The Latest
Sisters in Crime Panel, Thousand Oaks Library!
January 20th, 2012
Sisters in Crime Panel, click here for deets!
I’ll be at the Thousand Oaks Library this Saturday, Jan. 21, on a Sisters in Crime panel with fellow SinC authors Hannah Dennison, Jeri Westerson and Eric Stone. Should be a lot of fun, and yes, books will be for sale, and we’ll be signing them! Click on the link above for details!
Goodbye 2011…Hello, 2012…
January 1st, 2012
Here’s another song I wrote way back in, I dunno, 1990. It seems to suit the times we’re in now though…
Tony Mandracchia on guitar, Todd Tatum on drums, Dana Fredsti on backup vocals and castanets, me singing lead and playing bass…
Cyber Monday Website Extravaganza!!!
November 28th, 2011
New pages! New covers! Music! Prizes!
Er, actually, I don’t know about the prizes. I guess I would have to have a contest of some sort for that. Any suggestions? I have an autographed copy of ROCK PAPER TIGER I could kick in.
What I definitely do have is a lovely revamped website to reveal! Check it out! lisabrackmann.com! Yes, you may have been here before, but it’s newer! Shinier! And multi-media-rrific!
From the books page you can navigate to the page that’s all about my upcoming novel, GETAWAY (hmmm, maybe an ARC of that. What do you think, Soho Press?). You can also check out the grand reveal of YEAR OF THE TIGER, which is ROCK PAPER TIGER in British! (my UK editor hastens to add that the actual cover will have “blingin’ gold foil” on it—I can’t wait!…hmmm, maybe a copy of YEAR OF THE TIGER would make a nice prize…I don’t have one yet, but I will…)
Finally, something completely different…music! Yes, actual MP3-quality music! Written and sung by me! (and played by some truly talented musicians)
Many thanks to my wonderful web designer, Ryan McLaughlin of Dao by Design for his typically fantastic job!
And now for something completely different…
November 21st, 2011
So, I have this past. As mentioned on my bio page, at one point in my life I was conflicted as to whether I should be a rock star screenwriter or a screenwriting rockstar. Or possibly Secretary of State.
The front cover of our CD
Anyway, for a number of years, I had a band in Los Angeles, called the Pickups. I was the singer/songwriter/bassist. I played with some awesome folks, Tony Mandracchia, Todd Tatum and Dana Fredsti.
We played around town for over ten years. Had a lot of fun. Did some recordings, even. It was sort of pre-internet, or very early internet, so basically if you didn’t see us, or have one of our *gasp!* cassette tapes, and later, CDs, you never would have heard us.
Now, to quote the Six Million Dollar Man, we have the technology. And I thought it would be fun to share a little of stuff we did.
This song is the last song I ever sang in public. I sang it at an event in March 2003, a night of music at a club that doesn’t exist any more in Santa Monica, protesting the Iraq War. Heh. I wrote it long before that, but it still seems relevant enough.
“A tambourine in the wrong hands…is a dangerous weapon”
Returning to Earth…
November 9th, 2011
(cross-posted on my blog, included here for the photos!)
Greetings! Okay, that was a longer posting hiatus than I’d intended. But I think I’ve taken my last major out of town trip for the year, so, time for a catch-up.
Bouchercon was awesome! What can I say? All the cliches about how writers spend all this time alone in front of computers, talking to themselves in character, then getting let out and getting together en masse, and there are parties, and a bar?
Okay, well, it’s possible that there may be some truth to these cliches.
I had a wonderful time. I have to say, hanging out with the Soho Criminals is something I would love to do more than once a year. What a great bunch of folks all around! I’m only sorry that I missed the bowling tournament. Next time, I swear…
Also, I really enjoyed St. Louis. Let it be known that for all the travel I’ve done in China, I have barely been anywhere in huge swathes of the United States, the midwest in particular. I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of what I saw — the downtown still shows a lot of signs of economic distress, but they are trying. So many lovely old buildings being repurposed and so many more waiting to be revamped and enjoyed. There are good restaurants and bars—
(this is The Bridge Tap House)
—a wonderful bookstore, Left Bank Books (and while I’m on the subject of bookstores, another great one there is Big Sleep Books)
—the amazing Old Post Office—
—and of course, the Arch!
