Dispatches from the Flying M

A New Book! A New Publisher! A Very Old Way to Publish Books!

A couple of years ago, my agent of 15+ years and I broke up. At that time, I decided to take what I knew about the book biz--from decades as a bookseller/bookstore owner, writer, and publishing exec--and handle my own career. I would write what I wanted to, and work only with publishers who understood what I wanted to do, who knew the genres I wanted to write in.

How's that going? Glad you asked.

As of right now, I have four books under contract, and a fifth (already written) that should have a contract any moment now. I've done some comics work and some short fiction. And now I'm trying something entirely different--a serialized novel, through Amazon's Kindle Vella program. You have to have a Kindle or a Kindle app to read it, but the app is free and should work on any device.

Serialized novels are new to me, but they're not new. Back in the old days, newspapers used to run serialized novels. Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers is widely considered to be one of the earliest successful serialized novels--proof of concept, if you will. More recently, the pulp magazines serialized novels. More recently still, Stephen King's The Green Mile first appeared as a serial novel, albeit in skinny little books instead of in a magazine or newspaper.

I've published 50-some novels, won some awards, earned some readers. But this is a fish of a different color, or something.

The book? It's called Flesh of All Sorrows (bonus points for you if you recognize the relatively obscure reference). The description you'll see at the Vella site is this: Newly minted police chief Danny's Mansfield's father, a former chief, became locally famous by catching the town's most notorious serial killer. When it seems the real killer isn't in prison, Danny risks destroying his father's reputation, his brother's political career, and his mother's legacy to learn the truth. Meanwhile, the grandson of the original killer has discovered the old man's trophy cache. He's a supremely troubled young man in search of an identity. And he thinks he's found it... 

It's about cops, killers, the modern West, courage, betrayal, love, fear, and honor. It grew out of two different areas--my friendships and interactions with police chiefs from different Arizona cities, and my extensive research--including reading, writing, lecturing, and teaching--into the minds of murderers. Most specifically, serial killers and mass murderers.

It's intended to be the first in a series that will not only explore how killers are made, but the nature of police work in a changing world. This one is set pre-pandemic, but the next one will look at cops in the age of George Floyd's killing, the "defund" movement, etc. Ripped from the headlines, you might say.

Of course, there'll only be a next one if Flesh of All Sorrows is successful. That's where you come in.

The first four installments will be live on Tuesday, July 27. I'll post here when they are. The first three are free, but after that you have to pay to keep reading (in tokens, which I'm guessing will not be the physical kind you earn at Chuck E. Cheese). I'm hoping you'll try the first three and be intrigued enough to keep going. Beyond that, I'm hoping you'll be enthusiastic enough to tell friends, to tweet, Insta, Facebook, whatever your favorite way is to influence your posse. Because I won't have a big publishing company (or a small one) behind me. It's just me and the faceless anonymity of Amazon. Jeff Bezos has billions, but he's not going to spend a nickel of it to promote my book (or, y'know, pay his warehouse workers a living wage). Especially if he sees this.

So please read. Please spread the word. That's the only way this serialization thing works. I'll keep the installments coming. The book's already done. It'll be complete on Vella, a week at a time (though I can speed that up if there's demand--I'm not sure yet, and don't know if anybody is, what the optimal interval should be. You can also "thumbs up" and "Fave" the installments, which will push it up the Amazon food chain.

Keep an eye out for the announcement on Tuesday, as soon as I know it's live. And as always, thanks for reading!

The Pulse-Pounders Thriller Bundle

Nine out of 10 doctors agree that it's good to elevate your heart rate periodically. You could spend time on an exercise bike (boring) or go for a run (cold). Or you could read the books contained in the Pulse-Pounders Thriller Bundle, collated by bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and released by the good folks at Storybundle.com. One of my very favorite of my novels, River Runs Red, is included in the bundle.

Why do I like RRR so much? in many ways, it's the most "southwestern" of my novels. It pulls together threads from some of my favorite writings about the American West, by people like Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey (who even makes a cameo appearance!), and more. It also contains some of my favorite fictional characters and some of the most vivid characterizations of my career. That's all background, though, to the suspenseful and horrific goings on in West Texas.

You don't have to take my word for it. Here's what some of the most celebrated thriller and horror writers around said about it:

"Based on actual government programs, Jeffrey J. Mariotte's River Runs Red is a fascinating blend of espionage and the occult with several jaw-dropping plot twists and one of the best action sequences I've read in a long time."

 --David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Brotherhood of the Rose and First Blood (Rambo).

“Mariotte can flat out write. This is a smart, fast, terrific read. This river runs.”

--Don Winslow, bestselling author of The Force and The Cartel

"In River Runs Red, Jeffrey J. Mariotte seamlessly weaves our modern and ancient terrors into a breathless, fascinating novel of magic, murder, and friendship.  Mariotte's one hell of a writer, and this is his best work yet!"

--Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Ararat and Red Hands

Reviewers agreed:

"Mariotte keeps you entertained and gives your gray cells something to chew on while they're helping you manufacture monsters in your mind's big-screen, surround-sound theater.... Nowadays, you can escape from horror fiction; but don’t let this horror fiction escape from you.'" --Trashotron.com

"River Runs Red is an ambitious epic of a supernatural thriller combining elements of spy fiction—and fact—with flat-out horror." --fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com

"Mariotte has created an entertaining, fast-paced tale of supernatural danger that takes as many twists and turns as a river ride... and, like most great rides, it picks up breathtaking speed toward the end. Fans of the unconventional in supernatural thrillers will enjoy this book." --sfrevu.com

But wait, you say. Aren't there some other books in this "bundle?"

Yes, and I'm so glad you asked. Here's the skinny, as described by Kevin J. Anderson:

D.J. Butler offers an omnibus of six complete novels in his Rock Band Fights Evil series. Heaven doesn't want them. Do they have a chance in Hell? In Animal, Dr. Munish Batra and Keith R.A. DeCandido present an edgy, intense thriller of a serial killer targets those who torture innocent animals—who is the real animal? Ignition, by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, is a tense terrorist hostage crisis at the Kennedy Space Center.

New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry and Rachael Lavin take you right into the zombie apocalypse in Still of Night. The dead rose. We fell. But not everyone thinks the war for survival is over. Heroes rise in times of crisis, and these are their stories....

As a StoryBundle special sneak preview, before the book is released to the general public, we're including Mike Thorn's Shelter for the Damned. While looking for a secret place to smoke cigarettes with his two best friends, troubled teenager Mark discovers a mysterious shack in a suburban field. Alienated from his parents and peers, Mark finds within the shack an escape greater than anything he has ever experienced. But it isn't long before the place begins revealing its strange, powerful sentience. And it wants something in exchange for the shelter it provides.

Wardenclyffe by F. Paul Wilson takes readers into the mind of genius inventor Nikola Tesla, in a 1906 experiment with a giant electrical tower to transmit power worldwide…but Tesla abandoned his experiment. Was it a conspiracy…or a terrifying discovery?

In Jeffrey J. Mariotte's River Runs Red—As teenagers, Molly, Byrd, and Wade faced inconceivable evil in an underground labyrinth on the banks of the Rio Grande. Reunited as adults, they discover that their terrifying experience was only the beginning.

In Craig Martelle's political thriller People Raged and the Sky Was on Fire, a terrorist plotting an attack on Washington DC. stays one step ahead by hiding in plain sight, always there, but never seen. Rick Banik—a patriot for the new age. A race against time. A fight against bureaucracy. A maze of red tape and dots that don't want to be connected. How many people must die for the plot to be uncovered? How many will die if it isn't?

Richard Fox offers a tense Iraq War thriller, Into Darkness. After a deadly ambush in Iraq leaves two soldiers in terrorist hands, intelligence officer Eric Ritter journeys into hostile territory to rescue them.

Turning farther from our normal world, in Michelle Cori's Convergent Lines, human-fae hybrids have existed alongside humanity for thousands of years. With long lives and magic, they shaped the world. Until a curse ...

Dean Wesley Smith shares a Cold Poker Gang novel, Freezeout, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch presents a new Diving Universe novel, Squishy's Teams and a bonus—a previous novel in the series, Boneyards.

That's fourteen books total that will keep your pulse racing, your eyes darting across the sentences, and your imagination engaged. Three weeks only. – Kevin J. Anderson

So what's the deal? you ask. What's all this great reading going to set me back?

Again, I'll pass the ball to Kevin:

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of five books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.

• Convergent Lines by Michelle Cori
• Into Darkness by Richard Fox
• Freezeout by Dean Wesley Smith
• Pulse Pounders: Countdown by Fiction River
• Ignition by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular books, plus NINE more! That's 14 books total!

• People Raged and the Sky Was on Fire by Craig Martelle
• Wardenclyffe by F. Paul Wilson
• Shelter for the Damned by Mike Thorn (StoryBundle Exclusive)
• Still of Night by Jonathan Maberry and Rachael Lavin
• Squishy's Teams by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Boneyards by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Animalby Munish K. Batra M.D., FACS and Keith R.A. DeCandido
• River Runs Red by Jeffrey J. Mariotte
• Rock Band Fights Evil 1-6 Boxed Set by D.J. Butler

This bundle is available only for a limited time at http://storybundle.com/thriller. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) for all books!

It's also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.

Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.

