Andy Straka's Blog, page 7
October 23, 2012
The Eagle In The Debates
As a novelist and licensed falconer, I’ve had the opportunity to keep company with numerous birds of prey, including hawks, falcons, and eagles. While differing in the particulars, by their very nature all species of birds of prey share certain characteristics. One of the themes of my Frank Pavlicek novels is that, symbolically and otherwise, we have much to learn from these magnificent creatures.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in watching the debates in the run-up to this year’s pres...
October 7, 2012
September 29, 2012
Virginia Festival of the Book picks Box
Earlier this month, the Virginia Festival of the Book announced that CJ Box which will be the featured speaker at this year’s Crime Wave brunch.
Box burst on the scene in 2001 with his first novel starring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, Open Season, in 2001. Since then, he has been an out-and-out book writing machine, cranking out no less than nine Pickett novels as well as a couple of best-selling standalone thrillers. Along the way, Box’s books have picked up several honors, including the...
August 23, 2012
The Eighteen Dollar E-book
Would you be willing to pay eighteen dollars for an e-book? How about a new one from J.K. Rowling?
To the delight of millions, Rowling pioneered an entirely new subgenre of young adult fiction with her Harry Potter series. Very soon now she’ll be publishing her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy.
The plot details of the book remain tantalizing vague but it has been loosely categorized as a crime or mystery novel.
Will lightning strike twice? Will Rowling’s first foray into adult fiction...
June 19, 2012
No Fly Zone: A Threat To All Writers and Artists Online
Over the past few years, hundreds of thousands of writers, musicians, and artists have discovered a goldmine of new contacts and sales online. From iTunes to ebooks, as barrier after barrier for Internet commerce and social networking has continued to fall, many have found a following. Some have even moved on to fame and fortune, and better yet, the free flow of ideas and artistic creations has never been higher.
Now all of this is under threat. But the culprit isn’t some cabal of big book or...
May 10, 2012
Fiction Is Good For You
I love it!
Friend and fellow writer Charlotte Crystal forwarded a great articlefrom a recent boston.com that nicely summarizes ongoing research into the personal and societal benefits of reading fiction. In a nutshell, as the novelist George Elliot so succinctly put it, one of the many purposes of fiction is “to enlarge men’s sympathies.”
No matter what your perspective, empathy for others is almost always a good thing. In fact, as the piece points out, fiction often has a greater impact on peo...
April 17, 2012
Jerry West: Living Legend
I wrote my first “book” in 8th grade English class. Bound between purple construction paper covers, it came complete with glossy paper photos cut and pasted from popular magazines. (This was before the personal computer when “cut and paste” was still a literal term.) The title of my literary masterpiece? Jerry West: The Eternal Quest.
Jerry West, for those who may not be familiar, starred for many years in the NBA (He is the silhouetted player in the NBA logo) and went on to lead the Los Angel...
March 20, 2012
March 16, 2012
All Things Book
Next week marks the arrival of the 18th annual Virginia Festival of the Book. It has been my good fortune to be involved with the festival for the last ten years. I'll be around again this year, especially on Saturday the 24th.
Here are a few places you'll be able to find me:
Monday, March 19, TV appearance during 5 PM Newscast WCAV-TV CBS 19 to talk about upcoming festival.
Tuesday, March 20 — 5-6:30 PM – Pre-Festival Book Signing with fellow authors Deborah Prum, Fran Canon Slayton...
February 24, 2012
The Writer Flies Alone
Tomorrow, I'll be speaking at Christopher Newport University as part of their 31st annual Writers' Conference.
I can hardly wait. In the afternoon, I get to be part of a panel with fellow mystery authors Steve Hamilton, Donna Andrews, and Brad Parks. In the morning I'll be speaking about "The Spirit of the Hawk in Fact and Fiction," accompanied by my new Harris Hawk "Glide."
Since many in the audience will be writers or aspiring writers, I thought I'd resurrect a blog post I wrote especially...
