Mystery Novels

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Czech this out!

Biting Edge

13 May 2012 | 10:20 pm

Mario here:I am now an international author. Here is my one foreign title, the translated version of The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, from the Czech republic:I'll give their art director the benefit of the doubt and assume that this cover resonates with the Czech public and soon my bank account will runneth over with korunas.Get Smart!I'll be teaching on online class with the Margie Lawson Writing Academy, this June 4-29, 2012. Fang It to Me: Writing Vampires, Fantasy, and the How-To's of World-Building. The workshop includes examples and materials prepared especially for this class by some…
David and Goliath

Reading Proust In Foxborough

9 May 2012 | 8:31 am

The small, quiet suburban town of Foxborough has successfully fought Robert Kraft and Steve Wynn (two Goliashs) and scuttled the planned megacasino across from the stadium. This behemoth would have ruined our peaceful town in so many ugly ways, and the voters turned out en masse to voice their opposition.I felt proud that I had blogged, posted on the website, held a placard and made telephone calls. Not much, but every person contributed in some way to the defeat of the casino.I was so happy when I heard the news. Citizens can still be an effective voice in a democracy.
Roll Out Your Red Carpet: a guest blog by "Red Mojo Mama" Kathy Lynn Hall

Jungle Red Writers

Jungle Red Writers

16 May 2012 | 3:30 am

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: You may not have guessed it from our blog, but here at JRW we are all about the Red. Some of us have red hair (or used to...) some of us wear red clothes, some of us sport red polish, but we all have a big dose of Red Attitude.So we were delighted to make the acquaintance of Kathy Lynn Hall, aka Red Mojo Mama. Blogger, Indy author, social media expert, Kathy Lynn knows that some women are born red, some have red thrust upon 'em, but ALL women can achieve Red. She's visiting us today to tell you how to add more Red to your…
How I Wrote KING CITY

A Writer's Life

Lee Goldberg

15 May 2012 | 3:19 am

Today, Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint released my crime novel KING CITY in digital and print editions...and Brilliance Audio released the 7-hour audio version, read by Patrick Lawlor. Here's an essay I posted on this blog in August about the writing process behind the book... I've written over thirty novels, and my process with all of them was pretty much the same. I had an idea, I wrote a bullet-point outline, and I started writing the book, revising my outline along the way (I call them "living outlines," since I usually finish writing them a few days before I…
HEAD TRAUMA

Norman Green

Norman Green

3 May 2012 | 2:48 pm

Junior Seau, dead by his own hand at the age of forty-three. They say that for every complex, difficult problem there is a simple, easy to understand wrong answer. It is tempting to blame Seau’s death on football, equally as tempting to say that something else must have driven him over the edge, but I am [...]

Biting Edge
Czech this out!

13 May 2012 | 10:20 pm

Mario here:I am now an international author. Here is my one foreign title, the translated version of The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, from the Czech republic:I'll give their art director the benefit of the doubt and assume that this cover resonates with the Czech public and soon my bank account will runneth over with korunas.Get Smart!I'll be teaching on online class with the Margie Lawson Writing Academy, this June 4-29, 2012. Fang It to Me: Writing Vampires, Fantasy, and the How-To's of World-Building. The workshop includes examples and materials prepared especially for this class by some…
The world of collaborative writing...

9 May 2012 | 7:08 pm

I want to thank all of the well wishers who offered congratulations to my writing partner and I, Samantha Sommersby, for the new contract. I've already gotten questions about the process of collaborative writing so I though I'd say a few words about how it worked for us.Sam lives in San Diego and we've known each other for a long time. She's written over a dozen paranormal romances for a number of publishers. Two years ago, at Dragon Con, the idea of writing a book together, a book that would combine the aspects of Urban Fantasy and paranormal romance, went from idle speculation to real…
The key...

6 May 2012 | 10:40 pm

Breaking News: from Publishers LunchJeanne Stein and Samantha Sommersby's FALLEN, a paranormal thriller pitched as combining Without a Trace and Angel, in which an age-old siren partnered with a werewolf join up on a mission of redemption for past sins, to Jessica Wade at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Scott Miller at Trident Media Group.Betsy Dornbusch's epic fantasy EXILE, to Jeremy Lassen at Night Shade Books, in a two-book deal, for publication in early 2013, by Sara Megibow of Nelson Literary Agency (World English).Mario here:I speak at several writing conferences and what I've noticed are…
Cautionary Tale

2 May 2012 | 6:43 pm

Last weekend was spent with my daughter and her significant other in Lake Havasu. They showed us a great time. However, you know when your little voice says not to do something? Well, my little voice said you should not ride a motorcycle with short pants. Did I listen?No. See that smile? It didn't last long. Made a rookie mistake getting off which resulted in this:Second degree burn and this is after three days of treatment...So, boys and girls, listen to your mother when she says always wear your leathers and boots when riding!!!But the rest of the weekend went smoothly! The Desert Storm…
Breaking them rules

30 Apr 2012 | 8:15 am

Mario here,I've just finished watching the first season of HBO's Game of Thrones. My first thoughts are that I am jealous of George RR Martin, as the TV show is based on his book series of Medieval inspired intrigue, A Song of Fire and Ice. Typically, a book has to be condensed to fit into the two or so hours of a movie. With this cable series, Martin was given ten hours per book. If you've seen at least one episode, you can appreciate the money budgeted for the set design. Amazing and the source for much of my envy.Now, all is not perfect. I read every one of the 699 pages in Game of Thrones…

Reading Proust In Foxborough
David and Goliath

9 May 2012 | 8:31 am

The small, quiet suburban town of Foxborough has successfully fought Robert Kraft and Steve Wynn (two Goliashs) and scuttled the planned megacasino across from the stadium. This behemoth would have ruined our peaceful town in so many ugly ways, and the voters turned out en masse to voice their opposition.I felt proud that I had blogged, posted on the website, held a placard and made telephone calls. Not much, but every person contributed in some way to the defeat of the casino.I was so happy when I heard the news. Citizens can still be an effective voice in a democracy.
Vinteuil: Beethoven or Saint-Saens?

6 May 2012 | 3:40 pm

On April 15th, Jeremy Eichler had a wonderful article in the classical music section of The Boston Globe, wondering who Proust really had in mind when he talked about Vinteuil's Septet. Pretty heady stuff for the Sunday Globe. I had always assumed Proust had Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 1, Opus 75 in his head. I thought I had even identified the "petite phrase." Maybe not. Eichler makes a good case for three late Beethoven quartets, 130, 131, and 132. He heard them performed in the new concert hall at our Isabella Stewart Museum and thought of Vinteuil's…
Questions Marcel Proust Would Like to Ask You

5 May 2012 | 3:29 pm

So sad that the museum has no Proust letters and that the exhibit has been dismantled and "sent elsewhere." This is a great post, and I salivate to have been on that tour! Love this blogger's graphics. Questions Proust Would Like to Ask You I have the Painter biography by the way. There's an entire shelf on the bookcase devoted to Proust and to James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. I read this week that Barak Obama was a big fan of Eliot's The Wasteland. Me, too! Also in college. Well I daresay that he would be dubbed eliter than…
On the Road with Proust

12 Apr 2012 | 2:13 pm

Kristen Stewart on the Road Proust and Kerouac are an unlikely pair, maybe even an unholy won, and I don't think the Beats read Proust. Well, maybe they did; who am I to say? For some (old) but dishy gossip, with only one small mention of Proust, here is a book you probably don't need to read after you read the review. Three American Girls in Paris It must be the…
Fabulous Proust Quotes

3 Mar 2012 | 8:02 am

Marcel Proust is eminently quotable, and here is a blog that assembled a big bouquet of quotes for your enjoyment and even edification. My Proust reading hours have fallen due to being super busy on those New Year's Resolutions, a new book club, a new novel I've started, and polishing up a newly finished novel. Two dinner parties! Life is a whirlwind chez Odette, and we wish it would slow down a bit. Several writing events, and one coming up in April. Another public reading (eek!) in March. I'll wander back to Proust soon. He always inspires. Here are the quotes. Quintessence Odette

Jungle Red Writers
Roll Out Your Red Carpet: a guest blog by "Red Mojo Mama" Kathy Lynn Hall

Jungle Red Writers

16 May 2012 | 3:30 am

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: You may not have guessed it from our blog, but here at JRW we are all about the Red. Some of us have red hair (or used to...) some of us wear red clothes, some of us sport red polish, but we all have a big dose of Red Attitude.So we were delighted to make the acquaintance of Kathy Lynn Hall, aka Red Mojo Mama. Blogger, Indy author, social media expert, Kathy Lynn knows that some women are born red, some have red thrust upon 'em, but ALL women can achieve Red. She's visiting us today to tell you how to add more Red to your…
My Most Amazing, Incredible, Wonderful Twelve Days: a guest blog by Sara J. Henry

Jungle Red Writers

15 May 2012 | 4:51 am

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Sara J. Henry, like me, is a Mason-Dixonite. She grew up in the south but now makes her home in the Green Mountain State. Her debut, Learning to Swim, initially caught my eye because it's set in New York State's Adirondack mountains. Learning to Swim caught a lot of eyes - it was an Emerging Author pick for retail giant Target, nominated for a Barry Award, and last month, it went on to win the prestigious Mary Higgins Clark award during Edgars Week, and then went on to win the Best First Agatha Award at Malice Domestic. However, Sara's not here to tell us why we…
We're Pedaling As Fast As We Can...

