Dennis Tafoya's Bad Neighborhood

Back in the Game

2012-01-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased as hell to announce that I'll be back in print with Minotaur!

From Publisher's Marketplace: Mystery/Crime

Author of Wolves of Fairmount Park Dennis Tafoya's THE POOR BOY'S GAME, starring a female ex-Marshal now working in private "kidnap and ransom" who has to face the most dangerous criminal she's ever encountered: her own father, a gang enforcer who has escaped from prison, to Kelley Ragland at Minotaur, in a two-book deal, by Alex Glass at Trident Media Group (NA).

I am writing the first book now. It's set in Philly again and features a new (and I hope, recurring) character, Frannie Mullen, an ex-Marshal who has to protect a pregnant woman from Frannie's own father, Patrick Mullen, a former enforcer for a corrupt union local. Frannie's life in the Marshals, her father's criminal past and her new job in K and R should yield plenty of material for new stories.

It's been fun so far, researching the Marshals, reading about the old roofers union scandals of the 80's, scouting locations in Philly and learning arcane bits of Philadelphia crime history. This one also draws on some Philadelphia boxing history, too, and I've already been pestering my pals like Greg Gillespie of Port Richmond Books for stories.

For those of you around Philly this weekend, I'll be at Atlantis The Lost Bar at 4 on Saturday, January 7th, after the David Goodis Bus Tour run by our friend Lou Boxer of NoirCon, which should be a great time. See you there!

Fundraiser for Leslie "LA" Banks

2011-07-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Come on out to a unique Writers’ Bash on Saturday, August 6th, beginning at 7 p.m. and going on till closing at Smokey Joe’s bar located at 208 S. 40th Street in University City on the University of Pennsylvania campus. You can just show up, or reserve your spot now by clicking here.

At the bash, enjoy music and munchies, discounted drinks, and chances to bid on amazing silent auction items including full manuscript critiques by top New York literary agents and editors! (*Just added to auction list: scholarship to the Backspace Conference in NY!) Admission to the event, which is sponsored by the Liars Club, is $20, $10 for college students with I.D. All proceeds go toward the expenses of ill author, Liars Club member and wonderful friend Leslie Esdaile Banks (who writes under the name L.A. Banks). Leslie is battling a rare cancer.

Leslie (L.A. Banks), a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author, has written over 40 novels and 21 novellas. She was honored by the University of Pennsylvania Black Alumni Society as “A Living Legend,” and Mayor Nutter appointed her to the Philadelphia Free Library Board as a commissioner on the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy. In 2010, as a single mom and freelancer faced with a massive increase in her insurance bills, she fired off an eloquent email to the White House. President Barack Obama took notice, and Leslie had the distinct honor of introducing the President when he came to Philadelphia to talk about health care reform.

Ironically, just a few months ago Leslie learned she had late stage adrenal cancer, and that her insurance is inadequate, leaving her family facing massive expenses. Please come out for our event - you can meet some great local writers, network with agents and editors, and support an amazing Philadelphia native. Leslie is a University City resident, and a Penn and Temple graduate. “She’s truly one of our own,” Maberry says, “and we hope everyone will come out in full force to Smokey Joe's on the Penn campus to honor this amazing woman and help her family at this difficult time.”

Guest Blogging and Great News

2011-07-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

I have another post over at The Abbot Gran Old Tyme Medicine Show. This time it's about Alice Crimmins, called The Medea of Kew Gardens. Check it out!

Also got some great news this week: We sold the film rights to Dope Thief. I think it'll be a lot of fun watching the process of the books being adapted for film.

More details soon!

Songs, Jokes, Short stories, The Philadelphia Writers Conference and A Man With a Towel on His Head

2011-06-14T04:37:00.000-07:00

"...the most fundamental question a reader has, consciously or unconsciously, when they are reading is, “Why are you telling me this?” So, you know, I want my students to think about that and also to think about what they have to write about that not everyone else does. I ask them an obvious question, but one that sometimes they don’t think of, which is, “Where is the first interesting sentence?” If it’s not the first one, then that’s something to attend to. And I don’t want them to waste their time or a reader’s time. They have plenty to compete with, in real life, so get to it! Get right to it!" (Amy Hempel, in an interview in Vice Magazine)

Last weekend I taught a class at the Philadelphia Writers Conference on short story. The experience was exhilarating, terrifying and ultimately a lot of fun. I had a chance to read a ton of great stories while I prepared, and not just for fun, but looking at them as exemplars of the elements of story - plot, character, dialogue, etc - and to think about what's going on in the stories I love.

The idea of writing first occurred to me when I read a short story called "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again," by Joyce Carol Oates. I was thirteen, and it was the first thing I can remember reading that wholly absorbed me, the voice of the narrator filling my head and hijacking my consciousness so that I was unaware of anything except that voice until I reached the end of the story. Reading that story changed the way I read and made me want to accomplish the same thing. That total absorption is what I hope for every time I start reading a piece of fiction, and it's the goal I start with every time I write.

I opened the class playing a Bruce Springsteen song called 'Stolen Car' and a Randy Newman song called 'Bad News From Home.' I told the attendees that a song wasn't a bad model for a short story: It's typically one or two characters in a compressed space and time, and it's designed to produce a single effect. The same parallel can be drawn with jokes, and a lot of the stuff I first read when I was very young was classic science fiction and horror that ended with something very much like a punchline - think of the great Twilight Zone episodes, some of them drawn from that same pool of fiction, that end with a single devastating or darkly funny revelation.

We talked about how stories work and where they come from (I had passed a car driven by a bald man with a towel draped on his head and offered it as a jumping-off place for a story.) I put together a list of short stories that I love and that taught me something about how to do the job. I've listed them below - tell me what you think. You already know some of these stories, and some may be tough to find, but they're worth reading more than once and each illustrate something important about craft. They're also entertaining, beautiful and compelling.

Stories: The Three Hermits, Leo Tolstoy. A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor. In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried, Amy Hempel. The Most Girl Part of You, Amy Hempel. Work, Denis Johnson. Beverly Home, Denis Johnson. The Leopard, Wells Tower. The Tonto Woman, Elmore Leonard. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, Joyce Carol Oates. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien. Cathedral, Raymond Carver.

How to Jail Kickstarter Campaign is Live!

2011-06-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

The last big push is underway. Paul von Stoetzel is raising $3000 to shoot his short adaptation of my story "How to Jail." If you've never considered donating before, drop over to the Kickstarter site and take a look at the cool stuff you can walk way with, including free books, dvds, producer credit on the finished film and a special piece of short fiction developed just for the campaign and available to no one except folks who kick in money to help the production.

Also at the Kickstarter site, you can see the latest version of the trailer featuring Peter Christian Hansen as Henry, in a monologue about prison and family. We're under a strict deadline, so you have to get over and donate before June 30th!

It's a tough thing to raise money for a short film, but it will be a cool way to help showcase the talent of a group of professionals who are doing cool and innovative work in film and theater. Paul, his producer Chris Bueckers, Peter and the rest of the cast and crew are an impressive, accomplished bunch who will create something special if we can give them the resources.

The clock is ticking - please give what you can.

A trip to the movies

2011-05-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

Last week Robin Schorr's RCR Pictures bought the film rights to Wolves of Fairmount Park. My amazing manager, Brooke Ehrlich of BEAM Management handled the deal and it's pretty exciting. Horror film fans will recognize the photo from Frailty, a great, demented movie directed by and starring Bill Paxton that Robin worked on as an executive. She also produced The Prince and Me, Peaceful Warrior and Food, Inc.

I wanted to find a still of the awesome angel with the flaming sword that appears to Bill Paxton in the movie, but it doesn't seem to be out there on the web. It's my favorite moment of the film.

Next weekend, I'll be at the Philadelphia Writers Conference, teaching a three-part seminar on Short Story. If you haven't been, the conference should be an excellent chance to spend time with some great writers like Solomon Jones, Kelly Simmons, Greg Frost, Nelson Johnson, author of Boardwalk Empire, YA author Marie Lamba, and many more.

Blogging at Janice Gable Bashman's Blog

2011-04-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

I have a guest post about research over at Janice Gable Bashman's excellent writing blog. Janice is the new Managing Editor of The Big Thrill at ITW's site and is co-author with Jonathan Maberry of WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE (Citadel Press 2010), nominated for a 2010 Bram Stoker Award. Her short fiction has been published in various anthologies, including the upcoming BIGFOOT AMONG US (Coscom Entertainment 2011) and RHONNY REAPERS ROADKILL CAFE (Knightwatch Press 2011). She has written for leading publications, including NOVEL & SHORT STORY WRITER’S MARKET, THE WRITER, and WILD RIVER REVIEW.

Ever Wanted To Produce A Film?

2011-04-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a teaser trailer for Paul von Stoetzel's film adapted from my Spinetingler-nominated short story, How To Jail.

The teaser features Peter Christian Hansen, who plays Henry in the film, and some of the dialogue from his opening monologue. I think we'll see more of the monologue in the full trailer, which should be out soon.

Ever wanted to be a film producer? Now's your chance. For a surprisingly small contribution, you could see your name listed under 'Produced By' on the film's credits.

Filming for HTJ has been pushed back a few months, which gives us more time to raise money. We'll be posting details here and on the Brute Force and Killing Joke Films websites. We'll hopefully have some pretty cool stuff to offer as we collect more money, including acknowledgement in the film credits, books, T-shirts and more...

Guest Blogging Today!

2011-02-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

Gripping Strangers,

Jump over to The Abbot Gran Medicine Show, where I'm guesting today. The blog is the work of two amazing writers, Sara Gran and Megan Abbott, and it's jammed with cool stuff - Bob Hope controlling minds, Rip Torn attacking Norman Mailer with a hammer, witches, Weegee, the odd lure of playing cards, Winnie Ruth Judd and Doris Day and the always-great writing of Sara and Megan.

My post is called Satan's Day Care, and it's about the Ritual Abuse Panic of the 80's. I've been fascinated for years by this odd episode in American history, in which dozens of daycare workers, teachers and parents were falsely accused of repeatedly abusing and abducting preschool children in testimony that was the blatant result of coercion, threats and bribes.

Come on over and join the fun!

Press Release for the "How to Jail" Fundraiser

2011-01-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Paul von Stoetzel (killingjoke13@gmail.com)

Valentine’s Day Massacre Fundraiser event for the film “How to Jail” written by novelist Dennis Tafoya.

Killing Joke Films presents The Valentine’s Day Massacre Fundraiser for the short film “How to Jail,” which is scheduled to begin production on April 1st in the Twin Cities. This event will include a raffle involving signed books and memorabilia from both author Dennis Tafoya the production of “How to Jail”. The event will also include a book signing with the author and a staged reading of “How to Jail.”

The short film “How to Jail” will feature Twin Cities actors Peter Christian Hansen and Ryan Parker Knox and will be directed by Paul von Stoetzel. The film will be produced by Killing Joke Films in conjuncture with Chris Buekers, and will be filmed by the Academy Award winning cinematographer Geoff George.

The adapted short story “How to Jail” by Dennis Tafoya was originally published in Crime Factory Magazine in March 2010. Tafoya has published two novels with St. Martin’s Minotaur. After a strong debut with Dope Thief in 2009, Tafoya followed up with Wolves of Fairmount Park, which has garnered critical acclaim. Tom Nolan of Wall Street Journal calls Tafoya’s sophomore effort “(A) mesmerizing and most impressive book… Tafoya is finding his own original voice, one that will make readers sit up and listen.” Tafoya is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and the Liars Club, a Philadelphia-area writers group.

When: February 18th at 7:00 PM

Where? The Black Forest Inn Banquet Room
1 East 26th Street, Minneapolis MN 55404

Tickets: Sliding scale $15-$25, tickets will be sold at the door.

The Horse Latitudes

2011-01-23T07:22:00.000-08:00

According to Wikipedia, who seems to know everything, the Horse Latitudes are an area in the subtropical oceans where the winds are fickle and sailing ships would occasionally get stranded for days or weeks waiting for the winds to fill their sails (though Noir fans will know The Horse Latitudes as a classic 1990 crime novel by Robert Ferrigno, in which a former drug dealer stuck in his own doldrums finds himself accused of murder).

Having finished the publicity for both Wolves of Fairmount Park and Philadelphia Noir, I'm coming out of a little lull of my own, making some headway on my third novel, working on ideas for TV pilots and movies and (of course) keeping up with the demands of the day job.

2010 was a gratifying year, with 'Wolves' garnering nothing but good reviews (including the Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Oline Cogdill's beautiful review for the Associated Press) and making a couple of 'best crime novels of the year' lists, in January Magazine and Spinetingler, and good news for friends - including fellow Philly crime guy Duane Swierczynski's Edgar nomination for the inspired, excellent Expiration Date. Philadelphia Noir also got some really nice reviews, including an especially kind and thoughtful one from Philly's own literary scholar Ed Pettit.

My friend, director Paul von Stoetzel of Killing Joke Films is making great progress on the short film of my story, How to Jail, which ran in last Spring's CrimeFactory, including getting my script storyboarded and putting together a great cast. I'll be out in Minneapolis with Paul on February 18th for a fundraiser, so unlimber the dog sled and come on by.

In the coming year I'll be leading workshops at the Backspace Writers Conference in New York, May 26th to the 28th, and the Philadelphia Writers Conference, June 3rd to the 5th, and in April IDW will be releasing GI Joe: Tales From the Cobra Wars, edited by Max Brooks and including my story, "The Gun Show."

How was your 2010, and what's on deck for you in 2011? Post your good news, reviews, rants, threats and empty promises in the comments section.

Noircon 2010 Starts Today

2010-11-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

Scott Phillips, Megan Abbott, Duane Swierczynski, Reed Farrell Coleman, Christa Faust, George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, Vicki Hendricks, Robert Polito, Sarah Weinman, Thomas Kaufman, SJ Rozan, Anthony Neil Smith....

I missed the last one and had to endlessly hear about what a great time it was. Noircon 2010 begins today in Philadelphia, and will host some of the best crime writers around. Starting officially tonight with a showing of "David Goodis...To a Pulp," from local filmmaker Larry Withers, the conference will be held at the DoubleTree in Philly with many of the events at the Society Hill Playhouse on 8th Street. Here's a schedule, though a lot of the fun will be hanging out with everyone after the events.

