Bruce DeSilva's Blog, page 48

A Master's Wise And Practical Writing Advice

Don Fry begins his wise and practical  book of writing advice this way:  "Here's a radical idea: You can escape your teachers. You can write in ways suited to you, rather than ways you were taught."

In "Writing Your Way," he offers hundreds upon hundreds of the writing tools complied over a lifetime of teaching, of careful reading, and of observing the professional writers who flock to him for advice. And then he demonstrates how to make use of the ones that work for YOU while ignoring the rest.

Great writing coaches are as scarce as Tar Heels fans at a Blue Devils pep rally. Fry, former head of the writing and ethics faculties at the prestigious Poynter Institute, is one of the greatest of all time. I'm a professional writer with 40 years of journalism and two novels behind me, but I've never stopped learning from him–and never will.

Whether you are a novice or a professional, this book will make you a better writer. You can buy it here.

Ken Wishnia’s Filomena Buscarsela: A New Hero For A Culturally Diverse America

This review is either two months premature or fifteen years late, depending on how you do the math.

Kenneth Wishnia spent nine years trying to find a publisher for 23 Shades of Black before finally self-publishing it in 1997, setting the type himself, and shipping off a few copies to book reviewers. The result: a few rave notices, nominations for both the Edgar and Anthony Awards, and sparse sales.

Now the novel–the fifth in the author’s series featuring crime fighter Filomena Buscarsela–is scheduled to be released again, this time by PM Press, on June 1.

My wife Patricia and I first met Ken, a Brown University grad who teaches comparative literature at SUNY Stonybrook, two years ago at the Bouchercon crime fiction convention. He pressed a signed copy of the Imaginary Press edition of 23 Shades of Black into our hands. We never got around to reading it. Last week at another convention, Left Coast Crime, he gave me another signed copy, this one from his new publisher.

I’d brought several books with me for cross-country flight, but by the time I arrived in Sacramento, I’d read them all. So on the long journey back to New Jersey, I cracked Ken’s book and immediately saw why so many publishers had turned it down. Who wants to read a novel about a Hispanic female police officer who spends half of her time high on drugs and alcohol, the other half fending off fellow cops who want to play grab-ass, and all of it in a left-wing-politics-fueled assault on a conglomerate that is hell-bent on committing environmental and cultural genocide?

Me, that’s who.

For one thing, this guy can write. The prose is as tight as my favorite band, the humor bites like a Great White, and the mood is as angry and bitter as The New Black Panther Party on a bad day.

For another thing, the heroine is something truly fresh in the sometimes copy-cat crime genre: an Ecuadorian-born New York City flatfoot with a longing for her home country, a jaundiced view of her adopted one, and an unyielding passion not just for justice but for social justice.

Filomena is tough, vulnerable, insolent, compassionate, unsentimental, violent, sexy as all hell, and alternately proud and self-doubting.  Although this first novel is set in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s America, she is a true hero for the culturally diverse, politically polarized, class-warfare America of 2012.

The Tea Party crowed will hate her, which should be all the endorsement you need.

You can purchase the novel, and the rest of Ken’s books, here.

Ken Wishnia's Filomena Buscarsela: A New Hero For A Culturally Diverse America

This review is either two months premature or fifteen years late, depending on how you do the math.

Kenneth Wishnia spent nine years trying to find a publisher for 23 Shades of Black before finally self-publishing it in 1997, setting the type himself, and shipping off a few copies to book reviewers. The result: a few rave notices, nominations for both the Edgar and Anthony Awards, and sparse sales.

Now the novel–the fifth in the author's series featuring crime fighter Filomena Buscarsela–is scheduled to be released again, this time by PM Press, on June 1.

My wife Patricia and I first met Ken, a Brown University grad who teaches comparative literature at SUNY Stonybrook, two years ago at the Bouchercon crime fiction convention. He pressed a signed copy of the Imaginary Press edition of 23 Shades of Black into our hands. We never got around to reading it. Last week at another convention, Left Coast Crime, he gave me another signed copy, this one from his new publisher.

I'd brought several books with me for cross-country flight, but by the time I arrived in Sacramento, I'd read them all. So on the long journey back to New Jersey, I cracked Ken's book and immediately saw why so many publishers had turned it down. Who wants to read a novel about a Hispanic female police officer who spends half of her time high on drugs and alcohol, the other half fending off fellow cops who want to play grab-ass, and all of it in a left-wing-politics-fueled assault on a conglomerate that is hell-bent on committing environmental and cultural genocide?

Me, that's who.

For one thing, this guy can write. The prose is as tight as my favorite band, the humor bites like a Great White, and the mood is as angry and bitter as The New Black Panther Party on a bad day.

For another thing, the heroine is something truly fresh in the sometimes copy-cat crime genre: an Ecuadorian-born New York City flatfoot with a longing for her home country, a jaundiced view of her adopted one, and an unyielding passion not just for justice but for social justice.

Filomena is tough, vulnerable, insolent, compassionate, unsentimental, violent, sexy as all hell, and alternately proud and self-doubting.  Although this first novel is set in Ronald Reagan's 1980s America, she is a true hero for the culturally diverse, politically polarized, class-warfare America of 2012.

The Tea Party crowed will hate her, which should be all the endorsement you need.

You can purchase the novel, and the rest of Ken's books, here.

“Rogue Island,” My First Crime Novel, Just Published in Italy

The Italian edition of my first Mulligan crime novel, Rogue Island, has just been released by Giunti, one of Italy’s top publishers of thrillers and mysteries. Unsurprisingly, the English title did not translate well, so the Italian publisher changed it to Il Piromane, which means The Arsonist.

