The Beat On The Street

Finally, we were able to have Trick-or-Treat this Saturday, after the powers that be in my town postponed it, because of the ice/snow storms that brought most of Massachusetts to its knees. We were lucky to have not lost our electricity, but a whole lot of people went up to five days without it. The official hours of T-or-T were 4:00pm to 6:00pm. Very strange, as it was sunny out the whole time. $10.00 at the Salvation Army got me the above Disco Dan get-up.

Here's a few things of note that I checked out on the web.

- It's November, so that means it's Noir time over at Absolutely * Kate's place. Already some great stories have been posted by some familiar names. Today, it is Chris Rhatigan. Bop on over to The Bijou HERE

- Speaking of Mr. Rhatigan, he provided links to some very good stories by Erin Cole and Julie Morrigan HERE

-Darren Sant provided an excellent review of Paul Brazill's "Drunk On The Moon" series HERE

- Over at Tony Black's Place, Ray Banks is talking to Allen Guthrie about "Dead Money" Not to be missed, HERE

- Editor at the Flash Fiction Offensive, Dave Barber, has announced that the FFO has re-opened for submissions HERE

- Seems like Mr. Barber also has some competition in his house. Check out his daughter's first published piece of writing, and be sure to take a look at all the comments  HERE

- Top writer and overall good guy, Nigel Bird, has an interview over at Luca Veste's blog HERE

- Last week, Sandra Seamans had an excellent post regarding the lack of women getting published in crime fiction, and self- promotion HERE.  Well, Chris LaTray has taken the baton from Sandra and posted a candid, well thought out post HERE

- I had never heard of film director Jim Jarmusch before, but thanks to Paul Waters' Blackwatertown blog, I am very intrigued by the films he has made, especially "Dead Man" starring one of my fave actors, Johnny Depp.  Check out another well written and interesting segment of "The Day I Met..." HERE

- Finally, author Lee Goldberg of "Monk" fame, and Joe Konrath share some intesting stats regarding their print vs ebook sales at Joe K's blog HERE

He Don't Pop His Zits, He Shaves Them Off.

Don't know why, but today's blog post title popped into my head at the gym yesterday. It was a line from an episode of one of my favorite 70's crime shows,  Baretta, that has always stuck with me. Anyway.....

As the end of the year approaches there are lots of lists everywhere. You know, "the best of" type of things.  Normally, I don't put much, if any, value in such things, but when the lists are offered up by like minded, respected writers, of course I'm going to pay attention and learn something. If you're serious about writing, you might want to do the same. So..

Chris Rhatigan is posting the top five stories of 2010 as told to him by a bunch of different crime writers HERE

At the the Crimefactory magazine blog, you can check out the Best of Whatever feature HERE

Don't forget this weekend's deadline for the Do Dome Damage 2010 Christmas Noir Challenge. Details HERE

Some fab new stories are up for the Twist of Noir 600-700 challenge HERE

As always, there are some new tales over at Killers, Thriller-n-Chillers HERE

And to wrap things up, hard hitting writer Julie Lewthwaite has a really cool story, "Let's Dance" at her blog HERE

Chris Rhatigan's Top 5 in 2010 Bonanza

Over at Chris Rhatigan's ( a fine crime writer I must say) blog, he's running a feature where he's asking other mucho talented crime writers for a list of the 5 top crime shorts they read in 2010.  AJ Hayes provided the Weds list and Nigel Bird is showing now. Not only are there links to the 5 awesome stories, but also insightful comentary from the the writer providing the selection.

You can get the lowdown HERE