Criminal Element Has It All

This past Tuesday Clare introduced us all to a new online site for lovers of crime and mystery fiction, with a bit of western thrown into the mix. As the community manager of Criminal Element , Clare’s responsibility is to make sure that the content is fresh and engaging. So far she’s doing a bang up job.

Here are just a few examples of the kinds of posts you can find at Criminal Element.

Our good pal Bill Crider has a wonderfully thought-provoking post contending that the western hero is the grandfather of the present day private eye. You can read it here.

And our own Laura has actually done what I would never dream of doing. She took a recipe from a “cooking” cozy and actually made the dish. She has the pictures to prove it.

I had a bit of a melt down about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a future for Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch on the big screen. Here's where you can read all about it.

Criminal Element’s first, but not last, sweepstakes gives readers the opportunity to win five mystery audio books. And, as it happens, I listened to the unabridged audio of one of the five, Elegy for April, and I can tell you it had me rooted to my seat. Look here for the descriptions of the five audio books being offered and the details of how to enter.

And that’s not all. Currently Criminal Element has hefty excerpts from the novels of some very entertaining writers including Rosemary Harris, Persia Walker, Nathan Larson and Jessica Beck. And there is some new short fiction as well. So what are you waiting for? Take a break from surfing the net and settle in for some relaxation on an awesome site peopled by friendly fans and fabulous writers.

Terrie

A New Tweeter's Favorite Hashtags

A couple of months ago, I finally took the plunge and got serious about learning Twitter. In addition to the New York/Tri-State chapter of Sisters in Crime, I also belong to the Guppies chapter. "Guppies" stands for "Great Unpublished," although many of the members have now gotten published. Happily, many of the published Gups stick around to help those not yet published, and when published Guppy Krista Davis, author of the Domestic Diva Mysteries, offered to give an informal class on Twitter, I immediately signed up. I'm glad I did.

Twitter is a gold mine for writers who know how to use it. Following Krista's suggestion, I downloaded TweetDeck and set up columns to load in tweets with certain hashtags, which are the same as keywords. When picking out the hashtags for each column, I found a number of great lists of good hashtags for writers. After testing out all the recommendations, I've come up with my own list. It's much shorter than most, but it includes the hashtags I've found most useful and interesting in the past month. They are:

#amwriting
#writing
#writetip
#writingtips
#amediting
#editing
#askeditor
#askagent
#pubtip

Check them out and let me know what you think. And if you have any favorites of your own, please share them.

A Poem for Thursday

Over the years I've memorized great swaths of Dorothy Parker's poetry.  For some reason, this poem, titled Frustration, was running through my head when I woke up this morning.  So I thought I would share it with you.

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon—
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

What To Wear?

It's 11:55 on Tuesday night and I am writing what will probably be the most trivial and ridiculous post ever to appear on WoM. What's keeping me up? Trying to figure out what I am going to wear tomorrow.

First, I have to go down to NYC to spend the day tramping around meeting with people at restaurants in an attempt to find a spot to have the dinner during the IASPR conference this summer.  Today it was hot. I will doubtless be sweaty tomorrow.  Luckily, I can pop up to my mother's apartment and clean up before going back downtown to volunteer at the Edgar's Agents and Editors party.  (This will require not only nicer clothes, but also appropriate shoes.  Not the kind used for trekking around the city.)

And yet, those clothes have to be packable, so I can take them with me on the train and lug them about all day without them getting completely wrinkled and stupid looking.

This is one of the trivialities of everyday life.  Me, I prefer fiction, where such things never happen.

WoM at Criminal Element- Launch Day!

I've been hinting for a while about the new site I've been working on, and today, we're launched and live!

Criminal Element is a site by fans and for fans to discuss everything we love in the world of crime stories, regardless of era, medium, geography, degree of doneness (hard-boiled/soft-boiled) or publishing venue. We have blog posts, original short fiction--we're a brand new, open market for 6-15k stories!--exclusive excerpts, giveaways, and more!

I'm the Community Manager, which entails, basically, recruiting bloggers, editing, and organizing content for the site. It's been a blast, and not least because two other Women of Mystery (so far) are blogging there. So please, go visit and see what else we've been up to online!

MTM: Tabloid City, Pete Hamill's New York

If you love New York City as I do, and you are reading a book set in New York,the author better know this town. And no one knows New York City better than Pete Hamill who has written about us as a reporter, a columnist and a novelist for his entire adult life. Once again Hamill uses his love of New York to mesmerize his readers with the stunning thriller, Tabloid City.