Jungle Red Writers

14 May 2012 | 3:30 am

HALLIE EPHRON: So all of us Reds sat up and took notice of yesterday's New York Times front page Headline -- Writers Cramp: In the E-Reader Era, a Book a Year is Slacking.And there's lovely Lisa Scotolline, standing there in a butterscotch leather jacket, leaning against a block of granite, cool as a cucumber and apparently without a care in the world. She says she's producing two books a year now because "the culture is a great big hungry maw, and you have to feed it."My reaction? In a word, Oy vey. Followed by a very loud and whiney: "Come on guys, I'm pedaling as fast as I can!"I am…
MEALS ON WHEELS FOR THE DEADLINE DESPERATE

Jungle Red Writers

13 May 2012 | 1:30 am

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm at that stage of a book where the last thing in the world I want--or need--to do is cook. I've finished the two previous books in London, staying for three to four weeks in a flat by myself, eating my favorite take-aways--Indian from Masala Zone, Italian antipasti from Carluccio's--yummy things from local delis, or even carton soups and prepared meals (what the Brits call ready-meals, and they are generally much better than things you get in the US) from the supermarket. Or sometimes I'd take my notebook and walk up to my favorite Notting Hill pub, The Sun in…
LIZ ZELVIN--AN OUTRAGEOUS OLDER WOMAN

Jungle Red Writers

12 May 2012 | 1:30 am

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Today, the multi-talented Elizabeth Zelvin--writer, singer, song writer, psychotherapist--gives us a much-needed (at least on my part) Saturday boost! Liz's latest mystery is DEATH WILL EXTEND YOUR VACATION. Her short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and have been nominated for three Agathas and a Derringer award. As Liz Zelvin, she recently released OUTRAGEOUS OLDER WOMAN, an album of original songs.Oh, and a bit of business before we turn it over to Liz. Our winners of advance reader's copies of Charles Todd's An Unmarked Grave are Karen…

A Writer's Life
How I Wrote KING CITY

Lee Goldberg

15 May 2012 | 3:19 am

Today, Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint released my crime novel KING CITY in digital and print editions...and Brilliance Audio released the 7-hour audio version, read by Patrick Lawlor. Here's an essay I posted on this blog in August about the writing process behind the book... I've written over thirty novels, and my process with all of them was pretty much the same. I had an idea, I wrote a bullet-point outline, and I started writing the book, revising my outline along the way (I call them "living outlines," since I usually finish writing them a few days before I…
King City is Here

Lee Goldberg

15 May 2012 | 2:11 am

My new crime novel King City is out today from Thomas & Mercer in digital and paperback...and in audio from Brilliance Audio. I am so excited and more than a little bit anxious about it...because this is my first, standalone crime novel in many years, and a real departure fromthe books that I have written before. Here's what it's about... Major Crimes Unit detective Tom Wade secretly worked with the Feds to nail seven of his fellow cops for corruption…turning him into a pariah in the police department. So he’s exiled to patrol a beat in King City’s deadliest…
TV Main Title of the Week - Tony Randall Edition

Lee Goldberg

14 May 2012 | 4:49 am
Chained to my computer

Lee Goldberg

10 May 2012 | 11:36 pm

Sorry for the blog silence... I've been chained to my computer lately and writing furiously. I'm hell-bent on finishing my fifteenth and final MONK novel, MR. MONK GETS EVEN, to meet my June 1st deadline, when I will be starting work on an exciting new project that I can't talk about yet. But I can tell you that Amazon is sending me to New York in June to attend BEA...and tout the release of my new crime novel KING CITY...which comes out next week...and that I will be jetting from the Big Apple to Owensboro, KY, to shoot a DEAD MAN music video of our theme song with the…
TV Main Title of the Week

Lee Goldberg

8 May 2012 | 3:20 pm

Norman Green
HEAD TRAUMA

Norman Green

3 May 2012 | 2:48 pm

Junior Seau, dead by his own hand at the age of forty-three. They say that for every complex, difficult problem there is a simple, easy to understand wrong answer. It is tempting to blame Seau’s death on football, equally as tempting to say that something else must have driven him over the edge, but I am [...]
OUT!!

Norman Green

1 May 2012 | 3:48 pm

I feel like I finally managed to get my 35 year old son to move the hell out of my basement. For the record, I don’t have a 35 year old son. I did, however, finish the changes to my last writing project, ‘Benbow Street Shakedown.’ Sometimes it seems to me that the editing process lasts [...]
HALF FULL?

Norman Green

20 Apr 2012 | 2:57 pm

Optimists, they say, live longer than pessimists. That may or may not be true, but I think it would be safe to argue that optimists probably enjoy their time here more than pessimists do. I am generally an optimist, I usually assume that things will work out, that I will be okay, that you probably [...]
RECON… OR NOT

Norman Green

1 Apr 2012 | 1:29 pm

My agent returned the manuscript of ‘Benbow Street Shakedown’ to me, along with some notes on suggested changes. I haven’t thought much about that story lately, instead I’ve been wrestling with the opening of another project while at the same time kicking around some ideas about a third. To me, this is a little bit [...]
SOUTHBOUND

Norman Green

20 Mar 2012 | 9:55 am

No progress to report on my newest writing project, or on any of the other ones, either, because work was interrupted by a trip down south. Previously, I have always felt like a foreigner on my infrequent trips south of the Mason-Dixon line, but things change, or maybe I’m the one changing, because things didn’t [...]

Beth Groundwater
Red Herrings Stink!

15 May 2012 | 6:30 am

I m blogging at Inkspot today, the blog for Midnight Ink authors, about the stinky topic of red herrings, or false clues. Do you have a favorite red herring that you came across while reading a mystery or that you used in writing a mystery? I hope you'll leave a comment there sharing your thoughts!
Interviews, interviews, interviews!

10 May 2012 | 6:00 am

Every time I release a new mystery book (as I did Tuesday with Wicked Eddies), I receive a lot of requests for interviews. Many have appeared on-line recently. The interviewers ask different questions, and I try to vary my responses to similar questions, so I hope you'll read them all and find them to be interesting. Please let me know in a comment here if I say anything that surprises you!International Thriller Writers featured me in their The Big Thrill webzine. Read the interview HERE.My whitewater river ranger sleuth, Mandy Tanner, was interviewed on the Killer Characters blog HERE.I was…
Today is the Official Release Date for Wicked Eddies!

8 May 2012 | 6:00 am

Today is the official release date for Wicked Eddies, the second book in my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series. Yee-haw!Whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner rides the waves again, this time while patrolling the upper Arkansas River in Colorado during a fly-fishing tournament. And wherever there's competition, there's the chance for tempers to flare, for cheating to occur, and even for murder! But there was also something darker going on in the life of Howie Abbott, the fisherman whose body Mandy discovered in a riverside campground with an ax in his neck!"Once again, Groundwater, mixing…
Photos from the 2012 Festival of Mystery

7 May 2012 | 6:00 am

Last Monday, I participated in the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, put on by the Mystery Lovers Bookshop.The photos below are from the event. First, of course, is me behind my book display shortly before they let in the mystery fan hoard that was waiting in line outside. The following photos are of fellow Midnight Ink authors Alice Loweecey, Jessie Chandler, Deborah Sharp, and Vicki Doudera. The last photo is of all the Midnight Ink authors who participated in the festival (including Lois Winston and Joanna Campbell Slan) with store co-owner Richard Goldman. We were at the…
Photos from the 2012 Malice Domestic Conference

4 May 2012 | 6:00 am

This is the first of two reports on my east coast trip. (The next one will appear Monday.) I started in Hampton, Virginia, visiting my parents. While there, I signed some stock at the local Barnes & Noble store and I gave a talk on "Series Writing for the Organizationally Challenged" to the Chesapeake Bay Writers. In the photo below, I'm with their Vice President, Jackie Guidry, and my proud mother. :)That was followed by the Malice Domestic conference, where I had a blast! I arrived just in time on Friday to relieve Beth Wasson, the Executive Secretary of Sisters in Crime, at the SinC…

Michael Haskins Key West Writer
MWA 2012 Edgar Award Winners

28 Apr 2012 | 9:31 am

Mystery Writers of Americais proud to announce the winners of the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2011. The Edgar® Awards were presented to the winners at our 66thGala Banquet, April 26, 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City. BEST NOVELGone by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHORBent Road by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA - Dutton)BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINALThe Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Hachette Book Group – Orbit Books)BEST…
Know your guns before you put them in your protagonist's hands

10 Apr 2012 | 3:59 pm

The recent news headlines out of South Florida got me to thinking about handguns. I am an endangered species in that I am a liberal Democrat that supports the right to own guns. But that’s for another time. This time I am thinking about the reality of guns and what they do and what they sound like and what they feel like when shot, when empty, when loaded and how the writer has a responsibility to portray that in his/her writing.As a writer of mysteries, there’s a lot of guns used in my books and stories. I am fortunate to have a trained military intel person, as well as police and…
Echoes of Savanna & Raven's Song

30 Mar 2012 | 12:53 pm

My friend and fellow author, Lucinda Hawks Moebius, has some nice things to say about Key West, my home,and it says a little about her life too. But the important things she has to say are about her two books. Please take the time to discover this writer.Michael Thank you for hosting me on your blog. To tell you the truth, I am extremely envious of you right now. I can just imagine you sitting on the beach, a sun hat shielding your eyes, sipping a sweet drink, the kind with a little umbrella and a wedge of pineapple as a garnish, and watching a beautiful…
18 Mar 2012 | 11:43 am

18 Mar 2012 | 11:43 am

My friend and fellow writer Dixon Rice answers some questions about his new book, The Assassins Club. I think you'll find the interview and book fascinating. Thanks Dixon for taking the time to put this all together.1. What is the main premise of this book?I wondered, “What if a young, likable guy ‘accidentally’ became a serial killer?” I set up a situation in THE ASSASSINS CLUB where Tyler Goode gets targeted by a redneck bully and his squad of younger, equally brutal brother in the Flathead Valley of Montana. (And don’t forget Dad.) …
12 Mar 2012 | 7:50 pm

12 Mar 2012 | 7:50 pm

Here is a little bit about my friend Jochem Vandersteen's novelette. Just look at who praises Jochem's writingREDEMPTION - a Noah Milano novelette Twenty years ago he tortured and killed a young boy. Now he is out of prison, ready to find redemption confronting the victim's parents.He hires Noah Milano, security specialist and son of LA's biggest mobster to protect him. When the unexpected happens it's up to Noah Milano to do what he thinks is right and make sure justice is done.Praise for Noah Milano and Jochem Vandersteen: Jeremiah Healy, author of TURNABOUT and THE ONLY GOOD LAWYER: "J.

