Elements of Mystery Panel at Santa Monica Public Library

Hey! You busy on Saturday afternoon? Wanna come to Santa Monica?

I'll be at Santa Monica Public Library at 2:00, hanging out with Naomi Hirahara, Kim Fay, Samuel Gailey and Don Passman, and we'll be talking about mysteries and how to write 'em.

We'll also sign books and there will be things to nibble. And it's Santa Monica!

From the Bottom to the Top...

I had the wonderful opportunity to write an essay for Zocalo Public Square!

By now, you know where I grew up.

This piece talks more about that and how I wanted up that hill.

Hope you go over and read it and share it with your friends!

File NPR Interview Under 'Dream Come True'

Okay, y'all. You've noticed that blog posts have been slim to none -- closer to none.

Cuz I've been busy. Busy as a bee, as a beaver, as a bee and beaver whooping it up at the Hoover Dam. And I've been so very tired. Like, "dark bags under my eyes" kind of tired. Like, "too tired to play a videogame" kind of tired.

Now, though, I've gotten some energy. Even started playing "Borderlands"! And starting third edits of Lou Norton #3, titled TRAIL OF ECHOES.

This summer, I signed and read and met wonderful readers and writers -- from Book Carnival, Mysterious Galaxy, Eso Won Books, A Great Good Place for Books, The Last Bookstore to the American Library Association's annual conference in Las Vegas! I was honored to post pieces on Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds and Jungle Red Writers blogs.

To top it all off, to just... make me feel like I'm in Oz and Narnia and Heaven, I had the chance to hang out with the so-talented Karen Grigsby Bates. Karen is a novelist -- Plain Brown Wrapper and Chosen People. She is also a correspondent for NPR. Because God is saying 'Yes!' to me right now, I was recently featured on NPR's "Crime in the City" series. Karen and I spent two afternoons together, talking about LAND OF SHADOWS, Elouise Norton and Los Angeles, yesterday and today.

Rachel Howzell Hall is easing her big, laurel green Mercedes sedan through the streets of Los Angeles. A slim woman with big eyes, Hall says this Benz is her dream car, the thing she'd planned to buy for herself once she'd become a successful writer, probably around age 50.

But something happened to speed up her schedule.

"When I was 33 years old," Hall says, "I was diagnosed with a rare type of breast cancer. And I was pregnant. And it was terrifying."

Please click over and hear the rest!

Listening to it air on Tuesday... no words. Yes, I cried. Yes, I could hardly concentrate on anything else. Yes, I couldn't believe it.

But it happened!

All of it happened!

And thank you all for making my dream come true!

Oh -- and if you belong to a book club, and you're reading LAND OF SHADOWS, I Skype!