Hungry Enough to Raise Funds Online for Writing?

Via Jason Boog at Galleycat, I read about Mur Lafferty, who is raising money for self-publishing, via a site called Kickstarter, to get her (still) free 5 audiobooks/podcasted novellas from The Afterlife Series turned into e-book and print.

This is a fascinating confluence of a number of modern trends, and I wonder how it will work. I love the notion that her donors at a certain level will receive a special, limited-edition hardcover.  *You know how I feel about specialty hardcovers in the digital age.  Genius!*  If you're really generous, she'll write you your own novella, and you'll get the ONLY hardcover printed.  Her fundraising has been very successful, exceeding her desired total budget for the project by 10 grand so far.  Go read more about it and see her video pitch.  Is this another way to do DIY fiction with a slightly better class of shoestring?

Image via Bay Area Bites, where Sarah Henry has an interesting post on the current state of play for food writers who'd also like to be able to eat.  Scroll down for a very funny video about freelancing.

I applaud the innovation and humor so many authors are bringing with them to the edge of the unknown.

Philadelphia Writers' Conference

The 63rd Annual Philadelphia Writers' Conference will be held from June 3-5, 2011 at the Holiday Inn Hotel Philadelphia - Historic District.

Opening remarks will be made by Philadelphia author and award-winning journalist Solomon Jones. The keynote will be delivered by Nelson Johnson, the author of Boardwalk Empire.

To receive an early registration discount, checks must be postmarked by April 8. Advance registration closes May 27.

Check out the conference workshop schedule, the workshop details, the manuscript contest guidelines, and the manuscript critique information. Among the offerings: Dennis Tafoya will conduct a workshop on Contemporary Short Story, and Randall Brown - who directs a Creative Writing MFA program at Rosemont College (and is a fellow Hint Fiction contributor) will be conducting a Flash Fiction Master Class.

Several agents and editors will be handling appointments.

You can find the Philadelphia Writers Conference on Facebook, and on Twitter @PhilaWritersCon.

Sounds like a terrific conference!

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Two Sentence Tuesday

Is it really Tuesday again? Already?  Hard as it is to believe, apparently it is.

Here are a few sentences from Shannon McKenna's Fade to Midnight:

Bruno gave him an indignant look. “Just trying to help you out, buddy. You would never have thought of rose petals on the bed in a million years. Watch and learn.” He waggled his eyebrows again. “A guy gets amazing mileage out of a little gesture like that.”

And a couple from my short story WIP, tentatively entitled Murder with Goodies.

Shawna Weaver answered the door, a tight black tee shirt stretched across her broad shoulders and hugging her narrow waist. Both it and the black leggings she wore were printed with glow-in-the-dark skeleton bones.

And you? How's your reading and writing life this week? Play along with some sentences in the comments and we'll link to you!

• Leah J Utas plays along over at her place this week! 
• I challenge you to translate Dorte H's contribution this week.

Our Women of Mystery Meet Their Women of Mystery

I noticed some strange linkage going around and have tracked it to this WSJ article about the Women of Mystery.  Sure, theirs are grand dames of the game, and deservedly so.  But we're just as mysterious and female.  Anyway, read about the greats while I pick myself a portrait.

I might like to be Highsmith, because she looks like she has such character and our hairstyles are similar at the moment, or Anna Katharine Green, because she looks so dreamy and I think I've neglected her until now.  (I'll fix it!)   However, Sayers looks quite cozy all swaddled by her fur on that couch...

My Town Monday - Flatiron Architecture in Goshen, NY

Awhile back, Clare wrote an MTM post about New York's Flatiron building where she now has a part-time desk at Macmillan.

I've always loved New York's Flatiron, a building both practical and whimsical, that makes the most of its wedge-shaped lot. I find a special charm in the architecture - named for the cast iron tool our ancestors sweated over on washing day - because I lived twenty years in a town fifty miles northwest of Manhattan that boasts many such buildings, albeit far less grand in scale and style. Some are gone. A new one, built in the spirit of the old, went up some fifteen years ago.

