Features: September 2010 Archives
If the soul of a volunteer is golden, then Karen Dionne is worth millions. Simply stated, you'd have to look hard to find a more dedicated and hardworking author who is more generous with her time.
Not everyone featured in ITW's Between the Lines interview needs to be a megastar. Karen doesn't have millions of books in print and her work has been translated into just two, and not dozens of languages. She's a charter ITW Debut Author--class of 2008-2009. But her debut status is about to change. Her second environmental thriller from Berkley, BOILING POINT, will publish in January 2011.
I met Karen in person at the first annual ITW Debut Author's party held during ThrillerFest at Pershing Square Restaurant across from Grand Central Station. Being the kindhearted volunteer she is, Karen helped set up the event. We pulled a bunch of tables together and formed a long gauntlet of hungry, lighthearted, and green authors who shared a truly memorable moment in time. Rip Gerber played the ukulele while we all sang a tribute to then Debut Author leader C.J. Lyons to the tune of "YMCA." "C-J-Ly-ons..." And yes, our singing was pretty hard on the ears, but I'm happy to say no heads of cabbage were thrown at us.
During our first year of the Debut Author's program, we'd all been sharing our experiences--the good, bad, and the ugly--inside the online forum, but seeing Karen meeting everyone in person brought a smile. Hugs were exchanged and the gathering soon had the feel of a family reunion. In many ways, we are family. Lifelong friendships were forged that night.
Karen is now managing editor of The Big Thrill, and because of that, she was reluctant to be featured in a Between the Lines interview. But I have a different take on it. She's more than earned it! As you read her interview, you'll see the depth of her commitment to the ITW organization. So thank you, Karen! You don't hear those words enough.
Seth Harwood spotlights a character from his other novel, Jack Wakes Up, in his latest, Young Junius. He talked to ITW about his new novel and how the Internet helped him with his career.
Why write and why teach writing?
Why write? I'd probably stop if I could. But I can't. Fact is, I love it and I think this is the best thing I'm geared to do. Teaching is great because it gets me out and around folks, I love my students, and it pays better than probably any other part-time job I could get. It gives me the ability to structure my own time and the schedule to write.
What sparked the idea for Young Junius?
After writing and podcasting Jack Wakes Up (Three Rivers Press, 2009), a lot of my online fans were calling for more about one of the secondary characters, Junius Ponds. I'd been falling in love madly with The Wire around that time and a lot of my fiction before Jack Wakes Up had been based in Boston and Cambridge (MA). So I got the idea to do an origin story for Junius Ponds, set in Cambridge in the late 80s, around the time I was growing up there and in a period I know well. I guess that part of my life has always interested me, as far as my fiction is concerned.
Reed Farrel Coleman didn't want to write--he had to write. "When you grow up in a household of people who scream, eventually nobody hears anything. As a kid, I searched for a voice to be heard." Through the inspiration and encouragement of Mr. Isaacs, his seventh grade teacher, Coleman found it in poetry. And that sustained him until fate, or more accurately the scheduler of night classes at Brooklyn College, intervened.
"I had a very good job working as a freight forwarder. Basically, I was a travel agent for inanimate objects," Coleman explained. "Poetry had taken me about as far as I was going to go. So, I decided to take a night class. There was one class that fit my schedule--American Detective Fiction."
That was fourteen novels ago. In October 2010, the decorated author and former executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America, launches his fifteenth novel, Innocent Monster, which is the sixth in his Moe Prager series.
by Gary Corby
Back in 461BC, in a city called Athens, the people decided that they could do a better job of running things than any group of privileged wealthy. So they started a system where everyone got a vote. It was the world's first democracy, and at that moment, western civilization began.
There are other dates you could argue for, but it's hard to go past this one: a sovereign state with one man one vote, free speech for every citizen, written laws and equality before the law, with open courts and trial by jury.
It all sounds terribly modern, doesn't it? That's because our civilization is based on this one crucial moment in history. This is the period we know today as the Golden Age of Athens, fifty years of astounding invention.
