Lizzie Borden Society Forum

The August 2008 issue of The Hatchet: Lizzie Borden's Journal of Murder, Mystery & Victorian History has been placed ONLINE for your reading pleasure. 86 pages in length!

If your web browser does not load the new page, don't forget to hit your browser's refresh button to make it seek out the new uploaded version of the web site.

Subscribers can download your copy immediately or view a slideshow of the magazine at this address:

http://www.hatchetonline.com/HatchetOnline/index.htm

For non-subscribers, you can purchase a subscription for $20 through PayPal and gain access to the entire year's issues, not just this one. So far that means you can download three issues, with one more to go!

http://www.hatchetonline.com/HatchetOnl ... ptions.htm

OR, you can purchase single copies in print through our print on demand partner LuLu.com at this address:

http://stores.lulu.com/peartreepress


Happy reading!

Stefani Koorey
Editor and Publisher
The Hatchet: Lizzie Borden's Journal of Murder, Mystery & Victorian History

What a cover! I just ordered my printed copy. On today, August 4th, 2008...

I'm glad to see that the guy in Salem who is opening the Museum will be plugging the Bed and Breakfast. It shows good faith on his behalf that he respects the history and also wants people to go visit Fall River.

Salem has a large flow of tourists, much more than Fall River does, so if he can direct more traffic to the B&B and the FRHS, that would be awesome. I hope that everyone wins in the end.

Stefani's interview with the curator can be supplemented by the video interview with him on Mondo Lizzie. I'm going up to Salem at the end of the month and I'm very excited about checking out this new museum.

For the latest updates on the Salem Lizzie experience, please see MondoLizzie. I am more able to blog sometimes than post the news here. (it's a software thing!)

Anyway, Pickel's place is hopefully going to premiere by the end of the week. I would suggest people call first to make sure.

I wanted to let you know that the paypal link is not working to subscribe to The Hatchet. I tried several times from different computers and could not get the sub paid. I was thinking I would just send a check to the address provided at the website?

GRACE, try the link now. It worked for me before I updated it, but it should REALLY work now for you. Please write me at [email protected] if you experience any further difficulties.

Thank you! It worked! I'm so excited! I can't wait to read them...

I got my copy this morning at work, and I read the cover piece on the mystery handkerchief during lunch. Yes, I have a very strong stomach.

Could Dennis Binette's answers at the end of the article be any more "cut" and dried? Such terse responses! I've always found him quite charming in person.

Another Girl Detective piece! And more Sherry Chapman to enjoy!

Wow! Richard Behrens' brand new Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective Mystery is not only the one of best pieces of fiction I've ever read in THE HATCHET, it's one of the most delightful stories I've read anywhere in some time.

Given its theme of time and its anomalies, might it be possible to imagine an alternate future for his plucky and intelligent heroine, even as drawn as she is to hatchets?

Bravo, sir.

Thanks Bob, I worked really hard on that one. I have lots of surprises in store for future installments of the Girl Detective series, including a full-length novel. And I do plan to extend the series to 1892!

I haven't gotten around to reading the issue yet myself, but I look forward to reading it from cover to cover. The article on the handkerchief looks particularly interesting.

Reading the story (which I started last night on the subway home, and finished this morning on the way in) I was thinking that you could definitely publish a collection. Are you a Jack Finney (the master of time travel fiction) fan, by any chance?

Yes, I read Time and Again, Marion's Wall and The Body Snatchers. Finney's a great writer.

A collection is not a bad idea. I have 5-6 stories already. Hmmm....

Along that line of thinking, perhaps the idea of a special issue of the Hatchet that is a retrospective of its first five years of publication, a sort of Best-Of, would be very cool.

I can see there being a market for it considering how many people don't have the bucks to fork out for all the back issues.

I haven't finished reading the entire Hatchet issue yet. However, I did finish Kat's essay, On The Trial Of The Bloody Handkerchief, and found it to be very intriguing. The essay held my attention throughout the article and left me wanting more. I also enjoyed the interview with Dennis Binette. You did a superb job, Kat.

Wow Thanks!
I loved Dennis' patience and his line: "Just the facts."

I appreciate your comment. Following the trail was something that fascinated me. And the FRHS allowing that photo to be used enhanced my whole experience in researching and writing.

Yes Richard's stories just get better and better!
I write him private *fan* mail!

You're welcome, Kat.

Both poems are creepy, troubling, and succinct.

I really enjoyed the interview with Leonard Pickel on page 32. Well, he's certainly right about Salem and the attention it will give Lizzie there. That town is just packed with pedestrians in the summer.

I think that Elizabeth Montgomery's statue is in Salem because of her "Bewitched" role and not her Lizzie role. Just a guess.

I like the idea of this museum. It will surely send a flood of people to Fall River. And I think he is right in that most people don't know where the crimes took place or even that much about the case.

I don't see why he isn't using wax figures. I love wax figures. But to get them to look like the characters in the Borden story would be very expensive. You couldn't just put dressed mannequins in there (well, it would work for Abby's body).

I am concerned about there being a lot of reading in the museum. Other visitors make noise and it's often impossible to keep your mind on what you're reading in a museum. A print-out of the texts to take home might be a great idea.

I am most curious to know what artifacts he is going to have there. Replicas?

I think it would have worked great if it were done like the Witch Museum, where the figures are lighted as they come up in the story, and the text is a recording. The figures are so high up, and you wouldn't have to have an exact look-alike for the characters. And everyone would be pretty quiet and all would have the opportunity to hear the story.

Even headphones at each point you're supposed to read would be better than nothing to enable you to hear in a busy place like that will probably be. I have had so many visits to museums just ruined by noise in the place.

Regardless, I think the museum was an excellent idea in that location. And, yes, it certainly will be different from a lot of the sites there. I can't wait to see it! I love Salem, and this gives me a reason to go again.


Please give to the Edwin Porter gravestone fund. (See 'The Hatchet' main page on this website.)

I liked Michael Brimbau's poem "Mrs. Churchill, please do come" on page 49. The picture is excellent!

There is a lot packed into these little stanzas, and it is a poem I can re-read many times and find something new to appreciate in it.

Please give to the Edwin Porter gravestone fund. (See 'The Hatchet' main page on this website.)