July 2008 Blog Posts (167)

Crime and Justice Festival, Melbourne

Hi there,

On Sunday 20 July I'll be appearing on two panels as part of the Crime and Justice Festival in Melbourne.

12 noon - Matters of Procedure

The procedural crime novel is one of the longest-standing – and most successful – crime genre formats around. Even Voltaire's Zadig written in even earlier 1748 features a main character who performs feats of analysis and which could, at a push, be considered the earliest example of detective fiction. Looking at matters… Continue

Added by Phillipa Martin (PD Martin) on July 8, 2008 at 12:03pm — 1 Comment

Book Review

The Living Room of the Dead by Eric Stone

Bleak House Books, 2007

This is noir at its finest. Uncensored, raw and unpredictable. The fact that author, Eric Stone has lived and worked throughout Asia is apparent with lines like, “It’s drizzling the hot sour soup that squeezes out of the filthy tureen that a lot of the year passes for the sky over Hong Kong.” All the research or anecdotal information of place… Continue

Added by Ange on July 8, 2008 at 10:47am — 1 Comment

Slightly OT - Valentine's Day on ABC TV

Valentine's Day screened on Sunday night and we happily sat down and watched it.

Quite an achievement for a TV show as normally anything that even mentions "footy" will drive me into a coma in a nanosecond, but the show was really engaging and luckily talked about a lot more than the dreaded "footy". In fact Sunnie reminded me in an email last night that many of the issues raised were very very similar to those in The Broken Shore - not identical obviously, but similar.

If… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 8, 2008 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

GO-GO GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE by Victor Gischler

Out tomorrow is Victor Gischler's new novel of what happens after the end of the world. In the near future, divorced insurance salesman Mortimer Tate decides to stock up on guns and goods and wait out Armageddon in a mountaintop cave. Nine years later, he feels the urge to come out of seclusion with the quixotic goal of finding his ex-wife Anne.

I'm a longtime fan of Victor Gischler's work, but even if I weren't, I wouldn't be able to resist the title. To describe the book in much… Continue

Added by Gerald So on July 8, 2008 at 1:52am — No Comments

Mysteries and the Detroit Tigers

You'll have to forgive me, but I watched a four-and-a-half hour baseball game yesterday, and it's turned my brain. Here's how I compare the Tigers to a mystery novel.

Characters: both a baseball team and a novel need characters that we want to see succeed. We have cool guys like Magglio and Marlowe, brash guys like Granderson and Magnum, and tired old workhorses like Jones (Todd) and Jones (Barnaby), who get the job done even if they drive us nuts while they're at… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 7, 2008 at 11:17pm — No Comments

The blog novelists NEED to read today - and enter to win

Today I make the first of several guest blog appearances promoting my author-targeted book, “Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century.” I’ll be on All Book Marketing, a book marketing blog run by publicist and online PR specialist Jennifer Mattern, who owns JH Mattern Communications. The blog addresses book publicity and promotion issues from getting media coverage for a new book to overall author publicity and tactics for increasing book sales. The blog is designed to be a… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 7, 2008 at 10:16pm — No Comments

What I Write to While I'm Writing and How Today's Detectives of the Silver Screen Have Lost Their Jazz

In Stephen King’s book, On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft, he talks about filtering out distractions and creating your own universe while writing. King said he likes to work to loud music -- hard-rock stuff like AC/DC, Guns ‘n Roses and Metallica and how music is another way of “shutting the door.” Quentin Tarantino also spoke about creating the atmosphere – how he’ll write for a while and then find the appropriate song to keep him in the mood. For me, music has always been part… Continue

Added by Michael P. Naughton on July 7, 2008 at 6:42am — No Comments

The Latest on This Author's Life

Like I always say sometimes, the good news IS the bad news. I had a nice, peaceful three-day holiday weekend which I spent entirely with my lovely wife Denise. The reason for that extra family time is that the bookstore at which I was scheduled to do a signing did not receive my books in time from the distributor. Disappointing? Only until I realized that meant we emptied the warehouse with unexpected demand. And it just meant more brats on the barbie between rainstorms.

But that… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 7, 2008 at 6:20am — No Comments

Author Interviews

I have been posting some 'light-hearted' author interviews on my Blog - http://jjcooperaus.blogspot.com/

The series is called Five Quick Questions with (insert author name here). Interviews to date have been with:

Will Lavender…

Continue

Added by JJ Cooper on July 6, 2008 at 5:03pm — No Comments

Have I been in a time warp? Or just in a flood?

