Democracy is under attack, but we crime writers seem oddly silent. Sure, we’re tweeting, but at retail scale, does that ever move the needle? Remember when McCarthy & Cohn were trying to undermine democracy? How writers like Arthur Miller refused to name names? How Dashiell Hammett was blacklisted and went to jail rather than name…
Read moreWhy Does That Happen?
by Mysti Berry Originally published by The Short Mystery Fiction Society When I was a baby crime writer, literally following writers like Gigi Pandian, Juliet Blackwell, and Sophie Littlefield around, absorbing everything I could from them and from conferences and SinC or MWA meetings, I would often wonder “why does that even happen?” Things like:…
Read more
Suspense vs. Thriller
I’m trying to sort out the difference between suspense and thriller before I appear on a Thriller panel at a mystery conference. You never understand something until you write about it, so here goes: Genre vs. Technique This is the first thing to sort out—are we talking about a literary technique that may show up…
Read more
Bloody Scotland, I Miss You!
I’m not swearing, honest. It’s the name of the conference: Bloody Scotland. In Scotland, they sell more crime books than any other genre (even romance, which is the top seller in the United States). So it was my great honor to visit the Bloody Scotland conference in Stirling last September. They invited me to read as…
Read more
Bloody Scotland, Here I Come!
In a few days I climb aboard a plane for Stirling, UK, home of the Bloody Scotland crime writers conference.
Read more