Leslie's Blog

I got so many queries last week about April Woo that I feel guilty. Thank you for loving April. I realize I wrote the first one in 1992, and she was with me for 15 years on a daily (and nightly) basis. I lived and breathed NYPD and April Woo. I dreamed April Woo. I ate Chinese food, and hung out in Chinatowns whoever I could find them. When I went to signings, people checked out my eyes wondering if I am half Chinese. And of course I am, but not by blood. You won't see my Chinese heritage in my face. But face and Chinese culture has always played an important part in my life. The drive for change and movement is Chinese, too. We always move forward, while honoring the past.

Many of you loved April and want her back. Now. You want her back the way I wish there were more Sherlocks, the real ones. More Peter Wimseys. More Arthur Upfields (he wrote about an aboriginal detective in Australia, called Napoleon Bonaparte, Boney), more Judge Dees, about a Chinese detective in, I don‘t know, maybe the 12th Century. There are so many mystery series about exotic characters that I loved. And, frankly, I wouldn't mind reading another April Woo novel myself. I love her, too. I loved NYPD and writing about my home town, New York City.

But some authors get wander lust and want to see a bigger world. I didn't get a dread disease or feel too depressed to work, or suffer a terrible sorrow when I disappeared for a few years. I had to go walkabout. Write about other cities and other locations and other police departments and other characters. Remember Dorothy Sayers? Arthur Conan Doyle? Dorothy Sayers was my model. She wrote eight Lord Peter Wimsey novels and then reverted to her scholar past. She returned to Oxford and translated religious texts from the Latin, or to the Latin, I don't remember which. But I was influenced by that choice.

After the first April Woo, because of Dorothy, I vowed to write no more than eight. And then I wrote a ninth. And then I wrote two stand-alones--Over His Dead Body and For Love and Money And then I wrote three screenplays, and Sleeper. And then I started Ilovequitters.com. One great thing about being a writer is that you can go as far as your imagination stretches.

I like the idea of finding a way to incorporate April in what I am doing now. And we'll see how that could work. But we can't go back to New York the way it was pre terrorism, and we can't go back to Sherlock the way Conan Doyle wrote him. Can't return to the world of Lord Peter, or Agatha Christie. Can't even return to our beloved Jane Austin. Like it or not, time spins forward. And I find the possibilities of new things thrilling.

I'll keep you posted.

Check out
ILoveQuitters.com
Sleeper

Having worked for magazines and publishers all my life, I never thought I would start a magazine format in cyberspace. Ilovequitters.com is quite a journey in a brand new world.

In the old days, it would cost millions of dollars for a Conde Nast, Hearst, or Time, Inc. to develop a new product. Very expensive, top of the line consultants would sit around conference tables strategizing for years about how the new magazine would look and what it would say and who would advertise in it. And then they'd spend mucho more dinero on surveys and questionnaires to find out what readers really want and who would buy it. Oh, the cost of advertising for the launch when it got finalized. Oh, the parties. Oh, the anticipation and self congratulation.

Publishers used to do the same with books. I remember the agonizing over covers, the cover copy, the survey cards Bantam sent out when Burning Time, the first April Woo novel, was published. They asked: Is this too graphic, not graphic enough? Would you recommend to your readers? It was so much fun. I loved the parties that made us feel so In and important, the gifts sent to booksellers, the fancy lunches at restaurants with white tablecloths. But that was in the 90s. After 9/11, when the airports and train stations were down for months, the distributors floundered and the business began to change. Then the Internet and Kindle forced it to change even more. Both authors and publishers have suffered terribly.

One author told me he knew things were not good when his editor started meeting him for lunch in a self-serve diner with crumbs on the table. Publishers' sales were down last year more than 30%, my agent told me. No one's having a party anymore.

Publishers will always take chances on new writers for small bucks in a whim and a prayer. But for writers, there is no bonanza anymore. You can't just sit down, write a novel and have agents and editors clamoring for it with checkbooks open. But in a way, this should be the most liberating thing in the world. Writing should not be about making the big bucks. It's a craft, an art and a spiritual journey. You do it for the fun of learning something, of mastery.

I started Ilovequitters.com with a group of people sitting around a living room, because hearing the stories of real people working on their problems touched me and fed my imagination. I believed those stories would resonate with the general public. We need to integrate the whole field of emotional recovery (because everyone is recovering from traumas, or addictions, of one kind or another), talk and write more, not just to Dear Abby.

