Over the last year, a number of you have asked how to get my Derringer-award winning novella, “Catherine The Great,” and while you can get it in last year’s Holiday Spectacular compilation, that’s only available in ebook. Many of you want paper…and I get it. I do too.

So, we decided to put it into paper. And by the time we got to that project, I had also written three other mystery/crime novellas. One is a thriller (Kizzie) and two are more straightforward mysteries. We put all four in a Kickstarter that launches today.

Here’s the video for the Kickstarter. Over the next week, I’ll also share the book trailers with you for the novellas. However, if you’d like to see them now, head to the Kickstarter. They’re all on it, along with a lot of other goodies.

As you can tell, this is one of my favorite things to write. I hope you end up getting the books.

So, if you want to read only romance, because you want to have a bit of joy in your life, pick up Winter Sparkles. If you would want some dark crime stories to reinforce the end-of-the-year darkness, buy Hardboiled Holidays. If you like stories about secrets as much as I do, get a copy of Holiday Secrets.

We’ve revamped the designs. The books are as wonderful as the stories. I think you’ll love them!

Of course, you can get the books as part of this year’s Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter. In addition to the reward featuring the books, you’ll get the annual Calendar of Stories (starting on Thanksgiving and running to New Year’s Day). And, because we’ve hit four stretch goals so far, you’ll also get three more stories of mine, a holiday issue of Pulphouse Magazine, and two (yes, two!) online workshops about copyright, worth $500 each.

Yeah, if I were you, I’d head over to the Kickstarter right now. Because it ends on Thursday at 7 p.m. Pacific Time.

I also taught a workshop on science fiction mysteries, and as I often do, I assigned a couple of books for the reading list that I hadn’t read yet. I searched and searched and searched for good sf mystery anthologies. The ones I was familiar with (and/or published in) were out of print and unavailable for my online students. (I could find enough copies for my in-person students.) The anthology I did find (which I hadn’t read), well, it turned out to be a good teaching tool, just not in the way that the editors intended. It looks like they invited a lot of good writers who just weren’t up to the task, and felt the need to use the work anyway. Sigh. Looks like I might have to do an sf/mystery anthology all my own. (If you’re interested in the in-person workshops, click here. The one next January is nearly full.)

January 2024

Chiarella, Tom, “Henry Winkler’s 6 Lessons of Reinvention,” AARP The Magazine, October/November, 2023. Lovely article about the things learned across a career. Henry Winkler and I share a diagnosis of dyslexia. The difference between us is that I was taught to read by my sister, who also had dyslexia. She had figured out a coping mechanism that allowed me to see words as pictures, rather than an accumulation of letters. I was able to read easily (spelling was much, much harder). Henry Winkler could not. Yet he figured out ways of getting by as well, and making a career even though he couldn’t act quickly on some things.

The choices we make and the ways we cope end up moving our lives forward. I’ve rarely seen an article that captures this so well.

Coates, Tyler, “‘Queerness Was Part of His Strategic Gift,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 27, 2023.  A Netflix film, Rustin, last year brought proper attention to Bayard Rustin and his importance to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I had no idea Rustin had been lost to history. (Not to me) Nor did I know some of the personal things about him, because I use primary materials in my writing when I work on Smokey Dalton. Rustin’s sexuality caused issues that I hadn’t been aware of, but which makes some comments I saw make sense in retrospect. Fascinating article, and no, I haven’t seen the film yet, but I most certainly will, as I ramp up Smokey in the next several months. Until then, watch the film and read this, and learn about an amazing man.

Day, Sarah, and Pratt, Tim, “Overclocked Holmes,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. If you’re read (or watched) too much Sherlock Holmes, then this is the story for you. It’s a riff on artificial intelligence—”a great weird failure of the back half of the twenty-first century”— with so many Holmesian in-jokes that I’m not sure I caught them all. Try this one just for the fun of it.

DeFrank, Sean, “1983: Dawn of the City of Sports,” rjmagazine, Fall 2023. Las Vegas reinvents itself almost daily, so sometimes it feels like we go through almost fifty years worth of change in a decade. CNN is doing a documentary series on the city’s history, and yep, that kinda confirms the feeling. This article from one of the local publications does as well. We are becoming the sports capitol of the country as we add more and more teams. Because Las Vegas is a destination in and of itself, people come here to watch their team play our team. So the professional sports industry went from nearly nothing when we moved here six years ago to this explosion now.

