D is for Davis, Lindsey

Mystery is my favorite genre and I love historical mystery most of all. Some of my favorite historical mysteries are set in Roman times. I love Kelli Stanley'sRoman Noir  books Nox Dormenda and The Curs-emaker, andthe books by Steven Saylor. But the first historical Roman mystery I ever read was Lindsey Davis' Silver Pigs, published in 1989. It was not her first novel, but the first in her "Falco" series of historic mysteries. Read her biography here.

If you'd like to explore historical mysteries set in Rome, check out the website The Detective and the Toga.  the first listing in the events section mentions Lindsey Davis' new book Enemies at Home. Wikipedia also has a really good article on the mystery subgenre. Read it here.

D is for Darkangel

My friend Christine Pope writes romances in a number of different flavors--contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction--and I like all of them. She writes strong heroines and her supporting characters are memorable as well. I'm very fond of her fairy tale series, Tales of the Latter Kingdoms (the most recent book is her retelling of Cinderella, Ashes of Roses), but I also have a soft  spot for her "Sedona Trilogy," with its UFOs and men in black.

This week Christine unveils the first book in her new series. It's a paranormal romance called Darkangel, and it's about a young witch whose search for her soulmate is complicated by clan politics and her own desire to meet the man who has been haunting her dreams. But first, she has to survive a nightmarish series of encounters with an evil that seems to be targeting her.  It's great stuff and there are two particularly engaging male characters that I wouldn't mind meeting.

I was never really a romance reader--mysteries is my genre, but with Christine's books, there's always something to enjoy. That's doubly true in Darkangel where the "game of thrones" playing out among the witch clans is just getting interesting as the book ends. (Never fear, the sequel is coming soon and a teaser chapter is included.) 

C is for CraigsList

As I have mentioned before, I get a fair amount of work from CraigsList ads. I trawl through the listings often enough that when someone repeatedly posts an ad, i notice it. (There's a YA writer in New York who's been offering "an intriguing proposition" for a young and hungry writer that has me intrigued, although I am pretty sure I'm not what he/she is looking for. But it IS a bad sign that the ad has been running on and off for a couple of months now. Is the poster just REALLY picky or is there something that's not being said in the ad?)

A lot of strange gigs end up under the writer/editor category and some are just annoying. I get why translation jobs are there--there's no other category that really fits--but when I see the jobs for office work or hotel clerking, or other non-eriting/editing jobs, I get kind of cranky.

A lot of people complain that many of the writing "jobs" and "gigs" are actually unpaid but oddly, that doesn't bother me that much. I've been known to take on unpaid gigs if I thought they sounded interesting. That's how I ended up editor of Astonishing Adventures Magazine, a job that opened up many doors for me.

My favorite job offer this week was the person who wanted a Klingon speaker to translate a poem into the alien language for $50. Why not? Good luck on that.

Reading CL postings can occasionally be like sifting through the messages in your email spam folder. You have to weed out the million dollar offers and the great deals on cheap meds, and the greetings from lonely Russian girls who want to be your pen pal. This is a headline I saw today:
 2,500-10,000 Overnight NO SCAM (NYC/NJ)

I know what you're thinking. WOW!  Let me get a piece of that. (Or not.) CraigsList i love you but seriously, you need to rewrite your policies.

C is for Collins, Suzanne

Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games was one of those books that hit the zeitgeist like a bomb. Pegged as a YA dystopian author after Hunger Games, she was formerly known for her fantastic quintet of books in her Overland Chronicles series. It's a quest story, a story about finding and fulfilling one's destiny in a strange world beneath New York City. Gregor and his little sister (called "Boots") are terrific characters, and the way Boots bonds with the giant cockroaches (they love her and treat her like a princess) is endearing. The series goes on maybe one book too long, but if you love fantasy, you owe it to yourself to check out the Underland Chronicles.
YA, it pretty much blew up the genre and set off a publishing frenzy that supercharged the movies based on the trilogy. But before Collins wrote

When I was reading Hunger Games, I found myself thinking about readers and why some books succeed while others fail. Dan Brown wrote a couple of novels before hitting it big with The DaVinci Code. Now the Robert Langdon books make up one of the top ten best-selling series of all time. Something to think about when your books aren't selling and you're contemplating going back to grad school or taking that job with your sister-in-law's accounting firm.

B is for Bling

I like jewelry, I always have. I used to sell and buy (or really buy and buy) jewelry on eBay and I ended up with a really nice collection of Matisse copper and enamel jewelry to go with the pieces I inherited from my mother and grandmother. But once I stopped working in an office, I got rid of most of my bling because it felt kind of silly to be sitting around in a t-shirt, bicycle shorts and a silver charm bracelet. But I still love looking.  And I especially love looking at Etsy, where you can now buy vintage stuff as well as hand-crafted items.  And the way I justify buying things is that I'm looking for swag I can use to promote my writing. (Yes, I can justify anything.)
Yesterday, on Twitter, one of the Etsy shops I like put up a lot of four vintage (60s) rose brooches for a really good price. And the moment I saw them, I thought of Fairy Story, one of the short stories I used to have up on Amazon.
I've taken the story down to rework it into something longer and I've been thinking about what I might offer in the way of promotions. And then I saw the ad for the four roses and KNEW.  It was destiny. It was kismet. It was a really good reason for cruising Etsy. so I bought the roses and when Fairy Story is rebooted, there will be promos.  The roses came from a shop called Grand Vintage Finery. Check it out.

Be is for Beardsley, Aubrey

I grew up a writer in a house of artists. I can't draw a straight line with a T-square. But I've always (mostly) been content to claim the writing niche for my own because there aren't that many people who are good at more than one thing. Aubrey Beardsley was an artist and a writer. His illustrations (like the one from Le Morte d'Arthur here) were memorable. Then he wrote The Devil's Dictionary, which is as snarky as they come. (I image Aubrey was rarely short of dinner invitations.) But more than that, he wrote one of the most memorable short stories ever, "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." That story is right up there with "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Monkey's Paw" and "The Lady or the Tiger." As long as there are English classes, that story will be remembered. And he was only 25 when he died. Doesn't that make you feel like a slacker?

B is for Book 'Em

Another indie bookstore is closing!!  This mystery bookstore in South Pasadena has been open for 24 years but now the owners rae retiring. The store will close on April 30th and they will host a "farewell signing" on April 6 for three writers--Naomi Hirahara, Wendy Hornsby, and Sue Ann Jaffarian. Naomi won't remember me, but I met her at Book 'Em when Kelli Stanley was there signing her books. If you're in the area, go by and buy!  Sales on everything. check out their site here.