If you know me at all you will know that Nancy Drew has been a huge influence in my life. The Hidden Staircase was the first crime fiction title I ever read, and I have been reading, writing and thinking about crime fiction ever since. I was seven at the time, so that was a few years ago. (Or, in the olden days,as my own seven year old would say.)
The first Nancy Drew title - Secret of the Old Clock
So, I was just tickled to realize recently that Nancy Drew and I have the same publisher. Really! Check here for all the titles in the Nancy Drew series published by Simon & Schuster.
Here’s another fact: a few weeks ago, a box of ARCs arrived. For those of you not familiar with the term, an ARC is an Advanced Reading Copy – the copies that publishers send out to authors, readers, media and reviewers before publication. It’s the magic that happens behind the scenes, so that the book reviews just happen to be published in the paper the same day that the books hit the shelves.
ARCs are cool. Here’s what the box of Confined Space ARCs looked like when it arrived:
Of course, the box does not look like that any more. It’s almost empty. There is just one ARC left, but more about that in a second.
Last week, Simon & Schuster had an ARC give away on Goodreads. They gave away 20 ARCs to readers, but you had to be in Canada to win.
I know I have lots of blog readers and Facebook friends and Twitter tweeps all over the world, so here is what I am going to do:
I’m going to give away my very last ARC. I will send in anywhere in the world.
What do you have to do? Tell me your Nancy Drew story, of course!
Tell me how Nancy Drew influenced you. Or tell me about the time you solved a mystery like Nancy Drew. Or you got locked in a closet by burglars and got out by your wits alone. Or the time you tied a scarf on your head and drove a blue roadster. Leave your Nancy Drew story in the comments below.
Of course my Nancy Drew story is no secret. It was one of my very first posts on this blog, and you can find it here.
Leave your Nancy Drew story in the comments below, on or before Tuesday, May 1st. If your story is the best you will win an ARC – mailed directly to your door! (Definition of best? Either funniest or most inspiring.) If there are lots of great stories, the jury (me) reserves the right to make a random selection from top entries.
The winner will be announced on this blog next Wednesday, May 2nd.
The new site looks AMAZING! And, coincidentally, I still have my childhood copy of The Secret of the Old Clock on my bookshelf downstairs. But I can’t think of a pivotal Nancy Drew story to tell! Maybe if you said… ahem… Sweet Valley High…
Tanya, the judges have conferred and ruled that a story such as: “Why I read Sweet Valley High and not Nancy Drew” or “Why I kept my copy of The Secret of the Old Clock” or “What I hope my daughter learns from Nancy Drew” would all be acceptable.
I have no words, you have them all. I am sooooo excited for you. Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys were favourites when I grew up, when Jacquie grew up and she collected every one for Matthew. Hmmm, not sure if she sent him Nancy Drew. So, Deryn Collier, I am looking forward to your launch in Creston and the Nelson Brewing Company and Nelson Library sounds very exciting. Cannot figure out how to subscribe to this blog. See you soon. Big hugs for my boys. Lois
Gramma Lois! So excited to see you at the launch in Creston. The blog subscription button should be set up no, if you want to try again.
So I have to say that I am looking forward to reading your book eventhough I don’t usually read crime fiction. As for reading Nancy Drew…while you were reading Nancy I was watching the Carol Burnett Show and the Muppets. Perhaps “Confined Space” will spark the need to find out who done it. =) Casey
I would like to hear more about this Carol Burnett lady. Why is she better than Nancy Drew? This might be a story. We do ship to your neck of the woods, Ms. Casey.
Can’t wait until we can get this in the states! I not only read, but owned, every Nancy Drew book there was. I sort of preferred those bastions of virile do-gooders, the Hardy Boys, but Nancy was no slouch. Though I got into all sorts of trouble when I tried to imitate her sleuthing skills and followed that one uncle (you know, the one everybody watches sideways) to see what he was hiding and then proceeded to stack every one of his whiskey fifths on the Thanksgiving table. Thought everyone would be impressed by my powers of observation and stealth. Yeah, not so much.
Oh my word Karla! What a brave young sleuth you were! Thank you for sharing your story. I laughed so hard…well, I’ll be wiping tea off the keyboard for a few days.
I love this! I first fell in love with the idea of reading because of Nancy Drew. Before I could reach chapter books, I would page through one of her books pretending to I knew what was written on the pages. I can still remember how terribly I wanted to know what the words meant. The fun part was though, that I ‘read’ the same book a hundred times and could make up a new story each time
Thanks Juliana! Sounds like Nancy Drew was just the beginning for making up stories…I love how so many writers were inspired by her adventures.
