Monthly Meetings

Monthly Meeting: October 2018

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Bury the Lead, with author, detective, historian and medical examiner Archer Mayor

NOTE THE EARLY START TIME:

October 20, 11:00-12:00, Bethlehem Library

Archer Mayor is the author of the highly acclaimed Vermont-based mystery series featuring detective Joe Gunther, which the Chicago Tribune describes as “the best police procedurals being written in America.” His 29th book, Bury the Lead, is due out in September (Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press). 

Protagonist Lt. Joe Gunther works for the Brattleboro, Vermont, police department. Books about his case-solving prowess have been completed about once a year since 1988, and have been published in five languages (if you count British). They routinely gather high praise from such sources as The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the New Yorker, often appearing on annual “ten best” lists.

Mayor’s novels are based on actual experience in the field. Closely aligned to the Gunther series are his experiences while working as a police officer and a firefighter/EMT in Vermont. In addition, he is currently still working part-time as a death investigator for the Vermont State Medical Examiner’s office. The result adds depth, detail and veracity to his characters and their tribulations.

Free and open to the public!
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Monthly Meeting: 15 Sep 2018

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Mortuary Science: The Ins and Outs, w/Lori Q. Purcell
September 15, 11:30-12:30, Bethlehem Library

Lori Q. Purcell was named chairperson for the Mortuary Science Department at Hudson Valley Community College in 2016. She has nearly 30 years of experience in the funeral business, began teaching as an adjunct at HVCC in 2005 and became a full-time faculty member in 2008. 

Purcell began her career at the Bowen Funeral Home in Latham and continued to work in the industry with the Parker Brothers Memorial Funeral Home until 2014. A native of Newburgh, Purcell said she always knew she wanted to work in the funeral business. “I grew up between two funeral homes on either end of my street. I knew it was something I always wanted to do,” she said. 

Purcell is one of a growing number of women who have entered what was once seen as a male-dominated profession. According to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), 57 percent of mortuary science students in the United States are women, and that number has been steadily growing over the past several decades. In the late 1970s, according to the NFDA, only 13 percent of students in similar programs were women. 

Bring your questions; our speaker’s leaving a block of time at the end for Q & A.

 

Monthly Meeting: 18 August 2018

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AUGUST SPECIAL EVENT:

PRIVATE TOUR, CHERRY HILL MUSEUM: “The 1827 Cherry Hill Murder”

Saturday, August 18, 2018

TOUR BEGINS PROMPTLY AT 11:00 AM

Cherry Hill Museum, 523 S Pearl St, Albany, NY 12202 (Directions below)

OPTIONAL LUNCH AND MEETING TO FOLLOW, AT LOCAL RESTAURANT TBD

In 1827, a murder occurred at Albany’s Cherry Hill Farm, home of the Van Rensselaer family. The crime aroused tremendous interest, and the trial culminated in the last public hanging in Albany. The apparent crime of passion uncovered simmering issues of the day, including women’s roles and legal rights, social class, punishment and the law, and slavery in New York. Hear the words of those involved in the crime and decide whom you think was guilty or innocent.

Monthly Meeting: 21 July 2018

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Via Getty Images

JULY FILM FEST:
“The Mystery of Agatha Christie with David Suchet” (2014, 56 min)
Saturday, July 21, 2018,
Meeting: 10:30 AM; Film: 11:30-12:30
Bethlehem Public Library, 451 Delaware Ave, Delmar, NY 12054

Cool off with Maven pals at our July film-fest, this year featuring a wonderful documentary starring the embodiment of Chrisite’s Hercule Poirot, David Suchet. Program and popcorn are free and open to the public. Bring friends or make it a date!

David Suchet, TV’s Poirot, embarks “on a journey to learn more about the woman who created Poirot and whose books remain outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. . .He explores the close links between Christie’s extraordinary life and her work and discovers what it was about the woman from a small seaside town that allowed her to become the best-selling murder mystery writer in history.”

Monthly Meeting: 19 May 2018

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Mavens of MayhemMonthly Program News

We’re adjusting monthly meeting times as follows, to allow for more engagement with each other and with each program’s content.

