Mystery Melange

On Sunday, January 25, the Westport, Connecticut, Library will host a Crime Writing Panel Discussion, "Ripped from the Headlines: Weaving Real-Life Crime into Storytelling." Authors Deborah Levison, T.M. Dunn, and Wendy Whitman, members of the Connecticut chapter of Sisters in Crime, will explore how true events — from serial killers to domestic violence — shape both fiction and nonfiction. For registration info, check on over here.


Stockport Noir is back for its second year, taking place on Saturday, January 31, at UK's Stockport Guildhall. Some twenty authors are scheduled to attend, including Elly Griffiths, Vaseem Khan, Sarah Pinborough, Ruth Ware, and more. There will be panel discussions, book signings, and an onsite bookshop.


Noir at the Bar moves to Orange County at Knoll's in Laguna Niguel, California, on February 22. Authors scheduled to appear and read from their works include Eric Beetner, Jonathan Brown, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Curtis Ippolito, Nancy Klann, Caitlain Rother, with M.C. Marrie Stone. Plus the blues groups Three Blind Mice will be on hand following.


Editor Janet Rudolph announced a call for contributions for Mystery Readers Journal: Mysteries Set at Faires, Fetes, and Festivals. As the title suggests, the focus is on crime fiction set at faires, fetes, and festivals, and she's seeking first-person Author! Author! essays of 500–1500 words, reviews of 50-250 words, and articles of 500-1000 words. The deadline is February 15, 2026.


There are also some other new-ish calls for papers on various crime fiction themes. The Young Scholars Literary Symposium's next conference is themed around "Mysteries and Mayhem." Why do we continue to crave mystery stories? What do we expect from the detectives and heroes who reveal the truth in these stories? Papers and creative projects should explore these and related questions (remote presentations are encouraged). Abstracts of 150-200 words are due January 22, 2026. On the other side of the Atlantic, the University of Bucharest English Department is holding their 27th annual international conference on June 5-6 on the theme, "Representations of Crime in Literature and the Arts." Abstracts of up to 200 words are due February 15, 2026.


On Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog feature, Avram Lavinsky talked about making his Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine debut with “The Bank Heist Before Armageddon.”


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Knock Knock (After Hal Sirowitz)" by Richie Narvaez.


In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews spoke with Bruce Robert Coffin, former detective sergeant turned author about his new novel, Bitter Fall, the second in his series featuring Detective Brock Justice; Lisa Hasleton chatted with thriller author Yoav Blum about his new technothriller, The Unswitchable, and she also spoke with historical mystery author R.J. Koreto about her latest release, Winter’s Season; Kelli Stanley, author of the award-winning Miranda Corbie historical noir series, applied the Page 69 Test to her newest novel, The Reckoning, the first in a new series set in Northern California's "Emerald Triangle" in 1985; and Writers Who Kill's E. B. Davis interviewed Heather Weidner about the second book in the Pearly Girls mystery series, Murder Plays Second Fiddle.