What do you want to happen?
What don’t you want to happen?
You’ve been hanging with Kate for sixteen novels now, you’ve got ideas, and you know you’ve got opinions.
So, use your webcam to record a one-minute video telling everyone what you think!
Be serious, funny, smart, smart-assed, frightened, furious! Use props, recruit a cast, find a stand-in for the Roadhouse and use it for a backdrop! Stare at the camera bug-eyed for sixty seconds! Everything goes here!
Then send me the clips, which will be edited together by a Certified Professional Filmmaker to make a video, which I will post to YouTube prior to the publication of A Night Too Dark (February 2010).
Dana’s Laws, Guidelines and Ukases:
1. There is no guarantee that all videos will be used.
2. There is no guarantee that more than a second or two of any video will be used. The full video will be about 4 minutes in length total, so there will be editing to fit.
3. Humor will be the guiding factor in the editing process. See the “Kate Shugak series (abridged)” video as an example.
4. Please keep the videos to one minute in length.
5. Please send digital video clips to anighttoodarkvideo@live.com.
6. All videos must be received by September 1, 2009.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your webcams! Make ‘em laugh, cringe, weep, scream! Let’s go viral!
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Go here to listen to my guest of honor interview at this year’s Mayhem in the Midlands crime fiction conference. Jan Burke was my interviewer and she was terrific, smart, funny and she really did her homework.
Hi Dana,
LOL! But dont’ feel bad, others are victims of the geographically challenged too. From an immigrant’s point of view:
- It’s Czech Republic not Czechoslovakia
- It’s not in the Balkans its in Europe (most Czechs disowned the Balkans after the WWI assasination of Ferdinand de Este, but we’re holding onto Greece…)
- It’s definitely NOT one of the former Soviet republics
- didya know Prague lies west of Vienna? We are Central Europe, not Eastern.
I feel very American most of the time. Once in a while some poor idiot wakens the Cancelled Czech that slumbers withing, though
Kate
Here it is June 21 2009 and we STILL don’t have Whisper to the Blood in this rat-hole, illiterate corner of South Carolina. Not even Sam’s Club! I have been waiting SOooooo patiently.
Sorry…you know about B&N and Amazon online, right?
Whisper to the Blood was the first Dana Stabenow book I read, and I happened to catch it in the New Releases aisle at the library. That was a few months ago. So, I immediately went back to read ALL the other Kate Shugak books, which only took me a few months! The first three were unavailable, but the library found them for me through an inter-library loan, so I’m back-tracking. Not only does Kate share my daughter’s name, she fits her personality to a “t!” What a gem. Kate is such a strong name — my Kate is named after Katharine Hepburn, but she might as well have been Kate Shugak. If I had learned about KS in 1997 when my Kate was born, she would have been. What a gem…I’m lucky to have found this series. Can’t wait to read the other series.
What a wonderful avalanche of compliments! Thank you, Edwige.
Read the first book by you several weeks ago and now just finished the third. Just wanted to say thanks for writing them. I’m out tomorrow for another one.
Barry Monaco
Thank you, Barry! Glad you’re enjoying them.
I just finished reading Hunter’s Moon, out of sequence for sure. I think I have read all of your most recent Kate Shugak books that came after that. Anyway, I was really disturbed by the amount of violence at the end of the book! I was so upset I had trouble getting to sleep. I knew Jack had died, but somehow I thought it happened between books and I would never have to know the details!!
I was upset, too, Suzanne. Jack had been with me a long time.
Enjoy the Kate Shugak books enormously but, even more, I have learned so much about Alaska from you! At the moment, I am reading The Klondike Fever by Berton that you recommended. Took an Alaska cruise this year, but might just as well have gone to Disney World, for all we learned about the place; the Park Service video in Skagway was the most informative thing about the entire trip! Write more books – further my education!
Thanks, Anne!
Loving the books! Heard about you via Mudflats and have been enjoying the series (in order–thanks, Amazon.com!) this summer. Nice to read about cold when it’s 100 degrees daily here in TX!
