My Weblog

How to Do Some Killer Promotion

Today, the Femmes Fatales welcome guest blogger Penny Warner.  Take it away, Penny!

HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, the first book in my new mystery series, debuted February 2nd, 2010. After a year of writing and rewriting and rewriting the book, it was finally time for the fun to begin.

In other words, it's Killer Party time!

I know that some authors dread the promotional part of the publishing process. They may be introverted or uncomfortable meeting strangers. Or they may be reluctant to toot their own horns—a major part of the "selling" aspect of promotion. Then again, maybe they simply dislike the details of promoting a book—all that cold-calling of bookstores, scheduling a tour, traveling around the state or country—and keeping track of it all is just too overwhelming.

Me, I love "going on tour" with a new book. I don't do it for the money—I tend to lose more than I make, after paying for eye-catching bookmarks, buying gas or airline tickets, staying in hotels, and eating at Appleby's. But after a day—or year—of writing, I long to get out of the house, away from the computer, and chat about than mysteries with a bunch of people who share my interests.

Most of my promotional events are low-key affairs. I often share a table and a mic with a couple of other writers in my genre, hand out some self-promoting bookmarks, and serve cookies or cupcakes as a way of thanking (some may say bribing) the audience for coming.

But since the first book in my new mystery series, HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, features party planner Presley Parker as an amateur sleuth, I've had to kick it up a notch. Obviously I love to host parties or I wouldn't have created a party planning sleuth. I have an extensive background in "partying." Ever since I hosted my first event at age two—at tea party for my dolls—I’ve been sending out themed invitations, filling party rooms with balloons, and planning fun games and activities. I went on to major in "partying" at the University of Oregon. (Unfortunately, they didn't offer a degree in the subject and finally asked me to try another university.) I've even written a half-dozen non-fiction books on how to host parties for kids and adults.

So in keeping with my mystery-party theme, I'm turning my upcoming book events into mini-parties. I’m creating "invitations" on the computer and decorating them with clip art balloons, champagne glasses, and a jpg of the book cover. Then I’m sending them out to everyone I know via Facebook announcements, Twitter Tweets, and emails to friends.

I'm offering incentives to lure unsuspecting readers to the event, such as free snacks (poison-free), drinks (wine loosens the pocketbook), and party favors (party albums, party planning notebooks, wine charms). When the "guests" arrive, the "entertainment" begins in the form of a hopefully amusing chat about Presley's parties, murders, and love interest.

Finally I'm sending everyone home with party "favors"—charm-enhanced bookmarks that offer free party tips like: "Party Tip #9. Perfect parties, like perfect murders, are planned down to the last detail. Still, something will go wrong. That's why we have party planning handbooks and jail cells" and "Party Tip # 23. Deal with party crashers quickly, quietly, and discreetly. You want to read about your event in the society section of the newspaper, not in the police blotter—or the obituaries."

I'll admit that turning a book signing into a book party may take a little more effort, but it's a lot more fun the fans and a lot more fun for me. I'm already planning my next book party in August when my second book, HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH, is published. Luckily I have a few months to prepare. It'll take me than long to make all those party favors…

Penny Warner has published over 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children, including over a dozen party books. Her latest book, HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, is the first in a new mystery series. Her books have won national awards, garnered excellent reviews, and have been printed in 14 countries. Her first mystery, DEAD BODY LANGUAGE, in her Connor Westphal series featuring a deaf reporter in the California Gold Country, won a Macavity Award for Best First Mystery and was nominated for an Agatha Award. Her non-fiction book, THE OFFICIAL NANCY DREW HANDBOOK, was nominated for an Agatha Award. Warner writes for party sites such as OrientalTradingCompany.com, BirthdaysRUs.com, iParty.com, and BalloonTime.com, and with her husband Tom creates interactive murder mystery fundraisers for libraries across the country. She can be reached at pennywarner.com.

The Gardener in Winter

by Donna

As the daughter of a gardener, I grew up knowing that each season had its own special task.  In spring, you planted and in summer you tended the garden.  In fall you reaped the harvest of your labors.

And in winter you curled up on the sofa and read garden catalogs.

One of my most vivid memories of my father is of seeing him tucked up under a crocheted afghan on the sofa in the den with his clipboard propped against his knees as he studied the latest crop of catalogs and made notes in his neat, elegant printing.