225batonrouge.com blogs
The Movie Filter: 'The Avengers' blow up

9 May 2012 | 10:09 am

For a comic book movie billed as an all-star showcase of jacked-up, tech-savvy action heroes there is a curious lack of fight sequences in director Joss Whedon’s The Avengers.
Spatula Diaries: Cool brew

9 May 2012 | 9:55 am

Every native of the South has been asked the same question countless times in diners, cafes and restaurants over the course of their lives.
Unleashed: Dog-friendly dining & drinks

9 May 2012 | 9:46 am

More than three months ago, Kayla B. emailed Unleashed and asked for a list of pet-friendly eateries in the Capital City.
The Movie Filter: 'Tinker' with the formula

2 May 2012 | 10:33 am

See the word “spy” and one immediately thinks of James Bond, of snipers and fistfights, car chases and femme fatales.
Spatula Diaries: Planet’s best food court

2 May 2012 | 10:23 am

Music—insane, riveting, often big-name music—is the magnet for the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, but as any fest veteran can attest, the event’s distinct food is what gets lodged in the memory.

Vicki Lane Mysteries
Flowers, Foliage, and the Occasional Bug

15 May 2012 | 11:00 pm
Of Slaves and Slavedrivers...

14 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

Various writers' forums are all abuzz with talk of a NY Times article (HERE)published last weekend. It seems that the one-book-a-year model, long the standard for writers of mystery, thriller, or romance, is no longer good enough. Now publishers are urging writers to turn out (churn out?) two books a year. Or if not two, a novella or a short story in addition to the yearly novel. Evidently the proliferation of e-books -- instantly available and often very low-priced or even free -- has something to do with these increased expectations.Even best-selling authors like Lee Child and…
Rain, Rain . . .

13 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

It rained almost all day yesterday, making me wish I'd gotten my corn sown but glad I'd done some weeding on Saturday. There was a Mother's Day dinner, courtesy Justin and Claui, with goat cheese stuffed chicken breasts, asparagus, orzo salad and panna cotta for dessert. There was LOTS of prosecco and port and it's no wonder this post is so brief....
Purple Flowers and Blue Benches

12 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

It's looking like a pretty excellent Mother's Day here at the farm. Ethan, my older son, made a quick trip up from Atlanta yesterday evening And Justin and Claui are fixing dinner tonight for us and Claui's folks. Just about perfect, in my opinion -- Happy Mother's Day to all mothers!
Just Pretty Pictures

11 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

I thought I'd give us a break from all the serious talk.Time to sit on the porch and enjoy the clematis . . . Time to notice how pretty even weeds can be. . . Time to appreciate the last azalea still blooming . . . To celebrate the little mountain laurel bonsai . . . And its geometrical tiny flowers . . . And not mention politics at all.

The Graveyard Shift
7 Life Lessons from Death Row

Lee Lofland

15 May 2012 | 8:07 am

What truly matters in life? What’s the last thing on your mind before you die? When you know the end is near, what would be your last statement to the world? One of the ways to reduce life down to what really matters is to be on your deathbed. And one of the most dramatic ways to be on your deathbed is to be executed on death row. We’ve been reading through the final statements of hundreds of inmates, and we’ve boiled it down to seven life lessons. Get back to basics; learn something about life from those who were put to death. Seven somethings, to be precise. You Define Yourself By…
What 50 Famous Authors Want Us to Know About the Writing Process

Lee Lofland

14 May 2012 | 8:06 am

Before hunkering down and hammering out the agony and the ecstasy that will launch you to literary stardom (and probably a Nobel Prize), it might be a good idea to try and see what your predecessors have to teach about the craft. Not everything they share will necessarily stick, given the nature of writing, but opening yourself up to the possibility of inspiration can only improve your output. Explore some of the following quotes, and, of course, the context from which they hail, and see where they might take your art. “…a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write…
Under The Boardwalk

Lee Lofland

12 May 2012 | 9:24 am

Please click to start the video. The music will definitely enhance your walk along the boardwalk.
9 Signs Self-Publishing Is Out of Control: Opinion, or Fact?

Lee Lofland

11 May 2012 | 8:27 am

To paraphrase the immortal words of Truman Capote, there’s a difference between writing and typing. And, to put it gently, we can say with a good amount of confidence that most self-published books were typed, not written. Because communicating with letters assembled into words is a skill most learn by the age of 5, and because written communication has become so ubiquitous in American life, everyone now thinks he’s a writer. Until recently, the publishing industry had been our sea wall, protecting us from a tidal wave of boring life stories and dreadful novels. But now, the ease of…
Rick Helms Exposes Inaccuracies In Lie Detector Article

Lee Lofland

10 May 2012 | 8:11 am

We often post guest articles written by experts. And, normally I check the content for accuracy before posting. However, today one slipped past me. Fortunately, my pal Rick Helms was quick to step in to make sure our readers receive only the best information available. So, here’s the original article as submitted. Please read Rick’s comments below to see how things are really done. The original article… You’ve seen them on TV crime dramas. A potential suspect is wired to a machine via a series of sensors attached to his body while he is grilled by an expert operator with a…

InkSpot
Red Herrings Stink!

Beth Groundwater

15 May 2012 | 4:00 am

By Beth Groundwater At the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in April, I spoke on a panel of mystery authors titled "Fooling the Reader Fairly." My topic on the panel was red herrings, or false clues that are deliberately planted in mystery novels by authors to mislead the sleuth--and the reader. In debates, the term applies to the situation when an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. I thought I'd share my panel comments on this stinky topic with Inkspot readers. A "red herring" is a very strong kipper, meaning a small fish—usually a…
Heirlooms of Importance

Kathleen Ernst

14 May 2012 | 12:00 am

By Kathleen Ernst I didn’t set out to write an “issue” novel when I began The Heirloom Murders, second in my Chloe Ellefson series. I did want to include a plotline about the importance of preserving heirloom varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Historic sites like the real outdoor museum Old World Wisconsin, where my fictional protagonist Chloe works as a curator, play a key role in perpetuating these heirlooms. And as I’ve written here before, it is important. When I worked at Old World Wisconsin back in the 1980s and ‘90s, I learned how much genetic diversity…
PAPER OR PLASTIC?

Lois Winston

8 May 2012 | 11:30 pm

Last week I attended Malice Domestic in Bethesda, MD, then the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, PA. Both events were fabulous. I met many readers, some of whom were very enthusiastic about my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries and couldn’t wait for the next one in the series to come out. Others hadn’t read either but decided after hearing me speak at Malice or meeting me at the Festival, to give my books a try. One of the most frequently asked questions I received at both events was, “Are your books available as e-books?” (Yes, they are.) I’ve noticed in the short space of a year…
My First Reading (Or How I Learned Shouting SEX! VAMPIRES! ZOMBIES! SEXY VAMPIRE ZOMBIES! Always Draws a Crowd)

Jennifer Harlow

8 May 2012 | 4:11 am

A few weeks ago I offered to help out at the Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America booths at the Kensington Day of the Book Festival. I thought I would just take an hour or two in a booth to tell people about what the organizations did. Meetings, community of writers, blah blah blah. Then I received an e-mail telling me I would be one of five authors featured in the festival and that I was supposed to do a reading. That hundreds, possibly thousands would be at the festival. Needless to say I was a little daunted by this prospect. I hadn't been in front of an audience since…
Here, There, and Everywhere!

Alan Orloff

7 May 2012 | 4:55 am

by Alan I’m not adept at saying goodbye. If I can get away with it, I just throw a quick wave and a “see you later,” to anyone who happens to be looking in my direction. Outward emotions are not my strong suit. But goodbyes are inevitable, aren’t they? I’ve had a ton of fun blogging here at InkSpot during the past three years. During that time, there have been two things that have kept me blogging: my terrific blogmates and our fantastic blog readers. So thanks everyone! See you here, there, and everywhere! For grins, here’s a rerun of my very first InkSpot blog, from April 1,…

doahsdeer's Xanga
Are You There, McPhee?

13 May 2012 | 1:39 pm

Are You There, McPhee?, a new play by John Guare (House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation) is enjoying it's world premiere this week at Princeton's McCarter Theatre. I had an opportunity to attend last night's performance. It is funny and clever, well-written and well-acted. With references to Peter Benchley, Jorge Luis Borges, Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney and Roman Polanski, Are You There McPhee? promises "A Nantucket house with a mysterious past. A pair of abandoned children. An 11 pound lobster." And it delivers on that…
All Oreos is local.

7 May 2012 | 3:02 pm

Former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill once famously explained "All politics is local." The same, apparently, is true of Oreos. You see, Kraft Foods, who now own the Oreo brand, is determined to expand Oreos' global popularity. But the iconic cookie has not always sold well internationally. According to Sanjay Khosha, Kraft's president of developing markets, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, for many years, Oreos were "spectacularly underperforming" in international markets. The cookie was too sweet, for example, in China, too…
Who needs the internet? We had filmstrips.

4 May 2012 | 12:18 pm

Some folks rely on bloggers for answers to important questions, but I turn to the experts when I need advice. Change Your Underwear Twice a Week: Lessons from the Golden Age of Classroom Filmstrips, by Danny Gregory
When a house filled with books just isn't enough

2 May 2012 | 12:47 pm

A house filled with books is a wonderful thing. But why stop there? How about a house made of books?(all 3 photos are of an installation by Matej Kren, displayed in 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna and found online at at inhabit.com)And why stop at one? Here are 10 Gorgeous Buildings Made Out of Books
Like a turtle stuck on its back, desperately trying not to die

1 May 2012 | 6:55 am

@Saintvi has written a post about her very first car and that post has me thinking about my first. It was a 1970 Plymouth Fury, the quintessential unmarked police car of its day. It was a good car right up until the night I rolled it on the NY State Thruway in November, 1973. I guess it was a good car that night too because I totaled the car and walked away from the wreckage without a scratch. I remember climbing out of the car, as it sat upside-down in the middle of the Thruway, near exit 23 in Catskilll NY, its wheels still madly spinning, like a turtle stuck on its…

KILLER HOBBIES
Cucumber Sandwiches

15 May 2012 | 8:18 am

On June 2, at 1:30, we’re holding a Mad Hatter party in the Party Room of Aquila Commons, where I live. We’re serving lemonade, tea, lemon and raspberry bars, and cucumber sandwiches. I’m going to bring down all my hats – close to forty! – and a stand-up mirror and we’re going to let everyone try them on.The cucumber sandwiches will come from an unusual recipe I first encountered from Dan Heine at a picnic we hold every summer at Centennial Park in Edina. The park has a full-size croquet court and a bocce ball green. We dress nicely and pretend it’s early…
Frequently Asked Questions (aka FAQ)

