Posts by Laurie King
How about a Throwback Thursday?
Going through some files the other day, I came across a few unexpected voices from the past—so I thought, hey kids, let’s have a couple of Throwback Thursdays here on Mutterings! So, how about some old covers that didn’t quite make it into the real world? I’ve talked before about the original proposed cover of…
Read MoreAbout Miss Russell’s War
Yes, Mary Russell’s War is officially a Thing. Every week from now until, well, until I run dry, we will read an excerpt from Miss Russell’s childhood diary, gathered together under the title of “Mary Russell’s War”. This week, the Germans are battering at the gates of Liege, a part of the Schlieffen Plan (which…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War, week two
On the centenary of the Great War, a journal has come to light, containing weekly entries from a very young Mary Russell. It begins, appropriately enough, on August 4, 1914, when Russell is living with her parents and brother in San Francisco. This is her second journal entry. (To read from the beginning, click here.)…
Read MoreMila’s Tale
“Mila’s Tale” is midrash—the retelling of a Biblical passage. Half of it is a previously unpublished Laurie R. King short story; the other half is the author’s commentary on the text (“Jephthah’s Daughter” of Judges 11) with some suggestions for further reading. This is the first in Laurie’s proposed Ladies of Spirit project, a collection of Modern Midrashes…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War, week one
On the centenary of the Great War, a journal has come to light, containing weekly entries from a very young Mary Russell. It begins, appropriately enough, on August 4, 1914, when Russell is living with her parents and brother in San Francisco. 4 August 1914. I was fourteen when I first heard about the…
Read MoreLRK, Sherlockian?
When I first started writing the Russell books, I took great care to assert that these were not Sherlock Holmes stories, that they were about Mary Russell, with Holmes a supporting actor. Which they are, clearly. However… As I’ve mellowed, I have become more interested in the character of Holmes, curious about how this man…
Read MoreThe author’s bedside reading
No, really, it’s the author’s…bedside reading. These two books were tucked at the bottom of the bedside table of the motel in Corte Madera where I’m staying during the Book Passage crime writing conference: I have stayed in upscale hotels where the management appears at your door with flowers and a copy of your book to…
Read MoreShort story theologian
We’ve put up two new things into the LRK electrical world, both having to do with a weeklong Writer in Residence I did some years ago at Hanover College, Indiana. The first is a lengthy meditation on how the concept of “vocation” appears in my novels, written by Hanover professor Michael Duffy. It carries the…
Read MoreMatters Unspoken? (My blushes!)
In the twenty years since The Beekeeper’s Apprentice introduced Mary Russell to the world, many questions have been raised about the good lady, and about her relationship with Sherlock Holmes, her religious beliefs, her Oxford college, what kind of car she drives—and just where on the Sussex Downs is that house of hers, anyway? In a fervent…
Read MoreOne Writer’s Home
In my early writing days, I produced scenes, chapters, whole books with my legal pad propped on the wheel of a (stationary) car, while one child or another was involved in soccer practice or a piano lesson. Later, when the kids were in school longer hours and this odd hobby of mine began (to the astonishment of…
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