In the 80's and 90's, Gary Alexander wrote a bunch (eight, to be exact) of successful and well-received detective novels published by top name houses like St. Martin's and Doubleday. Things change, and his protagonists Bamsan Kiet, a police chief in the fictional Southeast Asian country of Luong, and Luis Balam, a shop keeper cum tourist guide cum private investigator in Cancun, gave way to such a whole new genre, hard-boiled female PI's such as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone and Sara Peretsky's V.I. Warshawsky. Short of a sex-change operation, Bamsan and Luis were out of luck.
Now Gary's back, with as improbable a protagonist as I can remember - a stand-up comedian who gets himself entangled in the just-as-improbable career of his neighbor - virtual mob hits. Now picture this, you're a mob hit man, a profession more precarious than an epileptic tight-rope walker. Pays well, but I'm guessing the health care benefits are expensive. So maybe it needs to pay better. And then there is the messy factor. Dead bodies, midnight runs to the incinerator, blood back splatter if you're standing too close. The dry-cleaning bill alone must be outrageous.
So, what does he do? He doesn't actually kill them, just offers them the chance to disappear into a new life. For a fee, of course. Sort of a witless protection program. But it works for a while, but then the dead start to rise and Ted Snowe, the non-hit man, has, in the immortal words of Desi Arnaz, some 'splainin' to do.
Medallion Press publishes Desperate Souls, the second volume in my horror thriller series "The Jake Helman Files," as a trade paperback on October 15th. The series began with Jake Helman's origin story, Personal Demons, which won the IPPY Gold Medal for Horror, and continues with Cosmic Forces in 2010 and Tortured Spirits in 2012. Audible.com recently acquired the audio book rights to both Personal Demons and Desperate Souls. I've plotted a total of six novels in the series, but hope to continue writing Jake Helman chillers for a long time to come. This project started for me two decades ago.
I'm not just a novelist, I'm also a filmmaker, best known for my 1988 cult horror film SLIME CITY, which has been released several times on VHS and DVD, and its new sequel, SLIME CITY MASSACRE, which is currently playing at horror conventions and film festivals around the country. My films and novels are very different; the films are meant to be fun and goofy, almost campy, while my novels enable me to eschew budgetary restrictions and tell big stories with large scale action sequences. Novels also allow me to get deeper into my characters' heads, so my goal is always to achieve a deeper emotional resonance.
Anthony E. Zuiker is known to millions of fans as the creator of the CSI franchise. His show and its wildly successful spin-offs, CSI Miami and CSI New York, have won six Emmys and a host of other national and international awards and have a worldwide audience estimated at more than 75 million viewers. The show has spawned a generation of imitators, revived and recast the police procedural and become a brand recognized around the world.
Anthony Zuiker recently took time to tell us about his latest endeavor, a series of thrillers he's developed with the help of veteran crime writer and ITW member Duane Swierczynski, author of the hit novels The Blonde, Severance Package, and this year's standout, Expiration Date.
The books are a new form Anthony calls digi-novels, which read like traditional novels but offer readers enhanced content such as online communities, IPhone apps and codes that can be entered online to reveal harrowing filmed episodes. The first, Level 26: Dark Origins, was an international bestseller, and the follow up, Level 26: Dark Prophecy is out October 14th from Dutton.
It's now been four years since we've shared an adventure with Tess Chaykin and Sean Reilly, but they're back for a triumphant return in The Templar Salvation, a new adventure that has been described as "every bit as nail-biting, cinematic, and thought-provoking as its predecessor."
Constantinople, 1203: As the rapacious armies of the Fourth Crusade lay siege to the city, a secretive band of Templars infiltrate the imperial library. Their target: a cache of documents that must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Doge of Venice. They escape with three heavy chests, filled with explosive secrets that these men will not live long enough to learn.
Award-winning author Weyman Jones took a roundabout route to writing thrillers, as many of us do. After serving in the Navy, he worked in corporate communications for years. He began writing fiction for magazines and published three books for young readers, including The Edge of Two Worlds, which won the Lewis Carroll Shelf and the Western Heritage Awards and was selected as one of the best books of the year by both the School Library Journal and Book World. His thrillers include The Doublooner, Broken Glass, The Unexpected and the newly released Messages. I chatted recently with Weyman Jones about Messages and his writing process.
Tell us about Messages and why it's such an interesting read.
