That Old Autumn Feeling

As writers we sometimes feel blessed — or cursed — with a continuing education. Every day we write we are on some learning curve or other, struggling to remember what happened yesterday in the story, where it’s going, what the research says, and how to put the perfect sentence together. The advent of brisk fall weather reminds us of back-to-school, even though most of us haven’t been to actual school for decades. Autumn is a time of endings, but also beginnings. New pencils, new friends and old, clean reams of paper, spotless notebooks ready to be scribbled in: this is autumn.

Gary Phillips

This 9/11 we remember the victims of the terrorist attacks as well as honoring the first responders and those who still suffer physical and psychological trauma from that time.  And here’s to us getting out of the Big Muddy to paraphrase Pete Seeger.

On a happier note, I am glad to be attending this year’s Bouchercon in New Orleans doing a couple of panels, celebrating Down & Out Books’ 5th anniversary, and participating in group signings for anthologies I’m in – The Highway Kind, Echoes of Sherlock Holmes, Crime + Music, Occupied Earth and Blood on the Bayou.

Lise McClendon

Lise is not happy about NOT attending this year’s World Mystery Convention, Bouchercon, in New Orleans. It’s always a blast, a sort of writers high school reunion. So she adds this silly photo from last year’s event in Raleigh, NC, to remember the good times.

Katy and Lise hope there are some big chairs in New Orleans. Because what is a convention without giant seating?! Laissez les bons temps rouler!

This August marked the release of Lise’s newest Bennett Sisters novel, The Things We Said Today. The third full-length novel (there is also a novella) comes two years after the last one, The Girl in the Empty Dress. To mark the occasion and thank readers she is giving away copies of Blackbird Fly, the first in the series. Click here to get the details. 

The new one finds the five sisters in the Scottish Highlands for the oldest sister’s wedding. But does she even want to get married at the ripe old age of 55? Weather, whisky, and intrigue threaten to shatter the happy day.

Lise also refurbished her website at lisemcclendon.com and would love to hear what you think of it. Also check out how to join her review team. Free books: were two better words ever combined?

J.D. Rhoades

J.D. (aka Dusty) will also be at Bouchercon in New Orleans this week, September 15-18.  Come by Mardi Gras “D” at 4:30 Thursday for the panel “Telling Lies”, moderated by the extremely funny Johnny Shaw. See if you can separate true stories from lies told by professionals!

He just turned in final edits on a new Jack Keller novel, HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL. Check out the cover!

Kate Flora

Here is the cover for Kate’s soon to be released 5th Joe Burgess police procedural, Led Astray. Watch for it on Amazon.

In other news, A Good Man with a Dog, the memoir Kate co-wrote with a retired Maine game warden, won second place in the 2016 Public Safety Writers Association annual writing contest.

May your pencils be as sharp as your mind! Happy autumn 🍁🍂

A Wish List for America 🇺🇸

There seems to be a lot going on in America. You’ve probably noticed.

Despite our 24-hour news cycle, the report from the heartland is not all bad. America continues to be a land of opportunity and promise, a place where civil rights are mostly respected, where despite too many guns, most people don’t shoot each other. Where we tolerate differences and our neighbors’ penchants for motorized vehicles. Where your religion is your own business. And who you vote for doesn’t make you enemies. There is reason for optimism.

However… This is also an election season that, whoever you’re rooting for, there seems to be something to dislike. Plus there is violence in our streets, a heat wave, forest fires, tempers flaring, emails leaking: it must be summer. This exceptional year has provoked in some of us here at the Muse a wish for an improved country, a better America. We aren’t policy wonks or futurists. Just some seasoned writers with seasoned opinions.

We love you, America

… land of the free and home of the brave. And we want you to continue to be the greatest experiment in democracy. What can we do as citizens to make our country better? At the very least we can make some constructive suggestions. Here’s our wish-list, in no particular order, for America 2016 and beyond.

Please add your own ideas. We need all the help we can get. 

