I've got a roundup of some new mysteries in Sunday's Washington Post, which includes mini-reviews of Chelsea Cain's Heartsick, Jesse Ball's Samedi the Deafness, and Jon Loomis' High Season.
- I'm a writer, journalist, and the editor of The Gambit, the alt-weekly newspaper in New Orleans.
Journalism: My work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Globe & Mail (Canada), The Times- Picayune (New Orleans), The Oregonian, and Willamette Week, as well as in magazines including Details, Vogue, Publishers Weekly, and Portland Monthly.
Publishing: Tight Shot, my first novel, was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Its sequel, Hot Shot, was roundly ignored by everyone, but was a far better book. I'm also a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
Stage: I was a member of the Groundlings and Circle Repertory West in Los Angeles, and am a playwright (see "Stage" in the right-hand rail).
CONTACT
NEW ORLEANS MEDIA
NEW ORLEANS BLOGS
- >BLOG OF NEW ORLEANS
- Adrastos
- Ashley Morris
- Bark, Bugs, Leaves & Lizards
- Big Red Cotton
- Cliff's Crib
- Editor B
- Frolic: jazz, books, food
- Greenberg Rants
- Gumbo Pages
- Humid City
- Library Chronicles
- Liprap's Lament: The Line
- Maitri’s VatulBlog
- Moldy City
- New Orleans bloggers (New Orleans Wiki)
- New Orleans News Ladder
- NOcrimeline
- NOLA-dishu
- Offsides with Fletcher Mackel
- People Get Ready
- Raving Black Lunatic
- Scott Harney
- Suspect Device: The Blog
- The Wounded Bird
- Tim's Nameless Blog
- Toulouse Street
- Your Right Hand Thief
MEDIA LINKS
- AAN (Association of Alternative Newsweeklies)
- American Association of Sunday & Feature Editors (AASFE)
- American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA)
- CJR Daily
- Columbia Journalism Review
- Editor & Publisher
- FOLIO:
- LA Observed
- Magazine Death Pool
- Mediabistro
- Nancy Nall
- NewsDesigner
- Paper Cuts
- Regret the Error
- Romenesko's Medianews
- Today's Front Pages
PUBLISHING LINKS
NEW ORLEANS WRITERS
JOURNALISM PALS
CARTOONISTS
FAMILY & FRIENDS
« Hitting the publishing jackpot | Main | Announcing a new category: WRITE FOR FREE! »
October 20, 2007
Comments
The comments to this entry are closed.
RECENT ARTICLES
- "Q&A: Ann Rogers Tuennerman & Paul Tuennerman," (New Orleans Living, July 2008)
- Review, Slumberland by Paul Beatty (Washington Post, 6 July 2008)
- "Gambit Weekly's Top 50 New Orleans Bars," (Gambit Weekly, 24 June 2008)
- "Radio Activists: The State of Internet Radio & Louisiana Music," (Gambit Weekly, 17 June 2008)
- Interview: Criss Angel, (Muscle & Body, June 2008)
- "Q&A: Anais St. John," (New Orleans Living, May 2008)
- "Craft Mafia," (Gambit Weekly, 6 May 2008)
- "Pour It On," (Get Active!, Spring 2008)
- Mystery roundup, (Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2008)
- Review, Them by Nathan McCall (Willamette Week, 16 Jan. 2008)
- Review, T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton, edited version (Miami Herald, 8 Jan. 2008)
- Review, T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton (Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2007)
- "Sticker Shock," (Edible Portland, Winter 2008)
- "clarklewis, reloaded," (Willamette Week, 24 Oct. 2007)
- Mystery roundup, (Washington Post, 21 Oct. 2007)
- 2007 Restaurant Guide (Willamette Week, Fall 2007)
- "At the Hop," (Edible Portland, Fall 2007)
- "Katrina still echoes through lives, and deaths," (Oregonian, 19 Aug. 2007)
- "On Good Land," (Edible Portland, Summer 2007)
- Review, The Overlook by Michael Connelly (Washington Post, 23 May 2007)
- Mystery roundup, (Washington Post, 13 May 2007)
- Review, You Won't Remember This by Kate Blackwell (Publishers Weekly, 9 Apr. 2007)
- Review, Roux restaurant (Portland, OR) (Willamette Week, 25 Apr. 2007)
- Review, Boomsday by Christopher Buckley (Willamette Week, 25 Apr. 2007)
- “Senior Exercise,” (Get Active!, Spring 2007)
- "Recovering from storm, large," (Willamette Week, 7 Mar. 2007)
- Review, Small Town Punk by John Sheppard (Willamette Week, 7 Mar. 2007)
- "The dish on a New Orleans renaissance," (Washington Post, 18 Feb. 2007)
- "The Big Easy, made easy," (Oregonian, 11 Feb. 2007)
- "Seattle's new sculpture park celebrates art on a larger scale," (Oregonian, 11 Feb. 2007)
- "Short, Sweet, & Online: Short Film Festivals Go Virtual" (PBS.org, Inside Indies, 17 Dec. 2006)
- Mystery roundup, (Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2007)
- “Fatal Distraction,” (Washington Post, 19 Nov. 2006)
- 2006 Restaurant Guide (Willamette Week, Fall 2006)
- “Aghast in Gaza,” (Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2006)
- “Shell Shock,” (Portland Monthly, Sept. 2006)
- “Battle of the Diets,” (Get Active!, Fall 2006)
- “Victorian’s Secret,” (Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2006)
- “MiPL up some new acquaintances,” (Oregonian, 11 Aug. 2006)
- “Mondo Croquet,” (Oregonian, 28 July 2006)
MAGAZINE WORK
- "Carnival on Foot": New Orleans marching clubs on Mardi Gras morning (WHERE New Orleans)