The conference is run by Philly's own Lou Boxer, a lover of great writing and tireless supporter of the local Philly writing scene, and was originally called GoodisCon, for Lou's favorite pulp writer, the homegrown genius David Goodis. NoirCon 2010 runs through Sunday and ends with an event at the Moonstone Arts Center, the official launch of Philadelphia Noir from Akashic Books, a collection of hardboiled stories edited by Carlin Romano that includes work from Duane Swierczynski, Solomon Jones, Jim Zervanos and a bunch of other great local writers.

The Brute Force Film Project

2010-10-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

This is the site for the Brute Force Film project. The purpose of the project is the production of innovative, affecting and well-crafted crime movies. The project is the creation of Paul von Stoetzel of Killing Joke Films and crime writer Dennis Tafoya. We’re looking for collaborators, partners and investors. We want to make small films on reasonable budgets and help other filmmakers and writers do the same.

Our first project is a short film, “How to Jail,” based on my short story of the same name, which appeared in CrimeFactory, the online crime magazine published by Keith Rawson, Cam Ashley and Liam Jose.

The film is being shot in Minnesota by Paul and his producer Chris Bueckers. We’re trying to raise about six thousand bucks to shoot the film. We hope you’ll use the paypal link to give us a couple of bucks, and encourage your friends to do the same. We’re not going to make any money on a short film, but we are creating what we hope will be a real community of filmmakers, writers and artists that will go on to keep creating interesting, exciting content.

Watch this space for news, links and pics from the short film, and let us know about projects you're working on or trying to get off the ground.

Join us, subscribe to our feed, spread the word

Going West

2010-10-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Bindle-stiffs and Hop-heads,

This is a cool time for a lot of my friends, who have books either just released or just about to be released.

Rot and Ruin, a YA zombie novel by powerhouse bestseller Jonathan Maberry, hit the stands last week and it's already getting a lot of well-earned praise.

The Damage Done, a powerful debut by ferocious writer and secret Canadian Hilary Davidson is out now - so cool to see Hilary on her way.

Solomon Jones, who writes searing crime novels as well as an award-winning column for the Philadelphia Daily News will see his latest, The Last Confession, out in bookstores in November.

My buddy Scott Phillips, one of America's best writers and a hysterically funny storyteller, has a new book, Rut, which sounds like a Panic-in-the-Year-Zero-style blast in the same vein as a standout favorite of mine, Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse, by Victor Gischler.

This week I'll be out to Roswell, New Mexico for Roswell Reads on October 7th and 8th. I'll be hosting some workshops and joining some discussions of writing and the Dashiell Hammett classic, The Maltese Falcon. I'll be staying at the New Mexico Military Institute. I'm hoping they'll let me write some new cadences.

On Sunday, October 10th, I'll be putting on my world-famous Crime Fiction Workshop at the Poisoned Pen bookshop in Scottsdale, AZ at 2:00pm.

And don't forget, Level 26 Dark Prophecy is out now from CSI creator Anthony Zuiker and my friend Duane Swierczynski, author of this year's standout thriller Expiration Date.

Interview with Anthony E. Zuiker, Creator of CSI

2010-09-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

Anthony E. Zuiker is known to millions of fans as the creator of the CSI franchise. His show and its wildly successful spin-offs, CSI Miami and CSI New York, have won six Emmys and a host of other national and international awards and have a worldwide audience estimated at more than 75 million viewers. The show has spawned a generation of imitators, revived and recast the police procedural and become a brand recognized around the world.

Anthony Zuiker recently took time to tell me about his latest endeavor, a series of thrillers he’s developed with the help of veteran crime writer Duane Swierczynski, author of the hit novels The Blonde, Severance Package, and this year’s standout, Expiration Date.

The books are a new form Anthony calls digi-novels, which read like traditional novels but offer readers enhanced content such as online communities, IPhone apps and codes that can be entered online to reveal harrowing filmed episodes. The first, Level 26: Dark Origins, was an international bestseller, and in two weeks, the follow up, Level 26: Dark Prophecy is out October 14th from Dutton.

With the success of CSI you can work in any media you choose. Why did you decide to create a new media form?

I've always been drawn to novels, starting with children's books when I was young, as well as fascinated by new technologies. The Level 26 novels allow readers to experience the books in a completely traditional way, but if they want to have a fuller experience, they can go online, be part of the community and use codes provided at the end of each chapter to reveal a cyber-bridge episode with filmed content. It lets the reader engage in different ways, use the power of their own imaginations and get the experience of the book, films and a social community at one price point. I decided to work with Duane Swierczynski because I wanted a writer who understood both the power of the technologies we were using as well as the demands of the thriller, and he does both brilliantly.

Tell us about the Level 26 series.

The books are about the most dangerous killers at large, and the term refers to the fact that law enforcement ascribes twenty-five classifications of murderer, each increasing in aggression and sophistication. Level 26 Dark Origin centered on the arch-villain Sqweegel, an elusive killer who evaded detection with a full latex body suit and who took as his mission the idea that if you have sinned, he would execute justice upon you. He was pursued in the first novel by a single-minded CSI expert named Steve Dark, who had personal reasons for his quest to find the killer.

It was the first digi-novel, but we wanted to make sure that reader understood that reading the novel was a complete, satisfying experience and that using the digital content just made the experience richer and more fun and offered them the option to join an online community around the book.

What’s the premise of the latest Level 26 entry, Dark Prophecy?

In our follow up it's five years later and Steve Dark is on the trail of another level 26 murderer, the Tarot Card Killer. This time he's not working with law enforcement, but instead is financed by a mysterious benefactor with her own agenda. We also enhanced the online segments, which actually tell a complete hour-long story instead of functioning only as bridges in the story line. It's fascinating to see the changes that just a year have brought to the technologies. Iphone and Itouch were new tools when we began the process, but the IPad really allows for the reader to move seamlessly back and forth between reading and experiencing the online content or running apps. It's hard to believe that just a year ago there was no way to make that transition without using different platforms.

The book is out October 14th, and I understand you’ve got a special event to mark the debut.

I always do things a little differently, and this is the first literary/broadcast crossover in history. We're using the 'Black Sqweegel' mythology and history from Dark Origins, on a new episode of CSI guest-starring Ann-Margret. I'm really excited about it. It’ll be a really fun way to mark the release of the novel and will also feature Daniel Browning Smith, the actor who played Sqweegel in the original Dark Origins online feature.

How are the Level 26 books different from your work with CSI?

I was very conscious that I wanted a different kind of experience for fans of the show, and the first book was villain-centric, focusing on Sqweegel and his crimes rather than the law enforcement angle of the show. Dark Prophecy continues in that character-driven vein, with a brooding protagonist, not somebody who was an Inspector Gadget-type, but more of a damaged anti-hero taking on the most evil criminals.

Will there be another Level 26 novel?

Yes, absolutely. Duane and I are putting together the third book now, which we’re calling Dark Enigma. The first book was an international bestseller, we've pulled in an online community a hundred thousand strong, and Dutton seems very pleased with the book's performance. I've learned a lot about what worked and what didn’t with the first book. Online communities can be very volatile and passionate, and working with them has been a real education. I'm also working on other ideas for digi-novels, one centered around miracles. The technologies from Apple just get more interesting, and I'm still fascinated by merging old and new ways of storytelling.

Where do you think committed serial killers like Sqweegel come from?

I'm not an expert, and there so many factors that might weigh in. Are people born bad? Are there wires crossed at birth? Do factors like being socially inept or having a failed upbringing play a part? But it's clear there are people who will bring conviction and determination to serial killing, and who calibrate their signatures. It's very complex and interesting.

Do you still get time to read for fun?

It's tough, but yes. I'm reading Free, by Chris Anderson, about using free products as a strategy to win business, and I have The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo waiting on my nightstand at home. A lot of my time is spent working and being a father, but my wife says I’m hardwired for business.

David Thompson

2010-09-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

David Thompson died this week at 38. There are too many reasons why that's terrible news. He was a good and generous man who read and recommended and published a lot of writers who aren't household names but should be, who was loved by everybody who knew him, and who was newly married and finding success at a business he loved. My visit to Murder by the Book was a highlight of the year for me, and the few times I got to shake his hand will stand out in my mind always.

Read Duane Swierczynski's remembrance of David at his blog. When his family lets us know what we can do in his memory, I'll post information here.

The Upcoming

2010-08-24T19:06:00.000-07:00

Atlantis Interceptors,

Lots of stuff on the calendar in the coming month:

Friday, August 27th, I'll be with Jonathan Maberry at the Grey Lodge Pub on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly. The Grey Lodge is a great place to hang out, and it should be a lot of fun.

Saturday, the 28th, I'll be at Moonstone Mystery Bookstore in Flemington with fellow Minotaur author Wallace Stroby. Wallace is the author of the acclaimed crime novels, The Barbed Wire Kiss, The Heartbreak Lounge, and the new Gone 'Til November, which Publishers Weekly called "A powerful thriller ... with devastatingly real characters" in a starred review. The event starts at 2:00pm.

September 15th, Duane Swierczynski and I will be presenting a conversation at Robin's Bookstore/Moonstone Arts Center about crime, writing, and if I had to guess, the relative merits of German beer and Irish Whiskey. We'll be kicking it off at 7:00pm.

The next night, Thursday, September 16th, I'll be with Jonathan Maberry again at Chester County Books in West Chester, PA. We'll be joined by local author Chandra Hoffman for a panel discussion of our work and the craft of mystery writing.

On Tuesday evening, September 21st, I'll be at the Noir Bar event at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA)Fall Conference. There'll be a great lineup of authors, including William Peter Blatty, author of the horror classic, The Exorcist, talking about his new book, Crazy. The Noir Bar runs from 9:00 to 10:30pm.

Writing, writing, writing

2010-08-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

Denizens,
I've been mostly off the interweb recently, busy with life, the day job, events to promote Wolves and trying to write, write, write. I'm currently trying to get the third novel off the ground, and I've also been working on short stories for various anthology projects as well as refining the script for a really cool project: a short film based on my short story, "How To Jail" which appeared in CrimeFactory and which will be shot by director Paul Von Stoetzel of Killing Joke Films. Paul's already cast most of the leads and lined up a talented bunch of production people.

This Wednesday, the 11th, I'll be presenting my Crime Fiction Workshop at Clinton Bookshop in Clinton NJ. I hope everybody who enjoys writing as well as crime and mystery fans will stop by to a great bookstore and join us at 7:00pm. I've run the workshop a dozen times now, and it's always a lot of fun to see what writers produce. I've seen really interesting and provocative work in every workshop I've conducted, which makes me really optimistic about the next generation of writers, not to mention way more nice to people I don't know, because it turns out a fair number of them spend their time plotting murder.

Thursday, the 12th, I'll be downtown in Philly for my first Barnes and Noble event, at the Rittenhouse Square store at 6:00pm. For those who don't know the layout at the store, the readings/signings are usually up on the third floor, so climb on up and join us. I really want to get the troops out for this one, so I'll be providing a little bonus material for those who make the trek: I'll read a new (very) short story, and I'll give away a signed copy of my first novel, Dope Thief or to one lucky attendee.

Also got more good news this week: A great review by Justin Bauer at Philadelphia CityPaper, and I found out that Wolves is now available at Barnes and Noble stores across the country.

Upcoming events

2010-07-15T05:08:00.000-07:00

July 21st I'll be putting on my Crime Fiction Workshop at a new venue for me, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on East 3rd in Manhattan. This time I'll be joined by writer, teacher and multiple fiction prize-winner August Tarrier. August and I have been developing a curriculum for fiction workshops and we thought this would be a great way to begin, hosting a workshop in New York at the NPC.

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe has been one of the most interesting and innovative arts forums in the country since its founding in the early seventies by poet Miguel Algarin as a get-together in his living room. The forum has grown into a vibrant and dynamic arts organization, hosting a full calendar of poetry, theater, music and literary events. And what better place to put on a crime fiction workshop than the regular haunt of poet, author and judge Edwin Torres, author of the crime classic Carlito's Way?

Please note that I've also rescheduled my sidewalk signing at Farley's Bookshop in New Hope, and will now be there signing on the afternoon of Saturday July 24th. Farley's is one of my favorite bookstores in the world, and I've been hanging out and buying books there since I was about 13. Please come on by!

"Wolves" Goes National

2010-07-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Some great stuff has happened this week, thanks to some really kind and generous reviews and the hard work of Hector Dejean, my publicist at Minotaur.

This morning brought a really nice review of Wolves of Fairmount Park by Tom Nolan in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, David Hiltbrand reviewed Wolves for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a review which has been picked up by a number of local papers, and on July 2nd, Oline Cogdill wrote a beautiful review for the Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale that was picked up by the AP and ran in dozens of papers around the country and websites worldwide.

Thanks to Hector and everybody at Minotaur! Now I'm off to the Chestnut Hill Book Festival for my sessions at four and seven with the Liars Club.

Tuesday night I'll be in New York, at the amazing Mysterious Bookshop in New York for an event with my pal, international bestselling author Jonathan Maberry. Jonathan will probably be talking about his latest excellent Joe Ledger offering, the tech-noir thriller Dragon Factory and the upcoming cool new Zombie YA, Rot and Ruin.

Back From The Territories.

2010-07-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

Got back from my homemade book tour on Wednesday, after hitting North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississipi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The total was 3914 miles. Missed my kids, but I met a lot of great people along the way and enjoyed the hell out of New Orleans, Austin, Houston and St. Louis, where I met up with these degenerates:

That's me, badass Matt McBride, Scott Phillips, Jed Ayres, Derek Nikitas and a nice young lady who was the object of a fundraising auction at the bar and who I believe was named Heidi. The auction was emceed by silver-tongued Scott Phillips, and the money raised was either intended to send the nice young lady back to the convent she had wandered away from, or to defend her against charges of stealing a police car and burning down an orphanage.

