Author Archives: Sharon St. George

JOURNALISTS IN JEOPARDY

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Journalists in Jeopardy

The New York Times reported on August 14, 2013 that Mick Deane, a cameraman for Britain-based news network Sky News, was killed in Cairo. This is a tragic reminder that the life of a journalist is not all glamour and ego. The chilling truth can be a far different thing.

In Due for Discard, the first in my Machado Mystery series, I needed a back story about a Parisian woman television journalist killed on assignment. My research led to a Paris-based site called the World Association of Newspapers. More recently, a New York Times article about Mick Deane led me to discover another organization, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Both organizations keep records of the numbers journalists killed in the line of duty or targeted because of their work. An in-depth visit to these sites is well worth any writer’s time. It is a stark reminder that those who would deny others their basic human rights do believe the pen is mightier than the sword.

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The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, or WAN-IFRA, reports  21 media employees have been killed so far in 2013 as of August 15.         www.wan-ifra.org

The  Committee to Protect Journalists reports 33 journalists killed so far in  2013. http://www.cpj.org

 

 

 

A Day at the Dojo

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What’s a girl to do when it’s two against one? Or when he has a gun?

These situations bring tension into the life of forensic librarian Aimee Machado, heroine of the Machado Mystery series. It would be easy to give her a black belt in jujitsu and let her wreak havoc on her attackers. But would it be honest? Only if it’s real.

Aimee isn’t Bat Girl or Wonder Woman. She’s just as real as any woman who opens the pages of Due for Discard or Checked Out. Well, she would be just as real, if she weren’t a fictional character.

The point here is that everything that happens in the Machado Mystery series is based in reality. If it happens in the books, it could happen in real life.

Of course, Aimee is a bit of a magnet for trouble. First it was two guys with a tire iron and some bad ideas. That’s when she got serious about her martial arts workouts. When the big, mean dude with a gun came along, she was ready.XG8D0964

If she isn’t dealing with difficult doctors in her job at Timbergate Medical Center, or at home in her cozy studio apartment above her grandparents’ llama barn, Aimee can be found working out at her local dojo.

Remember, women’s self-defense isn’t just something that spices up books and movies. It’s available to all women who want to be the heroines of their own stories. And it’s real.

The American Judo and Jujitsu Federation (AJJF) is a worldwide organization of martial arts schools dedicated to the preservation and promulgation of the Danzan Ryu system of Jujitsu. http://www.ajjf.org/

 

 

Research at the Gun Range

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Writers are told to write what they know, and to research what they don’t know. Aimee Machado, the protagonist in Due for Discard, met her problematic boyfriend, Nick Alexander, at a gun range. How to write about that when my experience with firearms was limited to the single shot Daisy BB gun of my childhood?

I had never been to a gun range before, so I asked my son to take me for shooting lesson. I came away with a new sense of reality about what it’s like to fire a weapon. I discovered that it involves four of the five senses. The gun was heavier than I expected, the sound was louder, the shell casings flew faster and farther than I expected, and, of course, the smell of gunpowder lingered in the air. Come to think of it, that smell was so strong I could almost taste it.

But the best part was seeing the look on my son’s face and hearing him call me “Deadeye” when 10 of my eleven rounds hit inside the little green box in the center of the target.

It turns out Aimee Machado is a crack shot with a semi-automatic 22 Smith & Wesson.  That might come in handy. The hospital where she works as a forensic librarian has more than it’s share of intrigue, and the rural northern California county where she lives has more than it’s share of crime.

Gun Range 2Gun Range 1

 

How do llamas and horses drink water?

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thI watched an animated movie about a horse called Spirit a few years ago. The children watching with me were enthralled with the story, and I was pleased because I’d been a horse person all my life. Then the whole experience came crashing down. The animators depicted the little foal trotting to a stream, bending his head down, and lapping water like a dog. The children were young enough to forgive this transgression, but I was surprised that the filmmakers had not done their homework. The project was first-rate in every other respect, but this error was hard to ignore. Every horse person who watched it would immediately cease suspension of disbelief. The point here is that horses do not lap water, they suck water. So do llamas. In general, carnivorous animals lap water, and herbivorous animals suck water. Writers who make assumptions in areas outside their expertise, and let those assumptions enter their work, are doing their readers and audiences a disservice, and giving what could otherwise be a prize-winning project a black eye. Whether it’s how animals drink water, or how to determine the age of a skeleton, do your research. When in doubt visit a research librarian at your local library. An intriguing question from a fiction writer could make her day. Or his.

 

 

Dangerous Fashion

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ear plug gaugesTurns out the fashion trend involving ear plug gauges could be a problem for a bad guy. They come in all sized these days, and the idea is to make a hole in the earlobe, insert the ear plug, usually hollow, and then let the earlobe stretch until a larger size plug can be used.  The problem with this fashion, besides its yuck factor, is that in hand-to-hand combat, it gives the other guy an edge. Just recently, the heroine in CHECKED OUT managed to break away from her attacker after she slipped a finger through his ear lobe hole, conveniently stretched out by the ear gauge. One good yank, and she had a bloody chunk of his ear and his ear gauge in her hand. He took off, howling, but with the DNA from the ear, and a little forensic help, he’s sure to be apprehended.