Bestselling British author Rhys Bowen

I am truly looking forward to the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime hosting renowned British author Rhys Bowen this coming Saturday, Feb. 25.

Rhys will speak at our monthly meeting at about noon at Barnes and Noble in Indianapolis, before heading over to a tea we are sponsoring in her honor from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the College Park community clubhouse in Indy and then back to B&N for a book fair and book signing at 5 p.m.

A portion of the proceeds from sales at B&N that day will benefit the programs of the Speed City SinC.

Rhys is a wonderful award-winning writer -- and a prolific one. Below is a list of her titles, not including In Farleigh Field, which comes out next week.

 Royal Spyness Series In Order:

Her Royal Spyness (2007)

A Royal Pain (2008)

Royal Flush (2009)

Royal Blood (2010)

Naughty in Nice (2011)

The Twelve Clues of Christmas (2012)

Heirs and Graces (2013)

Queen of Hearts (2014)

Malice at the Palace (2015)

Crowned and Dangerous (2016)

On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service (August 2017)

Molly Murphy Series In Order:

Murphy's Law (2001)

Death of Riley (2002)

For the Love of Mike (2003)

In Like Flynn (2005)

Oh Danny Boy (2006)

In Dublin's Fair City (2007)

Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (2008)

In a Gilded Cage (2009)

The Last Illusion (2010)

Bless the Bride (2011)

Hush Now, Don't You Cry (2012)

The Family Way (2013)

City of Darkness and Light (2014)

The Edge of Dreams (2015)

Away in a Manger (2015)

Time of Fog and Fire (2016)

The Ghost of Christmas Past (November 2017)

Constable Evan Evans Series In Order:

Evans Above (1997)

Evan Help Us (1998)

Evanly Choirs (1999)

Evan and Elle (2000)

Evan Can Wait (2001)

Evans to Betsy (2002)

Evan Only Knows (2003)

Evan's Gate (2004)

Evan Blessed (2005)

Evanly Bodies (2006)

Hope to see you some time on Saturday.

Thanks for reading.

Callipygian: What's in a name?

Often when I say my next published short story is titled Callipygian, people ask, "Cal-la-what? What does it mean?" Only rarely does someone know. In fact, only three people that I can think of knew the definition without me mentioning it first and ALL of them graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, which is where I also graduated. Got a good education there, I'd say.

I had a class called Latin-and-Greek Derivatives. One of the best classes I have ever had,  in either high school or college.

So, what does callipygian mean? It is an adjective but that's all I will say for the moment. So give me a sec. A little background first.

I first remember hearing the word used in a sentence a couple of years ago during an interview Terry Gross was conducting on her NPR show, Fresh Air. The interviewee -- an author, I think -- used it and Terry didn't seem to know the word. So the interviewee told her. And it was then that I decided I needed to use it in some short story some time soon.

Recently, I decided to check it out online. And one of the best uses I found was in a description of Queen Bey.

Yes, Beyoncé.

Years ago, Destiny's Child did a song called Bootylicious. And today if you look at Queen Bey's body, particularly from the back, you'd say she's bootylicious. But if that word didn't exist, she'd probably be described as having a callipygian backside.

In other words, she has a big butt.

Now my short story Callipygian, which is in the upcoming anthology, The Fine Art of Murder, isn't about Beyoncé or big butts. Or at least not generally. It's about a painting of that name, which, along with two other paintings, is stolen. And the protagonist in the story, FBI profiler Kendall Hunter, is drawn into the investigation of the stolen art. Things get really interesting when the suspect in the case is murdered.

You can preorder the anthology online at Amazon, Walmart and Barnes and Noble. Here are two links:

https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Art-Murder-Collection-Stories/dp/1681570238/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1471896943&sr=8-4&keywords=the+fine+art+of+murder


https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Fine-Art-of-Murder-A-Collection-of-Short-Stories/52607722

The anthology is scheduled for publication early next month.

So there you have it. What's in a name? Well, it can be quite a lot. It can be informative, even educational. But what does this title mean. All I can say is: If you are still confused, look it up.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Oh that name!

