Good reviews

The reviews for The Bottom have been heart-warming. I hope readers will like it as much as the reviewers have so far.
I'm off to Morgantown, W.Va., this coming week for the West Virginia Writers' Workshop and look forward to interacting with promising writers working on their craft.
The next Willie Black mystery is written and edited by the lovely Karen. When I get back from West Virginia, I will do the final editing before sending it on to the publisher. This one should come out in 2016.  It is (quelle suprise) easier to write when you don't work an eight-hour day at the newspaper and drive two hours a day.
Among other projects, I have succumbed to the siren call of Ancestry.com. Took a one-month subscription and find that, when I sit down and start digging, I look up and three hours have gone by. Trying to track down all your ancestors is somewhat impossible, since you have twice as many in each generation. But it's fun. The Owens in my family, mostly farmers in eastern North Carolina, apparently weren't keen on keeping writtten records.
And, it's time to start on the next book. I'm at that point where I'm promoting one book (The Bottom), tweaking the next one and getting started on the one after that.

The luxury of time

Since 1988, I have written before work, after work, on weekends, whatever. I retired as editorial page editor of the Free Lance-Star in April and am doing my best not to squander the gift of time. It's weird not to have a deadline. Before, I'd maybe get up, shower, write for an hour, wolf down some cereal and  run out the door to work. Now, I can cogitate. I can ruminate. I can be lazy and still get in two hours a day. And, honestly, I think two hours a day of creating fiction is enough. That's 700 hours a year. I'm not sure I have enough readers to justify more than 700 hours a year.
My 13th novel comes out in August ("The Bottom"), and it's got some good prepub reviews already. I am close to finishing the first draft of the next one. I'm trying to write a mystery novel a year now (and have done that while working the last four years). Not sure there's a market for TWO books a year.  Plus, I hope to get back to literary fiction, which is what my first nine novels were.
Anyhow, it's good to have time to write, and work out, and spend time with my lovely wife, Karen.
And even to blog.

What a week

What a week! On Tuesday night, I was awarded the Hammett Prize for best crime literature in the U.S. and Canada. On Thursday, I was named editorial page editor of The Free Lance-Star, where I've worked the past seven years. I'm buying lottery tickets.
The Hammett was a shock.  We got to the hotel in Somerset, N.J., on Monday night. We checked in at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association desk. When I got back to the room, I saw that my name tag said "Howard Owen/Oregon Trail," rather than "Oregon Hill." Ki-yi-yippi-yi-ya. Then, in lots of conversations with folks from the International Association of Crime Writers, which gives the award, I got no hint that I might already be a winner. Usually, you get some kind of wink or nod beforehand. I told Karen that I'd put my odds at about 100-1.
I had, however, written a speech beforehand, at the urging of IACW, which wanted all the finalists to write one so that, if you won, they could use it in their newsletter.  I wrote it and didn't look at it again. Exercise in futility. I told myself I'd glance at it beforehand, just in case.  Then, sitting at a table with IACW folks and other finalists, it occurred to me that it might be a little tacky to be going over one's acceptance speech, one that probably never would be read, at the finalists' table.
So, when they called my name, as I was finishing off my dessert, I managed not to faint and stumbled to the rostrum to more or less read the speech I was glad the IACW and Karen had urged me to write. It is the most important recognition I've received as a writer, by far, and it made 24 years of slogging away at typewriters and computers more than worth it.
As for the editorial page editor's job, I am humbled and honored that a newspaper as fine as The Free Lance-Star has that much faith in an old coot like me. I will try to make them proud.

The Philadelphia Quarry comes out in late July.

Here are book events I've signed on for so far.  Come see me if you're in the area.

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, Aug. 11, 3 p.m.

Fountain Books, Richmond, Aug. 13, 6:30 p.m.

Chop Suey Books, Richmond,  Aug. 23, 6:30 p.m.

Griffin Bookstore,  Fredericksburg, Aug. 24, 2 p.m.

Richmond Public Library, downtown, Oct. 4, 7 p.m.

Cumberland Co. N.C., Public Library, downtown branch,  Oct. 8, 7 p.m.

James River Writers Conference., Richmond, Oct. 19-20

 Richmond Woman’s Club, Jan. 20, 2014

I'm also going to the Bouchercon mystery writers conference in Albany, N.Y., Sept. 20-22 and the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association event in Somerset, N.J., where they'll announce the winner of the Hammett Prize.

And the first draft of Parker Field, the third Willie Black mystery, will be done by the end of this month.

