Blog
Farewell, Kate’s Mystery Books
Kate Mattes started me writing mysteries. We've all known that she was trying to sell the store for quite a while now, but just heard about this last night and I'm sad. Thank you, Kate!Kate's Mystery Books closing on August 1An e-mail from the Porter Sq Neighbors...
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
Happy Bastille day!A really fun read for the holiday: Dancing on the Precipice:The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era.From my review: "Lucie de la Tour du Pin may have been only minor nobility, but her status guaranteed her a front-row seat at the...
Revision hell
I am in revision hell. Basically, I am re-reading "Grey Matters" for the umpteenth time and it is driving me nuts. I want to second guess every sentence, replace every image. This is my last change to make serious changes (though I'll see it again after the copy...
She likes it! (BIG sigh of relief)
Heard from my Severn House editor today and GREY MATTERS is a go! This is just a private email, and of course, she's the editor who bought the series so she's biased, but I cannot tell you how nice it is to read bits like "As well as a good story, it's a fascinating...
Nice bit of advance news (thank you, Examiner!)
This makes me so happy!"The first release in Clea Simon’s Dulcie Schwartz series, SHADES OF GREY (Severn House, September, 2009) has everything a mystery-lover could hope for–an engaging heroine, an intriguing plot, plenty of smart, sophisticated dialogue, and...
The internal editor
I originally posted this on the Kepler's writers' blog last week. But I find myself talking about this topic with friends and thought I'd repost here:“Bash it out now. Tart it up later.”This has become my mantra since my buddy and fellow writer Brett Milano first...
Thank you, January Magazine!
"We engage with the work of the authors we love on many levels." So begins today's January Magazine Author Snapshot. It then goes on to say incredibly nice things – concluding: "Mystery, music, nightclubs, animals in danger: on a certain level, it’s an unlikely...
Michael Jackson, RIP
The weird face. The pedophilia, I know, I know...But watching the coverage – especially those amazing early clips of the Jackson 5 and those Thriller videos – is making me sad. I grew up with Michael (well, I grew up, anyway). He was two years older than I was, which...
This explains a lot
Turns out, Severn House never got the manuscript of "Grey Matters" that I worked so hard to get in by the May 31 deadline! Am experiencing waves of relief and annoyance as I re-send. Am asking for confirmation, and if I don't hear by tomorrow will send again. Phew. I...
The fallow period…
What do you do while you're waiting for to start your next project? How do you replenish the creative juices? How do you stand it? That's the topic in my guest blog today at Kepler's Well-Read Donkey, a blog for writers and all who love books, sponsored by the great...