14 May 2012 | 8:07 am

Whenever I meet my readers, whenever I sign books, a few of the same questions pop up over and over. So I thought I'd tackle them here...1. How did you get started? I can't remember a time when I didn't write. As kid, I stapled together pieces of paper, scribbled on them and called them "my book." In school, I won awards for my writing--and also got in trouble for it when I dared to pen an "alternate" school newspaper, called "The Wooden Nickel." The journalism teacher told the principal that I didn't know what I was doing and that I'd surely bring down a lawsuit on the heads of…
Natural Remedy of the Week: Tea Tree Oil

12 May 2012 | 10:06 am

I'm busy rewriting the second book in the natural remedies series which is called Scent to Kill to make a June 1st deadline! but I thought I'd stop by and share this tip from Dr. Willow McQuade who is my amateur sleuth. Tea tree oil is an amazing natural remedy and definately needs to be in your natural medicine cabinet. But I'll let Dr. McQuade tell you why: Dr. Willow McQuade’s Healthy Living TipsTea Tree Oil is a must-have for your natural remedy aromatherapy tool kit. It contains terpenes and other phytochemicals which are effective antiseptics and anti-fungals and are absorbed…
I'm Hooked

11 May 2012 | 2:53 am

This is not the blog I intended to write. Our Internet went down just as I was going to my computer to write this weeks entry. I thought I would try to write something on my BlackBerry - even if it was just someting explaining what happened. I was able to get to Killerhobbies without a problem, but signing in was another story. I got a message saying I was signing in from unfamiliar device or something like that. The print was so small it was hard to read. Anyway, for me to sign in I had to type in the odd assortment of letters they provided. But here was the problem. It was hard to make out…
Kindness and Cartwheels

10 May 2012 | 4:59 am

I tell my children one thing they could do to truly disappoint me is to commit an act of deliberate unkindness. One hard life lesson, though, is kindness doesn’t always beget kindness. Sometimes you don’t even get a thank you. I don’t dwell on every unkindness handed to me over the years, but I do remember the first. I was nine-years-old and looking spiffy in my Brownie uniform—or at least I thought so. I slipped into it in the morning and loved wearing that uniform all day long for the afterschool event. We sat on long white cafeteria benches, watching a ceremony on the stage. Lori,…

My Weblog
Once More Around The Old Block

Mary Saums

15 May 2012 | 6:30 am

Author Carolyn Haines stops by with another thought-provoking post in her guest blog series. It's amazing all the work she gets done. She teaches, she has a new book in her successful Bones series coming out in June ... just a few weeks now! ... she's writing the next Bones book, she's just put this year's Daddy's Girls Weekend to bed after months of planning ... it makes me tired thinking about it all. Oh yeah, and she runs a horse farm. And that's just the stuff I know about ... ONCE MORE AROUND THE OLD BLOCK by Carolyn Haines An incident that…
How A Strong Woman Steals The Show

Mary Saums

13 May 2012 | 11:35 pm

We have a special guest blogger today, Elizabeth Zelvin, a psychotherapist by day, an author and musician by night. Let's see how she brings her experience into her mystery writing work .... HOW A STRONG WOMAN STEALS THE SHOW by ELIZABETH ZELVIN As a card-carrying feminist (if there were such a thing), I have a tendency to jump up waving my hand, like Hermione the first year at Hogwarts, whenever someone starts talking about mysteries with strong female characters. It’s not entirely my aging memory that makes me forget…
On the Road Again

Dana Cameron

10 May 2012 | 11:32 pm

Welcome back, guest blogger, SJ Rozan! SJ, author of the Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mysteries, is tackling another aspect of the writing life today: teaching. Without further ado, take it away! I'm back again with my final entry in this trifecta of guest blogs for the Femmes Fatales. My subject: the public side of the writer's life. My first post was about doing a panel, and thus hanging with other writers; my second, on leaving town for public events. Seeing as how I just got back from a terrific teaching gig in Florida, I'm going to talk…
Five Things Folks Don’t Know About Boxing and Why Boxers Make Great Literary Characters...Sometimes

Dana Cameron

8 May 2012 | 11:30 pm

The Femmes Fatales welcome Tom Schreck! Tom writes the Duffy Dombrowski Mysteries and his newest release The Vegas Knockout will be available on May 15. Visit www.tomschreck.com and “like” his fan page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DuffyDombrowski for a chance to win a Kindle Fire. Tom, take it away! My series’ protagonist is a low-level pro fighter who happens to also have a small- time human services job during the day. He winds up in the amateur sleuth role protecting the vulnerable and often self-defeating people on his caseload.Some readers find this an…
With Malice Toward None

Donna Andrews

8 May 2012 | 8:14 am

by Donna Andrews Thank goodness Malice Domestic is finally over! Has been over for more than a week, and I'm almost back to normal.Don't get me wrong--I love Malice, even though it happens every year during pollen season, so that many of my friends and readers have no idea what I look or sound like when I'm not sniffling and coughing. In spite of this year's nasty cold (brought on by this year's record pollen crop), I had a great time. I had two enjoyable panels. I actually managed to attend a few panels. I caught up with old friends and…

Conjectures and Refutations
Listen up

6 May 2012 | 11:51 pm

The state of political discourse in the United States continues to deteriorate, with right and left trading insults instead of arguments and moderation going the way of bell-bottom jeans. Congress is paralyzed and the country seems to be split into two hostile camps, with the Tea Party on one side and Occupy Everything on the other, and no middle ground where reasonable people who want to solve the country’s problems can meet. It’s a depressing picture, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. I think it’s a waste of time to try to figure out who started it or which side is more…
The Politcal Brain

23 Mar 2012 | 12:03 am

The current issue of Reason magazine contains a very interesting excerpt from a book by Jonathan Haidt, called The Righteous Mind. In it Haidt, who is a psychologist by trade, deplores the increasing political polarization in the U.S. and discusses the genetically-based psychological dispositions which underlie people's political inclinations. It's fascinating reading.Haidt certainly does not believe in determinism when it comes to political views; he emphasizes that genes produce only a "first draft" of the brain which is modified by experience throughout the developmental process. But he…
This Means War

12 Mar 2012 | 9:28 pm

War is in the air. Liberals are rushing down to the recruiting office to join up as the Republican divisions mobilize for the War on Women. Meanwhile, conservatives are manning the watchtowers and calling up the militia for the coming Class War. Corporate America’s brutal War on Children has driven the little tykes into their bunkers. And the bishops and the TV evangelists are strapping on their helmets as Obama calls the generals to the sandbagged White House to plot the War on Religion.The lamps are going out...Fortunately, none of these is a real war. They’re just more of a type of…
Such a Rush

4 Mar 2012 | 6:13 pm

Now that Rush Limbaugh has apologized, let’s pay him the undeserved compliment of taking his position on the issue seriously. But first we have to determine what the issue is. From the howls of outrage on both sides you’d think it had something to do with sex. A young lady spoke up in favor of mandatory insurance coverage of contraception; with his usual subtle and nuanced approach Rush called the young lady a slut, making her behavior the issue and squirting lighter fluid on the already smoldering controversy about a Republican War on Women. Hotheads of all camps rushed to the…
Tired of Politics

23 Feb 2012 | 8:52 pm

I’m tired of talking and thinking about politics. And we’re still eight months away from the election. It’s going to be a long year.Our public political discourse is poisonous right now. Rick Santorum says Barack Obama has “systematically, in every single way, tried to destroy the very foundational elements of our country.” Yikes! Meanwhile, the left’s response to Santorum is to try to associate his name with an obscenity. Sorry, no matter how appalling you think Santorum is, that’s not exactly holding the high moral ground. There’s always been overheated rhetoric in politics,…

What Fresh Hell...?
Staggering with relief

15 May 2012 | 7:13 pm

And... it's done: the receipts and bits of paper and electronic mummery are all found, documented, input, tallied, and saved to a very large and detailed spreadsheet for the accountant to rip apart on Thursday. So, now I can... umm... work on words for a while.
Science Fiction and Romance

10 May 2012 | 3:28 pm

I just finished reading an advance copy of GHOST PLANET by Sharon Lynn Fisher and I'm so pleased with it I'm going to make a bit of noise here: it's *wonderful!* It's an SF Romance novel where both the Science and the Relationship are necessary to the plot, but it's *not* a romance or erotica masquerading in SF clothes--it's a truly hybrid beast. A novel about complex relationships, dependence, independence, and identity that's also about ecology, science, and coexistence. Great stuff! (But you guys will have to wait until October. Sorry....)
Someone You Should Read

10 May 2012 | 1:45 pm

As fans of mine looking for more good stuff to read, here's someone you should probably be keeping an eye on: Robin K. MacPherson. No, he's not a big name--he's barely even published--but he's got the right attitude and the skills. So if you are an aspiring writer he's someone on the same journey, and if you are a voracious, thoughtful reader, he's someone who will help fill up your brain with interesting things.And he's hit a nail on the head with his most recent blog post about writing "It's About the People," so go read this--it's short and worth the time.
Gears on the Brain

4 May 2012 | 12:38 pm

Winding gear at Stair Mine, © Copyright Eric Dalton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons LicenceMy right hand, wrist, and fingers are sore and slightly swollen from all the paper-bending Wednesday. And last night I dreamed of gears--all sorts of gears made of paper and brass: reduction gears, bevel gears, rack-and-pinion gears, chain-drive gears, friction gears, sprockets, escapements, geneva mechanisms.... I guess I have this project on the brain.
Moving Paper part 2

3 May 2012 | 6:08 pm

And the second half of my paper automata experiment is now up, too!