Ilovequitters asks some basic questions. Who are we? Who do we want to be? Who is going to decide for us how to get better? To explore pop culture and how it impacts our behaviors and lives is a privilege I never thought I'd have. But I never thought I'd be talking to readers directly like this, either.

The old publishing system had us writing the books and articles for the public, but being largely alone in our lives and thoughts. Now writers can fly in cyberspace, which is where the imagination lives.

My new novel, Sleeper, came out of my imagination. But the issues and pressures faced by law enforcement and homeland security and the horrifying crimes resulting from greed are absolutely real. Welcome to the working writer's world.

This week is big. Usually it's just work, work, work. Writers are shut-ins, you know. I'm not kidding.

But now it's only a few weeks countdown to the launch of Sleeper. It's so exciting to have a new book out. We will begin to post events here. And photographs of people, not just me.

Speaking of people, don't miss the new articles appearing on www.Ilovequitters.com every week, and sign up to write your own. Starting February 5th, Veronica, who lost 220 lbs eleven years ago, and has kept the weight off, will be contributing weekly on all issues food, body, and soul. Veronica's insights will make you laugh, cry, and be a better person. Veronica launches soon.

This week is New York. Tom Garrett, the co-producer of our film, Rehab Is For Quitters, has a French film opening at Lincoln Center. Leon Blum: a Man For All Mankind is an official selection of the Jewish Film Festival and will be screening January 18-23. If you're in New York, go see it.

Leon Blum was born in 1897 and met Andre Gide. Together they wrote, and were publishing, poetry by the age of 17. That's not what Blum is famous for, though. He was a brilliant scholar and politician and was the first socialist and Jew to be prime minister of France. His story is remarkable in so many ways. He was part of the Vichy government during World War II. He spoke out against the government and was deported to Buchenwald. As the Allied army marched on Germany he was transferred to Dachau where he was supposed to be executed, but no one would follow through. After the war, he returned to France and became prime minister for a short time again.

The producers and director are coming from France for the opening so we'll get to speak some French. If we remember any. Later in the week I hope to visit the set of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky's new film, a ballet story, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, which is shooting on location in New York.

Mid week, the Glass Foundation is having a little celebration for Community Word Project. CWP is a New York City based arts-in-education organization that inspires children in underserved communities to read, interpret, and respond to their world and to become active citizens through collaborative artist residencies and teacher training programs. Alex Glass is very involved. It's a remarkable project over a decade old now, with children learning, and then mentoring children. To learn more about Community Word, visit www.Communitywordproject.org.

At the end of the week, I'll be in Tampa at the first India International Film Festival at the Channel Side Cinemas. It's a three day festival. If you're in Tampa, check it out. Nobody makes more films than Bollywood.

So, I'm busy with internet, print, and film this month. Please let me know what interests you most!

SLEEPER IS HERE.
ILOVEQUITTERS.COM IS HERE.
REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS IS COMING

Happy New Year To You.

What's new with Leslie? Absolutely everything.

First of all, thank you for your patience. I know many of you have been wondering what's up with me. Silence for way too long. Well, I didn't drop off the end of the earth. I've been working on local non profits, writing a column for Sarasota magazine, two feature film scripts with Lindsey Glass, my new novel Sleeper, and the writing project everyone can join, Ilovequitters.com.

And I didn't let you in on any of it. Sorry. Ask anyone. I'm not a good correspondent unless on assignment. But now I'm back. SLEEPER is at the printer as we speak. Within a matter of weeks we'll have a new Leslie Glass novel to devour, and I, for one, can't wait to read it. All right, I can't wait for you to read it.

Sleeper
Meet Michael Tamlin, undercover agent from the U.S. Treasury, who seems like nobody special until she lets down her hair and starts minding other people's business. When Michael leaves a dangerous job in Washington, D.C. after a case goes bad for love and marriage in Portland, Oregon, she steps into deadly tangle of family crime, betrayal, and greed that threatens both her career and her life. Ripped from the headlines, Sleeper mixes real bank and finance scams with the wild country and creepy atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest where people disappear, cultures clash, intrigue flourishes, and grievances turn into private wars with international consequences.

For the first chapter of Sleeper and how to order, go to the book page.

ILoveQuitters.com is my new e-magazine. Just launched this week. Check it out, join me writing the story of you life, and I'll be back here with more news next week.