Hamill blends New York’s locations into the storyline. Besides the usual homes and offices, we spend time on the Manhattan Bridge, cousin of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then we’re in Alphabet City, or on Madison Avenue, or in the old Meatpacking District or along the new High Line. Hamill, being Brooklyn born and raised also takes us to Williamsburg, Brownsville and Gowanus. Every locale is throbbing with tension.

By now you are wondering why Tabloid City has us meeting different folks all over the City. I’ll tell you why. A nasty double homicide that takes place on the virtually unknown street called Patchin Place.

So this book is a crime novel which leads us to the climax by moving through the lives of regular New Yorkers in the post 9-11 era. The book is filled with heroes and villains but the person who keeps us at his side is Sam Briscoe, Editor-in-Chief of the New York World. This is a man who has just lost a loved one and may lose his newspaper but he never flinches.

I was enthralled with the authenticity of New York and of the newspaper industry that permeates the book, while Hamill, through Sam, pushes us relentlessly to the resolution. Don’t stop, don’t breathe. Just turn the page.

There are a number of subplots and Hamill is able to keep all the balls in the air flawlessly. We are moving to solve two murders while we are watching the print news industry die before our very eyes. These two events are woven seamlessly even as Hamill reminds us of the great reporters of the era when print news was king of New York. Murry Kempton, Jimmy Cannon, Gay Talese, Jimmy Breslin, Buddy Weiss, and Art Buchwald to name a very few. There are even some references to the great comic strips of not that long ago. Yet none of that is jarring. It’s just life in New York, as is the physically and emotionally scarred Iraq war vet in the wheelchair bent on disaster; the financial cheat guilty of fraud who runs when there is no place to run; the Latina housekeeper willing to help a sick old man; and even the coming to terms of a father and son which will devastate them both. This all swirls around Sam Briscoe, the two senseless murders and a dying newspaper. When I reached the end of the story, I was emotionally satisfied, but intellectually conflicted. Did so much of the essential New York really slip away, taking the Lion’s Head with it? I digress here to give you a link to an article by Dennis Duggan on the incomparable Lion’s Head, watering hole for the New York Press for decades.

And I must add a personal note, in setting the scenes within Tabloid City, Hamill has several in the Muhlenberg Branch of the New York Public Library, which is the regular meeting place of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and all of the Women of Mystery belong to SinC NY/Tri-State. So, for us, the Muhlenberg is home. (This picture is from the digital gallery of the New York Public Library.)


So, it’s fair to say I loved Tabloid City, both for the stories it tells (and there are many) and for the memories it stirred. If you want to read a great mystery, read Tabloid City. If you want to read a great mystery that explores a great City, read Tabloid City. And especially if you want to read a book that waltzes you through the end of a great era, read Tabloid City which will be released on May 5th in both hardcover and Kindle formats. You can either rush out and buy your own copy, or you can come back here next Monday and hope to win one of the five copies of Tabloid City that the Women of Mystery will be giving away.

For more My Town Monday posts please visit the My Town Monday Blog. You never know where it will take you.

Terrie

Update: Visit Soggy Cincinnati with Jim Winter and a San Diego flash mob with Barrie Summy.  And even though it's technically Leah J. Utas' Gratitude Monday, I'm stealing her link to sleepy Canadian sheep she photographed while strolling. Debra's got Ohio rhubarb for Rosemary, while Barbara Martin's checking the latest fashions (with great illustrations) from 1906 Canada.  New participant Robyn from Kentuckyana shows us the floods in Madison, Indiana.

Social Media and Marketing

M. J. Rose is a well regarded suspense writer and has a great little side business running Author Buzz, a publicity firm for authors of all types of books. Lots of writers follow her blog, called Buzz, Balls and Hype in the hope of finding out the secret to marketing success, without actually hiring Author Buzz.

So I was really interested to see that M.J. has an article this week in the Huffington Post called, suitably enough, “The Writer as Willy Loman.” Her topic is one that we’ve discussed here before. What is the value of social media, i.e., Twitter and Facebook, in terms of marketing for a writer today? All I’ll say here is that she is expressing what I’ve always believed, but hey, that’s just me.

You can find the article by clicking here.

Terrie

An Offensive Fistful of Cash with Disclaimers!

