Toni Gallagher

Toni Gallagher earned a journalism degree from Northwestern University and has had a successful career in reality TV. She lives in Los Angeles and loves finding the magic in it.

Recently I asked Gallagher about what she was reading. Her reply:

I’m a relatively new author. My two middle grade books from Random House (Twist My Charm: The Popularity Spell and Twist My Charm: Love Potion #11) came out within the last nine months.

As I was working on my books, I attended conferences, panels, classes and retreats. One bit of advice was always proffered: “To be a good writer, you have to read. Read everything, good or bad. Read books like yours. Read books not like yours. Read in your genre. Read outside your genre.”

Well, I have one question for the people tendering this advice. When in the world are you able to read? I have a job ten months out of the year (I’m actually one of the Executive Producers of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo), so it’s almost impossible to find time to write, much less read.

So let me tell you some of the things I’ve started to read.

Of course I want to read middle grade books, so I’ve begun Raymie Nightingale by Newbery Medal winner Kate DiCamillo. Her eloquent simplicity makes me want to be less verbose. However, if I’m less verbose, am I still me?

At one point, when the Caitlyn Jenner hullabaloo was at its highest, a reality TV friend suggested I write a book about a transgender kid. Well, guess what? It was already being written. It’s George, by Alex Gino. I’ve had it since December and hope to start it this weekend.

So what will I actually finish in the near future? It’s a book for grown-ups: John Irving’s In One Person. (Coincidentally, it also has a transgender theme.)

I will finish this book for two reasons: 1) to not suffer ridicule from my book club, but more importantly, 2) John Irving had a hand in making me a writer.

You see, I read The World According to Garp when I was pretty young - perhaps too young to read some of the things in that book. But I was a huge fan, and wrote him a letter.

Imagine the thrill when he wrote back!

The letter [inset left; click to enlarge] has been framed and on my wall ever since – high school, college, apartment, condo. It’s now on my website. He told me the next book he was working on (The Hotel New Hampshire!) and said I “sounded like a writer.” My heart still pounds wildly thinking of those words.

And it was really pounding when I got the chance to see him speak last November. Afterwards, when I was waiting for a friend to finish a cigarette in the parking lot, he walked by!

I leapt at him! I showed him my letter, and he was amused to see that it was handwritten. He was with his family so I kept it short, but it was so exciting to meet a childhood hero. I felt like a kid again…

…which puts me in the right mindset to get working on my next middle grade book.

So much for reading! Time to write.

Visit Toni Gallagher's website.

My Book, The Movie: Twist My Charm: The Popularity Spell.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Housewright

David Housewright is the Edgar Award and three-time Minnesota Book Award-winning author of the Rushmore McKenzie and Holland Taylor novels as well as other tales of murder and mayhem in the Midwest.

His new novel is Stealing the Countess.

Recently I asked Housewright about what he was reading. His reply:

I’m about two-thirds of the way through Kwik Krimes, an anthology of short stories published in 2013 – and yes, I’m a contributor - but I hadn’t gotten around to reading it until last week. It contains 80 – count ‘em – 80 stories from authors like Tasha Alexander, Ken Bruen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sean Doolittle, Ed Gorman, Chuck Hogan, and Carolina Garcia-Aguilera. Here’s the thing, though – each story is less than 1,000 words. Some of them are amazing.

I was chatting with Dawn Ius, the managing editor of The Big Thrill, the online magazine of the International Thriller Writers. She’s been seeing a sharp rise in the popularity of short stories. I suspect it’s because of a sharp decline in attention spans. Millennials – including my own son and daughter – who read everything off their computers and smartphones, seem less inclined to spend a couple days with a book. On the other hand, it might be because short stories like those found in Kwik Krimes are so damn good.

Visit David Housewright's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Kind Word.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Kind Word.

The Page 69 Test: Stealing the Countess.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lindsay Ribar

Lindsay Ribar is a literary agent by day and a concert fanatic by night. She is the author of The Art of Wishing and The Fourth Wish.

Her new novel is Rocks Fall Everyone Dies.

Recently I asked Ribar about what she was reading. Her reply:

I just finished reading two back-to-back books about girls whose brains don’t behave in ways that are generally considered typical: When We Collided by Emery Lord and Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand.