Myth & Mystery
From Anchorage to Portland

7 May 2012 | 1:49 pm

Our Serpent's Shadow tour of the Northwest is winding down! Tonight, I have a sold-out event for A Children's Place in Portland, and tomorrow I travel back to San Antonio for an event there on Wednesday, and San Marcos on Friday. After sold-out events in Vancouver and Seattle, we headed north to Anchorage, Alaska on Friday night. The city is just as amazing as I remember, and we had well over 1200 people at the local Barnes and Noble. Here's the view of the Tumagain Arm from the Old Seward Highway:Before the event we had breakfast at my favorite place, Snow City Cafe:That's the stuffed French…
Walkin' Like Egyptians in Provo

3 May 2012 | 8:54 am

It's not often I pull up to a stage door and find the entire pantheon of Egyptian gods waiting to greet me. Last night in Provo, Utah, the Egyptians were out in force! The folks you see in these shots are staff or volunteers for the Provo Library, and boy do they know how to put on a party. That's me, below, with Gene, the library director -- er, I mean, pharaoh. We took over the auditorium of Timpview High School and filled it to capacity with 1500 people who were very, very excited (and loud!). The show started with a sing-a-long and dance led by Isis, Bast and Thoth, who…
Thank you, Bay Area!

2 May 2012 | 9:03 am

It's always great to be back in the Bay Area! The past two days in the South Bay have been so fun. Yesterday morning we did our live webcast from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium. We had tens of thousands of people tune in from all over the world, including Egypt, Azerbaijan, Poland, and of course my good friends down in Brazil.Above is a statue of Horus on the grounds of the museum. Below, a giant-sized game of Senet. Dibs on the traffic cones! Tawaret greeted us as we walked toward the entrance: And here I am at the main entrance, which is modeled after the temple…
The Serpent's Shadow is Here!

1 May 2012 | 8:28 am

The final book of The Kane Chronicles arrives today! I hope you all enjoy it.I'll be in San Jose this morning, broadcasting live from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. If you have yet signed up to join us, please do! I'll be giving you a tour of some of the cool artifacts there, and we'll explore a tomb together, where I'll read a section from the Serpent's Shadow. Gulp! I hope the mummies and spirits like it.Tonight, I'll do my first public event with Kepler's at the Fox Theater in Redwood City. This is a big theater, so fortunately seats are still available! If you're in the Bay Area, come…
Meet Tawaret

24 Apr 2012 | 8:17 am

Our last art reveal before The Serpent's Shadow is released next week! Meet Tawaret, everyone's favorite hippo goddess, protector of mothers and children, nurse to the elderly gods of Sunny Acres Retirement Home.If you're able to come to an event next week, I look forward to seeing you! If not, be sure to join us online for the live webcast May 1. (details on the blog below) Either way, I hope you all enjoy The Serpent's Shadow!

Wendy Roberts
Win a Sony E-Reader & some books

14 May 2012 | 12:25 pm

I assume you've been following Brenda Novak's annual auction to raise money to find a cure for diabetes. If not ... why not? This is a great cause put on by a fabulous author. Want a Sony E-Reader and some paperbacks donated by yours truly? Click here.
Final Lap

25 Apr 2012 | 9:17 am

I’ve entered the final lap of the first draft of the yet to be named Ghost Dusters 4. Well, technically it HAS a name but I feel no point in sharing it as it’ll most likely change. I don’t want to confuse the issue by calling it Sadie Goes to Hollywood only to have my editor change it to Hell in Seattle and then you get all attached to Sadie Goes to Hollywood and try ordering it by that
Obstacles

10 Apr 2012 | 12:15 pm

Sometimes the universe conspires just to mess with your head. Last week I reached the three-quarters point of the first draft of Ghost Dusters Four - yay! I’ve been on a roll and happily meeting my daily writing quota and usually surpassing it. Then *boom* flood in the kitchen that translates into major water damage in the basement. This means workers are coming in and out of the house
Don’t Blog While You’re Hungry

29 Mar 2012 | 9:38 am

I love to munch while I work. Snacking while typing can have horrible side effects. My ass has been known to double in size while I write a couple hundred pages. In the interest of saving the springs in my chair and the seams of my jeans, I’ve been experimenting with non-fattening snacks. First of all, it’s gotta be salty. Roll a carrot in salt and I’d probably be fine except the salt won’
Dating Can Be Deadly!!

15 Mar 2012 | 11:09 am

By the title of this blog I’m not referring to my own love life (or lack thereof). I am talking about my very first published book Dating Can Be Deadly. The book was published in trade paperback in 2005 by Red Dress Ink and now the story is available as an ebook. And by “now” I mean right now. Today. For the first time evah. Can I get a woo hoo?! In other totally unrelated but even MORE

Ask Mama
24 Apr 2012 | 11:57 am

24 Apr 2012 | 11:57 am

Yippee, y'all! We're getting back to Mama handing out advice here in the bloggosphere. As you know, that's something I dearly love to do. So here's my most recent fashion question:Dear Mama, I don't know what to do about an author friend of mine. She insists on wearing a feather boa to book signings, conferences, and the like. I don't have the heart to tell her the boa's gotten kind of ripe (if you know what I mean) and it's really ratty looking. It's molting, and she leaves a trail of feathers everywhere she goes. Plus, who wears a boa with a pantsuit? Well, I know you do, Mama,…
Mama Takes Manhattan

29 Dec 2011 | 7:25 pm

Howdy, y'all! This blogger spot had me locked out for a while, but I'm back now. Something about passwords and authentication. My middle daughter Mace finally took care of it. I told her to tell those folks down at the Hotmail factory I'm a Florida native, and as authentic as they come. ''Tell them I resent the implication,'' I told Mace. She said the tech support people could not give one -- or zero -- about what I do or do not resent.Anyhoo, you may have heard the big news: That snippy author Deborah Sharp made a visit this week to the Today Show in New York City. As much as it pains me to…
Mama's Big Ol' Blog Tour

8 Sep 2011 | 9:53 pm

Hi, there ... Snippy Author here. Mama's invited me here to her blog because somebody's got to help me remember where I'm supposed to be guest-blogging (it's clear I haven't remembered to blog here, at Ask Mama, for a good little while!)Today is the official release date of MAMA SEES STARS, the fourth book in my funny, Southern-fried Mace Bauer Mystery series. All the kids are doing blog tours, so I thought I'd try one, too. But I'm old, and kind of lazy ... so not only am I not making that many stops, I've also screwed up the scheduling through failure to plan and memory lapses.Hence, I have…
Dress for the Weather

9 Jul 2011 | 10:38 am

I thought I'd sit down and jot a few words, since the rain has all but spoiled going outside today. It's so gloomy and overcast in Himmarshee, Fla. The only living creatures who aren't sick to death of this weather are the dabbling ducks and the gators.When the day is this gray, I like to cheer things up by dressing in lots of color. If you've read anything about me in one of those mystery books Ms. Author writes, you already know I like anything in shades of sherbet. I've got my sherbet-colored pantsuits, of course, but I've also got slickers and boots and rain hats in every hue in the…
Too Much or Just Enough?

12 Apr 2011 | 3:40 pm

I never thought I'd see the day. That know-it-all author, Deborah Sharp, has come to me for fashion advice. Can you believe it?She wants to know whether she should bring along the lovely ''Mama veil'' when she goes to Malice Domestic, a big convention for fans of mystery books. It's in Maryland, right outside Washington, DC, and she'll be there from April 30 to May 1.I told her, Absolutely! Pack up that bridal vision and turn some heads! My mama taught me to ALWAYS make an entrance, and believe me, with that veil Miss Sharp will certainly make an entrance in the halls of Malice.I hear she's…

Lisa Unger
The Truth About Fiction – Part Two

Lisa Unger

8 May 2012 | 10:37 am

I have sometimes offended people with my work. Occasionally, I have received angry letters from readers who feel I did not paint a flattering portrait of their geographic area. (Characters have opinions that I do not share and make observations of their own.) I have even lost a longtime friend who did not care for my naming a character after her. (Actually, it was just an initial. But really? Toss a seventeen-year friendship for what I considered the ultimate act of love? ) I have had a woman approach me with glee, thinking I had lampooned her ex-husband who also happened to be my…
What’s It Worth to You?

Lisa Unger

12 Apr 2012 | 9:26 am

In the controversy over e-book pricing, it might be important to recall that when you buy a book, the form it takes is the least important element of the purchase. You are buying a story, a work of art. It takes the author a year (or sometimes much longer) to create something that will transport, entertain, enlighten or educate you. It takes the publishing company a year to provide multiple edits, design, production, marketing, and author tours for each story. The actual binding and shipping of the book is a small part of the overall cost. As readers, we are not buying physical…
So You Want to be a Writer …

Lisa Unger

5 Mar 2012 | 9:17 am

I spent this past weekend at Sleuthfest, one of Florida’s best writers conferences. It was a dynamic gathering of writers, professional and aspiring, as well as some of the most important agents and editors in the business. I was struck that it’s probably one of the best things you can do as an aspiring writer, spend a weekend with other writers and publishing professionals. You learn so much about craft, the industry and even yourself. I’ve been attending Sleuthfest for ten years, and many of the people I have met there have become my dear friends and valued colleagues. …
The Ones That Got Away

Lisa Unger

11 Jan 2012 | 12:32 pm

I take the business of endorsing other authors very seriously, because I feel so fortunate to have had support from some of the most important writers working today. Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, Lisa Gardner, Jeff Abbott, and other fantastic authors have all taken the time to read my novels and offer their kind words. And every single time I am humbled and washed over with gratitude. These are some of the writers who I most admire, and who have inspired me to be the best writer I can be. And to have their names on my book…
Christmas Countdown!

