Riordan's Desk

How to Launch a Book

2008-05-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

In the video below, Dennis Cass describes how to launch a book in a Web 2.0 world.

Money quote: "YouTube, of course. You know, that's the dream, right? Twenty years ago when I wanted to become a writer, a big part of it was being able to put little videos on the Internet. I mean, that's it. That's why we do this."

I'm ashamed to say I've done everything he mentions but the Twitter part, and even I can't force myself to do that.

Hat tip to Ann Hillesland of my writers group.

Runoff and San Francisco Politics

2008-05-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

I don't usually blog about reviews, but Betsey Culp of the San Francisco Flier has a great discussion of my novel Runoff and its connection to San Francisco politics--particularly the 2003 mayoral election--in the latest edition of the Flier.

See it here.

Less of a review than a sort of archaeological dig through the back story of the novel, she's really the first one to connect all the dots with local politics so I was thrilled to see it.

I'm an (Unpaid) Photographer for the WSJ

2008-05-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

A new career for me: unpaid photographer for Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. See here. Must be part of editorial cost reductions he's instituted since he acquired the paper.

891 Post Street

2008-05-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

Noir Czar Eddie Muller has a great article on crime fiction in San Francisco in today's Chronicle.

He interviewed 30 Bay Area writers to get a sense for why San Francisco is such a good place for writers and writing--particularly crime writing. I've got a short quote in the article that speaks to the importance of the city for my work, but Eddie also asked everyone, "Why do you feel this area has attracted, or bred, so many writers...?"

This was my answer:

I think San Francisco has served the same function for literary types roaming the country as a lint collector in a dryer. Writers like Twain, Hammett and Kerouac came to San Francisco as much because they’d come as far west as they could go as any other reason. The fact that San Francisco offered more in terms of culture and appreciation of literature and creative endeavors than the typical western city made it possible to stay—or at least stay long enough to write something of lasting significance.

He starts the article by talking about 891 Post Street, which is the apartment that Hammett lived in when he wrote many of his best novels, including The Maltese Falcon. To complement the photos from the article, I've got a sort of guided tour of the apartment up on my website, incorporating pictures I took the day it was dedicated as a literary landmark.

The apartment is doubly important for me since I also decided to base my fictional PI--August Riordan--there, although I never allude to the Hammett connection.

As I mention in the text that goes with the apartment tour, the current resident is Bill Arney, who also happens to be the "voice of Noir City," the yearly film noir festival Eddie programs. Here's a picture of Bill sitting on the tub in the apartment's bathroom--the very place that Sam Spade sat while he made Brigid O'Shaughnessy strip to see if she had secreted a thousand-dollar bill on her person.

Given Bill's connection to the apartment and the film festival, it was a particular thrill for me that KQED got him to read the first chapter of my novel, Candy from Strangers, for an episode of their Writers' Block program.

Megan Abbott: Woman of Many Talents

2008-05-02T09:13:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Megan Abbott for winning an Edgar for her novel, Queenpin. I've found her writing to be a wonderful noir mix of the styles of two James: Cain and Ellroy.

But after listening to her interview on Clute and Edwards' Behind the Black Mask: Mystery Writers Revealed, I learned that she's written more than just fiction.

For instance, would you have caulked up co-authorship of a report entitled, "The Shipbuilding and Force Structure Analysis Tool" or "An Analysis of Sabbatical Leaves for Navy Surface Warfare Officers" to her? If not, you'd be wrong.

Those two reports and more were written during a stint at the Rand Corporation. One can only wonder if she spiced them up with lines like:

You have to decide who you are, little girl, she told me once. Once you know that, everyone else will, too.

as she did in Queenpin.

There is no "I" in the Ayn Rand Institute

2008-04-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Oops, maybe I was wrong about that. This is another photo of mine from the Los Angeles Times Festival of books, but I took it and posted it because I recently attended a reading given by Tobias Wolff at venerable Kepler's Books to promote his new short story collection, Our Story Begins.

Wolff and I have a little history. About the time his first published short story, "Smokers," appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1976, I was enrolled in a creative writing class of his at Stanford. My idea was to get (what I thought would be) easy credits, but as this recent article in the Stanford Alumni Magazine describes, I ended up being galvanized into writing fiction in the vein of Raymond Chandler.

