You Have the Right to Six Words - We Now Return to Our Regular Schedule

O.k., we had a couple weeks of "special" editions of You Have The Right To Six Words. And while we have more special folks to highlight, we're back on our regular format for Week 19. I decided to make this edition of "You Have the Right to Six Words" brought to you by the letter "R". You will notice that we have a lot of "R" names today, actually everyone has an "R" name. I didn't do that on purpose or else I would have scheduled it last week so that the "R" week could be on Week 18, because "R" is the 18th letter of the alphabet. But, I digress so let's get started before I get off track again.

We'll start off this week with a clinical psychologist from New Jersey. Roberta Isleib is the author of the Golf Lover's Mysteries and the Advice Column Mysteries. She originally took up writing to justify all the time she was spending on the golf course - because it was research, you know! Her Golf Lover's Mysteries earned her nominations for both Agatha and Anthony awards. Then in 2007 she began the Advice Column Mysteries. Roberta has been active in the International Sisters in Crime organization as well as the New England chapter of SIC. According to Roberta, "the work of the detective in a mystery has quite a bit in common with long-term psychotherapy: Start with a problem, follow the threads looking for clues, and gradually fill in the big picture." She lives in Connecticut with her family and says:

My heaven: Eating, reading, writing,
friends.

Our next memoirist this week is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, and now lives in Cape Town. Roger Smith is the author of a highly successful debut thriller novel titled MIXED BLOOD that is slated to be adapted for a film with Samuel L. Jackson. MIXED BLOOD is Roger's first novel, but he's no stranger to writing as he has written, directed and produced for both film and television. His second thriller is due out in February of 2010 and is titled WAKE UP DEAD. When Roger describes how his experiences in Johannesburg and then in Cape Town combined with a news story and his wondering "what if" gave voice to MIXED BLOOD, it's obvious how his memoir would be:

Came to me in a dream.

In April I had the pleasure of attending a panel at the L.A. Times Book Festival with our next author. Critics have compared New York Times bestselling author Robert "Bob" Dugoni's writing to that of both John Grisham and David Baldacci. But he didn't come to the crime fiction world right away. After graduating from Stanford with degrees in communications/journalism and creative writing, Bob spent a short time working as a reporter before he went back to law school. Armed with a law degree from UCLA, Bob began practicing law in San Francisco and on the side he did some acting with the American Conservatory Theater. That same little voice inside him that drove his undergraduate degree choice continued to nag at Bob and one day he confronted his wife to say he didn't want to practice law anymore, he wanted to be a writer. And the crime fiction community is lucky that his wife was supportive of him following his dream. Bob and family moved to Seattle where he began to write and write and write. Since then Bob has published three legal thriller novels and a non-fiction work, THE CYANIDE CANARY. His most recent novel, WRONGFUL DEATH, was published in April of this year and brings back his protagonist, David Sloane, from Bob's debut novel, THE JURY MASTER.

Bob put everything on the line to follow his passion for writing and it has paid off in spades. Is it any wonder his memoir is

Follow DREAMS. The money will come.

Anchoring the memoirs today is a woman who started her career as an architect. Yes indeed, S. J. Rozan was an architect in a firm that specialized in police stations, fire houses and...zoos? But her life's calling simply wasn't there. She went to work as an architect because she believed that writing was a career that the average person just didn't do. But when the urge to write continued to rattle inside her, she decided to give it a shot. Now eleven novels and many short stories later, writing is something she just does! And she does it well. She has earned the Edgar, Anthony, Nero and Macavity awards for doing what she does best. Most recently she has released SHANGHAI MOON, which is the ninth book in her popular Lydia Chin/Bill Smith P.I. series.

Being a Buckeye, and a Northeast Ohio Buckeye at that, I must mention that S.J. Rozan is a graduate of Oberlin College. She earned her Masters in Architecture from SUNY Buffalo. S.J. has served on the national boards of both Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She also served as president of the Private Eye Writers of America. But S.J. Rozan has just one question:

I'm old enough for memoirs already?

Well, I suppose if Mylie Cyrus or Serena Williams can write a memoir, so can S.J. Rozan but we're counting on her being around in the crime fiction world for awhile to come! My sincerest thanks to all of our memoirists this week: Roberta, Roger, Bob and S.J. I'm so honored to have you join the project!

I hope everyone has enjoyed these wonderful contributions this week. After 19 weeks, we haven't had a boring or bad week yet. And there's still more fun to come. So definitely check in next week: same time, same place...more fun!

On the Bouchercon front, I have an exciting announcement to make. Well, exciting for me anyway. If you haven't already heard my obnoxious outbursts on Twitter or Facebook, I won a "Hot Ticket" to spend an hour in a small group with Michael Connelly! By small group, I mean 10 people! I am incredibly psyched about this opportunity and it's just one more reason to be elated about 15 days to Bouchercon!!