Everybody told me I needed to see the Arch, and that moreover, I should watch the documentary they show there on the making of it called MONUMENT TO THE DREAM (here’s a trailer).
“Everybody,” in this case, was right. The Arch impressed me on many levels. I loved the simple, elegant design. Loved the weird, diver-capsule-like elevators that haul you to the top. And the view is wonderful.
The documentary, too, was fascinating, focusing on the tremendous design and engineering challenges the Arch posed, and the impressive work of the builders and crew in meeting those challenges.
Watching it was unexpectedly poignant. It reinforced some things I’d been thinking about, a lot. We no longer seem to build great things in this country, not like that. We don’t build factories, universities, high speed rail, infrastructure—we can’t even maintain what we have.
We sure don’t build grand and beautiful monuments.
In my passing through Saint Louis, especially when I took the train to the airport, I saw so many shuttered factories…beautiful red brick buildings. Empty. Stripped of their useful machinery, the remains of it rusting.
Plenty of people have warned about the dangers of basing too much of an economy on FIRE: “Finance, Insurance & Real Estate,” and I’d add to that, “Empire.” Our economic crash and prolonged recession/depression would seem to be proof enough, though in truth, if you look at the growth of income disparity over the last thirty years, it’s a crisis that’s been years in the making. But with the crash, we can’t hide from the truth any more, that we’re living in an empire in decline.
It’s a good thing, to be out of denial, and as hard as the forces of reaction and repression continue to push their “divide, conquer and privatize” agenda, the public dialog has changed, and they know it. We can thank Wisconsin and Occupy Wall Street for that, for giving voice to what so many people have experienced and discussed in private, or even publicly, but without a rallying point to give our voices traction. It’s no longer possible for pundits to sputter unopposed about “the left and class warfare” when it’s now abundantly clear who has been waging war on whom.
Anyway, I have more catching up to do, but I think this is enough for one post…
Bouchercon!
September 10th, 2011
But first…
The West Hollywood Book Fair is coming up on Sunday, Oct. 2nd. I’ll be there on a panel with some wonderful authors: Dianne Dixon, Tim Hallinan, Ryan David Jahn, and Thomas Perry, moderated by Wendy Hornsby. Our panel, on literary thrillers, is at 11:30, but there are great panels and events going on all day, and it’s free! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, I hope you’ll stop by.
Now, where was I?
Right! The Bouchercon! Bouchercon 2011 is in St. Louis, a city I’ve never visited. I hear they have great barbecue…
I’m on two panels, the first on Thursday at 4 PM, “SEMPER FIDELIS-Landmark 1,2,3 Crime fiction & the military. Where the two meet. Matthew C. Funk (M), B. Kent Anderson, James R. Benn, me, Martin Limon, Charles Todd,” the second on Saturday at 1 PM, “NEVER LET ME GO-Majestic A,B,C Passport to murder. Peter Rozovsky (M), Lisa Brackmann, Roger Ellory, David Hewson, Martin Limon, Anne Zouroudi.” My wonderful publisher, Soho Press, is also hosting a cocktail party on Friday at 4:30, to introduce Lene Kaaberbol and Angnete Friis, authors of the international bestseller THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE—I’ve read it, and it’s an awesome book! I’m told there will be ARCs for some lucky guests. And I’ll be manning the International Thriller Writers booth on Friday from 12:30 – 2:30.
I’m so looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting some new—if you’re attending, feel free to tweet me!
Now I just need to get Shack by the Sea ready for my house-sitters…
ETA: New Event!
Just added—I’ll be at the Paragraph Party hosted by Left Bank Books. Check out this lineup: “Chelsea Cain will be the Mistress of Ceremonies for the evening, and paragraph-reading guests include Cara Black, Tasha Alexander, Eoin Colfer, Deon Meyer, Daniel Woodrell, James Benn, Peter James, Stuart Neville, Paul Doiron, Marcia Clark, Martin Limon, Dana Haynes, Leighton Gage, D.E. Johnson, Lisa Brackman, Gianrico Carofiglio, Judith Rock, and Nancy Means Wright.” We’ll all be reading a paragraph, just one, from our latest work. And then we’ll sit around, sign books, chat and drink beer, because the party’s being held at the Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar. How cool is that?