When We Collided is a dual-POV YA novel about a boy whose father recently died and a bipolar girl who’s recently stopped taking her medication. At first it reads like many YA love stories: two offbeat teenagers, a summer romance, instant chemistry, great kissing. But as the story progresses and the outer layers of these characters get peeled away, it evolves into something truly incredible. And the ending is just perfect.

Some Kind of Happiness is a gorgeous middle grade novel about a girl with undiagnosed anxiety and depression, who writes stories about a fantasy land (and an orphan girl who finds her way there) in order to process everything she thinks and feels in real life, instead of bothering her family with her secret “blue days.” But it turns out she’s not the only one in her family with secrets. A warning here: don’t read this one without tissues handy.

And after that one-two punch straight to the feelings, what came next? A murder mystery! As a longtime fan of Kelley Armstrong (blame my weakness for werewolves) and a sucker for anything set in the far north (blame my weakness for Due South), I was a hundred percent sure I’d love her new book, City of the Lost. Story set mostly in the Yukon? Check. Descriptions of seriously gruesome murders? Check. Love story that you actually care about? Check. No chance at all that you’ll guess who the killer is until the very end? Check. This was a good one.

Next up: The Summer of Lost and Found by Rebecca Behrens!

Visit Lindsay Ribar's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gary Corby

Gary Corby is the author of the Athenian Mystery series, starring Nicolaos, his girlfriend Diotima, and his irritating twelve year old brother Socrates. The latest book in the series is The Singer from Memphis.

Corby lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife, two daughters, two ducks, two budgerigars, and a brush turkey that is almost as irritating as Socrates.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Corby's reply:

Writers read, indeed. I love writing these articles for this blog because I always end up with a rather strange list. And it's happened again, so here we go with what I've just been reading.

Jazz Improvisation for Guitar: a melodic approach, by Garrison Fewell.

It's a terrific book. Mr Fewell was a musician and teacher at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. I'm very sorry to say that he lost his life to cancer only a year or so ago. But his music lives on. For most people that would be a cliché; for Garrison Fewell, it's true.

Philby: KGB Masterspy, by Phillip Knightley.

I got into trouble from my elder daughter for mislaying this after I read it, because she needs it for school work. On the plus side, it's fascinating. Kim Philby was a brilliant spy who rose to become head of anti-Soviet operations for MI6. Which was kind of embarrassing because actually he was working for the Russians. This biography includes personal interviews with Philby in his comfortable apartment in Moscow, to which he retired after he was found out and defected.

The Gardens of Delight, by Ian Watson.

I am a huge fan of Hieronymus Bosch. If you haven't heard of Bosch, it's because he was a 15th century Flemish painter. Bosch's most famous work is the amazing Garden Of Earthly Delights. The book by Ian Watson has a space ship in the far future landing on an alien world, only to discover that someone has sculpted the entire planet to be an exact reproduction of Bosch's weird, mediaeval landscape.

Visit Gary Corby's blog.

My Book, The Movie: The Singer from Memphis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gina Wohlsdorf

Gina Wohlsdorf was born and raised in Bismarck, North Dakota. She triple majored at Tulane University. Following graduation, she lived in northern Florida, southern France, and Minnesota. She held a variety of jobs that afforded her time to write, including bookseller and massage therapist. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. She currently lives in Colorado.

Wohlsdorf's new novel is Security.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

First, a confession: I don’t read fiction while I’m writing it. It’s probably an unfounded superstition, but I’m scared others’ styles will bend my voice. So, between my novels, I gobble up fiction like Cookie Monster at a Chips Ahoy factory. But when I’m writing a novel, I stick to nonfiction.

And, with the exception of about two weeks while my editor read my second book for Algonquin, I’ve been writing for six months.

In those two weeks, I stuck my head into Tim Johnston’s Descent. Bombs could have exploded in my apartment building and I wouldn’t have noticed. Compelling, textured characters. A nifty, nervy, roving structure. Cooookieeee.

I’ve gotten to meet a bunch of really talented new authors while doing events for Security, and their ARCs were sitting there on my shelf whispering, “Come play with us, Gina.”

