Taking Care of Business

I am going to be at BookExpo at the Los Angeles Convention Center tomorrow and Saturday, signing and giving away copies of MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE at the Mystery Writers of America booth alongside Max Allan Collins, who will be doing the same with his latest CRIMINAL MINDS novel.

I can't wait to go…the last time I was at BookExpo was twenty years ago in San Francisco, and I still remember how exciting it was get so many free galleys and books. Every major and minor publisher in America is there, promoting their new titles to booksellers. It's like Christmas for a book lover like me. I'm also looking forward to seeing my literary agent and other friends who are out from NY for the event. So there will be lots of schmoozing and trips back to the car to unload galleys…

Attending BookExpo will also be a welcome distraction from anxiously waiting to hear whether or not I've managed to snag a major studio screenwriting assignment that I have been vying for over the last few weeks…I am one of the final candidates now and I should know any minute if I got it. I am trying not to get my hopes up but, as experienced and cynical as I am, I can't seem to help doing it anyway. Maybe its because its a project that is *perfect* for me and that I would have a great time writing. If I get the gig, it's a big assignment that I will have to write very, very fast…so I might be absent from here for a few weeks.

In the mean time, I am hard at work on MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP (book #8) and a new spec, which is based on a book I optioned earlier this year.

And I've just learned that Oscar winner Gene Hackman and CSI creator/showrunner Anthony Zuiker will be among the speakers joining me, Bob Levinson, Jesse Kellerman, Heather Graham, Stuart Kaminsky, Rupert Holmes and Mary Higgins Clark at the International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro Kentucky, where my play MAPES FOR HIRE will be performed June 12-22.

It looks like, no matter what, June is going to be a very busy, exciting and fun month for me!

3 thoughts on “Taking Care of Business”

  1. Since you’ll be seeing Max Allan Collins before I get to (his Chicago signing isn’t until August) please pass along my greetings for (1) his 60th birthday and (2) his and Barb’s 40th wedding anniversary.And I’ll see him at Augie’s in August.

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