A thriller introduces us to interesting people doing exciting things. Messages also raises some questions about animal rights and other ethical issues. But the most important thing is what happens inside the characters' heads. If I can make you understand why a character or two behave as they do, you'll begin to care about what happens to them. Then I've got you.
Joanna Wayne's bestselling novels have been praised for being "on the cutting edge of romantic suspense" and have gained her many male as well as female readers. She has published more than 40 books since her debut novel in 1994. Born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, she attended her first writing class after marrying and moving to New Orleans. Joanna now lives in a small community near Houston, Texas, and has set her latest series in that part of the country. Cowboy Swagger was released in September. The second book in the series, Genuine Cowboy, comes out in December, followed by OK Cowboy next March. Joanna recently talked about her work in an interview.
Tell us about your new series.
Joanna Wayne: Cowboy Swagger introduces the 5-book Sons of Troy Ledger series. The setting is the fictional town of Mustang Run in the Texas Hill Country. The series centers around the character of Troy Ledger, a rancher wrongly convicted of killing his wife eighteen years before the series opens. In Cowboy Swagger, Troy has been released from prison on a technicality. He returns to the ranch obsessed with finding his wife's killer and hopeful of reuniting with his sons. But the years in prison have hardened Troy and made him suspicious and edgy, a man to be reckoned with. Each book will feature one of the five sons in a mystery and romance of their own, each connected and each moving Troy closer to finding the real killer of his wife.
Recently, I sat down with M.E. Harrigan, author of 9800 Savage Road.
You've received wonderful reviews for 9800 Savage Road, your first novel. General Michael Hayden, who was Director of the NSA from 1995-2005 says you "put a human face on one of America's most secret--and most valuable--intelligence organizations." How did the book come about, and were you surprised at the very positive reviews from your colleagues?
I actually wrote the book to honor the memory of my father, a newspaper editor who taught me the value and wonder of words. The subject I knew most about was NSA, so that's what a decided to write about. I was thrilled to receive such a glowing review from General Hayden--and Nelson DeMille and all the others.
I noticed that you've worked for the NSA in a variety of positions, including Somali linguist, technical editor, missile system analyst and manager of Elite engineers and projects. How does your own work experience at NSA compare with that of Alexandra O'Malley, your protagonist?
Recently I sat down with Allison Leotta to discuss her debut legal thriller, Law of Attraction.
Please tell us a bit about your novel.
I'm a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., specializing in sex crimes and domestic violence. "Law of Attraction" is about - surprise! - a federal prosecutor in D.C. specializing in sex crimes and domestic violence. The book is part courtroom drama, part love story, and part murder mystery. My heroine investigates a mysogynistic killer, while her own boyfriend, a public defender, represents the accused. As her love life collides with her professional life, she learns she may be just as vulnerable as the victims she works to protect.
In writing Law of Attraction, I tried to create the type of story I like to read myself: a fast-paced tale of crime and punishment, infused with authentic detail, which will give the reader an inside glimpse into how our criminal justice system really handles the most intimate crimes.
A parent's worst fear is at the heart of this harrowing debut thriller by Antoinette van Heugten. When single mother Danielle Parkman learns that her autistic teenager, Max, is accused of murder while confined to a psychiatric hospital for assessment, Danielle is forced to find the killer in order to absolve her son. Although she knows first hand about her son's violent writings and drawings and she's nursed more than a few bruises from his outbursts, she believes in her heart that he's incapable of murder. But as the pressures of investigating mount, including her own arrest as an accessory, and a killer who wants her to back off, Danielle is forced to reexamine what it means to be a mother and what lengths she'll go to in order to save Max.
I caught up with this busy attorney from Texas, who is the mother and step-mother of three children, two of whom are autistic, to talk about her very first thriller:
Obviously, you know of whence you speak when it comes to autistic children. Did you have to do any research at all to write parts of the book?
From the delightful mysteries of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series to the brooding love affair of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga, vampires have taken over the literary world in recent years, especially the young adult market. Why do these creatures fascinate us? Is the fangs? The immortality? The youth? And where did it all begin?
As a writer of vampire novels, I've often pondered these questions and know they're probably best left to the realm of scholars. However, I do enjoy discussing the topic with fellow writers and I recently had an opportunity to do just that, as well as ferret out some details on her new novel, iDrakula, with my good friend Bekka Black, aka Rebecca Cantrell.
