Only On Sunday

My friend Nic was lamenting on Backspace the other day about how none of the published writers we know there ever come to her home town for a reading. I could relate to that as no one comes to read in Albuquerque either. As I have little or no respect for publishing industry marketing folks anyway, I have to wonder if they even know that New Mexico is actually part of the United States! And there are a couple of us here in the outback that read AND buy books. Anyway, I made Nic a deal; she gets published she does a reading here, I get published I do a reading in her town.

Preditors & Editors is conducting a readers poll. Backspace is up in three categories: Writers’ Discussion Forum, Writers’ Workshop and Writers’ Resource/Information/News Source. Also, fellow Backspacer Steve Paul’s novel The Last Gunfighter is up for a vote in the Novel category. And, I just found out that a short story of mine (Quiet) is up for a vote under the Short Story category. If you have a minute, please cast a vote for me and Steve and especially for Backspace. Voting ends 01/14 so hurry.

I was chatting with A. S. King the other day. We were discussing the trials and tribulations of our various WIPs. She was looking for another word for obnoxious, one that wasn’t as derogatory as say, asshole. I mentioned the name of someone we both know and we both got a good laugh out of that. It won’t do her WIP any good to replace obnoxious with this person’s name but it did get me to thinking. I guess we’re all assholes once in awhile, but what makes someone be an asshole 90% of the time? Do they know it? Do they care? And how do they manage to fool some folks into thinking they’re not an asshole when most everyone else thinks they are? Makes for an interesting character study.

Ahhh, the power of a good query letter. And I have Backspace, and especially Karen Dionne and Jackie Kessler, to thank for it. I’ve been compiling a list of agents in preparation for jumping back on the query-go-round. There are two I’m particularly interested in. As it happens, both accept equeries so, in advance of the others, I sent both an equery on 01/02. One responded within a half hour requesting the full manuscript and the other responded shortly after with a request for sample chapters. Not bad for two queries. I know in the end the quality of the manuscript is what counts but that query letter sure opened the door in a hurry.

And speaking of Jackie Kessler, her novel Hell’s Belles was released a week back and it FINALLY arrived at my local bookstore. I can’t wait to get into it. If you haven’t checked out this book yet, oh my, you must, you must.