On July 10, 2023, our first blog entry was posted for a few friends to read. This was an accomplishment years in the making. We’d talked about it vaguely for at least a couple of years and deliberated almost a year before we settled on a group name. Our to-that-point nameless writing group had existed since January 2015, but we needed a name to secure our website domain. We prepared to launch in May 2023, but the unanticipated departure of one of the founding members delayed our “go live” date as we collectively determined how best to proceed.
It’s now been two years of blogging, and the experience has taught me many things.
With adversity, not all friendships survive, and the ones that do are forged in steel. The DeadLies is not a support group but is very supportive, so none of us endures life’s challenges alone. We can rely on one another to encourage in failure, celebrate in success, find humour in despair, and calm in anger. The writing processes shared on the blog are as diverse as the individuals that comprise the group and I understand my friends and colleagues better now and assist each more effectively than before those differences were revealed. And our writing evolves and improves.
I’ve also developed a suite of skills for creating and sustaining the website. (It’s been painful—but I’ve reframed it as personal growth.) I look forward to expanding our vision for the next couple of years.
—M.G. Sondraal
The most impactful gift the DeadLies has bestowed on me is that of encouragement. Encouraging me to write. Encouraging me to FINISH my stories. Encouraging me to not succumb to the beast of perfectionism. Encouraging me to read out loud to the group. Encouraging me to finish the NaNoWriMo (RIP) challenges every November, even going as far as participating in them, even when it wasn’t their vibe. Encouraging me to submit one of my stories SOMEWHERE—I haven’t been able to push myself to complete this challenge yet, but maybe this will be the year.
I feel so fortunate to be part of a group that has added immeasurable richness to my life over the past ten years, and I look forward to the next ten years with this group of remarkable writers.
—D.M.K. Ruby
When the DeadLies started meeting in 2015, I had just entered a period of extreme upheaval in my personal life. In the beginning, I didn’t share many details with the group; I’m not sure even now if group members know what a lifeline they were to me in those early years. Our twice-monthly meetings made me feel valued, as a writer and a woman, and reminded me how much I love spending time with other storytellers.
While we’re not a support group per se, the DeadLies are an integral component of my creative and personal life. Something happens when we write together—I become more vulnerable, as a writer and as an individual—but I also feel more support from the DeadLies than I do from almost any other source. I don’t know whether that’s due to the length of time we’ve been writing together, or to our common weathering of challenge (the death of one member, the departure of another, a global pandemic), or to our support of each other through myriad family tensions, celebrations and tragedies, or just because we click as women and writers.
I can’t imagine publishing a group blog without that sort of trust and commitment.
Even before we started blogging, we’d made practical commitments to each other. We exchanged weekly accountability reports. We read each other’s work and provided comments. Periodically, we agreed to write on the same topic and then shared our work during the next meeting.
But starting a twice-monthly blog took our commitment to a new level. Suddenly we had to produce relevant content for someone other than ourselves: on time, no excuses.
Publishing a blog has made us think of ourselves as professional writers in a way that writing for ourselves could never achieve, and we now have a commitment to an outside audience (however small that audience is). In effect, publishing a blog does for a writing group what submitting a piece to a publisher does for an individual writer. It forces us to write a meaningful story for someone else, to a deadline, and to call on each other for support when we need to.
—Jillian Grant Shoichet
—Ten years. How can that be possible? It has been pure delight, resource-laden, filled to the brim with kindness, an abundance of knowledge, and a scaffolding of support.
My journey to take a local writing course came during a difficult divorce. The desire for revenge, murder, fraud, and running away were all soothed by this writing group.
Sadly, we lost a fabulous member to cancer, there was another terrible divorce, and we lost discourse with another. All these life events led us to find an amazing addition to our group.
As the DeadLies, we will continue to create. I hope our blogs, an extension of our group, will help you through your writing journey.
—Laina Kappel
January, 2019:
I knew it.
I knew that Christmas short story competition was a trap.
As a loyal member of CSIS—(No, I will NOT be typing out Canadian Security Intelligence Service every time I need to refer to my employer. You’re welcome, poor intern tasked with microfilming these entries)—I guess I expected better? Un-Fudging-Believable, if you’ll pardon my penalty box.
In my defence, the theme was Why did grandma get run over by a reindeer? How could anyone resist that?!
In retrospect, I did too good of a job on Santa’s character development. Also, I should’ve cut that bit with the mafia love triangle.
Anyway, yeah. Instead of a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Tim Hortons, I got an assignment. WORK.
There’s been chatter about a group of women “crime writers” on Vancouver Island. They meet up regularly and discuss murder. CSIS is 90% certain that one of these women is an actual serial killer. (Apparently, all their search histories are super sus.)
The assignment is to infiltrate the group, make friends, and find the perp.
Try not to get murdered.
The usual.
……………………………
March, 2019:
For future reference, dear CSIS, “try not to get murdered” would be a whole lot easier if you all didn’t set me up in a sketchy apartment run by a literal sociopath.
On a related note—I might have to “take care of” my upstairs neighbour.