Who is the Shugak cited at the bottom of the epitaph on the headstone at the end of Singing of the Dead?
Thanks for great writing!
Dear Dana,
I’m one of your new fans. I’ve been reading Kate’s adventures all the summer and I’m in love with her, her family and friends, and with Alaska.
I just finished “Hunter’s Moon” and “Midnight come again”. (I read both in two days!) I don’t remember the last time I’ve cried with a book… and here I am, still cleaning my nose and drying my tears. LOL
You ask us, the readers, for ideas, but I can’t really think of something specific. I trust in you being able to give us excellent stories. Just thank you for such a great writing.
From the lone star state,
Carolina
Thank you, Carolina.
The first of your books I read was A Deeper Sleep and I loved it. Now I’ve been scouring bookstores and websites, trying to find all the Kate Shugak novels!
I just recently finished Whisper to the Blood. Great work! I wonder if Jim will ever get Kate pregnant with all that intense love-making..? Haha, anyway, excellent work, I really love your books and Kate Shugak is an awesome character! I just love her personality. Yay for tough women! 
Glad you’re enjoying them so much, Chelsea, and thanks!
I’m a new Shugak fan, and I’m just finishing “Hunter’s Moon.” I am terribly upset over Jack’s death! Is Kate to have no one of her own? First her parents, then Abel, then Emaa, now Jack? She loses everyone it seems. Will someone better come into her life? I am anxious to read more to see.
And I am happy that you are anxious. Thanks, Elizabeth.
On your website you list all the Kate novels, and include the short story ‘Conspiracy’ in that list. I’ve also read the short story ‘Nooses Give’ in ‘The Mysterious West’ collection. Why isn’t ‘Nooses Give’ listed on your website? Any other short stories out there? [Can't figure out how to underline or use italics here.]
You’re right, Laurel, I should list the short stories. Give me a couple of days…
Just read your announcement about the TV series. This is spooky because a few nights ago while I was doing the dishes I had a thought that Julia Ormond would make a great Kate. I guess I was remembering Smilla’s Sense of Snow.
Anyway, congratulations, but you have a lot of work ahead of you.
Please Dana, I hope Evergreen Productions will try to have a Native Alaskan or Native American actress play the role of Kate in the upcoming tv series. Congratulations are in order for everyone. Thank you for filming in Alaska for many reasons. I am going to re-read from the first one, as believe me I always enjoyed and had ideas on your books. Now my kids are old enough to share them. Guess Dangerous Catch, Alaska Tough(?) on Discovery and Palin’s run made the timing perfect to get tv/film off the drawing board. Keep the blog active and will catch ya later. Interior family.
Hi Dana,
Is there any chance that Irene Bedard is still on board or still interested in playing Kate? We talked about that several years ago when you were at Kate’s Mystery Books in Cambridge, MA. I’d been hoping that if your Kate ever made it to the big (or little) screen that Irene or someone like her would be playing the part.
If Evergreen is going to film in AK, I’m sure they can find some local talent up there. Someone else who comes to mind is Jennifer Podemski. She’s Canadian, but her personality reminds me of Kate. Good luck with the project. I can’t wait to see it come to life.
Dana, PLEASE hold out for filming the Kate Shugak series in Alaska! If Stephen King can contract to have at least a certain percentage of movies based on his books filmed in Maine, you should be able to make the same requirement for Kate. It just wouldn’t be right to have her and Mutt hiking around state other than Alaska. I don’t watch much TV, but I would definitely watch this show. Good luck!
Teresa in Maine
You should get more Kate Shugak books available for the nook eReader. You’ve got a bunch for Kindle but not as many for nook I believe.
I’m a new Kate Shugak fan, and loving every book. I started with the first and working on the 7th. I have been to Alaska twice and your books makes me want to go back. Every book I learn somthing! I’m dreading to read the last book because I don’t want it to end. I read a lot of mystery series and a lot of good ones, but Kate has grabbed hold and won’t let go. Thank you!
Tracy
From Colwich Kansas
No, thank you, Tracy. What a compliment!