7 Minutes With, Episode Three

Episode three of Do Some Damage's 7 Minutes With podcast is now live! In this episode, Steve Weddle and I chat about two new records worth checking out, plus classic July releases from Elvis Costello, Mission of Burma, the Beastie Boys, and more. Steve also talks to Jed Ayres about movies, and Tom Pitts fills in for a vacationing Holly West on the TV beat. Click through to give it a listen.

UNLOADED Vol. 2 is now available!

Anyone who regularly reads this blog, or follows me on social media, knows that I'm a passionate advocate for commonsense gun control—so I was delighted that Eric Beetner invited me to contribute to the second volume of his Anthony Award nominated UNLOADED series.

These anthologies are a who's who of the crime-fic world. UNLOADED Vol. 2: More Crime Writers Writing Without Guns features contributions from Sara Paretsky, James Ziskin, Laura McHugh, and the late Bill Crider, to name but a few. It also features a brand new short story called "Con Season" by yours truly. And, oh yeah, it's out today!

As with the first volume, every story in UNLOADED Vol. 2 is firearm-free—although guns feature prominently in E.A. Aymar's moving essay—and all proceeds go to States United to Prevent Gun Violence. To be clear, though, the UNLOADED series is neither partisan nor anti-gun. Contributing authors hail from both sides of the political aisle, and many of them own guns. What unites us is our desire to end put an end to senseless bloodshed. If you'd like to do your part, and get some kickass crime fiction in the process, pick up a copy of UNLOADED Vol. 2 today.

"7 Minutes With, Episode Two" or "The Do Some Damage Podcast Redux"

The second episode of Do Some Damage's 7 Minutes With podcast is now live! As ever, Steve Weddle solicits movie, TV, and music recommendations from Jed Ayres, Holly West, and yours truly, respectively. This episode, I offer up some musical suggestions for the Trump era (and maybe coin the phrase "Neo-Kanye" in the process). Go put it in your earholes.

EDITED TO ADD: If you'd like to hear the songs and artists Steve and I discussed, check out his Spotify playlist.

Four for Four(th)

On this, the Fourth of July, I offer up four links for your reading pleasure.

Link the First is an interview about tattoos I did with Toe Six Press. (For those who don't know, I have several—ten, to be specific, though some required multiple sittings and others have been added to over the years, which makes that number somewhat misleading.)

Link the Second is a delightful review of RED RIGHT HAND, courtesy of The Crime Warp.

Link the Third is my lovely and talented wife's interview with Tomi Adeyemi, author of the utterly engrossing runaway bestseller CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE, for Publishers Weekly.

Link the Fourth is (appropriately enough) the full text of the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Second Continental Congress on this date in 1776. If you haven't read it since grade school, give it a gander. It's a truly moving document, if a product of its time—simultaneously inspiring in its potential and a reminder of how far we've come. This (lightly edited) quote encapsulates both perfectly:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Happy birthday, America. May we one day live up to the idea of you.

The Do Some Damage Podcast

Whenever Steve Weddle asks me to pitch in on a project, I say sure—partly because he and I go back a ways, and partly because he's stashed damaging Polaroids of me in safe deposit boxes around the country. (Sidebar: Jack Donaghy was right; you should never follow a hippie to a second location.)

Luckily, Steve's latest project is right up my alley. He's rebooted the Do Some Damage podcast, and invited me to contribute a regular seven-minute segment in which we chat about whatever music I've been digging. Holly West and Jed Ayres are onboard, too, talking television and movies, respectively.  Lord only knows what Steve has on them.

Wanna check it out? Click through to give it a listen.