Hello Peeps, Hopefully you’re surviving the winter as well as the recent rock-your-world episodes of Downton Abbey. (Pass the tissues, please.) This is just a quick note to let those of you in Pittsburgh know I’ll be giving a talk at the Carnegie Library in Carnegie, Pa, this Saturday, February 9, at noon. Smart readers will recognize this as Panna Kennedy’s place of employment, a key setting in Timeless Desire. The talk is entitled, “Through the Storage Room Door: How Libraries (and especially the Carnegie Carnegie) Inspired a Romance Novel.” For would-be authors out there, I’ll also be talking about the path to becoming a published writer and share a little bit about my next project as well. I think you’ll enjoy visiting one of Andrew Carnegie’s earliest libraries, dedicated in 1901 or 1902, I think.

And while there is no larger-than-life statue of Colonel Bridgewater in the library, I can offer you a picture here of the statue that served as the inspiration for him, that of General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, hero of both the American and Polish Revolutionary Wars, which stands in downtown Philadelphia. Any Sherlock Holmes fans out there? I continue to be entertained by the fact that Sherlockians appear to have an endless appetite for the character. I, who call myself a Sherlockian, am currently enjoying not only the Cumberbatch/Freeman and Downey/Law versions, but I find myself quite taken with the Jonny Lee Miller/Lucy Liu version as well. It seems the addition of sexual tension improves a story I didn’t even realize needed improvement. So that’s three current versions I’m following, and if you were to offer me three or four more, I suspect I’d be enjoying them, too. I’m not a purist (let’s not forget who brought time travel to Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett,) so I don’t mind the writers having fun with the story. I like writers who push the boundaries a little, so long as it’s clear they're doing it with fondness.

All of which brings me to my survey. Which Sherlock Holmes version is your favorite? Click here to vote. Hope to see you at my talk this Saturday. Before I sign off, here's a delightful take on Downton Abbey for you. Gwyn

old.cready.com gwyn@cready.com Gwyn Cready , Romance Novelist on Facebook @GwynCready on Twitter Copyright©2013 Gwyn Cready. All rights reserved. Author photos copyright ©2013 Garen DiBartolomeo. Website design by avoCreative. Illustrations of author courtesy of Design-Her-Gals.