Good morning. I am so pleased to be here blogging to you. You will notice that
I use no contractions in this blog. This is because, while reading the posts
below, I happened to notice that everywhere there should be an apostrophe,
there is instead a question mark. I have no desire for my blog to? appear?
thus??? It is very distracting and even crazy-making for someone who is a born
editor.
Guess I should say why I am here. To promote my new book!
It is called The Con Artist
of Catalina Island: A McAfee Twins Christmas Novel, the fourth book in the
McAfee Twins novels. The McAfee girls are Terry and Kerry; identical in looks,
opposite in personality. Terry is a lesbian biker with a prison record; Kerry
is a good-girl type who considers herself to be the keeper of Terry. They drive
each other crazy but can’t conceive of being apart. Kerry says that when Terry
was in prison it was like living on borrowed air.
The girls are the proprietors of Double Indemnity Investigations, a two-woman
PI firm. Normally they zip around Los Angeles solving crimes from the back of
their hot pink Harley Softail Deuce, but in this book, they are tearing up an
island paradise on a golf cart.
They have accompanied their rich aunt Reba and her recovering lush of a son,
Cousin Robert, on a Christmas trip to quaint and lovely Santa Catalina off the
California coast. No sooner do they arrive than the whole island erupts in
chaos: bison stampede, a French poodle jams up traffic, a honeymooning bride
mysteriously disappears and her giant diamond ring shows up in a hotel toilet.
(It is fairly typical of one of my plots—very low-key.)
There is a hot sketch artist named David Solomon who has eyes for Kerry, and
who may just be an arch criminal in spite of the fact that he’s a dead ringer
for Jesus. (Kerry can be forgiven for falling for a “pretty face” because, as
she tells the reader, this particular face is usually portrayed wearing a
halo.)
That should give you a feel for the type of book I write. Now as to the why:
Why write comedy? Why spend hours and years going for a few laughs from the
reading public? Laughs that I cannot even hear but can only learn about second-
hand in that blessed of all communications, the fan letter?
I do it because I think we need a lot more laughter, a lot more light in this
world. I think comedy and satire can speak to power in ways that are usually
prohibited. I believe we are coming out of a very dark period in our history,
and some of the people who have lit the way for us are brilliant comedians like
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Comedy pokes holes in overblown egos. It refuses to be silenced on the issues
that make us stupid: bigotry, greed, ambition, selfishness. It holds them all
up to the light and shows them for what they are. In its ability to humble,
nothing can top it. (Plus, I just get a kick out of writing about toothless
poodles.)
Sorry to pontificate, but I just received an email asking for my blog and thus
have no time to censor myself. Hope you will have a great holiday season, and
here is to 2008!
Cheers,
Jennifer
www.jennifercoltbooks.com
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