I had a great time, but will have to insist for future events of this kind that the bill only include writers who aren't way better than me. Phillips took the hint and just ran the auction, but McBride, Ayres and Nikitas all insisted on wowing the audience with woozily funny and harrowing stories of mayhem. After the event, their tires may or may not have been slashed for what one crazed author present charged was 'obvious showboating.'

Got one ticket (thanks, Missouri!) but other than that the trip went off smoothly, and I even scored tons of great books, some given to me by the awesome Scott Montgomery of BookPeople, who is himself a walking encyclopedia of excellent genre fiction. One surprising note: the economy of America west of the Ohio is apparently dominated by fireworks and porn, as every highway exit west of Mobile and north of Houston features a fireworks outlet and an adult superstore, most with interestingly biblical names. Who says Americans can't handle ambiguity?

Back at home, I was joined by dozens of friends at the official launch of Wolves of Fairmount Park, at the Doylestown Bookshop. It was an excellent time and I saw a bunch of old friends. The great cake drew in scores of innocent children, who, no doubt corrupted and despoiled by proximity to crime fiction, may go the wrong road in future and end up penning pot-boilers and penny-dreadfuls of their own.

At right, a traveling huckster cons an unsuspecting farmer out of his wages with what seems to be a book about local fauna. When the poor local man realizes his error, the grifter will have made his way to the next town, leaving the unlucky sharecropper to grapple with the after-effects of exposure to unwholesome reading material.

Day Seven, 2000 Miles

2010-06-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

Got to Austin, Texas yesterday and put on my Crime Fiction Workshop at BookPeople with Scott Montgomery today. Scott's been a great friend to me and my books and is an experienced writer himself. Last night he bought me a drink at the beautiful Driskill Hotel bar and told me stories of the screenwriting trade in Hollywood, which always sounds like a heartbreaking way to try to make a living. The workshop was great, with a nice turnout of aspiring writers who (as usual) produced some really interesting fiction.

I spent about 36 hours in New Orleans, a town I'd love to visit again. The Garden District was beautiful, and I stopped in to visit the folks at Garden District Books before walking through the Lafayette Cemetery #1. I think what I loved most was that unlike the frequently anonymous cities of the northeast and midwest, every inch of the town seems particularly and specifically New Orleans.

The French Quarter was full of cool little surprises. I took the obligatory walk down Bourbon Street, past the packed clubs and assaultive music, picked my way through the staggering drunks and overdressed college girls, and crossed Esplanade to find some really great little places on Frenchman, including DBA, a modest little place with twelve Irish Whiskeys on the menu and a mostly local crowd.

I even enjoyed the long drive from Mobile west on 10 to Texas. Yeah, there are cops every five miles, but there are also rice paddies, swamps and bayous, threadbare casino/truck stops and adult superstores with biblical names.

Tomorrow it's on to Joplin, Missouri, a stop to break up the trip to the last event, a Noir at the Bar with Scott Phillips, Jed Ayres, Derek Nikitas and Matthew McBride at the Delmar Lounge in St. Louis on Monday night, the 28th.

Wolves of Fairmount Park is Out Today

2010-06-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

Today is June 22, and Wolves of Fairmount Park is finally out. So far, it seems to be for sale in independent bookstores, all those great crime bookstores that gave Dope Thief it's start last year, and Barnes and Noble stores in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

There are also more interviews out. One that I had done with Jed Ayres for his blog, Ransom Notes, at Barnes and Noble's site, with the balance of the interview here, at Jed's site, Hardboiled Wonderland. (Jed's site always has some excellent art on the home page - see if you crime movie buffs can figure out the source of the one displayed there now).

The other was done by Kieran Shea for Spinetingler Magazine. Both of these interviews were done the old fashioned way, with the interviewers feeding me one question at a time and then following up. I think it makes for much livelier, more interesting Q&A.

Spinetingler also gave the book a really nice review, too, as did Tim Davis at Mystery Scene Magazine.

It's day two (well, technically day three, now) of the tour, and I'm down in New Orleans. I walked around a little downtown, but I have to admit I was pretty wiped out when I got here earlier, so I'll put a lot more into tomorrow. Today's drive was an easy one, down from Atlanta to the Gulf coast, and the day flew by talking to friends about the release of the book and trying to figure out where it was actually for sale.

Today was also the day that Rebecca Cantrell's new thriller, A Night of Long Knives, is being released by Minotaur, which is excellent news. It's a follow up to her acclaimed Trace of Smoke, and I'm sure it's just as fascinating and gripping as the first one.

Thanks to all my friends for getting the word out! It's been an amazing day.

Day Three, The Thousand Mile Mark

2010-06-22T06:44:00.000-07:00

It's going by faster than I thought it would, but then what doesn't these days? I'm in Atlanta, a thousand miles south, and about 37 chapters into Moby Dick. The money's holding out okay, Ahab just nailed a Spanish gold piece to the mast, and I'm having an amazing time. The theme of the first three days was dogs. Crossing the road, in doorways and cars and in pickup trucks, where I saw three enormous animals with short gray hair that were some kind of hound and were as big as elk. They were having a fine time jostling each other while crammed into the bed of a tiny pickup truck, but I dropped way back, worried that one of them would go over the side.

Spent two great days hanging out with my pal and editor Laurie Webb. I first talked to her a few days after I finished Dope Thief when we were introduced by a mutual friend, and we've been having one long conversation ever since. We talk about how to assemble good stories, which is all Laurie's done professionally since she went to Hollywood in her teens, where she ended up working for Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella for more than ten years, and in her business now as a consulting editor. We talk about the movies and books and people we love in one endless, drifting conversation from the second we meet until I have to leave.

Laurie and my friend August Tarrier (who sometimes share clients) are two of the very few people I've met who can consult brilliantly on story, with just the right mix of good advice and sharp analysis and with such enthusiasm and positive energy their clients (like me) go back to them over and over. I've been in dozens of workshops and talked to even very gifted writers who turn out to be the last people you would want to go to with a story in progress. Not because you'd get bad advice in the particular, but because most people have no idea how to help writers move forward without losing confidence because they've made mistakes or gotten bogged down. Think about it: How many people do you know who can address the flaws and missteps in your work in such a way that all you want to do is keep working with them?

I think the secret has to do with focusing on what needs to get done, not where it's gone wrong, and in accepting the premise of the work being written. I'm trying to learn from them, but they seem to do very naturally what is a pretty complex mix of tasks, and underlying it is of course a talent that might not be transferrable and has to do with a kind of 'story sense.'

Okay, so not too much here about the drive, I'll admit, but this is the stuff I think about when I'm driving. I'm also working on a short story for a Crimefactory print anthology for my pal Keith Rawson, so even while I was standing under a giant Mexican sombrero at South of the Border I was wondering about how Philadelphia courtrooms are laid out and how a parole violation hearing works. I know, I know, but this is what fun looks like for me.

The White Whale Tour

2010-06-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

"Call me Ishmael. . .

Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

So I'm heading out. I'll be leaving on Saturday, June 19th and coming back around the 30th, heading down through Virginia and the Carolinas, Atlanta, spending a couple of days in New Orleans, then to Houston, Austin and up to St. Louis. I'll have my laptop, my Ipod and Moby Dick on 19 CDs.

I'll be seeing my editor and friend Laurie Webb in Wilmington, North Carolina, then south through Atlanta and New Orleans to visit that city for the first time. Then it's west to Houston, where I'll be doing a signing at Murder By The Book on the 24th with novelist Gary Phillips, who'll be signing copies of the crime collection Orange County Noir, which he edited for Akashic Books; Sarah Cortez, editor of Indian Country Noir; Vicky Hendricks, Florida Gothic Stories, and Jonathan Woods, author of Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem. The event is at 6:30pm.

On the 26th, I'll be putting on my Crime Fiction Workshop at Book People in Austin, Texas at 3:00pm. The workshop is always a lot of fun - I read from classic crime stories, discuss the elements of crime fiction, and lead attendees in an exercise designed to show the twisted, unhealthy impulses harbored by readers and writers of crime fiction.

I think the highlight might be the Noir at the Bar on June 28th at the Delmar Lounge in St. Louis. By that time I should be a stuttering mess from ten days on the road, but luckily I'll be helped out by some excellent company: Derek Nikitas, author of Pyres and The Long Division, both of which were wrenching, affecting and excellent novels; my friend and hero Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, Cottonwood and the forthcoming Supply Sarge; and Jed Ayres, writer, blogger, reviewer and great friend to crime writers everywhere.

It's cool that both Derek and Scott should be there, because though both of them are identified as crime writers, they easily outdistance the constraints of that category to produce deft, fearless, highly original work about people at their most desperate, unhinged moments.

Then I'll be meandering home for the official launch of Wolves of Fairmount Park on Friday evening, July 2nd at the Doylestown Bookshop, my hometown bookstore, where I hope everyone in the Philly area can join me for what I'm sure will be a great time. I'll be wearing the bleary look, the new tattoo, and the T-shirt that reads, "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee..."

New Fiction, A New Issue of Crime Factory, and Cool News

2010-06-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

Lords of Flatbush,

You can read a new short fiction piece of mine called "How to Jail," out this week in Crimefactory, the excellent new journal of short fiction, reviews and interviews put out by Keith Rawson, Cam Ashley and Liam Jose.You can read it for free as a PDF, or you can also download it to Kindle or Nook.

This month's issue features some excellent crime fiction by Jed Ayres, Greg Bardsley, Kieran Shea, Sandra Seamans and Daniel B. O'Shea, as well as Liam's excellent interview with Nash Edgerton, who directed The Square, which is one of the best crime films of recent years. The film has been in limited release, but if you love great independent film you MUST find it immediately. There are also reviews by the always-excellent Peter Dragovich (the Nerd of Noir) and Jed Ayres, as well as nonfiction from South African crime writer Roger Smith and Australian Leigh Redhead that will be of particular interest to writers and aspiring writers.

Another cool piece of news is that "How to Jail" might become a short film. The excellent Paul Von Stoetzel, who made the absolutely compelling documentary "SNUFF" is looking at trying to turn my short story into a short movie, which would be awesome. Paul and his company, Killing Joke Films, have produced a bunch of prize-winning films ranging from documentary to Lovecraftian horror.

If you haven't seen it, SNUFF is an examination of the urban legend of snuff films, movies that depict actual murder on-screen. Of course it's disturbing, but it's also fascinating, chasing the increasingly elusive truth of whether such films may have been produced. (Though, for the record, the eponymous movie called "Snuff" from the seventies is a ridiculously unconvincing, if awful and unsettling, attempt to sell a poorly-shot porn film by dressing it up as real-life horror. As my filmmaker son, Dave, pointed out: "They changed camera angles in the middle of the 'murder.')

My new novel, "Wolves of Fairmount Park," is out on June 22nd! My next post will be details on the tour...

New Interviews and Reviews

2010-06-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

Guys and Dolls,

I have some new interviews and blog entries posted that you can check out if you get a minute:

Lenny Picker interviewed me for Publishers Weekly in a piece called City of Unbrotherly Love: PW Talks With Dennis Tafoya. It was a lot of fun talking to Lenny, and the interview was picked up by a bunch of newspapers and blogs. Thanks to my publicist at St. Martin's, Hector Dejean, for setting that up!

Aaron Brown interviewed me for the June edition of International Thriller Writers newsletter, The Big Thrill. You can read it here. You can see more about Aaron and his work at his website, AaronLBrown.com.

The excellent Marshal Zeringue, who maintains a bunch of really cool websites about books and authors, asked me to talk about what I was reading, at two of his blogs, Campaign for the American Reader and Writers Read. Marshal also runs The Page 69 Test, a really fun site on which authors talk about whatever appears on page 69 of their latest books.

Wolves of Fairmount Park received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which was really nice news, and a solid recommendation from Booklist.

"Starred Review: Dennis Lehane fans will welcome Tafoya's second crime novel, which delivers on the promise of his debut, Dope Thief. A drive-by shooting in front of a Philadelphia dope house claims two victims, Michael Donovan and George Parkman Jr., and leads to an intense search for the gunman. Both fathers--Brendan Donovan, a cop whose son was wounded, and George Parkman Sr., whose son died--can't help wondering if the incident was somehow connected with Brendan's younger half-brother, Orlando, a ne'er-do-well drug addict. Tafoya skillfully shifts among the perspectives of the two grieving fathers, Orlando, and Danny Martinez, the primary investigator on the case. The bleak worldview Brendan articulates ("Nobody knew anybody. Nobody knew the first goddamn thing about their wives or their husbands or their kids or their friends") will resonate with classic noir readers, who will hope Tafoya is their guide through the mean streets for years to come." Publishers Weekly

"Two middle-class teenagers are victims of a drive-by shooting as they stand in front of a Philadelphia house where drugs are sold. One dies, the other is left in a coma. That straightforward premise compels this gritty, insightful crime novel. What were the teens doing there? Buying drugs? Who ordered the shooting? Why? What does it mean for the endlessly roiling competition among the city’s drug dealers? An unlikely handful of people want answers to those questions: a rising young detective with contacts in the drug world; the boys’ fathers, one a Philly beat cop, the other a well-to-do businessman; and one boy’s uncle, a junkie. The path to the truth is circuitous and bloody and leads all over the city. Tafoya’s characters, whether cops, killers, or victims, are multidimensional, and his portrait of the city’s drug trade is bleakly realistic. Tafoya’s Dope Thief (2009) was a fine debut. This much more ambitious follow-up cements his position as an up-and-coming hard-boiled writer." - Booklist

The Liars Club Blog

2010-05-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

Over at the Liars Club blog, we're running a series of blogs with advice for new and aspiring writers. The first series, "What You Wish You Knew Before Publishing Your First Book" is underway now, and so far, Marie Lamba, Kelly Simmons, Sara Shepard, Greg Frost, Merry Jones, Leslie Banks, Keith Strunk, Jon McGoran, Solomon Jones and Jonathan Maberry have all weighed in with some interesting and perceptive advice and counsel.

When you get a minute, drop over the Liars Club and check out the blog. In addition to regular postings from the crew about what we're up to (Jonathan just scored another three-book deal with St. Martin's, Sara, Jonathan and Solomon all have TV shows in development, and the rest of the us are working away on new projects), you can also find a schedule of our events and links to our individual sites.