DeFrank’s article looks at the seeds which were planted in 1983 that made this sports boom possible. Fascinating stuff.

Kowal, Mary Robinette, The Spare Man, Tor, 2022. I’m sorry to say that this is the first Mary Robinette Kowal novel I’ve read. I’ve been meaning to read the others, because I love her short fiction, but I never got around to them. So…I assigned this book for the sf mystery class and am I glad I did. This book is marvelous. It’s the Thin Man in space, with beautiful setting, characters that live and breathe, and a truly sf solution to the various crimes. I hope she writes more in this series, because I am soooo there.

Marcus, Gary and Southern, Reid, “Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem,” IEEE Spectrum, January 6, 2024. Ironically enough, the bot on my Pocket app sent me to this story, because clearly I read a lot on generative AI. The authors are a scientist & writer, and a film industry visual concept artist.  They use as scientific a method as they could manage to figure out if generative AI had a plagiarism problem and whoa, boy, did they discover that it did. They also got banned repeatedly from Midjourney for their efforts. Lots to digest here. In particular, look at the comparison to Napster. As I’ve been saying for years now, do not use these generative AI programs until the legal side settles out. Read this.

Morehouse, Lyda, “Go Ask A.L.I.C.E.,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. A wonderfully reimagined trope about a group trying to protect a former sex bot. This story is well done with good suspense, great characters, and a well-defined world. (Something most of the stories in this volume lacked.)

Redgate, Riley, Noteworthy, Amulet, 2017. I loved this book. I binged it. It’s the story of Jordan Sun, a scholarship student at an elite performing arts school. She can never get cast in one of the musicals because her voice is too deep and there aren’t a lot of parts for Alto 2. So…she auditions for a boys’ acapella group instead…as a boy. And gets in, causing her to go to class as a girl and rehearsal as a boy. It sounds like a typical Shakespearean boy/girl swap, but it’s much more than that. The book is actually a great reflection on modern gender norms and on being accepted. It’s quite (ahem) noteworthy. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Robbins, Dean, “A Media-History Miracle,” On Wisconsin, Fall, 2023. This is almost a public service announcement for those of you who like media history. The University of Wisconsin has an online archive of film and broadcasting publications. It’s got cool stuff. Take a look at this article, and then head to the online site.

Smith, Gene, American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family—Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth, Touchstone, 1992. I read a yellowed paperback edition of this book, but there is an ebook version. I’m not really sure you’d want to read it. My muse has been directing me to various non-fiction reading projects and this is one of them. I’m not even sure where I got the book. I’m not sure how I will use this in my writing either, only that I will at some point.

I have never read a book about the acting family. I did know that Edwin continued acting and had become the biggest actor in America after his brother’s hideous assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I had no idea how Edwin managed to go on, but it sounds like he had already divorced himself from John and tried to give up acting for a while. He didn’t manage it.

I think the thing I found most fascinating about the book, though, is that this was one crazy family. All of them. That something went seriously awry was not a surprise. What went awry was.

Again, I’m not sure any of you would want to read this, but it’s interesting. And beautifully written…

Turtledove, Harry, “In The Shadow of The Great Days,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. I’d say this is the best story in the book (and that is absolutely the truth), but that’s damning with faint praise. The story is amazing. In about 5,000 words, Harry creates a future that’s believable and tactile, so rich that I knew it from the first paragraph. This is how to write a science fiction detective story. It’s a master class.

A book editor of mine, Lou Anders, asked me to take part in an anthology of his. Sideways in Crime is a really good anthology of alternate history crime stories. I was writing something else at the time, under deadline, that was eating my brain. I suspect it was a Smokey Dalton novel, because those take a lot of concentration. I figured I had maybe three days to write a story for Lou, but it had to be historical and well thought out and logical and about a crime.

So I told Dean at lunch (at our favorite Thai restaurant in Lincoln City, which I still miss) that I couldn’t write this. I didn’t have time to do it justice. He said, “Pick a time period you’re familiar with.” I shrugged, and still said no. So he tossed out a bunch of ideas.

The American Civil War? No. World War II? No. The 1960s? Yeah, doing that already, but not in sf. Okay, but what if RFK didn’t die? Blerg. Not interested. What if J. Edgar Hoover—Wait! Give it a minute.

