Guest Author
May, 2003
Silvia Foti
author of Skullduggery
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Author Bio:
Silvia Foti was born on a late summer day in 1961 on the South Side of Chicago, and she has lived on that side of town ever since. At Marquette Grammar School, her eighth grade teacher encouraged her to pursue a career in writing. The idea of living a life as a creative writer, however, shocked her Lithuanian parents, so they encouraged her to pursue a more "sensible" career such as accounting or law. Silvia struck a compromise with them and chose journalism instead. At Maria High School, she took her first journalism course and didn't mind it. At St. Xavier College, she majored in Mass Communications and became co-editor of the school newspaper with a friend because she was too scared to run the biweekly all by herself.
Then she compounded the problem of pursuing a misguided career by going to Northwestern University and getting her Master's degree in Journalism. From there, she launched a livelihood in journalism, writing and editing for twelve years at the Academy of General Dentistry. Writing about dentistry exclusively, however, eventually drove her nuts, so on the side, she began to freelance for other newspapers and magazines. In 1998, she launched her own writing company called Lotus Ink, and has written for a variety of print and electronic clients, including the Chicago Tribune, Southtown Daily, Chicago Parent Newsmagazine, Crain's Chicago Business, L.A. Parent Newsmagazine, and Real Woman Magazine.
Her passion, however, has been creative writing, and unbeknownst to her "sensible" family of origin, she secretly began to write a mystery novel, treating it like a "dirty little secret" that no one, but her husband, knew about. She became a "double-life creative," a phrase she invented to signify the life that many creatives lead. During the day, she had a "real" job as a journalist, and during the night she had a "dream" job as a mystery writer. Realizing that the leap from journalism to creative fiction was greater than she ever imagined, she became desperate and enrolled in a home-correspondence course through the Writer's Digest program.
Through that program, she met Robert Gover, New York Times best-selling author of "One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding" (reprinted by Creative Arts Book Company, 2000). He became her creative writing mentor and gave her the encouragement she didn't receive anywhere else to write her first novel.
After a pregnancy of seven years, Skullduggery was born and accepted for publication by Creative Arts Book Company in Berkeley, California. Today Silvia continues to lead a "double-life," and along with her journalism writing, she teaches the basics of public speaking (Speech 101) at St. Xavier University and English 101 at Daley College in Chicago. Most recently, she has begun a creativity coaching practice in which she coaches other artists to unblock so that they can unleash their creativity. In her journey, she has learned that dream jobs can become real once a double-life creative receives support and encouragement from someone---anyone.She won a Parenting Publications of America Honorable Mention Award for her spot-news feature "Are we scaring our kids silly?" published in the Chicago Parent News Magazine, 1998. She also won a Morris Fishbein
Award of Excellence for an article that appeared in the Academy of General Dentistry's newsmagazine AGD Impact in 1991.
She is fluent in Spanish and Lithuanian. She resides in Central Stickney with her husband Franco Foti (whom she met while living in Buenos Aires, Argentina) and their two children, Alessandra and Gabriel, ages eight and four. She is a member of the National Writers Union and Sisters in Crime.
This month's featured book giveaway:
Excerpt from Skullduggery:
Alexandria Vilkas, reporter on supernatural topics, launches a feature on Crystal Skull but is skeptical of its metaphysical powers---until the Chicago mayor dies in her arms. Now the prime suspect in the mayor's murder, Alex needs to clear her name, fast.
To enter a drawing for a free copy of Skullduggery, subscribe to Silvia Foti's Lotus Ink newsletter on creativity. Its mission is to help increase creativity, productivity, and self-esteem. Its content is an investigation of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, psychological (and maybe even paranormal!) blocks to creativity, productivity, and self-esteem, as well explorations of the various "block-busters."
To subscribe email her your name, mailing and email addresses. The winner will be selected from emails received by June 1, 2003.
I was on my back with the Chicago mayor sprawled on top of me. I was having trouble breathing. Pain radiated along my left arm. Above me, a collage of faces, aghast, quickly assembled. A woman leaned over. She was so close, I smelled her cleavage. Her bra was midnight blue, a perfect match to her gown. Her face contorted like one of those twistable squishy dolls. And then she shrieked.
"He’s dead! He’s dead! The mayor is dead!”
