INKSPOT NEWS - February 16, 2013

Next weekend, from February 22 - 24, Beth Groundwater will be a presenter at the Puerto Vallarta Writers Conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She hopes to meet many aspiring authors at the conference while enjoying the sand, surf and sun!

Today, Saturday, February 16th, at 1:00 PM, Alice Loweecey is signing copies of Veiled Threat at the Amherst Barnes and Noble, 1565 Niagara Falls Blvd. Suite 300, Amherst, New York 14228.

The Company You Keep

What a great week to be a Midnight Ink writer. Actually, it’s way more than just a week but there has been an avalanche of good news crashing down recently.

Left Coast Crime conference, a gathering to celebrate mysteries that takes place in a different western city each year, announced finalists in their contest. What fun to see Midnight Ink writers on that illustrious list. Darrell James and Beth Groundwater are nominees in The Rocky category, which is a book set in the geographic area covered by Left Coast Crime. Jess Lourey is nominated for an award in the humorous category, The Lefty. And Catriona McPherson has a book in the Bruce Alexander Memorial Mystery, for historical novels.

                  .

Can you say, “Wow!”

And then it gets better.

Kathleen Earnst recently won the LOVEY in the historical category at Love Is Murder in Chicago.

And drum roll, please…

G.M. Malliet (three times now) and Catriona McPherson are up for Agatha Awards given by Malice Domestic.

Alan Orloff had an Agatha nomination in 2010. And last year, Darrell James won a Left Coast Crime award, The Eureka, for a first novel.

Now it’s going to get dicey because I’m going to forget a whole ton of other good news. But let me mention that Vicki Doudera got a great review from the world’s snarkiest review site. I know Alice Loweecey and Lois Winston have posted some terrific reviews, as well.

I’m tickled for all the recipients. I imagine their glow and it makes me plum happy for them. I’ve met most of the writers I just mentioned and to a person, they are warm, funny, smart, generous and all around amazing specimens. I can only imagine the others are equally superior humans.

But, as Ayn Rand was ever-so-fond of saying, “There is no altruism.”

While I’m truly happy for these M’Inkers, I’m downright giddy for me.

My father always told me, “You’re known by the company you keep.” Yes, he was a wise man, but I don’t think he made that up.

I would be surprised if I ever win a prestigious award and Kirkus may always hate me. But someone, somewhere, at one time,(Terri) thought I wrote a book good enough to be included on the roster with these stellar writers.

That thought swells my chest more than the Miraculous Uplift bra I got from Victoria’s Secret.

By the time of my next Ink Spot post, my first book in the Nora Abbott Mystery series will have launched. Readers may love it or hate it. But for right now, for this brief moment, I get to revel in the success of my publisher and the fine writers they’ve accumulated and believe I am one of them.  

 

I am just so darned proud of Midnight Ink and all these folks. (And sorta proud of me, too.)

INKSPOT NEWS - February 9, 2013

Here are the new releases from Midnight Ink for February, 2013. They're both terrific reads!





Bonnie of Evidence by Maddy Hunter

"[A] delightfully deadly eighth Passport to Peril mystery."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Veiled Threat by Alice Loweecy

"A former nun herself, Loweecey infuses her complex heroine with all the knowledge and courage it takes to switch from the convent to crime fighting and pairs a solid mystery with a budding romance."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS

Alice Loweecy is signing copies of Veiled Threat today, Saturday, February 9th, at 1:00 PM at the Syracuse Barnes and Noble, Raymour and Flanigan Plaza, 3454 Erie Boulevard, East Dewitt, New York 13214. Please join her there!

And in other wonderful news about Midnight Ink authors, FOUR have been honored in the list of finalists for the awards that will be given out at the Left Coast Crime 2013 conference in Colorado Springs in March. Jess Lourey's December Dread is a finalist for THE LEFTY award, for best humorous mystery novel. Both Darrell James' Sonora Crossing and Beth Groundwater's Wicked Eddies are finalists for THE ROCKY for best mystery novel set in the Left Coast Crime geographical region. And Midnight Ink author Catronia McPherson's recent novel with another publisher is a finalist for THE BRUCE ALEXANDER MEMORIAL HISTORICAL MYSTERY award. Midnight Ink has quite a showing in the award categories!

See the full list of nominations HERE.

“I think it’s stupid…

…and you’re weird.”

Yep, that’s an actual quote from an in-person review of my new book, Back in the Habit. A co-worker started the morning with, “I finished your book. I liked it, but…” That’s never a good sign. She then asked what the Swedish nun and the facial moles were all about.

I explained that I’d come across folklore in which the location of a facial mole indicated personality type: Greedy, loyal, treacherous, loving, etc. It fascinated me, and I knew I had to use it in a book one day. The title of this post is the response I received. (I’m evil enough to tease you by not revealing what the Swedish nun and the facial moles have to do in Back in the Habit.)

I was innocent enough once to think that when I had a book on bookstore shelves that these slap-in-the-face incidents would be a thing of the past. (I’ll pause while the choking laughter from all published Inkspot readers subsides.) Reality hit soon, in the shape of… reviews.

I learned right away that unless my publicist sends a review along, I don’t read it. I have rhino hide, but a snarky review will always find the cracks in it. Reviews aren’t for authors anyway—they’re for readers.

Besides, I have something infinitely better than any review. I have fans.

Fans are awesome. Total strangers email me to tell me they love my books. Total strangers come to my book signings and ask me to sign their copy. This is as good as standing on stage basking in audience applause (been there too). My books on bookstore shelves are the result of years of work. Fans show me that it was all worth it. They more than make up for people who somehow feel compelled to tell me that I’m weird and my ideas are stupid. (I smiled and shrugged at my co-worker when she said that. There was really nothing else to do.)

Without readers, my books would be gathering dust in a desk drawer.

Thank you.

Inkspot News - March 19, 2011

Two Inkspot authors, Beth Groundwater and G.M. Malliet, will appear at the Left Coast Crime conference in Santa Fe, NM, March 24 - 27. Their panel appearances are:
Friday, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM, "Murder in the Great Outdoors", Beth Groundwater
Saturday, 1:30 - 2:15 PM, "Series & Standalones", G.M. Malliet.

In conjunction with her travel to Left Coast Crime, Beth Groundwater will conduct signings of Deadly Currents in Los Alamos, NM (Wednesday, March 23, 6:00 -7:30 PM at the Otowi Station Bookstore, 1350 Central Avenue) and Pueblo, CO (Sunday, March 27, 4:00 - 5:00 PM at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 4300 North Freeway).

A reminder: Keith Raffel (as writerkeith) sends out a Literary Quote of the Day each weekday morning via Twitter. For St. Patrick's Day, the quote was from Irishman James Joyce: "Writing in English is the most ingenous torture ever devised for sins commited in previous lives." Subscribe if you'd like!

Alice Loweecey returns to her old stomping grounds in Syracuse, NY. On Wednesday, March 23, she'll host a reading, conversation, and booksigning of Force of Habit at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore on Erie Blvd. East.