Clea Simon's Blog, page 28

Chatting with Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store  is truly a Cambridge institution. Not only has this independent bookstore survived for more than 80 years in what is arguably one of the most competitive commercial districts in the region, it has thrived. Renewed and expanded under current owner Jeff Mayersohn, the two-story shop has not only pioneered print-on-demand technology (producing hard copies of the Mueller report hours after it was released), it has championed other voices and recognized the empowering power of a good romance. Harvard Book Store’s events, both in-store and in larger, ticketed venues, are always inviting and engaging.

I always enjoy seeing Jeff behind the customer service counter. Here he is again, helping readers (and writers) by answering our questions over at the Sisters in Crime New England blog.

Win a copy of “An Incantation of Cats”

I’m doing a giveaway over on Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway









An Incantation of Cats





by Clea Simon

Giveaway ends October 29, 2019.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter Giveaway

Five Questions with Lois Winston

No, it’s not Thanksgiving yet. But in publishing terms, it’s already the homicide, and Lois Winston‘s latest sweet and funny crafting cozy, Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide will come out tomorrow. Lois’s Anastasia Pollack mysteries are always good fun, so this eighth outing should be a hoot. I’m thrilled to welcome her today.

How does a book start for you?

Since I write a crafting mystery series where a different craft is featured in each book, I usually begin a new book by deciding on a craft I haven’t yet featured. Then, because the series is humorous, I play around with words until I find an appropriate title that either features the craft I’ve chosen or crafting in general, and I often incorporate alliteration.

Once the craft and title are in place, I start thinking about the murder that will occur—Who’s the victim? Why is he/she killed? How? By whom? I’m usually inspired by news stories and current events for most of my plot ideas.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

In Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I introduced Anastasia’s half-brother-in-law Ira Pollack. Ira is a widower with three extremely spoiled kids who manipulate him into giving them whatever they want. This is partly out of guilt and partly because Ira is a man who thinks every problem can be solved if you just throw enough money at it.

In Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide, the eighth and latest book in the series, Anastasia, who usually tries for a diplomatic solution when it comes to family drama, has gotten so fed up with Ira that she takes matters into her own hands. The results are quite interesting. For this to happen, I brought back a character I introduced in Decoupage Can Be Deadly, the fourth book in the series. The idea came about when a reader wrote to me and asked if this particular character, one of her favorites, would ever make a return appearance.

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

Anastasia lives in a real New Jersey town. With the exception of two of the three mini-mystery novellas that are companions to the series, all the books are set in New Jersey and New York City. I find it much easier to keep track of the settings when I can refer to actual places rather than creating fictitious ones. I do, however, occasionally create imaginary settings within the real community when it becomes necessary for the plot. For instance, in Revenge of the Crafty Corpsea murder occurs in an assisted living and rehab center. That particular establishment is purely a figment of my imagination.

What are you working on now?

Mostly writing guest posts for my virtual book tour to promote Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide. However, once I wrap those up, I’ll be starting on the ninth book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Unlike the previous books in the series, this one will take place somewhere completely different. If you read Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide, you’ll get a clue as to where I plan to take Anastasia and her family.

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?

Since you didn’t ask me about the premise for my series and some of your readers may not be familiar with it, I’ll offer an overview:

Crafts and murder don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but normaldeserted magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack’s world the day her husband permanently cashed in his chips in Las Vegas and her comfortable middle-class life crapped out. Now she’s dealing with debt greater than the GNP of Uzbekistan. She’s also stuck with her semi-invalid communist mother-in-law and her much-married, self-proclaimed Russian princess mother whenever she’s between husbands.

Anastasia’s two teenage sons (Alex and Nick—notnamed for Russian czars, contrary to what her mother-in-law believes), her mother’s white Persian cat (Catherine the Great), her mother-in-law’s French bulldog (Manifesto), and Ralph, the Shakespeare-quoting parrot, all vie for space and attention in Anastasia’s cramped suburban New Jersey home. 

And then there are the dead bodies that keep showing up as Anastasia tries to stave off the bill collectors, forcing her to become a reluctant amateur sleuth. The one bright spot in her life is photojournalist Zack Barnes, who rents out the apartment above Anastasia’s garage—except Anastasia suspects he just might be a spy. 

