From the Booking Desk:
As we head into the holiday shopping season, I want to remind everyone that my first published short story appeared just last month. I have talked about it quite a bit on social media, but realized that I never sent out an official notification to my blog followers. So here we are.
My story–“Ticket to Ride”–which I wrote in collaboration with my good friend and fellow book blogger, Dru Ann Love appears in the anthology Happiness is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles.
As is necessary to promote books these days, I have been making the rounds at various online locations as well as appearing at some local signing events. You can read/hear more about our story at these archives:
Art Taylor’s The First Two Pages Blog – discussing writing decisions we made as we wrote the early pages of the story.
As Sherry Harris’ guest on The Wicked Authors Blog – discussing the many people behind the scenes that made the publication possible.
On Matty Dalrymple’s podcast/YouTube show What I Learned – where I reveal one thing I learned that might help other writers and one thing I learned that readers might find interested.
Feedback on our story has been so gratifying positive, with it even getting a highlighted mention in the review by Oline Cogdill for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. I can report that more than a few readers have expressed being moved and even left in tears by the end.
Being able to say I am a published author is definitely a bucket list item. I am so very proud and happy to share it with you. Please let us know what you think about our story and if you so wish, leave a review on one of the many online retail sites.
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE BEATLES can be ordered at Down & Out Books, online at your favorite retailers, or ordered by your local Independent Bookstore of choice.
Here is the official details about the anthology:
Happiness Is a Warm Gun is the sixth of Josh Pachter’s “inspired by” anthologies, following volumes of stories inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Buffett, Billy Joel, and Paul Simon…and by the films of the Marx Brothers.
For this collection, the lyrics of the Beatles’ inspired the contributing authors to imagine a world in which murder, kidnapping, blackmail, and theft are as common as meter maids and yellow submarines. Each story was inspired by a song from one of the Fab Four’s studio albums: seventeen albums, seventeen songs, seventeen stories—by a total of eighteen authors (since one was written collaboratively by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, two of crime fiction’s leading bloggers).
Many of the contributors, like the Beatles themselves, come from England—including award winners Martin Edwards, Paul Charles, Vaseem Khan, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, Kate Ellis, and Tom Mead—while the American authors include such popular crime writers as John Copenhaver, Michael Bracken, John M. Floyd, David Dean, Joseph S. Walker, and Robert Lopresti.
So roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour—step right this way! After all, when it comes to crime, all you need is…motive, means, and opportunity!