The Nancy Drew book pictured in your post, and many others from the same era, are still on the shelves in my very small town’s very small library. I read them all as a child and young teen. When I moved back to my hometown, I went back to the library expecting everything to be different and those books to be long gone. They were still in the exact same spot. I could have found them blindfolded. They still had the date due cards in the backs with my name written on every single card. The first story I ever wrote was a Nancy Drew fanfiction. That was in the second grade…about 31 years ago. It was called “The Mystery of the Golden Lion.” I remember one Nancy Drew book that had something to do with perfume, and after I read it, I spent an entire summer trying to make perfume out of wildflowers. I wrote the story of my little library and its vintage Nancy Drew books into one of my books. Going back to that bookcase, taking one of those Nancy Drew books off the shelf and opening it is like going back thirty years. How many things like that stay exactly the same and accessible after three decades?
Thanks so much for commenting, Robin. I loved your post about your return visit to your hometown library. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it here: http://robinashe.blogspot.ca/2011/10/my-first-library.html
I think that sense of possibility and promise- maybe we can make perfume out of wildflowers, maybe we can do anything – is part of the magic of Nancy Drew books. It’s a feeling I remember from my childhood, and yes, one that comes alive again when I see the book covers still today.
At age 12 I acquired a great new best friend and her more than amazing mom who was a white witch who practised her art only for good. Oh the intrigue of walking into her house where she collected hundreds of bells and to hear her say to them ‘Sing’ and they did.The mystery of her ‘art’ was the magic and as amateur sleuths Pam and I spent many an hour trying to contact the spirits strangely enough, often behind a closed closet with our noses pressed up against the surrendered trappings of the cold. All of this time was a mystery and a secret, just like the ones Nancy Drew used to keep while she figured out the best way to solve them. My mom were never permitted me to be exposed to the ways of witches so we were a secret society of two.
Oh, very sneaking sleuthing, Sheree! Did you ever figure out how she made the bells sing? Did your mom ever catch on? A mystery indeed!
My friend Nitara and I were obsessed with Mystery. We wanted to be spies, P.I.’s, or cops. My older brothers had the entire Hardy boy series. We read them all. We didn’t like the fact that the boys in the stories were the heroes, because we were at constant odds with our two brothers. When we discovered the Nancy Drew series in the school library, we were empowered to be the best detectives we could be.
We were funny to watch I am sure. We wore our parents trench coats and as big of hats as we could find. We carried around little badges made of cardboard that we could flip open to expose our ‘badges’, which were really quarters taped to tin foil. We took my dads extra reading glasses so we could throw them on at the right time to read an important document. We skulked around in shadows and would hop around corners accusingly. So Fun!
My favorite thing we did was make secret codes, we had hundreds of them. We thought they were un-crackable. We hid all sorts of “important” documents and treasures all over our properties. We had to work at night to avoid the prying eyes of the boys in our lives. There were detailed maps outlining every step and coordinate needed to locate our booty. The brothers were clueless….we thought.
Years later my friend moved and dug up all of our secret stuff. Shoe boxes full of codes, pictures of boys we liked, pages from magazines etc.. Written in bold marker on the top of every page was notes from my brother. He had written, ‘nice reading girls’ , ‘Top Secret’ and ‘great codes’ all over our precious documents. I guess we didn’t hide them so well after all.
My friend and I still as close as ever and we love to talk about our fun days as detectives. Great memories!
What a wonderful story Renée! Thank you so much for sharing. Those pesky brothers!
Like Gramma Lois I can’t figure out how to subscribe to this wonderful new blog of yours! Are there special Gramma instructions? Am I missing something?
There is a button on the lower right hand side that says “FOLLOW”. Click that, enter your email…and voila! Email updates.
Hi Deryn,
The countdown is on!!! You must be very excited. I don’t have any Nancy Drew favourites, I did read them, but I was more into the Bobbsey Twins and Enid Blyton’s “Famous Five” (sorry its the English in me and the fact my Nanny would bring the books from England when she came to visit).
Hope to see you at the Chamber for your reading here in Creston……Cheers Ann
Ann – thanks so much for commenting! I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Creston launch as well!
Aaaaah … fellow Nancy Drew admirers! My daughter now has my aged collection of N.D. hardbacks on her bookshelf … I lugged those precious novels with me all the way from Zimbabwe I’ll have you know just so I could pass them on to her. Actually, there’s Enid Blyton, Noddy and a few others in that box too!! I LOVED the suspense of crime and mystery plots but Nancy Drew was my real favourite though I read all my brothers’ Hardy Boys books too. Riveting stuff in my tween years and many fond memories of pretending to be detectives with my brothers and sisters in the African bush … though I think we’re rather abashed to divulge the imaginative stories we concocted!! CONGRATS Deryn … am so excited to read your book SOON!