THE OTHER WOMAN Photo Album part 1!

Snapshots from 2012!

What a terrific year! Here's a wonderful photo at Newtonville Books taken by Essdras Suarez.

Thrilled and honored to be on the cover of Mystery Scene.

This is the Abington Public LIbrary..what a wonderful line for THE OTHER WOMAN!

The Boston Book Festival! I taught this course in how to write suspense...although in this photo, it looks a bit like I'm singing. I wasn't..

The first public appearance of THE OTHER WOMAN at BEA in New York at the Javits Center! I signed books for a solid hour--it was unforgettably wonderful.

At Brookline Booksmith for THE OTHER WOMAN's first bookstre visit! Here's William Landay, Vinny O'Neil, Hallie Ephron, Norb Vonnegut, Jeff Johnson and Daniel Palmer.

Burlington Public Library..what a wonderful audience!

The Emily Rooney show...GREATER BOSTON. Here I am with Emily and her other guest for the show, famed documentary maker Ken Burns.

More photos to come! Hope to see you soon...

The fabulous Bookreporter.com asked me for a special holiday memory...check their website for many more from your favorite authors! And here's mine..

THE YEAR SANTA CAME TO HANK'S HOUSE
 
 Hank Phillippi Ryan, most recently the author of THE OTHER WOMAN, was attending a bookstore signing during the holiday season when she was reminded of a certain Christmas. She had just turned 16 and found out from her mom that there would be no Christmas tree in their house that year. Hank refused to accept this sudden break from tradition and decided to do something about it.

---

Spoiler alert! And you’ll read why in a moment.
 
It’s about Santa.
 
I was signing in a bookstore a few weeks before Christmas, and also having fun watching people select books and overhearing snippets of conversation.
 
A mom and a preteen daughter were heading out the door. The girl --- cute, hip, mismatched gloves --- was looking at her mother with a strange expression. She stopped and held on to her mother’s arm. 
Wait, she said. You mean --- YOU’RE Santa?
 
I almost burst into tears. What a once-in-a-lifetime moment. And it reminded me…
 
’Twas the night before Christmas --- no, it really was. And at my home in rural Indiana, back in --- 1960-something? I had just turned 16.
 
’Twas the night before Christmas --- and my younger sister and I were very unhappy. My mother had laid down the law. This year, there would be no Christmas tree.
 
We were too old, Mom said. It was difficult. And even though we’d always had a Christmas tree, and all that goes with Christmas morning, and unwrapping presents and candy canes and chocolate apples and Handel on the record player and oranges in the toes of our stockings --- this year, it was not going to happen. The Santa thing was long over (being careful here), and there was no reason for a tree. 
 
My sister Nina, age 13, and I were devastated. We had three younger siblings, and even though they were no longer waiting for Santa, we knew they would be devastated, too.
 
We pleaded.
 
Nope, Mom said. We would have presents, and brunch, and all the trimmings. But a tree was a pain (she probably didn’t use those words) and just not necessary. 
 
Christmas Eve day came, and our living room was looking right out of Dickens. I mean, BLEAK HOUSE, not A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Sure, there were stockings hanging right where they should be. But where there should have been a tree, there was…living room.
 
It was about 4:00. And I had an idea. Mom? I said, all innocence. Nina and I need to go to the store. To get one last present. I remember trying to look guiltily sly, as if I were hiding that I was going to buy HER present. Could I, I continued, take the car?
 
With my brand new drivers’ license in my wallet, Nina and I headed out in the family station wagon. But not to the store. We went to the Christmas tree place by the shopping center. All that was left, as you can imagine, were Charlie-Brown-scraggly leftovers. No matter.
 
We put one of them in the wayback of the station wagon. Then we realized we had more to do. How were we going to decorate the tree? We couldn’t get the boxes of ornaments out of the basement; we’d get caught. So we went to the movies. But not to see a film. 

We hit the lobby and bought several boxes of popcorn. We got home and hid the tree behind the garage. By that time it was dark, and we totally got away with it. Then we ran upstairs. Mom thought we were hiding her gifts, probably, and actively ignored us.
 
We got out our sewing boxes (no comment) and madly started stringing popcorn with a needle and heavy thread. We worked and worked. I think we had to stop for dinner, then we went back upstairs. “Wrapping!” we said.
 
At one point, one of us had a brilliant idea. We headed down to the basement and got a bag of whole cranberries out of the freezer. “Being frozen will make it easier to string,” one of us said. And so we made frozen cranberry garlands too.
 
That night, we could barely sleep. What else is new on Christmas Eve? But we got up early early early, dragged the little tree from behind the garage, and set it up in its rightful place in the living room. (I don’t really remember how we did that, but somehow it worked.)
 
We festooned it with our popcorn garlands, and then our cranberry garlands (not terribly successful, however, as the cranberries began to defrost, drip and get mushy). We made a star-like thing out of aluminum foil.
 
Then we high-tailed it back upstairs. We had been instructed to come downstairs no earlier than 7 AM. We came down earlier anyway. So we were there when my mom and stepdad saw the tree. And, in their pajamas and robes and slippers, they stopped in their tracks.
 
Mom’s face was a mixture of shock, surprise and joy. And love.
“Santa!” she said. Her voice was a whisper. “He came!”

So pleased to reveal--
the cover of Forge Books' Fall catalogue!