We'll be continuing and expanding our posts with advice for writers, so keep dropping by.

Books That Teach - Save Me, Joe Louis

2010-04-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to put up short entries about the books that I loved and that taught me something about writing. Let me know what you think, and tell me about the books that were important to your development as a writer.

I thought I'd start with Madison Smartt Bell's quiet gem, Save Me Joe Louis. The book came out in 1994, and follows main characters Macrae and Charlie as they meet in Manhattan (cementing their new friendship within moments by combining for a strongarm robbery) and drift around New York City and then down toward Macrae's southern home, committing a string of increasingly desperate and violent robberies.

"Macrae watched the girl. Gradually her arm settled to her side from the position in the air where it had been left. Her mouth was very small and cherry red and the lips were slightly parted. She was tipped forward onto the balls of her feet, quick frozen there. You look like I feel, Macrae said to himself. Charlie was thumbing the boy's wallet open.
     "Twenty bucks?" he said. He held the wallet up by one corner, like a rotten dead thing, and a plastic cardcarrier unfolded from it and hung.
     "Keep those legs apart," Charlie said. "Put your weight on that rail, son." He twisted to turn the dangle of cards under the streetlight. "New Jersey license," he said. "Don't you bring more money when you come to Manhattan?"
     The boy didn't answer. He kept his face turned away from the light."

This sequence, from the first pages of the book and reflecting Macrae's point of view of events, tells you a lot about the novel, its characters and Bell's power as a writer. With just a few lines, he's telling who Macrae is, who Charlie is, and about the humiliation and terror of the experience both of being robbed by strangers in a Manhattan park and of becoming someone who would be caught up in perpetrating that robbery. Much of what follows in the novel is about Macrae's experience and from his point of view, as he allows himself to go along with violent, restless Charlie as the crimes escalate, until he comes to a final decision point about his fate and essential character.

In the small scene above, Bell shows Macrae's hold on his own humanity even as he participates in the humiliating ritual of stealing from the young couple. He notices the small details of their body language and empathizes with their discomfort. "You look like I feel."

The wallet becomes a "rotten dead thing" in Charlie's hands. He's enjoying the temporary control and power he holds, in mastering the situation and overpowering the couple so that the boy, emasculated, can only look away. Macrae's ambivalence and Charlie's need for control and power in this scene tell you a lot about how the rest of the novel is going to play out.

This was powerful, important stuff to me as a writer. Bell showed me a new kind of writing, in which desperate, violent but fully-realized and fully-human characters interacted in authentic ways and with the kind of stakes at risk that really matter. Not the money they would seem to be fighting over, but the subtle expressions of power, connection, love and regret that are the actual stuff of living. And all of it excecuted with such subtlety that its themes inform and deepen the action rather than distract from its power.

From the Blog, 'Prison Photography'

2010-04-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Man Who Founded the Mugshot: Happy 157th Birthday Alphonse Bertillon

Alphonse Berillon was the French criminologist who gave us the mug shot. His work in the late 19th century, documenting and cataloging the physical appearance, distinguishing marks and tattoos of criminal suspects changed police work.

The blog is Prison Photography, run by Pete Brook, an English amateur photographer living in Seattle. Pete says this about his site:

"The analysis of photography in sites of incarceration is my nerdcore niche. How the camera and its operator perform in interpreting the stories and systems seem like a good points of departure for discussion.
If a camera is within prison walls we should always be asking; How did it get there? What are/were the motives? What are the responses? I consider the photograph as social document, therefore, what social and political powers are at play in a photograph’s manufacture? And, how is knowledge, related to those powers, constructed?
Prison Photography also concerns itself with civil liberties, ethics and social justice as they relate to photography and photojournalism."

I just spent an hour checking out the site. Its images are by turns beautiful, hopeful, arresting and very disturbing. Pete does an amazing job of asking hard questions, not just about prison images but about how news photographs of crime and violence are obtained and how the circumstances under which the photos were made affect the reality they portray.

His sequence about the killing of a fifteen-year-old Haitian, Fabienne Cherisma is an exhaustive exploration of the process of capturing her image, the actions of the photographers and the police on the scene and the transformation of the image into icon. Pete seems like a very smart and empathetic man doing important and frequently overlooked work: creating context for the news images we see every day.

Philadelphia Free Library Festival

2010-04-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday, April 18th I'll be with writers Leslie Banks, Ed Pettit and Jonathan Maberry at the Philadelphia Free Library Festival, at 5:00pm, for a panel on the Liars Club. The Festival is always entertaining and informative, and Sunday features Roy Blount Jr, Sapphire (author of Push) and many other authors, musicians and artists. All events are free and open to the whole family.

Cool events coming next week

2010-04-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

Cholos y cholas,

There are some great events coming in the next week:

Sunday, April 11th, Duane Swierczynski is signing copies of his latest thriller, Expiration Date, at Port Richmond Books. The event is at 2pm, and Port Richmond is one of my favorite bookstores in the world (It even makes an appearance in Wolves of Fairmount Park). Port Richmond is run by the excellent Greg Gillespie (in the pic at right), and if we're lucky Roger Pertersen will be working that day. Roger's a graphic artist who works part time for Greg, and you can see some of his stuff at his site, Dime Store Novels, as well as on the walls and signs of restaurants and clubs in Port Richmond and Fishtown.

On Monday, the 12th, I'll be at Bucks County Community Colllege for two seminars as part of their week-long event, "Writing For Our Lives." I'm doing a panel at 11am with fiction writers Alan Hoey and Jim Freeman to talk about the writing process, and then at 1pm I'll be opposite Debra Niehoff, author of The Biology of Violence, to talk about fictional vs. actual violence, which should be really interesting. Throughout the four days of the event people will be reading from the poetry of former Bucks instructor and Poet Laureate, the late Bev Stoughton, who was an amazing writer and my creative writing teacher at Bucks.

On Tuesday, April 13th at 6:30, I'll be at the Midtown Branch of the New York Public Library for an event called Crime Scenes—From Cities to the Back of Beyond: Why & How Mystery Writers Choose Their Settings. It'll be moderated by Peggy Ehrhart and include panelists Lorenzo Carcaterra, Henry Chang, Julia Pomeroy, Laura Joh Rowland and me. I'm standing in for Wallace Stroby, author of Gone Til November, Heartbreak Lounge and other fierce, affecting mysteries from Minotaur.

Wednesday, April 14th, Duane Swiercynzki and Ed Pettit will be at the Hiway Theater in Jenkintown, showing a great blast from the criminal past, "Hickey and Boggs," a film starring Bill Cosby and the late Robert Culp in a gritty urban action film they did together a few years after their 'I Spy" franchise ended. Ed is known as the Philly Poe Guy, having appeared in local and national press many times defending Philadelphia as the city with the most compelling claim on Poe's literary legacy, but Ed is also a teacher and literary and cultural critic whose work has appeared in newspapers all over the country. This should be a great time, and knowing Ed and Duane, moviegoers will walk away with a ton of cool info about the movie, its stars and place in the cultural firmament of crime films.

Next Saturday, the 17th, the Liars Club will be appearing again at the Trappe Book Center, at 130 W. Main Street in Collegeville, PA from 1-3 p.m. This event, which is free and open to the public, features free goodies, eight authors, and chances to win prizes that include book bags and signed books. There will even be a story time for kids, featuring an original picture book manuscript read by author Keith Strunk.

Visitors to the April 17th celebration will get to play Truth or Lie games for prizes, and will enjoy hanging out with the following Liars: Stoker and Nebula nominated fantasy author Gregory Frost (titles include Shadowbridge, and Lord Tophet, Del Rey/Random House); author of dynamic forensics thrillers Jon McGoran, who writes as D.H. Dublin (titles include Freezer Burn, Berkley); women’s contemporary fiction author Kelly Simmons (Standing Still, Washington Square Press/Simon and Schuster); celebrated crime writer Dennis Tafoya (Dope Thief, St. Martin’s); social media guru and magazine feature writer Don Lafferty; popular author of young adult novels Marie Lamba (What I Meant…, Random House); best selling mystery novelist Merry Jones (titles include The Borrowed and Blue Murders, Minotaur Books); and actor, playwright and historian Keith Strunk (Prallsville Mills and Stockton, Arcadia Publishing Images of America Series).

Locally owned and operated, Trappe Book Center serves as a hub of cultural activity for the area. They offer book clubs for adults and kids, free literary events, and they often work with organizations to help them fundraise for important local causes. The store has conducted a Battle of the Books to celebrate literacy, and has run an Angel Tree over the holidays to provide books for local children in need. “We are always seeking new ways to be involved in our community,” says manager Kit Little, who points out that the store also works with over 200 local schools to help with events, fundraising and special programs. For more information, or to reserve a copy of an author’s book before the event, call the Trappe Book Center at 610-454-0640.

At the Santore Branch of the Philadelphia Library tonight

2010-04-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

The Liars Club kicks off our inaugural Spring Library Tour Wednesday April 7 with an event at the Santore Library in the South Philly. From 6 – 7:30 p.m., join authors L. A. Banks, Solomon Jones, Jonathan McGoran (a.k.a. D. H. Dublin), Kelly Simmons, Dennis Tafoya, and Merry Jones for brief readings from their recent works followed by a free wheeling discussion about writing, publishing, and the important contribution made by public libraries.

Books will be available for purchase and the authors will be available to sign. Library copies will also be on hand to be checked out. The Liars Club will donate a selection of titles to the Charles Santore library collection.

“As writers, we not only rely on libraries for our reading and entertainment needs, but for research and inspiration. We applaud the work being done by the Philadelphia city libraries, and are happy to support them with our donations,” said New York Times bestselling author L.A. Banks.

The Liars Club includes such published authors as: New York Times bestseller and Bram Stoker-winner Jonathan Maberry, (Patient Zero, The Dragon Factory, St. Martin’s; The Wolfman, Tor); New York Times bestselling author Sara Shepard (The Pretty Little Liars young adult series, Harper Teen, and The Visibles, Free Press); New York Times bestselling paranormal thriller and romance author L.A. Banks (Cursed to Death, St. Martins) fantasy author Gregory Frost (Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet duology, Del Rey/Random House); literary novelist Kelly Simmons (Standing Still, Simon & Schuster); mystery author Merry Jones (The Borrowed and Blue Murders, Minotaur Books), forensic crime novelist Jon McGoran, a.k.a. D. H. Dublin (Freezer Burn, Blood Poison, and Body Trace, Penguin), Essence best-selling author Solomon Jones (CREAM, St. Martin’s ) popular young adult author Marie Lamba (What I Meant…, Random House), acclaimed crime novelist Dennis Tafoya (Dope Thief and The Wolves of Fairmount Park, St. Martin’s); and historical author Keith Strunk (Prallsville Mills and Stockton, Arcadia Publishing Images of America Series).

The Liars Club provides talks, workshops, readings, and other events to support libraries, bookstores, and other creative venues, and work to promote literacy and reading, and the craft of writing and story-telling. “Basically, we believe in the great indoors,” quips author Dennis Tafoya.

Look for upcoming Liars Club events at libraries across the area. For more information about the Charles Santore library, visit www.freelibrary.org, and click on “Find a Location.”

Alex Trejo Photographs

2010-04-06T05:44:00.000-07:00

I was killing time in Northern Liberties and stumbled into Alex Trejo's photography gallery on Liberties Walk, just across 2nd Street from the Piazza at Schmidts. I bought one photograph, and I'll definitely be back.

This one is a view of the Smith Memorial in West Fairmount Park, the same stone arches St. Martin's used on the cover of "Wolves."

According to the web, Alex used to work for an architecture firm, which isn't surprising given his interest not just in photographing some of Philly's most interesting landmarks, but the way he plays with creating different moods with lighting, color and perspective.

The result is work that can suggest the heroic or mythic, or sort of ghostly or menacing. On his website, Alex says he's interested in story, and it's easy to see these photographs as suggesting a narrative.

Hope you'll stop by and check out Alex's gallery,
R. Alexander Trejo, Fine Art Photography,
down on Liberties Walk of Second. Visit his website here, and keep an eye out for one of his exhibitions around town.

Noir Town: A Conversation with Duane Swierczynski in Philadelphia's City Paper

2010-04-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

City Paper asked their former editor and kick-ass thriller writer Duane Swierczynski for a co-interview with another Philadelphia crime writer, and Duane (a great writer and genuinely nice guy) asked me to participate. The result, in which we ask each other about the city, our chosen genres and our books, can be seen here, a cover story that came out yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and really nice to be able to ask questions as well as answer them.

My only regret is that we couldn't develop a longer conversation, mostly because Duane and I share some obsessions, (like armed robbery) that he's written extensively about, and because Duane has collected a ton of fascinating arcana about Philly. His Secret Dead blog has tons of cool vintage photos and historical sketches of the city and its criminal, literary and cultural history.

Thanks to Duane and the Arts and Entertainment Editors at City Paper, Carolyn and Pat. And get out there and buy Duane's latest, Expiration Date, which hits stores today!

Your Chance to Vote for Dope Thief for a Spinetingler Award

2010-03-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

If you're a fan of Dope Thief, please stop by Spinetingler and vote for the book in the New Voices category. And check out the rest of the magazine, Spinetingler has great fiction, reviews and interviews. I especially love their Conversations with the Bookless series.

CrimeFactory Back WIth a New Issue

2010-03-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

Sheiks and Shebas,

CrimeFactory #2 is up and running! With fiction from Ray Banks, Dave Zeltserman, Kieran Shea, Patti Abbott, Josh Converse. Stephen D. Rogers and Gerard Brennan. Features by Jimmy Callaway, Reed Farrel Coleman, Craig McDonald, Charlie Stella, Chad Eagleton, The Nerd of Noir and including a review of Dope Thief by Joyce Juzwik.

Thanks to Keith Rawson, Cam Ashley and Liam Jose for another excellent job.

Read it online as a pdf, or download it for Kindle, Nook or Sony Reader

Harlan Coben Interview

2010-03-26T05:14:00.000-07:00

My son Dave "Scout" Tafoya, a student at Emerson College, got the chance to interview bestselling thriller writer Harlan Coben as part of his "Poorly Shot Interviews Over Coffee" series, while Harlan was in Boston promoting the release of his latest thriller.