I credit my own collection of garden catalogs with helping to keep me sane during the last few weeks, as the Washington area reeled under the Snowpocalypse. I could shovel out my own walk after each storm and snag a passing entrepreneur to do the driveway.  But the Virginia Department of Transportation doesn't consider my road a particularly important one. The first couple of days, the only snowplow I saw was lumbering down the road with his blade high in the air, helping the SUVs pack the snow down into ice.

Grr.

But there wasn't much I could do about the snowplows that never came.  Or continued temperatures in the teens and twenties, turning my street into a fair approximation of a skating rink. What was my problem, anyway? I had food.  I had power, except for one chilly twelve-hour period.  I had books,  I had movies.  I had all the time in the world to relax and enjoy myself.

But I wanted spring.  Or at least some kind of reassurance that the snow would eventually go away.

My eye fell on the stack of garden catalogs I'd collected.  I sorted through the pile, pulling out all the ones that specialized in seeds.  I curled up in bed, turned on the electric mattress pad--a present to myself after the first of this winter's marathon cold snaps--and spent a happy evening planning my garden. Quite a few happy evenings, not to mention a few afternoons at the computer, browsing the sites of garden suppliers from whom I don't yet have catalogs.

 I find I'm drawn to companies that sell odd seeds and heirloom seeds.  I like the fragrant flower section at Select Seeds--I'm thinking datura, fewerfew, morning glory, four o'clocks, heliotrope, stock, and nicotiana.  And love-lies-bleeding, which I first saw on a visit to Mount Vernon, though Select Seeds has a host of other amaranths.  So does Seeds of Change, where I also notice some interesting nigellas. 

I could spend days studying the wares at Tomato Fest and Totally Tomatoes.  Green tomatoes!  Russian black tomatoes!  Stuffer tomatoes, shaped like bell peppers!  And so many varieties of cherry tomatoes, always my favorite.  The fact that last summer was a truly dismal season for tomatoes does not abate my enthusiasm for growing a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes this year.

 Every so often, reality would intrude.  I would remind myself that while I have plenty of yard, sunny spots are in short supply, and deer are not. I have to grow most of my garden in pots on the deck.  Just how many pots can I possibly squeeze there?

Never mind that now.  I'll manage somehow.  And look!  A cucumber specially developed for container gardening!  Must have that, along with the lemon cucumbers and the Hmong red ones.  And look!  I could grow my own loofahs!  My own tea!

I once heard Barbara Hambly talking at a convention about a writer she knew who had difficulty starting projects because as long as the book was in his head, it was still perfect, the best thing he would ever write.  I know how that feels.  I always want to wait a little longer, just do a little more thinking, a little more research, a little more planning.  Right now the book I'm planning is still vague in my mind, but I know it's going to be awesome!  Just as this year's garden will be the best ever, a veritable jungle of plants, teeming with fruit, flowers, and vegetables.  Fortunately, deadlines, like the seasons, march on, forcing me to sit down and start on my draft before I dream away too much of my writing time. 

So it's time to stop mooning over seed catalogs.  I need to make some tough decisions about how many kinds of plants I can find room for.  Order the seeds.  Figure out where to put the seed flats.  Maybe order a growing light.  It won't be the dream garden I've fantasized during these snowbound days and icy nights.  But it will be pretty cool.  So will the book, I'm sure. Time to finish with the garden so I can move on to my draft.

(Hmmm . . . Queen Anne's Pocket Melon? Nemesia?  Jerusalem artichokes?)

My Trip to Fantasyland

By Kris

Since I’ve always believed that we writers are products of the paths we’ve followed, in art and in life, it’s not a surprise that I write madcap mysteries like my Tracy Eaton mysteries — the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity Award-nominated REVENGE OF THE GYPSY QUEEN, DEM BONES’ REVENGE and the forthcoming REVENGE FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE (Spring ’10; Cherokee McGhee Mystery).

The mystery part is easy to understand. I’ve loved mysteries since Nancy Drew first led me into this life of crime. So much so that, in adulthood, I once bought a Triumph Spitfire convertible because it approximated her roadster. Worst car I ever had — so unlikely to start that I needed to keep a tow truck on retainer. Maybe you can take fandom too far. But that wasn’t neither Nancy’s fault, nor the mystery genre’s.

I’ve also always loved screwball stories. As a kid I would rush home from school in the hopes of catching an old madcap movie on TV. So, it was probably inevitable that I would come to write a series that bestselling author Jan Burke described as, “I LOVE LUCY meets MURDER, SHE WROTE.”

