The 2021 Noel Q. King Lecture: Voices of God, Voices of Madness with Tanya Marie Luhrmann Thursday, February 18, 2021, 5 p.m. (A Virtual Event)   The Noel King memorial lecture, which started as a way to keep a religious studies presence on the UC Santa Cruz campus, this year welcomes a more individual approach…

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Noel’s work, continued

The past week saw two kinds of memorial to my husband, Noel King. One was a talk, the latest in a series of “Noel Q. King Lectures” held at UC Santa Cruz. The second was a publication, with Noel as co-author. After Noel died, we started up a lecture series to continue his life’s work…

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The King lecture

Once upon a time there was a man born in India, educated in England, working in Africa, who was hired by a visiting American to help set up a new college and program at the newest jewel in the crown that is the University of California. When Noel King came to Santa Cruz, most of…

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Short 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…

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My Thesis Being…

Many and many a year ago, Laurie King spent her life (parts of it, anyway) in realms academical.  About half the novels I’ve written have some touch of my previous life in them: Brother Erasmus from To Play the Fool, the tutoring of Margery Childe in Monstrous Regiment, Anne Waverley in Darker Place/Birth of the…

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Higher Mysteries podcast

My buddy Rick Kleffel has posted his podcasts of the Higher Mysteries panel, in which four top-ranking crime writers talk about using religion and theology in their work, on his web site, The Agony Column: “You’re all here for Tax Law 101, right?” —Laurie R. King For all the seriousness of her premise, Laurie R.…

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Higher Mysteries

Last month, you may recall, I urged you to drop what you were doing and come to listen to four fabulous ladies (or anyway, three fabulous ladies and me) talk about how we use religion and theology when writing crime fiction.  There’s a podcast on its way, but the excellent video has just gone up…

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The Mystery of a Good Event

What makes for a good event?  Well, it helps when a moderator is working with three wicked smart women with lightning-fast tongues and a great sense of humor. And it also helps when the crowd is equally quick on their feet and genuinely interested in the subject. (This shows about half those who eventually crowded…

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Higher Mysteries, Santa Cruz style

Tuesday night finds me in rapt conversation with three other Ladies of Mystery, talking about how we use religion and theology in our crime fiction, and why.  The panel will be podcast, and possibly videotaped (yes yes, I know they don’t use tape any more…) but if you’re anywhere in the vicinity, come and join…

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Higher Mysteries

On May 14, I will sit down with Zoe Ferraris, Sharan Newman, and Julia Spencer-Fleming to talk about Higher Mysteries. You do not want to miss this. It’s the 2013 King Lecture in Santa Cruz, at 7:00 in the main library at 224 Church Street. 

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