Click here for an Offensive Fistful* of Cash**!

*Flash Fiction Offensive, that is.

**Cash Laramie, of course, in "The Outlaw Marshal" written by Edward Grainger, who some also know as David Cranmer.

It's less than two thousand words that will make this Friday really Good!





Leftmost Image from when dollars were the rage.  In today's new-Old West, Cash is king!

Hint Fiction Contest - Judge: Joyce Carol Oates

Robert Swartwood, the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, has just announced another Hint Fiction contest.

The judge will be Joyce Carol Oates. Her story, "The Widow's First Year" appears in the Hint Fiction anthology.

Here's the scoop:

1) You may submit up to two stories (if two, submit at same time). Stories must not exceed 25 words; titles are optional, but lend to telling of the story

2) No entry fee

3) E-mail entry by midnight on April 30, 2011 (EST)

Prizes:

1st place: $100 (and many journals and publications, listed here).

2nd place: $50

3rd place: $25

You can follow @Hint_Fiction on Twitter and "like" Hint Fiction on Facebook.

How about you? Going to give it a try? Let us know! Good luck!

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Give A Hoot...

One day I was on the train (I live in the 'burbs, where people take the train into "the city"--New York) and a guy in a suit was sitting across the aisle from me eating an apple and reading his newspaper.  He was probably in his late thirties or early forties.  As we neared his stop, he got up and left his apple core sitting in the seat.  Gross! So I said -- perhaps more loudly than necessary -- "Excuse me, sir, but you seem to have forgotten something."  When he glanced over, I pointed at the apple core.  He looked at me and actually thought about ignoring it.  But there was also a soldier in uniform waiting to get off at the same stop, and the guy looked at him, then grudgingly picked up his trash.

For the first time, I really understood the expression "were you raised in a barn?" This wasn't just litter, it was trash.  And the kind of person who would do a thing like that, well, he'd do just about anything.  He clearly has no respect for anyone else, and the only reason he picked up after himself was sheer fear of a man more physically imposing than himself.

I can't help wondering, though...if I wrote a scene like that into a book, would people even believe it?  From a teenager, yes.  But a forty-year-old man in a business suit?  He'd have to be a villain, of course, but what would you learn about him from this behavior?

Two Sentence Tuesday - Tax Edition

I usually try to limit myself to a couple of extra sentences from what I've read, but this time I'd like to give a whole, quite long paragraph because--as a person with several freelance jobs and only one very small paycheck from which taxes are actually deducted--this article in The Economist made me laugh...and cry.

People really are often surprised by the size of their tax bill or their return. I think this problem is especially acute if you have a regular gig and a regular paycheck from which various taxes are automatically withheld, but also a freelance side gig and periodic paychecks from which various taxes are not automatically withheld. At one level, you know full well that taxes eventually must be paid on freelance income. Yet the regular gig with automatic withholding trains you to think of your bank balance as what you have left over after taxes have been taken. If you're a bit dotty and/or you find money matters a stressful and exhausting hassle to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, it's very easy to forget that your checking-account balance is a lie and that you are but the temporary steward of a good chunk of "your" money, which really belongs to the state. This is why, in my household at least, tax time can be a bit of a horror. As the 1099s add up, we find ourselves panicking slightly, absurdly lamenting having made too much extra untaxed income which, as Mr Ariely suggests, caused us to feel richer than we really were, and this makes paying the taxes we owed all along (and should have planned for, but didn't because we are writers, not accountants, damn it) feel immiserating. Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river.

Not that most of us have to pay huge amounts on our writerly income, but this goes equally well for any of us who have those odd jobs that don't deduct taxes.

And here's a bit of silly writing from me. Also from the Murder with Goodies short. (This should give you some idea of what the "Goodies" in the title are.)

I looked over at the two-shelf bookshelf next to the couch that functioned as both a side table and storage for my Goody’s products. A navy tablecloth thrown over the top kept the contents out of sight. I wasn’t ashamed of them, but nor did the pizza guy need to see various neon vibrating man-handles when he delivered my dinner.

So what about you? What did you read and write this week? Give us a shout in the comments and we'll  update this post throughout the day with links to you!

• Dorte H takes us back to school with her sentences this week.

Ignore the Mud! Concentrate on the Blossom!