• Get quality reads: We've chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.
• Pay what you want (minimum $5): You decide how much these fantastic books are worth. If you can only spare a little, that's fine! You'll still get access to a batch of exceptional titles.
• Support authors who support DRM-free books: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog. Supporting authors who let you read their books on any device you want—restriction free—will show everyone there's nothing wrong with ditching DRM.
• Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to the Challenger Center for Space Education!
• Receive extra books: If you beat the bonus price, you'll get the bonus books!

Me again. Three weeks. Fourteen gripping thrillers. Pick 'em up while you can!

In other news, my novel Spider-Man: Requiem is out in audio format. It's a terrific novel (he said, modestly)--a Peter+MJ love story mixed with creepy occult horror. If you pick it up from Audible.com, you can get it for free when you start a 30-day Audible trial. Even if you cancel at the end of the 30 days, you can keep the book. So, really, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain!

UK: http://amzn.to/2J1Tzfz US: http://amzn.to/2ID0oBx

And don't forget, you can still get your hands on The One That Got Away: Women in Horror Anthology, Vol. 3, featuring Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell's terrifying tale "The Recliner." Marcy made some appearances around the web, and wrote about them here. She also discusses the forthcoming International Association of Media Tie-In Writers anthology Turning the Tied, which we're both in with separate stories.

My Western Journey, Part 2: Cody and Me + A Major Announcement!

Last month I began this series by talking about my new Hopalong Cassidy short story, "Behind the Tonto Rim" (and yes, the title is a node to Zane Grey's great novel Under the Tonto Rim, and is set at one of my favorite places in Arizona, the proper name of which is the Mogollon Rim). Here's the view from the rim's edge, looking south. Go back and read that installment, if you've missed it.

Okay, all caught up?

"Behind the Tonto Rim" will be out in March, in the anthology #TurningTheTied. You can preorder the ebook here (it'll also be in paperback, but no preorder option for that).

I wrote in that previous installment about some of my earliest Western writing, including the Desperadoes comic book series, which comprised four miniseries and a one-shot, all of it compiled in the Desperadoes Omnibus (which is now out of print, but available in various places).

After that, I wrote another Weird Western, Graveslinger, with my pal Shannon Eric Denton. Graveslinger was four issues, and is available in a collected edition. Graveslinger is also part of the Monster Forge Productions family, so keep your fingers crossed for a movie or TV series.

My love for Weird Westerns dates back to the single book that has had the greatest impact on my life. It's called The Mystery of the Haunted Mine, and it's a young-adult novel by acclaimed Western author Gordon D. Shirreffs. I got it in the sixth grade. It's a contemporary Western (as of the time of its writing in the 1950s), set in and around the Espectro Mountains, which even at that age I knew were a fictionalized version of the real Superstition Mountains. It includes Western landscapes, history, and action, but those are combined with elements of crime, thriller, and horror fiction. Anyone who knows anything about my writing career knows the things I love most are crime, horror, thriller, and Western fiction, so a single book blending all those genres really spoke to me. That one book set me on my career path, and my life path--eventually landing me in Arizona, where I can see the Superstitions from our bedroom window.

My first Weird Western novel was a tie-in to the RPG Deadlands. Thunder Moon Rising was a lot of fun to write, and I think a solid Western as well as a good novel.

All of this is leading up to a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!

My years of reading and writing Western fiction, including being a finalist for the Western Writers of America's coveted Spur Award and the Western Fictioneers' prestigious Peacemaker Award for my novella "Byrd's Luck," in the anthology The Untamed West, have all led up to this:

I've just signed a contract for a three-book series with Wolfpack Publishing!

Wolfpack is a fairly new player in the publishing business, but it's figured out how to sell books--lots of them--and although it publishes in many genres, its real specialty is Western fiction. My series--the Cody Cavanaugh series--will be right at home alongside the other Wolfpack series, written by some of the best writers currently working in the field (many of whom are old pals). The first book is due May 1, and will be published shortly thereafter, and I'll of course keep you posted through the process. In it, you'll meet Cody, a survivor of a horrific Confederate prison during the Civil War, and learn about his promise to his friend Sean O'Meara. That promise takes him west, after the war, where he'll meet up with ex-slave Freeman Douglas and the population of Pedregosa, in the Arizona Territory, including the women running the all-female-operated Empress Ranch. From Pedregosa, Cody and Freeman will travel around the west, righting wrongs and kicking bad-guy butt. These books will be Western thrillers--fun, action-packed, and as historically authentic as I can make them.

Stay tuned for more!

In other news, Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell is a contributor to an anthology that came out yesterday from Kandisha Press, in celebration of Women in Horror month. The One That Got Away: Women of Horror Anthology Volume 3 leapt out of the gate to land, before the end of its first day on the market, at the #1 New Release spot in the horror anthologies category. It's not a Western, but it's important enough to squeeze in here. Check it out!

