Early in 2020, naturist fiction author P. Z. Walker had the idea for a collection of mystery stories to be called "Murder in the Nudist Colony," deliberately using the antiquated term "nudist colony" for a slightly retro, humorous touch. I put together the call for submissions, posted it on Twitter and they came. Writers, some established naturist fiction authors, some imaginative non-naturists and some new writers came forward. Robert Longpré set up the structure to share documents as well as the ISBN registered by Retired Eagle Books. Fabien Barabé designed the cover. We had fifteen submissions within a relatively quick timeframe. Then Will Forest and I set about the editing. Robert and Paul massaged the stories into a consistent format and …
Mad as the original idea seemed, it worked. Books were sold and money raised for our chosen charity. Just as well, 2020 turned out to be one long health crisis.
It was followed by a second book Romance in the Nudist Colony.
The project has been a strong example of an online community working together. It had also been so much fun many of the writers were badgering Will and I to do a follow up.
This is the third volume of the "In the Nudist Colony" series, a holiday, actually a series of holidays.
This new anthology contains thirteen shining new stories for you to immerse yourself in.
The nudist "colony" as a setting, dates back to "Cool Cottontail" a book by John Ball, eighth in the series he wrote about the detective Virgil Tibbs. As with all the Virgil Tibbs books from "In the Heat of the Night" onward racial prejudice is a part of the narrative.
In this third collection I think we have continued to address many of the other prejudices Virgil would have experienced.
In this collection we celebrate holidays, real and imagined, encompassing almost every month of the year. The stories in this collection share expressions of the love of life, the love of clothes-free living and acceptance of difference.
Slip into something comfortable and enjoy!
Ted Bun