The event at Kepler's was the first time I'd seen Wolff since the class and it was a real thrill to talk with him--both because I'm a huge fan of his work and because so much water has passed under the bridge since we last met. I had him inscribe a copy of Our Story Begins as well as a first edition I had of his best known memoir, This Boy's Life. I also had my wife take a picture of us together, but this one of him alone came out much better (due to my goofy look) so I'll spare your sensibilities and post it instead.

But back to Ayn Rand, which is how I started this post. During the Q&A at Kepler's, I asked Wolff about his portrayal of Rand in his novel Old School. Over the years I've been been amazed by the strange attraction her work exerts over people, including some very good friends of mine, so I was interested to hear the back story for including Rand as a character in the novel. The question prompted him to describe his own initial fascination with her work and her philosophy and--much like the main character in the novel--his ultimate disillusionment with same.

To give you a flavor of the evolution in thinking the narrator goes through, after first reading Rand he concludes, "I was discovering the force of my will. . . . I understood that nothing stood between me and my greatest desires--nothing between me and greatness itself--but the temptation to doubt my will and bow to counsels of moderation, expedience, and conventional morality, and shrink into the long, slow death of respectability."

It's only after Rand criticizes Hemingway--another of the narrator's heroes--as being a creator of "weak, defeated people" that he rereads Hemingway and finds Rand's writing and attitude of disdain for flawed or disadvantaged people to be unattractive and lacking in empathy.

But given that Rand is the co-author of a collection of essays entitled The Virtue of Selfishness perhaps that's not such a surprising conclusion. It's not for nothing that there are I's in the Ayn Rand Institute.

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books - Valerie Bertinelli

2008-04-27T20:09:00.001-07:00

Valerie Bertinelli
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

And lest we mystery types get confused on what really makes the book world go round these days, I'll close with a picture of Valerie Bertinelli, whose book Losing It has a sales rank of 226 on Amazon as I write this. I found her by following the longest line of people waiting for an author signing that I saw at the festival. When I got there, there were about ten other photographers jockeying to get her picture. I didn't know who she was or what she written, but I figured--what the hey--I better get in on the action. Not too bad a pic for an amateur, eh?

LA Times Festival of Books - Gore Vidal

2008-04-27T19:53:00.001-07:00

Gore Vidal
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Gore Vidal, whom a Newsweek critic called "the best all-around man
of letters since Edmund
Wilson" with pen in hand at the festival.

LA Times Festival of Books - Walter Mosley

2008-04-27T19:45:00.001-07:00

Walter Mosley
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Walter Mosley strikes
a pose. Dig that hat!

LA Times Festival of Books - Harlan Coben

2008-04-27T19:40:00.001-07:00

Harlan Coben
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Here's a pic I snagged of Harlan
Coben right before he pressed a bottle of cold water to his forehead! It was pretty hot at the festival.

LA Times Festival of Books - Library Fairy

2008-04-27T19:30:00.001-07:00

Library Fairy
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Has the Library Fairy visited you recently? She visited me at the Mystery Bookstore
booth this Saturday. (And, yes, I used Photoshop to blur the edges of the
photo.)

Miniature

2008-04-27T19:17:00.001-07:00

Miniature
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

I also signed in the Sisters in Crime booth with Camille
Minichino aka Margaret
Grace, Rita Larkin and Liz
Jasper. As part of the promotion for her Doll House Mystery Series, Camille has been doing these great miniatures, one of which she brought to the signing. If you look closely, you'll see books from Rita, Liz and me, not to mention a nice glass of scotch and a gun!

Hailey Lind

2008-04-27T19:01:00.001-07:00

Hailey Lind
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

And here's Hailey Lind,
current president of the NorCal
Chapter of Sisters in
Crime, also signing in the Sisters in Crime Booth.
(And, say, who did that great web site for the NorCal Sisters?)

LA Times Festival of Books - Cara Black & Libby Fischer Hellmann

2008-04-27T18:54:00.001-07:00

Cara Black & Libby Fischer Hellmann
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Picking up with our coverage of the LA Times Festival of Books, here is fellow
Noe Valley Alum, Cara
Black, and fellow Bleak
House Books author, Libby
Fischer Hellmann, signing in
the Sisters in Crime Booth.

LA Times Festival of Books - Michelle Gagnon & Sophie Littlefield

2008-04-26T09:40:00.001-07:00

Michelle Gagnon & Sophie Littlefield
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Last call at the Mystery Bookstore pre-festival party: fellow Bay Area writers Michelle Gagnon and Sophie
Littlefield.