The second most popular blog post I have is from Jan. 4, 2008, and is called, What's in a Name, Part II. In that post I discuss the possible name of the book I was about to start. It was about the murder of a black newspaper publisher and the novel, still unsold and unrepresented, is called DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL.

I worried that no publisher would risk taking on such a non-PC title. Or that they may be brave enough to take the chance since I am an African-American writer. Nothing so far.

But given that that blog posting is the second most popular posting I have, the title must strike a cord somewhere.

I haven't decided on what the title will be for the novel I plan to write in November. It probably won't be something as interesting as Jungle-bunny Journal. But maybe . . .

Haven't had a lot of time this week to query or blog. But I have been working hard mentally on an outline for the NaNoWriMo novel. Perhaps more on that in the coming weeks.

But for now, have a good weekend. I have a booksigning for BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD tomorrow in Bloomington and another one in Speedway next Saturday.

Thanks for reading.

I'm back! Again.

I'm back. This is my first posting since October and I plan to get back to it on a regular basis. But first let me update you on what's been happening since October.




First and foremost, my Winter Project -- battling prostate cancer -- is nearly over. Thank the Lord!

I have had 41 daily radiation treatments and only two remain. Thursday's will be the last and after that I should be cured. At least that is the hope and prayer. I won't know anything for about a month, not until doctors draw blood and check my PSA levels. They should be near zero. The side effects are quite tiring but they should also start to diminish and then completely go away after treatment ends. I should be back to normal -- and with me, who really knows what that is -- within a couple of weeks. Thankfully, everything still works (and that's my last word on that!).

I entered National Novel Writing Month back in November and won. I reached the 50,000-word mark on Nov. 15, and finished the novel at 54,000 words four days later. I met a number of writers, both online and in person, and try to stay in contact with new friends.

AN UNTIDY AFFAIR is a murder mystery about a struggling private eye in Philadelphia in May 1985 who is asked by a pretentious socialite to investigate whether her husband is having an affair. He is having the affair but what the detective also finds is murder. And the victim is the socialite's lover, whose badly burned body is found amidst the ruins on the city block police destroyed when they bombed the house of the radical group MOVE.

Now five drafts later, AFFAIR is just under 70,000 words, a little short for the mystery genre -- the target is at least 75,000 -- but it is what it is.

I have started querying agents but no bites yet. I will keep you posted.

Members of my critique group loved it, which was a welcome surprise. It is in first person, and marks my first venture out of a third-person narrative.

At the moment, I am concentrating on AFFAIR and querying agents, but soon I will have to move on. I haven't decided whether to return to THE DEATH OF ART, a murder mystery set in the art world. I love the story and the characters. I was half way through the novel last summer and fall when, first, I had to deal of the knowledge of my cancer and, then, I entered NaNoWriMo. I haven't decided whether to return to DOA or to let it sit for a while and start a new project. More on that later.

I am still an officer in the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime and our anthology, BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD, has an early May publication date. I am looking forward to that for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that once it is published I will no longer merely be an aspiring author. I will be a published -- though still struggling -- author. (One step at a time.) My short story, THE MISSING CD, is the 12th of the 15 stories in the anthology. We are still working on the marketing and don't have a date yet for the launch party. Unfortunately, The Mystery Company closed its doors in February so we are looking at a Barnes and Noble in Carmel. (I worked for Jim Huang at The Mystery Company for several months before its closing and truly enjoyed it. I learned a lot about how the industry works from Jim, who is tremendously knowledgeable. He will be missed in Indy.)

I have several friends entered in ABNA this year -- the semi-finalists are being named today -- and I continue to root for them. Plus my friend Gae Polisner's book is slowly moving toward publication next year, the wonderful Milton McGriff had a successful book signing and discussion of his novel, 2236, last month, and the delightfully talented Hank Phillippi Ryan last month published DRIVE TIME, the latest novel in her Charlotte McNally series.

I will try to touch on many of the above topics in the weeks to come. But for now, I am glad it is spring and I look forward to a productive year of writing.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

What's in a name, Part IV

I love Writer’s Digest, as you already know. Each issue is terrific and I always think it can’t be topped. Then the next issue arrives and it tops the previous one.

This latest issue is no different. The main articles are on Publishing 101: Your publishing survival guide. And while I will mine a number of topics from this issue for my blog in the coming days and weeks, what I am focusing on today is on Page. 44.

I have brought this subject up before, several times, in fact. And I have tried to rely on my best artistic judgment on what is fundamentally a marketing issue. It is the title of my book.

The No. 7 point of the WD article that starts on Page 42 is: Stake a claim on your title before “they” can get at it.

Back in late January in a fit of caution, I decided to change the name of my novel from DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL to A MURDEROUS DISPATCH. To accommodate the title, I even went back and changed the name of the newspaper in the novel from the Courier-Times to the Daily Dispatch. But the more I contemplate it, the more I believe the title change was wrong.

Patricia Holt, the writer of the WD article, stated upfront that “the title is your first opportunity to market the book . . . ” It can be risky and potentially controversial. But standing out is not a bad thing. Being timid is.

“If the title is so startling or catchy or provocative that it makes a person want to reach for the book and start reading, you have a beaut” of a title, Holt writes.

Jungle-bunny Journal does that. It pops. It stands out. It could be controversial but it is not a wallflower. It is not a title that will be ignored. So what does A MURDEROUS DISPATCH say? No much, other than the book is about a murder and the writer is redundant.

I still don’t know if, as a title, Jungle-bunny Journal will get me an agent or a publisher. I have no real evidence of it so far. But I have no evidence that Murderous Dispatch will either. So I’m going to do what I should have always been doing -- trusting my judgment.

I like DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL. I always have. So, I’m going back to that until some publisher or their marketing guru convinces me otherwise.

Thanks for reading. Trust your judgment and don’t give up on writing.

The Death of Art

I had intended that my current project, THE DEATH OF ART, be finished by the end of last month. I didn't make that deadline. At the moment, I am hoping to finish the first draft before heading for a vacation in five weeks. it will be close.

The novel is coming along well, however. I continue to discover things about my characters and about the story. Although at the moment I am in a slow period, both in the writing and in the story, the story itself is unfolding well. I am editing and re-writing more as I go along, a departure from the past. And that is one of the reasons I haven't finished yet. But I can't let that be an excuse.

Once I finish, however, I may change a major event of the story. In doing so will present a real surprise to the book but I'm not sure it will work. I won't know that until I get to the end and I try it. I am willing to do whatever is necessary to improve the book.

On the publishing front, I still don't have an agent for A MURDEROUS DISPATCH and I'm going to start directly querying a select number of publishers. And I may change the name back to DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL. I have a couple of publishers in name so I will have to decide something about the soon.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and keep writing.

The Dispatch

I started making the change today, the change for the title of my novel, "Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal."

I also changed the name of the newspaper in the novel. It was the Indianapolis Courier-Times, or C-T for short, and now is the Indianapolis Dispatch.

So the new title is, "The Dispatch." The title is now about the newspaper and about the murder of the publisher/owner of the paper.

Yesterday, I was thinking about "The Murderous Dispatch," but my wife thought that was redundant -- murder and dispatch expressing the same idea.

I like The Dispatch, although I love Jungle-bunny Journal. But it is probably best to error on the side of caution, at least for the Amazon contest.

So that's it for now.

Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.

What's in a name, part III

It's coming down to the wire on a final decision to change the name of my novel,"Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal." Actually, the decision has been made. For at least the Amazon contest and for my first pitch session with an editor in March, I will change the name. The decision left, then, is what to change the name to.

Just like Jungle-bunny, I want a name that stands out, that is memorable. But perhaps I am, and have been, too close to this project for too long. So over the weekend, I asked Angela for some suggestions because the names I was coming up with were not shaking me to my socks.

Since then we have come up with several possible choices, including some quite good. But I still don't have a great choice. I even last night considered changing the name of the newspaper in the novel from the Courier-Times to the Dispatch so I could use the word dispatch in the title.

Nothing yet.

So I will continue with whipping the novel into shape for the Amazon contest. And perhaps a little later a title will sinpsire me. I hope so.

Until then, thanks for reading and keep writing.