WEST COAST CRIME WAVE launches

I'm always delighted to announce the publication of a new short story. I haven't written that many over the years (the novel being my comfortable preference), and usually only produce short fiction when asked.

That was the case with this new one, "Surf City," which I wrote for my pal Brian Thornton, editor of WEST COAST CRIME WAVE, the new anthology from BSTSLLR.com. Brian asked if I had a West Coast mystery to contribute, so I wrote a story set in Santa Cruz, CA, where Kel and I were living at the time. (That's "our" beach in the photo.)

 
In "Surf City," a body washes up on a Santa Cruz beach with what appears to be shark bite wounds. As panic spreads, police Det. Kevin Brommer suspects a hoax. It's a fun story, and I hope you enjoy it.

The anthology also includes stories by such favorites as Terrill Lee Lankford, Simon Wood, David Corbett and Steve Hockensmith. I look forward to reading them all.

For more info about the other anthologies in which I've appeared, go to http://www.stevebrewer.us.com/.

Back in the saddle

I've started a new novel. Only been writing it for a couple of days now, though I've been sketching it out for a few weeks. A comic crime novel with a female protagonist, set in New Mexico and involving some Hollywood types.

Not the novel I'd been planning to write. I'd planned to make use of our scenic new location, and write a revenge thriller set in Santa Cruz. But I'm in too good a mood these days to write dreary suspense. So it's comedy again. And it's New Mexico again. Surprise, surprise.

Like a lot of authors, I may write about a place better when I'm not there. Don't get me wrong, it helps to really know a place before you use it as a setting, even if it's a place you've made up. But a little distance helps, too, keeps you from getting bogged down in concrete detail when your imagination should be running wild.

I often write about locations after I've physically (or at least mentally) moved on. My most recent novel, "The Big Wink,"(currently being shopped around by my agent) is set mostly in Redding and Northern California, and was written as we were busily leaving there. My most recent Bubba Mabry novel, "Monkey Man," set in Albuquerque, was written while we lived in Redding, as were a couple of suspense novels that were set mostly in San Francisco, where we lived in the '80s. Now that we're happily on the beach in Santa Cruz? I'm writing about small-town New Mexico. Go figure.

Luckily, we visited The Land of Enchantment over the holidays, and Kel and I are going again in late March, when I'm toastmaster at the Left Coast Crime conference in Santa Fe. More tax-deductible research!

To start writing a novel, no matter how many times you've done it before, is a leap of a faith, one that might not pay off for months or years. Funny how often that leap lands someplace you didn't expect.

(Almost) all quiet on the home front

After a busy holiday period and a Scrabble visit from my friend Frank, things have slowed down here at our cottage by the sea. I've got my semi-annual head cold, but aside from the honking and coughing, it's been pretty quiet around here.

Lots of excitement on Wednesday morning, though. We got word that my Redding pal Charlie Price was nominated for an Edgar Award for his YA novel, "The Interrogation of Gabriel James." And I had my second encounter with the neighborhood skunk. While I was certainly excited for Charlie, the skunk did more to get up the old heart rate.

One of the great things about our Santa Cruz place is its wide front porch. I like to step out there at all hours of the day and night to sniff the sea air and listen to the waves crashing on the rocks. But the dawn hour, I have learned, belongs to a skunk that forages through the neighborhood.

In the latest encounter, I had just gone outside to check out the sunrise when I heard a scrambling in some dead leaves. I froze. The skunk saw me anyway. He froze (facing me, which I sensed was better). We stared at each other for 30 seconds, eight feet apart. Then he toddled away, taking his time, sniffing around the cars. As soon as he disappeared around a corner, I disappeared into the house. Unsprayed.

From now on, I'm turning on the porch light before I step outside. Give the skunk time to scram.

I told my neighbor about the skunk, and he said we see them from time to time in this coastal neighborhood. Raccoons and possums, too, he said.

Oh, joy.