Lisa Unger

19 Dec 2011 | 9:11 am

I get stressed around the holidays. You probably do, too. It seems to be the nature of the season. Has it always been this way? I feel the tension start to mount just before Thanksgiving, my brain subconsciously creating checklists of what must be accomplished over the next six weeks – gifts for family, friends, neighbors and colleagues, tips for the various people responsible for holding my life together. A parade of questions to be answered, decisions to be made. Should I bake cookies or not? How bad are holiday cards for the environment? If I send them, do I hate the planet? If I…

Getting Medieval
Scottish Medieval Walk to Rival Compostela

Westerson

8 May 2012 | 11:53 am

Why should Compostela get all the pilgrims? That's what Hugh Lockhart, a parishioner at St. Andrews Church in Edinburgh thought. It's the largest medieval cathedral in Scotland. Well, the ruins are. According to a story on Deadline.com: Mr Lockhart will be part of a group of 60 pilgrims who will set off from the capital in July, they will take the old route out of the city, which is known as St Margaret’s Way. He said: “It captured my imagination, the idea of walking through the countryside and arriving at this fantastic church, and then I heard that St Andrews had once been a…
Shakespeare's Histories Hit English Tellys

Westerson

2 May 2012 | 10:15 am

If you are lucky enough to live in England (for oh so many reasons), you can add one more. The BBC will produce four of Shakespeare's history plays, four that really do need to run consecutively because of how interrelated they are. They are (pictured above) Richard II, Henry IV Part One and Two, and Henry V. These plays set in the Late Middle Ages, tell the continuing history of the tragic end of Richard II's reign, through the life of his usurper and cousin Henry Bolingbroke (who was the eldest legitimate son of John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster) and who became Henry IV, and…
Saint George's Feastday

Westerson

23 Apr 2012 | 3:50 pm

We must make mention of this pretty important medieval saint, Saint George, patron saint of England (it's in the Union flag!) and many other places. Saint George. A fourth century martyr, George became the patron of many countries, including England, as he was the patron of soldiers and armies. He was born in Lydda, Palestine and was himself a soldier. He is best known for his heroics found in the Golden Legend, practically a field guide to the middle ages compiled by Jacobus de Voragine in the 13th century, who gathered the lives of many saints. The familiar legend wherein George slew a…
LA Times Festival of Books 2012 Day Two

Westerson

23 Apr 2012 | 12:28 am

Second day and we had better sales! To those who stopped by and bought a book, thank you so much! We had a good time in the Sisters in Crime booth as well as the MWA booth--when I could slip over there. So more pictures: I signed along side incredible author Stephen J. Schwartz yesterday at the Mysterious Galaxy booth. Medieval Times had a booth this year. No jousting, though. Crazy big tree that the kids like to romp around. I'm sure many a co-ed romps around it, too. The famous USC Marching Band gave us some music to open the festival today. She signs…
LA Times Festival of Books 2012 Day One

Westerson

21 Apr 2012 | 9:15 pm

Arrived early to help set up the Sisters in Crime LA booth, so got to see the sordid underbelly of the fest... Naw, not really. But as usual, there were lots of great authors and lots to see. Strangely, even though I am a native Angelino and lived in LA most of my young life, I have never before been to the campus of USC (Don't tell anyone, but I'm really a UCLA gal). But be that as it may, the weather was lovely and our booths were under the shade of the trees. You've still got a chance to come by tomorrow and say hi. Let's take a look. LA Chapter prez Patty Smiley (left)…

POE'S DEADLY DAUGHTERS
Chasing Elusive Dreams

16 May 2012 | 2:00 am

Sandra Parshall “Never stop trying! Never give up on your dream!”How many times have you heard that advice? How many times have you given it to friends who are discouraged by rejection? Many established writers and other creative people say that’s the best advice they can give anyone who is struggling to break in. But is it?Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors, doesn’t think so.
GEB and Zakka

15 May 2012 | 5:00 am

Sharon Wildwind If you’ve heard of the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, raise your hand. If you’ve actually read it, keep your hand up. Okay, you can put your hands down. This started last fall when a geek site published the 9 books all geeks should have read. Since I consider myself geek-oid rather than geek-y I thought it would be fun to see how many I’d read. I didn’t
Why Writers Should Watch Stephen Colbert

13 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

Saturday was the 48th birthday of Stephen Colbert. We were born in the same year, but that's not why I feel an affinity with this particular television personality. I will venture briefly into the world of television to say something about the world of writing. And my statement is this: Thank goodness for Stephen Colbert. There are times when I despair that things in television are
A Spark to Ignite Ideas

12 May 2012 | 2:00 am

John R. Lindermuth, Guest Blogger I spent most of my working life on small-town newspapers, covering most every reporting beat and in several editing slots. A portion of that time was on the crime beat, which ultimately led to an interest in writing mysteries. Probably because I spent so many years in the business, I retain a deep affection for the daily newspaper. It wasn’t until the
PHILADELPHIA RESEARCH

10 May 2012 | 11:14 pm

by Sheila Connolly On my return trip from the recent writers conference Malice Domestic, I spent a day prowling around Philadelphia, doing "research." I write a series set in Philadelphia. I lived and worked in the area for almost 20 years of my adult life, including at three different jobs in Center City, as well as when I was a child. I know a lot about the city, past and present. But

The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers
Farewell to the Outfit?

10 May 2012 | 9:45 am

A must read (and slightly zany) article in Chicago Magazine this month: The Mob's Last Gasp
Got Drugs?

26 Apr 2012 | 4:37 pm

April 28, 2012 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has scheduled another National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day which will take place on Saturday, April 28, 2012, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. This is a great opportunity for those who missed previous events, or who have subsequently accumulated unwanted, unused prescription drugs, to
Kindle Fire GiveAway!

19 Apr 2012 | 12:23 pm

by Libby HellmannInterested in winning a Kindle Fire? If so, come on over here to find out more. The contest is running now. Thanks.
Virtual Book Chat Reminder -- A Bitter Veil

16 Apr 2012 | 6:41 pm

Acckk... It's almost here! On Tuesday, April 17, at 6 PM (Eastern time so plan accordingly), Libby Hellmann will be talking about A BITTER VEIL, the state of publishing, and anything else that's on your mind during a 45-minute video chat online! Shindig Events is a brand new service that allows up to 500 people to interact together. And it is so easy to use that even her 92 year old mother will
Thrillers and Romance-Oil and Water or Does Danger Add that Certain Something?

10 Apr 2012 | 5:52 pm

by Jamie Freveletti The Romantic Times Convention is in Chicago this weekend and The Outfit members will be there enjoying every minute. I've never been to an RT Convention, and having it in Chicago is a wonderful opportunity to attend. Of course, I got to thinking, does a Thriller writer belong there? It seems as though thriller writers don't write romance and often, if

Type M for Murder
A Party Invitation

16 May 2012 | 3:00 am

Barbara here. May is National Crime Writing Month here in Canda, the brainchild of Crime Writers of Canada, which this year has been extensively promoted both by the CBC and the National Post. The initiaitve began rather modestly some years ago as National Crime Writing Week, a week of readings, signings, workshops and other criminal activities organized at the grass roots level across the
Can you bear more thoughts on the topic of book covers?*

15 May 2012 | 11:20 am

Aline’s post yesterday got me thinking. At the moment, I happen to be working on a rather long and involved book interior for a client, and being in the thick of that, there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with design explanations going from my end and responses coming from the editors’ end. With my author’s hat firmly on, I would say that it would be great to have some real input into what goes
Cover story

14 May 2012 | 5:00 am

Your book cover is your shop window. It’s the eye-catching promotion that says to the browsing reader, ‘Look what we’ve got! Come inside!’ That's what it should be. All too often, though, it's chosen on the basis that it's a 'good design' which may not have anything much at all to say about the story within, or worse still it may be something taken from a photo library because it's cheap to
Then and Now: Two women fight for their lives

11 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

This weekend we welcome back a founding member of Type M, Vicki Delany, who has been very busy lately. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy this piece. —Rick -=-=-=-=-=-=- “Look out,” someone shouted. “He’s got a knife.” Everyone scrambled to get out of the way. She pivoted on her heels, came around to face him. He charged, blade held high. Light from the lamp on the far side of the street glistened on
Know When To Fold 'Em

11 May 2012 | 12:40 am

I admit it. I’m a Kenny Rogers’ fan. A 1940s femme fatale in a short story that I wrote for an anthology was inspired by one of his songs. The name of the victim who died in the first chapter of my fourth mystery owed his name to another Rogers’ songs. I mention this because recently I had occasion to think of the lyrics from “The Gambler.” You remember. That song about an old gambler on “a

John Baker's Blog
Ancient Lights – Selected Poems by Dick Jones

john baker

5 May 2012 | 12:56 pm

Neither love nor freedom can survive the fire from what we might become. Several of these poems seem to take place at the junction between two hemispheres. The poet finds himself in the cold blue-before-dawn light with one foot in the old world and another in the margin that might or might not mean a future. But sometimes the margins coalesce; Shadows realign at the field’s edge. Night self-heals, like water. Dick Jones is a Modernist poet. In this collection he maintains a stance against cliche and the establishment and reinforces that good old modernist determination to amaze and belabor…
Montvideo, a poem by Eduardo Galeano

john baker

16 Apr 2012 | 4:15 am

Every day I walk the city that walks me. I walk through her and she walks through me. At the edge of the river-sea, river as broad as the sea, the clear air clears my mind and my legs stride on while stories walk inside me. Walking, I write. At a stroll, words seek each other and find each other and weave stories that later on I write by hand on paper. Those pages are never the final ones. I cross out and crumple up, crumple and cross in search of the words that deserve to exist: fleeting words that yearn to outdo silence. Born on the path of a cannonball, Montevideo is swept by breezes that…
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano

john baker

5 Apr 2012 | 8:26 am

B writes a book in which he makes fun of certain writers, variously disguised, or, to be more precise, certain types of writers. In one of his stories there is a character not unlike A, a writer of about B’s age, but who, unlike B, is famous, well-off and has a large readership; in other words he has achieved the three highest goals (in that order) to which a man of letters can aspire. B is not famous, he has no money and his poems are published in little magazines. Yet A and B are not entirely dissimilar. They both come from lower-middle-class or upwardly mobile working-class families.
You Can Jump by Mat Coward – a review

john baker

29 Mar 2012 | 2:59 am

. . .The only contact he had with people was when he shoved their heads down toilet bowls, and he couldn’t do that to the teachers. As an adult, looking back, I understand that the reason everyone was frightened of Karl wasn’t because he growled but because we could all see where he was going and at some single-cell stratum of our evolved souls we were afraid that if he touched us, or looked at us, or got too near us, we’d have to go with him. From the short story, If All Is Dark. As a postscript to one of these stories Mat Coward explains how he set about writing short…
Sontag: Silence

john baker

22 Mar 2012 | 11:48 am

The scene changes to an empty room. Rimbaud has gone to Abyssinia to make his fortune in the slave trade. Wittgenstein has first chosen schoolteaching, then menial work as a hospital orderly. Duchamp has turned to chess. And, accompanying these exemplary renunciations of a vocation, each man has declared that he considers his previous achievements in poetry. philosophy, or art as trifling, of no importance. But the choice of permanent silence doesn’t negate their work. On the contrary, it imparts retroactively an added power and authority to what was broken off; disavowal of the work…

A Novel Idea
three years and counting

14 May 2012 | 1:20 pm

When I hear about now-famous authors working on novels for 10 years, it makes me feel better that I've been working on my current one since 2009.2009, for the love of maude. The way I feel about this novel -- a Southern Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre, set in post-WWI Alabama -- is completely different than most of the other stories I've written. It's more important. More personal. I've started and restarted it at least three times, which is unusual for me. Normally I just plow through to the end. I'm in my third rewrite, and only about 9,000 words and one ghost-appearance in.I know in my head…
Parents of Preemies Day

23 Mar 2012 | 3:00 pm

Today is Parents of Preemies Day, an awareness campaign created by Graham's Foundation, a wonderful organization that works to provide parents of NICU babies the support and resources they need. It was named in memory of another sweet baby named Graham - so of course it holds a special place in my heart.I was thinking about the things that parents of preemies need the most while their babies are fighting for their lives in the NICU. I'd like to share some of that here, in honor of Parents of Preemies Day, and in case you are ever thrust into this kind of situation or have a friend who is. If…
Tornado sirens: spring has arrived. Also, grammar.

