writing
The Business of Writing: The Editor (2)
Last day of February, the last of February’s posts celebrating 30 years of A Grave Talent. ** About a year after Grave Talent came out in 1993, St. Martins Press published The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Two months later, in April, 1994, Grave Talent won the Edgar award for Best First Novel. Nonetheless, the sub-editor in charge of the…
Read MoreThe Business of Writing: The Editor (1)
Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started a writing career. ** I wrote a few days ago about my beloved first agent, Linda Allen, the woman who got me started as a writer. The agent is the person who knows the industry,…
Read MoreThe Art of the Review
Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started a writing career. One of the things I had fun with in writing A Grave Talent was crafting a series of reviews of the work of Eva Vaughn, the artist at the center of the…
Read MoreThe Author Photo: a work in progress
Part of February’s celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel that started a writing career. ** If you have ever tried to take a good picture of yourself—not just a grinning selfie with friends but the kind of photo that says “thoughtful, intelligent person with a trace of humor and wit”—well, all I…
Read MoreThe Business of Writing: Your Friend, The Agent
Part of the 30-year anniversary celebration of A Grave Talent. Like most first novelists, I had no clue about how to run my life as a business. In 1993, the only people who did self-publishing were the desperate souls who just HAD to have a volume to put in the hands of family and friends.…
Read MoreWhen Intellectuals Read Crime
Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent. A writer tosses books out into the world without much clue about where they will wash up or whose hands they will end up in. Naturally, this is especially true with a first book. What, people who don’t know me will read it? Wow. With A…
Read MoreThe Fans
Part of the month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started my writing career. In addition to actual, print reviews, my first book brought letters from people from all over who liked A Grave Talent enough to go to the trouble of writing me about it,…
Read MoreStarting Anew
[Note, please, that in one week, Back to the Garden will be on the shelves–in the USA, at any rate. You can find a long excerpt here. ] I turn 70 this year. The world is literally burning around us, I’ve had some energy-draining health issues, and there are books more than one series that…
Read MoreWhen Surf City was the Murder Capital
Santa Cruz, California, is a quiet town even now. In the 1970s, it was a community of retirees, Italian fishermen, and people associated with the brand-new University of California. It was (and is) a beach town that attracts year-round surfers and summer visitors to the beach and Boardwalk. In October, 1970, in the hills south of…
Read MoreWriting the Past: Free Love, Thumbing Rides, and Other Incomprehensible Habits
People think of Laurie King as a writer of historical mysteries, especially the 1920s, a time of short skirts, fast cars, and that exciting new tech, radio. Back to the Garden is set more recently than the 20s. It has two timelines: one now, the other flashing back to the 1970s. In 1972, a main…
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