So: The Flood Girls by Richard Fifield (I talked to him for two minutes and he shot to my Top Twenty Favorite People I Know Casually; his book is sad and funny and unique and all-around cool) and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad (really bold, nuanced writing; I’m excited to see what she does next).

Now I’m in nonfiction, where I’ve discovered Atul Gawande way after everybody else, but better late than never. I started with Complications, then Being Mortal (wept in the bookstore at that one), and now I’m into Better. He’s a study in clarity. I’m learning a lot — about writing and about medicine. Though I will continue my life-saving practice of not doing surgery on people.

Lastly, I can read poetry anytime, and I do. Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts by Lawrence Raab. I bought it for one of the best titles I’ve ever heard, as well as for the beautiful cover. The poems inside were still better, an excellent surprise.

Visit Gina Wohlsdorf's website.

The Page 69 Test: Security.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mike Brooks

Mike Brooks was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and moved to Nottingham when he was 18 to go to university. He’s stayed there ever since, and now lives with his wife, two cats, two snakes and a collection of tropical fish. He is the author of the Keiko novels, sci-fi adventures that follow the escapades of those crewing the spaceship of the same name; Dark Run, the first book in the series, is now available in the US.

When not writing, Brooks works for a homelessness charity, plays guitar and sings in a punk band, watches football (soccer), MMA and nature/science documentaries, goes walking in the Peak District or other areas of splendid scenery, and DJs wherever anyone will tolerate him.

Recently I asked Brooks about what he was reading. His reply:

Back in the day, I'd pick up a book and barely do anything until it was finished. These days that doesn't tend to be the case so much, not because I read slower but because I make sure to schedule in time for my own writing, as well as other activities like band practices (which can't be put off easily just because I've just got to a super-interesting bit). So now, my reading tends to come in fits and starts.

It's not been that long since I've finished The Silver Tide by Jen Williams, the final book of her Copper Cat trilogy. It doesn't sound like a massively original concept, focusing as the series does on three somewhat mismatched characters of varying morality (who can be easily described as a warrior, a thief and a mage) who keep ending up having to save the world. It should read like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure, but the detail and background of the world makes it special, as well as the lovingly-crafted characters. Everyone feels real, even the bit-part players, and I also liked how the knight Sebastian's sexuality was handled openly and matter-of-factly. The Silver Tide builds on the groundwork of the first two novels The Copper Promise and The Iron Ghost and lets rip with a larger cast and higher stakes, and even takes one of my most-hated tropes (time travel) and manages to make it not suck!

I've also recently read Burned by Benedict Jacka, the latest in his urban fantasy series based around the misadventures of Alex Verus, a mage who can see the future (to a certain extent). It's a good novel and I read it fast: my only real criticism would be that the debt the series owes to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files really looms large in this instalment, with several major themes seeming to be closely mirrored. That's not so much of a problem, as I'm a big fan of the Dresden Files, but some of Burned felt a bit too familiar.

Most recently I finished City Of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, and I'm now approaching the end of City Of Blades, the sequel. I suppose you might describe them as second-world urban fantasy spy thrillers, and they're just as convoluted, messy and enjoyable as that description makes them sound. As well as engaging, three-dimensional characters and excellently mysterious plotlines, Bennett's writing looks at real-life issues like destruction of culture and how states deal with supposedly-defeated enemies (and resulting insurgents), as well as some musing on the nature of the divine and perceived divine. If you placed a Len Deighton thriller into an alternate-world Germany post-WWII or Iraq post-GWII and added magic, you might get something like these books.

Ready to go when that's finished, I have Palace Of Glass by Django Wexler. Django's first three Shadow Campaigns novels were released by my UK publisher Del Rey UK, which is how I started reading him: they're superb flintlock fantasy and I can't recommend them enough. However, Palace Of Glass is from his Forbidden Library children's series. While inevitably shorter and simpler these books are still well worth the read even for adults, since the plotting, characters and intrigue are just as strong and thoroughly enjoyable. They also have sarcastic talking cats, which is pretty much a surefire winner where I'm concerned!

Visit the official Mike Brooks website.

My Book, The Movie: Dark Run.

