Mystery Melange

 

The Gotham Writers Genre Fiction Conference will take place mostly on Zoom, August 12-13, 2023. There will be at least one pitching roundtable in NYC. On Day 1, there are four panels and presentations, each designed to give you a peek behind the genre fiction book publishing curtain. You’ll hear from agents, editors, and writers, all offering their insight into the process of getting your genre fiction book out to the world. On Day 2, there are Pitching Roundtables where pre-selected writers spend the day at a table with two agents who specialize in the field that matches the writers’ book projects (fantasy, science fiction, mystery, thriller, horror). 

Otto Penzler announced that he has formed Crime Ink, a new imprint at his publishing company, Penzler Publishers, which will focus on publishing literary true crime. Tom Wickersham, formerly the manager of The Mysterious Bookshop, will head the imprint as its editor. Charles Perry will be the Publisher, a position he currently holds with The Mysterious Press, American Mystery Classics, Scarlet, and MysteriousPress.com, an electronic book publisher—the other imprints of Penzler Publishers. Luisa Smith will oversee as Editor-in-Chief of Penzler Publishers. The Crime Ink imprint plans to publish four to six books in its first year, starting in the Winter of 2024. Crime Ink will be distributed by W. W. Norton and Company, which also distributes The Mysterious Press, Scarlet, and American Mystery Classics.

In 1970, a gay detective debuted in the novel Fadeout by author Joseph Hansen, who took a risk creating Dave Brandstetter. But fifty years later, there's a Netflix series in development and new book editions offering new opportunities to shine a light on Hansen’s work. Hansen was a serious writer, a poet published in The New Yorker, a journalist, and an author of novels and stories beyond crime fiction. But he is most celebrated for the elegant, literary mystery novels featuring the 40ish investigator Brandstetter, who was smart, observant, compassionate and gay. Although not as famous as perhaps he should be, the Private Eye Writers of America awarded Brandstetter The Eye, the group’s lifetime achievement award, and he received the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Mystery for the last Brandstetter novel, A Country of Old Men. 

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is getting a trigger warning from publisher house Vintage. The 1939 novel The Big Sleep, considered among the greatest works of crime fiction, has been reprinted with a cautionary note by publishing house Vintage. Would-be readers of Chandler’s most famous work are now warned that the book may contain "outdated language and cultural representations." The note addressed to the "dear reader" cautions that while the story centered on Los Angeles detective Philip Marlowe is an outstanding example of crime fiction, it is nevertheless "firmly of its time and place."

Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction: When an early draft of Emma Rosenblum’s debut murder mystery was leaked to the inhabitants of Fire Island where it’s set, events there began to take a weirder turn.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Ballad of Menstruation & Crime" by Sylvia Wenmackers.

In the Q&A roundup, Ken Jaworowski, an editor at the New York Times, chatted with Author Interviews about his debut thriller, Small Town Sins; Lisa Haselton welcomed mystery author Dale T. Phillips to talk about his new mystery and crime anthology, Crime Time; the blog Indie Crime Scene interviewed Lynn Slaughter about her debut crime novel, Missed Cue; Deborah Kalb spoke with Rachel Howzell Hall, author of the new novel What Never Happened, and also Gillian McAllister, whose new novel Just Another Missing Person was recently released; and Laura Lippman stopped by The Guardian to discuss her latest novel, Prom Mom, which delivers her most political novel to date about a teen with an unwanted pregnancy.