My story in the July-Aug 2015 issue of AHMM

Look for my short story “Scintilla” in the July/August 2015 double issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (AHMM). The hard-copy issue hits newsstands next Tuesday, May 26, but digital issues are (mostly) available this week.

I consider "Scintilla" to be one of my Italian stories, even though it doesn't feature the detective I introduced in The Marshal of the Borgo. I was trying to duplicate the experience of reading foreign-language mystery stories that had been translated into English. As typically happens with me these days, the story ended up being a paranormal/crime hybrid. I'm kind of surprised AHMM took it, but they sometimes like weird stuff.

You can download a single digital issue via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Magzter, Kobo, and Google Play. Just make sure you are downloading the July/August issue shown above.

Submissions stats: I finished this story sometime in November 2013. I submitted it to AHMM in November 2013, and didn’t hear from them until they bought it in July 2014, eight months later. So it’s appearing ten months after acceptance, seventeen months since writing and submission. Payment was $276, plus an additional $69 prepayment for the right to republish in a future AHMM anthology. That came to a total of $345, or about 7 cents a word.

If you are a fan of the old Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout, you might want to a grab a copy of this issue. It's the annual AHMM that features the winner of the Black Orchid Novella Contest, a competition that challenges writers to emulate the style of the old Wolfe books and short stories.

Yes, I will eventually release an e-book version of "Scintilla," which I’ll offer free to people on my list. If you’d rather wait for the free copy, please join my e-newsletter.

Reality Show?

Just found out late last night that the business memoir I ghosted is up for a reality show. Read the announcement here and here. I gather they have already been shooting.

Sneak peak at my story in AHMM's summer double issue

I just got some advance copies of the July/August double issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in the mail. When the issue hits newsstands, real and virtual, on May 26, it will feature a new short story of mine, entitled "Scintilla." More on that story in a few weeks, but here's a peek at the art they're running with the story.

My Fibonacci book honored with a new math #kidlit award

If you have spent any time as a child or browsed the children's section of a bookstore, you know that there are numerous awards for children's literature. The Newbery. The Caldecott. The Theodor Seuss Geisel. The Coretta Scott King. The Michael L. Printz. The Laura Ingalls Wilder. And on and on. Most are awarded each year during the American Library Association's midwinter conference. Over the years, awards have been created to honor African-American authors and illustrators, Latino/Latina creators, or to pay tribute to books that highlight the LGBT experience.

There has never been an award to specifically celebrate math-themed children's books.* Until now.

Last Friday, April 17, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and the Children's Book Council (CBC) announced the first winners of their first annual Mathical Prize for math-themed children's literature. The orgs picked four winners for books published in 2014, and then picked a dozen other "Honor Books" as a way of paying tribute to books that were published in the years 2009-2013, before this new award was established. 

My children's book, Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, is one of those Honor Books. Blockhead is a fable about the real-life mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci. It was published by Henry Holt in the spring of 2010. Obviously, I was stunned to get the news. In this business, you don't expect to be singled out for attention five years after the fact. But it is gratifying nonetheless.

Why math book awards? It's no secret that children learn in different ways. Children's books that touch upon math themes can inspire a child in ways that a math textbook, worksheets, or even careful instruction by a devoted teacher will not. Adults forget this, so an award that calls attention to math-themed #kidlit is not a bad way to remind them.

My thanks to these two orgs and their selection committee. My congrats to all the authors and illustrators of the 2014 Mathical Award Winners and the Honor Books.

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* To be strictly accurate, in 2012 Bank Street College established the Cook Prize, which annually honors children's picture books that make perfect additions to STEM curricula. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.) The finalists for the Cook Prize are voted upon by actual kids, who choose the winner.

Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here.

Green Man on the Road

My co-author Christian Hageseth is on the road this week, promoting our book, Big Weed: An Entrepreneur's High-Stakes Adventures in the Budding Legal Marijuana Business (Palgrave/Macmillan). (Learn more and order the book here.)

The book has already gotten some serious love from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews (which tends to hate everything) and Vanity Fair, of all places.