10:30-11:15 – Chapter meeting
11:15-11:30 – Overflow content and coffee break
11:30-12:30 – Featured Program (Always open to the public)

Special programs and field trips will be announced well in advance. Snow and other emergency cancellations will be posted on the website. It always pays to check the website before driving over: www.upperhudsoninc.com.

Murderous March participant feedback told us that there was too little time for each of the day’s events. We realized that we were rushing the monthly programs, too. So thank you, Confab commenters!

Coming up on May 19th: Researcher extraordinaire Michael Catoggio will offer us “Cleopatra’s Nose: Adventures in Research” starting at 11:30 am. Those of you at Murderous March will remember Michael as our panel’s delightful moderator and one of three workshop teachers. Michael felt that he had too much content for an hour, so Mavens President Frankie Bailey offered to solve his problem.  Et voilà, we get to learn with Michael again! I suspect that this presentation will be sprinkled with engaging anecdotes. Don’t miss out.

Monthly program presentations are free and open to the public. 

Writers’ Supports

  1. Mystery writing group is starting up again. It will be led by Carol Pouliot (co-led by Frankie Bailey) on meeting-day Saturdays, immediately following the monthly program. Watch for description and dates/times from Carol.
  2. Mavens of Mayhem and East Greenbush Community Library are offering six free writing sessions this summer. These are non-critical opportunities for writers of any level to write in any genre, in supportive company. Rhonda Rosenheck (published poet and humorist; unpublished short story writer) will host the structured sessions: 15 minutes of settling in; 90 minutes of quiet writing; 30 minutes of appreciative sharing. Free and open to the public. Bring your own snack and drink. Pre-registration is strongly suggested to ensure a place. www.eastgrenbushlibrary.org (Registration may not be available until May.)

 

Fridays from 1:45-4 pm:

June 15, 29
July 13, 27
August 17, 31

East Greenbush Community Library, 10 Community Way, East Greenbush. Come to any or all.

Monthly Meeting: 21 April 2018

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Mavens of Mayhem

Mavens of Mayhem, Sisters In Crime
Monthly Meeting
Saturday, 21 April  2018
10:30 am Business Meeting, 11 am Public Program
Community Room
Bethlehem Public Library
451 Delaware Avenue, Delmar

Featured Speaker: Robert Knightly
My Perspective on Police Shootings

Mr. Knightly joined the New York City Police Department in 1967. For most of the next 20 years he patrolled the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan as patrol officer and sergeant, except for stints as speech writer, Police Academy Instructor and lawyer within the Department. He was a Patrolman during the time of the Knapp Commission investigation into police corruption and after, in the Department’s Post-Knapp revival. He knew the reformer Frank Serpico and the notorious ‘Prince of the City’, Robert Leuci. He was on the streets of Bushwick, Brooklyn on July 13, 1977, when the lights went out all over the city triggering a night and a day of looting, recounted in “The Bronx Is Burning”.

In 1989, Mr. Knightly joined the New York City Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division, as a trial lawyer. For the next 18 years, he worked in the Manhattan and Queens County Criminal Courts. Born and raised in New York City, he relocated to Albany, New York in 2007. He now practices in the Criminal and Family Courts of Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady and Saratoga Counties…and writes fiction.   robertknightly.blogspot.com

March Meeting 3/17: Radha Vatsal!

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Don’t forget Murderous March
24th March at East Greenbush Library!

Radha Vatsal: ‘The Winding Path to Publication’

From idea to published novels, with tentative drafts, intense historical research, agent queries, and tense-change rewrites along the way.  What one writer learned about the writing process with all its ups and downs, and how getting published is just the beginning of a new stage. 

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Photo by Juliette Conroy

Radha Vatsal is the author of A Front Page Affair  (Library Journal’s Debut Mystery of the Month), and  Murder Between the Lines (Book Riot’s 100 Must-Read Books Of US Historical Fiction) set in WWI-era New York. She received her Ph.D. from the English Department at Duke University and her writing has appeared in the online editions of the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Smithsonian magazine. She is also co-editor of the Women Film Pioneers Project.  She was born in Mumbai, India and lives in New York City.

Special guest for our March 17th Meeting:
Mavens of Mayhem (SinC) Monthly Meeting
Bethlehem Public Library
Business Meeting 10:30am
Open to the Public 11:00 am for Radha Vatsal