tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67364142024-03-18T03:47:13.276-05:00The Literary Assassinmost things dark and historical by Holly MessingerHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.comBlogger409125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-56208060221512164232023-03-11T14:56:00.004-06:002023-03-11T14:56:26.814-06:00correct taste: 1856 from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1856:"Flounces are universally worn, the number resting entirely at the option of the wearer. Skirts are very full, and so long as to touch the ground, even when distended by the most ample under-dress. The hoops of our grandmothers certainly threaten to reappear, if we may not say that they have actually appeared again. We are confident, however,Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-81119823473035444252023-02-27T10:53:00.007-06:002023-02-27T11:01:52.518-06:00Lombroso, Lie Detectors, and the Law According to Lidia PoëtIn one episode of The Law According to Lidia Poët, our heroine mentions a device called a "volumetric glove." Because standard Googling is not going to get you far with this, I searched Google Books, 19th century, and found this treatise on Criminal Man, by Gina Limbroso. This business about the volumetric glove is interesting for several reasons: first, it was an early lie detector; second, it Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-4552909311205620712023-02-04T19:56:00.001-06:002023-02-04T20:23:42.345-06:001855 Dress Project Progress report: petticoats and skirtTime flies when you're busy. I feel as if I've been moving along steadily on this project and look up to find it's been over a month since I started it. No shame, of course, just another example of how everything takes longer than you think it will––and costs more.For instance, when I started this project I had three goals in mind: to learn about styles and construction methods of the 1850s,Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-90146688771374484462023-01-01T10:00:00.001-06:002023-02-04T19:56:27.734-06:001855 Dress Project for Arabia Steamboat Research I'm reviving this blog as a place to store the record of my making a 1855-ish dress, as part of my research into 1850's clothing. For those who don't know, I work part time at the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City. I am mostly engaged in documenting and restoring/reconstructing clothing artifacts that were recovered in the winter of 1988-89 and preserved in the early 1990s. We Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-71001544729072485972020-04-20T16:41:00.001-05:002020-04-20T16:41:35.189-05:00noir fiction vs gothic romanceIs there a rule or convention or expectation that every installment in a series of novels has to be the same type of story? I mean what trope is the determining factor? As long as each book in the series has the same setting and mostly the same characters, does it matter if one volume leans more toward action and the hero's journey, and the next is a romance, and the third is a dystopic allegory,Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-21513288144444267792018-05-14T21:07:00.002-05:002018-05-14T21:11:33.581-05:00thoughts while watching American Mary for the eighth timeIf this Soska sisters had wanted to be really subversive they would have ended the movie with Billy and Mary living happily in Berlin or Argentina as legit club owners at the heart of the underground scene. Sure, some aspects of the movie could have been better fleshed out—Mary's sense of betrayal when she catches Billy getting a blowjob, for instance, or Ruby's husband's controlling streak, or Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-87301543374756761992018-04-14T16:51:00.004-05:002021-02-13T11:03:16.666-06:00actual costs of historical costuming
I'm feeling the need to tell on myself a bit here, because once again it's convention season, and every year, every con worth its salt proposes a "costuming on a budget" panel, and I'm always strung out between wanting to help and a fatalistic sense that it's a lost cause.One CAN do great costumes cheaply. It takes patience and ingenuity and maker skills and a lot of hunting, but we have the Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-81432732898370505602017-10-25T21:56:00.002-05:002018-05-11T13:14:54.900-05:00Me, too.
Look, I don't do memes. I've turned my nose up at going with the crowd since I was eight or ten, at least. And that, I suspect, has protected me from a lot of the shit that women put up with.
I've had a resting bitch face since the seventh grade, and predators tend to have an instinct for which targets will make a fuss. But I developed my fuck-off attitude because seventh grade was when the Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-57697232642880462982016-09-30T13:47:00.001-05:002016-09-30T14:01:58.571-05:00projects in the closet: midnight blue velvetThose of you who've known me a long time may remember when, lo these many years ago, me and a friend cosplayed Darla and Drusilla in their 1880 garb. (From the Buffy/Angel crossover flashback where Dru and Spike meet.)