The constant 3 a.m. rap-a-thon is destroying my inner peace.
……………………………
November, 2019:
I’M IN!
I stealthily snuck in with the tried and tested tactic of taking a mystery writing course offered by the group and asking all the right questions in a non-threatening manner. Very sneaky of me. Kind of reminded me of that time I talked my way into the Vatican, pretending to be a research assistant for Dan Brown. This was a whole new level of nerve-wracking, though. (Although I have stared down the barrel of a gun, this was worse. I had to share some of my writing with the class, but the only stories I had on hand were Star Wars fanfics. Had to improvise on the fly.)
One member, M.G. Sondraal, has been watching me closely.
Does she know? Or … is she thinking about how best to dismember me with an axe?
Perhaps more importantly—I haven’t received an employee expense account yet. Whom do I bill the cost of this course to?
And when will I get my gift card?
……………………………
March, 2020:
Neighbour upstairs has been “taken care of".
Also—
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE WORLD’S ON FIRE?!
Great. Not only is there is an actual plague happening, but ... I’m stuck trying to find the killer in a coven of women who could get away with murder.
They all have nice-sized cars, with ample trunk room, so I can’t eliminate anyone that way. Three have decent backyard space, and they are all green-thumbed. Seriously amazing gardeners. And we all know what makes the best fertilizer, don’t we?
Man.
Well, man and also seaweed (great trace minerals in kelp).
The one who doesn’t have a backyard has connections to houses all over the island. There could be a dozen skeletons squatting in a dozen basements and no one would ever know.
……………………………
September, 2020:
The group has started social-distance meetups. Thank god! Even if there is a stone-cold killer among them, I don’t care anymore. I NEED to see people again.
There has been a lot more sharing of writing projects. I have noticed a discernible shift in everyone’s mysteries. There are fewer in-person stabbings and a lot more long-distance poisons.
I wonder if serial killers, as a community, have moved over to safer killing methods in the pandemic’s wake?
Also, J.G. Shoichet has brought freshly baked bread to each meet-up. I know, I know. The loaves could be poisoned.
CSIS, rest assured. I know my duty.
To save the others, I will carefully sample as many slices and loaves as I can.
……………………………
February, 2021:
Still here. Still no gift card. Still writing—I mean, finding the killer.
Screw it.
I’m beginning to think that they're all murderers …
……………………………
April, 2022:
Three neighbours upstairs have come and gone.
… maybe I’m the serial killer …?
……………………………
March, 2023:
Been a bit.
But I am pleased to report that I’ve eliminated one of the potential targets. Not literally! But I am absolutely convinced that L. Kappel is actually a member of MI5. Her past reads like an Ian Fleming novel—he’s the guy that wrote James Bond, right? Believe you me, she makes a convincing spy. Absolutely no fear of the common punks in the neighbourhood. She does not put up with bureaucratic nonsense, either.
The one thing that gave her away? Her charming accent.
Could someone higher up the CSIS chain please confirm? (Because she’s been great about giving me car rides to and from meetups and I want to make sure we’re on the same side.)
We are still good with the Crown, yes?
Also, still waiting on that damn gift card.
……………………………
July, 2023:
The world is opening up more and more. Both M.G. Sondraal and D.M.K. Ruby have apparently noted my bread weakness. Great conversations peppered with so much lovely food. Soooo hard to resist.
Personally, I don’t think that D.M.K. Ruby is a serial killer. She is far too nice. But then again, training (and several thrillers) has taught that it’s always the nice ones.
……………………………
October, 2023:
I can say the following with absolute certainty:
1) My handlers will know that, if my body is found in a dumpster filled with pizza dough, then D.M.K. Ruby is the killer.
2) Should my death involve whiskey, then the evidence shall point to M.G. Sondraal as being the culprit. I can only pray that the proof is of exquisite quality and not Jim’s bottom shelf.
3) J.G. Shoichet is patient. She will wait until I am sick, then bring me comfort bread. Tell my family that I lived like a hobbit, and that I died happy … full of tasty, poisoned carbs.
4) If it is L. Kappel, CSIS will NEVER find the body. Either that, or I will be mistaken for a Hallowe'en decoration stuck in some new homeowner’s crawlspace.
……………………………
January, 2024:
DON’T ASK.
……………………………
February-November, 2024:
I knew I shouldn’t have asked HR about that damn Tim Hortons gift card, but I got it.
Finally!
After many, many, many assassination attempts.
Now for that iced capp.
……………………………
June, 2025:
Still alive.
Can’t say that about neighbours 4 through 7, but hey! I’m still kicking.
Concerning the assignment, you know what? I’m committed. Team DeadLies, to the end!
Yes, we have a rather particular and … peculiar set of interests, but coming together and discussing that is, as I’ve discovered, kinda therapeutic.
They are all lovely people. Truly, a supportive group of creative souls.
(And if one, or all of them, ends up on a murder podcast someday, I will be cheering them on!)
—A.T. Bennett, aka The Murder Puffin, signing out.