Come Fly With Me!

Working Stiffs welcomes the wonderful Kelli Stanley as our guest today!


by Kelli Stanley

In the inimitable words of Frank Sinatra, I’m calling on all working stiffs to “come fly with me” and celebrate!What, you may rightly ask, has triggered this exuberance? Am I enjoying an early cocktail? Had one too many pieces of dark chocolate? Crazy?

No on the first two, and I’m not significantly more insane than I used to be. I’m celebrating a number of things with today’s post, and specifically a common, computerized, ugly little thing called a … barcode. (No, I don’t mean the kind that says you always tip the mixologist.)

Today I received the ISBN number for my next book, CITY OF DRAGONS. And this, my friends, is a small symbol of a dream come true. Here—I’ll start at the beginning.

Way back when (it seems a lot longer than two and a half years ago)—January 17, 2007, to be exact—I opened my email and found that NOX DORMIENDA was accepted for publication. I’ve loved every minute of the journey with Five Star, the small publisher that took a big risk on an odd historical noir with a Latin title.

Since publication in July of last year, NOX had the amazing honor of winning the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award this March and is currently nominated for a Macavity (Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery). I never thought this would happen or could happen. I am blessed beyond my ability to describe it.

And … here’s the “come fly with me” part … the Italian rights have been sold. My “Roman noir”, set in first-century Roman Britain, will actually be available for sale (as a mass-market paperback) in Rome!

So what does this have to do with a barcode? Well, here’s the dream come true part: I sold a two-book series to Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s back in January. Y’ see, my life goal—my driving desire, my obsession, if you will—is to be able to write full-time. Not live luxuriously, of course—but to survive with a modest income from writing fiction. I’ve got a lot of books inside of me—contemporary stand-alones, series, thrillers—waiting to come out.

I work pretty much around the clock, hoping to attain this someday. And because I didn’t want to get typed as a solely “Roman” writer—and because I knew I had little chance of getting NOX and its sequels picked up by a major publisher—I pursued another love of my writing life and created CITY OF DRAGONS … a dark novel of 1940 San Francisco.

The protagonist is Miranda Corbie—a femme fatale in the hero’s role. She’s a PI. A former Spanish Civil War nurse. And an ex-escort.

The novel opens in Chinatown, with a murder no one wants solved. A Japanese-American teenager is shot to death during a festival for Chinese war relief. The Sino-Japanese War is still raging, three years after the Rape of Nanking. So chalk up the murder to racial hatred, the cops say. Let it ride.

Miranda doesn’t. And that’s CITY OF DRAGONS. It’s coming out next February, hopefully in time for Chinese New Year and the 80th Anniversary of the publication of The Maltese Falcon.

Because I’ve been lucky enough to sell CITY OF DRAGONS and its sequel to a major publisher, I now have an actual shot at—eventually—attaining my end game goal: to write full-time.I’ve got a long way to go, of course … but in between all the late nights and missed phone calls and skipped TV shows—the thrown-together meals and the computer eye strain that is all part of being a working writer and a working stiff—I celebrate. And today, I’m celebrating my barcode, because that makes it all the more real … and all the more possible.

So … couple of questions for you, and I hope you’ll help me throw an online party, right here and now! One, if you could sell foreign rights anywhere in the world (and with all money being equal)—what language would you want your book in and why?

And two—what “little” things represent big things in your experience? ISBNs?

You Put What in the Blender?!

by Kelli Stanley

A long time ago, I wanted to be a chemist. A “Cosmo-Chemist,” in fact, and never mind the fact that I sort of realized that dream once Sex and the City came out.

No, this was the icky kind of chemistry, the kind with yellow sulfur and blue cobalt and a Bunsen burner sticky with residue from botched experiments … all courtesy of Sears and Roebuck (have you noticed that good ol’ Roebuck dropped off some years ago?) and their super-duper chemistry set that I received as a Christmas present when I was eight.

In fact, I’ve got a confession to make to my fellow working stiffs (no, my day job isn’t as a chemist) ... just between us, I once mixed a few things together that sort of “bloomed” once I heated them up. A giant, smelly, blue mass started growing and bubbling and actually crawling out of the beaker. I was terrified!! Think Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein screaming “It’s Alive!”

So I grabbed a pot holder and ran to my back yard. And buried it. And soon after, we moved …

Which means that somewhere in San Jose, California … it’s still there. Brrr.

Now all this is a roundabout way of saying that I like to mix unusual things together. I like to think that with cooking and writing, though, I’ve learned to do it with better results. :-)

This Friday, July 18, my first novel – a decidedly unusual mixture – debuts. Nox Dormienda is a combination historical mystery-thriller and classic 1930s hardboiled style. One reviewer described it as a make-believe collaboration between Lindsey Davis and Raymond Chandler … Ken Bruen calls it Ellis Peters rewritten by Elmore Leonard. I think of it as Roman Noir. It’s the first of a series, so hopefully the concoction will catch on … just like a Cosmopolitan!

Anyway, you get the idea. It’s new, it’s different, and I’ve tried to make it, above all else, worthwhile and entertaining to read. Accurate, too. There’s a lot of student debt in that book!

And to make me feel like I’m not alone in my passion for an unusual combination, I’d love to hear about your own experiments – successful or un – that you’ve tried … cooking, writing, cocktail mixing, clothing, relationships … whatever worked or didn’t! Because chemistry can be pretty damn exciting!

Thank you for hosting me on Working Stiffs! A fabulous blog, with fabulous people (and a shout out to my fellow ITW Debut Author and buddy, the incomparable and amazing Jennie Bentley)!

Now, what did I do with that Cosmo …?

A few ITW Debut Authors: Jordan Dane, Kelli Stanley, Julie Kramer, CJ Lyons, Laura Benedict.

Kelli Stanley lives in San Francisco, earned a Master’s Degree in Classics, is published as a scholar, and likes to wander in the fog. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found at bookstores, speakeasies and classic movie theaters.
Her debut novel, Nox Dormienda, is the first of a new series and new genre of mystery fiction: Roman Noir. Kelli is currently working on a novel set in 1940 San Francisco.