Mystery Melange

 

With Simon & Schuster turning 100 years old this year, the company has planned a slate of activities and celebrations to mark the anniversary and unveiled the Simon & Schuster 100, a collection of 100 titles chosen to "represent the breadth and depth of the company's publishing program, across genres, imprints, and borders." I didn't see a lot of crime fiction titles in that list, although Mary HIggins Clark's Where are The Children made the cut. On April 8, S&S is hosting a celebration event called Author! Author! at the Town Hall auditorium in New York City where thirty-plus S&S authors will take part, including crime fiction authors William Kent Krueger, Jack Carr, Laura Dave, Brad Thor, and Ruth Ware. S&S will donate 20% of its net proceeds from ticket sales to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. The festivities will continue throughout the year, with more special events and content to be announced.

Mystery Fest 2024 will be held this year on February 24th at the University of Portsmouth's Eldon Building in Portsmouth, UK, from 10am-5pm. Guest of Honor is Simon Brett, who has published over a hundred books, including the Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, Fethering, Blotto & Twinks, and Decluttering series. In 2014 he was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association’s highest award, the Diamond Dagger, and in 2016 he was made an O.B.E. "for services to literature." Another highlight will be expert witness Paul Smith and his team from the University of Portsmouth talking about the work of CSI. (HT to Promoting Crime)

The deadline is approaching to submit applications for the International Thriller Writers Scholarships. This year, the ITW is awarding two separate scholarships for ThrillerFest: the Fresh Perspectives Scholarship for any underrepresented author, published or unpublished, and the Undiscovered New Voices Scholarship for any unpublished author who is writing a mystery/thriller novel (80-100k words). Each scholarship recipient will receive a cash stipend and a free pass to attend ThrillerFest XIX, which takes place May 28–June 1, 2024 in New York City. Interested applicants have until February 23 to submit a form. For more information, head on over to this link.

Chapter proposals are invited for an edited collection exploring and evaluating the representation and navigation of war in writing set in, looking back to, and negotiating the parameters of the Golden Age of detective fiction. The group behind the project first co-edited the collection Agatha Christie Goes to War (Routledge 2019). The book will be edited by Dr. J.C. Bernthal (Visiting Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Suffolk) and Dr. Rebecca Mills (Senior Lecturer in Communication and English, Bournemouth University). Proposals are due March 31st, 2024. (HT to Shots Magazine blog)

In an excerpt on the New York Times from his upcoming book, The Essential Harlem Detectives, author S.A. Cosby offered up an appreciation of Chester Himes, "The Crime Novelist Who Was Also a Great American Novelist," with Cosby arguing he was on par with Ellison, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. Himes was best known for his series with police detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson but also inspired countless writers and was a touchstone for Black writers specifically. As Cosby added, "His ferocious tenacity in the face of racism and prejudice laid the foundation for the path many of us have walked in the years since he published his first novel."

Editor Elizabeth Foxwell noted the release from McFarland and Co. of James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, the latest volume in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series. Sallis—who might be best known for Drive (adapted into the film with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan) and his series with PI Lew Griffin—has an intriguing, cross-genre career that encompasses poetry, mystery, and sci-fi, as well as a highly regarded book on author Chester Himes and long experience as a critic. He's even appeared in a film with fellow mystery author Lawrence Block.

In the Q&A roundup, Crime Time chatted with top Scottish author Louise Welsh about To the Dogs, her new standalone crime thriller; Crime Time also spoke with RL Graham about the new historical crime novel, Death on the Lusitania and with Jessica Bull about her debut novel, Miss Austen Investigates; and Writers Who Kill's EB White interviewed Heather Weidner about Twinkle Twinkle Au Revoir, the second book in the Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe mystery series.