Mr. Hageseth is in NYC tonight, getting ready for a day of print and TV interviews tomorrow. His schedule in the coming week is as follows:

Monday April 20th– New York City
Live, in-studio interviews:
WNYC “Brian Lehrer Show” – 11:20am EST
FOX Business “Varney & Company” – 11:55am EST

Tuesday April 21st – Seattle
Live, in-studio interview:
KING 5 – 9:15am PT
Panel event and book signing, with author Bruce Barcott: Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave. Seattle, WA 98101, 7:30pm PT
(This will be a 40-minute panel discussion between Christian and Bruce, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing. Moderator is Dominic Corva, Executive Director of Cannabis and Social Policy.)

Big Weed gets a mention in the "Hot Type" column in Vanity Fair.

Wednesday April 22nd – San Francisco
Live, in-studio interview: KGO 810AM Ronn Owens Radio – 11:00am PT
Talk, Q&A and book signing: The Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, 12:00pm PT
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Book Passage, Ferry Building, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA 94111, 6:00pm PT

Thursday April 23rd – Portland
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Powell’s Books, 1005 W. Burnside Street, Portland, OR, 7:30pm PT
(Christian will speak about the book for about 30 minutes, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing.)

Tuesday April 28th – Boulder
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO 80302, 7:30pm MT
(Christian will speak about the book for about 30 minutes, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing.)

Wednesday April 29th – Denver
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Tattered Cover, 2526 E Colfax Ave., Denver, CO, 7:00pm MT
(Christian will speak about the book for about 30 minutes, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing.)

* * * 

In addition to these appearances, Mr. Hageseth will appear with me at Malaprop's Bookstore on May 22, 7 PM. Believe it or not, it will be the first time we've ever met in person. We wrote the book entirely via phone and computer.

In the coming weeks, I'll probably blog about this book as it garners some more media attention.

But I hope to be back tomorrow with some cool news about one of my books.

Picked for Best American Mystery Stories 2015 anthology!

I finally arrived home a few days ago after being away for three-and-a-half months and have been busy trying to dig myself out from under emails and to-dos. Now that the contract's cleared, I can announce something I've kept under wraps for a while: one of my short stories was chosen for the  forthcoming Best American Mystery Stories 2015 anthology. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will pub the anthology later this year, in October 2015. As many of you no doubt know, Otto Penzler is the longtime series editor; author James Patterson is the guest editor who made this year's picks.

The story is "Harm and Hammer," which first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine back in October 2014. (I first talked about that story here.) I'm happy because I've always been fond of this piece, which is about a woman in witness protection who takes up a strange hobby to atone for her past. If you want to check it out, you can download the ebook for free at this link, which will stay live for only a week. Please grab it while you can.

I received this excellent news back in February but was too mired in family stuff to fully appreciate it. But I am very grateful. My thanks to my editors at AHMM, Mr. Penzler, and Mr. Patterson. See you in October.

I won a Derringer Award!?

We left town after the memorial service and we've been at the beach, fairly unplugged. This morning early I learned that my story for Shotgun Honey, "How Lil' Jimmie Beat the Big C," won the Derringer Award for Flash Fiction. More info and links later when I can get to my computer. 

Thanks to the Derringer group, its judges, and my editors at Shotgun Honey. I'm very touched.

Susan Kiernan, 1948-2015

Twelve years ago, before Denise and I were engaged, I moved to Rome, Italy, where she was working as a freelancer and a news producer covering soccer. After we were engaged, we decided to come home to the states for a short visit to meet each other's parents. We saw mine in New Jersey first, then drove down the coast to South Carolina to surprise her mom, who didn't know we were coming. Just as we were driving up to the exit on I-26 that would take us to her door, who should we spy on the highway with us but Mom, driving behind the wheel of her minivan. She was a sales rep who frequently traveled through the region to visit clients. 

We nearly had an accident that day. You can imagine Mom's surprise. The daughter she thought was five thousand miles away was suddenly driving alongside her on the highway, heading home. Of course we didn't wait to get to Mom's condo. We both pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food place to throw our arms around each other. 

