More Happenings- Books, Features, New Groups

Hello Campers! Many more writerly events happening.

With print books not being easy to sell face-to-face these days, have not needed to order many. But some bookstores, like Letterpress Books up in Portland, Maine, are selling online, and so requested some of my latest. I've been busy since the shutdown in March, publishing one novel and two story collections (while working on two other novels and a big non-fiction book)!

Recently, I got my first sellable print copies for all three of the latest in one batch!
Neptune City
Deadly Encounters
The Return of Fear

They look great! Both story collections are in audiobook production, and should be available soon.

To top off the latest highs of a great interview with Linda McHenry and a terrific review of A Sharp Medicine from Big Al's Books and Pals site, I was also featured on the blog of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime.

More coming up- the Tewksbury Library is sponsoring a new Writer's Group, which I'll be facilitating. Our first online event is Tuesday, Sept. 15th, at 7.

Registration is required. Register by calling 978-640-4490,
emailing rhayes@tewksburypl.org or visiting the online
calendar of events at www.tewksburypl.org.

Two new books out!

The way I deal with this plague is to get more books out for you to read.

So here are the latest- and each is about the price of a coffee! Enjoy!

(Print coming soon, and audiobooks are up for narrator auditions!)

Deadly Encounters: 3 Zack Taylor Short Stories

Grieving over a past tragedy, troubled ex-con Zack Taylor has spent a lifetime in the shadows. He has finally found a measure of peace in Maine, helping others as a way of dealing with his grief, guilt, and rage. But he finds even simple problems have unintended consequences, and danger lurks in the most unlikely places. 

In these three tales, Zack encounters murderous individuals who hide below a surface of normality. He uncovers more than he bargained for at every turn, and must deal with the fallout of taking on deadly people willing to kill. 

And The Return of Fear: A 5 Story Collection  (scary stories)

Here are five scary stories about different types of terrors that haunt us. Some are deserved, some come from pits of evil for the innocent. These tales come together for the first time to keep you up at night. Enjoy the ride on the scary rollercoaster. 

Two new stories out

Happy holidays everyone! To help you celebrate- while you decide which books to buy as gifts this season- here's a couple of new stories of mine you can read for free.

Thanks to Tell-Tale Press!

“Registry”

“The Push”

Latest News- new audio out, new interview, new bookstores, new trips

So- it's been a quiet time here on the old blog, though life has been far from that.
Here's some of what's been going on.

As part of my job, we went to the Portsmouth Regional Hospital and toured for four days, seeing what a great job nurses and providers do in healthcare. Here's our team at the nearby U.S.S. Albacore.



While there, I dropped in on the Portsmouth Writer's Night Out, part of the NH Writer's Project.
Met some new people, and saw a few I knew, like Jeff Deck and James Patrick Kelly, both of who have new books outs.

Also stopped by RiverRun Books and got the first of the Zack Taylor series, A Memory of Grief on their shelves.

Another new Indie bookstore that carries my books is The Silver Unicorn in Action MA. Drop by when you're in the area and check them out.

My latest audio book is now out: The Last Crooked Paths: A 5-story collection of crime and mystery short stories.
Narrated by George Kastrinos, it's a great listening experience for only a few bucks.

And soon I'm off to Killer Nashville, a mystery conference down in Tennessee, where I'm on a panel talking about Action/Adventure. They've also got my mug up as a Winner of the Jimmy Loftin Memorial Scholarship.

There I'll be seeing J.A. Konrath, the Indie superstar, whose blog I had a guest post on several years ago. More on all this when I return!

Oh yeah- check out my guest stint on Sci-Fi Saturday Night, talking about my work.

New Story Publication and Upcoming Shows- Updated with pics

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We had a nice family time, and the weather was lovely for good long walks to burn off the extra food consumption.

So I've got another story out: "A Clean, Well-written Manuscript," is online at Over My Dead Body. Having a fun riff on Hemingway. That's my fifth story for them! And you can read it for free!

The Zack Taylor series has been selling well in bookstores this year, though I'm only displayed in a handful. 

The recent book signing at Letterpress Books in Portland, ME, went very well. Saw old friends, sold a bunch of books, had my first Holy Donut, and later my yummy Pat's Pizza.

And we'll have over 30 authors for the
upcoming 6th Annual Gala Mystery Night
Thursday, Dec 7th  6:00
New England Mobile Bookfair
241 Needham St, Newton, MA

To see how much fun previous ones were, check it out here.

New Book Release- The Last Crooked Paths

Just released my latest book, the Kindle version of The Last Crooked Paths, a five-story collection of mystery and crime tales.

This is the final installment of the series, joining Crooked Paths and More Crooked Paths as a good trilogy. I'll still write more stories in this genre, but they'll be put into different collections.

For now, you can get some good reading for about the price of a coffee!

The print version will be out soon, and it's also up for narrator bids for the audiobook, so we hope to hear an audio version soon.

And Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Second-ever newsletter with free book offer

For those who are interested, on my website is my second-ever newsletter, telling about all the new publications.
www.daletphillips.com





As an incentive, I'm offering a free ebook or audio book for those who can answer the following question:
Who was Travis McGee's older friend in the novels by John D. MacDonald?
(Answer is in the newsletter)

Two Upcoming Anthology Releases With My Stories

Hello there- I've got stories in two different collections with other authors coming out soon.
They're both great, and worth checking out.