Hey, Bekka. I'm glad you could take time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions. I'm really excited about your new book. iDrakula is a re-imagining of the classic Bram Stoker novel, Dracula, and is written using e-mails, text messages, web browsers, and search screens. How did the idea for retelling Stoker's tale through these modern forms of communication begin?
I was in a LA on my book tour for my novel, A Trace of Smoke, when I noticed tables of teenagers sitting silently next to each other. Intrigued, I asked one teen what they were doing. He rolled his eyes, but did look up at me long enough to say, "I'm texting her." He jerked his head to the side. I looked at him in shock and said, "But she's right next to you." He gave me that pitying look I used to give adults and went back to his work.
by Sandra Balzo
"A mime is a terrible thing to waste. But damned if we shouldn't take a machine gun to this one." --Sarah Kingston in A Cup of Jo
Okay, I admit it. It's a line I've been dying to use for years and my newest book, A CUP OF JO, finally gave me the chance. And as the opening, no less.
Not that I have anything against mimes. In fact . . . oh, hell --f course I hate mimes. Who doesn't? And clowns . . .
But I digress.
A Cup of Jo is the sixth book in my Maggy Thorsen Mystery Series. The books revolve around "Uncommon Grounds," a gourmet coffeehouse serving the fictional Brookhills, Wisconsin. In the first book, one of the partners financing Maggy's new coffee venture is found dead in a pool of skim milk, having been electrocuted by the espresso machine's frothing wand. (I'd have included a spoiler warning, but is there another way to kill by espresso machine?)
By book six, Maggy has lost yet another partner -- this time to natural attrition -- as well as the store itself. A freak May snowstorm literally "razed" the roof of the strip mall where the original Uncommon Grounds stood.
With over 50 original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA Today bestselling author with more than six million copies sold. This fall, she is releasing four new titles in four consecutive months: The First Wife (Sept 2010), The Second Lie (Oct 2010), The Third Secret (Nov 2010), and The Fourth Victim (Dec 2010). Tara was pleased to share some of this experience with The Big Thrill.
Hi, Tara. Can you tell us about The Second Lie?
The Second Lie is the story of mid-America small town life. It's a story that is larger than life, but gripped in realism. It's the second book in The Chapman Files, a series of books centered around expert witness psychologist, Kelly Chapman. Each of the Chapman Files is one of her cases. The Second Lie is more than a case to Kelly. It involves one of her clients, fourteen-year-old Maggie Winston, who Kelly fears is on the verge of a relationship with a possible pedophile. And it involves a woman Kelly grew up with, Sheriff's Deputy Samantha Jones. The Second Lie involves Kelly's hometown, Chandler, Ohio. Samantha suspects that someone is running a meth superlab in Chandler. Samantha's peers think she's lost her edge. Samantha believes that there's a connection between Maggie's activities, the meth lab, and the man Samantha is sleeping with. Kelly hopes her friend is wrong. But one thing is clear... someone in Chandler is lying.
Author Alan Jacobson has written a new thriller in his popular Karen Vail series. Beginning with The Seventh Victim and continuing through its follow up Crush, the series features Vail, a rough and ready FBI profiler who has battled everything from serial killers to her own personal demons. Now she is back in Velocity, a novel which Library Journal calls "....essential for anyone who craves nonstop action, danger, and a gutsy heroine."
A new killer is on the loose, seemingly related to the one she encountered in Crush. But this killer turns out to be like quicksand, pulling her deeper into a world she's never before experienced...forcing her to face off against foes more dangerous than any she's ever encountered.
Those looking for more can rest easy. Mr. Jacobson doesn't disappoint.
There is a truly wonderful feeling that all serious readers know. The discovery of a new author. And better still is the discovery that somehow, up till now, this author has escaped your attention and he or she has a few books all ready and waiting for you. I love this feeling and my eyes light up when I see the list of the books I can add to my 'must have' list. There is, of course, a downside as well. My list is very long at this time and author John Lutz isn't helping me either. He has a seriously impressive 42 other books, and far too many short stories to even begin to count, that have just been added to my list. Oh well, I wasn't doing anything for the next year anyway.
