February 28, 2006

I shipped the rough draft of Effigies off to my agent last Friday, so I have time to do things like update my website. (And organize my closets. And clean my oven. And start doing my income taxes. Notice what I chose to do first. :-) )

Relics has been out for seven months now, so you'd think that the exciting news would have stopped coming. But, no! In December, Relics made the IMBA's (that's the International Mystery Bookseller's Association, for the uninitiated) bestseller list. And it didn't drag in at 10th place, either. It was tied for third, right up there with Michael Connelly. (When I start pulling in royalty checks like Michael's, I'll let you know.)
Then, in February, I learned that Relics had been nominated for the SIBA Book Award. (Again, for the uninitiated, SIBA stands for the Southeastern Independent Book Alliance.) This is a very literary-oriented group. To be nominated for such a prestigious award is nice recognition for my work and for the quality of modern mystery writing .

You may recall from my last entry in this very slow-paced blog that I'd turned in a recording and a story, both called Land of the Flowers, for an upcoming anthology/CD called A Merry Band of Murderers. On a lark, I sent a copy of the recording to the Will McLean Festival's Best New Florida Song contest. The judges, who were apparently also on a lark, awarded it second place. So I'll be traveling to the Will McLean Festival in Brooksville, Florida on March 11 to perform the song and pick up the award.

I've sold another short story called "Mouse House," which will be in an anthology compiled by Pottersville Press called North Florida Noir, to be published in August 2006.

And I have an essay in an upcoming reference book called Mystery Muses published by Crum Creek Press. In this book, 100 current mystery authors will pay tribute to a book that has influenced their life as a writer. Not one to think inside the box, I chose a book that you'll never find on a library's mystery shelves: The Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov. Generally regarded as the first detective novel to be set in a futuristic science fiction world, it was written in 1954. I think it still stands up to critical scrutiny today.

I mentioned my recent surgeries in my last post, so here's the good news: I'm completely recovered. So if you come to see me on the road, I'll be moving more comfortably and smiling even more. Thanks for your interest in my work!