Well, the folks over at SleuthSayers, the mystery blog I write for, have me contributing a post on this, the deadest reading day of the year, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when all good Americans are out spending themselves blind. Not to be outdone, I have managed to blame the entire Black Friday concept on short story writers, the very same folks who operate the SleuthSayers blog. I know, it’s wacky clickbait premise, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. My argument is based on one of the oldest American Christmas traditions…

As a follow-up to Denise’s book birthday announcement yesterday, I thought I’d share two articles I have written in the past on the subject of Edgar Allan Poe and his editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, the so-called Mother of Thanksgiving. It’s an interesting story because Hale in the 19th century Hale was the editor of the largest magazine in nation. And it was a women’s magazine, exclusively.

Poe is not known for writing for women, specifically, or even men, but scaring the shinola out of all genders equally…