The cover is also different from the American edition, and I really like it.

Rogue Island has already been published in Japan and is scheduled to be released soon in France, Mexico, Poland, Korea, Brazil, Russia, and Israel.

If you would like to purchase the American edition or the sequel, Cliff Walk, which is being published on May 22, you can find them both here.

"Rogue Island," My First Crime Novel, Just Published in Italy

The Italian edition of my first Mulligan crime novel, Rogue Island, has just been released by Giunti, one of Italy's top publishers of thrillers and mysteries. Unsurprisingly, the English title did not translate well, so the Italian publisher changed it to Il Piromane, which means The Arsonist.

The cover is also different from the American edition, and I really like it.

Rogue Island has already been published in Japan and is scheduled to be released soon in France, Mexico, Poland, Korea, Brazil, Russia, and Israel.

If you would like to purchase the American edition or the sequel, Cliff Walk, which is being published on May 22, you can find them both here.

I’ll Be Appearing at Left Coast Crime in Sacramento March 30 – April 1

I‘m looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones at Left Coast Crime, a conference for crime fiction writers and their fans, at the Sacramento Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento, CA next weekend.

I’ll be signing copies of my Mulligan crime novels, Rogue Island and Cliff Walk,  and appearing on three panels:

FRIDAY March 30, 2012  -  1:30,                                                                                                    MURDER WITH MACHISMO – No cozies here.                                                                        With Con Lehane, Clem Chambers, Alan Jacobson and Kirk Russell

SATURDAY March 31, 2012,  10:15                                                                                               ALL THE NEWS – Reporters go the extra mile in reporting crime. They solve cases, too. With Michele Drier, Wayne Arthurson, Julie Kramer and Brad Parks

SATURDAY March 31, 2012 – 2:45 PM                                                                                 BEEN THERE, WROTE THAT: A GAME SHOW – where authors answer questions about their own books.                                                                                                                           With Gar Anthony Haywood,  Lisa Brackmann,  Brad Parks, and Catriona McPherson

Hope to see some of you there.  If you’d like to learn more about the conference or register to attend, the link is here.

I'll Be Appearing at Left Coast Crime in Sacramento March 30 – April 1

I'm looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones at Left Coast Crime, a conference for crime fiction writers and their fans, at the Sacramento Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento, CA next weekend.

I'll be signing copies of my Mulligan crime novels, Rogue Island and Cliff Walk,  and appearing on three panels:

FRIDAY March 30, 2012  -  1:30,                                                                                                    MURDER WITH MACHISMO – No cozies here.                                                                        With Con Lehane, Clem Chambers, Alan Jacobson and Kirk Russell

SATURDAY March 31, 2012,  10:15                                                                                               ALL THE NEWS – Reporters go the extra mile in reporting crime. They solve cases, too. With Michele Drier, Wayne Arthurson, Julie Kramer and Brad Parks

SATURDAY March 31, 2012 – 2:45 PM                                                                                 BEEN THERE, WROTE THAT: A GAME SHOW – where authors answer questions about their own books.                                                                                                                           With Gar Anthony Haywood,  Lisa Brackmann,  Brad Parks, and Catriona McPherson

Hope to see some of you there.  If you'd like to learn more about the conference or register to attend, the link is here.

Vote for “Rogue Island” in the Best Audio Book Contest

If you’d like to vote for my crime novel, Rogue Island, in my audio publisher’s annual “best audio book” of the year contest, here’s how you do it:

Go to the link below. Sign in or, if you don’t already have an audible books account, create one. (It’s a good thing to have.) Then you can go to the NCAA-style brackets, where my book is one of 32 competing in the first round.

Here’s the

Thanks.

Vote for "Rogue Island" in the Best Audio Book Contest

If you'd like to vote for my crime novel, Rogue Island, in my audio publisher's annual "best audio book" of the year contest, here's how you do it:

Go to the link below. Sign in or, if you don't already have an audible books account, create one. (It's a good thing to have.) Then you can go to the NCAA-style brackets, where my book is one of 32 competing in the first round.

Here's the

Thanks.

“Cliff Walk,” the New Mulligan Novel, Gets a Starred Review in Publishers Weekly!

My thanks to Publishers Weekly, the bible of the book business, for this starred review of Cliff Walk today:

“The legality of prostitution in Rhode Island figures prominently in the plot of DeSilva’s sterling follow-up to 2010’s Rogue Island, which won Edgar and Macavity awards for best first novel. Liam Mulligan, a reporter for the declining Providence Dispatch, must handle a range of stories, from the discovery of body parts in Scalici Recycling’s pig farm in Pascoag to the apparent murder of Sal Maniella, pornographer and owner of several strip clubs, whose body is found on the rocks below Newport’s famed Cliff Walk. Mulligan’s investigative work keeps him hopping, as do sexy black lawyer Yolanda Mosley-Jones, who represents the Maniellas; Mulligan’s divorce-seeking wife, Dorcas; and Maniella’s ex-SEAL bodyguards. Mulligan sports a bad ulcer, plenty of attitude, and connections that span all strata of society. The brilliantly limned supporting characters include Rhode Island attorney general Fiona McNerney (aka Attila the Nun) and earnest Edward Anthony Mason IV, “the scion of six inbred Yankee families that had owned the Dispatch since the Civil War.” Look for this one to garner more award nominations.”

The novel will be published on May 22. You can pre-order the hardcover or e-book here.