This wasn’t my fault. I thought he was drunk or something, the way he was acting.
I looked over to my right, past the mayor’s left ear. He had three long black curly hairs sprouting from his helix. Something was missing. What was it? I searched through my mind.
“The skull,” I gasped. “Crystal Skull is missing.”
If I had that skull in my hands this very minute, I’d smash it to pieces. It has been nothing but trouble for the past six weeks. That was when my editor, Alyce Brownlee, first told me about it.
“You’re my best reporter on occult phenomenon,” she said, after assigning me the story.
That’s because I don’t believe in half the stuff I write about, I wanted to answer. But I didn’t. I was close to maxing out on another credit card and didn’t have another source of income.
My assignment was to follow the skull, get to know it, understand its history, and research its meaning. Alyce promised to make a big splash of it in Gypsy Magazine, her national monthly on supernatural happenings.
“Just picture your byline over a full-color shot of Crystal Skull,” Alyce said, gesturing wildly. “Alexandria Vilkas in fourteen-point bold.”
Seeing my byline in print always excited me, but even for a 36-pointer, I knew that this story wasn’t worth it.
And here I was on New Year’s Eve with the Chicago mayor sprawled on top of me. Jesus! When were they going to get this guy off me? I squirmed under his weight.
“Don’t move!” a policeman ordered. “Someone will be here right away.”
Hey, where was I going? My timing sucked. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes earlier that I’d spotted the mayor and his wife coming toward our table. They made a complementary Mexican couple. He was big and thick, and she was small and thin. At any rate, I was not in the mood to deal with them. It was near midnight on New Year’s Eve, and I was tired.
I was with my date at The Crystal Palace, another new theme restaurant in River North, and it was filled to capacity. This eatery had a mystical motif with dancing gypsies sashaying between tables, astrological charts of famous people adorning the walls, and big, jagged crags of crystal hanging and twirling from the ceiling, ricocheting light. It was an elegant end-of-the-year bash with streamers and balloons. On the face of it, it was just a New Year’s Eve party.
But it was also much more than that.
All of the guests received specially engraved invitations to this grande affair. The guest list included, besides the mayor and his wife, the Windy City’s wind-up well-to-do’s. You had your aldermen, your actors, your bankers, and their significant others. Some even came with their wives. The host was Edgar Sheldon, billionaire tycoon, who had his finger up everyone’s business. Including mine.
Like I said, I was here on an assignment for Gypsy Magazine, but I wasn’t getting any material for my story. I mean, who wanted to talk to a reporter at a New Year’s Eve party?
“Just absorb the atmosphere,” instructed Alyce, who was seated at my table. I worked on absorbing the champagne. At ten minutes to midnight, my trouble began.
I looked over to Juan Gonzales, my date. He was the mayor’s press secretary. It was clear the mayor and his wife were heading our way. Juan sprung from his chair like a jack-in-the-box clown. He tried very hard to have all the right moves.
I gulped down my champagne, grabbed my white linen napkin, dotted my lips, and stood up alongside Juan.
"Mrs. Morales, you look absolutely stunning," gushed Juan to the mayor's wife, as he reached over to shake her hand. She held his hand and wouldn't let go. The floor was filled with dancers swaying to the Big Band sound. Still in the clutches of the mayor's manicured wife, Juan was compelled to ask her to dance. Both looked at the mayor. He nodded. They walked into the dancing crowd.
Juan threw a look back at me. I let him know with the glare in my eyes that I was not pleased. He knew this look of mine. Then, for the sake of the mayor standing next to me, I pasted a wide grin on my face. Very wide.
"You look beautiful tonight, Alexandria," the mayor said.
"Oh thank you,” I answered. “I wasn't exactly sure what to wear."He scanned me. He was going over every nook and cranny. Was I enjoying that? What was I supposed to make of his brazen stare?
Maybe I asked for it. I was wearing a long black, body-hugging gown that revealed my entire back, from the neck to below the waist, with only one thin black strand connecting the back of the dress at my shoulder blades. I had my hair piled into a dozen twists and twirls.
I had barely eaten. But I’d done some serious drinking.
Whoops!
My ankle collapsed, causing me to lose my balance, and I fell right into the mayor's arms. Mayor Bernardo Morales had fine features--thick black hair that was slightly longish, a squarish jaw, penetrating brown eyes, and delicate, yet large, sensitive hands. I always noticed men’s hands. When he ran for election four years ago, women in Chicago swooned. He was the first Mexican-American to run Chicago.
