dreams

Frank Bill crosses the tracks

Last fall, I finally had the pleasure of meeting Frank Bill. This was about a year after we both appeared in Issue 5 of Plots with Guns and subsequently began to exchange notes, strategies and war stories from our respective crime-writing trenches.

I was inspired not only by his narrative voice (raw and poetic and brutal), but also his devotion and work ethic. Whereas, I stay up way too late to work on my novel, Frank rises way too early to do the same. In fact, there are times I’m just ending my writing here on the Pacific Coast when in comes a note from Frankie, who’s just getting started in southern Indiana.

At Bouchercon last fall, I found Frankie to be a genuinely kind, earnest and down-to-earth guy, which made it even more fun when we both (somehow) ended up at the St. Martin’s cocktail reception (it was like that scene from Seinfeld in which Kramer gets spun around at the Tony Awards by the “Clydesdale Surprise” people and ends up at all these “after parties”). We were in publishing culture-shock, in a good way. Hell, we were just a couple of pulp/noir writers snatching free food off the trays, trying not to stick out too much.

We were the kids from the wrong side of the tracks.

Well, for Frankie, not any more.

Frankie and his agent Stacia Decker announced yesterday that he has signed a two-book deal with Farrar, Straus & Giroux – for his novel, DONNYBROOK (a sneak peek of which I thoroughly enjoyed), and a collection of stories, CRIMES OF SOUTHERN INDIANA.

I am beyond thrilled for Frankie – his determination to put words on the page every day and his courage to tell brutal stories in a singular voice have paid off. The fact he also happens to be a great guy makes it even sweeter.

July 21, 2010 5

Greg’s Friends Doing Amazing Things — Al Riske

You never know how your life might change as a result of meeting someone.

When I met Al Riske in 1999 as a fellow ghostwriter at Sun Microsystems, I couldn’t have predicted the writing adventures and deep friendship that would follow. Over the course of the next nine years — during lunches, coffee breaks and hallway conversations — Al and I would compare notes on our fiction pursuits.

It didn’t really matter that he wrote literary and I wrote transgressive. We supported each other — critiqued each other’s pieces, read each other’s books, ridiculed each other’s rejection letters, dissected literary-agent search strategies and, eventually, celebrated the successes that started to develop.

Along the way, I was lucky enough to read a story collection Al had written, revised, added-to and massaged for the better part of twenty years. The stories were beautiful — elegant without trying, revealing without really showing why, brief in a satisfying way, scandalous with a light touch — and they stuck with you, key images and dialogue etching themselves into your subconscious.

His stories began to stick with other folks, too, including the editors at Hobart, Blue Mesa, Pindeldyboz and Word Riot. One story won a contest. But literary agents didn’t come running — the conventional wisdom seemed to be that there was no commercial market for short story collections, unless you were Tobias Wolff or John Updike.

Then Al learned about Luminis Books, a brand-new small press that wanted to publish “beautifully crafted prose.” Luminis, it seemed, was interested in publishing books it likes, and less obsessed with producing a New York Times bestseller.

Next thing he knew, Al had a book deal.

A year later, Al’s collection, Precarious: Stories of Love, Sex and Misunderstanding, is shipping from Amazon and selling at bookstores. Publishers Weekly called it “charming.” Novelist Catherine Ryan Hyde announced, “The art of the short story is alive and well in the hands of Al Riske.” Bookstores and literary groups have invited him to read from his collection. Every week seems to deliver a new first, a new adventure.

When my copy of Precarious arrived, the whole thing hit me hard in a wonderful way — here in my hands was the fruit of Al’s inspirational talent and persistence.

I couldn’t be happier for him.

February 9, 2010 4

Greg’s Friends Doing Amazing Things — Kim Kenny

kimkenny When I hung out with Kim Kenny in high school, she was one of the funniest people around.

And one of the smartest.

All these years later, Kim is still funny and smart. Now she’s sharing those talents with the world — with the help of her “little” brother, Chris Kenny. The two write and star in their own Internet comedy series, “Siblings,” which has yet to disappoint.

Every time I watch it, I smile ear-to-ear.

Here’s what I dig about “Siblings”: It’s a great example of people rising from their day jobs, their everyday obligations and routines, their own exhaustion, the noise of life, to create something really cool. It may not pay the bills, or even pay for itself, but it’s creative — and it’s funny, and it’s connecting with people.

They created something cool, and it’s out “there.”

Get your hit of “Siblings” here.

Or check out my favorite episode so far, “By the Book,” below.

August 19, 2009 1

Greg’s Friends Doing Amazing Things — J.P. Gallagher

imgBio_JP Back in October of 2008, I blogged about J.P. Gallagher, a friend of mine who’d just learned he had stomach cancer.

It was a scary time. So many questions no one could answer. Was the cancer spreading? Would it respond to radiation and chemo? How would he and his wife accommodate the birth of their third child just weeks after the docs would take out J.P.’s stomach? Life would change, for sure, but what would it look like, and how would they live it?

