Monica Ferris

Two more books have been added to the excerpts — Threadbare (the latest) and And Then You Dye (due out in late 2012).

Some have asked for larger copies of the patterns. These are now available on the Books page. At the bottom of the tiny excerpt for each book, there is a link you can click to get a PDF file of the pattern for that book. Just about every computer in town is able to handle a PDF file. You can look at the patterns and instructions on your browser, or you can download them. Most browsers can do both.

Monday, April 23, at 4 pm, Ellen Kuhfeld, Joan Marie Verba, and I (as Mary Monica Pulver) will be at the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis bookstore in Coffman Union for a reading and discussion.

On Tuesday, April 24, at 2 pm, I (as Monica Ferris) will come to a book club at the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park to talk about the Betsy Devonshire series. The members have decided to open the meeting to the public.

On Saturday, April 28, from 1 to 5 pm, St. Peter, Minnesota, will hold a Book Festival at their Community Center. Put on by Gustavus Adolphus College, the event will feature readings, panels, and appearances by more than a dozen area authors – including me.  St. Peter is a pretty little town on the Minnesota River, once proposed as the capitol of Minnesota. I used it as the scene of a murder in Thai Die.

Saturday, April 7, is the tenth annual Write of Spring at the wonderful, Mystery Writers of America Raven Award Winning, mystery book store, Once Upon A Crime. Minnesota crime authors will attend in staggered blocks all day long. My group’s session starts at 1 pm. There will also be on sale a new anthology, Writes of Spring, put together by Pat and Gary, owners of Once Upon A Crime, and featuring stories by authors who have come to the annual event. I’ve got a short story in it, written as Mary Monica Pulver. I have my author’s copy of the book, and am pleased to be in such terrific company. The bookstore is donating the proceeds to the Memorial Blood Centers. The event will also mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the bookstore.

Mary Monica Pulver is my maiden name and the name I used when I first turned pro. My father was dying of bone cancer and I wanted to get something published under the family name. I made it, but barely, selling a couple of stories to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Later I sold five mystery novels under that name, and more short stories. My husband and I sold some short stories we wrote together as Al and Mary Kuhfeld. Then a friend and I started a collaboration as Margaret Frazer, writing six novels in the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series – she continued the series on her own when the collaboration broke up and is currently writing a spin-off series about a set of wandering play-actors. And I am writing the Betsy Devonshire needlework mysteries as Monica Ferris. It sounds a bit complicated, but it all evolved naturally.

In late developments, Monica Ferris and Carl Brookins will not be at the Book Fair on Sunday, March 25.

Saturday, March 24, from one to five: Bloomington Book Fair, at the Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN. I’ll be sitting at a table with Carl Brookins, senior member of my writer’s group, and we’ll both have books for sale.

April 14, from 10 am, I’ll be at Nordic Needle needlework shop in Fargo, ND. I’ll also have a role in Nordic Needle’s retreat, which begins the 11th.

I’ve just been in the news again. The people at the Lake Minnetonka Patch saw the video interview, and sent a reporter to interview her at a reading at Excelsior Bay Books. That interview is now online. (Excelsior Bay Books was also the scene of the crime for Hanging By A Thread.)

The talk at the Textile Center (3000 University Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414) went over very well. Their exhibition of my hats will be taken down on January 3rd, 2012 — check the Textile Center website for holiday hours. I bought another hat while I was there, of course!

I seem to remember something about a video interview? The nice people at LMCC Community Video have edited the raw takes down and put the finished program on Youtube.