Harlan Coben, winner of the Edgar, Shamus and Anthony Awards, talks about his latest book, Caught, how he approaches putting together a novel, and working on the movie adaptation of the award-winning Tell No One, directed in France by Guillaume Canet.

Born in Newark, Harlan's sold millions of books worldwide. His last two thrillers, LONG LOST and HOLD TIGHT both debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and lists around the world. His books are published in 40 languages and have been number one bestsellers in over a dozen countries. His books are lessons in economy, with tight, fast-moving plots and memorable, very human characters whose fates drive the action and draw in readers.

Dave blogs on music, film and pop culture for several cool sites, including Between Love and Like, Film Punk and Honors Zombie.

He's interviewed BAFTA/Oscar/DGA Nominated Director Lee Daniels, Director of Push and Monster's Ball; and the bands Cymbals Eat Guitars and Screaming Females.

Dave's not kidding about the "poorly shot" part, but part of the fun is that he critiques his own work as part of the interviews. I think he does a pretty good job for a kid with no crew and a digital camera who gets a couple of minutes to hang out and ask questions.

Thanks to Harlan for hanging out with Dave!

Breaking Bad

2010-03-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

I went up to Apple's Soho store last Friday to catch Vince Gilligan, the creator of the AMC hit Breaking Bad. It was well worth the trip. The show's two stars, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, also showed up, as did AMC president Charlie Collier (in the audience). There was a great turnout and the audience asked the questions I would have asked if I wasn't too shy in those situations.

Apple showed a great promo reel for the upcoming Season Three, and Gilligan, Cranston and Paul were fascinating. Probably the most interesting moment was when Bryan Cranston talked about the usually-tedious process of reading new scripts, and how blown away he was by Gilligan's pilot. He recited most of the first page from memory, which is a lesson in how to create something with impact that will grab your audience from the opening line. Breaking Bad tells the story of Walt White (Cranston), a high-school chemistry professor who learns that he's dying of lung cancer. With nothing to leave his family and unable even to afford treatment for his aggressive cancer, Walt turns to a former student, meth-dealing Jesse Pinkman (Paul) and convinces Jesse to let him cook a much purer meth than he can make himself.

The show grabbed me from the pilot and I haven't missed an episode. It's funny, violent, surprising and clever as hell (my favorite moment, when Walt is immortalized in a narcocorrido performed by Los Cuates de Sinaloa). It's also a fascinating meditation on loyalty, obligation and familial love.

And it's entirely character-driven, with a complexity and reality that I've never seen in a TV show. It's not just that the subject matter is disturbing and the tone gritty and real, it's that the characters actually change over time, and not just in good or predictable ways. As Walt grows in power and energy during the show, he also makes accomodations, both personal and moral, to his new status.

If you haven't seen it, rent it, watch it, and set your DVR to record it.

New Release from Duane Swierczynski

2010-03-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

Great news!

Duane Swierczynski, author of kick-ass crime novels, The Wheelman, The Blonde, Severance Package, and other great books, as well as the writer of Marvel Comics' wildly popular Cable series, has a cool-looking new release coming St. Martin's Griffin. It's called Expiration Date, and it's official release is March 30th.

Here's the setup:
Mickey Wade is a recently-unemployed journalist who lucked into a rent-free apartment—his sick grandfather’s place. The only problem: it’s in a lousy neighborhood—the one where Mickey grew up, in fact. The one he was so desperate to escape.

But now he’s back. Dead broke. And just when he thinks he’s reached rock bottom, Mickey wakes up in the past. Literally.

At first he thinks it’s a dream. All of the stores he remembered from his childhood, the cars, the rumble of the elevated train. But as he digs deeper into the past, searching for answers about the grandfather he hardly knows, Mickey meets the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the apartment below.

The kid who will grow up to someday murder Mickey’s father.

Sounds like a blast! It should be out any day everywhere, but get it at your local independent bookstore. You'll feel better about yourself.

And the winner is...

2010-03-15T18:08:00.001-07:00

Daryl Pauley of Springfield Missouri!

A signed copy of the ARC is on its way now. Thanks to the dozens of people who sent in entries for the contest, and keep looking in this space for more giveaways, contests and free fiction!

Dennis

We have a winner...

2010-03-14T16:33:00.001-07:00

...in our giveaway. I'll announce it here as soon as I hear back from the lucky reader who snagged a signed copy of the ARC for Wolves of Fairmount Park!

A Book Giveaway Contest...

2010-03-06T05:00:00.001-08:00

I just got the Advance Reader Copies for my second novel, The Wolves of Fairmount Park, and I've giving away a copy to one lucky reader.

I know, you're mystified by this show of generosity, especially since you know me to be parsimonious in the extreme. In fact, you're thinking, doesn't he still owe me ten bucks from that time he 'forgot' his wallet at Bouchercon? And aren't you pretty sure you saw me swipe the change off the bar when Phillips was buying a round? Yeah, well, no one likes a snitch. So why don't we just stop living in the past and concentrate on winning free books?

To get your own copy, send me an email by clicking on the 'EMAIL DENNIS' link (the nifty flaming heart logo) on the right and send me an email. That's it - you're in!

Of course, extra entry points will be awarded for fawning compliments and debt forgiveness. The contest will close on March 13th at Midnight, EST. Act now while supplies last!

Author Appearances in March and April 2010

2010-03-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

Kings of Infinite Space,

I'll be appearing at a bunch of local events in the next couple of months and hope you can get out to say hello.

I'll be at the Independent Author Afternoon at Princeton Free Library, Saturday, March 6th, from 12 to 4pm. There'll be readings all afternoon, and you can meet Liars Club writers Kelly Simmons and Greg Frost, as well as two dozen other great local writers.

Thursday, March 11th I'll be at the annual Author Reception at Harleysville Books in Harleysville, PA from 6 - 8pm. The event includes two dozen local writers, including Liars Club authors like New York Times bestseller Sara Shepard (The Pretty Little Liars series, HarperTeen, and The Visibles, Free Press), young adult author Marie Lamba(What I Meant…, Random House), New York Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry (Patient Zero, The Dragon Factory, St. Martin’s Griffin, and The Wolfman, Tor), best selling mystery author Merry Jones (The Borrowed and Blue Murders, Minotaur Books), lauded contemporary novelist Kelly Simmons (Standing Still, Washington Square Press), and historian, actor and storyteller Keith Strunk (Prallsville Mills and Stockton, Arcadia Publishing).

The Liars club will be kicking off its Library Tour at the Charles Santore Branch of the Philadelphia Free Library on Wednesday, April 7th at 6:00pm. Details are still being finalized, but it should be a great chance to meet a bunch of great writers and discuss the writing process.

On Monday, April 12, I'll be participating in two panel discussions at Bucks County Community College as part of the Wordsmiths series. The panels, one dealing with the craft of writing and one dealing with real vs. fictional violence, will be at 11am and 1pm, and should be a pretty interesting time.

Interview at BSC

2010-02-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

Keith Rawson, one of the twisted minds responsible for the rebirth of CrimeFactory, interviewed me for BSC when I was out in Phoenix last month.

Keith blogs at Bloody Knuckles, Calloused Fingertips and has contributed some kickass noir fiction to Plots with Guns, Pulp Pusher, CrimeWav.com, Powder Burn Flash,Twist of Noir and many other cool crime fiction sites.

Two Great Events on Friday, March 5th

2010-02-21T06:27:00.000-08:00

There are two events on the same night that I'd like to get to - I'm going to do my best to hit both:

First, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry is launching The Dragon Factory, his follow up to the kick-ass thriller, Patient Zero. The Dragon Factory brings back Joe Ledger and the whole Department of Military Sciences team as they take on a pair of evil twins who are unloosing a genetic nightmare of transgenic monsters and genetically-enhanced mercenaries.

It's a three-for-one event, too: Jonathan will also be signing two other brand-new releases, The Wolfman, his novelization of the screenplay of the new film starring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, and a cool new anthology, The New Dead, from St. Martin's, a Zombie-themed anthology that has gotten high praise from critics.

The launch is at 7:00pm at Doylestown Bookshop, 16 S Main St. Doylestown, PA (215)230 7610

For those of you who are going to be downtown in Philly this Friday, you can hit the world premiere of Larry Withers' new documentary, David Goodis...To a Pulp, his fascinating and very personal investigation into the life of Philly's most notorious writer of noir fiction. Larry has put together a compelling look at the circumstances that brought an up-and-coming screenwriter back from LA to live out his days writing dark, unforgettable stories, hanging out in dives and blurring the line between his life and his doomed and luckless characters.

David Goodis...To A Pulp, a biography of noir writer David Goodis, has its world premiere, March 5 in Philadelphia at 8:30 p.m. at the Society Hill Playhouse, 507 South 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-923-0210. $10 at the door.

Reading in Princeton

2010-02-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'll be doing a reading Wednesday night, February 17th as part of the Arts Council of Princeton’s Starry Winter Night: A Story Hour for Grownups, featuring Princeton area writers; Solley Theater, Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, 102 Witherspoon Street in Princeton, NJ.

Presents to Myself

2010-02-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Boss,

I just got a huge care package in the mail to indulge my various obsessions:

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, by David Aaronovitch, about the persistance of belief in conspiracies. "Aaronovitch argues persuasively that conspiracy theories are often a psychological defence against the indifference of others. This book will not change the theorists' views, of course, but it will be invaluable in our refuting them logically." - Andrew Roberts, in the Literary Review.

The Glister: A Novel by John Burnside, about a series of disappearances in a blighted English town. “John Burnside can make even the most mundane scene feel threatening. Oddly tender, for all the terror it evokes, his prose has a seductive depth and clarity that's impossible to resist. His novel, The Glister, is a delight–a scary, fascinating exploration of innocence and evil, and the thin margin that often separates the two.” —Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins.

Longford, directed by Tom Hooper. "In the hands of Peter Morgan (writer of The Queen and Frost/Nixon), the intertwined lives of a child murderess and an English lord become what can only be described as a moral thriller--a suspenseful story of evil and forgiveness." - Brad Fetzer.

Five Days, A BBC miniseries written by Gwyneth Hughes, in which a mother and two young children vanish in broad daylight. "Riveting because it weaves the most familiar milestones of a major homicide investigation — the news conferences, police interrogations and family meltdowns — into a less predictable and intricately layered narrative that averts clichés without diluting the suspense..." The New York Times

Also waiting for my copy of The Things That Keep Us Here, by breakout novelist Carla Buckley.

Good news

2010-02-11T04:05:00.000-08:00

Ballerinas esotica,

I was interviewed this week by the cool Italian literary site, Liberi di Scrivere, so now I feel like a man of the world.

Also, Scott Montgomery, the crime consultant at BookPeople in Austin, gave me and Dope Thief a really nice boost in in his Top Ten List for 2009.

Scott has been an amazing friend to me and Dope Thief, which is the February selection of his Hard Word Book Club, a noir-centered book group Scott runs out of BookPeople. I'll be talking live to the club on February 24th, which should be an excellent time.

The blog post is by David Thompson over at his blog for Busted Flush Press. David is the owner of Busted Flush, which publishes outstanding crime fiction, as well as the owner of Murder by the Book, one of the country's best mystery book stores. I'll be down in Houston at MBTB for their Noir Night on June 24th.

Scott Phillips Interview at Do Some Damage

2010-02-02T17:52:00.000-08:00

Head over to Do Some Damage and check out the great two-part interview with my twisted pal Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, and Cottonwood, which I just re-read and enjoyed just as much the second time.

Scott talks about his career and writing process as well as his upcoming novel "Supply Sarge" from Phoenix Books and the comic series he's been working on with the artist Roger Peterson, whose work you can check out at his website, "Dollar Store Novels."

Scott's work always deals with the hidden and strange sides of life that we all pretend we aren't constantly thinking about. He's staked out this dark and compelling territory for himself, documenting in his various books a kind of murderous underground history of a patch of the midwest, from the 1870's to the present day. He's also a ferociously funny storyteller, both in his novels and in person.

There are always pieces of grotesque reality lurking in his novels, like the "Bloody Benders," a real clan of killers who waylaid travelers in 19th century Kansas, or a bizarre sex raffle that operated in a defense plant in Wichita in the 1940s.

Scott also produced as good a piece of short fiction as I've ever read, "The Emerson, 1950" at the short-lived and much-missed "Murdaland." The good news is that you can read it online at the website.

Check him out, and buy his books. Do it now.

Writers Coffeehouse at Barnes and Noble in Willow Grove Today

2010-01-31T06:20:00.000-08:00

THE WRITERS COFFEEHOUSE

Come join us for a FREE 3-hour networking and discussion about writing and publishing at the Writers Coffeehouse!

Location: BARNES & NOBLE WILLOW GROVE, 102 Park Avenue, Willow Grove, PA 19090.

Time: Sunday, January 31, noon to 3pm

The Writers Coffeehouse is open to everyone.

It’s a bunch of writers sitting around talking about writing…with coffee. No agenda…just chat about the latest trends in the industry, about markets, about pitching and selling, about frustration, about keeping the inner fires alight, about dealing with our families, about how damn tough it is to make it as a writer at the best of times and what writers can do to stay afloat in these troubled economic waters.

No previous publishing experience necessary…the Writers Coffeehouse attracts everyone from absolute beginner to award-winners and bestsellers. We’re all writers.

So come on out and join us. This is a regular event that meets on the last Sunday of every month. The coffeehouse is usually hosted by international bestselling author Jonathan Maberry, but today I'll be hosting the event, along with writers Jon McGoran, Marie Lamba, Keith Strunk and Janice Gable Bashman.

Grab a cup of coffee and meet us in the conference area at back of the store.

CrimeFactory is up and running!

2010-01-25T16:26:00.000-08:00

People of Earth,

CrimeFactory has its first issue up. Keith Rawson and Cameron Ashley did an amazing job, and it looks great.