 

 

 

My Western Journey, Part 1: Hoppy and Me

My heroes, as the song says, have always been cowboys. In the beginning, those heroes were Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy. As proof, I offer Exhibit A--me, at 2 years and 3 months, wearing my brand-new Hopalong Cassidy outfit. (My late brother Michael is garbed in Wild Bill Hickock). The year was 1957.

I've told the story several times, but the first comic book I can remember picking up and reading was a licensed Roy Rogers comic--what we'd call a tie-in, now--in a Russian barber's shop in an office building in Paris, France that was leased to the U.S. Department of Defense. We'd moved there when I was six, when my father was transferred to Paris, and that's where we all got our hair cut. In the early 60s, haircuts were a pretty regular thing.

That Roy Rogers comic led to a lifetime love affair with comics, so it was perhaps not surprising that my first real success as a comic book writer was a Western series--a Weird Western series, at that--called Desperadoes. Desperadoes was also, as it happened, my first foray into writing Western fiction.

But it was far from my last, and I'm not done yet. Recently I've sold some Western short stories, including the novella "Byrd's Luck," which was a finalist for both the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and the Peacemaker Award from the Western Fictioneers. The most recently published was "Midnight Train," in the Western Fictioneers anthology Under Western Stars, edited by Rich Prosch. There's more Western fiction on the way this year, but more on that in another installment of this blog series, because we're here to talk about Hoppy.

My first Hopalong Cassidy was actor William Boyd, who starred in 66 movies and then an insanely popular TV series from 1952-54 (which means I watched it in reruns, but just barely). Hoppy was silver-haired, smooth, faster at the draw than any mere human, and practically invulnerable. He was based on a character created by author Clarence E. Mulford in 1904. Mulford wrote dozens of short stories and novels about Hopalong. In 1950, when the TV series was anticipated, Western author Louis L'Amour--then early in his career--wrote four Hopalong novels under the name Tex Burns. These, like Hoppy and Roy Rogers comics, were also tie-ins, though I'm not sure that phrase was in use then.

Fast-forward to the more recent past. I've been a member, almost from its inception, of an organization called the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. For years, I was the keeper of the member's credits (and it was in that role that I first met my beloved wife, the incredibly talented author and poet Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell), and I've won three of the organization's coveted Scribe Awards. Last year, the org decided to put together an anthology of members' fiction. But although what binds us is our work in the licensed fiction field, we couldn't do an anthology of licensed stories, because the logistics would be insane. Instead, we decided to do stories based on public-domain characters--so we'd be applying the skills we bring to tie-in work, but without the legal issues involved with licensing characters.

The one I chose was Hopalong Cassidy. I re-watched a bunch of the TV episodes, read some of Mulford's stories, and read L'Amour's books. My Hoppy is a melange of the three (but he looks like William Boyd). It was a treat to write about one of my earliest childhood heroes. And because I am who I am, the story turned into a Weird Western--but, I think, very true to the spirit of Hopalong Cassidy.

If you're a fan, I hope you'll agree.

The anthology, Turning the Tied, is now available for preorder as an ebook. The print version will be along shortly. Note that this is NOT the final cover, but it's close. The book's theme is "uplift," and we all tried to write stories that were in some way uplifting. And none of us were paid--the proceeds are destined for the World Literacy Foundation, as good a cause as exists.

Check it out. Lots of great authors, lots of well-known and popular characters, and lots of fun.

Tell 'em Hoppy sent you.

 

Book & Comic News

It's been a while since there's been any book news from me--which doesn't mean I haven't been working on stuff. I hope to have big news to share soon. Meanwhile, there's some smaller news that's still fun and worthy of note.

My horror novel Season of the Wolf is being recorded as an audiobook by Fireside Horror, narrated by Scott MacDonald. You can listen to the first chapter on YouTube. The recording is underway now, and I'm not sure what the release date will be, but I'll keep you posted here.

At The Arched Doorway, reviewer Becca Lovatt wrote: "Season of the Wolf is a quick read, but it’s one that imparts an important message about the delicate balance between our actions and nature. Mariotte turns the tables, and shows us what it’s like to be among the hunted, not one of the hunters — having our safe havens invaded and taken away, friends and family killed and shown no mercy.  It’s a great read, and while it doesn’t fit into my usual genre, I believe that any reader, whether they enjoy mystery, thrillers, fantasy or just fiction in general will find something in Season of the Wolf that will draw them in."

And at HorrorWorld.org (review no longer archived), Tony Tremblay said: "Mariotte writes intelligently, treating his readers to strong narratives and topical themes without overly politicizing them.  While everyone may not agree with the authors take on a subject (in this case, climate change), they can’t help be entertained in the manner it is presented, and make no mistake, Season Of The Wolf is one hell of an entertaining novel.