But imagine my astonishment when a character started speaking to me in unexpected terms. Sure, she seemed to be a character in a mystery, judging by the mere fragment of the scenario she provided, and given her reality-challenged demeanor, I knew it would be a zany mystery. But this character, Samantha Brennan, who told me she was a fake psychic and scam ancient deity, added another element — the supernatural.

Whoa! Where did that come from? Even though I live in Sedona, Arizona, the Vatican City of the New Age, I knew zip about psychics and ancient deities, either real or fake. When I refused to write her, Samantha fed me her own quirky description: “What a sight I was! Long blonde hair curling wildly in every direction, crowned with a wreath of battered silk flowers held together with Christmas tree garland. Makeup by Crayola. And that dress I wore—half Renaissance ball gown in bright blue satin and lace, half soothsayer garb with its filmy organdy layers, half jester suit. Too many halves, I know, but it was quite a dress.”

To further lure me in, Samantha gave herself a partner-in-crime, Annabelle Haggerty — a genuine Celtic goddess, hidden beneath the steely exterior of an FBI Special Agent. She also dreamed up a steamy romance for herself with Angus, Annabelle’s ancestor, the hunky ancient Celtic god of youth and love and laughter, and she roped in banshees, brownies and flower fairies, not to mention shape-shifters and leprechauns to add to the fun.

But where did all this come from? Not my past. Still, I agreed to write one short story, “Showtime on the Winter Solstice,” (THE ROSE IN THE SNOW), and then another, “Hocus Pocus on Friday the 13th,” (MEDIUM OF MURDER). By that point, these creatures and their paranormal fun had me so hooked, I couldn’t help but give them a full novel, HIGH CRIMES ON THE MAGICAL PLANE (Red Coyote Press), which recently received a Lefty Award nomination.

Samantha and Annabelle have taught me so much about writing the paranormal, such as the fact that magic doesn’t make mysteries easier, it complicates them, and that when they rely on it, there have to be consequences. HIGH CRIMES ON THE MAGICAL PLANE literally opened new worlds for me.

But where did all this come from? Were these characters just a gift from the universe? Is that too woo-woo? What does it do to my theory that every writer uses material gathered from her life?

It occurred to me then that as a kid, I always hated the first day of school. It wasn’t school itself I objected to, although the formal educational system and I do have different takes on the need for regimentation and stifling boredom. It was only the first day that I dreaded because, year after year, teachers made us write essays on what we did on our summer vacations.

What summer vacation? Sure, I was off from school like everyone else. But my family never traveled anywhere.

Rather than admit to my embarrassingly boring family, I made up grand adventures. I shared how I scaled Mt. Everest or camped out at the bottom of the ocean in a submarine or took a trip to the rings of Saturn.

Kindly teachers, who must have understood why a kid would avoid the standard approach on a routine assignment, never objected — until the Saturn essay. That year we had a bench in the hall outside of our classroom. My irate teacher flung her arm out, sending me to sit on the bench, where I was supposed to think about my unforgivable transgression.

Out in the hall, I admitted to myself that while I wished I actually had gone to Disneyland or the beach or somewhere normal like everyone else — I felt good about being someone who could make up a trip to Saturn. I was already a writer, I just didn’t know it yet.

With HIGH CRIMES ON THE MAGICAL PLANE, I’ve not only continued on my madcap mystery path, I’ve reconnected to the outrageous imagination of the little girl who would make up a vacation spent on another planet. Samantha and Annabelle and the HIGH CRIMES gang are a product of my life paths, after all, even if it took a while to see that.

I’m still sitting out there on that bench. Only now, I’m really loving it.

Writers, are your paths reflected in your work?

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

  I can't resist. DRIVE TIME is now available! 

 And Library Journal just gave it a starred review, saying in part “Placing Ryan in the same league as Lisa Scottoline…her latest book catapults the reader into the fast lane and doesn’t relent until the story careens to a stop. New readers will speed to get her earlier books, and diehard fans will hope for another installment.”

 

 

And although  DRIVE TIME's main plot is--amazingly--about automobile recalls, at the core, it's all about secrets. And that maybe the biggest secret is knowing when to tell.

 

 

Can you keep a secret?

 

Okay, I see you all leaning forward...she’s going to tell us something big, you’re thinking. A secret.

And yes yes yes, we can keep it.

 

Really?

 

What if—all you had to do was tell, and it would change your life? Would keeping the secret as you promised be more important? Or would you be tempted…

 

What if—all you had to do was tell the secret—and you would be a huge success?

