Tampa Book Buzz

news and notes:tampa writers alliance, washington, barons, smith

• The Tampa Writers Alliance has changed locations for its monthly meetings. TWA meetings will be held at the Jimmie Keel Library, 2902 W. Bearss Ave., Tampa, FL 33618 and not at the John Germany Library downtown.
• Local author Valerie Washington (Soul Passion) will attend the African-American Book Expo in L.A. May 30 through June 1.
• New York author C.M. Barons wrote to tell me about his new book In the Midst Of. “In the Midst Of rekindles the 70s - an era of global hang-time. The 60s pendulum had swung as far as the silent majority would allow. Poised to back swing, the repercussions were unclear. As the world hovered in anticipation, the lives of Brian, Hollis and Nadine play out…guided by elements more personal and troubling than the clockworks of society and politics. Brian and his friends are students, free-wheeling youth ensconced on a college campus. Co-ed dorms, liberal drinking, casual drugs and casual sex.” Visit www.inthemidstof.info for more info.
• Local author Joy V. Smith recently had a few stories accepted by Anthology Builder. “I noticed that some writers and writing groups were putting together their stories in collections and anthologies, so I thought I’d experiment with a cover and a collection and ended up putting my collection Aliens, Animals, and Adventure in their library.”

great opening lines:critical by robin cook

“Within the course of a week spanning March and April 2007, a serious, untoward event in the health of three strangers, two of whom lost their lives, was destined to impact the lives of hundreds, even thousands of people in a complicated web of causality. The victims had no premonition of their individual tragedies. Though they were all generally healthy married men of similar ages, they were engaged in totally different occupations, and each had absolutely no knowledge of the others, either socially or through business. One was a Caucasian physician who experienced a painful and debilitating athletic injury; the second an African-American computer programmer who contracted a fulminant, and rapidly fatal, nosocomial postoperative infection; and the third was an Asian-American accountant who suffered a ruthless, execution-style death.”

— Critical by Robin Cook