"Season Of The Wolf will go a long way to further Jeff Mariotte’s reputation as one of today’s best writers of horror and dark fiction.  It is highly recommended."

If you haven't read this one yet, you'll want to listen to it! And of course, you can still pick up the book in paperback, hardcover, or ebook from WordFire Press.

 

The second bit of news is that the anthology Warbirds of Mars: Stories of the Fight! is back in print, in paperback and ebook. My story, "Southern Cross," was my attempt to evoke the atmosphere of the old "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip in prose form. I think it was pretty successful.

Finally, I wrote a new comic book story--a WWII/superhero story for my pals at Pilot Studios. Here's the announcement.

More news on the way soonish.

Under Western Stars and Some Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

My newest short story will be available in print and ebook on Thursday, October 1. It's called "The Midnight Train," and it's in the fine anthology Under Western Stars, from the Western Fictioneers organization.

My novella "Byrd's Luck," published in the previous WF anthology, was a finalist for the Spur Award and the Peacemaker Award, two of the most prestigious awards in the Western writing biz. No telling if this one will be as well, but one never knows. This is a slightly more traditional Western story, about a guy waiting for a train on which his beloved may or may not be arriving--but on which a known outlaw is definitely arriving.

These books are labors of love for the editor and the writers; all the proceeds go to support the organization, which doesn't charge its members dues (much like the International Thriller Writers, to which I also belong).

I hope you'll give "The Midnight Train" a try, and let me know what you think.

***

Writing historical Westerns involves doing a ton of research (at least for me, because I write in multiple genres--some Western writers I know seem like they were alive in the 1870s, because they have it all at their fingertips). For me, it's lucky that I have a large library of Western history and natural history, and access to the internet for more.

Which leads right into the secondary topic mentioned up there ^^: cultural appropriation. It's a buzzword in literary circles these days, and it was largely responsible for the near-demolition of the career of Jeanine Cummins, who wrote American Dirt, about a Mexican bookseller trying to reach El Norte. Here's a piece that describes the controversy that erupted. I haven't read the book and don't have an opinion on it.

What I do have an opinion on is the idea that people can only write about characters who are just like themselves, which seems to be the end-point of what the cultural-appropriation police are pushing. I've written about all kinds of characters: superheroes, cops, Black people, LGBTQ BIPOC, cowboys, Indians, LatinX people, monsters, and more. Also White men, of which I am one. My most recently published novel, in fact, took place almost entirely in Colombia, where I've never been, and involved LatinX people around Pablo Escobar, who I've never met. I've certainly never been a billionaire drug lord.

But I believe in research and sensitivity and care. I believe that part of the benefit of reading fiction is that it allows readers to step into the skins of people who are not like them, so they can find out what different lives might be like. And part of the appeal of writing it is that it allows writers to inhabit the heads of people who are not like them, to imagine what different lives might be like. This is particularly true when writing historical fiction, because NO writer alive today was around to experience the Dark Ages or the Enlightenment or the Civil War or the American West of the 1870s. Regardless of our cultural background, we need to put in the work to know and understand those times.

This week, a female Asian TV writer asked the New York Times's ethicist (yes, the NYT has an ethicist, and the columns are often enlightening) what her responsibilities are when asked to work on shows about Black protagonists. Kwame Anthony Appiah, the ethicist, made some interesting points, which I'll quote at some length (emphasis mine).

 

"There’s another issue to weigh — call it identity expertise. You could worry that, if you’re not Black, you’ll get things wrong about a Black character. (I’m talking about one in a narrative setting that aims for some measure of social realism; I’m not talking about a Black Mandalorian.) This can be a legitimate concern, although there are many kinds of Black characters, and Black writers, too, can certainly make a mess of them, because of the way gender, class, sexuality and the like shape experience as well. Or simply because they’re lousy writers. The same goes, I’m sure you’ll agree, for the many kinds of Asian characters.

"To be sure, what’s sought, in the guise of expertise, is often something else: Call it an identity permit. Esi Edugyan’s “Washington Black,” whose title character escapes slavery in 1830s Barbados, is a marvel of craft, research and imagination. The author is from Calgary, of Ghanaian parentage, and we’d be succumbing to racial primordialism — not to mention disserving her accomplishment — if we supposed that her being Black gave her expertise about the world of her novel; she put in the work. (And there are plenty of terrific white characters in the novel, too.) An identity permit, then, doesn’t need to be cashed out by experience. Conversely, if you lack an identity permit, putting in the work might not matter: A white woman of my acquaintance wrote a deeply researched novel set in early 19th-century America with a Black protagonist; despite the success of her previous novels, her publisher wouldn’t touch it."

...

