March 23, 2025

Notes from the Rodeo Trail, Part 1

It’s official. THE GET OFF is out in the world now so go get some, if you haven’t already. If you have, get two.

In honor of this third and last book of the series, I kicked off the Farewell Angel Dare Tour this month. I started with Left Coast Crime in Denver, plus a little side quest at Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop.

My first night in Denver kinda set the tone for the whole weekend. I’m still not 100% sure that I didn’t hallucinate the whole thing.

My friend and fellow noir writer Marco Carocari invited me and my favorite Jersey Girl Robyn Gigl to dinner on Wednesday night. His husband Mark grew up in Denver and so I was fine with letting him pick the restaurant. “Mexican food,” he said. That’s all I knew going in.

Apparently everyone but me already knows about Casa Bonita. Me and Robyn, that is. Inside, we descended into this un-fucking-hinged, Chuck E Cheese meets Disneyland fever dream of faux-Mexican/Polynesian absurdity. We were totally unprepared.

Where to even begin? Cliff divers! Pirates! Prospectors! Mariachis! Puppets! Tarot readings! A weird bat-gorilla in a speedo! South Park! A Giant Clam! The World’s Worst Sangria!

The fact that I had been up since 3:30 am that morning and was jet lagged and exhausted just added to the surreal weirdness of the evening. Robyn and I kept whispering “Casa Bonita” to each other all weekend, like we’d barely survived a war together and nobody else could comprehend what we’d been through. It was hilarious to see the expressions on people’s faces when we mentioned the place. People who had no idea what we were talking about were just friendly and curious but people who knew, knew. It was a lot like saying “Black Gravel” to people who’ve seen that film.

Anyway, I’m really glad I had that experience, but I never need to do it again.

On the opposite end of the Denver dining spectrum, I had a fabulous Fancy Perverts Dinner the following night at The Wolf’s Tailor with my pal Rob Hart and his partner Cyn.

On to the actual con itself.

I had the honor of interviewing the Toastmaster with the Mostmaster, John Copenhaver, whose HALL OF MIRRORS went on to win the Lefty for best historical.

I participated in some fun panels too, including our graphic novel panel. After multiple cancelations, Dale Berry and I thought we were gonna be like the sad little kids who threw a birthday party and no one came.

Through some kinda literary miracle, I met R Alan Brooks at Lighthouse. He had been the moderator for my panel over there on using violence in fiction. Coincidentally, he’s also a comic writer and artist so I immediately and shamelessly shanghaied him into joining us on our graphic novel panel. Along with an excellent last minute addition of Duane Swierczynski, it went from a sadsack Sunday morning stepchild to one of the best, most thought-provoking and entertaining panels I’ve ever been on.

Speaking of Lighthouse, I spent Saturday over there doing the above mentioned panel on violence followed by a conversation with my old friend Benjamin Whitmer. I like to blame him for planting the rodeo seed in my brain that eventually grew up to be THE GET OFF, so getting the chance to chat with him about it more than a decade later proves that time really is a flat circle.

We also had lunch at Pete’s Kitchen, in keeping with my desire to eat my way through every single strata of edible Denver.

I’m hoping to teach a virtual class or two through Lighthouse in the not so-distant-future, so stay tuned for more details on that action.

The next stop on the trail was an international adventure up in Vancouver BC.

In addition to reading for a surprisingly full house at Noir at the Bar, I also got to talk about the best movies (and the worst movies and the best worst movies) with my Bizarro World chaos twin AJ Devlin and Vancouver’s own crackerjack crime scribe Sam Wiebe (aka Nolan Chase.) Sadly, no pie was involved, but there will most definitely be a next time!

I think the most Canadian thing that I saw while I was there was this bus apologizing to me for being out of service.

Of course, I was the one who felt compelled to apologize to our gratuitously antagonized Northern neighbors. Because, well… (waves hands around at America.)

The one thing that really stood out to me on this first leg of my book tour is how good it felt to be out in the world having actual meat-suit interactions with real live friends, both old and new. It was especially meaningful and restorative to be able to hang with my Queer Crime Writers siblings at LCC. These are dark and stormy times, Faustketeers, and it’s in the best interest of this current regime to make us all feel isolated and helpless.

Fuck that. We know how to Act Up because we’ve done it before and we can do it again. We won’t tone ourselves down or obey in advance or otherwise self-censor in order to appease people who will still hate us no matter what.

I really hope to be able to make it to Bouchercon this year. I understand and sympathize deeply with everyone who has decided not to participate, but I personally want to stay annoyingly visible and make people who’d rather we didn’t exist as uncomfortable as possible.

Don’t like the fact that I did a feminism and made your literary dick fall off? Die mad about it. Think I’m ruining crime fiction with woke DEI? You leave.

I’m staying.

Of course, I’ve got a lot more events going on between now and Bcon. Next up is Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale on April 2nd.

In the meanwhile, here are a few extra bits and bobs for the Faust completist. I was interviewed on the HOUSE OF MYSTERY podcast. The magical publicity elves at Titan made me a book trailer for THE GET OFF.

And I’m participating in this auction to benefit the Transgender Law Center.

There is so much amazing stuff up for grabs, including a full set of signed Angel Dare novels, so please bid and share!

I’ve also got two fantastic guest posts lined up to dig a little deeper into the topic of sex workers in crime fiction. So if you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet, you know what to do.

See you on down the trail.