Five on Friday - Dana Cameron is back!

I'm here, I'm here. I haven't fallen off the end of the Earth or anything. So sorry for the silence lately; have been in the midst of a big job and am just now surfacing. I promise you my much overdue Left Coast Crime recap next week with pictures and video and everything!

In the mean time a few quick links for you who enjoy the contests:

Criminal Element has a "Daring Women Sweepstakes" with some good book loot. So check that one out.

And Friday Reads has both print and audiobooks in their prize this week!

Finally, be sure to stop by Lesa's blog to check out her new contest. As I write this the new contest is not yet up, so consider it a surprise!

Now, let's get to the important stuff. It's a good thing I have great authors who participate in my hair-brained blog schemes. They keep me from getting to lax on my blogging. This week one of my favorite people in the crime fiction community returns to the blog: Dana Cameron.

I can rattle off Dana's very cool--very impressive--resume and we can all ooh and aah, but that doesn't do justice to this wonderfully funny, amazingly creative, warm and generous woman. You know in school how kids would all want to sit at the "cool" table at lunch? Sitting with Dana is like the grown-up version of that. No matter where she is, she creates fun--with her laugh, her stories, her genuine interest in others. O.k., case in point. I'm scrolling through my Facebook feed today and I see this post from Dana:

"Just noticed that the adverts I'm seeing on FB are for fancy lingerie, Las Vegas hotels, and designer dresses. Either they've got me confused with someone from an 'Ocean's 11'-type caper or my career as a Bond character is about to begin."

We are thousands of miles apart and I feel like I'm at the cool kids' table sharing this chuckle with her!

In all seriousness, though, Dana is an accomplished writer with many awards to show for it. Most recently she's been working on her Fangborn novels featuring archeologist Zoe Miller who learned in the first novel that she is Fangborn, a secretive race of werewolves, vampires, and oracles dedicated to protecting humanity. The second novel, Pack of Strays, comes out on Tuesday.   So before Dana becomes a huge Bond sensation, she's hanging out with us again. I hope you all enjoy sitting at the cool table with us today!

Dana with one of her comic writing heroes, Howard Chaykin

If I could tell my 16-year-old self one piece of advice, knowing what I know now, it would be: “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”  Goethe didn't say it, but he should have, and he should also have said that some of those mighty forces will be you.

A skill I’ve always wanted to have, but don’t is: I would love to be able to sing.  When I sing now, snakes weep and bats fall stunned from the sky.

My idea of the perfect ice cream sundae includes: Real vanilla ice cream, with a goodish splash of Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur.  Over that should be a hot fudge (not chocolate sauce!), just slightly on the bitter side—it's a sundae, not a test.  Maybe just a dollop of whip cream to lighten it up.  And a couple of those Luxardo cherries on top.  With two fingers of the Glenmorangie Ealanta on the
side.

When I’m feeling under the weather, I….see it as a personal failing.  Then I apply cats, “Firefly” or
“Sherlock,” and possibly chocolate.  Or cheese.  Or Cheetos.  Or maybe that ice cream sundae and whisky, depending on the nature of the malaise.

If you had been born with a warning label, what would it read? Improper use may result in fire or explosion.

Excuse me, I'm headed over to Dana's for ice cream sundaes! Just another reason why she has the cool table, right? I'm so thrilled to have had Dana back for Five on Friday and I'm hope you have enjoyed today's treat as much as I did. Many thanks to Dana!

I'll have more posts next week, I promise. I have fun from Left Coast to share and of course more books! I hope you have a wonderful weekend and happy reading!

Murder & Mayhem in Muskego 2013 - Part 1

As you know, last weekend was the annual Murder & Mayhem in Muskego conference in Wisconsin. The majority of the fun takes place on Saturday, but Friday night is a meet-and-greet with many of the authors. At the meet-and-greet, one panel is hosted and this year I was asked to moderate that panel.

I had a panel full of fun people and laughs are always welcome at the end of the week. So I decided on a game show format for the Liar, Liar panel. Each of the authors sent me fun tidbits about themselves before hand and I took one of those tidbits as their "truth" then altered the others ones. The volunteers/contestants had to guess which was the truth.