Crap, the brain started going. What if someone murdered that evil little man? He was blackmailing everyone in government. What if someone had enough?

So I had my opening scene, and I even had all of the research books. I researched for an entire day, set the thing in NYC, because I had just finished a book set in 1960s NYC and not only had the research materials, but the lived memory of writing that.

The story poured out and I mailed it and Lou took it…and “G-Men” ended up in two year’s best volumes, one for sf and one for mystery. It was also nominated for the Sidewise Award For Best Alternate History.

Not only that, but I had a great time writing it.

Y’know that old saying about writing fast equals writing bad. Yeah, that’s sooooo wrong.

The reason I’m tell you all about this is because “G-Men” is one of the novellas in the 6 SF Novella Kickstarter that we’re running until late Thursday. You can get it, along with five other award-winning and/or critically acclaimed novellas, if you back the Kickstarter for $25.

And because we’ve been hitting stretch goals, you’ll also get five award-winning and/or acclaimed sf novelettes of mine as well. (And a few writing workshops to use yourself or share with friends.) There are lots of other rewards to choose from, so take a look. Click here for the link.

If you want to find out about the other novellas, I’ve written up three of them. You can find those posts here, here, and here. I hope to get to the last two in the remaining hours of the Kickstarter. Enjoy!

We’re going to start with a personal favorite of mine: The Tower.

I’m a history nut and a crime fiction nut. A million stories have been written—and maybe a million more discussed—about ways to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. I know I first contemplated that very thing as I stared at those jewels when I visited the Tower of London the first time while in high school.

The idea never left me. Many years later, I was reading about the Tower shortly after I had broken my left elbow. The time travel element came to me in the middle of that ordeal, because who doesn’t want to go back through time and redo a moment that caused physical pain? I tried to write this novella longhand because I couldn’t type and, well, writing longhand for a person who has been typing since she was eight was a nearly impossible task.

So, this story got to percolate a little longer. And percolate it did, until one day after yet another visit to the Tower, I figured out how this very thing might get done. I wrote the novella quickly, and yes, yes, I know, there’s the germ of a novel here. Maybe I’ll write that too.

The Tower is but one of the novellas you’ll get if you back this Kickstarter at $25 or above. You’ll also get (at the time of this writing) three novelettes and a writing workshop, because we hit our first three stretch goals. Also at the time of this writing, we’re doing a short-term stretch goal. If we hit 170 backers by Monday night, every backer at the $25 and above level will get another novelette and yet another writing workshop. Take a peek at the Kickstarter for all the details.

My reading behavior is finally returning to normal. I have a complaint or two about something I read. I see that as healthy.

At the beginning of the month, I started a book, brand new, from a writer I enjoy a great deal. This book is set during Covid, and I thought, well, the mystery will hold me. But nope. I had to quit 38 pages in. I looked at the middle of the book, saw that characters were dealing with the death of a parent alone, in a hospital, from Covid, and others were having Covid-related issues…and I just couldn’t. I had the same issue with a different favorite writer in October. I can read short stories and essays about Covid—and you’ll see that I recommended some here—but I can’t immerse myself for too long in that world again. Did it once. Don’t ever want to do it again. Sigh.

I found some good holiday books, but finished one three days before Christmas. I grabbed another Christmas nonfiction book (I keep a number on my TBR pile), but wowza was it dull. It was an award-winning examination of the history of Christmas in America. I thought it would be interesting, but noooo. It is on my history shelf, though, just in case I need the research.

And then, as I was cleaning up the living room to prep for the holiday, I found a book I was halfway through. I had forgotten I was reading it. I remembered buying it, starting it, and getting a little ways into it, but I apparently forgot it. I didn’t greet it with joy, but confusion, so I set it aside as well. That rarely happens to me, but when it does, it means I truly did not care about what I was reading.

As I was writing this, and making sure I caught every story I wanted to recommend, I found an anthology that I had set aside to recommend something from it. I eventually found why I set it aside, but wowza, did I have a strange few minutes. I didn’t remember any of the stories, even though I’d read them. Oddly, and somewhat angrily, I remembered the stories I didn’t finish, one by one of my favorite writers who murdered a baby at the outset. Ew. Not something I want to read at all. Blech.

Anyway, for all of my complaining, here’s the stuff I do want to recommend.

