Laura Lippman

Here are profiles of three Baltimore-area workers who lost their jobs during the past four months.DOMENIC TROTTAAs a shipyard worker for 33 years, Domenic Trotta is used to layoffs. But it's still painful.Trotta, 55, of Baltimore, was working in the welding department of Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Baltimore Marine Division at the Sparrows Point shipyard. He got the word Friday: layoff."They told me on the telephone," Trotta says. "They couldn't even tell me face to face."Trotta is married and has a grown daughter who no longer lives at home.

LOTS OF NEWS HAS been coming out of Evanston, Ill., recently, a place heretofore known primarily as the home of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.2 Laura Lippman is a feature writer for The Sun.

The problem with a "Year of the Infant" is obvious -- eventually the year ends, but the needs of infants never do. Governor Schaefer's proclamation last January of a year of initiatives and emphases on the needs of Maryland's youngest children was well-intended, and some of the initiatives even got off the ground. But now that special year is over and, as Laura Lippman reported in Thursday's Evening Sun, most of the substantive proposals were either delayed, abandoned or are limping along with too little funding and not enough staff.

Sun staff writer Laura Lippman has been named winner of a 1998 Shamus Award for mystery fiction.Lippman, who has published three Baltimore-based mysteries over the past two years, received the annual award from the Private Eye Writers of America at this past weekend's Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Philadelphia.Lippman was nominated for two Shamus awards -- best first novel, for "Baltimore Blues," and best paperback original, for "Charm City," both from Avon. She won for "Charm City," which earlier this year won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best paperback original.

Laura Lippman, a Sun features writer, has won a 1998 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her Baltimore-based 1997 mystery, "Charm City."Lippman's was among more than a dozen awards handed out Thursday evening by the mystery writers group, a 53-year-old organization dedicated to promoting the mystery as a literary genre. The Edgar is named for mystery pioneer Edgar Allan Poe. Her book "Charm City" (Avon), featuring a Baltimore newspaper reporter-turned-sleuth, was named best paperback original of 1997.

Oprah Winfrey announced her latest book club selection yesterday -- but the closely held secret had already been revealed to readers of The Sun.After "The Oprah Winfrey Show" sent out a press release Monday announcing that the book for her wildly popular book club was "B-I-G big" -- a hefty 740 pages -- Sun staff writer Laura Lippman wondered if this was enough information to beat Oprah to the punch. A Nexis computer search for "740 pages" and "book" came up with only one possible contender, "Songs in Ordinary Time," the third novel by Mary McGarry Morris.

Act III, Scene 1Calmet is sitting on the trainer's table. The trainer, Sciaticus, has just left, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his ever-present copy of "The Fountainhead." Calmet picks up his cell phone to call his agent, Ronencrantz, then stops, and addresses the empty room.To streak, or not to streakThat is the questionWhether 'tis nobler among the fansTo suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous sports columnistsOr to wield my glove against a sea of groundersAnd by opposing, bobble them: To rest: to sit;No more; and by a rest to say we endThe backache, and the thousand natural shocksThe hot corner's heir to, 'tis a conundrumDeftly to be avoided.

What: A benefit for Literacy Works Inc. When: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Shops at Kenilworth, 800 Kenilworth Drive, Towson Admission: $50 in advance; $60 at the door. Call: 410-887-2001 Alice McDermott, 1998 National Book Award winner and Book Bash honorary chair, Child of My Heart, fiction Madison Smartt Bell, Anything Goes, fiction Connie Briscoe, P.G. County, fiction P.M. Forni, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct, social science Von Hardesty, Lindbergh: Flight's Enigmatic Hero, history Herbert Harwood Jr., Royal Blue Line, transportation/history Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall, Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen, cooking Haynes Johnson, The Best of Times, social history Laura Lippman, The Last Place, mystery Antonio J. and Jonna H. Mendez, Spy Dust, true life/politics Claire Messud, When the World Was Steady, fiction Paul McMullen, Maryland Basketball: Tales from Cole Field House, sports/regional Jerdine Nolen, Plantzilla, children's Ted Patterson, Golden Voices of Baseball, sports Michael H. Rogers, Answering Their Country's Call, history Gilbert Sandler, Small Town Baltimore, regional Elizabeth Spires, Now the Green Blade Rises, poetry

Acclaimed author Edward P. Jones will appear in Baltimore on Saturday, April 17, to headline the first-ever CityLit Festival. Jones' novel The Known World was just awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. (It was also a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.) The festival will feature free workshops, exhibits and appearances by local authors and poets, including Tonya Matthews, Reggie Harris Sun reporter M. Dion Thompson and his former colleague Laura Lippman.