SJ Rozan

Ode to my Second Vaccine Shot

Got my second shot Moderna

And I’m feeling kinda great.

Got my second shot Moderna.

I was early, couldn’t wait.

Got my second shot Moderna

Up on St. Ann’s Avenue

Where the golden sun was shining

And the sky was brilliant blue.*

Got my second shot Moderna

Up here in Mott Haven

Across the Bronx from the small house

Wherein Poe wrote “The Raven.”**

I checked in with my QC code

They said, “SJ, welcome back!

Just go on in here to the school,

Talk to the man in black.”***

He waved me to the lunchroom

Where the tables were all set up

And nurses, docs, and volunteers

Were wearing sterile get-ups.****

The nurse at table number 5

Swabbed my arm and stuck it

Then she smoothed on it a Band-aid

And said to me, “Good luck! It*****

Might swell up a little

And you may start feeling sick

But if you do, don’t worry —

That part is over quick.”

Then she sent me to the gym to wait

A fifteen minute span.

I sat there and I people-watched,

Enjoyed my fellow man.

When time was up I headed out

To E. 138th

To get café con leche

And some cake to celebrate(th).”******

So as of now I’m fully vaxxed

And it’s a happy day

And I hope you all soon get your shots

And COVID goes away!

*You saw that coming, right?

**Irrelevant, but true.

***It wasn’t Johnny Cash, no.

****Just cut me some slack, okay?

*****Not what you were expecting?

******Okay, that one’s awful.

It takes a village

February 14, 2021 / SJ Rozan / No comments

I got a COVID vaccine shot the other day with the help of a friend. Another friend asked me for advice so I put this together for her. Now I’m sharing it with anyone who wants it. It might help, it might not. I hope it does. This info is mostly for NYC residents, though the NY State website is also here. For other states, I’m sorry but I can’t help. Wish I could.

The first place to go is:

https://nycvaccinelist.com/

It’s an aggregator. It shows pharmacies, churches, etc., plus City and State sites. It offers to show sites where the data is “stale,” meaning it hasn’t updated in 10 minutes. It’s worth clicking on that link, and then clicking through to any site you think you could get to if it had vaccine. They sometimes release appointments before the aggregator catches on.

On the aggregator are also links to

https://vaccinefinder.nyc.gov/

That’s the City site where I found my appointment. Any NYC resident is eligible to go to any NYC Vaccine Hub in any borough.

The City also has

https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/covid-19-vaccines/

This is the NYC Health and Hospitals site. I have a friend who found an appointment through H&H, though I never tried it.

https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/covid-19-vaccines/

There’s also

https://covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/

That’s the NY State site. Javits is a State location; there are 4 other State sites in the NYC area. Though it says “no appointments available” for everywhere except Potsdam, appointments, though very few, do come up at the other sites without them changing that message. Once you fill in your data, it pays to click on all the sites you could get to.

The key is to be persistent and check different sites at random times. The State sites all update on the hour. I don’t know when the City sites update. The dozen slots that I got my appointment in were only open for about ten minutes; I was just lucky that a friend was on the website right then and alerted me. It takes a village.

We made it

January 1, 2021 / SJ Rozan / 4 comments

It’s 2021. Well done, all. Here’s to peace, good health, and good work in the new year.

Parnell Hall, RIP

December 17, 2020 / SJ Rozan / 2 comments

Standing third from the left, Parnell Hall one of the ways I remember him best: on the basketball court, where he had a funny (of course) one-legged stork shot that always went in. I remember him at the poker table, too, where he’d shake his head sadly at his cards, sigh at his luck, and leave at the end of the night with great piles of other people’s money. He was one of the first people I met in the crime-writing world. I was a last-minute substitute on a panel at Bouchercon Seattle in 1994. My first book had been out about an hour, I hadn’t expected a panel assignment, and I was terrified of being up there with the grownups. Turned out nothing I did mattered. Parnell and Donald Westlake spent 40 minutes being hilarious and ended the panel with a cream pie in the face. Parnell’s face, of course. He was generous, kind, funny, smart, and I’m going to miss him terribly.

A Q&A with me

December 7, 2020 / SJ Rozan / One comment

Campaign for the American Reader did a Q & A with me and all you need to do is click the link to read it.

Publication Day!

December 1, 2020 / SJ Rozan / 4 comments

It’s publication day for THE ART OF VIOLENCE!

Well, in truth nothing happens on publication day except some bookstores, the ones who hold off until then, put the book on the shelves. In this time of COVID, however, when even the bricks-and-mortar indies are wheeling and dealing online, that has gone by the boards. What is an important date, though, is the launch. Usually that’s in a bookstore; for THE ART OF VIOLENCE, it’ll be virtual, FROM a bookstore. Tomorrow, Weds. Dec. 2., 8pm EST, I’ll be chatting with the amazing Barbara Peters at Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ, where they have signed copies they will be happy to send you. The link is HERE. Please come!

2021 Calendars!

November 29, 2020 / SJ Rozan / One comment

If you were wondering where the SJ Rozan 2021 photo calendars were, they’re here!

Plants, Flowers, Trees and All That

Colors

Bella the Cat

Get one, get two, get ’em all! 2021, here we come!

Small business Saturday

November 28, 2020 / SJ Rozan / No comments

Writers are very small businesses. Independent bookstores are pretty small, too. Support your local indie, either by shopping there today (and every day) or by shopping at Bookshop.org where they’ll send you your books just like the big guys, shipping is free through Monday Nov. 30, and they share the profits with indie bookstores. (What a business model!)

And if you’re wondering where to get a signed copy of THE ART OF VIOLENCE, wonder no more. Order one from Poisoned Pen — they shipped me boxes and boxes of them to sign and ship back — or if you shop at Mysterious Bookshop, Three Lives and Co., or Greenlight Bookstore, or any other NYC shop, either in person or online, I’ll go there and sign your book before you pick it up or they ship it. Show them this blog and tell them to email me

writersjrozan@gmail.com

and I’ll be there.

And speaking of Poisoned Pen, I’m launching the book there by the miracle of Facebook Live on Weds., Dec. 2. 8pm EST. Work it out in your own time zone (their page says 6pm because they’re in Scottsdale AZ) and come on by!

Thanksgiving 2020

November 26, 2020 / SJ Rozan / No comments

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. It occurs to me that if we’re gathering in spirit and not in person, many more of us can be together than would actually fit in my living room. You’re all invited over in spirit to share gratitude and hope. And spirit pie.