May 2009 Blog Posts (180)

Indonesia debates my Grave in Gaza

I’ve been extraordinarily impressed with the job my Indonesian publisher is doing with my Palestinian crime novels. It also turns out I have something in common with a popular former President of Indonesia.

My editor at Dioma Publishing in Malang, Indonesia, Herman Kosasih filled me in on a couple of events they organized there for the launch of A Grave in… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 31, 2009 at 9:18pm — 1 Comment

Weekly Blog - Monday 1st June

I’ll keep the blog brief this week as I’ve just received editorial notes from my publisher on the third book in the Zac Hunter series, The Beholder. The notes are mostly concerned with minor character details (e.g. ensuring that dialogue is consistent, reinforcing motivation, etc) along with a request to cut back on the amount of musical references I’ve dotted throughout the text – a fair point as I did go to town on them in this book! I’ll now be spending the next week or so diligently working… Continue

Added by Steven Hague on May 31, 2009 at 6:50pm — No Comments

Working on book number two

The deadline for my second book is fast approaching. It will be a collection of unsolved crimes, but vastly different from the typical anthologies of unsolved crimes. All the cases are very much active, and in many ot them, there is a likelihood someone will actually be convicted. That said, it has been a very unusual experience researching this book than my past projects! I have interviewed so many people over the years who have lost someone close to them that I cannot begin to count. After 20… Continue

Added by Robert J. Hoshowsky on May 31, 2009 at 1:19pm — No Comments

BLEEDER trailer at YouTube

I produced a 30-second trailer for my contemporary mystery BLEEDER due out in August. You can see it at YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht1OnlLnwKo

Did it on dial-up, no less. Lots of finger-drumming time waiting for visuals to download! I gotta upgrade to high-speed Internet soon.

Added by John Desjarlais on May 31, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

ROGUE MALES: SUBJECT #9, KINKY FRIEDMAN

(Author’s note: Rogue Males: Conversations & Confrontations About the Writing Life, is a collection of author interviews. It includes Elmore Leonard, Lee Child, Pete Dexter, James Ellroy, Daniel Woodrell, Craig Holden and James Crumley. Rogue Males also features an account of a trip to the desert to interview crime fiction greats Ken Bruen and James Sallis about the craft of writing. During the next few weeks, I’m sharing a little bit about each… Continue

Added by Craig McDonald on May 31, 2009 at 12:06pm — 3 Comments

Magically Inventive: Darren Craske's Writing Life interview

The Victorian-era crime novel has been a firmly established sub-genre from Sherlock Holmes to Anne Perry’s William Monk. But it has never seen anything like Cornelius Quaint. The hero of Darren Craske’s devilishly cunning new series (the first book,… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 31, 2009 at 2:00am — No Comments

Indulge the Impulse

(Also posted at One Bite at a Time.)

No one has control over their impulses; we can only manage our responses. The brave man is not the one with no fear. It’s the one who faces that fear and does what scares him, anyway. Our responses to base impulses define our character.

Writers get to have it both ways. How many of us have been less than pleased with how we handled a situation in our lives, then wrote a scene where a… Continue

Added by Dana King on May 30, 2009 at 4:58am — 4 Comments

Dead Men's Dust at number 12 in hardback chart (Sunday Times UK)

Hi everyone,
my debut novel Dead Men's Dust reached number twelve in the Sunday Times hardback list. Sounds great, but like everyone else I'd have loved to have made it into the top ten.

Do me a favour, if you've read my book and enjoyed it, please spread the word.

Added by Matt Hilton on May 30, 2009 at 4:15am — 1 Comment

WELL, HELL, I GOT THE OFFICIAL GO-AHEAD...

The cat's out of the bag and it seems I can go ahead guilt-free with AN Smith's blessing. New PLOTS WITH GUNS is up. I am there, as is my man Jimmy Callaway, Pinckney Benedict (!), Kieran Shea and more. Join us for a fun time in the year 2509. Jimmy freaked me out earlier by mentioning that perhaps I shouldn't be bringing it up just yet, but thankfully all is well cool.

While I'm at it, let's kill a… Continue

Added by Cameron Ashley on May 30, 2009 at 12:30am — 2 Comments

If You Knew Then What You Know Now

I often hear people say that if they knew they were going to live this long, they'd have taken better care of themselves. I think writers find many areas of the business where a little forethought (or listening to the advice of those who've gone before) would have saved them work and frustration.

Early on someone advised dating the file on a project in the file name. That way you always know which version is the most recent and, ostensibly, the best. I didn't do that for a long time,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 29, 2009 at 10:18pm — No Comments

There is always a first for everything!

