June 2007 Blog Posts (236)

A genre is born: Feline Noir

A CAT'S TAIL

I knew it was going to be bad when I found the head at the bottom of the stairs.

“The neighbors reported hearing a scuffle, then a scream, then nothing.” The uniform paused to flip the page in his notebook. “Then they said they thought they saw a tall man with dark hair running off."

I climbed to the top of the stairs and examined the body. She was wearing a long housecoat and other than missing a head, looked rather peaceful. There… Continue

Added by Evil Kev on June 30, 2007 at 1:40pm — 3 Comments

Will it never end?

I was re-drafting my query today for my novel HURT and got a brainstorm: What if this character dunnit, not the original? Oh, stop, I told myself, but it was too late. I was thinking about it. Then I started to write the thoughts down. And I realized that this potential revision could solve a number of niggling problems I had with the story. It could strengthen a couple of weak characters, cast light on others' motivations, take out the tired old serial-killer motif and focus on a…

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Added by Christa M. Miller on June 30, 2007 at 12:49pm — 3 Comments

So... Everybody died this year and when I finally get in the mood to pick up a book, people keep dying... What's a guy to do? Overwrite... or just get over it?

So he got run over by a car. Thump! End of story? She was beheaded by a news chopper. Finis...........

What is this death? .........

When your heart stops, a sentient sigularity of infinite mass, once worshiped as a Babylonian deity, now mistakenly known by astrophysicists as a black hole, and known to his friends as Manny,sucks all the space out of the molecules in your chest. Cellular membranes shrink like cocks in cold water to cover each likewise contracting testicular… Continue

Added by Otis Twelve on June 30, 2007 at 12:33pm — No Comments

news!*

i will be hosting a virtual book tour for one of our crimespace members in august! check back!!!

Added by Kim Smith on June 30, 2007 at 8:50am — 2 Comments

June Reads

A TASTE FOR SIN - GIL BREWER

Protagonist: Jim Phalen, Liquor store worker

Series?: Standalone (written in 1959)

Setting: Smalltown America

Jim Phalen has a dead end job,lives in a dead end rooming house,and has a dead end life. And he's in lust with Felice, the dangerous young wife of the local bank manager. She's one of the most dangerous femmes fatales I've ever read. This is a nasty nasty book, filled with nasty nasty people. Here's one of my favurite lines:

'She was… Continue

Added by Donna Moore on June 30, 2007 at 5:57am — No Comments

EBMRG - 3 July 2007 Meeting Handout

THE EAST BAY MYSTERY READERS GROUP

DARK CARNIVAL

Tuesday July 3rd, 2007 - 7 p.m.…

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Added by LJ Roberts on June 30, 2007 at 4:00am — No Comments

reading whiplash

Ever read a book that has everything in it you don't like, but you like it anyway? I just did, with Cornelia Read's A Field of Darkness. Trying to put my finger on it took a while over at my other blog - suffice it to say, my Bolshie impulses and hardboiled tastes were appalled, but the writing was too gorgeous to miss.

Added by Barbara Fister on June 30, 2007 at 1:24am — No Comments

Meet me in Manassas

After that big success in Springfield last weekend, I'm very much looking forward to TOMORROW'S book signing at Borders in Manassas, VA. This will be my first time signing in Manassas, but it is the home of the Mystery Lovers Corner - www.mysteryloverscorner.com - so I know that Webmaster Dawn and my other friends there will turn out for me. The Manassas Borders is at 11270 Bulloch Drive, easy to find and fun to visit. And it's one of the big stores, so you can even pick up a… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on June 29, 2007 at 10:25pm — No Comments

New York, New York

posted by Leann Sweeney

That's where I am as I write this blog. New York. I came to here to see my daughter perform off Broadway in a tiny little theater at the Here Arts Center. She is a "performance artist" now, not just a dancer. What I saw was amazing. She combined origami, monologue, dialogue and dance. Don't ask me how, but it worked. At least for me. I am the mom, though. Moms opinions are not what performers are looking for. Just like writers should never rely on beloved…

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Added by Writers Plot on June 29, 2007 at 10:18pm — No Comments

"Come To Heal" takes first place!

My romantic novel, Come To Heal," took out first place in the contemporary sector of the Golden Acorn Excellence in Writing competition. Woohoo! Color me happy!