December, 2023

Cafferata, Patricia D., editor, Christmas in Nevada, University of Nevada Press, 2014. I liked this little book. It examines the history of the holiday throughout Nevada’s history, using primary sources. Primary sources means that there are a few breathtakingly racist pieces in here, mostly from the white point of view, mostly of the good-intentioned kind (let us help these poor unfortunates). Just be forewarned as you read that some of the pieces are definitely of their time.

I did like a lot in here. Most of it is ephemeral in a good way, and brings out the kind of detail that the writer in me loves. For example, people often used tumbleweeds as Christmas trees. I was thinking about that on one of my runs, and then I saw one of my neighbors a few blocks over had strung some lights on a tumbleweed on her porch. I would have just thought that weird before, but I’ll wager it was a family tradition. There’s a lot of fun stuff like that. So if you like holiday history, pick this one up.

Cantrell, Rebecca, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I love this story. Rebecca captured the child’s point of view beautifully. This story takes place on two levels: The child’s goals and dreams and desires and what really happened, which we as adults understand. So well done.

Cantrell, Rebecca, Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I started reading this collection during Christmas of 2022, when Rebecca first published it, and finished it this year (2023). I love her voice and the stories here. Some of them are very dark, which doesn’t bother me at all, but might bother some of you. I got the paper edition, and there are some design issues. You  might be better off with the ebook. Also, this is a collection of Rebecca’s work, not an anthology ( a mistake a lot of authors make), so if you expect stories from other writers, you’ll be disappointed. If you just pick it up for Rebecca’s work, though, I can promise that you won’t be disappointed at all. I think it’ll add to your holiday reading for next year.

Coffey, Alex, “The Phillies’ Andrew Bellatti Made A Fatal Mistake As A Teen. A Tale of Remarkable Forgiveness Followed,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. The title of this piece is true. As an 18-year-old, Andrew Bellatti hit and killed someone while driving. He went to prison. The forgiveness came from the victim’s mother. And…well, read this. It is remarkable.

Cole, Harriette, “Nothing But Class,” AARP The Magazine, August/September 2023. A long interview with Sherry Lee Ralph about perseverance, longevity, and the ability to make the best of any situation, in art, at least. Ralph has had a 40-year long career, but she finally became “hot” in the last few years, thanks to her role in Abbott Elementary. If you’re having doubts about your art, read this one.

Deitsch, Richard, editor, The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, Triumph, 2023. This is my favorite anthology series of the year, bar none. I may not read every article (there were some dead horses here and dead kids too), but I read most of them, and of the ones I read, I usually like them. Some I absolutely love. If you want to see the highlights from this year, I’ve pointed them out in this month’s Recommended Reading and in last month’s as well.

Durando, Bennett, “Untold Stories of Harvey Updike’s Last Confessions—And The Plot To Kill Auburn’s Iconic Trees,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. I don’t live in Alabama, and I didn’t know that the iconic trees at Auburn University were poisoned by a crazed fan of a rival school. That’s the start of the story, though. It gets stranger from there. I found this piece absolutely fascinating.

Hagan, Joe, “The Golden Dream,” Vanity Fair, July/August 2023. Really interesting article about the state that California is in, told through interviews of many different kinds of folk, from money people to politicians to people on the ground. I’m not sure I agree with all of it, but I do know I read it with a lot of attention.

Hill, Bonnie Hearn, “The Happy Birthday Song,” Mystery Writers of America Present: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022. It’s not often a short story surprises me, but this one did. I saw a lot of the story coming, but not the ending. It’s good and powerful and worth the read.

Hockensmith, Ryan, “The Secret MVP of Sports? The Port-A-Potty,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. Funny and serious at the same time, this little article on the Port-A-Potty makes it clear how one little invention has made the kind of sports we participate in now possible. The piece follows a man whose job it is to keep a stadium stocked with Port-A-Pottys for a big game. Then there’s the history and, oh, just read this. It’s fun.

James, Eloisa, “A Mistletoe Kiss,” Mistletoe Christmas, Avon, 2021. I bought this anthology when it came out and then kinda forgot about it. I remember picking it up the next year, looking at the god-awful cover and assuming it was indie published and probably had a bad interior design. I didn’t even look to double-check. This year, I did double-check, and realized that nope, this is an Avon book with a bad interior design and a terrible cover. And it was an anthology, not a group novel, which I had also assumed.