That dress was the beginning of my long infatuation with the Natural Form Era (1878-1882) of fashion, and the original reason Curse of Jacob Tracy is set in 1880. Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-66106857044128019362016-09-23T17:33:00.000-05:002018-05-11T09:15:50.405-05:00so about that Indian blood-brother ritualToday I saw this article pop up in my Facebook feed, reiterating the old chestnut about how American Indians practiced blood-binding, or the exchange of blood between unrelated men (in popular fiction it's usually an American native and a white guy) to make them sworn allies in battle. And while it is not usually my style to argue with people on the internet, I feel this is one of thoseHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-60495857549635255852016-08-31T15:50:00.002-05:002016-08-31T16:07:23.997-05:00self-defense against schmucks who try to make you take your headphones offThis is self-defense 101, kids. Learn how and when to overcome the social expectation to be friendly with everyone. Predators rely on that conditioning.
This also works when you're in the gym working out, or doing homework in a coffee shop: any time when you're obviously engrossed in something yet someone feels you only showed up for their entertainment.
First of all, don't ignore anyone who isHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-7711007430590079202016-07-07T11:04:00.001-05:002016-07-07T11:04:48.417-05:00plus ça change...Found a post from 2004 when I was still on Critters. This is some of the contradictory feedback I got on one of my first stories, "Galatea."
Master Tan's broken English is great, very authentic/is stereotypical and inconsistent
The conflict between Justin and Quinn is great, well done/there is no discernible conflict in the story
The development of Quinn's character is moving and Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-45099910028738173692016-07-03T15:19:00.002-05:002016-07-03T15:26:35.616-05:00Review of CURSE at Tangent Online!
Wow, this has been a week of unexpected treats. First the Daily Deal from Audible.com (which put Curse at their #1 bestseller slot, temporarily displacing the Game of Thrones and Outlander series), and then the review from Down Under at SQMag, and today Dave Truesdale emailed me with the news that his review at Tangent was going live today:
"What a great stage-setting, atmospheric Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-71877997061732441802016-07-03T11:42:00.002-05:002016-07-03T11:42:42.087-05:00Jacob Tracy review in SQMagThis review of THE CURSE OF JACOB TRACY in the latest SQ Mag is maybe the most lucid and insightful I've seen.
I was especially intrigued by this bit:
"The first half or so of the book, it felt as though she had yet to fully engage with Jacob’s voice, but heading toward the climax to the end, the author’s presence totally fades into the characters and setting, letting them tell theHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-67323646515246784582016-04-28T20:34:00.003-05:002016-07-01T12:05:52.171-05:00COMING SOON: The Romance of Certain Old BonesHello internet! It is with pride and trepidation that I announce the imminent arrival of my new Trace & Boz novella, "The Romance of Certain Old Bones," which will make its official debut at Planet Comicon, Kansas City, May 20-22, 2016.
I will have paperback first-editions for sale, with cover art by Chelsea Mann. Ebook edition will launch shortly after the convention.
In the meantime, Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-36174371868384660112016-02-24T08:52:00.001-06:002016-02-24T08:53:42.009-06:00Trace & Boz get optioned for TVIt gives me enormous personal satisfaction to announce that The Curse of Jacob Tracy has been optioned for television.
Holly Messinger's debut THE CURSE OF JACOB TRACY, a gothic Western about a Civil War veteran who sees ghosts, his levelheaded trail partner, and the mysterious English bluestocking pulling their strings, to ITV with Deborah Spera (CRIMINAL MINDS) and Maria Grasso of One Two Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-29183128451127368242016-01-31T12:42:00.002-06:002016-01-31T12:55:03.218-06:00getting around in 19th century St. Louis
A reader asked,
"I'm a St Louisan myself, so I know that Hyde Park is a good long distance from Carondelet. These days, it would take two hours to walk it, and I bet it would have been at least double that in those days. Did your characters ride, take the horse drawn omnibus or streetcar, or what?"