Added by Babe King on June 29, 2007 at 6:06pm — No Comments

Going to the Cat and Dog contest

Congratulations to the winners of this week's contest. Out of 247 entries, Teresa W. of Toledo, OH won Patrick McManus' Avalanche and Pattie T. of St. Louis, MO won Whack-A-Mole by Chris Grabenstein. The books will be going out in the mail tomorrow.

If you're an animal lover, the contests this week are for you.

I'm giving away mysteries that feature pets, if Midnight Louie… Continue

Added by Lesa Holstine on June 29, 2007 at 1:39pm — No Comments

Kicked out of the bar?

I haven't logged onto CrimeSpace since early June, and this morning, to my dismay, the gatekeeper didn't recognize me and refused to let me in. Is it because I've been AWOL? I had to go through various electronic contortions with Ning and reset my password. Finally I accessed my page, and to my relief, everything is still here.

Seems we're becoming more of a speakeasy than an open bar. I imagine this is Ning's doing, and maybe the security is a good thing. Who knows?

I'm glad…

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Added by Julie Lomoe on June 29, 2007 at 2:54am — 1 Comment

The Anatomy of My Eternal Funk / (Waiting for the coffee to kick in and typing away al fresco at the Blueline in Dundee) / Foreword to Vol. 1

The one-time Vicar of St. Thomas’ Church in Oxford, Robert Burton, said they should probably bleed me. And though he was dead for some 309 years before I was born into my bummer of a life, he was just the sort of guy I listened to. I always ascribed wisdom – no doubt naively – to dead guys who could scribble satirical Latin comedies, identify dried plants, and practice socially acceptable forms of pedantry. Discovering his work, bound in a flayed and lacquered skin of some bovine sort at the… Continue

Added by Otis Twelve on June 29, 2007 at 1:29am — 1 Comment

They're Coming To Take Me Away, Right?

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

I wrote an article a few weeks ago for the local newspaper about a doggy day care center. Visiting the place was a lot of fun and it made me want a dog again. Our old dog died last summer; I should blog about it, because she could have gone paw-to-paw with Marley for the title "World's Worst Dog." My husband and I are listening to the…

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Added by Writers Plot on June 28, 2007 at 10:31pm — No Comments

Melbourne Writers Festival - Guest List

I just got an update on MWF guests posted on my blog by Rosemary Cameron from MWF outlining guests that we might be interested in.

Can you see the happy dancing that's going on in our house right this second! This is the update:

"Hello

just wanted to give you an idea of some of the crime/thriller writers coming to The Age Melbourne Writers' Festival this year.

There are some biggies like Jeffery Deaver, Karin Slaughter, Gabrielle Lord, Shane Maloney, Quintin…

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Added by Karen from AustCrime on June 28, 2007 at 5:20pm — No Comments

Rules

.If anyone reading this on Crime Space, got my notice about my newest book, A Mothers Torment, I shouldn't have sent it on this place. I've gotten quite a few nasty answers back, but since I'd gotten a lot of book notices sent to me on Book Network and the other network, Book Marketing, I thought the rules were the same on Crime Space.

However, I found out quickly that it wasn't. You aren't allowed to send any info on your books on this group, so I want to apologise to those people… Continue

Added by shirley dicks on June 28, 2007 at 6:04am — 7 Comments

Word Nerd chats with Jennifer O'Connell

Check out the conversation here.

Added by Bethany K. Warner on June 28, 2007 at 5:39am — No Comments

A New Book And A New Identity

I'm happy to announce that Bad Moon Books will be publishing my horror novella, THE SCRUBS. It will be available in limited edition paperback and a collector's edition hardback.

THE SCRUBS takes place in a fictionalized version of the real life prison of Wormwood Scrubs in London. It's…

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Added by Simon Wood on June 28, 2007 at 3:33am — No Comments

A Simple One, But...

I used to teach high school, and that's a job where you see a range of writing skills, from pretty darned good to downright awful. One mistake often made but easily corrected is starting sentences with the same word over and over. Particularly in passages where things are happening to a protag, it's difficult to avoid repeating "He" or "She" or in the case of first-person narrative, "I" as the first word of a sentence. This isn't limited to student writing. I've seen some big-name authors,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 27, 2007 at 11:22pm — No Comments

Kim and Aggie-ized

posted by Lorraine Bartlett

Even as I type this, my kitchen sink scrub brush languishes in a glass of bleach. So fearful am I of salmonella, staphylococcus, listeria, e-coli, and the like.

Yes, I've been Kim and Aggie-ized.…

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Added by Writers Plot on June 27, 2007 at 10:56pm — No Comments