A conference near you (very near!)

Where can you sit in comfort and listen to: Dana Stabenow; Nevada Barr; Peter May; Leighton Gage; Laurie King (interviewing Lee Child and their Bantam editor, Kate Miciak); Ruth Dudley Edwards; Vicky Delaney and a host of others? I’m talking about BoucherCon this week in Indianapolis, right? Nope.  I’m talking about the comfort of your…

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I only read it for the articles

Writing is widely regarded, I am often startled to discover, as inherently cool.  As a person who spends her days muttering to herself in a book-padded room (although rarely in pajamas) I need reminding of the exotic caché of Being a Writer. Mostly I get those reminders through my friends, such as this weekend in…

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Mr Bradley and the murderous book club

If you happen to be in the LA sprawl this weekend, come on out to West Hollywood for the WeHo book festival.  I’m doing two events on Sunday, an interview at 1:15 and a panel on spirituality and fiction at 3:45. ** We’ve started a new feature over at the LRK online book club this…

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Radio 4

Hilarie, one of my Friends on Facebook, located the Radio 4 piece on Stilton in Stilton.  Listen in pleasure, even those of you who don’t like cheese.

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Stilton, we hardly knew ye

One of the more delightful aspects of British culture is their determination to cling to the radio as an art form.  Long stretches behind the wheel of the car becomes a seat in a theatre or lecture hall, with the same disinclination to climb out that one has with an audio book—more so because it’s…

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October? already?

The sign of a successful holiday is that the house looks very strange when you return.  Did I have that mottled grey Corian on the counter before I left?  Well, yes, but only for the past 7 years, so that’s all right. And now that I’m back and looking at my kitchen calendar, I see…

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We have a name

After considerable to-ing and fro-ing, most of which was well-mannered, Random House and its author have a name for LRKing’s next book, formerly known as The Green Man, to be published in June 2010: The God of the Hive

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Writer on the ground

It’s always reassuring when memory and photographs combine to create a correct setting for a scene, rather than a setting absolutely impossible for what you’d intended.  I finally got into London yesterday to check on the details of Westminster Bridge, which plays a major part in the ending scenes of The Green Man (name to…

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London Calling

In the early Twenties, BBC (the radio variety) used the phrase “London calling” as its call sign, informing the world that London was still up and active. During the War, the phrase took on overtones that were both poignant and pugnacious: We’re still here, damn your eyes! I like London, despite there being far too…

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Over the hills to Calke

For twenty years, one of my favorite places in Britain has been Calke Abbey, not far from the gloriously named Ashby de la Zouche in Derbyshire.  The National Trust took possession of the property in 1984 and embraced its idiosyncratic nature of it by treating and presenting Calke as “a country house in decline.” The…

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