Dennis Lee Askew

Costa Mesa writer Dennis Lee Askew spent a year and a half writing the 40 short poems in his poetry book "The Big World of Love." But as all self-published writers know, that's only half the battle. And with no publishing house supporting him, he had to get out there and hustle the book on his own. That's just what he did, piling 100 copies in the back seat of his car and heading north on a 10-day bookselling trip.

Costa Mesa writer Dennis Lee Askew spent a year and a half writing the 40 short poems in his poetry book "The Big World of Love." But as all self-published writers know, that's only half the battle. And with no publishing house supporting him, he had to get out there and hustle the book on his own. That's just what he did, piling 100 copies in the back seat of his car and heading north on a 10-day bookselling trip.

Corona del Mar author Stephen Robinett describes the hero of his paperback Jeeter mystery novels as a business magazine writer who has the bad habit of getting himself involved in the stories he's writing about. In his second outing, "Unfinished Business" (Avon; $3.95), Jerry Jeeter is still dealing with the emotional fallout from his involvement in the death of one of the major characters in the first Jeeter mystery, "Final Option."