LA Times Festival of Books - Sue Ann Jaffarian

2008-04-26T09:23:00.001-07:00

Sue Ann Jaffarian
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

And paling around with Tim at the same Mystery Bookstore pre-festival party, Sue Ann Jaffarian. Sue Ann and I share the same great agent.

LA Times Festival of Books - Tim Maleeny

2008-04-26T09:14:00.001-07:00

Tim Maleeny
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Next, at the same Mystery Bookstore pre-festival party, Tim
Maleeny, another Bay Area private eye writer. He had some harrowing tales about writing under
a deadline.

LA Times Festival of Books - Domenic Stansberry

2008-04-26T09:02:00.001-07:00

Domenic Stansberry
Originally uploaded by Mark Coggins

Come along with me on a little photo tour of the 2008 LA Times Festival of Books.

First up, at the Mystery Bookstore pre-festival party, Domenic Stansberry, fellow Bay Area private eye writer. His new book is Ancient Rain.

Page 123

2008-04-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Jeff Pierce of the Rap Sheet recently tagged me in a sort of blogging Ponzi scheme involving particular sentences from page 123 of the closest book at (my) hand. Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

The nearest book for me is Sweet Man is Gone by Peggy Ehrhart. I'd received an ARC from Peggy who asked me to blurb the book for its upcoming release in July. Sweet Man is about the indie blues scene in New York and I quite enjoyed it, as you can tell from reading my quote on Peggy's advanced praise page.

If you open the book to page 123 and look for the sixth, seventh and eighth sentences, this is what you will find:

"Have you ever heard him play?"

"Amazing chops," Tony says with a sad smile. "I wish I could play like him."

That particular excerpt may be hard to parse out of context, but I'll give you a few hints. Tony is the counterman at a rent-by-the-hour rehearsal studio and the main character--Maxx Maxwell--is asking him to give his assessment of a guitar player who she's going to audition for the band. Another little clue about that book that you can pick up from the fragment is that it's written in the present tense. I don't usually like present tense, but Peggy really makes it work in Sweet Man.

Now for the part I'm most worried about. I believe the implicit rules of the game are that you cannot notify the five people you tag. I read the Rap Sheet regularly, so I noticed that I'd been passed the baton right away. I'm not sure that I know five people with a blog who read mine regularly, so we very well may break the chain with my post.

Anyway here goes. I hereby tag the following folks (with links to their blogs):

My publisher at Bleak House Books, Ben LeRoy.
Fellow Bleak House author and Crimespree Magazine Fiction Editor, Jennifer Jordan
Fellow Silicon Valley author, Keith Raffel
Patrick Balester, author of In the Dismal Swamp
Author and mystery blogger, Aldo Calcagno aka Mystery Dawg

Mature, Independent, Female Mystery Readers

2008-04-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

Ann Hillesland (fellow writer in my critique group) forwarded a link to the results of this Harris Interactive poll about U.S. reading habits. The article describing the results is headlined, "Over One-Third of Americans Read More Than Ten Books in Typical Year," but I thought the most interesting tidbit is that Independent voters are more likely to read books than Republicans or Democrats.

And, if you were doing a sort of vin diagram of the ideal reader you should target as an author, it appears you want to try to write books that appeal to mature, Independent, female mystery readers.

Turns out I've got the perfect book for that crowd: Runoff! ;-)

His name happened to be Mallory

2008-03-31T19:44:00.001-07:00

The man in the powder-blue suit--which wasn't powder-blue under the lights of the Club Bolivar--was tall, with wide-set gray eyes, a thin nose, a jaw of stone. He had a rather sensitive mouth. His hair was crisp and black, ever so faintly touched with gray, as by an almost diffident hand. His clothes fitted him as though they had a soul of their own, not just a doubtful past. His name happened to be Mallory.

That's the way one story in the December 1933 edition of Black Mask magazine begins:

The title of the story? "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," which just happens to be the first appearance in print of detective fiction by Raymond Chandler.

If you'd like to take a short tour of the apartment building where Chandler lived with his wife Cissy when he wrote those lines, check out this YouTube video featuring Judith Freeman, author of The Long Embrace.

The Kindle, Vulture Capital and Me

2008-03-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm as big a fan of physical books as the next guy, as you can tell from this section on my website where I've posted scans of some of the inscribed first editions I've collected, including Hammett from Joe Gores, A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane and The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais.

However, I'm also in the software industry, which makes me kind of geeky and gives me an appreciation for electronic gadgets, including ebook readers. I'd previously used my Palm Treo to read books like Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith, The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke and Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman.

