Pen on Fire Speaking Series
For more information on the next salon, hosted by Barbara, click here.
Orange County Noir
Out in April, Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies with Orange County Noir, edited by Gary Phillips, and with an introduction by T. Jefferson Parker. All the stories, including Barbara's "Crazy for You," are, as Parker says in the intro: "...bent toward the darkness, so don't expect the Orange County in these pages to be quite as sunny as it thinks it is."
Review in Publishers Weekly, February 22, 2010
“There's a dark side to most places,” even California's sunny Orange County, Edgar-winner T. Jefferson Parker observes in his foreword to this outstanding entry in Akashic's noir series, one of the stronger of the all-original anthologies. The crisp, often seductive prose of the 14 contributors, most of them relatively unknown, is a tribute to the critical judgment of the editor, whose own assured story, “The Performer,” involves a heist at a dog food factory that ends with more than one surprise. Robert Ward, a writer-producer for such TV shows as Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, offers some wicked twists in “Black Star Canyon,” in which a fictional alter ego gets bounced from the program he created. Gordon McAlpine uses his narrator's job as a security officer at Disneyland in “The Happiest Place” as an effective catalyst for a classic noir plot of betrayal. Other notable tales include Susan Straight's “Bee Canyon” and Dick Lochte's “The Movie Game.”
Pen On Fire:
A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within
Winner of the 2005 ASJA Outstanding Book Award
Here is the first practical, inspirational guide to generate ideas and get yourself writing with only 15 spare minutes a day... More here.
"... perfectly combines inspiration and practical advice, with the premise that anyone can find 15 minutes a day to become the writer he or she always wanted to be." —Dale Raben, LibraryJournal
"Finally, someone has come along to tell would-be writers the two words they desperately need to hear: get real! ... a supremely relevant guide to the writing life." —Carol Haggas, Booklist
"Pen on Fire soars with inspiration and crackles with joy. It’s a blessing for anyone going crazy trying to find time to write.”
—Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life
Watch video of Barbara talking about Pen on Fire and other topics on Barry Kibrick's "Between the Lines", from May 27, 2005, KLCS-TV, Los Angeles. Click here.
Knitting Through It
Read Barbara’s essay, “Knitting: My Urban Escape,” included in this anthology, edited by Lela Nargi (author of Knitting Lessons). In her essay, Barbara talks wryly about how knitting keeps her connected to the natural order of things, vital for her as she tries to stay sane in the paved paradise of Orange County, CA, where she resides with her husband, son, and cats.