USA Todaybestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviewsdubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Five Questions with Greg Herren

Greg Herren and I could be twins. Well, okay, except that he identifies as male while I’m female, he’s gay and I’m straight, and his ridiculously fun Scotty Bradley mysteries feature a protagonist who is all of the above, as well as in-depth looks at New Orleans, his home. But I recently found out that we’re both the same age, and, since I love his hometown too (as a visitor), I figure I’d start off with this ridiculous claim. At any rate, with the eighth Scotty book out, Royal Street Reveillon, out this month, I’m proud to introduce this Lambda Literary Award winner. Take it away, Greg!

How does a book start for you? 

Well, it depends on the book, really. But as insane as it sounds, I can’t write anything unless I know it’s title. I usually—almost always—come up with the title first; the title encapsulates the idea. Sometimes I change the title during the writing of the book—Jackson Square Jazz, for example, was originally Mississippi River Bottom—but that’s rare. As for the story itself, I usually have some disparate things I want to pull together into a book. I was asked once on a panel if I would write another Scotty book; I think I was five books into the series at that point, and didn’t really think there was another one in me. I answered the question this way, “If I can figure out a way to work Huey Long, his long missing ‘deduct box’ and Mike (the live tiger mascot for LSU) into a book, that’ll be next Scotty book.” About three weeks later it came to me how to do precisely that, and it became Baton Rouge Bingo.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why? 

Everyone in a Scotty book surprises me! I really can’t answer this without giving away spoilers, but one of Scotty’s lovers—he’s in a three-way relationship—gets involved in, and by extension, involves his two partners—into something out of nowhere that is not only dangerous but might involve operating outside the law. That possibility, of course, has always been there throughout the entire series, but it finally happened in this book. It’s certainly going to present a challenge for me as a writer moving forward with the series. 

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting? 

Well, it’s a Scotty book, so it’s set in New Orleans. I write a lot about New Orleans because I love this city whole-heartedly, and the city’s problems only make me love it more.  I tend to set the Scotty books in an ambiguous now, but both of my series were fixed in time thanks to Hurricane Katrina—which I couldn’t ignore. But since that time…yes, the ambiguous now. The story is built around a reality show—The Grande Dames of New Orleans, which is my own take on reality television, which I unashamedly enjoy. 

What are you working on now?

 I’m currently in the middle of about three novels that are in some stage of completion; I’ve also written the first chapters of two more. I am primarily focused on finishing the first draft of a ghost story set in rural Alabama; that deals with issues of poverty, class, homophobia and race. It’s probably the most ambitious thing I’ve ever written. When I finish this first draft, I’m moving on to write the final draft of a rape culture novel. 

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have? 

I’m going to use this opportunity to talk about some amazing writers and books I’ve had the pleasure of reading lately—and some I am looking forward to. This year I’ve had the distinct pleasure of reading Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha, Miracle Creek by Angie Kim, My Darkest Prayer by S. A. Cosby, Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett, The Hidden Things, by Jamie Mason, Never Look Back by Alison Gaylin, and They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall. I’m looking forward to reading Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman and The Poison Garden by Alex Marwood. There are also new books coming from Lisa Lutz and Elizabeth Little I’m really looking forward to, and I am very impatiently waiting a new book from Megan Abbott.   

 GREG HERREN is an award-winning author and editor who lives in New Orleans. He has won many awards, including two Lambda Literary Awards and an Anthony Award, and has also been shortlisted for a Macavity and a Shirley Jackson Award. His story “Cold Beer No Flies” is currently an Anthony finalist for Best Short Story. He published a short story collection, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories earlier this year, and his next novel, Royal Street Reveillon, is out this month. 

Mass. Book Awards

I am overjoyed.

me and Jon!



The Massachusetts Book Awards recognize significant works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s/young adult literature published by Commonwealth residents or about Massachusetts subjects.

Massachusetts Center for the Book is delighted to announce two years of Massachusetts Book Awards, the 18th and 19th annual awards (for books published in 2017 and 2018 respectively). 