My authors on the panel included Dana Cameron, Julie Hyzy, Sean Doolittle, Marcia Clark, and Chris Holm. They were all super fantastic and I can share the entire panel with you since I video taped it. Special thanks go out to my friend George Lichman who ensured the camera kept running during the panel. So when you have some time to kick back and enjoy some laughs, here is the Friday night panel from the 2013 Murder & Mayhem in Muskego, LIAR, LIAR:

Bouchercon 2013!

I'm sure many of you know that the panel schedule for Bouchercon 2013 was posted yesterday, so now I can officially talk about the panels I'll be moderating this year (and beg you to come if you're attending).

I've had tremendous experiences moderating and interviewing at Bouchercons and Murder & Mayhems, and each experience has been special in its own way. What makes this year extra special is that I was very generously given a significant say in setting up my panels. So if they flop, it's all on me!

O.k. Forbus enough mumbo jumbo, get to the point, right? Here we go.

I have two panels. The first one will be Thursday at 1:20 and it's "You're Only Human: Secret powers & other little-known talents that would make us great Super Heroes...or Villains." My incredible line-up of authors for this panel includes Catriona McPherson, Daniel Palmer, Tom Schreck, Zoë Sharp, Michael Wiley  and the villain part of the panel...Brad Parks. :-) Capes and masks are optional. I have a strong suspicion that there will be much laughing going on in this panel. Plus I'm brainstorming a contest so there will likely be extra incentive to attend!

The second panel is Friday at 3:10. This one is "Stop in Nevada: If the IRS asks, it's research: places we've visited, people we've met and boneheaded things we've tried, all in the name of a story." My stellar authors for this panel include: Lou Berney, Alafair Burke, Dana Cameron, Sean Chercover, and Chris Holm. Holy freaking cow, right? I'm hoping to unearth some unusual, exciting and entertaining stories from these masters. I hope you'll join us. I'd like to do something creative with this panel, too, but an idea hasn't hit me as quickly as with my other panel. We'll see what I can conjure up.


If you're attending, I hope you'll put us on your schedule. I'm committed to providing everyone...panelists and audience alike...a fun time. If you've been sitting on the fence about whether to attend or not, take the plunge...come join in the fun. 

And in other regular Friday news, I'm still working on the new schedule for 5 on Fridays. I've sent out some new invites and am sending out more, so stay tuned on that front. We will be continuing!

Contests this week:

There's still time to enter to win the entire Agatha Raisin series at Criminal Element.  They also have a children's graphic novel up for grabs: Revenge of the Lizard Club.

Friday Reads has Charles Todd's A Question of Honor this week in their giveaway.

Grand Central Publishing is giving away three copies of Psych's Guide to Crime Fighting. I haven't watched TV in ages, but I loved that show when I did watch. As goofy as it was, it always made me laugh.

And William Morrow has a JA Jance sweepstakes going on their Facebook page.

And I have two other links I want to share with you before I turn you loose for your weekend. First is Pop Culture Nerd's Stalker Award Voting. Be sure to mosey over there before the 20th at 9PM Pacific and vote.

The other link is this one from BookRiot that absolutely cracked me up this week. If you didn't see my post of it on Facebook, it's a must read! Shit Book Snobs Say - A Translation

That's all for me this Friday. Have a super great weekend and happy reading, my friends!

Five on Friday - Dana Cameron

Happy Friday! Hope you had a good week. It's been quite a week for book releases, that's for sure. I'm super excited about this week's Five on Friday guest and I'll get to her in just a sec. First let's get some "around the web" stuff out of the way.

Publishers Weekly is interested in what you think the Great American Novel is. You can vote for your choice. I don't think you'll have any trouble guessing who mine was.

On Monday, Pop Culture Nerd posted our choices for the March Nerdy Special List. I offered up two but only one was a crime novel.

Speaking of book releases. This week both Hilary Davidson and Brad Parks had book releases. And over at Criminal Element they have sweepstakes to give away copies of both books, so be sure to stop over there and check them out. Hilary's ends this weekend, so don't delay!

