ON GOOD NEWS

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
**Stephen King


It's BSP Day on Anything Can Happen Friday.
We're so delighted with all the good news you sent us! Congratulations to all from Jungle Red Writers. And keep us posted. We love to hear the latest.....

Elizabeth Zelvin's debut mystery, DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER, will hit bookstores on April 15. That's just around the corner, especially if you haven't started working on your taxes yet. The book is available for pre-order at online bookstores and some bookseller websites. And everybody in New York is invited to the launch party at Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop, says the veteran psychotherapist and addictions professional author. It's not just Liz's launch date and Income Tax Day--it's also her birthday.

http://www.elizabethzelvin.com/

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Murder On The Mind, by L.L. Bartlett
The mind is a complex entity; it can play strange tricks. Jeff Resnick's recurrent visions of a slaughtered buck take on terrible new meaning when a local banker is found in the same condition. Jeff sets out to find the killer--no matter what the personal stakes.
Dead In Red, 2nd in the series, debuts June 2008
http://tinyurl.com/3yp5xv

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Keep an eye out for the first book in Sarah Atwell's Glassblowing Mystery Series, appearing in March 2008! In Through a Glass, Deadly, glassblower Emmeline Dowell has made a home for herself among the artists of Tucson's Warehouse District. Between teaching her craft and selling her wares, Em has plenty to do–not to mention the occasional murder to put a crack in her routine. (Berkley Prime Crime, ISBN 978-0425220474)
(Sarah Atwell is the pen name of Sheila Connolly, whose Orchard Mystery series will appear in August.)

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From: Earl Merkel
My new website at Redroom.com: Where The Writers Are?? is now up and running with several audio interviews I've done for a talk-radio show I co-hosted and produced-- one of them involving Mr. Larry Block, MMA Grand Master.
On this audio segment, Lawrence Block talks about his work as a mystery-writing legend, his writing habits, and the ageless tips he first provided in his ageless writing guide TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND
PROFIT.
Another features Neil Gaiman (ANANSI BOYS, AMERICAN GODS) talking about his novels, graphic novels, screenplays... and the system he uses when he writes in collaboration.
What both writers share about their writing and their insights into the world of books is, I believe, well worth the listen.
They're available at http://www.redroom.com/author/earl-merkel
along with some other interesting stuff (including interviews with Alice Walker and Martin J. Smith, neither of whom write mysteries-- but are mysteriously intriguing in their own ways.)
For those in DL who are among the writers I'll be taping interviews with at next week's LOVE IS MURDER conference, you'll also find out just how crazy some of these segments can be.
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Felicia Donovan, author of THE BLACK WIDOW AGENCY series, continues her fundraising efforts on behalf of the Greater Squamscott Womenade . This dedicated group of women works tirelessly to provide grass roots assistance to neighbors in crisis or who have reached a stumbling block in their lives, without the complexity of red tape. Assistance can go towards things like groceries, automobile repairs, prescriptions and the like. Felicia is donating a portion of the proceeds from every book sold between Oct. 1, 2007 and Oct. 1, 2008. "Women helping other women is a subject very near and dear to the Black Widows' hearts," Donovan said. "It's a perfect fit to send the message that women are empowered when they help each other out." For more information, please visit Felicia Donovan's website at http://www.feliciadonovan.com/ .
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Susannah Charleson's SCENT OF THE MISSING, chronicling the author's adventures with her golden retriever as members of an elite Texas-based canine search and rescue team, taking readers from the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia to the cold trail of a girl gone missing, to the trials and joys of living with a gifted search dog who isn't especially well suited to the role of obedient house pet, has sold to Houghton Mifflin for hardcover release in 2009.

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From: Jeffrey Cohen
SOME LIKE IT HOT-BUTTERED, the first in the Double Feature Mystery series (Berkley Prime Crime, ISBN: 042521799X) has been nominated for the Lefty Award for Most Humorous Mystery, to be presented at the Left Coast Crime conference in Denver on March 8. And that the second in the series, IT HAPPENED ONE KNIFE, will be available July 1. And I'm tickled to death about both those things.


