Passing It On

I live in the hills, so when I go out, it’s rarely for just one stop. The other day my list of tasks included x-rays, fruit stand, and bookshop. Obviously, Bookshop Santa Cruz came first, and it would only take a minute because I was picking up a pre-paid order.  But when I stopped at…

Read More

The Financial Ecosystem of the Writer

A while ago on the Facebook group The Beekeeper’s Apprentices, a discussion rose up about the ethics of buying second-hand books.  Not old, out-of-print books, merely used books by active writers who are trying to make a living off their writing. The discussion in some ways runs parallel to another question I am sometimes asked:…

Read More

The making of HRF Keating

What makes a writer? How do skill, circumstances, and determination come together in a lifetime of shaping stories? I’ve met a lot of fine writers, during my 27 years as a published author. One I am most grateful to have called a friend was H. R. F. Keating. I met Harry and his wife Sheila…

Read More

BoucherCons I have loved

Ah, BoucherCon. So many memories.  I wrote about some of them, over the years.  Such as: The Vegas Con: just… surreal. Washington, DC, a month after 9/11, and the comfort of friends. Albany, NY: my birthday, in a post-apocalytic setting… …with good friends… And you can’t get better than being a Con’s guest of honor,…

Read More

The World of BoucherCon

BoucherCon, the Mystery Conference named to honor Anthony Boucher, takes place every fall. This year’s, the 50th, will be in Dallas. I’ve been to going to BoucherCons since before I was published, starting with London in 1990—and when I count them up, I’m astonished to find adds up to twenty-one of them!  I’ve been to gatherings…

Read More

Ringing the Changes

The Book Club have been looking at Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers for their December read. This 1934 novel, featuring the aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, is something of a Christmas story, although it opens on New Year’s Eve up in England’s fenland countryside. Now, much as I love Dorothy Sayers, I have to admit that…

Read More

The fun side of the job

Not a lot of people can count play as part of the job. I’m very lucky this way, since doing fun things goes under the header of “building community” and that’s what authors do, right? So when I buy some sparkly flapper dresses and drag the family into climbing into them for photos, that’s the…

Read More

Me & Mosley!

Hey there friends! If ANY of you are in the neighborhood of Berkeley this weekend, you really ought to come down to the Book Fest–because I get to interview Walter Mosley!! Last year’s Grand Master award from MWA is just one of the jewels in this man’s crown, and I am so looking forward to talking…

Read More

My Bookstore

The gorgeous collection of songs to the glory of bookstores has come out in paperback! Eighty-one of the country’s top writers wrote essays, stories, and words of praise for their favorite shops, which were then illustrated with charming drawings, in My Bookstore. I talk about my local, Bookshop Santa Cruz, and how a damaged town…

Read More

Sherlock’s OTHER relation…

My friend Rebecca Morean drops by for a visit today, with word of a return of her tales of two fascinating women of the early Twentieth Century—one of whom is a relation of… well, see for yourself. –LRK I was excited to sit down with Abbey Pen Baker, the great niece of Faye Martin Tullis…

Read More