Mystery Melange

The 17th annual Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference gets underway today in Corte Madera, California and continues through Sunday. Chaired by authors Sheldon Siegel (Mike Daley series) and Jacqueline Winspear (Maisie Dobbs series), the event also includes appearances by Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Elizabeth George, Gregg Hurwitz , John Lescroart and many more. Featured events include a panel tomorrow where Connelly, Crais and Hurwitz will be joined by  Don Winslow and David Corbett for "Gumshoes on the Trail: Creating a Fully Realized Protagonist."

Karen Chisholm is one of many tireless bloggers/website proprietors working hard for no compensation to promote crime fiction. In Karen's case, she focuses on crime Downunder with her AustCrimeFiction site, and was recently interviewed for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's web site. 

In the same part of the world, CrimeWatch keeps an eye on Kiwi crime fiction (a/k/a New Zealand) with reviews, news, and interviews such as this one with legal thriller writer Mark Gimenez, (who is actually from Texas) also published in the latest print issue of NZLawyer magazine.

Happy Anniversary shout-out to Houston's Murder by the Book store, which will be celebrating 30 years in the business in August. New owner McKenna Jordan is happy to report that despite the recession, sales are up 10 percent.

Historical mysteries have been a recent trend in crime fiction, and Peter Rozovsky over at Detectives Beyond Borders asked the question, "How do authors keep history fresh?" and got some interesting responses.

Mysterious Matters looked an issue of a different stripe, namely can humor and suspense co-exist? , after reading a book billed as a "novel of suspense" that turned out to have a contrived plot, flat characters and crazy coincidences--and zero humor.

There's a brand-new pulp blog in town, Pulp Writer, which is also the official website of Paul S. Powers as maintained by the author's granddaughter, Laurie. She's celebrating the launch with a drawing to win a copy of the January 1, 1938, issue of Wild West Weekly. You don't have to buy anything to enter, but if you purchase a copy of the never-before-published Paul S. Powers (aka Ward M. Stevens) story "Murder on the Hoof" for $1.99, you'll also be entered in the giveaway. (Hat tip to Dave Crockett's Almack of Mystery, Adventure and the Wild West.)

The Baltimore Sun's Read Street had a little bit of fun with the Kindle and how to waterproof it for a day at the beach or accessorize it with "pretty and practical" doodads.
 
Think you don't have time to write? if a guy can do this, then you probably can find the time to put a few words on paper every day.