• Change election day to Sunday. The lack of voter participation makes democracy even harder.
• Make mail-in ballots the norm, like several states already do. Or at least make voting by mail simple for everyone.
• Return to the practice of teaching civics in school, so that our citizens better understand the concept of “separation of powers” and how that is supposed to work.
• Appoint a defense spending czar who will once and for all make defense contractors tow-the-line, no more million dollar showers stalls that electrocute our troops.
•  National health care that covers everybody, period.
• Or at least the public option, essentially Medicare for those under 65
• Standardize voting throughout the country. Everyone uses the same method of counting ballots.
• Add mandated civic responsibility and participation–and not just hours of community service that might look good on a college application.
• Repair the nation’s antiquated and crumbling infrastructure, with a system like the WPA, which enabled our immigrant grandfathers to support their families during the Depression.
• Strict limits on electoral spending at all levels, financial campaign reform that vaporizes the PAC system
• End all corporate participation in elections. A corporation does not vote.
• Restore arts and music funding to our schools through defense spending cuts
• Repurpose military funds and personnel by closing down unnecessary bases around the globe and removing mega-corporations from the military trough. Soldiers can peel their own potatoes, for example, just like their fathers and grandfathers did.
• Appoint a civil rights commission formed by leaders of black and other communities of color, police departments, activists in all social justice fields. Provide local outreach for dialogue, reform, and education.
• Fix all the gun control loopholes: shows, online sales, waiting periods.
• Fund our mental health facilities, especially at the Veterans Administration, but also in community mental health everywhere. Provide funds for in-hospital stays for the indigent.
• Expand public housing. Provide tax breaks for redevelopment of slums. Provide incentives for low-income residents to own and maintain their homes.
• Train physicians without tuition fees. Give every high school graduate two years of tuition-free college to train and study.

–Wish-list contributors: Gary, Taffy, Kate, and Lise

If there seem to be a lot of free things on this list, there are. Your government should help you, that’s what it’s for. It’s not a place to make money. You pay taxes so that the government works for everybody. Nobody is going to be giving out cash soon or paying off your mortgage. But it should help you live a decent life, in relative comfort with freedom from hunger and the elements, with medical care, and if necessary, a leg-up to improving yourself. It should provide relative safety from crime and fire and disaster, and help when tragedy strikes.

You may say we’re dreamers, but we aren’t the only ones, right?  What’s on your wish-list for the USA?

It’s going to take all of us, together, to get this done.

 

Get Your Jingle On

Happy holidays from the gang here at Thalia Press Authors Co-op!

 

We’ve had a busy year in writing, publishing, and just trying to keep our heads on our shoulders. We hope you’ve met your writing goals, assuming you have some, or have read some great novels this year. We’d love to hear what you’re reading.

And now to some announcements of new and upcoming publications.

The pen name of the author of Beat Slay Love, our collaborative novel, is Thalia Filbert. Thalia (Gary, Kate, Taffy, Katy, and Lise collectively) is excited to announce that the audiobook version of the culinary thriller is now available. It’s free if you’re just joining Audible! Our narrator, Robin Rowan, has a blast with our wily characters, from naughty Hannah to nerdy Jason. Listen to a sample HERE

 • Available at Amazon  Audible and iTunes •

We are giving away a copy to a commenter below, so tell us about your year, your favorite book, or your holiday party.

To keep up with Thalia news please join us HERE

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Sarah Shaber has a new book out, Louise’s Chance, in her World War II mystery series. Government girl Louise Pearlie has a new job inside the OSS – the Office of Strategic Services: recruiting German prisoners-of-war for a secret mission inside Nazi Germany. It’s a big chance for her, and Louise hopes she can finally escape her filing and typing duties.

“To a librarian, a well-researched book is a true joy, and Shaber’s Louise Pearlie series is a gem. This newest entry in the series provides a deeper and richer portrait of Louise, as her life progresses through wartime Washington.” –B Brechner, Librarian

New trade paperbacks of older Louise books are now available as well.

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Be on the lookout for J.D. Rhoades’ new thriller, Ice Chest, coming in February. Dusty read us a bit of this new one at Bouchercon, and we laughed our asses off.

The publisher says: A smart, sexy and hilarious heist novel about a crew of thieves who attempt to steal the world’s most valuable jewels from the world’s most valuable body.

A motley crew of bumbling crooks is scheming to make off with the biggest heist of their careers: five and a half million dollars in precious stones, used to create the world’s most expensive piece of lingerie. But mix the glitz and glamour of the highest of high fashion with a team of crooks that would have trouble stealing a sandwich from a deli, and all bets are off.

“Delivers nonstop entertainment” — Booklist. Available for pre-order now.

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Gary Phillips also has a February release. His collection of three novellas, 3 the Hard Way, drops from Down & Out Books. These pulpy, action-heavy, hardcore novellas compiled for the first time in one book.

In The Extractors, one percenter thief McBleak puts it all on the line to take down a greedy man’s gain; extreme athlete Noc Brenner must use all his skills in The Anti-Gravity Steal to prevent the use of a machine capable of wholesale destruction; and in 10 Seconds to Death, Luke Warfield, the Essex Man, part Shaft and part Batman sans the cowl, hunts down the man who killed his foster father and must stop a deadly plan of mass slaughter in his own backyard.  Plus a bonus Essex Man short story.

