Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 15

A Visit to the Fun-Ghoul

I’m not huge on Hallowe’en but I do dig the spirit of dressing up however you please, celebrating the joyful acceptance of the morbidity of human existence, and pillow cases full of terrible candies. It’s the closest some of us get to cultural anthropology, wondering where the heck your neighbor found Zagnut bars and who actually enjoys Necco wafers. (Harlan Ellison, for one. I think he likes the chocolate ones. I remember him writing about the first time he found entire rolls of just chocolate flavor, as if he’d discovered alien life). My favorite candy? I like fake peanut butter. So, Whatchamacallits and Goldenberg’s Peanut Butter Chews (not Mary Janes, those are abominations). Not that I’d turn my nose up at a Twix or a mini Chunky with raisins (good luck finding those anymore).

But enough about candy. The Fun-Ghoul Costume Store has been a New Jersey landmark for decades. In a county where real estate kills off most interesting stores, they’ve expanded. Because they have a great selection and enthusiastic employees. I chatted for half an hour with them about The Thing after buying a t-shirt and a top hat. And they are open year-round, renting professional quality costumes and selling everything from Videodrome t-shirts to skulls and platform ruby slippers.

The name is a joke on an Italian-American pronunciation of a very profane exclamation… Va fa’nculo. Google if you like… Fongool also works.

The Fun-Ghoul Costume Shop, 155 Park Avenue, Rutherford NJ.

Tagged: Fun-Ghoul, Halloween

My favorite bookstores: Watchung Booksellers

Over at Lit Hub, I wrote a profile of one of my favorite bookstores, Watchung Booksellers in Montclair.

Tagged: Watchung Booksellers

The Only Writing Advice You’ll Ever Need

write.

oh, and you should read a lot, too.

Just write, really. If you need encouragement, business advice, or criticism of your work, that’s something else entirely. I’m only being somewhat facetious here. If you write, you’re a “real writer.” You’re not going to find magic on a blog or a Twitter account. And why take advice from someone like me who’s been in the biz for only a few years? It makes no sense. How about a pro who knows both traditional, “indie” and hybrid?

For practical writing advice and some business advice, I usually recommend Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block, but he recently updated Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel (the original didn’t have the pixels). LB began sending out stories, then wrote speedily under pseudonyms, then wrote stand-alones under his own name, then wrote series, improving all the while, until his series characters kicked off. He certainly was born with innate talent and has spent years honing his skill, so don’t expect to emulate his success; but you can emulate his hard work, and that often bears tasty fruit. (In fact, he may have written Tasty Fruit under a pseudonym. He keeps finding erotic books he wrote back when). The point is, LB has been out on the cutting edge of the writing scene for at least fifty years. His advice is up to date and practical.

If you don’t write as much as you’d like, or if you feel daunted, I might suggest Stephen King’s On Writing. But he began 50 years ago and hit it big on his first try, so his business acumen is not relevant to most of us. His writing advice however, is spot on.

If you find yourself “blocked” often, I won’t judge. You don’t have to write every day. You know who told me that? LB. On his Write For Your Life audio mp3. The book is worthwhile, too. If you want strong exercises that will break blocks and keep them from recurring, Jerrold Mundis literally wrote the book on it: Break Writers Block Now!

I get stressed when  I think that I have to write or edit every day. It is counterproductive. But if I don’t think about it, I usually write or edit every evening after dinner and before I allow myself time to read or watch television. That works for me. The thing is, there’s no one way. Anyone who tells you different is selling you their books on how to write.

Tagged: Jerrold Mundis, Lawrence Block, Stephen King

My Bouchercon 2016 schedule

Are you going to Bouchercon in New Orleans this year? I sure am. It’ll be my sixth, and I’ve enjoyed every one of them. Run by fans for the fans, they are well run and everyone is friendly. I’ll be at panels, signings, events, and at the bar of course. Firecracker is coming as well, and as a Louisiana native, will be keeping us away from the tourist traps. It’s kind of a big con for me, and my Jay Desmarteaux novel, Bad Boy Boogie, isn’t even out yet!

