She has now won the Hammett prize for mystery fiction. Carol Goodman used to be a Latin teacher, and had this to say about her motives for studying the language:

"I decided to major in Latin to be, well, different. An English major sounded so predictable. And the classics department at Vassar drew an interesting group of people ... cool in a way that you wouldn't have anticipated."

But once into the discipline, Goodman discovered she loved it. "I remember sitting in the library one evening, translating Book 4 of the Aeneid — looking up the words, putting it together and then suddenly realizing what happened to Dido and Aeneas and breaking into tears."

What about printing the above out in big type, with a heading like "Top mystery writer's Latin experience", and displaying it on your classroom door for a week?

Thanks again to David Meadows for pointing me to this article in the Toronto Star.