Welcome! Free Monologues.

Mystery novel, plays, short stories for sale.

Reference Librarian Pam Burrell of Laredo Public Library created questions for their mystery book club and has generously allowed me to post them here on my NOVEL page for your use.(Click on Novel on left side)

Order a signed copy of THE HOUNDING paperback directly from me. email me at sandra@sandradehelen.com Total cost will be $15 including postage for the USA.

My mystery novel, The Hounding, is available in both paperback and Kindle editions. Kindle is at amazon.com only for $2.99. Paperback is at both amazon.com and CreateSpace.com for $11.99. Please click on Novel page for direct links. I am now writing the second book in this Shirley Combs/Dr. Mary Watson series. It will be available SUMMER 2013.

NEWS and Coming Attractions

In Production

Fixed by Returning Heroes Playwrights

Well Arts Institute
Directed by Nannette Taylor
Workshop Facilitated by Heath Hyun Houghton and Sandra de Helen

Portland Actors Conservatory Firehouse Theater
May 3 - 11, 2013
Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 2pm
Tickets $8 online at www.wellarts.org And $10 at the door. $5 students/seniors

GREAT Review of The Hounding at Portland Book Review! mystery-crime-thrillers

Reading and book signing at Gallery 360 in Vancouver, WA May 11, 2013 6-8pm 111 W. 9th Street, 98660 I'll read from both THE HOUNDING and my soon to be released new book THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENT, and will have THE HOUNDING for sale there in paperback. Free snacks and beverages too, and hey! It's an art gallery!

New short play commissioned by {Your Name Here} as part of their fundraiser for the documentary film Girl On Girl. NYC May 20, 2013 is tentative date. Building Our Tiny House is the name of the play I'm writing for them. Three other writers will also have work featured.

January 27, 2013 8pm THE GODMOTHER at Hipbone Studio 1847 E. Burnside, Portland, Oregon as part of Fertile Ground: New Works Festival, directed by Patric Callahan, starring Anya Pearson at Tomboy McCorkle, the Godmother. Full cast wil be listed soon.

FUN INTERVIEW ON BACK PAGE. I am the guest on Back Page, a literary TV Show, interviewed by the award-winning author Jody Seay. It is on Comcast, OPB Digital, or you can watch it on http://media.oregonstate.edu/ under Arts & Culture, Back Page.

THE HOUNDING was selected by Laredo Public Library's Mystery Book Club for July 2012! What fun. The club and I Skyped for over an hour and had a terrific discussion about the book as well as about writing in general.

Read my blog: Red Crested Chatter for writing news. It's where I write about the writing process, and other people (you? I hope so!) comment with their own experiences. Lots of the followers are also authors, check out their sites.

OLDER NEWS:

JUNE 6, 2012 Singer Clashes with Cougar was performed in NYC at TaDa! as part of BLIPS! at TaDa! by {Your Name Here} Queer Theater Company. I wasn't able to attend, but they sent me lots of materials. They had a sold out audience for the show. Lots of great plays that night!

MARCH 4, 2012: Singer Clashes with Cougar was produced by Part-Time Playhouse live on Cable TV! Come be part of our audience at Studio A, MetroEast Community Media, 829 NE 8th St, Gresham, OR, 97030. Singer was directed by Karen Alexander-Brown, starring Nelda Reyes, Jennifer Lanier and David Loftus. You can see it on youtube.com. Search for Archie Washington presents SINGER CLASHES WITH COUGAR. We're at minutes 24 to 42.

FERTILE GROUND JANUARY 2012

Full-length, Asylum No More, had a reading directed by Brian Demar Jones on January 20 and 21, 2012 at 11pm. Venue: Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne, Portland, OR. (It is a companion to Blue Roses.)

KIRKUS REVIEW OF THE HOUNDING July 2012:

A female sleuth and her assistant investigate a case involving a vicious dog attack in the debut novel from de Helen, whose previous works include short stories and plays.

A wealthy matriarch is killed—a heart attack after being assailed by apparently wild pit bulls. Her daughter believes it was murder, and she enlists the help of Shirley Combs, a financial portfolio manager who works as a detective on the side. Shirley, aided by Dr. Mary Watson, compiles a list of suspects: Those who stood to inherit her mother’s fortune, those affected by her plan to save the forests, a jealous lover, her strangely absent son. Or was it simply a tragic accident? “We’ll see,” says the gumshoe. Readers may be tempted to roll their eyes at the discernible correlation between the author’s novel and a certain famous detective’s (say Shirley’s full name really fast) case involving a similar canine-inspired murder.

But mystery fans need not fret: These obvious allusions are trampled by the custom-designed Converse All Stars adorning the feet of a self-possessed and exemplary investigator. Mary, who—like the other Watson—provides narration and acts as a sounding board, describes Shirley as eccentric, but Shirley has a style all her own: She has a lab in her apartment, drives a Mercedes, and interviews people for both the gathering of clues and to gain prospective clients for her other job.

One of the novel’s most striking traits is its portrayal of events from Mary’s perspective. If she wasn’t at the scene, she recounts events as told by Shirley. Mary’s secondhand accounts are more precise than her firsthand experiences—surmising that someone flinched and then changing her mind; literally jotting down “mmm” as a response, unsure if it was meant as yes or no. The grandest example of how Mary’s point of view affects the story is Shirley’s opening a line of questioning by asking the breed of a dog and then explaining that she was inquiring for Mary’s benefit; Mary, for her part, writes down the unfamiliar breed name phonetically and is so upset by Shirley’s sarcasm that she misses the entire conversation.

The author provides the prerequisite features for classic mystery fans: a roster of suspects to keep readers guessing, assembling those suspects for the big reveal, allowing plenty of time for periodically reviewing the case, and of course, a magnifying glass.

A confident, meticulously detailed mystery that would have made Shirley’s pipe-smoking idol proud.

Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744 indie@kirkusreviews.

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You can also find my plays Blue Roses and Copperheads and Common Women on amazon.com or lulu.com for sale.

My short stories Girl Heroes:1956 and Summer's Over are for sale on amazon.com for 99 cents each. I will eventually have all of my stories and plays converted to amazon.

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The twenty short stories range from 2 to 13 pages, but each one is two bucks. There is a wide range of genres as well. Check them out.

Much of my work is for the theater, with forays into other venues, such as the opera and radio. You’ll find comedies, dramas, musicals, and pieces from one minute to one-act to full length scripts. There are excerpts and complete manuscripts available right here on the web site for you to enjoy.*

Monologues and scenes for actors and directors to use as audition pieces and classroom pieces are readily available, and monologues are free.

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You can find my poetry in Mom Egg, Stillwater Review, Lavender Review: Night Issue, Generations of Poetry and “pay attention: A River of Stones.” A mini-chapbook “Invert Sugar” will be published soon (I've seen the proofs) by Binge Press.

Some of my plays are now listed with doollee.com, check out the link below:

Plays and Playwrights Link