But you can get a shot of JD in the Bouchercon 2016 anthology edited by Greg Herren, Blood on the Bayou. I’m in there along with David Morrell and many others. We’ll be signing the print copies at the con on Saturday at 2pm. You can also pre-order the paperback directly from Down & Out here There are two options: Pick up at Bouchercon (no shipping charge) and Ship to Buyer ($4.95 shipping charge). The ebook versions of the book are  available for pre-order on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo at a special discounted price.

On Friday, I will be at two panels: moderating the 11:00am Leather & Lace: Hardboiled vs. Cozy panel, with Clea Simon, David Putnam, Linda Rodriguez, Chris Knopf, and Linda Joffe Hull. Yes, the Clea Simon who said talking cats are an abomination. The fur’s gonna fly! Meet us at LaGalleries 1. It’ll be great fun.

I’ll be back at Friday 3:30pm in LaGalleries 1 for The Boxer, the Writing Violence panel, moderated by Zoe Sharp. Me and Sheila Redling, Melinda Leigh, E.A. Aymar, and Taylor Stevens will be talking ’bout Shaft, writing fighting, using your opponent’s intestines as a garrotte, and other fun subjects.

The Anthony Awards are held Friday night this year at the Orpheum theater, and y’all will enjoy the second line they’re having from the hotel to it. Just roll with it and have fun. Protectors 2: Heroes is up for best anthology, and Holly West’s story “Don’t Fear the Ripper” from it is up for best story. One of the other anthology contenders is ThugLit Presents Cruel Yule: A Holiday Anthology, in which my story “Letters to Santa” appears.  Vote with your conscience. And if you don’t have one, vote for us!

If you arrive early, I’ll be reading at the Noir at the “Bar” panel at 4:30pm on Wednesday, hosted by Eric Beetner in LaGalleries 4&5, and definitely attending the “After Dark” reading at the Voodoo Lounge.

I will be signing books after all these events. There will be copies of Blade of Dishonor on the giveaway tables, and copies of it and the Protectors anthologies at the Scene of the Crime Books table in the dealer’s room. I will donate all my book sales of Blade of Dishonor to the Baton Rouge Area Foundation for Flood relief to help Louisianans like my in-laws who were hit hard by the region’s catastrophic flooding last month.

It will be difficult to stay in the hotel when the French Quarter beckons. At least one trip to World of Beers will be had, maybe to Barcadia as well. There’s so much more to do and see there. I usually make a pilgrimage to Octavia Books and Faulkner House, grab dinner and brews at St. Lawrence on Decatur, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a Muffuletta, maybe Central Grocery. I usually skip Bourbon Street except for Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, an old dive with a piano and character. Skip the tourist traps and head to Frenchman Street for live music. And if you want to hang out, you can always tweet me @thomaspluck.

 

Tagged: Bouchercon, New Orleans

beyond copacetic

If you haven’t read my review of James Lee Burke’s The Jealous Kind, it’s one of his best. You know who read it? Mr Burke himself. It’s an honor to hear from a literary hero of mine. He commented on my Books page.

Tagged: James Lee Burke

Protectors 2 and the 2016 Bouchercon Anthony Award nominations

The good folks who run Bouchercon have announced the 2016 Anthony Award nominees, and I’m thrilled beyond belief that Protectors 2: Heroes is not only nominated for an Anthony Award for best anthology, but that Holly West’s story “Don’t Fear the Ripper” from it has been nominated for best short story. Her story has also been chosen to appear in a Ripper anthology from Mysterious Press. Thank you so much Holly, for writing that story and letting me publish it in the anthology.

One of the other anthology contenders is ThugLit Presents Cruel Yule: A Holiday Anthology, in which my story “Letters to Santa” appears. Johnny Shaw’s Chingon tale “Feliz Navidead” is in there, and also nominated for best short story. As is Erin Mitchell’s “Old Hands,” from Dark City Lights: New York Stories (ed. by Lawrence Block), in which my story “The Big Snip” appears. Snip wasn’t chosen for an Anthony, but it was picked for The Year’s Best Crime & Mystery Stories 2016, edited by Kristine K. Rusch, so I’m pretty thrilled about that, too.

