On the road!

Tonight’s event at Murder by the Book was a whole lot of fun, as we discovered The Kinky Side of LRK. Yes, The Bones of Paris tour ripples across the country, and tomorrow moves from Houston to Austin’s Book People. Come join us, and see if I can find something to startle you with. Then:…

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Communities

Cambridge is a town well experienced in repelling would-be boarders. I have never managed to drive directly to any goal in this town, even when I’ve had a GPS, or SatNav as they’re known here. This time I had only some scribbled notes from the map on my new iPad, and although on my second…

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Pirates are “go”!

So, have you enjoyed our little break from All Things Laurie?  Or did going cold turkey disturb your world too much? I hadn’t actually intended quite such a long break without Muttering at you, but it took me nearly a month after getting home from Portugal/Morocco/France/England/book tour to get my life in some kind of…

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The day before the day…

I started writing this post in London on Sunday morning, in a family kitchen, listening to the click of the heating system sending warmth towards the radiators.  This is a location achieved after one local French train, one high-speed French train, one highly entertaining Paris taxi ride (French/Algerian rap music and a warning about the…

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London Calling

In the early Twenties, BBC (the radio variety) used the phrase “London calling” as its call sign, informing the world that London was still up and active. During the War, the phrase took on overtones that were both poignant and pugnacious: We’re still here, damn your eyes! I like London, despite there being far too…

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Plots & PostIts

I’m over at Kepler’s Well Read Donkey again today, talking about plots, problems, and PostIts (with a photo of the last, a small avalanche of the yellow lined PostIts I use, then fold in half when I remove them so I know it’s a point I’ve finished with.)

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A visit with old friends

Sometimes one gets a chance to revisit old friends.  No, this is not a paean to Facebook, but mention of a short story, long out of print, that’s going to take another stroll across the stage in a collection of Sherlockiana being published next month. The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes contains a short story…

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British invasion

Hey Brits, on the first of September, you’ll have your very own Language of Bees–and shortly thereafter, a tour: That’s right, the pub date is 1 September, and although we’re setting up events now, I can say that I’ll be at the Reading Festival of Crime on Sept 12, talking about Murder in Mind with…

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Book tours

One of the odder sides of being a writer in modern times is the way a solitary, dreamy individual is periodically required to become a travelling salesman. Once a year, more or less, the person who spends her working days in clothing that resembles pajamas folds up her laptop, scowls at her hair, retrieves her…

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Library love

One of the things we were looking at with the Language of Bees tour has been how a series of library events would add to the mix. Author tours are generally organized by the Promotions department in the publishing house. Other forms of what might seem to be “promotion” to an outsider—such as ad campaigns…

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