Dave White, author of When One Man Dies (on sale everywhere in September and widely praised already - James Crumley gave it two fingers up...thumbs, that is) asks what you'll be reading this summer. For me the summer is a short one since I've just today finished calculating and entering grades for my summer classes and soon I'll need to prepare for the Fall. Also, I'm a slow reader so I'll be lucky to finish two or three books before I've got…

Went to the Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building for jury service yesterday. Never got called up but noticed these cheap-looking posters up on the walls. They resembled movie matinee posters with a different "celebrity" face on each one with the message--the Office of the Los Angeles Jury Commissioner features HARRISON FORD, EDWARD JAMES OLMOS, JAMIE LEE CURTIS, JUDGE LANCE ITO, etc. Supposedly they also spent eight hours in a stuffy room on uncomfortable chairs. Never have seen a celebrity…

I was asked by a friend how I write when I write and for how long. A lot easier asked than answered. I have read of writers who work eight-to-10-hours a day, sometimes six-days a week, in front of the computer. Wow! If I did that, I could get a book done in three months. I am not sure how good it would be, not with my shortsighted thought process.

Like many writers, I have a job that pays the bills and then my real job, writing. So, at the end of the day I can be all juiced up…

I've just learned that Publishers Weekly has given ISLAND OF EXILES a starred review. Even better than that fact is the review itself:

"Parker's fourth Sugawara Akitada mystery (after 2006's Black Arrow), set in 11th-century Japan, manages to outplot its superb predecessors. When exiled and disgraced Prince Okisada is poisoned on…

posted by Lorraine Bartlett

One of my hobbies is growing veggies. Thanks to Mr. Bunny, my home bean crop was chomped to the dirt before the plants could even begin to start climbing. Though I planted seven potato "seedlings," only two sprouted. However, my bean crop at the cottage is going strong...with one little problem. Or rather, 100+ of them.

In…

How is it that some authors grab you by the sleeve and won't let you go, while others only provide a pleasant diversion that can be set down at any moment to do something more pressing?

I started my second Laura Lippman book this morning, and already I'm hooked. Barry Eisler does it as well. It could be in Lippman's case that she writes as I think, pulling up details that seem like they came from my own brain, but in Eisler's work I have no frame of reference, being neither Asian nor…

Here are the links to the first two events on my virtual book tour. Special thanks to Phil Harris and Joyce Tremel. Click on the link dated 7/30 …

Today's a fairly significant birthday - I won't publicize which one, but it's a good one to take stock and do some journaling. I'm delighted that I've finally published a novel within the past year, and look forward to publishing my next, Eldercide, ASAP - not to mention completing another that I've just begun, with the working title Green Burial.

Right now, though, my office is too hot to work in, so I guess I'll give myself a break and go jump in the lake.…

I turned in book 3 in the bayou series to my editor. I can't wait to hear her thoughts. The first revision letter is always the scariest. Now, I look forward to hearing her ideas on what will make the story even better. I'm blessed to have an editor who knows what her line's readers like. My mentor once told me that my story isn't anything until someone interacts with it, and my editor is the first one and gives me that feedback. So, I'm anxiously awaiting to hear what she has to…

Have you been thinking about joining Sisters in Crime or just curious about what your dues provide? Here are a few of the high points of the past yearand some things to look forward to as well!

1. Review monitoring project--this is the backbone of the organization and it's aimed directly at the mission statement. Judy Clemens has been heading it up and you can read about it here: http://www.sistersincrime.org/monitor/.

2.…

Posted by Sheila Connolly

I witnessed history in the making this weekend.

I mentioned in an earlier post that my town was flirting with entering into an agreement with the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe to support the tribe's opening a casino (or more elegantly, a five-star resort destination) on five hundred or so scrubby, boggy acres on the north side of town. On Saturday, Middleboro took the giant step forward of voting to authorize the five-person Board of Selectmen…

My new thriller "The Pressure of Darkness" is hands down the most disturbing thing I’ve written to date; a novel that deals with bleak universal themes such as the cosmogonic…

As I read through the posts on several writer/reader forums I've joined, it strikes me that we're different. Now isn't that profound?

Different means that a book I like, for example, Craig Johnson's A Cold Dish, made a reader post that she'd given up on it because it took too long to tell the story, and a book I find corny and in fact irritating is someone else's "brilliant read." If you've read earlier posts you can guess which authors I don't care for in the mystery genre,…