"Even in situations where identity expertise might be real and relevant, it doesn’t justify having only Black writers on projects with Black protagonists, any more than it would justify having only white writers when the main characters are white. So long as you’ve got a good ear and a supple imagination, the rule is: What you don’t know, you can work up. We don’t want an approach in which writers and characters must match up, one to one, in their racial or ethnic identities. That way lies a system in which Shonda Rhimes doesn’t get to write a series centered on the white surgeon Meredith Grey; in which George Eliot (being neither male nor Jewish) doesn’t get to tell the story of Daniel Deronda. Pretty soon, all storytelling would be confined to autofiction."

 

To be clear, I'm in favor of Black writers and Native writers and queer writers and disabled writers and every other kind of writer being published. A world in which the only writers who are read are White men would be just as boring as one in which, as Appiah says, "writers and characters must match up, one to one." As a White male, I'm sure that I've had opportunities that others haven't. I like to think that's because I work hard and try to tell good, honest stories about real people, but that might just be White privilege talking. The publishing business has long been mostly populated and run by White people, and it's undeniable that they've gravitated toward stories about people like them. That's changing, now, and the change is for the better.

But I wouldn't want an editor telling a Black author that she couldn't write convincingly about White people, and I don't want one telling me that I can't write about non-White people. Authors have a responsibility to get things right, and they should be judged on how well they do that. If they screw up, if they fail to understand the culture they're writing about, they can be called on that. And some dives into particular cultures are genuinely too deep to be written about convincingly by someone not of that culture. I couldn't have written Stephen Graham Jone's fine The Only Good Indians, for example, and it would've been a disaster had I tried.

I'm not trying to stir up any controversy here, just explaining where I'm coming from, and using today's Ethicist column as a springboard. YMMV, and that's okay. After all, I don't live in your head.

Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury!

Another in a semi-regular series of posts about authors it's been my pleasure and honor to know, during a long career as a bookseller, publisher, and author. This one's about a friend whose name is known and beloved around the world: Ray Bradbury, on his 100th birthday.

The first time I met Ray, in 1980 (though I'd seen him speak before, in the 70s when the San Jose Mercury News ran a series of author speeches that included Ray and Louis L'Amour), I almost watched him die.

He had visited the bookstore I worked at, Books Inc. in San Jose, CA, to sign his short story collection The Stories of Ray Bradbury. This is him on that occasion (I think).

After signing books and chatting with fans for hours, he was finally done and went into the back to use the men's room (our store was big enough to have separate, gender-specific bathrooms for employees--though we switched up in emergencies). The store had a pulley system for employees' bicycles, so they could be brought inside and hoisted up to the ceiling, safe but out of the way, 12 feet off the floor.

Because the workday was over, Doug Stocks started to lower his bike from the ceiling. That pulley happened to be right in front of the men's room door. Ray finished and stepped out, startling Doug, who didn't know Ray was still in the store--and causing Doug to release the rope. The bike started to plummet from the high ceiling, right toward Ray, who was trapped between Doug and the closed restroom door. Fortunately for the world, Doug caught the rope just in time to halt the bike, inches from Ray's head.

Despite that near-death experience, Ray became a good friend.

When I was transferred to run the company's La Jolla store, Hunter's Books, on the California coastline just north of San Diego, I was much closer to Ray's home in Los Angeles, and he was glad to hop in a limo (he never drove) and cruise on down. We had many great signings at the store. Two of the most notable were in 1988. The first of those came after he'd called me out of the blue and said, "I want to spend my birthday at the store." I rustled up a cake designed to resemble the cover of Something Wicked This Way Comes (I had pictures; if I can find one I'll update this post), and he came and spent a good stretch of time with our customers, staff, and fans. The newest book was his mystery Death is a Lonely Business; here's the copy he signed for me that day. My daughter Holly, then around two and a half years old, sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. Raspberry" to him, which tickled him pink.

Only a couple of months later, he returned on Halloween Day to sign The Halloween Tree. Here are the sketch he put in my copy, and the poster (art by the great Leo and Diane Dillon) that he signed on that occasion.

Any time Ray signed at the store was a banner day, sales-wise, but the best day in the store's history was the day his signing coincided with the release of Madonna's erotic picture book Sex. Sex retailed for $50, and we sold dozens and dozens of those--mostly to people who hadn't come to see Ray, but there might have been some crossover.

Ray was always glad to sign his own books, but he would cheerfully sign books by other people if they were brought to him. One day, a customer brought him an Arthur C. Clarke novel--I think Childhood's End, though I'm not certain now. Ray looked at it, laughed, and said, "I'm not Arthur, but Arthur's my son!" and inscribed the book. (Narrator: Arthur is not his son.)

Ray liked to communicate by phone, by mail, and by fax. Any time mail from Ray showed up, it was instantly identifiable, as you can see from the envelope here. In lieu of Christmas cards, he wrote a Christmas poem every year, and he and his lifelong love Maggie sent those to friends. I was honored to be on that list for years.

