What Jeff did over summer vacation

Welcome to issue two of my newsletter. I've had an incredibly busy summer here. First was the tour of California with the RedHeaded League (http://hometown.aol.com/readheadedleague) to promote Who Was That Lady? (the Craig Rice biography) and The Ambush of My Name, my first mystery novel. Julie Wray Herman, Kris Neri, and I traveled from San Francisco where the American Library Association convention was being held. The convention is the largest in the US with over 25,000 attendees, of which we were but three.

After four grueling days in SF, we headed south to LA, where we spent another 5 days touring the city and signing books. We finished up at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, and an exhausted trio flew home.

I followed up that tour with a 20 event minitour in the Cincinnati area. That tour finished up yesterday (August 17th) with a signing at the Brentanos at Tower Place Mall in downtown Cincinnati. I had planned to take some time off after this set of signings, but fate came between me and relaxing for a few weeks by the pool.

Ironic

One of the reasons no one has heard much out of me lately is that I've been busy writing a book on how to promote your own novels. It's a bit ironic that I had to take some time off from promoting to write about marketing and promotions, but there you have it. The book is due to the publisher, Margo Power's Deadly Alibi Press (http://www.deadlyalibipress.com/), in a few weeks. It should be out in time for LCC next year in March -- so things are flying here.

NOT the Tony Awards

Magnolias and Mayhem, my 3rd mystery anthology, was nominated for an Anthony Award, the honors given out by the Boucheron (world mystery convention) people. The awards banquet isn't until November 3rd, but I'm still pretty excited about it. My story in M&M features the 2nd appearance of US Grant as detective. (http://www.bouchercon2001.com/2001_awards.html)

Ambush-ed

Of course, no newsletter would be complete without mentioning that the distribution problems surrounding The Ambush of My Name have been corrected. So it's available through all the chains and Amazon at this point. Of course, since it's my first mystery novel, I'd encourage you to buy several copies of it (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570721858/qid=998182885/sr=1-3/ref=sc_b_3/107-3547289-7582917) . The next installment in the series will be out in August of 2002, and is tentatively titled "GOOD SOLDIER".

Coming up

On the fall schedule:

September 14th, Krogers on Harrison at lunch time
September 15th, Joseph Beth Booksellers in Rookwood Pavilion, Local Author Day
October 11-12, Southern Festival of Books, Nashville, TN
(http://www.tn-humanities.org/sfbmain.htm )
October 22, Lecture at the Clermont County Library in Milford
November 2-4, Bouchercon, Washington DC
(http://www.bouchercon2001.com/2001_awards.html )
November 13th, Mystery Group at Borders Northgate, 7pm
November 17th, Kentucky Book Fair, Frankfort, KY