Mystery Melange

Tomorrow, October 13, is Mystery Day at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. People's Choice Award nominee Donna Andrews joins other featured authors including Mollie Bryan, Meredith Cole, Ellen Crosby, Jan Neuharth, Alan Orloff, Brad Parks, Sandy Parshall, JB Stanley, Andy Straka, and Irene Ziegler. Moderators for the panels include Art Taylor, Steve Weddle, Katherine Neville and Meredith Cole. There's a fee for the luncheon, but the panels are free (you're asked to register in advance, though, so you'll have to hurry).

The Fall 2011 issue of Needle Magazine is out, edited by Steve Weddle and featuring a story by Gil Brewer (1922-1983), author of dozens of "wonderfully sleazy sex/crime adventure novels of the 1950's and 60's." Also included are other new lean and mean hardboiled and noir tales by contemporary writers Daniel Davis, Andrew Hook, David James Keaton, Nolan Knight, Alan Leverone, Michael Moreci, Peter Morin, Mike Oliveri, Keith Rawson, Michael Sheedy, Art Taylor and Holly West.

Janet Rudolph, editor of Mystery Readers Journal, is calling for submissions for the next issue focusing on "Shrinks & Other Healthcare Professionals." She needs Author! Author! essays, reviews and articles. Looking ahead to 2012, the issue themes are Mysteries set in France; Military Mysteries; Mysteries set in Florida; and Legal Mysteries (revisiting some previous and new topics). For submission information, send Janet an e-mail.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Sons of Spade interviewed Lawrence Block about his Matt Scudder series and how he keeps the series from running out of steam by "allowing Matt Scudder to age in real time, and to be changed in one book for having lived through the preceding one." Author Tim Hallinan interviewed Bruce DaSilva about his novel Rogue Island, winner of the Anthony, Edgar and Macavity Awards for debut novel. DaSilva also discusses his background in print journalism: "Journalism taught me how vital reporting – especially investigative reporting – is to the health of the American democracy."

The Cape Fear Crime Fesival coming up February 2012 in Wilmington, North Carolina, is seeking authors to serve on panels. For more information or just to register as an attendee, check out the conference web site.

Lee Lofland offers an amazing Writers' Police Academy held in North Carolina (registration details for 2012 coming soon, with special guest Lee Child). Many lucky authors have had the opportunity to participate in Lee's terrific event. For west coast writers who might not be able to travel that far, there's an opportunity to experience something similar with the Crime Writers Homicide School.

More crime fiction/suspense authors are turning to graphic novels. Charlaine Harris, author of the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series (upon which the HBO TV show True Blue is based), signed a deal with Penguin's Ace Books imprint to publish Cemetery Girl, an original graphic novel trilogy. Meanwhile, DC Entertainment's Vertigo imprint announced plans to publish graphic novel adaptations of the late Steig Larrson's bestselling Millenium trilogy.

Got an extra $20,000 lying around? Then you can bid on the leather-bound boxed set of Stieg Larsson's internationally award-winning Millennium Trilogy as part of the Sotheby's English Literature Sale on December 15th. The set includes the books, the original letter of rejection sent to a young Larsson in 1972 by the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism and an original pencil portrait by the author himself, never before seen by the public. The sale will benefit Expo, the anti-discrimination foundation set up in 1995 by Larsson and his peers.