2 Mar 2012 | 2:05 pm

I'm pausing in between warily watching the weather here in North Alabama - tornadoes have already damaged parts of my county this morning and we're supposedly in for more this afternoon - to acknowledge National Grammar Day.Naturally, this should be a much more important day than it is, but for those of you who feel like celebrating, you can send a National Grammar Day e-card to your fellow nerds. Or as a passive-aggressive reminder to the ones you love who don't know how to correctly use an apostrophe.Personally - assuming I'm not blown away later this afternoon - I would prefer to…
thankful

27 Feb 2012 | 4:20 pm

I'm so embarrassed at how long it's been since I last wrote. I think about my blog nearly every day, in a guilty, I'll-do-it-later kind of way. Even just writing this, I can feel how rusty I've gotten.So a quick life update...and hopefully one day soon, a noveling update. (I have been writing, I promise - just not making it a priority like I should). I will apologize in advance for the happy-sappy vibe of this post. These kind of posts tend to annoy me in other bloggers but this time...it just can't be helped.The main word I'd use to describe this year for me is thankful. Grateful.
the Library Phantom

5 Dec 2011 | 10:42 am

Well this is just seriously cool.Magical Paper Sculptures left by 'Library Phantom'My favorite quote from the article:...it is an artful and generous reminder, in a world filled with self-serving publicity stunts, that adventures are out there waiting to be discovered in libraries.

Chris Orcutt, Writer
Good Enough Isn’t Good Enough

admin

5 May 2012 | 5:11 pm

If I were merely interested in selling copies of the second Dakota & Svetlana adventure, The Rich Are Different, I would probably release the novel now. According to reviews of the first book, there is certainly a demand for the second. And by the standards of most readers, not to mention many other writers in [...]
Please Bear With Me During Remodeling

admin

29 Mar 2012 | 12:34 pm

Because of a recent pharmaceutical spam attack on some of my websites, I am in the midst of moving this blog and DakotaStevens.com to another hosting provider. These sites will look bad for some time. I ask for your patience. It will take me a month or more to rebuild both DakotaStevens.com and Chris Orcutt, [...]
Hemingway Had the Pilar, I Have Golf

admin

22 Mar 2012 | 2:54 pm

Every morning while living in Key West and Cuba, Ernest Hemingway rose early to write, and every afternoon he went out cruising and fishing on his yacht, Pilar. There are many articles out there, including this one and this one, that detail what Hemingway did during his afternoons on the Pilar, as well as how much the [...]
Rewriting The Rich Are Different

admin

2 Mar 2012 | 12:47 pm

While in the post office the other day, a couple of postal workers who bought A Real Piece of Work complimented me on the writing. “It reads so smoothly,” one of them said. “It seems like it’s effortless for you,” said another. Then they asked what I was up to now. I told them, “Reworking [...]
The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe: An Interview with Jeff Bennington

admin

25 Feb 2012 | 8:19 am

Greetings, readers. Today, for the first time in the history of my blog, I’m making somebody else the focus. Today I’m going back to my roots as a newspaper reporter and interviewing Jeff Bennington, creator of The Kindle Book Review and author of a new book about the indie publishing phenomenon, The Indie Author’s Guide [...]

Cozy Chicks
The Power of Flowers

Deb Baker

15 May 2012 | 11:15 pm

by Deb Baker/Hannah Reed Last weekend I went over to pick up my best friend for a fun trip to the garden center. She opened the door snarly - not directed at me, just one of those mornings when the dogs, kids, husband weren't cooperating and she'd lost patience.And, she said, "I'm not in the mood to buy flowers. But I'll come." Grudgingly. Cuz I said I would.Then we walked into the center, one of those enormous outdoor festivals of brilliant color, outbuildings filled with geraniums, the more delicate herbs, annuals like you've never seen before.Within five minutes, maybe less, my friend had…
Dru's Cozy Report: May 2012 Reading List

Dru's Cozy Report

15 May 2012 | 5:00 am

Welcome to Dru's Cozy Report. This month we have three new series for your reading pleasure. A Deadly Grind by Victoria Hamilton is the first book in the new "Vintage Kitchen" mystery series. Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime, May 2012When vintage cookware and cookbook collector Jaymie Leighton spies an original 1920s Hoosier-brand kitchen cabinet at an estate auction, it’s love at first sight. Despite the protests of her sister, Rebecca, that the nineteenth-century yellow brick house they share in Michigan is already too cluttered with Jaymie’s junk, she successfully outbids the other…
Grinding my teeth!

Julie Hyzy

13 May 2012 | 11:15 pm

by Julie HyzyThe last time I bought a coffee grinder, I did so in a hurry because my old one had pooped out. I rushed out to Target and picked up the best one I could find for the least amount of money. You know what they say about getting what you pay for, right?Well, I despise my grinder for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that the cord is so short that I have to lean across the counter to hold the button down while it's grinding. Yeah, it's not a touch-and-go. Urgh.After more than a year of this, I decided to treat myself to a better grinder and began a search online. I…
The Gift is The Mothering

Leann Sweeney

12 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

by LeannHappy Mother's Day to all of you. It is my belief that all women, whether they end up having children or not, are mothers in one way or another. What great assets we have. The ability to nurture, to have compassion, to love unconditionally. Those are mother attributes. Even most men possess these qualities, though they might not want you to believe such a thing. It's the female part of them, that x chromosome, that probably keeps them sane. For me, having had a mother who lost her way, I craved the good mother, the sweet mother, the one who could make me feel that unconditional love.
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly -- and the Beautiful

Lorraine_Bartlett

11 May 2012 | 11:03 pm

by Lorna Barrett / Lorraine Bartlett / L.L. BartlettI recently sent out a letter to the readers on my newsletter list outlining my good and bad fortune. You see, the good was that my publisher paid to have my most recent book, The Walled Flower, get special placement in Barnes & Noble in February when it debuted. (In the "step" displays at the front of the store.)The bad? That despite their best efforts, the book did not sell as well as it might have. After all, most of my readers know me as Lorna Barrett NOT Lorraine Bartlett (which happens to be my real…

Ellen Byerrum
Interview Slated on Blog Talk Radio Program: Writing Strong Women

27 Apr 2012 | 10:48 pm

On Monday, April 30, I'll be speaking on the blog talk radio program, Writing Strong Women, hosted by Sylvia Dickey Smith. I'm looking forward to discussing the subject because I believe strong women are the most interesting to read about, and to write about. Whether they are good or bad, charming or infuriating, I want my strong female characters to jump off the page, so I'm looking forward to this interview.I hope you'll be able to catch this blog talk program online. It will also be archived on the Web site so you can listen to it whenever you like. For more information,…
Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective

31 Mar 2012 | 4:02 pm

Ravel’s Bolero was playing as I entered the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Denver Art Museum, perfect for a review of over four decades—from 1958 through 2002—of designing haute couture. Like the music, the clothes seem quiet at first, then as you move through the galleries they grow more insistent, more colorful and joyful, until finally the music of the collection thrums through you and refuses to let go.The Denver Art Museum will be the only stop for the YSL exhibit in the United States. It opened March 25th and will run only until July 8, 2012. The…
Chick Lit Blog Tour Begins March 12

12 Mar 2012 | 9:43 am

My Chick Lit Blog Tour for Death on Heels kicks off today, Monday, March 12, at Chick Lit Cafe with a terrific review of the book, and if you keep reading, a Question and Answer session with me. Of course my books are mysteries, but they also touch on romance, satire, and current issues. I'm very excited because I'll be meeting new people and readers on this tour.These blogs will include reviews, Q&As, and guest posts on a variety of book-related and and fashion-related subjects. There will also be chances to win copies of Death On Heels, which is the eighth book in my Crime…
Blogging About the Fashion Bites.

29 Feb 2012 | 11:37 am

If you've ever wanted to know the truth about the Fashion Bites that I include in my Crime of Fashion mysteries, head over to The Stiletto Gang today where I am guest blogging. You'll find out the skinny on how they got there in the first place, and why they are still there.It was a fun post once I got started and inspired by a little rhyme. Check it out at The Stiletto Gang. And let me know what you think about them.
The Other Face of Vice

8 Feb 2012 | 11:57 am

Behind the scenes of an undercover vice operation in Denver: That’s the subject of the speaker at the February meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America later this week. I’m looking forward to it, in part because some years ago I got a glimpse of the other face of vice in the Mile High City from one of the active participants in the sex trade. I’m curious to compare the two versions.At the time, I lived in a studio apartment in an L-shaped, concrete block apartment building called "The Laguna," which was painted a lurid shade of lavender.

