Scott William Carter

New Book Published: A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart (a Garrison Gage Mystery)

May 23, 2017May 23, 2017Scott William Carter

A new book! As I mentioned to my intrepid newsletter subscribers yesterday (over 3200 strong now!), A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart is now available in both ebook and paperback. The audio should follow in a few months, as usual.

While releasing another book into the wild may not be quite as exciting as the first few times I did it, it never gets old. There’s always this mix of giddy anticipation and mild trepidation. How many am I up to now? Well, it depends on how you count, I guess, but my bibliography says this is number 15. That’s fifteen published, mind you, not written. There are a few books which served their purpose as practice and hopefully will never see the light of day. Hear that, kids? Please don’t publish those books after I’m gone.

Anyway, whatever number it is overall, A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart is the fifth Garrison Gage mystery. It’s always fun to return to my curmudgeonly private investigator and the extended cast of characters that inhabit my Oregon coast town of Barnacle Bluffs. Zoe, Alex, Chief Quinn — we get to catch up with all of them. Poor Gage really is put through the ringer this time, though, and not just by having to confront the usual assortment of baddies. He’s dealing with a loss of a different kind.

The cover and the description are below. Links to retailers can be found on the book’s page on my site. One little bit of trivia? The lighthouse pictured on the cover really is Heceta Head, located a few miles north of Florence, Oregon. As far as I know, however, no one has died there recently . . .

A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart
A Garrison Gage Mystery

They find his body at the bottom of Heceta Head Lighthouse—Ed Boone, a longtime volunteer who commits suicide rather than see his grim diagnosis to its bitter end. The strangeness of the old man’s death makes the local news, but Garrison Gage thinks little of it until the famous Nora West sneaks into town with an unsettling letter in hand.

Professing he wants to go to his grave with a clear conscience, Ed claims to be Nora’s biological father. But the revelation stirs up all kinds of complicated emotions for the talented but troubled musician, who hires Gage to find out the truth.

Yet the truth may be a lot more disturbing — and dangerous — than either of them expect.

Available in both Paperback and Ebook at Retailers Everywhere

A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart: Cover and Description

May 13, 2017May 13, 2017Scott William Carter

I’ve gotten quite a few emails from readers asking when the next Garrison Gage book will be available. First, let me just say how much I appreciate such avid fans! It’s been really gratifying seeing my readership grow in recent years, and my hope is to write at least one book about my curmudgeonly private investigator a year while also writing other books. Honestly, it’s no hardship. I love revisiting my old friend.

More importantly, the fifth book involving Gage, A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart, is nearly done. I’m waiting for the final pass from the proofreader before it goes into production, which should come back in the next few days. So end of the month, most likely. I appreciate your patience. Until then, I’ll whet your appetite with the cover and book description:

A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart
A Garrison Gage Mystery

Yet the truth may be a lot more disturbing — and dangerous — than either of them expect.

As always, remember to sign up for my no-spam-ever-new-release author email newsletter if you want to be the first to know when the book is out.

So what’s the next book after this one? Ah, I never talk much about works in progress for fear of wrecking my creative process, but let’s just say that in the early going it’s both like everything else I’ve written and not like anything else I’ve written at all. I’ve code named it the Big Epic and we’ll see where it goes. Having fun, which is the important thing.

More soon.

An Adventure in the Caribbean, Ghost Detective in Audio, and Other News

February 15, 2017February 15, 2017Scott William Carter

The above shot is me playing with the kids on Coki Beach on the island of Saint Thomas, which is part of the United States Virgin Islands.

It was our first port of call on an amazing Caribbean adventure that Heidi, I, and the kids took in early February. We flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico a day early, visiting Old San Juan before embarking on our 7-day cruise through Saint Thomas, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts, and Saint Martin. It was the kids’ first cruise and also their first time out of the country, passports required, and everyone had a blast. Highlights included zip-lining in the rain forest near the St. Lucia Pitons, swimming with dolphins in St. Kitts, and a snorkeling trip to a fairly deserted beach on one of the smaller islands of St. Martin, after an exciting (though my son might call it harrowing) 20-minute boat ride across a warm but very active ocean. We caught air off some of those massive waves.