Where I'm going to be on the book tour

Here's where I'll be doing readings and signings.  Come if you can.  Bring a friend. Heck, bring a bus full of friends.

Aug. 11: Flyleaf Books:  752 MLK Jr Blvd,  Chapel Hill, NC , 2 p.m.

Aug. 12: Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, N.C.  

 Aug. 14: Fountain Books, Richmond, 6:30 p.m. 

Aug. 18: Griffin Books, Fredericksburg, 2-4 p.m.

Sept. 11: Bon Air Library, Chesterfield County, Va. 7-8:30 p.m. 

Sept. 13: Twin Hickory Library, Henrico County. 7 p.m. 

Sept. 19: Chop Suey Books in Carytown. 6 p.m. 

Sept. 27: Central Rappahannock Library, Fredericksburg.  7:30. 

Oct. 27: Fayetteville, N.C.: Cumberland County Public Library, Cliffdale Branch, 2 p.m.

Nov. 1: Prince George County (Va.) library.  Janet Anderson. 

Getting close to pub date

Oregon Hill comes out (about) July 22.  The pre-pub reviews have been good.  Three of them hoped a sequel was coming.   Working on that right now.
I don't have all the signings/readings set up but will very soon.  None of them is before early August.

More good reviews

These are some more pre-pub reviews for Oregon Hill. (They like it.  They really like it.) I'm lining up signings and readings now. 

Booklist  June 1, 2012

Oregon Hill.  Owen, Howard (Author), Jul 2012. 240 p., Permanent Press, hardcover, $28.00. (9781579622084).

Willie Black, a reporter who’s about as close to washed up as a guy can get while still being employed, stumbles onto the story of his career when a young woman’s decapitated body is discovered, and Willie, unlike nearly everyone else involved in the case, doesn’t believe that the man arrested for the crime is the killer. Owen, whose first book, 1994’s Littlejohn, may also be his most well known, is a careful, precise writer, creating characters so real that we have to keep reminding themselves they’re fictional, and stories

so haunting that they stay with the reader long after the books are back on the shelf. As usual, his latest has a stellar cast: down-and-almost-out Willie; shifty local cop (and Willie’s antagonist) David Junior Shiflett; the dead girl’s father, who receives his daughter’s head in a UPS box; Martin Fell, the accused killer (whose name, not to put too fine a point on it, suggests he might be a fall guy). Character-driven crime fiction executed with style.           — David Pitt

New York Journal of Books

Oregon Hill is a wondrous trip into the world of sarcastic newspaper reporters, bad cops, and murder most foul.

Having worked as a newspaper reporter, Mr. Owen writes in a captivating voice, his acute observations granting authenticity to the bullet-speed pace of the story. Newspaperman Willie Black is masterfully created, ink and dark humor coursing through his hardboiled veins. It is hoped that this is the beginning of a series of books staring Willie and crew. Bring on the sequel!

Small Press Reviews

In Oregon Hill, Howard Owen pulls double-duty by crafting a compelling page-turner

and offering commentary on the dying art of investigative journalism. His protagonist

is an aging reporter named Willie Black who's recently been assigned to cover the night

cops' beat—a demotion that places him squarely at the center of a murder investigation

even as his career teeters on the brink of oblivion. Shortly after a missing co-ed turns

up decapitated in the South Anna River, Willie is as relieved as anyone in Oregon Hill

when the apparent murderer is apprehended. Haunted by a miscarriage of justice he

witnessed in his younger days, however, Willie can't leave well enough alone, and his

investigation leads him into increasingly dangerous territory. Meanwhile, his best friend

is under investigation for robbery, his mother's lover is drifting deep into senility, and his

latest ex-wife is hounding him for the rent. In short, Willie has struck the perfect work-

life balance insofar as his work and his life are equally thorny. Indeed, that Willie has

so much to juggle speaks volumes for the author's prowess as a storyteller: Owen never

misses a beat or leaves a narrative thread untended for too long.

While the narrative is certainly compelling, what gives ​Oregon Hill​ a degree of heft

is its commentary on the fate of print journalism in the digital age. To an extent, the

novel decries the sad state of affairs created by the dwindling readership for traditional

newspapers. At the same time, however, Owen is careful not to indulge in too much

hand-wringing, as his protagonist is quick to recognize the value of so-called "new

media" even if he's somewhat reluctant to embrace it. In this sense, ​Oregon Hill​ looks

forward as much as it looks back, and offers a fairly complex look at our culture's current

relationship with journalism.

Reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen's ​Basket Case, ​Oregon Hill​ is as smart as it is thrilling, a

true literary page-turner.

—Marc Schuster