Rain gonna fall

April 13, 2023 by Laurie King 2 Comments

It’s April, here on the Central Coast, and in a normal year, we’d be pretty well finished with rain until October. Not that we can remember what a normal year looks like. This year we’re above our more-or-less average of 33 inches (the below are from the excellent Weathercat.net) –

Last year, on the other hand, looked like this –

And the year before was even worse –

They’re telling us that our La Niña weather pattern that’s dominated for the past few years is turning over to her brother, and that El Niño tends to bring disruptive, ie rainy, winters.

So…my hilltop home may soon be beachfront property?

…And a Year Later: Edgar!

February 16, 2023 by Laurie King 2 Comments

Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, my Edgar-winning first novel.

A year after A Grave Talent was published, my first venture into publishing took me to the annual Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards banquet, when it was nominated in the Best First Novel category. I went with my daughter (then 14) and my agent, Linda (whom I talked about here in a recent post)

I was somewhat stunned to be in the same room as so many REAL writers. I sat at my publisher’s table along with another nominee, this one for Best Novel, Minette Walters.

Reader, I won. (So did Minette. It was a good night for St Martins Press.) I think I only put the statue down when we were back in the hotel room and I had to phone my family in California.

And when I got home, I found that my local bookshop was happy too.

Since then, I’ve been nominated a number of times, and won other awards. I’ve been on several Edgar committees, too, which is great fun–working with writers you respect, knowing that at the end of the process will be a grin like the above.

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Author Photo: a work in progress

February 14, 2023 by Laurie King 4 Comments

Part of February’s celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel that started a writing career.

If you have ever tried to take a good picture of yourself—not just a grinning selfie with friends but the kind of photo that says “thoughtful, intelligent person with a trace of humor and wit”—well, all I can say is, it’s a lot cheaper to try it now than it was when every click of the camera cost money.

I had a friend who took nature photographs, and they were nice, so when St Martins Press asked me for my very first author photo, I thought, Well, she has a camera. So we took a few photos, and one of me at the blank wall of the house wasn’t completely awful, so there it went, onto the cover flap of A Grave Talent.

I didn’t quite realize that converting our color shot into black and white would make it look as if I was standing in a lineup, so for the next one, I asked the photographer who’d taken my daughter’s high school photos. And ended up with something that looked rather like a high school photo. (Don’t you love those 80s glasses?)

Next came a photographer who arranged to meet me in San Francisco for some location shots, and told me not to worry, he’d touch up the chin. I later discovered he told every one of his clients this, even the size 2 women. (Men with full beards maybe got out of it.)

At some point I graduated to color photos, and did a photo shoot with a crew of three—photographer, assistant, and makeup person—that took up a huge amount of the day, made a sore place on my cheek where the makeup brush had tried its hardest to get rid of a mole, and left me with a stiff face the rest of the day (and a lot of curious glances) when I had to rush off and pick up the kids from school with foundation and powder and mascara and the lot. This one I couldn’t find a copy of, but if you spot it in one of your books, stick it into the comments.

Then, my daughter had a friend who was setting up a photographic business, Red Bat, so she was next. I liked hers a lot.

(She took a few with the cat, as well, which I didn’t use because he didn’t look terribly happy with the entire-grab-and-clicking-lady routine…)

There have been others, but the one I use now, by Josh Edelson, still looks like me, just with different glasses. I’ll probably keep that one for a while.

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

A T-Shirt Promo

February 13, 2023 by Laurie King Leave a Comment

Once upon a time, children, publishers used to promote mid-list authors and build the careers of newbies.

That’s right, my publisher took out a quarter-page congratulatory ad in the New York Times back when Grave Talent won Best First and Minette Walters won Best Edgar.

My original publisher decided to pass on the paperbacks of the first two books (a decision they regretted afterward) and sold the rights to Bantam. And Bantam thought, hey, let’s do a big promo for three of our new authors, with a commissioned illustration by Edward Gorey on the book displays, free samplers, bookmarks—

and T-shirts!

That’s right, if you bought all three, they’d send you a t-shirt. Fabulous, no? And don’t you love that Gorey drawing? Shades of Masterpiece Mysteries!

Anyway, I’m mentioning that here because—

I HAVE ONE!

that I’m going to—

GIVE AWAY!

through the newsletter, which goes out on Wednesday. So watch for the Buzz dropping into your box (or sign up on the yellow button here ) and get a chance to win it. (I only have XL, so it might be your next nightie….)

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Business of Writing: Your Friend, The Agent

February 11, 2023 by Laurie King 9 Comments

Part of the 30-year anniversary celebration of A Grave Talent.

Like most first novelists, I had no clue about how to run my life as a business.

My vanity projects, e-book version.