FICTION:

19th Award:  The Unmade World by Steve Yarbrough (Unbridled)
19th Honors: Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee (Viking) and The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
19th Must Reads: Gone So Long: A Novel by Andre Dubus III; Early Work by Andrew Martin; Theory of Bastards by Audrey Schulman; The Garden Party by Grace Dane Mazur; The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel;  The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay; My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley; Ultraviolet by Suzanne Matson; Bound for Gold by William Martin

18th Award:  The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman (Dial Press)
18th Honors: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press) and The World of Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews (Little, Brown)
18th Must Reads: The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman; The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry; The Burning Girl: A Novel byClaire Messud; World Enough by Clea Simon; Feast of Sorrow byCrystal King; The River at Night by Erica Ferencik; Mikhail and Margarita by Julie Lekstrom Himes; I Was Trying To Describe What It Feels Like by Noy Holland; The Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers

NONFICTION:



Jill Lepore making the argument that the Mass. Book Awards should be renamed in honor of Jane Franklin

19th Award:  These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore (W. W. Norton)
19th Honors:  Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade (Ecco) and The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968 by George Howe Colt (Scribner)
19th Must Reads: The Biological Mind: How Brain, Body, and Environment Collaborate to Make Us Who We Are by Alan Jasanoff; Above and Beyond by Casey Sherman and Michael J Tougias; The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann; Black Flags, Blue Waters by Eric Jay Dolin; We Can’t Breathe by Jabari Asim; After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet by Julie Dobrow; Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War by Lisa Brooks; How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt; Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

18th Award:  The Written World by Martin Puchner (Random House)
18th Honors: Cuz by Danielle Allen (W. W. Norton ) and The True Flag by Stephen Kinzer (Henry Holt)
18th Must Reads: The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich; The Wine Lover’s Daughter by Anne Fadiman; Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals: An Extinction Reader by Daniel Hudon; The Correspondence by J. D. Daniels; To the New Owners by Madeline Blais; The Dawn Watch by Maya Jasanoff; Elizabeth Bishop by Megan Marshall; The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt; Areas of Fog by Will Dowd

POETRY:

19th Award:  The Wall by Ilan Stavans (Pittsburgh)
19th Honors:  Ornitheology by Kevin McLellan (Word Works) and Rewilding by January Gill O’Neil (CavanKerry)
19th Must Reads: Blood Labors by Daniel Tobin; Pray Me Stay Eager by Ellen Dore Watson; Bad Harvest by Dzvinia Orlowsky; White Storm by Gary Metras; My Tarantella by Jennifer Martelli; Shadow-Feast by Joan Houlihan; Night Unto Night by Martha Collins; See the Wolf by Sarah Sousa; Stanley’s Girl: Poems by Susan Eisenberg

18th Award: Noon Until Night by Richard Hoffman (Barrow Street)
18th Honors: In the Still of the Night by Dara Wier (Wave Books) and Said Not Said by Fred Marchant (Graywolf)
18th Must Reads: Unfathoming by Andrea Cohen; Figuring in the Figure by Ben Berman; Gloved Against Blood by Cindy Veach; Half-light by Frank Bidart; Krakatoa Picnic by James Heflin; Critical Assembly: Poems of the Manhattan Project by John Canaday; Little Kisses by Lloyd Schwartz; Testify by Simone John; Advice from the Lights by Stephanie Burt

MIDDLE GRADE/YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE:



Jane Yolen!

19th Award:  Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen (Penguin Young Readers)
19th Honors:  Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Scholastic) and Lucy Castor Finds Her Sparkle by Natasha Lowe (Simon & Schuster)
19th Must Reads: The Magic of Melwick Orchard by Rebecca Caprara; What the Wind Can Tell You by Sarah Marie A Jette; The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss; It Wasn’t Me by Dana Alison Levy; The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall; Art of the Swap by Kristine Asseline; The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M. T. Anderson; Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything by Martin Sandler; Boggart Fights Back by Susan Cooper