 

And what if—you really thought telling my secret would make someone else’s life better? Would it be more important to keep your promise to me? Or to tell for the greater good?

 

Okay, I don’t have a secret. (Not that I’m going to tell you today, at least.) But secrets are at the heart of mystery, and certainly at the heart of romance. Right?

 

 

 

How many times have you wondered just how much you can really share—or SHOULD really share? If your loved one asks: “can you keep a secret”-- what do you say?

 

 

And if you know a secret do you tell your significant other? When you say—oh, I’ll never tell—does he/she count?

 

 

And it’s not just in your personal life, of course. How about on the job? As a TV reporter for the past 30 years, keeping things confidential is the hallmark of my work. There are things I’ve been told that I can never reveal. Sources have divulged documents and reports and financial information and medical info, but where it all came from, I can never tell.

 

 

When you hear some juicy gossip at work…and you know you’ve got to keep it confidential—can you do it?

 

 

And  what happens when the secrets of your personal life (and we all have them, including my main character TV reporter Charlotte McNally) and the secrets of your professional life (and we all have them, including Charlie McNally) are coming together on a deadly collision course?

 

 

 

May I give you an excerpt from DRIVE TIME? Here, Charlie and her brand new fiancé are asleep in  Josh’s bedroom. At least, Josh is asleep. At age 47, Charlie is wondering what her life will be like when she leaves her home on Boston’s chic Beacon Hill and moves in with her prep-school professor husband.  And then—it turns out Josh is having a difficult night, too.

 

 “Sweets?” Josh whispers. “You asleep?”

“Not one bit,” I say. “I’m trying, but not terribly successfully. My brain won’t turn off. Nor will the rest of me, thanks to you.” I turn to face him, eyes open again, smiling with possibility, glad for a good excuse to be awake. I’ll just be tired tomorrow.  It’s happened before. I expect Josh to reach out for me, but his expression is—concerned? And why are his glasses back on?  My Josh-radar pings into the red.

“What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

“Can you keep a secret?” he says. He’s still on his back, hands clasped over his chest, head turned to watch me.

I sit up, yanking the comforter over me, and twist around to look down on him, assessing. Can I keep a secret? What kind of a question is that?

 “Um, keeping a secret, that’s the reporter’s credo, right?” I smile, trying for adorable-cheerful. Maybe I’ve misread his mood. I squint at the digital alarm clock. It’s hard to be perceptive at 3:34 AM.  “Confidential sources stay confidential?”

(( Josh tells Charlie she has to keep this to herself—but there have been some threatening phone calls coning in to he school where Josh teaches.  Charlie’s an investigative reporter for a Boston TV station, and she thinks this could be a big story. Josh says his boss ordered him not to  tell any one. But he’s trusting his new fiancée..))

 “I don’t agree with him, but he’s the boss. “ Josh says.  “And that’s why I asked you about keeping a secret. You can, right?”  

Silence has never been so noisy. How do I answer that? For the past twenty years, my loyalties have been only to journalism. I stare at my engagement ring again. Somehow, now, the glitter contains a bit of a taunt. Who’d have imagined a continental divide in the middle of a king-sized TempurPedic?

“I’m just thinking,” I begin. “It’s my responsibility as a journalist to investigate what people are trying to hide. Right?”

Josh’s turn on the tightrope. Are his loyalties to me? To his boss? This is a discussion we’ve never needed to have. Now we’re having it in the middle of the night, naked, and when I kind of have to go to the bathroom.

“Wrong,” Josh says.

I shiver, though it’s not cold. I need to let him continue. I need to hear this.

“Wrong,” he says again. “Because it’s your job to—to wait. Until you have all the facts. And we don’t have any facts. I told you something in confidence.”

He turns to me, face softening, then picks up my hand, twisting the diamond on my finger. “We’re not source and reporter here, sweets. We’re almost husband and wife.”

He’s right. But I’m right. Is there a right?

 

 

 

 

 

In DRIVE TIME, Charlie is torn between her loyalties to her fiancé, her new daughter, her job, her career, her future and her dreams…can Charlie really have it all? Can anyone? And perhaps, as DRIVE TIME explores—maybe the real secret of a secret—is knowing when to tell.

 

 

So—when is it right to tell a secret? Ever? Are you faithful as a tomb when it comes to keeping our mouth shut? Have you ever told a secret—and regretted it? Have you ever KEPT a secret-and regretted it?  

