Author Judd Winick (HILO Series) talks about the scariest book he’s ever read—Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN.

HILO 1

HILO 2

HILO 3

Tyler Knott Gregson (author of ALL THE WORDS ARE YOURS) discusses how aspects of living in Montana pull him away from his writing, including animals and the weather.

ALL THE WORDS ARE YOURS

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Here starts the journey

Every day for the past six years, Tyler Knott Gregson has written a simple haiku about love, and posted it online. These heartfelt poems have attracted a large and loyal following around the world. This highly anticipated follow-up to Chasers of the Light, presents Tyler’s favorites, some previously unpublished, accompanied by his signature photographs, which capture the rich texture of daily life.

This vibrant collection reveals the intimate reflections of one of poetry’s most popular new voices — honest, vulnerable, generous, and truly present in the gift that is each moment.

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How American conceptions about Iran have changed

After finishing her schooling in America in 1979, Azar Nafisi (author of THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION) moved back to Iran. When she returned to America in 1997 she found that views toward Iran had substantially changed, focusing largely on religious extremism.

THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION

A Life in Books

A New York Times bestseller

The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehranreturns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America.

Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, which told the story of how, against the backdrop of morality squads and executions, she taught The Great Gatsby and other classics of English and American literature to her eager students in Iran. In this electrifying follow-up, she argues that fiction is just as threatened—and just as invaluable—in America today.

Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination. Nafisi invites committed readers everywhere to join her as citizens of what she calls the Republic of Imagination, a country with no borders and few restrictions, where the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.

Azar Nafisi is a professor at John Hopkins University. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal among others, and is the author of Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov’s Novels. She lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and two children.

WINNER TO BE NAMED AT 2016 FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR

New York, August 15, 2016 — Otto Penzler, President and CEO of MysteriousPress.com, has announced the finalists for the inaugural Mysterious Press Award, which was established as a contest for a mystery novel to be published as Best E-Book Original by MysteriousPress.com and distributed in the United States and Canada by Open Road Integrated Media and published world-wide.

The finalists are:

ALIBI by Lee Goodman (represented by Janet Reid)
THE DOWNSIDE by Mike Cooper (represented by Janet Reid)
BRIGHT LIKE BLOOD by Leigh C. Rourks (represented by Larry Kirshbaum)

“As electronic publishing has become a significant element of the publishing world, we decided to recognize an outstanding work of mystery fiction by offering a substantial advance and a great opportunity for world-wide recognition,” said Penzler. “We had an extraordinary array of outstanding crime novels submitted for the contest and will be thrilled to publish whichever one is chosen as the winner.”

These top three entries have been circulated to Mysterious Press’s world-wide partners for a final decision. The winner will be chosen based on a variety of criteria, including originality and literary quality.

The winning entry will receive a prize of $25,000 and guaranteed world-wide publication. The $25,000 prize will be an advance against future royalties. MysteriousPress.com will publish the winning title as an e-book original with print-on-demand copies also available. World-wide partners will have all rights (excluding dramatic rights) to publish in all formats.

The winner will be announced at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair.

Contest sponsors are MysteriousPress.com partners who distribute and market its books: Open Road, in North America and numerous countries around the world; Head of Zeus in the British Commonwealth; Hayakawa Publishing (Japan, Singapore, and South Korea), Bonnier (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland); Dutch Media Books (Holland and Belgium), and Bastei Lubbe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Greece, and selected Eastern European countries). MysteriousPress.com e-books are distributed in China by Trajectory.

The contest was open to established authors as well as first-time novelists. Submissions of complete and unpublished novels were accepted from accredited literary agents.

More information about Mysterious Press can be found on MysteriousPress.com.

Author and Professor Kenji Yoshino explains how the evolution of gender rights via feminism and racial equality has contributed to the recent progress in the same-sex marriage debate. Kenji’s latest book is SPEAK NOW.

Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial

A renowned legal scholar tells the definitive story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the 

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trial that will stand as the most potent argument for marriage equality

Speak Now tells the story of a watershed trial that unfolded over twelve tense days in California in 2010. A trial that legalized same-sex marriage in our most populous state. A trial that interrogated the nature of marriage, the political status of gays and lesbians, the ideal circumstances for raising children, and the ability of direct democracy to protect fundamental rights. A trial that stands as the most potent argument for marriage equality this nation has ever seen.

In telling the story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the groundbreaking federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, Kenji Yoshino has also written a paean to the vanishing civil trial–an oasis of rationality in what is often a decidedly uncivil debate. Above all, this book is a work of deep humanity, in which Yoshino brings abstract legal arguments to life by sharing his own story of finding love, marrying, and having children as a gay man.

Intellectually rigorous and profoundly compassionate, Speak Now will stand as the definitive account of a landmark civil-rights trial.

About the Author

Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law. He was educated at Harvard (B.A. 1991), Oxford (M.Sc. 1993 as a Rhodes Scholar), and Yale Law School (J.D. 1996). He taught at Yale Law School from 1998 to 2008, where he served as Deputy Dean (2005-6) and became the inaugural Guido Calabresi Professor in 2006. His fields are constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, and law and literature. He has received several distinctions for his teaching, most recently the Podell Distinguished Teaching Award in 2014.

Yoshino is the author of three books—Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial (2015); A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice (2011); and Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights (2006). Yoshino has published in major academic journals, including The Harvard Law Review, The Stanford Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal. He has also written for more popular forums, including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Yoshino makes regular appearances on radio and television programs, such as NPR, CNN, PBS and MSNBC.

He lives in New York City with his husband and two children.

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Insidious is the twentieth thriller in #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter’s FBI series.

FBI agents Savich and Sherlock must discover who is trying to murder Venus Rasmussen, a powerful, wealthy society icon. They soon find out that the danger may be closer than expected. 

Venus Rasmussen, a powerful woman who runs the international conglomerate Rasmussen Industries, believes someone is poisoning her. After Savich and Sherlock visit with her, someone attempts to shoot her in broad daylight. Who’s trying to kill her and why? A member of her rapacious family, or her grandson who’s been missing for ten years and suddenly reappears? Savich and Sherlock must peel away the layers to uncover the incredible truth about who would target Venus.

Meanwhile, Special Agent Cam Wittier leaves Washington for Los Angeles to work with local Detective Daniel Montoya to lead the hunt for the Starlet Slasher, a serial killer who has cut the throats of five young actresses. When a sixth young actress is murdered, Cam comes to realize the truth might be closer than she’d ever want to believe.

With breakneck speed and unexpected twists and turns, Coulter’s Insidious will leave you breathless until the shocking conclusion.

Author Bio:
Catherine Coulter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over seventy-five novels, including the FBI Thriller series and the Brit in the FBI series, which she co-writes with J.T. Ellison. Coulter lives in Marin County, California.

Catherine Coulter’s Social Links:

Website

Facebook

Excerpt from Insidious 

Las Vegas, Nevada
Saturday night

Marty Sallas moved quiet as a thief, which is what he was, to one of the side windows of the small pastel blue house, his glass cutter in his hand. It was a good fifteen minutes from the Strip in a quiet middling residential neighborhood. Perfect, really, for what he had planned. He’d kept his eyes on his princess, called Legs by everyone in the cast of the Beatles Retrospective, for the past two days, ever since he’d noticed a rich guy coming on to her. Last night he’d seen the dude give her an expensive emerald and diamond bracelet from Laszlo’s, a not-so-subtle inducement to hit the sheets. Tonight the rich guy wasn’t with her, he was playing high-stakes poker again at the Mandalay, where he’d seen her singing and dancing in her show. Molly Harbinger was her name, but to Marty, she was his princess who would give him her crowned jewels. He looked at his watch, lit a cigarette. Of course, he’d stick the butt in his pocket. Soon now, Molly should fall into bed exhausted after her three-hour workout in the show.

