Reds in the News

LUCY BURDETTE: wow, it seems like there's been so much action in the Jungle Red Writers universe that it's hard to keep up! So today we're doing a news round-up--you may have seen some of this, but it never hurts to hear it again and celebrate! And then we'd love to hear about your projects, too...

January was a whirlwind for me with the launch of AN APPETITE FOR MURDER. This first book in the Key West food critic mystery series shot off to a strong start and has already gone back for a second printing. Meanwhile, I'm working on the proposal for book 3 and waiting for edits (any day now!) on DEATH IN FOUR COURSES (September, 2012.)

In other news, my story "The Itinerary" (written as Roberta Isleib) was nominated for an Agatha award for best short story. The awards are given out at the Malice Domestic convention in April. And you can read the story here.

And finally, in teaching news, registration is open for SEASCAPE: ESCAPE TO WRITE, a weekend writing workshop in Chester, CT, September 14 to 16. Hallie Ephron is the co-leader and we'll have our own Hank as a guest presenter on Saturday. Get all the details here.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: YAY! Lucy! ANd I know there's lots more wonderful news in the works for the Reds. As for me, THE OTHER WOMAN is up on amazon for pre-sale! I am overjoyed and thrilled.

In other news, I am off to Sleuthfest this weekend, teaching a class and moderating three panels...then to The Public Librarians Association meeting in Philadelphia moderating a panel with Nancy Pearl (whoa). Then moderating the Best First panel at the Edgars Symposium, then interviewing Toastmaster Dana Cameron at Malice, then in May, I'm the Keynote speaker at the Pennwriters Convention!

But dearest to my heart, did I mention THE OTHER WOMAN is now available for pre-order?

LUCY BURDETTE: Well yes, Hank, you did mention that:). And we're so excited, we've all gone off to order...but meanwhile, would you mind taking a copy of AN APPETITE FOR MURDER to Nancy Pearl? wow!

HALLIE EPHRON: Wow, Hank. Yay, Lucy!! As for me, I'm chained to the desk...

In the good news department, did I mention that "Come and Find Me" was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. I know, I did. And the paperback is just out.

I hope to see lots of Jungle Red Readers at Malice and at the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont right after! And just a quick plug for a writing class I'll be teaching April 14 for Sisters in Crime/NY chapter, and a second fist pump for Seascape Retreat to Write. Having Hank onboard is very exciting, and there are still some openings.

RHYS BOWEN: I have lots of good news to share. It's been a great year so far. Naughty in Nice is nominated for the Bruce Alexander award for best historical mystery at Left Coast Crime, where I'll be interviewing guest of honor, and my good friend, Jacqueline Winspear. Naughty in Nice is also nominated for an Agatha for best historical mystery and I'll be interviewing one of the guests of honor at Malice Domestic--Lee Child, the Poirot award recipient.

I'm also up for a couple of awards at RT convention: Naughty in Nice for best cozy mystery and also Career Achievement Award (but I'm up against Sue Grafton and Lee Child, so I'm not holding my breath)
I can take no credit but Naughty in Nice is up for an Audie award for best audio book. Brilliant reader Katy Kehlgren gets full credit for this one.

And lastly Hush Now, Don't You Cry, the latest Molly book reached #2 on the paid Kindle list for historical mystery, two weeks before its publication date.

ROSEMARY HARRIS: My good news is that I returned from central Tanzania without getting malaria! Seriously, I spent much of February planning the visit to the library in Tanzania that my husband and I started.
The trip went very well. We brought a lot of books and school supplies from the US and were able to buy books in Dar es Salaam which we took on the bus with us to mvumi Village. Have I mentioned that a mere $82 pays the salaries for a part-time librarian and a library custodian for an entire MONTH? What is that..one Dunkin' Donuts coffee a day? If you're interested in donating or seeing pix of the library and the now 1200 students it serves, please check out http://rosemaryharris.com/clp.html

LUCY BURDETTE: RO, we're very proud of you!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: This has certainly been a milestone month for me! NO MARK UPON HER, the 14th Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novel, debuted at #12 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List!!! Then #10 on The Washington Post Bestseller List! I'm still a bit gobsmacked by the whole thing, and more thrilled than I can say by all the good buzz and press the book has received. (Hank, Nancy Pearl just tweeted "British police procedurals w/Gemma James & Duncan Kincaid get better & better.")

And I am overjoyed by all the good news from my fellow REDS! We are really and truly REDS on a roll! Although I wish Hank could bottle her secret formula for doing everything that she does....

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I feel like a real slacker next to you ladies. My big news is that the ebooks of In the Bleak Midwinter, A Fountain Filled With Blood, and the 2005 Edgar-nominated Out of the Deep I Cry are all on sale for $2.99, wherever fine digital books are sold (you can click through to all sorts of vendors from my website.) The special is running through the end of March, and it's to get readers all excited about the trade paperback release of One Was A Soldier in April.

Oh, and I'm finally getting to do some traveling - today through Tuesday, I'm in Ft. Lauderdale at the Broward County Literary Fest! The timing couldn't be better to escape from Maine: a week ago it was sunny and 50 degrees, but now there's a foot of snow on the ground and the temperature is slated to fall into the single digits. Score!

LUCY: Phew! who says nothing happens in the winter?? But speaking of winners, we have lots this week: Virginia wins a copy of AN APPETITE FOR MURDER for her spaghetti in the German chocolate cake story. And Jon wins a copy of CLAWBACK and Avi Love wins a copy of DEATH DROPS. (Send an email to raisleib at gmail.com so we can work out the details.) And Theresa of California, you won the DVD last Sunday. Make sure you all get in touch so we can give this loot away! And for all of you, tell us your news...