The Page 69 Test: Dark Run.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ashley Ream

Ashley Ream got her first job writing for newspapers when she was 16. Since then her career has taken her all over the Midwest, Gulf, and West Coasts with more moves than she would care to count. She is now finally and happily settled in Seattle, where she lives with her husband and runs ultramarathons. Her debut novel, Losing Clementine, was short-listed for the Balcones Fiction Prize.

Ream's new novel is The 100 Year Miracle.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

My book club just finished discussing Euphoria by Lily King. I read it like the pages were burning up. Loosely based on Margaret Mead’s 1933 field trip to New Guinea, the book follows Nell Stone, a renowned anthropologist, and her career-jealous husband. There is little I like more in a book than an immersive setting, fast plot and strong female characters, and this book hit every one. It was one of those rare experiences when it feels like a book was written just for you.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but until recently, I hadn’t read much—if any—poetry since college. Slowly but surely, I’m rectifying that. Right now I’m making my way through Aimless Love by Billy Collins. Holy crap on a cracker, that man is amazing. I mean blow-the-doors-off incredible. “The Country” is my new favorite poem. It’s about a mouse that accidentally starts a house fire with a strike-anywhere match. How could you not want to read that? How could you not love it?

I just started reading Hold Still by Lynn Steger Strong (not to be confused with the memoir of the same name by Sally Mann, the photographer, which I also recently read and loved). It’s about a high-achieving mother and a struggling daughter, a mistake and all the ways in which love can be difficult. I’m only a little way in, but I’ve got very high hopes.

Learn more about the book and author at Ashley Ream's website.

Writers Read: Ashley Ream (January 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The 100 Year Miracle.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jo Perry

Jo Perry earned a Ph.D. in English, taught college literature and writing, produced and wrote episodic television, and has published articles, book reviews, and poetry. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist Thomas Perry. They have two adult children. Their three cats and two dogs are rescues.

Perry's latest novel is Dead is Best.

Not so long ago I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I am reading a number of books at once. Among those that made powerful impressions on me are two published by my new publisher, Fahrenheit Press:

James Craig's A Slow Death is a dark crime novel set in Berlin in 1990, the chaotic period after the Wall has fallen, and featuring Kriminalinspecktor Max Drescher--a cynical, gay police detective with a personal crisis who must solve a series of brutal murders.

Craig is a powerful, wry, masterful and economical writer; his unconventional and cynical hero, Drescher, is a man who is most alive when he does his job:

"I just love the smell of tear gas in the evening." Pulling up the waistband of his trousers, Kriminalinspector Max Drescher took a short run up and kicked the empty cannister - about the size of a tin of soup - ten yards down Prinzenstrasse, into the lingering haze of tear gas."

West of the City by Grant Sutherland is another one whose mood, story and setting intrigued and captured me. I'd never read a "financial thriller" before and have very little knowledge or, I admit, interest in the world of finance, but I was hooked immediately. Sutherland's is the story of a man whose marriage and whose career in the bank his grandfather established are threatened by the murder of his best friend--a man he both loved and hated.

One of the greatest pleasures of West of the City is the narrator, Raef Carlton--gloriously unreliable, brilliant, scared, wily, gentlemanly and desperate--who lies to the reader and to himself.

One other book that I must mention is nonfiction: What The Dog Knows by Cat Warren. Warren, a journalist, writes about the process of training her rambunctious dog to become a cadaver dog. The canine and human learning required, the physics and physiology of scent, the relationship between human brain and heart and canine spirit and nose, and the cool survey of how the dead disappear--are moving and brilliant.

Visit Jo Perry's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Jo Perry & Lola and Lucy.

My Book, The Movie: Dead is Better.

The Page 69 Test: Dead is Better.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jessica Pierce

Jessica Pierce has written extensively within the field of bioethics, beginning with an early interest in the interconnections between health care systems, environmental degradation, and health (The Ethics of Environmentally Sustainable Health Care). Over the past decade, her work has increasingly turned toward one of her principle passions in life: animals. Her 2009 book Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, written in collaboration with cognitive ethologist Marc Bekoff, builds a scientific case that nonhuman animals exhibit of a broad range of prosocial behaviors, including empathy, cooperation, fairness. Her 2012 book, The Last Walk: Reflections on Our Pets at the Ends of Their Lives, explores end-of-life care, dying, and euthanasia in the lives of our companion animals, weaving analysis together with a journal chronicling the decline and death of her beloved dog Odysseus.