Marty used the time to think about how he’d spend the money he’d get from this job. He was considering the San Juan Islands off the coast of Seattle, perfect weather this time of year, not like this hell hole, and who cared there’d be no hot girls hanging out drinking beers? He’d buy himself a wet suit and swim in Puget sound. He had to pay off Alf, a security guard at Laszlo’s, who’d texted him about the bracelet. The rich dude had shelled out fifteen big ones. So one thousand to Alf. It always paid to keep his boys happy.

Marty froze when the kitchen light came on at the rear of the house. He moved around so he could see into the kitchen, crouched behind the bushes. Why wasn’t she in bed, getting her beauty sleep? He’d seen her caress the rich guy’s hand just that afternoon over two glasses of chardonnay, the bracelet sparkling in the dim bar light, and heard her thank him again, tell him she had two shows tomorrow, and she needed to get to bed early, but -– lovely pause — she was off Sunday. The guy had bowed out gracefully, no doubt he’d wet-dream his night away. Marty hoped he would win big at poker and give her more bling. The princess deserved that.

It was after midnight and there she stood, wearing a pink pajama boxers and a tank top, drinking water over the kitchen sink. Back to bed, Princess, back to bed, time’s a-wastin’. Come on, honey, it don’t pay to hang around in one place too long.

He heard a man’s wheedling voice, but couldn’t make out the words, then the princess yelled, “I told you to get out of here, Tommy! What you did this time tears it. You gambled away all the money I’ve saved. Get out now, you loser, I don’t want to see your stupid face again.”

Marty had thought she’d already drop-kicked Tommy, a car salesman she’d been seeing over on Marian Avenue. No loss, the jerk. The fact is, he’d believed she was alone. Where was Tommy’s car? Marty didn’t like this, didn’t like it at all. He had to be more careful.

Whatever, boot the jerk out, Princess. Get your beautiful self back into bed and into dreamland and
I’ll give you something to guarantee a good night’s sleep.

Marty eased back toward the front of the house, eased down into a mess of red bougainvillea. He waited patiently for Tommy to come trooping out the front door when he heard a motorcycle coming down the quiet street. It was moving slow, as if the driver was looking for an address. At this hour? What was wrong with people? Even in Las Vegas regular people slept at night. It was only delusional brainless yahoos flying in here from who-knew-where who stayed up all night.

The motorcycle stopped out in front of the house, idled. What was this crap? Had Tommy called a friend to pick him up? Or was it someone else sniffing on Marty’s turf? Nah, another thief wouldn’t be cruising around on a loud-ass motorcycle. He’d be hiding, like Marty, biding his time. Marty cursed low. All he wanted was to get in, lay a chloroform mask over his princess’s nose, watch her snap awake, then breathe in and pass out, ten seconds, tops. He’d find that bracelet and get out with no one the wiser, but no, he couldn’t catch a break. First a boyfriend and now this motorcycle, and who was this guy? He heard the front door slam. So Tommy had called a buddy to come get him. Everything was all right. Tommy climbed aboard and the motorcycle revved and rocketed down the street. No more drama. Neither idiot was wearing a helmet.

Marty would give her another twenty minutes at least. If she was mad at the boyfriend, it’d take her longer to calm herself and float off to dreamland. He waited, listening, and now there was only the sounds of crickets, a coyote in the distance, but nothing else except a light desert breeze.
Finally Marty pulled the glass cutter out of his pocket, and walked quietly toward the second bedroom window.

Then he heard something, like a door opening real quiet, like someone sneaking around who didn’t want to be heard. No, impossible, it couldn’t have come from the princess’s house. She was alone. But his heart still pounded. Maybe he was getting too old for the business. He waited, the glass cutter poised in his hand.

