Mark Twain, Crime Fiction Author

Mark Twain was born in 1835 and died in 1910, making 2010 both the 175th anniversary of his birth and the 100th anniversary of his death. There have been special events throughout the year, including an exhibit currently at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, titled "Mark Twain: A Skeptic's Progress," which has handwritten manuscripts and typescripts of works by Twain, his letters and correspondence, drawings and illustration mock-ups for printed editions, photographs, and several three-dimensional artifacts.

 Twain turned his considerable satirical talents on all manner of subject material during his career, including detective fiction, which had gotten a boost from the popularity of Sherlock Holmes, (whose first appearance in publication was in 1887). In 1996, Oxford University Press bundled several of Twain's crime fiction parodies into one volume, The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories, with a foreward by Walter Mosley. The collection includes several short stories and two novellas, "Tom Sawyer, Detective," in which Twain's most popular creation tries to solve a mysterious murder and "A Double Barrelled Detective Story" that transports Sherlock Holmes to the American wild west and sees his famous logic bested by a young amateur detective who relies on supernatural sense of smell.

As you might expect, Twain wasn't a huge fan of the detective fiction of the day, once saying, "What a curious thing a 'detective' story is. And was there ever one that the author needn't be ashamed of, except the 'Murders in the Rue Morgue'?" One wonders what he would have made of the likes of Donald E. Westlake, Carl Hiaasen and Donna Andrews. . .

Festival Fare

It's fall festival time again. This month, Centuries and Sleuths bookstore turns 20, and to celebrate, they've scheduled over 42 authors on various panels. Coming up on September 11 are Libby Fischer Hellmann, Stephanie Kuehnert, William Kent Krueger, Shane Gericke and Tony Perona, with more panels on September 18, 19, 25 and 26.

Across the Pond the Reading Festival of Crime Writing is holding its third event September 16-19 featuring the likes of Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Lindsey Davis, Paul Doherty, Nicci French, Sophie Hannah and Andrew Taylor.

The George Mason University Fall for the Book in Fairfax, Virginia, is coming up September 19-25. The lineup includes the mother-and-son mystery team Charles and Caroline Todd, as well as crime fiction authors Megan Abbott and Ellen Crosby.

It's also time for the annual Library of Congress National Book Festival held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Stop by the fiction and mystery booths on September 25th and catch readings and signings by Ken Follett, Martha Grimes, Karin Slaughter and Scott Turow.

The Mystery, Suspense and Thriller Pavilion at the West Hollywood Book Fair in California has six back-to-back panels on September 26th with a stellar group of authors.

And not so much a festival as a writers' conference, the Writers' Police Academy offers a great opportunity for crime fiction writers to get hands-on experience with police investigation and forensics, as well as hear from such notable speakers as Jeffery Deaver.