Crossword Contest Concludes: Three Winners Named Many Sherlockians enjoyed Verna Suit’s “Sherlock Goes Green” crossword puzzle, which first appeared at last year’s Scintillation of Scions program, was distributed at the Red Circle’s March 30 meeting, and was posted here soon thereafter. Prizes were offered for the earliest correct entries, and our own quizzer extraordinaire Dana Richards submitted a correct solution before he left the meeting. In due course, Nancy Anselm claimed a prize, as did Lauren Cercone, who found the puzzle here on the website and entered from Arizona. Congratulations all. For those who haven’t seen it, or who want the solution, the puzzle can be found here, and the solution is here.
Curious Incidents at the Reference Desk One of the joys of living in the Washington area is knowing that one of our local libraries is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill. The Library of Congress has all sorts of resources, including a well-staffed reference desk, where for more than 30 years you could find Red Circle member Thomas Mann, who like all good Sherlockians seemed to know just where all the bodies were buried. Now retired, Tom has found time to write Doc at the Reference Desk (Washington: Alexandrina Press, 2017; 77 pp., $7.00). This collection of fictional but revealing "small stories in a large library" gives us an idea of some of the strange things that can happen at a reference desk. It’s non-Sherlockian (but obviously written by a fellow traveler), and great fun for all those who like real libraries.
The Sherlock Entreaty A late September play reading in New York presented a comic take on “The Naval Treaty” with Watson—the mystery writer who had invented the Sherlock Holmes character—forced to find a flesh-and-blood Sherlock when his old school chum Percy Phelps insists on having Holmes investigate the disappearance of the treaty. Watson resorts to a West End hack actor who generates many laughs when he turns out to be more interested in stagecraft than sleuthing. Webmaster Alan Rettig was on hand for the reading of The Sherlock Entreaty by Charmaine Spenser and presented by Break A Leg Productions. You can read his notes here.
Junior Sherlockians invited to submit monographs Many of us know that The Beacon Society helps keep the memory green by introducing young folks to Sherlock Holmes. The Red Circle’s Denny Dobry is a bright light in The Beacon Society, and he alerts us to a great opportunity for Sherlockian upstarts to start up the path to Canonical erudition, recognition and, oh yes, cash. The Society encourages students in the 4th through 12th grades to enter the Joel Senter Essay Contest and make their first contributions to the writings about the writings. The contest is divided into three groups by grade level and the deadline for entry is February 1, 2020. Along with handsome plaques, cash prizes of $300, $200 and $100 will be awarded to the three students in each group whose essays earn the highest scores from the judges. Details, along with links to the separate entry materials for each group can be found here. More information about the work of the Beacon Society can be found here. So spread the word and the entry packages to your favorite budding Sherlockians, and let’s see if we can get a winner or two from The Red Circle’s precincts!
Archive 2019
Here are items that have appeared on our front page feature section, "The Inner Circle," in 2018. We have included those items that may have some continuing interest; however, some of the links in the items may no longer function due to the removal from the internet of the underlying material.
To review the archives of other sections of our website, click here