The Sandwich
The towncar driver who picked me up at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan yesterday asked me if I’d like a Chinese sandwich before heading out to the airport.
"No thanks," I said. "I just had lunch."
"It’s not food," he said. "It’s the greatest experience of your life."
"What is it?"
"It’s two naked Chinese women covered with soap bubbles who hug each other…with you in between. You can go as far as you want with them."
"No thanks," I said.
"Are you sure?" he said. "It’s something you’ll remember when you’re old, sitting in your rocking chair, and it will bring a smile to your face."
"It’s not my kind of thing," I said.
"Are you gay?"
"Married."
"So what?" he said. "She’ll never know."
"I will," I said.
He grinned. "That’s the point."
"I’m really not interested."
Actually, I was very interested. Not in experiencing the Sandwich for myself, but I wanted to know if he’d done it, how many of the men he drove around took him up on the offer, and how many of them got a sexually transmitted disease. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
"You mean to tell me you’ve never played around?" The driver asked.
"Nope," I said.
"How long have you been married?"
"About twenty years," I said.
He stared at me in shock. "How do you do it?"
I shrugged. "It doesn’t take any effort at all."
"Because you don’t like sex?"
"Because I love my wife," I said.
He shook his head. "That’s really sad. You only live once, you know."
The Edgars
One of the great things about the Edgars, besides meeting so many terrific authors, is all the free books you get when the ceremony is over. I just lugged up to my room two bulging bags of books to send back home. But you don’t want to hear about that, you want to hear about the Awards…
Well, as Edgar chair, I’ve known who the winners are for a while now and I nearly bit off my tongue not leaking the news to Tana French and Susan Straight that they were winners when I met them at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend. Also Matt Nix, executive producer of BURN NOTICE, won as well…news that my brother Tod (who is writing the BURN NOTICE books) and my publisher Kristen Weber (who is publishing the BURN NOTICE books) would have loved to have known in advance. That’s Tana and Matt in the photo to the left and the Southern California contingent of MWA in the photo to the right…
Jim Warren, Naomi Hirahara, Leslie Klinger, Pat Smiley, Doug Lyle, Deborah Atkinson and yours truly.
Al Roker was a funny host, and he even said "fuck" a few times, which is kind of weird to hear coming from him. As a number of people noted, he was like a thinner, blacker, Tod Goldberg. I sat with my agent Gina Maccoby and my publisher, which is always nice, and I did a lot of schmoozing before the event, though I was too tired to hang out in the bar afterwards.
Galleycat’s Ron Hogan has posted more pictures from the pre-Edgars reception here.
A complete list of winners follows after the jump.
Pre-Pre-Published
Today I went out to Summit, NJ to visit MONK creator/showrunner Andy Breckman and his staff. They aren’t exactly keeping a low-profile in town, as proven by the picture on the left of their building (click on the picture for a larger image). On the train ride out there, I came up with the plot for MONK #8 which, much to my relief, Andy liked. We talked for an hour or two about the murders for the book and then I sat in to hear the beats for the 100th episode — it’s g0ing to be a great one.
I returned to Manhattan in time to attend the MWA’s Agents & Editors party, where I ran into Mel Berger, who was my first agent ever, and chatted for a bit with a woman who loves me, which is always a thrill.
At the party, author Twist Phelan told me that she’d met a woman today who introduced herself as a "pre-pre-published author" and said she was attending the Crime Writing conference to meet an agent.
"What does ‘pre-pre-published’ mean?" Twist asked.
"I have an idea for a book but I haven’t started writing it yet," she said.
"And that’s how you plan to introduce yourself to agents?"
"Yes," the woman said.
Twist said don’t, and went on to tell her just how stupid calling herself "pre-pre-published" was. That was definitely a new one on me.
If I Were a Rich Man
I flew to New York on Monday on Virgin America which, once again, was like flying in a synagogue. The plane was full of orthodox Jews, though at least this time they didn’t give me a Bar Mitzvah (or whatever the ceremony was they performed for me on my last NY flight...and no, it wasn’t a circumcision. Been there, done that). I had a wonderful dinner at Elaine’s last night with writer, producer and bon vivant David Black and today the two of us did a panel together for the MWA’s "Crime Writing University." Tonight I went to the booksigning for BLUE RELIGION, the MWA anthology, and
schmoozed with Megan Abbott, Harry Hunsicker, Jason Pinter, Paul Guyot (who is in the picture with me), Michael Connelly, Lee Child, SJ Rozan, and many other authors. Tomorrow I’m getting together with the folks at MONK to talk about my next book…and then will attend the MWA’s Editors & Agent’s dinner.
Davis Wins SFWA Presidency
International Association of Media Tie-in Writers member Russell Davis won the Presidency of the Science Fiction Writers of America in a landslide victory. This is very good news…and gives him the mandate he needs to make a lot of over-due changes.
We Are Family
The Goldberg siblings were out in force signing our latest books at the Los
Angeles Times Festival of Books. Tod and I were signing at the Mystery Bookstore while my sisters Linda Woods and Karen Dinino were over at the Borders booth. As usual, women threw their underwear at Tod and me while my sisters were deluged with cakes made by their fans. The cool Goldberg kids are wearing shades. Afterwards, Tod hid out from Dr. Laura, who has been emailing him since he besmirched her on his blog, while my sisters were busy stalking Julie Andrews, who was taking the necessary precautions. I took the high road and had a cheeseburger with my daughter.
Never Sing Never Say Never Again
The Rap Sheet clued me into the recently "rediscovered," rejected theme for the 1983 Bond movie NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN sung by Phyllis Hymann and composed by Stephen Forsyth. To be honest, I don’t think it’s any better than the bland Lani Hall/Michel Legrand tune (performed in the video below) that the producers ended up using… but you can decide for yourself.
Writer Beware
Victoria Strauss has an excellent post up today on her Writer Beware blog with great advice for aspiring writers about what to look for before signing with a small press. It’s a must-read for those considering signing with a POD press.
J.T Ellison also offers up some good advice today on How To Avoid Scams over on the Murderati blog:
The biggest problem new writers are faced with is desire. You’ve
worked so damn hard, have slaved away writing your book, and you WANT
to get it out to the reading public. We understand. We were there once
too. But DO YOUR HOMEWORK! There are several easy steps you can take to
ascertain whether the offer you’ve been approached with is legitimate.
Because that’s the problem with scams. The veneer of legitimacy can be
shiny and obscuring.