WHAT'S ON YOUR DESK?

KAREN DIONNE

Aside from the usual suspects (laptop, printer, and rockin’ Bose speakers; legal pad, red pen, and enough sticky notes to bury the Eiffel Tower or paper the Great Wall of China), the items on and around my desk are the things that either remind me I’m a writer, or the things that inspire. 

· A snapshot of me with Lee Child. Lee’s looking his usual tall, suave, debonaire English self, while I’m grinning like a starstruck maniac.

· A Special Lake City brass Sierra Matchking 168-grain hollow point boat tail bullet inscribed "Lee Child; One Shot; 2005" that Lee gave to me at the first Backspace conference in New York - a bullet I inadvertently carried through airport security in my purse on the way home.

· Signed hardcovers from the thriller authors I most admire: Lee Child, David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Joseph Finder, Barry Eisler, Douglas Preston, John Case and John Lescroart.

· A signed copy of Sleeper Cell by Jeff Anderson, my uber-special writing/critique partner friend.

· A handwritten note from Carolyn Hougan thanking me for the interview I did with her and Jim saying it’s "grand," and asking if they can include it on their John Case website (particularly poignant now that Carolyn - a fabulous writer and wonderful person who for the past year had been acting as my mentor - recently passed away).

· A signed bookplate from Jeffery Deaver.

· Name tags from ThrillerFest and two Bouchercons.

· A souvenir coffee mug from the Arizona Biltmore.

· A souvenir post card from New York.

· A plastic Shakespeare action figure wielding a tiny removable pen.

· A Lonely Planet guide to Antarctica. 

· An empty bottle of "Ice Age" glacier water.

· A copy of my contract with Penguin.

· A Lonely Planet guide to China.

· A book on the customs and etiquette of France.

· Six gorgeous signed and numbered prints I bought from a street artist outside the Met depicting rural women in Tibet.

· A panoramic poster of the lighthouse at Belle-Ile-en-Mer.

· And most inspiring of all: a Brad Meltzer quote pinned to the bulletin board above my laptop. Brad turned down my invitation to keynote at the 2007 Backspace conference with regrets, then wrote what could easily be the most motivating, validating, encouraging (and quite possibly the world’s shortest) keynote address: Always write the book you love. For sure . . . So right.

Karen is co-founder and co-administrator of Backspace, an award-winning website and Internet-based writers organization with well over 500 members in a dozen countries. She also organizes and runs the Backspace Writers Conferences held in New York City every year.

Prior to forming Backspace, she worked as senior fiction editor at NFG Magazine, a print literary journal out of Toronto, Canada. Her short stories have appeared in Bathtub Gin, The Adirondack Review, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, and Thought Magazine, where her entry won 1st place in their spring 2003 writing competition. Karen is a member of the International Thriller Writers association. 

Her debut eco-thriller Freezing Point will be released by Berkley in 2008.

ALMOST FAMOUS
(2000)

Written by:
Cameron Crowe

Starring:
Billy Crudup 
Kate Hudson
Jason Lee


A teenage journalist covers 
the tour of a 70s rock band for
Rolling Stone Magazine. 

Ample - more than enough; fully sufficient to meet a need.
     "We left that flea market with an ample supply of fleas."

Amble – an unhurried or leisurely walk.
      "After that, his breathless stride became a brokenhearted amble."

A MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING

In 1998, a wannabe writer by the name of Rex had reached a low point in his life. He was unpublished, flat broke and going through a divorce. 

Sounds like a novel. 

But this depressing story, laced with lots of humor and wine, read more like a movie. So rather than submit it to the publishing industry, Rex and his excited literary agent approached the film community. 

The rejections piled up. The agent left the business. Rex sank deeper. 

Four months later, a Hollywood director read Rex's manuscript on a flight back from the Edinburgh Film Festival, and immediately saw it as a film. Fox Searchlight Studios optioned the unpublished book for $12,500. St. Martin's Press then published it. 

The book didn't sell much throughout the summer, but that all changed when the movie version hit the theaters in October. Critics raved, Fox promoted it heavily, and moviegoers flocked to Central Coast wineries and restaurants featured in the film. It earned several Oscar nominations, and won Best Adapted Screenplay. 

The previous Sideways life of Rex Pickett now moves upward. 

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