Well, I have good news. J.P. kicked the shit out of that cancer.

The past 20 months threw just about everything they could at J.P. and his family. Those 20 months gave, and they took away. A daughter was born. New friendships were made. Just weeks after J.P.’s surgery, his father died — later, his sister passed away, too. But the world kept spinning, and J.P. and his family kept fighting, and living.

Now, there’s nothing serendipitous about cancer. I know that. But there is something remarkable how a variety of circumstances came together to create something truly amazing out of something that had been downright awful.

Part of it was the fact J.P. always had a passion for the non-profit sector — he’d been elected chairman of the board for at the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC): Southwest, and he’d earned an MBA with concentrations in marketing and public/non-profit management. Another part of it was the fact that, through his treatment, J.P. had gotten to know some of the world’s leaders in gastric cancer research, and that he just happened to work for a company that made the computers needed to assist with that research.

Toss in the fact that, back in October ’08, his wife Cindy insisted he see a doctor about a swallowing problem and that, had he not gone, he’d likely be dead today, and you start to wonder if this is where J.P. is supposed to be — back in the saddle of life, full of energy, surviving cancer and starting The Gastric Cander Fund, which aims to do nothing short of finding a cure for the disease. With J.P.’s vision as well as the help of his employer, NetApp, the foundation aims to provide one lucky research group everything it would need — the money, the computers, the medical collaboration — to find the root cause of gastric cancer.

Pretty fricking cool.

And if you’re wondering how in the hell J.P. ever found the time and energy (let alone the vision) to start something like this while fighting for his life and mourning the loss of loved ones, on top of everything else, I don’t have an answer.

In October 2008, I asked you to pray for J.P. and his people. Today, I ‘m asking you to learn more about his new foundation, and to consider helping.

I’m thinking about a friend, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

NOTE: This marks the beginning of what I hope will be an occasional series in which I tell you about friends doing some pretty cool things.

July 15, 2009 3

Some kind of inspiration

3am Not too long ago, I saw a guy walk past my desk eating something on a stick.

It looked like it had little legs, that thing on a stick.

It jarred me.

I soon realized it was just a corn dog, but it gave me a great idea for a short story. Well, that and the troubling reality of acronym-inflation.

Add an interesting item from my son’s recently acquired book on Northern California insects, and I had some of the primary elements of my new short story, “Some Kind of Rugged Genius,” which now appears in 3:AM Magazine.

Of course, if roasted rat on a stick, California stink beetles and acronym insanity ain’t your thing, you may wanna pass on this one.

April 21, 2009 5

Feeling good … for a friend

I’m feeling good.

I’m feeling good for a friend.

Today, a truly talented and thoughtful writer experienced one of those rare moments of pure joy and satisfaction. And I couldn’t be happier for him.

Enough said. The full story is here.

March 13, 2008 1

When one man “reaches land”

I like to watch when people achieve their literary dreams.

Knowing so many writers who, like me, aspire to achieve greater things with their fiction, it’s always great to see someone actually “hit land,” to reach the distant, seemingly impregnable Island of Getting Published. Attempting to get there is a long, taxing and difficult journey that, in most cases, ultimately ends with one’s aspirations getting slammed onto the deadly reef surrounding this remote, tantalizing island. Sure, it’s a great adventure full of valuable growth opportunities for anyone who attempts this journey, and yes I do believe it’s good for aspiring writers to diversify their emotional investments, but it’s still nice to “be there” when someone gets through that reef in one piece and hits the sandy beach.

Which is why I have been following David White, a New Jersey teacher who is about to realize his dream. His well-reviewed, debut crime novel, “When One Man Dies,” hits bookstores Sept. 25. And even though I don’t know the guy beyond what he shares on his blog, I can tell he is truly amped about the whole thing. Recently, he added a feature on his blog that counts down the hours, minutes and seconds to when the doors open on Sept. 25.

Remaining seconds in Dave’s countdown, as of this writing: 685,4788. But who’s counting?

September 17, 2007 2

A personal milestone

Last Friday, the call finally came. It was the call I’d been anticipating for months. It was the call I’d been working toward for years. It was the call I sometimes thought would never come.

It was a call from my literary agent. He’d finished reading the latest revision of my novel, and he is ready to start sharing it with some handpicked editors the week after Labor Day.

Thus, I begin a new phase in my fiction-writing career — actually having my book submitted to publishers. On the surface, that might sound like it should have been a simple goal, something easy to attain. But to actually get to this point was anything but easy. I have spent many years writing and revising this book — countless late nights, countless pre-dawn mornings, so many stolen moments.

And believe me, I know. I know how low the odds are. In today’s book market, I know how rare it is for any book editor to actually like a book so thoroughly that she would be willing to part with hard-earned cash to have it. But right now, on this week, that’s okay. I’ll bemoan those sober realities some other day.

In other words, wooooooooooooooooooooo-hoooooo.

August 28, 2007 6

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