I had met her a few times over the years, but now she was going to be my mother-in-law. I suppose I was a little nervous; according to the rules of American comedy culture, mothers and sons-in-law are destined to be forever at odds. I never found that to be the case, at least with Sue. Instead, she always treated me with the same mixture of admiration and love as the day we met up at the exit. I daresay she treated me more fondly than my own mother, who still can't shed the memories of stuff I broke as a kid.

But Sue and I got along, and for nearly twelve years I was privileged to call her Mom. That privilege ended in part Wednesday morning when she left us forever. It had been a long, cruel illness, and for three months four of us--two sisters and their husbands--gave Mom the only gifts we could, our time and our love, to see her through it.

Like all of us, Sue was many things in life. A superb salesperson. A runner and athlete. A devout Christian and a supporter of foreign missions. A daughter and niece. But the role that meant the most to her was being a mom.

I don't share Sue's faith, so I don't know if I will ever see her again. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised someday to find her waiting for me at the exit of a different kind.

Until then, Sue: crack the window, crank the tunes, and ride, ride, ride.

For Your Bouchercon Consideration

The Bouchercon ballots went out Saturday, and it occurs to me that I ought to mention which works of mine are eligible for the Anthony Awards. And yes, I feel icky announcing this to the world, but I’ve seen other authors do it, so why not work with me here for a sec?

Three of my 2014 pieces are eligible for the short story category:

• "Harm and Hammer," October 2014, Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine - This is the crime story of a lonely young woman who obsessively teaches herself how to play a blacksmith's anvil as a musical instrument, with tragic results.
• "How Lil’ Jimmie Beat the Big C," May 12, 2014, Shotgun Honey - This is the piece about the incarcerated cancer patient that was just chosen as a Derringer finalist this past weekend. Profanity alert.
• “Nighthawks,"  April 2014, Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine - My crime story that tries to explain what’s going on in the classic Edward Hopper painting of the same same.

You’ll find free PDFs of all these stories at this link.

Theoretically my novel, THE MARSHAL OF THE BORGO, should be eligible for the novel or paperback original categories because it pubbed in 2014, but it’s self-pubbed; Anthony Award rules are vague on the matter. If anyone knows for certain if it’s eligible, kindly let me know.

For that matter, if you have a story, book, nonfiction/critical work that is elegible this year, kindly leave a comment below or shoot me a note via my contact page, if you prefer to be more discreet. A handful of us authors from the Asheville area are all going to the conference, and we’re looking for great books and stories to nominate. Help us do our job.

There. I’m done. That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?

The Story Behind My Derringer Finalist Story

I've been tied up with family stuff or I would have announced this sooner. We were at lunch yesterday when I got the word that one of my short stories had been chosen as a finalist for  the Derringer Award for Best Flash Fiction. The Derringers, you’ll recall, are one of the top prizes for short mystery fiction. This is the second year in a row that one of my pieces was singled out for this honor. The full announcement is here. Members of the Derringer group will read all finalist stories this month, and the winners will be announced March 31, 2015. 

Regular readers will probably remember the story, How Lil’ Jimmie Beat the Big C, which first appeared on the Shotgun Honey noir ‘zine back in May 2014. It’s the story of an incarcerated man’s visit to an oncology center for a chemotherapy session. It’s short, fewer than 700 words, violent, and chock full of profanity. That warning aside, the story’s free to read online, so please do check it out if you’d like.

And yes, the story was inspired by what I saw on several of my visits with Denise’s mom to her chemo sessions or doctor’s appointments last year. Every time I went, and I mean every time, I’d spot heavily armed corrections officers marching shackled prisoners to their appointments. If you stop to think about it, it makes sense. Prisoners are human. They get cancer like everyone else. It’s just that their doctor’s visits necessitate traveling in chains and being accompanied by guards.

I could go on about how everything you experience in life, good or bad, becomes fodder for your fiction—but I figure I’ve said enough.

I’m proud to be a Derringer finalist again, and equally proud to be part of what looks like a trio of successes this year for Shotgun Honey. They’re a great site; if you enjoy reading or writing short noir pieces, you really out to check them out.