I've got a roundup review of some new mystery/suspense titles in this Sunday's Washington Post Book World (available online now), including Bill Floyd's promising debut The Killer's Wife, as well as Linda Fairstein's latest, which is a horrorshow for all the wrong reasons.
- 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).
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MEDIA LINKS
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April 04, 2008
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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. "
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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?".
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Nice work. But of course a DA would work a crime scene. After all, CSI lab workers do everything short of make the criminal his dinner once he's safely behind bars, no?
Posted by: Jil | April 04, 2008 at 08:49 PM
Fairstein is a former prosecutor and a consultant on one of the "Law and Order" shows -but what works in real life and on TV just doesn't come together on the page. But she is popular, wildly so.
Posted by: Kevin | April 04, 2008 at 11:20 PM