Steve Hamilton is the only author to ever win the Shamus and Edgar Awards for his first novel (Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly, Stuart Woods and James Patterson all started their careers with the coveted "Best First" Edgar prize), his second Alex McKnight novel, Winter of the Wolf Moon was named one of the year's Notable Books by the New York Times Book Review and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly as did his third and fourth novels, The Hunting Wind and North of Nowhere. Steve's most recent novel, Ice Run, continues the Alex McKnight series. Complete Bio

Q: What are some ways you come up with a title for your book or stories? I read the article about The Perfect Title but I wanted to know if there were any other important hints to help me with. -David

A: As my editor likes to say, titles are either very easy or very hard. Either it comes to you from the very beginning and you never have any doubts about it, or else you go through 700 of them and you’re still not sure you have the right one.

I’ve been through both, believe me, and in fact I’m going through the hard way right now on the next book. The title is so important, of course, because it’s like a "tuning fork" that sets the tone for the whole book.

Not only does it have to sound right on its own, it also has to have some meaning and relevance to the book, and ideally it’ll have both an obvious, surface meaning, and a second, deeper meaning. For instance, North of Nowhere, that was one of my easy titles – I had it from the very first day and it never wavered for me. In one sense, it’s just an offhand joke that one of the characters makes – saying that the town of Paradise is so far up there, it’s not the middle of nowhere, it’s north of nowhere. In a deeper sense, that title applied to a certain state of mind that Alex found himself in, being so lost and confused that he was far removed from even nowhere at all. If you can find a title that hits you on two levels like that, you’re in business.

Q: I have written several novels over the years and I have one I wish to publish. How do I go about doing that? -Dawn

A: That’s a tough question right now, because the traditional publishing process seems almost broken. Not long ago, St. Martin’s Press would have a monthly "slush night," where they’d throw all their junior editors in a room with all of the unsolicited manuscripts and a few pizzas, and they wouldn’t let them out until everything had been at least looked at. I believe St. Martin’s was the last big publisher to even look at unagented material, and now even they have closed that door.

Bottom line, you have to have an agent now to get read by a big house. So what does that mean? Either you have to put together a great query letter and synopsis, and start hitting the agents, or else you have to find one of the smaller, independent publishers (some of which are doing fantastic work). Ideally, you’d start out trying to hit some of both.

Q: A) When does the word "epic" apply to a novel? B) What range, in number of words, would define a full-length novel? -Christopher

A: To me, "epic" suggests not only grand in size, but also grand in scope and impact, and something that will stand the test of time. War and Peace, that’s an epic. One Hundred Years of Solitude. If you ask me for the most recent "epic" book, I’d say Underworld by Don DeLillo.

B) I think when you pass the 75,000-word mark you’re entering the full-length novel range. Anything less than that is pretty short.