In 1993, the only people who did self-publishing were the desperate souls who just HAD to have a volume to put in the hands of family and friends. The publishers who would do this for them were called “vanity” presses, which shows the scorn with which “real” published writers held them.

At the time, there were (as memory provides) only two actual, New York publishing houses that accepted manuscripts from the writer herself, rather than through an agent. These unsolicited manuscripts were called “over the transom” submissions, meaning that you had to (figuratively, at least) climb up and thrust your manuscript into the little window over their firmly shut door, listening to it thump down on the floor with a whole load of similar thick envelopes.

A transom.

A junior editor described to me the way publishers dealt with them (those houses that didn’t automatically stamp them with RETURN TO SENDER.) Every few months, on a Friday night, the editorial assistants (all of whom wanted to grow up and become real editors with the budget to buy actual books) would send out for pizza and beer and sit around the storage closet with piles of thick manila envelopes, and start to read. Some manuscripts got a fair try, and got passed on to The Editor. Others would either have a typo that irritated the baby editor, or was not to their taste, or would have the bad luck to show up towards the end of the evening. Those rejects would be thrust back for RETURN TO SENDER with a printed “Thanks-but-no-thanks” slip. (Or just be tossed, to save the cost of postage, and “Oops sorry I guess we lost it.”)

Very occasionally, like the girl in the soda fountain who became a star, the stars would align, and the envelope would make its was to an Editor, who nine times out of ten would write a personalized “Good job, not for us” rejection note.

Those that I sent in myself got rejected. Or “lost”…

…and THEN rejected. An agent was clearly the way to go. Agents held the key to that locked door. But how did I get one of them?

As I said in an interview a few years ago (2015)—

How did you get your first literary agent?

I looked in the back of Writer’s Market, back in 1987, and found five agencies in San Francisco. (I didn’t believe in New York. Still not too sure about it…) I wrote to each of them, sending a couple of chapters of the two books I’d finished. Agency one said their client list was full up. The second said they liked the one but not the other. Number three said they liked the other, but not the one. Number four said they’d be happy to read the books if I’d send them $385 for each. And the fifth was Linda Allen, who liked the books, thought they needed work, and ended up representing me until her retirement last year.

Or, as I put it in my Really Long Autobiography, Linda was—

The first professional to look at my work and see it as—well, my work.

She’s also been a friend all these years, although we didn’t really bond until she came to England for the 1995 Bouchercon in Nottingham, and stayed with us, visiting nearby Blenheim Palace

And venturing into cold, wet, windy Dartmoor, helping my two kids and me research The Moor.

Agent and author, hard at work.

(I nearly lost her in the fog, but fortunately, she heard me calling….)

She was a fairly new agency then herself, and the partnership went through some really great years, with this simple, small beginning.

She’s retired now, but I talked with her the other day, and she remembers how thrilled she was at the sale to St Martins Press.

A contract. An actual contract!

And how much did I get from that first book? Well, more than the £25 Arthur Conan Doyle got for his first story, but in modern terms, maybe about the same. But hey, I was in business!

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

When Intellectuals Read Crime

February 10, 2023 by Laurie King 2 Comments

Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent.

A writer tosses books out into the world without much clue about where they will wash up or whose hands they will end up in. Naturally, this is especially true with a first book. What, people who don’t know me will read it? Wow.

(Personal note from the publisher. Common Knowledge was a new journal then, from Duke University, whose articles still “challenge the ways we think about scholarship and its relevance to humanity”.)

With A Grave Talent, one of those who picked up the book was a gentleman named Richard Rorty. A philosopher who taught at Princeton, Wellesley, and Stanford, won a MacArthur fellowship, wrote books with titles like Consequences of Pragmatism, Essays on Heidegger, and What’s the Use of Truth?, and developed the ideas of antirepresentationalism, Ironism, and Epistemological behaviorism (and no, I have no idea what any of those are)—this gent took time out of his Big Important Philosophical Ideas writing to send in a little review to Common Knowledge about my little book:

(Click on the image to read it.)

I particularly love the way he hedges his bets so thoroughly. Granted, there were other fictional Californian lesbian cops out there, but as fields go, that one is fairly small.

Still, thanks, RR!

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Fans

February 6, 2023 by Laurie King 4 Comments

Part of the month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started my writing career.

In addition to actual, print reviews, my first book brought letters from people from all over who liked A Grave Talent enough to go to the trouble of writing me about it, buying a stamp, and finding an address that might reach me. Who knew?

They came in from all over, and not just the USofA.

They were written on embossed cards, postcards, scratch pads, or—high tech in 1993—faxes.

Most of them got the title right.

As for where to find me, well, that could be anywhere (though the publisher was a pretty sure bet.)

