Me Me Me

Three Ways to Die

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Three Ways to DieI've only written and published three short stories in my career — "Jack Webb's Star," "Remaindered," and "Bumsickle" — and just for fun I've bundled them all into THREE WAYS TO DIE, a collection that's now available for a mere 99 cents on the Kindle.  

"Jack Webb's Star" originally appeared in the anthology Hollywood and Crime. "Bumsickle" originally appeared in the anthology Fedora III. And "Remaindered" originally appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and was a Reader's Choice Award finalist (It's also been available as a download on Amazon for a few years now).  

Here's what some critics had to say about one of the stories…

"Lee Goldberg's 'Jack Webb's Star' is a riotous caper crime with a nasty twist that starts in a traffic school class in the Taft building, where among the offenders is a hapless man ticketed for drunk driving in his wheelchair…"
—Los Angeles Times 

"Editor Robert Randisi solicited more than a dozen familiar crime-fictionists to contribute their own Tinseltown tales to this volume. Among the best are Lee Goldberg’s clever 'Jack Webb’s Star'” – January Magazine 

"Veteran television screenwriter Lee Goldberg has some fun with a small screen legend in 'Jack Webb's Star'" – Booklist

 "Top billing should go to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch story, 'Suicide Run,' and to Lee Goldberg's 'Jack Webb's Star'—the former for the detection and the latter for biggest laughs," Publisher's Weekly 

Take a Walk on the Kindle

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WalkCoverMy 2004 novel THE WALK is now available on the Kindle for a mere $1.40. I hope you'll download it for your next airplane trip, subway ride, or visit to the bathroom. 

Here's what the book is about…

It's one minute after the Big One. Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.
Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do … that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.
All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.
There's no power. No running water. No order.
Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be … if he can survive The Walk. 

Here's what some of the critics had to say…

 "Harrowing and funny…"
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 

 "Lee Goldberg's hard-to-classify but not-be-missed The Walk, set in the aftermath of a major Los Angeles earthquake, pokes fun at the TV industry in the midst of disaster…"
—Jon Breen, The Year In Mystery and Crime Fiction 2004

Heading Home

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I have one more meeting this morning for tea and then it's off to Heathrow for my flight home. It has been a very busy and productive week of "get-to-know-you" meetings in London with top level executives at various networks and production companies. I believe that my agent and I accomplished exactly what we set out to do here this week — introducing people to me and my work and establishing relationships that will lead to writing & producing opportunities in the future. 

All the meetings went well and I made some great contacts, so I am feeling very optimistic. I am eager to get home and foll0w-up on everything (sending thank you notes, pitch treatments, etc.) I get home late Saturday and that gives me two days to conquer  my jet-lag before a week of pitching and staffing meetings.

You probably know what a pitch meeting is, but if you aren't in the TV biz, you  might wonder what I mean by "staffing." Now that the network schedules have been announced, everybody (me included) is running around trying to land one of the few available writing staff jobs. It's an intense, competitive and exciting time…full of big emotional ups and downs.  I try not to get my hopes up on any particular project…but I do anyway. I never learn. But I guess enthusiasm and optimism in this business is actually a plus…even if it it inevitably leads to some disappointments.

It wasn't all business in London. I had great dinners with screenwriter & novelist Stephen Gallagher and author James Swallow, browsed lots of bookstores, stocked up on DVDs of UK TV series, and even squeezed in a show of STAR TREK at the BFI Imax theatre. And I won't tell  you how many times I ate chicken pot pie at Square Pie at Selvridges…but the sales clerks and I got to know one another on a first-name basis.

But I am eager to get home and see my family. For some reason, it feels like I have been away much longer than a week.

In London

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The big news here are the ridiculous expenses claimed by MPs for taxpayer reimbursement…everything from flat screen TVs to sacks of horse manure.  Its ridiculously entertaining stuff. Last time I was here, just a few weeks ago, the scandal was some underling of Gordon Brown's who was planting fake, salacious news about political adversaries with bloggers. I must say politics are a lot more fun and sleazy here than at home. 

My first day of meetings went very well. The hardest part has been finding my way from one corner of London to the other but I've been managing all right. Today may be a bit more difficult…I've got a bunch of meetings all over town and I understand from the news this morning that there are lots of troubles/closures on subway system, so it should be even more challenging to get around.

I have been learning more about the UK TV biz…and how it constrasts with how biz is done in the U.S. and Germany. I may have more to share about that in a future post.