Of course many of you will wonder how such a prolific author can have escaped my attention. Good question. Especially when you consider John Lutz has received an Edgar Award and the Shamus Award twice, and his novel Single White Female was the basis for the 1992 film starring Bridget Fonda. Well, somehow, it did escape my notice, but no longer. John sent me the proof of his latest work and I put it straight onto my Kindle and began reading. My plans for the day went to hell and I spent the day reading.
Ben Coe's powerful debut thriller, Power Down, imagines a series of tightly constructed attacks on America's energy-producing capacity. Under the direction of the brutal and brilliant Alexander Fortuna, terrorists manage to blow up a major hydroelectric dam. But when they target the mammoth Capitana platform off the coast of Colombia--slaughtering most of the crew and destroying the oil field--they encounter a formidable challenge to their campaign of terror. As crew chief of the platform, Dewey Andreas survives the attack, overcomes the terrorist team, and rescues as many of his men as possible. Drawing upon his long-dormant training as a soldier, Andreas begins a one-man battle against terrorists and operatives as he races to stop them before they can execute the next stage of increasingly deadly assaults.
Several first-rank thriller writers have praised Coes and Power Down. Stephen Coonts calls it "A ripping thriller from an exciting new novelist....Lots of action, a terrific hero, and a slimy villain--thrillers don't get any better," and Vince Flynn writes, "Power Down is terrific! With a gripping story, compelling characters, a relentless pace and nerve-wracking suspense, Power Down is one of the must-read thrillers of the year."
Fans of Jeff Sherratt's mystery series have come to expect certain things from his novels. Jimmy O'Brien books are clever, gripping, and addictive. Known for their multi-layered suspense, Sherratt's novels immerse the reader in the politics, society, and industry of Los Angeles in the 1970s, all the while maintaining a style more reminiscent of 1940s who-dunnit narratives than anything else. They're classy, surprising, and endearing - in a murder mystery kind of way.
Sherratt's newest book, Detour to Murder, is all of this and more. When Jimmy O'Brien goes to represent a man accused of murder some thirty years before, the parole hearing doesn't go as planned. How can it, when the man who once confessed to the crime now claims his innocence? So starts a rollicking edge-of-your-seat investigation into a cold case come frightfully alive. O'Brien's search takes him from a run-down Hollywood motel to a luxurious Santa Barbara estate, from the cells of a Los Angeles prison to the ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire. Several characters are recognizable, from obscure film icons to political figures. There's a surprise of one kind or another on nearly every page.
Recently I had the opportunity to interview JT Ellison, the best-selling author of the Taylor Jackson series and Nashville Scene's "Best Mystery/Thriller Writer of 2008" about her new novel The Immortals. JT is also a columnist at the Anthony Award nominated blog Murderati and a member of several professional writing organizations, including International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America and Romance Writers of America. You can follow JT on Twitter under the name @Thrillerchick, visit JT at her Facebook community or get more information at www.jtellison.com.
Prior to your writing career, you've worked as a White House staffer and as a financial director and marketing analyst for several defense and aerospace contractors. What made you make the jump into the world of mysteries and thrillers?
A move, an inability to find a job, and a stray cat. We moved to Tennessee in late 1998, and there weren't a lot of jobs in my field. To get out of the house, I went to work for the vet that saved my 5-week-old adopted pound cat from being put down. On the third day I picked up a Golden retriever and ruptured a disc in my back, had to have surgery, and while recovering, discovered the books of John Sandford. I was three books into the Prey series when I realized I wanted to try it for myself. I've always been interested in crime and forensics, so it was a natural extension of my interests at the time.
Hilary Davidson smiles like an angel, but she broke into fiction with short stories that are as dark and twisted as they come. After being published in e-zines like Thuglit, Beat to a Pulp, and Crimefactory, she finally fulfilled her lifelong dream and wrote her first full-length crime novel. The Damage Done, called a "razor-sharp debut" by Publishers Weekly, features Lily Moore, a travel writer determined to resolve the disappearance of her troubled sister.
"I don't have a sister," Davidson says, "but this story springs from wanting one and being jealous of people who have those tightly bonded relationships." Davidson does fully identify with her character's profession--the life of travel writer. Before turning to fiction, she wrote 17 travel guidebooks for Frommer's and had nonfiction features published in magazines such as Martha Stewart Weddings, Executive Travel, and American Archaeology. Davidson also published numerous short stories and won the 2010 Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story for Insatiable.
