All posts by Toni L. P. Kelner

Golden Globes Glory

Awards

I like Hollywood award shows. I love oohing and aahing over the clothes, and watching the reactions of the winners and losers, and listening to the acceptance speeches, even watching the montages. And I enjoy it all just a little bit more if I have a personal stake in the race, if a favorite actor or show has been nominated.  That’s why this year’s Golden Globes Awards Ceremony may have been my favorite award show ever.

First of, there were the two nominations for True Blood.  Anna Paquin was nominated for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama, and the show itself was nominated for Best Television Series – Drama. Since True Blood is based on the Sookie Stackhouse series by one of my best friends in the world, the multi-talented Charlaine Harris, you can bet I was cheering on Alan Ball and company. When Paquin won in her category, I screamed so loudly I scared the heck out of my daughter Valerie and may well have caused an avalanche outside. And though True Blood didn’t win its award, all I can say is that it was a true honor for the show to be nominated.

Now the True Blood connection alone would have kept me watching the show, but I also had a tenuous connection with John Adams, one of the nominees for Best Miniseries. When I was in junior high, I met a young actor named Tim Parati, and we went on to high school and college together. He went on to work in theater, and ever since I have glowed with vicarious pride as he’s shown up in an impressive assortment of plays, movies, and TV shows, including John Adams. The fact that Tim plays Ceasar Rodney of Delaware, one of my favorite signers of the Declaration of Independence, only makes it better. So as far as I’m concerned, the Golden Globe John Adams won for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television is due mostly to Tim’s efforts. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney did okay, too.

Again, either of those connections would have made me feel a special connection with this year’s ceremony, putting me several degrees of separation closer to Kevin Bacon that I ever would have imagined. But I got a special treat during the commercial breaks. Here in the Boston area, there were several promo spots for the WHDH investigative feature Hank Investigates. Each time it was shown, I chanted, “Hank, Hank, Hank,” which freaked out my daughter Maggie. Then the promo cut to Hank Phillippi Ryan herself, who is well known in the Boston area for her investigative reporting. This shocked the heck out of Maggie, who knows the award-winning mystery author Hank Phillippi Ryan, but only  only as one of her mother’s crazy writer friends. Which she is, of course.

So I had one friend who acted in a nominated mini-series, two nominations from a show based on a friends’ books, and another friend on a commercial. If this keeps up, Kevin Bacon is going to be trying to find connections to me! 

So Kevin, if you’re reading this? See you at the next awards show!

New Year’s News?

Translations, Updates from Toni

A New Year is supposed to be put one’s focus on that which is new. New outlooks, new projects, and so on. And I am working on new stuff. I’m hip-deep in the new “Where are they now?” mystery, Charlaine Harris and I are working hard on our new urban fantasy anthology, and I’ve got short pieces scheduled for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I’m even going to appear in a whole new sub-genre–I’ve written a noir PI story for a Bleak House anthology edited by Carolyn Haines. Of course, publishing pipelines are long, so that stuff won’t hit the shelves until later this year, or even in 2010.

For now, my new releases are actually new editions of older books.

  • Without Mercy was just released in a Wheeler Publishing Large Print trade paperback. I find it odd to look at my work in large print. It somehow looks as if the whole story is being told in shouts. I’d plug in the new cover, except it looks just like the hardcover.
  • Many Bloody Returns will be released in an Ace trade paperback on February, 3. The cover is a little new, so I’ll go ahead and post it.

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  • Though I can’t read enough Polish to tell what the release date is, Fabryka Slow has posted information about the Polish translation of Many Bloody Returns, or Krwawe Powroty, complete with a cover illustration. The newness here comes from it being my first Polish translation, and the cover, which is a whole new look–see for yourself.

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  • Curse of the Kissing Cousins will be released as a Berkley Prime Crime paperback on May 5. Though it’s technically a reprint of Without Mercy, with the spiffy new cover, the new title, and the new publisher, it feels like a new release, and I’m planning to hit the road to promote it. There will be a new author photo as well, which was actually taken January 2 of this year. Or does this count as a new edition of the old author…

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Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!

Uncategorized

We’re having our first  decent snowfall of the year, with more coming Friday, which of course makes the world look a Christmas card. So Christmas approaches, let me offer my happiest holiday wishes, and a new Criminal Christmas carol.

Buy yourself a mystery for Christmas

Death in black and white

From then on,

Your troubles will be out of sight

 

Read yourself a mystery at Christmas

Turn pages every day

From then on

Your troubles will be miles away!

 

Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of gore

Faithful sleuths who are dear to us

Solving crimes for us once more

 

Through the years

We’ll be reading them together

If publishers allow

From Sayers to Sherlock’s last bow!

And treat yourself to mystery at Christmas now!

New Cover!

Uncategorized, Updates from Toni

Just got the cover for the upcoming release of Curse of the Kissing Cousins! And I love it!

Note that this is the Berkley Prime Crime paperback reprint of Without Mercy. (The title has been changed because Berkley already published a book with that title.) I loved the Five Star cover of Without Mercy, too. But I’m really glad to have a new look to go with the new title and new publisher.

For an author to get one good cover for a book is wonderful–getting two just seems like winning a lottery!

Thirty-one is my new favorite number!

Updates from Toni

There is much joy in the Kelner household this week. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, the anthology I co-edited with the effervescent Charlaine Harris, debuted at #31 on the New York Times best seller list!

I just don’t have the words to express how excited I am about this. But there is something I have to say:

Thank you!

