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First Thrills

Shaken, Secrets and a Very Special Cat

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I received some wonderful news yesterday—CITY OF DRAGONS has been nominated for a Macavity, specifically the Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Award!

The Macavity is as wonderful as it gets, a recognition of your work from some of the most astute readers in the community: members of Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Readers International. I’m deeply honored to have Miranda’s debut novel nominated … and am especially tickled because when I was a kid I used to be able to recite by heart “Macavity, The Mystery Cat” (the poem by T.S. Eliot for which the award is named). I can still remember a few stanzas, so if you see me at a convention and ask me to recite—be forewarned! 😉

I’m also celebrating something else: a special effort by authors—an anthology of short stories—written and published and sold to raise money for Japan in the wake of its almost unimaginable calamity. The anthology is called SHAKEN: STORIES FROM JAPAN, and is currently available on Amazon for $3.99. The brainchild of author (and fellow Macavity nominee) Tim Hallinan, the book features 20 stories by 20 authors, many crime fiction favorites, with elegantly translated haikus interposed between the stories. Even the cover is designed by the multi-talented Gar Anthony Harwood. I’m proud of participating (my story is called “Coolie” and is set in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake); proud, too, of Amazon, for donating their share of the royalties: fully 100% of this book goes to help the people that need it. It feels so good to be able to help, even a little.

It’s hard to believe that July is almost upon us. CITY OF SECRETS will be hitting stories on September 13th, and I’m busy writing the third Miranda (working title is CITY OF GHOSTS) while preparing for the launch. My website will soon have all the bells and whistles I hope my readers have come to expect: a book trailer, video, photo gallery, sound track, inspirations and more. In the meantime, you can check the progress by going to the CITY OF SECRETS page and exploring the sub-menu.  I’m also looking forward to the paperback of CITY OF DRAGONS, which hits stores August 30th.

To celebrate the launch of Miranda’s second novel, I’ve written a special short story: “The Memory Book”. Set on Treasure Island during the World’s Fair, it takes place before CITY OF DRAGONS and after my previous short story, “Children’s Day.” I’ll have more news on the release soon.

Speaking of “Children’s Day, FIRST THRILLS has been out for over a month now, as a mass-market paperback. My first! And what a thrill it is, to see my short story in such stellar company! If you haven’t read this prequel to CITY OF DRAGONS, you can now read it FOR FREE on the ITW website: just go to The Big Thrill and click on the banner.

In the Roman part of my life, we’ve made NOX DORMIENDA newly available as an e-book! You can find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Diesel, Sony and Smashwords for $3.99. I’m happy to see it back in pixel-print, and hope to have word on a paperback version before the end of the year.


I have a number of events coming up this summer … a trip to Yreka, CA and Ashland, Medford and Klamath Falls, Oregon, as part of the fabulous Ashland Mystery Readers Group Festival, now in its ninth year. I can’t wait to visit my old stomping grounds–I traveled to Ashland every year in high school, and it’s been way too long since I’ve been back!

I’ll also be speaking at the fabulous Desert Sleuth’s WRITE NOW! 2011 Conference in Scottsdale, AZ, with friends Sophie Littlefield and Juliet Blackwell … I can’t wait to see my fellow Sisters in Crime and the desert in all of its summer glory!

In the meantime, I’m writing … and writing … but will be back sooner rather than later with, I hope, some movie recommendations. Hope you all have a wonderful Independence Day, and thanks for sticking with me while I’m writing in the dark! 🙂 And congratulations to all the Macavity nominees!

Rip van Who?

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You know, I think Washington Irving was on to something about Rip Van Winkle.

Except in my version of the story, I fly to New York in April to attend my first Edgar Awards Banquet (it was amazing); catch a horrendous case of bronchitis on the flight home (or more likely on the way there, since I was seated in front of a poor, coughing teenager); am out of commission for a full two weeks; and then put my head down and …

WRITE. No sleeping, not for this Winkle.

As we speak, I’m nearing the conclusion of CITY OF SPIDERS–the sequel to CITY OF DRAGONS. I hoped to have it finish much earlier, but this has been an extremely challenging year in many ways, even for a double Gemini with Multi-Tasking as my middle name. Somewhere in June, I even celebrated a birthday … like van Winkle, I emerge from my blogless state older and a little confused.

From you, dear blog readers, I have been absent in the spring … but I hope you forgive me. 🙂 As soon as CITY OF SPIDERS is finished, my goal is to wax weekly at Writing in the Dark!

Now, today itself is of some note: FIRST THRILLS, the International Thriller Writers anthology featuring just a ton of wonderful authors, all of whom I’m honored to be published with–is released! My Miranda Corbie short story “Children’s Day” is included, and takes place nearly a year before CITY OF DRAGONS–the entire story is set during the World’s Fair on Treasure Island.

I was also very lucky to be interviewed by the San Francisco Examiner, and that article also came out today! So … between the solstice, the launch of FIRST THRILLS, and the Examiner, I decided to take a novel writing evening off. 😉

I’ll also be taking a weekend off to fly back to New York for Thrillerfest in just a couple of weeks! And soon … very soon, I hope … CITY OF SPIDERS will, at last, be finished.