My hometown was flooded in June, and it's preoccupied a lot of my thoughts for the last few weeks. It's a little town halfway between Waterloo and Cedar Rapids in Iowa. I grew up there and my 89-year-old mother still lives there. Luckily she's on the south side of town and the flooding was on the north side. She was without power for several days, and several family friends had homes damaged, but overall, she and they emerged unscathed.

It really made me realize how much we take for… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on July 6, 2008 at 7:00am — 1 Comment

Sweet Book Found

One of the best things about attending writers’ conferences is the chance to meet new writers and learn of their work before anybody else does. At Deadly Ink I got to know Peggy Ehrhart, a charming Jersey girl who used to teach English but now mostly writes fiction and plays guitar. She has written a mystery that didn’t at first look like my kind of book but held a few surprises.

The book, “… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 6, 2008 at 6:21am — No Comments

Money Shot by Christa Faust

Wow, what a novel!

On an average year, I'll pick up about 150 books, finishing about 70. Of those 70, a handful or two I'll give five out of five stars over at my LibraryThing account. Obviously, Money Shot got five stars.

It's been almost a month since I finished Money Shot, and I can't stop thinking or talking about it. Faust's novel has it all: perfect pacing, dead-on dialogue,… Continue

Added by Johnny Ostentatious on July 6, 2008 at 2:12am — 1 Comment

It's been book signing week

It's been book signing week with Hythe Library on Tuesday, the Plessey Retirement Association yesterday, and today I've been in my local bookshop, The Hayling Island Bookshop, to do another signing on the publication of my marine mystery, Deadly Waters. It went really well and I was delighted to meet up with so many of my readers and meet new ones. Being on home ground it's a more relaxing signing than on strange ground where you're always wondering if anyone will turn up.

There was… Continue

Added by Pauline Rowson on July 6, 2008 at 2:06am — No Comments

Rank the Ned Kelly Long List

For a sheer bit of fun - have a go at ranking the Ned Kelly Longlist. Once the CWA release the short list we'll have another go at picking the winners like we did last year (when we had a 100% success rate I might add!)

Best First Fiction

Best Fiction

Best True Crime

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 5, 2008 at 5:45pm — 5 Comments

"Modern Dress"

This is an article from the Manchester Guardian (as it was then) archives for 1926. I hope you find it as interesting and amusing as I do. The pic is from a different source.

THE TUNIC OF DIANA

Murial Harris

Friday July 16, 1926

guardian.co.uk

It is often alleged that the new freedom of women - games, sport, enterprise of all kinds - is responsible for modern dress. No doubt this is true in… Continue

Added by Carola Dunn on July 5, 2008 at 11:18am — No Comments

What's New for July

Hi, everyone. Yesterday, I posted the July WHAT'S NEW page on my website http://www.davidmorrell.net. For this month, I have information about the hardback of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE CHOSEN, a new RAMBO essay, a radio interview you can download, the paperback of SCAVENGER, and my continuing adventures as a student pilot. Happy reading. David

Added by David Morrell on July 5, 2008 at 9:37am — No Comments

Guest Blog

I'm guest blogging today at The Stiletto Gang (www.thestilettogang.blogspot.com). I hope you'll take a few minutes out from your Fourth of July festivities to check out my post about True Crime. Thanks. And Happy Fourth!

Added by Jeff Markowitz on July 5, 2008 at 1:07am — No Comments

Properly Vetted

A writer friend of mine insists that the restrictions placed on membership by professional genre fiction writing organizations and conventions are there because it assures the writers applying for membership have been properly vetted.

The term means that a writer’s work has been confirmed as accurate, that agents have screened it and editors have honed it. Of course, my friend is ignoring the obvious – no writer is properly vetted anymore. The big publishers refuse to pay for it and… Continue

Added by Linda Mickey on July 5, 2008 at 12:51am — No Comments

Elsewhere on the Web

Bebo characterizes itself as a next generation social networking service where members can stay in touch with their College friends, connect with friends, share photos, discover new interests and just hang out. In addition to a number of fun applications that you can add to your profile, Bebo offers easy ways to explore videos, music, a variety of groups and in one section, authors. Of course, my books are all listed in their author section at the bottom of the page - with excerpts to read.… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 4, 2008 at 11:23pm — No Comments

Why Are You Reading Blogs on the Fourth of July?

Well, I'm writing this as I wait for my pies to bake. I'll take them to the church pie social then head for the Alumni Tent where I'll set up displays and greet people from all over the US. It's what we do on the Fourth. If it sounds corny to you, you don't get it. But if you don't "do" the Fourth, you're probably spending your day off at the computer.

I know a real city girl who hates the whole rural thing: long distances to any sort of cultural event, stores that aren't open 24/7,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 4, 2008 at 10:40pm — 5 Comments