Issue #1 has new fiction from Ken Bruen, Frank Bill, Hilary Davidson (the Damage Done), Steve Weddle, Dave White (When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do) and features by Scott Phillips (the Ice Harvest, the Walkaway, and Cottonwood) Adrian McKinty (Fifty Grand) Gordon Harries and the Nerd of Noir.

Extra points for naming the famous mugs in the mugshots scattered throughout the site.

I'll have fiction in a coming issue, so stay tuned!

Books, Links and News

2010-01-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

Droogs,

I've been reading some great stuff I wanted to get in front of you, and I've updated and expanded my links.

On the right, you'll notice a link to Wallace Stroby's Gone 'Til November, a thriller from the great Minotaur Books author responsible for Barbwire Kiss and Heartbreak Lounge. The New York Times wrote that Wallace is "writing with such fierce originality that he rejuvenates genre conventions." Gone 'Til November is his newest, out this month, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Just got back from Phoenix, and met with the excellent Keith Rawson, whose CrimeFactory site should be up any day, and met Patrick Millikin at The Poisoned Pen, an excellent mystery/crime bookstore in Scottsdale that draws the best writers in crime for personal appearances and signings.

At Poisoned Pen I picked up a copy of the new Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick, and it's filled with the kind of solid writing always associated with the City Noir series. My favorite story so far - "It's Like a Whisper" by Megan Abbott, a fictionalized re-imagining of the death of TV actor Bob Crane. The story is beatiful, dreamlike and deeply disturbing, like all of Megan's work. If you don't know Megan's Bury Me Deep, one of the most highly-praised crime novels of the year, you have to check it out.

I'm actually in a rare lull in appearances, with nothing scheduled for the next month. I'm in the middle of writing novel number three, which I'm calling Black Horse Pike, and plotting a series of events with my Liars Club pals. We'll probably be doing some panels or readings at local libraries, and certainly welcome inquiries from interested librarians, bookstores, book clubs, etc.

Another 'Best of' List for 2009

2010-01-11T18:48:00.000-08:00

Made it into some great company again:

Flashightworthy Books list of the Best Crime Fiction of 2009.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

2009-12-31T21:54:00.000-08:00

Dope Thief appeared on some 'best of' lists for crime fiction for the year, and in some excellent company:

January Magazine's Best Crime Fiction of the Year list in a nice mention by Kevin Burton Smith.

BSC Reviews Best Mystery/Crime Fiction of the Year in the lists from Keith Rawson and Brian Lindenmuth, both of whom have been incredible in getting the word out about Dope Thief.

And it turns out Dope Thief was the best selling crime book at Farley's Bookshop in New Hope, which is a really cool thing to have happen at a store that's been so supportive.

Highlights for 2010:

I'll have a short story, "Doe Run Road" at the excellent crime website, Plots With Guns.

I'm working on a story right now for CrimeFactory. I'll let everyone know the title as soon as it's accepted. Crimefactory was a cool crime zine that's being revived by Keith Rawson and Cameron Ashley and should be back as a website in January.

In June, my second novel The Wolves of Fairmount Park, will be coming from Minotaur Books.

I'll also have a story in the upcoming Philadelphia Noir, from Askashic Books, edited by Carlin Romano. I don't have a date yet, but I'll keep everyone posted.

Hope everyone has an excellent New Year's!

December 12th Liars Club Event: Two Bookstores in One Day.

2009-12-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

On Saturday December 12th we’ll be having a very special, two-timing holiday event in New Hope, PA as we party with our old friends at Farley’s Book Shop, and new friends at Canterbury Tales around the corner in Peddler’s Village. We arrive at 11:00 am and finish up at 7:00, making this our longest party yet.

Liars LA Banks, Marie Lamba, Jonathan Maberry, Gregory Frost, Merry Jones, Dennis Tafoya, Keith Strunk, and Don Lafferty will spend the day bouncing back and forth, between these two indies. I gotta believe spiked holiday beverages will have to be part of this gig.

Here’s the rotation, but we expect the area to be packed with holiday shoppers and revelers, so the times on this schedule may fall to pieces depending on the way the day plays out.

Kelly and Greg
11 am-1 pm.: Farley’s Bookshop, 44 S. Main St., New Hope, PA
3-5 pm: Canterbury Tales, Rt 263 and Street Rd., Lahaska, PA at Peddlers Village

Merry and Maberry
1-3 pm: Farley’s
5-7 pm: Canterbury Tales

Marie and Keith
11 am-1 p.m.: Canterbury Tales
3-5 pm.: Farley’s

LA Banks, Don and Dennis
1-3 pm: Canterbury Tales
5-7 pm: Farley’s

Here’s a map showing the locations of both book shops. They’re less than 5 miles apart; about a 10 minute drive without traffic.

View Larger Map

The Minotaur Spring Catalog

2009-12-03T04:23:00.000-08:00

Huddled Masses,

The new Spring catalog is out from my publisher, Minotaur Books , and you can see The Wolves of Fairmount Park under 'July.'

You can also see what the jacket art is most likely going to look like, though it might be tweaked slightly, according to my editor. It has a nicely dark, gothic feel, doesn't it? Let me know what you think.

The book centers on the shooting of two boys in front of a dope house in Philadelphia, and it follows a young detective and the addict uncle of one of the boys as they each try to uncover what actually led to the shooting.

I hope it will appeal to everyone who enjoyed Dope Thief. Wolves is a more complex story, told from multiple viewpoints, including family members, cops and criminals, but it's still in the same dark thematic territory of violent crime, broken families, corruption and the desperate wishes of deeply flawed people that they can finally do the right thing.

I think bound manuscripts should be available soon, and I hope to be able to get out to even more bookstores, libraries, conferences and workshops next year than I did this year in support of Dope Thief.

Interview with Agent Alex Glass

2009-11-27T05:05:00.000-08:00

Here's a great, thoughtful interview with my agent, Alex Glass of Trident Media, for Rich Sambuchino's site, Guide to Literary Agents. The interview is by Ricki Schultz.

Agent Advice: Alex Glass of Trident Media Group (Part I)
Posted by Chuck
Agent Interview by contributor Ricki Schultz.
This is Part I of II.

"Agent Advice" is a series of quick interviews with literary and script agents who talk with Guide to Literary Agents about their thoughts on writing, publishing, and just about anything else...

READ THE INTERVIEW at GUIDETOLITERARYAGENTS.COM

Wellington Books Liars Club Event

2009-11-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

Keystoners,

December 5th, I'll be with the Liars Club at Wellington Square Bookshop in Exton, PA.

Join us from noon till 2:00 pm as we celebrate the Delaware Valley’s newest independent bookstore.

A local player in the used, collectible and rare book markets, Wellington Square Bookshop has undergone a recent expansion to include new titles.

Come check out this luxurious literary hideaway with Philly Liars Marie Lamba, Jonathan Maberry, Gregory Frost, Merry Jones, Dennis Tafoya, Keith Strunk, Jon McGoran, and Don Lafferty.

Wellington Square Bookshop

549 Wellington Square
Eagleview Town Centre
Exton, PA, 19341

Events next Saturday.

2009-11-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Lumpen,

On Saturday the 21st of November I'll be at Farley's Bookshop in New Hope, PA. I'll be signing books and haranguing passersby from 1:00 to 4:00pm.

Farley's is a great place, crammed to the rafters with books. It's exactly the kind of store that shows off why independent bookstores are so important and such a great antidote to the chains. They're great supporters of local writers, and the people are there because they genuinely love books. I never walk out of the place without a new book.

Date: Saturday, November 21, 2009
Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: Farley's Bookshop
Street: 44 S. Main Street
City/Town: New Hope, PA

Come on down!

Free Kids Workshop at Moonstone Arts Center

2009-11-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

I'll be teaching a free workshop for the Spells Writing Center in Philadelphia on Saturday:

Mysteries Revealed!
Sat, November 14, 2009
2:00–3:30 p.m.
Moonstone Arts Center (formerly Robin’s Bookstore)
110A S. 13th Street, Philadelphia
Taught by Dennis Tafoya
Ages 8+

Taking inspiration from the award-winning children’s book Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg, we’ll write our own strange and funny story books. Van Allsburg couples illustrations with a single caption, leaving the reader to ponder the rest of the story behind the picture. Whether you’re inspired by one of Van Allsburg’s pictures and want to expand on it, or you prefer to create a mysterious set of your own pictures and captions, come prepared to think, laugh, and write, write, write!

*Space is limited! Call 267-670-0869 or email write@phillyspells.org to reserve your spot now.*

Liars Club at Womrath Books in Tenafly

2009-11-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

Good rats,

(I had to drop out of this event today because of a cold, but everyone should still go and meet the other amazing writers and talents of the Liars Club)

This Saturday, November 7th, the Liars Club is hosting the 60th Anniversary Bash at Womrath's in Tenafly from noon-3 p.m.

The event is free, but a portion of the proceeds from the day's book sales will be donated to the Sergeant Harry Fund in honor of the store's founder, Sergeant Harry Kutik! So not only will you be supporting a great indie bookstore, but you'll also be helping disabled veterans achieve a better life. More info is at www.sgtharry.org.

The Liars will be bringing trivia contests, giveaways and prizes including copies of our books and cool Liars Club totebags. I'm also reliably informed that there will be cake!

Womrath's is at 12 Washington Street / Tenafly, NJ 07670 / Phone: 201-568-8857.

Halloween at Aaron's Books

2009-10-31T05:12:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween, and I'll be at Aaron's Books, in Lititz, PA, at 2:00pm to conduct another Crime Writing Workshop! These are always a lot of fun, and include readings from classic crime novels, as well as lively discussion and an exercise in writing mayhem. Readers who love crime and writers with a little darkness in their hearts are especially welcome!

See you there.

UFO tour

2009-10-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

Graboids,

I'm currently in New Mexico, where Dan Wolkow (above) from Eastern New Mexico University's Roswell campus invited me to do some workshops and talk to the students about writing. Dan did an amazing job promoting the workshop and we got a great turnout and gave away five signed copies of Dope Thief.

It's always a blast talking with aspiring writers, and the results from the writing exercise are invariably really funny and interesting. I think people love getting license to think about mayhem.

On Halloween, I'll be at Aaron's Books, in Lititz, PA, at 2:00pm to conduct another Crime Writing Workshop for aspiring writers, loyal readers, and the morbidly curious.

(Extra points for anyone who recognizes the Bill Hicks reference in the title to this post!)

Bouchercon 2009

2009-10-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

Manimals,

I'll be at Bouchercon, October 14th to the 17th, at the Hyatt Regency in Indianapolis.

It's the world mystery convention, with dozens of crime authors, including Guest of Honor Michael Connelly. There'll be tons of great panels and chances to meet and hear some of the best thriller writers working today.

Really looking forward to hanging out with all my new friends and lots of excellent writers.

The Liars Club at the Moravian Book Shop

2009-10-02T06:22:00.000-07:00

Huddled Masses,

I'll be with my Liars Club pals this Saturday, October 3rd at the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, PA, from 5 to 7pm. We'll be signing our books, giving away prizes and generally celebrating the Book Shop's contribution to the community.

The Liars Club is a group of Philly-area writers, producers and media people who get together to promote local independent bookstores and shamelessly market our own work.

This is your chance to hang out with Bram Stoker award-winner Jonathan Maberry (Patient Zero, St. Martin’s, and They Bite!, Citadel), Gregory Frost (Fitcher’s Brides, Tor Books; Shadowbridge, and Lord Tophet, Del Rey/Random House), Marie Lamba (What I Meant…, Random House), Dennis Tafoya (Dope Thief, St. Martin’s), Jon McGoran who writes as D.H. Dublin (Freezer Burn, Berkley), Keith Strunk (Prallsville Mills and Stockton, Arcadia Publishing Images of America Series), Kelly Simmons (Standing Still, Washington Square Press), Merry Jones (The Borrowed and Blue Murders, Minotaur Books), and social media marketing consultant, writer and lecturer Don Lafferty.

Come on down! These events are always a blast, and I'll bet there'll be cake!

Noir at the Bar

2009-09-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night, the 30th of September, I'll be at Pete Rozovsky's latest Noir at the Bar. Pete runs the "Detectives without Borders" website, an excellent resource on international crime fiction.

The event will be at the Pen and Pencil Club, at 1522 Latimer Street in Philadelphia. I'll be on at 6:00pm, reading from "Dope Thief" and being interviewed by critic and literary historian Ed Pettit.

After me, at 8:00pm will be Pete Dexter, reading from his latest novel, Spooner. Pete is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including "Paris Trout" and "The Paperboy."

Hope to see everyone there!

Crime Movie Night

2009-09-19T02:08:00.000-07:00

I'll be hosting a showing of two classic crime films at the County Theater in Doylestown, on Friday, September 25th. The event is sponsored by the Doylestown Bookshop, and I'll be doing a signing and reading there at 8:00pm and then crossing the street to the County Theater to introduce the movies at 9:00pm. We'll be showing Orson Welles' classic Touch of Evil, with Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, followed by the cult noir Gun Crazy, with John Dall and Peggy Cummins. It should be a blast, and one lucky attendee will win a chance to have his or her name used in an upcoming novel. The reading and signing are free, tickets for the double feature are ten dollars, or five dollars with a purchase of Dope Thief at the Bookshop. More info can be found at the Doylestown Bookshop's website.

Novel #2 is coming

2009-09-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

I turned Novel #2 in to my editor at Minotaur and now have a tentative pub date of Spring, 2010!

The book will be a mystery and is titled, "The Wolves in Fairmount Park." I hope fans of "Dope Thief" will enjoy it. It's set in Philadelphia and centers on a heroin addict trying to solve a murder.

Look for it from Minotaur Books in the spring.

New Book from Jonathan Maberry

2009-09-02T07:50:00.001-07:00

Literate Ones,

My buddy Jonathan Maberry has a new book out in the stores right now. It's called THEY BITE!: Endless Cravings of Supernatural Predatorsand it's an excellent, hugely entertaining resource on demons, werewolves, killers, beasts and imps, fictional and real, and the best part is...I'm in it! No, not as one of the monsters - as a contributor, smart ass. Jonathan gave me full rein, so I have a paragraph on my favorite movie monster, the ridiculously scary clown from Stephen King's "IT".

