Hi Writers,

Wow, what an amazing site. So happy to have read Mr. and Mrs. American Pie -- I checked out the publisher and credits and found Ink Shares.

My story, The Farbissiners, (the Yiddish word for Sourpuss) is a 62,000 word novel about four elderly outcasts who play Mah Jong together at their senior center in Florida. They don’t like each other but really really like the game. I’ve enjoyed exploring their natures and their interactions. I guess we’re never too old to make new friendships!

Here’s the skinny on the cast of characters:

Mabel prides herself on her manliness. At seventy-eight, she rides a motorcycle, smokes a stogie, and swears like a sailor. Her brazenness masks a life of recklessness and lost chances. She carries around the guilt that she set her parents’ house on fire and caused their premature deaths. When Jayne befriends her, Mavis drops her guard, teaches her to ride a motorcycle, and lends her money.

Blooma is the innocent among the women. She’s eighty-four, losing her memory, but retains the indelible sting of being dominated by an abusive husband who declared their daughter dead when she married a man of color. When Jayne befriends her, Blooma is willing to give her money to rejuvenate her mind so she can reunite with her lost daughter and meet her grandsons for the first time.

Gertrude, the youngest of the group at sixty-eight, complains constantly and insults others. She’s bitter that she’s always left out, but makes no pleasantries that might advance her chances of being included. Because she’s a loner, she has a secret hobby of taking photographs of celebrities and regarding them as her intimate family. When she meets Jayne, an aspiring singer, Gertrude is smitten. She will do anything to gain her attention, including lending her money.

Winnie is the stuck up know-it-all wealthy farbissiner. What she doesn’t know is her late husband’s artworks belonged to Jewish German families and was confiscated by the Nazis. The collection is guarded by her driver and the lover of her deceased husband. When she meets Jayne, Winnie is willing to finance her singing career by selling one of her paintings. The authenticity of the painting is discovered and the driver threatens the lives of the five women.

Jayne’s infiltration of the Mah Jong group is not arbitrary. She saw the editorial that Gertrude and Winnie placed in the Florida Sun about women who played Mah Jong had their own incomes and independence. Jayne intentionally went after this particular group to scam them for money to finance her sex change operation from male to female.

When it’s revealed that Jayne is actually a male and has been scamming the women, instead of abandoning her and each other, the women band together to come to Jayne’s rescue and finance her operation.