Allan Duffin - Writer/Producer

History in Blue: 160 Years of Women Police, Sheriffs, Detectives, and State Troopers

Here's the first mention of my new book! It has a new title: History in Blue: 160 Years of Women Police, Sheriffs, Detectives, and State Troopers. The publisher is Kaplan, a division of the Washington Post Company. Simon & Schuster is the distributor. Publication date is February 2, 2010. Here's some of the marketing copy:

Spanning 160 years, History in Blue is the first book to tell the riveting story of the uphill struggle for respect and recognition sustained by women in the modern police force. Featuring rare photographs and original interviews with pioneering female officers, this fascinating book chronicles the ongoing fight for equality in the world of law enforcement. In this vivid and remarkable history, Allan T. Duffin tells of the extraordinary women who broke down the barriers of gender so that they—and many generations of successors—could do the work they loved most.

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement through all of the steps in the process: pitching, researching, writing, editing, design, and now publication. More news as it happens.

Birthing a new book

My new book is in the galley stage -- I've just received the draft pages, which provide the first glimpse at what the actual book will look like.

If you haven't had the opportunity to see a labor of love go through the production process, let me tell ya, it's really an amazing experience. A small team of experts guide you through editing, design, marketing, and all of the other things that wind up with the bound pages peeking out at you from a shelf at the local bookstore (or the virtual shelf at an online merchant).

I have a lot of people to thank for making this happen, and I'll share some more as we head toward the publication date of February 2, 2010.

Handmade for Baby

If you're looking for new clothes for your munchkin, I'd like to introduce you to a friend's business, Handmade for Baby.

"Handmade for Baby" designs begin with the practical needs expressed by my friends and colleagues who are mothers to infants and toddlers. Add concepts based on images from my childhood, observations from nature and studies in childhood development. Then, using ecologically responsible and ethically produced materials, I produce the various pieces you see in this shop.

Custom orders can also be placed via this site.  So, if there's a piece with the right idea but you need it tweaked to suit the little one in your life, get in touch with me through Etsy and let's create something beautiful to welcome and nurture baby.

Anak takes a lot of care in everything she does, so give her online store a look. Thanks! Expanding her line, she'll be introducing doggie clothes in the near future.

The Baseballs

I wonder what Brian Setzer thinks of this? A German trio called The Baseballs takes current pop hits and rearranges them as rockabilly tunes. It's a lot of fun. Even songs I don't like in their original form become really enjoyable when The Baseballs take a crack at them.

Click here for their YouTube page -- try their version of Katy Perry's "Hot 'n' Cold." Meantime here's the video for their version of Rihanna's "Umbrella." I dare you not to bop along!

Adam Donshik in writer/director Scott Cervine's short film "Symbiotaxiplasm"

Great news! Actor Adam Donshik won the Best Actor award at the Elevate Film Festival held on October 5th at the Nokia Theatre here in Los Angeles. Adam appeared in writer/director Scott Cervine's terrific short film "Symbiotaxiplasm." (That's Scott's photo on the left, Adam on the right.)

You can view the film by going to Adam's website: www.donshik.com. Enjoy!

Here's a still from the film: Adam's character just bought a Prius, and he drives it to [SPOILER] and then [SPOILER]. (Just watch the film, okay?)

Bruce Campbell's new movie finally releases

After more than a year, Bruce Campbell's new indie feature, "My Name is Bruce," finally hits theaters this fall. And Bruce kicks off a national tour in October to screen the film and take questions from the audience. Color me so happy!

"My Name is Bruce" is the heroic struggle of a small mining town (Gold Lick, Oregon) to rid itself of a vengeful monster. Guan-di (Jamie Peck), the Chinese god of war and protector of the dead, has been unleashed by cemetery desecrating teenagers to protect the graves of Chinese miners lost in a deadly cave-in of yesteryear.

The deadly demon’s mission is to eradicate all those who transgressed against the tomb (relatives included), which is virtually the entire population of Gold Lick. The inbred community has to find a solution so Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), the sole survivor of a deadly Guan-Di encounter, takes it upon himself to kidnap his idol, Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell), star of countless B-movie horror films, and recruit him to be their local savior.

The tour schedule is available at Bruce's website. More Bruce Campbell news appears at Bruce Campbell News Central.

New book underway: Policewomen

I'm happy to announce that my second book is underway: Policewomen: A History in Blue (working title) is scheduled for publication in Fall 2009. Many thanks to my literary agent, Adina Khan at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, for guiding me through the process and for pitching it to publishers; and the editors at Kaplan Publishing, who liked the idea and bought the book.

