Seventeenth Annual San Diego Book Awards

Exciting news! Bridge Over the Valley was selected as a finalist in general fiction. Awards for all categories will be announced at the awards ceremony on June 11th.

The San Diego Book Awards Association is a volunteer group that recognizes outstanding achievement of San Diego County authors

San Diego Book Awards

The La Jolla Writers Conference

This two and one-half day writer’s conference couldn’t have delivered more on its 10th anniversary. Included were 26 professionals that taught 86 workshop/discussion groups. The twenty-six-member faculty was made up of best selling authors, literary agents, editors, journalists, screenplay writers, film producers, editors, publicists and publishers. Supposedly they limit attendance to 200 but due to the economy the attendance was less than capacity. At $395, which included a private reading with a faculty member and “pitch your book/idea” session, this conference is very reasonably priced. Also included: one dinner and one lunch at the Paradise Inn Resort in San Diego-a 4 to 5 star resort. At the end it was saturation overload. If you could only attend one writer’s conference, this would be the one. Where else can you stand in the shade between classes and talk to a New York literary agent, a New York Times best selling author like Linwood Barclay or Hollywood screen writer Eldon Thompson. I followed Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Humes a narrative non-fiction journalist, and attended every class he taught.  He gave out some great pointers about my next project, which is a true crime story from college days. His instruction and personal attention couldn’t have been timelier as I embark on searching out the facts, locating the characters and determining the voice that the story will need for the reader to relive the crime and feel the humanity in the story. Since there were so many agents present, I will add a new page with what I learned and collected from the sessions. Next time.

Hot Book Fair

Had a great book fair at GenProbe today in San Diego. The temperature outside climbed up and over the record. A hundred degrees for San Diego in November? It was cool and comfortable in the Garden Atrium at GenProbe a high-tech company that makes diagnostic products for the medical laboratory. One of my last research products was testing out their genetic probes for early detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis the causative agent of TB. This nasty bug took a long time, weeks sometimes, to expose itself on conventional growth media. In acute cases you could often pick up the disease on stained smears of sputum. Their product was break-through technology for the early diagnosis of TB in respiratory specimens. That was just the beginning of their huge success. They own three, huge, modern buildings.

My cousin is their document manager and asked if I could attend the annual book and gift fair today. I sold several books which always makes me happy. It was fun. The facility is not open to the public so it was just GenProbe employees that attended during their breaks and lunch. "Books For Fun" was the main vendor.

Tomorrow is the first day of the La Jolla Writer's Conference. Conference fee covers over 85 lectures/workshops held during the conference. Attendance is limited to 200 which gives ample opportunity for writers to mix and speak with the faculty who are publishers, writers and literary agents. James Frey of Opra fame, is to be one of the key note speakers. Remember the dressing down he received on the Opra Winfrey TV show when she discovered that his nonfiction book "A Million Little Pieces" was a pack of lies. He told the publisher  that some of the story was made up, but the publisher wanted it classified as nonfiction.

Also this week Escondido Library invited one of our most celebrated fiction writers, James Huston of "Marine One" and "Falcon Seven" fame. He is a most interesting speaker, prolific writer and works full time in his law practice investigating airplane accidents. Said he dictates everything onto a Dictaphone while driving on the freeway.  After he completes the story, his secretary types it out and it will take him several months to edit and finalize for the publisher.

Next week is the TRAC conference in Sacramento. During the conference, they want me to introduce my book to the members. TRAC is a California rail group.

In between, I getting some research done for the next writing effort. I'm taking on non-fiction story of true crime. I have a proposal ready to pitch at the writer's conference. I get a 7-minute "pitch slot" of which 2 minutes is the pitch and 5 minutes for the critique.

Is the suspect guilty of three counts of murder?

This is a very interesting case involving drunk driving where the suspect was driving recklessly after he was seen drinking at a local bar. He tragically killed a family of three but the defense claims they can prove that he was not legally drunk. It was a "hit and run" so he wasn't tested immediately after the accident. It took four months for authorities to find him. The defense is going to base their case on the fact that he didn't consume sufficient alcohol to be legally drunk and therefore their charge of second degree murder won't stand. I think he'll do some serious hard time. What do you think?

This is a good case to re-visit. It does have some parallels to the novel "Bridge Over the Valley."

Read the entire article by clicking on the interactive title.

Snoqualmie Falls - Snoqualmie Pass, Washington

"Snoqualmie! I love you.  People of the Moon. No longer you live here. You all died too soon.
I never did meet you. I never could say.This place that you left me. I cherish today."


[Excerpt from the character Trevor's song "Snoqualmie Pass" written for the novel Bridge Over the Valley.]