From Sheboygan to Scotland!!

It is a rare Sunday morning that finds me getting good news while still in bed and in my pajamas. But that's how things played out recently when I did my usual morning run-through of checking the weather, the headlines, and email, and discovered an invitation from Huw Williams, a reporter for BBC Radio Shetland in Scotland, to do a radio interview about my little e-book, "Of Bairns and Wheelie Bins." The book, which I published last year, is a cheeky guide for Americans to help with understanding what our favorite British detectives are saying on the telly.

Serendipity is such a wonderful thing! I'd just recently posted something about the book on social media and hashtagged the British series "Shetland," which is one of my very favorites. Williams, alert that a new season of Shetland had just started to air in Great Britain, was idly trawling through Twitter (yes, I still call it that) for mentions of the series and found mine. Would I like to chat about my book and the series? He didn't have to ask twice. Shetland is indeed one of my British detective series addictions, in no small part for the magnificent setting for all the human intrigue, a vast landscape of desolate, unforgiving beauty surrounded by surging waves in a thousand shades of blue and white. 

And so I made my international media debut on Good Evening Shetland from my kitchen the next morning, a lively and humorous chat with Huw that ranged from the conundrum we Yanks have in deciphering both the British brogues and the lingo, to the fact that many female fans of the series would not kick Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez' character "out of bed for eating crackers." HERE'S A LINK TO THE RADIO INTERVIEW!! 

When the radio interview was finished, it was time to re-enter reality and resume a day of errands and art class. But the wonderment wasn't quite over! Just two days later, I was sitting in my drawing class again when the professor asked if I'd yet received an email telling me how to access the radio interview and share it with the class. Well, I hadn't as yet, and even though it was quite bad form, I checked my phone and discovered yet another invite, this time from the BBC Scotland television news show "The Nine," to do a television interview just TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER. Well, of course!! I blasted out of the classroom, tidied up the kitchen, threw on some makeup and settled expectantly into my Zoom chair. 

I "clocked on" to the fact that this interview would be live about 30 seconds before I was on air, but that was the least of my worries! I've been through many a Zoom meeting both for business and for catching up with old friends ever since Covid changed the way we do things, and my general expectation is that I'll be able to see the person I'm talking to. That was not the case this time! For some reason, I could hear my interviewer--who I learned after the fact was the gracious and lovely journalist Laura Maciver--but all I could see for our entire conversation was a black screen containing a tiny shot of myself. However, as you can see by the screen shot above, technology worked its magic across The Pond, and we clearly ended up with a televised chat. HERE'S A LINK TO THE TELEVISION INTERVIEW!! 

What a wild and enjoyable ride that was over the course of just three days! One thing I didn't expect to come of it is that I am finally going to publish a paperback version of my "Bairns and Wheelie Bins" e-book just in time for Christmas. It will be "stocking stuffer" sized, so ... stay tuned!!