Hope you'll get a minute to check it out.

My Kid is Making a Movie

2009-08-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

Hipsters,

Check this out: My son Dave is making a documentary about the Canadian Alternative Music Scene. You can check it out here.

He's been interviewing members of bands like Broken Social Scene, Holy Fuck, Black Diamond Bay, Sunset Rubdown and The Sam Roberts Band. He's met some amazing musicians who have been incredibly generous with their time and he's had an excellent experience.

Dave is a third-year film student at Emerson College. He's hoping to complete editing on the movie this fall and hopes to enter it into some film festivals when the film's complete.

My Criminal Obsessions

2009-08-30T19:29:00.001-07:00

Dwellers in Darkness,

I thought I'd list some of the odd stuff I'm obsessed with and that, given the time, I'd eventually like to write about at more length.

Over the next few days or weeks, look for short pieces about the following:

The Alice Crimmins Case, which inspired Mary Higgins Clark's first novel, "Where Are the Children?"

Barbara Graham, whose life inspired the movie, "I Want to Live."

Urban Snipers Charles Whitman and his lesser-known imitator Mark James Robert Essex.

The Zoot Suit Riots, referenced in James Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia" and lampooned in Stephen Spielberg's movie, "1941."

Unsolved murders like the Zodiac, the Anthrax case of 2001, and the Black Dahlia, and why some unsolved cases stick in the public memory while others fade.

Love to hear from you about crimes, solved or unsolved that you can't stop thinking about and that you think reflect some interesting truth.

30 Minute Crime Writing Workshop

2009-08-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

Forces of Darkness,

It's time again for my free 30-Minute Crime Writing Workshop, to be held next Saturday, the 29th of August, at the Borders Express in the Montgomeryville Mall in North Wales, PA.

I'll be reading from 'Dope Thief' as well as from classic crime novels by authors like Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block and my pals Scott Phillips and Christa Faust. We'll talk about the elements of crime fiction and I'll put the attendees through a guided exercise in writing mayhem.

How can we get all this done in 30 minutes? (I'll give you a hint: The secret ingredient is lying).

I've done these workshops in locations all over the east coast and it's always been a ton of fun. Come on out and see which of your neighbors is secretly plotting a murder!

2009-08-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

A story about Dope Thief's Bucks County locations is running now at D-town Magazine, available everywhere here in Doylestown. It was a lot of fun traveling with the photographer, Martin Buday, and being interviewed by Rich Pietras, both really nice guys. You can see more of Martin's great photographs here. I'm really grateful to D-Town for the exposure, and I think it's really cool that they were willing to talk about some of the less savory aspects of life in the county. I hope everyone checks it out!

Way Out West

2009-08-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a trip to Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Palm Springs, with lots of great desert driving that always leaves me with a head full of crazy story ideas. This is Red Rock Canyon, near Vegas.

The desert along 62, east of Twenty Nine Palms.

The south rim of the Grand Canyon. There were fires all around the rim of the canyon, putting out great sheets of white smoke. It was amazing.

While I was out there, I also signed copies of Dope Thief at the Barnes and Noble on Maryland Parkway in Vegas. There are now no independent bookstores that carry new, secular books in Las Vegas.

Off to Vegas

2009-08-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Children of the Night,

I'll be heading out to the southwest tomorrow, on a trip that will include Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Palm Springs. Saturday, I'll be signing books at the Maryland Parkway Barnes and Noble in Las Vegas at about 1:00pm.

I've been getting great reaction to the Dope Thief book trailer, especially to my son Dave's excellent, moody music.

New Book Trailer

2009-08-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

I've put together a book trailer for the book. You can see it on You Tube, or right here at the blog at the bottom of the page. The amazing music is from my son, Dave, who's in Canada right now working on a documentary on the Canadian music scene. It was fun to do - hope you enjoy it.

News of the week.

2009-07-23T06:21:00.000-07:00

Minions,

I spent the day last week with Martin Buday, a photographer from D-Town Magazine. Martin took some great shots of locales from Dope Thief that will run with an interview next month. This is the Cherry Top, a custard stand in Ottsville.

Really nice review at Las Vegas Weekly by Ed Pettit. Excellent to get a real print review and this one is amazing. I may get T-shirts made up with the text of this one.

This weekend...going to be at Between Books in Claymont with the Liars Club on Saturday from 3:00pm to 5:00pm on Saturday, the 25th of July. It should be a lot of fun, with giveaways, games and lots of great authors on hand.

On hand from the Liars Club will be: Marie Lamba (WHAT I MEANT..., Random House), Jonathan Maberry (PATIENT ZERO, St. Martins), Keith Strunk (PRALLSVILLE MILLS AND STOCKTON, Arcadia Publishing), Kelly Simmons (STANDING STILL, Washington Sq. Press), Merry Jones (THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS, Minotaur), Gregory Frost (LORD TOPHET, Del Rey/Random House) and me, signing copies of DOPE THIEF.

So glad Martin got this shot of the Neshaminy, an ancient strip club in Warrington. The owner sold out and the place is going to be torn down for a bank and a restaurant. It was pretty much unnoticed by anyone except those of us who knew it from the old days, until the township tried to pass an ordinance banning signs showing nudity. At that point the owner painted the place with rainbow colors and put a wild sign out front reminding people of President Bush's drug use. It will be missed.

Rewards

2009-07-14T01:26:00.001-07:00

I had such a great week last week I wanted to stop and make sure I said thanks to everyone who helped me get the word out about Dope Thief. My friends Laurie and Whit Webb were the most gracious hosts, putting me up in a beautiful house in Wilmington, North Carolina and showing me an excellent time.

Laurie set up my Crime Workshop at Pomegranate Books AND my interview with NPR affiliate WHQR, which were both a ton of fun and went really well. This is Laurie, Whit and their little guys, Gray and Micah.

The folks at Pomegranate were also amazing, getting the word out so effectively that the Crime Fiction Workshop I did at their store was attended by more than thirty people; a great, funny and smart crowd of readers and writers.

I also wanted to thank Olivia from Ukazoo again, who also did an excellent job packing the house when I did the Crime Writing Workshop at Ukazoo Books in Towson, MD. She got the word out all over the place and event got the workshop a mention on WYPR, the local NPR affiliate.

Friday night I was at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival, a brand new event in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, and that was also a great time. I sat on a panel hosted by Ed Pettit and including Kelly Simmons and Jon McGoran, who helped organize several panels and speakers for the event. Kate O'Neill from the Chestnut Hill Business Association did an excellent job coordinating what must have been an incredibly complex event featuring dozens of panels and speakers.

Today at Tinicum Arts Festival

2009-07-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

I'll be signing copies of Dope Thief, haranguing the nice suburbanites and generally making a pest of myself at the Tinicum Arts Festival today. It's going on all weekend at 932 River Road, in Erwinna, and I'll be there today, Sunday, from noon until 2:00pm.

There'll be 250 artists and artisans, a book sale, live entertainment, childrens' activities and tons of food.

Hope you can make it!

Coming to North Carolina

2009-07-07T09:21:00.001-07:00

I'll be at Pomegranate Books on Thursday at 7:00pm to put on my Crime Writing Workshop. This should be a great trip - I'll be seeing my pal Laurie Webb, the world's best developmental editor, putting on the workshop, and getting a chance to be interviewed on Midday Cafe on WHQR, the local NPR affiliate.

Pomegranate Books is at 4418 Park Ave, Wilmington, NC. The phone number is 910-452-1107. The Crime Writing Workshop starts at 7:00. I'll be reading my own work as well as from classic crime writers, and having the attendees do a little writing themselves.

Hope to see you all there.

Last of the Independents

2009-06-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

(Parts of this post were originally posted on the St. Martin's Minotaur blog, Moments in Crime)

I recently got word that a review of Dope Thief was going to appear in the Las Vegas Weekly. Whenever I get hear about a new review, I call the local independent bookstores to see if they're carrying the book. Unfortunately, the day that I got notice that the review was going to appear, I called the last independent bookstore in Las Vegas that carries new, secular books, only to find out they had been given the word they were going to be closed by the casino that owned them within a month.

Luckily, the Barnes and Noble I reached out there was willing to put the book in stock, but it was another depressing sign about how much independents struggle now to stay afloat.

I thought I’d take a minute to render an appreciation of some of the independent bookstores that have not only hosted my events, put my books on their shelves and generally shown great support to me and other local writers, but also who have provided me with nearly all the great books that both entertained and educated me over the years. Everything I know about how to write has come from reading, and more often than not the books I’ve read have come from independent bookstores (and not just because I’m so old that I predate the chains).

Doylestown Bookshop hosted my first event, which meant a lot to me because it’s the local bookstore of the town where I’ve lived for thirty-five years. Doylestown has always had an independent bookstore, though for years it was Kenny’s News Stand, a tiny candy, lottery and magazine place that stocked very little besides mystery and romance novels, though they were happy to order anything you wanted. Doylestown Bookshop is a huge place, occupying what used to be County Linen, a fixture on South Main Street since the fifties. The bookshop is owned by Pat and Phil Gerney and managed by Shiloh Hopwood, and they do an amazing job of supporting local authors. There are events there just about every week, and more often than not there’s a local connection to the featured writers.

Doylestown was the first bookseller to host the Liars Club, a local Philly-based writers group that includes myself, Jonathan Maberry, Leslie Banks, Greg Frost, Jon McGoran, Kelly Simmons, Merry Jones, Ed Pettit and a bunch of other great Philly-based writers, producers and creative types. We decided it would be a great thing to throw a series of celebrations for local independent bookstores, and we’ll be doing events at the Clinton Bookshop in Clinton, NJ (this Saturday at 1:00pm), Aarons in Lititz, PA, Womrath’s in Tenafly, NJ, and other area bookstores as we can.

Farley’s in New Hope, owned by Jim and Nancy Farley, has been in the same location in the middle of New Hope, PA, since the 1960’s. I used to spend hours in there when I was young, getting lost in the great helter-skelter confusion of shelves and stacks, and I’m always glad when I walk in and find that the place is still jammed to the rafters with an eclectic assortment of books.
Julian and Lauren set me up at a table in front of the store one Saturday in May and I had a blast haranguing passersby and giving away Oreos and Nutter Butters, selling a few books for them and having a great time.

Chester County Books and Music is a legendary Philly-area store. It’s by far the biggest bookstore I’ve ever seen, taking up 38,000 square feet in a shopping center in West Chester, PA. I remember when it was a little store in another location out
by 202 that sold surplus textbooks, and now it's an excellent book and music company with an on-premises restaurant. Thea organized an event for the thriller-writers contingent of the Liars Club – Kelly Simmons, Jonathan Maberry and Jon McGoran, and also included Minotaur’s Keith Gilman, author of the Shamus Award-winning Father’s Day.

The Liars Club will be doing more events, and our concept for celebrations of indies has caught the interest of the ABA, NAIBA and other organizations. It’s a great way to get the word out about the importance of local booksellers to the lives of their communities, and allows us to market ourselves and our books in a way that’s a little more fun than the standard signing.

This weekend: Deadly Ink

2009-06-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

For those of you in the area, I'll be at Deadly Ink, the crime writing conference, on Saturday and Sunday, the 27th and 28th. The guest of honor is bestseller Lincoln Child, and I'll be on two panels: Writing the Bad Guys, on Saturday at 11:15am on Saturday, and Research - Doing Your Own Investigation, at 9:15am on Sunday.

It should be a great experience. Dozens of thriller and crime writers will be there, and it includes author signings, a conference murder mystery, and lots of great food. Jeff Cohen is the toastmaster for the event, and writers like Ken Isaacson, Rosemary Harris, Jane Cleland, Kate Gallison and Jeff Grabenstein will be signing books and sitting on panels.

Deadly Ink is being held at the Sheraton in Parsippany, NJ, this weekend from 8:00am to Sunday afternoon.

A Trip to the Movies

2009-06-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

(Repost from Moments in Crime, St. Martin's Minotaur)

All the crime writers I know love movies. We talk about our favorites, trade recommendations and argue nearly as fiercely and passionately as we do about books. There are as many ways to approach crime movies as there are ways to approach crime writing, and when a movie has been adapted from a book, part of the fun of watching is critiquing the thousand choices the director and actors made about interpretation.

I think nearly all of us who write crime aspire to write screenplays, and not just for the promise of better financial rewards. When we read, we “see” characters and setting and action, sometimes very vividly, and we get proprietary about how we want to see books interpreted. Movies, as much as books, shape our expectations of what crime stories should deliver, and they show us criminal behavior and the repercussions of violence with an immediacy to which fiction can only aspire. They form the cultural landscape, and they influence not just other filmmakers, but also writers, and sometimes, criminals themselves.

I thought it would be fun to put up a short list of some crime movies I love and stimulate a little discussion about the differences in the experiences of watching a crime movie and reading crime fiction. I’ve picked some more obscure films here – I figure you already know the usual suspects, like Chinatown, The Godfathers I and II, and The French Connection.

Rififi. – 1955. Jules Dassin was in France because he’d been blacklisted when he was invited to interpret Auguste le Breton’s short, vicious crime novel for the screen. He wrote the screenplay in English and had it translated into French. It’s the archetype for just about every heist film you’ve ever seen. Jean Servais plays Tony le Stéphanois, a tough-but-tender hood who is one of the classic noir anti-heroes. The centerpiece of the movie is the wordless, nearly silent, seventeen-minute burglary of a jewelry store. Amazing. Dassin himself shows up as the charming safecracker Cesare, whose indiscretions bring on the inevitable final mêlée as rival gangs scramble for the loot.

The Killing – 1956. Director Stanley Kubrick wrote the screenplay with Jim Thompson, based on the novel Clean Break, by Lionel White. It centers on the robbery of a racetrack led by Sterling Hayden, and features some of the most memorable character roles of the period, including Elisha Cook Jr. doing yeoman work as the henpecked loser chained to grasping harpy Marie Windsor, the crazily-intense Timothy Carey, and cheerful Kola Kwariani as a chess-playing strongman who rips his shirt off to get it on with the cops. Everyone in the cast seems barely in control, and the paroxysm of violence at the end seems not just earned, but inevitable.