I got letters–FAN letters!– from actual booksellers!

Some letters were from people who seemed awfully…committed?

Nowadays, the vast majority of messages from readers comes electronically, in blog comments, social media posts, or just through the web site. But some still drop into my PO Box…and if you’ve written me there in the past couple of years, and I didn’t answer, I will, some day, I promise.

Especially if you get my titles right.

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis, or

order a signed copy.

A Writer to Watch!

February 3, 2023 by Laurie King 2 Comments

Part of the month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started my writing career.

One of the surprises I found as a new author was that people not only read the book, but talked about it as if it mattered. Take reviews: who knew they were actually a thing that happened to…well, me? (You can click on these images to read them.)

Library Journal

A necessary purchase? A writer to watch–me?

Or from Booklist–comparing me to Ruth Rendell and P. D. James?

Booklist

Dame Phyllis also appears in a review from one of the reviewing gods in the ’90s crime field, Robin Winks–I kept him reading deep into the night! He found my story cause for rejoicing!–

Boston Globe

Of course, some were puzzling. Me, hard boiled?

San Francisco Chronicle

But I find this list truly fascinating, the other writers of my generation. Who knew I would first meet friends through a list in American Bookseller?

American Bookseller

Read about A Grave Talent (with excerpt, reading guide, and order links),

see the other Martinellis, or

order a signed copy.

Mom’s Christmas Cookies

December 23, 2022 by Laurie King 11 Comments

If Dad produced odd German spicy treats every year (as my recent post talked about), my mother could be depended on for the kinds of cookies you could give to the postman without imagining his puzzled look. Mostly sweet, best eaten fresh, and decorative.

Some were super-sweet, like her “Matrimonials.” She produced decorated butter cookies, of course (usually with margarine—butter was a rare visitor to my childhood table) that were rolled out, iced with background white buttercream frosting (margarine-cream?) and decorated with a frosting gun to emphasize the outlines of the boot, the Santa, or the star cookie cutters. And Spritz cookies, a recipe that probably came from Betty Crocker, that were pushed through a cookie press to make trees or wreaths, then sprinkled with colored sugar.

She liked to make “candy cane” cookies, using a basic sugar cookie dough, half of it dyed red (or rather, pink, since she’d never seen the proper, intense dye used by professional bakers) and shaped on the board into rolls the thickness of crayons, then twisted round a roll of the white dough and finished with the top curled over.

Later she discovered a lovely Finnish almond-cookie recipe whose name she relished pronouncing (or more likely, mispronouncing)—Suomalaiset Puikot—that became a great hit with postman and family alike.

And later yet, a bar cookie that combined the best qualities of pumpkin and pecan pies. One of the few Christmas cookies my grown kids still like, and even ask for. In fact, I’m making a batch of those tomorrow. Assuming I can still decipher her handwriting….

So, what do you give your postman this time of year?

Dad the Baker

December 17, 2022 by Laurie King 18 Comments

It’s no accident that the cold, dark time of year finds us thinking of warmth and family—either enjoying it, or missing it. And nothing represents family quite so much as holiday foods. Which generally means cooking.

Growing up, my mother was the cook, but certain things my father claimed as his. Preparing Sunday brunch gave him a noble reason not to accompany us to church: if we wanted to eat when we got back, he was going to be just too busy stirring up crepe batter or making (Bisquick-based) cinnamon rolls or baking a breakfast cake. Or, in his later, more experimental years, trying his hand at Danish pastries (which, to be honest, were only occasionally a success, since his impatience and lack of attention to detail often rendered them nearly raw except for the edges.)

But he came into his own with Christmas baking. For some reason, he loved to produce the kind of cookies that are aged for weeks with a slice of apple, regularly changed. Little cupcake-sized fruitcakes—all those cheerful artificial dyes!—that very occasionally were permitted a dribble of nice cheap brandy, kept on hand to flame the Christmas steamed pudding.

(Come to think of it, the brandy-soused ones might have been deemed adults-only.)

His other specialties tended to be dull in appearance but rich in flavor. He always made Pfeffernusse, little brownish-grey balls that were nice if he’d made the dough sticky, though they could be kind of hard if he’d put in enough flour to easily shape them. And hard or soft, they were much better if he didn’t decide to dip them into a glaze.

Springerle are the one thing I actually miss having, particularly because I’ve never come across a commercial variety. These are pale, barely-sweet, anise-flavored little squares, so good dipped in sweet wine or hot coffee. Though again, some of Dad’s were hard and others soft, so you new that if you could see the imprinted pattern from the roller clearly enough, you were going to need a hot drink for the dipping.

So what about your family? Who was the cook, and what goodies evoke the season to you?