The Accidental Expert

RHYS: Remember the Robert Frost poem, Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... and I tood the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference?That could be the theme-song for my life. Opting out of the chosen path for me, leaving the BBC instead of rising through the ranks, going to Australia, meeting my husband and moving to California. All my writing career has been one long serendipity too. And along the way I have picked up all kinds of knowledge I never thought I'd want or need.It started when my husband became sales manager of Air India. We had to entertain Indian dignitaries in a city where there was no consul. We became experts in Indian food, were on the board of an Indian dance school and traveled to India numerous times. We ended up with close Indian friends. So we are accidental experts on India.

My kids became swimmers. I found myself president of a swim club. I became a stroke and turn official. Never a competitive swimmer myself, I was judging big meets

.I started writing books about Wales. Although I knew the place well, I learned all kinds of interesting facts--the contents of the National Gallery stored during WWII in a Welsh slate mine, for example. Every book I write involves research into a field I never thought I'd want or need.

When I started to write my Molly Murphy books, my aim was to set a book on Ellis Island. I did all the background reading I could find on the immigrant experience before I wrote the book. Then Molly steps ashore in Manhattan and I realized how little I knew about New York City in the early 1900s. Lots of tramping around the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village followed, hours in the NY library and historical society, a large library of my own and now I know my way pretty well around 1903 New York. I know about the formation of the Ladies Garment Workers Union, and about the rise of spiritualism, and the birth of Coney Island and pharmaceutical recipes of the time. All knowledge I never thought I'd want or need. But sometimes I astound native born New Yorkers by pointing out something about their city that they didn't know. Accidental expert on New York history.

My latest research has been on Houdini and illusionists--and what fascinating reading it made. Actually many of his illusions or stunts have not been improved upon over the years. He was a brilliant escapologist and an equally brilliant illusionist. But when I read that he had probably been used by the secret service as a spy while he was on his European tours, then I knew I had a good story. So I'm now an accidental expert on Houdini too. But I'm not going to tell you about any of his amazing illusions. You'll have to read my book, The Last Illusion, if you want to know more!
And Jungle Red Sisters--in which areas have you become accidental experts?

ROBERTA: Wow Rhys, you have had some interesting twists and turns! We'll be looking forward to the dinner invitation with all that Indian food expertise!(Rhys: If you come to SF for Bouchercon this year, we can definitely cook Indian food for you!)In 1990, I was minding my own business running a therapy private practice with an interest in good tennis. I was considering embarking on advanced training in psychoanalysis (which takes years and years of training and a training analysis) when I met my husband-to-be, John. He got me hooked on golf and because I was such a mental basket case, I began to write about it. Next came the Cassie Burdette golf mysteries and the rest is unfolding. I have to shake my head at how life has changed--mostly for the good.

JANS: As a journalist, I'm used to becoming a 24-hour expert on something, which was brutal on my family when I was health reporter because I could take the fun out of almost everything. (When I told my brother he really should wash the melon before he sliced it because of the bacteria, he told me I had to get another job.) Now because of all the research I've been doing on my non-fiction project, I'm an expert on Boston and its racial and urban crime problems in the mid to late 1970s. I never had a burning need to know these things before I started this project.

RO: All things Indian are in the air for me today..I was accidentally cc'ed by a pal at BBC on a lengthy string of emails about a get-together at an Indian restaurant. It was pretty funny reading someone else's emails...is there a story in this?
I am an accidental expert on Tanzania. My husband and I went there on a Habitat for Humanity build and have since been back a dozen times because we decided to build a library there. It's frightening that I know the bus schedules from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma and I don't know which subway will take me from 59th St. to the east village.(RHYS: The 6 is the closest you'll get. Stops at Astor Place. You see I know my modern NY pretty well too!

RHYS: I think the great thing about writing is that we have the chance to learn new things all the time. And it's the closest to time travel that I'll probably ever experience. Now I've got to get back to Chinatown, which is where the next Molly book is set!

Jambo means hello!

Chalula Community Library, Mvumi, TANZANIA

By the time I post this, I will be in central Tanzania. My husband and I will have flown New York to Dubai,and Dubai to Dar es Salaam. Then we'll board a luxury bus (luxury means it has windows that open) for a 9 hour ride to Dodoma where a man with a pickup will take us on a dirt road for about 2 hours to the mission of a New Zealand minister - who won't be there, but has instructed his cook to feed and shelter us.

We'll stay for about a week as we visit the Chalula Community Library. This is a library that we helped to build with the assistance of some very generous friends - and have tried to fill with books including some donated by Barnes & Noble, and The Random House Children's Group.

We try to go at least once a year..to check up on things, to bring or order books in Dar. This time it'll be meet with African publishers who mwill be attedning the Pan African Reading Conference and to figure out how to help our (part-time) library coordinator who just lost his full-time job.
Woody Allen said that "90% of life is showing up" and someone paraphrased that statement recently on one of the mystery lists. I would add, showing up is nice. Participating is even better. Making something out of nothing is pretty terrific.

So whatever you're doing this weekend, show up. Participate. And if you make something out of nothing -whether it's pasta or prose - that's pretty terrific.

Have a great weekend!!
Kwaheri!

Rosemary (If anyone would like to learn more about the Chalula Library, please visit my website, http://www.rosemaryharris.com/)