The Owl on the Road to Medford

After three mystery novels with a mainstream mystery publisher--Poisoned Pen Press--I have embarked on a different fiction journey. I wrote a short story, it won a contest, and my muse said, "Let's do more of that!"

The original Owl on the Road to Medford was an experiment in voice and indirect story. (Yes, I just  made up that term.) You can read it HERE.  Calyx literary magazine picked it up after it won the 2014 Oregon Writer's Colony first prize for short fiction. Woo-hoo!

So I wrote six more short stories with the same narrator in the same setting--a wildlife rehabilitation clinic somewhere in western Oregon. I got to use a bunch of anecdotes from my zoo days and thereafter. The central character is an amalgam of men I have known and liked and sympathized with. Why a male voice? "Why not?" says the muse. Just because, say I.

These seven stories turned out to have a story arc, an adventure of the heart. Together, they seemed to me to make a novella--not as big as a novel, but not a short story collection in the usual sense.

As far as I can tell, publishers have no interest in novellas, so I set out to self-publish, as many authors are doing these days. After a short but intense struggle, The Owl on the Road to Medford is now available as an ebook. Click HERE to take a look. It soon will be available on paper, assuming that I figure out how to do that.

If you buy it and like it, do me a favor and post a little review. I'd appreciate it and my muse might, too.

North to Alaska... well, not really

I am off to Seattle at dawn-thirty tomorrow!

I'll see Woodland Park Zoo and friends, maybe test my event slide show on the real experts.

Saturday: Seattle Mystery Bookshop at noon. Third Place Books at 6:30.

Sunday: The King Tut exhibit with a friend, then home again, home again, jiggity jig

All jigged out.

Left Coast Crime

Well lookit thet! I'm on video HERE.

This is from Left Coast Crime mystery conference, held in Sacramento this March. Lorie Ham of Kings River Life stalked the halls, interviewing mystery authors.  Thank you, Lorie!

Always weird to see myself on film/video. Do I sound British? What's with all the head movement? Is it OK???? [spasm of self-consciousnesses] Did you think I was young and blond and gorgeous? Now you know the truth. If only I had a camel to distract you...

Relax! We have other things on our mind.

Night Kill for 99 Cents

Just  found out today that you can download the e-book version of Night Kill, the first Iris Oakley zoo-dunnit, for a mere 99 cents until the end of the month. Click HERE and go for it.

What's Night Kill all about? Here you go:

The Finley Zoo lions were captive-born; they had never killed. But they knew exactly what to do when drunken zookeeper Rick Douglas fell into their exhibit in the middle of the night. Iris Oakley, Rick’s widow, is devastated that he broke his promise to quit drinking and then died stupid. But questions about his death won't let her move on from grief and anger. Iris realizes she must find out what really happened that night. Friends are as troublesome as suspects--when she can tell them apart--and her career falls off the rails. She loses her coveted position as a feline keeper and her boss wants her gone for good. Iris hangs tough, determined to figure out who fed Rick to the lions and why. Her insider's understanding of wild animals finally points to the truth. Then Iris has to survive to prove it.

She forgot to mention Night Kill has penguins in it.