A lot of older persons are accused of avoiding the many varieties of new technologies. I suppose to some extent that’s true. A lot of us, however, are reasonably conversant with all this geek stuff. And then there are those few shining examples who not only speak to it, but rush to greet all the new advances with open arms.
Such a one is Peter E. Abresch, now resident close to the Chesapeake Bay region of the Maryland shore, with his wife of a good many years, Annemarie. After a career with the government during which he learned about computers, Peter turned to writing fiction after his retirement in 1991. Because he and Annemarie liked to attend Elderhostels™, he decided to use that as a setting for what became his Elderhostel Mysteries. If you’ve not yet read any of them, I will highly recommend them. Bloody Bonsai introduces us to Jim Dandy (James P., to be formal) a fairly-recent widower who finds himself at loose ends. His kids talk him into attending an Elderhostel™ Course on Bonsai, little realizing what they’ve started! He finds an attractive, unattached artist who owns her own gallery, and in addition to her artistic skills has a huge curiosity bump. Dodee Swisher leads, Jim follows and finally, they manage to identify the murderer without getting either of them killed in the process.
The problem here is that he’s on the east coast, she’s in the midwest, but phone calls and letters persuade them to try again (this was in the days before e-mail) so the next summer, off they go to Baltimore and a cooking school. Library Journal categorized Killing Thyme as “An entertaining blend of cooking tidbits, Baltimore surrounds, fascinating workshop participants, and persistent hanky-panky on the sidelines.” Well!
Their next adventure Tip a Canoe finds the two at a birdwatching/nature study Elderhostel™ on South Carolina’s Santee Lakes. The following year, however, finds them on the other side of the USA and the Santa Fe Trail in Painted Lady. This one veers into the supernatural a bit, as Dodee’s paintings seem to carry the image of a woman who fell from the hotel rooftop before their trip actually started. There is also a novella – Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing.
Unhappily, because of the crunch in the publishing world, at this point, Peter lost his publisher. But writers don’t usually give up when that happens – they’re optimistic creatures, and continue writing, regardless. He was encouraged by notes from fans asking “where’s the next book in the series?” So last fall, he took it upon himself to publish the next one — Name Games through CreateSpace, a subsidiary of Amazon.com.
In this one, Peter indulges his fondness for puns and word games by the names he assigns to the characters, other than Jim and Dodee, that is. The adventure nearly does them in, as they go white-water rafting and hiking through the woods. He thought it would be safe–who ever heard of a drive-by shooting from a rubber raft?
In addition to these five novels, Peter has two other novels in print through CreateSpace: Capital Coven and If They Ask For A Hand, Only Give Them A Finger, both of which deal with spies and so forth in the Washington DC area. There is also one non-fiction guide book: Easy Reading Writing: Easy Reading about Writing Easy Reading.
Well, I hear you say, a lot of people do self-publishing these days, and that’s very true. It’s easier than ever with the POD (print on demand) process which keeps millions of trees still standing instead of being converted into books that are all-too-soon converted to fodder for landfills. But Peter has gone one better, embracing the new technologies of pod-casting and creating audio books on CD, all by his own self. Mostly.
Every now and then one of his books has too many characters in it for him to do all the different voices, so he ropes a friend or two into a few sessions with the digital recorder, splices it all together in the computer and bingo! Book on CDs for easy listening.
Coven, being slightly longer is on 8 CDs, while Finger is on 6. Full information and details are available through his web-site: www.sidewalkbooks.com He’s also allowed Amazon to convert the print books to e-books for its Kindle reader. And there are a couple of books available for free downloads at podiobooks.com Be advised that donations are accepted at that site, and the author does receive a fair share.
And if you like poetry, you might like to receive one of his spiritual type poems which he sends out every Monday. Send an e-mail to Peter at Sidewalkbooks.com and put ‘Burnt Offerings’ in the subject line. If you’d rather have a weekly newsletter about writing fiction, put ‘BookMarc’ in the subject line.
We should all be so into new things—for fun, he’s learning to play a 5-string banjo!—and active as we gently ‘mellow into fine wine.’ His most recent birthday was his 78th! Way to go, Peter!
As always, if you have comments or questions, you may use the space provided below or write to me directly at: kelly at theseniorreader.com No spam, please! Consider this your advisory notice that that if you send spam, it will be automatically forwarded to the US government and your ISP.
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