The novellas in the book are linked to each other by setting and one event. It’s a Christmas revelry, sponsored by a dying duke. Every one of the four authors who have written for this have set their stories at that party. I had high hopes for all of the novellas, but only two are worth recommending.

This one, by Eloisa James, is the best in the book and an absolute delight. Turns out that the duke’s daughter has been the one who has put on this amazing gathering for the past several years, making it the party of the season. There’s a lot of great family interaction here, a wonderful romance at the heart of it, and believable misunderstanding. Really well done.

Macomber, Debbie, Jack Frost, Debbie Macomber Inc., 2023. I find it fascinating that Debbie Macomber, once the queen of romance, self-published a Christmas novella. Once upon a time, her publisher(s) would pair her stories with the stories of other writers so those writers would get sampled by Debbie’s audience and that would boost their sales. Not so much anymore, I guess.

This is a classic Macomber holiday story. A holiday situation, two somewhat prickly characters, and a holiday solution. She is a master at combining holidays and romance. In this one, a woman misjudges her new coworker until they get stuck together one night when the power goes out. The journey to the happily ever after is not predictable, and the novella is fun.

McCarver, Katie Ann, “Financial Literacy Courses at UNLV Aim To Prepare Students For Life,” Las Vegas Weekly, November 2, 2023. I’m actually sharing this article because I know so many of you come from so many different walks of life. I’m hoping that some of you teach high school or college and have enough influence to start classes like this in your community. Take a look and take some inspiration!

Remnick, David, “Remembering Roger Angell, Hall of Famer,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. Roger Angell was one of my favorite writers ever. He was the son of Katherine White, a major editor at The New Yorker, starting in 1925. (I love all the idiot writers who think that there were no female editors or writers before their generation. God, that irritates me.) His stepfather was E.B. White, and if you don’t recognize that name, you might want to Google him. Still, though, Roger Angell managed to carve his own place in the world as a sports writer and an essayist. I love all of his writing on both of those topics. In the last ten years of his life, he became an essayist about old age. He died at the age of 101, but as Remnick, the current New Yorker editor says, that’s the least of Angell’s accomplishments. Read this tribute, and then if you’ve never read any of Angell’s work, grab some and settle in for some great reading.

Ridley, Erica, “Mischief and Mistletoe,” Mistletoe Christmas, Avon, 2021. The other well done novella in this volume comes from Erica Ridley. The story features a young woman whose mother fears she will never marry, but the woman herself is more interested in her writing than she is in any kind of relationship. In fact, she fears that the relationship might end her writing forever. I haven’t seen this conflict before in a Regency romance, and found it intriguing. This (and the James) are worth the price of the book.

Rosenberg, Michael, “After Surviving a High School Shooting, He Was ‘An Empty Shell. No Emotion.’ Now What?” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. I read a lot of my non-fiction a snippet here and a snippet there. I’ve done that for years. So, this article, which is quite long, took me a while to read. What was weird about it is that I started reading it before the school shooting at UNLV. I wasn’t on campus that day, but that doesn’t mean I avoided the impact. I was acquainted with one of the professors who died. I knew every inch of that campus, so the news reports were eerie. I spent the day texting colleagues and student friends, making sure they hadn’t been on campus. It was awful, and I was not in the midst of it.

This piece is about a kid who actually saw someone die right before his eyes. Who had a near-miss, and ran, and therefore saved his own life, but he is forever changed. The article is good, especially at putting us on scene and making what happened and its aftermath clear. This is an important one. Every American should read it.

Stein, Joel, “School of Hard Laughs,” The Hollywood Reporter, October 25, 2023. Who knew there was something called a comedy fantasy camp. This was the inaugural season, and if you thought print writing was hard, you should try stand-up. Seriously. Try it. Once. That’s writing on the hard edge. Joel Stein attended (I got the sense he wanted to see what it was like and got THR to pay), and had some fascinating observations. I love the phrase “hard laughs.” Read this one.

Stone, Jonathan, “The Relentless Flow of the Amazon,” Mystery Writers of America Present: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022. Creepy and surprising little story about the Zon…not the river, but the big corporation. And yes, this is set during the pandemic. You’ll see why that’s necessary as you read. Well done.