Thank you to the folks at Ace, the booksellers, Martin Greenberg and John Helfers at Tekno Books, Joshua Bilmes the wonder agent, and the contributors to the anthology who sent us such terrific stories:

Donna Andrews

Keri Arthur

Patricia Briggs

Dana Cameron

Karen Chance

Alan Gordon

Simon R. Green

J.A. Konrath

Nancy Pickard

Kat Richardson

Dana Stabenow

Rob Thurman

Carrie Vaughn

Most of all, thank you to my co-editor Charlaine, who drafted me to edit Many Bloody Returns with her, and made it so much fun we did it again. Wolfsbane was just as much fun (which is why we’ve contracted for two more anthologies over the next few years).

Buono Giorno and Guten Tag!

Translations, Updates from Toni

I’m feeling very international this week, even if I can’t see any other countries from my back yard.

First off, I signed a contract for an Italian translation of Without Mercy from Delos Books. I don’t have a publication date, but it will be part of their Odissea Mystery line. This is a double first for me. It’ll be my first Italian publication, and the first time I’ve had a novel translated into another language. So I’m molto felice.

And speaking of foreign editions, the German edition of Many Bloody Returns has already gone into a second printing, which is sehr gut.

Ciao and Auf Wiedersehen!

Free Books!

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Now is that an attention-grabbing subject line or what? I’m a founding member of the mystery writer group The Femmes Fatales, and we’re giving away free books. Of course, there is a catch. You have to enter a contest, and answer questions about the Femmes.

For the details, visit the Femmes Fatales blog.

Why are you still here? Go! Didn’t you see the part about free books?

Here There Be Pirates!

Updates from Toni, , ,

Ahoy! It’s been a piratical week around here. First, of course, was Friday’s annual celebration of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, always a red-letter day.

On Sunday, we went to the Salem Pirate Faire. Salem may be known for witches, but pirates were probably more common back in the day. This year’s Faire saw Captain Hook trying to find a bride and a treasure map, particularly the treasure map.

Here’s the captain himself, as portrayed by David Stickney, Executive Producer for the Faire:

There were shiploads of entertainers, including Roderick Russell, who is one of only fifty people foolhardy enough to practice sword swallowing. Fire eating is apparently not as impressive to him, but it sure impressed me.

And finally, here’s Captain Hasallmyparts, one of the contestants from the costume contest. Note this is NOT one of the show’s cast members. This is an attendee!

It was a beautiful day in a perfect setting, and we had a terrific time. So why am I regaling you with “what I did this weekend”? This is all by way of making an announcement.

The editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine has told me they will be publishing my pirate mystery story “The Pirate’s Debt,” and that’s a mighty good reason for me to celebrate all things pirate. I don’t know which issue the story will run in, I can say that the story features William Cunningham Ward, the lawyer from my previous pirate story “Skull and Cross-Examinations,” (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Feb. 2008).

So now you know why I’ve been in a swashbuckling mood. As the pirates probably never said, ARRRRRRRR!

It’s real, it’s real, it’s really real!

Updates from Toni

What a spiffy day! All four of us trundled down to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston today for NEIBA, the annual trade show for the New England Independent Booksellers Association. If you’ve never been to a book trade show, it’s booklovers’ heaven. Rows and rows of publishers displaying their upcoming books, plus authors signing books, plus giveaways galore.

I was there with the New England Sisters in Crime and New England Mystery Writers of America, talking to booksellers about our organization, our books, and each other’s books. Thanks to my publisher Five Star, I had twenty copies of Without Mercy to sign and give away, too, while my husband Steve was giving away copies of his book, Motivate Your Writing! 

Plus we chatted and compared notes with our fellow MWA and SinC members, both from the New England chapter and visiting members from the New York Chapters. So we saw Dana Cameron, Hans and Judy Copek, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Johnathan Shapiro, Shelia Connolly, Rosemary Harris, Sarah Smith, Mo Walsh, Meredith Cole, Kat Fast, Jane Cleland, and Liz Zelvin. (I imagine I missed somebody, for which I apologize.)

I also wandered through the show, picking up marketing material for books to come, some amazing galleys and really clever giveaways.  I was particularly happy about a catalog about a new edition of Maxfield Parrish’s Knave of Hearts, another catalog that lists my friend Margaret Fenton’s first book Little Lamb Lost, galleys of the HWA anthology Blood Lite and George Hamilton’s memoirs, and ten-year anniversary pins for Harry Potter.  Here’s some of the goodies:

At the Random House booth, I chatted with bloggers Ann Kingman and the appropriately named Michael Kindness. They publish Books on the Nightstand, a lovely blog about books and reading. They were actually blogging from the trade show floor, so go see what they posted. (I modestly point out that they put up a very nice photo of my husband and me.) So even though Steve and I gave away fifty books between us, I suspect we brought nearly that many home.

Had that been all that happened, I’d have considered it a day well spent. But here’s the capstone: I saw my first copy of Wolfsbane and Mistletoe. Midway through the day, Dana asked if I’d seen the copy at the Penguin Putnam display, which I’d missed despite intense scrutiny. So she lead me back over to the booth, and introduced me to the Penguin rep, whose name I have completely forgotten because I saw…THE BOOK.  It is beautiful! Foiled and embossed and with that amazing Lisa Desmini cover. 

I picked it up and caressed… I mean, examined it, and was so entranced that I nearly missed the Penguin rep telling me I could take it home. To keep. And caress… I mean, examine in detail at my leisure. I hardly put it down for the rest of the day.

It’s not like I hadn’t seen the cover, and read over every bit of that book multiple times. I’ve got the bound galley. I know everything that’s in the book. But there is nothing to compare with having a copy to hold, and show, and gloat over. Here I am, beaming.

Thanks to Dana, who found it and let me have it without arm wrestling for it, even though she has a story in it herself. (“The Night Things Changed” on page 32.) She was even gracious enough to sign her story for me. Now that’s friendship!

Photo by Hans Copek

So that was my extremely spiffy day. I hope yours was just as nice. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a book to look at.