Marty pressed the button on the side of his watch, lit up the face. Nine minutes after one o’clock now. He hadn’t survived this long by being stupid. He waited another five minutes. Nothing, no light, no sound. Everything was as it should be. The neighbors were all tucked in, pets snoozing, Tommy and his motorcycle buddy watching a late movie, guzzling beer.

Marty carefully carved a small circle in the glass, gently lifted it out with tape, and eased his hand through the opening to unlock the window. He hoisted himself up and carefully eased inside the second bedroom, more an office, he thought, seeing the small desk, the laptop, a chair. He quietly closed the window, no sense taking a chance that a sudden noise outside would awaken her. He stood a moment in the darkness, listening, then pulled out the cloth wrapped around a small bottle of chloroform from his jacket pocket, and soaked it good. He walked silently to the door, opened it, looked out into the darkened hallway. There wasn’t a sound, not even an air conditioner, and that was good, it meant the princess was fast asleep. Would she have the bracelet on the nightstand next to her? That would make things easy. In his line of work, though, Marty had learned early on that something that easy happened maybe once in a decade.

He crept toward her bedroom at the end of the hall, his sneakers not making a sound. The bedroom door was open. He slowly looked around the edge of the door.

And nearly fainted. He managed to keep his shriek in his throat, but the figure bending over his princess sensed his presence, turned, and Marty saw his face in the shaft of moonlight coming in the bedroom window. He was wearing goggles smeared with blood and had a bloody knife in his hand. As the man jerked away from the bed, Marty saw his princess covered with blood, saw her head bent at an impossible angle, saw blood still oozing from her neck, all in a millisecond. And he could smell the blood, thick and hot and coppery. Marty ran back down the hall, threw a bookshelf down behind him. He heard the killer’s shoes hitting the wood floor in the hall behind him as he ran back into the small office. Marty dove out the window headfirst, cutting his hand on his way through, but he didn’t slow. He rolled to his feet, clutched his hand to his chest, and ran to where his car was parked three streets away. Only when he was driving away did he look back. He didn’t see anyone. Had the man seen his face? Would he be able to find him?

Marty’s heart pounded and he was still panting from his run and from stark terror. He’d never been so afraid in his life. He felt the pain in his cut hand only then, smelled his own blood, only not nearly as thick and fetid as the smell in her bedroom.

It wasn’t until later, after his hand had been stitched in the ER across town, and he was cruising on morphine, did he feel rage at what the monster had done. He’d stuck that knife into the princess — his princess – he’d slit her throat. And then he’d come after Marty.

Author Blake Crouch (DARK MATTER) talks about his first meaningful writing—a story for his brother, and what it taught him about words.

 Dark Matter

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A brilliantly plotted, relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy

“Brilliant. A book to remember. I think Blake Crouch just invented something new.”
—Lee Child, NYT bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series

“Exceptional. An exciting, ingeniously plotted adventure about love, regret, and quantum superposition.”
—Andy Weir, NYT bestselling author of The Martian

“Wow. I gulped down Dark Matter in one sitting and put it down awed and amazed by the ride. It’s fast, smart, addictive—and the most creative, head-spinning novel I’ve read in ages.”
—Tess Gerritsen, NYT bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series
 

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

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About the Author

Blake Crouch has sold over a million books and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages. Known for high-concept fiction with breakneck pacing and groundbreaking genre cross-breeding, six of his books have hit the Kindle Top 10, and two have reached the #1 spot. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, Cemetery Dance, and Thriller 2, edited by Clive Cussler.

In 2013, his novel Pines was nominated for ITW’s Best Paperback Original Thriller Award, and his Wayward Pines series has been made into a TV series which is currently airing on Fox International Channels, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Matt Dillon, Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo and Terrence Howard. He has been featured in Time Magazine, the L.A. Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Entertainment Weekly. Blake lives in Colorado.

The best way to stay apprised of new releases is to sign up for his newsletter, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Before becoming a full-time writer Linda Fairstein (KILLER LOOK) was a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. She gives three examples of how her time in the courtroom influenced her writing.

