Former Bee columnist teams up for debut novel. Be one of the first to get a copy

“Stinger” is what happens when a fiction writer and a journalist get together to do a book.

While this is a novel, its plot is very much real-world inspired — or “ripped from the headlines,” as the news release would have it.

The book is a years-long collaboration between former Fresno Bee reporter/columnist (and current GV Wire News director) Bill McEwen and Tanya Nichols, who teaches writing and literature at Fresno State and coordinates the university’s Young Writer’s Conference.

“Stinger” is being released in hardback on Mark Arax’s West of West Books, with a book launch and author talk 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Second Space Theater in Fresno’s Tower District. Tickets for the event are $10 and available online with limited seating.

The book will be available for $25.

The event, a fundraiser for the Friends of the Fresno County Public Library, will have McEwen and Nichols discussing the creative process behind “Stinger,” how they generated ideas and did research, and the practical approach the pair had in co-writing the book.

This is the third novel for Nichols, whose short stories and other work has appeared in North Carolina Literary Review, Sycamore Review and San Joaquin Review.

It’s the first novel for McEwen, though a collection of his Fresno Bee columns was released in 2007 with the title “It’s a Dry Heat.”