Totes Appreciated

Mystery Scene Magazine sent me the pictured tote bag for renewing my subscription.

At The 5-2: "Your Voice" by Lauren McBride

The 5-2's month of love-themed poems concludes with Lauren McBride's haunting "Your Voice", read by 5-2 alum Sarah Stockton:



Next Monday, March 3, is the deadline to submit poems about trickery, fooling, or being fooled, for publication in April.

You can also join us in April on our 30 Days of The 5-2 blog tour.

More about Kim Cooper's THE KEPT GIRL

L.A. historian Kim Cooper is back at my author chat blog, Chatterrific, with a guest post about how she published the novel.

At The 5-2: "Salt" by Sarah Nichols

Our month of love-themed poems continues with "Salt" by Connecticut writer and artist Sarah Nichols. I welcomed a new Voice of The 5-2 to record the poem, my Twitter friend Kristen Chapman Gibbons:




The 5-2's theme for April, National Poetry Month, is trickery, fooling, or being fooled. Submit today.

Spots are open if you'd like to blog about 5-2 poetry in April.

New "Cop" on the BEAT

My maybe-too-clever entry title refers to my just-published story, "Cop", at BEAT to a PULP. My thanks to editors David Cranmer, Scott Parker, and Chad Eagleton.

Ralph Waite Dies at 85

Veteran actor Ralph Waite died yesterday at his home in South Palm Desert, California. Best known for The Waltons, in recent years he made several appearances on NCIS as Gibbs' father, and on Bones as Booth's grandfather. All were memorable, and I was aware that each might be the last.

Love is a Crime

It can turn into one, at least. Every February at The 5-2, I run love-themed crime poems. For Valentine's Day, I'll link to them all in one post:

Nyla Alisia, "Enter the Sandman: 31S love affair"
Christine Aletti, "Sylvia Plath, Gaslight Left On"
Robert Cooperman, "Delicious Sins"
JD Debris, "The Girl in the American Apparel Ad"
Anne Graue, "The Death of the Nut Harvester"
Clarinda Harriss, "Sweet-talk Me on Valentine's Day"
Scott T. Hutchison, "Glossy"
Elizabeth Lash, "In Memoriam: Ex-KGB Agent Complains..."
Anina Robb, "Affair"
Hal Sirowitz, "Through Pink-Tinged Glasses"

Two more are coming up this month.

I'm now accepting submissions for our April theme: trickery, fooling, or being fooled. Submit today.

Justice League: War

At the Crimespree blog is my review of the DC animated movie Justice League: War, which recasts the characters in line with The New 52.

Maggie Estep

Poet, essayist, and novelist Maggie Estep died suddenly from a massive heart attack Monday night, February 10. I discovered Estep through recordings of her spoken-word performances on YouTube. Taken with her voice, I read her essay collection, Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals, and her story collection, Soft Maniacs.

I met her only briefly, at a signing for Hard Boiled Brooklyn edited by Reed Farrel Coleman. I told her how much I enjoyed Mechanical Animals, and she smiled.

In meaning to re-tweet the article linked above, I mistakenly re-tweeted Duane Swierczynski quoting Maggie:

"I hate when a famous person dies and everyone who ever met them once writes stuff about the person." Maggie Estep, last October.

— Duane Swierczynski (@swierczy) February 12, 2014

Forgive me, but her loss reminds me what a difference that meeting makes.

Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter has announced this will be his final season. As with Mariano Rivera, a virtually season-long injury prepared me to say goodbye.

Three months and nine days older than I, Derek made it to the big leagues during the first semester of Font, a student lit magazine I helped establish at Hofstra University. As luck would have it, many on staff were Yankee fans, and we've followed his career over the course of our friendship.

In both cases, I can't believe it's been twenty years, but the number of weddings, children, and gray hairs attest. Jeter is too much my contemporary to be my favorite player—that was Don Mattingly—but every compliment paid to Jeter is earned. One cannot handle being an athlete in the largest market better than he. Just as he does on the field, he gauges the gravity of any public situation, prepares himself, and performs. He has seemingly never been caught off-guard. We can all learn from that. It's what I'll remember most about him.

THE KEPT GIRL by Kim Cooper

Today on my author chat blog, Chatterrific, I have a review of The Kept Girl, L.A. historian Kim Cooper's indie-published first novel. It concerns a string of actual cult murders with ties to the oil company where Raymond Chandler once worked. Kim is on a blog tour this month and will be back at Chatterrific next Wednesday with a guest post.

Erase Valentine's Day?

This week on Silver Birch Press's blog, editor Melanie Villines is running some Valentine erasure poems made from various pages 214. Here's mine.

At The 5-2: "Glossy" by Scott T. Hutchison

The 5-2's Valentine's week poem is by New Hampshire creative writing teacher Scott T. Hutchison:



I'm now accepting submissions to be published in April as part of The 5-2's blog tour.

