Let’s take a minute here from the fun of my eye (this is fun? Really?) and talk about books, shall we?

Well, the heck with you, because I want to, and this is my blog and website. And besides, it’s always super to talk about friends who are being recognized for putting in the hard work and releasing books that get noticed and nominated for awards.

The nominations were announced for the Agathas, given out yearly by the Malice Domestic conference. This is big stuff, folks. From the press release: Those commendations honor “traditional mysteries,” meaning “books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie as well as others.”

Not exactly small stuff, huh?

I’ll let you use that press release to see the full list of nominees, but I wanted to take a minute to congratulate in particular, my longtime real-life friend Annette Dashofy, who is going up against another longtime buddy, Hank Phillippi Ryan in the Best Contemporary Novel category. (among others, but those are the two I want to single out.)

I recognize a lot of other names, folks I’ve brushed shoulders with and had engaged in passing conversations (and that’s not the non sequitur it seems to be). Names who I’ll pick up when I am in need of a good, solid read. Rhys Bowen, for one.

And names I recognize (Laurie R King) but have yet to crack the spines of. (sorry! It’s not personal!)

In the short story category is Edith Maxwell, another writing buddy.

This is company I’m proud to keep. Why not pick up some of their books — or stories — and join the fun. Like what you read? A few words of review at GoodReads or your favorite retailer (there’s more than one!) is always appreciated.

And if you have friends elsewhere on the Agatha list, or you’re inspired to pick up a book by one of the authors on the list, let me know. I’m always glad to make a long TBR mountain range even longer.

Support those doing the hard work, pushing themselves to excellence. It lifts the entire literary community.

According to last week’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, today is WPTS-FM day in the city of Pittsburgh.

Join me in the celebration, will ya?

I didn’t get my college radio start at PTS, but I sure blossomed there. I took an hour and a half of weekly heavy metal programming and turned it, at its peak, into 11 hours a week. I interviewed bands, went to shows, built a staff, networked my way into what I thought I wanted: a career in the music biz.

You guys know how that ended. I walked away from the biz…but keep writing about it. The seed had been planted before PTS, sure, but up in the Pitt Student Union (fourth floor), it grew. And grew.

So… celebrate with me today. PTS was seminal in my quest for self-discovery, the place that was my home during the years I lived in the (ahem) residence halls. I met true goths and women who took over the role of promotions director, ordered a bunch of WPTS-branded rubbers, and had all the musicians she met sign them. I wonder if she still has Chris Cornell’s. I met groupies and promoters and journalists and had my face splashed across the front cover of the Pitt News. I met the guy who told me I should forget about going to New York and working at a label ’cause I’m better as the big fish in a small pond, not as a small fish in a big pond.

Ahh, the tales I could tell. We’d be here for days, weeks, months. And you’d all laugh and say yeah, that sounds exactly like me. You can see it in the Trevolution writings.

Congratulations, PTS. I still miss you — and this alum is proud as hell that you’ve been named one of the top five stations in mtvu’s ranking of the nation’s college radio station. I’d like to think I played a small part in that. Who knows? Maybe my legacy lives on over there.

I’ll have to stop in and see.