“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Gerald So

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
THE JADE FIGURINE (1972) by Jack Foxx (a.k.a. Bill Pronzini). It’s a little MALTESE FALCON, a little TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Either Bill Smith or Lydia Chin by S.J. Rozan.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Tom Clancy, Lee Child, Lee Goldberg’s Monk books ...

Most satisfying writing moment?
The whole process of writing a poem: Jotting down an idea, working on it, finishing it, and submitting it.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I’d like to read more Irish crime novels, but for now I’ll go with HER LAST CALL TO LOUIS MACNEICE by Ken Bruen.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
THE WRONG KIND OF BLOOD by Declan Hughes.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst and best is coming up with characters and a story on one’s one. It’s a tremendous accomplishment, but necessarily a lonely one. Discussing writing with friends or others is fun for a while, but it isn’t writing.

The pitch for your next book is …?
I’ll pitch THE LINEUP 4, which goes on sale April 1: 26 poets, 32 poems, 52 pages, our largest issue yet, for the same $7.

Who are you reading right now?
Seth Harwood, YOUNG JUNIUS, probably followed by Joe Gores, SPADE AND ARCHER.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Write. I need an outlet for all this thinking.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
“Terse and powerful.” :) Or, terse, pensive, powerful.

THE LINE-UP 4, a collection of poetry edited by Gerald So, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Cortez and R. Navarez, is available at Poetic Justice Press.

Crhyme Time

Gerald So was kind enough to forward on a sneak preview of THE LINEUP 2, the second anthology of crime fiction poetry, so the least I can do is repay the favour with a word or two. To wit:

“What does poetry have to do with crime?” asks Patrick Shawn Bagley in his thoughtful introduction to THE LINEUP 2, the second anthology of poems on crime edited by Gerald So. Poetry brings stillness and clarity to thought and vision, a precise bearing on the random chaos of everyday life, of which crime is an ever-present. The poems of this collection belong for the most part in that all-too-brief pause between the lurid headlines of journalism and the dramatic reconstructions of fiction, lines that wriggle their way into the crawl-space in our minds that lies between judgement, prejudice and consequence. If poetry is about anything, is about poignant, haunting truth. In ‘Visiting Hours, State Pen’, Amy MacLennan writes:

“Her lipstick
fresh, she unpins a nametag
(an all-night market),
from her blouse.”

… and your heart breaks, or should. “Crime,” wrote W.R. Burnett, “is but a left-handed form of human endeavour.” Crime fiction poetry might well be a left-handed endeavour, but boy, that Southie can punch a hole in your heart.

The Bagman Cometh

The redneck wing of Crime Always Pays, The Bagman, aka Patrick Shawn Bagley (he’s Scots-Irish, like), gets in touch to let us know that THE LINE-UP: POEMS ON CRIME has just been published, featuring Ken Bruen, Daniel Hatadi, Gerald So, Sarah Cortez and a host of others. And, yes, we know exactly what you’re thinking – what does Sean Chercover make of it all? “THE LINE-UP is packed with passionate portraits of lust, revenge, guilt, obsession, regret … all the good things in life. Some of these poems will make you smile, others will put a lump in your throat. And some will stay with you for a very long time after you’ve closed the book.”
  Thank you, Sean. Meanwhile, as a sample taster, here’s The Bagman’s contribution, to wit:

110 M.P.H. in a Stolen Pickup
by Patrick Shawn Bagley

When I came to, the world
was a blur—my glasses lost
in the trail of wreckage—
but an orange glow pulsed
right where the hood had been.
When I saw those flames,
I thought my Jesus-freak foster parents
were right and I’d gone to Hell.
When I tried to move, my head felt
like Satan himself had gone upside it
with a baseball bat and then kicked me
in the face for good measure.
When I came to again, I was lying
in a ditch, gravel plastered to my arm
in a sheen of blood, and the back
of my wrist looked like raw hamburger.
When I looked down at my T-shirt,
saw the holes where the spray of battery
acid had eaten through the cloth
but never touched my skin;
when I saw what was left
of the truck; when the EMT pulled
glass from my scalp and said
you’re one lucky little bastard,
then I knew nothing
could ever kill me.

© Patrick Shawn Bagley

Funky Friday’s Freaky-Deak

It’s Friday, it’s funky, to wit: Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders is kind enough to get in touch to mention that In Reference To Murder is currently mentioning a rather unusual Irish crime fiction project. Quoth IRTM: “The show, written by Irish director and playwright Paul Walker, portrays the seedy underside of 1950s Dublin, when double-talking politicians professed piety but entertained prostitutes on the side. The play was first performed in the bathrooms at a large public park (St. Stephen’s Green), as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival, then later staged as part of the Edinburgh Fringe, where it won the Fringe First Award, and went on a mini-tour of England, playing to sold-out bathrooms in Brighton and Nottingham.” Hmmmm … As Peter says, ‘What I wonder is where the theatre-goers go if they have to use the john during intermission?’ … From the sublime to the ridiculous: “The BGS English Department, in association with the Parents’ Association, is to produce a compilation of new writing inspired and influenced by the work of ex-pupil and famous author, [(The Artist Formerly Known As)] Colin Bateman.” Gawd help us all … Sublime or ridiculous? YOU decide – there’s an excerpt from Benny Blanco’s THE SILVER SWAN available here, along with a video in which Benny holds forth about why he writes crime fiction, although we couldn’t get it to work … Now this is definitely sublime: Gerald So is kicking off a crime fiction poetry blog, with Sir Kenneth of Bruen among the contributors … The Book Witch has a very nice piece on the sadly missed Siobhan Dowd (right) over at her interweb yokeybus, while Carousel has an equally nice piece on the importance of The Siobhan Dowd Trust … Over at Crime Scene Norn Iron, Gerard Brennan has a review of the little-known THE LOST CHORD by Tony Bailie … Not content with wowing the cheeky tyke demographic in Scarborough last week, Derek Landy’s gone and done it again in Doncaster: “Thousands of Doncaster schoolkids voted in the town’s most popular ever book awards and Harry Potter and Alex Rider didn’t even make the shortlist. The winner – by a landslide according to the organisers – was Skulduggery Pleasant by Irish author Derek Landy.” To celebrate, CAP herewith posts a video of Derek waxing lyrical about Skulduggery in an interview with Book Love’s Jano Rohleder at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. Roll it there, Collette …