Check out his Amazon Author page to keep up with this prolific writer.

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Lise McClendon has been busy in 2015 getting audiobooks narrated for several of her novels. PLAN X came out earlier in the year and this summer and fall saw the release of The Girl in the Empty Dress and Jump Cut. Working with narrators is a time-consuming but fun experience, getting the names right and hearing the voices of all the characters come to life.

She thanks her generous narrators who worked hard to make these audiobooks happen: Tassoula Kokkoris (Plan X), Denice Stradling (who narrated both Blackbird Fly and The Girl in the Empty Dress), and Kristy Burns (Jump Cut.)

Lise has a few complimentary codes left for all three of these books. Drop her a line at lise at lisemcclendon.com for details.

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Dog lovers, heads up!

Coming in April is Kate Flora’s new one, a collaboration with a Maine game warden.

A Good Man with a Dog is the story of a warden Roger Guay’s twenty-five years in the Maine woods, much of it with canine companions. Woof!

Happy holidays from the Muse

All our best for the holidays, readers! Have a wonderful time with friends and family.
Here’s what’s happening with the Thalians at the end of the year. 

Sparkle Hayter

Sparkle’s Robin Hudson mystery series has been re-released in digital by Open Road Media. Sexy, irreverent, outspoken, and newly single, Robin Hudson is a TV news reporter living with her cat in New York City’s East Village and occasionally moonlighting as a sleuth. Life in the big city isn’t always easy, and Robin keeps finding herself tangled up in outrageous crimes perpetrated by outlandish characters. Run-ins with mobsters, S&M enthusiasts, and licentious chimpanzees are all in a day’s work for Robin Hudson as she steadily moves up the professional ladder in television journalism and in and out of love with a wide variety of cute guys. The first novel in this smart and uproarious mystery series, What’s a Girl Gotta Do?, was awarded the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel and the series won Britain’s Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective.

Sparkle Hayter has been a journalist for CNN and other news organizations, a stringer in Afghanistan, a producer in Bollywood, a stand-up comic in New York, a caretaker for an elderly parent in Canada, and a novelist of seven books. She currently lives in Canada with her rescued Nepali street dog, Alice, and is working on a new book.  Amazon       Barnes & Noble      Mysterious Galaxy

Gary Phillips

Birthed full-blown in the comics mini-series, Angeltown, L.A. private eye Nate Hollis makes the jump to prose in six new short stories in Hollis, P.I. New York Times bestseller Juliet Blackwell, acclaimed young crime writer Aaron Philip Clark, new pulp luminaries Bobby Nash and Derrick Ferguson join Hollis’ creator Gary Phillips in penning these tales.  As Kevin Burton Smith in Mystery Scene said of the character, “Slick as spit, big-shouldered Hollis walks the walk and talks the talk…”  In tradepaper and e-book from Pro Se Productions — http://tinyurl.com/kycvqqz

J.D. Rhoades

J.D. Rhoades’s first three Jack Keller books are being re-issued in e-book format and are available for Pre-order at Amazon. His first new hardcover in six years (and the fourth Keller book) DEVILS AND DUST is also available for pre-order.

Lise McClendon

New this week is Lise McClendon’s Bennett Sisters series novella, fresh out for the holidays. ‘Give Him the Ooh-la-la’ is the third installment in the series, after last summer’s ‘The Girl in the Empty Dress.’  Fun, food, wine, fraud, and Frenchmen feature in this book set in New York City. Look out for the drag queen and more as Merle Bennett juggles her French policeman, family holiday drama, and more than a bit of wine intrigue.

Amazon       Barnes & Noble

Rides the Black-and-white Horse

Some years back at a mystery convention in Boulder, Colorado, I performed this tone poem with John Harvey on tambourine, Bill Moody on drums, and a variety of semi-volunteers snapping their fingers to the beat. I wrote this as an homage to the mystery novel. Recently someone quoted snippets of it on twitter with illustrations, and I liked it so much I’ve added a few of my own.

I’m always amused at reactions of people who don’t read mysteries and thrillers, who don’t know the excitement of entering a frightening world of evil or an everyday town where strangers wait their turn to make mayhem. Got the shivers yet?

Here’s how the book sees you the reader.

 

I am a book.

Sheaves pressed from the pulp of oaks and pines
a natural sawdust made dingy from purses, dusty
from shelves.
Steamy and anxious, abused and misused,
kissed and cried over,
smeared, yellowed, and torn,
loved, hated, scorned.

I am a book.

