Writing craft

  • Review: Talking About Detective Fiction

    Having read my fair share of craft books, several of them devoted to the mystery genre, I wasn’t sure how much new advice P. D. James’ classic would offer. So I was surprised to find that in eight succinct and highly readable chapters James adumbrates the history of the genre and its challenges as well

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  • Learning from the Masters: How to Write a Mystery

    The collection is edited by Lee Child with help from Laurie R. King. The essays are broken into four sections: The Rules and Genres; Other Mysteries; The Writing; and After the Writing. Rather than give an overview of these, I thought I would just offer some gems I found in each section.

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  • Review: Six Memos for the Next Millennium

    In 1985, Italian novelist Italo Calvino delivered a series of lectures on the future of the novel at Harvard University. Six Memos for the Next Millennium includes five essays on different topics—lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity—and an unwritten essay on consistency.

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  • Recent Events

    I decided to start promoting my debut mystery novel, How Everything Turns Away, at the local library and coffee shop. Here are some highlights! Overall, it has been a successful launch for the book. In-person sales are steadily trickling in, a few each day, and my rankings at the online book sellers are moving up

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