The Brass Ring

Grieving husband Alex Corlett stumbles on the drug-money laundering schemes of high-flying wine baron David Gilbért and his addiction to the underworld’s thrills.

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The Eunuch Of Shanghai

D.I. Hawkins and Agent Benelli re-deploy to Asia when an American family, massacred in Vietnam, is linked to the incriminating secrets of China's wealthiest family.

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The China Contract

The murder of a Nobel Prize candidate in New Zealand puts Detective Inspector Nigel Hawkins on a round-the-world chase, leading into the tortuous confines of the capitalist mind.

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The Killing of Chuy Muro

Eddie, just released from prison, takes us back to 1963, to his high school years and the wrenching events that shattered his life and that of Gene, his best friend and spiritual brother.

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A Proficiency in Billiards: Reflections On A Well-Traveled Life

"These recollections see directly into a California of the ‘60s and beyond, to the author’s travels around the world, and events that marked a generation." —Christopher Buckley, Professor, Creative Writing

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Lance Mason

Raised in rural California, Mason worked blue-collar jobs before studying at UCSB, Loyola (BSc), and UCLA (doctorate). He has held several teaching posts in the US, New Zealand, and Brazil, has presented at UCSB’s College of Creative Studies, and won a scholarship to the VCFA 2016 Postgraduate Writers Conference. His writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals, magazines, and professional journals, winning numerous awards as well as selection for The Best Travel Writing, Vol 11 (2016) and Sport Literate’s “Best of 2016.”

The Reader-Writer Interface

“What’s the purpose of writing?” I would have once said, The communicative event. That's too lofty a response, but it has some chewable material. The purpose of all sensibl

Finding Content

Travel is integral to many of my stories, and those journeys are rooted as much in my parents’ lives as my own. Lance E. Snr. joined the Navy in 1922, but changed to civilian work in 1946. A ...

Publications

In 2016, Sport Literate released A Proficiency in Billiards, a collection of a dozen of my travel memoirs and award-winning non-fiction. The following is a list of publishing credits, i.

Roots

Background Sketch The author was born and raised in rural California, earned his BSc at U.C. Santa Barbara and Loyola University, his graduate degree at UCLA, and has held teaching posts at UCLA, the

Novels by Lance Mason

Visit the PUBLICATIONS - Novels menu item for further details.

The China Contract

Entering his life’s defining chapter, Detective Inspector Nigel Hawkins is torn by the choice between freedom and obligation, between fearing his loss of devotion and the pain of reliving his mis...

The Eunuch Of Shanghai

Self-made billionaire Li Chenqing, China’s wealthiest and most ruthless industrialist, has died. At his funeral, his elder son Tian Wu discovers that decades before, during the Mao regime, ...

The Brass Ring

The Brass Ring explores the experiences of grief, despair, and resurrection, while spinning a yarn about the California wine world, cocaine, blackmail, and murder, from Napa Valley to Colombia, f...

The Killing Of Chuy Muro

The time is 1963 in the rural Southwest, and farmworkers’ civil rights are a flashpoint of social change. The place is Richland, a rural town on the California coast. Eddie is at work...

Latest Blog Posts by Lance

Notes, comment and thoughts on writing.

08
Aug

The Stress Test: Defining the Character

I've argued in previous posts that emotions always, regardless of circumstances, play a bigger role in everyone’s choices and actions then do reason, logic, or cognition. Yet it is not a human p...

DWS 0 Creative Writing

20
Jul

Great Endorsement for “A Proficiency in Billiards”

From Michael Konik, author, media genius: Like legions of other itinerant seekers, Lance Mason has backpacked and motorcyled the world, crossed the oceans on freighter ships, seen how the

Lance Mason 0 Fun Stuff

08
Jul

Stories: Where They Begin and How They End

Two common questions asked of writers are, "Where do your stories come from?" and, "Do you know the ending before you start?" For me, the answer to both is, "I don't know." With all due respe...

DWS 0 Creative Writing

08
Jul

Emotions Create Characters’ Actions Or: Why our Brains Cause Trouble

My last entry, Characterizations, is a logical lead-in to this one. Why and how do an individual's characteristics make him/her unique for the purposes of a particular story? While each of us...

DWS 0 Creative Writing

What Lance's Readers Say

Comments from readers.

A Proficiency in Billiards was on a pile on my table with Khaled Hosseini, Elie Wiesel and Salman Rushdie. Mason held his own. The racial tension was an evocative theme for me, a Chicano from a multi-ethnic neighborhood coming out of WWII.”

-Willie Maynez

“Welcome to the world of Lance Mason, a writer with an intense, beautiful awareness of the danger and possibility in every moment of our flash-in-the-pan lives. “

-James O’Reilly, co-editor, The Best Travel Writing Volume 11

“Your Grand Prize Bronze story “The Train to Harare” will be posted on http://besttravelwriting.com and as the Editors’ Choice on http://travelerstales.com. Congratulations for such a great story.”

-Larry Habegger, Executive Editor, Travelers’ Tales

What drives A Proficiency in Billiards—an engaging, wide-ranging mix of travel writing, sports writing, investigative journalism, personal essay, and memoir—is Mason's deep curiosity and spirit of adventure. The author’s ability to be both curious observer and enthusiastic participant also makes him a most companionable, informed, guide.

-Michael Steinberg. Author: Greatest Hits and Some That Weren’t: Essays and Memoirs 1990-2015, and Still Pitching, ForeWord Magazine/Independent Press 2003 Memoir of the Year

“‘The Get-Away Man,’ has been selected [for] upstreet No. 3. CNF Editor Harrison Fletcher and I both think it will make a wonderful addition to the journal.”

-Vivian Dorsel, Editor, upstreet Magazine