Pierce's latest book is Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I always have at least one fiction and one nonfiction book going at all times. On the fiction side, I am currently reading The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey. The story is set in Alaska in the 1920s, and centers around a middle-aged couple named Mabel and Jack. Unable to resolve their grief over a miscarriage and a childless future, the couple decides to homestead on the Alaska frontier. In a rare carefree moment, they build a snowman in the form of a little girl, outfitted with bright scarf and mittens. The snow-child becomes animate and begins haunting the woods around their cabin, bringing them small gifts. She seems to be the answer to their deepest desire, but is she even real? And what will the little snow child cost Mabel and Jack in the end? Based on a Russian fairy tale called The Snow Maiden, the narrative blurs the line between the real and the magical. And, as in many fairy tales, the granting of a wish carries with it the foreboding of a karmic debt whose payment will be unbearably high.

I have a special affection for fairy tales because they remind me of my father. When I was young, my father read or recounted to me nearly every story from Andrew Lang’s “Coloured” Fairy Books, a twelve-volume collection of fairy tales published around the turn of the 20th century, a few years before the setting of The Snow Child. Reading Ivey’s book has inspired me to dig through the basement bookshelves and pull out several of Lang’s colored Fairy Books. I’ll read these next.

On the nonfiction side, I’m working my way through primatologist Frans de Waal’s most recent book, Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are? Although the title is rather cumbersome, it nicely encapsulates the main point of de Waal’s book: we won’t be able to really grasp the intelligence of animals if we don’t stop using ourselves as the gold standard for what “smart” is. For example, we have been quick to claim that almost no animals have theory of mind, because they fail the so-called mirror test. But it turns out that the mirror test is a very blunt instrument for assessing animal intelligence, and is optimally suited for testing human self-awareness. The limits of our own worldview and intelligence are a natural impediment to exploring the inner lives of other animals. With that in mind, we should cultivate a sense of respect for and curiosity about our fellow Earthlings.

Visit Jessica Pierce's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Jessica Pierce and Maya.

The Page 99 Test: The Last Walk.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jeffrey Salane

Jeffrey Salane grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, but moved north to study in Massachusetts and New York City. After spending many years playing in many bands, he now works as an editor and writer, and lives with his family in Brooklyn.

Salane is the author of the Lawless trilogy: Lawless, Justice, and the newly released Mayhem.

Recently I asked the writer about what he was reading. His reply:

I’m in the middle of A Game of Thrones believe it or not. I came by the series from the show (which is horrid, but the books have so much of the pages!). I had honestly never considered reading them until this year when the television show eclipsed the printed story. I think that’s rare. Reading the series now feels both like reading it for the first time and for the second time all at once and that’s the experience I was hoping for. I dove into the book to seek out the crafted strands of various character’s stories, to appreciate how Martin’s plotting and development has been so steady and true from the beginning to the end of certain arcs. To craft a story this worldly and seed as many plot points and twists along the way is a master class for me as a writer and as a reader. That’s what made me pick up the book and I cannot wait to continue on the adventure and the lesson. Hold the door, Martin.

Before picking up GoT, I just finished The Diviners by Libba Bray. Libba can build a world in a brilliant way, which is what ushered me in to the story, but it was her outro that had me reading the final few chapters over and over again. For those who don’t know the story, it takes place in the New York City of 1926, and is filled with catchphrases and characters that would make the bees-knees blush. Again, this is another book with so much of the pages and it’s one that I waited to read because it has a follow-up title called Lair of Dreams. So my writerly question was, how would Libba end one large story knowing that there was another large story to follow. Well, the ending of The Diviners does not disappoint in action and resolution, but it was the set-up for book two that caught my eye. There’s no cliffhanger (I’m big time guilty of cliffhangers) and there’s no quickening of the plot. Instead, Libba sets the scene, slowly and effortlessly, for the second story by bringing her characters to new places beyond the ending of the first story. If you’re a writer who’s thinking about penning a trilogy or a duology, give this book a read before you write your own ending. Highly recommended.

Visit Jeffrey Salane's website.

My Book, The Movie: Mayhem.

--Marshal Zeringue