Dishing on Disher

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Disher and Lee2 I'm sure glad I recuperated in time to meet author Garry Disher today.  I arranged to pick him up at his hotel and take him on a quick visit to Santa Monica before his 6 p.m. signing at the Mystery Bookstore. 

When I met him at the hotel, he handed me a copy of his new book BLOOD MOON and said "I dedicated this to you." I smiled and opened the book, assuming that he meant that he'd signed it for me. And he had, right there on the title page:  

Lee,

This one is for you, with thanks and admiration. 

Garry Disher

I thought that was a very nice thing to say.  And then I turned the page and was stunned to see this:

For Lee Goldberg

Holy Crap! He actually did dedicate the book to me. I hadn't done anything to deserve such an honor. I honestly didn't know what to say, so I mumbled a thank you and then rambled on about something stupid for the next five minutes as we drove towards the beach. And then I thanked him again, properly this time, by letting him know how surprised and honored I was. 

I'm still not sure why he did such a wonderful thing for me, but I am very, very flattered.  It's the second time a book has been dedicated to me –Max Allan Collins floored me a couple of years ago by dedicating a CSI novel to me. That's two more dedications than I deserved.

We had a very nice conversation over the next two hours. I learned about his writing life and methods, his family, and some of his signing mis-adventures. I also learned something about the Australian book business  – did you know authors get additional payments from book sales to libraries to take into account the books that aren't sold as a result of loaning? And there's good news for Disher fans: there's finally a new "Wyatt" novel coming in 2010. I enjoy his Inspector Hal Challis books very much, but I love Wyatt, sort of the Aussie equivalent of Donald Westlake's Parker. There's even a western version of Wyatt in one of Disher's short story collections (which gave me the inspiration to do a western version of Monk, which you will see in December). 

His signing at the Mystery Bookstore went well. He was followed by Laura Lippman, who came along with her husband David Simon, creator of THE WIRE. So I finally got to meet David, who I've admired for years. It turns out that he's a fan of SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING, the screenwriting book that Bill Rabkin & I wrote. I told David how much I love the "f-word" scene from season one and use it often when I teach and he shared some anecdotes about how the scene came about.

Garry will be speaking & signing with Laura at M is For Mystery in San Mateo on May 16.  

If you're in the Bay Area, you should go see them. He's also speaking at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley that same day.

After his Westwood signing, I took him to dinner at Jerry's Deli next door and did the fanboy thing of having him sign all the books of his that I've collected over the years.  

It was a great day and I hope I can make it down to Australia some time to see Garry on his home turf.

By the way, Garry will also be speaking & signing at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale AZ on May 19, the Poisoned Pen in Scotsdale on May 20, at Murder By The Book on Houston on May 21, and at the B&N in Reston VA on May 22. He'll also be signing with Cara Black at Mystery Lovers Bookshop on May 23 and at the Scituate Massachusetts Town Library on Tuesday, May 26. Those are just a few of the events on his national book tour…I can't seem to find the rest in one spot on the web, so check out your local independent, mystery bookstore to see if he will be coming to your area this month.

This and That

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Sorry I have been absent from here lately. I have been absent from everything for the last two days, felled by a nasty combination of a stomach bug (that first crept up on me last weekend) and a bad back (that has plagued me for two weeks) that combined to keep me in bed and miserable. The first day I felt so lousy all I did was nap, sweat and shiver. But on the second day I continued my UK video binge and watched a WALLANDER, a LEWIS, two episodes of  THE FIXER, the latest episode of series 2 of ASHES TO ASHES, three series 2 episodes  of MOVING WALLPAPER, and an episode of MISSING.

I'm out of bed today, temperature  normal, eating again, and walking more-or-less upright (thanks to me finally giving in and seeing a chiropractor)…just in time to meet Aussie author Garry Disher tonight before his signing at the Mystery Bookstore. I am a huge fan of his work, particularly his terrific Wyatt novels (inspired by Westlake's Parker  series), which need to be read in order to truly be appreciated. I will try to behave like a professional and not a drooling fanboy.

Tomorrow, I will spend the day packing and getting prepared for my Saturday flight to London, where I will be spend a week meeting with various UK studios and networks…so you can expect more sporadic, rather than regular, posting.  

Goodbye, TelevisionWeek

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Television Week, the publication formerly known as Electronic Media, is ceasing publication and will continue as a website.
This is sad news for me. Back in the late 1980s, I was a reporter for Electronic Media. My biggest scoop was breaking the news about Paramount's revival of STAR TREK as first-run syndicated series — a story which the studio initially denied (USA Today later picked up my story and then Paramount reluctantly confirmed it). I also reported extensively about the birth of the Fox Network. It was an exciting time for me and I learned a lot about the nuts-and-bolts of the television business. Electronic Media catered to station programming execs and the syndication marketplace and often went into far more depth than either Variety or the Hollywood Reporter on TV biz stories. I don't think Electronic Media ever got the attention or respect that it deserved for its business journalism…though I often saw newspapers using their stories as jumping off-points for articles of their own. 

