One writer’s travails

Left Coast Crime is an annual conference that moves around the left coast, generally of the US. This year LCC was in Honolulu. Like the other moveable crime conferences, location is a prime consideration, since fans and readers use this as a holiday as well as a chance to meet their favorite writers. So, the…

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“Echoes” is coming

This just in from Publishers Weekly about (next month’s!) Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: King and Klinger’s strong third Sherlockian anthology (after 2014’s In the Company of Sherlock Holmes) features 17 stories from leading authors who draw on Conan Doyle’s work for inspiration. The end result is a rich variety of entries, including Tony Lee and Bevis Musson’s “Mrs.…

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A Tactile Tey

So, what’s a book to you? Electronic ink on a screen? Or paper, black ink, and the texture of the cover against your fingers? The words are the same, right? Sure—but the experience isn’t. For just under 70 years, the Folio Society has made “editions of the world’s great literature, in a format worthy of…

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Race, gender, and responsibility: the face of Billy Mudd

There’s been a lot of talk recently about race and diversity in fiction and movies—a controversy over casting a black Hermione, the question of Shadow’s race in American Gods, the troubling lack of actors of color in the nominations its for this year’s Oscars (#OscarSoWhite). And this month, the VBC have been talking (among other things) about…

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Jane Steele: Reader, I murdered him.

We loves us some Lyndsay Faye here on Mutterings. Her Timothy Wilde trilogy has been one of my favorite worlds to explore in recent years, while the author herself has become one of my favorite people. Lyndsay now has a new world, publishing next April: a deliciously wicked tale that starts as a riff on Jane Eyre…

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Boucher’s Con

As you probably know, every year the Crime World [Fictional Division] gathers to discuss pretty much everything to do with crime & mystery books: from character development to social media, e-books to Hollywood. The conference is named after the editor/reviewer/writer Anthony Boucher and this was Bouchercon’s 46th year. We met in Raleigh, and the fun began.…

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MWA cooks

So, this crime writer walks into a kitchen… Or maybe a bar—it depends on what story you’re after, and what you’re hungry (or thirsty) for. Whether it’s drinks to curl your hair or a soup to warm your heart, Kinsey Millhone’s peanut butter & pickle sandwich or Valentine Wilde’s chicken fricassee, or maybe a cup…

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Serving all your podcastian needs

Podcasts, like audio books, are a great way of double-tasking your way through dull slices of life whether it’s on the freeway or a treadmill. There’s a lot of podcasts with my voice on them, floating around on the etherwebs, in which I and others talk about writing, or Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, or…

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The Les & Laurie Show: Lovecraft edition

I love doing book events with Les Klinger. Conversations about Sherlock Holmes, from our two very different points of view, are a whole lot of fun.  And now Les has a new book on H.P.Lovecraft, and he’s coming to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park to talk to me about it, and to sign it–plus, there…

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Crime Writing: the quirky nugget at the core

Crime and Thriller Writing: one part autobiography (half mine, half that of Michelle Spring), one part nuts-and-bolts writing manual, and one part guest speakers imparting a whole lot of wisdom. The middle of the book is a series of essays, on topics of their own choosing, from twenty-six other world-rank crime & thriller writers.  Like Val McDermid: do I…

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