On July 24, California Sisters in Crime's Sizzling Summer Speaker Series will present an online event with a panel featuring thriller authors Chris Hauty, Nick Petrie, and Brian Freeman with Maddie Margarita. The event is free and available to anyone with a Zoom account.
Kensington Books and the University of Washington Book Store are presenting A Night of Cozy Mysteries on August 2. The online panel will include Debra H. Goldstein, Barbrara Ross, Lee Hollis, Darci Hannah, and Cheryl Hollon discussing their latest novels. This event is free to join, though registration is required.
The Winterset in Summer Literary Festival in Eastport, Canada, will present "Mystery Voices", a panel on August 13 on detective story writing, featuring authors Peter Robinson, Mike Martin, and Helen C. Escott, with award-winning CBC broadcaster, journalist, and writer, Linden MacIntyre, serving as host. This is an in-person event, and for more information and tickets, follow this link.
The Book People bookstore in Austin, Texas, will present an in-person panel moderated by Kathleen Kaska on August 25 celebrating new books by Jeff Abbott, Taylor Moore, Dixie Lee Evatt, Helen Currie Foster, and Gabino Iglesias. The event will include a moderated discussion, an audience Q&A, and a signing line and is free and open to the public.
On September 17, Bear Public Library will feature Just the Facts: The Secrets of Writing Crime Fiction, a discussion about crime fiction with a panel of best-selling and professional authors to include Weldon Burge, Lisa Regan, Chris Bauer, Austin Camacho, J. Gregory Smith, Ira Porter, and JM Reinbold. This is a Facebook Live event and open to anyone who has access to a Facebook account.
Registration is open for the International Thriller Writer's 9th annual Online Thriller School. Participants will receive ten weeks of intensive craft lessons from Jeffery Deaver, Alex Finlay, Steven James, Mary Kubica, Tosca Lee, Clare Mackintosh, Isabella Maldonado, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Wendy Walker, and Jerri Williams. Topics to be covered include Red Herrings, Reversals, and Twists; Creating Compelling Characters; Setting: How to Create Your Story World; FBI Myths and Misconceptions; The Thriller Writer's Toolbox; All About Dialogue; How to Nail Structure; Fundamentals of the Action Scene; First Pages: How to Hook Your Reader, and Pacing: How to Keep the Pages Turning. Classes begin September 13 and will be held every Tuesday with recordings available for later study.
Several of Australia's most popular female crime writers will be participating at this year's Sisters in Crime writers festival in Cobaro in late August. Currently scheduled to take part in panels, workshops, and book signings are Melissa Pouliot, Candice Fox, Vikki Petraitis, Sulari Gentill, Fleur Ferris, Ilsa Evans, Dorothy Johnston, Caroline de Costa, and Kay Schubach. For tickets and more information, head on over here.
Tom Mead compiled a list of "10 Most Puzzling Impossible Crime Mysteries" for Publishers Weekly and an associated article, "The Great Locked Room Mystery: My Top 10 Impossible Crimes," for CrimeReads.
If you want more summer reading suggestions, here are "12 mystery and crime books to keep you on the edge of your seat this summer" from the CBC; and two from Book Riot, the first being "A Map to the Best Treasure Hunting Mysteries," and the second, "Book 'Em: 8 of the Best Procedural Series To Add To Your TBR."
Carolina Ciucci also offered up an assortment of suggestions of novels that fans of true crime might enjoy.
Last week, I wrote about a new "reality" competition titled "America's Next Great Author" that purports to give writers a chance to compete for a chance at recognition, money, and publication. I (and many others in the writing community) was pretty skeptical, and Victoria Strauss over at the excellent Writer Beware blog has a bit more on the history of such competitions and why they're not a terribly good fit for books.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is "And the Children Sing 'Mr. Carl Bach' " by Suzanne Ondrus.
In the Q&A roundup, E. B. Davis chatted with Susan Van Kirk about Death in a Pale Hue, the first novel in her new Art Center Mysteries; CrimeReads interviewed Nadine Matheson about writing serial killer fiction and her work as a defense attorney in London; and Mark Billingham spoke with The Belfast Telegraph about accidentally becoming a writer and how he gives up on a book after 25 pages if "nothing has grabbed hold of me."
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