UPDATE 5-6-2009: The Franklin Avenue Blog has a detailed remembrance  & appreciation of EM.

Book Fest, the sequel

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P4260123 It was another fine day at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I chatted with lots of authors and readers….and did a signing with my brother Tod, William Rabkin, Patricia Smiley and Denise Hamilton. BURN NOTICE creator Matt Nix also stopped by and signed some books wih Tod. I showed my MWA spirit, and my rippling muscles, by wearing the new SoCal MWA t-shirts that were hot-sellers at our booth. 

I was in so much back pain yesterday that I neglected to do a proper run-down of events here when I got home (all I wanted to do was lie down). So I didn't mention that Tod and I ran into Joseph Wambaugh, who gave my brother a big hug and me a signed galley of his upcoming novel HOLLYWOOD MOON. I think Tod was envious. Friends get hugs, fans get cool galleys.  

Tod moderated a very funny panel on humor and race with Christian Lander, Lalo Alcaraz and Larry Wilmore and only made a half-dozen references to mastubation and didn't mention his bowels even once. 

Some other observations…

The green room served the same food that they have in years past, which made me wonder if we were actually eating left-overs to save money.  

Barnes & Noble, Borders, Book'em and some other bookstores were noticeably absent this year but there were a lot more booths for self-publishing companies, cults (Scientology had at least two booths) and products, including one for Volvo. 

This was the first year that I saw a couple having sex at the Festival. Granted, it was in the parking structure, but it still counts. It's nice to know that books still make some people hot.

After my panel signing, me, Craig Johnson, and Robert Dugoni went over to the tent selling our books and offered to sign the remaining stock. But they were already packing the stuff up. I suggested they might want to keep some signed stock around for people who couldn't make it to our panel. The clerk says "we aren't a bookstore, we're the School of Health Sciences. We don't sell books." Apparently, they were only making the books available for the panels and then immediately packing up the unsold stuff without even trying to sell it over the rest of the Festival. This seemed particularly dumb to me. Authors and readers lose out…and so did the School of Health Sciences, which missed out on lots of potential sales. See, in past years, B&N or Borders handled the panel signing sales…and kept the books available all weekend, which was great. It meant you didn't have to snag immediately after the panels… you could come back later…in fact, you could browse by several times during the course of the Festival and always find new stuff. I wonder why the UCLA Bookstore didn't handle the sales this time. In any case, I hope they find a bookseller…or at least someone who will behave like booksellers…next year. 

(You can see more of my Lee-centric book fest photos here. I took lots of shots of the MWA booth, and the MWA sponsored panels, for our friends on the MWA National Board.  I wanted to show them the big bang we got for our sponsorship bucks)

Book Fest

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Lee-victor I had a great time at the LA Times Book Festival today. My panel with Steve Cannell, Jan Burke, Robert Dugoni and Craig Johnson was a lot of fun — at least from where I was sitting (who knew Craig was so damn funny?).  All the authors were funny but also had some very revealing things to say about their approaches to writing and crafting characters. Afterwards, at the signing, a woman came up to me and said:

"I think you're very funny, and that you have a great personality, but I can't stand Monk or your books."Victor-brett-rabkin-denise-naomi

I kid you not. Robert Dugoni is my witness. But her comment was more than balanced out by the couple who came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed my novel THE WALK. Now that made my day.

(Photo upper left, me and Victor Gischler. Photo on right, Gischler, Brett Battles, William Rabkin, Naomi Hirahara, and Denise Hamilton, all at the MWA/Mystery Bookstore party. You can click on the images or a larger view).

More of This and That

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Naomi-sara-gary I limped into the Mystery Bookstore party Friday with my bad back (thank God for Vicodin) and had a great time mingling with Victor Gischler, Denise Hamilton, Brett Battles, Gary Phillips, Colonel. Carol Higgins Clark (she was with me and Col. Bob Levinson in Owensboro, KY back in June), Robert Lugoni, Naomi Hirahara, Cara Black, Sarah Weinman, Paul Levine, Louise Ure, Mark Haskell Smith, and many many more talented folks. (Pictured: Naomi Hirahara, Sarah Weinman, Gary Phillips)