Posted by CharlesKelly on May 31, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on Thanks for supporting GRACE HUMISTON
Thanks so much to all of you who voted for my novel Grace Humiston and the Vanishing in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. The best part of the competition was finding out how many friends and well-wishers I have out there who are willing to rally to help me. The voting is over now, and the winner will be revealed at an awards dinner in Seattle on June 16. Amazon will fly me up there along with the other finalists.
This has been a wonderful ride, regardless of the outcome. I’ll let everybody know soon after the awards whether I won or not.
But, in reality, I have already won. Having you as my friends is better than a literary victory: it’s a life victory.
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Posted by CharlesKelly on Mar 10, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on FATALE Features Marlowe
The late hard-boiled mystery writer Dan Marlowe is getting a lot of attention this week. That’s good, because in a few months I’m going to publish a biography: Gunshots in Another Room: The Forgotten Life of Dan J. Marlowe. As I mentioned below, the Los Angeles Review of Books has published my article about him, called “The Wrong Marlowe.” And the latest issue of the graphic novel Fatale (Fatale No. 3) is carrying a shorter article I did on Marlowe. Fatale is the brainchild of writer Ed Brubaker, who has “rock star” status in the world of comics, and rightfully so. Here’s the cover of Fatale No. 3:
And here are the first two pages of the article (art by Sean Phillips).
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Posted by CharlesKelly on Mar 10, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on The Wrong Marlowe
The online Los Angeles Review of Books is bringing excellent book reviews back to the American public. The site caters to a wide array of tastes, and even employs a Noir Editor, Boris Dralyuk. A couple of months ago, Boris commissioned an article from me on Dan J. Marlowe, focusing on the years Marlowe spent in Los Angeles near the end of his life, living off and on with his bank robber friend Al Nussbaum. The article ran March 10, 2012. Here’s the link: http://lareviewofbooks.org/
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Posted by CharlesKelly on Feb 22, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment
I’ve been writing news articles for decades now, and books for a while, too. I do it because it gives me satisfaction and puts food on my table, and because I don’t have the ability to do anything else–I can’t be an astronaut or a bridge-builder or a U.S. Senator, because I don’t have the skills. Yes, and I do it to feed my ego, too. A couple of months ago, I self-published an ebook called Finnegan’s Way: The Secret Power of Doing Things Badly. Of course, I hoped it would bring me tons of money and loads of glory. Then, a couple of days ago, a woman in Vancouver named Nettie McClain bought the book and reviewed it on Amazon. She said, for her, it was “a life-changing gem.” As I read her review, I realized I don’t need tons of money and loads of glory. This is really what I want out of writing. Thank you, Nettie.
This review is from: Finnegan’s Way: The Secret Power of Doing Things Badly (Kindle Edition)
This short and sweet little fable has an amazing amount of comforting wisdom in it. I’ve struggled with the fallout from not meeting perfectionistic standards my whole life. This amazing book shows why that approach fails, and how giving myself and others the permission to do things badly works. There are a lot of books out there now about self-compassion, but this little book sums it all up perfectly, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s really entertaining and easy to read, too. I’m so grateful that I discovered it!
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Posted by CharlesKelly on Feb 17, 2012 in Blog, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Lots of Free Advice
Well, over a two-day promotion on Amazon, nearly 8,000 people did free downloads of FINNEGAN’S WAY: THE SECRET POWER OF DOING THINGS BADLY. The book made No. 33 overall on the Amazon free download list, and was No. 1 for long periods as the free download in the Self-Help and Motivational categories. I got three new reviews, and I’m hoping the exposure will lead to sales at its current price of $2.99. Thanks, everybody!
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Posted by CharlesKelly on Feb 6, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on Fatale-istic: An Essay about Dan Marlowe
I’ve done an essay–actually a short biographical sketch–of the late hardboiled mystery writer Dan J. Marlowe that will appear in Fatale, a graphic novel by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips in March. Brubaker is fascinated by the life and work of Marlowe and horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, so he has incorporated elements of those stories in the storyline of Fatale. Brubaker was especially struck by Marlowe’s experience of loss, first losing his wife, then–in his early sixties–losing his memory, a blow to his writing career from which he never really recovered.
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Posted by CharlesKelly on Feb 4, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on A Novel of True Crime
I’ve finally published GRACE HUMISTON AND THE VANISHING on Amazon and Smashwords. It’s a novel, part thriller, part adventure, about the solution of a true crime case that occurred in New York City in 1917. I’ve also entered this novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. We’ll see how that goes.
I’ve also published a 12-page article about Grace Humiston on Amazon. It appears as a 99-cent “ebook.” It’s called THE CRIME LAWYER: THE TRUTH ABOUT GRACE HUMISTON.
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