And more wonderful photos....here's dinner in Dallas after the American Librarians Association convention...that's Denise Hamilton, Deborah Crombie,then Harry Husicker and his wife, and Dan Hale, Rosemary Harris at the head of the table, Lucy Burdette, me and Caroline Todd.

And yes, our pictures are tiny--but this is an interview I did (on stage of a huge auditorium, as you can tell) with the amazing Diana Henriques, author of THE WIZARD OF LIES, a brilliant non-fiction look at the Madoff scandal. It reads exactly like a thriller--highly recommended!

Here's my latest Emmy! That's number 28--for reporting on mortgage fraud.

And look--my first ARC signing--at the fabulous BEA! People lined up to get THE OTHER WOMAN...all those ARCS were snapped right up. It was incredibly exciting.

More photos to come!

New Photos!

So excited about THE OTHER WOMAN...and there' ll be lots more info here very soon..

The amazing and generous Lisa Scottoline...she was the very first to offer a blurb for THE OTHER WOMAN. And of course, it's on the cover! She says: Riveting! Non-stop suspense. Can't do better than that.

With Jason Pinter at the Festival of Mystery--the gala annual event from Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, PA. That's Deb Sharp to my left, and Joanna Slan next to her!

Shane Gericke and James Grady...two fantastic thriller writers. James wrote the iconic Six Days of the Condor--one of the books that made me think about becoming a writer! Isn't it funny that the movies changed it to "Three days"?

With Laura Lippman and Mary Higgins Clark--see how Mary gets the good lighting? I'll be attending the Boston Public Library's Literary Lights black tie event coming soon--Mary is one of the honorees.

Trying to convince Dennis Lehane of something at Crimebake. Dennis and I appeared together at the Perkins School for the Blind annual event--he blew that audience away with his stories.

Reed Farrel Coleman and I win Macavity Awards at Bouchercon! Thank you so much, Mystery Readers International and Janet Rudolph! Reed and I teach together at Mystery Writers of America University..coming soon to your home town! This June in Waukesha/Milwaukee, then in August in Denver, and October in Charlotte. Get all the details and sign up at http://www.mwa.org.

With NYT bestselling Michael Palmer (at the mic) and NYT bestselling Bill Martin at Michael's winterfest fundraiser...It does look like Michael is singing..and maybe he was! He alleges he'll be singing with his son Daniel Palmer at this summers Thrillerfest...that's going to be hilarious.

The 3-H girls from Lipstick Chronicles: Heather Graham (left) and Harley Jane Kozak!

More photos to come...xoxo

When Words Can Change the World!

I'm so proud to be a part of this marvelous project. Because words can change the world!

The Gods of Nature
by Tim Hallinan

The most ancient Japanese religion is Shinto.
The name is taken from two Chinese words, shin, meaning "spirit," and to, which is a derivative of tao (as in Taoism), a path or a course of study. So I suppose you could say it's a spiritual path of study. It's sometimes translated as "the way of the gods."

Shinto holds that the natural world is the home of kami, or spirits.

Many of them are spirits of place: stones, trees, hills, bodies of water.
The Japanese reverence for nature has its roots in Shinto.




This is a torii, a gate for the kami to pass through. They stand outside virtually every Shinto Shrine and also provide passageways for spirits of place in spots where their influence is strongest. Many of them stand in bodies of water.

On March 11 of this year, something unprecedented in modern memory rose up out of nature and struck Japan.



Following a massive earthquake, the waves invaded an enormous area in the northeast of Japan. In a matter of moments, both the natural and the man-made landscapes were altered, perhaps forever.

Watching the devastation, all I could think was that writers should be able to pool their talents to raise money as musicians and actors do. And it occurred to me immediately that we can. With the immediacy of e-books, writers can join together to try to bring some small solace in the face of tragedy. People who have lost children, parents, loved ones, friends, communities, livelihoods -- they deserve our best efforts, however humble.

Less than three months after the disaster, nineteen wonderful writers have donated their talent to make this possible.


This is a collection of original Japan-themed short stories, almost all written since March 11, inspired by the desire to help.

The writers who responded with such wonderful stories are:


Brett Battles
Cara Black
Vicki Doudera


Dianne Emley
Dale Furutani
Stefan Hammond

Rosemary Harris
Naomi Hirahara
Wendy Hornsby

Ken Kuhlken
Debbi Mack
Adrian McKinty

I.J. Parker
Gary Phillips
Hank Phillippi Ryan

Jeffrey Siger
Kelli Stanley
C.J. West and
Jeri Westerson.

Another fine writer, Gar Anthony Haywood, designed the cover.

Taken as a whole, these people have won every major mystery prize and sold hundreds of thousands of books.

Two remarkable translators of haiku, Jane Reichhold, whose 2008 volume translating all the haiku of the 17th-century master Basho has been hailed as a new standard, and David Lanoue, who has done beautiful translations of Issa, allowed us to use their renderings without charge.

Kimberly Hitchens and her first-class crew turned the manuscript into a beautiful a-book.

One hundred percent of the writers' royalties from the purchase go directly to the 2011 Japan Relief Fund administrated by Japan America Society of Southern California, which has already sent $750,000 to organizations working on the scene.

You can buy SHAKEN: STORIES FOR JAPAN as a Kindle e-book on Amazon right here http://www.amazon.com/SHAKEN-Stories-for-Japan-ebook/dp/B00556WX9A/

for only $3.99.


If you don't have a Kindle, you can download Kindle for PC here
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311

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It was all Tim's idea. And each of us is honored to be part of it.