We just got 4 inches of rain yesterday--those spring showers to bring the May flowers--and here is our only daffodil.  I'm just not sure this is locally comprehensive enough to count as a My Town Monday post, but there will be better ones to peruse at the link, I promise.
Onto quite another topic: reviews, bad ones, or at least, honest ones.  Because I've been running around as much as a small-bladdered Boston Terrier with a kidney condition, it was the Sisters in Crime round up newsletter for the blog where I first read 'bout this flap.  Nathan Bransford covered the dire pile-on incurred by a self-published author who repeatedly defended herself from the worse points of a review, which, it must be said, was neither cheap-shotting her work, nor uniformly condemnatory of it.   Plenty of people noticed her very bad grace under fire and pointed out that she was doing her professional reputation harm.  I thought of it when I explained to an author how important it can be to get Amazon reviews, even if they're not all 5 stars.

Entrust this with the next several hours of your reading life? 

On Amazon, as well as many other venues, review readers can also rate the reviewers.  So, rather than have someone who only read the novel because they love you write a glowing review that, nonetheless, discloses they're not really well-read in the genre, you should have someone like that write honest and specific reviews.  Even if it's not 5 stars, frankness and specificity will earn you those valuable "helpful" ratings which also help boost your search ranking, as do the total number of reviews.  Don't use fake profiles, or "sock puppets" as they're called for fake online identities, and don't ask people to gush no matter what.  In every novel, there's something done well, and that's the thing or things your reviewer should discuss.  Even if there's something they loved less, convince your reviewers what a big favor they're doing to mention it in brief, because shoppers are savvier than you may assume.  And having a big set of fake-seeming reviews, those from people who are as proud of you as your mother, isn't fooling any avid reader.

Honestly, the voracious readers (like me!) are the ones constantly seeking new names and new material.  Don't irritate them by trying to game them.  No book pleases everyone, and they understand that well.  They're capable of reading around bad reviews to make assessments for themselves.  Ask people you know please to review you, but with real details and candor.  And when/if you read something about your own sweated-and-bled-over work that makes you wince, suck it up stoically, remembering that writing and having your work invited into the imaginations of readers is the best job in the world.

P.S. If it's still raining by you, here are the instructions to build yourself a permanent little fan of your own

Some Thoughts from Michael Connelly

One of the highlights of last year's Bouchercon for me was seeing Michael Connelly interviewed by Gregg Hurwitz. What struck me was that Connelly is not only a wonderful writer, but a really interesting person--smart, funny, and a natural teacher. YouTube has quite an extensive selection of videos from interviews done with Connelly. If you're looking for something to do on this (finally) sunny Sunday afternoon, check them out. The one below is a particular favorite of mine.

"For Keepsies" at Beat To A Pulp

Cathi Stoler's international adventure Fatal Flaw debuted last week on the estimable Beat To A Pulp webzine. Believe me her story of sex and intrigue is a tough act to follow. But follow it I will.

I am thrilled to report that my very short story "For Keepsies" goes up live today at Beat To A Pulp. Click here for the link.

My intent is to show how a self destructive crime, a "victimless" crime does effect people who are not really involved but stand on the periphery and yet are changed forever.

The great joy of Beat To A Pulp is that publisher David Cranmer encourages submissions from a variety of genres and he encourages authors to experiment, pulling this way and pushing that way until out pops a story that is different from what that author may ordinarily write. We writers are blessed to have such a noteworthy forum.

Terrie

Little Big Crimes

You all know that the Women of Mystery are great friends with the terrific writers and all around nice folks over on the Criminal Brief Weblog.

Well, Criminal Briefer Rob Lopresti has another blog called Little Big Crimes.

Each Sunday he puts up a new post of interested to fans and writers of short mystery fiction. Sometimes it is announcements—you can find the Spinetingler nominees here. Often it is a review of a story that Rob or a guest blogger particularly liked. Here is Leigh Lundin’s review of my story “The Awareness.”

I particularly liked Rob’s review of Dark Horizons by Rex Burns from the June 2011 Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I haven’t yet received my copy of that issue of AHMM and now wait with grand anticipation to read Dark Horizons for myself. So, if you get a chance stop in and visit Rob for your weekly dose of Little Big Crimes.

Terrie

AutoCrit Editing Wizard

I think I may have mentioned here a time or ten in the past that I am addicted to both books and software for writers. I have shelves of books on writing and research, and I must have tried at least half a dozen different software packages in the attempt to find something that did what I wanted for writing.  Alas, I am too much of a pantser to do the plotting required for most software, so I just take a whole bunch of notes for myself as I go along and leave it at that.