The historic photo to the left, from the cover of Images of America - Goshen by Edward P. Connor, shows a turn of the century building with a shop once called "The Handy Corner Stationery." On the right, a shot I took just yesterday shows the same building, known for decades now as "Howell's," a favorite spot for lunchtime diners.

The village was settled in 1714, and its history is colorful. Stolen treasure buried in the hills. The skull of an outlaw lodged in the walls of the First Presbyterian Church. If these details aren't enough for the likes of us Women of Mystery, the village also boasts Noah Webster who once lived in Goshen, where he taught in a two-room schoolhouse.

The town is best known for its harness racetrack, and from 1930 to 1956 Goshen hosted the famous Hambletonian races, in which trotters pulled a small cart akin to an ancient Roman chariot. Rumor has it that as early as the mid 1700's, Goshen residents raced horses up Main Street. Harness racing still takes place at Goshen's Historic Track, a national historic landmark. Come by around the Fourth of July and place a penny bet!

Here's a quick roundup of the flatiron buildings that remain in Goshen's business district. I passed a chilly hour there yesterday, bundled in a hooded parka, capturing the flavor of the historic village and the quirky street layout that lent itself to this charming building style.










For more My Town Monday stories, see today's edition here. (you'll want to note Barrie's Nude Woman rescue and Evil J Winter's musings on Opening Day.)

Does Grandma Whisper the Heroine's Credo, Mary Higgins Clark?

Facing danger, does our heroine remind herself of Rule #12 or remember what Grandma said?  Which one rings truer?

We recently mentioned the eminent Mary Higgins Clark in her service as the Grand Marshall of the last St. Patrick's Day parade here in NYC, and at her name's link, there's a great article from the Wall Street Journal's Alexandra Alter about her long career and bestselling sales.

It's all worth reading, because she's an inspiring person, as well as an author with that unique kind of graciousness that makes people feel good to meet her.  Her signing schedule, including big box stores and groceries, keeps her right in touch with her many, many loyal readers, who she continues to delight in a way that any writer might envy. (The discussion of her potential literary "successor" is fascinating, too, and not just because it's the author's children who are most worried about retaining the uniqueness of her literary brand. ) But this tidbit about writing lead characters got me thinking about the ass-kicking heroines of many modern thrillers, many of whom don't reach their audiences with anything like the same resonance.

"She's always been an Irish-American girl because I know what her grandmother told her," says Ms. Clark of her characters. "I know her genetic thinking."

What's interesting to me about that isn't that it's specifically Irish, but how much like "method acting" it is.  Clark gravitated toward heroines she understood intimately--attractive, intelligent, ambitious, but family-oriented (hmm, remind you of anyone?) Many women joining professional careers in the mid-1970s, the time of her initial successes, would've have understood those challenges and that persona.  In that aspect, her success was partly a result of reflecting the zeitgeist and a work-life juggling act which remains true for most women readers today.

But beyond cultural trends, I think there are deeper elements in what we groove to in crime fiction, human truths and desires that Lee Child's famously distilled into his modern tales of knight errant Jack Reacher.  In a thriller of any kind, normality fails.  If all one's personal or municipal parachutes deploy perfectly under crisis, there's no thrill.  A sigh of relief, and we're done.  No, when everything goes dark around them, it's a strong internal code which allows these heroes to function by their own lights. That code may be inherited, but for male heroes, is often is installed by their profession or vocation, or as a specific reaction against external circumstances.

But Mary Higgins Clark mentions the heroine's internal guidance systems, spoken in the voice of her family's women.  No surprise that women from lots of other ethnic and religious backgrounds can relate to that. Every woman I know occasionally mentions the voice of a mother-figure in her head, sometimes with annoyance and sometimes with gratitude, but it's there. For thrilling heroines, does this idea of matriarchal transmission of the internal code read as more convincing or real somehow? Do readers relate to a heroine who's adopted a personal credo from her circumstances the same way they inherently understand a woman's value system being transmitted by an older woman whose voice echoes within the heroine?

