Carol Potenza

New Mexico Mysteries

New Mexico history, places and events

New Year’s Resolution: Write a Mystery Challenge from Me to You

We’ll follow Demystifying the Beats and write a mystery What made someone who’d only written scientific papers and grants want to write fiction? (That would be me) An eReader for Christmas. This gift from my sisters-in-law was amazing. It allowed me to take dozens in not hundreds of books anywhere and read anytime. Then I started to notice that the ebooks I read had major events at certain percentages in the books: 25%, 50% was usually a big one, 75%, etc. And as someone who analyzed data, this was like an epiphany. Just like in a scientific paper submitted to …

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Have you ever seen a ghost?

I have, one time. That’s all.  Even though most of my books contain supernatural or paranormal elements, and I’ve actively looked (ask me about Ghost Tours that I’ve been on and the cemeteries I’ve explored), I think my mind is too scientifically ordered. That might sound intellectually snooty, that I’m just more logic driven, but it’s not. I know people who do see and hear and experience the supernatural, and I believe them. Why are you getting this story now? We’re past October and Halloween when the internet is flooded with creepy tales and directions to creepy places. It came …

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With the fall comes rattlesnakes

Let’s talk about rattlesnakes. Fall is here and the temperatures have dropped in New Mexico. It’s even froze and snowed in the northern part of the state. Evenings, nights and mornings are much cooler, but the daytime temperatures can still reach into the eighties and nineties. This is the time of year to find snakes in neighborhoods. Why? Because asphalt, blacktop and rock walls soak in the warmth of the sun all day long and are magnets for cold blooded reptiles as the air cools off at night. We found a rattlesnake—the first one we’ve seen all year—on top of …

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