The Long, Hot Summer of Writing Peaking With ‘Smoking Guns’ and ‘In Tangled Lives’
By TOM WOOD / August 4, 2024
Hey, folks. It’s been a while since I last posted anything here … and now you know why. A busy, busy summer with the recent release of a second anthology Smoking Guns: A Sisters in Crime Anthology. Here’s the cover and a little info on how it came about.
I am a member of the Middle Tennessee chapter of the Sisters in Crime national mystery and thriller writing community. The East Tennessee chapter, which bills itself as “the Smoking Guns,” came up with the idea, the plan, and the execution of the publication with acclaimed and award-winning mystery author Kaye George serving as editor and one of the nine writers.
Her team reached out to area chapters, and I submitted one story and a flash fiction piece — “Takeout” and “The Wrong Guy” — that were accepted. The only requirements for publication (besides the usual length limitations) were that the genre stories be original and that the tale must include a gun. A smoking gun. Challenge accepted.
The new anthology will make its debut at Killer Nashville and Bouchercon mystery writing conventions in the Nashville area later this month. Other Nashville area authors are Robert Mangeot, Carmen Amato, Patrick Connolly, Ronald Demmans. Also featured are Sharon Marchisello, Paula Gail Benson, Jeffery Phillips
And here’s the cover of In Tangled Lives: A Harpeth River Writers Anthology and we’re darn proud of this creation. Here’s a little info about this relationships-themed book. In Tangled Lives: A Harpeth River Writers Anthology features an eclectic collection of stories for every mood—sad and dark, heartwarming and hopeful. Indeed, we all are in tangled lives.
HRW is a collective of acclaimed Nashville-area authors who have individually published short stories, essays, memoirs, novels, poems, and songs. HRW has published two previous anthologies: By Blood or By Marriage (2015)and Words on Water (2019). Contributors are Sandy Ward Bell, John Neely Davis, Micki Fuhrman, Cindy King, Cate Moore, Kathy Rhodes, Michael J. Tucker, Tom Wood, and Bill Woods.
I have two stories in the book. Here’s a synopsis of each to whet your reading appetite:
Maggie’s Hope: After losing her husband in the Gulf War, a woman with newborn twins spirals out of control until she is forced to make a difficult decision about what is best for her girls.
Food Fight: A woman shouts insults across the kitchen table toward a man, screaming “fat, fat, fat,” and other epithets.
Here are some of my other recent stories for the Ledger and other things.
Tanger Outlet Center Boosts SE Nashville
This date marks the grand opening of the Nashville Tanger retail outlet center in Antioch, which will officially end the two-decade-old “shopping and dining desert” in southeast Nashville as Councilwoman Joy Styles calls it.
I write about the rebirth and revitalization of the Antioch area in the Oct. 27-Nov. 3 edition of the Nashville Ledger. The Tanger Center has 60-some retail and food shops and there are more to come as the 300-acre Century Farms mixed-use development off I-24 continues to add tenants.
Four hotels are planned and Tiger Woods will open PopStrokes, a golf entertainment center, in Century Farms in early 2025. I also write about all that’s coming to the former location of Hickory Hollow Mall. It’s an exciting time for the area.
Southern Festival of Books On the Move
A huge success! That’s my take on the prestigious Southern Festival of Books’ 2023 move from its downtown traditional Nashville location to Bicentennial Mall. The green space was much more welcoming as the Festival spread out across the park and author lectures were held inside the Tennessee State Museum and Tennessee State Library and Archives.
I was there in both the Authors Circle – Mid Tenn and Sisters in Crime Middle Tennessee booths with more than a dozen local authors, and met folks visiting Nashville from the East Coast to the Pacific. I sold books to women from North Carolina to Los Angeles and Seattle and spoke with a couple from Hawaii, in town to attend a wedding.
The Authors Circle – Mid Tenn had a great time at the Southern Festival of Books and is looking forward to the 2024 edition on the weekend of October 26-27. It is one of several book festivals in Nashville this summer. Look for my story in the May 17 Nashville Ledger.
As always, thanks for reading.
Here’s a Vendetta Stone review that I recently received from Bristol Herald Courier columnist Joe Tennis. Joe is also a fellow author, and we met at a signing in November in Kingsport, Tennessee. Check him out:
BY JOE TENNIS
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
‘Vendetta Stone’
For decades, veteran journalist Tom Wood covered all kinds of events for The Tennessean, the newspaper serving Nashville. He’s written about sports, including the Olympic Games held in Atlanta, as well as interviewed such celebrities as Johnny Cash. Along the way, Wood has practiced his craft as an actor and has appeared in the background of several episodes of ABC-TV’s “Nashville.”
Recently retired, Wood spent a few days signing books at an event in Kingsport, Tenn., in November then took off for a writer’s conference near the sandy shores of North Carolina.
Wood is excited: His retirement coincides with the publication of his first novel, “Vendetta Stone” (Walnut Hills Press, 2013).
This novel follows the story of Jackson Stone, an advertising executive in Nashville and a former Marine who goes to extraordinary lengths to find the killer of his wife. Yet Stone ends up being hunted — and faces a showdown of suspense at one of Nashville’s iconic landmarks.
The whole story, interestingly, is told by a newspaper reporter, Gerry Hilliard.
“Writing for a newspaper is unlike any other profession,” the narrator writes in the second chapter. “It’s often called ‘instant history.’ The rise of the Internet and other social media has brought many changes on how information is gathered. Reporters must still develop stories, ferret out facts, double and triple-check, then check them again before they put it all together in a cohesive, readable manner in a very short time frame.”
A great book from a great writer. Looking forward to reading many more of his books. Somehow Tom seems like Gerry Hilliard himself who does much to cover the action as it happens. It’s done so well it seems like non-fiction and few writers have this ability. I feel sure it will be selected as one of the top books of the year.
Thanks, Ray! My short story “Death Takes a Holliday” is now available via Troy Smith and Western Trail Blazer. You can read a sneak peek at the link located at the top of this page. It is available on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Death-Takes-Holliday-Tom-Wood-ebook/dp/B00I53B8XM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1391233129&sr=1-1&keywords=death+takes+a+holliday
AND ON
smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/403417
Hi Tom:
What a great story about how the number 14 has played out in your life. I have a similar experience with the number 23. My mother, grandmother and I all share that number in our birth dates and times.
This is such an exciting time for you and your wife. I wish you the best of luck with your book. I hope you enjoy amazing success!