Is the truth of Grandma's whispered wisdom so deep and real that in reflecting it, Mary Higgins Clark taps into a template for heroines who can take the strongest, necessary actions without reading as if they've become too detached and even "too male" as I've heard readers sometimes complain?

Image via Zach Caudill, kysbydabeach Flickr set

Faking Illness Friday: The Newest Munchausen

Okay, my virtual neighbors, how about this modern problem? People are faking sickness to gain sympathy from online support groups.   It's bad enough that there are some people online who are always complaining in general--tweets of tribulation, frowny-Facebook updates, bleating blog posts, etc.

But now, there's MBI, or Munchausen by Internet.  Not merely an off-the-cuff entreaty for understanding, which we all succumb to and deserve occasionally.  This is a much deeper level of WTFness.  Read the whole article for mind-boggling examples of heinously complicated and melodramatic frauds, including those of a woman who faked chemotherapy's baldness and neurological spasms for her webcam, though her most supportive pal became suspicious when the flesh-eating bacteria struck too soon after.  Of course, as a crime writer, I perfectly understand when these fakers "kill off" fictitious family members or friends for effect.  From Jenny Kleeman's article in The Guardian:

...It requires months of sophisticated research to develop and sustain a convincing story, as well as a team of fictitious personas to back up the web of deceit...There's a potentially limitless audience of sympathetic ears, and success can be quantified by the number of concerned emails and message board posts generated by your lies. Some even go so far as to fake their own deaths, reading their own obituaries and observing the torrent of grief from the comfort of their living room...

MBI is a new concept, too new for the international psychiatric bodies who publish diagnostic criteria to have weighed in on whether it should be recognised as a distinct condition. But for those who specialise in factitious disorder, the idea seems very plausible. "It makes perfect sense that getting sympathy from potentially hundreds of people may be much more powerful than getting it just from one person in a white coat," says Dr Richard Kanaan, consultant psychiatrist at London's Maudsley hospital...

Where do I get that gig?!  All the overheated, farfetched plot turns I'd be afraid to shove into one storyline, and no more worries about pacing or arc.  Excuse me, I have to go research something that could kill me.  Slowly.  *cough, cough*

Image from Mirror article about an entire mall of fake brands in China.

Cold Case Chat

If you happen to be in the Big Apple, please join the NY/TriState chapter of Sisters in Crime (@NYSinC on Twitter) for our meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m., at the Muhlenberg branch of the New York Public Library, 209 W. 23rd Street, near 7th Avenue (212-924-1585).Our guest speaker is Detective Sergeant Joseph L. Giacalone of the NYPD, and author of The Criminal Investigative Function: A Guide for New Investigators. I bought the Kindle version for Mac, and I'm enjoying it tremendously.

Joe Giacalone is a veteran Detective Sergeant and Commanding Officer of a Cold Case Squad that has investigated hundreds of homicides, cold cases and missing persons. A decorated officer who won the Medal of Valor, he's also an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice where he teaches courses in Criminal Justice and Criminal Investigation. Joe obtained a Master of Arts degree in Criminal Justice with a specialty in Crime and Deviance from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2005.

You can find Joe online, at his blog

http://coldcasesquad.blogspot.com or on

Twitter@coldcasesquad or @JoeGiacalone.

Via Skype, Joanna Penn recently discussed Crime Fiction: The Truth about Police Investigation with Joe at her blog, The Creative Penn (on Twitter: @thecreativepenn).

Joe was interviewed by L.M. Stull, the founder of Between The Lines Book Club @BTLBookClub.

Last month, along with @Vidocq_CC, Joe started a cold case live chat on Twitter, Fridays at 12 noon - 1 p.m. EST. The Vidster's web site is www.defrostingcoldcases.com. I've joined the chats each Friday and it has been very interesting -- I wrote a blog post at From Cop to Mom. The hashtag is #CClivechat.

