|
A sampling of the wonderful stories created by the participants (ages ranged from first grade to high school seniors) workshop participants...the stories were all created on the spot and notes scribbled on a white board, so I have tried to recreate the basic stories from memory. You should have been there!
Florida Scholastic Convention, April 2005...This time the murder of an undercover FDLE agent, thrown off a balcony complete with forensic clues, suspects and a dangerous and devious villain, solved by the intellectual and beautiful sister of the victim. Thank goodness they got poor José, the boyfriend, off the hook. I though he was headed for old smoky for a while! Carrollwood Barnes & Noble, - May, 2003...The kids crafted a wonderful mystery - the detective was a swamp monster kid, the crime was two missing baseball-playing students, kidnapped by the jealous swamp monster (our detective's third cousin), solved by following the tracks in the swamp that matched the bad swamp monsters lost shoe...plus many more intriguing and exciting details, all in a half-hour fun-filled workshop. St Petersburg Reading Festival - November, 2003...Our friend is vacationing at Fort DeSoto Park with her prize-winning show dog, when the dog is kidnapped. The trail leads to a leash hanging from a tree overhanging the water's edge, where vicious sharks circle below. The detective finds the key clue and tracks down the precious dog. Valrico Imaginative People - April, 2004...three sessions... 1) Famous show business twins are in London, walking across a dark and dreary park in the rain when one is kidnapped. Footprints and a lost scrunchie leads to the sewers and on to where the kidnapped twin is spotted through the dirty window of a gothic house. The kidnapper, a descendant of the infamous Mr Hyde, takes off in a MINI Cooper, chased by the detective twin on a Vespa Scoter straight into a police station courtyard. 2) A park tour guide at the Redwood National Forest is kidnapped when she bites into a donut filled with stolen diamonds, exposing an international jewel thief ring. The thieves are using the bakery as a cover to smuggle out stolen jewels but a pile of empty donut boxes leads our detective to rescue the kidnapped guide from the trunk of the villain's car. 3) My mind is burned out by this time and the third mystery remains a mystery to be remembered at a later time. Anyone there who remembers, contact me with the details. |
© 2000-2009 John M. Taylor |
Saturday, April 8, 2006, Mystery Writing Workshop with the Young Mystery Writers of East Pasco...Matilda, stuck on her great-aunt's farm in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma while her parents are abroad and her older brothers are working, discovers her best friend, Eddie, has been kidnapped. She talks her great-aunt in to taking them back to her home where she tracks down Luke, who she thought was a friend, but was really the hapless kidnapper.