Loss of a Legend

The literary world lost more than a great creative mind when Warren Murphy left this world Friday morning. You can read his bio elsewhere, and learn of his exciting life as a journalist, journeyman writer, creator of iconic characters and effectively the originator of a whole fictional subgenre that served as a bridge between pulp magazine stories and today’s thrillers. For me the loss is far more personal. For me, Warren Murphy was a friend, a mentor, briefly a co-writer, and one of the finest gentlemen I’ve had the privilege to know.

I first met Warren at Book Expo America in 2002. I was there with my first novel, Blood and Bone published with a fledgling Print-On-Demand company. I recognized the creator of The Destroyer series I had loved in college. He didn’t just stop and say hello. He posed for a photo with me and accepted a copy of my novel. Of course he said he’d read it, and of course since I didn’t really know him yet I was skeptical. You can’t imagine my joy when I received a blurb form him!

      "Blood and Bone is a hair-raising roller coaster ride of a story, and Hannibal Jones bursts into the        world of the fictional private eye like a pack of high explosives. I can't wait to see him in action          again." - 

        Warren Murphy, two-time Edgar award winner and creator of The Destroyer adventure series.

That year I was elected president of the Maryland Writers Association and was eager to hold a spectacular writers conference. I was a little nervous asking Warren if he’d come talk to an auditorium full of aspiring writers but he was very gracious and not only accepted my invitation, but gave one of the most inspiring keynote addresses I’ve ever heard, before or since.

As we drove him back to his hotel, Warren hit me with this idea he had… a detective agency staffed with quirky characters that all looked just a bit like Warren’s own non-Destroyer collection of characters, all dedicated to helping police in trouble. This agency would be driven by the events of 9/11 and the title he had in mind was Beyond Blue. I was naturally stunned when the great man proposed that we write this book together.

My next great memory of Warren was the Love is Murder conference in Chicago the following year. Imagine sitting at a bar with my wife, telling people I was writing a book with Warren Murphy. And I  kept one photo with him there. I'm standing with a veritable pantheon of thriller gods: David Morrell, Warren, Barry Eisler and William Kent Kruger.

More importantly: We all sat at an art auction that was part of the con. A particular painting caught our eyes, but we were in no position at that time to participate.  Days later

that painting arrived at our home with a card calling it a gift to “the bride,” which was what Warren always called my wife. More than a decade later, that painting still hangs in our dining room, an enduring reminder of this kind, witty, talented gentleman who passed thru our lives.

Of course much has happened since then. Warren battled ill health and turned the Beyond Blue project over to me to complete. He returned to writing when he could. He never stopped dreaming or spinning his dreams into adventures we could all share.

It is easy for me to imagine him up in the clouds chatting with his predecessors and peers. That poker table would surely include Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules Verne. They might let Ian Fleming sit in.

We are poorer for his passing, but I can say that my life was greatly enriched for having known him.

An Anthology Takes Shape

We at Intrigue Publishing are pulling together our first anthology. It is a collection of Young Adult stories aimed at a holiday release. For a title we settled on YOUNG ADVENTURERS: HEROES, EXPLORERS & SWASHBUCKLERS. The subtitle is, “Tales of teens saving the day in the past, the present, the future & on other worlds.”

When we put out the call for submissions I didn’t know what to expect. Similar calls for novels in the genres we publish have raised a lukewarm response. So my first surprise was the 55 submissions we received. Reading our way thru the stack gave us our second surprise, or two. I was frankly stunned at how dismal some of the stories were. Besides the bad writing, some authors totally ignored the submission guidelines. How could you read that title, and subtitle, and send a story with an all adult cast? Or a story in which the teen is endangered but saved by adults? Some writers also ignored the stipulated minimum and maximum lengths, that the stories needed to be in Word, and our chosen fonts.

BUT… I was also blown away with how good some of the stories were. Amazing prose, fabulous character development, strong plots with nice hooks, lots of suspense and satisfying conclusions. We had some tough choices to make and for the sake of length we had to say no thank you to some really good stuff.

Another big surprise was subject matter. I expected westerns and pirate stories. However, we got nothing set farther in the past than the Cold War era. As it turned out, that was fine.

Building an anthology is very different from writing a novel. An anthology has to be shaped. You can’t just throw the stories together randomly. They need to have a flow, a rhythm of sorts. Some stories are faster pace, some more deliberate. Some have male protagonists, some female and some both. Where should that humorous story pop up? Or the one that’s a little scary?

As it happens, the stories shook out nicely. We settled on 18 stories: six set in our familiar world, six science fiction tales, and six set in fantasy worlds. It was easy to group them that way. Our heroes and heroines face thugs, spies, monsters, zombies and a variety of aliens. Protagonists vary from stone serious to sweetly smart-ass. There’s a story that may move readers to tears and one that will make them laugh out loud. But in every case a brave and resourceful teenager saves the day.

There’s lots more work to do, but now that it has taken shape, I can’t wait to introduce this YA anthology to the world.