BIO

KIERAN SHEA’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thuglit, Dogmatika, Word Riot, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir ...as well as in some beefy-looking anthologies most of which will make you question the tether of his shiny, red balloon. To his self-deprecating astonishment he's also been nominated for the Story South’s Million Writers Award twice without sending the judges so much as a thank you note. He co-edited the satiric transgressive fiction collection D*CKED: DARK FICTION INSPIRED BY DICK CHENEY and his debut novel KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY is out now from Titan Books. Kieran divides his time between 38°58′22.6″N- 76°30′4.17″W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W.

4/27/10

Hanging Fire

There are books that sometimes you reread. For me these books typically have one thing in common--the author is no longer with us. No other book will be coming, not unless someone stumbles on a secret stash of disregarded manuscripts. A few years ago I learned my lesson about going away hungry from the reading table. I devoured scads of Walker Percy and was crushed to learn I read everything he'd written, even his essays. There wasn't any more. Now when I hear an author has passed I hoard a couple of copies of his work, so that if I am ever bed-ridden, these books will make my convalescence more endurable. Off the top of my head this morning and in terms of crime fiction, I've some Crumley left, some Willeford, and Westlake hanging fire. Good discipline to practice.