Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine announced the Barry Award Nominations for 2023 in the categories of Best Mystery or Crime Novel, Best Debut Mystery Novel, and Best Thriller. Winners, which are voted on by the readers of Deadly Pleasures, will be announced at the Opening Ceremonies of the Bouchercon Conference in San Diego, California on August 31, 2023.
The Audio Publishers Association‘s announced the finalists for the annual Audie Awards, which recognize distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. There are 26 categories this year, including Best Mystery and Best Thriller, but you'll also find some crime fiction-themed titles in the various other categories. For a look at the full list, click on over here. The winners ceremony will be streamed online from Chelsea Piers’ Sixty in New York City on March 28.
"The Mysterious Mrs Christie: Evidence, Elusion, Afterlives" is the theme of an upcoming international conference at the University of Exeter September 12-13, 2023. Keynote Speakers include Dr. Mark Aldridge of Solent University and Prof. Michelle M. Kazmer of Florida State University. For this seventh international Agatha Christie conference, organizers are seeking research and/or creative papers that consider under-explored aspects of Christie’s work, life, and legacies. Interested participants should submit a short (up to 200 words) abstract for a 20-minute presentation and a brief biographical note to [email protected] no later than 1 May 2023. (HT to Shots Magazine)
Mystery Readers Journal has issued a call for articles on the topic of Hobbies & Crafts in Mysteries. They're looking for articles (500-1,000 words), reviews (50-250 words), and author essays (500-1,000 words) about mysteries that focus on Hobbies & Crafts. The deadline is April 10, 2023. Send to: Janet Rudolph, Editor.
A second John le Carré biography, The Secret Life of John le Carré, is in the works from Adam Sisman, who previously published an authorized biography in 2015. As The Guardian reported, Sisman promises "a hidden life of secrecy, passion and betrayal" focusing on the turbulent private life of crime writer John le Carré. Sisman added that the new book will include information that he was "obliged to withhold" from the previous book when Le Carré was "very much alive and looking over my shoulder." It is being published with the approval of Le Carré’s estate and will be released in October this year by independent publisher Profile Books. Le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, died in 2020, aged 89, of pneumonia. He was famous for spy novels including those featuring the character George Smiley, such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series "The First Two Pages," hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. After her death in 2017, the blog series relocated to Art Taylor's website, and Taylor is "taking host’s prerogative" to write a First Two Pages essay on his own most-recent story—the title novella of Taylor's new collection, The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions. The new collection is available now from Crippen & Landru.
James Bond is getting "censored, not stirred." We'll have to see if this literary news generates the same controversy and pushback from all sides that an announcement about similarly edited versions of Roald Dahl's books recently did. Protests about the latter forced the publisher, Penguin Random House, to partially back down by announcing it would publish "classic" unexpurgated versions along with the new versions that removed passages relating to weight, mental health, gender, and race. Ian Fleming Publications, the company that owns the literary rights to Fleming’s James Bond novels and other works, commissioned a review by "sensitivity readers," and decided to remove a number of racial references in the new editions.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 weekly is " With All My Heart I Still Love the Man I Killed" by Shirley J. Brewer.
In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb welcomed Rick Bleiweiss, who has worked as a record company executive, music producer, musician, songwriter, activist, and journalist before turning his hand to writing his Pignon Scorbion mystery series; and thriller author Sean M. Christopher joined Lisa Haselton to discuss his new novel, The White House, about a terrorist attack occurs at an Ivy League university.
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