I visited his bright yellow house in Los Angeles a couple of times, taking books up to be signed on occasions when he couldn't come down. After his death in 2012, the property was sold, the house demolished. But Marcy found me these great bookends made from wood taken from the house. There were only 451 sets made. Each set is numbered and stamped with 451, to commemorate what might be his most famous book. Obviously, it's a treasure, and one of my most prized possessions.

As an example of his sense of humor, on one occasion, when he was older but not yet confined to a wheelchair, he made an appearance at a science fiction event I attended. He was introduced to thunderous applause, and started to walk from the edge of the stage to the microphone at the center. He walked. Applause eventually died down and we all watched, rapt. He walked some more. A slow, cautious step at a time, he made his way across the stage. Eventually, about 2/3 of the way there, he stopped, turned to the audience, and said, "Did you ever feel like everybody was watching you?" He finished the journey buoyed by laughter.

Ray and I had several things in common outside of the book world, too. We were both born in Illinois. He lived for years in Tucson, AZ, and spent a lot of time reading in the University of Arizona library. I've spent days and days on that campus, and my son David graduated from there. We're both globally respected authors whose works are international bestsellers, and--wait, that part's only true of Ray. But we enjoyed one another's company, made each other laugh, and loved to visit together away from the store, including at his regular appearances at the San Diego Comic-Con. His passing left a hole in the world, and in my heart. His enthusiasm--for language, for stories, for life--was unparalleled, and contagious, and I'm glad to have had him in my life. Happy birthday, Mr. Raspberry.

My Friend, the Incomparable James Lee Burke

About a month ago I promised to write semi-regular posts about some of the authors it's been my privilege to know throughout a long career in the book biz, as bookseller, publisher, and writer. I intended to do one this weekend, but it wasn't this one. Circumstances, however, changed my mind midstream.

I've known James Lee Burke for 30 years. I don't precisely remember the first time we met, but he says it was in Book Carnival in Orange County, and I've no reason to doubt that. Regardless, the first time he signed at my store was on November 7, 1990, on tour for Morning for Flamingos and the paperback of Black Cherry Blues. Here's the book he signed on that day, and a gracious postcard he sent at tour's end.

Since then, he's signed for me several times. I've visited with him and his wife Pearl at their home outside Missoula, MT. We've exchanged letters, the very occasional phone call, Christmas cards, and have always enjoyed one another's company, whether it was in one of my stores, at a dinner table, or browsing through the racks together at a record store. Here he is signing Dixie City Jam at Mysterious Galaxy, where I used to be a co-owner.

Jim is, to put it bluntly, one of the best writers ever to try his hand at crime/thriller fiction. He's written in a variety of genres, but his greatest creation is Dave Robicheaux, a New Orleans cop who winds up in the small town of New Iberia, LA, dealing with Mafia thugs and murderers and madmen, his buddy Clete Purcel always by his side. Here's an appreciation of Burke and Dave that's worth reading, despite a couple of typos. I started reading Jim with the first Robicheaux book, Neon Rain, and never stopped, working my way backward through his earlier books as well as grabbing each new release when it came out. I can't say I own every edition of every one of his books, but I think I own a copy of every book he's published.

In person, Jim speaks just like one of his great characters--sometimes with rich, poetic language, and sometimes blunt and profane. One of my favorite lines of his was when he was talking to me about his experiences with Hollywood--where, despite his great success as an author, he's never really been adapted well. Hollywood types sometimes drop in on New Iberia in the Robicheaux books, and it never goes well. Once, Jim said to me about that business, "If you dip your arm in a bucket of shit, it's gonna come out brown."

Hard to argue with.

Today, to my great delight, I got my copy of the newest Robicheaux book, A Private Cathedral, in the mail. Through the auspices of the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ, it's signed, even though Covid-19 obviously put a stop to Jim's tour plans. Mysterious Galaxy has signed copies as well.

But my enthusiasm for the book dimmed later in the day, when I learned of the passing of Jim and Pearl's daughter Pamala. I never met Pamala, but I communicated with her from time to time, because she often helped her dad run his business affairs, including coordinating tours and correspondence. (Her sister Alafair Burke is also a fine thriller writer--check her out, too.) And knowing Jim and Pearl, I know that they're absolutely heartbroken, and any joy they might have taken from the release of the new book has been sucked into a maelstrom of grief.

Today, Jim posted this on Facebook:

I grieve for a family that I love, a family that's been nothing but warm and kind to me and mine, and for one of the best writers I've ever known and a man I admire from head to toe. A man I'm proud to call a friend.

 

Here's to Dick Lupoff!