Hope to see you at the library or online during a #CClivechat on Fridays.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Why Commas Matter

Yes, this is just a silly post.  I've been in a silly mood.  I have two broken teeth--the price of being an epileptic--that have, after 5 years avoiding dealing with them, finally become too painful to leave alone.  This is going to hurt my wallet.  A lot.  So between mouth pain and wallet pain, Japan and Libya, I've been looking for humor in life.  And this, this is absolutely, unspeakably funny for grammar geeks like me.

From: Food Network Humor, why commas are important.  Really, really important.  [CLARIFICATION: The commas were photoshopped out of this -- the real cover did have them.]

Just One Sentence for National Book Week

A few days ago on Facebook, the Poisoned Pen Bookstore posted this fun exercise in honor of National Book Week and I thought it might be interesting for Womem of Mystery and our blog pals to give it a go.

So …. grab the closest book to you. Turn to page 56. Copy the 5th sentence and post it in comments. Don't mention the book's title.

Here’s mine: “Its site was now nothing more than a weed-infested patch in Carter Street, just around the corner from the Thirteen Drakes.”

Follow me on Twitter @cathicopy and let's be friends of Facebook.

Book image from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/category/lang.html

It's Tuesay!

And I am so proud of myself because I actually found some time to write something.  Unreal.

The two sentences I read this week are from Murder Your Darlings by JJ Murphy.

The puddles on the sidewalk mirrored the dizzying glow of the lights of Broadway, as though a subterranean world of buildings and marquees grew downward like stalactites and could be glimpsed only through holes in the sidewalk. These lights also reflected upward, casting a ghostly illumination that reversed the shadows on the raincoats and faces of passersby.

I have three projects in progress.  It's a bit overwhelming.  This is from a short story I am working on:

“I’m Suzanne, but you can call me Suz. Everybody does. Welcome to Octoberfest! Can I get you a brat? Some beer? We have eight kinds. How about some strudel? With a name like Margot, you must like strudel.”

What about you? Get anything written or read this week? As usual, share in the comments and we'll update this post throughout the day with links to your site.

• Leah J Utas has dancing virgins at her site this week!

My Town Monday: First of Spring, My Aunt Fanny!

I wish I could take a picture, but my phone's battery is dead, and it's one of those mornings.  I forgot my gloves. Forgot, too, how winter likes a last spit in your eye before giving up.  So, this morning's wind and rain were umbrella-breakers, turning to sideways-blowing snow, and now to rain again.

Times like this, I'm reminded of Chicago, where Easter was frequently snowed out, just to be cussed.
Happy Spring, everybody!

Image via Rictor Norton and David Allen.  More springtime under snow pictures there.

Oh yeah, if you want to read why Barry Eisler passed up a half-million dollar publishing deal to go DIY, read his interview with JA Konrath.

A Silly Way To Start Your Week

The language is offensive, so it's not safe for work or kids, but this had me crying with laughter.  What a thing to do to a classic thriller!

World Storytelling Day

Today, March 20, is World Storytelling Day -- a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling. The roots of WSD go back to Sweden, circa 1991-2. Each year, the stories are linked by a common theme. The theme for 2011 is "Water."

The World Storytelling Day logo (pictured, left)was designed by Mats Rehnman of Fabula Storytelling, Stockholm.

In addition to the U.S., many countries are participating in World Storytelling Day Events, including: Germany, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Argentina, Spain, Scotland.

The World Storytelling Day posts this message on its Facebook page:

It is very special to know that, throughout that one day storytellers around the world are busy telling classical tales, local stories, glorious, horrendous, happy, challenging, spooky, romantic and dramatic epic stories. Some wrapped in music and some staged and others intimate - but every story is told in a unique and special way - by a storyteller whose heart is full of great tales to tell.

