Bret Wright

Profile Information:

Hometown:
Colorado Springs
About Me:
I'm an author, school teacher, and retired Navy guy. I write a lot of things, but detective mysteries are my fave. I also run the Writer's Digest top site for writers, Apollo's Lyre.
I Am A:
Reader, Writer, Publisher, Editor
Website:
http://www.bret-wright.com
Books And Authors I Like:
Jhumpa Lahiri, Stephen King, Carl Hiaasen, Robert Jordan, Sinclair Lewis, Sue Grafton, Robert Browning, Rex Stout, Anne Sexton, Isaac Asimov, Tom Robbins, Seamus Heaney.
Movies And TV Shows I Like:
O, Brother, Where Art Thou?, Sideways, Tombstone, Apocalypse Now, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Departed, The Thin Man, Napoleon Dynamite, The Maltese Falcon (OK, anything Bogart or Spencer Tracy!)

Comment Wall:

  • Earl Staggs

    Thanks for the invite, Bret. I see great things happening for you in the Amazon/Penquin contest. I'm off to download the excerpt. I know I won't be disappointed. Good luck in the finals.

    Jan 17, 2008

  • F.T. Bradley

    Good to see you around here, Bret!

    Jan 18, 2008

  • Bret Wright

    Hi Earl and Fleur! Yeah, I'm white-knuckling it for about a month or so . . . I'm hoping it'll be longer than a month or so, though. Sick pups, writers.

    Jan 18, 2008

  • helen black

    Welcome.
    Saw you liked Life of Brian.
    In the UK it was shown recently with a documentary about the furore it created at the time which was quite ridiculous. Apparently it was banned from lots of cinemas!!!
    HB x

    Jan 18, 2008

  • Mark Stevens

    Regards from a fellow Coloradoan!

    Great to see Tom Robbins on the author list.

    Antler Dust features a female guide in the Flat Tops Wilderness of western Colorado and a tangle between hunters and animal rights protesters.

    Great reviews from The Denver Post, Aspen Times, Great Falls (Montana) Tribune and five stars on Amazon.

    Just thought I'd pass that along...

    Cheers,

    Mark

    Cheers,

    Mark

    Jan 28, 2008

  • Bret Wright

    Mark! Left a comment on your wall . . . a little BSP-ish, sorry. Robbins is a great writer, and his humor is often overlooked. What part of Colorado?

    Jan 28, 2008

  • Mark Stevens

    I'll be glad to check out the entry and do what I can....I know there are quite a few locals with entries in that contest. I live in Denver....

    Jan 28, 2008

  • Mark Stevens

    Loved "Nasty" -- fantastic. Review posted. Great stuff.

    Feb 3, 2008

  • Mark Stevens

    Bret,

    Yes, I posted a review of Beth's too. I thought her start was fantastic. Just loved it. By the way, Book Sleuth in Old Colorado City has a few copies of AD. Liman loved it and I was down there a few weeks ago for a signing. Thanks for the support and, of course, I'd love your thoughts as well. I hope to see Beth today in Aurora.

    Feb 4, 2008

  • Gerrie

    Let's be friends :)

    Mar 3, 2008

  • Bret Wright

    Sooooo . . . I guess Penguin wasn't looking for first person, hardboiled, tongue-in-cheek PI stories. I got knocked out of the semi-finals on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA). So be it, I guess. Disappointing, but not entirely surprising. Back to the drawing board for me, as far as queries and whatnot. It was rewarding, fun, and I got a lot of great feedback . . . and an incredible Publisher's Weekly review that will definitely make it to the blurbs on the published novel, once the Nasty makes it to that happy state.

    Congrats to Beth Groundwater, another ABNA alumnus who got passed over in the last cut. She's getting an Agatha!!!! Way to go, Beth!

    Mar 3, 2008

  • Gerrie

    I was surprised NASTY didn't make the final cut. I thought you and Valya were a dead cert. Didn't think Billie Nikkel was quite ready - the PW reviewer "damned with faint priase" although I liked it when he/she said the unlovely characters wouldn't be out of place in a vintage Ross McDonald. Seeing my entry, it was obvious it needed another edit - too wordy (and this for a former newspaper writer).

    Funny isn't it, Beth doesn't make the cut on ABNA, but is in the running for an Agatha. This business can drive you nuts. Go Beth :)

    Mar 3, 2008

  • Gerrie

    Curious Bret, are you obsessing about what's going on over at ABNA?

    Mar 3, 2008

  • Bret Wright

    No, not really. Since the excerpts are down, I've drifted away from it. I was glued to it for several weeks, though. Now . . . eh. Penguin doesn't want what I write, so I have to concentrate on finding a publisher that does. I've started sending out queries to agents again. I got a very nice rejection from Hard Case Crime today -- the book's too long for them at 86k words (they like 50-60k, and it appears to be a little too cheeky for them.) But now I can add this to my query letters: manuscript reviewed by Publishers Weekly, an independent organization "Nate Jepson (a.k.a. "Nasty") is a solid entry into the P.I. hall of fame. . . ."

    That ought to be worth at least some requests for pages.

    I do check in over at the ABNA site, but I'm not posting much.

    Oh! And I had Valya pegged to take it all the way, too! I was completely floored when she didn't even make the top 100.

    Mar 3, 2008

  • L.J. Sellers

    You're the third mystery writer from Colorado Springs I've met in the last month. Is it something in the water?
    Should I move there?

    Hang in there with your writing. It sounds like you have talent. Have you tried Capital Crime Press?

    Mar 3, 2008

  • Michael W. Sherer

    Thanks for the add. Best, M

    Mar 4, 2008