If you hurry, Lesa Holstine has a contest that ends tonight. She's back in the saddle with her contests, and this one is a historical mystery giveaway.

If you're a Maisie Dobbs fan, be sure to check out Jacqueline Winspear's "Have You Met Maisie" contest.

The Friday Reads contest this week includes Harlan Coben's Six Years and James Thompson's Helsinki Blood.

And I think that's it for me for this week. So let me introduce my guest today. I met Dana Cameron for the first time at a Bouchercon and I believe right after that she was at Murder and Mayhem in Muskego, so I had the chance to spend some quality time with her there.

I'm not going to rattle off her impressive resume, you can check that out on her website. I'd prefer to tell you that she is a kind, friendly, outgoing, smart and creative woman who is incredibly funny. It is not only a joy to be able to socialize with her, it's an honor. And I hope you take away a little glimpse of that today. I know that she put a lot of thought into her responses--she and I chatted on and off about it--so I hope you enjoy today as much as I do.

I'm super excited because I'm getting ready to start her new book Seven Kinds of Hell, which comes out next week. Is that title great or what? And it's taking me out of my comfort zone, too, so I'm excited about that as well.

But let me quit yammering and let Dana take it away!

Dana from above, in the DC Metro station

The TV show I absolutely can’t miss is: Sherlock. Because tall, dark, and brainy is exactly my cup of tea. You can tell it was written by writers who are also fans of the canon. Its extreme depth of quality is similar to Battlestar Galactica, which, if it was still on, would be slugging it out with Sherlock for my heart (ooh, hands up who'd want to see Starbuck and Sherlock slugging it out?). Even if the stories are stronger in their beginnings and endings (not so much with middles), it is mind-bogglingly good.

If I could sit next to anyone (not related to me) on a cross-country flight, it would be Emma Thompson because she's done everything in theater and film—Shakespeare, a Swarzenegger movie, Jane Austen, animation, and science fiction—and done it brilliantly. She won Oscars for acting AND writing. When she realized no one was going to ask her to play James Bond, she came up with her own franchise. She's politically active, and she backs up her words with positive action. Also, she's married to Greg Wise. I would totally be cool and witty and not babble much at all on that flight, or tell her that I want her to play me in the movie of my life. Because that would be weird and excessive.

My favorite vegetable is:  Potatoes. I wrote a lot about spinach, at first. I always feel great when I have spinach, and you can prepare it a hundred ways, cooked or raw. But then I returned to France for a visit. Even the boiled potatoes are heavenly there, and when you tuck into something fancier, like a dauphinoise, choirs of angels sing. I like spinach a whole lot, but I'm pretty sure you can't have a mind-bending, revelatory gustatory experience eating any vegetable but a potato.

The fictional character that most reflects my personality is: A Time Lord—maybe River Song. Because my idea of fun involves gathering up a bunch of friends and having adventures in history and science, sometimes escaping into a library when trouble looms. Occasional gunplay and advanced degrees as necessary.

The #1 item on my bucket list right now is: Visiting Egypt. It's the thing that got me interested in archaeology, almost as soon as I could read. Even though I never took a class in Egyptology and ended up, in fact, researching colonial new England and post-medieval Europe, everything in my writing and archeology careers has come from that initial, very early, impulse to study archaeology.

First of all, that has to be one of my all-time favorite pictures for this feature. And Dana sent me her materials when I was having a particularly rough time; that picture made me smile when little else was able to. And second, I just love it when our participants "get" this feature. Dana totally got it and I absolutely love today's installment. I hope you did as well.

I'm pretty sure Dana's going to be lurking around today, so I hope you'll say "hi" and leave her questions if you've got them. My thanks to her for the time and great responses. I encourage you to connect with Dana on Facebook and Twitter. As I said, she's so much fun. As a matter of fact, she and I were talking about shoes the other day...nice bright green ones!

With her new book release, Dana's also going to be out and about doing some events, so if she's near you, you should go see her! In the mean time, I wish you a wonderful weekend full of great books. Happy Reading, friends!