SJ Rozan

So this is life in NYC: last Wednesday, I’m at the Japan Society for a conversation between Sen So’oku, a 15th-generation tea master, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, a fabulous photographer, called “from Sen Rikyu (the found of So’oku’s school) to Marcel Duchamp.” I wasn’t sure they could pull it off, demonstrating a connection. But they did. And both of them so completely funny and charming! Even though So’oku only spoke in Japanese, with a translator.

Saturday night I’m at a tiny downtown theater for a production of WAITING FOR GODOT. In Yiddish. With supertitles, my Yiddish isn’t up to Beckett. Moving and beautiful. Makes it into a whole new play, because it puts what we now call the Holocaust front and center, which, when Beckett started it in 1946, was apparently what was on his mind — the war, the extermination of the Jews, and the very personal death of a Jewish friend who was released from a camp when the Allies swept through, but too ill to survive.

Sunday, the Brooklyn Literary Festival, where not only was I on a totally fun panel, but before mine I went to one with Franketienne, Vikram Chandra, and Phillipe Petit! Moderated by Elissa Schapell. On creativity. This was a good week for that, I think. So here’s a photo of my own panel, and if you’re of my tribe, here are best wishes for a sweet new year.

Right to left: K’wan, me, A.X. Ahmad, Ibrahim Ahmad

Slow slide of gray clouds.

Low sun lighting skyscrapers.

Lone tug slipping south.

Glowing on hilltop

Unbeautiful white tower

Has its moment, too.

Runners gallop by.

Fisherman watching his lines

Pays no attention.

In its entirety:

“The pseudonymous writing team of university professor Carlos Dews and popular crime novelist S. J. Rozan follow up their first effort, Blood of the Lamb (2013), with an equally interesting second supernatural thriller. Set about a year after the events in that book, in which Father Thomas Kelly discovered that art historian Livia Pietro is a vampire, as is her friend, Spencer George, the novel begins with a vicious wolf attack in New York City’s Central Park. As it turns out, Livia and Spencer’s community of vampires known as Noantri are not the only mythological creatures that actually exist. The attacker is a shapeshifter desperate to find a religious artifact that could give him and others like him almost immeasurable power. The stage is set for a battle between vampires and werewolves, and if that sounds just a tad familiar, there’s no reason to panic. This isn’t a ripoff of Stephenie Meyer’s megapopular Twilight series. Like Blood of the Lamb, this is a well-crafted supernatural-religious thriller, in which a modern-day mystery reaches back into history. A winning series for fans of mystery-horror blends.”

Nice, huh? So what are YOU waiting for?

From SKIN OF THE WOLF you might get the idea I’m a fan of wolves. Here’s a great little video on one reason why.

Cormorants sit, stand,

Sleep, stare, sprawl in colony

On sea-swept concrete.

Geese gather on lawn,

Nibble grass, find lots of food —

Forget flying south.

Goat, nuzzling apples,

Pushes chicken off compost.

Chicken struts away.

From “Steepletop”

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Borage, forage for bees

And for those who love blue,

Why must you,

Having only been transplanted

From where you were not wanted

Either by the bee or by me

From under the sage, engage in this

self-destruction?

I was tender about your slender

tap-root.

I thought you would send out shoot after

shoot

Of thick cucumber-smelling, hairy leaves.

But why anybody believes

Anything, I do not know. I thought I

could trust you.

This is the video of my sister addressing the PA Human Relations Commission. The case was settled with a Consent Decree but that meant the Commission hadn’t ruled and therefore hadn’t clarified its position on the law. They’ll be taking up the question of whether they need to do that, so my sister asked for permission to speak on the subject of service animals and public access. She appears at about the six minute mark, and Henry, the dog in question, appears with his new person at about eleven minutes.

Those of you who get The Rozan Report know I’m teaching a lot this year. (Those of you who don’t, well go to the website and sign up already!) The point here is, the first of my classes, a six- (or twelve- if you want) week session at Crime Fiction Academy, starts next week. That’s Thurs. the 18th of Sept. If you were thinking about signing up, this would be the time!

Edgeless cotton fog.

Skyscrapers’ tops melt away.

Duck swims upriver.

Four pale kayaks slide

In unbroken formation

On rippling water.

Gull lands on piling.

Knocked off by young, speckled one,

Flaps to higher perch.

The new Rozan Report is here. It’s the Back to Business Edition, with pictures.