THE SPELLMAN FILES has been nominated for the Dilys Award! This award is given by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) each year for the book they enjoyed selling the most.

The Dilys Award has been given annually since 1993 by the IMBA to the mystery titles of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling.  The Dilys Award is named in honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the United States. Murder Ink, the store founded by Ms. Winn, closed in 2006. This unfortunate landmark is hopefully not a reflection on independent bookselling everywhere, but in a tough climate, we encourage everyone to shop independent!  Previous winners of the Dilys Award include Louise Penny, Val McDermid, Robert Crais, Carl Hiassen, Dennis Lehane,  Julia Spencer-Fleming, Jasper Fforde and Colin Cotterill.

CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS is the #1 Book Sense pick for March 2008!

"This second entry in the nonstop, frenzied, comedic world of Isabel Spellman, P.I., is both more convoluted and funny than The Spellman Files. This time, Izzy finds herself confounded by nearly everyone in her life and, of course, unable to leave anyone alone until she gets to the bottom of the many mysteries surrounding her -- including her weirder-than-usual family."

--Terry Gilman, Mysterious Galaxy Books, San Diego, CA

Book Sense is a national marketing campaign on behalf of the independent bookstores of America. It is both a local and national effort to shine a light on the knowledge and diversity of independent bookstores, via the Book Sense Bestseller List (now running in more than a dozen newspapers as well as monthly in U.S. News and World Report and on CSPAN) and Book Sense Picks (a monthly selection of eclectic new books chosen by independent booksellers).

THE SPELLMAN FILES is one of ten recipients of the 2008 Alex Awards. This award is given to ten authors whose books, while written for adults, have specific teen appeal. Lisa will be attending the awards ceremony in June at the American Library Association's annual meeting. Congratulations!

Here's a bit more about the award:

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest-growing division of the American Library Association, named the recipients of the 2008 Alex Awards. . . . The awards, sponsored by Booklist, were announced at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

The Alex Awards were created to recognize that many teens enjoy and often prefer books written for adults, and to assist librarians in recommending adult books that appeal to teens. The award is named in honor of the late Margaret Alexander Edwards, fondly called "Alex" by her closest friends, a young adult specialist at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. She used adult books extensively with young adults to broaden their experience and enrich their understanding of themselves and their world.

Find out more.

Dear Lisa:

Here’s another glitch for you blog: On page 103 you discuss a scene from “Get Smart” where Max uses 7 different kinds of phones . . . but you list only 6 (including the footnote):

A shoe phone, a wallet phone, eyeglasses phone, tie phone, handkerchief phone, and sock garter phone (by footnote).

Now I’m curious . . . what’s the 7th? . . . or were there only 6?

?????

Doris Childs


* * *

Dear Doris,

Thank you for this fine question. What we have here is something I like to call a “mistake.” Anyone who is reading this blog and has my book in hand should go to page 103 and cross out the number “seven” and write in “six” right above it. (Halfway down the page in the paragraph beginning with KAOS).

I should mention, however, that if this is a library book or a friend’s copy, you might want to ask first before you mark it up. I’m not sure where the library or your friend stands on writing in books.

While it is true I made the above mistake in basic math, I would like to mention why. In the scene involving the variety of camouflaged phones (Season one episode "Satan’s Place"), Max uses all the phones listed above, however, he references having a handkerchief phone. He just never uses it. I suspect I added that one in my head when I was double-checking the numbers.

Thanks again, Doris.

Best wishes,

Lisa

As my final bit of unsolicited sharing, I'd like to tell you about Jonesy's Jukebox.

Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols has this fantastic radio show in LA. It's so great, it makes me almost want to live in LA. But I don't think a radio show is a solid enough reason to relocate. Anyway, consider this a rave review.

Also, if Steve Jones playing you songs and talking to you with his wonderful, lazy voice isn't enough, on Friday, he has Jonesy's Jukebox Jury. On that show special guests listen to songs and judge them to be "pants" or "mustard." Mustard is good. Pants bad. It's best when the jury is made up of children, but I've only heard that happen once.

If it were up to me this show would be syndicated and last at least six hours a day, so that I can listen to it in my car no matter where I live. But I think Jonesy prefers a shorter work day.

Thanks for reading my very last unsolicited blog post.

It has been brought to my attention that I'm not blogging. It was brought to my attention a while ago, as well, but I chose to ignore it. I'm going to be honest: I don't like blogging. The traditional blogging format (where I'm expected to muse on a variety of topics) has never worked for me and I have finally decided to give up on it.

However . . . I am happy to answer questions--any kind of question at all--and post the answer in this blog space. If the question is about me and I think it's too personal, I'll just make something up. If the question requires that I do some research, I'll do the minimal amount of research required. I'd also be happy to answer any Spellman book related question, so long as it doesn't require that I give away any of the plot. But, mostly, I'm good with the etiquette questions, so if you have any of those, send them my way.

Anyway, if you have a question. Feel free to email me at contactlisa@lisalutz.com and I will mostly likely answer the question eventually.

Recently I was interviewed by Lois Hirt, a dental hygienist who writes a column for the Los Angeles Dental Hygienists' Society called “Hygienists in Print”.

Lois is interested in any cultural reference to the dental profession, specifically hygienists.

Shortly after our interview, Lois informed me that she donated (along with an assortment of other dental related material) her copy of The Spellman Files to the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore, Maryland.

While exploring their website, I became sidetracked by some interesting material on George Washington, famous for many things, but most importantly, his fake teeth. In fact, George has his own exhibit at the museum and the website has a section where you can learn about his life (beyond his teeth), Colonial Dentistry, his actual teeth--the why-he-lost-his-teeth saga--(which dispels the myth that those dentures he wore were wooden—no, they were made out of either hippopotamus or elephant ivory), and his dentist, John Greenwood, who was originally schooled in cabinet making.

Now I remember the point I was going to make: If you wish to relinquish your own copy of my book, might I suggest donating it to a museum?

My friend Lisa Chen’s debut collection of poetry appears to be on sale today. At least that’s what it says on Amazon.com.

Upon viewing the page I noticed that the cover was not the cover that Chen had shown me a few weeks back. I immediately emailed her and asked what was up.

The most surprising thing about Chen’s response was that she had not even looked her book up on Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter. The other surprising thing was that Chen claimed this picture was a photograph she had taken in her apartment months ago, while trying to come up with ideas for a book jacket.

The only thing I can say is I hope she’s getting a good deal on rent.

For future reference the actual book jacket has the title of the book on it--mouth--, Lisa Chen's name, a bicycle and graffiti, I believe.

Anyway, I highly recommend this collection of poetry. I am not an expert on poetry, but people who are highly recommend it. Plus, I’m assuming most of the people who read this blog actually know me and maybe know Lisa. This is friendly reminder to purchase many copies of her book.

I would also like to mention that Chen didn’t ask me to write this blog post and will most likely be annoyed that I have.

At the beginning of the tour I recorded a chapter of my book for KQED's Writers' Block. Seems like ages ago.

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.kqed.org/arts/writersblock/

Lisa is a featured author on Lovereading.co.uk:

"This book has some of the funniest dialogue and wackiest characters we have come across in a long time. The Spellman’s are a dysfunctional family firm of private investigators who sadly can’t leave the tools of the trade outside the family home. This clearly makes for strained family relationships, when your mother runs a social security check on all your boyfriends, and totally f***ed up personal relationships when you know what your boyfriend is spending on his credit card before he gets the bill! The book is just brilliant and you have to read it!"