And pssst...Happy Valentine's Day!

Good Writing Isn't Enough

by Toni L.P. Kelner

This week I started a first novel from an author new to me, and I'm about halfway through it. I heard the author speak winningly on a panel, the book looked intriguing, and the reviews were good. So I was happy to buy a copy. It's well written, with a unique protagonist and it has a vivid setting with a tricky plot. And finishing this book is going to be like pulling teeth. 

The fact is, just being a good book isn't enough for me. I have to enjoy the book, too. I can appreciate the fine qualities of a piece of writing, even admire them, without liking it. So why am I not enjoying this particular book? The protagonist is so broken, with no possibility of redemption, that it's depressing the hell out of me. In fact, the overall tone of the book is pretty darned bleak, and that just doesn't appeal to me. I don't insist that a book be happy-happy, but in this case, I find myself overwhelmed by the darkness. 

Let me reiterate that this is not a fault in the book. This is a good book by every objective criteria I can imagine. I just don't like it. 

Of course, there are lots of really good books I don't like. Lord of the Flies bored me to tears, I hated Native Son, A Confederacy of Dunces nauseated me, and don't get me started on The Scarlet Letter. I know these are all good books, and deserve every accolade ever given them. But I don't like them.

I think this is an important distinction to make, particularly for writers.

Published writers are eventually going to encounter reviewers who don't like their work, no matter how well written it is. Good book reviewers will recognize that they don't like every book that comes their way. Even if they can't wait to get to THE END,their reviews will say things like, "If you liked To Kill a Mockingbird, you'll like this." A bad reviewer, on the other hand, will say, "This books sucks because it's a coming of age story set in a small Southern town, and I hate those."

Aspiring writers have to remember that a rejection doesn't necessarily mean your manuscript is bad. It might just mean that the editor or agent didn't like it, just like I didn't like Lord of the Flies.

As for the book I'm in the middle of reading, I'm going to finish it because I do want to know what happens. If I'm ever asked about it, I'll trying to give a fair assessment, and if I ever encounter the author, I will honestly be able to offer compliments. It's good writing, but for me, good writing isn't enough.

The Femme Fatale Buried inside Me… Deeeeep Inside

Today the Femmes Fatales welcome Kate Carlisle as our guest blogger. A lifelong love of old books and an appreciation of the art of bookbinding led NYT bestselling author Kate Carlisle to create the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Kate is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. She loves to drink good wine and watch other people cook. Connect with her online at www.KateCarlisle.com and www.Facebook.com/KateCarlisleBooks. Take it away, Kate.

I’m thrilled to be a guest here with the Femmes Fatales, and more than a little bit intimidated. Femmes Fatales sounds exotic. Exciting. Sexy. Danger in a red stiletto, with a slash of dark lipstick across a pale face. I do have the pale face going for me, but other than that… The truth is, the heroine of If Books Could Kill, the second book of my Bibliophile Mysteries, is much more formidable than I am, though I doubt she realizes it.

Think about it. How would you react if you tripped over a dead body? And not just any dead body, but the body of an ex-lover who could still make your toes curl? And he wasn’t just dead, he had clearly been murdered…and you were standing in a pool of his blood.

How would you react?

Me, I would run screaming into the night, knocking over chairs and tables and probably small children in my haste to get away. My fingers would shake wildly, frustrating my attempts to call the police. When I finally got through, I’d spout gibberish in a high-pitched voice, speaking in circles while the patient 9-1-1 operator tried to discern a kernel of sense from me.

Brooklyn Wainwright, on the other hand, is much cooler in If Books Could Kill. Well, okay, “cool” probably isn’t the right word. She freaks out pretty good. After all, she’s a rare book expert, not a cop. Come to think of it, her immediate reaction is pretty comical. Screaming, check. Scrambling, check. Shaking, check.

But then… ah yes, from there on out lies the difference between a true femme fatale and, well, me. Once Brooklyn gets over that initial shock, she – unlike me – rises to the occasion. Imagine that! If I were a murder suspect, I would hole up in my house and refuse to answer the door to anyone but the best lawyer money could buy. Brooklyn is not one to wait to be saved, even though a very yummy detective is quite hot to save her.

Brooklyn will save herself, dammit, come hell or high water. And she’ll do it in a foreign country. (If Books Could Kill is set in my favorite city in the world, Edinburgh, Scotland.)