However, someone recently mentioned a piece of web-based software to me that I really like. It's called AutoCrit Editing Wizard and you can try it on 400 words of your MS for free.  There are paid programs ranging from $47 to $117 depending on how much text you want to be able to analyze at a time.  (I am showing here a sample of 500 words.  Unfortunately, 500 words isn't really enough to get a good grasp on a novel, or even a short story.  I use "knew/know" far too frequently, just not in this particular passage.)

AutoCrit doesn't just look at the obvious things most software can do easily, like searching out overused words or clichés (though, of course, it does that, too) or providing your "reading level," it also analyzes some rather more esoteric types of information.

One thing I find particularly interesting is AutoCrit's examination of pacing.  As part of its analysis, the program highlights what might be introspection, backstory or other slower sections.  It doesn't always get these right, mind you, but just having a visual of the pace is fascinating.

The program also provides a visual representation of the variation of your sentence length so you can see whether your writing changes structure and flow. It sucks up all the dialog tags and tells you how often you've used each one and, for those of you who have problems with homonyms, it digs out all the places you might have used the wrong word without spell-check being able to catch it. (Do you really want to read an entire manuscript with all the variations of "there/their/they're" and "to/two/too" underlined? Well, if you have an issue with homonyms, then yes, you probably should check them.)

AutoCrit won't help you write your story, but it might help you edit it into shape.  Of course, you have to know when to take its advice and when not to, just as with any critique partner.  For example, the program can't tell the difference between different characters.  You may decide you want one to use certain words naggingly often.  In fact, that may be critical to your plot, so you'll absolutely want to leave those words in.  But at least with AutoCrit, you'll know when it's happening.

She's a winner!

Congratulations to Lynn Demsky who won an autographed copy of Telling Lies by Cathi Stoler. Thanks to everyone who entered.

Find the Future: The Game

Find the Future: The Game will kick off on May 20, 2011 as part of New York Public Library's Centennial Festival weekend, with a "Write All Night" once-in-a-lifetime event inside the landmark building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. It is a pioneering, interactive experience created especially for NYPL's Centennial by famed game designer Jane McGonigal, with Natron Baxter and Playmatics.

The event will run from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Five Hundred prequalified players (18 and older) will explore the building's 70 miles of stacks, and using laptops and smartphones, follow clues to such treasures as the Library's copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand.

After finding each object, players will write short, personal essays inspired by their quest.

Photo source: NYPL

Winning the game means writing a collaborative book based on these personal stories about the future, and this volume will be added to the Library's collections.

Registration for the "Write All Night" event will be open until April 21. You must be 18 by May 20, 2011, and live in -- or plan to be in New York City -- to participate in this event.

Starting May 21, 2011, visitors to the Stephen A. Schwarzman branch of the library can play the game with their smartphones or library computers. Global players with access to the internet can play. The game is free to play.

Winners will be notified by email in early May, and are responsible for their own transportation to the Stephen A. Schwarzman building in NYC. For more info, read The Game FAQs.

You can "like" the NYPL on Facebook and follow @nypl on Twitter.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Two Sentence Tuesday

Another week, another couple of sentences.  I can't say I wrote much more than a couple of sentences this week, but the nice thing about the Two Sentence Tuesday is that it forces me to do at least that much!

Two sentences I read from Jill Shalvis' The Sweetest Thing:

The problem was that Ford didn’t tend to exert much energy on things that were difficult. And Tara was just about as difficult as they came.

And a few I wrote from Murder with Goodies:

I offered them a seat. Rogers took the couch, but Wyland leaned against the counter separating the galley kitchen from the living room. His careful, hazel eyes surveyed my apartment and I couldn’t help wondering how many other ones just like mine the two of them had visited and whether they judged interviewees by how they lived.

How about you?  How are your reading and writing going? Give us a couple of sentences and we'll link to you!

• Leah J. Utas plays along with a query guaranteed to have you wanting more.

Lies, Art, and an International Adventure

“Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it,” said Adolph Hitler once upon a time. However, he had never encountered determined Manhattan writer and editor, Laurel Imperiole, who never takes a lie at face value.
 