Busted! Arresting Stories from the Beat from Level Best Books will be released April 25, 2017.
It's a collection of law enforcement stories.

Level Best Books also produces the annual Best New England Crime Stories, and I've been in the collection every year for the past three years: Windward, Red Dawn, and Rogue Wave.

Next is the new collection from the Horror Writers of Maine, Northern Frights.
From Grinning Skull Press. 
If you like it scary, this one's for you!
No date for release yet, but it's coming soon!

First Story of the Year Published!

Hello All.
Am very happy to see my first published story of the year, One For the Road, in Crimson Streets.

Click here to read it.

And there's some terrific artwork- an illustration by the talented L. A. Spooner:

They tell me it's the last story of their first year of publication. Cool milestone.

Last year, my story Forever Amber was the last story ever accepted by the awesome ThugLit.
Would rather these excellent publications keep going!

And have three more stories sold that will be appearing in various publications ere long. Here's to a productive year!

Crime Bake 2016- A Trip to Brigadoon

Writers or fans of mystery fiction should definitely go to the annual Crime Bake mystery conference, hosted in part by the New England chapter of the Sisters in Crime, of which I am a proud member.

Every year is the best yet, and I've been to many. I realized it's a lot like Brigadoon- a transcendent, magical kingdom that suddenly springs up to change lives, and then disappears into the mists of time, leaving only the memories.
Luckily, we only have to wait another year (not 100) for the reappearance, and we have your intrepid reporter to chronicle the latest manifestation.
This is a long post, with many names and links, so if you have a correction, let me know, and I'll make it right. 

Thanks to the New England Mobile Bookfair, the store that handles all sales of panelist author books at the event, Tom Lyons and the gang sold 7 books of mine- even though most authors were restricted to only two titles. 

Plus the new gang of Level Best Books editors were there to sell copies of the latest anthology Windward: Best New England Crime Stories (a steal right now on Kindle, and also out in print).
It has my story Dead Weight in it, and we had a big signing line of authors featured in the collection, and an even longer line of buyers of the collection getting their copies signed.

Here are Sarah Chen and Janet Halpin doing their part

Shawn Reilly Simmons, who had a story in the collection- also one of the editors!

And the always hard-working Kate Flora
To see an interview with Kate, click here

Your conference co-chairs, Sharon Daynard and Ray Daniel

To see an interview with Ray, click here

And with the Guest of Honor, William Kent Krueger
(the moose and flannel theme is in honor of his beloved Minnesota)

Here's Ray in more dapper mode, with Len Rosen and Joseph Finder

And Connie Johnson Hambley, showing Ray the error of his ways...

To see an interview with Connie, click here

 Presenting one of my favorite Maine writers, Bruce Robert Coffin, charming his new fan base. His debut novel, Among the Shadows, is selling like hotcakes, as well it should be.
And to see an interview with Bruce, click here

And the ever-gracious and wonderful Hank Phillippi Ryan, with Vincent O'Neil.

The gang- L to R: Mo Walsh, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Verena Rose, Shawn Reilly Simmons, PeggyMcFarland, Ray, and Bruce.

Barbara Ross with Hank and Len

Allison Keeton made it back this year

Mo and Bruce

Jason Walcutt stares us down

Jay Shepherd and Michelle Clark

Saturday brought my panel, with Kate Flora as Moderator, and we were talking about Navigating the New Waters of Publishing. The audience seemed to like it, had great questions, and came up afterward to continue the conversation. 

Then I took part in an Agents and Editors Roundtable, where publishing professionals helped folks with their manuscript first page and pitch. I was paired with Alec Shane of Writers House, who was professional, polite, and pretty awesome in his tips and feedback. 

 Then we relaxed a bit, and I saw some lovely folks, The Wicked Cozys (with a few friends).

L to R around the table: Liz Mugavero, Jessie Crockett, Kimberly Gray (another Level Best Editor), Sherry Harris, Barbara Ross, Bill Carito, Kate Cone, Edith Maxwell, Julie Hennrikus, and Sheila Connolly

A T-Rex wandering through...

 Soon it was time for fun, with a party and a banquet, and costumes. 

Here are Rocky and Bullwinkle with Hallie Ephron

Stephen Kelner and Leigh Perry at dinner

To see an interview with Leigh, click here

Our intrepid organizer co-chair

Dancing broke out, instigated (as usual) by Edith. Here she is with Connie and Hallie

We had a selfie station with props, so of course silliness broke out

 It's Robin Stuart, Connie, and Lisa Matthews

And of course we had refreshments afterward, for some time.

It was a wonderful weekend, and we got a parting shot with the moose and some Wicked Cozys on the way out on Sunday

Had so many great chats with people, old friends and new: Steve Ulfelder, Lee McIntyre, Cynthia Hall Koure, Stephen Doyle, Alexa Gordon, Tonya Price, Louisa Clerici, Peggy Gaffney, Emily Ross, Tina deBellegarde, Nancy Marshall, Ken Keoughan, Jill Fletcher, Penny Goetjen, Johnnie Dun, Cheryl Lawton Malone, Mary Feliz, and Vicki Lindem (who had the best line of the weekend!)