"I'm so sorry," I said, trying to compose myself. As I regained my balance, Mayor Morales grabbed my arm and steered me toward the dance floor.
I was in a jam this time. I was going to have to waltz with the mayor.
As I lifted my right arm in preparation for the waltz, I looked over the restaurant. The theme was crystal, and pieces of crystal were everywhere. Big colorful pieces were perched in the center of the guests' round tables, surrounded by white candles. Some crystals were carefully polished while others were rustic and jagged. Small fragments were embedded into the walls, reflecting a magical luminescence.
The grandiose decorative centerpiece of this evening, however, was Crystal Skull. I had been covering it so intensively that I began to think of it as a person. I didn’t actually name it, but I called it, well, Crystal Skull. Anyway, “it” looked over the crowd from a plexiglass pedestal. Not too far from the entrance. In fact, I touched it on my way in. For luck. Crystal Skull added a special sparkle to the evening. When was this waltz going to end? One, two, three. One, two, three. I moved to the sedate beat. The mayor fixed his eyes on me. He started to grope me. Quite the lady’s man! I took another deep breath and held it.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" asked the mayor, looking a little strained.
"Why, yes, immensely, sir," I stammered, letting out my breath. Politicians and their libidos.
"So, you came with Juan tonight," the mayor said, as he held me even more tightly by the waist. He already had a mistress. What was he squeezing me for?
"Yes, sir, we both went to journalism school together," I said, avoiding the impulse to squirm.
"So I understand," said the mayor, breathing quickly and heavily. "Juan can't stop talking about Miss Alexandria Vilkas and her talents."
One, two, three. One, two, three. I looked down and saw a sea of pumps and flat heels graze the floor. The waltz continued.
"Do you like to dance?" the mayor asked.
"Yes, I love it," I lied.
One, two, three. One, two, three. The waltz finally ended, and the countdown to usher in the New Year was about to begin.
"Perhaps you should look for your wife," I suggested.
"Oh, there's plenty of time for that," he answered, grabbing hold of the inside tender part of my upper arm. He was starting to look sweaty. Was that a little twitch?
Ten!.... Nine!.... Eight!... There must have been a thousand people chanting the last seconds backward as the New Year was about to launch. The lights dimmed. Seven!..... Six!.... Five!...I was feeling giddy thinking about my pillow. Four!...Three!...Two!....One!
Happy New Year!!!!!
Here we were, well into the twenty-first century. Cigarettes still weren’t outlawed, but they cost a small fortune. The band blared "Auld Lang Syne." Streamers descended from the ceiling, confetti snowed down, and the mayor bent toward me. It was going to be the kissy-kiss.
He threw his arms around me, clutching me. He buried his lips into my neck. It was sort of a slobber, really.
This man will stop at nothing, I thought, taking a step back. But then he began to feel heavy. I mean, really heavy. In fact, I was holding up his entire weight. On top of everything, I had to deal with a drunk mayor. What was that twitch? When will those lights go back on?
I put my arms around him to hold him. I lost my balance. I fell backward, trying to hold him up with my right arm. I broke my fall with my left.
Ouch! My left arm! I felt and heard a crack.
The mayor fell right on top of me. People stopped kissing each other.
The music stopped.
"Turn on the lights! Turn on the lights!"
The lights came on.
There I was on the floor with the mayor sprawled on top of me, his legs spread over mine, his arms folded around me. I felt his hand lodged between my back and the floor. His face looked ashen, sweaty. He smelled like fish. I shook him with my right hand. My left hand was killing me.
“Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, are you all right?” I asked.
He wouldn’t budge. His eyes were wide open.
I tried to squirm my way out from under him.
A woman in a midnight blue gown leaned over. She shook the mayor. A sea of faces crowded around. I was having trouble breathing.
“He’s dead! He’s dead!” shrieked the woman. "The mayor's dead! The Chicago mayor is dead!”
Read online reviews of Skullduggery: Murder and Mayhem Book Club and The Writers Room
Publication date: September 2002, 2nd printing
May 2003
Publisher: Creative Arts Book Company
ISBN: 0-88739-412-4 Paperback
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