In her first book, Telling Lies, Cathi Stoler has given us a complex plot filled with lots of lies and intrigue. The action begins immediately when Laurel runs into a man in a museum in Florence, Italy. Not exactly stunning until Laurel recognizes the man as someone who shouldn’t even be alive. The suspense starts here and carries readers through the world of glamorous high-end art from Italy to the United States mingling in the dark world of art stolen by the Nazis in World War II.

Cathi’s carefully crafted story keeps you turning pages as Laurel and her friend, private investigator Helen McCorkendale, unravel a plot that keeps the reader guessing to the end. Helen works undercover while Laurel strives to overcome the problems created when she ran into someone who was assumed to be dead.

The lies and subterfuge get bolder and more desperate as Laurel finds herself in the middle of an international mess as a well-known Mossad agent enters the picture with his own agenda. While Laurel and Helen work under the surface, Laurel’s boyfriend Aaron, an NYPD cop, pursues the criminal elements from the law’s perspective with an FBI pal who specializes in art fraud and left. Things really heat up as Laurel’s efforts to learn more about what’s going on back the bad guys into a bleak corner. They come out with murderous intent that leaves a lot of collateral damage along the way.

The story moves smoothly thanks to Cathi giving the location of events at every chapter’s opening. She has skillfully crafted an intricate story that is provoking and satisfying to the end. It’s no surprise that the book has been selected as a finalist in the Brighid’ Fire Books Fiction Contest.

How many lies does it take to get away with murder? You won’t know until you read this terrific first novel by Cathi Stoler. Right now she’s working on two other books, Keeping Secrets, which explores the subterfuge of identity theft and The Hard Way, a novel about international diamond trafficking.

Cathi Stoler, a native New Yorker, began her writing career as a fashion copywriter and then moved to the action-packed world of advertising where she developed award-winning campaigns for clients that included The New York Times, Folger's Coffee, DuPont Lycra, and the Marriott Marquis hotel.

The Women of Mystery are giving away a copy of Telling Lies to a lucky reader in the US or Canada. Add a comment to this post that contains your email or links to a valid contact email, and we’ll enter you in the contest to win a free signed copy. Maybe you’d like to share what piece of well-known artwork is a favorite or museums that you love to visit. Entries will close on Monday and the winner will be announced on Tuesday.

Friends

Isn't it great when your pals get along with each other? You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you watch them hang out together? Well, I got that feeling this morning when I clicked onto Criminal Brief and discovered that our very own great pal Travis Erwin is guest blogging for our other pal, Leigh Lundin. Travis gives a grand report about an intensive writer's workshop he once attended and reminds us all that his story "Plundered Booty" is out and about in the anthology Deadly By the Dozen.

Travis also invites us all to read his blog, Lettuce is the Devil, which is the title of the book he is presently writing. A week ago I gave a little plug to both projects right here. But you can get a far more enjoyable read if you wander over to Criminal Brief and hear all about it from Travis himself. Click here.

Terrie

Cathi Stoler's "Fatal Flaw"

Our Cathi's having a banner month! In addition to her new novel release, about which MUCH MORE and VERY SOON, she has a wonderful short tale of sex and international intrigue now appearing at the essential Beat to a Pulp.

Go read about the jet set in the gambling palaces of Venice now!
Come back and discuss later.

Image via Flickr and Dr. Savage.

The Murders We Must Commit

Image from Clipart Guide.

The other day, at the suggestion of my writing group, I agreed to murder a darling. I grudgingly acknowledged that the section didn’t move the story forward, nor was the voice consistent with the rest. When I settled at my PC to do the deed, I realized I’d had an inkling the section needed to go even before I asked for critique. In fact, I often get a squishy feeling that something is not quite right about a phrase or passage or section of dialogue, but without the distance of time, and when left to myself, I stubbornly put on blinders.

I read a recent series of articles in A Bad Penny Review about the revision processes of authors Fitzgerald, Wharton, James, Carver, and contemporary thriller writer Mark Powell. Editor Johnny Damm opens the series in the Winter 2011 edition with the following:

“I’ve always found 'polishing' to be too elegant a description for the act of a writer’s revision, which can often feel more than a little violent. Over the course of a semester, my students in a fiction workshop simplified the famous, but also quite elegant, ‘Murder Your Darlings’ to a more blunt ‘Kill Your Babies.’”

Yes, I thought. Though at times I happily rush into slash and burn mode, my attachment to some of my writing is so strong that I grieve when letting it go.