(By the way, I don’t usually swim with a shirt, but being the pasty pale fellow I am, I bowed to my wife’s wisdom and wore a “swim coverall” to protect said pasty pale skin. The one day I didn’t, the last day we were there, proved her point, because I got a bad sunburn on my back, the only negative to an otherwise fantastic trip. So the lesson there is: always listen to your wife.)

In publishing news, the first two books in the Myron Vale series, Ghost Detective and The Ghost Who Said Goodbye, are now available in audio. You can buy them at Amazon, Audible, or iTunes. The excellent Steve Roy Grimsley did such a fine job with the Garrison Gage books that I enlisted him to narrate the Ghost Detective series, and I was pleased with the results. The last book, The Ghost, the Girl, and the Gold, is also in the can and should show up on the various vendor sites within a few weeks.

One other little bit of publishing news: “The Elevator in the Cornfield,” a short story that originally appeared in Time Streams, has been reprinted in the Fiction River’s Racing the Clock. Really great series, Fiction River, and well worth buying any of the individual volumes or even subscribing to the series from the publisher. Reminds me that I really do need to get back to writing short stories now and then. I made the choice to focus on novels for a few years to try to build an audience (a choice that’s worked out well for me, so I certainly don’t regret it), but I do miss the short story form. The dilemma, of course, is finding the time. Speaking of where I’ve been spending my early morning writing hours, work on the fifth Garrison Gage novel is nearly completed. It will still have to go through the editing process, but I hope to have it out this spring. I’ll be doing a cover reveal before too long.

I’m also teaching WR 464: Writing for Publication again, here at Western Oregon University this Spring term (starting in April). It went well two years ago, with strong reviews from students. It meets Wednesdays from 4 pm to 7 pm, with another hour of work online, and it’s filled with the kind of nuts and bolts information I learned in the trenches that I wished I’d had as an undergraduate. Although I’ll be updating it a bit, the description I posted a couple years ago is still accurate. Feel free to pass it along to anyone in the vicinity of Monmouth, Oregon who might be interested.

That’s all for now. Back before too long.

Postcards from the Garage: Otter Rock, Oregon

December 31, 2016December 31, 2016Scott William Carter

I’m writing this as the sun is literally setting on 2016. In a way, we’re some of the last people to say goodbye to 2016 in the United States, aside from Hawaii, that is, as we’re ringing in the new year in a cozy little house just outside of Newport, Oregon, in small community known as Otter Rock. A bit of an impromptu trip, but as we had no plans for New Year’s Eve we thought a couple quiet days enjoying the moody winter weather here on the coast would be a fun change of pace. The shot above was from this morning, when it was bright and clear on the beach, but now the gray skies have moved in, along with a light drizzle. (You can just make out Yaquina Lighthouse on the point.) The fickle weather on the Oregon coast, far from being a drawback, is part of what we love about it.

I have mixed feelings about 2016. On one hand, I think you’d have to be an oblivious idiot not to be concerned about recent trends, both here in my own country and abroad. The rise of nationalist, immigrant-fearing political parties, the never-ending scourge of war, the refugee crisis, cyber espionage, climate change, and just a general turn toward selfishness and fear on a global scale is quite troubling.

On a more personal front, things are going well. In fact, the depressing political season had an unexpected upside. I got so fed up how all the toxic flotsam online was infecting my mind that I made a commitment to become something of an Internet Minimalist, striving to go online only with intention and purpose, and almost never just for something to do. This hasn’t only resulted in a much improved state of mind, but it’s also opened up all kinds of creative energy that I think was bit stymied and dissipated on trivial things. I’d been trying to reduce my online time for a while but this time it really stuck. It’s wonderfully liberating, as long as you accept that you don’t need to be fully wired-in to everything happening in the world every moment of every day. It will still be there waiting for you when you’re ready for it. I highly recommend it. If nothing else, do what I did and follow the advice of a good friend who suggested doing a complete Internet fast for a week to see how it affects your mood. That really made things clear to me.

On the update front, progress on the new Garrison Gage novel goes well, and it should be out early 2017. Hope all is well going into the new year for you and yours.