October 21, 2013

Online Crime-writing Workshop

I don't usually respond to advertising requests - well, all right, I do - but I thought this was interestingly and directly relevant to the topic of this blog, which is about how crime writers do what they do.

Carrie King from WritersWebTV has written to me asking if I would promote this event and I think it's interesting enough to warrant further publicity. Rather than try to paraphrase it, I'll just paste the main text of her email:

Crime’s best writers give you the scoop

Best-selling crime authors Ken Bruen, Jane Casey, Declan Hughes and Niamh O’Connor will be joining WritersWebTV on October 30th, ready to arm aspiring authors with all the best writing tips, tricks and methods at the upcoming workshop, Crime Pays: Writing Crime Fiction.

Multi-award-winning Ken Bruen - the author of the Jack Taylor series which has become a TV hit starring Iain Glen – will talk through writing great hook-lines and how to develop characters across a series. Jane Casey, author of the Maeve Kerrigan series of crime novels will guide participants through the basics of narrative and plot. Declan Hughes - author of the Ed Loy PI series - rigorously plans his writing and he’ll be giving his insights on how to plan for your novel while being open to new sources of inspiration. Niamh O’Connor, one of Ireland’s leading crime journalists, will lead us through the research process and crack the code of juggling family, writing and a day-job.

This free-to-watch-live, online workshop will cover all aspects of crime fiction and viewers will be able to interact with those in studio to help them develop their skills. WritersWebTV has developed a world-first innovation in online education for writers by providing livestreamed interactive workshops to a global audience, featuring Irish and international best-selling writers and industry professionals.

The one-day workshops are streamed live from a multi-camera broadcast studio in Dublin. Bestselling authors interact with an in-studio audience of aspiring writers, who present their work for critique. Online viewers can communicate with those in the studio using Twitter, Facebook or email. They can ask a question, take part in a workshop exercise, comment online and benefit from on-screen feedback from the authors in-studio.

Led by experienced workshop facilitator Vanessa O’Loughlin, founder of writing.ie, the panel will consider the key elements of fiction writing and furnish viewers with tips, advice and actionable insights to help them improve their writing and get it on the path to publication.

Upcoming courses include Crime Pays: Writing Crime Fiction on Wednesday, October 30th, and Getting Published on Saturday, November 9th, with plans in motion for courses in 2014.


Viewers can watch the full one-day workshops for free when they watch them live. If they want to download a workshop or watch it later, they can pay to keep the course.

For more information, contact:
Carrie King
WritersWebTV
Tel: +353 1 2076476
Mob: +353 87 9918963

October 13, 2013

Awesome Indies

Not really a blog, more of a boast ...

I'm proud to say that Actress has been accepted by the discerning crowd at Awesome Indies, and is officially 'Approved' as an awesome independently-published work. A book has to go through some hoops to be allowed into the lists, so it's particularly gratifying Actress made it through.

You can find the site, and the list of books that have attained an excellent standard in writing, editing and production, here: http://awesomeindies.net/

Actress is in the Contemporary Fiction section. To the right of this page you'll see the badge, which will also be appearing on the cover of the ebook version.

October 01, 2013

Private Eyes Rule!

Just a note to advertise a new anthology of private eye short stories to which I've contributed a new Sam Dyke story. There are also stories from Reed Farrel Coleman, Bill Crider, James Winter, Fred Zackel, J.L. Abramo, Jochem Vandersteen, Sean Dexter and some newer names like Kit Rohrbacher, Peter DiChellis and others.

As a sidebar, I also designed the cover. Thankfully, people seem to like it!
























You can download the book from here for 99 cents: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FJ1DN68

Or from here for 77 pence: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?field-keywords=The%20Shamus%20Sampler&node=341677031