This Saturday, April 7th, I’ll be speaking at the San Antonio Book Festival. Details:
San Antonio Book Festival
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Serial Killers: Facts & Fiction with Meg Gardiner and Kate Winkler Dawson
12:00-1:00 PM
Swartz Room
San Antonio Central Library
600 Soledad
San Antonio, Texas
The festival runs all day, and is packed with great speakers. Sandra Cisneros, Jorge Ramos, Holly Black, Paula Poundstone… check out the entire program.
If you’re around, I’d love to see you.
Posted in Books, Into the Black Nowhere, Uncategorized
Tagged Books, Into the Black Nowhere, San Antonio
On Friday, March 16th, I’m going to be doing a Reddit AMA — Ask Me Anything. There will be a link where people can ask me written questions and I’ll reply. About my books, writing, Jeopardy! the impending squirrel apocalypse — anything.
AMA: Meg Gardiner
Friday, March 16th, 2018
12 Noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific
More details to follow on the 16th!
As part of the launch of Into the Black Nowhere, I did a bunch of talking. To readers, radio hosts, and magazines. Here’s a roundup. Just in case you want to know more about the novel, or my writing process, or which tunes I listen to when I write. Bonus: click through to enough articles, and you’ll see what I look like when I go axe throwing.
Meg Gardiner’s Dark Past — Texas Monthly
How Author Meg Gardiner Gets Into the Mind of a Killer — Austin Monthly
The Quintessential Interview: Meg Gardiner — Seattle Review of Books
Tracking the Darkness — The Big Thrill
Posted in Into the Black Nowhere, Writing
On Tuesday evening, I spoke at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Lisa Gardner. The Pen is a legendary independent bookstore, and it was an excellent event. Thanks to everybody who turned up — especially my law school classmates and the reader who drove three hours from south of Tucson to get books signed.
The bookstore livestreamed the event. You can rewatch the stream here.
And beforehand, Lisa and I recorded a podcast. It’s now up. Check out our discussion of Into the Black Nowhere, Lisa’s novel Look for Me, series mashups, dog boot camp, and more. Meg Gardiner & Lisa Gardner. February 6, 2018.
Many thanks to The Poisoned Pen and its owner Barbara Peters for inviting me to Arizona and for making the event a success.
In September 2016, as I was just beginning to flesh out ideas for the sequel to UNSUB, I attended Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention. I wrote a post about the photo above, which was taken during the weekend:
Where I get my ideas Part 6 Million: photos
My publisher threw a shindig at Bouchercon in New Orleans. When guests walked in, a Polaroid-style camera was available for everybody to use. This is roughly what happened when I found it.
Me: I love Polaroids! Okay, these are actually mini Fujifilm pics, but I love them!
The Husband: Sure. Whatever makes you happy. I’m just arm candy.
[click]
[photo develops]
Me: Wow. Uh. It looks like something you’d find in a serial killer’s garage.
Journalist friend: And everyone asks, “Who are these people?”
And so my next novel is born. To all involved: Thanks.
(And yes, in the novel, when the cache of photos is found in the garage, the people in them won’t be wearing name tags. But I have to start somewhere.)
_______
Guess what? I took that joke, and the shiver that underlay it, and used the idea in the novel that became Into the Black Nowhere.
The lesson: Everything is material. And if an idea worms its way under your skin, pay attention. You never know how, when, or where you might use it.
I’m hitting the road — or the skies — for Phoenix, heading to The Poisoned Pen for a talk and signing with Lisa Gardner. Yes, it’s going to be Gardiner Night at the bookstore. Also Gardner Night. Lisa and I will be discussing our new novels. Into the Black Nowhere, of course, and her terrific new thriller, Look for Me. It should be fun. Especially because people tend to get us confused. And after we swap clothes and IDs, like the twins in The Parent Trap, God knows what might happen. Hijinks. Thrills. Book sales.
Tuesday, February 6th, 7 p.m.
The Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(480) 947-2974
The book tour so far has taken me around Texas and to Florida, where I snapped the photo above. Thanks to all the booksellers — at Book People in Austin, Interabang Books in Dallas, Murder by the Book in Houston, and Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach. Special thanks to every reader who turned up to buy books and talk with me. You’re the reason I do this.
If anybody’s still on the fence about picking up a copy of my new novel, here are further inducements:
The New York Post named it one of the week’s Must-Read Books.
Bookreporter.com calls it “A blistering read… Into the Black Nowhere is relentless thriller writing at its finest.”
All of which make me extremely happy. Now I’m off. If you’re in Arizona, and have a chance to come by the Poisoned Pen, I’d love to see you.
My new novel, Into the Black Nowhere, was published yesterday. I’ve naturally been telling you to grab a copy. But don’t just take my word for it. Listen to Uncle Stevie.
To say I’m wildly happy is an understatement.
So, yeah. Stephen King calls the novel “Excellent.” He says: “Buy now, thank me later.”
Also:
The Associated Press calls it “Riveting.”
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel says the novel is a “robust character study mixed with an engrossing police procedural… Gardiner knows how to push the terrifying envelope.”
If you want a glimpse into how I wrote the novel, and how real events influence the fiction I write, I talked to Texas Monthly:
Meg Gardiner’s Dark Past: The Austin thriller writer explains her connections to the Golden State Killer and the Oklahoma City bombing—and how they found their way into her novels.
Austin Monthly also interviewed me: How Author Meg Gardiner Gets Into the Mind of a Killer
But really: Listen to Stephen King.
Posted in Books, Into the Black Nowhere
Tagged Into the Black Nowhere, Stephen King, Thrillers
Out now
