GUEST BLOGGER: Reed Farrel Coleman -Fanboy Coleman, Woodrell in LA

Guest Blogger: Reed Farrel Coleman

Fanboy Coleman—Woodrell in LA

Have you ever been a fan of a band that’s labored in obscurity for many years? You know how it is when the band finally catches fire and its name is suddenly on everybody’s lips? You know how that happens and when it does you’re like a mess of mixed emotions? On the one hand, you’re full of pride for having spotted the band’s talents way before the rest of the world. On the other, you’re kind of pissed off and disappointed because you’ve lost that sense of ownership that set you apart from everyone else. That’s sort of where I’m at these days with the world having finally discovering the Shakespeare of the Ozarks, Daniel Woodrell.

Even I was late to the ball game, because Winter’s Bone (recommended to me by Shamus Award-winner Peter Spiegelman) was the first of Daniel Woodrell’s novels I’d read. I felt like an utter idiot for not having discovered his work previously and set out to find his earlier novels. I felt much less of an idiot when I discovered that most of his earlier books were out of print and some of them were nearly impossible to find. It was only because I tour indie crime bookstores that I was able to patch together a collection of Woodrell’s work. My original copy of Tomato Red is an uncorrected proof. I learned long ago that there was no justice in the universe or in publishing.

So anyway, I’m not like someone who gets nervous or excited at the prospect of meeting celebrities or big names. I’ve never been much of a fanboy, but when I met Mr. Woodrell at the LA Times Festival of Books a few years ago, I totally melted down. My palms got sweaty, I tripped over my own words, and I felt like a complete dumbass. Happily, Daniel was kind as could be and pretended not to notice that I was a gushing fool. I suppose it made me feel better that I wasn’t alone. Over the course of the day I noticed several other authors doing their own version of my fanboy routine.

These days, although I don’t go full Jerry Lewis, I still get a rush when I get an email from Daniel. Our reprints are done by the same publisher, Busted Flush Press. How cool is that? It’s amazing to me that three of my favorite authors—Daniel Woodrell, Ken Bruen, Don Winslow—and I are connected to the same house. I’ve had a lot of proud moments as an author, but the coolest was seeing my blurb in the front pages of the new edition of Tomato Red. I’m not kidding. I begged David Thompson, the publisher of Busted Flush Press, to let me do the foreword for the new edition of The Death of Sweet Mister, but some guy named Lehane got that honor. All right, I guess even I can’t argue with that choice.

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Innocent Monster (Tyrus Books, Oct. 5, 2010) is Reed Farrel Coleman’s sixth Moe Prager novel. 

Reed has been called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Press. 

He’s published eleven novels—two under his pen name Tony Spinosa—in three series, and the stand-alone Tower co-written with award-winning Irish author Ken Bruen. 

Reed has won the Shamus Award for Best Novel of the Year three times, won the Barry and Anthony, and twice been nominated for the Edgar. He is a co-editor of TheLineup and was the editor of the anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn.  

The former executive VP of Mystery Writers of America, Reed is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University. 

You can reach Reed on his website, Facebook, or Twitter.