New York Times bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn writes urban fantasy for Berkley--both the bestselling Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon Series for Berkley and the upcoming Indigo Court urban fantasy series. According to Romantic Times Magazine, "Galenorn's thrilling supernatural series is gritty and dangerous, but it's the tumultuous relationships between all the various characters that give it depth and heart. Vivid, sexy and mesmerizing..."
Recently, The Big Thrill contributing editor, Christine Goff, was filled in by Delilah D'Artigo on what Harvest Hunting is all about.
"We're the D'Artigo sisters: sexy, savvy operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But being half-human, half-Fae means our supernatural talents can go haywire at any time. My sister Camille is a wicked good witch whose life recently took a drastic turn. Menolly's a vampire who's still getting the hang of being undead. And me? I'm a werecat with a very interesting love life. But life isn't all fun and games. We're on the trail of the demon general who has decided that we've become quite a nuisance...
Bestselling thriller author Steve Alten has his own remarkable personal journey to tell. Signed to a first-contract mega-deal for his novel MEG, which was promptly sold to Disney as a blockbuster movie in the making, Alten seemed to be living the dream of all aspiring authors. Indeed, MEG hit the bestseller lists all over the world, and spawned a number of sequels. But the movie became caught up in Hollywood "development hell," and Alten's relationship with his first publisher soured after it was bought by another company.
Still, he persevered, continuing to build his fan base with his trademark blend of well-researched, high-octane thrillers and founding his well-known Adopt an Author Program to encourage teen literacy--until four years ago, when a tragedy of another kind struck: a doctor diagnosed him with Parkinson's disease.
Rather than allowing this news to destroy his confidence, Alten described the diagnosis as one of life's "speed bumps," and began writing his newest thriller, GRIM REAPER: END OF DAYS, which he describes as his best novel, and into which he poured much of his own struggles and triumphs.
The Gentleman Poet: A Novel of Love, Danger, and Shakespeare's "The Tempest" by multi-published author Kathryn Johnson has garnered rave reviews:
"The Gentleman Poet is the best kind of historical novel--well researched, beautifully written, and wildly entertaining." Daniel Stashower, Author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl
"A marvelously original story that combines history, adventure...a rich atmospheric tale." Mary Jo Putney, NY Times best-selling author
Recently, I talked with Kathryn about her new novel.
As a Shakespeare fan myself, I love the premise of your book, tell us how you came up with this intriguing premise and what inspired you to write The Gentleman Poet: A Novel of Love, Danger, and Shakespeare's "The Tempest".
Who is the man with the infectious smile, charming personality, and overflowing generosity? The answer can be found within ourselves. Ridley Pearson represents the best humanity has to offer. His love of life and the intricate balance it seeks is plainly evident in the stories he crafts.
Although he's quite modest about it, Ridley Pearson is a household name in more than 70 countries. With over 12 million copies sold worldwide, his 38-plus books have been translated into 22 languages.
Ridley's novels resonate with his readers because there's passion behind the words. Simply stated, he loves to tell stories. If he'd lived 15,000 years ago, he would've been the hunter sitting at the campfire recalling the day's hunt to a captive audience.
Not many authors can take credit for helping the police solve a real-life homicide case. Ridley's research for UNDERCURRENTS (1988) did just that. Since then, Ridley has contributed to active police task force investigations on both the city and federal level. His knowledge and understanding of police procedures adds realism and true-to-life color to his novels. If he hadn't become an author, I think it's fair to say Ridley would've made a great detective.
I have a very unusual relationship with the events of 9/11.
You see our house is one of the very few where we actually celebrate when that date falls, because that was the day our daughter was born. Our first girl and second child. September 11 2001.
Yes, that day.
It so happened that we were in Fiji at the time and so approximately 16 hours ahead of New York, but it nonetheless colours everything that happens in our household in the lead-in to that momentous day.
If you've ever had a young daughter, granddaughter or niece you'll know that it is flatout impossible to try to get them to see a particular day, their birthday, as anything other than an opportunity to scream, hyperventilate, screech, bounce off the walls, and generally dominate proceedings.
From The International Thriller Writers:
