You Have the Right to Six Words - Lucky Number 13

I do hope being part of week number 13 is a good thing for our authors today and no kind of curse. Maybe I should have said this is 14 not 13; you know, like they do in hotel buildings. I still don't understand that concept. Just because you name it 14, does that make it 14? Well, I digress (surprise, surprise). We have recapped all the memoirs from interviews, so from this point forward we have all new memoirs. We have some new memoirs from people who joined us for interviews but I held their memoirs back. The first author is one of those people.

Jeff Cohen is the author of both the Aaron Tucker Mystery series and the Double Feature Mystery series. He came to writing novels through a wide array of writing positions: newspaper journalist, municipal reporter, public relations, trade journalist, freelance reporter. Jeff has also worked on script writing and had some of his work developed by Jim Henson Productions, CBS, Gross-Weston Productions, and Ken Walz Productions. Jeff's first novel, FOR WHOM THE MINIVAN ROLLS, actually started out as a screenplay. It wasn't working out quite the way he wanted, so he decided to write a bit as though it would be a novel. He hoped this would provide him an outline for the screenplay. Instead, that bit turned into a full-blown novel and the Aaron Tucker Mystery series was born. Jeff's love of comedic movies lead to the character of Elliot Freed and his all-comedy movie theater in the Double Feature Mystery series. This year saw the publication of the third book in that series, A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION. Sadly, this may be the last book of the series as well. Jeff is, however, hard at work on another project, but Elliot will be sorely missed. But you never can tell what the future may bring. The present brings us Jeff's memoir:

Got married.
Had kids.
Wrote books.

It doesn't get much more succinct than that! My rest of our authors today are brand new to Jen's Book Thoughts, so please give them a warm welcome.

Louise Ure has consistently set her books in the Southwest, but she's traveled the world. She attended college in Tucson, Dijon France, and Glendale, Arizona. Her 25 years in the advertising and marketing world took her to three different continents, and she now lives in San Francisco, California. It's a fascination with the magic, mystery and legends that pull her back to the Southwest when she writes, though. In 2002 she set to work on a life-long dream of writing fiction. In 2005 she published her first novel, FORCING AMARYLLIS, and earned herself a Shamus Award for Best First Novel. LIAR'S ANONYMOUS was released this past April and marks Louise's third successful novel. And of course you know I cannot possibly leave off this detail from Louise's bio: "Louise currently lives in San Francisco with her husband and whichever senior golden retriever rescue dog has most recently captured her heart." And her own summation:

Arizona girl happy in Fog City.

Jason Pinter is the best-selling author of the Henry Parker thriller series, which has been nominated for the Barry Award, the Strand Critics Award, the Romantic Times Booklovers Reviewers Choice Award (say that one three times fast), and the Crimespree Award. This young writer started out as a book editor and acclaimed blogger before earning his first book deal with MIRA Books. He's now been published in over 12 different countries, and was one of the authors included in the short story collection KILLER YEAR. This year he has two new books being published in the Henry Parker series. First he will release THE FURY at the end of September and then at the beginning of December he will release THE DARKNESS. He's a pop culture connoisseur and a budding golfer. Whether writing novels, short stories or blog posts, Jason

Loved telling stories worth being told.

Last but not least this week I welcome a household name in crime fiction these days. The list of award nominations is rarely read without the name Sean Chercover somewhere on it. And the number of times he takes home the prize just keeps increasing. What makes this even more astounding is the fact that Sean has accumulated all these kudos in the course of his first two books: BIG CITY BAD BLOOD and TRIGGER CITY. O.k., wait, I'll correct myself. He also claims awards and nominations for short stories he wrote including "A Sleep Not Unlike Death" and "One Serving of Bad Luck."

A Canadian native, Sean found his way to Chicago via South Carolina and attended the American Security Training Institute to qualify to work as a Private Detective, Security Consultant, and Bodyguard. After working as a PI in Chicago and later New Orleans, Sean returned to Canada to work as a writer and video editor in the television industry. In addition to the television and PI industries, Sean has had a go as a screenwriter, truck driver, waiter, nightclub magician, car jockey, and encyclopedia salesman. These days, in addition to his work writing novels, he can also be found writing, with previous memoirists Libby Fischer Hellmann and Marcus Sakey, on The Outfit blog. And so that would explain a memoir of

Did a bunch of stuff; wrote.

Yes he did! And he wrote well!

Another awesome week! Thank you to Jeff, Louise, Jason and Sean. I'm so thrilled to have you all join us in the six-word memoir fun. If you could see me as I put these posts together you would think I was a little kid at Christmas. They all make me smile and feel giddy. It's so much fun. So much fun in fact, I think I'll be back next week to do it again. Same time, same place...meet ya here. Because I still have more exciting authors to share with you.

Happy Reading! And the Bouchercon countdown is now...57 DAYS?? Woo hoo! Indy here I come!