The Anthonys are a fan award and they mean a lot. It’s an honor to be nominated, along with so many champions of the genre and also good friends, like Josh Stallings’s Young Americans, my favorite heist novel of recent vintage, Joelle Charbonneau’s Need, Rob Hart’s New Yorked, Hank Phillippi Ryan’s What You See, and so many others.

As they say, it’s an honor to be nominated. But if you enjoyed Protectors 2: Heroes and are going to the convention, your vote will help sell the book and generate more revenue for Protect: The National Association to Protect Children. I’ve donated over $4500 so far. Let’s keep it going, for the HERO Corps!

 

Tagged: Bouchercon, major awards

I’m over here now… posts abound!

Feast or famine, and all that… several posts and reviews were published about the same time,. harmonic pluckvergence if you will. On the last day of August, here’s what I’ve been up to this summer:

Reviewing HBO’s  The Night Of for Criminal Element. My take on the finale. I enjoyed this show a lot, great characters, solid story, but it gave short shrift to the women it portrayed, especially the victim.

I’m now sharing posting duties at Do Some Damage every other Wednesday, with Holly West. My latest post is about the middle class perspective in crime fiction.

Once again at Criminal Element, my review of James Lee Burke’s latest and one of his best, The Jealous Kind. Which you can buy here.

And I reviewed the Coen Brothers’ screwball Hollywood flick Hail, Caesar! for Crimespree Magazine.

 

Where to give to Louisiana flood relief:

My family and friends in Louisiana have been hit hard by the flooding. We have bought supplies for shelters, and now we are giving to the Baton Rouge Area Flood Relief Foundation.

Below is my inlaws’ neighborhood during the worst of it. Thankfully they are safe, so many had worse. 40,000 homes are damaged and the estimate is 100,000 people have lost everything.

I’m not gonna ask you to buy a book or like my page or whatever. Share the info however you like. Don’t feel the need to share this post. Post a comment when you donate, if you want. Or don’t. Just help.

 

Tagged: Louisiana

The Year’s Best Crime & Mystery Stories 2016

I’m over the moon that my story “The Big Snip” was chosen by John Helfers and Kristine Kathryn Rusch for inclusion in The Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016 with Megan Abbott, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Higgins Clark, Jedidiah Ayres, SJ Rozan, and more. Thank you to the editors for choosing me, and to Lawrence Block for getting me to write it, and Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges for originally publishing it in Dark City Lights at Three Rooms Press (where you can read it in print, if you prefer).


 


Available on Kindle


B&N Nook


and


Kobo.





 If you haven’t read it, or just want to read it again with some more great crime stories, grab it for your e-reader or read it on your phone, PC, Mac, iPad, ePood, or someone else’s.
My story’s about love and pain and justice on the Neuter Scooter, and it’s a personal favorite. I’ll be returning to those characters…
Tagged: Anthologies, Joyce Carol Oates, Kristine K. Rusch, Megan Abbott

Blood on the Bayou available for pre-order!

Blood on the Bayou, the Bouchercon 2016 anthology edited by Greg Herren and published by Down & Out Books is now available for pre-order!

My Jay Desmarteaux yarn “Gumbo Weather” appears with stories byDavid Morrell, Eric Beetner, Alison Gaylin, Bv Lawson, Dino Parenti,Gary Phillips and Terrie Moran among others.

Grab an early copy for your Kindle, Nook, or e-reader.

We’ll be signing the print copies at the con! You can also pre-order the paperback directly from Down & Out here.

There are two options: Pick up at Bouchercon (no shipping charge) and Ship to Buyer ($4.95 shipping charge).

The ebook versions of the book are already up and available for pre-orders on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo (at a special pre-order discounted price of $5.99)


Tagged: Blood on the Bayou, Bouchercon, David Morrell, Louisiana