The article continues with a comparison of each author’s drafts against their final, published versions. Not only is it comforting to see that even the works of masters required revision (of course they did), but it’s seriously eye-opening to discover the particular difficulties each faced. (If you read nothing else, read the section on Carver!)

In A Bad Penny Review’s Spring 2011 edition, Damm compares three drafts of a portion of Mark Powell’s current work in progress. (Powell authored Blood Kin and Prodigals.) He concludes the article with an interview with the author. To the question, “How do you deal with the difficulty of cutting well written sentences?” Powell’s response was an aha for me:

"It’s heartbreaking since my first love isn’t plot but language. My only technique is distance through multiple drafts: the more distance I get from a draft the more rational I become. Given time, I base my decisions about what to keep and what to cut on what works from the story. But it takes time for me to see this. I fall in love with the language first. It’s not until I fall in love with the story and the characters that I can cut what might work on a line-level but not a plot-level. But it’s still hard since I never fall out of love with language.”

Me too. Not that I’m the writer Powell is, but I started out writing poetry, then creative non fiction. Readers may have had trouble understanding what the heck I was saying, but they liked - or so they claimed - the lyrical language. In turning to genre fiction, I finally learned to write, but in some sense I feel as if in gaining story I’ve lost language. Each time I trim a line (I almost said “vine”) that threatens to disfigure my now simpler prose style, I know that I’m bowing to simplicity in order to keep the story moving. I still regard it as something of a trade off, but it’s clear that my writing is stronger with each darling I kill.

I’ll confess to a couple of my bloopers in our next Two for Tuesday. In the meantime…want to share?

Murder 203 in Connecticut This Weekend

Murder 203  is an intimate, casual conference with a great list of panelists, and the proceeds benefit the Easton Library system.  This year's guest of honor is Carolyn Hart, and the following writers are attending as well:

Larry Beinhart, Cordelia Frances Biddle, Meredith Cole, Joanne Dobson, Susan Froetschel, John J. Gilmore, Jane Haddam, Rosemary Harris, Jonathan Hayes, Merry Jones, Marshall Karp, Jon Land, Amy Patricia Meade, Leslie Meier, Stefanie Pintoff, Harold Schechter, Jessica Speart, Eugenia Lovett West, Brian Wiprud, and Sheila York.

The word is that they've got a new Day Pass rate of $40, and walk-ins are always welcome, so if you haven't yet treated yourself to a 2011 hangout with writers and readers who get why you're so ghoulishly interested in murder, you might think about this one!

Fake Books and Sweaty Feet

not telling where I saw THIS fake- sue me!

Via @douglasmperry and @bestebooks4you I found this link from Hot Hardware's Julie Bart about new e-book scams.

Of course, every fertile new marketplace attracts hucksters, but apparently, people are either stealing online content outright that they don't have rights to (which we've seen before), or they are webcrawling piles of internet content together and putting the nonsensical mess into book form with fake titles and reviews (and samples, I must assume?)  The latter is what bugs me more today, not because it's less a theft--it isn't--but because it seems so much more avoidable with technology.

As soon as you land on one of those scammy web pages full of miscellaneous words designed to entrap your searching, you're right out of there.  I assumed there was software that could tell the difference, too.  In the comments of the original article is interesting information about the software universities are now employing to catch plagiarists.

If we have that already, we must have a technological way to detect that "Orange Lemon Hideaway Antifreeze Profit" isn't actually legit text for a self-help guide to reducing tootsie moisture, don't we?

See my trolling for info and offering excessive attribution as merited @clare2e

The Lineup: Poems on Crime - Issue 4

What better way to kick off National Poetry Month than to feature the latest issue (#4) of The Lineup: Poems on Crime - edited by a dream team of Gerald So, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Cortez, and R. Narvaez.

This issue is dedicated to David Thompson, the "first bookseller to believe in The Lineup."

In his introduction, "hard-boiled poet" and co-editor, Reed Farrel Coleman writes, "You cannot read what follows and be left untouched or uniformed by how this group of poets has chosen to walk the mean streets and look around the dark corners so that the rest of us might understand."

I wholeheartedly agree with Reed. The voices contained in this gem are phenomenal. Any crime fiction aficionado who hasn't given poetry a glance would eat these right up.

With such heavyweight literary talent amassed in one tiny volume, it is tough -- if not impossible -- to pick out just one favorite. I'd want to tell you how John Stickney kicks things off with "Creation," a found poem about Serbian poet Aleksander Ristovic (whose work has been translated by Charles Simic), and how the "Son of Sam" references in "Leaving Long Island" by Mary Christine Delea brought back memories of the .44 caliber killer, and how funny her poem, "If You Only Knew How Easy Is It To Break Into My House" is.

