Hawvermale, Lance 1972–

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Hawvermale, Lance 1972–

(Erin O'Rourke)

PERSONAL:

Born 1972. Education: Northwestern Oklahoma State University, B.A., 1997; Fort Hays State University, M.A., 2008.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Lindstrom Literary Management, 871 N. Greenbrier St., Arlington, VA 22205. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and poet. Full-time volunteer with AmeriCorps program teaching language arts skills to the youth of the Otoe-Missouri tribe in Red Rock, OK. Has worked as an editor, a youth counselor, a college English instructor, and as a waiter. Also works as a writer, editor, and developer of role-playing games.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design fellowship. Numerous first-place awards from the Oklahoma Writers Federation (OWFI), including for feature writing and for poetry, 2005, for poetry book, short poetry, and sci-fi/fantasy, 2006, for mainstream novel, essay, and sci-fi/fantasy/ horror novel, 2007, and for best book of poetry and unrhymed short poetry, 2008.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

(As Erin O'Rourke) Seeing Pink, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2003.

(As Erin O'Rourke) Fugitive Shoes, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2006.

The Tongue Merchant, Five Star (Detroit, MI), 2008.

Credited as author of the role-playing games What Evil Lurks, Raise the Dead, A Lamentation of Thieves, The Bonegarden, Dead Man's Chest, Tower of Blood, and Elemental Moon.

SIDELIGHTS:

Erin O'Rourke is the pseudonym of Lance Hawvermale and the name he used for his first two thrillers, Seeing Pink and Fugitive Shoes. The author may have chosen a female-sounding pseudonym because the two novels' protagonists are groups of women who look for some type of justice in the world.

Seeing Pink takes place in Belle Springs, West Virginia, where five female friends seek to get out of their lives of abuse at the hands of men. When one of the women is hospitalized after being abused, the police treat her indifferently, almost as though she deserves to be abused. The incident leads Tamaryn Sola, Nin Ryan, Hannah Jessler, Lucy Campbell, and Jo Adams to stage a pink bathrobe rebellion, donning pink sheets as they try to right the wrongs in their town. Beginning with minor pranks that guarantee publicity for their campaign, the women keep their identities a secret as they increase their efforts that primarily target males. However, they end up accidentally killing the son of a U.S. senator. Hiding the body, the women nevertheless continue their crusade as the police come closer to finding the hidden corpse and the killers. "Deftly written, O'Rourke's debut is full of appealing characters and moments that sparkle with tenderness," wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Patty Engelmann noted in a Booklist review that the author "offers an interesting examination of human nature."

Fugitive Shoes features Sally Jasper, Dawn Marie Johnson, and Anne Obayashi. Store owner Sally is on her way to a warehouse in Tucson, Arizona to pick up a load of shoes for her store and asks her two married friends to come along. On the way back, Sally hits an illegal immigrant who runs in front of her truck. As they watch the man dying while they wait for help, they realize that he must have been running from someone. They soon learn of local vigilantes who have been harassing illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. They eventually learn from the local immigration officers that some people patrol the border on their own and sometimes mete out harsh punishments on the luckless immigrants. As a result, the women decide to help a Mexican family cross the border safely into the United States. In the process, they put themselves in danger with the vigilantes, who call themselves private border patrollers. Engelmann, writing in another Booklist review, noted that the author "pushes the envelope, taking the commonplace theme of women's friendships into dangerous territory."

Written under the author's birth name, Lance Hawvermale, The Tongue Merchant tells the story of Lieutenant Marcella Paraizo of the U.S. Coast Guard and her investigation into the murder of her deaf friend, Isabella "Bella" Murillo. Marcella is the executive officer on board the Coast Guard cutter Sentinel when the crew boards the Lady Lyn Rob, a yacht drifting aimlessly in the ocean. On board, Bella is found dead with her tongue cut out. As Marcella investigates, she alienates not only the police involved in the case but also her colleagues in the Coast Guard. Searching the West Indies and following various clues, Marcella has no lack of suspects in the murder of her wealthy friend, including Bella's husband, brother, and the trustees who run her late father's corporation, De Casals International. Because of the nature of the crime, Marcella also suspects more unusual suspects, including members of the violent Earth Liberation Front, known as ELF. In The Tongue Merchant, "Marcella is a terrific protagonist as she must know what happened to Bella in spite of risking her life and career," wrote Harriet Klausner in a review for the Genre Go Round Reviews Web site.