Walter, Jess, editor, The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, Mariner, 2022. For some reason, maybe the personal changes/problems of late 2022 into 2023 made me set this volume down without really reading it. But I finished two short story anthologies that I’d been reading during my lunch breaks when I was at UNLV, and so I grabbed this book. I’m glad I did. I devoured it. I didn’t like every story—I never do in this series—and there was just too many dead children stories in the middle (be warned, those of you with tastes like mine), but mostly it’s good and powerful and a reminder of how great crime fiction can be, which is what I need it to be, each and every year. Pick it up and enjoy.

Weiden, David Heska Wanbli, “Turning Heart,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, edited by Jess Walter, Mariner, 2022. Great writing, great characters, a lot of heart. Every turn in this story surprised and pleased me. I can’t say much more about it without ruining it, though, so I won’t.

Williams-Childs, Brendan, “Lycia,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, edited by Jess Walter, Mariner, 2022. At first, the formal language of this story put me off because I thought it was written in Serious Writer Voice (as trained by universities). The fact that it first appeared in The Colorado Review reinforced my assumption. But the formal language of this story is essential to the tale it’s telling, which hides as much as it reveals. The emotion is deliberately reserved, as is the story itself, which only adds to its power. Just read it.

Willis, Connie, A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. I had completely missed this book when it first came out. It’s a collection of Connie Willis’s Christmas stories. An expansion, really, of her original collection, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, which I have. I looked to see if I was doing the recommended reading when that book came out, and realized I hadn’t been. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to recommend this collection, because it’s wonderful and full of stories that I just love, like “Newsletter” and “Epiphany.” But I read those stories so long ago that I can’t really comment on them well. So here’s the thing…any story in this collection that was either in Asimov’s in the last century or in Miracle gets my vote.

I read the ones that were published elsewhere or which had a more recent copyright date when I got my hands on this particular collection. I also read all the essays. I am recommending individual pieces from that particular subset of things. Oh, and I wrote about “All About Emily” in a very early Recommended Reading List from November of 2011. (It also shows up in the annual holiday list every year.)

In other words, you’ll find a few Willis stories singled out in this Recommended Reading list, but don’t view them as the only good ones in this collection. They’re all good. Some are just more to my taste than others.

And one other thing…the recommendations at the back. I don’t agree with a lot of them because apparently my taste and Connie’s diverge on the best holiday fare, but that’s great. It allowed me to rethink some of my likes and dislikes. I suspect they’ll do the same for you.

Willis, Connie, “Just Like The Ones We Used To Know,” A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. Maybe my favorite of all of Connie’s Christmas stories, this story is about a truly unlikely snowfall and the power of wishes. It’s lovely.

Willis, Connie, “Now Showing,” A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. I love this story, although it does feel like it was set 100 years ago instead of ten years ago. That’s how much has changed. It makes me nostalgic for a time when movie theaters were teen hangouts and social media was…different. The story is fun, and worth reading, even though it feels like something much older than it is.

Yu, Ovidia, “Live Pawns,” Mystery Writers of America Present: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022. I am lousy at chess, but for some reason I love a good chess story. This one had me at the edge of my seat all the way through. Powerful and surprising, just the way I like my short fiction.

Today’s features my favorite, “The Viral Video Guy.” I loved writing this story. It’s set in the neighborhood I live in here in Las Vegas, right near the Regional Justice Center. I never know what my stories—short or long—will do when I start them. This one surprised me a lot, and pleased me even more. I hope you all like it. It’s a novella. Here’s the blurb:

The Viral Video Guy

Law firms expect their lawyers to represent paying clients. So, when Bryce Bowson refuses to represent a wealthy client’s daughter who faces a murder charge, Bryce stands to lose everything. Bryce knows what losing everything feels like. Will he survive starting over yet again?

Yesterday, the Kickstarter hit its first stretch goal. That means all backers will get this story, five other crime stories, and a ten-story collection of my award-winning and award-nominated short fiction. There are a lot of other goodies in this Kickstarter, including writing workshops and my standalone crime novels, which most of you have not seen. So head on over and take a look—if only so you can read about the viral video guy.

Click here to see the Kickstarter.

I’ll write a longer post when I’m not studying for finals. (This post goes live while I’m taking one of three quizzes that are taking place today. Sometimes returning to school is such fun. [I wish there was a sarcasm emoji.]) I will have more to say about the Kickstarter, as well as all the items in it, later in the week. But for now, head on over and check it out. I’m really proud of this one. I hope you’ll give it a look.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/never-before-seen

May was a hectic month as well, with the end of school, the end of a cold, another workshop, and lots of visitors. I still managed to read for enjoyment quite a bit. Have to maintain our sanity somehow, right?