This is one of those things I like to think about, and one of the unexpectedly frustrating bitsHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-70061362935860589992016-01-22T14:55:00.000-06:002016-01-22T14:55:55.091-06:00top 5 ways to die in a mine shaftI'm finally doing some much-needed research into mining towns and mining techniques of the 19th century for to finish the end of my Boz and Lily story. I knew mining was dangerous but Holy Hera. Here are some of the leading contenders, in no particular order:
Heat exhaustion. At depths greater than 1000 feet the air temperature could be 120º or more.
Falls. Sometimes when men were brought Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-29486864773827832672016-01-15T21:08:00.001-06:002022-12-31T12:21:29.893-06:00clarion/claritySo Neil Gaiman said something about Clarion and a whole lot of people got uptight about it and I'm like, I dunno, man. I maybe wanted to go to Clarion for like, a nanosecond, circa 2001 when I first heard about it? But I was still young enough to remember how badly I'd wanted to take creative writing in the 10th grade (and later, sophomore year of college) and how disillusioned I was, both times.Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-37135733264849161782016-01-04T10:34:00.000-06:002016-07-07T10:52:26.794-05:00now this is high praiseI stumbled across a random review of Curse over the weekend. I was amused first by the reviewer comparing me to Tarantino:
This is Tarantino on steroids. The action and gratuitous killings and deaths we have grown to love and hate in a Tarantino film is what our Ms. Messinger provides in print. She provides different scenarios in the novel as Quentin provides chapters in his movies. I hope he Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-12350352247674770962015-10-13T16:23:00.000-05:002015-10-18T19:45:07.242-05:00Trace gets a starred review from Publisher's Weekly!So, this happened; thus providing a kind of validation I hadn't known I wanted.
Yes, I was hoping to get more reviews from more sources before the book came out, but I was thinking peer reviews, advance readers, bloggers & such.
This is really cool.
An "amazing" debut.
Yeah.
The Curse of Jacob Tracy
Holly Messinger, Author
Stellar writing and a strong story define Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-10551491346034544412015-10-06T09:50:00.002-05:002015-10-18T16:24:17.053-05:00would you rather...So last weekend a guy I know was organizing a "great race" kind of relay to raise money for the homeless. One of the challenge stations was sponsored by Schendler pest control, and contestants had to either eat bugs (mealworms, mostly) or answer questions about an essay describing Schendler's company history.
Out of 400 contestants, not one took the test.
Which just goes to show people would Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-16773058851986367952015-09-17T16:27:00.000-05:002015-10-18T16:44:04.594-05:00awkward writer situationsSaw this post this morning by Janet Reid about the weird ideas muggles have about how authoring works.
The scenario is both funny and familiar to me, though I haven't had to deal with it in a while. I'm grateful for all the years I went to writer's groups and small local cons and especially being a vendor/cosplayer at Planet Comicon because they gave me ample opportunity to build a catalogHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-21199661247937462252015-04-11T10:02:00.000-05:002015-10-18T19:56:46.042-05:00caramel cakePreheat oven to 350ºF
grease 8-inch sq. pan and line with parchment
bake 35-40 min
beat with mixer:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 c sugar
2 lg eggs
1 c buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
Sift together:
2 c flour
1 tsp bkg pdr
3/4 tsp bkg soda
1/2 tsp salt
Add flour in thirds to liquid mixture until incorporated. Spread in pan and rap on counter Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-42601328715743496382015-02-10T13:20:00.003-06:002016-06-30T12:38:27.697-05:00that feeling up the back of your neckSo I'm fairly sure I got cased out on the street today.
I was walking through downtown Lawrence, on my way to the coffee shop, about 9 am before all the shops were open. Bright daylight, chilly, very few pedestrians.
I cross the street from south to north, at the corner, and two guys cross from the opposite corner, from east to west. As they cross, one of them goes straight, but the other makesHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com2