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Three recent novels by Stephen Graham Jones, Attica Locke and Michael Farris Smith through the lens of Repo Man and True Detective:

There’s a scene in Repo Man where a car-lot attendant explains to a young repo man how the world operates, a worldview he calls the “lattice of coincidence.”

“Suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate of shrimp,” he says. “Suddenly someone’ll say, like, ‘plate’ or ‘shrimp’ or ‘plate of shrimp’ out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.”

Lately, my plate of shrimp has been True Detective. It’s been at least six weeks since the season finale and I can’t stop thinking about the show. I see it everywhere—even in the books I read. But is it me, or is it the “cosmic unconsciousness”? Because the last three books I read all contained uncanny echoes of True Detective.

Just read it. 

LA Times Festival of Books 2014

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The most inspiring thing that happened to me at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books? Waiting in line for 90 minutes to get a book signed. Usually my attitude toward lines longer than 15 minutes is somewhere between “no thanks” and “I’d rather stab my eyes out with a fork,” but this was different. My daughter Annie borrowed the novel Divergent from one of her best friends at school and when she found out that the author, Veronica Roth, was going to be at the festival, she thought it would be cool if she returned it to her friend with the author’s signature. So after trudging all over USC’s campus on Saturday to support her dad’s events on Saturday, on Sunday we went to see YA superstar Veronica Roth in conversation with Leigh Bardugo, who was excellent. My author credentials meant we didn’t have to stand in line for the event, but there are no shortcuts in the signing line, which was 500 deep. (It would have been longer, but the signing was limited to 500 people, one book per person.) We were probably somewhere in the middle of the line. The breakdown was something like this: 75% pre-teen or teenage girls, 20% moms, 4.9% dads, and one boy. Some of the girls chatted with each other about the panel, others texted or talked on the phone, but most were reading books. Giant, 500+ page books. This is going to sound like hyperbole, but it was an awesome sight: hundreds of young people immersed in the world of a book, waiting to meet its author whom they’d just heard speak. As a writer, it was so encouraging to see the passion of these young readers. It didn’t matter that they weren’t “my” readers (although every writer I know who saw or heard about the line joked about being in the wrong genre). I was once just like them and hopefully these young readers will continue to look for stories that move them, book by book, series by series, from now until they are my age and have kids of their own. It was such a strong reminder that readers are passionate about the stories they love, and as a writer its up to me write with the same passion and fervor, to create a world readers want to escape to and share with their best friends. I’m thrilled that my daughter is such an enthusiastic reader and thoughtful friend, but yesterday she helped rekindle my passion for making things up.