Something old is new again. That’s what I’m learning about my writing and the wisdom of not tossing out anything you compose.

I began writing mystery when I was 27 and continued to plot, research, and create for eight years. At about that eight-year-in point, I had another path appear in front of me—to start a company with my husband. So that’s what we did. While my creative juices suffered as everything went into building a company, I knew that someday I would return to my passion.

And I did—only it would be fifteen years later before I restarted writing again and that was a few months after turning 50. Which—gulp—was nearly five years ago now. Wow—how time flies!

My debut novel, Derailed, was written during that early time, as were many short stories. One of those shorts featured another PI who’d been a bit disgraced and was looking for redemption. (Hmmmm, there might be a theme in some of my stories!)

However, I’d written that noirish style short story for a particular magazine. And just as soon as I had it polished and ready to submit, the magazine shut down. Okay—so that story wasn’t going anywhere for the time being, so I set it aside right along with my writing.

Fast forward to my after-50-writing-life, and there was a call for short stories inspired by music of the 1960s. Well, as a child of the ‘60s, how was I going to pass up that opportunity!?

That’s when I pulled out my short story from all those years ago. I spent some time overhauling it and gave it a new title to reflect the theme of the anthology. I chose BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO (Neil Sedaka). A month or so later, the story was accepted into the anthology: PEACE, LOVE, AND CRIME: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY MUSIC OF THE ‘60S. That anthology released in November.

There are so many fun stories in this anthology, 22 to be exact, including The Preacher’s Daughter by Jack Bates, Spirit in the Sky by Claire Murphy, Mercy by Joseph S. Walker, Nights in White Satin by Wendy Harrison, All the Lonely People by Maxim Jakubowski, and Suspicious Minds by John M. Floyd. And they range from cozy to noir—something to fit everyone’s mystery taste!

I hope you’ll check it out. And after you’ve read mine—shoot me a note! I’d love to hear what you thought!

Here are the links for it:

The Untreed Reads StoreDriveThruFictionBarnes and NobleAmazon