When Jackie Made the New York Times

We were reading the paper in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel in New York City one morning a number of years ago when Jackie let out a screech and cried, "Oh, my God!"As I had found nothing too exciting in the pages of the New York Times I turned, startled, and there on the sheet she was holding up was her picture. Not some little mug shot, either, but a photo two columns wide and seven inches deep. Beneath it was a cutline reading, "Jackie Stodghill, a researcher for her husband, Dick Stodghill, the mystery writer, yesterday during a meeting of the Mystery Writers of America."So after years of trying to get the Times to send a reporter and photographer to one of its functions the MWA had at last succeeded. And accompanying the story of the seminar at John Jay College of Criminal Justice wasn't a photo of Mary Higgins Clark, Sue Grafton, Isaac Asimov or some other big-name writer but instead one of Jackie with her shoes off and her legs and feet up on her chair.We wondered how this would go over with the other MWA members and their spouses, but we had nothing to fear. Jackie was greeted as a celebrity later that day by everyone, including Mary Higgins Clark, Sue Grafton and Isaac Asimov. Even I got to bask in a little of her glory. We're still laughing about it.

More stuff about Jackie at: www.dickstodghill.com