Laurie R. King: Mystery Writer» Page not found
Library contest, V and VI

Laurie King

11 May 2012 | 1:33 pm

I said in the rules of the contest that mention of one of my books wouldn’t give a person any extra points, but… I loved the depiction of childhood glee in Susan M’s piece, since who wouldn’t love a secret passageway into a world of books? But honestly, I had to recognize Kathy Eliot, who made the mistake of wandering into a library’s annual sale, and had her life taken over. Two women who lifted the lid into a new world, and fell inside. Susan M: My childhood library had a built-in window seat. One day I noticed that it had a pull-ring on top of the seat and…
Thrills in the library stacks

Laurie King

10 May 2012 | 11:32 pm

The fourth winner in last month’s library contest is Beth Anne, whose piece offers insight into the richness and humanity of archival research. Archival research usually consists of long stretches of boredom punctuated by tedium, until bits of evidence start to tumble out of the documents. There is nothing like this sense of discovery, which one eminent scholar described as akin to “the feeling of having sat on a cat.” I was fortunate to experience this many times while carrying out my dissertation research at Oxford. But strangely enough, the things that stick in my memory…
Pirate Kings and library-lovers

Laurie King

9 May 2012 | 9:11 am

The third winner of last month’s National Library Week giveaway, Ashley W. tells us about her “Thrill in the Stacks”: My most personal library thrill actually happened at an archives. The Archives, to be exact. A friend works at the National Archives and is a specialist in US Department of State records. He was taking me on a behind-the-scenes tour of the stacks, when we passed a section on death records of Americans killed overseas. I asked if that included military personnel killed during peacetime and we stopped to look at the index. My great-great-uncle was a Marine…
Day Two of Library Thrills

Laurie King

8 May 2012 | 8:19 am

Our second winner of the National Library Week contest (and there is no rank among the winners, by the way, no first prize or runners-up) is by “EMB”. And how could it not be, coupling precision with the words “Bodleian” and “mitigation” in its very first sentence–then going on to a mystery involving the Tremulous Hand of Worcester, and a quick exuberant lap around Duke Humfrey’s? Read on… One of my greatest library thrills was not in the stacks, though perhaps the fact that the Bodleian has closed stacks is something of a mitigation on that score.
National Library Week contest, at last

Laurie King

7 May 2012 | 9:36 am

Last month, while I was away in Japan, we ran a contest with the theme “Thrills in the Stacks”—asking for some exciting event that happened in the library. I read the submissions when I got back 2 weeks ago, but although I don’t do jet lag, I do get really stupid for a while after coming back from a hard trip, and my brain just wouldn’t step up to the judging process. Problem is, they were all so great. Even with a brain that’s starting to function again, picking the best is no easy thing. But I did finally manage to narrow them down to a week’s worth (a work week, that is)…

Terry's Place
Win a Nook

10 May 2012 | 9:37 pm

In case you haven't found my new blog, you're missing a chance to win a NOOK. Head over and see how to enter.
I've Moved!

3 May 2012 | 7:39 pm

It's official. Terry's Place has a new address. Please bookmark the new site. http://terryodell.com/terrysplace. To celebrate, I'm going to have a new contest with a Really Big Prize. Details will be announced over there in the very near future. Posts on this blog will stay here, but I hope you'll visit my new site and subscribe to posts over there.
Terry's Place is moving

1 May 2012 | 1:59 pm

First, thanks to Bailey for yesterday's post. I remember Maypole dancing when I was in grade school. After over four years here, Terry's Place is moving. Although I'd been thinking about it for some time, the recent lack of support and customer service from Blogger has lit a fire under the move. I hope you'll bookmark my new site, and continue to follow. Because I'm moving sooner than I'd planned, the new site is still in transition, and as I learn more about the features, I'll add them. Feel free to make suggestions. Some things I'm looking forward for: threaded comments, so we can…
Happy Beltane!

1 May 2012 | 5:59 am

Bailey Cates writes the Magical Bakery Mysteries. The first in the series, Brownies and Broomsticks, releases today in mass market paperback and ebook formats from NAL/Penguin. She also writes the Home Crafting Mystery Series as Cricket McRae. The sixth in that series, Deadly Row to Hoe, will release in November from Midnight Ink/Llewellyn. There's a giveaway, so be sure to leave a comment. And check back this weekend to see if you won. Thanks for inviting me to guest here at Terry’s Place! I’m delighted to stop by, especially as today is Beltane, or May Day, which I’ve decided is a…
Pikes Peak Writers Conference 3 - Series

30 Apr 2012 | 6:00 am

What I'm Reading: Breaking the Rules, by Suzanne Brockmann; From the Ashes, by Jeremy Burns (Nook) Okay, so the picture doesn't exactly evoke "series", although Robert Crais writes series, and so do I. Which hardly puts us in the same league. But he was on the series panel, and I was in the audience, so the picture sort of fits. Kind of. If you stretch the imagination. But he's easy on the eyes, so what the heck. It IS my blog, after all. I'm trying to mix up the workshop topics so there's something for everyone. I'll still have more on publishing, and that 1875 forensics post, so keep coming…

Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified
The Biggest Challenges

Agatho

8 May 2012 | 4:20 pm

Back in my university days, I remember reading sources from ancient Babylon and Ur in which writers complained that children are becoming increasingly unruly, and that the downfall of society would certainly result therefrom. (Come to think of it, those cities did fall...) My point is that people have been foretelling the downfall of society, industries, models, methods, and theories since the beginning of time. When I started in this business decades ago, I remember one of my mentors bewailing the state of the industry and how books were getting worse and and worse. (He would spin in his…
What the Heck Is Going On?

Agatho

23 Apr 2012 | 8:08 pm

It's simply impossible to keep up with the mystery genre and its permutations. But I do try.... One doesn't have to follow blogs, read listservs, and attend conventions to hear writer's frustrations. The smarter ones don't inveigh against the industry and its quirks in public; though I'm sure some have wisely chosen to vent under screen names/pseudonyms. Sometimes I understand their frustrations; sometimes I want to tell them to grow up. No one ever said a career in a creative discipline is going to be easy. Several years ago one of my daughters, enrolled in a Ph.D.
Action - Camera - Lights!

Agatho

11 Apr 2012 | 2:17 pm

I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to lately because it's been a good season for manuscripts. (I wonder if this has anything to do with NaNoWriMo.) As always, there are many submissions, few contracts. The submissions tell me that, despite all the dire prognostications, as well as the pomposities of the self/vanity-published, there are still a good many aspiring writers who understand that a publisher can do many things that the average person can't - and that the publisher will actually pay to have all of this done because it believes in their work! Imagine that…
Bill Pronzini: An Appreciation

Agatho

30 Mar 2012 | 2:56 pm

Bill Pronzini:An Appreciation I always knew, but was recently reminded, that the longest-running series in mystery fiction is Bill Pronzini's Nameless series. It began in 1971 and continues through today. The most recent title is BETRAYERS, and I understand that the next installment, HELLBOX, will be published this summer. Over the years, we've watched Nameless age and take on partners in his San Francisco-based detective agency, including the stoic Jake Runyon, the enterprising Alex Chavez, and the sassy computer expert, Tamara. While I haven't read every book in the series…
Rant to Department of Justice: Get a Life

Agatho

19 Mar 2012 | 1:50 pm

OK, so let me get this straight. The airlines just get bigger and bigger. Continental merges with United to create the world's largest airline. Ticket prices go up. Services goes down. WAY, WAY down. Banks keep getting bigger and bigger, with colossi buying up independent state or regional banks. Fees go through the roof while interest rates on savings go through the floor. Investment firms are declared "too big to fail" (as a result of merger after merger) while hard-working people lose their retirement funds. Mrs. See's candies, those wonderful San Francisco chocolates,…

In Reference to Murder
The Pulp Ink is Barely Dry

BV Lawson

14 May 2012 | 10:08 pm

David Cranmer created the online zine Beat to a Pulp to fill a void of hardboiled fiction when other e-zines were folding. He and editor Scott D. Parker feature one pulp/hardboiled/noir story each week on the website, and the endeavor proved so popular the duo put together an anthology of stories from the website in October 2010 titled Beat to a Pulp: Round One. Now comes the good news that Beat to a Pulp: Round Two has just been released, and Cranmer promises you'll find "aliens, gangsters, drifters, mountain men, private dicks, gun molls, loners, misfits, drunks, thugs, booze-hounds, and…
Media Murder for Monday

BV Lawson

14 May 2012 | 8:00 am

MOVIESSean Bean has signed on to play the lead in the adaptation of Devil's Peak, the first book in a trilogy by author Deon Meyer. Bean will star as Detective Benny Griessel, a recovering alcoholic who is trying to win back the trust of his family as well as solve the case of a vigilante killer.United Talent Agency has signed Elmore Leonard, the first time in the author's 60-year career that he has teamed up with a major Hollywood agency. It's not the first time Leonard's work has been adapted, of course; there have already been 20 films made from his over 40 novels and numerous short…
Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Find the Innocent

BV Lawson

10 May 2012 | 8:15 pm

English mystery writer William Edward Vickers (1889-1965) was best known under his pen name Roy Vickers, although he also wrote under the names David Durham, Sefton Kyle, and John Spencer. Biographical details are a bit sketchy, but Vickers worked as a salesman, court reporter and magazine editor in addition to penning nonfiction articles. He also found some success as a ghostwriter and as a crime reporter for a newspaper.He found his literary stride when he published his short story, "The Rubber Trumpet," the first of over three dozen stories originally published in Pearson's Magazine and…
Mystery Melange

BV Lawson

9 May 2012 | 11:46 am

Bestselling author Lawrence Block is offering select items for sale on eBay, including stories, the copyedited manuscript of A Drop of the Hard Stuff, complete with corrections ("and my occasionally vehement responses thereto"), the revised draft of a script for a TV movie, for which Block adapted an Edgar-winning Matthew Scudder story, and more. The auctions close May 13. Noir At The Bar returns to the Mandrake Bar in Culver City, California on May 20, with author Lisa Brackmann (Rock, Paper, Tiger), Eric Stone (Shanghaied), Brett Battles (No Return), Fingers Murphy (The Flaming Motel) and…
Media Murder for Monday

BV Lawson

7 May 2012 | 8:32 am

MOVIESDublin author Ava McCarthy signed a deal with Hollywood production company Polaris Pictures to adapt her debut novel The Insider for film. The book centers on a female former computer hacker named Harry Martinez, who has shifted careers to become a private eye. Ex-James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan has joined Owen Wilson to star in John Erick Dowdle's political/spy thriller The Coup. The story follows an American family who moves to Southeast Asia and gets mixed up in a violent coup where merciless rebels are attacking the city. Brosnan will play a mysterious government operative.

Mystery Novels

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