Killer Look (An Alexandra Cooper Novel)

New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein delivers a heart-pounding thriller that explores the dark secrets of Manhattan’s iconic fashion scene in her latest Alexandra Cooper novel.
 

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New York City is one of the fashion capitals of the world, well-known for its glamour and style.  Nowhere is this more apparent than on the runway, where American haute couture continually astounds with its creativity, daring, and innovation in the name of beauty.  Yet high fashion means high stakes, as Alex Cooper quickly discovers when businessman and designer Wolf Savage is found dead in an apparent suicide, mere days before the biggest show of his career. When the man’s daughter insists Savage’s death was murder, the case becomes more than a media sensation: It is a race to find a killer in a world created entirely out of fantasy and illusion.

With her own job at the DA’s office in jeopardy, and the temptation to self-medicate her PTSD with alcohol almost too strong to resist, Alex is not anyone’s first choice for help.  But she is determined to uncover the grime—and the possible homicide—beneath the glitz.  Along with detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must penetrate the twisted roots and mixed motives among the high-profile players in the Garment District.  The investigation takes the trio from the missing money in Wolf Savage’s international fashion house to his own recovery from addiction; from the role of Louisiana Voodoo in his life to his excessive womanizing; and to the family secrets he kept so well-hidden, even from those closest to him—just as things are about to get deadly on the catwalk.

With Killer Look, Linda Fairstein proves once again why she is the “Queen of Intelligent Suspense.”*

*Lee Child

Linda Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney’s office in Manhattan for more than two decades and is America’s foremost legal expert on sexual assault and domestic violence. Her Alexandra Cooper novels are international bestsellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in Manhattan and on Martha’s Vineyard.

INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS ANNOUNCE

THE WINNERS OF THE

2016 ITW THRILLER AWARDS

 The International Thriller Writers (ITW) is proud to announce the most thrilling authors of 2016. The winners of this year’s ITW Thriller Awards are:

2016 THRILLERMASTER AWARD: Heather Graham is the bestselling author of The Cafferty and Quinn series, The Krewe of Hunters series, and the Bone Island Trilogy. Graham also launched books for Dell’s Ecstasy Supreme line, Silhouette’s Shadows, and for Harlequin’s mainstream fiction imprint, Mira Books. The award was presented by R.L. Stine, the 2011 ThrillerMaster Award winner.

2016 SILVER BULLET AWARD: Lescroart, a founding member of ITW and a New York Times bestselling author of legal thrillers, has donated funds from character-naming auctions to support libraries, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and many others. He’s also been involved in the Authors on the Move fundraiser for the Sacramento Public Library Foundation. Lescroart was presented the award by Steve Berry, the 2013 Silver Bullet Literary Award winner.

The winners of the best hard cover novel, best paperback original, best first novel, best e-book original, best young adult novel and best short story are:  

BEST HARD COVER NOVEL

Ian Caldwell, THE FIFTH GOSPEL (Simon & Schuster)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL

John Gilstrap, AGAINST ALL ENEMIES (Pinnacle)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Brian Panowich, BULL MOUNTAIN (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL

Chris Kuzneski, THE PRISONER’S GOLD (Chris Kuzneski)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

Michelle Painchaud PRETENDING TO BE ERICA (Viking Books for Young Readers)

BEST SHORT STORY

Joyce Carol Oates GUN ACCIDENT: AN INVESTIGATION (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine)

There’s only one event where you can find New York Times best-selling authors lurking around every single corner, literary agents actually appearing in broad daylight and fans openly plotting and conspiring with the most feared and revered names of the thriller genre. We hope that you join us in 2017 for ThrillerFest XII, the International Thriller Writers’ twelfth annual celebration of all things Thriller, the largest event of its kind in the world.  The highlight of the festival is the gala ITW Thriller Awards Banquet during which a fresh batch of authors will be announced as the chosen heroes of suspense. www.thrillerfest.com

My favorite conference every year! Hope to see you there next summer.