18th Award:  The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole by Michelle Cuevas (Penguin Young Readers)
18th Honors: And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin (Penguin Young Readers) and Fault Lines in the Constitution by Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson  (Peachtree)
18th Must Reads: Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Deborah Kops; The Magician & the Spirits by Deborah Noyes; Trell: Nothing But the Truth by Dick Lehr; A Psalm for Lost Girls by Katie Bayerl; Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk; The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin W. Sandler; The Wonderling by Mira Bartok; Now or Never! by Ray Anthony Shepard; Being Fishkill by Ruth Lehrer

PICTURE BOOK/EARLY READER:

19th Award:  A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
19th Honors: Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers by Melissa Stewart (Peachtree) and The Rough Patch by Brian Lies (Greenwillow)
19th Must Reads: A Stone for Sascha by Aaron Becker; Just Add Glitter by Angela DiTerlizzi; Anybody’s Game by Heather Lang; Fish Are Not Afraid of Doctors by J.E. Morris; Rescue and Jessica by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, ill: Scott Magoon; Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible ALVIN by Michelle Cusolito, ill: Nicole Wong; Little Robot Alone by Patricia MacLachlan; The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds; Howard and the Mummy by Tracey Fern

18th Award:  Windows by Julia Denos (Candlewick)
18th Honors: Sparkle Boy by Lesléa Newman (Lee & Low) and The Banana-Leaf Ballby Katie Smith Milway (Kids Can)
18th Must Reads: Little Pig Saves the Ship by David Hyde Costello; Thunder Underground by Jane Yolen; Newton’s Rainbow by Kathryn Lasky; When the Snow Falls by Linda Booth Sweeney; The Boy and the Whale by Mordicai Gerstein; Ben’s Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick; Sydney & Simon: To the Moon! by Paul Reynolds; The Language of Angels: A Story about the Reinvention of Hebrew by Richard Michelson; The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling by Timothy Basil Ering

Judges in the 18th and 19th MassBook programs: Carol Baldwin, Lynn Blair, Laurie Cavanaugh, Charles Coe, Cindy Erle, Andrea Fiorillo, Betsy Groban, Karen Kosko, Rob MacLean, Jacqueline Rafferty, Amy Rhilinger, Elizabeth Safford, Sean Thibodeau, and members of the staff and board of Massachusetts Center for the Book.

Five Questions with Tara Laskowski

Tara Laskowski burst onto the consciousness of many readers with her Agatha Award-winning short story, “The Case of the Vanishing Professor” (from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine). This fall (Oct. 1!), we’ll get more Tara, as Graydon House releases One Night Gone, her first full-length mystery. Having met Tara at Malice Domestic (where she won that Agatha), I am thrilled to host her here today.

How does a book start for you?

It’s always different, I think! Sometimes it’s a ‘what-if’ kind of question that nags at me, but I don’t quite know how to answer the question. Sometimes it’s a character’s voice in my head. Sometimes it’s just a situation or a setting—wouldn’t it be cool to write a book that takes place during the off-season of a beach town? I think the important thing is to always be on alert for ideas and write them down fast, before you lose them.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

I can’t actually talk too much about this without giving away some key details in the novel, but I will say that about half-way through the writing of my book, I realized that who I thought was going to be the killer was not actually the killer. And that really, really surprised me!

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

It’s [One Night Gone, that is! Tara, you’ve got to get used to saying your title!] set in the fictional town of Opal Beach, a wealthy beach town in New Jersey. It’s a small, exclusive place that’s wary of outsiders. I really wanted to write a novel set in the off-season of a beach town, because I find that such a fascinating dynamic, the way a community works when they lose half their population after the tourist season ends. But because the novel takes place in two different timelines, I also got to write about a beach town during the height of tourist season! So I got the best of both worlds, I guess.

What are you working on now?

Book two! Which is terrifying. I think it’s harder to write a second book after your first is published because there’s so much more pressure. And I have no idea what I’m doing! So please keep all your fingers and toes crossed that one day readers will be reading it.

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?

You should’ve asked me for my credit card and social security numbers. I’m in a generous mood today, and you could’ve scored big.

That fall preview?

The Boston Globe uses a firewall for readers. If it’s going to continue to pay reporters and editors – as well as freelancers like me! – it needs people to subscribe. That’s why the fall arts preview might ask you to log in (though you can read a few articles for free).

