Author Archives: patsypridgen

Remember the ERA? The Equal Rights Amendment was a 1970s piece of legislation that proponents said would help to guarantee equality for American women, especially in the workplace.  By 1979, this controversial, much-debated amendment needed only three more states to … Continue reading →

Recently a writer friend asked me whether I had set a deadline for my revision/conversion of Ms. Dee Ann into Murder in Narrow Creek.  “Do you plan to be finished by fall?” she inquired. The question caught me a little … Continue reading →

When I sit down at night in my favorite chair in the den with my iPad, I spend just a few minutes looking at Facebook. Then I start googling: agents interested in Southern fiction, agents interested in cozy mysteries, agents … Continue reading →

“Kill your darlings.” I’m not talking here about the 2013 movie starring Daniel Radcliff (forever Harry Potter in my mind), but rather a piece of writing advice. Sometimes for the greater good of a manuscript, it’s necessary to let go … Continue reading →

Red herrings, I’ve learned, are a required element in a cozy mystery (see previous posts for more information about “cozies”). The author has to keep the reader guessing, and hopefully guessing wrong, as to whodunit.  Where would the fun be … Continue reading →

This week, I’ve been rejuvenated as a writer. I’ve decided to revise Ms. Dee Ann, making it into a cozy mystery (see previous post if you’re not sure what this term means), and I’m having a really fun time doing … Continue reading →

I had never heard the literary term cozy mystery (or cozies) until I started marketing my novel Dee Ann. From the number of agents I saw requesting cozies, I decided this genre must be a popular one. Exactly what is … Continue reading →

One of the themes explored in Ms. Dee Ann is that of race relations in the South at the end of the 1970s.  The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national … Continue reading →

Remember my last post about anachronisms, those careless references in fiction to things that belong to another time? Writing Ms. Dee Ann, a novel set in 1979, was fun—I could refer to Jimmy Carter being in the White House, for … Continue reading →

In college, while other students were learning skills that would help them earn a living one day, we English majors would sit around in our classes looking for anachronisms in literature. An anachronism is something that appears in a time where … Continue reading →