The Hedgebrook Writer's Colony near Seattle, Washington, is holding its first fundraiser today, to coincide with World Storytelling Day. It's called, "It Was a Dark and Stormy Brunch...." Doesn't this flyer (pictured, left) look inviting? (A post about Hedgebrook will appear in the near future, so stay tuned!)

In the Tudor Room at Pace University, 78 North Broadway, White Plains, New York, they are holding their first World Storytelling Day today, from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. Admission is free. Call 914-422-4135 for more information about this family-friendly event, good for all ages.

I found this German poster (right) at www.meermaerchen.de - but I'd need a translator to find out what their web site says!

The Twitter hashtag for 2011 World Storytelling Day is #WSD11.

You can participate in a crowd-sourced video storytelling project at www.worldstorytellingday.org. Review the submission guidelines for submitting a 3-minute video story of your own, that touches on the WATER theme.

The Art Gallery of Alberta will participate in a "Water for Life" storytelling event, from 2 - 3:30 p.m.

The National Storytelling Network offers an abundant list of storytelling resources.

Be sure to participate in some way today ~ share a story with a friend, family member, or even a pet. Or think of ways to celebrate next year -- and start planning!

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

What Do The Old Folks Do Down There Anyway??

Well for all you young 'uns who wonder what exactly the old snowbirds do after they fly south. I can tell you. They are having a good ole time.

Do y'all remember a song Chris Wall wrote called "Trashy Women?" Not sure? Well, here is a Youtube of Confederate Railroad singing the song that they made famous nearly twenty years ago. Click here. And if you need to brush up on the lyrics, here are a couple of lines:


“I like 'em sweet, I like 'em with a heart of gold.Yeah an' I like 'em brassy, I like 'em brazen and bold.Well, they say that opposites attract, well, I don't agree I want a woman just as tacky as me.Yeah, I like my women just a little on the trashy side.”


And if you were one of a half dozen women of a certain age who were coaxed to participate in a variety show to raise money for something or other, well wouldn't you just need to be Trashy Dancin' Women? And so we were. I can't show you how trashy the other five looked but here I am and yes, my hair is partly pink and partly purple, but, hey, the question has been answered, I can chew gum and swing a boa at the same time.

But that was last weekend. Life moves quickly in the land of retirees!

Today I am attending The Southwest Florida Reading Festival in Fort Myers, which is a major event attracting thousands of readers and dozens of top name writers. (Think Nelson DeMille and Linda Fairstein to name two of my fellow New York mystery writers who will be there.)

As a brand spanking new member of the Gulf Coast Writers Association (GCWA), I will be signing anthologies from 2pm to 4 pm in Room B. So if you are at the Festival, please stop by to say hello in between all the exciting activities that will be going on all around the Harborside Event Center and Centennial Park.

Between last weekend and today, I attended book club, water aerobics, cabaret, a block party and, most importantly, hosted a sleep over for a couple of grandkids. And I still managed to write every day.

So, that's what we do--whatever we want to!

Terrie

Winner of Peggy Ehrhart's GOT NO FRIEND ANYHOW

Congratulations to Jo Ann Hakola, who wins our latest giveaway!

Thanks to all who entered!

Saint Patrick's Day 2011

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to one and all. In 2008 I posted a bit of the history of the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. You can read it here.

Then my 2010 post is very emphatic about the correct shape of a Shamrock and I gave you some of its history as well. Here is the link to that post.

This year, as you can see, the Paddy’s Day picture up top says “Top of the Morning to You.” The correct response is: “and the Rest of the Day to You.” But I warn you I have never heard either phrase said in America except on Saint Patrick’s Day and I’ve never heard either said in Ireland at all.

This Saint Patrick’s Day is a very exciting one for the mystery community as the Grand Marshal of the New York Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is our most esteemed colleague, the Queens of Suspense, Mary Higgins Clark.

The Parade Committee has put up a link to a video of Mrs. Clark describing what being Grand Marshal means to her. After you open the link you have to click on “watch video.” I can’t open it but I hope you can.