THEN I sleep … and start writing again. 🙂

Thanks again for reading, and if you’re up New York way for Thrillerfest, I hope you stop by to say hello! 🙂

All Hallows’ Eve

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As I write this, my neighborhood is full of ghoulies and ghosties and short-leggedy beasties, all scrambling for candy. Dressed in hodge-podge homemade costumes and store-bought accessories, kids of all ages revel in Halloween and the celebration of social trust it represents. I do, too. 🙂 All Hallows’ Eve is a magical night …

It was just three years ago, on a Halloween night in 2006, when I finished the sequel to NOX DORMIENDA. I had neither a publisher nor representation, and I wasn’t at all sure I would be able to find either. But I had to finish MALEDICTUS (Cursed), had to finish a story that was wrapped up, in a way, with Halloween. A story dealing with curses, with ghosts, with necromancers, and with violations of that social compact that underlies our modern holiday.

Sure, it takes place two thousand plus years ago, nine months after the events of NOX DORMIENDA — in October, 84 A.D. But it’s a Halloween type of mystery, and a continuation of Roman Noir, all the same.

It’s been quite a three years. NOX was published, won the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery, was nominated for a Macavity, and will be published in Italy and Greece. My second series, set in 1940 San Francisco, is going to be published by Thomas Dunne/Minotaur starting with CITY OF DRAGONS on February 2, 2010. A short story prequel to CITY OF DRAGONS will be in FIRST THRILLS, an upcoming International Thriller Writers anthology featuring bestselling and emerging authors, publishing in June of next year by Tor … my story “Children’s Day” will be in print among writers whose work I venerate.


And now … the Arcturus Series will continue! My Halloween book, finished three years ago tonight, will be published by Thomas Dunne/Minotaur. We’re calling it CURSED, and hoping that it does NOT live up to its name. 😉

We celebrated at Bouchercon, this and other good news … CITY OF DRAGONS will be available through all three major book clubs (Mystery Guild alternate selection; Book of the Month, Quality Paperback Book Club). We gathered as a community of mystery readers and writers and publishers and media, and in that gathering I celebrated career things, personal things, family things, mostly the feeling of being very, very blessed in many ways. I count those blessings every day.

And on Halloween … even with a lingering cough from a bout of bronchitis … I like to spread those blessings around. 🙂 Have a safe, blessed, and wonderful All Hallows’ Eve … and thanks for reading Writing in the Dark!

Happy Birthday

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Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

Back in high school when I first read these lines I was struck by the poet’s confidence in words. His cocky self-assurance that the gift of a few words will grant a more everlasting memorial than, say, the graveyard called the Pyramids or the love note known as the Taj Mahal.

But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.

Of course, that was the poet’s persona–a brashly confident young man who, like many a poet before and since, used metaphors and rhythm and rhyming couplets to woo his lover of choice.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory.


The living record of memory. Something all authors contend with, have struggled with, and it’s a memory that has only become shorter and more overloaded with each passing century, decade, year, month. The young man who wrote this sonnet bravely wielded pen like sword against the aggregate forces of time and anonymity, seeking solace in the pursuit of affection and immortality in his attempt to win it.

‘Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.

“Choose me,” he whispers, “and you will live forever.” Such is the potency of words; such is the power of poetry.

Funny thing is, the young man who wrote this had no idea that 400 years later his words would be available 24/7, broadcast freely to a global market, translated by machines, not priests or scribes or scholars or his somewhat bitchy friend Ben Johnson.

The poet’s name was Shakespeare, and he was whistling in the dark.

Y’see, “sluttish time” is on my mind today, though I consider her more of a flirt. NOX DORMIENDA turned one on July 18th.

Now, those who know me know I like to celebrate as much as possible … but I’m kind of quietly humbled right now, amazed at how blessed I’ve been that this tiny little book from a tiny little publisher is still attracting readers and will hopefully be available from a larger press in paperback (with the sequel coming out next year). Stay tuned for further news …

In the year since NOX debuted, I’ve learned that the greatest gift of being a writer is the community I’ve met–readers, writers, book stores, publishers, editors, bloggers, reviewers, journalists, publicists, agents … people. That is the sweetest blessing of all, and I am so, so lucky to be here and with them and on the road I’ve traveled!

And what else has happened in the last year?

Bruce Alexander Award. Macavity nomination. Foreign rights sold in Italy and Greece for NOX.

In January, in the midst of the publishing freefall, moving to Thomas Dunne/Minotaur with CITY OF DRAGONS, finding my dream editor and publisher thanks to my dream agent.

And now, after a fabulous and incredible Thrillerfest, where the news was first announced, I can add that “Children’s Day”, my short story prequel to CITY OF DRAGONS, will be in the next ITW anthology–publishing June, 2010 by Tor. It’s called FIRST THRILLS, and will feature 12 “bestselling authors of today” with 12 “bestselling authors of tomorrow”. More details later, but how humbled I am to be keeping such company!

It’s been a year of bounty and profound gratitude, of feeling at home and like dreams really do come true if you wish upon a star, like living a Disney movie directed by Gary Marshall.


Last October, I thought NOX would be a bare blip on the radar screen, long forgotten a year later. And while I don’t make any claim to it outlasting either monuments or someone’s new marble countertop for the kitchen, the fact that I can celebrate its year-old birthday with the strong hope of continuing the series at a major publisher is, well, a miracle.

Add CITY OF DRAGONS–what I hope will be a true breakout novel–and I just might break into song at any moment. 😉

Thank you all for helping me get here, on this road and at this moment … I’m lighting a candle … and in the years ahead, hoping for a few more. 🙂