Policewomen was pitched via a written proposal and a sample chapter — a concise package that explained how the book would be organized, who the audience would be, and other information for potential publishers to consider. Now I'm doing research and interviews to complete the rest of the book. By contrast, if you write fiction — a novel, for example — typically you have to complete the entire book before pitching, because an agent who's interested in it might ask to review a few pages all the way up to the full manuscript.

In Policewomen I'll cover the last 160 years of women serving in law enforcement in the United States. It's wonderful to see a book take shape, and I'm privileged to be writing it.

Daily Monsters everywhere!

A shout-out to Stefan Bucher, friend and graphic designer extraordinaire, who appears in the current edition of L.A. Weekly. Stefan's ongoing blog and book, The Daily Monster, have garnered a huge following. The plot is simple: draw a monster a day, record its creation, give it a backstory. Here's a clip from Gendy Alimurung's feature on Stefan:

For the past year, Bucher has videotaped himself drawing monsters. The videos, 199 of them, are archived on his Web site, dailymonster.com. This new toucan-beaked critter, Monster 200, is the last of the “daily” monsters for a while. They’ll be going on hiatus while Bucher develops their cousins into an animated TV segment for 2009’s rebooted Electric Company on PBS. His work is also collected in the book 100 Days of Monsters.

Here's a video of Stefan drawing Monster #200:

(From the L.A. Weekly. Photo by Linda Abbott)

Are boys for yelling at?

It's a refrigerator magnet and a t-shirt. You'll also see it on people's MySpace and Facebook pages, and a lot of other places. It's a picture of a pissed-off girl yelling at a really confused guy.

Of course, this is also applicable in the opposite direction, but I can't find any refrigerator magnets that say "Girls are for yelling at." But then, I don't know any guys who would want a magnet like that. Come to think of it, I don't know any guys who collect refrigerator magnets. We're just happy if the light comes on when we open the refrigerator door, because it's easier to find the leftovers that way.

Some writers believe that items like these are harmful to male-female relations. Here's a chunk of an editorial piece titled "Purchasing feminism: Girl power gone haywire," from the McGill University Tribune.

Yay to breeding cynicism in children. The Trendy Wendy and Angry Little Girls clothing lines encourage girls to be self-absorbed and valourize cruelty with slogans like "That's queen bitch to you" and "Boys are for yelling at." For especially irate lasses, Jim Benton's Just Plain Mean line features a little girl kicking the crotch of any boy who dares approach her. And of course, the "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them"-themed clothing continues to foster positive girl/guy vibes.

Personally, I find things like "Boys are for yelling at" to be funny. Nothing deeper than a fun phrase, just something to laugh about as you go about your day. You can even get a lunchbox with Jim Benton's drawing of a girl nailing a dude in the nuts, ouch. (See photo to the right.) While I wouldn't recommend giving this item to your six-year-old as she heads off to school, it's definitely an interesting conversation piece.

In a way, these products are therapeutic: There are times when we wish we could knee somebody in the groin, or scream at them at the top of our lungs. But when we can't (or don't want to) do such a thing, we can look at our magnet, t-shirt or lunchbox and know that we've still expressed our thoughts in some fashion. And in being able to laugh about it, we make the world a little better for all of us.

Thoughtful quotes on a Tuesday afternoon

Some thoughts about writing and reading:

The writing process: write, then rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite again.

Writing is, for most, laborious and slow. The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in his blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. Like other gunners, he must cultivate patience; he may have to work many covers to bring down one partridge. —from Strunk and White, The Elements of Style

While I love technology, I also love holding a printed and bound book in my hand. So while I spend a lot of time reading documents on a computer screen, there's still something special about cracking open a new book and flipping through its pages.

It is very unlikely that the computer will displace the books, except in areas where we need information speedily—for police purposes or technological or scientific purposes. The book, with its intimacy, its forcibility, its accessibility, its freedom from outside energy sources, its ability to reach into tyrannic countries, and be hidden under mattresses, and be smuggled in the false bottoms of suitcases—all these are great advantages. —Daniel J. Boorstin, as quoted in the Reader's Quotation Book edited by Steven Gilbar (Penguin, 1990)

And finally, some numbers:

Number of items checked out of public libraries daily in the United States: 3 million

Percentage of Americans who describe "barbeque" as the aroma that best defines America: 39

Projected average rush-hour speed in Los Angeles in 2025: 15.4 mph

—Peter Strupp