There will be a live video stream of the New York Saint Patrick’s Day Parade commencing at 11 AM Eastern standard time. You can find it here. And here. And here. And probably a dozen other places.


Please don’t forget that today at five o’clock is your absolute last chance to try to win Peggy Ehrhart’s fabulous new Maxx Maxwell novel, Got No Friend Anyhow.

So please either scroll down to Lois’s reminder post just below this one or read her sensational review, which you can find right here.

Again, I wish you all a glorious Saint Patrick’s Day.

Slainte! (Good Health!)

Terrie

Final Day Peggy Ehrhart's GOT NO FRIEND ANYHOW Give-Away

It's not too late!

If you haven't yet thrown your entry into the ring to win a signed copy of Peggy Ehrhart's Got No Friend Anyhow, there's still time...but as of 5 PM EST tonight we'll be drawing our winner and will announce the lucky reader tomorrow.

Step right up, folks, and scroll down to this Monday's post to check out the book review and add your comment with e-mail address.

You can check out her website for excerpts!

Slice's Literary Jeopardy Fundraiser

Slice magazine will be holding its Spring Literary Game Show Fundraiser on Tuesday, April 19, 2011, at The Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher Street, NYC.

Tickets are $25 and include a copy of issue 8 - Lies & Make-Believe (which features interviews with Ray Bradbury, Joshua Ferris, Paula Allende, Lev Grossman, and Dan Chaon), beer (compliments of Slice's official sponsors Sixpoint Craft Ales), and an assortment of snacks.

Slice magazine lists the Teams as follows:

Authors: Lev Grossman, Cathy Erway, Simon Van Booy

Editors: Lorin Stein, Rakesh Satyal, Marian Lizzi

Agents: Scott Hoffman, Kate McKean, Anna Stein.

Publishing mingle starts at 6:30 p.m., Jeopardy begins at 7 p.m.

This sounds like an awesome event!

Slice, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit print magazine, is currently accepting submissions (before April 1, 2011) for Issue 9; its theme is "Into the Wild." Slice magazine welcomes submissions for short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

You can find @SliceMagazine on Twitter and Facebook.

Slice magazine has so kindly included the Monkeybicycle Lightning Round! event on their calendar. I will be joining 19 other writers for a fun night of quick reading tonight at The Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow Street, New York City.

Two Sentence Tuesday - Lend a Hand

Here it is, Tuesday again.  I didn't do much writing last week because I was away.  I got an obnoxious letter on my birthday and sent one back, but I don't think I need to bore you all with the details of that.  I also received some terrible news about a friend of mine from Twitter.  So my sentences this week are part of a response to that.

A woman I know online, Fatin Soufan, lost her husband last week in a terrible tragedy.  (You can see the details on that page if you’re curious.)  She’s a big part of the romance scene and a bunch of people are getting together to try to help her in her time of need.  I’m not a published author, so I couldn’t help that way, but I have donated one of my steampunk necklaces to Operation Auction.

There are all kinds of great items up for auction for readers and writers. Check out the offerings and see whether there’s anything that looks appealing. If you have something to contribute, I urge you to do that, also.

You can see a picture of my donation here.

As for reading, in honor of Brain Awareness Month, I am reading Keep Your Brain Alive.  It's a little book of exercises and games to keep your neural pathways awake.

We use mental maps to navigate through our daily lives.  By middle age, we've created hundreds of these maps and can readily recall the layout of rooms in houses where we've lived, street grids in towns, interstate highway networks, and the relationships of countries and constituents to each other.  Because losing one's sense of place is confusing, or even frightening, the brain devotes a lot of processing power to forming and interpreting these mental maps.

And you? What have you read or written? As usual, let us know and we'll keep the blog updated with links to your work!

