-
Always Learning
This letter appears in the August 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. I love to learn about new things. Some of my favorite ways to consume new information is through podcasts, documentaries, and books. Sometime in this past year I realized I had gotten into a bit of a rut when it came to my personal education choices. I was reading the same types of books over and over (often women’s fiction, contemporary young adult novels and other “book club” type literature) because they were entertaining, but was I really learning anything new? I began to challenge myself, first by choosing to read books by authors with entirely different backgrounds, as well as…
-
The Murder of Foy Dixon Cooper
Author David Aaron Moore shared the story of Foy Dixon Cooper in his book Charlotte: Murder, Mystery and Mayhem. At around 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 20, 1959, a group of young boys gathered in the Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte to play and chase squirrels and chipmunks like they often did. Playing in a cemetery could involve quite a bit of creative role playing for energetic children, so when one boy, Dale Jackson, dared Ronnie McCauley to enter a nearby crypt so he could meet Dracula, the youngster didn’t back down. McCauley stuck his hand and then his head into the opening of the crypt, screaming, “Hey, there’s a real dead woman in…
-
Time to Get Away
This letter appears in the June 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. For so many years, my weekends have been filled with “to-do’s.” I must go to the grocery store. I have to get to my kids’ sporting events. I absolutely must clean the house. A Target run is essential. All those things I couldn’t quite get to during the week because of work and weekday activities would be pushed off until the weekend. Before I knew it, the entire weekend would have been filled up with me running around from place to place only to collapse, exhausted, on Sunday evening wondering how it was already time to get back to work the…
-
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
Synopsis: Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name—and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help. The new season of Rachel’s podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3…
-
Who is William Dathan Holbert?
He was known to his friends as “Wild Bill Cortez” on the small islands of Bocas del Toro, a Caribbean enclave in Panama popular with tourists and expats. But what no one knew was that “Wild Bill” was actually a fugitive from North Carolina who had found the perfect paradise to fund a lifestyle he felt he deserved. In reality, the man was named William Dathan Holbert and he grew up in Hendersonville, N.C., where he played football at North Henderson High School, started up his own landscaping business after graduation, got married and fathered three children. In 2004, while working at a fitness chain in the Asheville area called The Body Shop,…
-
Observations from a Mom
This letter appears in the May 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. My mother and I have always had a complicated relationship, and I think that’s true for a lot of mothers and daughters. But as I’ve grown older and become a mom myself, there are so many things I would like to tell my mother. I understand that you can tell yourself that you may be the type of person who doesn’t need to have children, and then you hold your child for the first time and your heart becomes a messy puddle. You will realize there’s a huge difference between the ages of 1 and 2 years and become that person…
-
Get Refreshed
This letter originally appeared in the April 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. When I was twelve, I moved from Central Texas to the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, where I spent much of my time outdoors, hiking on nearby trails, taking long drives on the parkway with my parents, eating berries straight off the bushes the bloomed in our yard and playing in the icy rivers. I’ve come to realize nature has always been a big part of my life, even if I consider myself a homebody who probably spends too much time indoors reading, working or simply trying to cover off all the household chores. It’s hard to…
-
An Update in the Kristin Smart Case
In January of last year I wrote about the podcast, Your Own Backyard, which Chris Lambert created and produced. Smart’s disappearance has always been a sad mystery to me, because she went missing from her university in California at the same time I was attending college in North Carolina. She was a 19-year old student at Cal Polytechnic State University attending an off-campus party when she became intoxicated and walked home with two classmates, one being a young man named Paul Flores who was questioned after she went missing. I always had a sinking feeling harm came to Smart and because she was inebriated, she was unable to defend herself properly (FYI–Paul Flores…
-
The Craft of Writing on the Strange and Sinister
In addition to writing about true crime here, I’ve also shared my story of honing the craft over at WOW! Women on Writing. Here are a just a few of the posts I’ve written on the topic, and it’s fun to see my progression go from just a spark to a fully-developed project or idea. How to Write Compelling True Crime. In this post I share how I came up with the idea to start up Missing in the Carolinas, and how it evolved from being just a missing persons podcast to one that mixes in solved cases and reviews of other true crime shows and books. I also used this content to…
-
Review of Save the Cat! Cracking the Beat Sheet Online Class
When WOW! Women on Writing asked me if I’d like to review the Save the Cat! “Cracking the Beat Sheet” online course I jumped at the chance. I have several novels in need of revision and thought a more structured program might give me the help I’ve been needing, plus I have a copy of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody and it’s one of my most treasured writing tools. See below for more information on the course and my review. First, what is Save the Cat!®? Save the Cat! provides writers the resources they need to develop their screenplays and novels based on a series of best-selling books, primarily…