, his eyes on his screen.

“This is no joke,” I pulled out my phone. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”

They both looked up. “What’s got into you?” Dad said.

I pointed a shaky finger to the hall, holding my phone, ready to dial. Chairs scraped back simultaneously, and they brushed by me as they hurried into the hall. I followed.

“Oh. My. God.” My mother said, putting a hand over her mouth. Dad didn’t move, just stared.

The lady from across the hall sat just as I saw her in the peep hole. Up close, her eyes were open, staring at nothing, the dark pupils large and stark against the light blue of her irises. Strands of blond hair were stuck to a large streak of blood that ran down the doorpost. Her coat was open, and something sparkly glinted from underneath.

“I’m calling 9-1-1,” Mom said, her fingers tapping her phone.  “They should be here shortly. Let’s get Neil out of there. This is not a sight for a twelve-year old.”

“Neil, back to the apartment,” Dad said, turning towards me. “I’ll handle the police when they come.”

I was not moving. A real murder, and in my apartment building!

  

Nina Wachsman ©2021

Nina Wachsman is the author of The Gallery of Beauties, a novel of historical suspense, to be published by Level Best Books in 2022. Inspired by family history, it is the story of a courtesan and a rabbi's daughter in seventeenth-century Venice, the city's Golden Age, and is the first of a series. Nina has been a children's book illustrator, art director, and advertising executive. She raised her three children on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in a prewar apartment where she currently lives with her husband.