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News Flash! |
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With the release of Danse Macabrelast summer, St. Martin's Press agreed to a new two-book deal to continue the Daniel Jacobus series! Look for Death and the Maidenon August 16, 2011 and Death and Transfiguration in 2012. Thanks to my agent, Josh Getzler, at Hannikan Salky Getzler Agency, and Michael Homler, my editor at St. Martin's, for ironing out the details.
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Danse Macabre - October 2011 - named Winner of the 2010 Utah Humanities Council Book of the Year for fiction!
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Writing |
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| As we now know from current education theory, people learn in many distinct ways. Though as a musician my most important tools are my ears, strangely enough I’m most comfortable as a visual and tactile learner. That is why when I was a child the quickest and most comfortable method for me was to copy things by hand, whether books or music. Thus my introduction to “writing” was to copy, word for word, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, which, in the process, I memorized verbatim at the age of seven.
That being said, none of what you read above is true. Actually, I just like to write, and as you see, fiction comes most easily, though one important turn in my writing career was the result of being a contract negotiator for the musicians of the Boston Symphony and Utah Symphony. In drafting agreements (theoretically nonfiction) with management it was paramount that every word was universally acceptable and understood. Ambiguity in wording inevitably led to disagreements, which could be both devastating to the morale of the whole organization, let alone very expensive. My father, Irving, liked to write letters to the editor of his local papers, inflaming the public’s conscience on social and political issues, and I’ve followed in his footsteps in that regard. He also liked to write witty poems, every pair of lines having to rhyme and having the same sing-song rhythm. These he read with great gusto, but I’ve never gone in that direction.
Rather, I’ve gotten into writing murder mysteries. I’ve always enjoyed reading mysteries and suspense novels. They take me away from the daily grind, and when well-written, are as thought-provoking as the most scholarly tome. Some of my favorite authors in this genre are John LeCarre, Walter Mosley, Lawrence Sanders, and Dick Francis.
My road to published authorship has been very circuitous and could be the subject of a novel itself. But suffice it to say the books I’ve written, about the seamier sides of the classical music world, are, though fiction, nevertheless steeped in reality, dealing with issues of ethics and integrity as well as murder and mayhem. And by writing about murder in the classical music world, as opposed to carrying it out in real life, I’ve saved myself substantial amounts of prison time. The protagonist in each of my novels is a curmudgeonly, blind violin teacher named Daniel Jacobus, and he inevitably gets drawn into life-threatening situations against his will and somehow manages to make things a lot worse before they get better.
I am indebted to Simon Lipskar at Writer's House, Josh Getzler at Hannikan Salky Getzler Agency, my editor, Michael Homler, and my publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for having the confidence in my stories.
I am particularly excited about my novels, Devil's Trill and Danse Macabre, excursions into the dark side of the classical music world, published by St. Martin's Press.
In 2009 I was honored by Barnes and Noble, who selected Devil's Trill for their Discover Great New Writers fall catalog, in which was written: "Rich in music detail and featuring a fabulously roguish cast, Devil's Trill will delight music lovers and mystery fans alike. Danse Macabre, featuring the same roguish cast, will be released in September, 2010."
See what Dick Adler, Crime Fiction Reviewer for the Chicago Tribune and Barnes&Noble.com has written on his blog about Devil's Trill.
Read more about my books and read reviews of Danse Macabre, Devil's Trill and Death and the Maiden from the critics, along with interviews and commentary in the blogs. Please visit my MUSIC TO DIE FOR page, where you can hear me perform the music mentioned in my novels and listen to my audio notes on these works.
For more details about what I have been up to, please peruse the other pages of my website. If you are interested in contacting me for potential engagements or for any other reason whatsoever, don't hesitate to drop me an email.
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