However, I do want to promote these books. So – subscribe and read the full write-ups (as well as previews of other kinds of books as well as other autumn arts). Or check out this excerpt (with titles) of my list below:

“Heaven, My Home,” 

Attica Locke (Mulholland)

In this sequel to the Edgar-winning “Bluebird, Bluebird,” African-American Texas Ranger Darren Matthews searches for the missing nine-year-old son of a white supremacist, all while dealing with the repercussions of an apparently justified murder …

“The Stranger Inside,” Lisa Unger (Park Row)

When a murderer is the victim of an extrajudicial killing, protagonist Rain Winter — who survived an abduction in her youth — is drawn in by memory and by the similarities to her own case. …

“Your House Will Pay,” Steph Cha (Ecco) 

Focusing on the lives of two Los Angelenos, Cha’s crime novel steps back from her usual superb P.I. books to go deeper, examining the tensions between the Korean-American and African-American communities…

“Get A Life, Chloe Brown,” Talia Hibbert (Avon)

A heroine struggling with chronic illness enlists a damaged, self-doubting artist in her search for fun. In the ever-witty hands of Black British romance/erotica queen Hibbert …

“Catfishing on CatNet,” Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)

Expanding on the premise of her charming Hugo-winning short story “Cat Pictures Please,” in which a benevolent artificial intelligence only wants snaps of your tabby…

Five Questions with R.D. Rosen

The marvelous Thames Street Oyster House was loud. The occasion – the dinner preceding the wedding of dear friends – festive. And considering the bride and groom, the conversation swung from politics and food to arts and writing. No surprise, then, that I found myself seated next to another author, Richard Rosen. The big surprise was that we shared a background at the Boston Phoenix, and that he had a book – Tough Luck – about to come out. Tough Luck sounds fascinating – a true story about a Jewish quarterback who changed the NFL and his family’s Murder Inc. ties. (Crime fiction fans might know Richard from his Harvey Blissberg mysteries.) But, like I said, the restaurant was loud, so I know there’s more. More reason to read it!

How does a book start for you?

Every book starts with a stumble—over a person, a detail, a question related to a subject of intense personal interest. I only know it when I’ve already tripped over it.

Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?

In TOUGH LUCK, clearly the surprise was why the father of the great NFL quarterback Sid Luckman would go so far as to brutally murder his wife’s little brother over embezzling from his company. Family can drive you nuts, of course, but really…..

When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?

It’s nonfiction, so I had no choice but to set it in Brooklyn and Chicago. Could be worse.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on another nonfiction book, a kind of personal tribute to John Singer Sargent’s watercolors, and another genius painter from the late 19th century who’s been utterly forgotten. It’s called SARGENT’S SHADOW.

Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?
You might’ve asked me if the Internet has made researching and writing nonfiction easier. The answer is: You have no idea!

R. D. Rosen‘s many books include recent nonfiction that connects America’s past and present, including A Buffalo in the House: The True Story of a Man, an Animal, and the American West and Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocaust’s Hidden Child Survivors. He won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for his first of five mystery novels featuring retired Jewish major league baseball player-turned-detective Harvey Blissberg, and has written about sports for many national publications. He has served as a senior editor for both ESPN Books and Workman Publishing, and once upon a time wrote or performed comedy for PBS, HBO, and “Saturday Night Live.” He grew up across the street from Sid Luckman in Highland Park, Illinois, and lives in New York, where he still roots for the Chicago Bears.

Falling into new books…

Why “genre?,” I asked my editor. Why not just ask me to pick five novels for the fall preview? I was all ready to launch into my usual “don’t ghettoize us into different categories, we’re all storytellers, etc.” when he explained that when he assigned general fiction previews, the books that readers wanted to know about – the ones they were really looking forward to reading – got overlooked. So when he asked me to come up with a mixed-genre top five for fall, I did my best. Me being me, that means three crime fiction novels of various sorts, one fun science fiction novel aimed at teens (but who’s going to check your ID?), and a new romance from a British author who does romance/erotica with wit and heart. Enjoy!

Boston Globe fall books preview

What if they were stealing kids?

Stephen King is always fun to read. These days, he’s also increasingly political – but that doesn’t take away from the sheer thrill of his new The Institute. Read my review in the Boston Globe here.