• Dorte H has some catastrophic sentences this week!
• Don't forget to check the comments for sentences from the other Women of Mystery

Peggy Ehrhart’s GOT NO FRIEND ANYHOW Giveaway

Blues guitarist and fellow Sisters in Crime member Peggy Ehrhart launched a sequel, in February, to her first Maxx Maxwell mystery titled Sweet Man is Gone. In her dynamite follow-up, Got No Friend Anyhow, Ehrhart plants us once again in the captivating—and sometimes perilous—heart of New York City’s blues scene.

Ehrhart has generously offered a signed copy of Got No Friend Anyhow to one lucky Women of Mystery blog mate. (Check out her website for excerpts of both novels.)

In this fast paced mystery we accompany Maxx and her quirky but talented band, Maxximum Blues, from one gig to the next while they pursue acclaim and the means to pay off the bills. The group is filling clubs with a growing number of fans, and they’ve cut a CD, but Prowling Rooster Records hasn’t come through with the release.

This is Ehrhart’s world, and she paints it for us in living color. The opening scene puts us smack dab in an East Village club where we can practically hear the band’s numbers and see the musicians in action. We catch on quickly that they’re out on a financial limb with Rick, their producer, and we find the band’s uneasiness over his disappearance contagious.

Maxx is a cool-headed Jersey girl with a day job as a waitress at Aldo’s Seafood Chalet. Rotating shifts give her the freedom to pursue her music with gutsy determination. She’s tough enough to adopt a blues-babe persona, which lands her in the laps of heart-breakers and tender-hearts alike. Producer Rick is her current boyfriend, and when she tracks him to his house she finds his pet rooster unfed and thirsty and a pool of blood in his studio. When Rick's body turns up in the morgue the cops pin his murder on the mob, claiming Rick was involved in a scheme to pirate CDs. But Maxx knows her boyfriend too well. He was one of the tender-hearts. He would never get caught up in crime.

She wants Rick’s name cleared. Juggling gigs, her job, and someone determined to shoot her, she’s game to track down Rick's killer with some tips from a friend who’s a cop. Confounding her efforts, her newly-acquired rooster has an attitude, and keeping him in her Jersey apartment puts her in her landlord’s bad graces.

Erhart’s book is smart, sassy, and real. If you’re a blog pal from the US or Canada, simply add a comment to this post that contains your e-mail or links to a valid contact e-mail, and we’ll enter you in the contest to win a signed copy for yourself. We’re always impressed by our pals' diverse tastes, so just for fun, feel free to tell us about the music genres you love and/or the tunes that would cause you to turn over in your grave. We’ll remind you on Thursday and close entries at 5:00 PM that day. We’ll announce our lucky winner on Friday.

Take a chance to curl up with this five-star mystery from Five Star. It will keep you guessing right up to the startling ending.

Notes from Sleuthfest

Sleuthfest would have been a terrific conference even without the balmy south Florida breezes. The keynote speakers, Meg Gardiner and Dennis Lehane, were inspiring, and the panels informative, with topics related to the writing process, publishing, and forensics. I have to admit, I skipped the agents’ panel--my gift to myself for having sold my book this year--but I did attend the editors’ panel, as well as those on epublishing and small presses.

Here's what traditional publishing had to say: We want the next big thing, which is the same as, but different from, the last big thing. Pull that off and you may get a nice, fat advance, which you'd better earn out. If not, plan on changing your name, and pray that you find a new publisher.

Nothing we haven't heard before, right? And now for the encouraging news.

From Johnny Temple, publisher and editor-in-chief at Akashic Press: There’s never been a better time to be a small publisher. Yes, the economy’s poor, but small publishers are used to scrambling and are agile enough to deal with the downturn. Temple looks for a relationship with authors based on mutual respect and admiration, and also requires authors to be proactive regarding promotion. While Akashic needs to make a profit to stay in business, if Temple loves a book enough, he's okay with keeping the author on even if it means losing a little money. (And if that doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, you probably didn't cry during Bambi either.)

