Crime Fest is an annual conference held in Bristol, England. This Con has been running for eight years now, although it actually started a couple of years earlier, in 2006, when the indefatigable Adrian Muller had the idea of running a Left Coast Crime on the left coast of, well, England. This year’s guests included…
Read MoreThursday I set off for London…in the rain. I got to London in the rain, wrangled my wheelie up many steps from Paddington (the tube side) and sploshed to my hotel, checked in, dried out, then crossed London in the rain to have tea with Val McDermid, whom I haven’t seen in far, far too long.…
Read MoreOne an interesting difference between the UK and the US, from a writer’s point of view, is that bookshops in the UK look upon events with mistrust, and the offer of a passing writer to sign their books on their shelves receives a look of befuddlement. “Why,” these good people clearly wonder, “would readers want you…
Read MoreSpotted the other day on market day in Thame:
Read MoreThe month of May in England…may be sunny, or wet. It may be easy to get around, or not. There may be a clothes dryer where you’re staying, or it may just be a machine that tumbles your wet laundry around and around for a few hours until you give up and drape the well-stewed garments…
Read MoreThis is Edgars week in New York, and for one of the few years since I proudly became a member of the Mystery Writers of America, I’m not there. I’ll miss my annual get-together with friends like Les Klinger and Lyndsay Faye (and wouldn’t you want to be sitting at their table?) but instead, I’m…
Read MoreI have lived in and around Santa Cruz for most of my life. I started school here in the fifties, I went to university here, I raised my kids here. As I said to the nice lady from the Good Times: “Santa Cruz is like a first draft: a shorthand sort of tale understood by,…
Read MoreA while ago I was at San Francisco’s Ferry Building on a Saturday morning, when the place just explodes into the Bay Area’s most fantastic farmer’s market. And so I bought…stuff. Berries and Chinese broccoli and hot sauces and things I knew. But the fun part of a market like this is the produce you…
Read MoreThe University of California Santa Cruz (“The original authority on questioning authority”) is my alma mater, and has continued to nourish me long after she handed me my degree. Five years ago, I was tremendously honored to be named one of this relatively new university’s “45+5” alumni. And coming up on the 25th, I will be participating…
Read MoreI’ve written a love letter, for National Library Week, here. Libraries are my home and my joy. Libraries were where I lived, when I was a kid. (We moved. A lot.) Now, libraries make my work possible, since I write historical novels and do a ton of research.
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