High Sierra – 1941. Written by W.R. Burnett and John Huston, Burnett’s novel. Bogie leads a great cast on a caper that’s bound to go wrong. As Bogart’s sadder-but-not-wiser ex-con Roy Earle puts it, “Of all the 14 karat saps... starting out on a caper with a woman and a dog.” Of course, things go bad, and then worse, and Roy’s gal Marie, played with a great alternating toughness and vulnerability by Ida Lupino (who went on to become a significant director in her own right) watches from a police blockade as the cops close in on her man. “Tell me mister, what does it mean when a man crashes out?”

City of Industry – 1996. Harvey Keitel is a force of nature in this terse, muscular heist movie directed by John Irvin. When wheelman Stephen Dorff kills Keitel’s brother, the wonderfully aimless Timothy Hutton, and absconds with the loot from a Palm Springs jewelry store robbery, Keitel moves like a runaway train through the underworld of Los Angeles to get his version of justice. The then-unknown Famke Janssen, new widow of one of Hutton’s accomplices, feeds Keitel lines that he brings off with a perfect, distracted understatement. “What are you going to do when you find him?” “You already know.”

Classe Tous Risques – 1960. I’ll let this one stand in for a dozen French movies I love, directed by guys like Jean Pierre Melville and Claude Sautet, who made this gritty, tense downhill slide starring the always-excellent Lino Ventura (probably most recognizable from the classic “Army of Shadows”). Lino’s fugitive gangster Abel Davos is on the run with a death sentence hanging over his head, and like most of the great French crime films of the period, it’s really about loyalty and treachery. It’s hard not to imagine the wartime experience of occupation subtly influencing postwar directors as they depicted tough, violent fugitives dogged by suspicion and doomed by betrayal.

Liars Club Event in Clinton, NJ Tomorrow!

2009-06-19T17:46:00.001-07:00

I'm joining my friends from the Liars Club for an event, tomorrow, Saturday, June 20th at 1:00pm at the Clinton Bookshop in Clinton, NJ. We're playing games, giving away some cool prizes including signed books, and generally celebrating a great independent bookstore.

My Liars Club pals who will be there include: Bram Stoker award-winner Jonathan Maberry (Patient Zero, St. Martin’s); Young adult author Marie Lamba (What I Meant…, Random House); Mystery author Jon McGoran who writes as D.H. Dublin (Freezer Burn, Berkley); Historical author Keith Strunk (Prallsville Mills and Stockton, Arcadia Publishing Images of America Series); and Social media writer and speaker, Don Lafferty.

Hope to see you there.

Crime Writing Workshop

2009-06-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Had a blast last night at Ukazoo Books in Baltimore, putting on my 30-Minute Crime Writing Workshop. I read from Dope Thief, as well as from classic and favorite novels by Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, Raymond Chandler, George V. Higgins, Max Collins and Christa Faust. Attending writers then worked on guided exercises from different crime scenarios, and I gave away a copy of Dope Thief.

It was a lot of fun, and the group did amazing stuff with the assignments. It made me wonder how much murder folks carry around in their heads all day, just looking for an outlet.

Thanks to Olivia Tejeda and the whole gang at Ukazoo for setting up an excellent event.

Blogging this week on Moments in Crime

2009-06-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging this week on Moments in Crime at St. Martins' Minotaur. I'll be posting from June 15th to the 21st, so stop by and leave a comment or just get the word out to friends and family. I'll be talking about writing, the elements of noir fiction, music and crime movies.

Send me suggestions or comments, and feel free to weigh in by leaving a comment directly on the blog.

Hope you enjoy it!

Dennis

Crime Brunch Today

2009-06-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, kids! I'll be down at Briget Foy's at 1:00pm for a Crime Fiction Brunch, sponsored by Robin's Bookstore and Moonstone Arts Center. I'll be sharing the event with Keith Gilman, another Minotaur writer, author of the excellent Father's Day. Come on down for some great food and to talk with us about crime writing.

Hope to see you there!

http://www.philly.com/philly/calendar/47062287.html

Interview with Jonathan Maberry about his new novel, Patient Zero

2009-06-10T01:44:00.000-07:00

It doesn't surprise anyone who knows Jonathan Maberry that his new bio-terror thriller, PATIENT ZERO, has already garnered high praise from writers like Peter Straub, David Morrell and Joe R. Lansdale. Jonathan Maberry has already found success as a horror writer, winning multiple Stoker awards for both fiction and non-fiction and securing a reputation as a writer whose work Stuart Kaminsky describes as "vivid, threatening and beautiful."

In PATIENT ZERO, Maberry introduces Joe Ledger, who combines the martial skills of an action hero with the troubled past and vulnerabilities of the classic noir protagonist. Joe is a Baltimore cop recruited by a secret government agency to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a plague that can turn people into murderous zombies, a harrowing device Joseph Finder calls "Night of the Living Dead meets Michael Crichton."

Since 1979, Jonathan Maberry has written thousands of articles, seventeen nonfiction books and seven novels, as well as plays, poetry, comics and forays into new media and webcasts. He's currently writing DRAGON FACTORY, the next installment of the Joe Ledger series, and editing Thrill Ride, a serial graphic novel for ITW showcasing the work of some of the biggest names in thriller writing. He's also the only writer I know who's a member of the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame, which means he knows how to make those scenes of hand-to-hand combat harrowing and frighteningly accurate.

I caught up with Jonathan at the local Starbucks that is his writing home; so much so that he credits the place in the acknowledgements of his latest book.

PATIENT ZERO is being described as a bio-terror thriller, but it actually pays homage to a number of different genres. How do you categorize the novel?

I call PATIENT ZERO a bioterrorism thriller for convenience sake, but you're right in that it crosses a lot of genre lines. In fact, Ken Bruen labeled it a 'neo-noir thriller', the first of its kind. That's probably right on the money. The backbone of the story is the classic thriller: a race against the clock to stop bad guys from doing something really, really bad, and in this case they want to release an unstoppable pathogen. But the hero is a cop and he breaks the case down using a police procedural approach. That isn't often done in thrillers. Plus, the plague turns people into zombies, so you have a bit of the horror genre and the medical thriller genre as well.

PATIENT ZERO does have other elements in it as well. When the hero, Joe Ledger, leads Echo Team on the missions in the novel the books moves a bit into the arena of the military thriller. If PATIENT ZERO needs a simpler label, I'm going to just call it a 'thriller'. That'll do.

You're an incredibly busy writer, but you still conduct classes for new and young writers. Why is that important to you?

For a couple of reasons. First, I love teaching. I've been a teacher for my entire adult life, and I've taught a lot of different things. I teach traditional Japanese jujutsu and kenjutsu (the sword art of the Samurai), and have taught self-defense for women, children and the physically challenged for decades. I taught martial arts history at Temple University for fourteen years. But teaching writing allows me to try and influence other writers to improve their craft and sharpen their business sense.

That part -the business--is crucial, because I've seen what happens to writers who don't understand that publishing is a business. I was there once and got smashed, but I learned from it, and learned the business, and if I can keep another writer from getting smashed, then I feel like I just did something for the common good.

The other reason I love to teach is that in order to teach you have to understand the subject. To teach writing you have to deconstruct it, to peer inside to see all the cogs and pinwheels that make a story tick. I've learned as much from teaching the craft as I have from the process of writing. And that's improved my own skill set.

There's another reason, too. I get totally jazzed when one of my students makes that step and sells something. Not because I want to take credit (which is silly, 'cause I didn't write it) but because that means someone else gets to have the kind of fun I'm having. There's another kid on the playground, which means we're going to have that much more fun.

You're famous for prodigious amounts of research for both your fiction and non-fiction. What was the coolest thing you discovered in researching PATIENT ZERO?

That zombies aren't as far-fetched as we thought. That's cool, though in a very scary way. I need to backtrack a bit to the book I did before PATIENT ZERO. Last August Citadel Press released a nonfiction book called ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead in which I interviewed hundreds of experts in law enforcement, forensics, and various specialties within medicine. During that research I talked to epidemiologists, molecular biologists and other experts to find out if any of what zombies did in the movies was medically possible. Turns out each individual quality or symptom is possible. Luckily for us it's improbable for those qualities to co-exist in the human body. Improbable, but not actually impossible.

The seed for the Seif al Din pathogen in PATIENT ZERO is a prion disease. Prions are misfolded proteins that act like viruses and can be passed down through family lines even though they don't have DNA. Mad Cow is a prion disease, but the one that really scared the heck out of me is one called 'fatal familial insomnia', a disease that causes its victims to stay awake until the become completely exhausted, deranged and mindless -and then it kills them. My villains take that disease and amp it up with genetic manipulation and combine it with some aggressive parasites of the kind found in nature. Each separate component of the Seif al Din pathogen exists and is possible. I'm just happy that no one has actually done this. I hope.

Your books are both critically acclaimed and popular with readers. Which matters more to you - the regard of your peers or your fans?

No offense to my fellow authors, but I write for the readers. I want to make the books fun for them, I want to challenge them, and I want to give them the give of story they can become involved with. That's one of the reasons I love doing signings, readings and author appearances. I love talking about books with the readers. Not just my own books, but any books. I've had so many great conversations with readers about books...they're often very deeply informed and so well-read that I always get good leads for books I then go and buy.

The support from my fellow authors hits me in a different way. I'm fortunate enough now in my career to know most of the authors whose books I read. I'm one of those readers who likes to know the person behind the book -just as I like knowing the songwriter behind the song. It deepens the experience for me. Having received support for PATIENT ZERO from authors I greatly respect is greatly empowering and validating.

Your Joe Ledger books are entertaining reads, but they're also about the war on terror. Do you use the platform of the novels to weigh in on America's efforts to eradicate terrorism?

In a way. I'm an idealist and a realist at the same time. A point is made in the book that terrorism is an ideology, not a nationality. That's my personal view. I'm against terrorism, whether state sanctioned or as the practice of small groups.

However there are a lot of viewpoints presented in the book, and I don't personally share all of them. PATIENT ZERO is not a 'my country right or wrong' book. Far from it. I believe in responsibility, accountability and an adherence to human rights laws. Not all of my characters share that view.

Funny thing is, a couple of blog reviewers suggested that I was pro-right wing and even a supporter of the Bush viewpoint on the 'war on terror'. I read those reviews and wondered if they'd actually read the book. The viewpoints closest to my own belong to Joe Ledger -the protagonist--and Rudy Sanchez, his best friend (and the moral compass of the book). Other reviewers more clearly got that I was a liberal who would still pull a trigger if the moment demanded it.

I do agree with the philosophy that negotiating with terrorists is a losing proposition. At the same time I agree that the only way to defeat terrorists is to use the kind of guerilla warfare they use. Hence Joe Ledger's take-it-to-them way of doing things.

If you had to choose, would you rather your readers come away from your books wowed by your plots, or in love with your characters?

In love with the characters. Plots are nice, but if the book isn't filled with real people, then it's just bubble gum. As both reader and writer I'm drawn to the characters.

When creating the characters for PATIENT ZERO, I wanted all of them to be three-dimensional, and that includes the villains. My primary villain, Sebastian Gault, is very real to me. He has good and bad qualities; he has a past and a viewpoint that makes sense to him. The same goes with El Mujahid and Amirah -the fundamentalists who head the terror cell and Gault's science division--they aren't cookie cutter terrorists. They have complex personalities and relationships.

The people who have read the book already reached out to me about characters. People seem to care about them. I love that readers are bonding with the 'people' in my book.

How much does the realism or plausibility of your plot devices matter to you?

In this kind of story there's always a point at which the science of the plot crosses over into a bit of science fiction. As the dinosaur cloning did in JURASSIC PARK. The key is to make every other aspect of the story as realistic as possible so it's not much of a stretch for the reader to suspend their disbelief.

I also dig research. I include a lot of gizmos that seem very James Bond, but just about everything in the book is either in use by covert ops, or is in R&D at companies that provide materials for covert ops.

When it comes to the action scenes, I have a special interest in making them as real as possible. I've been a martial arts practitioner for 45 years and worked for years as a bodyguard in the entertainment industry. I've been in a lot of serious conflicts, including dealing with armed attackers and multiple attackers. I was also Chief Instructor for COP-Safe, a company that provided arrest and control workshops for law enforcement officers ranging from rookie street cops to SWAT. I don't believe in flashy fighting, and when Joe Ledger takes it to them PATIENT ZERO you can trust that everything he does is completely plausible. This is something I give talks and lectures on at writers' conferences, including last year at ThrillerFest and at BackSpace.

If the components of the book are real, then the thrills will be real, and that's what it's all about.

This interview originally appeared at The Big Thrill, the web newsletter of the International Thriller Writers.

Short Story

2009-06-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

Just finishing up a short story, a form I haven't worked in for a good long while. Now I have to figure out what to do with the story - whether to submit it to a magazine, podcast it or think of something else useful.

I've always loved short stories, which are now an endangered species, at least in print. There are probably more stories than ever out on the web (where I still have a few, cruising around cyberspace like killer asteroids), but the collected book is rarer than ever. That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, by Wells Tower. Friends of mine who specialize in short stories will typically have to get novels published first before their collections might be considered for publication.

Some of my favorite writers specialize in short stories, like Amy Hempel and Annie Proulx. Drop me a line and tell me about some of your favorite short stories.

Moments in Crime

2009-06-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

From June 15th to June 21st, I'll be guest blogger on Moments in Crime, the blog for St. Martin's Minotaur, the publisher of my novel, Dope Thief.

Send me ideas for blog topics! My first entry is going to be an appreciation of libraries and librarians, who have turned into great supporters of Dope Thief. I'll probably also do at least one on music, and another on my writing process.

All suggestions welcome.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

2009-06-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

Hey, folks!

I'm Dennis Tafoya, author of the recently-released thriller Dope Thief, from St. Martin's Minotaur.

I just put this page together to have a place you can find schedules and links to my events, appearances, reviews and interviews.

I'll also be posting occasional rants about writing, publishing, marketing and my favorite books, movies and music, and letting my friends do the same.

Hope you find it useful,

Dennis Tafoya