July 13th, 10:00 a.m. : The "L" Offices River & Campbell
Sure Bet: Fascinating Meeting + Potluck
Next Saturday we'll meet live--and via Zoom--and find out about the gambling life and how to write about those who live it.
We're sweetening the pot with an invitation to bring--and enjoy--your choice of potluck food after the meeting.
AMW President Jake Jacobs has been a member of Arizona Mystery Writers since 2002, not long after he moved to Tucson the first time. His story “Killing Grandpa” was included in AMW’s anthology, A Way With Murder. A native of the Chicago suburbs, he began his writing career with articles and stories about backgammon. By now he has written two books and over four hundred articles on the game. He also co-wrote the screenplay for a kickboxing movie, "Ring of Fire." He joined the Midwest Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America during the 1990s, and after moving to Tucson wrote his mystery novel, The Battered Butterfly.
In 2004 he was offered a “three-month” job placing bets on horses in Japan. In 2020, when the temporary job finally ended, he was living in Singapore, and had somehow acquired a wife, a daughter, and a Chihuahua. He moved them all to Tucson (in the middle of Covid), and once again became active in AMW.
About that “placing bets on horses in Japan.” Jake has been a professional gambler for more than forty years. Besides backgammon – he is a former national champion – he played blackjack, as a card counter, for nearly twenty-five years, and has been in casinos all over the world, in places as exotic as Kathmandu, and Peoria, Illinois. During the late nineties and early aughts he worked in Hong Kong with a horseracing group, and so was prepared when the call came to do something similar in Japan. These days he is semi-retired, though he still plays in a few backgammon tournaments each year, and is wearing out his welcome with the Arizona sportsbooks.
We'll meet LIVE at The "L" Offices, 1840 E. River Road. We'll provide coffee, you provide the questions--your editor's first is "What is backgammon?"
The meeting will run from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., with time for catching up and enjoying a potluck from 11:30 on. SO PLEASE BRING YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE POTLUCK! (but come without if you forget...we just want to see you!)
Costs for members is $10, $15 for non-members. Bring extra cash for the book raffle. Raffle proceeds help offset the meeting room costs. Should you have books to donate, bring them as well.