But the Treo's small (back lit) screen does leave something to be desired for book reading, so I was intrigued when Amazon announced their Kindle ebook reader late last year. I bought one of the first ones (before they sold out) and have really taken to it. The size is ideal, the "electronic paper" technology used for the screen is a lot easier on the eyes, and I appreciate the fact that I can be lounging in bed at night with nothing to read one minute and have downloaded a copy of say, Charlatan by Pope Brock in another.

And to paraphrase Victor Kiam ("I liked it so much, I bought the company"), I liked the Kindle so much I arranged to have my second novel, Vulture Capital, published on it. Here's a shot of the cover:

And the first page:

A special shout out to Joshua Tallent for doing the conversion of Vulture to the Kindle format. He did an excellent job, mixing in the hard-to-format quotes and photos that start each chapter with aplomb. If you're an author or a publisher looking to format books of your own, I'd highly recommend him.

Last Exhange with a Literary Lyon

2008-03-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Jeff Pierce of The Rap Sheet has posted two wonderful tributes for private eye writer Arthur Lyons, who died recently in his home in Palm Springs. In one, he provides an unpublished essay he wrote about Lyons in the early 80s.

In another, he reflects on Lyon's life and contributions to the PI genre, and describes the experience of doing an interview with him in November 1980. He also recounts how he and I came to contact Lyons as a result of research I was doing for a series of Rap Sheet articles about The New Black Mask.

Here's the e-mail I sent to Lyons on November 4 of last year:

Dear Mr. Lyons,

I'm a big fan of your Jacob Asch PI books. I'm writing a short article on THE NEW BLACK MASK, where your story "Trouble in Paradise" appeared. I wanted to give an update on what you are doing of late. I know that you host the annual Palm Springs Film Noir Festival. Would you be willing to share any other news?

Thank you very much in advance, and I just wanted to say again how much I admire your books. I've got most all of them in reach on my bookshelf as I write this.

best regards,

Mark

Here are the aforementioned books--reprint editions from Henry Holt published in the early 80s:

And here's the response I received back from Lyons on the 14th of the same month:

DEAR MARK:

WHILE MOST OF MY TIME IS CURRENTLY BEING TAKEN UP BY THE FESTIVAL, I'M ALSO IN THE MIDDLE OF A NEW DETECTIVE NOVEL WITH A NEW MAIN CHARACTER, AS WELL AS MAKING PLANS FOR A NEW BOOK ON FILM NOIR.

THANKS FOR THE INTEREST.

ART

It would be wonderful if someone would published the unfinished novel. Or, for that matter, step up to reprinting his series.

Crime on the Left Coast

2008-03-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm home from Denver after the 2008 Left Coast Crime convention. While I was there, I played cub reporter and served as The Rap Sheet's man on the scene for a few posts.

Follow the links to read my coverage of panels entitled P.I.s in the 21st Century, Sex and Violence: Is Too Much Ever Enough? and Cowboys Are My Weakness.

You can also check out the writeup editor J. Kingston Pierce did on the winners from the awards banquet.

And finally--in glorious black and white--here are a couple of pics I took of fellow authors John Billheimer and Reed Farrel Coleman I didn't manage to work into my Rap Sheet coverage. You'll see John's name tag has the cover from his most recent novel, Stonewall Jackson's Elbow, and Reed is holding up his latest, Empty Ever After.

Mike Padilla for Mayor

2008-02-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

I had to smile when I saw the headline of the AP article yesterday, "Nader chooses Matt Gonzalez as his running mate." The article goes on to say:

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader selected Matt Gonzalez, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, to be his running mate.
Nader, who launched his fourth White House bid last weekend, made the announcement Thursday at a news conference. The Texas-born Gonzalez ran for mayor of San Francisco as a Green Party candidate in 2003 but lost to Democrat Gavin Newsom after a surprisingly close runoff election. Gonzalez, a lawyer, has been largely inactive in city politics since then.

In my most recent novel, Runoff, I have a character--Mike Padilla--campaigning for mayor in a San Francisco runoff election who is described thusly :

Up on the dais a guy in overalls was making an impassioned plea about halting gentrification of the Mission District. Padilla was seated at a table beside him. He wore a rumpled suit and had a frizzy Prince Valiant haircut, which apparently was his way of distinguishing himself from the polished, GQ look of Hunter Lowdon.

Of course, my Green Party candidate for mayor is based on my friend Mike Padilla, who was a member of my first writers group.