Cussin' Contest!

Ormand "Duke" Dukakis, the crime-fighting reporter in Great News Town, likes creative curse words.  "Peacock Piddle," "Canary Crap," and "Dingo Drizzle" are some of his favorites. Want to join the fun? Use the comment key on this post to suggest a new curse phrase for Duke. If I use your suggested phrase in his next adventure, One Shoe Off, then I'll give you recognition in the credits and send you a free, autographed copy of  One Shoe Off.  

Artsy Smartsy

Whoa! Great News Town will be featured on a self-publishing panel Wednesday between a children's author and a nun's memoir. Talk about contrast. Serial killers are not comic relief.  The panel will be held at Biggby Coffee in St. Joseph, Mi., starting at 7 p.m. I may become a coffee drinker yet!

Great News Town is going home

Just got an invite to an Author Fair in Joliet on Oct. 15. It will be exciting to see the reaction of people who remember the summer of 1983. I suspect they'll be surprised that Great News Town doesn't stick to the facts of what really happened that summer. If it did, it wouldn't be called fiction. But I think they'll be intrigued to see fact and fiction woven together into such a frightening tale.

Great News grows.

Opportunities for Great News Town are multiplying. The book now has its own Facebook Page as well as a display at my local beauty shop, Lamar Hair Studio. You may think serial killers are out of place in a beauty shop, but it's not so different from the gossipy ceramic shop in the book.

Going Great Guns!

Great News Town is really taking off this week. Kent District Library has requested a copy and I've agreed to speak on a writers' panel in St. Joe on Aug. 31 as well as a panel at the Peninsula Writers retreat on my birthday, Oct. 1. Nice way to celebrate. And the 15 percent online discount is about to expire, so if you are ordering a copy from lulu.com, don't forget to put in the coupon code: MYBOOK305

On the spot

Great News Town is featured in the Kalamazoo Gazette's Self-Publish Spotlight. I've included a passage from the book, the same one I read at my book signing at Schulers'. Guaranteed nightmares. Check it out here