Terri Bischoff, the acquisitions editor at Midnight Ink, reports that while there are fewer slots because her house puts out a lot of series, it does publish many debut authors. This publisher is content with steady sales: 4,000 copies sold is fine; 5,000 makes everyone very happy. According to its website, Midnight Ink accepts submissions from agents and writers its editors have met at conferences within the past 12 months.

Paul Levine is an Edgar-nominated, award-winning author of legal thrillers. Despite an impressive track record, his publisher, Random House, declined to re-issue his out-of-print paperback titles prior to the publication of his new book. As a consequence, Levine himself put up the titles as ebooks on Amazon, hoping that within a year he'd be able to pay the mortgage with the proceeds. The results were better than expected. “Within seven months,” Levine says, “I was paying the mortgage, the taxes, the insurance, the utilities and having enough spare change to eat on Studio City's Sushi Row a couple of times a week....sake included."

Jonathon King won an Edgar in 2002 for best first novel, went on to publish six more books, and then found himself shut out of traditional publishing. After putting out one book himself, King signed with Open Road Media, an ebook and POD publisher. According to King, Open Road does everything a traditional publisher would do in terms of editing, consulting on covers, and promotion. The best part of the experience for him is that his backlist is now available in print as well as in ebooks. It should be noted that Open Road does not consider unsolicited submissions.

Mike Jastrzebski self-published two titles as ebooks on Amazon. He promotes through blogs, Facebook, and pays for ads on Kindle Nation Daily. Prior to January 1st, he was selling between 400 and 500 books a month. Now that number is closer to 800 books a month.

Lesley Diehl and Suzanne Adair are among the writers who have found homes with small publishers. Diehl has two books out, one with Mainly Murder Press and the other with Oak Tree Press. The print versions of Adair's historical mysteries are published by Whittler's Bench Press, an imprint of Dram Tree Books, a regional press in North Carolina. Adair retained the electronic rights to her work, and has published the ebook versions herself. Diehl and Adair agree that if you don’t have an agent, it’s important to have a lawyer look over your contract.

Marcia Markland, an editor with Thomas Dunne Books, likens the ebook revolution to the advent of paperbacks. Publishers’ concerns to the contrary, the paperback format, with its lower pricing, resulted in greater sales of books. The same is proving true of ebooks. We have no idea, Markland said, how fast readers can push that Buy Now button.

And on that cheerful note, we can all get back to work. But first, please share your thoughts on this. Are you sticking with the agent hunt and hoping for a major publisher? Have you decided to try for a small press? What are your feelings about self-publishing?

Monkeybicycle Event ~ NYC ~ March 16

On Wednesday, March 16, I will proudly participate in the Monkeybicycle Lightning Round! Reading Series, along with 19 other writers. This free event will be held at The Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow Street (between Stanton and Rivington - J, M, Z or F trains to Delancey) New York City, from 7-9 p.m.

The reading series, as described by Monkeybicycle:

This new quarterly reading series fuses quick, high energy readings with a broad range of voices--both established and emerging--into a seamless hour of literary brilliance. Each event will feature 20 readers, each of whom will read no longer than three minutes before introducing the next reader. No interruption from the host means a continuous listening experience. No guidelines other than length means maximum variety of form and content. Monkeybicycle's Lightning Round!Reading Series: a cure for the common reading.

Featuring: Paula Bomer, Vince Czyz, Scott Geiger, Jeff Grentharer, Michael Hickins, Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Blake Kimzey, Lincoln Michel, David Moscovich, Dustin Luke Nelson, Steve Peacock, Edwin Rivera, Kathleen A. Ryan, Andrew James Weatherhead, and Katie Wudel, plus others.

This event will double as the launch party to celebrate Monkeybicycle's eighth print issue. If you order before March 15, you get a free back issue!

Check out "Point Pleasant Poet Performs in New York City" on BoroIndependent.com, about one of the readers, Steve Peacock. The NY Daily News lists it on their event calendar, as does Slice Magazine.

I'd like to thank Monkeybicycle editors Steven Seighman and Shya Scanlon for this amazing opportunity.

Hope to see you there!