Probably the best part about being a writer is the freedom to live an exciting life through the characters we create. That’s the best part about reading, too, for that matter. We put our characters into a “what if” situation, and we refuse to allow them to make safe choices. How boring would that be? Through our characters, we become the femme fatale we always dreamed of being.

Tell me about a situation in a book – whether one you’ve written or one you’ve read – and how the character’s choices differ from the choices you would make in real life. Or how about a situation in your real life, where you wish you would’ve behaved more like a character in a book. Have you ever wished you had made a braver choice? Have you ever made the brave choice and then wished you had stuck with the safe route?

Thanks again to all the Femmes (and a big smooch to Kris!) for having me here today!

The Hotel Life

I'm about to start my travelling season. I travel as a mother, since our daughter plays college softball, and I travel as a writer, this year more than ever before. So I'm looking at my suitcases, gauging if they'll last another year, counting underwear, trying to color coordinate mentally. It really does help to pack for a long trip if everything color-coordinates.

Most of all, I'm thinking about motels and hotels and how to cope with them. When I travel as a spectator to my daughter's activities, my requirements are simple. I want a clean bed and a hot shower, and that's about it. If the motel has breakfast in the morning, so much the better.

On tour, it's a different situation. I'm by myself, and my hotel room is the only place I get to be alone so I can recharge my batteries. The first time I went on tour, I was delighted and amazed with every hotel I walked into. They were fancy, they had room service, there was enough room and a desk for my laptop. But with every trip I've gotten more specific about what I want.

I want safety. I want courtesy. I want help with my bags. I want timely delivery of messages and faxes left for me at the desk. I want on-time wakeup calls. I want good room service! And (though the hotel can't do anything about this, I guess) I do not enjoy having to go out on a balcony to place a cell phone call.

Recently I arrived at an "historic" hotel in the afternoon with only an hour to spare before a luncheon. (You know what I mean; uneven floors, pretty flights of stairs, extensively remodelled rooms, and layers of paint an inch thick.) I hoped for wonderful service in keeping with the Old South ambience. The young lady at the desk handed me my key, and also a bottle of wine and a huge gift basket my hosts had left for me. I already had a purse and a large tote bag. Then she pointed to the elevator. And that was the tone of the whole visit. Pleasant inefficiency.

By the way, my wakeup call was fifteen minutes late.

Give me a modern place with brisk workers. That's what I like! To hades with history, unless it comes with good service. This seems like the attitude of a phillistine, but when I travel, that's what I want.

Book connections

There have been many tributes to Robert Parker and J.D. Salinger lately, and while I was reading some of them, I was struck by the memories I had about discovering those writers.  I first read The Godwulf Manuscript when I found it in a shopping bag full of books a neighbor gave us.  The other books in the bag were by Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins, both of whom I was forbidden to read (until my parents left the house, anyway).  Neither Sheldon nor Robbins became favorites (though I did occasionally rifle through them, looking for “good parts”), but Parker wrote about places near where I lived.  I grew up on that stretch of Route 1 north of Boston populated with plastic cows, orange dinosaurs, and a giant neon cactus; I loved trying to figure out where Spenser was.  Parker also sent me to other writers, like Spenser, with an 'S.'  Later, it got me thinking you could write about things that were familiar. 

Love those connections.  Love those memories.

J.D. Salinger was never a favorite of mine, but my first interaction with The Catcher in the Rye was important.  Not because Holden Caulfield's adventures left me feeling sad and hollow—often a desirable quality for teenage readers—but because reading it was part of a deal with the chair of my high school English department, Mr. B.  He saw me reading Ray Bradbury (I think it was Something Wicked This Way Comes) and made a face.  He didn't like science fiction, he said, and said I should read Catcher.  I said I would if he read the Bradbury.  The next day, we traded notes.  In this case, it wasn't the books so much as the interaction that meant something to me, being treated like an adult, at least to the extent that he was willing to challenge me.

My grandmother gave me a copy of Little Women with a sentimental 19th-century cover for Christmas.  The next year, she gave me Little Men, then the next, Jo's Boys.  It never occurred to me to look for the next books on my own, even though I knew there were more:  I waited for my grandmother to give them to me.   I read those books about twenty times a piece, and while they look garish on the shelf between Aeschylus and Sherman Alexie, I'll never give them away.

Everyone has memories, not just of particular authors or books, but of the contexts in which  you first encountered them.  The time that someone said, “I can't believe you haven't read X—you'll love it”—and you waited while they dug out a copy to loan you.   And you actually did love it.  What are your favorite book moments?