Lisa Brackmann & Tim Hallinan: Lit Salon, August 7

Literary Salon: August 7, 7 p.m. Berkeley, CA. Make a comment below for more info and to RSVP.

Lisa Brackmann has worked as an executive at a major motion picture studio, an issues researcher in a presidential campaign, and was the singer/songwriter/bassist in an LA rock band. Her debut novel, ROCK PAPER TIGER, set on the fringes of the Chinese art world, made several “Best of 2010″ lists, including Amazon’s Top 100 Novels and Top 10 Mystery/Thrillers, and was nominated for the Strand Magazine Critics Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel, GETAWAY, won the Los Angeles Book Festival Grand Prize and was nominated for the T. Jefferson Parker SCIBA award. Her third novel, HOUR OF THE RAT, “a light-hearted romp through environmental apocalypse,” features the return of ROCK PAPER TIGER’s Ellie McEnroe and a few other old friends (foes?) from ROCK PAPER TIGER.

Timothy Hallinan is the author of three fabulous series: the P.I. Poke Rafferty Thrillers, set in Thailand, the Simeon Grist mysteries, set in Los Angeles, and the Junior Bender comic mysteries, featuring a burglar who works as an investigator for other crooks. Hallinan, who has lived, on and off, in Southeast Asia for more than 25 years, began writing books while enjoying a successful career in the television industry. He wrote songs and sang in a rock band while in college, and many of his songs were recorded by by well-known artists, including the platinum-selling group Bread. For years he has taught a course on “Finishing the Novel” with great results—more than half his students complete their first novel and go on to a second, and several have been, or are about to be, published. Tim currently maintains a house in Santa Monica, California, and apartments in Bangkok, Thailand; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.