Photo: Mark CogginsThanks to Janet Rudolph for posting this reminder essay on her blog Mystery Fanfare last week.

Direct link to "Fog on the Horizon."

It was a couple of years back, in summer 2008, when I wrote this essay about my newly adopted city of San Francisco and how living here enabled me to start writing the Jack Palms Crime series. These days I'd probably envoke Joyce's concept of exile to talk more about how I've been able to see the Cambridge of my youth more clearly this past year in writing YOUNG JUNIUS.

I've also started developing a lot more to say about SF as I live here in the city since moving across the bridge this summer.

In any case, enjoy the following essay. You can jump to the rest after the break.

"Fog on the Horizon"

James Joyce said a writer has to have three things: silence, exile and cunning. I don’t know about how my silence or cunning stack up, but when I landed in the Bay Area three years ago from my native Boston, it didn’t take long to realize I’d found my share of exile. From one coast to the other is far! Factor in the reality that by 8PM here most of my family and friends are asleep, and I’ve been good to go.

It is IN!! Pub Weekly, the powerhouse reviewing company has weighed in on Young Junius. This is what they had to say:

Hey folks, I'm on the road again this week, doing some traveling, but the good news is I'm lining up reading dates for YOUNG JUNIUS!! 

So far we have NYC: Nov. 3rd -- Wednesday at 6:30 at the Mysterious Bookshop! Awesome! Hope to see you there!

with Cousins Maggie and Shira at the Sawks!Hey! Have you checked out the new episode over at CrimeWAV? Jason Duke presents part THREE of Phoenix Nightlife. Hope you've been checking it out.

I'm in Boston, kicking back, working pages, and planning a few readings and events for the YOUNG JUNIUS release this fall. Wicked awesome!

You pumped? Hope so.

TODAY -- July 31st is your last chance to pre-order a copy of the YOUNG JUNIUS SPECIAL EDITION. 

No, after today you cannot get one. You'll have to cry and covet your friends' copies. Sorry.

You want one, you have to act now. Because after this we roll up the magic carpet of literary fancy-edition goodness and that's that.

Thanks to all who've already bought copies. This promotion, pre-sale and special edition publishing endeavor have all been huge successes! Tyrus and I are stoked about what we've accomplished here. We're damn close to having sold 200 copies of the book! 

That's awesome for a special edition like this, in pre-order and takes us a long way toward what the overall cost of printing all copies of the book will cost us. You guys rock! Thanks again.

Next up is publicity and marketing and we'll be paying for that from Special Edition proceeds too. Readings coming up: October in San Francisco and early-November on the East Coast!

The Eisenhower Administration, Prohibition, the 1980s, Red Auerbach's Celtics teams, Dean Smith at North Carolina... all good (and bad) eras must come to an end.

And so today my series of Hot Tub Casts™ joins that long list. Listen here to find out more about why I've made this decision, what you can expect from me coming up (more fiction!) and what else I've been up to this summer. 

You want the new publishing paradigm? Writing--that's what it's all really about. Writing the good fiction I can be proud of and getting it out to you, the readers & listeners, in whatever the best way to do that is. So this fall that's what I'm getting back to.

Included here is a promo for John Mierau's podcast ENEMY LINES that has my own little voice on it and a final plug of awareness for your fast-fading chance to get your Young Junius Special Edition.

Heard me? I'm OUT!

Wow! I got my hands today on this new galley/promo copy of Young Junius and it looks SWEET!! 

I'm pretty pumped, as you can imagine. How pumped? Well, let's just say that this podcast I recorded today with Ben from Tyrus barely scratches the surface and it's still a pretty crazy one.

So you hear me? Nuff said. Just listen:

Click here to experience the word on when you'll no longer be able to order copies of the Special Edition!

Man, having the book in my hands, seeing it in print? Yeah, there's something dramatic about this that really does make it all worthwhile.

Been too long since I've posted any sound content to come at you in the head piece, so I'm turning over a CrimeWAV leaf for you guys today.

Hear me talk about the deadline coming for your Young Junius Special Edition purchase [it's July 31st!!!] and Part 1 of Jason Duke's awesome novella Phoenix Nightlife!

This one's gonna knock your hat off!

Click here to download/listen to Part 1 of Phoenix Nightlife by Jason Duke

Sgt. Jason Duke

More Action than JacksonThat's right, say it, accept it, believe it. Everyone you know is reading the Stieg Larsson "Girl Who..." novels this year. Yes, they're crime/mystery; yes, they're good; yes, they're filled with hilarious street and town names and characters who fell out of the consonant factory too early.

Anyway, I'm here to say it up front: Mikael Blomkvist is a bronze god of writer-mojo idealism! And, he's definitely my homie. I'm making a bracelet that says WWBD (What Would Blomkvist Do).

The answer, as some of you have already pointed out on facebook and other sites is to schtup everything that walks. I could handle this in book one when he basically worked his way through the female characters in the book, handle this when he did clean up in book two by finishing off the job on the one woman he hadn't slept with in book one. But now, in book 3 (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), Larsson has elevated him to god status. Ridiculous? Very. Funny. Yes.

I'm back with two pieces of news:

1) the Young Junius Special Edition pre-orders will come to an end on July 31st. Order now or forever be left out in the cold. When 7/31 comes there are no more orders!

2) The Author Boot Camp class is finally coming to a fully-online format. Starting 7/22, I'll be running the first 4-week class on Podcasting to Platform. More info is here as well as this free 30-min webinar on the course content. Give it a watch! FREE!

Much more info on the class is here.

Otherwise, Africa was amazing, lots of great pics (some here on my facebook page), I'm back and working hard on revision/edits/writing, and we'll be back to give you more CrimeWAV content soon.

'nuff said!