Joyce Carol Oates is an icon in today’s literary world, a brilliant writer who believes that all novels contain some sort of mystery. Listen and learn from one of the great writers of our time.
I so enjoyed being interviewed by Jane, a writer of mysteries and a generous soul. To connect to Jane: www.janecleland.com
My short story for New Jersey Noir anthology called “Lola” was reviewed at Little Big Crime Blog. “I didn’t think this story was going to be my favorite of the week. It felt like a pretty ordinary piece at first. But stories, like people for that matter, can surprise you. The narrator is a would-be portrait artist who makes his living preparing stretchers for more successful painters. One day riding the PATH trains back to Hoboken he becomes attracted to a young woman. Pretty soon he is obsessed with her, and this is obviously not the first time he has gone down this path. I was pretty sure I knew where this journey was headed. Well. Can’t say much more without giving away the store. Let’s just say Santlofer has some surprises in store for his characters, and for us. A perfect ending is one that leaves the reader saying: “I never saw that coming, … Read more
Mulholland books asked the contributors to LA Noire: The Collected Stories why Los Angeles is so associated with the Noir genre. Here is my response: “When Rockstar asked me to put together an anthology to accompany their darkly beautiful video game, LA NOIRE, I pounced. Having been enamored with noir both on the page and on the screen since my brooding teenage years, my mind was spinning Chandleresque tales before I wrote a single word or asked another author to contribute. I wanted to invite a hundred writers but it ended up a small collection, every story burnished black as ebony, all jittery gems that invite the reader to trespass along those sunny/seamy LA streets. For my own story I slipped into the mind of a killer and had fun mixing fact and fiction, bringing in shadowy underworld figures I’d only read about, like Mickey Cohen and Johnny Stompanato, real life bad guys who seem … Read more
This is a link to a continuing novel series by Ken Bruen called Black Lens. Check out this link which gives you a sneak peak to the series which is being released on chapter at a time. I also created the illustrations for the series which is published by Mulholland Books.
Here is a snippet of a post I did on the Mulholland Books blog: “Not everyone was schooled on comic books. But I was. I had a roomful: Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Spiderman; Archie, Betty and Veronica, Riverdale High, Little Archie. I had Classic Comics too: The Three Musketeers, The Last of the Mohicans, Robinson Crusoe (all of which I considered books until I finally read a real one). But my favorites were horror comics: Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Chamber of Chills, Terror Tales. I had them all. Stacks of them. It was difficult to get in and out of my bedroom. My mother complained it was impossible to clean. I didn’t see her point. Friends would come over and we’d lock ourselves in and read all day. I’d read and reread my favorites, stories that became etched in my preadolescent brain. Read more here…”
This short video was shot in my old 38th Street Manhattan studio to promote my novel, “Anatomy of Fear.” I wrote the script, did the voice over and play the artist (Hey, I was available and the price was right). My assistant, Ryan Ernst, plays the killer. I had Ryan pose for the killer’s portrait in the novel so it made sense that he’d play him in the video. He’s really a sweet guy, not the terrifying psycho he portrays here. “Anatomy of Fear” won the Nero Wolfe award for best crime novel of the year and I am very proud of that.
I had the opportunity to be a guest judge on Bravo’s Work of Art reality series. In this episode I helped the panel judge and discuss the participants assignment of creating a book cover for a famous work of literature.
I will be participating in the group exhibition “Pop Goes the World” at Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York. You can find out more about the show from the information below. Pop Goes the World June 30 – August 13, 2010 PAVEL ZOUBOK GALLERY invites you to a group exhibition of collages, paintings and drawings that explore geographies which are both playful and apocalyptic. Please join us for the opening reception on Wednesday, June 30 from 6-8pm, or during the run of the exhibition, which continues through August 13. The gallery is located at: 533 West 23rd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues). SUMMER HOURS: Monday – Friday, 11am-6pm POP GOES THE WORLD! features twenty-one artists who use images and materials drawn from mass culture (maps, puzzles, currency, tar, scientific illustrations, etc.) to describe our world in a constant state of upheaval. The works range from densely layered geographies that redefine traditional cultural, social and … Read more
by Macy Halford It was criminal how sexy it was. Writers of different genres intermingling, their poisons of choice (Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir) placid in Dixie cups. Bright lights, marble busts of dead authors, buttercream-yellow walls and crown molding, an overwhelming air of camaraderie. This was the scene last night at the old Mercantile Library, on East 47th Street, now the Center for Fiction and home (for an hour) to a reading of The End of a Dark Street. The editors of this decidedly transgressive anthology, S. J. Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer, stood and explained their reasoning: by bringing literary heavyweights (among them Madison Smartt Bell, Francine Prose, Amy Hempel, Edmund White) together with crime-fiction heavyweights (among them Lee Child, Laura Lippman, James Grady, Lawrence Block, Val McDermid), the literary legitimacy of crime fiction might be demonstrated: all the stories were so good, Rozan said, that one could not tell which were written by the … Read more