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Betty Webb's new Lena Jones mystery, DESERT CUT, will be released February 10. Like all the Lena Jones books, it's set in the desert near Phoenix, Arizona, and this time, takes an entirely new look at immigration issues. As a journalist, Betty came across some information that shocked even her.
But for the cozy crowd, Betty is delighted to announce that an entirely new series of hers will hit bookstores early next year (March, 2009). "The Anteater of Death," is just the first. The books are all set in a California zoo, and star a new protagonist -- a non-neurotic zoo keeper who lives on a boat. These books will NOT be as dark as the Lena Jones books. Instead, they're actually cozies! And because they're so warm and fuzzy, Betty's editor at Poisoned Pen Press wants her to use a pen name, so Lena Jones fans won't get a nasty shock (well, a warm and fuzzy shock). So next year, be on the lookout for "The Anteater of Death," by Jo Howell -- Betty's new pen name.
Website at http://www.bettywebb-mystery.com/Blog at http://bloggingwebb.blogspot.com/

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From Jessica Park Conant and Susan Conant:
The Gourmet Girl returns to solve the murder of one bad egg when TURN UP THE HEAT, the third book in the Gourmet Girl series, arrives on March 4th.
Chloe Carter has a lot on her plate-exams for grad school are coming up, and her chef boyfriend needs her support as his fledgling trendy restaurant comes into its own. The staff of Simmer gets along like petits pois in a pod, everyone pulling pranks on one another now and then. Everyone, that is, except for Leandra, a waitress who treats the busboys like chopped liver-and can never take a joke. One morning, Leandra's dead body is found in a fish truck. So people start to wonder:
was this just a prank gone awry? Or did somebody actually want her to sleep with the fishes?
************************************ From Clea Simon:
OK, it's not much of a contest, but sort of...
I'm looking for ideas for the title of my next mystery and somehow I seem to have run out of cat pun/literary references. There are countless "claws/clause" variations I can use for a legal angle, but nothing is clicking yet. And while I love "Bright Lights, Big Kitty," I can't quite make that work either.
Anyway, I'm taking suggestions over at my blog - http://cleasimon.blogspot.com/ . If I choose yours, I'll send you a signed book and thank you in the acknowledgments. (Final title approval is up to my publisher, but if I like it, I'll send you the books and thank you anyway.)

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Pari Noskin Taichert will have the launch party for her third Sasha Solomon novel, THE SOCORRO BLAST, in Albuquerque this weekend. She'll be busy for the next few months with book signings throughout the West (and Alabama).
For more info: http://www.parinoskintaichert.com/

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I will be appearing on panels at Love Is Murder in Chicago the first weekend of February, Murder in the Magic City in Birmingham, AL the second weekend, and the Smyrna, TN library for SINC authors the last weekend of the month to speak about my new book, Fifty-Seven Heaven.
Lonnie Cruse
http://www.lonniecruse.com/

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The large-print edition of Beth Groundwater's A REAL BASKET CASE wasreleased by Wheeler Publishing on January 22nd, she signed the contractfor the sequel, TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET, last month and it will bereleased in early 2009, and her VIRTUAL DEATH manuscript is asemi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest and can be readand reviewed at: https://mail.whdh.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011ZCAME.

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From: Ayn Hunt
I'm being interviewed Friday, Jan. 25th by Melissa Alvarez on her radio show on the Net from 11 to 12 noon EST at http://blogtalkradio.com/MelissaAlvarez We'll be talking about a few paranormal things like the ghost who took up residence at our house when I was writing my first Gothic about ghosts LOL. Talk about first hand experience! And we'll also be talking about my other books and my life down here in Texas as well.
The call-in number for anyone who'd like to ask questions or make comments is 347-215-8473. Thanks!
Ayn Hunt also writing as Ayn Amorelli
Author of Unwilling Killers, Obsessed, The Haunting and
Contract Bride
www.AuthorsDen.com/aynhunt
www.GottaWriteNetwork.com/aynamorelli

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Ken Isaacson’s SILENT COUNSEL was nominated for the Arty Award for best cover art on a mystery published in 2007, to be awarded at Left Coast Crime in March. The New Jersey attorney reports that the book has been doing exceedingly well, hanging in there this month on Amazon’s list of Bestselling Legal Thrillers behind only Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and John Grisham’s soon-to-be released THE APPEAL. He tells us that SILENT COUNSEL has gone into its second printing. Check out his TV interview on Good Day Arizona at www.KenIsaacson.com/GDAZ_Video.htm, listen to his radio interview on WBTC Talk Radio at www.KenIsaacson.com/WBTC.htm, or hear him read a chilling excerpt from SILENT COUNSEL at www.KenIsaacson.com/Excerpt.htm .

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You’re invited to join Rosemary Harris to celebrate the publication of Pushing Up Daisies
The first in The Dirty Business Mystery series from St. Martin's Minotaur

February 5, 2008, 7pm
Wine, nibbles, & dirty(business) martinis
Partners & Crime
44 Greenwich Avenue
New York City
212-243-0440
RSVP Hector.DeJean@stmartins.com

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