Mystery Melange

Jeff Pierce observes Hard Case Crime's long-awaited return to the publishing scene this month with a column for Kirkus Reviews that includes an interview with editor Charles Ardai. Ardai talks about the first titles to roll off the press and other books he looks forward to adding down the line.

Big Pulp, the online journal featuring genre fiction and artwork of all kinds, is open again for submissions. Publisher/editor Bill Olver is seeking submissions of prose, poetry, photography, artwork, and comics. He defines "pulp fiction" as being "lively, challenging, thought-provoking, thrilling, and fun, regardless of how many or how few genre elements are packed in." This current open period only lasts through the end of the month. 

Editor Alec Cizak announced the lineup for issue #1 of Pulp Modern, an e-zine that will feature stories of crime, mystery, horror, science fiction, fantasy and westerns. Contributors to the debut edition include Lawrence Block, Jimmy Callaway, John Kenyon, Stephen D. Rogers, and more, including Sandra Seamans, who also deserves a hat tip for reminding me of the news. Cizak is taking submissions for the next issue, with a due date of November 1st.

Scandinavian crime fiction is hot, and Barbara Fister keeps track of it all. She has a post on her blog this week detailing all the latest news, organized by country, from Denmark to Sweden, including a poll at Crime Scraps where you can vote on which women crime writers from Nordic countries are the most popular.

On the interview circuit, Sons of Spade has a Q&A with author Max Allan Collins about his protagonists P.I. Nate Heller and the enigmatic Quarry, as well as his how he promotes his work and how he feels about literary psychotic sidekicks; Craig Sisterson interviews Jeffery Deaver, who tells why his favorite recurring crime fiction character is Connelly's Harry Bosch and what Deaver does in his spare time (wine, anyone?); Declan Burke puts Val McDermid on the spot asking her which crime novel she wished she had written; and Chris Rhatigan discusses editing the new anthology Pulp Ink and self-publishing on Kindle.

One of my fave games from childhood was "Authors," a literary card game that is like Go Fish for readers. It includes thirteen authors with four cards each and the object of the game is to collect the most sets. As Galley Cat reminds us, the game was created in 1861 by Anne Abbott, a clergyman's daughter and editor of a young people's literary journal. Later versions included Children's Authors and American Authors. (Anyone for creating a mystery author series, too?)

Up in the Hudson Valley area, the Book Booth has opened. Dubbed the smallest library in the U.S., it's a repurposed British phone booth (and patterned after a similar project in the U.K.) that holds 150 books and is run as a community book exchange, with the motto "bring a book, take a book." The light inside is powered by a solar panel, meaning the booth can be open 24/7.

Comments

[Yvette]

Love that Book Booth thing. :)

Wonder how it survived the flooding of Hurricane Irene.

[BV Lawson]

Fortunately, Dutchess County, NY, home of the book booth, wasn't included in the counties declared disaster areas, so I think they came out okay. And they're still Tweeting, more good signs.

[Claudia Cooley]

Thank you for your kinds words. We did in fact, plastic wrap and tape up the wood shelving in the booth, just as a prevention from the rain/water soaking in. But we did make it through okay, our Library friends across the Hudson River did not fair so well and are still in recovery mode. Bake Sales have been hosted in attempts to generate much needed monies.

Thank you again for your kind words and hope you will visit us soon!
Warmly, Claudia

[BV Lawson]

I'm so happy to hear the Book Booth was safe and sound from the floods. Let's hope the rest of the hurricane season is tamer, for your sake and for the other libraries you mentioned that weren't so lucky.