- "Civilized Jungles": Reflections on Southern courtyards (Essential New Orleans)
- "South by Northwest": My Hurricane Katrina story (Portland Monthly)
- Interview: Danny Elfman (Details)
- Interview: John Waters (WHERE New Orleans)
- Interview: Kurt Cobain (Advocate)
- Interview: Stone Temple Pilots (Details)
- Interview: Zachary Richard (WHERE New Orleans)
WRITING FOR THE WEB
- "Film as Change: Documentaries That Made a Difference" (PBS.org, Inside Indies)
- "Independent Lens at 5" (iTVS.org, Beyond the Box)
- "Short, Sweet, & Online: Short Film Festivals Go Virtual" (PBS.org, Inside Indies)
- "Troop 1500" (PBS.org, Independent Lens)
- "The Devil's Miner" (PBS.org, Independent Lens)
- "Maid in America" (PBS.org, Independent Lens)
NOTABLE OLDIES
- An Englishman abroad: a profile of Martin Amis (Los Angeles Times)
- Drop the brush and back away: when celebrities take up painting (Los Angeles Times)
- The kids are alright, and they're having sex: KROQ's "Loveline" (Los Angeles Times)
- Have tux, will travel: covering the Oscars (Los Angeles Times)
- Searching for bad taste in L.A.: a vast topic (Los Angeles Times)
BOOKS
Booklist:
"A worthy successor to Tight Shot, Allman's insider view of the seamier side of Hollywood is not only hip and entertaining but also has something serious to say about our insatiable hunger for tabloid thrills."
Washington Post:
"Barbed, breezy and often pretty funny...sharp and entertaining. Allman can be very funny, and Hot Shot complements nicely the less forgiving takes on Los Angeles as the future of us all. "
----------
EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE Booklist:
BEST FIRST NOVEL
MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA
"Allman turns a very sardonic pen loose on Hollywood's glitz-and-glamour crowd in this entertaining first novel... An impressive debut and an almost sure thing for a sequel."
New Orleans Times-Picayune:
"Allman clearly knows those of whom he writes. He's got L.A. nailed."
Publishers Weekly:
"Snappy debut... Readers will look for a sequel."
STAGE
- BOO AND THE SHREVEPORT BABYA French Quarter convenience-store clerk has a hilariously traumatic encounter with a pair of Shreveport tourists. Part of Native Tongues 3 (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2001; Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago; 2006).
- BACKBONESAn upper-class black caterer finds comeuppance and redemption. Part of Native Tongues 4 (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2005).
- MY-O-MYA recreation of an evening at the notorious New Orleans 1950s female-impersonator nightclub My-O-My (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2005).
- THE LOVE GIFTA lonely man discovers purpose when he intercepts a televangelist's letters from his neighbor's mailbox. Part of the Dramarama New Plays Festival (Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; 2004).
- BABYDADDYA black father discovers that no good deed goes unpunished when he helps his white neighbor bail her son out of Orleans Parish Prison. (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2004; Walker Percy Southern Playwrights Festival, Covington; 2007).
- TWO IN THE BUSHAn evening of comedies. In The Stud Mule, the world's richest woman arranges to be impregnated by a doltish escort; in Snatching Victory, an earnest college student runs afoul of her lecherous professor and the dour head of a women's-studies department (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2003).
NEW ORLEANS READING
Patty Friedmann: A Little Bit Ruined
One of the first post-Katrina novels, and probably destined to be one of the best. Friedmann's sequel to Eleanor Rushing finds her crazy heroine still holding everything together after the storm (after a fashion), until she has to leave New Orleans and she falls apart physically as well as mentally. Mordantly, morbidly funny.Tom Piazza: Why New Orleans Matters
The best post-Katrina book I've read. In 150 small pages, Piazza explicates the New Orleans experience simply and beautifully. I'll be passing this one on to anyone who wonders "But why would anyone want to live there?".
Categories
- "Ask a Book Reviewer"
- Blog
- Book reviews
- Books
- Buyouts
- Current Affairs
- Eric Asimov
- Ethics
- Fiction
- Foreign press
- Funny
- Googling
- Headlines
- Hurricane Gustav
- Journalism
- Magazines
- Margaret Jones' Diaries
- Mendacity
- Mervgate
- New Orleans
- Newsgasms
- Non-fiction
- Oregon
- Out of Touch Awards
- Plagiarism
- Project X
- Publishing
- Quote Unquote
- Reading
- Stage
- Tennessee Williams Festival
- The continuing stupidity crisis
- The Corrections
- This & that
- Titles
- TV news
- Weblogs
- Write for free!
- Writing
Hey Kevin --
I just wanted to thank you for the thoughtful review you wrote of my book in the Post. I'll be checking in on your blog.
Best,
Charlie
Posted by: Charles Finch | October 20, 2007 at 07:15 PM
Kevin,
Thanks so much for the great review. Made my week!
Best to you,
Jon Loomis
Posted by: Jon Loomis | October 21, 2007 at 07:19 AM