The 2007 Edgars awards nominations have been announced—Sarah Weinman has them on her blog. I’ve been the general chair this past year (salute when you call me general, soldier,) which mostly involved badgering thirteen hard-working writers back in December 2005 into agreeing to chair the individual committees, then standing back. Theoretically, I was there to…

Why. lookie who’s on Myspace! http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=149069146 Will you be her friend? (Good to know the old lady has a proper sense of the ridiculous, isn’t it? Although kindly note that, due to the ageist policies of Myspace, her year of birth cannot be corrected to 1900. Apparently they don’t think 107 year-olds post to Myspace.…

Flying over this country on a clear night is a powerful lesson in the actual and metaphorical existence of the human animal. By daylight one can see patterns, the circular trace of sprinkler systems, the clusters of buildings that crop up wherever the monotonous grid of roads make a crossroads. Human beings gather together (having…

I’m off today to an unseasonably warm and peculiarly smelly New York, to deliver an address to the assembled Baker Street Irregulars. When Mary Russell first came to the public eye, they were not amused, and although I was embraced by some, many turned a shoulder decidedly cool, at this scribbling female who turned Holmes…

The other day when our new Congress was sworn in, among the many was Keith Ellison a Democrat from Minnesota, our first elected Muslim Congressman. Despite protests from proponents of the founding principles of the country (such as Virgil Goode, a Republican from Virginia) that this was a sure sign that we must tighten our…

So, the end of a year, the beginning of another; the old greybeard with the scythe teeters off, the baby with the 2007 banner across his chest crawls onstage. Which should make us all feel better, right, innocence and new slates and all that? Except with age comes some sort of wisdom, and the capriciousness…

Well, one never knows what will strike the imagination and passions of readers. I’d like to thank you all for playing, and with such exquisite politeness. Miss Manners would definitely approve. In fact, while I’m about it, I’d like to say a general thanks to all of you who read this blog, for keeping it…

Well, how would YOU answer this? In a way Miss Manners would approve? “For some time I resisted buying The Art of Detection because I was afraid it was a mere spin-off, an attempt to use in another way research already used. I broke down, however, and—trusting the author—bought the CDs. “Not only is it…

In an interview with John Connolly (and thanks to the Rap Sheet for bringing it to my attention), Stephen King tells the following story: “Then in the spring of that year, 1979, our son Owen, who was 18 months old, ran for the road while we were flying kites one day, and I heard one…

Q, Liz asks, on behalf of several people: The Martinelli novels explore queer themes and issues in a highly textual way, but similar themes arise in the Russell novels, not just through the obvious presence of lesbians, but in the subtext. Is this intentional, or merely fortuitous? (We’ve found it highly rewarding to apply queer…