As I mentioned the last time I posted here, what with Covid-19 and a massive book project, there hasn't been much news to talk about. While I'm waiting, I thought I'd share some stories of some of the many authors I've known, through my decades as a fan, writer, bookseller, and publisher.

I'm starting with the first person I ever met who did what I wanted to do--and have since been able to do, to my great delight. In college I had professors who had written a book or two, or some stories or academic papers, but until I met Richard A. Lupoff, I had never met anyone who delved professionally into the worlds of pop culture that I loved. As a teen, I voraciously read comics and sword & sorcery and horror and science fiction and mystery. In college I had a huge box of comics under my bed and Frank Frazetta posters on the wall and books all over my desk. I'd had friends who shared these interests, but I never knew anyone who did it for a living.

Until Dick.

The first time I met him was in April 1977, when he signed at Recycle Bookstore in San Jose, CA (a store that's still in existence, though not in that location). I don't think I'd read any of his fiction yet, but I was a huge fan of All in Color for a Dime, a book about comics that he'd co-edited with Don Thompson (digression--until his death in 1994, Don was married to Maggie Thompson, with whom I became good friends during the time I worked in comic book publishing and she ran Comics Buyer's Guide, a vital publication in that field. The one time I met Don, in 1989, I didn't yet know Maggie, or at least not as well as I came to. Small worlds colliding).

Here's the inscription I got from Dick, that day in 1977, and the signature Don added in 1989.

In 1980, I joined the staff of a small comics, sf & fantasy con called the Fantasy Symposium. Because I was a bookseller at Books Inc. by then--the genre fiction hub of the South Bay--my job was to round up and wrangle authors. Dick was one of those I brought in, and our friendship grew. I saw him and his wonderful wife Pat many times over the years, at local cons, and even visited them at their home inn Berkeley once.

On one of those occasions, I got my favorite inscription ever from Dick, in the Gregg Press edition of his brilliant Space War Blues. Here's the inscription:

And, turning the page, one finds the "evidence" to which he referred:

By 1983, I had moved to San Diego to manage Hunter's Books (part of the regional, independently owned Books Inc. chain) in La Jolla. I used what I'd learned at Books Inc. to make that store as much a genre hub as Books Inc. had been. And because San Diego was also home to what was then (and still is) the biggest comic-con in the US, I started selling books there, as the first dealer offering new prose fiction (vs. used, or books with pictures in 'em). Because Dick was a fan and a pro in related fields, he often made it to SDCC, so I got to keep our friendship going.

In 1988, I sold my first short story, "The Last Rainmaking Song," which was published in a critically acclaimed and influential anthology called Full Spectrum. Dick congratulated me this way:

It's been a few years since I've seen Dick and Pat. Kinder, more generous people you've never known. I can't even say how much I learned from Dick about being a pro, about writing and trying and not giving up and loving what you do. It was also from Dick that I learned about the concept of "Relaxicons," at which a group of friendly authors gets rooms at a nice hotel somewhere and just hangs out together, without the pressure of trying to sell stuff or entertain fans. Thanks, Dick, for all the good times and warm memories.

Finally, just for fun, my favorite cover of one of Dick's books, by the great Frank Frazetta. This is one of the books that invented Steampunk, long before it was ubiquitous.

Catching Up

So I glanced at my blog today, and realized that I hadn't posted anything since last November. Wow.

The reason might be obvious--the whole world's been cancelled.

Okay, not the whole world. But between Tucson Comic-Con and the holidays, I was mostly focused on family stuff, including helping Marcy deal with lingering issues from her accident last year (but she made it through Comic-Con like the truly courageous trooper that she is!). Then, we had a busy spring lined up, with a trip to Alberta, Canada, for a weekend session mostly for indigenous youth, the always amazing Tucson Festival of Books, LepreCon, and...

Well, you know. Pandemic. Whatcha gonna do?

Now, cons have been cancelled into the fall. Publishers are pushing back a lot of their book releases. Lots of bookstores haven't reopened yet, and those that have are implementing new safety measures. We're moving into a different world, and we're all trying to find our footing.

So there hasn't really been any news to report. I've been writing like mad--I've finished a big book, that I'm very proud of and hope to have news on it soonish. And I'm just about done with revisions for a BIG book--the biggest I've ever written, by a long shot. I'm hoping to be able to share news about that one soon, too.

There's also some comics stuff on the near horizon, so I'll be sharing that in the coming days or weeks at most.

We're staying safe, and hope that you are, too. Like most of the world, we're mourning those who've been lost to the pandemic--some of those losses have hit very close to home. And we're mourning the continuing tragedy of racism in all its forms. We hope that our fellow humans, black, brown, red, yellow, white, and every shade in between, can realize that we're all brothers and sisters, we all share this one Earth, and we have to take care of one another, and the planet.

More soon, I promise.