Gigi Pandian's Blog, page 4

Bouchercon short story fun: an award nomination & a new anthology

Two bits of exciting short story news to report:

Locked room mystery "The Hindi Houdini" appears in
FISH NETS: The Second Guppy Anthology, published in 2013.1. My locked room mystery story "The Hindi Houdini" has been nominated for a Macavity Award! The award is given out by Mystery Readers International at the Bouchercon mystery convention in October.

This is the short story that appears in Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology, and was nominated for an Agatha Award earlier this year. In...

Writers on Writing: The Writing Process

I’m in the midst of a book deadline, but I'm emerging from my writing cave thanks to Diana Orgain, who tagged me to blog about the writing process. It's a topic I love, because I've found that no two writers follow the same process, and I love hearing about how other people do it. 
What am I working on?
Jaya Jones Book 3 is nearly done! And it’s close to having a title! (Want to help me pick a title? Click here to weigh in.) 
After sending Jaya to Scotland and India, this third book in...

Post-Chemo Hair Update: A Milestone!

As my hair was growing out shortly after chemotherapy two years ago, I took weekly photos of my hair. With short hair, change happened quickly. I wanted to keep track of what I looked like with my hair at different lengths, because before stupid cancer, I'd never had short hair. But as my hair grew longer, change became harder to detect, so my last hair-focused photos were taken over six months ago.

Until now. This week, I hit a milestone. Looking in the mirror, I realized my hair is now...

Help Me Pick a Title for Jaya Jones Book 3!

Would you like to appear in Jaya Jones Book 3 as a tourist at the Louvre in Paris?   

Here's how you can make that happen:

I need a title for Jaya's next adventure in France, coming from Henery Press in March 2015. While I love coming up with twisty-turny puzzle plots, titles often elude me!

Send me your title ideas by July 1, 2014. If your title is selected, you can appear in the novel as a tourist at the Louvre in Paris. (Or you can simply be thanked in the acknowledgements, if you'd...

The Edgars 2014: My First Trip to the Mystery Writers of America Awards Banquet

For mystery writers, the Edgars are the equivalent of the Oscars. The Mystery Writers of America give out the awards at a black-tie banquet each year in New York City, and I'd never previously attended. Why not? I couldn't think of a good reason! It's true it's on the other side of the country for me, but I was planning to attend Malice Domestic in Bethesda, Maryland, the day after the Edgars, so I could do what a lot of other mystery writers do: take the train from NYC to...

Malice Domestic 2014: Photos & Highlights from the Traditional Mystery Convention

I often joke that I was born in the wrong era, because I grew up devouring the traditional mysteries from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction that ended long before I was born. But there are so many wonderful mystery writers carrying on the tradition, many of whom I've learned about through Malice Domestic, so by living in the present time I get to enjoy reading it all!

Therefore, the true reason I was born in the wrong era is because I'm awful at posting on social media in real time — I much...

Malice Domestic: My Introduction to the World of Mystery Writing

I'm feeling rather sentimental as I'm packing to leave for the Edgars and Malice Domestic, because Malice was my introduction to the world of mystery writing, back in 2007, and this year I've been nominated for an Agatha Award for my locked-room mystery story "The Hindi Houdini." It's a tremendous honor to be nominated by the community that got me to take my writing seriously.

Seven years ago, the Malice Grants Committee selected my work-in-progress for a grant, showing me there was promise in...

What's Your Publishing Personality?

Last month I attended Left Coast Crime, and I've been thinking more about an interesting discussion that took place during one of the convention panels I was on, Alternative Paths to Publication.

The focus of this panel was the ups and downs of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing. The five of us on the panel had each published both ways. Chuck Rosenberg and I started our writing careers self-publishing and moved to traditional publishing contracts, whereas Cindy Sample, Claire John...

Left Coast Crime 2014: Photos from Monterey

I'm back from Left Coast Crime, feeling incredibly inspired by all the mystery readers and writers I talked with and heard speak over the long weekend. Here are some highlights:

Sophie Littlefield was a saint and got up before dawn to drive to Monterey with me in time for my Thursday morning panel, Leap of Faith: Writers Who Took Alternative Paths to Publication.

Here I am with fellow panelists Cindy Sample, Claire Johnson, Barbara M. Hodges, and Chuck Rosenberg (a fantastic moderator). We each...

Left Coast Crime, Here I Come

From March 20 - 23 I'll be in Monterey for Left Coast Crime, the West Coast's annual mystery convention that bounces to a different location each year.

If you'll be there, you can catch me on two panels:

Thursday, March 2010:45 a.m.Leap of Faith: Writers Who Took Alternative Paths to PublicationWith Charles Rosenberg, Barbara Hodges, Claire Johnson, and Cindy Sample
Saturday, March 229 a.m.Mystery Far AfieldWith Jeffrey Siger, Lisa Alber, Aileen Baron, and Anne Cleeland
I didn't do an official bo...