I am a book that remembers,
days when I stood proud in good company
When the children came, I leapt into their arms,
when the women came, they cradled me against their soft breasts,
when the men came, they held me like a lover,
and I smelled the sweet smell of cigars and brandy as we sat together in leather chairs,
next to pool tables, on porch swings, in rocking chairs,
my words hanging in the air like bright gems, dangling,
then forgotten, I crumbled,
dust to dust.

 

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
a book brand-new, sprung from the loins of ancient fathers clothed in tweed,
born of mothers in lands of heather and coal soot.
A family too close to see the blood on its hands,
too dear to suffering, to poison, to cold steel and revenge,
deaf to the screams of mortal wounding,
amused at decay and torment,
a family bred in the dankest swamp of human desires.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
I am a mystery.

I am intrigue, anxiety, fear,
I tangle in the night with madmen, spend my days cloaked in black,
hiding from myself, from dark angels,
from the evil that lurks within
and the evil we cannot lurk without.

 

I am words of adventure,
of faraway places where no one knows my tongue,
of curious cultures in small, back alleys, mean streets,
the crumbling house in each of us.

I am primordial fear, the great unknown,
I am life everlasting.
I touch you and you shiver, I blow in your ear and you follow me,
down foggy lanes, into places you’ve never seen,
to see things no one should see,
to be someone you could only hope to be.

 

 

I ride the winds of imagination on a black-and-white horse,
to find the truth inside of me,
to cure the ills inside of you,
to take one passenger at a time over that tall mountain,
across that lonely plain to a place you’ve never been
where the world stops for just one minute
and everything is right.

I am a mystery.

-Rides a Black and White Horse”
― Lise McClendon

News Flash from the Muse

 Behold the Thalians!

Summer releases, and fall releases to look forward to, from the Thalia Authors! Happy summer to all, and exciting reading, whatever your inclinations.

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In Astonishing Heroes: Shades of Justice from small press iPulp Fiction, Gary Phillps has collected his prose off kilter superheroish stores.  In its pages you’ll find the likes of the Reclaimer, an anonymous city bureaucrat who knows what evil lurks via psychic emanations from tenement walls; Onyx Adams, an Afro wearing, kung fu kicking swinging ’70s female PI, and American Black, an agent provocateur created by shadowy right-wing forces who reveals his own agenda.  In tradepaper and ebook

 

Gary Phillips

Shades of early Dos Passos and Jack London, beginning in September, Gary will be writing a weekly serial about the working class members of the Dixon family; handyman Uncle Hank, his niece, Afghanistan war vet Jess, and his nephew, the peripatetic Little Joe.  The Dixon Family Chronicles will combine issues such as efforts to income inequality, gentrification and temp work while their lives unfold.  For the Capital & Main site.

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Kate Flora

Kate Flora has a new novella out now, from SheBooks! Check out Girls Night Out.

When the man who date-raped their friend is found not guilty, a woman’s book group decides to take their own revenge, with surprising results.

Kate’s new books are coming up this fall. Look for them at booksellers everywhere

Death Dealer is the true story of a police investigation in Miramichi, New Brunswick, into a resident’s mysterious disappearance. It pulls readers directly into a tense and complex, real-life search as cops and, ultimately, game wardens from the neighboring state of Maine with cadaver dogs, painstakingly make their way through scarce evidence, frightened witnesses, and forbidding terrain to uncover the victim’s body and bring a killer to justice. ISBN: 978-0-88282-476-5  

This 4th book in the Joe Burgess mystery series, And Grant You Peace, finds Burgess pulled inadvertently into a case rife with religious tensions after finding a young mother and a baby locked in a closet inside a burning mosque. His search for answers leads him to an outlaw motorcycle gang, a fishing boat captain who may be supplementing his income with illegal activities, and an immigrant community suspicious of the police. The professional becomes the personal when his family is threatened and he faces the prospect that the “normal” life he’s begun to establish may be coming to an explosive end. ISBN: 978-1-4328-2939-1

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Lise McClendon has released her first mystery series in a box set. The Alix Thorssen mysteries set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, feature art dealer Alix in a variety of western and arty dilemmas. They include four complete novels and two bonus short stories in one package. Exclusively on Amazon, and free with Prime or Kindle Unlimited.  

Lise McClendon

Lise’s new suspense release, The Girl in the Empty Dress, is garnering good reviews. This sequel to her bestselling women’s novel, Blackbird Fly, features Merle Bennett and her sisters on a walking tour in France. When the annoying “sixth wheel” obsesses about an injured dog they find along a roadside the sisters’ idyllic summer tour turns dark. Find out if Merle settles for her New York boyfriend or takes a chance on Pascal, last summer’s fling, as The Girl in the Empty Dress tests the familial bonds in new and dangerous ways.