I am new here and new to crime fiction writing so give me a chance. I hope that we can get to know eachother better. If anyone needs me to read anything that they are working on just let me know I would be happy to read it. I am obsessed with reading! Once I start I can not stop there is not one book that I have ever picked up and started reading that I have not finished. If you are a writer and have published and would like me to read your stuff feel free to email me with a list and I will see… Continue

Added by Sally Wolf on May 29, 2009 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

A Book (featuring me) Will Be On Blog Talk Radio

Mike Hanson, the creator of Sha'Daa: Tales of the Apocalypse, a novel-anthology hybrid to which I contributed Chapter 6: Dixie Chrononauts, will be appearing on the Ben Eads Dark Fiction Show, on Saturday May 30th, at 11 PM EST.

If you can't catch it live, you can download it as a podcast and listen to it at your leisure.

And if you would like a copy of the book then click my… Continue

Added by D.R. MacMaster on May 29, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Wrestling the Sloth

(Also posted on One Bite at a Time.)

Tomorrow is one month since I temporarily set aside the work in progress to re-evaluate the plot. Since then, I solved the problems that held me up (more remain, but they’ll be surmountable in context), gained a firmer grasp of my characters (thanks to some excellent advice on Robert Gregory Browne’s writing blog, specifically… Continue

Added by Dana King on May 29, 2009 at 5:45am — 4 Comments

An Unfortunate Day

Yesterday was one of those horrible unfortunate days that perhaps hit us all from time to time. First of all, I suffered a computer crash, and though I got most everything back again, my e-mail program has been inoperable since then and I have to wait until someone comes out to the house to see if I can get it back. If not, I'll lose a whole load of important emails, attachments, and contacts.

Then, my father-in-law, who was on a visit to our home, suffered a small stroke while he… Continue

Added by Brian L Porter on May 29, 2009 at 4:46am — 1 Comment

Writing Studio

Having a 'room of one's own' (with apologies to Virginia Woolf) is important to some writers - at least a dedicated space for writing. On occasion I can write in a library (though I'm distracted by all the books) and sometimes in a cafe (though I feel self-conscious: "Hey, everyone, look at me working"). But now that my son is grown and gone and his old bedroom is vacant, that has become my Writing Studio. I hear John Updike had three rooms for writing, one for fiction, one for poetry, one for… Continue

Added by John Desjarlais on May 29, 2009 at 4:31am — No Comments

Another flash in the pan.

And by "pan," I mean A Twist of Noir. So dig it.

Added by Jimmy Callaway on May 29, 2009 at 12:42am — 2 Comments

On Blood and Guts

Don't much like it. I know many do, so I try not to judge. I picked up a mystery in a bookstore yesterday that boasted, "If you like suspense paired with truly grisly detail..." Put it down, even though critics and friends have told me it's very well done.

We all have a line in our tiny little minds, a line we don't like crossed. How much detail should there be as to what the killer did to the victim? How much physical pain and emotional distress can we put our protagonist through?… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 29, 2009 at 12:05am — 8 Comments

Toronto Star: Palestinian crime novels the key to happiness

Toronto Star Mideast correspondent Oakland Ross writes about my path to happiness -- via the less than happy occurrences of the region. It's a different, more personal kind of profile than the sort of thing journalists usually write, which is perhaps due to the novelist's sensibility Oakland brings to the piece (He's the author of historical novels set in… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 28, 2009 at 8:09pm — No Comments

Global Post: Bibi in a corner

Obama presses Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop building in West Bank settlements. By Matt Beynon Rees - GlobalPost May 26, 2009

JERUSALEM — One morning late last week, Israeli Border Police showed up at Maoz Esther, an outpost of Israeli settlers in the West Bank near Ramallah. They waited for a Bible study class to finish, tore down the settlers’ five little shacks and ran the residents off.

A few hours later, the settlers… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 28, 2009 at 7:56pm — No Comments

3 Acts of Murder - The Story of a Crime Writer - Upcoming movie about Arthur Upfield

Fans of Australian Crime Fiction and, in particular, Arthur Upfield have got a bit of a treat coming up on ABC1 on the 14th June. 3 Acts of Murder will be screening, telling one of those truth is often stranger than fiction stories about Arthur Upfield.

In 1928 Arthur Upfield, Australia’s premier crime writer, plotted the perfect murder for his novel The Sands of Windee. Meanwhile, one of his friends, stockman Snowy Rowles, put the scheme into deadly effect, even before the book was… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on May 28, 2009 at 10:26am — 1 Comment