February 2nd is almost upon us--and my fingers are crossed that the groundhog comes out to read CITY OF DRAGONS. :)



I'm about to embark on a West Coast tour -- Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Scottdale. We'll be closing out with an afternoon Valentine's Day party at Poisoned Pen on the 14th.



The 14th itself is not only Valentine's Day, but Chinese New Year (Year of the Tiger) and the 80th anniversary of the publication of The Maltese Falcon ... all of… Continue

Hard to believe that it's only a couple of months until CITY OF DRAGONS is released. It's been a fast-moving year!



To celebrate, I'm running a contest in December and January for a scarce ARC--combined with a basket of themed gifts from San Francisco's Chinatown.



Just go to my website at http://www.kellistanley.com/newsletter.html and sign up for my newsletter. It's spam-free and not very frequent.… Continue

I was extraordinarily honored a few weeks ago. My debut novel, NOX DORMIENDA (A Long Night for Sleeping), won the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award at Left Coast Crime in Kona, Hawaii.



I was and am stunned, grateful and humbled. My fellow nominees were friends who exemplify excellence in the field ... Rhys Bowen, Laurie R. King, and Tasha Alexander. It was my first trip to Hawaii, and one I will always treasure.



My next book, RICE BOWL, starts a new series,… Continue

Today -- July 18th -- is the official release day of my debut book, NOX DORMIENDA. Still feels unreal to me ... and a little like a deep-sea diver with the bends. :) Physical copies still won't be available for about a week, but this is a rite of passage, a marking of time and a culmination of a lot of teamwork.



I'm celebrating by writing, but I wanted to thank Crimespace for being the first and one of the best places to meet people. I've made friends here I plan to have for a… Continue

I can't believe it's been a little over a month since I posted ... as I've mentioned on my own blog, Writing in the Dark, time since January 1st seems to have both compressed and expanded ... just like the universe, according to the people who study those things.



So in my little corner of the cosmos, it's been really busy! Like the Perseid meteor shower ... Advanced Reading Copies of my book are here (which means that yes, it is real, a… Continue

Today, January 17th, marks the date when, one year ago, I received THE NEWS. The news that I could legitimately call myself a writer. It wasn't just something I did. It was a business now. Professional. Not just a goal, not just a desire sharp enough to take your breath away or a belief that I held on to, sometimes just with my fingertips ... it was real.



I will always celebrate January 17th. In the hurly-burly whirlwind of getting ready for my book launch -- and all the marketing,… Continue

... what a rare mood I'm in ... why--it's almost like being ... PUBLISHED!! (with apologies to Lerner and Loewe)



That's how I'll think of 2007 ... the year I got the Big News and the Big Noo. Crimespace happened. ITW Debut Authors. Bouchercon in Anchorage. Short story published. Spinetingler Award nomination.



But I don't want to sound like "We Didn't Start the Fire", so I'll stop with the verbal list.



One thing, though, I gotta say ... the writing community is an… Continue

Forgive the cross-posting from http://kellistanley.blogspot, but when you've got pneumonia, you take short-cuts!



Codeine is an awful drug. I mean it. I'm not the narcotics-type, and the bizarre opium-eater dreams I have when I finally do fall

asleep--after imbibing but two teaspoons of codeine cough syrup--are

enough to give Salvador Dali and Hieronymous Bosch nightmares.



Why the codeine? Because right before Thanksgiving, I contracted the Big P.

Cough… Continue

It's

been, as they say in the UK, donkey's years since I've posted. They say

other things in the UK, too, one of my favorite's being "Here's your

pint."

Alaska and Bouchercon were so fantastic that it's taken me awhile to come back down to earth. When I did, this past weekend, I found that I'd landed

in Denver,…

Continue

I'm about to take my first trip to Alaska--and experience my first Bouchercon. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, "It's good to be a virgin." At least about some things. ;)



That bright, shiny anticipation we used to get over Christmas or birthday presents, the thrill of the first sip of champagne ... even the naive hope that the Sea Monkeys really would have crowns ... all of this is an innocence that gets increasingly marginalized as we… Continue

A couple of weeks ago I trooped down to the Project Artaud theater in San Francisco to see a snazzy production of Cornell Woolrich's Angel Face.



What made the experience particularly unique is that this wasn't an adaptation. This was Word for Word, a Bay Area group of actors dedicated to acting out and reading every line of a given work. That means the "he saids, she saids" and every other narrative conveyance.



It sounds odd, and it takes about five to ten… Continue

I had some great news that I can now share: my short story Convivium will be published by that most illustrious of noir e-zines, Hardluck Stories (founded by Crimespace member and noir man-about-town Dave Zeltserman).



It's an appetizer before the main course (don't worry--no honeyed dormice) and takes place four years earlier (79 AD) than the events of Nox Dormienda.



I'm proud and happy to be a part of… Continue

My friend Jordan Dane has been recommending Crimespace for a while. Jordan is not only a wonderful author, she's nearly always right.



I finally set aside a bit of time, and--like Dorothy--just clicked my heels together three times. Bingo! Guns, booze and crime. So much better than Oz!



Speaking of fantasy, I finished Harry Potter 7. No worries, I won't spoil it. But the world, admittedly, seems a little dimmer without another HP book on the horizon. Rowling managed to cross a… Continue