Criminal Instinct by Kelly Lynn Parra

I'm so excited about Kelly's book, Criminal Instinct. It's one of the first titles for Carina Press, which officially launches today, June 7th!

Read about Kelly's long journey beginning with her initial conception of CI to today's launch. It's heartbreaking and inspiring.

Words of a Writer -- A Personal Journey



READ AN EXCERPT!

purchase from Carina Press

storycards

I'm trying to build up my supply of storycards. Got some cute new paper. Really like the paper in the upper right-hand corner. You can't tell from this image, but it's flocked.

I'm in the process of getting slides scanned, and I will be posting some digital images in the coming weeks and months. I'm also going through my late husband's artwork and notes. When he was dying and could no longer speak, all conversations took place on paper. Of course these are just his side of the conversation, but it's easy for me to figure out who he was talking to. Probably twelve notebooks in all. At first he wrote everything on an erasable board, then we switched to spiral notebooks and legal pads. At the time, I didn't think about keeping them -- it was for convenience, because the erasable would sometimes vanish before he was done writing. I've been scanning some of this stuff, but it's hard to get a clear image since it was written in light pencil. But anyway, I'm digging through boxes and sorting and reading. Missing some slides and artwork, but hopefully they will show up.

JUNE RELEASES

Several friends have books coming out this month, and I will start with the first two just-out titles by Bill Cameron and David Housewright, both wonderful, wonderful writers, both of whom have stories in the Halloween anthology.

David (House to many friends and readers) happens to be doing a signing at Once Upon a Crime June 8. I haven't read this book, but it's on my to-buy list (you can't go wrong with a book by David Housewright) along with Bill's Day One. If you would like a signed copy of David's book, you can call Once Upon a Crime. They do mail orders! (Hey, you could order both books at the same time!)

Once Upon a Crime: (612) 870-3785


DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT
(Edgar and Minnesota Book Award author)

The Taking of Libbie, S.D.



7 PM Tuesday, June 8, 2010


from Once Upon a Crime:

Join us for a publication party at:

Once Upon A Crime

604 W. 26th Street, Minneapolis


Edgar Award-winning author Housewright jumps right into the story in his seventh Rushmore McKenzie mystery: it opens with two men breaking into McKenzie’s Minnesota house, zapping him with a Taser, throwing him into the trunk of a car, and transporting him several hundred miles to, of all places, Libbie, South Dakota. Once there, they discover they got the wrong guy: they're looking for a con man who used McKenzie’s name and identity to bilk the town of Libbie out of a lot of money. Believe it or not—and McKenzie can scarcely believe it—the abductors then ask the abductee to help them out by finding the con man and bringing him to justice. McKenzie describes himself as a knight-errant doing favors for friends (he’s way rich and doesn't need a day job, but that's another story - which we have:, namely A Hard Ticket Home).

"charmingly unlikable in a likable sort of way" – Booklist Online (referring, of course, to McKenzie, rather than the indisputably likable Housewright)


Bill Cameron might dispute this description, but I would define his writing as literary crime fiction, partially because he is so good when it comes to the interior of his characters. I once said this about Bill's writing:

"Real is the word that immediately comes to mind when stepping into a world created by the exceptionally talented Bill Cameron. The landscape he illuminates is one we've seen before, but never with such focus or appreciation."

Bill's anthology contribution features some of the characters from Day One, and I can tell you the short story just blew me away, so I'm especially anxious to get my hands on a copy of his new release.



About Day One:

Born and raised in southern Oregon farm country, Elie Spaneker flees her home and abusive husband, unaware she's being tracked by an ex-cop in the hire of her vengeful father-in-law.

In Portland, retired homicide detective Skin Kadash fills his idle days drinking coffee and searching for Eager Gillespie, a teen runaway of special interest as the only witness in a troublesome and long unsolved murder. Eager, meanwhile, is on his own, grifting and working the angles in the homeless underground, oblivious to the unfolding events which will force him to face the consequences of a crime, and a longing, which has haunted him for years.

These disparate trails converge at a bloody standoff, the harrowing end of a series of brutal crimes which trace a path from the high desert to the streets of Portland, committed by a perpetrator known only as Shadow.

PRAISE FOR DAY ONE

“Readers will get caught up in this thriller's various plot threads, which will lead them to a sad yet satisfying conclusion.”
—Library Journal

“Unrelievedly bleak and gritty yet thoroughly compelling.”
—Booklist

"The characters’ operatically intense passions are powerful."
—Publishers Weekly


I'll round out this post with a June release by friend Mary Logue. Mary is another awesome Minnesota writer. She and Bill are both published by Tyrus Books.