Middleman!

I received one of my perks from Javier Grillo-Marxuach's Middleman resurrection campaign, a signed copy of the script for the upcoming Pan-Universal Parental Reconciliation graphic novel. I will read it gently if at all:

NCIS: "Monsters and Men"

This episode revealed that Bishop had been pursuing season-long terrorist Benham Parsa for six years all told, while he had been just as obsessed with her. Navy SEALs executed a raid on Parsa's hideout mirroring the takedown of Osama bin Laden, except Parsa was taken alive.

This arc-concluding episode was a final test of the trust between Gibbs and Bishop, and that trust was cemented as evidenced by his offering her a full-time probationary position at NCIS.

NCIS: New Orleans

Two of my favorite actors from Don Bellisario shows—Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) and Zoe McLellan (JAG)—have been cast along with C.C.H. Pounder in the New Orleans-based backdoor pilot from NCIS producers Gary Glasberg and Mark Harmon.

Bakula will play the lead agent, Pride, a friend of Gibbs' from the days of NIS who helps him investigate the murder of a mutual friend. McLellan will play Agent Brody, a Midwestern fish-out-of-water looking to make a fresh start. Pounder will play Dr. Wade, the Jefferson Parish M.E.

UPDATE (Feb. 10): Alabama native Lucas Black, who played Pee Wee Reese in 42, was announced as Agent LaSalle, who "relocated to New Orleans as a kid and now he embodies its edge and fun and sexiness. He's a man who works hard and plays harder. A no-nonsense federal agent who believes in doing what's right no matter what." Black tweeted that shooting begins in a week

UPDATE (Feb. 18): TVLine reports Paige Turco has been cast as Special Agent Pride's wife, Linda. I like the prospects for a married lead agent. It goes against the typical driven loner lead. Years ago, Don Bellisario thought aloud about marrying off two NCIS agents.

UPDATE (Mar. 10): Dave Walker of the Times-Picayune reports NCIS was set to wrap location shooting in New Orleans March 10. Walker's report also reveals Agent Pride's first name, Dwayne, and that he, Gibbs, and their deceased mutual friend worked on the same NIS team.

UPDATE (Mar. 12): Via The Futon Critic, the press release from CBS features a synopsis of the plot and guest cast, including full character names.

I'm glad NCIS: Los Angeles has succeeded, but I find the show too uneven to buy on DVD. Last season's L.A. spinoff attempt, "Red", didn't wow me. I had been skeptical about this attempt, too, but Bakula, McLellan, Pounder, Black, and Turco will bring a lot to their roles if allowed.

UPDATE (Mar. 26): My impressions of "Crescent City" Part One. I'll update the same post after Part Two.

UPDATE (May 9): Multiple sources report CBS has picked up NCIS: New Orleans for Fall 2014.

We Can't All Just Get Along

Last week, I heard something about an accomplished literary novelist who had just published a mystery but oddly disdained the genre in an interview about said mystery. Many friends and luminaries in the mystery fiction community leaped to the genre's defense, pointing out that said literary novelist's mystery was a poor example of the form.

I paid neither side much attention. This isn't the first time a writer of one genre—literary is a genre—has bashed another genre. Animosity from all sides gets us nowhere. Writers are drawn to write what they like just as readers read what they like. If someone isn't into a particular genre, there's little chance a fan will convert her.

Everything I read for pleasure now I would have enjoyed thirty years ago, too. I read my first thriller, The Fifth Profession because I recognized author David Morrell as the creator of Rambo. I loved Star Wars and Superman as a child, and now I enjoy Firefly and James S.A. Corey's Expanse novels. Clearly, my choice of reading pursues the pure joy I felt in my youth. As I've aged, I've spent my free time exploring why I enjoyed what I did as much as I did. We're all pursuing happiness, but different things make different people happy.

I feel no animosity toward people who don't enjoy what I enjoy. I feel no need to defend what I enjoy; it speaks for itself. Often I appreciate it more when others don't enjoy it.

Sleepy Bowl

I couldn't attend any friends' Super Bowl parties this year, so I engaged in my alternate tradition, a nap. Yes, I slept through the entire game. The individualist in me resists doing what so many others are, but also, the Super Bowl strikes me as the final that least resembles a regular-season game. I like the regular seasons of most sports. As the media hype and attention increase, my interest oddly wanes. Where were all these people in Week 2?

At The 5-2: "In Memoriam: Ex-KGB Agent Complains..." by Elizabeth Lash

This week, attorney Elizabeth Lash brings us a poem from the perspective of murdered ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko:




I'm now seeking an original poem by an Irish poet or about Irish crime to be published the week of St. Patrick's Day. I'm also seeking poems for April, National Poetry Month. Submit today.