Even though I didn’t have anything to recommend from it, I need to note the demise of the paper edition of Mystery Scene. Yep, it finally went away. Apparently, they’re doing a web version, but for us paper readers, that’s not the same. I loved reading it and getting to see what was coming next. That’s not going to happen anymore, and I’m sad.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I hope to finish June’s Recommended Reading before the end of the month, but considering the weeks ahead, I can’t guarantee it. In the meantime, enjoy this.

May, 2023

Candaele, Kerry, “On The Road To Ali,” rjmagazine, Spring, 2023. Kerry Candaele took a journey a while back to “commune with the hero of my youth, the avatar of flow and grace and brutality, The Greatest himself, Muhammad Ali.” The essay is about the drive and the museum in Louisville where Candaele ended up. The essay is a beautifully written meditation on driving, Ali, personal journeys, and personal heroes. Worth reading.

Herron, Mick, Dead Lions, Soho Press, 2013. I am really falling in love—if that’s the appropriate phrase—with Mick Herron’s Slough House novels. They’re twisted and extremely well written and I’m learning a lot about technique as well. Because they shouldn’t work. This is the second book in the series. I’d seen it dramatized on the Apple TV show, but the ending is dramatically different (and better) in the book. These characters are growing on me and the sad world of the Slow Horses is as well. Dead Lions deals a lot with the legacies of the Cold War, which we’re living in now as well, maybe more so than we did ten years ago, when this book first appeared. I find lots in this book quite inspiring. Lots to think about for me here, lots to read for you.

Herron, Mick, “The Last Dead Letter,” Slow Horses, Soho Press, 2010. This is a bonus short story added as part of the deluxe 10th anniversary edition that I had purchased. I love this story. It’s as twisty as the Slough House novels. Because of that, I can’t say much, but do search it out. It’s amazingly good.

McDermid, Val, Still Life, Grove Press, 2020. The final book (so far) in the Karen Pirie series. Still Life is as twisty as I expected a McDermid book to be, although I was ahead of a lot of it. Didn’t matter. I still enjoyed it. The story’s filled with art and art theft, although that’s not immediately obvious. It’s also got a lot of great character interactions. Read the others first. I do hope she’s writing more.

Roberts, Nora, Identity, St. Martins Press, 2023. I really like the romantic suspense novels that Nora Roberts is writing for St. Martins. If you can call these books romantic suspense. They‘re more crime novels. The usual romance openings don’t work here. Our hero doesn’t show up for chapters and the relationship doesn’t start for pages. It’s more women’s fiction, maybe, by the old 1990s definition.

Anyway, she’s writing what she wants to write, and I’m enjoying the interplay between the characters and the ideas she presents. The suspense in the last several books has waned toward the end, as if she doesn’t really want to go for the logical big crime climax. The villain here more or less defeats himself, which might be how people behave, but it doesn’t make for great fiction. So why am I recommending this? Because everything else is good. The characters, the setting, the experience. I liked all of that a lot. If you like Nora Roberts, you’ll like this too.

Schulman, Michael, Oscar Wars, Harper, 2023. A lovely, dishy retrospective of the Oscars. How they started, what’s happening now. Schulman doesn’t really examine everything about the Oscars, just the stuff everyone fought over for whatever reason. Some of it is sad. For example, I had no idea how Mary Pickford ended up, nor what happened to Pickfair (which just makes me mad). Some of it is just plain fun. And some of it, I already knew, but not in depth. So if you like movies and you like the Academy Awards…or, scratch that. Even if you hate them, you’ll like this book.

Some interesting writerly tidbits: Howard Fast’s book Sparticus, the basis of the movie of the same name, was rejected by seven publishers, so Fast self-published it…in 1950. Made some money there.

Mary Orr wrote a story in three days called “The Wisdom of Eve.” The story sold for $800 (in 1944 money) to Cosmopolitan. Then it sold as a radio play, and was optioned (for $5000) for a movie. Y’know. All About Eve. Ah, those people who have something against writing fast. They’re proven wrong over and over again.

On the flip side, Oregonian Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, ended up suing because he had a “verbal agreement” on some deal points in the movies. Of course he did. He was so dumb about business. Sigh. Anyway… Read the book. You’ll find all kinds of fun things.