I'd point out Jeanne Dickey's powerful, "An Elegy for Susan Atkins," or her creepy "Shadow Man Visits the Babysitter."

Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson pays tribute to "Lynda Healy," Ted Bundy's first fatality. "The Organized Offender" by Laura LeHew will take your breath away as she describes the reported source of Ted Bundy's spirituality, and you can hear the tormented voice in "About the Ashes."

H. Palmer Hall provides the perspective of a rape victim in "Suburban Blues," and draws from experience as he aptly describes life for a Vietnam vet in "The Collector." You'll root for the justifiable retribution sought in Charles Harper Webb's "Prayer for the Man Who Mugged My Father, 72" (and what a fantastic last line!).

I'd brag about how brevity packs a powerful punch in such pieces as "From a Deposition" by J.D. Smith, or Randall Watson's "The Song of the Drowned Children." I'd want to discuss the intense imagery drawn by three-time Shamus Award winner Reed Farrel Coleman in "Slider, Part 7," and the remnants of tragedy described by David Jordan in "Ribbons."

You'll experience the sadness of "Funeral: Of the Wino" through the eyes of the brilliant Ken Bruen, and witness a scene of "Street Girls:Selected Memories" through the lens of director, screenwriter, and L.A. Times best-selling author, Stephen Jay Schwartz.

I'd certainly mention the curious "Madonna Peed on My Face," by Chad Rohrbacher.

Steve Weddle (creator and editor of Needle: A Magazine of Noir) will unsettle your equilibrium with "The Balance Lost." The narrator of "Bargain" by author David Corbett is a haunted soul. Keith Rawson (co-editor of Crimefactory) dishes a desert tale in "A Story To Tell Our Daughter." Kieran Shea pays homage to the crisis and tragic events "In Oaxaca, in 2006."

Peter Meinke, the first Poet Laureate of St. Petersburg, Florida, who will be reading poetry at the upcoming April 16, 2011 UCF Book Festival in Orlando, makes biblical references in "What WIld-Eyed Murderer," and gives an arsonist his voice in "The Firebug."

Fiction writer, poet, and playwright (and fellow Hint Fiction Anthology contributor) J.J. Steinfeld addresses school bullying, the Bowery Boys and The Dead End Kids in, "Dialogue with a Now-Dead Criminal."

Mary Agnes Dalrymple describes what it must have been like for those discovering the remains of a child in "Finding Opal," based on the real-life 1999 abduction of Opal Jo Jennings in Texas. The Armenian/American poet and Vietnam veteran Michael Casey, observes a suspicious character in "mitrailleur."

Nancy Scott, three-time nominee for a Pushcart Prize, has written a startling account of a child raised to steal in "The Shearling."

"If Not For Stephen Dunn" by Paul Hostovsky will take you by surprise -- and he touches upon all the senses in "Stealing the Bowling Shoes." Thomas Michael McDade's "Blind," is the tale of two burglars as they get drunk in the victim's home, as one reminisces about a larcenous incident as a child. Germaine Welsh in "Houston Oil Man Missing," packs quite a story in so few words.

Every piece in this collection is a winner.

Be sure to visit other stops on the "So Dark for April" blog tour, celebrating the release of The Lineup: Poems on Crime - Issue 4.

For more information about The Lineup: Poems on Crime, issues 1-4, visit Poetic Justice Press. These volumes make terrific gifts, along with some items from the Poetic Justice Press Gift Shop (shown here is the 100% cotton canvas bag that sells for $14.99).

Check out the Facebook page for The Lineup: Poems on Crime.

If you are interested in submitting poetry, Poetic Justice Press seeks "poets' powerful reaction to what they see as crime." For some insight on the process of editing The Lineup, read Steve Weddle's interview with Gerald So. on Do Some Damage blog.

On May 31, 2011, enjoy "An Evening of Criminally Good Verse," with editors Reed Farrel Coleman, Richie Narvaez (and Gerald So will be in attendance, videotaping the action), and contributors Jeanne Dickey and Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson at The Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street, New York City, at 6 p.m. Cover is $7 and includes one drink.

To purchase a copy or check library availability of The Lineup: Poems on Crime, Issue #4, check here.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.