Ken Bruen; HELP

From Tom Piccirilli:
Hey Ed:

Got to hand it to the Craig Ferguson show. He's had on a number of writers, including Lawrence Block. Last night Ken Bruen was on promoting PRIEST and he kicked major ass. Cool, humorous, witty, and swift enough to keep up with Ferguson, who is one seriously hopped up guy. Bruen talked about a blurb he got from the Hell's Angels which was, of course, bleeped out. And there were times when he reverted to Irish lingo and Ferguson had to "translate" for him. Bruen mentioned, "Oh, you speak American!"

It's always great when somebody's actually out there promoting the damn fine writers.

Tom
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On Galleycat today Sarah Wineman spoke with science fiction writer Walter Jon Williams about his theory that one thing you need to break out the midlist is--help.

"What has to happen, it seems to me, is that I need a certifiably famous person to say that I should be more famous and popular than I am. Elmore Leonard was a fairly obscure writer until George Will wrote an entire column about how good Elmore Leonard was. Then Leonard became famous, and book and movie deals descended like unto manna from heaven... Does anybody out there know a truly famous person who could be persuaded to tell everyone that I should be famous, too?"
The analogy isn't perfect—attention from Will and others thrust Leonard back into the spotlight in the mid-1980s, but he'd had some success with Hollywood in the late '50s and early '70s—but the basic principle is reasonably sound, as the contemporary example of Stephen King's enthusiasm for Ron McLarty and Meg Gardiner demonstrates. So far, Williams hasn't been able to get that kind of nod, although fellow science-fiction writer Lawrence M. Schoen did quip in the comments, "Among a subset of Trek and Klingon fans I have a small amount of name recognition. I know it's not much, but I routinely push your titles to the Klingon-speaking community and I'll happily continue to do so." Qapla' batlh je, sir!

Ed: While I'm in general agreement with Williams, I've been unable to play that 5000 word piece that Charles Manson wrote about my work. When even Hustler turns you down, there ain't much hope. And who's more famous than Charles Manson?