Frozen Stiff





The next installment in the Claire Watkins mystery series.

Car mogul Daniel Walker is celebrating New Year’s Eve alone. Or at least he thinks he is. The temperature is twenty degrees below zero outside, but he’s roasting in his sauna with a bottle of Stolychnaya. Not only is he about to be rid of his wife, but he has just conned an older woman out of her family farm. Everything is going his way. At midnight, he runs outside naked for a quick roll in the snow. But when he tries to get back in the house, he can’t. He’s been locked out.

The next morning he’s found, frozen and covered in snow. When deputy sheriff Claire Watkins gets to the scene, she calls an ambulance, remembering that sometimes people in this condition can be revived. As the doctors pump warm fluids through his body, his loved ones gather: his model daughter Danielle, his soon to be ex-wife Sherri Walker. Claire learns of others who weren’t happy with him: the son of the woman who sold the farm and the housekeeper’s daughter who is giving birth to an unexpected child in the same hospital.

While solving this midwinter crime, Claire realizes how tenuous love is and how frozen she’s been since her first husband was killed many years ago. She has been happy living with Rich Haggard, but in this chilling season she finds she wants more. Maybe she’s finally ready to step into the marriage he’s wanted all along.


PRAISE FOR FROZEN STIFF

"Readers who care more about intelligent depictions of passionate emotions than the details of police work will be most satisfied."
—Publishers Weekly


"A satisfying entry in a consistently entertaining series."
—Booklist


"Sure to appeal to Logue’s fans and readers who enjoy regional Midwestern mysteries."
—Library Journal

writing junkie

I've always thought of writing as an addiction, and I'm not sure you really have to believe in yourself to sell a book. You just have to be obsessed. This theory hit home with my recent sale. A few people have said, "You believed in the book. You believed in the story and yourself." No, I didn't. I didn't believe in it at all, but I was obsessed with telling it anyway. And later, I just needed to follow the thread to the end and have definitive proof that this was a story no publishing house would want so that I could just move on.

Years ago I knew a guy named Willy Dixon. He and his wife are long dead, so they won't be reading this. But Willy spent about twenty years working on a memoir. It was horrendous stuff, and he sent pages to me and he sent pages to the little rural community paper. And people, being what they are, would sit around and read his stories out loud and laugh. Over the years, I gave Willy advice, but he wouldn't listen to any of it. He just wrote and wrote and wrote. He was obsessed. And while I was writing The Orchard, I kept thinking: This is my Willy Dixon book.

When I sent it to my agent of twenty years, he sadly said it was nothing and couldn't rep it. Another male agent read forty pages and came to the same conclusion. I put the material away for a year, but I couldn't quit thinking about it. I began to wonder if the story didn't appeal to men. If men simply wouldn't respond to it. And at that point I decided it needed to be read by female agents. They would tell me the same thing, and I could move on and put the material away once and for all. But of course that didn't happen. Three publishers were interested, and my sense that this was a book for women proved to be right. I think it's a book for single women and childless women and mothers and daughters and sisters and aunts and grandmothers. I think women connect to the earth and the soil in ways that men don't. Not that men care less than women -- God, no! We just connect in a different way.

Sorry to talk about this again, but I keep replaying pieces of the last three years, analyzing, trying to figure out what key elements led to this particular place, and I think it comes down to obsession. I always have to finish what I start, and I couldn't let it go long after I quit believing in it.

free short stories on Smashwords

For the next few days I'm offering a couple of free short stories on Smashwords. Please be my test readers! You have to use the coupon code to download free titles. If you spot any typos, let me know!!



Crack House coupon code: WJ44U




Girls From the North Country coupon code: BX94M

those crazy storycards

Over the past few months I let the storycard thing slide, still unsure about the whole concept and packaging. (Is this stupid? Not stupid?) Friday I participated in a fundraiser for the local library. I donated about 15 of my Frasier books and gave a talk/discussion. I also donated most of my remaining stock of storycards. Weird thing? Everybody loved the storycards. They were a much bigger hit than my books. Since all of my storycard sales have been by mail, I hadn't actually witnessed the response to the cards. People seem to love the way they feel, love the size, love the concept, love the choice of patterns, love that they are handmade. So I'm feeling kind of buzzed about them again. It's a tough thing, because I don't think Etsy is really the place to sell them, and I don't think a bookstore is really the place to sell them (even though the audience is there), because I would have to almost give them away in order for the store to make any profit. I've added another story, and I plan to add three more in the next few months.

my Etsy page

when everything new is old again

My daughter took these photos last Sunday using an iPhone app. They look like lovely Polaroid transfers:



Perley lilacs


flowering crabapple



planting an apple tree