Friday the 13th my ass

It’s Friday the 13^th – black cats, broken mirrors, psychos in goalie masks sticking big knives in people. The day fortune is supposed to pepper your backside with all its outrageous slings and arrows. Yeah, well, here’s how I roll.

 Today, I’m pleased, hell, I’m positively chuffed (little tip of the derby to Emlyn Rees and my new UK buddies) to announce that I’ve signed a two-book deal with Exhibit A – the new crime imprint from the good folks at Angry Robot books..

 Fuck you fortune and your outrageous slings and arrows. You’ve tagged my ass before, but today I flip you both birds and fart in your general direction.

 A huge thank you to Stacia Decker, who, by now, must surely be the recognized empress of crime fiction agents. And also of bacon, coffee and dogs. I’ll be a little less embarrassed when I see her next, since she will finally have something to show for her tireless efforts on my behalf.

 Thanks to my family for carrying on while I hide in sundry benighted corners of the household scribbling my nasty little tales.

 And, while I don’t have room to do this by name, thank you to the weird and wonderful crime fiction community, those I’ve met in person, and those I only know on line. It’s a question that’s been asked before, but why is it the folks who spend their time making up awful stories about man’s darkest impulses are also the same folks who’ll buy drinks for some unknown who’s never published a word when he nervously turns up at his first con. The folks who will invite him to come do readings, have him as a guest on their blogs, publish reviews of his first efforts, do pretty much anything they can to help?  Ya’ll are weird and you’re wonderful, just like Benny and the Jets.

 To celebrate the news, Snubnose Press (and they published me first, folks) will be offering OLD SCHOOL, my short fiction collection, for free from July 14 through July 18. That’s right peeps, I get a book deal, you get the presents. 

 One last melancholy thank you. I’m sitting at my father’s desk as I write this, sitting in my father’s chair. Mine now because Dad’s gone. My Dad was an inveterate reader – he raised me in a household where you couldn’t turn around without tripping over a book, where what you read was part of who you were. Would I have been a writer without that example? Maybe. But maybe not. And I can just imagine the smile it would put on his face to pick up a book with his son’s name on it. So thanks Dad. Sorry you missed this.

 I guess fortune had one last arrow left. It always does.